Find Your Voice, Speak Your Truth

The Bhagavad Gita say “established in being, perform action.” Nike says “just do it.” What do these messages mean? How are we as human beings meant to take action? This month on the podcast we’ll explore action as a theme. In this solo episode, we’ll turn to yogic knowledge to discuss impact. We’ll explore polyvagal theory as a lens for understanding “right” action. And we’ll discuss how this knowledge can help us change and dismantle systems that are oppressive and irrelevant.

Listen now, and for show notes and info on the Voice Body Connection Membership Community visit www.voicebodyconnection.com/podcast.

Kellie Wagner is the CEO and Founder of Collective, a diversity, equity, and inclusion lab. Two months ago Kellie and I were chatting as the pandemic had just descended, and I asked if  companies were reaching out to utilize Collective’s resources. Kellie said it was crickets. And then the world changed again - George Floyd was killed and the Black Lives Matter movement surged - and now she’s been deluged with more inquiries than in the history of the whole company. In this powerful episode, Kellie shares why active anti-racism is crucial in the workplace and at home, and why trust is a key ingredient, and what allies can do to act consistently with true solidarity.

Listen now, and for show notes and info on the Voice Body Connection Membership Community visit www.voicebodyconnection.com/podcast.

This is a big moment in human history. Our resident astrologer, Virginia Rosenberg, is back to help us understand how our earthly bodies are interacting with the movements of the celestial bodies. Astrologers have known for a long time that 2020 was going to be big, and we’re in the thick of it. As we approach the summer solstice, we’re also in the midst of eclipse season. And over the course of the year we’re making a big transition from Capricorn to Aquarian energy. We’ll talk about what all that means, both for us personally and as a collective. And we’ll dive into the importance of actively educating ourselves about anti-racism and how to use astrology as a tool for social justice. 

Listen now, and for show notes and info on the Voice Body Connection Membership Community visit www.voicebodyconnection.com/podcast.

Meet Abel Yares. He’s been a psycho-somatic therapist, a cognitive neuro-scientist, a massage therapist, and a dancer. He was born in the Philippines, grew up in New Jersey, moved to New York City, and now lives in Portugal. These days, he helps individuals expand their consciousness with intuitive channeling. And in this episode of the podcast, Abel channels what we need to hear as a collective during this intense moment of history. What is it that we need right now? A little bit of faith. ✨

Listen now, and for show notes and info on the Voice Body Connection Membership Community visit www.voicebodyconnection.com/podcast.

Now more than ever, we all need working trust-o-meters. After all there’s some real shit going down on this planet, and we need to know who we can rely on.

In this significant solo episode - which marks my 35th birthday, the one year anniversary of this podcast, and the unveiling of the podcast’s brand new name - I share what I’ve come to understand about trust. We’ll do an energy body meditation to help you protect yourself inside a loving cocoon, and I’ll explain how I’ve learned to converse with and calm down my inner child. Plus I'll address how those of us who are white can educate ourselves about white supremacy, so that we can live in a world where humans trust each other more deeply.

Listen now, and for show notes and info on the Voice Body Connection Membership Community visit www.voicebodyconnection.com/podcast.

According to countless experts, the climate change emergency is the greatest threat of our era. The issue though, is that this problem is of such enormous magnitude that our individual nervous systems have trouble processing and treating it like an emergency. Today on the podcast you’ll meet Dominic MacCormack, an expert on land use and water resources. Dominic’s answer to how to address climate change? With storytelling. With our voices. Dominic offers that it’s crucial that we share our visions with each other about the world we want to live in. Only through raising our voices can we take action as a collective to create a new story. 

Listen now, and for show notes and info on the Speak Your Truth Membership Community visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Our economy is currently breaking down. And while that’s scary, it’s also an opportunity. So let’s ask: how and what do we want to rebuild? Meet Mira Megs Lathrop, the Finanseer. Mira believes that we can go beyond building a sustainable economy and create one that is regenerative. By mirroring nature and living in a paradigm of abundance, we can transcend the extractive practices that no longer work for us economically or ecologically and innovate to a system that functions in right relationship. Mira offers clear steps you can take to make a difference, like breaking up with your bank and taking a leap into the quantum field.

Listen now, and for show notes and info on the Speak Your Truth Membership Community visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

How much thought do you give to the clothing you put on your body? To the books that are on your shelf? To the everyday objects that surround you? Everything you own tells a story. And specifically, the way you accumulate things reveals your relationship to scarcity or abundance, and therefore shows how sustainably you’re living. In today’s podcast episode, meet Gabriella D’Italia. She’s an artist and a coach helping people restore sacred balance with their everyday things through holistic styling and more. Gabriella has changed my life, and I think hearing this conversation might change yours too. It’s like next level Marie Kondo… get ready.

Listen now, and for show notes and info on the Speak Your Truth Membership Community visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Now more than ever a conversation about sustainability is crucial. But what truly does it mean to be sustainable? Current economic models would have us believe that never-ending upward growth is the name of the game. But nature teaches us something different: that there is an endless cycle of creation, maintenance, and destruction. How can we embrace the way nature sustains itself - through cycles - in order to vision a new way of being? How can we envision a new approach to our bodies, our material belongings, our financial resources, and planet earth? In today’s episode, I share my deepest thoughts about what it really means to embrace sustainability.

Listen now, and for show notes and info on the Speak Your Truth Membership Community visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

On August 17, 2019, Obi Ndefo was loading organic groceries into the trunk of his car on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles when a drunk driver swerved and hit his body directly from behind. He miraculously survived the collision, but had to have both his legs amputated just above the knee. As an actor and a yoga teacher, this sudden trauma completely changed Obi’s life. But he’s made a remarkable recovery, as a result of the ability to soften and accept, and also to strengthen his body and spirit. Now, as we all struggle with the challenge of a worldwide pandemic, Obi offers his voice to share how to accept the things we cannot change.

Listen now, and for show notes and info on the Speak Your Truth Membership Community visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

In September 2016, two and a half year old Penelope Grace Deely died of meningitis within 36 hours of getting sick. For Penny’s mother, Genevieve Deely, it was the greatest tragedy that could have ever occurred. Over the course of time, though, Genevieve took her grief and turned it into profound healing. To the great inspiration of all those around her - including me - Gen continuously shared her words and her voice, eventually publishing a book called “The Birth of Hope.” Now, during the coronavirus pandemic, we are experiencing an immense collective tragedy. As many human souls are exiting planet earth, I welcome Gen’s voice here on the podcast to bring us comfort, and to help us understand how to move through our grief and loss to a place of deep love. 

Listen now, and for show notes and info on the Speak Your Truth Membership Community visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

We’re living in a new time. And that calls for a conversation about time. Meet Omboy Rome: cosmic hip hop artist, sound healer, and practitioner of the Mayan Dreamspell (the Mayan calendar). In this galactic conversation, Rome and I discuss how this difficult moment in our history can actually be a portal to live and inhabit time differently. Plus you’ll get to hear some of Rome’s music too. Now is the moment to cultivate stillness, acceptance, and harmony with planet earth. We are not going back to normal. Everything we do with our time is art, and this is our chance to recreate our way of being.  

Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

What about this moment do you think needs to be different? My guess is that there’s a lot you would change about your life and the world right now. But remember what the Buddha said… resisting reality only leads to suffering. This month’s theme on the podcast is acceptance, and in today’s solo episode we’ll explore why being able to accept the circumstances of our lives is a spiritual act. I’ll share how to stop wasting your energy trying not to feel the things that you’re feeling. And I’ll sing you a song I wrote that will help you remember how to navigate your thoughts differently (it might get stuck in your head… #sorrynotsorry, or maybe even #yourewelcome).

Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Jack Dempsey is a software engineer with a penchant for self-improvement. A few years ago our paths crossed, and I shared an early version of the How To Speak Your Truth process with him. Like any good geek, Jack decided he would create a tool to help him remember to use the process. So he built a text-based app, and a few weeks later I cried over my sushi when he showed it to me. In this episode, Jack and I discuss why it may be weird - but it’s actually super practical - to pay attention to the sensations in your body. And we explore how technology can be a powerful tool for growth, especially in this difficult time.

Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to get the app and join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Across the world, people are quarantined in their homes to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. In an unprecedented moment like this, it’s crucial that we give ourselves the opportunity to understand and express our truth. Today, I welcome Sara Dahan onto the How To Speak Your Truth podcast. Sara is a trained epidemiologist and an expert in public health, community, and loneliness. (Talk about a person designed to help us in this moment!) In this episode, Sara explains how we can practice social distancing while still taking care of our mental health. And in case you get pulled into a rabbit hole of watching the news or reading scary articles, Sara and I will give you the tools to step away and engage in self care instead. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Thank goodness it’s time to have our resident astrologer Virginia Rosenberg back on the podcast. We are living in unprecedented times, and now more than ever we can gain support from our awareness of the planets and the stars. In this episode, Virginia explains the movements currently happening in the sky, and how we can interpret the meaning and significance of the coronavirus pandemic. I feel such comfort hearing the wisdom that Virginia shares, and only feel more strongly about the conviction upon which all my work is based: your voice and your truth matters. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

In the 1970’s, a man named Noel Burch was working at a company called Gordon Training International teaching something called “The Four Stages of Competence.” He created this innovative model to describe how humans learn new things, and over the years psychologists and many others have continued to share it. When I was first introduced to it a decade ago, it completely blew my mind. What I love about it most is that we learn that the first step to changing anything is awareness. How true this is… we cannot change anything about ourselves until we recognize it first. So in this solo episode kicking off our month about Awareness, I’ll talk you through what I call the Unconscious Competence model and share why it’s so important to have compassion for the things we notice about ourselves and others. Plus, just for kicks (and because it was relevant) I’ll share how to speak your truth about your menstrual cycle! Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my life is the importance of giving myself the space and permission to rest. After all, I was (and we are) taught to glorify hard work and busy-ness. But if we want to live a life that is in alignment with our truth, the most spiritual thing we can do is rest when we need to. In this solo episode, I’ll introduce a concept called yielding and share exercises to help you embody it. Yielding - which, is a term from Body-Mind Centering - is a process of finding the support to rest, and of trusting that new energy will arise when we do so. Having made it to the other side of January 2020, here’s my radical call to non-action for all of us: let’s spend February yielding and resting, and trust that is the perfect thing to (non-)do. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

My friend Lotus Sky is a musical channel and shamanic guide who helps people access and share their voices. In the year that we’ve known each other, Lotus Sky and I have bonded over our shared desire to support others in their free expression, but we’ve also opened up to each other about our own personal vocal struggles. So as we continue to discuss growth and our voices on the podcast this month, it was a no-brainer to have Lotus Sky come on and share her story. You’ll hear how this incredible healer of a human lost her voice for three full months, and found a way to heal herself and find even deeper resonance than she had before. This episode is a spiritual journey! Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Dr. Reena Gupta is a laryngologist, meaning that she’s an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor who specializes in the care of the professional voice. What makes her unique among her colleagues is that she combines her western medical training with a holistic and integrative approach to vocal health. Now, as she’s going through a major period of growth and opening up her own practice, Dr. Gupta shares about both the science and art of the voice. Prepare to have your limiting beliefs busted in this episode… Yes, your mental health can affect your voice! And yes, speaking your truth makes a difference when it comes to being able to speak and sing with strength and ease! Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.