Breaking the Silence: Finding Courage to Speak Your Truth EYV76

Hello and welcome to the Empower Your Voice podcast. I am Nancy Bos, your host. Thank you for being here with me today. Today's episode is sort of a summary of what we've experienced in the last 3 or 4 episodes, from hypnosis to personal stories, upcoming episodes that are about psychology, the language that we all use around what I have called personal narratives. So today I want to go deep on what is this root story thing, who else talks about it, what kind of language, how can you relate to this in other ways in your life. Hope that sounds interesting, but I do need to start with the idea that this is work. If you want to empower your voice, you can't just put your hands on your hips and stand like Superwoman and say, "I am empowered." Yes, that might actually do something for your symptom in the moment, but it's not going to get to the core. So if you feel out of control with empowering your voice, like, "I don't know why this happens to me. I hate it. It's not going away. It's been a long time. It keeps happening. It's getting worse," or it's just no better. I give up, I quit. I'm just gonna go be a barista at Starbucks. If that's what's going through your head sometimes, then this episode is super important for you. But there's another opportunity for you, and that is if you're listening to this right now on Tuesday, February 28th, 2023 at 9:00 AM Mountain Time, I'm offering a free 1-hour masterclass. I'm offering it again on Saturday, March 4th, 2023. And if— odds are very high— you're listening to this podcast or watching me on YouTube well after March 4th, 2023, you can still find out about a recording of it or the next times I'm going to be doing it live. In all cases, whether you want to attend live this week, attend live for future, or see if there's a recording up— I will get that up eventually— go to NancyBos.com me, that's NancyBos.me/courses, or the courses tab, and you'll see a course called Empower Your Voice. Click on that, it'll get you through to the, the information so that you can get a free introduction to how this works, to ways that you can empower yourself. You don't necessarily have to go to hypnotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy or a spiritual guru. You can do a lot of this work on your own, and we're built for that. We're built for that. So with a little bit of information, you should be able to take steps forward. If, however, you want my help, you want to walk this path with somebody you already know, like, and trust me, then I would be glad to walk this path with you. And there are two different ways that we can do that. One, which I'm offering now on the website, is small group 6-week classes. So this class meets for 6 weeks, 1 hour, small group. It is a safe place. It's trusted. I make sure of that. I keep these groups small enough that I can really know that yes, this is going to be a safe place for everybody involved, and we're doing the work together. And it is so inspiring to do this work together because really, you probably know this from other group things that you've done, when you hear other people talk about it from their perspective, number one, you can see— oh, I can see inside of you and I see what that means. But you can and also see it for yourself. Like, oh, I hadn't thought of it that way. I think that relates to me too. So the small group classes run for 6 weeks. Those are not free, but they are a bargain for how they will actually change your life. So again, if you go to empoweryourvoice.nancybos.me, you'll see information about the small groups. The next one starts on March 13th, 2023. I run it 5 times during the year. If it is a time that doesn't work out for you, you can reach out to me to ask me to schedule a small group at a different time, which I can certainly do if I get enough people interested, or we can talk about one-on-ones. So in this podcast, I've talked about stage fright, performance anxiety, nervousness or concern about sharing your voice, And what's interesting is that there are lots of words, lots of language that we use around this somewhat vague concept of the root, the root of these troubles. So voice is holistic, right? Your voice is your whole body. I dare you to try to talk without using your lungs, your rib cage, and your abs. I dare you to try to talk without using the muscles of your throat, your tongue, and your lips. I bet you can't do it without using your brain. You're probably going to use your eyes when you talk.

Mm-hmm.

You're going to use your ears if you are listening to yourself talk. You're also going to use your ears to notice what the other person is saying. Talking also involves our hands and our gestures. There are theorists who believe that making sound on pitch and using our hands is a much more primitive way of communicating than actually using words. So yes, some of us can sit perfectly still and not use our hands, but not me. I'm going to use my hands when I talk. So voice is holistic. It also is what some people would call a window to your soul because Everything about your emotional state can be portrayed through your voice, right? You talk to somebody that you know, maybe even a stranger on the phone, or you hear my voice on the podcast and you kind of know how I'm feeling. You know right now that I'm energized, that I'm jazzed about talking to you today because my emotions are pouring through in my voice. If you are a believer in the chakra system, you believe that the voice is the fourth chakra. If you are a person who believes that the parasympathetic nervous system is constantly in a balanced play with the sympathetic nervous system, you realize that they all go through this narrow channel that is the throat. As far as the anthropology of it goes, holy cow, why were we built to have something so small at the neck level that could be so easily lopped off, causing death? Okay, the neck is a place that we protect. It is almost entirely muscles and bones.

Right?

The neck is pretty lean, and that's just armor. It's protection. Well, all of that was a long way of saying the voice is holistic. So working on the voice will impact every part of your body. If you work on your voice and you get technique down cold, you know exactly what to do with the muscles of your lips, your tongue, the roof of your mouth. You know what to do with the muscles of your throat, your larynx, and your breathing muscles. This is what singing lessons often are limited to, is the physiology and the acoustics. This is what this box does. You can master all of that and be a terrible performer, because if you don't involve your brain and your heart and your physical expression That's— what is that? That's a robot, right? That's a machine. But using your voice, empowering your voice, means using your conscious logical brain, your emotional brain, your animal brain, your physical gestures, and energizing your body in a way that only emotions can do. All right, you buy this? You with me here? If we're going to empower your voice, we are going to empower all of you. So an actor shows up to an acting class and using their voice, but they've had a really bad day. Girlfriend just broke up, out of money, don't know how they're going to pay their bills, don't have any food for tonight. And they show up just like, how could it get any worse? How could it get any worse? But they're expected to do a comedy routine. Wait a minute, how do you bring together the emotions that the authentic person is feeling with an authentic performance of the comedy routine. Ba-dum-bum, right? So that holistic thing means that the performer, the actor in this case, needs to override their conscious and shallow emotions of the moment and tap in to something bigger or something historic. So this actor who needs to do something that they really don't feel like doing needs to tap into some other experience they've had in their life. And the more they practice that, the easier it gets. So just like that, they're good to go. Everything, all the crap that they brought into the room, they will go back to when they leave. But right now, right here, they are mindful. They're in the moment. They know what they need to do, and their whole body lines up holistically behind their voice to deliver those lines. Now, is this true only for actors? Heck no, this is true for every performer. Just think about the professional singers who are on tours, months on the road, living in buses and motels. There's no way, no way that can be the happiest life they can possibly imagine. Now, I will say I knew some of the people on the last Weird Al Yankovic tour, and they had luxury buses and a gourmet chef because, you know, it's Weird Al, so of course he's going to be happy when he tours. But A lot of people don't tour like that, and yet they have to show up on the stage and be entertaining to masses of people. That isn't something that they necessarily feel at that moment. And think about this: inside of a show, some songs are going to be angry and dark, and some are going to be light and joyful. Some are going to be emotive of the most tender way, and some are going to be direct statements on how the world should be. All of that in the same hour, night after night. You can't feel like that without making a conscious decision to be in that moment, deliver that message. All right, now what does this have to do with you? Say you're a speaker. Say you have got a business networking meeting that you have to show up to, and your spouse just yelled at you, the kids are late to school. You got a fender bender on the way to the meeting. You haven't had your frickin' coffee yet. And you're supposed to stand up and talk for 10 minutes about your rug cleaning system? Really? This is not what you want to be doing. You know what you do? You get into that moment. You put all that other crap behind you, just like the actor does, and you get into that moment holistically with everything that you know from your past that made you excited about helping people have clean, beautiful homes that don't contain allergies like molds and dog hair, but actually enjoy living in their house because their carpet is clean. This, this is what you do. You buy into this moment. You don't stand there with your hands on your hip like Superwoman. You might— it wouldn't hurt to do that. If you've ever seen my headshot, you see me doing that. But the point is, your whole body has to get behind it, all of your emotions, everything you've got. You need to take the stage. You're freaked out because you've not done this a lot. You have no idea what's going to happen. Something triggers you, you have no idea what or why, you get nervous. And now is when you get things that are oftentimes called social anxiety cues showing up. That's the shortness of breath, the tightness everywhere, shakiness, just anxiety feelings. You have a choice. You can stay in that state listening to the little voice in your head that's telling you, you don't belong here, you shouldn't do this, Run, run now! Or you can do what the actor and the salesman and the performer on the stage all do, and that is you can remember you've got a message that is bigger than these tiny little thoughts. Holistically, you show up with the passion that's required in that moment despite everything that you're feeling. But wouldn't it be nice if you didn't feel that way? Wouldn't it be amazing if you could be excited to go up on the stage like, "Yeah, I get to deliver tonight!" That would be amazing, and it is possible. And I gotta tell you, I get to experience that every time I go on stage now because I did this work. I did this work 20 years ago. I've studied it since then, and now I'm ready to tell you how You can do the work, but I'm not the only one telling you. There are so many other sources that are telling you how to do this work. Not empower your voice, but empower yourself. And now I've said the word holistically often enough that I think you've put this together. When I say empower your voice, I'm talking about empowering yourself in the same way that everybody else says it that wants to empower you, but they use different words. So I'm gonna go into this a little bit. I, I try to read as much as I can. As you can tell, I'm kind of a bouncy buzzy ADHD kind of person, but I forget the D. This is not a disability. I am a hyper person. So sitting down and reading is challenging. Sometimes I do audiobooks instead. So I'm gonna share that with you a little bit today too. But what I want to do at the very least is to go over how this problem feeling, this anxiety, stage fright, that wants to keep you back, hold you back, provide a roadblock that you can't get past? How can you get to the root cause of it? How can you get the root cause of your anxiety to be dismantled, destroyed, like it has been for me? You can't cure a disease by treating the symptoms. The symptom is the anxiety and fear. What's the disease? What's underneath this? What is it that you can do to make it go away? Now, I've called the original problem root stories or personal narratives, but not everybody calls them that. All right, in fact, one person that jumped on this one a little while ago is a man named Sigmund Freud, and he defined the id, the ego, and the superego. The superego incorporates the values and morals of society, which are learned from one's parents and others. It develops around the age of 3 to 5 years old during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. The superego is seen as the purveyor of rewards—feelings of pride and satisfaction—and punishments—feelings of shame and guilt. Depending on which part of the ego or conscious is activated. The superego is part of the unconscious that is the voice of conscious— of conscience doing what is right and the source of self-criticism. The superego reflects society's moral values to some degree, and a person is sometimes aware of their own mortality and ethics, but the superego contains a vast number of codes or prohibitions that are issued mostly unconsciously in the form of commands or don't statements. The superego's function is to control the id's impulses, especially those which society forbids, such as sex and aggression or getting on stage. It also has the function of persuading the ego to turn to moralistic goals rather than simply realistic ones and to strive for perfection. I need to give credit— that is all from a website called Simply Psychology, and the section is What Is the Superego. So that's a little bit of Freud for you. I haven't read Freud in a while, borrowed from them, but what I have read is a book that I recently published from Studio Boss Media called The Mindfulness of Singing, written by Denise Ritter-Bernardini and Tony Crowder. Now Denise and Tony use a phrase for this, not superego, not personal narratives, They use subconscious saboteurs, and I have grabbed onto that phrase because I think it is so effective. If I tell you that you have subconscious saboteurs, doesn't that sound like, oh, I could be a sniper and take those out? Which is exactly what I want you to do. I want you to be a sniper and take out your subconscious saboteurs. So I'm going to read to you a little bit from The Mindfulness of Singing so that you can get yet another perspective on these root causes, these personal narratives. In this book, Tony and Denise say, we expect bullying or abuse to bring up emotions and feelings we can't control. PTSD is real. Take the person who experienced abuse as a child. They may try to drown their pain with drugs and alcohol, not realizing that this potentially destructive behavior may stem from the faint but ever-present past. Maybe the trauma of being chronically bullied or beaten isn't your experience, but what if there was a teacher who shamed you and told you not to sing out? Or there was a church choir director who asked you to move to the back row? Maybe it was a parent or a coach who pushed you onto the stage and then withheld love and acceptance, mm-hmm, because you did not perform up to their standard. When you hear the upcoming episode in, in about 3 weeks with Shad Cunningham, there's a lot about that, uh, parental expectations. But back to the mindfulness of singing. The point is, if you have unaddressed trauma, whether it is big or small, it may keep you from moving forward. Performance anxiety can come from multiple sources. Mm-hmm. It could be an attachment to an event, an authority figure, or a peer. Knowing where you are on the continuum can be helpful for understanding performance anxiety. Remember, we need stress in our lives. There is a sweet spot to a cortisol rush. We are built to be cautious and easily frightened. After all, none of us would be here If the caveman had been laid back and relaxed. I love that. So there's a good reason for this cortisol rush. Another book that I've been reading lately is called Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, written by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. In this book, they don't call it personal narratives, they don't call it superego, they don't call it subconscious saboteurs. They call it identity. Wow, that's a big one. In this book, these authors say— again, this is Difficult Conversations, uh, page 116 if you're looking at the paperback— often during a difficult conversation, we are not even aware that our identity is implicated. We know we feel anxious, fearful, or tentative, and that our ability to communicate skillfully has deserted us. Usually articulate, we stumble and stammer. Usually empathetic, we can't stop interrupting and arguing. Usually calm, we boil over with anger, but we aren't sure why. The connection to our identity is not obvious. It's easy to think, "I'm talking with my brother about how he treats his wife. What does this have to do with my identity?" What triggers an identity quake for you might not trigger one in someone else. Just as Denise and Tony said in The Mindfulness of Singing, something that may not bother you can cause PTSD in someone else. So back to difficult conversations. What triggers an identity quake for you may not trigger one in someone else. We each have our own particular sensitivities. To become more familiar with yours, observe whether there are patterns to what tends to knock you off balance during difficult conversations, and then ask yourself why. What about your identity feels at risk? What does this mean to you? How would it feel if what you fear were true? Deep work. Now, in difficult conversations, you're not going to do that in the moment that you're in that difficult conversation. It's something that you have to do working ahead of time. You have to do the work ahead of time. Now, another book that I've been listening to on audiobook. I'm going to share with you the actual audiobook reading of the author. This is How to Be Loving is the name of the book, and I've got 3 clips set aside here that I want you to hear.

I have feared what's required of me to do so. What suffering might I endure to know my true nature? Will life pile on the pain as a wake-up call? Will I press snooze on that wake-up call and create more suffering? It reminds me what the Zen teacher Alan Watts always said about suffering. There will always be suffering, but one must not suffer over the suffering.

I love that. Don't hit snooze on the suffering. In other words, for me, Don't walk away and forget, like, okay, I'm going to pick a different career. Don't hit snooze on the suffering. And the suffering doesn't— easing the suffering doesn't have to cause suffering. It is not that painful to get rid of something that's causing you pain and stopping you from living your full life. Now, in, in How to Be Loving, she actually calls it the shadow self. Isn't that interesting? That superego identity, subconscious saboteurs, personal narratives. She calls it the shadow self. Here is another clip from How to Be Loving, chapter 17 on this one.

Thoughts in our subconscious, and without further inspection, we have no idea what is going on down there, but whatever it is, it's still under our roof and it has an effect on our atmosphere. We increase our chances of a fulfilling existence when we get more intentional about what thoughts and images and sounds that we are giving to our mind.

And then the last thing that I wanna share, um, with you from How to Be Loving: I can do anything.

I create my own reality. I'm physically fragile. I am blessed beyond measure. Those are all storylines. You get to choose the storyline. So just like emotions, our narratives about ourselves come from the past. Our stories about the past are doing their best to protect us.

And that's where I'll stop that one. The narratives, the personal stories from our past that are doing our best their best to protect us because we've been hurt, and that's how they got planted there. We might not remember how we got hurt. The hurt may have happened before our conscious mind was able to store memories, but our subconscious knows about it. We may not remember it because our mind has blocked it out. We've all heard those stories about someone having a horrific trauma in their past that they don't remember that they had until bam, it comes out. Just because you don't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen. But if you're seeing the symptoms, there is a cause, there's a root cause, there's a disease, disease somewhere in there. Now, I've recently come up with an experience that was pointed out to me that it was generational, generational trauma. Not my trauma, trauma from past generations. Well, there's an interesting idea— genetic memory. That might very well be the root, but if you don't deal with it, then you're going to keep suffering. So don't hit snooze on your suffering. Instead, let's go, let's tackle this thing. So what is it all of these people are trying to tell us? Um, it's basically what Aristotle seems to have said long, long ago. That knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. You cannot call yourself wise unless you know yourself. So let's get to know yourself. Dive in, dive into the personal stories that are part of your past, oftentimes in childhood, but not always. They can happen in adult traumas, big or small, small t traumas, big T traumas, whatever. All of this points to the same thing, that there's a therapy way, whether it's hypnotherapy, a spiritual therapy, a religious therapy, or psychotherapy. There is a way that you can get to the root of these. Well, that's all for today. I hope that you will stop by the NancyBos.me, hit courses tab, and learn about how I can help you with empowering your voice, because that is my angle. I am, after all, a vocologist, and in 25 years as a voice teacher and I was a performer and a singer who went through this all myself, as you can tell, studying great minds and how they're dealing with this. And it would be my sincere joy and pleasure to walk this walk with you. So look for that free masterclass, look at the other stuff that I have to offer, do the work, keep listening to this podcast because I keep bringing people on this podcast who can help you, not just me. Thank you for being here. You are awesome. You're inspiring. You're here for a reason. There is a greater purpose that you have been called to, and no wonder that scares you. No wonder that's exciting but maybe too big to handle, because you are so much more and so much greater than sometimes you allow yourself to be. Well, let's let you be the awesome person, the awesome embodiment that you are, and get this anxiety junk out of the way. All right. Thanks. Bye everyone. See you next time.