I started The Healthy Voice to teach people how to reclaim and love their voice.
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Dolly cracked something open in me this week
Published 2 days ago • 8 min read
A weekly dispatch on voice, healing, and the inner life of a working artist.There's a moment in a lot of songs where the whole thing lifts. The key changes, and the same melody suddenly feels higher, brighter, or a little more urgent. And if you're not listening for the mechanics, you don't notice them at all. You just feel that something shifted.
It's been a week of big energetic shifts.
We lost a truly iconic voice. And from the flood of articles and videos and posts, it's obvious how many people Dolly Parton touched, not just with her voice but with her whole way of being. I don't think those two things are separate. When you radiate that much love for people, it shows up as a relaxed voice. I reflected on her in last week's podcast and this week's video, and somewhere in the middle of it, something in me opened up.
It was the way she gave herself away so easily when she sang. It reminded me of a time when I was that comfortable being vulnerable in front of an audience. I knew even as a teenager that this was the real secret to singing. My pitch wasn't perfect back then, not even close, but I could move a room with feeling. And that is what a healthy voice actually is. A voice that comes from calm and strength, and that reaches other people.
Then I started learning Italian. I put on some old Italian songs to help, and they opened an emotional door I had kept shut for years. I wrote the whole story in this week's article.
And somewhere in all that opening up, I thought of a man a lot of us grew up with and were lucky to have, and that a lot of people around the world never got to meet. Mr. Rogers. Another unmistakable voice, aimed straight at the heart of a child. His message never changed. You are special. I wrote about him too, in case you never met him, or it's just been a while.
One more thing before you go in. My first-ever sale on the Voice Liberation Method is still running, but only for about another day. $30 off with the code ENDOFSUMMER. I haven't put it on sale once since I launched it back in February, and it won't happen again for a long time, so if you have been thinking about it, this is your window.
Let's get into it.
✨ LAST CALL — FIRST-EVER VOICE LIBERATION METHOD SALE
This is the only sale I have ever run on the Voice Liberation Method, and it ends tomorrow. As you're reading this, there are about twenty-four hours left to take $30 off with the code ENDOFSUMMER. It won't come around again for a long time, so if you have been circling the Voice Liberation Method, waiting for a sign, this is the sign, and this is the last of it.
THIS WEEK'S ARTICLE: I Have Been Dead for a Long Time
✍️ I Have Been Dead for a Long Time
I was standing in my kitchen with headphones on, crying so hard I couldn't breathe, and when my husband reached to pull them off me, I swatted his hand away. The song was in Italian. I don't speak a word of it. This is the part I felt almost too exposed to publish.
It's about the wall I built between feeling things and letting anyone see me feel them, the language class that cracked it open, and the slow realization that I hadn't gone numb by accident. I turned the volume down on purpose, in the name of being good and precise and in control, and the bill came due as years of quiet boredom.
It ends on a question I's like you to sit with.
Not what you stopped doing. What you stopped letting reach you.Read on Substack
I didn't realize how much I had taken him for granted until I started meeting grown adults overseas, people my own age, who had never heard of him. Once, on a podcast, I sang his song "It's You I Like," and I watched my hosts' faces change while I sang. They were moved, and so was I, mostly because it was the first time they had ever heard it.
Some of us grew up around a lot of unsafe grownups. But most of us can still name a few who made us feel safe, seen, heard, and loved. For an entire generation, he was one of them. If you have never met him, there is still time. Your inner child can still have him.
🔬 THE LAB — DYSPHONIA: WHAT'S ACTUALLY WRONG WITH YOUR VOICE
The Lab is where I share the research behind everything I teach, as deep-dive audio explainers for paid subscribers. This month I went after a word that keeps turning up in my YouTube comments: dysphonia. It turns out it isn't a diagnosis at all. It's an umbrella term for any impaired voice, a symptom rather than a cause, and the research sorts those causes into four buckets: structural, neurogenic, inflammatory, and plain functional misuse.
Most real cases are a tangle of several at once, where the thing that started the problem and the thing keeping it going are completely different. There's also a piece in here everyone should hear. If your voice has been off for more than a few weeks, listening to it isn't enough. You need a laryngologist who can actually look.
We lost Dolly last week, and like a lot of you, I had no idea she was even ill. I met her when I was seven, through a 45 of "Islands in the Stream" that I played until it wore out, and she kept showing up at every point in my life where I was being told to be smaller.
So here are six things she taught me about reclaiming my voice.
The sixth one took me the longest to learn, and it's the one I still use. Tell me in the comments what Dolly meant to you, and your favorite song of hers. →Watch on YouTube
NOW OPEN — EXTENDED COACHING HOURS FOR EUROPE
I've opened up Tuesday hours built around European time zones. I know how hard it has been for those of you across the Atlantic to find a session time that actually works, so if you have been wanting to book a private session with me, now is the moment. There aren't many of these spots, so grab one while it's there.
THIS WEEK'S PODCAST: The Voice That Made me Recoil
This one was hard for me to publish. I worried that listeners might take it the wrong way, as I pride myself on being (typically) non-judgmental when I hear individual voices.
I want my students and clients to speak their voice with clarity and confidence, regardless of how it "sounds," because what really matters is the energy behind it.
So what happens when you have a history of someone "putting on" a phony voice that coerces you to consent, when actually you want to say no? What happens when a voice similar to that shows up in my fitness class? What's a trauma-informed voice teacher to do?
Voice Lessons: Lullaby of Birdland, Lesson Three. In this lesson we go deep on placement, learning how to identify the parts of your body where the notes want to buzz. Essential learning. (All Levels)
A LIVE SESSION Deep Dive into breath support and the head voice, and what it takes to get up into that higher register. (Practitioner + Mastery Levels)
Our first monthly Courage Circle, where members share their voices and practice regulating their own nervous system under pressure. (All Levels)
Birds are the original singers. Long before any of us worried about whether we were doing it right, they were just opening their throats and letting the day out. So next week we're going to sing like them. Seven days, seven birds, and each one has something to teach us about our own voice.
It's the tender week. After all that truth-telling from the past week, we're landing somewhere soft.
Here's what each day brings:
Monday, The Lark. The morning singer. We start with the gentle onset, that first easy note before the inner critic is even awake.
Tuesday, The Nightingale. The one who sings in the dark. This is the day for feeling, for letting emotion move through the voice instead of bracing against it.
Wednesday, The Sparrow. The ordinary little bird nobody notices, who sings anyway. You don't need a special voice to deserve to use it.
Thursday, The Mockingbird. The great imitator. We play with range and mimicry, trying on other voices as a way of finding our own.
Friday, The Crow. Enough pretty birds. Today we reclaim the harsh, loud, scratchy sounds, the ones we were told weren't nice, and we let them be part of the instrument too.
Saturday, The Swan. The one held note that matters. We sing a single sound like it's the only one we'll ever make, fully present, fully there.
Sunday, Your Song. The end of the flock. Every bird sings its own song and never apologizes for not being another bird. Today, you find yours.
A NEW ISSUE OF THE FIFTH IS UP! (Free for members, subscriptions available)
A new issue of THE FIFTH is up, and this month it's all about the breath. If you haven't met it yet, THE FIFTH is the little magazine I put together every month, a compilation of resources dressed up to actually feel beautiful to read.
Each issue moves through a featured chakra, a set of journal prompts, an inspiring thinker or two, and my own philosophical wanderings on the metaphor at the heart of the month's theme.
It lives inside The Healthy Voice Community, but a lot of people don't realize you don't have to join the community to get it. You can subscribe to THE FIFTH all on its own. Link is below.
A playlist called Beautiful Italian Songs. It's the one I mention in this week's article, the songs that cracked me open in my own kitchen. Put it on and let it do its work. → Listen on Spotify
THE JOURNAL PROMPT
Which voices have made you feel safe in your life? Not the most impressive voices, the safe ones. Write down whose voice you could sink into, as a child or now, and what it is about the sound of a person that tells your body it's all right to relax.
🌀 THIS WEEK'S PRACTICE
This one is about safety. Speak out loud, at a really slow pace. Slower than feels natural. Slow enough that you can actually feel the resonance and the vibration of your own voice as it moves through you. As you talk, feel your rib cage expand while your lungs fill with air, then feel it settle as you let the air go. Stay with all of those sensations. And notice, without fixing anything, how relaxed or how tense you feel.
Keep going — because the world needs your unique voice. 🎙️
A weekly dispatch on voice, healing, and the inner life of a working artist.There's a moment in a lot of songs where the whole thing lifts. The key changes, and the same melody suddenly feels higher, brighter, or a little more urgent. And if you're not listening for the mechanics, you don't notice them at all. You just feel that something shifted. I've been thinking about that all month, because so many of you are in the middle of one. A key change in your own life. And from the inside, a key...
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