Words by Phoebe White

What is our voice?

Our voice is more than our vocal chords – it is what we say, how we say it and the impact that has in both our inner (ourselves) and outer worlds (others). Almost any yoga teacher will tell you that yoga is about posture, breath and an easy confidence, using techniques to master the mind and body. Almost any singing teacher or performance coach will tell you the same!  Voice is a full-bodied experience so to have impact, we need to be physically open and flexible. Yoga is therefore, voice’s best mate (yoga’s got a lot of best mates).

I’m a yoga teacher, singer, public speaker and NLP coach. Drawing on a personal journey in finding my own voice, I’m passionate about helping others with asana and coaching to develop their authentic voice.  I think about voice as a portal between our conscious and unconscious worlds, and indeed the gateway to consciousness itself.

If someone says ‘I’m fine’ in a clipped and croaky tone, or ‘yeah, I’m well up for that’ in a high pitched and questioning one, something within you knows that they’re not being true, no matter the content of their words or if they can actually tell it for themselves.  To speak or sing with impact, we have to mean what we’re expressing. And in order to do that, we must first connect to what is true for us.

How yoga can help

Yoga offers us a powerful way to do this. Much yoga philosophy speaks to finding oneness, opening and leaning softly into obstacles to peel back the layers to our true self.  Both the mechanics of vocalising sound and being able to articulate what it is we want to say is exactly about this too – openness, softness and truth.

Maybe you’ve already experienced that deeply satisfying flow where your expression comes without trying, maybe when playing music with others, singing along to a beloved artist, or dropping a joke at the perfect time. It’s never something you were trying to do or to force, it was something that just happened – a release, a connection to a deeper awareness and others.  This is a yoga.

Voice is concerned with Visuddha or throat chakra which corresponds to the element of sound or space.  It is our energy in this chakra that through vibration, manifests what is thought or dreamt and liberates what is felt or experienced.

Communication is an art and journey of self-enquiry. In ‘The Right to Speak’, Patsy Rodenburg discusses declaring vocal rights, asserting that the judgements and assumptions of others (and ourselves) have a direct impact on how we put our thoughts and feelings into the realm of communication and indeed, how authentically we can connect to others.

‘The right to breathe, the right to be physically unashamed, to fully vocalise, to need, choose and make contact with a word, to release a word into space – the right to speak’

I’m sure no one reading this will think this sounds like a straight forward thing to achieve. But yoga’s eight limbs offer a seed for growth: Pratyahara, withdrawal of the senses, which means to bring the gaze inward let go of external perception i.e. what you might sound or look like.  

No practice is much practice at all if this isn’t attempted and eventually mastered. Much like in a yoga class, where we feel into the asana with our breath, rather than seek to attain that insta-perfect pose or be ‘as good’ as the person on the next mat. In voice use, greater resonance and presence comes when feeling the voice and allowing a natural flow, instead of listening externally or emulating another, in either how they sound or what they say.  

We need to free the body and mind from comparison, expectation, assumption and judgement (perceived or otherwise!) to soften into flow.

Psychology, voice, physiology and yoga is a vast topic to grasp intellectually so I recommend practice, learning through the experience what feels right for you.  I’ve included an intuitive beginners sequence here for you to get started!

If you’d like personalised help with your voice goals (online or in person), or would like to attend a workshop – contact me @PhoebeWhiteYoga

Enjoy!

A practice you can try at home

This yoga practice will help you improve mental focus and allow a deeper connection to your inner voice. It will relax your nervous system; release tension and constriction in the throat; improve flexibility to give your lungs more room to breathe and develop the muscles needed to power and control the voice (clue: they’re not in your throat).

Set aside a quiet space to follow the experience of each pose, exploring the flow of vibration as sound moves in the body and opening into resonance and vocal expression. If it feels weird to make sound, then know this is your first area to free up: your right to make noise.

Less is more with the voice, so put no effort into sounding, instead, just allow your voice to arise from the breath in the pose. Keep the throat, neck, jaw and tongue relaxed throughout. Breath always first.

Each pose included here offers a Bija or seed mantra to vocalise to help explore different vibrations present in the body and get to know the nuances of your voice.

With each:  

• Inhale silently through your mouth. If your inhale is ‘noisy’, you’ll likely need to relax your neck and throat some more.  

• Exhale the mantra in a slow and controlled manner, avoid choosing  tone or monitoring how it sounds.

• Relish in the feeling of initial consonant sound exploring where in the body powers the vibration.

• Open out into the ‘ahhh’ vowel sound allowing the vibration to move and rise.

• Conserve enough breath to indulge in the final hum of the ‘m’ bring the sound to a natural close as the breath ends, keeping the throat constriction free.   

If the mantras don’t work for you, just sigh out in an easy relaxed tone.

How long you stay with each asana will dictate how long the practice takes you. If you follow my suggested number of repetitions, it’ll be about 60 minutes. You don’t have to do all the poses every time, I suggest coming to this work once a week at first.

When you have closed the practice, sit quietly listening internally for any reflections. You might like to journal at this point too.

Let’s begin

Opening

Set an intention to explore how voice feels internally paying no mind to information brought in through the external senses and to let go of any need to achieve perfection, any croaks and crackles are very much welcome!

Om

Brahma Mudra

Three-part breathing

Squat

Twisted squat

Moon

Table top

Child's pose

Plank and downward facing dog

Chaturanga dandasana on wall

Supine twist

Bridge

Seated forward fold. Yin variation

Seated twist

Savasana

Closing

Sit, crossed legs or kneeling

• Inhale sit bones heavy and crown light.

• Exhale ‘auuuummmmm’

• Repeat twice

May you flow freely with the world and every being within in

Namaste

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