121. Three Lessons from my Third Silent Retreat

A voice coach going silent - the irony isn’t lost on me. But it makes totally sense. The physical voice flows like a dream when the inner voices are in harmony. I always learn so much on these silent retreats and in this episode - the season finale - I share three lessons from my latest retreat.

Transcript

Hello, hello. Welcome to Episode 121 of That Voice Podcast! It is the finale for the season. Yes, I've been going 21 Mondays straight, so are we taking a little break. And for the finale, I wanted to share lessons from my third silent retreat. Three lessons from my third silent retreat. Wow. Every time I go on one of these weekends away, I discover so much about myself and new gems to take back into regular life. Before I get into it, I want to make an announcement. So being the end of financial year here in Australia, a lot of people are booking in to get the deductions. Education and training usually is tax deductible, and companies often have a professional development budget that is use or lose.

So that's what I'm finding with bookings at the moment. And so with this in mind, I have decided to open doors to My Six Week Voice Makeover now. And this is for the course that starts August 14th. Normally I wouldn't open the door so early, but with the end of financial year, I thought, wow, what a great way to get an incredible opportunity and before tax time. So I've opened the doors and My Six Week Voice Makeover takes you through the actual steps you need to take to prepare your mind, body, and voice for speaking with confidence in any scenarios. So I lay out the exercises, the techniques, I'm there to answer any questions you have. And in the premium option, you also have me on Voxer for the whole six weeks. That's personal support for the whole six weeks. So if you struggle to speak up, when you want to, and with a voice people listen to, then I would invite you to join My Six Week Voice Makeover. I will pop the link in the show notes.

Oh, so silent retreat. My most recent one was in the gorgeous Gold Coast Hinterland up at Springbrook and through a company called Find My Calm, the beautiful Kara. Find My Calm. I will link to that in the show notes as well. I believe the next one is in November. And there were three big takeaways this time.

The first one: If we weren't so quick to verbalize the problem, would it even be a problem? If we weren't so quick to verbalize the problem wouldn't even be a problem? And this came to me after I went back to my room. Following the initial chit-chat introduction, the silence officially started, and I was looking through my suitcase and I couldn't find the little white bag that I keep my socks and undies in when I travel.

And I was like in my mind, oh my gosh. where did I put my socks and undies? This is like, this is bad. Then it went to, Oh, okay, well, that's actually fine. Like, what am I going to do? I'm not going to turn my phone back on and call Patrick and be like, Oh, I forgot my socks and undies, like, I mean, what was he going to do anyway?

And it got me thinking that if I was able to speak, I would have said something about it. And then it just would have become more of a problem. Not even more of a problem. It would have become a problem when there wasn't any issue. It was completely fine. Tights and big hoodies, uh, you know, probably pretty good close to wear without undies, anyway. Maybe this is too much information on this podcast, but you know what I mean? It wasn't like they were airy summer dresses that I was wearing. And not having socks meant that I spent more time in bare feet. And you might be like, Sal what'd you be freezing? Yeah, it was freezing up there or we're freezing by Australian standards, freezing by Queensland standards.

But that feeling of the beautiful, cold, wet earth was just what I needed. I live on level six of an inner city apartment block and I don't do a hell of a lot of grounding. There would be many days where my bare feet don't touch any earth.

And that brings me to my second takeaway, which is a reminder that we love being in nature because we are nature. We love being in nature because we are nature

And I enjoyed all of the elements when I was there. When you're silent, you notice everything a lot more. There was the cool earth beneath. There was the crackling fire in front, the beautiful stars above the clouds in the day. And so it was a reminder not just to immerse myself in nature more, but to connect with each of the elements.

Look down and feel the earth. Look ahead, see the fire. Feel the breeze look above. So you've got your space and your air and your fire and your earth. And of course we had our water as well. There was a waterfall walk that we did. I did get a couple of leeches on my shoe. All good. I just took them off. Well, that's not true.

I got some help. There was a little bit of sign language at that point in the retreat, which may have looked like me. Uh, you can't really do it via audio, but it was like a panicked face. Oh, there's a leech on my shoe. It was like the silent version of that. Beautiful retreat leader Kara took my shoe and she humanely put the little baby leeches back in their habitat.

But all good. All good. Again, it wasn't a problem.

Had I been able to speak? I probably would have been hysterically screaming, Leech! Leech! Leech!

Completely unnecessary. If we weren't so quick to verbalize a problem, would it even be a problem? So that was my first one. My second one was a reminder to connect with all the elements: space, air, fire, water earth. And the third big takeaway for me was just how far I've come since my first silent retreat.

So a couple of years ago when I did the first one, I remember being worried about how I was going to get through a Friday and Saturday night without having a wine. That's what I was worried about I was like, oh my gosh, I can't remember the last Friday, Saturday when I didn't have a drink. So it was

being concerned about not being able to drink alcohol. And then also the fear of being away from my phone. I had to give my phone physically to Kara, the retreat leader to put in her car. So I wouldn't be tempted to turn it on. Then in the second one, I happily had it off in my bag, in the room. And then with this one, the third one.

As soon as I set foot into the room phone off, it's like, I couldn't wait to turn it off. And I put it in my bag and because I, I'm not the neatest of travelers, I had my bag kind of open and I could actually see my phone most of the time, like for no other reason that I just didn't have my bags zipped up.

And I wasn't tempted in the slightest to turn it on. Just totally embracing the digital detox, totally embracing the silence and yeah, what a realization. How far I've come and how differently I'm thinking. I'm quite proud of myself. The book that I read, I always read a book on these retreats. It's not like the past to know where you can't read.

This is a really good entry-level silent retreat. You're allowed to read and write and draw. And the food's amazing. And you can eat as much as you want. And the book I read was the Magic of Thinking. I really enjoyed it. I mean, it's a bit old fashioned. It was first published in 1959. And like, all of the examples are about middle-aged white men get stopped with the sign of the times, the concepts in there still ring true. About using positive language about thinking big making things happen for yourself.

Great line in there about action, curing fear and indecision fertilizing fear. I really like that. Oh, I'm getting a little bit off track here, but yes, they were the three main takeaways. Number one, if we weren't so quick to verbalize the problem, would it even be a problem? Number two. Getting nature, getting all the elements. And three, it was just a celebration and a realization of how far I've come.

So, what's next? Well, in a couple of weeks, I am going down to Mount Kosciuszko, as I think the proper pronunciation is. It's the snow region of Australia for those listening overseas. And I am doing a whim Hoff experience which is cold exposure, basically. And I'm going to be hiking in the snow in my underwear.

So this is a trip where I definitely need to remember to bring it because I think it's going to be the only thing I'm wearing. So I will do an episode to report back. And then after the snow trip, I will be heading up to Cannes in far North Queensland for a workshops that will be a big change in environment and temperature, and then I'm jumping on a plane and heading over to Barcelona for my brother's wedding. So that'll be 10 days in the beautiful sunshine. Oh, thank you so much for your support of the podcast. I'm not sure when I will be back or whether it will be back with the same name. I'm not sure.

I'll have some thinking time while I'm traveling around Europe or hiking in the snow in my knickers. I'm not sure if there's anything much, I'll be able to think about there apart from just breathing in and breathing out although I think that's the idea. The podcast we'll be back in some shape or form and yeah keep an eye out. If you leave your email at thatvoicepodcast.com, you'll be on the list. So you'll be able to be emails when the new episodes drop, but thank you so much for your support. It, this wouldn't be a thing if I didn't have a listeners. Please leave a review. If you haven't already or reach out to me on Instagram, share stories and tag me, I appreciate every single bit of feedback I hear.

If you have been listening for a long time and you have never sent me a message, then please I'd encourage you to let me know that you do listen because it's nice to hear. You know, it can feel like a, a one-way street when you're on a podcast. And like I say, in my teachings, my teachings makes me sound a bit prophetic, but my teachings it's about having a dialogue, not having a monologue.

So the more two way we can make this the better. Amazing. This is me officially signing off. Season seven of That Voice Podcast. Thank you once again for your support. Remember your voice matters, so get out there and use it with confidence.