I had a breakthrough in my first voice lab with Laura Handke. I had never before made the connection between breathing and speaking, so at first it was awkward. After some practice, I remembered other meditative practices like mindful eating, breathing, and movement. Laura’s technique can be described as mindful speaking. After just one session, I am more cognizant and attentive about how sound travels through me and how to effectively use my vocal cords. The skills I am learning in Laura’s Voice Lab: Vocal Improv & Technique will make me a confident and effective speaker. I’m excited to continue this practice with Laura and look forward to this mindful voice journey! -Sidra Nasir, Portland, OR

Between COVID, politics, police brutality, police kindness, racism, standing up again racism, protests and riots, now being surrounding by wildfires here in Oregon – if I were a member of some religions, I’d think the apocalypse was here, that the end of the world is coming.

Being more spiritual than religious, I prefer to think of it as the end of the world as we know it, like REM once sang. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY

Geez, though, none of this is easy! It doesn’t just seem like one thing after another is happening, it actually is. I may be a positive thinker but hearing about people I love needing to evacuate their homes and smelling smoke, even inside our well-insulated house, is scary. Fortunately, rain is predicted soon.

What can we do? Or perhaps I should say what did I do? I let go of expectations. A bunch of stuff I was supposed to do didn’t happen at all. And I made it okay. Instead, I did stuff that made my creative juices flow, that brought me joy, as Martha Beck always suggests.

I took naps. I coordinated with my brother about a gift for our mother’s 75th birthday. I scheduled a reading of a play my co-author and I have been working on. Kitten Linn is a never-ending source of joy whether she’s nice kitty or crazy kitty. We love all of her energy. I sang songs I hadn’t sung in a while after having a lesson with my teacher. Performed in on-line karaoke. I considered different improv exercises for the next voice lab. And I didn’t walk outside because of all of the smoke. I did yoga stretches inside instead when I wasn’t taking an extra nap, with the kitten.

And I came to the realization that sometimes just having a relatively clean house, doing laundry and making dinner is enough. If you don’t have the energy to clean, do laundry or cook, that’s okay, too. Sometimes we just need to nap. The energy will come later. One thing to remember is you can be the vessel for God’s voice in these hard times. That’s one thing that has helped me.

The next Saturday Voice Lab: Improv & Technique is Saturday morning, 9/19, 10:30-noon. Just $20. Register here! https://laurahandke.com/

I had a breakthrough in my first voice lab with Laura Handke. I had never before made the connection between breathing and speaking, so at first it was awkward. After some practice, I remembered other meditative practices like mindful eating, breathing, and movement. Laura’s technique can be described as mindful speaking. After just one session, I am more cognizant and attentive about how sound travels through me and how to effectively use my vocal cords. The skills I am learning in Laura’s Voice Lab: Vocal Improv & Technique will make me a confident and effective speaker. I’m excited to continue this practice with Laura and look forward to this mindful voice journey! -Sidra Nasir, Portland, OR

Please spread the love and pass this along to a friend!

Love Your Voice & Voice Your Love,

Laura

Lake Oswego’s Transformational Voice® Teacher (Transformational Voice® is a registered trademark of Transformational Voice® Training Institute, LLC, and Linda Brice.)