I think we have to treat our voices as one piece of the whole.

Human beings are complex systems, and our voice is a great example of this.

If my voice is affected by my breath, which can be affected by my thoughts, by my imagination,

by the environment around me, by the look that you're

giving me, and then the thought that I have about what that look means. And now, so that's causing my

breath to change. And then, like, I'm feeling insecure. And so my voice is, like, going up high.

And now I'm noticing how high my voice is. And that's making me feel more insecure. Right? Like it was like one thing leads to the next,

leads to the next, leads to the next. Hi, hello. Welcome to Mary's Cup of Tea, the Self-Love podcast for

women. Though all self-lovers are welcome here. I'm Mary. I write and speak about self-love and I'm best

known for my book, the gift of Self-Love, and I also

host retreats for women. And this is the podcast that will inspire you to love yourself.

If you're an avid listener of Mary's Cup of Tea, then you might have heard me mention my voice

coach before. I first came to her when I was public speaking, hosting retreats, you know, doing this

podcast, and I deeply yearned to feel more confident while doing so. Because historically,

I didn't always feel good about my voice or the way I sounded. And you know when you start

feeling insecure about the way you sound and then you

ramble and you say things that you don't necessarily mean and then your voice gets tighter

and you're trying so hard to be heard, but everything is like so restricted that it's not

coming across the way that you had rehearsed to yourself in your head in the shower,

going into an interaction. That whole spiral was just

really getting to me and impacting my confidence. And as you know, like, we're communicating all

the time and you want to feel good, grounded, present, authentic, embodied, and confident

...