Why Integrative Creative Coaching?

Clients come to me, often, with multiple considerations or concerns. They want to feel greater confidence in their voice, and also want to understand themselves better. They want to increase gravitas in their speech, while retaining authenticity. Perhaps they actually want to add gravitas in order to be authentic. They want to address technical aspects of voice (pace and tone) along with symptoms of feelings such as anxiety (unsteady breath, dry mouth, shaking). They want to feel empowered while developing more meaningful and less hierarchical relationships.

Integrative coaching seeks to address the client in their entirety. It seeks to address the complexity of their individual requests, vision, goals in full. Integrative coaching deepens the work by insisting that no part is left out in the cold. It integrates the learning, the skills-building, the client’s identity. It does this by drawing on multiple tried and tested theories and models, enabling the coach to truly work with the person in the room. This is so very important because voice is a multi-system construct, being: physiological, neurological, emotional, psychological. It’s important because, for any system to run smoothly, each part needs to fit and to function. It’s important for people in a minority, especially, because much research has not, does not work with their data. [TL;DR: integrative coaching is evidence-based, inclusive, transformative, and inherently creative.]

How Many Voices Are We Working With, Here?

We have a voice we use to speak with. Perhaps one we like to sing with. Perhaps another on the phone, in public, in private, in interview, with our mum or dad, and so on. We have a voice we write with. One we use to self-dialogue with (internal voice). We embody multiple characters with voices, who form an internal family system driving and monitoring our actions. We have an identity – also termed a voice. We have power (voice) or not. Indeed, voice is a key part of many metaphors representing influence, authority, identity, communication.

We each have a vocal sound and style, and this creates behaviour in our listeners. For example, it motivates them to feel certain emotions which in turn leads them to perform actions – actions which might be as simple as laughing or crying, or as complex as gambling, funding, buying, and more. Pitch, rhythm, pace, wording, tone, breathiness, facial expression, clarity, meaning… All these come together in our voice. So do our emotions: nerves, joy, anger, irritation, disappointment… Listeners can identify these with accuracy within milliseconds of us making sound – we don’t even have to say a word. This functions cross-culturally, with some exceptions and with some degree of the listener’s prior life experience also influencing their understanding of what they heard.

Voice Matters

Vocal integration physically occurs across breath, sound, resonance and articulation. These make up the bodily system. We need to create connections between and balance across these areas, so our sound can be tonally true and clear, without over-working (too much effort) or under-working (too little effort). In either event, our voice will not sound connected and empowered. Worst case scenario, it is entirely possible to damage our voices. Like every other part of the body, it can become bruised, wounded, strained, dehydrated, and so on.

Another integration takes places between words plus sound: do they support one another? What is being intentionally conveyed and unintentionally revealed in the sound? Our voice is a very good communicator of our inner world. We may think we’re hiding, for example, our real emotions, but listeners can usually tell something isn’t being shared — even if they aren’t sure what that something might be.

Expression and Interpretation

Further, we need to consider body language and facial expression. Are they congruent with (do they match) the content of what we’re saying? It’s pure myth that someone whose arms are folded must be being defensive, but the myth is out there, alive and well, so we do need to consider an audience’s expectations. If you have children, you’ll know that they’ll shout at you, ‘Stop shouting at me!’ while you feel you haven’t raised your voice. But your vocal tone is likely tapping into their body’s knowledge of what anger feels like - and for them, that means they’re in trouble, that means they’re being told off, which means they’re being shouted at. So it is important to consider not only what you mean, but whether you’re audience will understand you in that way. Consider the context for using your voice and the audience you’re speaking to.

Voice Care

Voice care is inherent in physical and mental wellbeing. We need to be mindful of how to care for the voice, which is powered by muscles, ligaments and organs across the whole body. Tight hips? They’ll be pulling on your diaphragm (which effectively controls your breath and lung capacity). Tight shoulders? Tight jaw? Desk neck (sunk in the back, chin jutting forward)? You’re putting pressure on the larynx, misaligning the throat. Not drinking enough water? That is killer for your vocal folds and their ability to stretch and vibrate. If they can’t stretch and vibrate comfortably, we lose vocal range and power. We’ll sound tight and tired, no matter how big a smile we face the world with.

Evidence-Based

Integrative also refers to the fact that my process is founded on research and experience: it is evidence-based. In fields that remain unregulated (coaching, voice coaching, adult psychotherapy) it matters to me that I’m working with and for the client in the room. Along with years of experience, my training, study, and research all support me to work in effective, purposeful ways. This is particularly important for female/women clients, because so much research is not based on their experiences and data. For other minorities, ensuring you’re working with a coach versed in research that is relevant to you is also something to think about. By being integrative, I can weave together more than one theory, method, or approach. This means each client has an experience bespoke to them and I am not trying to impose or promote a single model. (Want to know which theories I use and why? I’ll be writing about these in future posts.)

The Creative Part

All coaching is seeking transformation. With voice, presentation, and confidence coaching, we want to integrate our physical voice with our psychological voice, our identity if you like. Research shows that the arts are a fast-track to deeper understanding, to awareness, to turning beliefs upside down, expanding our sense of what’s possible. If you’re creating visions or intentions, if you’re setting goals these will be restrained by the boundaries of our own understanding. In coaching, we need to support curiosity to help clients avoid self-limiting. Creativity enables this.

Creativity is also a way of deepening memory and retaining learning. Creative acts integrate thought, movement, feeling. Multiple areas of the brain are connected when we engage in arts-based activities. These might be as simple as drawing the vision or intention a client has for the work. It might mean using verbal metaphor to express stuckness or aliveness. It could be as messy as working with clay, as soulful and soul-expressing as taking your presentation and rapping or singing it.

There’s never an obligation to dive deep into the arts. Key to supportive coaching is finding the right size and flavour challenges for each client. But creative thinking, and creative embodiment, and creative expression are vital not only to engaging an audience but also to finding your voice, developing the confidence to use it, and empowering you to step into the room and own it with authority, authenticity and compassion.