I didn’t plan this one. I was sitting down to write a script for a YouTube video about what Dolly Parton did for me growing up, and this came out instead. So this is off the cuff, and it goes somewhere I wasn’t expecting. You don’t really know how much a person shaped you until they die. If they go and you feel nothing, you find out they were never really part of your life. And if they go and you can’t stop thinking about them, and you want to play all their records and watch all their movies, then you know. I’m saving most of what she meant to me for the video. What I want to talk about here is the thing underneath it, which is learning to be unapologetically yourself, and what that has to do with your voice. Because it has everything to do with your voice. When fear takes up space in your body, it builds tension patterns. My physical therapist friend Dr. Jim calls them holding patterns, and I’ve never found a better word for it. Your body organizes itself around what it had to survive. Someone who grew up able to say whatever they wanted, in a house where nothing bad happened when they did, simply doesn’t carry themselves the way the rest of us do. You can see it in how they stand. You can hear it when they speak. And underneath most of those patterns is shame. I talk in this episode about the video of mine that went viral, the one about shame living in the hips, and about the comments it brought in. Some of them were ugly enough to be hard to read. Which taught me something, because talking about shame triggers shame. People react instead of getting curious. I know that, I’ve studied that, and it still gets to me. I have my own history of being criticized and humiliated by people I trusted, so I fixate on the one person in the room who doesn’t like me and forget the hundred who do. I also get honest about something I don’t usually say out loud, which is that I am not a perfect peace activist. I took a class on nonviolent resistance in college and I loved what I learned about Gandhi and Dr. King, and I also couldn’t do it. When someone treated me without dignity, I snapped back. That’s what I learned growing up, and unlearning it has taken most of my adult life. I’m still not finished. Somewhere in the middle of admitting that, I stopped and scanned my own body on the recording, and I tell you exactly what I found. Shoulders up. Upper back tight. Sinuses closing, which is my tell that I’ve been breathing shallow this whole time. You can hear it happening to my voice in real time. That is the whole thesis of this work, demonstrated live and by accident. I also talk about growing up around hypocrisy, about being told as a kid that I was going to hell, about my dad and what I watched him live with, about why I stay suspicious of diagnostic labels, and about the thing I think is genuinely the hardest part of any of this, which is the isolation. The belief that you are the only one. You are not the only one. If you make it to the end of this one, leave a comment. It doesn’t have to be words. An emoji is enough. Just something that says you’re out there too, so the next person who finds this can see they’re in company. Ready to work on your voice? Private sessions are open for singers, speakers, and anyone who has been taught that enjoying their own voice is something to be ashamed of. Book a session here. Come sing with us. The Healthy Voice Community is where we practice this together, finding the pleasure in the voice and learning to stay with it when the inner critic shows up. Join us here. Want to see what The Healthy Voice Community actually looks and feels like? Here’s a short preview. Free Beginner’s Guide to Healing Trauma Through Voice Community, Coaching, + MORE. Old Delhi Music harmoniums — Get 5% off The Healthy Voice Writes is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Healthy Voice Writes at rawveganbella.substack.com/subscribe
