I almost didn’t make it…

April 9, 2016 by admin

I’ve had the flu. For two weeks.

Usually, I never get sick. I’m not very good at it. This flu kind of came in waves, and I would think I was getting better, then it would hit me again.

I was scheduled to give a workshop at the FEM Talks Goddess Revival Weekend on Easter day. I was determined to be there.

I took the 2 days before to really stay down, be quiet, drink lots of tea, take lots of supplements, and PRAY!!

I made it, and even with my creaky, crackling voice, the Healing Your Soul’s Voice – Reclaiming The Voice of The Goddess Workshop was a favorite of the weekend for the women who attended.

It was also healing and energizing for me. My soul had called me to do this workshop, in spite of the logistics of bringing card making supplies, and having to cram the experience into less than an hour. My body was able to find the energy to answer my soul’s calling.Continue Reading

What Do You Do When Things Don’t Go As Planned?

November 11, 2015 by admin

Oh c**p, I couldn’t load the program I needed… Here I was for my carefully prepared talk to the Association of Women In Science in Palo Alto, CA.

Since this is a science group (and because it’s really fun), I had planned to use my Voiceprint program to demonstrate the acoustics of voice projection towards the end of my presentation.

My regular slideshow was up and running on my Macbook just fine. But the Voiceprint program (a spectrograph representation of the frequencies in the voice) lives on my old PC laptop, which is still running Windows 7, and hadn’t been booted up in about 6 months.

I DID boot it up the day before so it could do that interminable Windows Update thing. Unfortunately, the next day, it had 78 MORE updates to install, which took FOREVER, and it was still slogging through that as I began my talk. Aaarrgghh!Continue Reading

Should I Just STFU?? Part 2

September 16, 2015 by admin

Last week, I wrote about why you can’t claim your habits of speech are “feminine speech,” and critics of your voice should just STFU.

My experience in coaching hundreds of women to shift their old voice stories and their disempowering habits of speech, and watching their whole lives open up afterward (businesses taking off, relationships healed, creativity unblocked, money flowing, confidence soaring) shows me how vital it is that you NOT accept this stupid idea.

If you haven’t read last week’s article, read it HERE, otherwise this won’t make as much sense to you.

So what are disempowering and/or injurious habits of speech? Why are they disempowering rather than just “feminine?”

First, some info about our brains. Hearing is the act of collecting sound. Listening is what the brain does with what it hears, and that involves lots of complex functions in the brain called “auditory processing.” If you want to be truly heard and understood, you have to give people’s brains the opportunity to do all this auditory processing in a way that results in actual listening, not just hearing.

Actual listening results in communication, more often than not. Hearing does not guarantee listening. Speaking to create communication is a skill most of us need to get better at.

Disempowering and potentially injurious habits of speech actually IMPEDE communication. Here’s how:
Continue Reading

Should I Just STFU??

September 10, 2015 by admin

I’ve seen a lot of articles recently on women’s speech. Some of them address ways of speaking that are disempowering, weaken leadership, or are self-sabotaging, and the authors encourage women to speak more directly and powerfully.

Others point out that women’s voices get criticized MUCH more than men’s. You can find gazillions of articles recommending that women change their speech patterns, and almost none that do the same for men. And if you are a woman who is broadcasting or podcasting, you can be criticized for the same kind of speech by different people in opposite ways.

In other words, we can’t win. Fair point.

One woman claimed that ANY criticism of her “uptalk” speech habit was just misogynistic, because uptalk is “feminine speech.” (Uptalk is the habit of raising the pitch at the end of every statement as if it were a question.) Another author agreed, and basically said women should speak however they want and everyone should just STFU.

I hear you. It’s true that women’s voices are criticized when and where men’s would not be, and are often criticized unjustly. So, am I a woman-hater because I work to change self-sabotaging habits of speech and empower women to speak with power and confidence? Should I just STFU?

Not on your life. Dear ones, here’s one thing I know: There is no such thing as “feminine speech.” Continue Reading

The Voice of Your Soul…

May 14, 2015 by admin

by Ariana Newcomer

You think that your voice is just the way it is and there’s nothing you can do about it. Mostly you take it for granted.

But really your voice is an expression of your entire essence. It is a window into your soul. It contains more information about you than almost anything else.

Just from how you sound, people know more about your beliefs, your confidence and your essence in 5 seconds than you could ever tell them just with words.

Since communication is central in life, your voice is your pathway to opportunity and a key secret to success in this world.

When you learn to control the elements of your voice, strip away things you have layered on top of it, and stop holding your voice back, you come into an authentic, confident and powerful expression of all that you are through your voice.

You can become influential beyond your wildest dreams, impacting people, drawing them in, using your new powerful voice – the voice of your soul – to create the life you most deeply desire.

I would love to work with you so you can step into your embodied, authentic voice, and into your calling. Book a free Voice Your Value Breakthrough Session, and let’s talk.

Gender Bias In Business: Speaking out can backfire!

December 30, 2014 by admin

I usually talk about how important it is for us to speak up and speak out for ourselves (especially women) and for change. We usually don’t speak up enough in many areas of our lives. Of course, speaking up at the appropriate time is critical, and HOW we say things is even more essential.

I just learned something new about how to speak about gender bias. It’s an issue I address with my clients – always – because it is so often operating unconsciously for all of us, men and women alike. It affects how we listen to each other, how we speak, how we behave toward each other, and how successful we are.

I talk about creating a paradigm shift in our culture into true partnership between men and women, about speaking up and speaking out for ourselves and for partnership, about claiming our place beside men (no longer slightly below them). I support my clients in creating highly successful, deeply fulfilling businesses as women entrepreneurs and change agents – as part of this new paradigm. Being able to speak with power and confidence is crucial to your success. Shifting the gender bias is a central part of creating the new economy.