235 - Own Your Voice for Creative Living

This past week I did a terrifying thing. It excited me and it's what I asked for, though. 

I spoke at an event. And I'm sharing this to illustrate the importance of saying yes to scary opportunities. And the need to trust yourself and give permission to explore and experiment. 

This is about owning your voice and building a creative life that is unique to you.

Takeaways:

Say yes to scary opportunities and trust yourself to figure it out as you go.
Give yourself permission to explore and experiment.
Own your voice and build a creative life that is unique to you.
Pay attention to your body language and how it impacts your emotions and feelings.
Embrace the space between excitement and terror and step into scary opportunities.
Remember that your voice matters and keep nurturing it.

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The music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting.
Produced by: Grey Tanner

Transcript

Bonnie (00:01.462)
Hello, my love.

Bonnie (00:05.522)
I have to tell you about something that was terrifying this last week. And this will be fantastic for you if you are terrified also of something right now. So before I begin and before I launch into story space.

I want you to pause for a second and maybe sit with like, what is terrifying to you? You're like, oh my gosh, I've been asked to do this or I've signed up for this thing, or I can't believe I have to go talk to those people or I have this something I have to produce to share with others or I mean, it could be any number of things, right? And just that.

we all have things in our lives that are kind of scary. That we're like, wait a second. Even if I said yes to this, how do I really feel about this? And so part of today is to say yes. That's part of what I wanna tell you today is that sometimes you will be presented with a thing

you will have an option and you can say yes and figure it out as you go or you can say no because it's too scary you're not sure if you're ready what if somebody finds you out like etc. And I don't want to blanket statement say that it should always be a yes because honestly maybe it's not supposed to be a yes. You do have to be able to hold yourself. You have to be able to

is gonna stay intact, that you're gonna be able to breathe, that you're gonna be able to actually get words out of your mouth. That doesn't mean that you might not, like you could pee seven times before you have to do the thing, that's fine. But can you trust yourself? So with that.

Bonnie (02:17.274)
Last Thursday, I was asked to speak at an event and there was about 50 people there. And the opportunity was presented to me just over a month ago. And the month of April at this place, the place is called pause meditation. It's here in Portland and they do fantastic work geared all around mindfulness. So they had reached out to me and said, Hey, the month of April is our focused is

I'm building a creative life and you're coming up to the top of the list for somebody who has built such a creative life. And oh my gosh, can we just stop right there and be like, wait, like that's what, like that's what you're thinking of me. Like what a freaking honor because I'm over here and just being like, well, let's try this, let's try that. Like there's a lot of experimenting that happens here, but there has been things that have worked. Like things are working and.

moving forward and feeling expansive and I'm figuring out even this past weekend of how to say no. I think after this past week I'm like oh I think I need to set some things down that's maybe we'll be more part of this conversation maybe not but the honor it was to even be asked and if I zoom back even just a little bit more than that this is something I've wanted. I have thought for quite a while I'm like I would like to

be on some stages. I would like to talk with people. I would like to talk about owning your voice and helping people kind of narrate these things with stories and to narrate themselves and to figure out how to restore. And you know if you're here then you have been you know hanging with me for a minute so you've heard some stories. Anyway so I kind of put this out there in the universe and this opportunity gets presented to me.

And I said yes and did not know what I was going to talk about because one, I do talk to a lot of yoga teachers, but there's something about owning your voice. And it's as a phrase that I say often and

Bonnie (04:29.966)
It transcends teaching yoga because it kind of shows up everywhere because humans are everywhere. So I told them that I would be happy to lead a talk where 20 minutes of it is me or like kind of, I have 40 minutes. I have 40 minutes and I can tell stories and give anecdotes. I can have participation.

I can have them do group activities. We can do a little bit of movement. There's like, again, 50 people in the room, so it's not a lot of movement. I can have them write, I can have them visit. There's a whole kind of thing I can have them do. So I have 40 minutes with these people. And I said yes. And thinking about it on building a creative life, I was like, how do I wanna talk, how do I want to share with these people?

and to help them be with me in it, because that feels so important. And I think that's part of this podcast is, I want to share stories where you can, where I can impart something from my experience that maybe you can take, even a phrase or an experience or whatever it is that you can take into your own life to like hopefully enrich you, but also for you, like for us to be with each other. Like we're sitting next to each other. That's...

That's part of my desire here also. And I wanted these people to feel that as well. And so I decided that I was gonna name the talk Own the Hell Out of Your Voice as a way to think about building a creative life.

Bonnie (06:20.319)
And I think there's a lot of ways to think about expansion in owning your voice and what that requires of you and how that might inspire you to build the creative life that is specific to you, right? Not the creative life that looks like mine. You don't want that. You don't want the creative life of your neighbor like your creative life. And that doesn't mean you have to

You have to be known by everybody to have a creative life.

And so I gave this talk and I stayed up quite late the night before till like 1 45 AM. And then I was up just after 5 30. It was not enough sleep, but that's what happened. And I had note cards, which I hadn't bought note cards before, but I didn't want to bring my notebook. I often teach with a notebook, have notebook nearby, but I wasn't, that's not, wasn't going to be the situation of this particular experience. And.

I, we met at 7.30, my talk started at eight. And I like for reals, by the time eight o'clock rolled around, I think I had literally peed seven times. Like I really think I did. And my gut was like talking to me again, like less sleep is not helpful, but I was like, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna have diarrhea. Like this is what's gonna happen. Like diarrhea, I'm gonna have to go out in the middle. Like my belly is like feeling all the nerves and.

I'm just talking to myself in the car being like, Bonnie, this is what you wanted. Like, we got this. And I knew, like, and I just wanna, I wanna share this with you because it's been, it's been quite a while since I've stood in front of a yoga class and felt nervous. And I work with a lot of yoga teachers and there's a lot of nervousness about stepping in front of the class. And...

Bonnie (08:22.898)
And sometimes, sometimes when we've done it for a while, we forget about how nerve wracking it is. And it's kind of one of the reasons why I think it's really important to keep trying new things. And like yesterday, I tried to still mace, which you're gonna have to Google that if you don't know what that is.

But in my garage, I bought a steel mace for my lover for his birthday. And so I was playing with it. And it's the first time I played with it. And I was like, oh, this is fun. And I have a lot to learn. So a new tool to move with my body, it puts me back in the noob status where I have stuff to learn. And those lessons I learned there remind me of the learning process in other ways where I'm a leader. And so I loved this experience last Thursday as much as I really...

It really created a lot of tension in my belly. And I did not go out and have diarrhea in the middle, so we're good, we're good. But I think the cool part about this is that I trusted, I trusted myself in it. I knew that I could do it. Like there's, I mean, these stories and the things I've done, I've shared them here, or I have talked with people, or...

the activities that I brought for people to do, I've done them before. And these sorts of lessons and conversations are applicable to all people. Like truly, like when we own where we are, who we are, where we want to go, what we're doing and give ourselves permission to really zoom into that, like.

there's such an unfolding and beauty that can happen when we give ourselves permission. And that's really what I felt like it built up to in this talk was about giving ourselves permission. And I gave myself permission to say yes to this. I gave myself permission to be nervous. I gave myself permission also to trust myself that I knew that I could do it. And even as uncomfortable as it was, I knew I could do it. And that felt

Bonnie (10:36.326)
also really good and I kept on shaking and like on purpose and like taking some breaths and I was exactly where I wanted to be and they were just people and they were all people just like me and you know I got up at the talk at the beginning of the talk and I said you know every single one of us here in this room could stand up here at the front of the room and talk about what it's like to have a voice.

You could talk about shame and belonging, and any one of us could do that here. That maybe you don't want to, that's a different thing. But we're all here and we create this experience together. And at some point, I talked about yoga, I talked about the experience with our body and the way that we hold our body being different.

If you stand up just a little bit more, if you lift your chest up just a little bit more and feel what it feels like in your body. Like if you're walking into the grocery store, what happens if you pay attention to your shoulders, pull your shoulder blades down your back, lift up through the top of your chest? What happens if you lift that part of you up? How does it feel? And how does it not just feel in your body, but how does your body shape?

impact the way that you feel inside, right? That emotional, spiritual, mental sort of space. And even, I love the unplanned things that happen, right? It's like a yoga class where I'm like doing star pose and I'm standing up really big and I totally got down on my knees and did a little like child's pose. So I was talking about body and how neither one of them is right or wrong.

We need to be able to move through all different sorts of postures and emotions and feelings. And really it's about giving ourselves permission to do so. That's where it is.

Bonnie (12:43.83)
So it was terrifying. Yeah. And it was a delight.

Bonnie (12:51.838)
And one of the people that I talked to afterwards, because I talked to several people after the talk was done and everybody was leaving, and one of the people, he's like, I could have left five minutes in. He's like, I heard exactly what I needed to hear with what I'm currently doing, and I could have stood up and been like, that's great. And he's like, has anybody ever done that? Like, it's just to you? Like, we're like, oh, that's good, I got it, yep. Bye.

I know exactly what I need to do. I was like, no, but you know, I like, I like the permission in that to even maybe give yourself some people that have practiced with me like a long time ago who came and that was a fun surprise and, and hearing the stories about how they learned about me from labor in another country, this one person was in another country and they were giving private lessons, yoga lessons to somebody and that person.

recommended me to them. And this was so many years ago and then eventually they moved to Portland. They practiced with me, this is pre-pandemic. And now they're here at this talk and.

Bonnie (14:04.611)
and...

Bonnie (14:09.63)
and it felt important and I felt lucky and grateful, just mostly grateful that anybody wants to listen and that they want to participate and mostly that they want to give themselves permission.

None of those people had to be there. Nobody's paying for it, right? We're just, that's a free event to come and be like, okay, let's practice mindfulness. Like, how are we building this life that we have? This life, today.

Bonnie (14:48.154)
So maybe you have a scary thing. Maybe you have something that you could say yes to that you're like, what the fuck? But you know you can do it, but you're just a little bit afraid of doing it. I love that place between excitement and terror. I love that I had this opportunity that it reminded me of how scary it is to do the things. And also I've had a ton of public speaking experience in my life.

But it still is an experience. It's still like, cool, we're gonna step into this. We're gonna be the person in the front of the room. But once I got there, I really felt okay. I was a little bit shaky at the very beginning, but then I just dropped into it. I was able to make eye contact with everybody. I was right there, close contact with them, just a couple steps away. So I really felt like we were together. And that was such a gift.

So I don't know what it is for you, but I'm guessing that there's something, maybe, or maybe something soon that you'll be presented with that might feel...

like it gives you the nerves in the good kind of way, in the growing kind of way. And seriously, it could look like so many different things.

But I hope that when the opportunity comes to trust yourself and to give yourself permission to just experiment, that checking in with yourself, that you can trust yourself to be able to hold it, that you walk into it. And I would love to hear about it. If you were listening to this episode right now.

Bonnie (16:39.754)
You're like, oh my gosh, I know exactly the thing. And maybe tomorrow you'll be presented with something. I would love to hear about you walking into your thing and saying yes and what you find on the other side and the way it helps you remind, like, be the noob while maybe also saying, like, oh, maybe I do know some things. OK, cool. And so I would love to hear about it.

send me a message. You can email me hello at bonnieweeks.com. You can send me a message on thegram at carrot underscore bowl underscore Bonnie and tell me. And if you know somebody else right now who has a thing and you're like, oh my gosh, my friend, so and so, this is exactly where they're at, send them this podcast. Like, yeah, you've got this. Like you've got this. Because

when you own your voice.

When you really step into it, that is only yours. It can never sound or be like anybody else's. There's a certain way that you tell the stories. There's a way that your intonation and your pace and your straight up lived experience cannot be replicated. And yes, there are some speaking skills that you can learn if it's specifically around speaking.

and we learn by practicing.

Bonnie (18:20.722)
and your voice changes the world. And I truly believe that because if we can step into any space and show up as our authentic selves, as much as is possible that day, because that's like a moving target, because tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and be a new person. So today I was like, oh, this is what we've got. Okay, hi Bonnie, right? Tomorrow I'll be new, you'll be new as well. And so it's a moving target a little bit of like, who am I today? But at the same time, if we can show up,

as honest as we can and share from that place, then and give permission to ourselves that then it like that ripple is so big on everyone else and everyone else. And I have a good friend that says, you know, you don't fake it till you make it, you do it until you believe it. And you just have to have reps, you know, like

Put in like the experiment, like put your feet in it. You gotta put your feet in it. You've gotta put your feet in it.

Bonnie (19:33.074)
If you want an exercise, a writing exercise, I'll leave you with this, a writing prompt for you to follow this, to follow up with this kind of story because this is the writing prompt I gave at the end of the speech. I gave them the prompt, I give myself permission to.

So that's a prompt I'll give you. I give myself permission to, you can say to do or to not do, to feel, to not feel, to be, to not be, to, I don't know.

I give myself permission.

Bonnie (20:12.962)
to what? And fill up a page. Sometimes I will do it in the car as I'm on the way to somewhere or you know like you can drop into this anytime. You can just speak it out loud. You don't have to write it. But maybe have a moment like that.

Bonnie (20:32.822)
Your voice matters. Keep paying attention to it, friends. Mwah.