32. How to stop emotions hijacking your voice

Of course we want to put emotions into speaking, but sometimes those feelings can get the better of us and prevent us getting our message across. In this episode I share three strategies I use to stop emotions hijacking your voice.

Transcript

Sally: How do I speak with emotion yet not let that emotion control my voice. Yup. That's the million dollar question I'm going to try to help you with today.

I'm Sally Prosser. You're listening to That Voice Podcast. No matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters and unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.

Thanks for tuning in to That Voice Podcast. We're up to Episode 32. How are you? Oh, it's crazy times, isn't it? I really hope all your friends and family are safe and well, wherever they are in the world, and I hope you're feeling okay too. It goes without saying. Stress levels are pretty high across the board at the moment, so if you're feeling anxiety or having sleepless nights, totally normal. I hear you now.

In the last episode I spoke to TV reporters, Marlina Whop and Brendan Smith and Marlina mentioned right at the end of the episode the importance of striking that emotional balance in your voice when you're reporting. Here's what she said.

Marlina Whop: I think we have a responsibility to be delivering messages clearly and calmly and measured and I think that's like any kind of emergency situation, whether it's cyclones or floods or things like that. I think that's really important and I think you know it's important people don't hear the panic in our voices as well. Even if we are a bit afraid, we can show emotion, but we've got, I think you've got to strike that balance there as well and be aware of that.

Sally: I highly recommend that episode. It's one of my favorites. It's called TV reporter life in a pandemic. If you haven't listened already, then go back one episode and give it a listen.

Now, it's not just reporting where you need to stay on top of your emotions. There's heaps of scenarios and you'd be able to relate to this. If your anger or frustration or grief or even crazy happiness start to control your voice, you may not be able to speak the way you want to or get your message across the way you want to. You know, whether it's sharing an emotional story in a keynote or wanting to speak to your boss about something without breaking down in tears or screaming in anger or delivering a eulogy where you want to do justice to the person who's died and everybody there. I delivered the eulogy for my dad.

He died on the 23rd of January back in 2014 it was after an infection travelled to his heart. And wow, if you've ever delivered a eulogy, it's a tough gig. And it wasn't just me. I was with my beautiful oldest sister, Shona which helped a lot. I'll tell you what, I've never been more grateful than in that moment that I had public speaking skills. Honestly, your voice and being able to use it is about those moments in life that really matter. So if you're thinking about your speaking skills or listening to this podcast in terms of school or work or career, then you know, think a little bit deeper. Because for me it's been the weddings and the birthdays and the funerals that my speaking has meant the most to me - and of course the important people. In my life.

Okay, so back to how to control emotions and look, it's not a quick fix. We've all been in situations where our emotions have got the better of us and got the better of our voice. It has happened before and it will happen again. But there are steps that I took for dad's eulogy and that can apply to almost any situation to help you stay in control of your emotions. And clients that I've worked with have reported these steps helping as well. So I'll share them with you today. And the first step, number one is practice. You make the words kind of like a script in a play or a movie. Now I realise that you can't always prepare and practice, but for something like a keynote or a eulogy, you definitely can. And this really helped me. It means that when you're up there, you can go into performance mode. You're not searching for the words while you're emotional. The words are there and the more that you practice it, you can take the emotion out of it a little bit. And before you say, Oh, but you don't want to take the emotion out of it, it can help you because when you're up there delivering, and you know I didn't want to break down and start crying, it's pretty hard. I mean everyone you're looking at, you're looking at your friends and your family and they're in tears and you want to be able to hold it together. By practicing the exact words it's so much easier to have them flow out.

I guarantee this. If you can prepare, prepare and practice, prepare and practice, prepare and practice till it almost feels like you're just delivering lines in a movie or a play and you can be a little bit distant from it. So that's number one - practice.

Number two is breathing. Now, I know I talk about breathing a lot, but breathing powers our voice. It's so important. Breathing low and deep will help you find your voice. Because what happens in these emotional situations, whether we're getting nervous or angry or frustrated or sad and upset, our heart rate rises and things tense up and we struggle to get the breath in. And that's often why we lose the voice. You know, the voice can go up there and that's because we've lost the oxygen. So if you can breathe low and deep into your bottom right, visualize you're breathing into your bottom, away from your shoulders, deep down, right near the diaphragm, then that will help you recover your voice. Think I can find my voice if I first find my breath. So breathing low and deep.

And the third thing that I do, and this is kind of related to breathing, because when you have to think about breathing, often you take a pause and so the last one is pausing and going to a happy place. And the happy place can be different for different scenarios. So with my dad, I knew that I was probably going to get to a situation where I was, I could feel the tears coming on and I was going to break down and it happened. And when that happened, the place I went to in my mind was backstage at an eisteddfod. I know that might sound a bit funny, but by taking my mind backstage at an eisteddfod, I was able to click into performance mode. I was able to just for that moment, separate myself from the horrible reality of what was happening and go into performance mode and then be able to deliver the stories about my dad. And that's what the job is when you're delivering a eulogy, right? You're there to be able to share stories about the person. And you can't do that if you can't stop crying. So I went to backstage at an eisteddfod and thought, right, I'm stepping out onto stage and I'm treating this like a performance. And I was able to hold back the tears, get it together Sal! And keep going. So in different situations, your happy place can, is going to be different. You know, I, Oh, I'll share something with you now when I feel like I can't stop laughing and it's inappropriate to be laughing. We've all been in that situation. You know, you get the giggles and you can't stop laughing, even though you know you have to, and I straight away visualise a coffin.

As soon as I have that visual in my head of a coffin, I can straight away stop laughing. And it's been very useful in my life being able to do that. So I would definitely recommend when you're going into situations, think what is the visual that I have, what's the place I can go to in order to snap me back into the emotional state I want to be in?

So we've got practice if you can. Breathe low and deep and pause and go to a happy place or a place that's going to help reset you. And I've got to stress, you know, we do not want to turn emotionless robots. Of course we don't. That would be terrible. So much of what I do is helping people put emotion and feeling into their voice. We don't want to be emotional robots. I love good real raw emotion. I'm sure you've seen speakers who show this and it's really powerful. You know, there's a lot of power in the A word authenticity and the V word vulnerability, but these steps are to help you not become a blubbering mess or a raging bull because that's when your message won't get through. That's when you won't be able to even use your voice, let alone use it to its full effect. So practice if you can breathe low and deep and pause and visit your happy place.

Next episode, we are getting a little bit saucy on That Voice Podcast. I'm chatting to a world renowned sex therapist. Her name is Cyndi Darnell, and we're talking all about the role of voice in getting it on.

Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast. All my episodes and full transcripts can be found at www.thatvoicepodcast.com.