Find Your Flow: Why Vulnerability is a Superpower

What if vulnerability isn't the thing that holds your voice back, but the doorway to finding it?

In this off-season episode, Lauri Smith joins Lisa Roche on Find Your Flow, the podcast for people who are stuck and honest enough to say so. Lisa shares her own story: standing in front of a class, unable to say her name, unable to breathe, crumbling, and the room of strangers who rose, circled her, and held her. That moment became the beginning of finding her voice.

Together, Lauri and Lisa explore what it really means to move through fear rather than around it. The fax machine story. The goddess in Macbeth. The group that held space and rose to the occasion when Lauri lost her voice. And the three words (Intend. Align. Invite.) that bring us back into flow when the soul suckers try to take over.

This is not a conversation about sounding better. It's about becoming more available. To yourself. To others. To life.

🎙️ Originally aired on Find Your Flow with Lisa Roche

🔗 Note: Lisa Roche also appeared as a guest on the Untamed Leader Podcast — Episode: Beyond the Cello: Speaking Without the Shield

Key Takeaways

1. Flow is always there, like a current at the center of the river of our lives. 

2. The body knows before the mind does.

3. Vulnerability is the doorway, not the obstacle.

4. There's a voice beneath the words. 

5. Speaking from the primal place creates lasting change. 

6. The group can hold what the individual cannot.

7. The way out is always through.

The Speaker Alter Ego Quiz

Take the Speaker Alter Ego quiz to find out which protective mask hides your natural radiance so you can learn how to get present, connect deeply, and share your vision when it matters most!

https://voice-matters.com/speaker-alter-ego-quiz/

If you love this show and you’re looking for some new shows to fill your queue, head over to feministpodcasterscollective.com to explore everything FPC has to offer. 

Soul Sucker Quiz

Take the Soul Sucker Quiz to learn which Soul Sucker screams the loudest in your mind so you can release them from being in charge and set your voice free!

https://voice-matters.com/soul-sucker-quiz/

Transcript

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Lauri's intro — off-season, Find Your Flow, Lisa's previous appearance on Untamed Leader

Lauri 0:32

Hey, it's Lori. We're still in the offseason and I'm still showing up in other people's conversations. This one is Why Vulnerability is a Superpower from Find Your Flow with Lisa Roche. You may remember Lisa. She's been on the Untamed Leader podcast before. Lisa's show is for people who are stuck and honest enough to say so. So she was the perfect person to explore this with. She shared her own story in this episode. The panic, the tears, the unexpected moment of being held by strangers, and how that became the beginning of finding her voice. I loved hearing it, and I think you will too. We talked about vulnerability as the doorway, not as a weakness, about why speaking is a spiritual practice, about what it takes to move from performing your message to actually transmitting. If you feel afraid to speak, or you know there's a deeper truth in you that hasn't fully come out yet, this conversation is for that part of you. Here's my conversation on Find Your Flow with Lisa.

What flow means — the river current, surrender, and the muddy bushes

Lisa 1:38

The world is filled with fluffy ethereal podcasts about spiritual growth, transformation, and inspiration. Yeah, this isn't one of them. No, find your flow is about what happens when life stops working. So let's get into it. No filters, no scripts, no curated sound bites, no fluff whatsoever, just flow. Hello, Lori Smith. Welcome to the studio with me. Welcome to Find Your Flow. Hello, Lisa.

Lauri 2:08

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Lisa 2:11

Oh my God, so am I. Super excited. And listeners, you will you will find out in just a minute why I'm so excited. This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. It's one that helped me become who I am. So I'm thrilled, thrilled to be doing this. But Laurie, let's kick this off with what does flow mean to you?

Lauri 2:31

First word that popped into my head is right now it means everything. Ooh, do tell. When I am in flow, things feel vibrant and alive and right and creative. And I I believe, and I've said this to other people, but it's funny how you forget it yourself so often. I feel like we are all born with a purpose, something that we're here to do, a calling. And the flow, how to do that is right there the whole time, like the current at the center of a river. And when we surrender to the flow, it flows mostly easily downstream. You know, not always easy, but easily ease-filled. And when we try to control or not surrender to that flow, it's like the current is right there, but we're trying to paddle upstream or sideways. And we, you know, get stuck in some bushes on the side of the river. And all we have to do to get back is to actually let go and almost let that flow find us or surrender in order to find the flow.

Lisa 3:53

And that's quite often the scariest thing that we could do as humans to let go. I mean, you really do think, well, because I'm going upstream or at least making my way over to the side, I have some control over this. I have control is really what it comes down to. But it might not be so happy, honky-dory over there in the mud that smells like shit. You know, exactly. So how do you continuously um return to ah, return to flow? So a lot of this is intuitive, Lari, because my spidey senses are going off about you. Um I think you have a shit ton to share, which is gonna be so awesome. And can we begin with helping listeners to understand what is it like when you're out of flow? So that's part of this whole podcast is to help normalize our human experiences, our healing journeys throughout our lifetimes. And I know for me, there were times where I woke up and was like, what the fuck is going on here? What is wrong with everything around me? And it wasn't until those moments that I was like, wait a second, things aren't actually flowing in my life. So, can you give an example? Can you please normalize an experience for us? I can give so many.

Lauri 5:25

And

Out of flow: the therapist with a drug problem and learning to stay grounded

Lauri 5:26

you made me, you made me think of one from decades ago. I love that. Yeah, it popped into my head. So we'll go with it. I was, it was after grad school. I was doing theater and getting teaching jobs, and also got, I had been an executive assistant in my late 20s and early 30s before I went away to grad school. So then when I came out, I was like, oh, I'll look around for some more assistant work to kind of give me a little bit more money. And I got a job working for a therapist with a drug problem. And I was so out of flow in her presence for a very long time because she had an incredibly intense energy and she would come at me and it was inappropriate, and I would like to fight back. And I was coming home from working for her and was exhausted and had friends who lived in the apartment upstairs, and I would spend hours talking about how horrible working was. And I was physically tight in my body all the time, having headaches. And I did have a moment where a voice inside of me said, like, stay grounded. Whatever is going on with her, literally sit there feeling your feet on the earth. And there was one day when something happened. I can see where we were sitting in her office, and she went off, ranting and raving. And I was sitting there, feeling my butt in the chair, feeling my seat on the ground, and going, I'm not going with you. And it was like energetically, she looked like, you know, she was hitting her head on the ceiling. And I just stayed where I was and I was breathing and thinking, is there anything to say in this moment? Nope. And then she, you know, kind of blew her wad and got tired. And then I said something like, Are you ready for my help now? You were in your 20s? Uh this was probably around 35. So not 20s, 35. That is young to have that gumption. Yeah. And then I helped her. And then I was like, wow, it feels really different when I go home. It's like there's less that I need to emotionally vomit all over my friends. I've got, you know, I told them the story, and it was like, great, let's make dinner. And then a few weeks later, there was another moment where she was rising up and getting upset. And I was about to do the like fighting or people pleasing one of those two doorways. Yeah, those two extremes. One of those two extremes. And I felt this pull almost like an earth connection to my umbilical cord. That was like, if you say what's in your head right now, you are about to head in the wrong direction. And then what came out of my mouth as I was saying it, I thought this is gonna be the beginning of the end. And I said, I cannot be the only person on this planet responsible for your life, more so than you are. When I was hired, we had a backup. I think we need a backup so that there are three of us, you being responsible for your life and two of us helping you. And and I mentioned that I was afraid of getting fired, which is why I hadn't said it before, or something like that. And she promised me a two-month severance package in that moment, and I took notes. We get an we get a backup. The backup is more people-pleasing and agreeable and just being your friend all day, not actually really getting a whole lot of work done. And I did get fired. And I said, Well, on such and such a date, you promised me a two-month severance package. It was a severance package of like part-time work, but I still was like, I've got all these detailed notes, and you did say that. And I understand that your personalities are more aligned. And as long as you uphold the promise that you made to me, I'll give you, I set a boundary of like how long I was willing to help because I knew their thing was not gonna work. Right. And I was getting emails like, you have to help us, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, no, I don't. I'm done. I don't work for you anymore. If you want to pay me for a longer amount of time supporting you and your person, you're welcome to do that. And I'll be available via email. But the amount of time that I said I would be available to help you has now passed. I'm on to other things. That one probably popped up into my mind because it was so powerful and such a big teacher. And I know now I try to listen earlier. I try to feel for the much more subtle, less like the earth is yanking you back down and saying you're about to go in the wrong direction, like energetically, you are heading off a cliff. I try to feel little tugs and nudges earlier, and I don't always feel the tugs and nudges earlier than that.

Lisa 12:03

It's it's hard to feel those little taps on your shoulder. And I reference that a lot. What a different world we would live in if we all recognized

Taps on the shoulder vs. slaps on the back of the head

Lisa 12:15

the little taps on our shoulders, as opposed to like the slap on the back of your head to get your attention. And get having a combative uh boss, that's a slap on the back of the head, as far as I'm concerned. Um, having having um an injury, slap on the back of the head, getting sick, slap on the back of the head. And wouldn't it be nice if we just listened to those tiny little taps? I love that the way back into flow for you was boundaries. Boundaries. And to learn that, a big, huge ass life lesson in your 30s, I think is such a big deal. I'm in my 50s and I've learned the lesson of boundaries. I'm relearning the lesson of boundaries right now because as you stretch and you grow and you change, you have to learn how to reestablish your boundaries.

Lisa's story: the panic attack, the acting class, the circle of strangers

Lisa 13:18

Um and a lot of that brings me back to a pivotal moment in my life, which was I was I was in a training in New York City and I was asked to lead the class. And it was a group of loving, wonderful people. And I had to sit in the teacher's chair, right, with everybody else surrounding. But the circle came from me and people came around. And I went to just start teaching, and I burst out into tears. And I had a full-on panic attack. Thank God it was in New York, where you can go out on the streets and you can scream and cry and nobody looks twice. They're just like another New Yorker. And that was me. And after that experience, I said to my husband, I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to do this. I'm I'm literally really good at the skill that I'm learning here, but I don't know how I'm going to speak. I don't know how I'm ever going to find my voice. I don't know how I'm going to teach. And my husband said, You know, our um, our daughter, Hannah. She said, You know, Hannah's acting school just started adult classes. How about we sign up? How about we take an adult acting class? And listeners, this leads me into Lori's um double persona here. She's an actor. Um I stood in front of that acting class for the very first time, crying, bawling my eyes out. I couldn't even say my name. I couldn't find breath to be able to get my shit together. I crumbled and this room full of strangers all stood up, rose to their feet, formed a circle around me, and then closed in and held me. To this day, it still makes me cry. To this day, I am still eternally grateful because in the two years that I took that class, I found my voice. I learned how to speak. And I, you know, naively thought, I'm going to learn how to breathe and speak at the same time. I did. I did, and that's a skill for sure. But what I found was that voice that was in my stomach, that voice that was in my solar plexus that that was quiet and hiding for so many decades that had this opportunity to bubble up and resonate in my heart to then be heard. And this brings me to who you are, this beautiful soul on the planet who found herself and her expression through acting, and then takes it a step farther to help other people find their voices, to help other people um discover and write and share their own stories. I I honest to God, I mean, we're just like 15 minutes in and I'm crying. But the magic that you help other people tap into, can you take me there? How did you get there? How do you do what you do? Yeah. And I'll get a tissue.

Lauri 16:37

Yeah. Like, I just have a napkin here. Should I need one? Who knew? Who knew? Oh, I have a here we go. Uh so I'll start with how I got here.

Lauri's origin: the garage spotlight and the Silicon Valley good girl

Lauri 16:49

Um, you know, how I well, I guess I'm gonna start and go a little backwards. How I do what I do is very similar to what you described. There's a light side and a dark side to theater. I've surrounded myself with the light side. The light side is exactly what you said. It's a group of people who know how to be deeply present with each other and to pour empathy all over each other in a way that most of the world does not. And that's what you found when they circled you on that first day. And I'll, and I'll go back in time. I came in at like, you know, many of us do, knowing I had a purpose on this planet. And at seven years old, my mom found me in our garage in the backyard talking to myself.

Lisa 17:44

You just describe my childhood. Like, don't even think that that's awkward.

Lauri 17:48

Yeah. No. Um, I, you know, she just, you know, she I was playing make-believe with friends, pretending to be Cindy Brady from the Brady Bunch, making up an episode. And my friends weren't, they did not grow up to be actors. I've seen reunion things on Facebook. They like went to the pool. And I went, okay, I'm gonna finish the story. I'll see you later. So there I am, like dancing, making up my own Brady Bunch episode. The garage door opens, there's this shaft of light on me, which now looking back is like, oh, hey, that's the first spotlight. And instead of saying, What are you doing? Stop doing that, she kind of went, hmm, I think maybe I'll find an acting class for her. And theater was and is was my first spiritual zone. Yes. I felt free to be fully myself and to channel this fire within me into different characters. And then as I grew up, I was actually very shy and sensitive out in the real world and took like the good girl path during the day, going, being the first in my family to go to college, getting, you know, a job out of college, promoted to employee of the month and promoted. And eventually I'm like a regional photolab coordinator at Long's Drugs. And I found myself in one of the most masked up places in the world, the Silicon Valley. So I've got this like, I'm fine, I'm capable, total opposite of flow. Like I am in control during the day with massive jaw tension holding back the tsunami of tears, like the one you had, and doing theater at night and on the weekends. And one day, right after a show ended, I was feeling this call to go toward a more aligned life. And I wasn't listening. So that's like this is before the moment with the woman. This is in my late, late 20s. I'm feeling a tug. I'm getting the tap on the shoulder. I'm hearing whispers in my inner ear, and they don't make sense in the controlling world, especially the Silicon Valley. So I'm ignoring them and just going, I can do this. I'm fine.

The fax machine: "Don't you know I'm meant for greater things?"

Lauri 20:15

I'm making money during the day. You know, I take PTO when I need it. And after the show ended, somebody asked me to fax something. And a voice inside of me screamed, Don't you know I'm meant for greater things? And then I realized I was. I had known that since five, seven, or even earlier. And the person that was keeping me small was not the person who asked me to, by the way, do my job because I was an executive assistant. I was keeping myself small. I was walking through the world, being the good girl that I still thought other people wanted or needed me to be. And I was almost 30 and I started realizing it, they don't actually even want or need me to be that anymore. It's me doing it. And even if they want or need me to be that, it doesn't matter because I'm me and I'm gonna follow flow, follow my power, trust my intuition. And I went into my acting class, my favorite one ever, around this time. And we were doing an exercise where everybody was focused on me. Instead of being up there with a friend or, you know, three other classmates, I was up there by myself. And in between the little vignettes, I kept like pulling myself back together to hold back the tsunami and the energy. And he paused the exercise as he did lovingly so many times over the years when I wasn't getting it. And he said, Whatever it is you're doing, stop doing that. And I said, I'm not that comfortable having everyone's eyes on me. And he said, Then you've picked a strange set of careers for yourself. You're an actor, a speaker, a teacher, a leader. Part of you wants this. Part of you knows you're meant to be here. And it was like he was speaking through all of the masks and the armor and the protection that I had spent decades building up and even through time, back to the little seven-year-old dancing in her garage spotlight. And the other parts of me deeply trusted him and the safe space that he held, like the one that you

The acting class breakthrough and the first moment of oneness

Lauri 22:43

experienced. So they were willing to give it a go, to risk. And I went back into the exercise and I was actively releasing the jaw tension, actively trying to let go of the armor in front of my heart. And it was completely wild and illogical because I would be laughing hysterically in a moment where, like, it's not appropriate for the scene to be laughing, or crying uncontrollably, like ugly sobs in another moment. And I just found the flow of how do I be where I am, and like say something in this improv with a situation that doesn't make sense. And I am so creative. It was like this was the doorway to everything everyone had been telling me. Couldn't or shouldn't be earlier in my life. I was wild, I was untamed, uh, the good girl was gone. I was radiant and vibrant and alive. And when the exercise was done, I looked out at my classmates and I could see and feel what kind of day every single one of them was having. And I now say it was my first moment of oneness that lasted beyond the acting or outside of the playing of a sport. I had had those timeless moments when I was in character, when people would be like, How did you notice that they were going to pass the ball to the other person and you stole it? You're like the slowest person on the team, but you stole it. And it's like because I would be like tapped into an energy and I would just know what was going to happen. This was oneness and that in-tune hearts pulsing together feeling after the acting was over. And after that, I quit my day job. I went to grad school. Um, I had a finding that deep primal voice experience in grad school that sounds a lot like what you were talking about.

The goddess in Macbeth: the primal voice beneath the words

Lauri 25:27

When I was cast as a goddess in Macbeth, I was supposed to play it in a mask. When you do work with a mask, it's supposed to be a really long, intimate bonding process where you find the character, including the voice of the character, which comes last generally. And we got it like four days before we were supposed to open. And the director said, you can just put the mask on and kind of do the movement and move where you're supposed to on the stage so they can light you. And I went, I'm either gonna do this now in front of 40 people, or I'm gonna be doing it in four days in front of 250. So let me just inhale and make a couple sounds and see what happens. And the first word was have. And I put the mask on, took a little time. I was starting to find a groove with the movement, and I inhaled and it came out. Just was like, whoa. And the the undergraduate actresses playing the witches literally looked at me on stage like you just did. And the director after the scene was like, okay, so even when it's not coming as a surprise, you three witches need to continue to respond to her like that, because you may be the three witches, but her character is the goddess. That's what it should look like.

Lisa 26:54

I have chills. I I have chills, double double toil and trouble. I mean, I am like I have chills. Yeah.

Lauri 27:02

Yeah. Yeah. And it was one of the most courageous things I ever did. It it did dawn on me afterwards, like that's that's the human voice. Like there's something down there that we're born with that is beneath the words and beyond the words. Yeah. And as a friend of mine says for theater, and I believe it's true for communication and connection, the words are here to help. They're like the fine-tuning icing on the cake. The vibration and the connection is beneath it, beyond it, woven through it. And that was me finding the goddess character voice. It was also me finding my voice. And it is at the root of what I'm doing with others, helping them to find their voice and really beyond authentic to speak from a voice that has that kind of energy. No matter how you shape it, you can shape it into a whisper.

Lisa 28:09

Absolutely.

Lauri 28:10

It still is different, more soulful, more, more untamed when it has that underneath it. Because that's the vibration that I believe is going to help change the world when we've got loving rebels and wild-hearted leaders who are speaking for the sake of their calling. You can't show up like the me was showing up in the Silicon Valley and change the world. People will hear the interesting ideas and they'll leave the room or your podcast or your TikTok video and they'll go right back to living life the way they were before. That's right. When we speak from that primal place, they hear it and it hear it, feel it. Yes. And it lingers and it follows them, and they come back and listen to your podcast again, or they leave your TED Talk and they go out and change something about their lives.

Lisa 29:02

And that's the goal. I mean, that's that divine resonance. That there's a drop of it in each and every one of us. And I think if we can tap into that, you start to recognize that oh, there's there's that similarity. There's that um identical identity in you, in me, and in every single person on this planet, in the trees, in the air, in the sunlight, in the everything on the ground that you walk on. It's that divine resonance that winds up connecting all of us. And there's nothing but good in that, you know, when you connect into who you really are, and that right there is who you really are. There is nothing but love when you start to recognize you have the exact same resonance. You and I are already connected. You and I are already one. It's such a beautiful connection. Oh my God. Oh my God. Man, Laurie, I absolutely love this conversation. Holy God. And my mind is spinning. It's absolutely spinning. I have this memory of a boss that I absolutely loved in my 20s. Absolutely loved him. I adored him. And he was having a cantankerous day. And I looked at him and I said, I'm going to need for you to open your eyes, close your mouth, and figure it out. And I walked out. Within 10 minutes, he came over and apologized. And it was so, it was so wonderful. But it was another one of those examples of where are my boundaries? How do I establish them? And where do I feel safe holding them? And I think that if we can tap into that universal divine resonance, that voice that's part of all of us, it's really super fucking clear, super fucking easy to find our boundaries and to then flow within those boundaries. Something that I just recently, this should not be an aha moment, but it was kind of mind-blowing. I realized that my life and my calling in life, my passion, flows much more easily when I have boundaries. Much more easily than being scattered and wide open to everything and everyone around me. And in the establishment of those boundaries, I'm able to create very um precise relationships with people. And in those relationships, I find that there is safety to be. I love that you said it's beyond authenticity. It really is. I don't know what the word is that's bigger than that. But it is that that oneness and feeling safe in that oneness because the oneness is so big, it's so strong, so powerful. Yeah. And there you were finding it at the age of seven, which listen, if you talk to most people right around the ages of five and seven, they really did find their lights. So kudos to your parents for saying, I think we got to get this girl into some acting classes. You remind me so much of our daughter. She is 25 and she was just accepted into Ada. And is very excited to start her master's program. And she too was trying to figure out who she was, and she was trying on all these different hats in college. And in college, the different hats are different majors, and it went from um civics to psychology psychology to politics to and then one day I sat her down and I said, Do you remember how much you loved being on the stage? Do you remember how much you loved performing? You played violin, it was beautiful. Do you remember that? And she said, Yeah, I do. And here she was, like covered in acne, oily hair, so stressed out, put on weight, all of the things. And I said, Um, yeah, do you remember how that felt? And she said, Yeah, I do. And she started to cry. And I said, How about that? Let that be your major. Let that be the course that you take. That feeling, what makes you feel that connected? And now we're watching her getting ready to take off on her own journey. So I can only imagine that working with you for everybody who has the honor of working with you, that they get these moments of you remember that? Do you remember how great that felt? What if you went after that? What if I stood by your side and I was your cheerleader and I coached you to get there? Is that what it's like to work with you? To find that soulful voice. Yeah.

Lauri 34:14

I would say yes. That yes, and when I'm working with people one-on-one, or or even, you know, coaching them in a group where it's kind of like everybody else is witnessing and we're having a conversation. It's very much like art, like you were for your daughter and like my mother was for me.

How Lauri works: the mirror, the midwife, the magic of the group

Lauri 34:38

There was a moment when I was working in the Silicon Valley and doing theater at night where I remember her saying, I have this feeling that it's related to theater, that theater is going to come back around in a different way. And lo and behold, it became coaching plus leadership plus theater all getting put together into coaching leaders to speak soulfully and be wild-hearted leaders. And and the and is it's also one of the things that I loved, love still, uh, that has been following the flow, was realizing that there is a magic to the group, that when I host people in my group programs energetically, what is happening is that circle that surrounded you in love. It's a group of people all walking the same path to unleash their untamed, soulful voices. And I am potentially, I mean, I this feels like human words, not quite right, but if it's a new group, I'm probably doing a little bit more of the lifting and holding at the beginning. And very quickly, it becomes the group is finding their voice and holding each other. And there was even a day once a few years ago when I was leading a group and performing in a play, and I lost my voice. And I canceled everything from my schedule and I went on vocal rest, which means you are not talking at all outside of if you show up to do the show until it's healed. It's like not walking on an ankle that's injured. And I really wanted to lead my group public speaking class. So I went, I'm getting this urge to show up and just chat in the zoo, like start out saying, I've lost my voice in the chat. It was one of the most beautiful, touching experiences of my life because I chatted and they all spoke more. Some would read, like they would take turns keeping an eye on the chat and speaking into the space what I could not, or with a boundary, chose not to speak that day, so that I could do the two most important things in my life: the teaching of the group that I loved and going on stage in thankfully a small theater with a voice that was enough to do the show. And it, the essence of it really is you have someone who's the most responsible for holding the space. And then you allow everyone to hold the space. And that favorite acting instructor that I had used to talk about. You have private experiences one-on-one with a coach. You have public experiences where you go to the audition or you perform the play. And this, his class, a master class with 12 people, is a semi-public experience. And it dawned on me a few years ago, that's what I love doing. I should stop chasing what I think other people are telling me I should do to build my business. And I should do it the way I know it really works well. That's intimate and deep. And there's a healing, a healing and or an expansion. If the person is like, I'm good, I don't need to heal. I just want to be even better at shifting the room. Because of the all those human cells being in the same space together. Something transforms, and the leap from nine people to 50, thousands, millions is a leap that the nervous system makes differently than if they're just working one-on-one with me. I mean, wow.

Lisa 39:43

That sounds so um dreamy and impactful. And so what leadership needs today, you know, instead of, well, let's craft your message and let's curate your words. Instead, what is real? What is going to resonate heart to heart? What is going to allow for that connectivity to happen? That, oh, that is so necessary. My God, thank you for showing up the way that you're showing up in this world. Dear God Almighty. I love it. I love it all. I I love the um, you can't even call that a small group work. You really can't. Nine people is not a small group, but it's a it's a good size to be able to have that sharing of energy that allows you to express in a different way.

Lauri 40:38

Yeah. Sometimes I'll call it a circle or an intimate group where it's it's enough that even when they all get to know each other and fall in love and don't really feel nervous around each other anymore. It's enough that whatever that magic transformation is keeps happening somewhere between, I would say three is kind of the minimum. I have run groups with three, and it's like, that's the minimum. I tried once to do something with two people, and it's like, that's two-on-one coaching. It's different. So you gotta at least have like a showcase where you invite more, more people in to expand the circle even more, which we do at the end. I just like somewhere between like five and nine.

Lisa 41:25

Yeah, I think that that's a sweet spot. I remember when I used to, I I owned and ran a studio and like eventually I did. I found my voice. I opened up a studio, I coached people all the time, um, taught people all the time, and then I started doing those small groups. And I was like, Yeah, the two to one, not too jazzed about that. Three to one was better, but I was like five, five to one. That was that was like really sweet, where they had each other to sort of look at and mingle with. And by mingle, I mean their bodies, their souls, their energy. Everything started to mingle and move. And my work was physical. It was the gyratonic method. So it was, it was the physicality of it, like a like a dance class. How do you create space where everybody gets to move? Um, and when you sat back and watched that take over, all of these people doing individual things, all of a sudden you watched and you watched and you watched, and you gave it maybe four, five, six reps, and all of a sudden they were all moving in unison. I can only imagine that magic when you're teaching people to find their voices and teaching them how to express genuinely. All it takes is one brave soul to say, okay, I'll give it a shot. You know what I mean? I'm here, I paid for this, I'll give it a shot. Yeah. And they begrudgingly open their hearts and like slice themselves open raw and say, here's what I've got. All it takes is that one person, that one person. So how do you, how could you, how could you help listeners? Because here's my hope. My hope is that everybody who listens to this episode hears that inner voice of, I think I'm meant for more. I know I'm meant for more. I need to be able to hear that voice, listen to that voice, have the courage to follow that voice, and to return back to that voice in every moment of doubt. Because one thing I that I am assuming is someone does a workshop with you and they're on cloud nine. What happens a week after, a month after, when they're like, ooh, not everybody in the world is as open and as real as I am. How do you encourage them to come back to that inner guidance, that intuitive voice of theirs?

Lauri 44:02

I'll say three words. They're my three words. You know, it's been 17 and a half years in business. I've had different names for my method, seven steps and all kinds of tools. And now I love to give it in three words like a mantra. Intend, align, invite. Intend is setting an intention for the vibe or the emotion or the feeling that you want to create or invite in a situation.

Intend. Align. Invite. — and the way out is always through

Lauri 44:36

So that is hugely powerful all on its own, because most of the time we're unconsciously letting our inner critics, I call them the soul suckers that suck the soul.

Lisa 44:52

Soul suckers.

Lauri 44:54

I do. I love that term. Yeah. Um, most of the time they're in charge by default because we're human beings and we live in a society and like the mind is designed to protect from perceived danger. So if we're gonna go have an important conversation with someone in our lives, let's say we're we actually want to set a boundary, our inner critics and soul suckers will be looking for all of the possible landmines that could go off. Sure. And then we might choose to people please in order to try not to let the boundary go off. If instead we, I want to create an environment of respect with this conversation. Now we're focused on respect. We're focused on their facial expressions, body language, the air in the room shifting from less respect to more respect. Or it might be hope or vibrance, resonance, aliveness. Even in a networking intro, those 60-second things, the most common one that works for people is hope. That if you go into a networking meeting and you share for 60 seconds about who you are and what you do, and instead of, like you mentioned earlier, trying to come up with the perfect message and reciting it by rote, like we all did the Pledge of Allegiance. That elevator pitch, yes. That elevator pitch. If it's just who am I, who do I serve, how do I serve them? And you think of it like an appetizer, where the intention to help them shift emotionally most of the time, and I had this happen with someone I had coached on her intro. And then we weren't working together anymore. And I went into our networking group, and with her energy, I heard the words differently. And all of a sudden, I had hope about the pain in my feet that the Western world were telling me the next steps were like one more. Cortisol shot, cortisone, cortisone shot, which was causing more pain, you know. And I went, oh, she might be able to help me. Maybe hope, possibility, there's a different way. That intention puts our attention on what we want to create instead of putting our attention on what we want to avoid. Wherever we put our attention, we're going to be tracking that. So if I'm looking for angry faces, pissed off people, bored, falling asleep, totally. So setting an intention is the most common one that helps people just take a moment and tap into your whispers, your taps on the shoulders, your feeling in your gut, and set an intention and go in and do that. If you want even more, aligning is aligning the body, the breath, and the energy with your most expressive self. So if you had a seven-year-old version of you that was dancing in the garage, remember her. And then the inviting is inviting people with that. I'm showing up fully. I've got my masks down and my armor removed to join me in this intention that I set. And it's not dragging them, kicking and screaming, which is another way that I have at times been out of flow in my own life. Like I'm so passionate, I need to prove it to myself through proving it to you, which doesn't ever work in my case. I become like a magnet turned backwards. It's more, I'm here, I'm showing up fully. Intend, align, invite, and then let people make the choices for themselves at that time. And the ones that are vibrating with you in that oneness, in that, like, there's something here. We are supposed to meet in this lifetime and do something, they'll be magnetized into the emotional intention that you're setting.

Lisa 49:14

Everything about that. That, in and of itself, those three things, if everybody entered into every situation, every room, every conversation with those three fundamental foundational steps, my God, this whole world would shift. The whole world would shift. How we um achieve goals, how we work together, how we communicate, all of it would shift. You know, it's funny. I, for the life of me, I looked at your picture like a hundred times. I read your bio a hundred times. And I said to my husband about a half an hour prior to, I said, for some reason, I can only see her face. I cannot, for the life of me, tell you what she does. I don't know her bio. I don't, I can't hold any of that. And I don't know why. All I can do is see her face. And for me, typically, every guest, I see their face, I see their bio, and I can read their bio out here in the air, and and I know exactly like who I'm meeting with and why I'm meeting with them. And I said to him, I I can honestly tell you, I have no idea what compelled me to have this interview, but there's a reason. There is an absolute reason for this. And so that was my intention. My intention for this episode was to come in with an open heart, an open mind, and to just learn, like to sit back and have it be almost like story time. So literally, up until the seconds before coming into here, I was rereading your bio, reread, rereading everything. And it was truly as if I had read it for the first time. And I went, now I get it. Now I understand why I wasn't supposed to remember anything, no preconceived notions or steering the conversation, which is how I like to do an episode with zero expectations, other than to follow the flow and see where it leads us and how much can we learn? Because what you have to share is so poignant for everyone who listens. And then everyone who listens gets to hear exactly what they're meant to hear and learn and how they're supposed to grow in this now moment to be able to work with you must be absolutely amazing and absolutely incredible. The tears, the joy, the aha, the fear, and the and the not powering through, but moving through fear. How how can you help listeners move through that fear, that distrust of who they really are, because it does not match the mask that's on in outside in the world? How can they learn to trust in that? Move through that.

Lauri 52:47

I had a bunch of different things pop into my head. One was remembering when I was there, my acting instructor saying you fear something like you fear that when you show up as the real you, people will move away, like they'll be repelled when you are yourself. When in reality, the exact opposite is true. And I'm saying this now because it popped into my head, and because he was and is right, and the next part of that is the only way to know for sure. It's like your mind might be like, I totally agree with her. The only way to make it real is to do it and to risk it. And I had an experience once where I was teaching and crying at the front of the room and asked my mentors, how am I actually going to do this? And they said, when they need you, you will, and like the tears, and you'll just move through it, which was true. And they also said, find more safe spaces like this one where you can move through it. So wherever that is, if it's a speaking group like the ones I hold, or some kind of a presence group, you know, a space where if you burst into tears, if you move through the tears like you did, either the group gets up and actually circles you like they did you, or you feel that you're being circled even when you're going through the vulnerability. Because it it can feel like somebody or something is going to explode or implode. Like we can tell our minds, you will be safe, you will be loved, you will have even more belonging and connection if you are your true self. And you need to do it to believe it. And when we do it in spaces where they get up and immediately encircle you, that's it's like it puts the period on the end of the sentence of I move through the fear. The way out is always through. You can't cheat it, you can't duck under it, you can't hop over it. It's through. That, that right there.

Lisa 55:07

The necessary act of going through it. That I love that there are so many options to sort of um put lip gloss on that pig. There really is no other option in order to be your best self, is to move through that which you have placed as your own obstacle. And to be able to do that in a group of supportive, loving, kind, accepting, and in somehow are able to give you space without judgment. That is everything. That is everything. Holy Toledo. Laurie, thank you for not only just doing what you do and being who you are, but for for the courage to show up as brightly as you possibly can. You are an amazingly beautiful example of what is possible. And I knew it the second I saw your face. I couldn't get past it. I was like, there's something so like woodland magical about her. It's like having a magical little elfin creature coming up out of the ground. So for you to say that you had that calling of stay grounded, stay grounded, get your feet, feel your ass in that seat, be grounded. I was like, mm-hmm, yep. Now it all tracks, like everything makes sense. There is something so very um earthy and for I mean, just lack of another word, truly and utterly grounded about you. The the essence, the smell of moss, the um the the taste of basil. Like you're you are of creation. And it is just amazing to me that um you create and provide these spaces for other people to come and figure out who they are. Because maybe they're meant to soar in the air, maybe they're meant to get down and put their toes in the ground with you, maybe they're meant to shine like the sun. And thank you for providing space and the opportunity for those of us out here in the world to be able to figure out who we are, figure out who the fuck we are and why we're here and what we're doing and have it all make sense. And for validating us. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Lauri 57:51

Thank you so much. I'm I'm so touched by your words. I feel like I'm going, I'm going blank. I'm speechless. Thank you so much for having me and for holding such an incredibly curious, creative, loving space here. It's uh I'm this is just an amazing part of my day and my week and my month.

Lisa 58:16

Oh, thank you. Now, for those listeners who are like, hell yeah, get me on this train with her. Where can they find you? How can they work with you?

Lauri 58:27

Best place to find me is my website. It's voicehyphenmatters.com. And I have LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, links at the bottom of there if you love those. And the website is kind of the hub. You can see what I'm up to, book sessions, reach out and connect with me all from my website hub.

Lisa 58:50

Um and I will put all of that in the show notes, everybody. So you don't have to look too hard. Just scroll down, click on the link. Um thank you. It thank you. I'm going to, I'm going to close this show with you and give you the microphone. Share whatever is on your heart or in your mind, whatever you would like to close this out.

Lauri 59:13

I love to tell people your voice matters. It is needed in the world. Like we were talking about earlier, the vibration and all the boxes that we're told to fit into are not the way. So if you're out there thinking, I'm not a leader, who am I to speak? And yet you're feeling called, but the way you're seeing other people do it feels like a size five shoe on your size 11 feet. That's not the way. It's to follow your flow. Do it the way that only you can do it. And to me, humanity is like one big orchestra. And we've been taught that the drums are gonna do all the work to lead us to something newer and better, and the string section isn't playing. And what we actually need is all of the human voices being the unique instrument that they are. So the drums don't play louder, they do the drums job. The string instruments and the wind instruments don't try to be drums, they be themselves. And from there, with everybody showing up with intend a line invite or whatever their words are for that. That is how humanity will find the new way and continue to transform and raise consciousness.

Lisa 1:00:47

So, listeners, I'm gonna try and get my shit together here. I'm gonna grab another tissue. Um, Lari, thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your excellence. And I cannot wait to see what more you create in this world.