MFA: THE PARENTING EDITION EPISODE 041 SHOW NOTES
https://www.mfaparentingedition.com/041
Episode title: I Got the Power
Episode summary introduction: Today we'll be talking about our voice. What does it mean to find your voice? How do I find my voice as a parent? If you were to use your voice authentically, respectfully, and effectively to communicate your feelings, what would it sound like? How can I teach my children to find their voice? And in communicating with our kids, understanding what we want to say and why we feel compelled to say it is going to make a huge impact on how we say things.
We’ll kick off our show with The Raise a Glass Series, get on to our questions to explore, and end with A Short Story Before We Go. MFA is the sometimes-musical, dramedy, in 3 acts, 1 intermission, the length of a sitcom designed to give mama’s (and any caregiver) a break in the day to breathe and reset along with a much needed audio hug.
Quote: “What a liberation to realize that the voice in my head is not who I am. Who am I? The one who sees that.” Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
Act I: The Raise a Glass Series
Act II: Main Questions
Intermission: Angelica Interlude
Hitting. To the dungeon you go!
Act III: A Short Story Before We Go
Tai’s Karen Chronicles
Get voice exercise’s to use on your own or with your family here
Episode transcript: available at https://www.mfaparentingedition.com/041
Sources that helped inspire this episode:
Connect with Me:
Best way - [email protected]
IG - @mfaparentingedition
Support the Show: buy me a drink to say “hey, keep up the good work”, just go to www.buymeacoffee.com/mfaparenting
-------------------------------------------------
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Mom: Angelica, can you say hello?
Angelica: Hello! Hello?
Mom: How are you today?
Angelica: I doing well…how are you?
Mom: Well I’m doing well also. (she laughs)
Welcome to MFA the parenting edition. I'm Taisha Cameron, a lover of children's picture books and Reese's peanut butter cups. I'm also and more relevant to the show. A mom to a feisty fiery fierce flailing finicky little kid and a trained. These lessons from the theater for raising ourselves and our kids came about after the life altering revelation I made, that my MFA in acting trained me for life as a mommy, better than life as a full-time actor. We'll explore some challenging questions. I'll share some stories and we'll kick things off with the raise of glass series, from the method to mommy meltdowns and all the moments in between. Welcome to MFA.
What a liberation to realize that the voice in my head is not who I am. Who am I? The one who sees that. Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
Episode 41. I Got the Power.
Hello hello and welcome back to MFA the parenting edition. Now today on our episode, we'll be talking about our voice. But before we get into all that, let's kick off our episode with another toast in our Raise a Glass series. You don't need to raise an actual glass unless you got one in hand already. And if you do I say holla, let's do this. And it's my birthday. So if you don't have one in hand already go get one.
The Raise a Glass Series is a space for reflection and gratitude centered around the topic of the day and inspired by lyrics from Hamilton the Musical.
I know I talked too much I'm abrasive, your incredible court, your succinct, persuasive.
Just because we have the ability to say everything that runs into our mind, doesn't mean we should. Over the years, I've been working on taking a step back before I speak. Listening so I can use my words with more grace and tact. On being more succinct, empathetic, and curious before responding. I fail miserably and keep trying. Learning when to speak out and when to keep my mouth shut is a daily challenge for me. And my feeling is for most people around the world, too. Our voices should be heard. We should find the things we are passionate about and let them ring. And it would also benefit us all to find the ability to listen more than we speak and review the things that we want to say before they come out of our mouth.
The words that we choose to say and how we use our voice to say them matters. We are accountable for them because they impact the lives of others, as well as our own.
Let's raise a glass to using our authentic voice, less abrasively, so we can communicate more openly and compassionately.
Question. What does it mean to find your voice? How do I find my voice as a parent? If you were to use your voice authentically, respectfully, and effectively to communicate your feelings, what would it sound like? How can I teach my children to find their voice?
An actor's toolbox.
When I was out of undergrad, one of my part-time jobs was teaching theater in an afterschool program. While I don't remember the name of the company or how long I worked there, what I took away and still incorporated on all the other children's theater teaching jobs I've ever had were the four main tools in an actor's toolbox. These tools are voice, body listening and imagination over the next few episodes. We'll touch on all of these, but today I want to look at. Finding our voice, exercising our voice, how we use our voice to communicate with others, and how we teach our kids to use their voice. Our voice is a powerful tool.
Now I'd like to just take a second and acknowledge that not everyone can produce sound from their larynx or communicate. Also, there are a plethora of ways to communicate non-verbally so the ability to communicate effectively does not solely fall on verbal communication. We know this. For this episode though, that's what we'll be discussing, the power of our voice. I got the power!
Now when I was in grad school for acting, we had a vocal class and a speech worked on articulation. The formation of sound in our mouth and communicating text with neutral American speech, or NAS for short. Voice class was all about training your body to release sound in healthy ways. Now there were students in our group that were singers and those who could not sing a note to save their life, but the class was not about turning people into singers. It was about connecting to the source of the sound coming from our body and using it to communicate what we needed to say. We all learned all kinds of vocal techniques and would work on songs to present in front of the class for feedback. And what that did was remind us to not just focus on, am I doing this technique right? Or, you know, does this sound okay, but am I getting the point across in this song to the audience? How we changed the inflection on our words, how he had a smile to color how a phrase lands, how he whispered to be secretive or projected to be heard in the back row are all grounded in what we're saying and why we're saying it.
That, what and why is the crux of communication between all people this is not just an actors on stage. And in communicating with our kids, that what and why is going to make a huge impact on how we say things.
Finding your voice.
We hear that a lot, right? We have to, we must it's imperative, we find our voice. Where did it go? Whose voice are we're using, if not our own? What the hell does that even mean find your voice? I'm speaking right now, didn't realize it was something that was lost. Artists are always being told that finding success in your career, whether as a writer, musician, painter, whatever, you have to find your voice. You alone, have something unique to share with the world in only the way you can deliver it. So you have to find your voice.
Before I went off to drama school, I had read A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I remember my mom and sister were reading the book for the Oprah and Eckhart masterclass, many, many, many, many, many, many moons ago. And I came home from work one night and I think they were gathered around the table, like watching the first class or something. I don't remember exactly, but I know my head was a bit full of the, oh, what new agey trip is Oprah sending people down now, you know, all high and mighty and judgie with my ideals about how other people are connecting to the world in ways that I was not ready to embrace myself.
They invited me to sit down. And so I joined them. I didn't know anything about the book. I hadn't read the first chapter, which is what I think they were discussing. I didn't even know who this person was, but something about their conversation shifted this block in my ego center. That made me curious to learn more.
So I bought the book and I just devoured it. I've probably read it about three times in my life. And it's been highlighted and written in like a textbook. My favorite quote to this day is the one that I used in the episode opening, what a liberation to realize that the voice in my head is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.
What?!
So for me, finding my voice is an ongoing process. We have so many voices in our head at all times, and this doesn't mean we should all be institutionalized. It means. We have taken in so much information throughout our lives of people's opinions, rules, laws, hypocrasies, demands, commands, loving words, and skepticism, all of that, that our true feelings and inner voice get muddled under all the other noise. Just think of it from the time we're born people of this world are shouting their voices at us and they incept our core. We take on the beliefs of our parents without giving it a second thought. We submit to government and law enforcement without question. We take our teachers praise or critique to heart and either shine or shrink. And then we become adults who are responding to the world based on how we were conditioned and feel disconnected from ourselves and what we want and need. And this might not be the case for everyone, I know. But far too many of us lose the ability to voice our wants and needs at a young age and have a real difficult time getting connected to it as adults. That's why there are so many people going into therapy.
Finding our voice means learning to shift through all the things we've been taught to believe, trust, all other people's opinions, all our doubts and self-deprecating ideas in order to find what we want and need at a deep level. Not the superficial shit. We talked, not the superficial shit. We tell ourselves we want to need, like, I want a new nose and I want a new bag and I need more chocolate. No you don't.
There is something deeper under all that noise screaming to be heard. And we're misinterpreting by connecting our wants and needs to an external source. We've not learned to know what we want and need and express it in a healthy way. Like I said before, the moment we're born people tell us what we want, what we need, and what they think is in our best interest.
How many times can you think of when you were a child that you are asked, what you wanted and it was respected? You were asked what you wanted to become as a grownup, and it wasn't met with laughs or criticism. You were asked if it was okay to take your photo and respected if you said no. You were asked if you wanted to go to school. And if you said no, an alternative style program was found to honor your needs and learning abilities.
If we are not given the opportunity to make decisions for ourselves as children and young adults within the safety of our homes in our family, then how in the hell are we expected to know what we want and need and be able to go after it and express it in healthy ways as adults? And if we then grow up to become parents, how do we trust our instinct on what we feel in our gut is in the best interest of our children and not based on religion, government policies and laws, our parents' ideas, our friend's ideas, the advice from the millions of child experts out there? I mean, how do we find our voice as a parent?
Getting quiet with yourself on a regular basis. And just sitting with all the sensations in your body and feelings in your heart is one thing we can do. Making a practice of meditation has been a huge help for me. It might not work for everybody. Everyone's mind is in a different place. And so meditation might not be your thing. Some people find their meditation in activities. Maybe you're someone who loves to paint and once you've been able to like, let all that creative energy flow in, you have the space to be like, Hey, I can hear my own voice from here.
But whatever that might be that you choose, quieting the space between the thoughts in your head helps clear up a lot of that clutter, that accumulates from other people's bullshit that we end up carrying around and our own negative self-talk. Connecting to that space has encouraged me to really feel what the difference is between my wants and needs.
I mean, just the other day I was putting up Christmas lights outside and I told my husband that I just needed to get this done. And was quickly getting into a, like a tizzy about all the amounts of work that I needed to get done.
And he jumped in super quick and was like, you want to put up the lights. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I want to put up the lights. It's not a need. What's going to happen if I don't put them up, huh? Nothing. Is Christmas going to be canceled because I didn't put up my Christmas lights outside? No, I've never put Christmas lights up outside. This is the first year I'm going to do it. Nothing is going to happen. They just won't be up in the days we'll still go on. Shifting my words helped shift my energy. Then it wasn't a chore on my to-do list, it was a fun activity to get into the holiday spirit.
So it was like how I chose to talk about the lights was dictating my energy and how I was then going to end up talking to the rest of my family. Because the words we use matter. They shift the energy of how we say them, that energy directly relates to how we treat ourselves and the people around us. And now it's time for a break.
Angelica Interlude:
Taisha: All right, Angelica. Here we are again.
Angelica: Hello.
Taisha: Would you like to record another episode together?
Angelica: Um, yeah.
Taisha: Okay. Okay, so, what would you like to talk about today, Angelica?
Angelica: I want to talk about hitting.
Taisha: About hitting? Okay. What do you want to say about hitting?
Angelica: We will hit each other like this, and then we apologize.
Taisha: How do you apologize after you've hit someone?
Angelica: If we rub them.
Taisha: We rubbed them?
Angelica: And give them company.
Taisha: And are there any words that you would say to apologize?
Angelica: I'm sorry.
Taisha: Sorry for what?
Angelica: For hitting you.
Taisha: That's right.
Angelica: You will forgive me.
Taisha: I will forgive you? But what if the person doesn't want to forgive you? What do you do then?
Angelica: Then we tickle them.
Taisha: You tickle them? Oh my goodness. What do I tell you when you hit?
Angelica: You say, tickle me.
Taisha: No, that's not what I say. What do I say? When you hit, you hit me or you hit other people?
Angelica: You say, I'm gonna throw you in the dungeon.
Taisha: Throw you in the dungeon? I wish we had a dungeon, but we don't have one. So that's not what I say. What do I say?
Angelica: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Taisha: I like your little song there. No, I tell you, I won't let you hit. Or I won't let you hit them. If it's somebody else that you've hit,
Angelica: Daddy, we're working on our podcast.
Taisha: We are working on the podcast.
Have you ever played interpreter? There's an improv game in which someone speaks in gibberish and another person has to interpret for them to the other characters in the scene. I feel I've made a habit of interpreting for my daughter, Angelica. She's not deaf, she's not vocally impaired. I just want other people around her to understand what she's saying. Now what I need to remember is to balance out the times I play interpreter with the times I encourage her to repeat herself clearer, so people understand her. It's giving her space to say all that she has to say, and me listen intently so she feels safe and supported to speak what's on her mind and in her heart, that's how someone finds their voice. They are given a space to share what is in their head and heart.
The more I encourage her to say what she's feeling and thinking in the safety of our home. She'll then take that confidence, hopefully out into the world and speak for herself. No, mommy interpreter necessary.
We all had different environments we grew up in, right? And that either supported or hindered our ability to express ourselves. We may have lost our voice out of our own self- protection and have been on a lifelong journey to find it again. And that takes practice. But to be truly connected to our spirit, our soul, ourselves, whatever you want to call it, we need to be able to connect to our powerful tool of communication, our voice.
How do we do the damn thing? Well, first figure out what you want to communicate and why it's important to say it. If, what I want to say is don't touch the oven because it's hot. And my daughter is three inches from the oven and I'm like 15 feet away from her or more, how I say it is going to be a lot different than if I'm standing close to the oven and can physically put my body between her and it. My voice will probably come out more like a roar, get away from the oven. While it might be like firm with a calmer tone, I won't let you touch the oven, if I'm available to keep her safe.
There are so many things we say to our children every day that we have to remember, it's a lot for them to take in. We like to think it's not a lot for them to take in because as adults, we take in all this information all the time and we perfectly handle ourselves and we know how to cope with everything, and we just manage everything fantastically, which is again, the lies and bullshit we tell ourselves. But they're kids, they literally have been on this planet a lot less time than us. So yeah, we've had more years experience. They haven't, not yet. The more we overwhelm them with demands, commands, warnings, and other kinds of verbal stimulation the more they're likely to tune us out. Which we'll talk about more in the listening episode. But if they are at the point of tuning us out, how we use our voice will change dramatically.
I remember this summer when Angelica, she needed to have, a shunt revision and we were in the hospital to get admitted because she was gonna have surgery the next morning. Well, if you have never been in a room with a four-year-old child who needed an IV put in them, I hope you never have to experience that because the level of screaming that was coming out of my child was something that still curls the blood inside of me. And so since we've been talking about using your voice so much, she kept on shouting to the nurses there who were all like, it's okay. Don't worry. Look, look at the iPad. What do you want to see on the iPad? What do you want me to put on your favorite show? Ooh, look at this, isn't this pretty? We'll give you presents, and on and on. And all she kept on saying to them was you're not respecting my boundaries. Stop. Don't touch me. You're not respecting my boundaries.
And at no point did any of the staff there look at her and be like, I know we're not respecting your boundaries, and I'm so sorry that we cannot right now, but for your health and safety, this surgery needs to happen and this is something we need to do. I understand it hurts. I understand that you have used your voice to express what you wanted to say, and I hear you. And I know that this is not where you wanna be. And I'm sorry that I'm the person who has to be doing this to you right now. But because I care about you, I'm going to be honest with you. This still needs to get done. And I understand it's crossing your boundaries, but I've heard you. I know that you do not want this.
At no point did anybody do that. And I get it. We want to distract and deflect and give our kids something else to focus on so we can get done what we need to. But when a child is screaming, you're not respecting my boundaries or something else along the lines saying how they're feeling, they want to know that they've been heard. They want to know someone hears them, will address them and their needs. And maybe from there help them to understand what's going on, make them feel better or stop what's happening.
And in a situation like that, where, I'm sure in a children's hospital you've got so many kids coming in, you are just on we need to get done what we need to get done so distract, deflect, do whatever you need to do, to try to get the kids mind off of this. Like we don't have the time to listen to every child.
And I would like to argue that you do have the time to listen to every child. It takes just as much time to listen to a child's words and say, I hear you. You want me to respect your boundaries and you're upset that I am not. It takes the same amount of time to do that as it does to say, oh, do you want to look at the iPad? What do you want to see now? Um, do you want me to put on this video for you? Or do you want to, who would you like this? And you wanna hear a baby shark again? No one wants to fucking hear baby shark again. Goddammit!
Help kids learn to use their voice by acknowledging when they use their voice.
I feel the best way to effectively communicate with our children and any child we're around is to talk to them in the respectful manner you use with someone you Revere or love, or you yourself would like to be spoken to. And I get it. I get it. It is hard. I have conversations with my husband all the time where he's just like, whoa, Tai, the way you talk to Angelica sometimes. And I know it. I am aggressive. I am aggressive.
And I also recognize that those are moments of my failing and I can try again. We fail as parents and we can try again. It's like in any acting scene, you try one tactic, it doesn't work or it doesn't help, it doesn't move the story along, you find a new one. So you figure out what you want to say and why you want to say it. Is it to show affection? Is it to warn them? Is it to instruct them? Is it to comfort them? Once you're clear on the intent and the reason why it must be said and said now, and not 10 minutes later, it will help figure out the most effective way to say what you need, the how the words will come out.
So lovelies, I'll ask you again. What does it mean to find your voice? How do I find my voice as a parent? If I were to use my voice authentically, respectfully, and effectively to communicate my feelings, what would it sound like? How can I teach my children to find their voice?
So to answer the question, how can you teach your children to find their voice, by modeling how to effectively use your voice. Without being preachy or teachy you show them to speak out about their feelings, their thoughts, their observations around them, you model how to effectively communicate by making choices in how you speak to them based on the what and why. Now, that's super hard shit to do. I can't even tell you how many times I've had that intention in my head and been focused on communicating in a respectful manner with authority and space for hearing her responses and that shit goes out the window real fast.
Because Lord knows what tiny nonsense went down, and before you know it, I'm screaming at the top of my lungs and she's screaming right back at me. And we're both stomping with our hands on our hips, just yelling at each other. And she does it back at me because that's what I've modeled. So when I get all stressed and lose my cool and start yelling, that shows her, Hey, that form of communication is acceptable. Mom does it so can I. And I have to say that while it's even more infuriating as a mama to have her scream back at me, it is a really fast kick in the ass to get my shit together, apologize, and model a different way of communicating. While there is nothing necessarily wrong with letting out feelings in that way there is something bad when it is all that's modeled, because then you're saying, this is the way to get your point across. Or, you might have a child that won't yell back and they'll internalize everything and think that they're bad or learn how to be compliant enough to not experience that again, or tune you out so much they tune out most people out of fear of getting that kind of response from them.
Once we take some time to sit with what we want to say and why it's important, we'll figure out how to say it. That helps our children and other people better understand us. And it gives us space to respect and better understand others.
A Short Story Before We Go.
Do it now, Tai, class is just about to end do it now or stop seething about it.
I sprang up on the big black rehearsal box and faced the class.
I know we all have Gary Vena's theater history exam tomorrow, and we could all use more time to study for it. I just wanted to say that I found it really disrespectful that while there was a scene going on and our classmates are working up there that so many of you would be hiding in your notebooks, studying for tomorrow's exam. If you needed that much more time to study you should've just stayed home and not come to class. The people working today didn't get this extra time to study, those of us who were actually paying attention. So we can give feedback on the scene didn't get extra time to study. So how about we all be a little bit more respectful of each other's work in here and save our studying for outside of the studio.
Some people apologized. Others looked at me like, who the fuck are you to be shaming me for what I feel is important to do right now, fuck you. Some might've developed respect for me for literally standing on a soap box and others probably lost a lot of respect for my choice.
I don't always get involved with speaking my mind about things I see wrong in the world. I'm not a political activist. I don't have a community board. I haven't been elected to any office. I don't make a point of speaking out for the things I feel are important on a global scale. However, in my personal life, in the small bubble of the world, in which I live and operate, I am known by the people who have had the strongest interactions with me as a person who will speak their mind, advocate, be vocal against or for what I feel is right, or just based on the principle of the matter. I will tell you how I am truly feeling I will, on my best days, deliver it in a way that will be honest to you and uplifting and on my worst day, which, unfortunately, there have been more of in my life delivered in a way that will end a relationship, make you feel like shit, or just lack tact.
My sisters have always told me, it's not what you say, Tai it's how you say it. Somehow I felt that today in this classroom, I felt compelled to let people know that their choices impact others. We're either all in this together or we're not. And if you're not, that's fine, but please leave because you're not adding anything of value to our experience together and you won't help us grow and evolve to become better actors or better humans.
That's all for today, guys and dolls. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode about finding your voice.
I don't know why I say it like that. I'm such a dork. We'll explore how we communicate with our bodies, how our children wreck our bodies, and how best to model honoring and loving them so our children learn to do the same to their own.
Don't forget to go to the show notes for a few vocal and speech exercises you can do for your own voice and fun games to do with your kids. Lots a tongue twista's.
If you enjoy this episode please spread a beautiful act of kindness by heading over to MFA, Buy Me a Coffee page. I'm a buy you a drink, and I'ma take you home with me. But you can't come home with me so you can buy me a drink to say, salud, keep up the good work. And by sharing the show with at least one person so they can listen on their favorite listening app of choice.
One last thing before we go, here's my audio hug to you so you can breathe a reset and kick some ass today. But don't literally kick anyone's ass, we've talked about this before, that is called assault.
Here's my special hug for you to paint your spirit a brighter hue. So catch this hug and hold it tight. Go walk in grace and shine your light.
Thanks again. And I'll see you on the other side.
https://www.mfaparentingedition.com/041
Episode title: I Got the Power
Episode summary introduction: Today we'll be talking about our voice. What does it mean to find your voice? How do I find my voice as a parent? If you were to use your voice authentically, respectfully, and effectively to communicate your feelings, what would it sound like? How can I teach my children to find their voice? And in communicating with our kids, understanding what we want to say and why we feel compelled to say it is going to make a huge impact on how we say things.
We’ll kick off our show with The Raise a Glass Series, get on to our questions to explore, and end with A Short Story Before We Go. MFA is the sometimes-musical, dramedy, in 3 acts, 1 intermission, the length of a sitcom designed to give mama’s (and any caregiver) a break in the day to breathe and reset along with a much needed audio hug.
Quote: “What a liberation to realize that the voice in my head is not who I am. Who am I? The one who sees that.” Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
Act I: The Raise a Glass Series
- The Raise a Glass Series is a space for reflection and gratitude centered around the topic of the day and inspired by lyrics from Hamilton the Musical.
Act II: Main Questions
- What does it mean to find your voice?
- How do I find my voice as a parent?
- If you were to use your voice authentically, respectfully, and effectively to communicate your feelings, what would it sound like?
- How can I teach my children to find their voice?
Intermission: Angelica Interlude
Hitting. To the dungeon you go!
Act III: A Short Story Before We Go
Tai’s Karen Chronicles
Get voice exercise’s to use on your own or with your family here
Episode transcript: available at https://www.mfaparentingedition.com/041
Sources that helped inspire this episode:
- 7 Steps to Finding Your Voice | HuffPost Life
- A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose | IndieBound.org
- SNAP! - The Power (Official Video) - YouTube
Connect with Me:
Best way - [email protected]
IG - @mfaparentingedition
Support the Show: buy me a drink to say “hey, keep up the good work”, just go to www.buymeacoffee.com/mfaparenting
-------------------------------------------------
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Mom: Angelica, can you say hello?
Angelica: Hello! Hello?
Mom: How are you today?
Angelica: I doing well…how are you?
Mom: Well I’m doing well also. (she laughs)
Welcome to MFA the parenting edition. I'm Taisha Cameron, a lover of children's picture books and Reese's peanut butter cups. I'm also and more relevant to the show. A mom to a feisty fiery fierce flailing finicky little kid and a trained. These lessons from the theater for raising ourselves and our kids came about after the life altering revelation I made, that my MFA in acting trained me for life as a mommy, better than life as a full-time actor. We'll explore some challenging questions. I'll share some stories and we'll kick things off with the raise of glass series, from the method to mommy meltdowns and all the moments in between. Welcome to MFA.
What a liberation to realize that the voice in my head is not who I am. Who am I? The one who sees that. Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
Episode 41. I Got the Power.
Hello hello and welcome back to MFA the parenting edition. Now today on our episode, we'll be talking about our voice. But before we get into all that, let's kick off our episode with another toast in our Raise a Glass series. You don't need to raise an actual glass unless you got one in hand already. And if you do I say holla, let's do this. And it's my birthday. So if you don't have one in hand already go get one.
The Raise a Glass Series is a space for reflection and gratitude centered around the topic of the day and inspired by lyrics from Hamilton the Musical.
I know I talked too much I'm abrasive, your incredible court, your succinct, persuasive.
Just because we have the ability to say everything that runs into our mind, doesn't mean we should. Over the years, I've been working on taking a step back before I speak. Listening so I can use my words with more grace and tact. On being more succinct, empathetic, and curious before responding. I fail miserably and keep trying. Learning when to speak out and when to keep my mouth shut is a daily challenge for me. And my feeling is for most people around the world, too. Our voices should be heard. We should find the things we are passionate about and let them ring. And it would also benefit us all to find the ability to listen more than we speak and review the things that we want to say before they come out of our mouth.
The words that we choose to say and how we use our voice to say them matters. We are accountable for them because they impact the lives of others, as well as our own.
Let's raise a glass to using our authentic voice, less abrasively, so we can communicate more openly and compassionately.
Question. What does it mean to find your voice? How do I find my voice as a parent? If you were to use your voice authentically, respectfully, and effectively to communicate your feelings, what would it sound like? How can I teach my children to find their voice?
An actor's toolbox.
When I was out of undergrad, one of my part-time jobs was teaching theater in an afterschool program. While I don't remember the name of the company or how long I worked there, what I took away and still incorporated on all the other children's theater teaching jobs I've ever had were the four main tools in an actor's toolbox. These tools are voice, body listening and imagination over the next few episodes. We'll touch on all of these, but today I want to look at. Finding our voice, exercising our voice, how we use our voice to communicate with others, and how we teach our kids to use their voice. Our voice is a powerful tool.
Now I'd like to just take a second and acknowledge that not everyone can produce sound from their larynx or communicate. Also, there are a plethora of ways to communicate non-verbally so the ability to communicate effectively does not solely fall on verbal communication. We know this. For this episode though, that's what we'll be discussing, the power of our voice. I got the power!
Now when I was in grad school for acting, we had a vocal class and a speech worked on articulation. The formation of sound in our mouth and communicating text with neutral American speech, or NAS for short. Voice class was all about training your body to release sound in healthy ways. Now there were students in our group that were singers and those who could not sing a note to save their life, but the class was not about turning people into singers. It was about connecting to the source of the sound coming from our body and using it to communicate what we needed to say. We all learned all kinds of vocal techniques and would work on songs to present in front of the class for feedback. And what that did was remind us to not just focus on, am I doing this technique right? Or, you know, does this sound okay, but am I getting the point across in this song to the audience? How we changed the inflection on our words, how he had a smile to color how a phrase lands, how he whispered to be secretive or projected to be heard in the back row are all grounded in what we're saying and why we're saying it.
That, what and why is the crux of communication between all people this is not just an actors on stage. And in communicating with our kids, that what and why is going to make a huge impact on how we say things.
Finding your voice.
We hear that a lot, right? We have to, we must it's imperative, we find our voice. Where did it go? Whose voice are we're using, if not our own? What the hell does that even mean find your voice? I'm speaking right now, didn't realize it was something that was lost. Artists are always being told that finding success in your career, whether as a writer, musician, painter, whatever, you have to find your voice. You alone, have something unique to share with the world in only the way you can deliver it. So you have to find your voice.
Before I went off to drama school, I had read A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I remember my mom and sister were reading the book for the Oprah and Eckhart masterclass, many, many, many, many, many, many moons ago. And I came home from work one night and I think they were gathered around the table, like watching the first class or something. I don't remember exactly, but I know my head was a bit full of the, oh, what new agey trip is Oprah sending people down now, you know, all high and mighty and judgie with my ideals about how other people are connecting to the world in ways that I was not ready to embrace myself.
They invited me to sit down. And so I joined them. I didn't know anything about the book. I hadn't read the first chapter, which is what I think they were discussing. I didn't even know who this person was, but something about their conversation shifted this block in my ego center. That made me curious to learn more.
So I bought the book and I just devoured it. I've probably read it about three times in my life. And it's been highlighted and written in like a textbook. My favorite quote to this day is the one that I used in the episode opening, what a liberation to realize that the voice in my head is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.
What?!
So for me, finding my voice is an ongoing process. We have so many voices in our head at all times, and this doesn't mean we should all be institutionalized. It means. We have taken in so much information throughout our lives of people's opinions, rules, laws, hypocrasies, demands, commands, loving words, and skepticism, all of that, that our true feelings and inner voice get muddled under all the other noise. Just think of it from the time we're born people of this world are shouting their voices at us and they incept our core. We take on the beliefs of our parents without giving it a second thought. We submit to government and law enforcement without question. We take our teachers praise or critique to heart and either shine or shrink. And then we become adults who are responding to the world based on how we were conditioned and feel disconnected from ourselves and what we want and need. And this might not be the case for everyone, I know. But far too many of us lose the ability to voice our wants and needs at a young age and have a real difficult time getting connected to it as adults. That's why there are so many people going into therapy.
Finding our voice means learning to shift through all the things we've been taught to believe, trust, all other people's opinions, all our doubts and self-deprecating ideas in order to find what we want and need at a deep level. Not the superficial shit. We talked, not the superficial shit. We tell ourselves we want to need, like, I want a new nose and I want a new bag and I need more chocolate. No you don't.
There is something deeper under all that noise screaming to be heard. And we're misinterpreting by connecting our wants and needs to an external source. We've not learned to know what we want and need and express it in a healthy way. Like I said before, the moment we're born people tell us what we want, what we need, and what they think is in our best interest.
How many times can you think of when you were a child that you are asked, what you wanted and it was respected? You were asked what you wanted to become as a grownup, and it wasn't met with laughs or criticism. You were asked if it was okay to take your photo and respected if you said no. You were asked if you wanted to go to school. And if you said no, an alternative style program was found to honor your needs and learning abilities.
If we are not given the opportunity to make decisions for ourselves as children and young adults within the safety of our homes in our family, then how in the hell are we expected to know what we want and need and be able to go after it and express it in healthy ways as adults? And if we then grow up to become parents, how do we trust our instinct on what we feel in our gut is in the best interest of our children and not based on religion, government policies and laws, our parents' ideas, our friend's ideas, the advice from the millions of child experts out there? I mean, how do we find our voice as a parent?
Getting quiet with yourself on a regular basis. And just sitting with all the sensations in your body and feelings in your heart is one thing we can do. Making a practice of meditation has been a huge help for me. It might not work for everybody. Everyone's mind is in a different place. And so meditation might not be your thing. Some people find their meditation in activities. Maybe you're someone who loves to paint and once you've been able to like, let all that creative energy flow in, you have the space to be like, Hey, I can hear my own voice from here.
But whatever that might be that you choose, quieting the space between the thoughts in your head helps clear up a lot of that clutter, that accumulates from other people's bullshit that we end up carrying around and our own negative self-talk. Connecting to that space has encouraged me to really feel what the difference is between my wants and needs.
I mean, just the other day I was putting up Christmas lights outside and I told my husband that I just needed to get this done. And was quickly getting into a, like a tizzy about all the amounts of work that I needed to get done.
And he jumped in super quick and was like, you want to put up the lights. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I want to put up the lights. It's not a need. What's going to happen if I don't put them up, huh? Nothing. Is Christmas going to be canceled because I didn't put up my Christmas lights outside? No, I've never put Christmas lights up outside. This is the first year I'm going to do it. Nothing is going to happen. They just won't be up in the days we'll still go on. Shifting my words helped shift my energy. Then it wasn't a chore on my to-do list, it was a fun activity to get into the holiday spirit.
So it was like how I chose to talk about the lights was dictating my energy and how I was then going to end up talking to the rest of my family. Because the words we use matter. They shift the energy of how we say them, that energy directly relates to how we treat ourselves and the people around us. And now it's time for a break.
Angelica Interlude:
Taisha: All right, Angelica. Here we are again.
Angelica: Hello.
Taisha: Would you like to record another episode together?
Angelica: Um, yeah.
Taisha: Okay. Okay, so, what would you like to talk about today, Angelica?
Angelica: I want to talk about hitting.
Taisha: About hitting? Okay. What do you want to say about hitting?
Angelica: We will hit each other like this, and then we apologize.
Taisha: How do you apologize after you've hit someone?
Angelica: If we rub them.
Taisha: We rubbed them?
Angelica: And give them company.
Taisha: And are there any words that you would say to apologize?
Angelica: I'm sorry.
Taisha: Sorry for what?
Angelica: For hitting you.
Taisha: That's right.
Angelica: You will forgive me.
Taisha: I will forgive you? But what if the person doesn't want to forgive you? What do you do then?
Angelica: Then we tickle them.
Taisha: You tickle them? Oh my goodness. What do I tell you when you hit?
Angelica: You say, tickle me.
Taisha: No, that's not what I say. What do I say? When you hit, you hit me or you hit other people?
Angelica: You say, I'm gonna throw you in the dungeon.
Taisha: Throw you in the dungeon? I wish we had a dungeon, but we don't have one. So that's not what I say. What do I say?
Angelica: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Taisha: I like your little song there. No, I tell you, I won't let you hit. Or I won't let you hit them. If it's somebody else that you've hit,
Angelica: Daddy, we're working on our podcast.
Taisha: We are working on the podcast.
Have you ever played interpreter? There's an improv game in which someone speaks in gibberish and another person has to interpret for them to the other characters in the scene. I feel I've made a habit of interpreting for my daughter, Angelica. She's not deaf, she's not vocally impaired. I just want other people around her to understand what she's saying. Now what I need to remember is to balance out the times I play interpreter with the times I encourage her to repeat herself clearer, so people understand her. It's giving her space to say all that she has to say, and me listen intently so she feels safe and supported to speak what's on her mind and in her heart, that's how someone finds their voice. They are given a space to share what is in their head and heart.
The more I encourage her to say what she's feeling and thinking in the safety of our home. She'll then take that confidence, hopefully out into the world and speak for herself. No, mommy interpreter necessary.
We all had different environments we grew up in, right? And that either supported or hindered our ability to express ourselves. We may have lost our voice out of our own self- protection and have been on a lifelong journey to find it again. And that takes practice. But to be truly connected to our spirit, our soul, ourselves, whatever you want to call it, we need to be able to connect to our powerful tool of communication, our voice.
How do we do the damn thing? Well, first figure out what you want to communicate and why it's important to say it. If, what I want to say is don't touch the oven because it's hot. And my daughter is three inches from the oven and I'm like 15 feet away from her or more, how I say it is going to be a lot different than if I'm standing close to the oven and can physically put my body between her and it. My voice will probably come out more like a roar, get away from the oven. While it might be like firm with a calmer tone, I won't let you touch the oven, if I'm available to keep her safe.
There are so many things we say to our children every day that we have to remember, it's a lot for them to take in. We like to think it's not a lot for them to take in because as adults, we take in all this information all the time and we perfectly handle ourselves and we know how to cope with everything, and we just manage everything fantastically, which is again, the lies and bullshit we tell ourselves. But they're kids, they literally have been on this planet a lot less time than us. So yeah, we've had more years experience. They haven't, not yet. The more we overwhelm them with demands, commands, warnings, and other kinds of verbal stimulation the more they're likely to tune us out. Which we'll talk about more in the listening episode. But if they are at the point of tuning us out, how we use our voice will change dramatically.
I remember this summer when Angelica, she needed to have, a shunt revision and we were in the hospital to get admitted because she was gonna have surgery the next morning. Well, if you have never been in a room with a four-year-old child who needed an IV put in them, I hope you never have to experience that because the level of screaming that was coming out of my child was something that still curls the blood inside of me. And so since we've been talking about using your voice so much, she kept on shouting to the nurses there who were all like, it's okay. Don't worry. Look, look at the iPad. What do you want to see on the iPad? What do you want me to put on your favorite show? Ooh, look at this, isn't this pretty? We'll give you presents, and on and on. And all she kept on saying to them was you're not respecting my boundaries. Stop. Don't touch me. You're not respecting my boundaries.
And at no point did any of the staff there look at her and be like, I know we're not respecting your boundaries, and I'm so sorry that we cannot right now, but for your health and safety, this surgery needs to happen and this is something we need to do. I understand it hurts. I understand that you have used your voice to express what you wanted to say, and I hear you. And I know that this is not where you wanna be. And I'm sorry that I'm the person who has to be doing this to you right now. But because I care about you, I'm going to be honest with you. This still needs to get done. And I understand it's crossing your boundaries, but I've heard you. I know that you do not want this.
At no point did anybody do that. And I get it. We want to distract and deflect and give our kids something else to focus on so we can get done what we need to. But when a child is screaming, you're not respecting my boundaries or something else along the lines saying how they're feeling, they want to know that they've been heard. They want to know someone hears them, will address them and their needs. And maybe from there help them to understand what's going on, make them feel better or stop what's happening.
And in a situation like that, where, I'm sure in a children's hospital you've got so many kids coming in, you are just on we need to get done what we need to get done so distract, deflect, do whatever you need to do, to try to get the kids mind off of this. Like we don't have the time to listen to every child.
And I would like to argue that you do have the time to listen to every child. It takes just as much time to listen to a child's words and say, I hear you. You want me to respect your boundaries and you're upset that I am not. It takes the same amount of time to do that as it does to say, oh, do you want to look at the iPad? What do you want to see now? Um, do you want me to put on this video for you? Or do you want to, who would you like this? And you wanna hear a baby shark again? No one wants to fucking hear baby shark again. Goddammit!
Help kids learn to use their voice by acknowledging when they use their voice.
I feel the best way to effectively communicate with our children and any child we're around is to talk to them in the respectful manner you use with someone you Revere or love, or you yourself would like to be spoken to. And I get it. I get it. It is hard. I have conversations with my husband all the time where he's just like, whoa, Tai, the way you talk to Angelica sometimes. And I know it. I am aggressive. I am aggressive.
And I also recognize that those are moments of my failing and I can try again. We fail as parents and we can try again. It's like in any acting scene, you try one tactic, it doesn't work or it doesn't help, it doesn't move the story along, you find a new one. So you figure out what you want to say and why you want to say it. Is it to show affection? Is it to warn them? Is it to instruct them? Is it to comfort them? Once you're clear on the intent and the reason why it must be said and said now, and not 10 minutes later, it will help figure out the most effective way to say what you need, the how the words will come out.
So lovelies, I'll ask you again. What does it mean to find your voice? How do I find my voice as a parent? If I were to use my voice authentically, respectfully, and effectively to communicate my feelings, what would it sound like? How can I teach my children to find their voice?
So to answer the question, how can you teach your children to find their voice, by modeling how to effectively use your voice. Without being preachy or teachy you show them to speak out about their feelings, their thoughts, their observations around them, you model how to effectively communicate by making choices in how you speak to them based on the what and why. Now, that's super hard shit to do. I can't even tell you how many times I've had that intention in my head and been focused on communicating in a respectful manner with authority and space for hearing her responses and that shit goes out the window real fast.
Because Lord knows what tiny nonsense went down, and before you know it, I'm screaming at the top of my lungs and she's screaming right back at me. And we're both stomping with our hands on our hips, just yelling at each other. And she does it back at me because that's what I've modeled. So when I get all stressed and lose my cool and start yelling, that shows her, Hey, that form of communication is acceptable. Mom does it so can I. And I have to say that while it's even more infuriating as a mama to have her scream back at me, it is a really fast kick in the ass to get my shit together, apologize, and model a different way of communicating. While there is nothing necessarily wrong with letting out feelings in that way there is something bad when it is all that's modeled, because then you're saying, this is the way to get your point across. Or, you might have a child that won't yell back and they'll internalize everything and think that they're bad or learn how to be compliant enough to not experience that again, or tune you out so much they tune out most people out of fear of getting that kind of response from them.
Once we take some time to sit with what we want to say and why it's important, we'll figure out how to say it. That helps our children and other people better understand us. And it gives us space to respect and better understand others.
A Short Story Before We Go.
Do it now, Tai, class is just about to end do it now or stop seething about it.
I sprang up on the big black rehearsal box and faced the class.
I know we all have Gary Vena's theater history exam tomorrow, and we could all use more time to study for it. I just wanted to say that I found it really disrespectful that while there was a scene going on and our classmates are working up there that so many of you would be hiding in your notebooks, studying for tomorrow's exam. If you needed that much more time to study you should've just stayed home and not come to class. The people working today didn't get this extra time to study, those of us who were actually paying attention. So we can give feedback on the scene didn't get extra time to study. So how about we all be a little bit more respectful of each other's work in here and save our studying for outside of the studio.
Some people apologized. Others looked at me like, who the fuck are you to be shaming me for what I feel is important to do right now, fuck you. Some might've developed respect for me for literally standing on a soap box and others probably lost a lot of respect for my choice.
I don't always get involved with speaking my mind about things I see wrong in the world. I'm not a political activist. I don't have a community board. I haven't been elected to any office. I don't make a point of speaking out for the things I feel are important on a global scale. However, in my personal life, in the small bubble of the world, in which I live and operate, I am known by the people who have had the strongest interactions with me as a person who will speak their mind, advocate, be vocal against or for what I feel is right, or just based on the principle of the matter. I will tell you how I am truly feeling I will, on my best days, deliver it in a way that will be honest to you and uplifting and on my worst day, which, unfortunately, there have been more of in my life delivered in a way that will end a relationship, make you feel like shit, or just lack tact.
My sisters have always told me, it's not what you say, Tai it's how you say it. Somehow I felt that today in this classroom, I felt compelled to let people know that their choices impact others. We're either all in this together or we're not. And if you're not, that's fine, but please leave because you're not adding anything of value to our experience together and you won't help us grow and evolve to become better actors or better humans.
That's all for today, guys and dolls. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode about finding your voice.
I don't know why I say it like that. I'm such a dork. We'll explore how we communicate with our bodies, how our children wreck our bodies, and how best to model honoring and loving them so our children learn to do the same to their own.
Don't forget to go to the show notes for a few vocal and speech exercises you can do for your own voice and fun games to do with your kids. Lots a tongue twista's.
If you enjoy this episode please spread a beautiful act of kindness by heading over to MFA, Buy Me a Coffee page. I'm a buy you a drink, and I'ma take you home with me. But you can't come home with me so you can buy me a drink to say, salud, keep up the good work. And by sharing the show with at least one person so they can listen on their favorite listening app of choice.
One last thing before we go, here's my audio hug to you so you can breathe a reset and kick some ass today. But don't literally kick anyone's ass, we've talked about this before, that is called assault.
Here's my special hug for you to paint your spirit a brighter hue. So catch this hug and hold it tight. Go walk in grace and shine your light.
Thanks again. And I'll see you on the other side.