Adele Cabot

Samara chats with the expert voice coach about how to find your real and true voice under the layers of socialization that’s gotten in its way, and what stress does to all of us... which includes, among other things, literally making it harder to speak. This is the episode about feeling our feelings and saying what we really want to say, especially during pandemic times. 

Host: Samara Bay

Executive producers: Catherine Burt Cantin & Mark Cantin, Double Vision doublevisionprojects.com

Producers: Samara Bay, Sophie Lichterman and the iHeart team

Theme music: Mark Cantin

For the article about women’s voices in groups, by Brittany Karford Rogers: magazine.byu.edu/article/when-women-dont-speak/

For more on Adele Cabot: adelecabot.com/la-voice-joy/welcome/

To download Adele’s voice warmups: adelecabot.com/la-voice-joy/actors/buy-voice-warm-up/

For more on Kristin Linklater: linklatervoice.com/linklater-voice/about-linklater-voice

 For more on the chakras: blog.mindvalley.com/7-chakras/

 For Oprah’s Golden Globes speech: youtube.com/watch?v=TTyiq-JpM-0

 For more on honoring native lands: usdac.us/nativeland

 

****How are you feeling about your voice? Send Samara a question for our next mailbag episode at .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay. This is a quote from of all places, Brigham
Young University's magazine, in a piece by Brittany Carford Rogers
about some studies that were done on small groups with
mixed gender and how many women needed to be in
a group before women spoke up as frequently as men.

(00:20):
Here's the quote, what happens when women are outnumbered? After
years spent analyzing lab and real life settings to determine
what it takes for a woman to really be heard,
to truly be perceived as competent and influential, these professors
have found the same truth for women. Having a seat
at the table does not mean having a voice. Quote.
Women are systematically seen as less authoritative, says priests, And

(00:44):
their influence is systematically lower, and they're speaking less. And
when they're speaking up, they're not being listened to as much,
and they're being interrupted more. End quote. That article, by
the way, ends with this beautiful quote. The goal is
to create a space where women can be seen as
influential as their authentic selves. Welcome to the podcast. That's

(01:12):
all about the voice, which means it's all about power.
Who has it, how we get it, how we sound
when we have it. I'm your host, Samarve, and this
is permission to speak where we can throw all our
best ideas about how to get ourselves heard into the
pot and start. This week's guest is a Dell Cabit.

(01:41):
She is a beloved voice coach in l A who
has worked for twenty years with actors, with non actors,
with anyone who wants to figure out how to release
the voice within the one that you know I've gotten
beat it out of you with like they're too loud,
you're too soft, you're too anything's, which is something that
we talk about in our conversation. I wanted to have

(02:03):
Adele on because she is someone that I actually turned
to as an advisor in this realm. I have sent
people to her. She's trained in the link later method,
which you'll hear more about what that actually means. UM
in our conversation, she's such a deep and really loving
and generous understanding of the connection between the voice that

(02:24):
comes out of us and the body that is often
getting in its way and why. And we go really
deep here about the layers of socialist ship and we
also come out the other side. UM. It's quite optimistic
and Adele's got just such beautiful insights about what it
means to find your voice, to really let yourself out.

(02:46):
I can't wait for you to hear it. This is
Adele and here we are in our respective home studios,
with our respective tea and water. Why good voice people?
So hi, Adele, welcome, Thank you for doing, Thank you

(03:09):
for having me. You are a well known voice coach
in l A and you work with not just actors
but also non actors. So I'm wondering just to start off,
if you could tell me. You know, obviously we're in
this bizarre time when nobody's really working in person with anybody.
But but prior in the in the before times, as
they say, who of the non actors who tended to

(03:32):
come to you? And why? Ah? Okay, good question. I
mean I always say that I work with anybody who
has a voice, so that's most people. Um, but people
come to me mostly uh when they perceived that something
is wrong with their voice so called wrong, or if
they're experiencing some kind of vocal pain or issue that

(03:55):
they're confused about they don't know what to do, or
you know, a lot of people get feedback at work saying, um,
you know your voice, you gotta work on your voice.
Your voice is either too sounds too young, you sound
like a little girl or a little or you don't
sound like a man. I mean, people say things to
people about their voice that is that is really rude. Yeah,

(04:18):
it comes up. It comes up a lot, you know,
on this podcast because obviously those little those little comments,
especially you know when the stakes are high, whether it's
in work or when you were young and you're just
figuring out who you were. They stay with us, Yeah,
they really do. That's the main reason why people come
to see me is because of things that they were
told as children or at any time really um about

(04:41):
their voice or about themselves, or if they have somehow
gotten the idea that it that it was it was
more advantageous to them to to learn to shut up.
They actually the body which is designed to survive. If
you're in a situation at any point in your life,
when you are you know you're threatened, or your body

(05:02):
figures out I gotta you have to be quiet or
you could be in danger. You know, then the muscular
ture of the body will actually go through that and
might cut off your breathing or your throat muscles might tighten,
or your tongue or your jaw or anything can happen,
and then that can have an effect on a person's
voice for the rest of their life. And it's really
crazy because nobody really knows this. This isn't common knowledge.

(05:26):
It's not something we learned in high school or even
college unless you go to your theater department and take
a voice class or something. Although I have done a
little bit of voice work in MBA schools, they do
have voice work. Now they're they're starting to realize that
there's like, you know, I'm on mind body voice connection exactly. Yeah,
you know. I even had a one of the partners

(05:49):
in a law firm call me and say that she
wanted to send me one of their associates who was
up for partner, but they didn't feel like they could
give her partner because of the way her voice sounded,
and that she sounded like a valley girl, is what
the woman said. And she did a lot of up speak,

(06:09):
and she was glottalized, so she talked in the back
of her throat, and so she told me that they
weren't going to give her partner, and she really wanted
to give her partner because she was a genius lawyer,
but she just on the phone. They just thought they
were talking to a teenager, and so they sent her
to me, and she did not want to be there.

(06:29):
She she you know, it was not her choice. And
it's a very personal thing to to work on your voice.
And if you I mean, it can be it also
doesn't have well and also just the whole idea of
buy in, and you know, somebody has to want to
absolutely because what we're talking about, I mean, there's so
much in what you just said that I want to
like slowly unpack. But but you know, one of one

(06:51):
of the things is, of course we're talking about UM
helping people change how they sound, but also sort of
reveal how they might have sounded if if the world
been giving them, you know, conditioning cues their whole life.
And that can sound a lot like we want you
to change. Don't be yourself, Yeah exactly, it don't be
yourself exactly, which is like that's an impossible thing to

(07:12):
try to reconcile. So what so what happened with her?
With you and her? She only came a couple of
times and was really resistant, and UM I tried to
work with her really gently, and I tried to, you know,
just give her basic things and help her to experience
in in more of a fun way, because voicework can
be really fun. Also, how she could breathe and how

(07:34):
she could move sound through her body in a way
that felt more authentic to her. And I tried to
talk to her about, you know, the fact that her voice. Uh.
I didn't want to just come out and say her
voice could be more expressive, but it can be more expressive.
I mean that is one of the things that happens
with a lot of learned vocal patterns, is that it's

(07:58):
just expressing a cultural norm and not really the authenticity
of the person. And it's a great question, because that's
exactly what a lot of my work is, is trying
to release those things, those that are basically physical tensions,
and sometimes there is a psychological aspect as well. Of course,

(08:19):
although I don't do therapy us. This isn't therapy, but
it can be therapeutic for sure, but you know, to
sort of undo the world's effects on us. So yeah,
I mean, this is yeah, And and this is really
at the heart of the point of this podcast, because
this is the stuff that affects absolutely every one of us,
and we don't you know, often know it. As you say,

(08:39):
it's not something that's in the common parlance until we
have a vocal issue, you know, we're losing our voice
or we get this kind of feedback that's literally getting
in the way of that woman getting the power she deserves.
I did a mail bag episode recently where somebody wrote
in about always being told that her voice was soft,
and somebody else wrote in about being called too loud,

(09:01):
And it makes me think about these personas that either
get thrown on us or that we you know, that
we're actually sort of deliberately projecting. But I wonder if
you think about when you when you meet with somebody
to talk about their voice, like, ah, I you're this
sort of type. There's been a lot of study done
on on why some women, especially around puberty, start to

(09:23):
lose their voices and become really soft and have a
difficult time expressing themselves to anyone, including the boys. You know, um,
if that's their inclination and versus you know, the women
who are go the girls at twelve or so who
go really loud, and a word like brassy is a

(09:43):
word that these poor women are used to hearing about
themselves and that's a that's a huge way to assault
a woman's power is to you know, they would never
you know, maybe they would say your hair looks terrible.
But you know this is way deeper than your hair
looks terrible. You know, this is your voices. You you are,

(10:05):
your voice, your as you said a moment ago. Your
voice reveals who you are. It can reveal your thought,
your feeling, your your intentions, your passion, you know, and
if you're being ridiculed for something that some person feels
is not the way you should be as a woman,

(10:25):
either at work or in an audition or in any case,
then you know, that's that's something that I think really
voice work can help with. So really, actually it sounds
like there's and this this absolutely rings true with my
experience as well. There are, of course a billion nuances,
but it seems like there are these two main categories
of what happens to us. And it's either that we

(10:47):
adhere to the messages that we're getting and we become
softer and we quote unquote no our place, and that
has repercussions our whole life. But you know, is about
playing by the rules. And then the other extreme is
pushing through that to something that feels maybe even louder
than is necessary, but is on purpose in order to
to be sort of a rebellious spirit, and that can

(11:08):
also have negative repercussions. Yeah, and then here we all are,
you know, decades later, still reconciling the thing that you know,
we gravitated towards one of those those two sort of extremes. Yes, exactly.
That can happen on any on any level, and it
can and it can be other things besides loud and

(11:28):
soft too. You know, it happens to everybody, what I
think it happens to everybody to varying degrees of seriousness.
Just high school in itself is it's traumatic. Um as
is probably not going to high school right now, which
is also totally weird. Um tell me more when you
say other things besides soft and loud, so where that's

(11:50):
volume obviously, and then what else you know, monotone is
is another thing Your body when it tries to survive,
will create tensions. So it could be that, you know,
the back of your throat gets very tight, or your
breath stops. Breath stops a lot for a lot of people.
It's not. It's really common in our world. It has

(12:14):
a lot to do just on a basic level with
we think that we're supposed to suck in our stomachs
in order to be beautiful. Yeah, this was on my
list of things to talk to you about. It feels
really really universal. Yeah, it is so universal. And people
feel that if they relax their stomach muscles they look fat.

(12:34):
And women who have to wear you know, five inch
heels or whatever they wear, um, it cuts off the
breath in the back. It is so high that your
lower back gets compressed and it completely affects your your breathing.
But as corporate women, they feel they absolutely have to
wear really tall heels. I mean we're sort of like

(12:56):
we're compensating, right, Like we get power from our heels,
we lose power from our breath, right, right, That's a
great way of saying it. Yeah, And that is sort
of like the gamble that you know a lot of people.
I feel like it's a good one. You know, it's
a good gamble to take because the heels, you know,
make an instant impression and the breath we just sort
of expect and people will have thin voices we're not

(13:18):
we're not all actors here, you know, Like I mean,
you know, there's sort of there's sort of agreed upon
sense that that, of course we're not going to be
fully expressive with our voices. This is corporate America after all,
it really is. And there's so much at risk for
people in the corporate world that, you know, any wrong
move could get them fired. At least they they sense that.

(13:39):
And there's a certain way you're supposed to be. You know,
you have to be outgoing, you know, for one thing.
There is actually a way of behavior that you have
to adhere to. But when I work with people and
we can kind of we can find a larger parameter
for them to work in. I think that my goal
is always to help them free their voice, to find

(14:01):
their natural voice so they're not stuck in that parameter.
And it works. I have seen results with that. People
have seen results where they find a different way of
being in their body. It's actually has to do with
how you're in your body, how you're breathing, and how
you're using your voice can create a deeper sense of
relaxation and a more connection to your actual voice so

(14:24):
that people hear it better. A deeper connection to thought. Also,
the way your body works, you have when you have
a thought, you actually have a breath at the same time.
That's naturally what happens, and that's one of those things
that can get disconnected and make it more difficult for
you to express thoughts while you're speaking or for us
to are you talking about when you say the thought

(14:46):
to the breath, Does that also happen when we're alone
and just thinking thoughts or do you mean in the
in the process of communicating. No, that's in uh, that's
I would say that's all the time, but definitely in
the process of community. I don't think it's something you
can turn on and off. It works sometimes. It's that's
how the body works. That's so beautiful. I mean, partly
it makes me think obviously sort of a gasp, like

(15:07):
the actual concept of I have an idea and that
makes us take an inhalation of of of wow. Yeah.
And partly it makes me think of something that I
have absolutely you know, reminded or taught I guess clients,
because it's not something that um people are born knowing,
which is this idea that in an ideal world we
have a thought. It connects to just the right amount

(15:29):
of breath for the actual thought. Again, when we're in
alignment and when our body and our mind are working together,
and then it comes out of our mouth and lands,
you know, beautifully easefully on the person we're talking to.
And of course the problem is that as soon as
the stakes are high, as soon as the relationship we
have with the other person is fraught, as soon as
the thought we have, we don't trust, our throat starts

(15:50):
to get in the way at aspects of our body. Mean,
I'd love you to talk about what besides our throat,
or more about the throat, but you know, the parts
of our body that block that really beautifully simple mind
to breath to out the mouth, you know process. Yeah,
and I agree. And the only thing I would add
to that is when it comes out, it finds the

(16:10):
perfect pitch in your voice to describe that for you,
for the person speaking, which actually takes us back to
the monotone you were starting to talk about, because monotone,
you know, for people who aren't necessarily thinking this way
about it. What we had been originally talking about was volume, right,
soft versus loud is just generally on quiet too loud spectrum,
and then the other major one. I mean, we can

(16:32):
we can also talk about tempo and tone. But the
other major one that us voice people think about is pitch.
And we can talk a lot and has it come
up a lot in other interviews about pitching our voice
too high, pitching our voices too low. But the thing
we don't always talk about here and that you're bringing
up is that it's one thing to talk about too high,
it's nothing to talk about too low. There's this other thing,

(16:52):
which is monotone, which is about not actually going up
or down much at all. Yeah, and that is something
that people can fall into for again some reason, uh,
some event that happened earlier, as a way to hide emotion.
I grew up in UM, the state of Massachusetts, UM,

(17:14):
and now I live in California. But in Massachusetts there is,
in my opinion, there's a there's a lot of monotonism.
There's a lot people speak in monotone a lot, and
it's it's often when they are trying to not express
their feeling. And what can happen at that point is
that everything sort of clamps down to like a trap
door to not let the feeling out. That's that's a

(17:37):
big thing. And then that tension. It takes a lot
of effort to clamp down on all those muscles you're
speaking muscles, so tongue, soft, palate, breath, sees is. It
takes a lot of effort to shift yourself from a free,
natural voice into a tight, non expressive, monotone voice. And
that's something that can be completely freed up with voice work.

(18:00):
That is something that happens naturally through the voice work.
It's so interesting, and especially now when I feel like,
you know, everybody's stress levels are higher than ever, that
effort you're talking about can feel good. I mean, I'm
using the word good obviously with quotes around. It can
feel like we're doing something to our stress. Like the

(18:22):
opposite is feeling our feelings. Yes, the opposite is feeling
our feelings and speaking what we really want to say.
And I think that obviously you can't always do that,
but I think that people can do it a lot
more than they're doing it. And I think you can
do it in the privacy of your room if you
cannot do it in in some other situation. Yeah, we're

(18:46):
going to talk about some specific exercises for people to
for now, we're going to take a quick break though,
thank you, we're bad, and we're talking about um sort
of practical things that we can do. I mean, so
much of what we were talking about before the break

(19:08):
were these, um, the massive stuff that in a way
is sort of helpful most of all to make all
of us feel like we're not weirdos, you know, like
this is just happening to everybody, and now we can
talk about it, and now we can talk about the
fact that it's not just a mindset shift, and it's
probably not just about breathing, you know, it's a combination
of the two. It's thinking about the fact that we

(19:30):
are a full system. What should we be thinking about
when when we have to speak yes, yeah, and um.
You know, there are lots of different parts of working
on your voice. There's definitely the part of of relaxation
and breath and physical awareness, which are really important, and

(19:52):
then sound and um and working in the muscles of
the of what I call the channel, which is the jaw,
the tongue, the soft palate, so that those muscles can relax.
I like the the image of the channel, right, it
feels like, is on purpose, so that it feels open. Yes, yes,
so that it's an open channel for sound that comes
actually the images that it moves through your whole body.

(20:15):
Because sound moves through the bones of your body. Bone
is the perfect conductor for for vibration. Just like when
you have a loud roommate or neighbor at college and
you hear the vibrations of their music coming through the
the the wall or something. You know, Vibration travels through
the bones of your body, and the more tension you
have in your body, the less that happens, and so

(20:37):
more less resonance you're going to have in your voice.
So there are easy things to do um you know,
like just shaking, shaking your legs, shaking your legs and
shaking breath or its sound down your leg as you
shake it. Shaking is a great thing to do for
your voice. You can shake your whole body, shake your spine,
shake your butt, shake your neck, check your shoulders, everything,

(20:59):
and as you do that, just kind of have fun
with it and breathe and send sound through your body.
That's a really great thing to do. Yawning is actually
a great voice exercise, and it's really easy to do
because it does actually stretch open the muscles in the
back of your throat. So just whenever you have to yawn,
just really focus on that. It's a stretch and you

(21:20):
shouldn't um, you know, try to suppress it, but actually
let it be big and yummy and make sound, do
the big, ugly American yawn sound and the whole thing,
and that really helps. And then even just doing some humming,
you know, just hum, feel the vibrations of your voice
on your lips so that it comes out of the
back of your throat and onto your lips. Humming, just

(21:42):
hum through a song that you like or something. Do
you talk to people about mask residents and chess resonents?
I totally do. That's uh. I don't call it mask because, um,
just the I think language is really important and um
and we're trying actually to unmask the voice and anyways,

(22:02):
so I knew. I never call it a mask, um,
but I know what you mean, and it is. There
is the resonating ladder basically, which is the third section
of this voice work, this link Later voice work that
I do. Yeah, for anybody listening. Kristin link Later is
a real um hero of a lot of you know
us voice people, and she has designated link Later teachers,

(22:24):
which I think you are right and which requires a
lot of a lot. Yeah, it's a really it's actually
the most intensive training program for voice teachers that I've
ever heard of. It takes over three years. I know
some people who were had to do it for like
five or six years before God she would actually give

(22:44):
them the seal of approval. Is there a correlation between
Kristen link Later's method of connecting people to their voice
and the chakras. I'm not sure what Kristen would say,
but um, but I definitely says. And I have an
exercise that that I learned from one of my teachers

(23:05):
whose name is Andrea Harring, who's a huge voice teacher
in New York, who was one of the people who
trained me. And it's a great exercise of bringing different
vibration and different pitches into the different chakras in in
the body. So the lower pitches are in the in
the root chakra, and then you know the navel you're
you go up and up and up until you reach

(23:26):
the crown chakra, which is the high falsetto voice. I
bring this up because I did a sound bath once.
Hashtag so l a. Um. But you know it's right there,
super cool. I mean, the whole idea that vibration affects
our nervous system is obviously, like you know, completely scientifically,
you know, approved. But I hadn't known about the chakras

(23:52):
the sounds associated with the chakras, and then when I did,
I realized that's exactly how voice people learn, you know,
the sounds associated with a voice. Yeah, definitely, and I
think that there are for I mean, I was back
in the eighties, I have to say, giving away my
age that we used to do chakra balancing. That's the
first time I did, like way before I did any

(24:13):
voice work where you know, you had a different pitch
for each chakra, and the chakra system is energy. It's
you know, it's like swirling energy in your body as
it goes. And they're eight of them and they each
correlate to a different frequency. So being able to bring
that kind of entery this is right hashtag so l a.

(24:33):
But still actually I think it's becoming way more common
than we than we realize. Um. But you know, bringing
the pitch that correlates with each chakra uh into your
body really helps you too. As you say, which I
think is great embodying speech, but it's also directing the
sound into your body and how I teach it also
it brings into well, how do you feel? What's the

(24:55):
effect of this vibration on your body? Does this you know,
especially also with finding the resonators of the chest resonator,
which is a great way to find a lower pitch
for people trying to do that. And maybe you're a
person who doesn't use your lower range much, and maybe
that's because of what what you have discovered or learned

(25:17):
from using it. You know, maybe there is some bad association.
I say bad, but a negative association, like when you
use your lower voice you feel sad or you know,
you feel angry and you're not supposed to in some
uh world, be able to express that. Bringing it back
to some of the clients that you've had, you know,

(25:39):
what is it for people to sort of try out
these new vocal you know, breathing practices, find out who
they sound like when they're not trying to sound like
everybody else, and then like, oh god, it is she
okay to bring into you know, a serious context. So
I think that the freer person's voices, the more access
they have to their whole three and have to four

(26:00):
octive range, which is what we're born with, a three
and a half to four octave speaking range. If you're
talking about a singer, you know you're talking about Arianta Grande,
or you're talking about Barber Stress that you're talking about
people with the Whitney Houston enormous ranges that are not
that common. But for people, everybody has that three and
a half to four octave speaking range, and most of

(26:22):
us only use a few notes in it. But when
you start to open it up and experience what you're
lower ranges, if you don't use it at first, you
might feel it might feel weird, or it might feel emotional,
or you might feel like there's something wrong with you,
or it doesn't feel like you. But the more that
you experience it, the more you realize that this part

(26:44):
of your voice expresses a lot of things about you
that are important that you want to be expressing, and
not using it can cut your power and actually communicate
your thoughts worse. Yeah. Yeah, I mean there's something I
talk about with clients which we've been sort of circling
around here, but I want to just put a fine
point on which is when we use more pitch, we

(27:06):
are being more vulnerable. And that's partly I'm putting it
that way, I guess partly because it's a choice, right,
I am choosing to reveal more about what I actually
care about. But also it happens we end up feeling
more vulnerable. That's why we don't do it when we're not,
you know, feeling safe and so to be more vulnerable.
What I really mean is when we show we care. Oops,

(27:30):
now we've shown we care, we can't take it back,
you know, like, now we've revealed something that matters to us,
and I thinking, I'm thinking about this. I mean, I
guess in this, in this in this era as well,
when people are I think, feeling a little bit more
sort of free to admit the ways in which we're
all feeling scared and confused, and you know, if we

(27:51):
wanna you know, have a little silver lining moment, it
is an interesting time to work on. Even though we're
feeling stressed out and we might be feeling constricted and
our bodies, if we work on feeling freer and more
open and feeling our feelings, um, we're also saying I'm
I'm I'm getting more and more okay with showing that

(28:13):
I'm vulnerable, with showing who I really am. Yeah, and
of course that is scary at first, but I think
there's power and vulnerability. I think that you're not just
showing vulnerability, you're showing your humanity and that you're a
human being and not a robot, which is another thing, right,
we're seeing a lot of robots on TV. But uh,

(28:35):
and that's that is really important. When someone is really connected,
I call it, you know, when they're connected to their voice,
when their voice is expressing what they're feeling and what
they're thinking, then we're getting into the realm of eloquence.
As a speaker, you know, your voice carries emotion, the

(28:56):
voice does. Everybody's voice carries emotion and thought. So that
if you're listening to someone who is feeling something and
expressing their passions, say about how they feel about a
project that they want to do or something, you can
feel that the audience, the people in the room will
feel your the vibration. And and that's a telepathic way

(29:17):
that we humans have of communicating. How we can tell
what someone is feeling, how we know when someone is
lying or telling the truth. I think that we are
hearing a lot of lies coming from some of our
leaders and always have. It's not a new thing. It's
just seems like we're hearing that more than ever. And
part of it is what you're saying is not showing humanity. Often, uh,

(29:42):
people can tell you can feel it in your body,
and I think everybody listening will acknowledge that they have
at some point in their life been able to feel
in their body or know somehow when someone is lying
to them, you know. And I want to also make
this more nuanced because yes, like we have wow experienced

(30:03):
what like flat outlies now sound like, But also this
humanity question, it's like lying isn't just literally saying something
that isn't true. It's also projecting a persona that isn't real,
or projecting an emotion that isn't really you know, there's
like just this yeah. Lying also just is when our
our yeah, our bullshit meters like, oh that person is

(30:25):
not acting like a human. Yes, it's not and doesn't
sound like a human. You hear their voice. And as
it was talking about the vibration going into the bones
of the body, the more sensitized you become to vibration,
the more. You can feel this. I mean, I've been
doing this work since the nineties and I actually can
now have become like an EmPATH almost. I can when

(30:48):
I'm working with someone, I can feel their tension in
my own body. And it's really a world, the world
of vibration is a whole world, almost like another sense
that a lot of people don't even know is there.
Well so, And to bring this back from you know,
obviously as my as my five year old calls him,
the bad guy in charge of America to us, you know,

(31:08):
some of us are accidentally doing some of the same stuff.
Some of us are guilty of also not coming across
as a human, and it is not because we are
intentionally doing so, right, and it's often a survival technique
or it's masquerading as one. I mean, I think where
you and I are working with people is often in
this like you know, liminal space between the the On

(31:29):
the one hand, the place where um, well, I know
I can't break that rule, that one's a real that's
a real hard and fast and then on the other hand,
you know this free version of themselves, this version that
feels more like a human even over zoom, say, even
you know, whatever, our whatever, our current form of communication
is professionally and trying to find like, how do I
find a version of myself that actually dances in that

(31:52):
middle space. Yeah, I don't think it's that hard. I
think it's not one or the other. I don't think
it's two extremes. That being having a free voice doesn't
mean you're crazy, wild woman running around with wolves. You know,
it's actually gives you way more power. Um, You're able
to express what you want to express when you want

(32:13):
to express it. It's it's a it's a self awareness.
It's not like you're unconsciously crazy. Now, You're You're You're
still you, You're more you. You're not going to do
things that are going to jeopardize yourself for your career.
You know. When people are present, it's uh, it's very
very powerful. If you're listening to someone who's really present speaking,
their chances are they're they're gonna move you in some way.

(32:37):
It is the biggest risk when we're public speaking. I mean,
even talking about public speaking feels so quaint right now,
but pretend that we were able to go into public
But it's the biggest risk when we're public speaking to
think in the middle of our thoughts. We have this
preconceived notion many of us, many of the people I've
worked with, that coming across as polished is the best
thing to do. And there is of course an element

(32:59):
of tensionality that I think is what people actually mean
by that, Like, I've come with a with a with
an intention in mind, and here's what I would like
you to come away with, and here's what i'd like
you to feel, audience. But we should not mistake that
for a kind of polish that leaves our spontaneous selves
out of the room. Yes, I agree. I was gonna

(33:20):
say if you worked with transgender people, because I know
that voice stuff comes up. Yeah, because obviously because we're
talking about how we are, you know, constructing and presenting
our identity out exactly and speaking with a voice that
feels like us. You know, you speak with a voice
that feels like you, which is very hard when your
biology is different from who you feel like. Um. And

(33:43):
so there's there's kind of to two sides of working
with transgender or even any kind of gen gender fluidity
at all is um. You know, there's the technical way
that if it's a if it's a male to female
of helping her find the higher tones with greater ease
so there's less strain, and the same thing in reverse

(34:05):
for female to male is finding the lower sounds without strain.
And that's a that's just on a technical level, that's
a really great thing for people to do, but it's
also about finding themselves in their sound so that they're
not now just performing another voice. They're actually finding themselves

(34:28):
in that vibration, connecting to the vibration um in a
way that makes it feel like them. And that's that's
a that's a deeper bit of the work that's really interesting.
As everybody works on their voice under all kinds of
heightened and unheightened circumstances, we can all think about when
I am the most relaxed, when I do maybe some
of the exercises on your website that I'll send people to,

(34:50):
when I'm thinking about feeling my most confident, that voice
that comes out, it's not about the opposite of what
I was doing before. It's about this person that lives
in me being on the outside too. Yes, it's just
about being more of yourself, really, and it is definitely
not either or, and it's never my intention to change

(35:13):
anyone's voice, you know, and that isn't what it the
work is about at all. It's you're right, And I
think when we are speaking fully in our in our
humanity and in our bodies and from our truthfulness, you
you can't. It's not like you can't still decide what
you're gonna say. You can still decide what you're gonna say.
But your voice and the intentions that you have when

(35:35):
you're speaking are are so clear and so powerful, and
almost nobody does it. And when people do it, others
stand up and notice, and it's important. Okay, we're gonna
take a quick break and then we're gonna be back
and find out who you brought in for us. Okay,

(36:00):
so we're back with Adele Cabot and Adele tell the
people who you have brought in for us. I have
brought in Oprah Winfrey. Finally, okay, let's take a good listen.
This is her receiving the c Silbidameil Award at the
Golden Globes the year that everyone wore black for me
to here we go, I've interviewed and portrayed people who

(36:20):
withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you.
But the one quality all of them seem to share
is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning
even during our darkest nights. So I want all the
girls watching here now to know that a new day

(36:41):
is on the horizon. Something that happens, and it's it
doesn't just happen. She's doing it. Is that the audience
starts to respond, and then she starts to top them,
and then they respond and she tops them and then
right and topping isn't even the right metaphor. It's like

(37:03):
writing them, you know, writing along with them. Yeah, yeah,
like an exchange of energy, which is which is actually
what it is. The speaker, you know, plays off the
energy that that she's getting back from the audience and
and sort of it does like top it, but she's
she's right. She rises up from it in a way,
you know, and it requires more breath. I mean, you

(37:24):
watch that little section and she is digging. She is like,
I mean, there is a version of all of us,
including her, who could have been like WHOA, that's a
lot of energy to push, you know, to to to
That's a lot of energy to reflect. I'll just go under.
And she made the boulder choice of course, because she's

(37:45):
outprah and said I'm going to not you know, sort
of poop out, I'm going to ride this all the way. Yes,
she she did that exactly, and she does not pull back.
She stands by herself. You know, she's in a way
standing up for herself and a million other people when
she's doing that, which is very powerful, but huge amounts

(38:06):
of breath to do that, but none of it is
forced because what she was feeling, the impulse, the reason
why she was speaking those words, was so huge in
the moment that it created huge breath in her body.
And because she was out of her way, her she
was allowing her body to breathe and allowing this to
come through her is what it actually feels like it sometimes.

(38:29):
And you're right what you said about it being bigger
than her. It's so, I mean, for all of us
who have any opportunity or you know, her forced to
speak publicly when we can connect to the why. You know,
the reason we're connecting to the why it is because
it connects us to something larger than us. Yes, beautifully
said yes. And when she says, when she says, I mean,

(38:51):
she brings back because she mentions at the very very
beginning of this ten minute speech, when she was a
little girl on you know, the Millennium floor watching Sydney
Potty a be the first black man to get the
Academy Award. And then she connects it in the middle
of the speech to the little girls who may be
watching her be the first black woman to get the
season the mill And then at the end she says

(39:12):
to those little girls, I mean, she says that in
this section that we picked, and you know, what a
great way to physically get your body to remember, ah,
this is bigger than me. How great. Once you have
that experience, you just want you know, it feels great
and you don't feel like you've overstepped at all. I Mean,
the reality is a lot of us do that other

(39:33):
thing because there is some element I mean, I use
the metaphor, there is some element of trial ballooning. I'm
going to try to say something that matters to me
or something decisive, but I don't know what do you
guys think? And so much of all all our body
tension comes from that. And here is you know, of course,
the epitome of someone who already knows what everybody thinks,

(39:53):
and they all love us, and she's earned the funk
out of that. We don't see that color in her
voice at all. No, no, and we we don't have
to see it in in anybody's voice. Adele, thank you
so much for this conversation. I feel very vulnerable right now,
and in a good way, like I do have lots
of feelings in my body about how you know, how

(40:15):
important and so hard and so easy and so fun
and so heavy and all of the things. This work is.
It's just you know, this is the work of ourselves,
it really is. And thank you so much for having
me on This is, This is I've really really enjoyed
talking to you. Thank you to Adele for joining me.
You can find out more about her in the show

(40:37):
notes or on our website Permission to Speak pod dot com.
There's also a really cool bit of bonus content this
week on our Instagram feed at Permission to Speak Pod,
where Adele breaks down in one minute flat, how to
take a good breath. It's not a way to think
about it that I've ever heard before, and it totally
blew my mind. Also, while you're there, please feel free

(40:59):
to send me das voice memos at Permission to Speak
pod again on Instagram or on the website, and you know,
let me know what's going on with your voice. We
will discuss it in the next mail bag episode. You
can also send me what kind of questions you want
me to be asking guests. I will integrate them. And
I just want you guys to know that I am
so here for you. Especially during these strange and deeply

(41:22):
unsettling times. We have an opportunity to think even more
intentionally about how to communicate with vulnerability and with heart,
and I want to have that conversation with you. Thanks
as well to Sophie Lichtman and the team at I
Heart Radio, my family and cohort and all of you.
We're recording this podcast at various locations around Los Angeles

(41:45):
on land that is the historic gathering place for the
Tongva indigenous tribe, and you can visit U S d
A C dot us to learn more about honoring Native land.
Permission to Speak is a production of My Heart Radio
and Double Vision Executive produced by Katherine Burke Canton and
Mark Canton. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, listen
on the ihar radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

(42:07):
get your favorite shows. H.