05/05/2026
Take a deep breath. Try to breathe in with your full chest, back and belly. Does it feel free and easy? Or does it feel labored and strained? Do you feel your shoulders lift and your neck strain?
The diaphragm and the parasympathetic nervous system are intimately connected. When we are safe and calm within ourselves, breath usually feels free and effortless. Like our whole body’s can breathe. When we are in states of vigilance or in environments where we are not completely safe (even just to be ourselves) breathing creeps up to the upper chest and neck and the diaphragm isn’t able to fully descend - we’re not able to take a full breath. This can become the pattern in our bodies. A tight diaphragm can even change our posture making it even more difficult to fully and freely breathe!
Breath, is of course, the foundation to vocal freedom. But it also the foundation for our sense of wellbeing and deep centeredness. Our ability and right to feel “centered” within ourselves.
So what can we do to help release and free the diaphragm? Releasing external muscles that are stuck in holding patterns and vocalizing can be one of the most effective and profound ways to find this natural freedom we are born with. Everything comes out with the voice!
In my Channel of the Voice course, we look at all the connecting structures related to breath and voice and where we have holding patterns and tension. We aim to understand our bodies and liberate the breath and voice.
The next weekend workshop is in Warsaw this May 15-17. Let me know if you would like this course in an online format and send me your email so I can notify you when the course (which I’m working on!) is ready to be accessed online.
