From Overthinking to Flow: Unlock Your True Speaking Voice

In this episode of Soulful Speaking, we delve into the transformative power of breath and intention as host Lauri Smith coaches guest Eric Ayers.

Together, they explore how to move beyond imposter syndrome, embrace flow, and tap into the natural energy of authentic communication. Using her Intend, Align, Invite framework, Lauri helps Eric shift from overthinking to fully embodying his message. Through breathwork, energetic alignment, and real-time practice, Eric discovers how to deepen his connection with his audience and speak from his truest self.

If you’ve ever struggled with pausing, trusting your voice, or feeling fully present when speaking, this episode will give you actionable insights to step into your power.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Speaking is about connection, not perfection. Replace trying to say everything "right" with meeting your audience where they’re at.

2. Trust yourself. Overcome imposter syndrome with a leap of faith. Trust in your knowledge, your energy, and your ability to serve the moment.

3. Your breath fuels your voice. Learning to breathe deeply and naturally can transform your speaking presence.

4. Pauses are powerful. Silence creates space for your audience to absorb your words and connect emotionally.

5. Energetic alignment creates impact. When you center your body, breath, and energy, your voice carries more resonance and ease and touches the audience in a different way.

6. Your five-year-old self knew the truth. Reclaiming the true voice you had as a child can unlock your most radiant speaking style.

7. Set an intention before you speak. Name what you want your audience to feel, then align your presence to embody that energy.

8. Movement and voice are connected. When you release tension in your body, your voice flows more freely.

9. The best speakers don’t "perform" - they show up as themselves. You are enough. You were born enough. Embrace the present moment.

About Eric:
Eric Ayers is an Alignment Practitioner and the founder of emc², LLC, where he artfully bridges ancient wisdom with modern innovation to spark profound transformation. His life's purpose centers on igniting transformative experiences in others. Through his signature "Align by Design" me

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Chapters

• 1:37 Eric’s strengths and struggles: Knowledge vs. imposter syndrome
• 3:58 Eric’s first speaking exercise
• 7:38 The Magic of Flow
• 8:46 Intend, Align, Invite: A simple yet powerful framework for speakers
• 17:38 Exploring Breath, Energy, and Intention
• 30:02 Breathing Dexterity
• 34:43 Eric’s second speaking exercise: Speaking with breath and flow
• 37:45 The surprising role of silence in creating a dynamic speaking rhythm
• 41:26 Closing reflections & biggest takeaways

Transcript

Lauri: 1:08

Hello and welcome back to the Soulful Speaking podcast. Our guest again today is Eric Ayers. Hi, he's come back and graciously, courageously agreed to be coached live or live here for you all to see later. Eric, to begin with, what do you feel like, are your speaking strengths and what challenges you when you're speaking?

Eric: 1:37

First thing that comes to mind is the strengths, is the knowledge that I have from all of the research, all of the trainings, that sort of thing which also leads into my weaknesses. Because right now, those pauses, knowing not to fill it with filler words, however, pausing to run through my repository of analytical mindness of what information does the audience want for me, need for me? So, almost like an imposter syndrome type scenario of who should I be right now, instead of knowing who I am and walking fully into that knowing who you are, and also it sounds like you trust the information and yet are somewhat overwhelmed by it.

Lauri: 2:36

Like the imposter, monsters are choosing what you share, where they're kind of getting in the mix yeah rather than connecting to those people on that day and choosing what you share.

Eric: 2:49

Based on that, I think that's a fairly good assumption, um, because a lot of times, 10 minutes into it, when that connection is made, all of the other stuff's out of the way and I can fully channel who I am and what they need me to be. In that situation, it's still me and then it's not identifying where the words what, what do I need to communicate? It's how do I connect, how do I meet the needs in front of me.

Lauri: 3:20

So, yeah, that's I like the way you you put that you speak a bit and then we'll play and see where this goes. So I'm going to ask you to speak for 60 seconds and in that 60 seconds you can speak about anything that you are passionate about, and then we'll coach and play and get curious, and then you'll do it at least one more time later.

Eric: 3:51

Okay.

Lauri: 3:52

And I'll start the clock whenever you're ready, and then I'll say that's time, because it's going to ring over here, and probably not since I'm wearing these over there.

Eric: 4:02

Yeah.

Lauri: 4:04

Whenever you're ready.

Eric: 4:05

Okay, this is difficult. All these topics come into mind. Okay, this is difficult. All these topics come into mind. Okay, human design is probably the most prevalent and most with understanding of my emotions, of how I am designed to interact in the world. One of the cool aspects about this is I have an undefined throat center, and something that you and I have talked about. When I understood this, my way of relating was to the movie Transformers, to Bumblebee, who communicated based on radio stations of different people's voices coming through him in order to get his voice across, and a lot of times I find myself in that, back to what we just stated a minute ago was all of the information, and that's time, bam, okay.

Lauri: 5:20

Bam. What is something that you loved about how that went and what is something that you wish were different in some way?

Eric: 5:31

I did not like the fact of how long it took me to identify something to talk about. It's like going through my Rolodex of information. I did not like that. Once I identified it, it was fine, I could flow with it and offer my my spin, my story on it.

Lauri: 5:49

So yeah, yeah, okay, I'm going to ask where does your human design type align with public speaking? Hmm, Okay.

Eric: 6:11

So, likewise with having the undefined throat I have, I'm a generator, so I have the ability to shift energy, to elevate energy. Likewise, if I come in at a really bad mood, I have the ability to lower that energy for the audience, but I have the ability to get the energy to where it needs to be without doing anything, first of all. Second of all, I have the ability to gain the energy from the audience and give it back to them, so it's almost like not using my energy but reflecting it back to them through my voice. That, to me, is the uh, the biggest, most influential quality about my design, without going super yeah, yeah, I love that.

Lauri: 7:02

I I I believe that anyone can do that to some extent, and there are some of us where it's more obvious that it's happening.

Eric: 7:13

Right.

Lauri: 7:13

Or that it's happening and there's even more capacity for that for you. And where that even more capacity is is not in the information. It's in the connection, leading with the connection and leading with and refining your ability to hold a space. What's the aha that just happened over there? As I said that, the understanding.

Eric: 7:48

When I get out of my own head, magic happens, and that's to me what you illustrated. When I get out of my own head, magic happens, and that's to me what you illustrated, because with this defined Ajna and headspace that has this automatic flow, I revert to that and that leads into this open centeredness of yes, it can work for me or it can work against me and the connection, the human connection based on. So another aspect of how this relates to human design is a defined solar plexus. So my decisions, my emotions, my energy and motion is defined by my feelings.

Eric: 8:35

So how I feel, and that is 100% based on connection, that's the analytical side of the aha that you saw me in my head about.

Lauri: 8:45

Yeah, yeah, when I get out of my head, magic happens, and one of the thoughts that happened over here, or one of the things that I believe, is that the head is going to be there. So I want to give it something more constructive to focus on, instead of the what am I going to say? And the imposter syndrome, because that's where it's used to going. So I want to give it somewhere else, and I frequently use these three words. People listening are going to say those sound familiar. They're a lot like if Steph Curry is shooting the basketball and I want to teach you to shoot the basketball like Steph Curry and I say bend your knees, look at the back of the rim and follow through Very simple words.

Lauri: 9:36

You can keep repeating them in your head again and again, and again, and it can take us 10,000 hours or more to shoot anywhere close to how Steph Curry is shooting. When it comes to speaking and the voice, we were actually born in our full radiance. We were actually born in our full radiance and then the world taught us to drift away. So it's not 10,000 hours to learn something new. It can be far less than that to learn, to relearn how we came in doing it. Those words are intend, align, invite. And since you were talking about the solar plexus and you're governed by your feelings, I think you're going to love intend and invite. Intend is setting the intention for what you want the audience to feel, emotionally or energetically, and it's best when you can distill it down to one word or a short phrase. Sometimes people use sounds like they don't. They can't put it into words, but they'll say something like I want them to feel, or I want them to feel something like that.

Eric: 10:52

Okay.

Lauri: 10:53

And then so you set the intention and then you align your body, your breath and your energy with your most expressive self, which we'll do in a moment. And the inviting is listening to their nonverbal half of the conversation, the whole time, their facial expressions, their body language, the energy in the room, looking for signs of shifts toward more of that intention that you set happening. So in some spaces that we go speak in, 90% of the room is not feeling that thing that we've set the intention for. They've gathered because they need what we're bringing. That's why they look like the opposite, not as our imposter monsters would tell us, because we've said something wrong or done something wrong within three seconds of starting and then sometimes 50% of the room is already vibing with you and you're still looking for signs of movement toward even more of that thing happening.

Eric: 12:06

That's intend and invite and invite Any questions so far, no, I wrote those three words down, those.

Lauri: 12:26

I can tell and I can feel are impactful. Yeah, and from the feeling that you have of that, that speaks to me about the remembering that there is a part of you that already knows that this is true, that you know this already inflow where you're doing these, and it's about dropping in so that, instead of it taking 10 minutes to drop in, you can drop in in 30 seconds or five seconds, or sometimes even during a first breath that you will take before you speak, that you will take before you speak. Let's play with align, which is aligning the body, the breath and the energy with our most expressive self. This is the part where we most can remember how, exactly how we were doing it as babies. Our hearts were open, they weren't collapsing or pushing. Our breath was nice and deep and nourishing, and then we could cry or laugh and have people on the other side of the house feel what was going on with us.

Lauri: 13:49

Our energy, instead of being really small, was filling the whole room because we were born knowing abundance. And then the world told us don't be too big, don't be too much, don't take up too much space, don't be too emotional. And we pulled our energy in and we caved our hearts in or we pushed our hearts out and it got all scrambled and confused, which is part what creates that radio station feeling like we're not actually tuned to our own signal of what we're here to do. We're sort of partway there. So when I look at you right now, I see a body that is open-hearted. So I'm saying that one and I'm kind of going to skip it, because it doesn't feel like you're closed off and pushing or leaning forward or working too hard, and it doesn't feel like you're withdrawing, hiding your heart, at least not on any major scale.

Eric: 14:55

Yeah.

Lauri: 14:58

The breath is a place that almost all of us can continue to put some attention and energy, because when people said, don't be too much, don't be too emotional, don't be too emotional, how we stop ourselves from doing that is by suppressing our breathing. So we're going to do some exercises to deepen it and have the breath, nourish and support the sound of our voices. The other piece of aligning the breath is breathing life into the experience by also weaving in some silences, speaking without space for them to process. Breathing life into the experience is breathing more like this, and for people listening without breathing life into the experience, it might sound like this the message silence, they say, is the voice of complicity, but silence is impossible. Silence screams. Silence is a message, just as doing nothing is an act. Nourishing our bodies with breath and breathing life into the experience by letting there be a dance between the words and the silences would sound more like this the message Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity, but silence is impossible. Silence screams. Silence is a message, just as doing nothing is an act. It's amazing for the speaker because you get to nourish your body with breath in those silences and it's a win-win-win for everybody because the listeners digest what you're saying mentally and, more importantly, emotionally, in the silences.

Lauri: 16:49

So let's play with some breathing. First, we're going to do an exercise that's like stretching Before we go exercise. We're going to hold our hands up like we're holding a harmonica in between our thumb and our pinky, and then the three other fingers become like the teeth of the harmonica. In case you don't know this, when people are playing a harmonica, they're inhaling or exhaling the whole entire time. So we're going to inhale through our harmonica fingers and then we're actually going to pull the hand out and make an S sound like a hissing snake. It goes like this Now, as you kind of have it, we're going to go again and again, and again, and you can do it on your breath pattern.

Lauri: 17:46

You don't need to feel for mine and be paying attention to two things. One is how much ease can there be? Okay, rather than I gotta. How easy and natural can the process be? And then the other is where is your body moving between your collarbones and your pubic bone? Okay, and let me pause you for one moment and give one more adjustment that I think will bring more ease.

Lauri: 19:50

Yeah, when we're used to suppressing and then we try to breathe deeper. It's like we have this impression that it takes a lot of work and we have to go like work hard to pull the air in. Ease is coming into your body and now that there's so much more breath, I'm gonna ask you to actually stop at about 80 percent of what you could take in. What I'm noticing as he's doing this is that it's like nice and easy, nice and easy and it's getting fuller, and then there's a point where he sort of pulls to try to go all the way to full air quotes. So let your breath live between 20% and 80%, so you never push it all the way out at the end and you don't work to fill it all the way up. You live between 20 and 80.

Eric: 20:50

Okay.

Lauri: 21:00

And now let's change the S to a Z, so we'll sound like buzzing bees. And let me pause for a moment again and ask you where are you noticing the movement now between your collarbones and your pubic bone?

Eric: 21:40

mainly under my diaphrag, so closer to my pelvis.

Lauri: 22:05

Yeah, and for those of you listening or who don't know where the diaphragm is, it's actually that solar plexus area that he mentioned. If you know that, it's where the ribs meet. If you're a woman, it's like where your bra line ends in the front. It's where the ribs meet. If you were to do CPR on yourself or the Heimlich and you know those, that's kind of the spot. So when we first started.

Lauri: 22:27

I was noticing a lot up above, where you would be able to see it on the camera, in the upper chest, and now what he's describing is the majority of the movement is now happening below the camera, down where the belly as we know it is, and I also feel like there's some movement with the rib cage moving sideways. Yes, yes.

Lauri: 22:47

Yes as well. So that's this, if you've heard me mention it before, for anyone listening, it's the image of the pear-shaped balloon I didn't even mention it to him and he's already kind of got it which is like at the top, where our neck is, the pear-shaped balloon doesn't move as much as it does down below where the solar plexus is. So now we're going to do one more Z with the harmonica and then we're going to toss away our harmonicas and we're going to start inhaling through the mouth and expanding all the same areas. It may go faster on the inhale now, just because the hole's going to be bigger. So one more with the harmonica to feel that pear-shaped balloon.

Eric: 23:31

Yeah, okay, and then inhale through the mouth.

Lauri: 24:02

And and I'm starting to experiment with going up and down in pitch, which to me is like when a piano player sits down at the piano and they run their finger across all the keys to make sure that none of them are sticky. We're kind of touching all of our pitches instead of just one to unstick them. And now let's do an om sound like in a yoga class Long O, little M on the end Om. So we've done align the body, which is opening the heart. This is aligning the breath. What are you noticing about your breath now, as opposed to your normal speaking?

Eric: 25:09

There's it's ease, so I'm not forcing it, I'm not thinking it's kind of flowing.

Lauri: 25:19

Eric has described his optimal speaking with a sense of flow and a sense of connection. So his body is enjoying this flow physically and it may mean that when he's in a flow state, he has more of this. So we're finding another doorway into that. And now let's bring in the energy. Aligning energy. We're going to do the opposite. First, um, aligning the energy means that, energetically, we're hugging the whole room and there is a cat, yeah, moving behind eric. And I will tell you, this is what always happens when I'm working with somebody, and the energy starts to shift and the sound of your voice starts to shift, the pets just come on because they are drawn to it.

Eric: 26:20

So, yes, yeah and checking it out'm standing. I'm standing, so he doesn't hop on the chair, because that's what he normally does, but that's the first time he's ever he's ever done that it's hilarious, okay, the energy.

Lauri: 26:39

I use a tool set called anchoring and including. Okay, anchoring is like deep connection, eye contact or heart to heart. If you are on Zoom and you can't see the people, and what a lot of us do is we anchor and then we exclude anyone else who might be in the room. So we're actually going to do that first, and most of us know it, because if we've ever gone to a cafe or out to dinner, we intuitively anchor with the person we're at the cafe or at dinner with and exclude everybody else with our body language, our volume and our energy. So we're going to do an ohm sound to each other, excluding, as if we were sitting in a cafe and we didn't want anybody else all up in our business.

Eric: 27:31

Okay.

Lauri: 27:33

Inhale, om, and now we have dogs starting to communicate back to us. Let's do now anchor and include, so wrap your energetic arms around your whole space. So wrap your energetic arms around your whole space and we're going to send an ohm again. And let's go ahead and start to play with intention, since the dog is barking.

Eric: 28:13

Yeah.

Lauri: 28:15

And let's just see what happens if the intention is to soothe.

Eric: 28:20

Okay.

Lauri: 28:22

So you're imagining that, like we inhale neutral molecules and then we're sending vibrations of soothe on our voice and in that energetic hug and we'll see what happens with the dog Cool, inhale, inhale and, as is sometimes the case in the world, it takes some time for the intention to work because the dog is still barking.

Lauri: 29:02

Yeah, yeah, he's communicating back um other than the dog is still barking. Yeah, yeah, he's communicating back Other than the dog. How did that Om with? Basically, you just did a sound with intend, align and invite. How was that communicated, different than other sounds you've made?

Eric: 29:20

I've. It's different in the context. I've done similar sounds in meditation. So when closing eyes and going within and preparing for meditative journey, for example, I've never used it to set intentions for what we just did. So it felt familiar and new at the same time. So to your point earlier. It was almost as if it's a remembering as well as learning new. I'm putting new in quotes because it's new to the application of this process.

Lauri: 30:02

Yeah, yeah, that's a great way to put it. And a lot of us have other areas of our lives where we might've experienced flow state, we might've experienced open-heartedness, we might've experienced this deeper, more nourishing breathing from scuba diving. I had a client years ago who was like, oh, I just started taking scuba diving lessons and the parallels between the two are really eerie Doing yoga, meditating and then it's taking that skill and drawing it over into the world of speaking to other humans, it over into the world of speaking to other humans, and there can start to be a dexterity with the body, breath and energy, because they're really similar and they're not exactly the same and the more we do them, the more capacity we have in all of them, because it's like our rib cage is literally getting more dexterity Right.

Eric: 32:12

Fascinating that you brought up scuba diving, because I immediately was brought to when I began cold plunges, because cold plunges, when our body hits cold, the instinct is to take a big, deep breath in, and we don't have to work for it, it happens automatically and that breath is the precursor to almost like calm and set up for what we know to be. So thank you for helping that synapsis form there.

Lauri: 32:40

It makes total sense. Yeah, and as you mentioned that, I thought of two things. One was the first breath that we take as babies. I've not had any children. I don't remember when I was a baby. I have heard people speak about it feeling very much the same. When a baby comes out and finally takes their first breath, they've been dropped into something new and radically different than where they were. That might feel a lot like a cold plunge does to us, as adults, so often their first breath is this nice, flowing, nourishing breath.

Lauri: 33:22

And my friend, who I stole the harmonica breathing from, is a singing instructor. Her name is is Lauren Barbeau. She's going to come on here at some point. She always reminded me when singing that every breath is a chance to begin again. So in the middle of a speech, if you feel like your breath has gotten shallow, or if someone asked a question that sort of triggered your imposter monsters to question that sort of triggered your imposter monsters, you can take that first life-giving breath. At any moment it can be one of those.

Eric: 34:00

That's an interesting point, because life-giving doesn't have to be the initial breath of life to get it started. It can resurrect as well.

Lauri: 34:11

Yeah, cool, yeah, can resurrect as well. Yeah, cool, yeah, I like that. Yeah, now let's put this breathing into having you speak. So you're going to speak for roughly 60 seconds this time. I may pause you and say inhale, or something like that. You're speaking about something that you're passionate about. You're setting an intention for what you want us to feel emotionally or energetically.

Eric: 34:38

Okay.

Lauri: 34:39

You're aligning your body, your breath and that energetic hug, and then you're also using silences and watching for signs of that intention coming to life over here in us Me as the face you can see, and then the rest of the us are the listeners that will join us in the future. Any questions? I don't think so. Yeah, remember, because I just said a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of words. Yeah, your body experienced those words. Your body experienced those words. So I gave you the words intend, align, invite and then we deepened your body's experience of what those things mean. Now let's come back to intend, align, invite and trust that I'm over here to say bend your knees a little more, all right, whenever you're ready alignment is a huge aspect of my personal journey and what I offer to clients.

Eric: 35:50

I used to look at this as imbalanced, and as I dove deeper and deeper and deeper into the topic, it became alignment versus misaligned, and what I mean by this is very similar to the idea of when we pour ourselves into something that we do not believe in, it creates stress, but if we pour ourselves into something that we do not believe in, it creates stress, but if we pour ourselves into something that we do believe in, that is purpose and that is excitement. And similarly, this is what happens when we're aligned as opposed to misaligned. If we're continuing to journey in the direction of what we want, we create more passion, we create more connection, we create a better version of ourselves, and this is what that's time, perfect, eric.

Lauri: 36:49

How did that one feel different to you from the first one? It?

Eric: 36:53

felt like it was flowing and there was a pattern of this ebb and flow of breath and words working together in the dance that that you called it, which I love that analogy and I could have, but I don't recognize that I use filler words like uh and uh, my go-tos, like so and things like that. It felt like there was a connection. It felt like my intention of sharing something purposeful and having it received as valuable, aligned with what I was saying.

Lauri: 37:37

I'm going to jump on one thing before I forget it. We think that flow comes from constantly talking.

Eric: 37:45

Yeah.

Lauri: 37:47

And what you just mentioned was there was more flow, less ums if any, I don't know, because our minds were not paying attention to the ums. I'm 99% certain that they went down, if any came out of your mouth. There was actually more flow to your thoughts, more flow to the interchange between the two of us, by allowing there to be breath and silence. And then the words came. And then breath and silence, and then the words came. More flow by integrating silence rather than thinking that flow means I've got to talk and talk and talk and flow from one thing to the next and never give myself a breath For your intention. I heard a little bit of the mental response that you wanted. What was the emotional or energetic response that you were looking or feeling for over here in me and my plants?

Eric: 38:58

Connection Because, ultimately, at the foundation of this is the Ubuntu idea of I am, because we are, and that is 100% connection. So the alignment is the connection. If, if the intention of connection. If I'm able to create that or allow that to occur automatically and energetically, then everything that I'm saying would flow and be received, everything that I'm saying would flow and be received.

Lauri: 39:33

Awesome, awesome, will you? I love to ask people to do this somewhere where you're speaking in the future, try this intend, align, invite, possibly even warming up with a little of that breath and energy stuff, the S's, the harmonica, s's, harmonica, z's, Z's, ohms, and then play with intend, align, invite somewhere that you're speaking within the next week and send me a message and let me know how it goes.

Eric: 40:08

Yes, for sure, I'm actually recording a podcast of a host on mic, so me going through ultimately like a keynote speech type thing, so perfect timing. I will definitely use this and then we'll send you an update on a message on how it went, with the intention of decreasing the editing process, because I utilize the flow appropriately.

Lauri: 40:36

Nice, and let me ask you, as we close, what are your biggest takeaways from today, in your words?

Eric: 40:48

Biggest takeaway your words. Biggest takeaway and this is outside of the box is the more I tap into my true essence of who I am, which is I resonate and see myself, between ages five and eight, as the true being of who I am, and I can feel this energy now who I am. And I can feel this energy now when I let go of everything and tap into that. I am so much closer to source, so much closer to who I am.

Eric: 41:22

My biggest takeaway is dropping all formalities of what I think the world should be and allow me to experience exercises that push me outside of my comfort zone Again, even though I have done things like Japa meditation, that you say the name of God and ah and om, it feels different in a meditative state versus prepping to speak. Allowing myself the opportunity and giving myself permission to do that allows me to tap into who I am. So that is ultimately my biggest takeaway. And second to that would be when doing that, when I let go, I'm able to able to, like I feel more relaxed in my hips from the breathing alone, so the air actually relaxes the body, which feeds out into the communication of what I'm able to offer yeah, I love that and it feels like when we're releasing anything that someone else tells us we need to do or be, and bringing that into speaking.

Lauri: 42:39

I hear all of the masks and the impressions that we have of I need to do X to be a quote unquote good speaker. It's releasing all of that. To be a quote unquote good speaker. It's releasing all of that being you, the you that you knew as your five to eight year old self and connecting from there and that intend align. Invite helps you do more of that.

Eric: 43:06

Totally agree, because at that five to eight, that was innate. I didn't have to think about it, it came naturally. So remembering that innate ability is a beautiful journey, so thank you.

Lauri: 43:21

Yeah, remembering to be who you truly are before the world told you you were supposed to be someone else. Correct, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Yes, thank you.

Eric: 43:37

Thank you.