Embodied Voice Work

You ever have a moment where you feel so frustrated, or upset that you let out a scream, or some sort of aggravating noise, and nearly instantly, you feel a sense of relief? 

You’ve successfully moved stress through your body using your voice. 

Letting Go.

One of the most challenging things we humans seem to come across with throughout or lives, letting go. It doesn’t matter how it started, it’s still built up stress and trauma within our bodies. Our minds can shield us for so long, but our body holds it in. Stores it away within muscles, tissues, memories. However that this trauma is stored it’s within our bodies and it creates a block. 

We feel it. Tension, when we hold ourselves tense, or rigid. We jump at noises and or shadows. Anxiety, when we hold our breath when others speak or move, the fear that is so built up within us, the simply act of making a choice of right or left seems like life or death. 

This feeling can consume us, can take over and pop up at any given time. Mostly we are triggered, but other times it can rear it’s ugly head in the most random times. 

Why?

Our bodies and mind are held down by all of this built up negative energy, carrying so much day to day adds up to a heavy weight we can feel mentally, even physically.

I’ve known for some time that movement can help release this tension, but sometimes there’s more that just sits, and again, over time adds up until you feel a heavy weight. Maybe you can feel it when you breath, maybe you can feel it simply trying to get up out of bed. Maybe you feel it when you need to go run an errand. It’s pent up negative energy within ourselves that hasn’t moved. 

The last two weeks in my Somatic Yoga for Mental Health class, we’ve been learning about Embodied Voice Work, and I have never been more in love with the path I’m taking then now. I feel such a connection with it, and an understanding that I’m looking forward to teaching others. 

There have been many nights, even days where I’ve cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. There’ve been a few times when I’ve been able to let my voice out, but not many, and I remember when I was able to do that, the sense of relief was felt deep within. A weight lifted off of me. 

Movement and voice work ( making sounds) not just moves energy through your body but helps release it as well. Stored up negative energy ( stress) , stored up trauma, fear, worry, needs to move. It needs to be released. 

It’s been empowering ( I know I’ve say this a lot) but I’m serious, this class has been empowering. Things I’ve done by accident in the past, have helped, but to be able to learn more about techniques with deeper understandings of WHY it helps, has opened my eyes and heart to possibilities I didn’t see before. 

It’s been a real pleasure the last few weeks to dig deeper into Voice work, it’s really interesting how simply letting out an AH sound or O nice and long can relieve tension within us. Placed together with movement you can get all the stagnate energy that could have been pent up, or stored deep within moving again. It takes time to release of course but the more often you do it, the better it feels and the more energy you are able to let go of. In class we were singing, and making different noises in class, the interesting part ( beyond actaully feeling release during the noises ) was making different noises affect your breathing differently. How deep your breath goes, or how shallow it was, how it was resonating in the body as well, as in where did you feel the noise? I never thought about that before, so it’s been very interesting to experiment with lately when I actaully am alone and feel like I can make some noise. It’s truly a  “letting go” experience, where you just get to be free. 

So I encourage you the next time you are feeling built up tension or stress, find a place where you feel safe and secure and let your voice out! As you are making whatever sound you choose to make, move the body, maybe you are swaying, maybe you are reaching for the sky. See how you feel as you move, as you make sounds. Which sounds feel better? Which movements feel better?

I will come back to Embodied Voice Work, it’s something I am just starting to work on myself, so as I learn more I will share more with you. In the mean time, let me know if you’ve ever done some Voice work yourself? How did it make you feel? Have any tips or suggestions?