Latest / The Uplifters / What happens to your voice during menopause

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What happens to your voice during menopause · The Uplifters

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SPEAKER_02: Hey, Uplifters, you know how much I love experimenting and trying new things.
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[music]
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SPEAKER_01: My friend Jessica Hansen, you're going to love her.
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SPEAKER_01: She's so creative.
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SPEAKER_01: She used to be NPR's in-house voice coach,
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SPEAKER_01: but I think her position got eliminated, but her life is even awesomer now.
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SPEAKER_01: So she's an amazing midlife pivot steward.
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SPEAKER_02: Hey, Uplifters.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm Aransas Savas.
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SPEAKER_02: I've spent the last 20 years at the intersection of behavior change research
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SPEAKER_02: and coaching, helping midlife women do big, brave things.
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SPEAKER_02: In recent episodes,
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SPEAKER_02: we've talked a lot about some of the surprising changes that happen as a result
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SPEAKER_02: of perimenopause and menopause, everything from itchy ears and burning mouth, WTF.
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SPEAKER_02: But okay, I know we've talked a lot about like how estrogen dries out everything.
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SPEAKER_02: But one of the things I had not considered is that it dries out our freaking vocal cords.
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SPEAKER_02: So if your voice feels a little different, maybe a little less powerful, maybe there's a reason.
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SPEAKER_02: I love this conversation because it's sort of in stark poetic contrast
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SPEAKER_02: with our metaphorical voices, which so many of us find in midlife.
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SPEAKER_02: We re-embrace, we reintegrate and become more of who we are.
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SPEAKER_02: Give fewer bucks, as they say, and say more of what we believe.
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SPEAKER_02: Though that said,
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SPEAKER_02: I spent 10 minutes having to hype myself up today to get the courage to ask somebody
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SPEAKER_02: to describe their payment terms more clearly.
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SPEAKER_02: So I don't know, still working on it.
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SPEAKER_02: We have Jessica Hansen with us,
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SPEAKER_02: an expert who can help us understand both of these little crises.
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SPEAKER_02: So Jessica is a nationally recognized voice coach,
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SPEAKER_02: an award-winning actor,
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SPEAKER_02: and the founder of Signature Sound, where she helps elite leaders and
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SPEAKER_02: She's a former staff coach at NPR who worked with all those voices
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SPEAKER_02: that maybe you grew up on like I did.
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SPEAKER_02: She taught them vocal architecture.
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SPEAKER_02: So how to transform their voice.
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SPEAKER_02: She's an active narrator.
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SPEAKER_02: She does audiobooks and all sorts of other really cool stuff.
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SPEAKER_02: She's a voiceover artist.
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SPEAKER_02: She's appeared in TV and film opposite the likes of Amy Poehler
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SPEAKER_02: and Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Cate Blanchett.
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SPEAKER_02: She also served as artistic director of audio drama company Lean & Hungry,
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SPEAKER_02: which is like my favorite name for a company ever.
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SPEAKER_02: She's taught at Brandeis and American Universities and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
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SPEAKER_02: And as you just heard,
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SPEAKER_02: Sadie Dinkfelder,
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SPEAKER_02: her nominee, describe her, the one and only Tom Hanks, said she had a perfect voice.
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SPEAKER_02: So we're going to talk about voice today and every sense,
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SPEAKER_02: what happens to it in midlife,
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SPEAKER_02: what fear does to it,
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SPEAKER_02: and how we can all stop waiting until we feel ready to do big,
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SPEAKER_02: brave things because, well, nobody's ever ready.
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SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
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SPEAKER_02: Right?
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SPEAKER_03: Nobody's ever ready.
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SPEAKER_02: Just a reminder that if anything in this sparks for you,
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SPEAKER_02: subscribe to our Substack at theuplifterspodcast.com
4:28
SPEAKER_02: where you can find weekly stories and practices from all the women you hear
4:31
SPEAKER_02: on this show.
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SPEAKER_02: You can chat with many of them directly in our paid subscriber chat.
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SPEAKER_02: And just connect with lots of women in midlife who are doing their big,
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SPEAKER_02: brave things and helping us all find our way through the muck of doing them too.
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SPEAKER_02: So that's it,
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SPEAKER_02: theuplifterspodcast.com or you can find me if you need some extra support
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SPEAKER_02: at aransasavis.com.
4:50
SPEAKER_02: I'd be thrilled to help you.
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SPEAKER_02: So now let's get into it.
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SPEAKER_02: My new friend, Jessica, thanks for being here today.
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SPEAKER_03: I'm so excited to be here.
4:57
SPEAKER_03: This is such a cool podcast.
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SPEAKER_03: I'm just, I'm thrilled you asked me.
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SPEAKER_03: Well, Sadie nominated me.
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SPEAKER_02: I mean, all of it.
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SPEAKER_02: I am obsessed with Sadie now.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: And with you, and was just so excited for this conversation because I do...
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SPEAKER_02: I mean, as somebody who grew up like so many women of our generation,
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SPEAKER_02: I grew up believing that I best served from the background,
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SPEAKER_02: from supporting other people to achieve their dreams and their greatness.
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SPEAKER_02: I believe that to be safe in the world,
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SPEAKER_02: it was better to be quiet or at least to be sure before we spoke.
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SPEAKER_02: I grew up believing that our voices...
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SPEAKER_02: Needed to be refined and appropriate.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, I was somebody who grew up like known for my voice, like the sound of it.
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SPEAKER_02: Like one of my earliest memories of realizing I had some sort
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SPEAKER_02: of strange voice was I was getting on a bus when I was five years old and
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SPEAKER_02: the bus driver said to my mom, is that a little person or a child?
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SPEAKER_02: Like because I used to...
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SPEAKER_02: These like very strange vocal cords that were studied for their uniqueness
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SPEAKER_02: because I had this really low husky voice as a child and sounded like Lauren Bacall,
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SPEAKER_02: the baby version.
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SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
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SPEAKER_02: It was kind of funny.
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SPEAKER_02: And so like I always had sort of a relationship to the physical voice,
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SPEAKER_02: but also then like in midlife as I kind of freed myself from some of the constraints
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SPEAKER_02: of being good and right, I started to find my own voice and the freedom there.
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SPEAKER_02: And so in general, I'm like, I just want everything Jessica to help me understand this.
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SPEAKER_02: I want to talk about this nonstop because I don't feel like as a part
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SPEAKER_02: of our midlife conversation, this is something we're talking about.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 100%.
6:52
SPEAKER_02: So as Sadie described in her intro, you were at NPR for a really long time.
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SPEAKER_02: And I think that's the kind of place that's not really as much a job as an identity.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that can be true.
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SPEAKER_03: I think there's definitely,
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SPEAKER_03: because people know you,
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SPEAKER_03: because people spend time with you,
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SPEAKER_03: your voice and your ideas,
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SPEAKER_03: in the case of the journalists,
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SPEAKER_03: your writing and your stories,
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SPEAKER_03: in their cars,
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SPEAKER_03: in their kitchens, you're part of people's homes, you're part of their daily lives.
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SPEAKER_03: There's a real affinity and a real affection there.
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SPEAKER_03: And so it does, I think, I think you're right, it does become part of Your identity somewhat.
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SPEAKER_03: And after just this recent round of layoffs, again, I was heartbroken to see people go.
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SPEAKER_03: I was there for eight and a half years.
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SPEAKER_03: And when I was laid off, I did think, what am I going to do?
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SPEAKER_03: And then I remembered I was an actor and I've been at a news organization for eight
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SPEAKER_03: and a half years.
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SPEAKER_03: Like I have plenty of other options.
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SPEAKER_03: But it did take me a minute because the hardest part was losing all the people in
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SPEAKER_03: the community, losing, yes,
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SPEAKER_03: the tiny desks and the yoga classes,
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SPEAKER_03: but also just that camaraderie of creativity and people who were really striving
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SPEAKER_03: to make excellence in audio.
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SPEAKER_03: So suddenly you're out on your own and it's a little, oh gosh, what about all my colleagues?
8:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_03: Where did my community go?
8:26
SPEAKER_03: But I guess that's probably true with being laid off in many, many, many ways.
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SPEAKER_03: But I think it is a little bit more personal because
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SPEAKER_03: when you're using your voice every day, it is part of your identity.
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SPEAKER_03: It is part of your expressing yourself every time you open the mic.
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SPEAKER_02: So you talk about that moment of, oh, what do I do now?
8:49
SPEAKER_02: What were those early days like for you?
8:51
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it was a lot of, it's like an emotional roller coaster.
8:54
SPEAKER_03: It's a lot of shock and grief from leaving my people.
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SPEAKER_03: But also, I had early a sense of excitement of now the world is open to me.
9:10
SPEAKER_03: Now I can do anything.
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SPEAKER_03: Partly at NPR, I was a little restricted because I was the voice of the brand.
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SPEAKER_03: And so there were a lot of things that I couldn't do.
9:21
SPEAKER_03: There were a lot of people who came to me and asked me to voice things and I wasn't allowed to.
9:26
SPEAKER_03: So I knew that immediately I can voice a ton of things that I hadn't been able to do.
9:32
SPEAKER_03: And my daughter was older.
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SPEAKER_00: She was getting into her mid-teens.
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SPEAKER_00: And so I thought, well, she doesn't need me so much.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, I initially took the job at NPR because she was little.
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SPEAKER_00: She was in elementary school and I needed my evenings free.
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SPEAKER_00: I needed to So I was excited at this point to find out what was available for me,
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SPEAKER_00: but I was also a little bit at sea with where to start
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SPEAKER_03: because it had been
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SPEAKER_03: so many years before.
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SPEAKER_03: I didn't have a current demo.
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SPEAKER_03: It's like if you've been doing one thing for 10 or 15 years,
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SPEAKER_03: maybe you didn't keep your resume up.
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SPEAKER_03: Maybe your LinkedIn page is nothing more than a picture and a name.
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SPEAKER_03: So I kind of...
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SPEAKER_03: I've had to figure out first, what did I want?
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SPEAKER_03: And that is evolving, which is lovely.
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SPEAKER_03: That is a journey of discovery.
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SPEAKER_03: What do I want today is definitely different from what I wanted six months after I was laid off.
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SPEAKER_03: And the industry is changing too, as you know.
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SPEAKER_03: So I guess those first few weeks were a great big kettle of emotions.
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SPEAKER_03: Grief and excitement and overwhelm and...
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SPEAKER_03: Confusion.
10:53
SPEAKER_03: But you got to lean on your friends and your circle.
10:56
SPEAKER_03: And I had to take the time.
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SPEAKER_03: It's really important to just take the time to let it settle,
11:00
SPEAKER_03: let the dust settle and let those feelings subside so that you can look at
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SPEAKER_03: the landscape.
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SPEAKER_03: And I don't know, do I want to be an interior designer?
11:07
SPEAKER_03: Do I want to go back to school and start over again?
11:10
SPEAKER_03: Do I want to pivot using my existing skill set?
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Do I want to do something totally different?
11:15
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is all of those things.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: So it was a fun time.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've often talked about corporate work and even
11:23
SPEAKER_02: though my new nonprofit isn't exactly, I mean, it is a corporation.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: It's not exactly commercialized.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: And it is,
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SPEAKER_02: I talk about it a lot,
11:31
SPEAKER_02: it's corporate daddy because it feels like These entities are family
11:37
SPEAKER_02: and parental figures in a way and they constrain us to the point that you talked
11:41
SPEAKER_02: about in terms of our freedoms and our ability to self-express,
11:43
SPEAKER_02: which is way out of sync with a lot of us in midlife where we're like,
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SPEAKER_02: I must be free.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: But on the other hand,
11:50
SPEAKER_02: there's a lot of safety there that insulates us from the risk of going out
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SPEAKER_02: on our own and like graduating.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: I got laid off after 18 years.
12:00
SPEAKER_02: So the symmetry of that for me was like,
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SPEAKER_02: What did you have to let go of in terms of how you saw yourself and your beliefs
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SPEAKER_02: about yourself to build something on your own?
12:15
SPEAKER_03: So because before I had been at NPR, I had been an actor full time.
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SPEAKER_03: So I had been a self-starter.
12:23
SPEAKER_03: I had been entrepreneurial.
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SPEAKER_03: I had started a theater company.
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SPEAKER_03: I had built things from nothing.
12:29
SPEAKER_03: So I just had to remind myself that I had those abilities.
12:34
SPEAKER_03: It had been so long of having steady income and benefits that I definitely had a little fear.
12:42
SPEAKER_03: I was like, well, I have my severance and how do I ramp up and get work now?
12:48
SPEAKER_03: And because I did that,
12:51
SPEAKER_03: I got a lot of work right away,
12:53
SPEAKER_03: but it was kind of the same thing that I had been doing for NPR just out in
12:57
SPEAKER_03: the world.
12:58
SPEAKER_03: So I didn't really do my own pivot until later when I had a little time.
13:04
SPEAKER_03: The work kind of slowed down a little bit, the industry, the economy.
13:08
SPEAKER_03: So things slowed down a little bit and I thought, well, what do I really want to do?
13:13
SPEAKER_03: I spent some days out in the yard weeding and I thought,
13:18
SPEAKER_03: Okay, what I really want to do is something more creative.
13:22
SPEAKER_03: And what I really want to do is write.
13:26
SPEAKER_03: So I ended up starting not one book, but two.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
13:30
SPEAKER_03: One that had been on my mind for a long time.
13:35
SPEAKER_03: And the other that I'd had this idea,
13:37
SPEAKER_03: I don't know, eight, 10 years ago, and I never did anything with it.
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SPEAKER_00: And it just came galloping back into my brain full force.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: So I guess I just needed to let go of the idea that this is what I do.
13:51
SPEAKER_03: I'm a voice coach and I'm a trustworthy voice of authority or whatever.
13:57
SPEAKER_03: And I had to let myself play again and discover.
14:00
SPEAKER_03: And I had to let myself...
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SPEAKER_03: Really rest.
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SPEAKER_03: The fields just had to lie fallow for my creativity and my...
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SPEAKER_03: I mean, I've been an actor since I was five.
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SPEAKER_03: So to be not an actor, to be not building characters was the departure.
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SPEAKER_02: And so I had to come back to myself, really.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: It's so interesting what you're saying there.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: So many of us started our lives as creatives, maybe...
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SPEAKER_02: Left that to some degree in our 20s, 30s, 40s.
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SPEAKER_02: And then in our 40s, 50s, 60s, return to that, oftentimes through different mediums.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: I just think like, I'm hearing this more and more as I talk to women.
14:52
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's really thrilling.
14:54
SPEAKER_02: Before we move on though,
14:55
SPEAKER_02: let's talk about your books for a second because I'm kind of obsessed with the ideas
14:59
SPEAKER_02: and I've told my children about the Shakespeare Herald 1-1 and it's
15:04
SPEAKER_02: the best idea ever.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
15:06
SPEAKER_02: So, okay, we'll start with that one.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm really eager for you to write this book.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, how do I like push this?
15:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:14
SPEAKER_03: So that book that you mentioned, The Shakespeare, is a novel.
15:18
SPEAKER_03: My initial idea was for a screenplay.
15:21
SPEAKER_03: And then I realized it has too many characters.
15:23
SPEAKER_03: And maybe it's a TV series.
15:25
SPEAKER_03: And then I thought, well...
15:27
SPEAKER_03: I think you start as a novel, right?
15:29
SPEAKER_00: So that idea is that a lot of the Shakespeare leading ladies
15:34
SPEAKER_00: or even best friend ladies supporting roles have not great endings to
15:41
SPEAKER_03: their stories.
15:42
SPEAKER_03: They ended up,
15:43
SPEAKER_03: in the case of the Queen of the Fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream,
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SPEAKER_03: Oberon puts a spell on her and She humiliates her to get what he wants.
15:53
SPEAKER_03: She gives it to him.
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SPEAKER_03: She wakes up from the enchantment and is like, I had this dream.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's the end of the story.
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SPEAKER_00: She's supposed to live happily ever after with her husband and Who drugged her.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Who has manipulated,
16:06
SPEAKER_00: drugged, and humiliated her to get something that she said, you can't have it.
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SPEAKER_00: It's, I made a promise to raise this child as my own.
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SPEAKER_00: So that's the end of her storyline.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: She's supposed to live happily ever after.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't scan.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not okay.
16:22
SPEAKER_03: And if you think about most of the Shakespeare women,
16:26
SPEAKER_03: they either die or they end up with something
16:29
SPEAKER_00: that's like, really?
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Really?
16:30
SPEAKER_00: What happens five years later?
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SPEAKER_00: That's convenient from a man's perspective.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: And Shakespeare built these rich characters.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: They have all this interior life.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: So they're just there.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: So I started writing six of them and I realized I maybe
16:49
SPEAKER_03: needed to narrow the scope a little bit.
16:51
SPEAKER_03: And I was in a Writing class and one of the other writers said, maybe it's a book series.
16:58
SPEAKER_03: And I said, I think you're right.
17:00
SPEAKER_03: So I'm starting book one with one of the characters and folding in two or three
17:07
SPEAKER_03: of them and then they'll become more prominent in others.
17:09
SPEAKER_03: And maybe there's a cameo from four, five and six.
17:13
SPEAKER_03: And then in book two, maybe five has the main point of view and...
17:18
SPEAKER_03: But I really see them.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Shakespeare had magic and the woods were these places of transformation and growth.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: And we've got the Weird Sisters from Macbeth.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: And there's such a rich world already there.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: So I'm just expanding on that.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: So that's fun.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
17:35
SPEAKER_02: And it's such a big departure.
17:38
SPEAKER_02: Yes, it weaves together.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: So many things that you've done and it's a totally new format.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: And I just think it's a really nice example of so much about what we see in midlife, right?
17:51
SPEAKER_02: That it's like the tapestry.
17:53
SPEAKER_02: We take all the threads and we weave them together to create something different.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: And every seed that you plant in your teens and 20s and 30s and 40s is still growing.
18:04
SPEAKER_02: It's still there.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: None of it was wasted.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: So I discovered this the first time when I started this theater company with
18:13
SPEAKER_00: a couple of friends.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: And I realized, oh,
18:16
SPEAKER_00: those two years that I worked in a PR firm
18:18
SPEAKER_03: fresh out of college, that's useful now.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, all that stuff that seemed maybe like it didn't tie into anything.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: It's all there.
18:26
SPEAKER_03: So yeah,
18:27
SPEAKER_03: the Shakespeare book is definitely drawing on my 10 years as artistic director
18:31
SPEAKER_03: of Lean and Hungry and my years as an actor,
18:36
SPEAKER_03: but also my undergraduate creative writing degree,
18:38
SPEAKER_03: which had just been sitting there for 30 years.
18:42
SPEAKER_03: Then the other book is...
18:44
SPEAKER_03: I'm writing basically like a guidebook to your voice
18:48
SPEAKER_00: because one-on-one work is expensive and it's time consuming
18:52
SPEAKER_00: and not everybody can afford it.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: And I thought,
18:54
SPEAKER_00: wouldn't it be nice if I could give everybody the toolkit in a nice little package
18:59
SPEAKER_00: and they could work on their own and everybody would be empowered
19:02
SPEAKER_00: to use their whole voices in a super accessible way because there just isn't
19:07
SPEAKER_00: that book.
19:08
SPEAKER_03: The books that are out there are either super academic and you need a practitioner
19:13
SPEAKER_03: to be working through it with you to teach you what the book means.
19:16
SPEAKER_03: Or there's a lot of storytelling around it.
19:19
SPEAKER_03: I worked with this actor,
19:20
SPEAKER_03: this famous person,
19:21
SPEAKER_03: and it doesn't really tell you what this does and why you're doing it.
19:26
SPEAKER_03: What is this for?
19:27
SPEAKER_03: And that's what my clients have been asking me for the last 10 years is...
19:31
SPEAKER_03: I have this problem.
19:33
SPEAKER_03: What are the techniques that I need to solve it?
19:36
SPEAKER_03: That's what people want.
19:37
SPEAKER_03: They know that their voice is tired at the end of the day or they run out of breath
19:43
SPEAKER_03: or they rush when they get nervous.
19:45
SPEAKER_03: And so they just want to fix it.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: And if people don't know those things, then, hey, let's get to know your instrument.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: And that's really easy to It seems like a mystery.
19:57
SPEAKER_03: You know, what is this voice thing that comes out of me?
20:00
SPEAKER_03: I have ideas and they come out in words and sounds, but what is that?
20:05
SPEAKER_03: And it's actually a fairly simple mechanism of some parts.
20:09
SPEAKER_03: And once you understand what they are,
20:11
SPEAKER_03: it's really easy to say,
20:13
SPEAKER_03: oh, well, then I can probably adjust
20:15
SPEAKER_02: this year or move that there.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: So what are some of the common challenges that people come to you with?
20:20
SPEAKER_02: Oh, gosh.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: So definitely fatigue, vocal fatigue, especially with Zoom meetings.
20:26
SPEAKER_03: People use their voices differently when they're sitting at a desk and talking into
20:32
SPEAKER_03: a camera than they do in real life.
20:34
SPEAKER_03: So vocal fatigue is big.
20:36
SPEAKER_03: Some people are like, I sound too nasal or my words come out mushy or I sound kind of boring.
20:41
SPEAKER_03: I don't have enough expression or I rush.
20:44
SPEAKER_03: I get nervous.
20:46
SPEAKER_03: But a lot of it is this idea of you're supposed to sound like something.
20:53
SPEAKER_03: And you touched on this in your intro,
20:55
SPEAKER_03: that we were raised with this idea of meeting expectations, right?
21:01
SPEAKER_03: And so vocally for a long time, we,
21:05
SPEAKER_03: especially women and a lot of other historically marginalized groups,
21:10
SPEAKER_03: Have tried to fit in.
21:12
SPEAKER_03: And I don't think that's a great goal here in my 50s.
21:16
SPEAKER_03: We've learned a lot since Gen X was in high school and college.
21:20
SPEAKER_03: We've learned a lot.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: And I think we can take our cue from the younger generations that Be who you are,
21:27
SPEAKER_00: but do it like, go in, go all in, right?
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Go big.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: So if you have,
21:33
SPEAKER_00: like you do,
21:34
SPEAKER_00: if you've got this really like low,
21:36
SPEAKER_00: growly, rich texture, don't try to get rid of it.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: My daughter said, if you're an elephant, don't try to be a gazelle.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a gazelle, don't try to be a koala.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: It's like Donkey Donkey.
21:49
SPEAKER_02: Do you remember that book?
21:51
SPEAKER_02: No, what's that?
21:52
SPEAKER_02: Donkey Donkey was this little donkey.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: Who wanted to have a different kind of ear.
21:59
SPEAKER_02: And so he went through the farm because he thought his stick-up ears were ridiculous looking.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: And so he tried to have ears that went over his eyes like one animal and ears
22:09
SPEAKER_02: that flopped down like a different animal.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: And it kept getting him in all sorts of trouble.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: And then finally a little girl said, oh, look at this cute donkey.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: And he realized like, I'm going to be a donkey with donkey ears.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it is like that.
22:22
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we learn this through experience.
22:24
SPEAKER_03: But when I work with people who are new to the workforce or new to their industry
22:31
SPEAKER_03: or new to speaking publicly or new to microphones,
22:35
SPEAKER_03: there's that sense of trying,
22:37
SPEAKER_03: that effort of wanting to get it right or wanting to do it how it's done.
22:44
SPEAKER_03: And I spend a lot of my time just dismantling, why are you doing that?
22:48
SPEAKER_03: Don't do that.
22:50
SPEAKER_03: Because really...
22:52
SPEAKER_03: Trying is the enemy.
22:53
SPEAKER_03: It's the effort that gets in the way.
22:55
SPEAKER_03: And when you can just sit in yourself and say what you have to say the way
23:03
SPEAKER_03: that you would say it, it's beautiful.
23:07
SPEAKER_03: We all know how to communicate.
23:08
SPEAKER_03: We all talk to our friends and our family and we don't have to...
23:14
SPEAKER_03: Do anything different to communicate professionally.
23:17
SPEAKER_03: We do need to put on our professional self, but we do that naturally.
23:22
SPEAKER_03: We do that.
23:23
SPEAKER_03: We bring our professional selves to work and we bring our laid back casual selves
23:27
SPEAKER_03: to our friends.
23:29
SPEAKER_03: So you don't have to work to make some new sound or some new quality.
23:36
SPEAKER_03: My gig as a voice coach is saying,
23:39
SPEAKER_03: let's get rid of those expectations and And let's
23:42
SPEAKER_00: find out what your voice is
23:43
SPEAKER_00: and what it can do so that you can have fun with it.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: What are all the colors that you can paint with?
23:48
SPEAKER_00: If you go up to the mic and you're used to painting in yellow and you're okay
23:53
SPEAKER_00: at red, let's see if we can find blue and green and purple.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: What else is there?
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Let's really open up your toolkit and find out what there
24:01
SPEAKER_03: is in there.
24:02
SPEAKER_03: And so I just teach people ways to explore and have the confidence to choose so
24:10
SPEAKER_00: that they feel like they own the instrument.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: They do, right?
24:13
SPEAKER_00: You own your voice.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: Nobody else does.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: Nobody else is in charge of how you sound.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: It's you.
24:18
SPEAKER_02: It's such a journey of self-acceptance, but also self-expansion, it sounds like.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
24:25
SPEAKER_03: Definitely expansion.
24:27
SPEAKER_03: And as you mentioned,
24:28
SPEAKER_03: once you get to your fucking 50s,
24:31
SPEAKER_03: you kind of realize that,
24:33
SPEAKER_03: at least I have realized,
24:35
SPEAKER_03: that a lot of my trying to fit in over
24:39
SPEAKER_03: the previous three decades is what held me back.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: You go into an audition and you think, well, this is what they're probably looking for.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Let me be that.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Then you look like a fake version of that.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: Nobody wants a fake version of that.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants a fake version of anything.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: So if you just come with unique,
25:00
SPEAKER_00: quirky, specific to only you in the whole universe
25:04
SPEAKER_03: self and just show up.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Walk in the door, hi, this is what I got to bring to this.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: If it's a fit, great.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: If it's not, okay.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: So when you think about what happens for a person when they learn
25:21
SPEAKER_02: to accept their voice and expand their voice,
25:28
SPEAKER_02: what do you see happening for them in general as a result of that?
25:33
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so the light bulb moments are my favorite.
25:37
SPEAKER_03: When somebody is working with me,
25:39
SPEAKER_03: sometimes the light bulb moment happens with me and I love to see that,
25:43
SPEAKER_03: that I can let go and it's like they're just shedding layers, right?
25:47
SPEAKER_03: And it's beautiful because they go from trying to I'm just doing it.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: I can just do it.
25:55
SPEAKER_03: But sometimes they go away from me and they're out in the world living their lives
26:01
SPEAKER_03: and they're applying their new skills and
26:04
SPEAKER_00: their techniques and they come back to me.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they'll write to me,
26:07
SPEAKER_00: sometimes they'll come back to the next session and they'll say...
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Jessica, this is what happened.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: I went to this meeting and I said the things in this new, easy way.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: And every head turned to look at me and listen to
26:21
SPEAKER_03: my idea until I was done.
26:23
SPEAKER_03: It was amazing.
26:25
SPEAKER_03: And that for me is like, that's why I'm here.
26:29
SPEAKER_03: That's it.
26:30
SPEAKER_03: So that people can feel heard.
26:32
SPEAKER_03: So that somebody...
26:34
SPEAKER_03: Feels empowered to speak, share their ideas, connect, and be heard.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: I mean, because so many of us weren't heard.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, and self-efficacy research shows that when we practice in any one domain,
26:52
SPEAKER_02: we actually refer that skill into other domains.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: And so...
26:57
SPEAKER_02: Feeling like I have an ability to express myself all alone with Jessica in a Zoom room.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: Right.
27:05
SPEAKER_02: And feeling that sense of confidence,
27:06
SPEAKER_02: getting your response back that's like, oh, you sound amazing.
27:10
SPEAKER_02: Instantly increases our swagger in other spaces that are a little scarier.
27:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:16
SPEAKER_03: I think that's so true.
27:17
SPEAKER_03: And also, like, it builds momentum, right?
27:22
SPEAKER_03: I sing with a little jazz combo and...
27:24
SPEAKER_03: I love this.
27:25
SPEAKER_03: Doing so many things.
27:26
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: I know.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it fun?
27:28
SPEAKER_00: So fun.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: So we just got this new
27:31
SPEAKER_03: guy on Keys.
27:33
SPEAKER_03: And last night we played our first gig out with the new guy.
27:37
SPEAKER_03: So we're all sort of like still getting to know each other.
27:39
SPEAKER_03: And like, I'm trying to figure out where he's going and he's trying to follow me.
27:43
SPEAKER_03: And the bass player has been with me for a long time so he can read my mind and it's fine.
27:46
SPEAKER_03: And he's unflappable.
27:48
SPEAKER_03: Like if he gets lost in the song, he's like, whatever, it's fine.
27:51
SPEAKER_03: I'll just keep playing.
27:52
SPEAKER_03: I'll just find them eventually.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: But the thing about coming off of that was that moment of accomplishment.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: There were some mistakes and we'll fix them.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: But the audience was happy.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: I got a hell yeah at the end of summertime.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: People were whipping out their phones to like videotape it so they could watch it later.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: And I woke up this morning tired,
28:14
SPEAKER_00: but also
28:15
SPEAKER_03: my voice is stronger because I used it intentionally
28:18
SPEAKER_03: for several hours last night.
28:20
SPEAKER_03: And my sense of momentum is huge, right?
28:23
SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, okay, so I'm going to roll into this thing with Aransas.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: And then this afternoon,
28:29
SPEAKER_00: I've got this other recording session and I have to learn these new songs
28:32
SPEAKER_00: for Friday's session.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: And it just feels like you're absolutely right.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: The more that you...
28:38
SPEAKER_00: The more that you use it, the more that it's there and easier and you can just pick it up.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: It's great.
28:44
SPEAKER_02: I love what you just said from a generalized standpoint because
28:49
SPEAKER_02: so often we edit ourselves out of opportunities because we don't believe we have
28:53
SPEAKER_02: the capacity.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah,
28:55
SPEAKER_02: And actually capacity is created through action.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: That's so true.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: And through engagement.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: I believe that.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: The capacity is what you give yourself.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: And in the linear way, what are you prioritizing?
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Are you prioritizing...
29:13
SPEAKER_03: The vacuuming of the living room rug, because I'm not.
29:15
SPEAKER_03: Right.
29:16
SPEAKER_03: My living room rug definitely needs to be vacuumed right now.
29:19
SPEAKER_03: I am not prioritizing that.
29:21
SPEAKER_03: I am prioritizing at this point in my life, what is fulfilling, what's
29:26
SPEAKER_00: feeding me.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: And in some ways,
29:31
SPEAKER_00: my daughter's about to go to college and I'm feeling
29:33
SPEAKER_00: a little bit like hoarding my time with her.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: But also I'm feeling a little bit like she's about to go.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: I got to start...
29:42
SPEAKER_00: I gotta start spreading my wings.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: I gotta start.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait anymore.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's a good role model for her, right?
29:49
SPEAKER_00: She's like, are you gonna play at such and such?
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Because so-and-so wanted to go see you.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like,
29:56
SPEAKER_00: that's a good lesson for my 18-year-old daughter to say somebody else wants
30:03
SPEAKER_00: to see my mom performing.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: My mom is saying, I don't sit at a desk all day anymore.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Ha, ha, ha.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: And people are coming out.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: It's also like we're saying you don't have to rush to figure everything out
30:17
SPEAKER_02: and make some bad choices for a person you don't know yet at 18.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: Right.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: Because you still have a lot to learn about yourself and whatever choices you make,
30:25
SPEAKER_02: you are not stuck with them because look at us go.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: So at 50, 51, 52, 65, 85, we can keep reinventing.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: And you'll roll them in.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Those bad choices will end up being maybe useful later.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Why was I working at a PR firm?
30:43
SPEAKER_00: Was that a good choice?
30:45
SPEAKER_00: Was that a bad choice?
30:47
SPEAKER_00: But it came in handy 20 years later and it came in handy 30 years later.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: So I feel like we plant those seeds and they grow
30:55
SPEAKER_00: and we might not harvest them immediately and we might not see the purpose of them.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: We might not know what that plant is for.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: But it'll come around.
31:05
SPEAKER_03: And the thing that I do know now at 52 is I don't have to know.
31:11
SPEAKER_03: This is what I like today.
31:12
SPEAKER_03: This is what I'm motivated to chase today or to realize today.
31:17
SPEAKER_03: The dream that I want to work on today.
31:20
SPEAKER_03: But I don't know what will come tomorrow.
31:22
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
31:23
SPEAKER_03: And the thing that I've learned as an actor and as a voice artist and as
31:28
SPEAKER_03: a voice coach is you never know when the phone's going to ring.
31:31
SPEAKER_03: And for me, that can be metaphorically as well as literally, right?
31:37
SPEAKER_00: You never know.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: What opportunity, and it sounds hokey, but you never know what's right around the corner.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: And just when I felt like, oh my God, I'm living off savings.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: I've got to find a real job.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: That's when somebody calls me and says,
31:51
SPEAKER_00: I'd like you to voice this thing for five figures a year.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking I had to go like be an event planner or something.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: That might be fun too.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: It would.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: It would.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: I have planned many an event with running a theater company and I love events.
32:07
SPEAKER_03: I love, I'm definitely a girl who enjoys an event.
32:11
Same.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about the actual effects of estrogen on our voices in midlife.
32:21
SPEAKER_02: Like if women are noticing my voice is changing,
32:25
SPEAKER_02: my throat feels dry all the time and my voice is scratchy.
32:28
SPEAKER_02: I mean, my voice is flammier.
32:30
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
32:31
SPEAKER_02: My doctor told me to take Flonase.
32:34
SPEAKER_02: I think maybe that helps.
32:35
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: But definitely the last few years and literally I did not put that together
32:39
SPEAKER_02: until I just said, duh,
32:41
SPEAKER_02: the reason it's Flemere is not because I host a podcast probably,
32:44
SPEAKER_02: but because of the hormone changes very likely.
32:48
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, always learning.
32:49
SPEAKER_02: So what do we do with that?
32:51
SPEAKER_00: Help.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: So of course, talk to your doctor.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: I think that as a whole, we tend to
32:58
SPEAKER_03: under hydrate.
32:59
SPEAKER_03: It's very trendy to hydrate now.
33:01
SPEAKER_03: And you see the younger folks with those giant like 64 ounce things.
33:06
SPEAKER_03: Our generation did not grow up with that.
33:09
SPEAKER_03: I myself wake up in the morning now with like the driest mouth ever.
33:15
SPEAKER_03: It's literally like sandy in my mouth.
33:19
SPEAKER_03: So I drink a pint of water before I do anything else.
33:22
SPEAKER_03: I get up, I drink a pint of water.
33:24
SPEAKER_03: I make my coffee, I drink a pint of water.
33:26
SPEAKER_03: I'm rehydrating just to get to noon.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm like powering down water.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: My God, you must be peeing all the time.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, they say you're supposed to pee every hour.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to, if it's not clear, you're not.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, I'm right on track.
33:43
SPEAKER_02: You're dehydrated.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: My family, it's a joke because I'm always hungry or I need to pee.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, same, same.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: We're twinsies.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: My family on a car trip is
33:56
SPEAKER_02: like, we have to stop again.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we do.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: They can take their own car next time and you and I will just take the pee car.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: I am not giving up my hydration,
34:04
SPEAKER_00: which is also,
34:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you notice that,
34:07
SPEAKER_00: but when I get even just a little bit less hydrated, I get fatiguy.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: I get like tired-y.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: And then I drink a glass of water and 20 minutes later, I'm back to pep in my step.
34:20
SPEAKER_02: So I'm not, so hydrate.
34:22
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so hydrate.
34:23
SPEAKER_02: And do you do the mouth tape thing since you mentioned the sleeping?
34:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:26
SPEAKER_02: What's the mouth tape thing?
34:27
SPEAKER_02: It was like a TikTok trend.
34:28
SPEAKER_02: My grandma and I did it once and cracked ourselves up
34:31
SPEAKER_02: where people would like tape their mouths as they slept to promote nose breathing.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I don't know.
34:39
SPEAKER_02: It's probably all just like- So it's not a wrinkles thing.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: No, not a wrinkles thing.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm a side sleeper.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't tend to breathe through my mouth.
34:47
SPEAKER_03: I don't tend to, unless maybe I had a cocktail too much, then I might snore.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: Then maybe.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: Anyway- So but the other thing that I think is more important is
34:57
SPEAKER_00: that your voice is going to change, right?
34:58
SPEAKER_00: Our voices have changed our whole lives.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: They get deeper as we get our hair changes.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: Everything changes.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: My hair used to be straight and blonde.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: So our bodies are changing.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: And so if our voices are changing,
35:13
SPEAKER_00: we just need to give them a little bit of love, like rediscover who are you now?
35:17
SPEAKER_00: What is this voice?
35:18
SPEAKER_00: And it's a journey.
35:21
SPEAKER_03: I mean, if you listen to the voice teachers who are in their 80s,
35:25
SPEAKER_03: their voices are as strong as mine, if not stronger, right?
35:28
SPEAKER_03: I mean, these women, mostly, predominantly, I don't know why women are voice teachers.
35:33
SPEAKER_03: That's an interesting question.
35:35
SPEAKER_03: That is an interesting question.
35:36
SPEAKER_03: Predominantly women,
35:37
SPEAKER_03: a few men are,
35:39
SPEAKER_03: Spending their days rolling around on the floor, releasing tension and vocalizing.
35:46
SPEAKER_03: And their voices are powerful and large and flexible and expressive
35:52
SPEAKER_03: and they're nuanced and fluid.
35:55
SPEAKER_03: So I think...
36:00
SPEAKER_03: If you're feeling like your voice is getting tight or flat or isn't there for you in
36:06
SPEAKER_03: the ways that you want it to be,
36:08
SPEAKER_00: you got to spend some time with your voice.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: You got to water the plant or the plant dies.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: That was a bad metaphor because we just talked about hydration.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: You've got to give sunlight to the plant or the plant dies.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: So it needs water and light.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: It's coming together.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Lie down on your floor and roll around and see,
36:27
SPEAKER_00: hum a little bit and maybe do a little lip flutter and see where your voice likes
36:34
SPEAKER_00: to be.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: See what it wants.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: See where it might go that you haven't been using it lately.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: And yawn.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Yawn.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Extreme yawning.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Yawn like it's a sport.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Yawn like you're a cartoon.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Yawn like for minutes at a time.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Big.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: It's so good for you to open up all those soft tissues,
36:53
SPEAKER_00: the soft palate and the throat
36:55
SPEAKER_03: and get the larynx moving freely.
36:57
SPEAKER_03: And we get this weird tongue tension.
37:01
SPEAKER_03: The root of your...
37:02
SPEAKER_03: Tongue, if you feel with your thumbs under here where it's all squishy,
37:06
SPEAKER_03: if there's any resistance under there, that's your tongue tense.
37:10
SPEAKER_03: If it's all like mushy, your tongue's in good shape.
37:13
SPEAKER_03: But if you feel anything pushing back or resistance at all, you got to soften your tongue.
37:19
SPEAKER_03: And we have these.
37:20
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
37:21
SPEAKER_03: I don't know about you, but for me, perimenopause is an adventure in insomnia.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Like Will I sleep through the night tonight?
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Will I wake up at three and be awake for four hours?
37:32
SPEAKER_00: Probably.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: And then go back to sleep at 7 a.m. when I need to not be going back
37:35
SPEAKER_03: to sleep?
37:36
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
37:38
SPEAKER_03: So for me,
37:38
SPEAKER_03: if I haven't slept right,
37:41
SPEAKER_03: then I've got extra tensions in my neck and shoulders
37:44
SPEAKER_03: and people don't necessarily think about that having to do with your voice,
37:48
SPEAKER_03: but it does.
37:51
SPEAKER_03: You can do a little experiment.
37:52
SPEAKER_03: You can just say, hi, my name is Jessica or whatever your name is.
37:55
SPEAKER_03: Hi, my name is Jessica.
37:57
SPEAKER_03: And then scrunch up your shoulders really tight and try to say it again.
37:59
SPEAKER_03: Hi, my name is Jessica.
38:01
SPEAKER_03: You can feel the tension and then drop them.
38:04
SPEAKER_03: Hi, my name is Jessica.
38:05
SPEAKER_03: And there's more space.
38:07
SPEAKER_03: There's more freedom.
38:08
SPEAKER_03: There's more size.
38:10
SPEAKER_03: So just treat your body like the precious container that it is.
38:17
SPEAKER_03: It's got all these crazy systems and And as Sadie probably mentioned in her episode,
38:23
SPEAKER_03: the brain is part of the body.
38:25
SPEAKER_03: So if you've got something going on,
38:28
SPEAKER_03: In your mind,
38:29
SPEAKER_03: that's making you feel anxious or inhibited, that's going to impact your voice.
38:34
SPEAKER_03: That's going to hold back your voice.
38:36
SPEAKER_03: So you have to let that go.
38:38
SPEAKER_03: Do your journaling or your morning pages or your meditation app or go jogging or...
38:43
SPEAKER_03: All of the above.
38:44
SPEAKER_03: Weed your garden or cook some soup or whatever it is.
38:49
SPEAKER_03: In my case, yes, any or all of the above.
38:52
SPEAKER_03: And in my case, also paint the living room.
38:55
SPEAKER_03: Painting is weirdly therapeutic for me.
38:57
SPEAKER_03: I just like the big roller thing going up and down.
39:00
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
39:01
SPEAKER_03: Zen.
39:02
SPEAKER_03: And that,
39:03
SPEAKER_03: once you get your head sort of back to that floaty,
39:07
SPEAKER_03: cloudy place, then your voice will be happy again too.
39:13
SPEAKER_02: Or at least it won't have whatever's I love this example so much
39:17
SPEAKER_02: because I really had never thought about how much, well, I mean,
39:21
SPEAKER_02: obviously these vocal cords are part of our bodies,
39:24
SPEAKER_02: but like from the muscular system, my grandmother lived until she was 95.
39:30
SPEAKER_02: We just lost her last year, but she rolled around on the floor every day.
39:35
SPEAKER_02: We're mammals.
39:36
SPEAKER_02: We're meant to move our bodies.
39:37
SPEAKER_02: We're not meant to sit in a chair all day.
39:39
SPEAKER_02: We're mammals.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:59
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, she was able to do that until she was 95.
40:02
SPEAKER_02: Her saying was, if you don't sit down, you never have to figure out how to get back up.
40:08
SPEAKER_02: And what she meant by that is like, keep these things going.
40:12
SPEAKER_02: And so if we've had a practice of being quiet or small in our voices and our being,
40:20
SPEAKER_02: then it will be that way until we begin to stretch it.
40:24
SPEAKER_02: But the more we stretch it over and over again, there's no reason we have to lose it.
40:27
SPEAKER_03: No.
40:28
SPEAKER_03: Ever.
40:28
SPEAKER_03: No.
40:29
SPEAKER_03: And just to illustrate the floor thing being so important,
40:32
SPEAKER_03: I attended a two-day workshop that was about,
40:36
SPEAKER_03: it was a combination of a voice technique and a movement technique
40:40
SPEAKER_03: that releases tension.
40:42
SPEAKER_03: And the first day, we barely used our voices.
40:45
SPEAKER_03: Barely.
40:46
SPEAKER_03: It was an eight-hour day.
40:48
SPEAKER_03: And we did a lot of lying on the floor and figuring out how
40:51
SPEAKER_03: to soften all these muscles,
40:53
SPEAKER_03: these various,
40:54
SPEAKER_03: very specific movements from Feldenkrais,
40:57
SPEAKER_03: if people are interested and want to look it up.
40:59
SPEAKER_03: And softening and releasing and opening the body.
41:04
SPEAKER_03: And maybe once or twice,
41:06
SPEAKER_03: we'd get up and say, haha, just to check out where the voice was in that moment.
41:12
SPEAKER_03: But really no talking, no vocal exercises, no going up to the highs or down to the lows.
41:20
SPEAKER_03: Really very, very, very little voice work.
41:24
SPEAKER_03: More talking was done on break.
41:26
SPEAKER_03: And when I left that studio after eight hours,
41:30
SPEAKER_03: I left and I met some friends at a very noisy restaurant.
41:34
SPEAKER_03: And I hadn't really spoken since the lunch break,
41:38
SPEAKER_03: maybe when I ordered a sandwich in a shop or something.
41:41
SPEAKER_03: And I met my friend and my voice came out and it stunned me because it was so full
41:46
SPEAKER_03: and so rich and so easy.
41:50
SPEAKER_03: It was just full of ease.
41:51
SPEAKER_03: It just fell right out of me and just like a waterfall.
41:58
SPEAKER_03: And I thought, oh, hey, no.
42:02
SPEAKER_03: So much of what we think is voice work doesn't actually involve the voice.
42:07
SPEAKER_03: It's just about letting go of all the holding,
42:12
SPEAKER_03: the tension, whatever we're carrying to drop it, to soften it.
42:17
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, lie down on that floor.
42:20
SPEAKER_03: Do some twists.
42:21
SPEAKER_03: Roll your legs around.
42:23
SPEAKER_03: Massage your tongue.
42:24
SPEAKER_03: Wave your arms.
42:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:25
SPEAKER_03: Massage your tongue, your jaw.
42:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:29
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
42:29
SPEAKER_03: We've been grownups for so long.
42:32
SPEAKER_03: Once we hit this point, it's really important for us to remember we don't always have to adult.
42:39
SPEAKER_03: We can let it go.
42:41
SPEAKER_03: Whatever.
42:42
SPEAKER_03: Let's play a little.
42:43
SPEAKER_03: Let the 30-year-olds do that.
42:45
SPEAKER_03: They've got the energy for it.
42:48
SPEAKER_02: I love that too.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: Jessica, you are so awesome.
42:51
SPEAKER_02: This has been so much fun.
42:53
SPEAKER_02: As Uplifters, we love nothing more than to uplift other Uplifters.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: So how do we support you, utilize your work, lift
43:02
SPEAKER_00: up your work?
43:03
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: So you can follow me on all the socials.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: We'll put links to that in the show notes.
43:10
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
43:11
SPEAKER_03: Definitely Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook.
43:15
SPEAKER_03: And I think, what can people do to
43:17
SPEAKER_02: support me?
43:18
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
43:19
SPEAKER_02: Reach out, right?
43:20
SPEAKER_02: Like if they need vocal coaching,
43:21
SPEAKER_02: want vocal coaching, want to see what their voice is capable of.
43:25
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
43:28
SPEAKER_02: Tell me what you experienced.
43:29
SPEAKER_02: Help you find the right agent maybe for this book.
43:32
SPEAKER_02: That's true.
43:33
SPEAKER_02: That's true.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there are things.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: We have resources collectively because like you,
43:39
SPEAKER_02: we've all done lots of things of the last 50 or so years and we've collected a lot
43:44
SPEAKER_02: of stuff that we can put to use for each other.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: It's fun.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's nice to be in the soup together.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you're here.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: And every guest nominates another guest.
43:55
SPEAKER_02: So who would you like to nominate?
43:57
SPEAKER_03: I would like to nominate Trisha Davis Muffet, who is... That
44:03
SPEAKER_02: name is so
44:03
SPEAKER_03: cute.
44:04
SPEAKER_03: ...A badass in the world of, like, tech.
44:09
SPEAKER_03: And also, here she is in her...
44:12
SPEAKER_03: Midlife prime, reinventing her life.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: And she is a published poet.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: She gets up in the morning and she writes poetry.
44:22
SPEAKER_03: She got her master's degree in poetry forever ago and left it
44:26
SPEAKER_03: while she was building her career and raising her kids, doing all this tech stuff.
44:31
SPEAKER_03: And she now is like a senior fancy pants at Google doing blah-de-blah and flying all
44:36
SPEAKER_03: over the world and But she still wakes up every morning and writes poetry
44:40
SPEAKER_03: and submits that poetry and wins prizes for that poetry and gets included
44:45
SPEAKER_00: in famous poetry books curated by famous poets.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
44:50
SPEAKER_03: So she, like we, is returning to her creativity and I just admire her so much.
44:58
SPEAKER_03: She's just like an incredible...
45:01
SPEAKER_03: Human.
45:01
SPEAKER_03: She's a great friend.
45:02
SPEAKER_03: She's a great mom.
45:04
SPEAKER_03: And she is also saying, I've had enough of this life that isn't what I want.
45:10
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to do a new thing.
45:12
SPEAKER_03: I love her.
45:13
SPEAKER_02: I love this and I can't wait to talk to her.
45:15
SPEAKER_02: Jessica, you are amazing.
45:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad Sadie connected us.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: I can't wait to hear more.
45:21
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
45:21
SPEAKER_02: For anybody listening,
45:22
SPEAKER_02: if you want to hear more from Jessica,
45:24
SPEAKER_02: use the links in the show notes to reach out to her and get more of this goodness
45:29
SPEAKER_02: or just go like listen to her projects and enjoy her beautiful voice some more.
45:33
SPEAKER_02: All the things.
45:34
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
45:34
SPEAKER_02: And then join us over on theuplifterspodcast.com and join the conversation
45:38
SPEAKER_02: in our paid subscriber chat or right there in the notes and articles
45:43
SPEAKER_02: that we share pretty much every day.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: We've got a lot going on over there.
45:46
SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
45:47
SPEAKER_02: That's at theuplifterspodcast.com Yay.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: Yay.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: I realized when you asked me how people can support me,
45:54
SPEAKER_00: I was like, wow, I am having a Gen X woman moment.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how people can help me.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm helping others.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing, girlfriend.
46:02
SPEAKER_02: That's why I asked that question.
46:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad you Because it's at my events,
46:07
SPEAKER_02: I ask everyone to lead with what's a resource I have to share
46:11
SPEAKER_02: and what is something I need.
46:15
SPEAKER_02: What do I need?
46:16
SPEAKER_02: And that is the hardest part for every one of us.
46:18
SPEAKER_02: Of course it is.
46:18
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm like on a mission for us to get really good at it by just practicing it
46:23
SPEAKER_02: over and over again.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm a woman who was trained to not need anything.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but we do.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: And we need each other.
46:30
SPEAKER_02: Of course we do.
46:31
SPEAKER_02: We do not need to do all this alone.
46:33
SPEAKER_03: We need the community.
46:34
SPEAKER_03: And I've tried to tell my daughter all the time.
46:36
SPEAKER_03: She's a very self-sufficient young woman and has been since 18 months.
46:41
SPEAKER_03: And I try to tell her all the time, it's okay to ask for help.
46:44
SPEAKER_03: And in fact, you will build more relationships if you let people help you.
46:48
Correct.
46:49
Correct.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: And you will enjoy life more and you won't have to plan the 85 things
46:53
SPEAKER_02: for your overly ambitious birthday party alone.
46:57
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for listening to The Uplifters Podcast.
47:01
SPEAKER_02: If you're getting a boost from these episodes,
47:04
SPEAKER_02: please share them with The Uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation
47:10
SPEAKER_02: over at theuplifterspodcast.com.
47:13
SPEAKER_02: Head over to Spotify,
47:15
SPEAKER_02: Apple Podcasts,
47:16
SPEAKER_02: or wherever you get your podcasts and like, follow, and rate our show.
47:21
SPEAKER_02: It'll really help us connect with more uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one
47:27
SPEAKER_02: of these beautiful stories.
47:31
SPEAKER_01: Big love.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: Painted water, sunshine.
47:35
[music]
48:41
SPEAKER_01: thing you did with your voice.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: Right, in the pre-chorus, right?
48:45
SPEAKER_01: I was like... Mommy, stop crying.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: Mommy, stop crying.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: You're disturbing the peace.