What are you willing to do for that voice?

Sunday evening musings...

As so many of you are dealing sickness/flu/cold and exhaustion, and as the year is fresh and COLD (!!!) and we are thinking about how we get started/restarted, and getting energized after the holiday season....

What are you willing to do? What do you need to do it?

If your body is rundown and your voice is exhausted - it's a wake-up call. It means simply slow down and take some time to recoup, and replenish!

It doesn't matter what is expected of you - what do you NEED? The expectation cannot be met if the need is not answered FIRST.

Get healthy. Get rested. Get real.

Do you then jump in with both feet or ease your way into your routine?

My suggestion is to keep in mind that you are an athlete!!! If you have taken time off, if you've been sick, if you are still healing...ease in....your body and your voice will be healthier and will thank you ultimately if you don't shock it into position!

If you've done the holiday eating and drinking and travelling - then ease back into your diet and your balance and your hydration so your voice can feel like it's living at home again. If you ask too much of it too quickly, the shock can be exhausting!!! Treat your body and your voice with respect and recognition!!!

Jump in - but recognize like any athletic activity - the voice needs time and attention, not just willingness, but DOING! Wishing you were at optimum is not being there. Being means DOING and building and growing...

Jump or ease but LISTEN to what your body needs...listen to what your spirit needs...and when you KNOW you DO. Are you too tired or are you making excuses? Know the difference. If you are recovering from illness, know how to ease in to building stamina vocally and physically and know when to stop!!!!

Just like being at the gym - when the adrenalin is high, one more set may feel fabulous at the moment, but the next day....Same with your voice...your voice relies on a complexity of muscles and breath! If you push, you suffer.

Jump into your willingness; ease into your regime! Take this new year as an opportunity to develop fresh and new habits and recognitions for that voice! Know what it needs, see where it's going, know the art of voice is not instant but demands nurturing, demands care, demands a journey of physicality, emotional and spiritual patience and true athleticism.

Be willing to jump - and be willing to ease - depending on the day/week/time! Be willing to demand the best of your body each day; the best of your spirit each day; the best of your craft each day. Each day this will change - take it as it presents itself.

Challenge yourself. Know your boundaries and how you push them healthily.

Take this new year and explore the possibilities and the boundaries that are there and that you impose and ask why!! See where it takes you!!

What are you willing to do? What are you going to do????? Your choice, your decision.