January 4, 2022
Happy new year, happy being-true-to-you year!
Welcome to 2022. My theme for the year is “Big Leap,” inspired by the book, which I first read in 2020. It was at the height of Covid, when my teaching and live performance work had abruptly dried up. Thus began my big leap.
The support I received from family, friends, and coaches made all the difference in helping me get the everything-is-working-out and the it’s-safe-to-be-seen and you’re-allowed-to-ask-for-help truths deeper in my bones and nervous system. I closed out 2021 with THREE awesome online events in the last week of the year! That would have been unthinkable even a year ago.
I am ready and aligned for what is unfolding in 2022 as I leap into deeper expression of my purpose as a force for healing at the intersection of voice, creativity, and mindfulness.What is the connection between three qualities? That is a question I will explore more in-depth in upcoming blogs (you can read the most recent ones here), but today I’ll focus on the most concrete, tangible tool of the three: voice.I know what it’s like to lose your voice, to have your throat close up and brain shut down at precisely the moment when your heart wants to scream “NO! I reject your attempt to violate my boundaries. I reject your attempt to undermine my worth. I reject your attempt to define and control me. I reject your attempt to delude me, to gaslight me, to abuse me.”
I also know what it’s like to over-correct in the other direction, to say NO to everything with very little nuance or discernment, as a means of self-protection, only to realize the untold blessings you’ve been blocking.
And then there’s the difficulty of saying YES to the right things, and allowing those yeses to serve your highest good by taking action NOW. Procrastination is a form of noise that weakens the signal of your YES. To riff on a popular Abraham Hicks metaphor, procrastination keeps your radio tuner perpetually stuck at 98.4 when the channel you desire may be at 98.6. You still may be able to tune in faintly and receive the message that is meant for you, but there will be lots of static.
So how do you develop the clarity to know what’s a YES for you and what’s a NO for you? How do you develop the capacity to make empowered decisions? Answer: creativity and mindfulness!
My own path has led me to vocal expression as a healing tool for clearing out the gunk and conjuring the gold. Voice is a powerful vessel for releasing the unexpressed grief, rage, resentment, fear of abandonment, fear of punishment, fear of (fill in the blank), and more fear that is really at the root of the emotional static that gets in the way of your clarity, power, and capacity to experience the fullest range of your unique self-expression.
The past several years I have been developing a course called Voke that brings play and joy and curiosity and compassion to a subject that often seems fraught and heavy. I love being able to guide and witness your transformation as you learn to speak up, to be present and come alive and surprise yourself with the most spontaneous dimensions of your creativity, to embrace your emotions and identify what they are here to teach you, to develop a more loving and harmonious relationship to yourself and allow that love to ripple outwards in your environment, to free your heart and align with your mind.
Join me for the next round of Voke, a six week online course which begins 2/2/22 at 2pm.
Gratitude,
Onome
Make a Contribution from Your Overflowing Cup.
Thanks to all of you who have blessed my online tip jars! If it’s in your pleasure, you are always welcome to give from your overflowing cup and make a contribution to support my work using the links to Venmo and Paypal.
Also, a contribution in the form of testimonials, leads, referrals, recommendations, constructive feedback, following my social media platforms Instagram, Insight Timer, and Facebook, are all as good as gold, and always welcome. Send me an email at lushtongue@gmail.com.
Onome facilitates transformative experiences at the intersection of voice, creativity, and mindfulness. She designs and leads experiential workshops and 1:1 sessions that clear energetic blockages to self-expression, empower her clients to reclaim and confidently wield the power of their imagination, and foster creative fellowship through mindfulness practices, relational games, and vocal play. Through her audience-interactive performances, workshops and sound installations, Onome embodies joy, enchantment, and infinite possibility. She is a partner artist at Carnegie Hall as a core member of the vocal improvisation ensemble, Moving Star. She leads community vocal immersions at concert halls, conferences, galleries, museums, schools, cultural centers, shelters, prisons, parks, churches, online, wherever voices gather.
