How do you connect the mind, body and emotions to push your speaking skills to new heights? Movement in your body plays a huge role in how your podcasting voice gets amplified behind the mic. Becoming in tune with yourself and revealing the healing work that needs to be done, will help you discover a deeper connection with your voice as a podcaster!

Holding a true passion for breaking the previously set limits of our minds, Kathryn Yarborough, the creator of Manifesting Clients Academy, talks about listening to your whole body through movement as it holds the key to freedom with our voice. Kathryn is a speaker coach, Manifesting Clients mentor, author, speaker, and event coordinator. You are going to get some new insights about your body with this episode!

Dive in with Kathryn as she shares:

  • Her top three tips for integrating the body, mind, and emotional connection
  • How she discovered the freedom in movement
  • How to listen when your body is speaking

Links worth exploring from the episode:

Engage with Kathryn Yarborough:

Connect with Mary!

Podcast cover art by Emily Johnston of Artio Design Co.

Transcript with audio description:

[MUSIC IN]

CLIP – KATHRYN: When we integrate body, mind, emotion and develop this capacity of allowing life force to flow through us while we’re speaking, which means that we’re moving with our whole being and our voice is changing. And if we’re present when we’re doing that, then it’s almost like this higher skill. And that’s what good communicators do. We develop content and develop the inner capacity to speak in a way that when we share that content, our whole being is integrated.

[MUSIC OUT // PAUSE A BEAT // INTRO]

<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Welcome to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

MARY: Reveal and define your voice to speak your truth through the power of podcasting. And I’m your host, Mary Chan.

<< WOMAN SINGS: So so so so let’s go >>

MARY: Hey there! Welcome to the show! This is episode number 59, how to speak with your body using the mind-body connection with Kathryn Yarborough.

[INTRO MUSIC OUT/ MUSIC IN]

When you close your eyes, have a seat, or maybe you’re standing and you’re just in silence with yourself, what do you feel? Does your body feel an inner impulse to move and freely be expressive? Or is there only silence? You know, those feelings of awkwardness and strangeness? Because who sits in silence by themselves? That’s not a normal thing to do. If you’re by yourself and in silence, maybe you’re still doing something like reading a book. Or maybe you’re like me and you like to do some knitting in quietness, and that’s fine, but you’re just standing there, sitting there, not moving. How our body moves is a direct relation to how our voice will sound. 

Today’s episode brings a juicy conversation with someone who knows a thing or two about how the mind, body, and emotional connection is vital to your voice. With a background as a dance movement therapist, Kathryn Yarborough is the creator of the Manifesting Clients Academy. A vibrant speaker coach, Manifesting Clients mentor, author, speaker, and event coordinator, she is passionate about inspiring women entrepreneurs to break free from the childhood or corporate conditioning that suppresses their authentic vibrancy. We definitely touch upon that in our conversation today. And you’ll hear how the connection with how the mind, body, and emotions need to work together to amplify your voice, which nonverbals and gestures are key to creating connection with your listener, and how the body needs to move in order to fully be yourself when speaking. 

And just so you know, this episode originally was one of the two episodes I lost when my laptop had its oh-so-fun little meltdown and deleted my audio. You remember hearing about that from Episode 56 about Reliable Backups. If you didn’t catch that one yet, hit pause on this one. Go back to episode 56 about reliable Backups and listen to that first. And like I said in that episode, one of the things that I would do differently, you know, right after I recorded this interview. I sent my clean feed recording straight to my Google Drive as my backup, and I didn’t need it. But it was so great to know that it was right there if I did, no more losing interviews for me. And so, you know, it happens to podcasters all the time. Things happen. 

And then you have to ask the guest again to come back and re-record the interview, or essentially have another conversation and get to hang out again. And that’s actually kind of cool. So, although Kathryn and I don’t really remember all the details from the initial conversation we had, we both think this one was really so much better, only because we got to deal with the tech out of the way from the first episode. And the second one was a breeze because that first one was only like practice. So we got to hang out again. And I know you are going to enjoy this episode. 

[MUSIC OUT]

MARY: Kathryn, thank you so, so much for coming on the show and joining me on the podcast.

KATHRYN: It’s my pleasure to be here with you Mary.

MARY:  Your background in dance and movement, the dance movement therapist thing, what was your defining moment where you realized that movement and voice for speaking was so connected?

Kathryn: So, first of all, for several years, I kept getting an image that popped into my head of me speaking in front of a room filled with several hundred people. And I was not that good of a speaker. I was okay. I had never studied it or learned anything. And I kept saying, when I would get that image, no,no, no, no, no, no, I’m not going to do this, I don’t want to do this. And then after about three or four years, maybe it was five, of getting this image pop into my head. I finally said, well, okay, I’ll go learn how to become a better speaker. And I went to a speaker training where during it, I had a chance to do a short presentation, like a few minutes in front of the room. And I did this thing where I was saying, you could either do it this way or that way. And I stepped from one side to the other when I did that. And the person who was leading this workshop commented on that. She said that’s an advanced skill.

MARY: Hmm. Look at you!

KATHRYN: Exactly. That’s what I thought. I thought, I’m special. And I left that workshop knowing a few things. One, that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to speak about at the time. This was about five years ago, five or six years ago. And two, I had something, I knew something. And because I could do an advanced skill, it was easy. It was a no brainer. I didn’t even think about it. It was movement while speaking. So after that, I did join Toastmasters so I could develop my speaking skills. And while I was there, and I still am a member. But in the beginning, that first six to twelve months, I remember thinking to myself, I am special. It is so easy for me to use non-verbals both movements, as well as voice changes. And it’s not easy for other people. I was seeing it in Toastmasters as I continued on the last several years, going to networking events or going to speaking at Summits. And then we moved everything onto Zoom. And so there was in person, there was on Zoom, and I was seeing people not change their facial expressions, not use hand gestures, not use full body movement. And I’m over here going, I am special.

MARY: Okay, so then why were you so special? What made it so easy? How did you learn these skills?

KATHRYN: Right. Exactly. So my background includes getting a Master of Fine Arts in dance. And I went straight from college to get this master’s degree. And then about ten years later, I went back to school, and I became a dance movement therapist. And when I was in graduate school, to get my Master of Fine Arts in dance. When I went there, I had always done what the teachers told me to do. When I took dance classes, I always did what the teachers told me to do, put my arms here, put my legs there. I never did anything creative or expressive, other, uh, than put as much feeling as I could into what I was doing with the dance. But when I went to graduate school for dance, I was exposed to something called Authentic Movement that very first semester. And Authentic Movement is this form of movement where there is a witness and a mover, or several movers. This was a class. There were several movers, all the students, about seven or eight of us. So there wasn’t tons, but some of us. And then there was the teacher, and she was the witness. And the instructions were, without any music, to move in whatever way we felt called to move. The purpose of it was to create or identify original movement for choreography. So that semester, being 21 year old young, young woman who had always done what people told her to do, I’m being told to move in this new way, that I’ve never done anything like this. That’s how I felt like, okay, but I’ll give it a try. So I stood up, and you’re supposed to have your eyes close. As I said, there was no music. And just listen to that inner impulse to move and follow it. Well, I stood up, closed my eyes, and Mary, nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And I’m standing there feeling like a complete idiot. I don’t know how long it took me before I got down on the floor and then I curled up in a fetal position. And over the course of the semester, we did this every week. I showed up for the class every week, but every week, I stood up, closed my eyes, and there was nothing. I had no inner impulse to move or no sensation of it, because I had been conditioned.

MARY: How did that make you feel?

KATHRYN: I felt kind of stupid and sad. There were times I remember crying in the fetal position. I was kind of surprised. I think I got an okay grade. Probably just because I showed up, even though I didn’t do anything. But anyhow, what then happened over the course of the next couple of years is I was in other types of classes where I got to do more structured improvisational movement, where I was invited to move fast, to move slow, to move big, small, all kinds of ways of moving. I started to have these really cool experiences and open up to moving in ways that I wasn’t told specifically where to put my arms, or where to put my legs, or how to move right. I got to be more playful with the movement and creative. I went back to that class two years later. It was called Choreography as a Creative Process. And when it was time to do authentic movement, I stood up, I closed my eyes and I could feel it. I could feel that inner impulse to move. And I started moving and I moved for that whole semester. It was one of my most wonderful memories. It was a fantastic experience. It was expressive, it was, ah, sensual, it was connective, it was just fantastic.

MARY: Describe the movement because you could move like jumping, dancing, toe-tapping, big theater-type movements. Like, what kind of movement were you talking about?

KATHRYN: It could have been any of that. All of it.

MARY: All of it.

KATHRYN: Any kind of movement. I mean, I’m telling you, I moved small, I moved big, I rolled on the floor, I did back rubbing with my back with other movers in the room. It was so cool. What happened was I had awoken that inner impulse to move by reconnecting my body, mind and emotions through that improvisational movement that I got to do in those other classes. It was more structured and I needed that baby step to bridge so that I could open up to this new way of being. Because when I first went there, I had a body, mind emotion split. So, now when I look around these zoom rooms or even in-person networking meetings or conferences, and when I see speakers and I went to a TEDx day and I see speakers, and some of them are not using their bodies, 50% to 70%, are not allowing their faces to change, are not allowing gestures to flow, are not changing their voices. And I know that there’s a body, mind, emotion split of some kind. Some part of them was tucked away through childhood or corporate conditioning. 

So about a year and a couple of months ago, or a year and a quarter ago, in answer to your question, what happened. I was in a conversation with someone who was also in Toastmasters, and he was sharing his idea about why new speakers don’t use gestures. And I’m sitting over there thinking to myself. Well, it’s not just new speakers, buddy. Most people don’t use their body comfortably. They just don’t. What his thinking about helped me remember what I had learned in that experience in graduate school, connected with what I learned as a dance movement therapist. And I put these pieces together, and I was like, oh, my goodness. This process could actually be teachable, easily teachable to people who want to be great speakers, who want to be more expressive and dynamic when they talk about whatever they’re talking about. And hence, that was the lightning bolt moment. It was like, within 24 hours of that conversation with that guy, I had a download for what I call the Speak With Your Body program.

MARY: I love, too, how you were saying it’s all sorts of movement, because sometimes when people think of movement, they think of dance or big gestures, especially if you were mentioning, like, a Ted Talk stage. It’s a big stage that either you are, uh, like you were saying, they don’t move, so they’re just like a pole standing stick standing there. Or you get to the other end of the spectrum where people are wildly using their hands or moving back and forth way too much. But there was a piece in there where you said facial movement, and I think that type of movement is something people never think about. It is movement when people always think, oh, no, hands and feet, body movement, like your torso, as in your body, not just your facial features. People don’t think of facial features as movement. I feel like that’s part of the nonverbals that you touched on very briefly earlier. Describe for me all your, uh, favorite nonverbals that speakers should be using.

KATHRYN: Oh, absolutely. So one is near and dear to your heart, which is vocal variety.

MARY: Yes.

KATHRYN: Yeah. So oh, my goodness, we could all do better at that. It’s just amazing to me the patterns that people get in. And even decent speakers, good average to good speakers who have some vocal variety, they can sound pretty much the same after about five to ten minutes. And to add to that is what takes an okay, good speaker to a great speaker to add those pauses, to really raise a voice when it matters, you know? So, anyway, I could go into that, but you could probably go into it much better. So that’s one I consider that nonverbal. But if we’re talking about the body, I’m going to say facial expressions, which you’ve spoken you’ve heard me say that. Hand gestures, or really any kind of gestures, because you can gesture with your head by nodding or tilting your head or something like that. Or you can gesture with your elbow, like you’re going to knock somebody, you’re going to hit somebody with your elbow. That would be an elbow gesture or any gesture. I mean, you can gesture with any part of your body. It’s just a little gesture. 

And then there’s, of course, full-body movement. I have a free assessment. I’m not trying to plug anything here, but if anybody’s interested, it’s on my website. It’s authentically, vibrant assessment, where you can watch yourself for two minutes and rate all these different things. And there’s a full body movement. But if you’re watching yourself on, for example, a recorded video that’s maybe from Zoom or something on YouTube, and you only see the top part of your body, you’re just going to see, like, I call it your torso. And so if you’re sitting, you want your torso to be involved, and you want it to move some not all the time, but some, because if your torso is involved, like, it gets taller, or you kind of widen out, or you lean in with it, it means that you’re speaking about something you really care about. And if you’re not letting your torso be involved, if it’s totally still, it’s a very clear indicator that there’s a body, mind, emotion split, in my opinion. 

And or you’re not very emotionally connected to what you’re saying. You’re just kind of talking, and there’s no feeling. So if you get your torso involved because you are speaking about something you care about, then people will feel that too. So it’s that next layer. And if you’re standing, it will go through not just your belly, your chest, your back, but it will probably also include your legs, depending on what you’re doing. So what I called in the TEDx Talks, the people who were good to great speakers were using their whole bodies when they spoke. And they, you know, organically. The gestures, it all comes from them. Because their body, mind, emotion, possibly spirit, are all interconnected. But the people who have the split, I call it the shuffle, the speaker shuffle, they were told to step to the right and step to the left.

MARY: And it’s like a dance move.

KATHRYN: Exactly. I can just imagine the conversation. What should I do with my body? Well, you should move around the spaces a little bit. Just kind of go from here to there. And it’s like, oh, my God.

MARY: Oh, I pointed to the right. I guess I’ll point to the left. Now maybe I’ll point to the center, but I’ll go back to the right.

[LAUGHTER]

KATHRYN: Yeah. And that’s what we do when we don’t know better. And we were in a person who’s conditioned, they just don’t know better. So it’s not that they’re bad people or anything. It’s just they haven’t done my speak with your Body program or process or something like it. So that there’s that split still going on.

MARY: Yeah. It is something that we’ve been told to do probably since we were a little girl or something like that. Because that brings me back to when I was the little girl, I was always told, sit quietly, don’t move, don’t make a fuss. And so even today, I still have a bit of that ingrained into me. It’s like, okay, I’m in a professional setting, quote unquote professional setting. I should have my hands clasped on my lap. And so you don’t think of, um, okay, I need to be a bit more free-flowing in my movement. And relax and use your torso. Right, like you were saying. 

So I love the fact that you did plug your assessment, because when you watch yourself on video and for podcasting, traditionally, there is no video like you and me right now, Kathryn. We’re recording with no video. Yet when you do have that movement in your body, that really does shine through in your voice. So I think if the listener if you want to go to Kathryn’s website, we’ll link it into the show notes, do that assessment, because I bet it will help, because people don’t realize what they’re doing or not doing when they’re behind the microphone, and it does really help to have movement. So, uh, thank you, Kathryn, for sharing that.

KATHRYN: Absolutely, Mary.

MARY: And I always stand when I’m recording, whether I am even doing a Zoom call. I’m always standing because I feel like I do need that freedom to move the lower portion of my body and to be able to be more free with movement. And it does help with my voice. So I am standing right now as we speak.

KATHRYN: Oh, that’s the secret. Okay. I know there’s the standing desks. I need to look into that and figure out what will work better for me, because I’m pretty good at being authentically vibrant when I speak in a seated position. But right now, my body is actually going, you’ve been sitting too long, Kathryn.

[LAUGHTER]

MARY: And that’s what my body does, too. And you’re right, I have the privilege of having a sit-stand desk, so that really does help. Um, but it also comes from my radio days, too. When we were in a recording booth, we just had a standing mic, and there would be a script in front of you with the music stand, and you would stand and do your full body, uh, movement when you’re recording a script behind the microphone. You know, if you ever watch a YouTube video, uh, watching a voiceover artist do, like, maybe one of your favourite cartoon or anime characters or something like that, they are using their full body. They need room to move their arms, their feet, and have that huge facial expression. So, that’s one of the things I love about podcasting. I can look and act really silly, and nobody can tell I am a hand talker. My hands are always flailing around doing stuff, but you can’t tell. 

[LAUGHTER]

MARY:Let’s go back a little bit here. We were talking a bit about the mind-body connection, and sometimes I’m always wondering what comes first. Like I was saying, there’s the little girl inside of me. So that’s maybe, like, the mind telling me to do stuff, but then it’s also sometimes, oh, well, my body is sore, so it’s the body telling me what I could or could not do. Like you were saying, my body needs to move. I’ve been sitting in this chair for so long. But that’s your body. So yeah. Long story short, what do you think comes first? Is it the mind or the body that controls your voice?

[LAUGHTER]

KATHRYN: Now, there’s a version of the chicken and the egg question, right? And I’m going to say that just like the chicken and the egg question, both your mind and your body and your emotions, I’m going to put that in there too, matter when it comes to your voice, and not one of them comes first. Now, if you were talking to somebody else who is more into developmental theory, there may be other information out there for you. But as adults, I am going to say that if you want to have an expressive voice and a good voice, then integrate your body, mind, and emotions. Because if you put one before the other, you’re not going to be as effective. Does that seem true to you?

MARY: Yes. Because if you think solely on your body, then your mind is going in that direction. We’re going back to the hey, I’m going to point to the right. And now I need to point to the left scenario. And if you’re only thinking about your mind, then you might forget about the body movement because that’s what we’re ingrained with a lot of the times. So I feel like, yes, it is a little bit of everything.

KATHRYN: It is. And it’s interesting because what’s cool about adults is that if you do integrate body, mind, emotions, then when you communicate, you’re going to be a much more effective communicator. And let me give you an example, an adult example of what I mean by this.

MARY: Okay. I love it.

KATHRYN: I sometimes do this practice as one of the practices that I share with the speak with Your Body clients. I call it “Mindful Movement”. It’s an adapted version of authentic movement that I talked about earlier. Instead of no instructions, instead of close your eyes and just it’s quiet. Do whatever your body feels like doing. What I do is I invite my client, or in this case, me, to move different parts of your body. Like move your head in whatever way feels right, and move your shoulders, however your shoulders want to move. So you begin to open up to what is your body how, does your body want to move? So one of the things that I’ve started doing now, that I am working with speakers, and I do it with myself because I need to keep practicing to make sure I’m on top of what I’m doing. And it happened this morning, I did mindful movement, and then I asked myself, how are you? And really, the question is, how are you? And let your body answer, 

MARY: Oh, I love this. 

KATHRYN: Yeah. And then put words. Then put sounds and words that go with the movement. So this morning, let me say this. I just got off of a two week vacation. It ended yesterday. Yes. So today was my first day, official first day back working. And for whatever reason, this morning when I did the mindful movement. And then I asked myself, how are you feeling? And I did this gesture where my two hands came, um, up right actually a little bit above my heart, like, around throat, and they were like, clenched hands, and they’re, like, clawing at air towards each other. If you can kind of imagine this gesture, I can be really intense with my movement. And so then I was like, okay, so add words. I couldn’t add any words. I could just do sounds.

[GROWLING NOISE / LAUGHTER]

KATHRYN: I’m like. So how are you, Catherine? I’m like and I’m sitting there trying to come up with words. But it’s so fascinating to me because this process of the connecting the body, mind and emotion if I put words to that, I could have said something like I feel like all tangled up inside. And those words kind of describe it, but they take away from the movement. [GROWLING NOISE] And this it’s like they dumb it down. So it’s really interesting to me, and maybe there’s a way that I could get better at finding the words. But my point being is that as an adult, when we integrate body, mind, emotion, and develop this capacity of allowing life force to flow through us while we’re speaking, which means that we’re moving with our whole being and our voice is changing. And if we’re present when we’re doing that, then it’s almost like this higher skill that I didn’t quite get to this morning. 

[LAUGHTER] 

I was still more like a child in that feeling. You know how children will express themselves? They don’t have the words yet. That’s how I was feeling. I didn’t know how to put this into words that were in alignment with the sound and the movement. And that’s what good communicators do, I think. And speakers, we develop content and develop the inner capacity to speak in a way that when we share that content, our whole being is integrated. And it’s not just sounds like unless, of course, like, in this setting, it makes sense to demonstrate how I was feeling.

[LAUGHTER]

MARY: But you know what? I love the story. I have two points that I was thinking of when you were saying, like, when when a child or a baby, you know, they don’t have words, yet they make sounds. And that is so true, though, for the podcasting space, where when you are writing or communicating, it’s not about the big words. And in fact, I remember going to radio school and them teaching me, you need to write for a five year old. If the words are too big, too many syllables, it’s going to be too complicated for a listener to understand because there is no visual cues there. And if there’s too many syllables, then you might get tongue tied and you can’t actually enunciate those words. 

So you need to bring it down to a five-year-old level. And then the other thought I had when you were speaking was I tend to actually not use a lot of words too sometimes. The other day I had a friend ask me what was going on in my life. And I was stressed out, I had all these things. And she’s like, but how does that feel like, what’s going on? And I just went, I don’t know, just, [EXASPERATED SIGH] and since we can’t see each other, my hands were like thrown down at my sides, palms up. My head and chin was like right down to my chest.

KATHRYN: Yeah.

MARY: And it was just like I could see that.

KATHRYN: I could see you didn’t even have to describe it. I could feel the movement.

MARY: So sounds are really great in the podcasting space because like you said, you could see it. Podcasting without those visuals creates your own theatre of the mind. So using your voice to its fullest capacity and the movement that you were talking about brings that theater to the mind for the listener. And so I really love what you were saying earlier.

KATHRYN: And I appreciate what you’re saying, too. I love talking with you, Mary, you’re so fun. And anyhow, enough of that. That’s just great.

MARY: But you’re right, it does take a while to figure out how to integrate that body, mind, and emotions. And so as we’re closing out here, what is then your maybe top three tips on how to integrate that body, mind, and emotional connection.

KATHRYN: So I’m going to say first, be honest with yourself. If possible, recognize that you have a split. So hopefully if someone’s listened to this entire podcast of us, you and me, not your podcast, because of course they’ve been listening to yours, but if they’ve listened to this entire one, they’re probably pretty savvy and self-aware. So be honest with yourself. So that’s first, be honest about what’s not connected. In what way. Is your body, mind, and motion not communicating and working together? Are you hearing that inner impulse to move? Are you allowing your face to change? Are you expressing all that you want? Are you using your mind to help you craft messages that make sense? So all of that matters. So that’s number one. 

Number two is get present. Because it’s in this moment that you’re going to feel that inner impulse to move, experience the emotions, and be able to integrate your body, mind, and emotions. So if you’re always thinking ahead, what you’re going to say next, or how you’re going to respond to the person, then you’re not present. So get here now. 

And the third tip, uh, is to allow yourself to do the healing work that needs to be done. So in order to really integrate your body, mind, and emotion, you have to reclaim parts of yourself that were disconnected. And you’ll likely have to feel things that you don’t normally feel. Like possibly you pushed aside anger or you pushed aside sadness or even joy or love. So you’re going to have to open up to that. And some of that may require some healing. So, while this may all sound super simple and might be for some people, if they’ve done enough of that work, for others, it could be a deeper transformational process.

MARY: Yeah. And, um, making sure that you’re in a safe space or safety with someone when you process those emotional parts, because yeah, I know from experience that sometimes if, uh, you get to that part where if you’re working by yourself and you’re like, oh, I don’t like the feeling of this, like, I stop. And so I don’t actually process it at all. But if you are in the safe space with a trusted friend or therapist, if you have access to one, they might get you past that edge of the, uh, I’m just going to turn back here and you could really create breakthrough, which I know yeah, has helped with my speaking and voice and all of that. So Catherine, thank you for those three tips. That’s really great.

KATHRYN: Yes, my pleasure.

MARY: So as we close out, what are you excited about? Podcasting right now?

KATHRYN: Oh, my goodness. What an interesting question for me today. So podcasting right now. So, first of all, I’m totally enjoying this conversation with you. Just being on this show today with you is making me go, oh, I need to do more of this. So, as I mentioned before, I just finished my two-week vacation, and before going on my two-week vacation, I was so burnout. I just was like, oh my God, I can’t do another thing. I can’t do another thing. So now that I’m coming back, in that last month or so before, I wasn’t trying to book any podcast. I was like, okay, I just can’t do anymore. So in your asking me this question, what am I excited about? I’m going to say that I love getting to know the podcast hosts that interview me. That’s truthfully, the thing that I like the most about this experience. And obviously, I really like you, but other people who’ve interviewed me, I’m like, that’s the funnest thing. So thank you for reminding me of that by asking me that question.

MARY: Yeah, that’s what I also love about podcasting. You’re growing your network. You’re meeting new people all the time, like, especially if your show is an interview-based show. Then you get to just grow. And not just growing your network, but like, grow personally too, because you’re learning so many great things from all these people that you get to talk to, like yourself, Kathryn. So I’m so glad that, uh, I get to be one of those, uh, things to start your return to work with. I hope that this was fun for you. 

KATHRYN: Absolutely. Totally delightful. Thank you.Mary,

MARY: Thank you so much for coming on the show and, uh, sharing all of your wisdom with us.

KATHRYN: My pleasure.

[MUSIC IN]

MARY: I loved Kathryn’s last tip there about the healing work that needs to be done. I’ve had clients ask me before, how long did it take for you to get to where you are with your voice? And my automatic response always is years. I mean, yes, I went to radio school, but it didn’t really click in. After my two-year program, I got a bit of the gist of it, but then it took working in the industry, reading scripts day in, day out, reading bad scripts, good scripts, turning on my microphone every day, being on air. It took work. And it still takes work. You know that little girl I was talking about in the episode? That feeling doesn’t just go away. I’ve done some healing work with it, sure, but I still hear the things that she heard and it affects the way I speak at times. It’s part of who I am. And that’s why I also call it a voice journey. It’s never a one-time thing and a done deal. You’re always going to be learning. I acknowledge the little girl there, but then I know how to take that emotion and move past it and use it sort of as my superpower to enhance what I’m trying to say now and amplify my voice. 

So I’m really appreciative of what Kathryn had to say about that, and also for her offer as well, to check out the authentically, a vibrant assessment tool that she has. This is a great way and a great starting point to begin to be aware of the things that you may or may not be doing with your body while you’re speaking. It’s not like we’re speaking in front of a mirror every day. So this is a great way to assess where you are at. And then if you want to take it to the next level and work with me or Kathryn on your voice or speaking skills, that’s when you may want to have an outside perspective with steps on what you can do to amplify your voice. So the first step is being aware. So grab Kathryn’s tool, which is linked in the show notes, or also in the show Notes is a link to chat with me. If you want a complimentary 30-minute strategy session, we can talk about all things voice, all things podcasting. That is up to you. Let’s collaborate to have you speak with Spirit. So thanks again for listening and we’ll hang out with you again next time. Bye!

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MARY: Thank you so much for listening to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d love it if you shared it with a podcasting friend. And to reveal more voicing and podcasting tips, click on over to visiblevoicepodcast.com.

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