Finding Your Authentic Voice with Elissa Weinzimmer
Finding your authentic voice and using it regularly can be difficult. When today’s guest, Elissa, literally lost her voice, she decided to dedicate her life to helping other people not only protect their voices but learn how to use them in conjunction with a regulated nervous system.
In today’s episode, my guest Elissa Weinzimmer shares about how a vocal hemorrhage led her to take a leap into a career as a vocal and presence coach, and how she is now experiencing a second leap rediscovering her singing voice and making music.
If you’re taking a leap of your own, no matter how big or small, finding your voice (in a world that limits so many voices) means staying in the present moment and supporting your nervous system. And Elissa has some great tips and resources to help you do just that.
In this episode, you’ll learn...
[02:14] What a vocal and presence coach does and the types of people who seek this support
[08:22] How Elissa suffered from a vocal hemorrhage, how that led her to start her business teaching voice, and how she found her singing voice again
[19:02] What embodiment is and how Elissa uses it in her voice body connection process
[25:54] The limitations that block different people from using their voices and how the polyvagal theory can help you to safely find your authentic voice
[33:44] About how the polyvagal theory relates to your nervous system and how it functions
[43:16] Elissa’s advice for someone preparing to quit a job (or other scary scenario) and how to help regulate your nervous system in those moments
This season is all about the different kinds of leaps you can make in your life. If you’re looking for habits and tools to keep you going after your leap, be sure to tune into this episode.
Standing at your own crossroads and ready to get clear on your direction? Apply for my Catalyst Coaching Program today!
If you are at that sort of stage where you are trying to figure out what do you want out of your next role, and you want to do some self reflection, I have something that is going to help you do that. Check out my self-paced digital course, Illuminate Your Career Path in 5 Steps. Five different modules will take you through step by step how to do some of this initial planning and thinking about what you want next for your career path.
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Elissa’s Bio
Elissa Weinzimmer is an award-winning vocal health educator, presence coach, and the founder of Voice Body Connection. After suddenly losing her own voice at age 21, Elissa began studying the mechanics of voice. Over time she developed a unique, concrete approach that empowers performers, leaders, and speakers to optimize their voices and share them more authentically.
Elissa's clients include Broadway stars, television personalities, politicians, and CEOs. She has led workshops for WeWork, Equinox, Microsoft, eBay, Instacart, and more, and has been featured in Thrive Global, Healthline, SheKnows, Adweek, and Kajabi. Elissa earned her MFA in Theatre Voice Pedagogy from the University of Alberta, and is also certified in Fitzmaurice Voicework®️, Hatha yoga, and Body-Mind Centering®️. She releases music under the name Elissa Maas, and is also currently working on her first book. Elissa resides in New York City.
Links mentioned in this episode…
Deb Dana’s Beginner’s Guide to Polyvagal Theory
Transcript of Episode 35: Finding Your Authentic Voice with Elissa Weinzimmer
[00:00:00] Elissa Weinzimmer And I lost my stamina. And very quickly, I mean, I don't think I even thought through it super logically. It just you know, it was this traumatic experience that happened at age 21 when I didn't have really any. I had some clinical support, but I didn't have any psychological support. And so I just decided, okay, I guess my future that I thought was my future is not and I'm not going to become a performer. And I stayed in L.A., I didn't move to New York, and I started directing theater, which I've also always been interested in. And pretty quickly I got really curious, like ninja, like curious about what had occurred to me. And so I started taking like a lot of whatever I could find vocal education to try to understand what had happened.
[00:00:47] Lisa Hoashi Welcome to Leap Like Me, the podcast that helps you to be bold in life, to stretch what's possible and find more adventure, joy and purpose along the way. I'm your host, Lisa Hoashi. I'm a life coach who can help if you're ready to take a new, more authentic direction in life. On Leap Like Me. We share the inspiring stories of people like you who have made a brave leap and offer practical tips for how to set your leap in motion, too. Let's get started.
[00:01:25] Lisa Hoashi Hello, everyone, this is Lisa Hoashi and welcome to Leap Like Me. Our guest today is Elissa Weinzimmer. She's an award winning vocal health educator and presence coach and singer. After suddenly losing her own voice at age 21, Elissa began studying the mechanics of voice. And over time, she started to develop a unique and concrete approach that empowers performers, leaders and speakers to optimize their voices and share them more authentically. So excited to have Elissa with us today. Welcome.
[00:01:59] Elissa Weinzimmer Thank you so much, Lisa. I'm so grateful to be here.
[00:02:02] Lisa Hoashi So there's so much that I'm excited to talk to you about. But first, I'm just curious if you would share with us what is a vocal and presence coach?
[00:02:14] Elissa Weinzimmer Yes. So I made up this terminology because it's sometimes confusing to explain what I do when I tell someone I'm a voice coach. Most of the time they're like, Oh, you teach singing lessons? And I'm like, Yeah, sorta. So essentially the work that I like to do with people is the work that I like to do with myself and others, let's put it that way, is looking at our human voice on all levels. So physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. What does it mean to have a human voice? What does it mean to use it to speak? What does it mean to use it to sing? What does it mean to use it to express our truth? And a lot of the way that I approach my work has to do with embodiment. My business is called voice body connection. So it's about how do I embody my truth so it can come through my voice. And I find that it's really important for us to understand, especially so much, so many aspects of our body, but especially our nervous system. What is the tuning of my nervous system at any given moment? Because my state, the state of my system will come through in the sound and color and tone of my voice. So essentially, I help people have a healthier, more confident, more authentic voice on all levels.
[00:03:25] Lisa Hoashi And who like typically are the type of people who are reaching out to you for support.
[00:03:30] Elissa Weinzimmer I hear from a couple different subgroups of humans. My background is in performing, and so when I first started my business, a lot of the people I worked with were actors or singers, musical theater performers. I still work with a lot of performers, especially folks come to me and I can share more, of course, about my story. But folks come to me when they experience something similar to what I experienced, which was a vocal fatigue issue and need a way to rehabilitate their voice. That the clinical world isn't offering. I work with people when they're having a tired voice and this can be performers, but also worked with lawyers. I've worked with teachers who are losing their voices, who are having vocal fatigue issues, truck drivers even. And then on the other side, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs. I mean, these, you know, these dynamics like the subgroups of people matched the subgroups of of my system, of course. And so people who are pitching their business, I've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs on pitches, people who just want to have a good elevator speech about, you know, what they do generally. If if one is having trouble feeling confident about their voice, I find myself interested in able to help.
[00:04:38] Lisa Hoashi Yeah. And I just want to share here for those who are watching or listening that I was able to have a session with Elissa. We met earlier this year and I, I like ordinarily I wouldn't have reached out like I wouldn't, I don't think I would have thought to have looked for you specifically. But it was like when I started doing this podcast, like earlier in the spring, after a long hiatus, I realized that I was feeling very stuck, like behind the microphone. And what our conversation really helps me to realize is like a lot of that was about my nervous system and was about like things in the past that had happened, kind of like my nervous system was still feeling those things. Yes. And that I would have to, you know, that by being kind to myself and working through those things and just being like, you know, aware of those things would help me to feel more relaxed whenever I'm public speaking or sharing what like you say, like, is your authentic voice, which I think is really in part why I wanted to bring you on this show, because this show is about it's about leaps, but it's also about when people are really ready to, like, step into the leaps are kind of like the way to step into like a more authentic life or a more authentic expression of themselves or like the direction that really fits them. And I feel that that involves like us having to voice like what is authentically us. Yeah. And maybe in a way we've never done it before and it can be like really scary. And so I really wanted to have you on to offer those tools.
[00:06:15] Elissa Weinzimmer I'm grateful for that.
[00:06:17] Lisa Hoashi And I was also really excited to hear that you were having your own leap right now.
[00:06:22] Elissa Weinzimmer Oh, yeah. I sure am.
[00:06:25] Lisa Hoashi So we also get like a juicy leap story out of today as well. So I'm really excited about it.
[00:06:31] Elissa Weinzimmer I am happy to bring you all levels of myself and yeah, to what you're saying. I just want to add to that the thing that has has you and I share this place, that's the reason I was so excited to say yes to being here is this commitment to authenticity. When I when I really think about the deepest layer of the contribution I would like to make through my teaching work on the planet and also through my own creative work, which is my opportunity to model what I believe in. Authenticity is the most important thing to me. The question of it's a buzz phrase Speak your truth, but how do we do that? What does that actually mean? How does one connect with what is true? How do you connect with what is true for you? And how do you share that? Through speech, through expression, through writing, through movement, through whatever your outlet is. And that like really the core of my work over the last handful of years has been to develop this process that allows us to ask questions and get to a place. I call it the voice body connection process of how am I feeling and how do I want to express that? And every entrepreneur we always like to say the entire world is my I'm marketing to everyone like I can help everyone. But in that sense, like I really do believe that if you have a voice and you want to use it, then like that's you know, that's the work that I'm wanting to support.
[00:07:55] Lisa Hoashi All right. So I think we'll get a little bit more into like the practicalities. But I think first, what I want to do is I want to ask you a little bit about just like your own experience with leaps. I mean, it sounds like, yeah, at 21, you had a moment where maybe it wasn't like chosen.
[00:08:12] Elissa Weinzimmer Yeah, it wasn't.
[00:08:14] Lisa Hoashi It happened. But it sounds like you're also like in a moment of, like, a more intentional leap right now that I'd love to hear about.
[00:08:22] Elissa Weinzimmer Yeah. Thank you. I'll take you through the chronology. The way I tell the story these days is that I remember and I have had honestly, like, memories, flashbacks in the last couple of years to this memory. When I was in elementary school, I used to spend recess going like as far back to the corner of the soccer field as you could get, where it was like very verdant. And there was like this cute little log you could sit on and there were blackberry bushes. And I just kind of felt like a like nature queen. And in northern California, a nine year old nature queen. And I would go back there with my friend and we would sit and we would like write improvised spirituals, simple songs. Like we would just sit back there and we would have a song circle and then recess. Recess would be over and we'd go back inside. That just went. That's what I did. Intuitively, I wanted to do that more than play tetherball, more than like play on the monkey bars. Like I went and I sang.
[00:09:15] Elissa Weinzimmer And then in the years after that, I started to get put into music classes and I learned do re mi fa so la ti do and I was Wendy and Peter Pan and I started to feel like, Oh, whatever I was doing out there on the field is silly and it's not real music. And this is real music. This is what I'm supposed to be focusing on. I'm supposed to get good at choir style singing at at operatic style singing at musical theater singing like these are the ways of being artful and in my area of interest and gifts. And I spent many years doing that. My first professional theater production when I was in middle school, I did like a production of The Music Man. I was in the ensemble and like was surrounded by adults. It was so fun. Like, I love my musical theater life. I got to college, I went to the University of Southern California, and even when I got there, like I was, you know, immediately performing in musicals, I joined in a cappella group and I was getting a lot of feedback that I was really good at this. Like, I thought that my path was to move to New York and be on Broadway.
[00:10:19] Elissa Weinzimmer And then my senior year at USC, I was I now realized I was like really pushing myself vocally and otherwise. I was pushing myself academically. I was pushing myself socially because I was thinking I needed to take advantage of the end of my college career and I should be partying and drinking more. And so I was just pushing myself in every way. And I had what I now understand. It wasn't explained to me very clearly at the time, but I had a vocal hemorrhage and also severe onset of acid reflux and words that no one said to me until seven years later, I experienced muscle tension, dysphonia, which is a fancy way of saying that the muscles in your in my throat clamped up really tight and wouldn't let go. And so I completely lost my confidence in my voice, which I'd taken for granted for a long time. And I lost my stamina. And very quickly, I mean, I don't think I even thought through it super logically. It just, you know, it was this traumatic experience that happened at age 21 when I didn't. Have really any. I had some clinical support, but I didn't have any psychological support. And so I just decided, okay, I guess my future that I thought was my future is not and I'm not going to become a performer. And I stayed in L.A., I didn't move to New York, and I started directing theater, which I've also always been interested in.
[00:11:40] Elissa Weinzimmer And pretty quickly I got really curious, like ninja, like curious about what had occurred to me. And so I started taking like a lot of whatever I could find vocal education to try to understand what had happened and amassed this knowledge that again, I got angry pretty quickly. I was like, Why did no one teach me that someone should have taught me this? And so I started a business teaching voice and I just started with what I knew and I kept learning more. And I went to graduate school at the University of Alberta with some incredible mentors and then did move to New York, which is where I live now. And so the story for a long time, the part that I told for a long chunk of time, I forgot the first part. I was just like, Oh, I was doing musical theater. And then I lost my voice and I teach voice. But there's like this outer layer on the story that has come in in the last handful of years, as I was teaching voice and realizing. So, you know, my first big leap, I guess I would say, was to switch into my voice teaching and allow myself to pivot into this new version of my career.
[00:12:46] Elissa Weinzimmer But I started to really feel that I couldn't keep supporting other people in authentically expressing their voices. If I like, I could just start to feel that feeling of like, Oh, there's something else that wants to come through me. And if I don't let it through me, I'm I'm also certified in yoga and I love the chakra system and the fifth chakra, which is the throat chakra that's our creative, expressive outflowing is how it's meant to manifest for us. And when we don't express through our throat chakra, when we don't let that which wants to come through us out creatively and expressively, it can be very it can create like a sluggishness and a toxicity and a blockage. And I was starting to feel more of that sludgy, toxic blockage feeling. And then I started having, you know, the memories of myself on the playground as a kid. And I actually I was in Bali for the summer in 2017 and I went to a kirtan which is one of those like basically yoga sing alongs where my mentor up at the front of the room, my now friend, partner Wasil, was playing a harmonium and chanting. And I just kind of watched it and it felt it literally felt like a light bulb went off over my head. I was like, Oh, I can do that. Like, I, I need a harmonium. I played piano as a kid, but I was like, This makes more sense to me. I want to play with my right hand and pump the bellows with my left hand. The harmonium is like one of those, like kind of I call it like a sideways accordion, an Indian instrument.
[00:14:10] Lisa Hoashi I have a beloved yoga teacher in Portland who uses one and.
[00:14:15] Elissa Weinzimmer Oh, okay.
[00:14:16] Lisa Hoashi So yeah. With her. Yeah. When she was telling me about Harmonium. Yes.
[00:14:20] Elissa Weinzimmer There you go. It's such a beautiful sound. And it just it like clicked for me. So I actually went home to North America from Bali with a harmonium, which was silly I should have let someone else carry it for me. That one got damaged. But yeah, I just started playing and, and then I sort of like serendipitously found a singing teacher who really focuses on expressive sound, my, my teacher and friend Stephanie Rucker. And then I found a classical Indian singing teacher, my teacher, Priyadarshani, who I studied with both of them to this day and actually just this past weekend was recording songs with both of them in the recording studio. And like slowly but surely, or maybe not even that slowly it's been, you know, over the course of the last handful of years, songs started coming through me and I've recorded them and I have been releasing them. I've released four songs so far. I'm working on a full album. I'm taking a sabbatical right now from the structure of my business, as it normally has been for the last number of years, just to give myself space for my own creative process and for the the like structure of the business to realign so that I'm not in overexertion mode. Yeah, that's that's what's going on. That's like the medium long version of the story. Thanks for listening to the whole thing.
[00:15:34] Lisa Hoashi Yeah. I love it. I love this because the thing that I love, the part of my work that I have gotten really ninja curious about as well is like the kind of like the anatomy of these types of leaps, right? Like I usually work with people who are at the like I'm pretty sure I mean the way have like the voice is really calling me like my inner voice is really telling me I got to do it. I'm getting the signs like kind of like what you're talking about, but I'm like, scared, and I'm still like, I can't get past that, right? And so I can help them through that time. So I love this because I am really curious about like what you've found as you've moved through the stages of. I mean, because there's a couple things here that are about your leap, which is about like take actually allowing the thing in to come back, like to for you to express that and to for that to be to say like, oh, I'm not just a vocal presence coach, I am more than that. And I'm going to allow this other thing to come out, which maybe feels a little scary and.
[00:16:44] Elissa Weinzimmer Really scary.
[00:16:46] Lisa Hoashi And an identity shift of like, you know, something that you thought you were doing. And now suddenly this other thing wants to come out and to allow all that and then to also like allow time, which is really like what a sabbatical is for is to allow the time and space for that to come out really like fully and intentionally. In many ways, yeah.
[00:17:08] Elissa Weinzimmer The sabbatical has been such a privilege to build myself this time to do. And, you know, we can all do it. It's just, it's like it's a shifting of things, you know? Like I had to figure out, like, incomes coming from other places than where I normally get it from. And but yeah, it mostly the biggest hurdle was to get over my own attachment to this is what I built, this is what I should be doing and give myself the permission to do something differently for a period of time. And it did feel when I sent the newsletters out to my mailing list saying like and first I was working with a group of teacher trainees who I'm, you know, planning on starting an instructor program. And I was just starting to work with this group of trainees. And what was really beautiful is that everything conspired so that all of us agreed it was not the right time to like plow forward, but it felt so vulnerable to tell this group of people first, like, I think I need to take a break for a while and then to tell like there was infrastructure and things, I had to kind of like purposely deconstruct in order to do this. And it it does it does feel like an identity issue. That's exactly what I would say. It felt the same way when I was 21, when I lost my voice. I think my whole identity felt so tied up in my singing abilities and my performing abilities. And, you know, it was like I literally joke. And I think other people who went to high school with me would also joke that my identity in high school was like I was the girl who was in choir and performing in the musicals. Like that was that was who I was. And so yeah, I can feel like such a stripping away to make changes and take leaps like this because it feels like a changing of identity.
[00:18:57] Lisa Hoashi Mm hmm.
[00:18:58] Elissa Weinzimmer It feels like a deconstructing of something that's been built. That's scary.
[00:19:02] Lisa Hoashi Yeah. So, I mean, you were someone who is so, like, you've made embodiment, like, part of your work, right? So maybe for those who are listening who maybe have a don't very much into embodiment, could you tell us a little bit about how you would explain that to other people?
[00:19:20] Elissa Weinzimmer Yeah, I hope it becomes a word that is more common in our lexicon moving forward.
[00:19:26] Lisa Hoashi Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:27] Elissa Weinzimmer To me, embodiment is a state of being. It's a it's a way of being inside one's body. It is inhabiting all that is true. Fully. And so like even I might actually address that by actually sharing that process that I walk people through. So I call this the voice body connection process. Essentially, it is an opportunity to to say what's going on here in my system in order to understand how I'm feeling and what I want to say. So I'll ask us four questions. First question is what is the strongest sensation you feel in your body right now? And I'll tell you that I feel tingling in my feet. And I'll also share that when I ask this question, which is very importantly the first question of this process and many embodiment processes, when I ask other people this question, a lot of people are like, I don't know, I feel good, I feel fine. It's like, cool. Go into your feet. Like to describe to me what your feet are feeling. Describe to me what your hands are feeling. Describe to me what your skin is feeling. Describe to me what your gut is feeling like. There's always something going on, right? And as we start to pay attention, as we start to attune, our body is actually giving us all sorts of signals. The vessel vendor book is the body keeps, the score, the body's. And it's exactly like you said before about the nervous system. The nervous system is the part of the body that is the recording device, not letting us forget those experiences that we've had on purpose. So anyway, if I go back to my answer to that question, I feel a tingling in my feet. Second question I ask in the voice body connection process is Why do I think I'm feeling that? And actually my answer right now is like, I don't know, but maybe also it's more of my body is alive having this conversation with you. I'm aware of parts of my body that I go through my day not. Aware of much of the time when I don't actually ask or pay attention. Third question is what are my emotions about noticing this? And really, by the way, these four questions that I'm asking are different versions of asking How do you feel? But just more specifically, so how do I feel in my body? I feel tingling in my feet. What are my thoughts about that? I think it is probably just because I'm paying attention to more of my body. What are my emotions about that? Pretty neutral. I feel actually. I feel kind of like it feels a little bit like wakefulness and like I think I feel grateful and happy about it overall, emotionally. And what do I want? What do I desire? What is that layer of feeling? It's yeah, it's to bring my whole self into this conversation, which maybe is another way of defining embodiment. Embodiment is bringing ones whole self into the moment, into the conversation, into the relationship, into the experience, into the event, whatever it is. Just starting with my body and asking myself where I'm at and bringing more of myself along more often.
[00:22:26] Lisa Hoashi Mmhm. And so as you think about your like your own process with like deciding to take, to allow your singing to come out, to take the time off, to explore it. Can you think of a moment when you needed to use that for yourself or you know, how did embodying appreciate.
[00:22:50] Elissa Weinzimmer All the time. Every day? I mean, I've actually been joking lately, so I got COVID in July and we're recording this in late September. So it's been about three months. I have had a really nasty long COVID cough this entire time since I quote unquote got better. And I've been joking. I keep saying the cobbler has no shoes because of course, like, this is this is exactly the stuff I teach. I know exactly what to do. I know like steam twice a day. I know the warm ups to do, like gentle humming. Like, I totally know how to take care of myself. I have not been perfect about taking care of myself. It's easy to just, like, get tired and burn out and be frustrated. And that happens with me, with my embodiment practices as well all the time. I'm totally not perfect, but as often as I can remember, I like to ask myself, Where are you at? What are the strongest sensations in your body? Why do you think you're feeling them? What are your emotions about that? What are your desires about that? And it doesn't always take the form of like those four voice, body connection, process questions. Sometimes it's journaling, sometimes it's putting on a piece of music and moving. Sometimes it is sing, singing, you know, it's sitting down and just doing my singing practice and letting it come through my singing practice. There's so much mystery in taking a big leap that I just find that like every I'm just I'm just constantly I don't know if I would I don't know if I would call it searching for answers because I'm trying to not grasp for a reach or need like it really is, I think, going through. A big leaping process at a more advanced age. I say that like I'm an elder, not an elder yet, but like, you know, a decade plus later to go through such a big transition. And I really appreciate the way you said earlier that I'm choosing this one more mindfully, which is true. I'm just. I'm using every tool that I know as a form of prayer, I guess, is what I would say as a form of like asking and asking to be received and asking for guidance of the larger force that is around me.
[00:25:02] Lisa Hoashi And if, like, you know, I often think that like taking a leap and particularly to follow a more authentic path can be so challenging sometimes because there have been forces in people's lives that have kind of shut down their voice.
[00:25:18] Elissa Weinzimmer Oh, yeah.
[00:25:19] Lisa Hoashi It sounds like you.
[00:25:21] Elissa Weinzimmer Asked me the whole. Question, but just. Oh, yeah, to that one.
[00:25:26] Lisa Hoashi Yeah, I find that one. And kind of like you said, like sometimes like they don't they don't feel it in their body or they're not used to listening to their that inner voice or or even to take direction from it. And so I'm just curious. Well, first, it sounds like you have some thoughts about like the ways that voices can get shut down or I'm just curious how you observe that in your own work. Like, what are some of the forces there?
[00:25:54] Elissa Weinzimmer I mean, I think we're living in a moment on this planet where there is an absolute epidemic of voices being shut down. Women's voices are suppressed to various degrees all over the world. The way that power is embodied on the planet right now is extremely capitalist and patriarchal and white supremacist. And yeah, I really I mean, honestly, part of my sabbatical, too, has been absolutely about slowing down to do some really big inner work for myself personally, about how I situate myself among these like big issues on our planet and certainly in the United States. And just like, what am I building? How am I building? It is my way of proceeding with that which I want to offer in the world the way I want to be of service. Is that in alignment with my values? So yeah, there, there is. It's just like it honestly is a challenging time to be a human being on planet Earth and express yourself fully. It's it's a challenging time to be authentic. I can scroll through my Instagram feed. I bet you can scroll through yours and we can see lots of things about authenticity. But really, truly, if we can kind of take in the like larger umbrella of the world we're living in, that is not the majority of the conversation. And even when authenticity is spoken of, it's an authenticity inside following the scripts that of what one is supposed to do. I personally, I, I live with so much freedom and privilege. I want to say that first. And also I personally really felt impacted by the I like to call them scripts like the, you know, the rules about like I should be a good girl, I should go to college, which that that's a newer script like that's, you know, my, my ancestors didn't have that one. Lots of my ancestors didn't. Women especially. I should have a career that supports me. I should have like a steady income and a steady paycheck. My parents have been really supportive about my creativity and my entrepreneurship, but it's still like I felt the weight of like should, should, should around all of that I have for so much of my life. And, you know, I have teachers, coaches, friends, colleagues who have grown up in all sorts of different environments that were like way more oppressive and had way more rules and way more scripts than the ones I grew up with. So I think that this is just a very real thing. It's a very real thing. And there are actually consequences when people raise their voice and say what they really mean. In many parts of the world, there are very serious consequences for doing so. We're seeing that happen in Iran right now. So, yeah, I take this question extremely seriously around what are the limitations that would block me from speaking? What are the limitations that would block someone else from speaking? They're very real.
[00:29:08] Lisa Hoashi Yeah. And I really appreciate you like highlighting both that and but also the importance of finding the ways to have an authentic voice in our own conversation. I felt like you had really helped you kind of find a breakthrough from one of my own scripts. So I'm from a Japanese-American family who was on the West Coast of the U.S. and that as an immigrant family, they suffered extreme racism on the West Coast of the United States during World War Two. And so they're like scripts inside of me that. First of all, from like the Japanese culture of like, you know, conforming and don't like, if possible, just kind of don't speak out, just go with the flow. And then there's also about like, it's not safe to speak up. It's not safe to be yourself, it's not safe to be Japanese. And that's like highly racist environment. So don't bring your authentic self at all. So that's like all inside of me. And so, you know, when it comes to like bringing my voice, I'm like, wow, like this. There's so much inside of me and my history and also in my nervous system around that. And so one of the ideas you offered to me was the idea of polyvagal theory, which just like really helps me to think like I'm on an anti-racist journey as a coach and a leader and as a person. And I started to realize that, like, when you have, like some of these experiences you have been, it's like, yeah, you're nervous system has recorded it and we have to find ways to get around that in order to speak our truth and to be brave and to say what we really need to say and express. And so like this offered that theory, if you want to share it with our listeners, like really helped me to kind of think about, okay, how could I start doing that then?
[00:31:05] Elissa Weinzimmer Yeah, I would love to. It would be my honor. And I'm so glad that you said the word safety that you spoke about safety, because that's the thing I wanted to call in. When given a choice between our safety and our ability to express ourselves, we will and ought to always choose safety. That is totally okay. And so the process of I'm going to say the words like thawing the process of thawing the nervous system from those moments of like frozen of of when the freezing occurred. The freezing occurred because we didn't feel safe and we very likely may have not been safe. And so to recalibrate the perception of safety in this moment, to start to like ask, am I safe right now? And if if you're still not safe, the answer is cool. Keep protecting yourself.
[00:31:58] Lisa Hoashi Totally.
[00:31:58] Elissa Weinzimmer But if you are safe, then to start the thawing process of learning a new opportunity for vulnerability and sharing and expression. So yes, I have found that poly vagal theory has been one of my absolute favorite tools for understanding this. And so to summarize poly vagal theory, it's a relatively recent neuroscience concept discovered by Dr. Steven Porges in the last, I believe, 30 years. Dr. Porges also works with a psychologist named Deb Dana. And a lot of my understanding of poly vagal theory comes through Deb's writing and research. And essentially what poly vagal theory has helped me understand is a more nuanced way of understanding the human nervous system. Because the way I thought about it before was like fight or flight or cool. Right? And fight or flight is part of it, but it's a little bit more nuanced than this.
[00:32:55] Lisa Hoashi And also that what I find with that with that, I mean, I also thought like, for example, just talking in front of a microphone, it's like I feel nervous. Like I can't remember what I'm thinking. I want to say, like there's and then and then there's like like, oh, I feel anxious, right? Or like, I'm in that fight or flight sort of situation and that doesn't then I don't know what to do with that. Right, right. Like, and, and I feel like that's what this theory kind of helps is like. Yeah. Of what to do that can be different rather than just feeling shame or like, I'm not good at that. I'm going to avoid it. Like, you know, just like the sort of judgmental type things that can then fill the space.
[00:33:34] Elissa Weinzimmer Yeah, totally.
[00:33:36] Lisa Hoashi I always think it's so helpful to have tools of like, how okay, how can we move beyond that? And that's what I really found enlightening about this theory.
[00:33:44] Elissa Weinzimmer So I'll try to encapsulate it briefly and in a way that absorbs well in your eardrums. I'll also say that a resource that I often send people to has Deb Dana's Beginners Poly Vagal Theory Guide. So that's something that people can look up. So essentially when Dr. Porges just looked at the nervous system and specifically at the vagus nerve, which is the largest nerve of the autonomic nervous system, the involuntary nervous system, he realized that there were these branches that kind of let us know that there are actually these three states of activation. The first state of activation and the one that we're often aiming for is called ventral vagal. That's the official terminology for it. I like to nickname it. Stay in play. This is when we feel regulated. This is when we feel safe, social connected to each other. This is like our present, confident, expansive, authentic state. Yeah. So that's cool. We're all aiming for that.
[00:34:38] Lisa Hoashi Thank you for that nickname I I'll enjoy.
[00:34:43] Elissa Weinzimmer Totally. Now. When a real or perceived threat to the nervous system occurs, the next place we go, the next notch down, if you will, is fight or flight. And that's the nickname for sympathetic activation. And sympathetic is the state where your heart starts beating really fast. Fast your sweat glands activate, your pupils dilate, your digestive system shuts down because that's not the priority right now. We've got a fight or flee, right? And this like depending upon how high the knob is turned, the volume is turned on this state, a low grade fight or flight might just feel like kind of like anxiety, nervousness. And a high grade is like, I'm having a full on panic attack or I'm actually literally running away from danger. Right. Or punching it in the face. Now, if the real or perceived threat continues for long enough, or our nervous system gets to the point where we're like, I can't keep this up, this is taking too much energy. The third state and the next notch down is the dorsal vagal state. And the dorsal vagal state has the freeze and collapse state. And this is where in order to preserve our energy and and our safety, we will contract, we will condense, we will freeze, we will shut down. And when the dial is turned really high on the state, this can literally look like dead bodies. The situation like complete and total shock. And when this when it's a low grade dorsal vagal, it may look like like a really kind of. Depressives shut down, but like it could be like kind of under the surface. A couple of things to know. So, Deb Dana, one of the ways she teaches us that I love is she teaches it on a ladder. So the ventral vagal of the regulated state is up at the top, and the two dysregulated states are underneath that fight or flights in the middle and and freeze collapses down at the bottom. And so one thing to know is that if you've gone into frozen collapse mode around something, whether it's immediate frozen and collapse or whether it's a prolonged frozen and collapsed, I can't public speak. I suck at this. I'll never do it. You have to walk up through the ladder in order to get through regulation. You are going to walk through the fight or flight zone. So it's actually not it's not a symptom of you doing anything wrong. If your heart starts beating fast and your sweat glands activate and you get anxious and you get overwhelmed, you have to walk through that zone in order to move your way back up to regulation. The other thing that I think is so beautiful about picturing a ladder is what we can start to do is get familiar with our own personal cues about how we behave on our way from fight or flight, the middle of the ladder, up to ventral vagal, up to the stay and play at the top, because that pathway right there, that's the one you want to get really good at. That's you regulating your nervous system. And everyone's different. Some people will find that the easiest way for them to do that in certain situations is breathing. Some people will need to, like, get underwater and scream, you know, and it depends on the person and it depends on the situation. Chanting, humming, making sound, rocking like these are there. There are myriad ways, all of the ways that you think of as like meditating or calming yourself down or relaxing or going deep. These are all you can. You can categorize these as nervous system regulation practices. And some of them will regulate your nervous system quickly. Some of them will regulate your nervous system slowly, taking on hour long yoga class the way you feel at the beginning versus the end. That was a nervous system regulation practice. Right. But you don't always have an hour to take a yoga class, right? So sometimes it's three breaths, sometimes it's shaking, like shaking your body out. Right. And essentially the work that I most like to help people do is understand how to walk from that. It's regulated into the related state because the thoughts in our brain will change depending upon the state in fighter flight. My thoughts that I hear, I literally hear a song in my head in fight or flight mode. It goes like this. It goes, There's no time. There's no time, there's no time.
[00:38:52] Elissa Weinzimmer There's no time, there's no time there's no time. It like makes me feel like, oh, my God, there is I everything's wrong.
[00:38:58] Lisa Hoashi Right? Yeah.
[00:39:00] Elissa Weinzimmer And so I actually wrote myself a song which will be on my next album, which is the various times on there is Time, Nightmares, Time. And that is actually one of my favorite ways. I love singing my song to regulate my nervous system. That's polyvagal theory. That's polyvagal theory. In how long did that take me? 5 minutes.
[00:39:21] Lisa Hoashi I love the now is so helpful. I so I mean, first of all, I'm very excited about that song. I love the idea of like this call and response. I'm like, you know, there time and and also what you said just like so resonate. I was just talking with a very good friend this morning and she was talking about like she something really hard has happened in her life and she's like she said she was just taking she's trying to be, you know, use meditation and mindfulness to, like, really help her. And she said she was staying with her thoughts and just notice that in certain states like her thoughts, like the story they tell is like very dark and very negative. And so I'm imagining it's like that's kind of like what you're talking about, like depending on where, where you're at. Yeah.
[00:40:07] Elissa Weinzimmer Yeah. The way that Deb Dana says it, which is so brilliant as she says, story follows state, meaning whatever state you're in, whatever. And you can start to like think of those three levels as like a state, whatever state you're in, the story that you believe about your life in this moment will follow your nervous system state. And so that's why it's so useful. I find that understanding I mean, this is how I feel about everything, about the body and voice and the world is like, if I can understand how something works, I'm I love how to I'm a how to person. If I can understand how something works, then that's cool because I now I have a vocabulary to understand why I'm out where I'm at a.k.a. I can have compassion for myself. It's about compassion because I can't actually regulate my nervous system by being like, You suck, you suck, you suck. Elissa, calm down. Calm down. You're being ridiculous. No, not an effective way to regulate my nervous system. But I can regulate my nervous system by going, oh. Oh, sweetheart, of course you feel this way. Of course this is hard. Of course, your heart is beating fast right now. Of course. Let's take three breaths. Let's sing a song. Let's breathe. Yeah, of course. You feel this way.
[00:41:30] Lisa Hoashi Yeah. You're reminding me of the things I say to my daughter when she's upset. Right. It's like that Momma energy.
[00:41:37] Elissa Weinzimmer It is. And it's, you know, it's. It's the it's the really good, beautiful momma energy. It's not the momm energy that all of us were raised with. I'm so glad you say that to your daughter. And most important people. We can say it to ourselves, because if we speak to ourselves this way, then we will be much more likely to speak to each other this way. And that is another version of speaking our truth.
[00:42:00] Lisa Hoashi Yeah, that's so beautiful. So I wonder if you could just help us with one. How to. That is on my mind. So this, you know, I am like, really thinking of, like, my clients right now and thinking about like when when they're taking like a new direction that can feel scary. And I can feel like also like, very scary. And then in the nervous system, you know, there are moments where they have to start sharing what they're doing. And you kind of mentioned this with your own.
[00:42:30] Elissa Weinzimmer Elevator pitch.
[00:42:32] Lisa Hoashi With your email to your trainees. Mm hmm. But so let's just like. Okay, so here's a scenario is that, you know, someone who is leaving like a career, a profession that they have invested lots of time and their identity is wrapped up in it. And they're they have decided they've got to take a new path, though. And they're like anticipating walking into, you know, the boss's office or, you know, their partner's office and telling them that it's going to be that they're leaving, that they're going to do something different. Like what would you what would be some suggestions for you or of like how to prepare for that moment or to even be in that moment. Yeah, right then. Yeah.
[00:43:16] Elissa Weinzimmer Well, first of all, it's okay to navigate difficult moments messily. I'm going to say that first. It's really, really okay. Because truly, like these systems that I was talking about, patriarchy, white supremacy, you know, toxic capitalism, growth, growth, growth, growth, culture, we're always product productive. We're always building. Perfectionism is a staple of everything that keeps all of that in place. So it's really okay to navigate that situation imperfectly. That's the first thing I would say. It's also really okay to be nervous about it, like really okay to have all the feelings, really okay for the heart to start beating fast for, you know, the fear to come in for the thoughts to loop. We can't control our first thought or reaction, but we can decide what we do from there. So every time that that moment comes up of, Oh my God, everything's like, it's going to be horrible to talk to my boss. That's going to be so terrible. They're going to lecture me. They're going to tell me I'm messing up and I'm doing everything wrong and I'm never going to succeed. And you know, when the worst fear stuff comes up, having that moment of compassion of of course, I'm afraid. Of course, I'm imagining the worst case scenario. Like, this is scary. It's okay to be scared right now, having that moment first and then also choosing what would regulate my nervous system right now in this moment where I'm thinking about it before I even go into the office, what would regulate my nervous system right now? Another tool I was going to offer for a nervous system regulation that I find to be one of the fastest ones that works for me and a lot of people is gratitude. So literally and I like to say it out loud because I'm a voice coach, literally, like I'm so grateful that my I'm going to literally talk about my life right now. I'm so grateful that my home is filled with plants. I'm so grateful that I'm on a call with Lisa and being able to be of service here in this podcast community, I'm so grateful that I'm wearing a dress that I love and earrings that I love. I like put on bright clothing today. I'm so grateful that the sun is shining. I'm so grateful that I get to talk to my father. Later today we have a call scheduled. I'm so grateful that I make music that I had time to sing today, you know, like, just say ten things out loud. Really, really fast way to regulate our nervous system. So in that moment, maybe those ten things would look like, I'm so grateful I've had this job for the past 20 years. I'm so grateful it's gotten to me this me to this point. I'm so I'm so grateful for my boss. I'm so grateful for all the skills that I've learned in what I've been doing. I'm so grateful that I have the courage to take a big leap, so on and so forth. So that can be the thing that helps. I find one of the fastest ways to help the looping in the moments that the fear comes in, and then the actual moment occurs. And like I said, it's probably going to be messy. You're probably going to leave and be like, I should have said, I could have said, Oh my God, why did it happen that way? My worst fears came true. I've had a situation recently where literally my worst fears came true. Yeah. And then the cool thing on the other side of it is you're like, I'm still alive. Pinch myself. I'm so here.
[00:46:37] Lisa Hoashi My worst nightmare has literally come true as well in a work situation. And I was like, Well, that happens.
[00:46:44] Elissa Weinzimmer But right. Like maybe that literally does lecture you and all of your worst fears come true. And then on the other side of it, you're still alive and you still get to make your own choices and live your life that is authentic to you. And that I mean, there can be a total contraction when the worst things occur, but then there's like so much expansion because like. Cool. I'm still me. I'm still alive.
[00:47:09] Lisa Hoashi Mm hmm.
[00:47:10] Elissa Weinzimmer Yeah. And so then again, on the other side of the, you know, milestones, whatever they be like talking to the boss, sending the newsletter, etc., etc., just continuing in those moments to go, okay, I'm sleeping. Okay, I'm freaked out. Okay, cool. My nervous system disregulated. Let me reregulate right now. And this is, I think, the reason that the Buddhists and all of the different spiritual practices say that everything is contained in the present moment because we actually can't really plan for tomorrow or the next day. And even if we could, the planning we can do is in this present moment right now. If I want my nervous system to be more regulated tomorrow in a difficult situation, let me regulate it right now, right here where I am. Let me practice now. Then.
[00:47:58] Lisa Hoashi Yeah. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for sharing your expertize and your journey with us today. Before we close, is there anything else that you feel called to share with this community or anything that we didn't touch on that you would have liked to?
[00:48:16] Elissa Weinzimmer Yeah. I mean, this has been such a beautiful, expansive conversation. I, I haven't been on a podcast in quite a while because I'm in the middle of this kind of transitional sabbatical time, and I have my own podcast, but it's been on hiatus. And so to like be on the microphone talking to you and sharing feels really special. I'm I'm so grateful. I have been feeling very private lately. So I feel so grateful for the opportunity to kind of like, come up with my head above water and just like check in and say hi. And I just want to thank you for the opportunity to speak and to share.
[00:48:52] Lisa Hoashi Yeah. Well, thank you. I mean, I, I work with a lot of creatives and artists and people who maybe haven't done that for a long time. And that's so brave and also really inspiring. So thank you for modeling that just in your own story, your own journey, and sharing part of that with us today.
[00:49:14] Elissa Weinzimmer My pleasure.
[00:49:15] Lisa Hoashi Yeah, thank you. Well, if people want to continue on and just stay in touch with you, what's the best way to do that?
[00:49:23] Elissa Weinzimmer Yeah. So for my teaching work, the website is voicebody connectioncom. There's a mini course you can take. It's the How to Speak Your Truth mini course. So feel free to dove into that. And if you want to find my music from a music, I go by my first and my middle name. So it's Elissa Maas, Elissa, Elissa, and then Maas you can either go to elissamaas.com or search on your favorite streaming wherever you listen to your music platform. And you should find me there.
[00:49:55] Lisa Hoashi Now, I saw you had released a new song on Spotify, so that's really exciting there.
[00:50:01] Elissa Weinzimmer Four out now. Yeah. And hopefully an album, a full album by the winter.
[00:50:07] Lisa Hoashi Great. Well, thank you.
[00:50:09] Elissa Weinzimmer Thanks, Lisa.
[00:50:11] Lisa Hoashi It was such a pleasure talking with you today.
[00:50:15] Elissa Weinzimmer Thank you so, so, so much.
[00:50:18] Lisa Hoashi Hey everyone, thanks for listening to this episode. Elissa mentioned so many great resources. Be sure to head over to LisaHoashi.com/podcast for the Shownotes. We've got all of those resources listed there. Until next time, be bold and take good care.
