Find Your Voice, Speak Your Truth

When Melanie Tapson started experiencing vocal challenges as a young performer, no doctor or specialist could explain to her what was going on. It took a decade before someone finally gave her the answer, and that was: it’s just tension. Now, as a speech-language pathologist specializing in voice care - and, lucky for me, as the resident speech pathologist in my Release Your Voice course! - Melanie helps her clients understand and move through their voice challenges. In this episode, you’ll hear Melanie’s astounding and heart wrenching story about how she’s grown throughout her journey, and I’m pretty sure you’ll understand why I LOVE collaborating and co-teaching with this glorious human. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

I didn’t mark my calendar for November and December of 2019 with the to-do: “Re-surface and process my vocal trauma.” But that’s what happened. For the past couple months I’ve been riding waves of memory, joy, and grief as I’ve come to understand so much more about why and how I lost my voice at age 21. In this first episode of 2020, I’ll share the up-to-date version of the story. You’ll learn why my Dad found me crying in my childhood bedroom on Thanksgiving Day, and how I found myself finishing a song I started writing 25 years ago. As we transition from one decade to the next, it’s a powerful time to be asking: in what ways am I committing to my growth? Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Emily Fletcher has taught 20,000 people worldwide to meditate, and I am very honored to have been one of the first. I met Emily back in 2011 when we were both starting our businesses, and since then I’ve been lucky to have her teaching, wisdom, and friendship in my life. In this final episode of 2019, join Emily and I as we talk deeply about the most foundational practice either of us has ever committed to: meditation. Emily shares why the barriers you think are keeping you from being a “good meditator” are possible to overcome, and speaks vulnerably about her own personal process with speaking her truth. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

This Saturday is the winter solstice, the shortest day of our year. So our resident astrologer Virginia Rosenberg is back on the podcast to help us look back on 2019, look ahead to 2020, and reflect on the power of this moment in time. In order to speak our truth during this season, we must be vulnerable. Yet it’s also crucial that we honor the progress we’ve made in this past year and celebrate our accomplishments. Even if we’re “not where we want to be” yet, everything is unfolding in perfect time. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

My dear friend Maya Light is back on the podcast! Since the theme is Commitment this month, I knew all of you would want to hear more juicy stuff about relationships, etc. So I thought to myself: Who’s another ex I can ask to be on the show? Can I ask my therapist?? And then after laughing for awhile, I realized that giving you a window into my deep, daily musings with Maya would be the most open and vulnerable thing I could offer. As an event producer, DJ, energy worker, and writer, Maya brings a deep, embodied approach to the topic of relating. And she and I geek out almost every day, talking about attachment, healthy relating, and moving beyond co-dependence. In this episode you’ll get to hear us share some of our personal journaling on the topics of safety, comfort, bonding, curiosity, capacity, availability, and desire. Plus we’ll read you our red-yellow-green light list for what we seek in our relationships! Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Holy shamoly, friends. I spilled my guts and shared my *truth* in this episode. In fact, this is the most vulnerable storytelling I’ve ever shared publicly. I chose the theme Commitment this month because it’s been my personal theme for 2019. And boy oh boy, I have spent the year understanding what it means to make a commitment. In this episode I share openly about the things I’ve been letting go of (hint: this has to do with habits around money and love), the new choices and behaviors I’ve been committing to, and the story of the day my life changed. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

I met Paul Peglar in college when we were in “rival” a cappella groups across Los Angeles. Over the years we’ve come in and out of each others’ daily lives and communities. And today I’m connected to Paul through one of my most central communities: the artist collective called ECHT that Paul founded here in Brooklyn, New York. Paul’s superpower is bringing artists together in unique live experiences, and bridging the gap between artist and audience. In this extra special Thanksgiving episode, Paul shares how to find your people no matter where you are, and why joining together for creative expression is so important. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community (the doors are now open until this Saturday November 30th!), visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

After Mary Clavieres gave birth to her daughter via C-section, she learned that there was nowhere to buy more pairs of the postpartum mesh underwear the hospital had given her. So what did she do? She started a company called Brief Transitions. As she built that business, she learned that being a mom-entrepreneur could be very isolating. So what did she do? She started a community called the Transitions Collective. Today on the podcast, I welcome my client and friend Mary Clavieres. Mary shares her wisdom about how the most successful communities (and businesses!) arise from the needs of those who create them, and gets into the nitty gritty of how to organize a group of people effectively. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

According to Kevin Huynh, co-author of “Get Together,” a community is a group of people who come together over what they care about. And community is a super important aspect of being human. After all, we’re social creatures who derive inspiration, support, and a sense of belonging from our communities. So what do you care about? In this episode, Kevin shares the personal history that led him to stop pursuing engineering and focus on community building full-time. Plus we get meta: Kevin actually gives me a coaching session on the development of the Speak Your Truth Membership Community (... which you can currently join - doors open until November 30th!) Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

What does community mean to you? As we head into winter in the northern hemisphere, there’s a natural movement towards warmth, connection, and togetherness. But does surrounding yourself with other humans constitute being in community? I’ve asked myself this question repeatedly in the past decade as I’ve moved from Los Angeles to Edmonton to New York City to Tulsa, and back to New York. As we explore November’s theme Community in this first podcast of the month, I share about my “introversion experiment” (I’m an extrovert by nature) and the discoveries I’ve made about isolation and togetherness. I’ve come to believe that community is not just about finding others who share things in common, but even more so about the quality of my interactions with those people and my ability to bring my whole self into to them. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community (for which the doors are now open until November 30th!), visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

In honor of Halloween we’re going behind the veil... and into my lesson with my singing teacher Stephanie Rooker. I didn’t take singing lessons for twelve years after I lost my voice. For one thing, I felt estranged from my voice, but I also wasn’t interested in studying technique. What I wanted was to set my voice free. And then I found Stephanie: a singer, a teacher, a sound healer, and a holder of sacred space. What Stephanie has taught me is music medicine - how to sing my shadow - and that process is bringing my voice back to life. So join us for this truly special episode where we share our stories, and - YES - sing for you. And that includes our “ugly duet.” Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

It would have been remiss to explore the theme of shadow this month and not bring in a Jungian psychoanalyst. So you’re in for a treat everyone… meet Sherene Vismaya. Before I ever got personally connected to Sherene, her book “Surviving Saturn’s Return” was my bible as I was approaching age 30. Sherene is a psychoanalyst, an astrologer, a tarot reader, a movement teacher, and a woman of extreme wisdom. I learned so much hearing her share about how we can approach and slowly uncover our shadow. In fact, I was so comfortable with her that I wound up sharing some very vulnerable things about my own personal relationships. If you’re on a journey to bring your unconscious up to the light, this is an episode for you. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

It is with great reverence and gratitude that I welcome my tarot reader to the podcast, a Blind Oracle. If you’re not familiar with the tarot, it’s a very special deck of cards used to offer reflections on our lived human experience. Often thought of as an occult practice, tarot is in fact a beautiful way to bring to light what’s in the shadow. In this episode we discuss how the tarot deck helps us access and speak our truth, and we pull two draws of cards: one for me personally and one for our collective. When I listened back to the edit of this episode two weeks after we recorded it I though “Ohhhh wow... Leave it to the magic tarot to tell us what we need to hear!!” This is one not to be missed. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Here’s some shadow medicine for us all... in this week’s episode of the How To Speak Your Truth podcast I am incredibly honored to be speaking to Rochelle Schieck, founder of Qoya (and extra special guest, her son Desmond!). Qoya is a feminine movement practice based on the premise that through movement we remember our essence. Having danced Qoya for four years, I can say that one of my very favorite parts of a class is to dance the shadow side of the theme. In this episode, Rochelle shares why the shadow is so important and offers a simple movement practice that can help you answer a tough question by going beyond your brain. We also both open up about catching ourself acting in particular ways we don’t like, and how looking at that behavior has helped us grow into more of who we want to be. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

As fall arrives in the northern hemisphere, the theme we’ll be exploring this month on the podcast is Shadow. When we unconsciously reject our shadow, we cannot show up in our lives fully and authentically. There is medicine in the shadow. So in this solo episode to kick off October, I’ll share stories and reflections about my process of integrating my own shadow. In particular, I’ll share a spontaneous experience I had channeling my matrilineal grandmothers and asking them to release me from an unspoken family agreement. Plus for the very first time on this podcast (though likely not the last!), I’ll sing you a song I wrote on my harmonium. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Today’s podcast topic is one of the nearest and dearest to my heart: your voice. So it is an honor that on this episode you’ll be hearing the deeply resonant and soulful voice of my colleague Lynn Singer. In her decades of studying and teaching acting and voicework in New York City, Lynn has worked with some of the greatest personalities in the world. But though she’s learned with some of the best, Lynn’s approach to voice training is fully and uniquely her own. Listen as Lynn shares about how truth comes from vulnerability and why accessing our emotional life is crucial, whether we’re performing or speaking to our loved ones. PLUS Lynn will reveal the actor Richard Burton’s 3 Secrets of Language - the vocal techniques that catapulted him to fame. Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Our astrologer Virginia Rosenberg is back in honor of the fall equinox (in the northern hemisphere… and spring in the southern!). Now you may ask: Why is there a resident astrologer on the How To Speak Your Truth podcast? Because knowledge of celestial bodies can teach us so much about our own embodied experience on earth. The story in the sky right now is helping us understand the emotional weights we need to release. Especially as we enter Libra season - a time of exploring relationships and balance - it’s important to let our emotions move and be expressed. Dive into today’s episode to learn more about the wisdom the planets have to offer us during this equinox season... Listen now, and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

Meet Briel, my life “wifey.” We grew up together attending theatre camp and synagogue, and now we’ve been friends for 25 years. It hasn’t always been easy… we’ve mostly lived long distances apart, we’ve had our fights (we’ll tell you about the one that happened in wine country), and in many ways we’re two very different people. But over and over through the years, we’ve continued to commit to being best friends. In this week’s episode, “About friendship,” we’ll dive into why it’s so important to be fully authentic with the people closest to you, and how friends are the family that you choose. And Briel and I will do our best not to blow out your eardrums with our laughter and singing, especially as we retell the story of how things went a little bit awry when we dedicated a song to her brother at his Bar Mitzvah. Listen now… and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

In preparation for recording the solo episode on this month’s theme, Authenticity, I looked up hashtag #authenticity on instagram. The feed was hilarious - a slew of Jeeps and Nikes. Fair enough... in today’s social media and influencer culture, authenticity can be co-opted by anyone who wants to lay claim to it. But that doesn’t mean the concept is tainted. Being authentic is real and it matters. In episode 12, I share stories of how my grad school mentors tried to talk me out of discussing truth in my thesis, and why letting myself have a bad day has been an important part of my authenticity practice. I also open up about how I’m transforming my business by stepping into my full authentic voice, and how I’m responding to the haters sending me mean emails because they don’t think I should change. Listen now… and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.

When adults used to ask Alex Batdorf what she wanted to be when she grew up, she’d say: “I’m going to rule the world.” I think she wasn’t wrong... this queen is powerful. Alex is a serial entrepreneur, a business strategy coach, and a sought after speaker who helps women entrepreneurs scale their businesses to $1 million. Why? Because when women have the capacity to build highly successful businesses, the entire economy changes. And that’s the change Alex wants to see in the world. In this episode, About getting sh!t done, Alex and I talk about the importance of showing up to do the work to follow your dreams. Hard work doesn’t mean you can abandon self care, and it’s certainly not without its hardships (Alex shares some real struggles of her own). But when you prioritize making your desires a reality, everyone around you can rise with you. Listen now… and for more information on the podcast and how to join the Speak Your Truth Membership Community, visit www.howtospeakyourtruth.com.