113. Voice & Ayurveda

Have you ever stepped up to speak and just totally freaked? Your heart is through the roof, your mind is blank and the sea of faces starts to warp into one? When that happened to my podcast guest Laetitia Andrac, she pulled a brilliant strategy out of the hat.

It not only calmed her down and allowed her voice to flow, but the audience LOVED IT!

Tune into this episode to find out what Laetitia did. Laetitia – a Holistic Business Mentor – also shares -

  • How to use Ayurveda to find your speaking flow.

  • An inspiring lesson about voice from the French language.

  • A timely reminder to breathe.

And we end with a powerful mantra chant. Enjoy :)

Transcript

Hello, hello. Welcome to That Voice Podcast. My guest today is the gorgeous Laetitia Andrac and I wanted to have Laetitia on the podcast because she's doing with business, something similar to what I'm doing with. And that is bringing a holistic approach. Laetitia is a soul and biz doula, love that, and she helps women create soul-aligned businesses, careers, and lives.

And she makes ancient spiritual wisdom, in particular, Ayurveda, really accessible for people. And that's what I'm doing with Speak from your Soul. So Speak from your Soul as a six-week spiritual journey. It's an online course to help you find your authentic voice and make it heard. So if you're lacking confidence in speaking, you're afraid to put yourself out there, show up online.

Maybe you're not feeling cool, calm, connected, and queenly when you speak, you might actually dislike your voice. Well, these are all signs that your voice needs to come back into alignment with who you truly are. And this is what we do in Speak from your Soul. We start the next round in May. So if you're not on the waitlist, now is the time to join.

That link is in the show notes. Now I'd love to introduce you to the beautiful, Laetitia.

Sally

Laetitia Andrac, it is amazing to have you on the podcast. Welcome.

Laetitia

Thank you. Thank you, Sally for having me, I'm really excited for our conversation.

Sally

We were just saying before this, that in Australia, because you live in Sydney, you would have a lot of people calling you Latisha Andrac. And so let's start there Latisha. Tell us a little bit about your background.

Laetitia

Yes. So I am born and raised in the south of France in the French Riviera provosts. And, um, I grew up there spent most of my childhood until I moved to Paris for working. So I studied business and I moved into one of the best business school and then into strategy consulting in Paris.

And it was a whole new world for me, the little girl from this small village in the south of France, very connected to nature. So it was another world and I exploded and I loved it. And then after a few years, living the life on paper that, uh, everyone dreamed to live-- traveling a lot, earning a lot of money, having a huge impact. My body collapsed because it was too much. I needed more nature. So I burned out and this is when I really reconnected with my spiritual practices. And now as this is what I guide other women through growing their business by blending ancient spiritual wisdom, with strategy. So all my learning on my journey are serving me today. For Essential Shift, which is my business.

Sally

Oh, I love that so much. And I do apologize for my French accent. That definitely needs a little bit of work there. Oh. So burnout is something I can definitely relate to and it's something that I have to keep an eye on as somebody who has a lot of pitta energy and so, explain a little bit more about how you've used Ayurveda to help women who are in this burnout place, which I'm sure many people listening are going, 'Yes, yes, yes. Sal, that's me. That's me.'

Laetitia

So the way I do it is I have learned, Ayurveda at 17 years ago when I was living in India. So my early 20-year-old self learned Ayurveda for nutrition, for well-being and so on.

My now, all the self use it in business and the way I use it in business and I teach other people to use it in business is by going back to the basic principle of Ayurveda, which are the five elements. And those five elements, I create an analogy with those five elements in business. So the five elements for those of you listening, like what is she talking about?

The Mahabutas are the space, air, water, earth, and fire. And in business, I help a woman to bring those five elements and balance them in a way that is aligned with their own dosha. You mentioned your pitta or you're mainly activated by fire and a bit of water. So how might you bring in your business more space, and air, and earth?

So we're really looking to the business foundation for instance, which would be the earth element and how might we bring more business foundation for you and your business, more grounding, more earth in the way you are going in your businesses. Then we come down the pitta energy, the fire energy, the activations, or drive and so on.

So I really use those principles. It was ancient, spiritual wisdom principle, bringing Ayurveda for business purposes. I've never been done, but Ayurveda is a science of life. It can be used holistically. And in India you use for everything and why not using it for business?

Sally

Um, I love that. And I am starting to use it for voice because it is so powerful to apply these, these principles.

And so taking a little bit of a turn from business to voice, because of course, freedom to express and confidence in your voice. It's such a big part of business because you've got to market it and talk about what you do. So Laetitia can you share a little bit of information about how women can use Ayurveda to help with their voice?

Laetitia

Um, I love this question. I just love this question because we share this passion for voice and I love how you're bringing the dosha into using the sound and the voice and for me, the voice pertain to the Tejas in Ayurveda. So let's go back to what Tejas is. In Ayurveda, we believe that the birth of creation is coming from Ojas, Tejas, and Prana.

So Prana is your soul breath. The power of the breath. The pranayama is a life force. The Ojas is a soul nourished. It's a food. It's how you eat the food. It's how you consume. Also things can be content can be the video that you watch can be all of that. And we have Tejas, which is soul vibration, soul vibrations, or creation of sound.

And we know how in the Vedic tradition. We know how Saraswati who is one of the goddess, one of the Hindu goddesses riding on her lion with a beat of her drum created the world, the universe. So in those teaching, we understand how sound is powerful and even in the Aboriginal culture, because we have to honor that where in Australia, the sound like the world has been created by sound as well.

So this is where the soul vibrations to us in Ayurveda are essential. And the way to connect with Tejas in your business and in your life is really by reconnecting with the Prama sounds that you make, through mantra or Vedic mantra, which are very powerful. Through a simple ohm or through other mantras that are more aligned with your own culture, if you want to make more for, ohm... That's okay.

Just the vibration of sound. Reconnecting with the sound within you and also around you is a sound of nature. The sound of the leaf on the ground when you walk, the sound of a river. And the sound are aligned with season we hear different sound different, depending on which season we're in, in our life, and around us.

And so what I love about Ayurveda is we are microcosms within a macrocosm. We are micro being within a bigger scheme of thing. And when we align those vibration, magic happen. And not just magic as a magician, as a wizard at a witch, but magic as some things that is aligned with the right vibration.

Sally

Oh, so beautiful.

I love this. It reminds me of a conversation I had on the podcast from a couple of weeks ago with my energy healer. And we were talking about so many traditions. There's a story about how the world was brought into existence through sound. And our voice is our very own cosmic vibration that we carry around with us.

So, if you're feeling like, 'Okay well, Sal and Laetitia I hear that's all good and well, but I choke up every time I have to do public speaking, you asked me to go live on Instagram. I have a heart attack. I, what can I practically do to release this beautiful voice of mine?

Laetitia

Uh, I love this question. It we're building to a story that we shared on my podcast.

When you came as a guest on my own podcast, which is called The Essential Shift Podcast. And for me, it is about bringing back the breath. If you go live, if you go on stage and your vibration, your soul vibration, your Teja is stuck. Let it flow through inviting Prana. Through inviting your life force through inviting breath.

So it can be just pausing for a moment, and taking three deep conscious breath. And straight away, your voice will be more aligned with the message you want to communicate. So really a re-inviting prana and going back to that story, it's really what happened with me. So I was jumping on stage. It was last year for an international women day event and we have lousy kind of habits to be in front of people, you know, on stage.

There's a lot of people in the crowd, it was in between to lockdowns. So I went in Sydney. I was so excited and I jumped on stage. I saw all those women. I was like, 'Oh my goodness, I'm loosing it!' So I just sat and I told them we're gonna together. We are going to do an Nadi Shodhana, so an alternate nostril breathing, and we're really going to balance our divine feminine, divine masculine because I need it now.

And I'm sure you needed that as well. So let's do those breaths together. And I told them this exercise on stage, we did it together and then my voice, my soul vibrations straight away, was calmer and more aligned. Everyone in the audience was so present and really listening to my words. And after I had women coming to me and being like, 'Oh my gosh, was this prepared?'

Like 'No, not at all. It wasn't not prepared at all!', but I knew I needed that. And I'm grateful that I could surrender to my intuitive nudge at that moment being like, just breathe, breathe.

Sally

Oh, surrender to my intuitive nudge. Surrender to your intuitive nudge. So often, I hear from my clients this resistance, this, 'Oh no, I shouldn't do that. I should say this. I shouldn't go and get a drink. I, and there's this real box that gets built and I'm sure you'd hear the same in business as well of how things should be. So I love that phrase. If we can just surrender and go with what we intuitively feel, chances are, that is exactly what the audience needs as well.

And as I mentioned on your podcast, I can't think of any industry or any type of presentation where it would be completely inappropriate to start with a breath.

Laetitia

Yes, because we all think together. And remember that sound vibration is a manifestation of energy, energy beings, alive force being prana.

So think about sound as something that is contained within the prana. So without the breath, nothing happened and we know how the Rishi is and in the Vedic tradition. Our lifetime is continued on a number of breath that we take, not on a number of years that we live. So let's make the most out of every breath we take and let's make sure that every conscious breath we take is an opportunity for us to create the sound that is needed at that moment.

Sally

So beautiful. Our life is measured in the breaths we take. And that's why in all of my coaching and courses, there is such a focus on breath because it is the life force for everything, but it is very much so the life force for our voice without breath, there is no voice.

Laetitia

Completely.

Sally

So we are speaking the same language!

but speaking, speaking of language, I would love you to share that beautiful French phrase about voice.

Laetitia

Yes. So in French, we have the same way of saying your path and your voice, which is 'La voix, La voie'. La voix is V-O-I-X for your voice. V-O-I-E for your path. So following your voice is following your path. A voice without a path it's like not adding a voice.

This is where , it's just kind of it's when you put them together, you see voix and voie. Yeah. It means a voice without a path or a path without voice. It's like someone without a voice or without a path. So we need both of them, your voice is your path. So use your voice intentionally as you follow along your path, we're really abs is teaching in French in more spiritual side of France where it's like it's called the, the bird language. So for instance, in English, if I had to translate the bird language in English, and that's what I use with my clients, for them to understand it, a dis-ease is a disease, it's being not at ease.

So we use the same thing in many words in French and voix/voie voice and path I was the same words, written differently.

Sally

So beautiful. It's even speaking of breathing, the word inspiration means to breathe in. It comes from the Latin word, which means like the breathing in of ideas. And so I say, if you want to inspire others, you must first inspire yourself.

If you want to inspire your words, you must first inspire yourself.

Laetitia

Yes. And this is where being mindful about the word we use about the sound we make is really impacting your vibration. So if you use intentional word, if you use your voice intentionally, then your path will unfold easily. Gracefully.

Sally

I am loving this conversation so much. And it was just this week that I was speaking with a client about setting an intention for a presentation. Just setting the intention of, and her intention was in this presentation that I'm going to breathe when I pause. And I thought that was brilliant because there can be a lot of overwhelming.

It comes on top of us with business, with presentations, even in exercise classes, I love how there's that idea of setting the intention because it can give such beautiful focus.

Laetitia

Yes. And you know, listening to you saying that every time I go on podcast interview, of course, I'm a bit anxious before, because I never know really what question I'm going to get asked.

And I don't prepare because I really connect to my intuition and I follow what is called for me to share, but you have this little anxiety. So what do I do? I breathe before and every time for anyone listening, you will not his, our poses of silence because I am breathing. You are breathing. So we are together breathing in unison, in union to make sure that whatever we share is coming from a place of prana life force connection to our soul.

Sally

Um, and my background is radio and one of the things you're not allowed to do in radio is take a pause. It's like the worst thing you can do because they say people think, 'Oh the radio station's broken!' and they changed stations.

So I was taught in radio to never take a pause, to always keep going to never take a break. But as you'll hear with this podcast is I will let our conversation breathe. I will leave in those pauses because what we don't say is just as important as what we do say. And if in this conversation, we are finding intuitively that we need some time to breathe, chances are you listening to this are enjoying those times to breathe as well. So that's a little behind-the-scenes peak explaining what we're talking about.

Laetitia

Yeah. I love that. I love that. And some things that I was taught, I have a harmonium teacher and, you know, a toning teacher and I really work, um, on singing again and reconnecting with my chanting practice for the past three years, because I really felt like I wanted to dive deeper into the Vedic mantra and singing and all of that, which was my joy as a kid and how we lose it, you know, as we grew up and then like, oh, what about singing?

And every time we are playing the harmonium together and chanting together. You start getting into that space of elevation of, you know, trends because the Vedic mantra, the harmonium, the drum, all of that activating you, you know, again, the Tejas a soul vibration activating you another state of consciousness, and then you realize how you breathe way more consciously, even though you are in this other state. You notice every vibration of the inhale and the exhale when you access the state of altered consciousness. So my invitation for any of you listening to this is what is putting you into that state, where you can connect consciously with your breath.

Is it through listening to music? Is it a walk in nature? Is it running? Is it swimming? Is it chanting? What is going to connect you back to your breath?

Sally

What a beautiful point to end this on. Before I ask how people can work with you, was there anything else you wanted to add?

Laetitia

The most important is for anyone listening to this, to just see what it is inviting them to do next or to be in next rather than rushing around, like allowing a time for pause and integration of everything we discussed here. And seeing what is it that they want to do with that teaching with that conversation.

Sally

Um, if you're anything like me, often we will listen to a podcast and we'll think yes, tick off the to-do list. Listen to that podcast. Great. What's the next job I have to do? Laetitia's like smiling and shaking your head going, ah, typical pitta behavior. But I love that if you can have some silence, think about what we've said today, maybe relisten to it.

We shared a lot of quite new information and Laetitia, if they'd like to learn more about you and work with you, how can they do that?

Laetitia

So they can check my website, www.essentialshift.co all together. Otherwise, find me on Instagram @essential.shift and just DM over there with any question on my website, you have all my offerings.

I offer free webinars and classes and things like that on my website. If you're interested to dive deeper into Ayurveda in business, I have a course for that. So you can just look on my courses. I have many things to help women in business plan, spirituality and strategy.

Sally

Oh, I love that. And I hope I'm not putting you on the spot here and we can cut this if you would like to.

But would you like to share some of your chanting that you've been working on with your singing teacher?

Laetitia

Yes, of course.

Sally

That would be a beautiful way to end.

Laetitia

Yes. So taking it out down when, on, we'll take a bit of time. So what we can do is we can just do it acapella without the harmonium because it's not intact, I'm looking at it. It's here in my, in my safe space, but so, yeah. So what do we can do? We can chant together - which is honoring the divine within us.

Okay, so if you want, we can do, this one. The way to, so first to chant together, as Sal would teach you, it's really about first opening our body or putting out with chest and connecting with the breath.

We're just going to do that consciously.

Really taking the time to drop your shoulder, relax your jaw, open your chest and your heart space. Ground your feet on the earth. You may wish to close your eyes as you do that, which is what I am doing.

And on your next exhale, you can start chanting along with me. So what we can do, we can do a call and response. I'm going to sing once and then you can repeat with me or after me, you know, in your car.

*chanting*

…Connecting back with your breath. And in the silence, noticing the vibration through your soul. Through your body, of the power of sound.

And if you love this mantra, you can repeat it 108 time, which is called a Japa meditation which is what I do every day.

Sally

Oh, that was absolutely divine. And the first time I've ever sung on the podcast, probably the phrasing.

Thank you so, so much. Thank you. After that, I won't startle you with my outro music. I really hope you enjoyed those beautiful voice vibrations. And I will link to all the Laetitia's details in the show notes. Also, the link to join, Speak from your Soul my six-week online course, to find your authentic voice and make it heard, that link is in there as well. We dive deeper into how you can use Ayurveda to improve your connection with your voice and express yourself confidently. There's actually a whole module where I explain how you can use the elements, the doshas, to guide how. You actually deliver your words depending on the intention and the nature of those words.

And this is incredibly mind-blowing stuff. It's going to give you a clear roadmap to what you should be doing with your voice when in order to have the influence you want. And that is Speak from your Soul. Now is the time to be on that waitlist.

Sally Prosser