Voice Movement Therapy

Identity is fluid. We can continuously reinvent ourselves through Personal expression. Culture continuously evolves and so do we. The world around us never stays still and we change right alongside it.

Worldwide Recognition for Personal Expression

In 2016, The Swedish Academy in Stockholm awarded Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, said: “If you look back, far back, 2,500 years or so, you discover Homer and Sappho and they wrote poetic texts that were meant to be listened to, that were meant to be performed, often with instruments — and it’s the same way with Bob Dylan.” She also said: “for 54 years now he has been at it – and reinventing himself constantly… reinventing himself…creating a new identity.”

We Continuously Reinvent Our Identity

Have you ever tried to look back to capture how you perceived something in your past? Have you ever noticed how the way you think today has changed from the way you thought about things in the past? Isn’t that only to be expected? Isn’t that only natural? But how do we deal with these changes? Do we accept them as natural or do we defend ourselves against change?

Personal Expression Can Be Private or Public

I don’t expect to win a Nobel Prize anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t or shouldn’t express myself. I can do so privately or I can express myself more publicly. There are platforms and means either way.

One can write in his journal for no one else to view. One can sing in the privacy of their own home for no one else to hear. However, these days, one can also easily post a video for all to see on YouTube or collaborate with others on a platform such as Bandhub.com.

Personal Expression and Mental Health

Self-expression can be really healthy for the heart, mind and soul. Writing can help me clarify what is in my mind or what is in my heart. A creative outlet can transform something that feels heavy, ugly or dark into something of meaning or beauty. Self-Expression shared more publicly could potentially be of benefit to others. It could be validating, soothing or meaningful in some way to take in another person’s expressions.

Personal Expression Doesn’t Require Talent

David C Ward of Smithsonian.com wrote: “Dylan proved that you could be a great singer without being able to sing”. You don’t have to have a “good” voice to sing. What is a good voice anyhow? Expressing your truth and your heart is what matters. Finding ways to relate to ourselves and others is what matters. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, no?

You Can Express Yourself

Expression can come in many forms. You can dance. You can write. You can draw. You can garden. You can do crafts. You can play the Kazoo. You can pray. You can chant. You can run. You can jump. You can play a sport. The list goes on and on and on.

Having Fun and Socializing with Self Expression

Recently I discovered Bandhub.com. and learned that I can collaborate with others anywhere in the world without having to travel. I heard that someone participated in a collaboration by uploading of video of themselves simply knitting! How funny is that?!!

So, “to put my money where my mouth is”, I uploaded a personal example for this blog!

Lisa T Perry, MEd, LCMHC, CCMHC, VMT-R is a Licensed Professional Counselor who loves to facilitate growth through personal and voice expression.

Sometimes emotions can come on hard and fast. It can take a lot to just merely hold on. Have you ever felt like managing emotions can sometimes feel like living through a storm? I was thinking about that today. Would you believe I discovered that Tropical Storm Lisa (my name) developed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean this very morning? Funny!

Emotions are like Storms

In many ways emotions are like storms. Neither emotions nor storms will be denied. Emotions and storms are both forces of nature. However, we can do our best to prepare ourselves for the inevitable.

Storms, emotions, and Intensity

Storms, likes emotions, vary in intensity. As it turns out, Tropical Storm Lisa is actually a “weak” system. Emotional storms can also be powerful or mild. For instance, anger can range from mild irritation to rage. Anxiety can range from feeling a little on-guard to full blown Panic.

Emotions, Storms and Beauty

If you are viewing a storm from a safe place, you might be able to appreciate it’s beauty. The rush of the wind and the sound of the rain can be exhilarating. The display of colors can be magnificent!

Experienced through the safe container of art, we can be moved by the beauty of exquisite emotions. Drama can deeply stir our souls. Dancing can lead to ecstasy. Music can open up our tender heart. Dream images can be woven into a quilt. Deep longing can be expressed through poetry.

Managing Emotions, Storms and Time

Emotions, like storms, pass on their own time schedule. You can’t hurry a storm. You can’t rush grief. You can’t hold onto a wave.  You can’t control the passing undulations of joy.

Emotions and Storms deserve your respect

As potentially powerful forces of nature, emotions (like storms) deserve our respect. If we try to ignore them, they will not just go away. Will can be overcome if we don’t prepare ourselves for them properly. If we bottle our emotions, they will only become stronger.  Mismanagement of emotions can lead to violence, destruction or depression. Repressing our emotions will only serve to limit joy, passion and contentedness.

Managing Emotions: the storm of fear

Sometimes poems, like prayers, can be invoked as a powerful tool for facing and living through fear storms. For example, I have found A litany Against Fear written by Frank Herbert (Dune)  to be a life saver. The litany reads as follows:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

What do you use to make it through your emotional storms? Do you believe you can grow in the face of emotional overwhelm? 

Lisa T Perry, MEd, LCMHC, CCMHC, VMT-R is a Licensed Professional Counselor who would love to help you manage your emotional storms or transform them into something meaningful and beautiful through voice movement therapy.

Paying attention to your voice can improve your life. Because the sound of our voice affects how we feel, voice-work be a huge aid in psychotherapy. As thoughts descend from the “head” and emotions come up from the “heart”, our “soul” is revealed through the voice

Disowning the low voice

Dawn is a 47 year old woman who almost always speaks with a very high pitched voice. She said in exasperation: “Whenever I answer the telephone, I’m told to put my mother on the phone. I’m an adult! This is so frustrating!” I asked her to experiment with vocalizing on lower pitches. After doing so for about 15 seconds, she said: “I feel very frightened. I’m not allowed to sound like this! This is my father’s voice and he always hollered.”

Embracing the high voice

Stefany is a 35 year old woman who sings in a community choir. She tells me she’s an Alto. She is convinced she could never sing the part of Soprano. She says: “My voice doesn’t do those higher notes.” At some point during psychotherapy, I encourage her to explore her upper vocal range. She tells me this makes her feel quite vulnerable and weak. She starts to cry and recalls to me how it was not very safe to be a female in her family growing up. Over time, as she explores and becomes more comfortable with her upper range, she finds herself embracing her femininity too.

Voice-work improves social skills

14 year old Brittany tells me she is feeling very sad because “people don’t like me”. She said her teachers get upset with her for being disruptive and her peers think she’s rude. She is talking very loudly to me, even though I am sitting very close to her. Her teacher tells me: “she always speaks with this same loud voice, regardless of the circumstances”. The teacher adds: “her whole family talks this way too”. Brittany is stuck in a particular way of sounding but is not truly aware of her capabilities. She can easily learn to expand her voice so that she can enjoy herself within a variety of social situations.

Voice-work and sexuality

Nicole, a 38 year old married woman, confides to me that she has been feeling depressed for several years now. Adding in that she does not feel inspired in her life, she acknowledges that she has not had a sexual appetite in years as well. Observing how she breathes, I notice she is expanding and contracting her rib-cage only. There is little movement observed in her abdomen and her upper chest does not move much either. With some guidance, Nicole discovers a very full, deep and resonant sound in her voice. Over the next few days, she notices longings for sexuality in her life. Her sexual appetite has returned, but she realizes she is still not attracted to her husband. She knows she is in a quandary now.

The choked voice

33 year Betsy is crying through choked tears, as she tells me about how she has been having trouble reading bedtime stories to her children at night. She acknowledges she has been feeling stressed lately, but most upsetting to her is that her throat has been tightening up on her a lot. She notices the same thing has been happening to her at work too, especially when engaging with certain customers. She doesn’t know what to do.

*The above scenarios are inspired by true encounters. However, each vignette has been altered such that similarity to any actual individual would be purely accidental.

Lisa T Perry, MEd, LCMHC, CCMHC, VMT-R is a Licensed Professional Counselor and registered Voice Movement Therapy Practitioner. She is very aware of how voice and psyche interact and can integrate voice-work into her psychotherapy.

Everyone knows that our emotions and our breathing is connected. We’re often advised to “take a deep breathe” when we are upset. Classes in Yoga and meditation have sprung up everywhere we look. But very often, we are given seemingly simple advice to “just breathe” and we don’t know exactly where to go with that.

About 15 years ago, I was taught a simple breathing exercise by a singing instructor. Over the next few days, after practicing this way of breathing, I experienced very strong memories and emotions. I developed a severe sore throat and I even came down with bronchitis. I had no idea what was happening to me. Although very unpleasant at the time, this experience led me down a very positive and life changing path.

How we feel affects how we breathe

We sense that how we feel affects how we breathe. We take note of more rapid and shallow breathe when we feel anxious. When shocked or surprised, we may suddenly suck in our breath. When frightened, we may hold our breath. When tired, we widen our breath into a yawn. We may sigh when exasperated or relieved. Strong reactions like nausea, fury, sexual stimulation – all evoke changes in breathing.

How we feel affects how we hold ourselves

Our emotional reactions greatly influence our body in other ways as well. Our muscles tense and relax and form different postures in relation to how we feel about ourselves and others. We may find ourselves stiff and tight or more relaxed and flexible. Our posture may be leaning towards or contracting away from a particular person or situation.

How we use imagery can change our breathing

We can focus our attention and use our imagination to influence how we hold our body. Any muscle that we focus upon can be relaxed and/or tensed. In doing so, we can change the shape of the instrument that our body breathes through. For example, just like we can choose to squeeze and then relax our fist, we can also choose to squeeze and then relax other muscles that support breathing. We can experiment with muscles in our stomach, chest, back, sides, neck, throat, shoulders, pelvic floor, etc.

We can create more subtle shapes and varying levels of tension with more holistic images. If we use our imagination, we can breathe through so many different shapes and sizes. If we use our imagination, we can breathe into and touch many parts of the body that may normally be guarded and protected.

Culture and Breathing

I remember learning about a tribe that believed their lungs were in their thighs. Could you imagine how they might have experienced their breathing? I dare you to walk around for a while and try this out for yourself! It really is quite astounding.

For purposes of survival and to fit into our societies, most of us have learned to hold ourselves in ways that can be habitual and limiting. Most of this is not in our awareness. We just walk around the way we do. We just hold ourselves the way we do.

If you were to observe an infant, you might notice the way they breathe is very different than the way we have learned to breathe. For example, have you ever noticed the uninhibited expansion and contraction of the belly? How many among us fly so freely as we “mature”?

Breathing the tube

Imagine you have swallowed a very flexible and malleable tube that extends from your mouth through to your “bottom”. (See how my words are affected by culture here?) This tube can have different lengths and widths. You can tighten it to make it rigid or breath into it to expand it outwards like a balloon. Try out some different images:

Piccolo or Flute – Shorter or longer and very narrow.

Saxophone – Very long and very wide.

Breathing and Emotion

When you have some quiet time, allow yourself to really breathe the entire instrument of your body. You can play with different images. When we explore different ways of breathing our body, we wind up expanding into areas that we don’t typically reach. Sometimes this can bring up different emotions.

For instance, you can imagine your body is like an accordion. The accordion can start in the position of a fully exhaled rigid structure. In this position, your body is more collapsed inward and there is limited space to breathe from. Notice what this feels like. Does it remind you of anything?

You can imagine this accordion expands all the way to its widest and fullest position. You can breathe your entire body, noticing what every nook and cranny feels like. What does it feel like to breathe all the way into your back? What is it like to expand your mid chest fully? What it is like to explore the dimensions of your body 360 degrees around like you are a full sphere?

If you are feeling courageous, playful or just plain curious, you can expand the breathing into sound. You are now playing the instrument you had been breathing. When we vocalize we:

• extend the breath out more fully
• experience more vibration and felt sensations
• engage another part of our brain where emotions lie even more closely

So, next time someone tells you to “just breathe”, you might have some more ideas about how to do that!

Lisa T Perry, MEd, LCMHC, CCMHC, VMT-R is a Licensed Professional Counselor who simple cannot separate emotion from the body. She likes to incorporate breath-work productively into her counseling work. Reach out to learn more about how therapy for voice movement can work for you.

Personally, I think we’re all a little crazy. Why do I think that? Because I’m human and all humans are vulnerable to crazy thoughts… at least some of the time.

Have you ever paid attention to your thoughts? I mean literally. Have you ever observed the exact phrases that run across your mind? Have you ever noticed that sometimes – maybe not all the time – but at least sometimes – that what you are thinking is not actually based in fact?

Definitions of Crazy

What is crazy anyhow?

The Definition of CRAZY according to Merriam-Webster include terms such as:

• “full of cracks or flaws”
• “being out of the ordinary” and
• “distracted with desire or excitement”

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I think we all need a little more extraordinary in our lives. Sometimes we need to get away from logical and practical and actually get more into our “right minds”. And haven’t you ever noticed the beauty in imperfection? Check out a plant or a tree. If you look closely, do you see the marvelous cracks and flaws?

Where do my crazy thoughts come from?

Our thoughts can come from so many places. We can pick up thoughts from images, emotions, dreams, memories, conversations, media, our senses, etc. The list goes on. We can pick up stuff from almost anywhere. After all, we are all connected. We can hear something on the news; We can remember something from our past; We can “hear” things that have been “recorded” into our memory banks, this list goes on.

Be kind to your crazy human self

Shame never helps. Shame only makes us feel more alone, and dare I say, crazier. How would you treat a loved one if you knew they were struggling with feeling a little crazy? Would you shame them or would you try to help them out? Perhaps you’d even relate to what they are feeling. What would you want if you were in that same space?

Have a sense of humor about crazy

Have you ever noticed that comedians act a little crazy? It’s funny. It’s fun. Sometimes we are laughing so hard it hurts. Sometimes what we laugh about is actually what we find to be the deep down truth. It’s all mixed together somehow – in this big crazy life.

Be creative with your crazy self

Sometimes crazy can be just the right fertilizer to produce wonderfully juicy fruit. Creative problem solving always calls for Brainstorming. We are told to allow all thoughts and ideas flow during the process. Divergence comes before Convergence. Amazing music can come from experimenting with unusual sounds; Great art can come from combining different kinds of media, Compelling stories can come from trying to connect two seemingly disconnected words. Just like there is no stupid question – there is no truly crazy idea.

Choose crazy and Enantiodromia

Anything taken to its extreme turns into its opposite. Sometimes you just have to go with it. Find a safe place and let it out. You can tell yourself “I’m choosing this right now”. That way you can feel just a little bit more in control.

Set “safety” parameters for crazy

When choosing to go with crazy, set some parameters that make you feel safe. For instance: if crazy might be loud, you can choose a place that allows for sound without feeling embarrassed or like you are bothering somebody else. If crazy might be physical, you might choose a place that has objects that won’t hurt yourself or others or things that have value. If indulging crazy may lead to tears or strong emotional expression, you may want to schedule a crazy time with yourself that gives you time to transition to something else. You may consider having your social supports in the wings.

When to call a counselor

If you are feeling overwhelmed or if you just want a little extra guidance and support from an expert, seeking help from a qualified counselor can be wonderful too.

Lisa T Perry, MED, LCMHC, CCMHC, VMT-R is a Licensed Professional Counselor who can find the silly in the serious. If you’d like to learn how voice movement therapy can help you, reach out today!

We all have a voice. Our voice may not be clear to us or it may be in hiding. We may not like our voice and we may not be expressing it intentionally. But it most certainly is there.

Our voice has many colors and  takes many forms. It may be clear as a bell or hidden among the mist. It may be like a solo violinist or more like the many blended voices of a choir. It may be pleasing to the ear or very painful to behold.

However, if you don’t recognize your own voice, you may not be hearing what it has to say. You may not be taking action on important beliefs or needs. You may not be living your life fully.

Where to find your voice

Fingerprints of our voice are everywhere we look, when we know how to look for it. We can find aspects of our voice in:

Thought Content

Inside your mind you’ll find many ideas, reactions, passions, worries, opinions and beliefs. In fact you might find you have several points of view just on the same subject. You might notice a single word, a phrase or a sentence. You might notice monologues, dialogues and chat-rooms.

Dreams, Images, Imagination

Messages come to us in the form of images by day or dreams at night. We can consciously play with our imagination or we can reflect upon what comes into view at other times.

Behaviors

How we spend our time and our money can say a lot about what we value, what we desire, what we allow ourselves and what we prioritize. Competing behaviors may be an expression of unresolved inner conflict. We can behave unconsciously without consulting our voice, or we can learn to recognize our voice in our actions and then assert ourselves accordingly.

Movements

How we move, whether conscious or not, can say volumes about us as well. We may be voicing like or dislike, comfort or discomfort, commitment or ambivalence.

Emotions

As you go about your day, if you notice what frustrates you, inspires you, makes you laugh, moves you to tears or experience yearning. All of this may be your voice telling you what you feel passionate about or where you may wish to put your energy.

Physical Sensations

Our bodies tell us what we feel by the sensations that get stirred by what we experience and observe in the world. It’s like our body is giving us its opinion on something. It may tense up trying to protect us. It may relax or lean into something. It may be voicing its preference and its concerns.

Nonverbal vocalizations

The sounds we make and how we say things can be very telling. We may be vocalize softly or with more volume, we may articulate clearly or be muffled, we may strike out in high pitch or with a low growl, our voice might sound choked or fancy free. There are a variety of vocal components that conspire to speak much louder than words.

Our Breathing

Whether shallow, deep, expansive, held, rapid or slow, your breathe may be communicating how safe and free you are feeling, among other things.

When you find your voice, you need to honor it

It is very important to give your voice the respect it deserves. Sometimes we don’t want to acknowledge it. Sometimes we don’t want to hear what it has to say. Sometimes we just don’t like it. We might find it embarrassing. We might think what our voice has to say is wrong, irrational or even downright mean. We might be terrified of conflict.

But if we try to ignore our voice, it will only get louder. It will only try to get our attention in some other way. We will run the risk of continuing to do things that don’t serve us. We may find ourselves on the wrong end of medical complaints. We may become caught up in unproductive or unsatisfying relationships. We may find ourselves lacking in passion or energy for life.

If we can recognize, honor and express our voice, we can make decisions that help us flow in the direction of our values and needs.

How to listen to the voice you have found

Listen to your voice as an objective observer or scientist. Just the facts ma’am just the facts! If you can listen compassionately – with an eye towards curiosity – lean in and see what it is saying. Remember what we ignore doesn’t go away – it just may act out in some other way.

Remember that just because you are thinking something doesn’t mean you have to act upon it. But if the thought is coming across your mind – it may be trying to tell you something. Perhaps there is something that you worried about, perhaps there’s something you forgot to do, perhaps you have an unexpressed emotion or opinion, perhaps there’s just some junk traveling through. If you don’t pause long enough to listen – it might be hard to decipher what’s important- you might not be fully informed by all of your opinions and points of view.

If during your observations you notice that certain voices are monopolizing and crowding out others – you can make a more informed choice about that too. A worry may be creating repetition in the form of obsessions or compulsions, wasting your time doing things over and over that are sufficiently done, unfulfilled desire may cause you to do things that you later regret – or at times that you would have preferred not to do these things. Perhaps unfulfilled desire is spending too much money or time on something in particular to get its needs met.

If you need help finding or expressing your voice, please contact me!

Lisa T Perry, MEd, LCMHC, CCMHC, VMT-R is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Registered Voice Movement Therapy Practitioner, who loves to help people find and and express their unique voice.