Why Group Work?

I’m introducing Small Group Voice Lessons for girls grades 8-10. As with all my lessons, this time will still be chock full of great technical work and continued improvement on your child’s performance abilities.

But I wanted to really write out WHY I think this format will be SOOOOO much more advantageous to this age group...

In my coaching practice (cause, ya know, health and life coach too!) I talk A LOT with clients about the stories we tell ourselves. If you’re not aware of this idea, “stories” are beliefs or thoughts that we tell ourselves UNCONSCIOUSLY causing us to take certain actions or uphold certain beliefs, whether or not those beliefs are ACTUALLY true. 

And I’ve gotta tell you, I’m hearing the same stories from A LOT of young girls.

The same stories I used to tell myself as a young performer (too big, bad voice, can’t dance, won’t ever be a lead because I’m not the “pretty” one… you know what I mean…)

A good example of a story and what the impact can be is this; if you do not think you are good at performing, you probably will not be a good performer. The reason why you won't be a good performer is not because you just won't mentally make it happen magically...

But because that belief will take hold of your subconscious and sabotage you.

This means, without a second thought as to why, you will choose not to go the extra mile and…

• Take the voice lessons or
• The dance or 
• The acting lessons or
• Choose to skip the open call to your high school’s drama club or
• Get enough sleep the night before if you end up auditioning (because you’ll just mess it up anyways) or
• Choose a song that is clearly out of your range and just “hope for the best”...

LOTS can go wrong when we let these beliefs lead the way!

I'm actually a great example of this because I avoided acting lessons for years. I was a good singer, I was not, in my mind, a good actor. I ended up stopping dance lessons for a while there because I was "too big" for them. 

Now, neither of these things were true, but they were stories I was telling myself that kept me stuck in a place that I did not want to be in. BUT! It was a place I was comfortable with. And there weren’t any other places I felt okay learning how to be UNCOMFORTABLE. 

There wasn’t a space where I could really learn who I was a performer. Where I could make mistakes and learn from them in a healthy way that also supported a healthy vocal technique.

AND see other young women doing the same thing!

So one of the reasons that I really really want to create a safe, loving, and compassionate space for girls to be taking voice lessons is because these stories make us feel so alone. We think we are the only ones who feel this way. With that comes self-criticism, shame, and frequently, a squashing of some incredible potential talent.

But being able to work together in a small intimate group on an activity that you are passionate about allows you to see that these things come up for other people too. People you might think are wonderful and "How could they possibly believe that about themselves?!"

I am not a terrible dancer, I'm not too big to dance, I’m not a bad actress, and I can play the leading lady even though I’m 5’9”. It’s just that I let that belief system take me over. And it took me a really long time to stop telling myself that story and for the right person to be able to show me that that belief was not helping. In fact, it was hurting me and my career and was not even true to begin with.

So this space I’ve created is one where other girls will come to see that dichotomy. 

Watching someone else get up on stage, do their best, do the work, and be in a vulnerable and imperfect situation allows us to step into their shoes and take the same chances ourselves.

It helps us to realize that when we identify the stories in our heads, we can take a step back and say, "Oh... That's what I'm telling myself! How rude of me! Maybe I just need to take a step back and look at myself objectively and see that I'm not actually bad at this thing overall. I'm just still in a process for it.”