I have been thinking over this last month about listening. It goes without saying that if we all want to have greater connection to the world around us, we have to be attentive listeners. I have previously blogged about the things you can do with your body to help you listen more comfortably. I am aware that we all understand that we should be better listeners, but its easy to forget about that when Facebook prompts us with ‘What’s on your mind?’ or Twitter’s decision to double the number of characters late last year. We are told to tell all, but are we listening?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about the dangers of a single story in her powerful TED talk. We have to challenge that one story we know about a certain person or country. This single story limits us and stops us listening. At the extreme, this is what the far-right have always used to justify actions of hate and discrimination. However, at the milder end, we are all missing out on opening our minds to the people and possibilities that surround us.
I am currently reading Keith Johnstone’s ‘Improv for Storytellers’. He writes that instead of telling his students to be ‘Good Listeners’, he encourages them to ‘Be altered by what was said.’ I can’t think of a more apt way for explaining the effect that listening should have on us. So whether we are trying to tune into a conversation in a board room, our children telling us about their day or trying to listen to ourselves with greater integrity, all these moments could lead to alterations about the way we perceive the world. It’s time to let our minds be changed, influenced, informed or moved by what we hear in the world around us.
Sound is a wonderful thing. It fills me up, takes me away, gets my body moving and connects me to others. The spoken voice has the same effect and I love the act of sharing sound. It could stories about your Granny, songs for you children, sounds as you try to loosen your voice and set it free. It could be the first dance at your wedding, the way that you mother said your name when you were caught doing something you shouldn’t or the way that a whole room will start dancing to Whigfield’s Saturday Night.
It could be on the words from your midwife saying ‘it’s a girl!’ or the sound your child makes when saying hello, like a sample it sticks in your head on loop. Sound can be the turn of the key in a lock, in an egnition, in a front door. It could be the smashing of glass, the churning of the washing machine. It could be sssshhs and aaaahhss and ohs and ows and wows. Sound whether I hear it or make it, I feel its vibrations deep in my stomach warming up my body and trickling through me like an outstanding chocolate soufflé.
Sound can swamp us, divide us and conquer us. It can leave us alone and aching for noise to filter through our ears. It can build us up, reach out to love ones and strangers and alert others to dangers. It can be comfort. The sound of the oven timer, bread being lifted out of the oven and turned out onto a cooling rack.
Sound can be the voice of someone telling others what is right and wrong, who is right or wrong or where is right is wrong. Sound can be the sound of water lapping on the side of a rubber dingy as you make your way to a new life. Sound can be the shuffle of papers as you wait nervously for someone to tell you you are allowed to stay. It can be the call to arms, the call to hate, the call of love and propaganda and bird song and waterfalls and the purr of you cat. It can be the slam on your brakes, letting that pheasant quickly escape. Sound can be, can be, can be….
The sounds we make and hear have specific memories attached to them. Some of my clients and quite often surprised by the emotional challenges that voice work brings to the surface. I’m not a counsellor, but I am a willing listener and an open ear. I have to be to be a good teacher. Whether you come in the door, looking for accent reduction, better breath support or increased authenticity in the way you speak, a safe and open environment will greet you. Something which is vital for the vulnerability that is often exposed in the lessons.
Today is a new day and we don’t know what sounds await in the future. If you write, keep writing. If you sing, keep singing. Keep dancing, creating and sharing. It can feel so unbelievably futile but it is where we can be vulnerable and share our thoughts. Keep practicing vulnerability and trust that the sounds that come with that as just as valuable and beautiful as anything else.
Felicity is a Voice Teacher, Playologist and Story Teller based in South Manchester, UK. To find out more about her work, please visit http://www.felicitygoodman.co.uk
A big factor in improving outgoing communication skills, is improving in coming communication skills. You will be a more effective speaker if you are a better listener. When I talk about listening, I’m talking about more than the ability to receive words from the mouth of others. I’m talking about our ability to read a situation, and hear more then the words that are being spoken. Take some time and reflect on some of the following areas, and ask yourself ‘Am I really listening?’
Posture
How are you stood? Are you stood or sat in a way that is receptive to information? Are you huddled over? Are you arms or legs crossed? Where are you looking? The ground, the ceiling? At the person speaking? How aware of your body are you? Take the time to reflect on these things at various points during the day. It doesn’t take long. Just check in with yourself.
Try standing feet hip width apart, feet parallel, going directly ahead of you. Knees soft, not bent or locked. A sense of widening across your hips and shoulders. Spine lengthening up to the ceiling and shoulders dropping down your back. Arms gentle dropping dow your sides. Let’s call this position neutral. It may feel a little uncomfortable, if it does, its a sign that you don’t stand like this habitually which most of us don’t. In this position, however, you are ready. To speak, to move, to respond and to listen. You will be able to hear what’s going on with a much greater understanding. This position allows your breath to flow with greater fluidity making it easier for those messages to reach your brain. Try the opposite. Try standing feet together, knees locked, buttocks clenched, shoulders hunched, hands making tight fists and head stuck forward. Bring you attention to your breath? How does it feel? Shallow? Tight? Restricted?
Now soften all these things and find that neutral position. Check your breath now. It should feel softer and easier.
The Mechanics of Breathing
What do you actually know about breathing? More specifically what do you know about the way you breath? The above exercise should enlighten you as to the way a constricted body stops us breathing effectively. Bring you attention to your breath. If it helps, lie down on the floor. See the image below.
You may what to put a yoga mat beneath you, but ideally you are lying on a solid surface such as the floor. Your head needs to be slightly raised in order to have alignment through your spine and neck. A book or a yoga block are useful. Your feet should be flat on the floor, knees hip width apart and pointing up the ceiling. This position flattens your back into the floor. Your hands can rest on your stomach or by your sides.
Bring you attention to the centre of your torso, How much can you feel the air travelling in and out? Are you sucking, or dragging or pulling big gulps of air or are you taking very small breaths? Take a look at this picture below.
How much can you feel you abdomen expanding as your breath in? What is the quality of this movement? Is sharp and forceful? is subtle and soft? Take your attention to the out breath. Are you pushing out powerfully, or is it quite weak? Imagine your diaphragm within your body? Imagine it like a jelly fish, floating on the tide. It contracts downwards as your breath in and relaxes upwards as your breath out. Try not to change it or alter it, find this gentle rhythm.
We have two groups of muscles that we use when we breath. Primary muscles (essential for full breathing) and Secondary muscles. The primary muscles sit lower in the torso and do most of the bulk of the work. These muscles are generally large and strong as they must work over 22,000 times each day. The diaphragm is in this group of muscles and like the heart, works relentlessly without fatigue. The secondary muscles are higher in the body and act as auxiliary helpers. They give us adaptability in the way that we breath. These muscles are smaller and more delicate. They can act powerfully for short periods of time, such as catching your breath after running fast. They tire easily and quickly.
With modern living and work conditions we quite often neglect to keep these primary muscles in good shape in order to maintain good breath support. There are those, who do actively work the abdominal muscles when it comes to exercises, but their is preference in society for men and women to have toned flat stomachs and stomach crunches are quite oftened practiced to achieve this. The problem with working the muscle group in that way, is that it is actually restricting the muscles. We need strength and flexibility, which is why yoga or pilates is a much better exercise to practice for improved flexibility, strength and breath support.
Good breath support will enable you to receive information better as well as speak with greater clarity.
Take your Time
A huge factor that effects our ability to receive information, is the fast paced cycles of living that we are placed in. Our minds are a huge vat of soup, with all sorts of ingredients floating through them. Deadlines, childcare, loved ones, meetings, emails, appointments and people. In her opening chapter of her book Presence, Patsy Rodenburg (Voice coach, Theatre Director and Writer) tells us how anthropologists research shows us that we really only capable on connecting with 400 people in our lifetime. If you apply this to modern, urban living, it is clear that we could easily come into contact with 400 people in a day. Then there are online platforms in which we receive information about others. Social Media is a wonderful things but we know that while we have increased connectivity, our appetites from human contact and communication are possibly not fulfilled. We increasingly feel removed and lonely.
It is not always possible to reduce the amount of people you come into contact with in a day. However, it is possible to switch off. Turn off your phone for an hour everyday and do something you love. It could be reading, or writing or crocheting a new hat. When meeting friends, place you phone on silent and keep it in your pocket or bag. When it comes to eating, leave you phone in another room. While it may not reduce the people you are coming into contact with, or the pressures of your time, it will make you feel more present. Part of the process in slowing things down is allowing yourself to take your time.
Sylvia Plath
Felicity Goodman is a Voice Teacher and Storyteller based in South Manchester. to find out more about her work, please visit www.felicitygoodman.co.uk.
You may what to put a yoga mat beneath you, but ideally you are lying on a solid surface such as the floor. Your head needs to be slightly raised in order to have alignment through your spine and neck. A book or a yoga block are useful. Your feet should be flat on the floor, knees hip width apart and pointing up the ceiling. This position flattens your back into the floor. Your hands can rest on your stomach or by your sides.
Goodman 