SHF Podcast, Season 2, Episode 7- Opening to Your Voice with Katrina Lilly

This Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast episode features host Miriah Feehery speaking with Katrina Lilly, a vocal embodiment coach, musician, and mama who is part of the Freedom Family Band. Katrina shares her deeply personal journey of finding her voice through multiple initiations - from her early roots in Southern Baptist church music, to discovering songwriting overnight after her father's death at 16, through a spiritual awakening involving plant medicine that cracked open her vocal abilities, and finally learning to use primal sound during childbirth with her third child.

The conversation explores the profound connections between voice, creativity, and healing both individually and collectively. Katrina discusses the anatomical similarities between the larynx and reproductive organs, emphasizing how vocal expression is intimately connected to sexuality, creativity, and our ability to birth new realities. She offers practical tools like humming, sighing, and toning circles as ways to reclaim our voices and create community harmony. The episode addresses how shame and societal conditioning shut down our natural expression, particularly around puberty, and provides strategies for meeting people where they are in their vocal journey. Katrina concludes by encouraging listeners to support grassroots, collaborative music-making rather than idol worship of mainstream performers, promoting her family's mission of creating substance-free, multi-generational spaces for musical expression and community building.

Find Katrina at 

Freethemusic.life
IG: Katrinalillyfree
And The Freedom Family Band on all music streaming platforms 

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. I'm Katherine Finley with Sovereign Heart Coaching and I'm here with my co host Miriah Feehery of Whole Being Counseling. We recognize that we're living through an intense time on our planet. There seems to be more polarization and division and less connected communication than ever before. We are here to change that. We intention to hold conversations in a container of love and authenticity. We believe that when humans come together from a heart centered place, we can not only understand one another, but we can get creative together, solving problems we couldn't solve alone. It's time to reimagine and rebirth a new world in which everyone's authentic voice is included in the harmonic orchestra of human voices, to create a world that works for all of us. Thank you for being part of this conversation, we're excited to have you. Welcome back to Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast everyone. I'm your host today, Miriah Feehery. Katherine Finley is, doing an amazing equine workshop that we'll hear all about on a future episode. But joining me today, I have Katrina Lilly, a wonderful musician and mama and vocal embodiment coach. She is part of a music project called the Freedom Family Band, and does really wonderful community building, music oriented embodiment workshops in our beautiful southern Appalachia. And she's. An artist and musician. So I'm sure she takes her work all over the place, like most musicians do. But I'm grateful that we have her with us today. Katrina, welcome to Sovereign Heart Frequency. Do you wanna share anything else about your work that I missed out? Yeah, thanks for the beautiful introduction. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I think the only thing I'll add to that is that at the heart of my mission and my prayer and the work that I do is helping to restore all of our birthrights, especially as women, but in general, for everybody to sing and to reclaim our voices and to sing freely without shame. And it's kind of the common thread through all the work that I do, whether it's, you know, performing or coaching or hosting these events is just to remind everyone that is open to hearing that We wanna hear them sing, that we wanna hear them express themselves and, and create and share their art. and that's kind of the, the theme for me as also my personal belief and values around the medicine needed in this world and that all being connected and tied to creativity. Absolutely. I remember hearing that the future of medicine is frequency and light. Hmm. And we just so happen to have these amazing instruments in our bodies that create sound and frequency in these beautiful ways. And, I'd love to hear more from you about how you found. That sacred instrument of the voice to be healing for you, and also with the community building collective work, how we can tap into that as an instrument for collective community healing. Yeah, thanks. Oh, that's always such a fun and big question, like, how did I personally find this tool within me? How did I, essentially discover my voice in this way? It, came definitely in stages for me and just sharing a little bit about my story. I grew up in the church, the Southern Baptist Church, so my early music imprint was in the form of gospel and praise. And even though looking back, there was some conditioning and dogma that, maybe. Were harmful in other areas of my growth musically. I am so grateful for that imprint, that early imprint in my life. The church inspired so much of the spirit of music for me. So I'm just really grateful for, for that aspect of my upbringing in the church. So that's kind of where I got my start, is in choir and praise and worship band. And then growing up a little bit, I went to a transition from Christian school to public high school where I didn't know anyone and I was kind of like weird and yeah, just like different coming from a small school. And I found my people in choir and drama kind of that I remember there's like a hallway designated to the creative kids, you know, all the band kids and the choir kids and the theater kids are in one hallway of school. And that was where I found the hallway. You were, were you in that hallway too?, Way too. Yeah. Right. It's like they put, they get all the weird, colorful kids to like one side of the high school and it's great. I'm so glad they did that because I was lost in all the other high hallways and that, that one was where I was able to express myself and find myself and feel like I was like accepted for who I was for the most part. You know, lots of intricacies there. And then. So I kept on following that path of expression. And then when I was 16, my dad, who I was already kind of estranged with, like we weren't really close. My parents were divorced, but we, we sometimes saw each other. My dad passed away from a really sudden pancreatic cancer experience, which in hindsight I think he passed away from medical related malpractice around cancer more than cancer itself. But the point of me sharing that is my dad was a musician at heart, kind of like a I don't wanna say failed musician, but somebody who really dreamt of being like a star and then ended up being more of a waiter and not really making it the way that he wanted to, and succumbing to some of the temptations that musicians succumb to, like addiction and substance use and things that come along with that kind of, especially the eighties music scene where he was what he was, what she was a part of. And when my dad died, something happened within me that I didn't even realize at the time, I, I just, I just started carrying his musical legacy. I became a songwriter overnight without even making the connection that it was because of his passing wasn't till looking back as an adult where I'm like, wow, that happened. The day after he died, I became a songwriter, going from like a choir kid that would sing along but not a musician, you know, to that day I became a musician. And that really was a huge catalyst for my growth and also darkness and adolescent years and mistakes and like walking down some of the wrong paths as well. But music was always there, like even through everything, everything that I went through, music was already, always there. And then I'd say my next layer, and I know this is like a long story, but it, it's a part of where, where this comes from for me and how real it is for me, how visceral it is for me and my experience, finding my voice. When I was 20, I gave birth to my daughter, my first child in like a super kind of toxic marriage. And I separated from that marriage. And around that same time, I had this huge spiritual awakening and started working with plant medicine and had an experience with ayahuasca and started singing cureton music. Like all it happened so fast. Everything for me is like, boom, happens really fast. And my voice just opened up during this one ceremony in a way that I, I didn't even know I could sing like that. Like it went from, you know, it just expanded. I just heard it. I felt it break open, almost like crack open completely. So that was like my. I kind of speak of them in like different levels of initiation. That was my next level of initiation is through that spiritual awakening and starting to sing spiritual music, meditation, music yoga, music, music for medicine ceremonies. And then my most recent vocal initiation, which is really what shifted and turned me into really a vocal embodiment coach, is when I gave birth to my son, kba my third child. And I finally, on the third time I gave birth, I finally figured out the key to giving birth for me at least. And that was sound and making sound, especially primal, low groany, kind of ugly, you know, really intense sound. And I really feel like that low sound that I was guided to make is what Enabled labor to be really successful. For me that time is just using, using sound and birthing him and rebirthing myself through sound. So yeah, with each of those layers of vocal opening, it's just brought me even deeper into this version of who I am and who I'm meant to be. And the coolest and most exciting part is I know I have more of those initiation stories ahead of me, where I'll go even deeper into the heart of, of this calling, which is yeah, the voice and, and singing and praying in that way for sure. Here's to all the initiations to come. I love that you welcome them because so many people are, maybe a little shy about those. Yeah. Those death and rebirth opportunities, uhhuh in the spiritual sense, not in the physical sense, but yeah, I love hearing that the sounds that you made during birth was a really big revelation and initiation for you. I think there's some really deep wisdom to that and maybe somebody already has really focused on, what that is and why that is, because it is so powerful and it's fairly universal. women make sounds during birth that they don't make any other time in their life except maybe during sex sometimes, but not even to that degree. and certainly not the whole range of, especially like what you said, the low, the low register. I remember when I was pushing my daughter out, the push that birthed her, I made a sound that the part of me that was kind of floating in outer space, sort of heard and was like. What was that? I was like, did I really make that sound? Oh my gosh. It's wild. It's like crazy. The sounds that we make. I don't, I was trying to just find the name of the artist, but if you all look it up, you can find it too. You, you said there, you were like the similar or the, you were speaking on the, maybe somebody's already studied, like the connection between the voice at birth. Have you seen that imagery of how similar the larynx and the uterus is, or the vocal cords and the vulva? If you, I am aware of it but I haven't actually seen. Photographic images of it. Yeah. If you just look up, there's this one artist, I wish I could remember her name, but there's this one artist, it's, it's her specific visual representation of this how similar our, whole vocal anatomy is with our reproductive anatomy as women. It's like gone viral and been used on a lot of different platforms and a lot of different, you know, different sorts of coaches and teachers have used this one artistic representation. But if you just like look up on your search engine, visual similarities between the voice and the womb or larynx and the uterus or whatever wording you wanna use, it'll pop right up and it's like kind of life changing to look at how similar they, the design of the uterus and your whole vocal anatomy system is. You're like, whoa, that looks the same. It literally looks the same. And it kind of changed my whole relationship with my voice to realize how connected it is to my womb as a woman. Yeah. Can you, can you describe in more detail, how that, how you walk with that, how you carry that wisdom in your life? Yeah, I think it. It just deepens the practice of self-care. It deepens the practice of tracking my cycles and knowing where I am on, my cycle. It deepens the practice of breathing through my womb when I, when I sing, breathing even more deeply it's really inspired me to sing a lot more in my low tones. We have a, a total societal programming around singing as women singing in these high voices and like you know, these really pretty angelic head voice kind of version of our singing voice. And that's what's acceptable and that's what's pretty, and through this awareness of how deeply connected it is to my womb, which is low, which is of the earth, which is, you know, brings me to the ground. It's really empowering to sing really low tones. And I recommend this practice too, to just hands on the womb, sing as low as you can, these kind of guttural, even vibratory, humming, moaning sounds in connection to the womb. I think one more aspect of that revelation has been realizing that you know, just like my womb health has an impact on my vocal health. I feel like vice versa, that our voices, our whole voice region, our necks, our sinus system, all the way down to our chest, near our hearts. It's really the dictator of our health, of our current health. Think about it if you feel ill or if you're kind of not taking care of yourself and coming down with something or you know you've been exposed to some sort of situation, which is so common these days. Where do you feel at first it's like here you feel that hoarseness, you feel that dryness, you feel that scratchiness, you feel that cough, whatever it is every time. Yeah. Is like, oh, I need to take some. Yeah, exactly. It's like here first. So this is controlling everything, it has such an impact on the whole body, all the way down to the womb. It's been coming up with my vocal clients recently, how, how crazy it is, how small this part of our body is. Like, look at how small the neck is, in, in you know, comparison to our head and our shoulder and our chest, and realize how everything has to go through here. Everything, like how does it even fit? All of our, all of our brain communications, all of our nerve endings, all of our food, our whole like esophagus systems, our breathing systems, it all goes through this small part of our body. So literally the bottleneck, it's like the Exactly. Right. And then I always think of that expression. I don't know, I saw it in some silly movie, but I think it's I don't know, it's kind of a. Old schooler, patriarchal expression. But I, I guess it's not, I like it, it's funny. I think it was in my big fat Greek wedding when I was a kid, but it'll, it's like, yes, the husband is the head of the family, but the woman is the neck, and the neck can turn the head anyway. It wants the head to go. You know? And just thinking about how much control this part of the body has to do with what we're looking at, what our attention is is on, you know, where we're focusing is this like controlling everything, including the way that we express and the way that we sing and the way that our, entire mental process is connected to the process of yeah. Our, all the processes in our body. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and even bringing in the. Psychosomatic aspect of the polyvagal theory and how the vagus nerve in innervates the face and causes the head to drop when you experience shame and innervates the, the heart and lungs and causes, the heart rhythms and breathing rhythms to change when you have different emotional states. And, yeah, the back of the throat is where the nerve actually leaves the brain and enters, you know, the, the face and and neck to then go every, everywhere else it's going. And you can actually read someone's basically emotional patterns by looking at the back of their throat and seeing if, if the nerve is tight or loose, basically. Hmm. Yeah. And I can imagine the difference in that with somebody who is opening up their voice and singing and expressing and channeling those emotions through sound, even if it's not like, oh, I'm a professional singer, singing on stage in front of a microphone. No, just the freedom of being able to sigh, the freedom of going, ah, you know, the freedom of being frustrated and saying, ugh, you know, like the freedom of just expressing the sound versus the closed channel of those that aren't ready to go there yet. Feels like it would be a lot tighter and a lot more shut down. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And interestingly people who are more shut down, who want to work on strengthening the ventral vagus nerve, the part. That innervates your face and lets you seek connection through eye contact and through more facial expressions and lift your head up and look for, look for connection in, in the world to even take in the world with your head up. the kind of nerve hacks for that are harmonizing singing and gargling, funny enough because of how it massages that, that entry point in the back of the throat. And I'm, I'm sure like gargling is helpful in, in vocal training too, like warmups or something. I don't know. Making that up Totally. Cool. Yeah. And I also really like to recommend I touched on this a moment ago, but going a little bit deeper of the medicine of elongated size. When we sigh, it's telling our whole parasympathetic parasympathetic nervous system that we're safe. It's a great vagus nerve hack as well to have this long sigh. My expression about the sighing sometimes that I like to share is nobody ever in the history of. Humanity has made the sigh sound when they're in danger. It's just not the sound that you make in a dangerous situation. It's the sound that you make when you're safe or sometimes when you're grieving, but also you're, it's in a moment where you're safe to gr grieve. So this just long sigh and I like to visualize, I call it the heaven on earth side too, where we're bringing it all the way down where you're hitting the highest note that you can in your register, and you're hitting every single note as you sigh all the way down, even lower than you can go. It's my favorite vocal exercise. It's the most restorative for me on a physical level in my body, and then also on a nervous system level. Also, the safety piece is so important when we're working on our voice and singing, because for many of us, we feel afraid to sing and express and be seen and be heard. So to start off by making sounds that are ensuring your body and your nervous system safety can be a great step towards singing and expressing more. And then I also really, really love working with humming. I really recommend humming frequently. The picture I like to draw around humming is that if you think about it, your mouth is closed, right? So it's the only sound that you make that's for you. It's for you. It's your, your sound is coming up through your body. Then it's essentially hitting a wall where your mouth is closed and it's going back down. Like this vibratory experience is going back down into your body. All other sounds. Your mouth is slightly open in some way. So it's to communicate, it's to share with others. And the humming is like your own personal, vocal self massage. And you can really play with the placement of your humming and feel different tingly vibration sensa sensations inside your mouth. And I really like to invite people who are starting off on this journey to hum nursery rhymes. Or songs from their young childhood. There's something really nostalgic that happens. This reclamation of voice.'cause usually for most of us, we were a lot more free to sing and express around that time in our life. And then something happens somewhere, it's different for everybody where, you know, we're a little bit more shut down. And I see that when I work with kids too. I teach at an elementary school right now, one day a week I teach music. And it's funny, I teach all the grades in one day, which is wild, the way that they have it scheduled every single grade all in one day. And I get to see so clearly that it's like freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom shut down at fifth grade. It's so clear, like puberty shut down. Like, you know, where all the sudden at the same age. And I've seen this in other settings too. It's not this one school where like. Singing gets lame and embarrassing and something happens where it's not cool anymore at around the age of 11 or wherever that is for different, you know, and there's exceptions to every rule, but stereotypically the majority starts to shut down right then, which I find to be really fascinating. So going back before that time and singing and humming and playing with some of the songs that you used to sing in your innocence as a singer, when we were just innocently, playfully singing without fear of judgment can be a really, a really beautiful and really powerful way to reclaim that tool. Mm-hmm. I like that. And the, the personal obviously is where all of the changes start, right? We always have to start with ourself and building a relationship with ourself that is more. Self-accepting and self-nurturing and self-compassionate. And then it starts to project more into the outer world. But I wondered if you could speak to some of how you work with sound and the, the voice in community because you know, it's no secret that, that collectively we're in a phase in our society here in America and in many other places in the world where censorship is at, dictatorship levels. And there's so much division in our communities around certain topics that I. People will just completely shut down their voices around expressing anything that might get them canceled or deemed, you know, evil or hateful or whatever. And we don't need to get into like, any specifics of that because I mean, everybody understands what I'm talking about. But yeah, I'm more interested in like, ways to find solutions through that. You know, when, when our voice is it's kind of trapped in these ways, how we can work with it to create community still, even though so much of our society is in this trap of divide and conquer. Totally. And as you're asking that, I'm like, oh yeah, she has that in the beginning. And we went another direction plenty of times. So circling back around. Circling back around. Okay. Okay. Reeling in, in to to community singing and the medicine of singing and community and using our voices in community. I mean, you already touched on one piece of that, which is just the concept of harmony and harmonization and what better way to create harmony than to physically and literally create harmony. I think it all starts in the simplicity of a toning circle. If y'all have ever been to or participated in a toning circle, or even saying ohm at the end of some yoga class or something this really amazing tangible magic happens when we're all singing these tones, especially when it hits this beautiful harmony. This moment of, of harmonization. So I think that's one really literal way to look at it that the experience of creating harmony with others represents the experience of creating harmony with others, you know? Yes. Beyond the voice. So there's like obviously a really macrocosm microcosm, symbolic metaphoric alchemy that happens through the art of harmony. And I think that a really powerful tool to use is just that, is making sound and toning in community and any opportunity where it feels, that's a tool that you can utilize, whether that's just for a few minutes at the end of a, you know, to open up a circle or to close a circle, or if that's having an entire, you know, hour long toning session. And this is something that we do at our gatherings, which I'll share a little bit more about our gatherings. Well, which really free the music, which is my mine and my husband's music ministry that we founded is really all about that, is really all about community music and music empowerment and music education and using music as a tool both online and in person. And, you know, the way that that translates to circles beyond our personal ministry is just inspiring people to play music in everyday life. I can't tell you how often I say you get to a whole other point of freedom and liberation in your voice when you can just sing a song that's stuck in your head while you're in the grocery store. That's a level of, of liberation where you're not, you know, caring about what people think of you. And something really happens when you get to that level personally, where you can bring it outside, where you can bring it out into the world where you can just pick up a guitar if that's your tool or whatever that is, at a family gathering, at a family dinner or at, you know, a neighborhood, you know, block party or whatever that is. Or even put on prerecorded music, but inspire people to connect with it and really dance with it and mu use it and use music as a tool, not just as you know, background sound or like elevator music or something that's like ongoingly, you know, happening back here. But where music gets to be a forefront center tool for connection and community. I could go on and on. There's so many ways to use music as a tool, like singing in a choir, joining a community choir where you are in most areas. There's some sort of, community choir, you know, churches, but also like secular Non-religious choirs as well. Here in the Asheville area, I think we have probably like 10, you know, so many. Or a little singing circles. Starting a singing group. even bringing, if you're a parent, there's a lot of like mommy and me type, like family singing, opportunities happening ton like Sanskrit devotional music is a great way to come into come in with community and use sound and vibration to pray and to praise. Or if you're like me, I sometimes go to Christian churches mostly just for the praise and worship part of it, because I love it so much and inspires me so much and it lights me up in so many ways. And, even bringing the music that you're writing and the power of expressing your music in front of other people, even if you're not like, haven't been doing it for a long time, or you don't feel super confident bringing a song that you wrote or a piece of poetry to an open mic night, or singing a cover song and an open mic. You know, bringing that part of yourself out into the circle with others, inspires other people to do the same. And when. It's like a domino waterfall effect. When one person starts to experience this freedom and this liberation, this healing and this harmony, somebody else in their circle catches it. It's like the best contagion ever. You just catch it and you're like, oh, that, that she looks like, she's really having a beautiful experience and you know, it's really inspiring me as well. I wanna try that. And it's hard and it's scary. It's scary to sing in in front of other people when you haven't done this before. It's scary to let yourself be seen and heard. But this magic happens when we sing together in community or when we sing in front of others in community. And we allow ourselves to be received either way in any capacity. Anywhere that you can find an opportunity to step outside of your comfort zone and go even deeper into the practice of singing with or for or around others. You will not only be experiencing and feeling the medicine of personal self-expression, but you'll also be contributing to the medicine of healing and harmony on this planet in a way that I can't even describe verbally, because if you haven't experienced it before there's no words that I can use to describe the healing power of singing. With others around others. But if you know, you know,, it's a big feeling. It's a big impact and a big shift in consciousness when we move through that shame.'cause I think that's what's really stopping us from just being in our natural flow of singing. Like, life is a musical. Why aren't we just all singing all the time? Why aren't we just all singing all the time? The animals do it. Why don't we, why aren't we singing all the time? You know? Why are we talking, talking, talking and logically, like all, you know, in our minds and like debating and like this polarizing brain organ and we're just like, no, you're wrong and I'm right. And like, it should be this way. It's like all this verbal, talking and it's fine. It's good. I'm glad that we have important conversations, but why aren't we singing? Why aren't we singing as a collective? It's my long-winded answer. It makes perfect sense to me. I mean, music is an integral part of our humanity, of our existence as humans on this planet. And and I feel like the ancestors and certainly cer more intact cultures know how to, to wield the power of that for the collective wellbeing, for the collective harmony, as you pointed out. So absolutely named. But yeah, there's so much about America where those kind of. Common sense things about being human have fallen to the wayside. And and music is more about selling records than it is about creating experiences outside of a concert, you know? Mm-hmm. And, and initiation and expression and, and as you, as your band is so aptly named, freedom. And so, I, I believe in your mission. I, I get it. I get how our voice is trapped and how that traps a part of our soul collectively and individually, and i'm curious, how, how do you work with the, the. Graders and beyond who, you know, just hit puberty and are suddenly so self conscious and are so uncomfortable with all the changes happening in their body. They just like, they just can't anymore. Yeah. They just can't anymore. Or some of them can't. How do you, how do you work with that? How do you help people overcome that security? Yeah, it's been challenging for sure. There's lots of different ways. I think it starts with deep, deep listening and intuition. Just like any, coach or anyone in the therapeutic and healing arts, it's like you can have your plan A and you can have your system, but most of the time you have to throw it out the window and actually listen and receive and kind of think on the fly. You know, what are they needing, you know? So I think number one, I don't force it. That's in that younger group or beyond. I find the place where we can start. So even in my adult age clientele who are dealing with a lot of, again, the key word here is shame. A lot of shame or a lot of fear around singing and expressing. My first few sessions might look more like in many ways a life coaching session or a holistic wellness session.'cause that's something that I've done a lot of in the past too. You know, looking at more vocal hygiene and lifestyle choices and how you're treating your body and thought process work. So in my middle school classes, I remember one of my music classes was simply inviting the kids. Let's see, this is, this is how I did it. I turned on some lo-fi beats so that it's music, you know,'cause I put music on. You know, and they like that kind of trendy electronic, you know that vibe. So I put on some lo-fi beats and I let them draw. You know, drawing is cool for them. They're all, they all like to draw on Doodle. So I let them draw. And we had some general conversation about creative expression while they were kind of passively drawing. And then at toward the end, what I did was I. I told them all that they were gonna come up to the class and present what they drew and tell us a little about, bit about it. What I didn't tell them was after that, that they were gonna put their drawing down and that the rest of the class was gonna actually give them compliments about themselves. And, and their art, but, and themselves and they had to just stand there and take it and receive compliments about themselves all. Well, we have lo-fi beats on so that it's still music class, you know? And it was powerful. I have a couple of teachers or assistants that, that are with, that hang out with their classes while, while I teach music on those days. And there were tears in the eyes, it was an emotional experience and it was emotional for some of the, some of the students that were having to receive the compliments too. And it's funny, the way that it worked, it started out where now that in the beginning they realize I was gonna do that, that it wasn't just presenting their art. The next person was like, oh my God, I'm gonna have to do that too. And at first I was having a hard time getting the next person to want to come up'cause they were like. Really shy to receive, but then after like three or four people went, they were really excited to go up and receive their compliments. And that was the most powerful music class that I've had for my, for my middle school, like to date. And I don't know if it was really music class, but it was like, we didn't start there. If I was like, oh, okay, now we're gonna sing Waldorf songs. If we didn't start there, it would've been completely ineffective, me having them sing. So it's like meeting the person where they are, so another client that I'm working on or working with, and it's really, really common. I'll just touch on this real quick. Another client that I'm working with, several of my clients are dealing with substance use, like specifically smoking, smoking, whatever it is, you know and. Or other forms of you know, not ideal personal hygiene, especially in relationship to the voice, like drinking a lot of coffee or, you know, consuming a lot of dairy or inflammatory foods. I could say, oh, I'm a vocal coach. We don't need to talk about that. We'll just do vocal exercises and sing songs, but. It's important to work with that energy because your voice isn't gonna be as clear or as solid, and most importantly, as healthy if you're a regular smoker, you know, it's just science. It's just not gonna be. You know, it's not gonna sound the way that you want it to sound, so why are we, you know, sweeping that under the rug instead of like spending some time not necessarily deleting that habit, but getting in right relationships with it and bringing in, awareness to any of our poor self-care practices. You know, like hydration is a super huge part of singing and, and being, A vocal being, being just like a healthy person. But yeah, singing, like if you're constantly dehydrated, which is something I've struggled with my whole life. My mom actually like, I love you, mom. She didn't make us drink water. We drank fresca all the time. You know, I didn't drink water growing up. So it's something that I've been like dealing with as an adult, like having to retrain myself to drink enough water and not just, water, but like,, really hydrating and sometimes putting a little bit of salt and lemon in my water or drinking coconut water sometimes, or that concept eating your water, you know, and having some raw fruits and vegetables. So it's all connected. So to answer your question, I think, to work with people that aren't quite. Ready to be there yet to, to sing freely that maybe want to, but aren't there yet. It's like meeting them exactly where they are and, and finding common ground there and then bringing some song into it. Even if, even if that's just humming, even if that's just moving our body to some music. You know, it's, it's just solid foundations, and, and not expecting people to just all of a sudden oh, I can sing freely now out of a, after a lifetime of shame and, yeah. Hopefully that answers your question. Just meeting them where they are. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And it, just makes me think of you know, how rampant shame is in our culture. And how that affects the throat, like we were talking about, the nerves even constrict to that change the shape of the throat. When you experience shame and like I love that example of what you did with the students to do this gratitude practice and appreciation practice and how that really opened them up because our voice isn't just about the physical structure of our larynx and esophagus. It's like our emotions and our mind, what we think about ourself and what we think we're capable of. And and so much of even our, our ears like a. I was just hearing someone say recently that our inner ear is actually where we hear through and it's, there's all this water in there that vibrates and, it's actually connected to our astral body, which is where we experience our emotions. And so we hear through our emotions and we hear our own voice and other people's voices. And as a trauma specialist, I have to coach people and, and how they hear what other people say and, and educate them on how it's actually skewed to threatening. When you're suffering from PTSD, how you perceive sound, there is only good or bad. There is no neutral. So when someone comes at you and is just kind of like, oh, okay, you hear that as like snarky. Oh, okay. Not just neutral. Oh, okay. You know, and it can really affect their personal relationships. And, and so that is I think so important too with how. We express sound is also how there's a, a feedback between our, our hearing and our, and our voice. I think that is tied into our emotions and shame can really constrict the, the rainbow of, of expression that we receive and give. And, you've tapped into something really powerful around connection, safety, confidence, gratitude, all these, these really building of the individual and collective things that really can liberate a person's voice and also liberate them in so many other ways. Yeah. I love how you brought in the awareness of the ears and listening, kind of like. That was the first thing I said when you asked me that question. Like, how do you, how do you work with this group? You know, it's listening and as anyone that is working on stepping into their voice and singing and expressing more, we have to equally be paying attention to our active listening practice and our ability to deeply listen. Whether that's being able to listen and appreciate music more deeply and really receive the music that we're listening to, either live music or recorded music. You know, letting it enter, you know, receiving, I think of the ears, I think of like, I'm letting it enter, I'm receiving it. But then also listening as we're making music, as we're creating music. Like, if you ever are trying to hop into a jam, you know, or try to sing along with something oftentimes somebody who's really excited about singing will just start trying to find their part or start finding, trying to find what they're gonna sing. Kind of like the concept of are you just thinking about what you're gonna say next when you're listening, or are you actually listening? You know, similar concept when, like, the first tool to being a part of any jam to whether you're, you know, tuning in with an instrument or just, you know, dancing or freestyling or singing along or humming. The first step is really listening and receiving it and observing it and witnessing it. And then you start to bring it into your body and you move your body and you're connecting with a rhythm that's like the next step. Rhythm is a whole nother, you know, area that we could go into when it comes to this, topic rhythm itself is, it's own healing path and regulation system. And it's a, similar traditional path of healing division and bringing communities together, an ancient indigenous culture's rhythm and drumming was such a big part of that. So anyway, the next step is bringing the rhythm into the body, connecting with the rhythm moving. And only then when you feel in tune through listening through the physical body, only then is the appropriate time, really the accurate time to begin contributing to the music and singing or playing your instrument or just like shaking your shaker or playing your drum is after you've fully received it. One more note that I'll share on that is just the natural connection between ear, nose, and throat. You know, I remember when I was younger and more in the medical system, I went to an ENT, an ear, nose, and throat doctor. So remembering that that whole system, the whole sinus system through our ear, nose, and throat is all one family system. It's all connected. So the health of our sinuses, when we have allergies, when we have mucus, when we have a sore throat, whatever that is, when we have any sort of hearing impairment or issue with our ears or ear infection, whatever, whatever that is, is gonna impact that whole system. So we wanna really be taking really good care of our sinus system. I like to recommend drinking herbal teas for that. You know, any sort of immunity boosting support, respiratory support is gonna be helpful. I like to recommend steaming steam medicine is so powerful, especially herbal steams, which is just you know, making that big pot of herbs. Putting your head over the pot and putting a towel over your head and just breathing in that steam. Or maybe you do it in a more like modern way, going to an, you know, a steam sauna or an infrared sauna or whatever that is. I like doing it more, you know, traditional and old school way. If you are in a fire a woodfire sauna, putting some eucalyptus oil or some supportive oils and just really moving this energy because there's a. There's a constant relationship between the physical, like you said, and the psychosomatic. It's this back and forth, and we can really look at it from either direction, whichever direction you're more comfortable with is gonna benefit the other. Like if you're, you know, really good at working with the physical body, start there and move upward and you're gonna start to flow into more psychosomatic ways to work with your voice and vice versa. But they both kind of are two opposite angles to get to the same core, which is our, our expression and our freedom and our health and our liberation through this voice. I also wanna touch really briefly on kind of some of what you said about shame. Bringing it all the way back around to kind of closer to where we started, which we were talking about the correlation between the whole vocal anatomy and our reproductive anatomy. And something that I feel called to, to share really openly is that our shame around singing is very closely tied to our sexual shame. And there's really no way to get around that or to not connect the two. They're very, very, very closely connected. Like we said for, with the actual connection of how similar the anatomy looks. Again, check out that imagery of your vocal anatomy and reproductive organs. It's incredible. But also if you think about it, when we're singing, I. We are taking or speaking also, but when we're singing, especially, we're taking a part of ourselves that's inside. You know, the sound is created inside. We're taking a part of ourselves that's inside that's unique to us. We're inverting it almost and sending it outside of our body, naked, without any, any clothes on. You know, like it's just there. It's just there from inside of us. It's outside of us. It is so, so connected to our sexuality and our sensuality. It really, really is. So, the reason I like to share that is because a lot of people feel like, especially broken around this, they're like, Why can't I sing? This is so weird that I can't sing., Am I alone in this, that I'm scared to sing or express it? It's like, no, no, no, no. It's totally normal and it's okay. And it makes sense and it's justified. And yeah, you still have to work on it if you wanna be like a fully, embodied full version,, whole and heal version of yourself. It's a, it's a mandatory aspect of that, but you're not like, especially broken, this is a collective pain point. This is a collective pain point that's, again, connected to our sexuality as, as human beings. Mm-hmm. I really appreciate this aspect of your awareness of the body as an instrument and as a creator, creator. Mm-hmm. Because yeah, I mean. Birth and sound, as we pointed out, are inextricable. And if what they say is true and the universe was created by the word of God, by the sound of the creator, then it seems like there is an undeniable connection between creation and sound birth. Mm-hmm. And sound. And I think, for full empowerment, we have to figure out what that means for us individually and collectively. Yeah. Reclaim it. Yeah. I know you mentioned teaching Waldorf songs and so. You probably know some of Rudolph Steiner's teachings and some of our audience does too. But one, maybe lesser known, one of part of his teachings is around The larynx. And, he had created an entire movement field. The, it's called arrhythmic that was, is actually modeled after the shape of the larynx that it makes during certain sounds. And, he teaches pe or he taught the system of body movement to create the shapes with your body. And, and these sounds are, just resonating these, these creative forces in the universe that you tap into when you hold that with your body. But then he goes as far as to say that in the future of humanity, distant, distant future, that birth will happen through the larynx. That, we won't just date through a physical seed and egg joining. We'll just, we'll create new people through sound, through our Wow. Yeah. We'll, birth people wild. I know. Which, I mean, if that's how the creator did it, then that's how it's possible. Right? So we don't, necessarily have to work with that in this lifetime. Yeah. That's cool though. I didn't, I haven't heard that one before. So that's, yeah. I mean, I, I, yeah, I haven't heard that specifically with Rudolph Steiner, but really cool. Gosh, he's been so inspirational for so many people and, the youth for coming into their voices too. Just, just the invitation to use music for. Life transition is so cool. It works so well. And I know you said some of your listeners are already like, experienced with it. And I can say from experience as somebody that has sent my kids I mean, not really to strict Waldorf schools, but like Waldorf inspired schooling groups. I can say that there's a part of us as parents that are like, cool, the school is doing this singing thing. So that's, that's good. Like, they're doing it there and not at home, but bringing it into the home is really powerful. And, and even as a, a super musical family, both my husband and I play music together. We're, musicians and music teachers as our full-time job. And, and even us, I don't feel like we bring it into the home as much as I wish that we did. So there's some conviction there and realization how, how, potent. That tool is, and the few times we do use it for really transitional things, it works so well. You know the difference of all right guys, we gotta go, we gotta get out of the house. Let's go, let's go, let's go. It's time to go. Come on and we're gonna be late. You know, between like it's time to go, everybody grab their things. Yeah. Whatever that is. I just made that up. It doesn't matter how much more pleasant doesn't have to rhyme, you know? And they respond to it. They respond to it. I think every parent needs to know the cleanup song from other friends, right. Clean up everybody. Clean up. It's so simple. It's like a commercial jingle. You'll never get it out of your head for the rest of your life. And that one we do, we we're pretty good at using that one. Sure. They just wanna clean up. All of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh. It's a miracle. Yeah. It's something happens in their brain. Even my older one that simultaneously rolls her eyes, we'll still clean up. Like she'll, she'll be like, this is lame, but I'm doing it. You know, it works. Something happens to our brain chemistry with song. You know, there's a reason why, the concept of a musical has been, a form of entertainment across many cultures for, for eons, for centuries, for the entire modern entertainment era. Musicals have existed and it's because it. It works it's captivating. It has, you know, entertainment value, but it also has pleasure value. It has value of being joyful. It also, not to go too far into this, but it's how, it's such a good way to learn. Like, they didn't just write the ABCs because they thought it was like a, a good, you know you know, I don't know because it. They wrote it to help kids learn the ABCs. How long would it have taken us to learn the ABCs if it was just spoken? You know, Right. Even as adults, I don't, when I'm trying to like think of the next letter in alphabetical order, I have to, the song comes back in my head, it's an effective learning and teaching tool. It's an effective tool to use in corporate spaces even. It's just an effective life tool that again, like you said, connects us back to our ancient origins and our primordial more intact selves using, using song. So yeah, it's powerful. It is, if music is powerful, our voices are powerful. We are powerful and thanks for holding that down and helping people find that personal power and collective power. Totally. Are there any final thoughts you wanna share about your, your path of freedom and empowerment through your voice and sound? I think the last thing that's standing out to me that I want to impart onto those that are listening is kind of just touching really briefly on paradigm shift that's happening around performative music in the way of like, worshiping or exaltation of musicians that's shifting away from that and into collective music making just on a societal level. It's already happening. Even in the mainstream, it started to happen. Artists like Jacob Collier bringing the whole, giant amphitheater into, to singing with him. But especially it's happening on a grassroots level and just encouraging the listeners here. And even like the domino effect of participating in that. Participating in, you know, your favorite musicians, if you've got them up on a pedestal, like go ahead and knock them down a few pegs because they're real humans and they are not, superheroes and they're not blameless and flawless. They're real people that sing and and make music and I think that it's just like a really important thing societally to, to kind of deconstruct just, just from our past generation, you know, of the seventies and eighties and even nineties, even early two thousands of this. You know, it's essentially like a form of idol worship for sure. We're singing it, seeing it still in mainstream music culture. They're really trying to clinging onto it with these like, crazy c you know, I don't even wanna get too much into it, but like weird musical performances that are happening on big, you know, global stages, especially in America. And like the more that you sing in community with others or support artists that are more grassroots, that are more local, that you have a personal relationship that are down to earth, that are really doing things, that are getting everyone involved, that are, you know, creating more communal experiences, the more that you invest your time and energy into supporting those artists, meaning listening to their music that contributes, attending their, their shows, attending the, the. Gatherings and song circles or, you know, retreats and bigger events. The more that you're investing in supporting those types of artists, the more that those types of artists are growing in their work in the world and being the ones that are making the impact. So really gauging that, like what are you investing your time listening to,, I see it here in Asheville a lot. Unfortunately I've noticed that like when big music musicians come to come to town, these like big electronic musicians or, or DJs are more like widely known bands. You've got like, everyone rushing to the, you know, the, the music hall or whatever to buy tickets and to go watch that musician or the, that band that's like up on the stage 10 feet above your own head, you know, you're like. Spending all this money and watching them. And then when like local grassroots musicians wanna host a song circle or a house concert or something smaller just to share their art or even to support them a little bit it's like crickets. And it's hard to get people to show up and attend that. And this is something not just in this area, but especially in like kind of music drenched areas, I've noticed this. Yeah. And just encouraging all of us to be part of that solution. Support local music, support grassroots music, you know, be a part of the cool, the cool music movement, which is about collaboration and singing together and everyone being like seen and heard and being a part of, of the music. Well said, well said. And speaking of do you have a place where people can find your work if they wanna look more into what you're doing? Totally. There's a couple, couple different ways to get involved in what we do. I mean, you can find me personally on social media platforms, Katrina Lilly Katrina Lilly free on Instagram. And then my music is out there in the world. Most of it's like old that I released many years ago, but it's still out there. And that's under Katrina Lilly. There's a couple new ones on all streaming platforms, on Apple Music, Spotify wherever you listen to music. And then my family's music project is called the Freedom Family Band. And we have also a social media presence where we share where we're at. Our website isn't. That website isn't all organized yet, but yeah, through social media, you can find where we, where we play music yeah, under the Freedom Family on Instagram or the Freedom Family Band on Facebook. And then all of our music also is the Freedom Family Band is on all streaming platforms, and it's just like really fun inspirational, uplifting music. We really blend a lot of different genres. My husband and I sing in harmony together. That's the main theme of, you know, the common thread through the songs that we're singing in this. Really? Yeah. Dynamic, masculine, feminine harmony. And we have other artists coming in to add some amplification and yeah, it's just like freedom anthems, you know? And, and, our emotions just, just shared and our praise just shared through music and yeah, that's on all streaming platforms through the Freedom Family Band. And then where you can find the work that we do through vocal empowerment or music empowerment and music education is through our website free The Music Life Free, the music Life where you can find out a little bit more about our online music program. We have this really cool super down to earth online music education community that we've had for a few years. And it's a pretty small but steady dynamic group where we just, explore all different aspects of music in this ongoing collaborative way. We have a communication platform for people to share their music with other artists and receive feedback. We share really amazing resources and yeah, just cover topics. Anything from music history and culture to songwriting series. And we're about to finish up a rhythm series that we're in. My husband teaches a little bit about music production and more electronic music here and there. And yeah, really just having a space to, to share and to be supported, feel supported, not only by us, but by the amazing peer community. And then that online program. As cool as it is, and as much as I love it, it's really. In my heart, a space holder for the in-person gatherings. One that we're having. I'm not sure if this episode will air before we're having the gathering, but one that we're having in May May 23rd through 25th in Marshall, North Carolina, and then subsequently after that we host regular in person. Music gatherings called Free The Music which are all about musical expression and exploration. We teach, you know we bring in really amazing facilitators to teach songwriting and vocal empowerment and even hands-on guitar and instrumental skills as well as like bringing in incredible, beautiful DJs and electronic musicians to help us get into our bodies and dance. And something really special about all of our in person gatherings is that they're always super wholesome and family friendly and substance free. So just like really safe environments where we have, youth programs as well. And being multi-generational and being family friendly space is really important to us, and it's one of our pillars and values. So yeah, you can find out more about all of that on free, the Music Life or we're also on social media with our ministry, free, the Music Ministry on Instagram and Facebook. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom with us today, and we hope you have a beautiful free the music workshop and more, more initiations for yourself and others to come. Thank you so much, Miriah, for hosting me. It's been really wonderful to be here and, you know, I learned through teaching and I always love reminding myself through sharing sharing medicine with others. So there's pieces from today that I'm, I'm really using and utilizing for, for my own self-growth also, so I really appreciate that. That's the the harmony we're hoping to sprinkle out into the world like little seeds. Yeah. Yeah. Make sure you subscribe, like and share the video for more content!