(00:02) we have been duped by feminism sexual Liberation and anti-depressants we have been told that we are powerful and free now as women but we feel tired wired and bitter we’re mostly eating right exercising and meditating wrangling to-do lists and arranging playdates and yet there’s a haunting hollowness beneath the huge complaint what if I told you that there is a huge Storehouse a reservoir of energy inside of you that has not been tapped that you could feel light and pulsing excited and alive in ways that a wellness lifestyle
(00:49) cannot deliver that you could trust yourself that the world could feel safe and that unexpected and expected Delights could start to illuminate your path no coach therapist doctor or Guru required just you learning to get real present and attentive with you I feel like I’m here to matchmake your inner parts for the greatest love affair ever written I want to help you learn first where you’re buying eggs from the hardware store which is the source of all pain I want to help you master entering through the upset which is the
(01:27) only spiritual practice You’ll Ever Need and to get real comfortable putting on your villain Crown which is in my opinion the key to True power and then you’ll attune to your inner yes so you can live the life defined by the specific pleasure of who you are I am so excited to announce my latest book called The reclaimed woman which is available for pre-order now so if you head to the link in show notes you can learn more about bonuses events and companion offerings and I cannot wait to see your gorgeous face on the
(02:07) [Music] path I’m Dr Kelly Brogan you may know me as a New York Times bestselling author of a book with an exploding pill on the cover Renegade psychiatrist pole dancer or honorary member of the Disinformation Dozen what can I say I’m a born provocator I’ve spent most of my recent life exposing deceptions connecting dots and discovering the secret places my inner victim is still waiting to be liberated and now I feel called to help you reclaim all of your parts your health your sexuality your power and
(02:44) your expression so that you can finally truly own yourself I want to ignite in you that inner knowing and the pulsing Vitality that lives beneath your disempowerment disconnection and resentment so that you can audaciously courageously and playfully alchemize your struggle into the specific pleasure of who you are this is Reclamation radio a soulfire production hi and welcome back to Reclamation radio I’m Dr Kelly Brogan and I am here in conversation with I say conversation rather than in song because it’s a
(03:22) little bit strange to have an interview with a musician and vocalist with Dominique Zuniga who is an artist an educator musician a vocalist and an inspiration to human beings the world over she to me is my weekly private vocal coach and a huge huge part of my Reclamation process really amuse in so many ways and as I have expressed it was around December of last year when I woke up one morning and thought okay there’s something else in this body you know that I have to meet and it has to do with my throat with my expression and
(04:05) something to do with turning what had only ever been like a literal scream you know in my own cathartic therapy space into something beautiful and how could I work with the instrument of my body to access a dimension of myself that I had relegated to like someone else’s Lane right so I was going to stay in my Lane because singing is not my Lane and of course as we reclaim these aspects of ourselves it requires that we move into the lanes that we’ve only ever imagined we don’t belong in so I am super excited to be in conversation with
(04:45) you Dominique and to share your gifts your wisdom and really just the energy of your presence with my audience so thank you so much for being here with me thank you for having me such an honor like it’s been such an honor to host you like and guide you on this journey deepening your connection with the voice and just witnessing you bring out new depths in me and just have this connection So yeah thank you for having me so one of the ways that you always open up session is to share this framework that I’m here to teach you and
(05:25) you are here to teach me which sounds comical because if you head over to her Instagram or her Spotify you might imagine that I don’t have a lot to teach her when it comes to the realm of singing and vocalization and we have had this beautiful experience that I think characterizes so much of what happens between women and specifically and especially women who are interested in this Mutual expansion right this reciprocal relationship and this kind of like all boats rise which is what I have found in the realm of pole dance and My
(06:01) Dance Experience is that the women I’ve encountered in my life recently have been specifically interested in my personal expansion and don’t in any way exhibit a sense of being threatened by that right and I guess it’s maybe even just like my medical training or some sister woundology that I was working with earlier in my life where I I sometimes guard against the sense that a woman who is more proficient more skilled than me at whatever it is that will working on and she’s working on with me is going to feel threatened by
(06:34) my growth and my expansion and you know that’s the classical mother wound right that I can’t get bigger than my mom because I’m going to get punished so I have to attenuate and stay in this small box and never for one second have I had that experience with you and quite the opposite you know that you put me in this space with you that I I feel in many ways I barely belong but I I do think that it’s the reality that women when we’re ready to create and restore and invest in this fabric between us
(07:05) it’s almost like they’re all these women’s hands waiting you know to to sort of like move us through these different birth canals of our life and so I would love to start Dominique with just some of what you’ve shared with me and what you’re comfortable sharing about your journey I don’t normally start my interviews this way because I think it’s a bit like oh tell me your story you know it’s like a bit like cliche in your case I actually feel like this is one of the most essential
(07:33) elements of igniting others around vocal what I’m calling it like vocal Reclamation I don’t know what a better term is but is the fact that you have very humble Origins you know when it comes to the relationship that you had to your gift right when when someone hears you singing today for them to know that you came from a place where you you didn’t know necessarily that you had this inside of you I think is is a huge part of the alchemy that then you can pay forward to the rest of us who would otherwise presume that you were born
(08:07) like this you know that you were born this way and when I first heard your story when you shared it with me it really helped me to Anchor in the excitement of potential and possibility and when we last had our our session you said you know you encouraged me to reflect on my progress and I told you I could really feel like wow I have made so much progress like coming into a sense of ease with my voice you know with my body as an instrument and that progress is the Delight right so I wonder if you could share with us your
(08:40) voice Journey you know like what was it like for you to to start out with a sense of disconnection from this gift and to be in the place that you are now where you are internationally recognized the claimed and have opportunities and business and everything that has manifested because of this gift oh thank you for all of that there’s a lot of gold in there first I just want to reflect on a few things and then I will share my journey with the voice a bit how you expressed like creating a space of safety is so
(09:16) important for me and for my students like it is so important for me to take down the mask of like this singer archetype and connect human to human like Beyond this role that I play Beyond this identity that we all play we are just bare raw bone human to human is very important for me to like create that space of safety and vulnerability especially with the voice because it’s so intimate and so vulnerable just to really connect like heart to heart so thank you for honoring that and I’ve experimented with this like over the
(09:54) years of teaching I’ve experimented with having not shared my story and I can feel an energy of almost like feeling threatened or feeling intimidated more of a disconnection from the audience and then when I share my story and just like bear my raw Soul there is this sense of oh my God if she can do it I can do it oh my God like that is inspiring wow feeling a sense of connection you know a sense of humbleness a sense of gratitude and I think it’s just important like to honor that we all have such Divine gifts
(10:36) within all of us we like have the ability to move to shake to speak to dance to create like we’re human beings we’re not an animate objects we are so powerful we can create new worlds and whatever we literally put our mind to with the power of our will we can manifest and create so it’s so important I feel like to honor like the seed the Journey of how it all began because people often see just the surface like wow this is amazing this person is you know people tend to put people on a pedestal without having seen like the
(11:16) battles that they’ve had to fight to get to where they are now and it really comes from a genuinely humble place of like I know that I’ve earned the space in my Throne I know that I’ve earned every single step of the way in this sense of self-mastery and masterful skill but I also honor that there’s always room to grow and that I came from Humble humble beginnings and that’s it’s very important for me to honor like every time I open space you are my teacher as much as you are my student in
(11:49) many ways like if we look at life as everybody as a teacher I feel like we can actually grow and learn so much more it’s very important to stay humble so thank you you for really honoring that and and receiving taking that in and reflecting on my journey it’s just so profound like I never imagined that I would be singer at all I grew up really suppressed by my father he was Saudi Arabian he raised me my mother was in prison and he was an alcoholic and physically abusive and I remember coming home feeling like I was walking on
(12:31) eggshells very afraid to speak like truce get them sing like not at all in the cards I mean I had a straight path like paved for me it’s like come home from school do your homework sleep like just everything was very straight I was going to go to an all worlds Catholic High School become an attorney everything was like just straight what pays the bills and you know I couldn’t I didn’t have a room to think freely or to ask questions you know and eventually when I was 13 things just got so so bad they took a huge turn and I literally
(13:11) just felt like wow I really want to take my own life it’s like either my dad is going to kill me or I am like I can’t live this way I feel so suppressed and unhappy and disconnected like from my true nature like how is it possible that we’re just born to pay for our houses that we’re never in to pay for our cars that get us tuned from work to breed a whole generation of essentially just slaves what it feels like and just die like there has to be more to life than this and at 13 is when my whole life
(13:43) took a turn and my father got arrested and I ended up in a group home and in the foster care system and that’s when my life as an artist truly began I felt just dropped like alone there’s nobody else just you who are you it was like really looking myself dead in the eye like what is important to me what matters to me and I remember like life not making any sense just seeing so many adults not having any idea what was going on like there’s no map to life they have no idea what they’re doing any
(14:19) more than I do this is like an improvisation what are we doing here and I remember art being my place of Refuge was like the one place where I felt safe where nothing could make sense and it could be okay I remember taking like sticks from the earth and like pine cones and just like painting them splattering paint having like crazy emotion and then like refining them and making like a mess of Art and it not making any sense but feeling incredibly at peace feeling like this is a safe space for chaos to come immune with the
(15:00) infinite and it just felt so at home and one day this woman in my foster home I I heard a voice and it changed my life like I thought it was the radio and I remember coming out of my room and I just saw her like playing the guitar and singing she had like crazy punk rock hair and she just looked very wild and free and she was playing the guitar and singing and I heard so much like angst in her voice so much raw wild feminine but also like very Angelic in peace but beyond that what I saw is that she had found a place within
(15:41) herself that no matter what happened in her life she always had that place anchored within her that was Untouchable that she was totally at peace with herself and she found a pillar of gold through her voice and I just kind of saw that and was like man if I can do that I’m going to get through anything in this life and so that’s when my journey began of just like constantly just pouring myself into my voice and it’s been 13 years and there’s this quote that says if you want to learn how to be
(16:14) good at something you have to suck at it first and I love that quote because it’s so accurate like literally my first five six years I was just terrible like hard to imagine terrible and yeah it’s just it’s been a long humbling Journey ever since there’s so much to share on that I’m just not sure how much no that’s perfect you’ve told me about a time where you felt able to like access even an expanded range of your voice right so it’s like not only that you would describe your voice as like terrible or
(16:50) there was like a shyness and you were sort of like scrapple learning how to like play the guitar and not sure you know whether you were a performer or just like somebody experimenting and playing around but there was this moment right where you started to connect to like the gift itself right like that there’s way more here for you than you know you ever suspected I remember you told me that yeah okay this is the gold nuggets thanks for extracting that yeah so for those five years I realized that I was singing from a place
(17:24) of wanting to sound like somebody I was singing based off of my condition based off of like this sounds pretty I want to sing like this or this feels good I want to sing like that looking up on YouTube getting an old beating up guitar and trying to learn how to play it just so I could feel supported with my voice so it was years of just this like kind of chasing something outside of myself and one day yeah my whole life changed my artist name is is z way and I started a club in high school called Z way it’s an
(17:58) acronym for resen Enlightenment and metanoia which means Spiritual Awakening and asperos it’s Greek for Healthy Mind my whole life changed at like 16 I remember my English honors teacher offering me two books which changed my life forever it was SE Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and a new by eer toi and by that time I had hit rock bottom had just been arrested I was around hard drugs everything was just shifting and those books they somehow just hit me like everything was very simplified and I started to do
(18:36) yoga meditation every day started to really dig deep for kind of this metaphysical world but there must be a deeper world that exists beyond what I can see I want to get in touch with that I want to feel in touch with myself with Source I want to feel connected to everything like how can I feel that so I started this club s’s way and it was kind of like a like a call for my my people My Tribe like-minded beings I had no idea what the hell I was doing like I was so shy and awkward and just watching so many people like come i’ put a bunch
(19:10) of snacks a bunch of enlightened books and a bunch of instruments I didn’t know how to play and just sit there awkwardly and like watch people arrive and not sure what to do with myself and one day this Native American man king lugga man and he looked at me like he knew me better than than myself and he helped me so much he just started to come and he would drum and kind of support the space and one day when he was there he was drumming and I could start to feel the energy Gathering like creating a space
(19:45) of connectivity with source and one day I just was singing with him and I just like like this note just like came pouring out of my body and I just remember I was just shaking and crying and trembling and it was like such an Angelic High not and I was like holy like I was just crying and shaking and looking at him and I couldn’t believe that happened like it came pouring out and for a really long time like I could feel it like just coming through me and so that was a pinnacle moment as a vocalist I didn’t even
(20:22) identify myself as a vocalist at the time but like it was a pinnacle moment for me where I realized holy this has nothing to do with me this is much greater than me it’s about what I want to allow to come through me like I am just an instrument I open wrestle for the Divine to come through me what happens when I let go of my worldly attachments it happens when I let go of my shell of the stories I tell myself of who I am attached to the labels and what I do you know and and just really allow myself to empty and like listen and
(21:02) allow this pure energy to flow through me and like literally like drop my jaw open my mouth relax my shoulders just completely soften and dissolv into emptiness like that’s when the Sorcerer of the song came through that’s when the channel started to come through and my whole journey began essentially yeah I mean I think many would Define what you’re describing as the essence of the feminine right to become this channel you know for this superal energy to just move through and whether it’s through you know whatever
(21:40) kind of expression is native to your body whether it’s through voice or movement or other you know sort of creative Endeavor and I also know that you create a lot of masculine structure you know for your life and in your approach and that’s part of why we are a match right because if I just you know met with you and you just channeled you know Divine sounds in front of me I would be at a concert right I would like buy tickets and be at a concert but because you also have a relationship to what I would describe as you know that
(22:17) sort of masculine container that masculine structure and you do honor and value technique there is this bridge and the ability to translate and guide and share you know through through this sort of woman tooman ignition you know what it is that you experience so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the relationship between technique and structure and also this kind of improvisational energy because when I first saw your video on Instagram I I think somebody had tagged you when I first announced that I was going down
(22:52) this path and when I first saw your video I mean I can remember the sensation inside of my body it’s one of had before of experiencing another woman’s feminine gifts and feeling it in my body as a simultaneous like deep bow like a devotional bow like I see you woman like you are a creation to behold and also this like hunger like I want the feeling that I know she has in her body because I can feel it in mine I want to create that you know from my body and it’s the same feeling I get when I watch women dance you know like
(23:30) it’s like this deep admiration and then also this simultaneous like bring me with you woman you know I want to come with you and when we first started working together and I started working in your digital programs I could see like this woman is actually like very organized around her approach to educating you know and your relationship specifically to you know what you refer to as like World scales like different kinds of musical scales Beyond like do you know kind of a thing and also your relationship which I think you would
(24:04) describe as devotional to practice and to the commitment to the support refinement and investment in this you know instrument that is your body so how do you sort of see that because I’m very interested in polarities right I’m very interested in sort of like how does this channeled feminine energy work with technique and structure because a lot of what we do together is you know structured right it’s like many repetitions of you know a specific sound or tone and then it’s like very specifically making sure you know that I
(24:41) am hitting the right you know note if I’m learning something that you’ve channeled literally like a a Melody that you’ve channeled like in the shower and for me that’s fascinating that it’s it’s both because it also makes it accessible you know it’s like the feminine you know water needs the banks you know in order to travel between spaces so how over the years have you come to relate to these like seemingly different spaces this topic excites me so much yes it is like the laws of nature
(25:15) you know the tree in order for the tree to grow it needs to have the root the base the Earth to ground upon you know the water needs the banks to flow it is I feel for self-mastery to really take shape I feel it is essential to bridge not only the feminine sense of devotion and emotion and feeling and just pure surrender and awe but also the technique the refinement the self-discipline to really commit yourself like every day to refining your sound and getting to know each key each scale with such like intimacy and devotion and then bridging
(26:05) those worlds of like having that knowledge gives you that freedom having that knowledge gives you that confidence having that knowledge then you’ll be able to fly even stronger you know and I see this a lot in spiritual community so I’m really really happy to talk about this cuz it gets a little bit slightly triggering to be honest to be mind tells what I say but it’s triggering like because you know but I’m I’m also humble with it because it’s been I was that person like for years I just
(26:41) devoted myself to the voice I found the channel I found the source and I was like oh my God this is incredible I’m a singer like I can sing but once I joined the Opera and I got training once I started to play with Masters I was like holy there is a profound level of self-discipline self-mastery I mean these people study every day these people dedicate their lives to it this is their life like they are completely devoted to their craft I mean my muse my huge inspiration then former partner Adan swades incredible musician the
(27:18) first time I saw him play I Was mind blown it was like he had come back from war like he had been in war for lifetimes and he was a musician and he finally had the chance to play and he’s multi-instrumentalist World musician and the first time I saw him play his hand pan I mean it was like he was gonna die like he like it was the last chance he’d ever have to play his hand pan I’ve never seen somebody get so many different sounds I mean he’s playing with his knuckles he’s playing with his
(27:47) fingertips with his elbows I mean there was so much emotion it was a journey it was like he was like running but then also crying and then softening and then making love like I could feel so much love life in me as he was playing and I remember like it was honestly just playing with masterful musicians that made me realize oh my god let’s get serious let’s honor the foundation let’s honor technique I started investing in teachers I started investing in coaches I was like I want to know my craft I
(28:19) want to know the spaces in between I want to know the silence I want to feel my voice before it becomes sound I want to commun with every like fabric of my voice like before I let it out you know it started to become a practice of deep discernment and devotion at the same time it’s like so many people want to be heard so many people want to be special and want to be seen but how often can we have the will and the self-discipline to really like refine our craft and so I have a lot of respect for those masterful musicians that I
(28:59) such a deep honor to play with that have helped me commune with that level of technique and self-discipline while also honoring my deep devotion and in my emotion so I find this often in the spiritual Community where a lot of beings will connect to the source they’ll wake up and they’ll find the channel and then automatically just like okay I’m a singer and go out and start teaching and you know doing these things but without respecting the ancient theory behind it I mean there are three like what we’re doing the classical
(29:32) Indian scales like that is an ancient Theory based off of 3,000 years of Masters like keeping that knowledge alive like it’s been passed down for lineages them keeping it alive and constantly refining it and finding new theories and new scales and new codes it’s like vocal coding like ancient theory is essentially like vocal coding cing and once you crack those codes you can start to play and have more freedom within that container so for me it’s like truly the key to Mastery is having that ancient Theory and also that
(30:13) ancient wisdom and that feeling the two sandwich together is just like so beautiful totally yeah no I’m I’m seeing when you’re talking that it it really is like there’s a mature masculinity that’s required to not only honor the impulse so there was some moment in your path where you had this impulse that might have seemed crazy like I want to sing right and even for me a few months ago I had this impulse that seemed kind of quote unquote crazy like I want to sing right I want to learn what this whole
(30:45) singing thing is about and to have that strong masculine container that that does not shame dismiss or otherwise like ignore but creates the space to honor that impulse and then Rec recognizes like the humility of the beginning of the journey right so at the beginning of the journey there are certain steps that you take to be like initiated onto a path but the path never ends everybody knows that right so it’s like the masculine pursuit of Mastery is predicated on failure and continued failure and never completing right
(31:19) that’s a mature masculine energy knows that and actually enjoys that right so I feel that in in what you’re saying this like space that you’ve created for your energy to move and that is so much of what I have really cherished in in working with you is your relationship to emotional Alchemy and what it is to tap into these huge maybe even Collective but they don’t need to be because they’re always also personal reservoirs of emotional energy and to really work with them alchemically and also to to
(31:57) use your voice as a therapy right like as an instrument for reconnecting to the self let alone you know inspiring others to do the same and so in my experience and for those who are beginning to explore their their voice their songstress you know I there was so much shame I mean there would be times I would feel like oh my God I made the noise in front of the woman you know like this is this basic and I would feel like simultaneously so proud and also that I had done something so terrifying that just tears would you
(32:35) know start you know flying down my face and and that has happened many many times in this process of bringing myself to be witnessed in my vulnerability as you said you know to the eyes of a loving caring supportive woman so we’ll pause here for a message from our sponsor my membership Community vital life project so if if you want to hang with me ask me questions in live coaching get free access to my master classes curated content discounts and to the incredible humans that I attract my membership vital life project is where
(33:09) it’s at it’s the only membership of its kind and you’ll shed your struggle transform your victim story and level up your Reclamation game with others who get it join at the Lincoln show notes and at Kelly Brogan md.com but you’ve also instructed me and guided me very deeply in specifically like I’ll mention two examples and then I just want you to share you know how you relate to singing as an emotional Alchemy tool because I know you do that probably on The Daily and one of them was you were encouraging me to I think
(33:46) we we were on zoom and you had it you had me on mute so that helped but you you encouraged me to use my voice but more the energy behind my voice so really to use my body to call to to express to like a woman who was being raped in an alley way right so you sort of painted this picture for me and this woman is you know being violated and I and I have this opportunity to use my voice like how would I use my voice to disrupt to signal to command to take claim you know on that space and it was so I mean I could cry now thinking about it like
(34:28) there’s just something about that that prompt that is so raw and so reminds me on a soul level what the voice is really about you know I do a lot of talking but it’s it’s just one little sliver of what can happen when you use your body to influence right to inspire and really to connect and I remember you taught me also this scale this melody right and as I was learning it you prompted me to sort of feel that I was like right like marching with this like Army of women and just like even that phrase like you
(35:08) know any woman listening to that you know it’s like you can start to feel it in your tissues like what would that feel like to like March you know like singing with an army of women there is and it’s not with the intent to really do anything you know necessarily you didn’t say like so you could brw you know on the man it wasn’t like that it was it was just like you’re with these it’s like this this reling of the fabric of Sisterhood and those two examples stand out in my mind and I know you’ve
(35:41) also told me you know like when you’re in the like go find a little space and just like make sounds until you you know reconnect to yourself and this so foreign to me it’s so foreign to me you know as somebody who would like take a paper and a pen and write out my thoughts and feels feelings instead or you know maybe later in my embodiment process you know like maybe sit down with like a hand on my body and like find the place that’s feeling the thing and then talk to it you know so so I would love to know you know how you sort
(36:13) of see the voice as not only a personal you know therapeutic tool for emotional Alchemy but even collectively like what is your Grand Vision maybe even for you know what could happen if more and more women come online or come into connection with their singing voices as you know as a dimension of themselves that they now have a relationship with wow beautiful phenomenal phenomenal burn so much toare so I firmly believe in the power of rights of Passage these initiations that things don’t come to you easily I mean they do but you can
(36:58) always go so much deeper and the more that you give yourself to that thing the more it’ll give itself to you and so that’s what I’ve discovered with the voice is that it has its own Essence there is like this Collective voice I feel in a sense this Collective Roar for all the women who have been shut up before us with the women that will come after us with the women who are getting killed and youan for not wearing their H jobs or for wearing their hair down and wild with the women who are getting you
(37:32) know literally their genitals sewn shut who could not speak and say stop like there is a whole Collective no especially with women I feel that has been just shoved and suppressed for the women that have been raped and could not speak because their mouths were muffled like we are singing for them for that Collective for their freedom we are bringing them whole this is our Roar this is our Reclamation of the Sacred feminine through our voice it is so potent and powerful and we leave ripples throughout the collective we leave in
(38:09) imprint for Generations like it is the most powerful tool that we have because it is within our body and because it is so vulnerable and so intimate you know we have meditation and we have yoga that has become quite common in mainstream to like work out your body remove your body you know it’s it’s kind of more mechanical it’s a bit more task oriented but the voice requires such depth and such Devotion to really touch the Alchemy of source to really feel that Veil like becoming more thin and just
(38:50) feeling your connection to all that is in your power it really takes such deep emotion and cathartic relief lease so it is so important for me to invoke these sort of cathartic scenarios because essentially as a human species it seems like it is easier to love ourselves Through The Eyes of another you know if somebody else reflects to us like oh you’re so amazing you’re so beautiful it’s you know maybe not for all of us but it hits differently than if you were to say it for yourself you know it’s like almost more believable or
(39:27) when human beings have purpose it’s like we’re designed to have purpose we we must have purpose to feel like sufficient human beings and so I love invoking cathartic scenarios where you have to se for a purpose where it is almost a rights of Passage initiation so that you can really feel like all of the layers of like how should I sound like is this right you know all that mind shatter just peel back to the Pure Source of that just like just that grit that like pure feeling the feeling in the gut that
(40:06) sacred feminine because I feel truly like deep within us all as a human species within men and women but specifically women as being like the Sorcerers of life itself we are the threshold between life and death we bear life from our wounds we choose you know who want to create life like no man would exist without a woman we are creat chicks we have the power of creativity right within us accessible to us all the time I feel it’s a matter of not learning but simply remembering you know how to access these codes that are
(40:47) already within us and creating that spaciousness that container of potency of power of depth of purpose of you know to really connect to that to that source and for me in my journey the most potent Revelations I’ve had with my voice was through like powerful Retreats through my teachers having cathartic scenarios where it was like my life depended on how much I was able to use my voice you know and sometimes it doesn’t mean like being hard or fast or strong like the voice is such a feminine thing being
(41:25) strong you can be strong but also be very soft and delicate in our Western culture we’re taught do do do work harder to get results but with the voice it’s such a feminine thing that you can really refine it and be strong and be powerful but in a very soft Soul trembling way so yeah there’s much depth and emotional Alchemy to be unraveled especially when relating it to all those women who have not had the chance to have their voices heard like we can now it’s Hol fractal right you know because
(42:05) when we step into claim of our embodied you know tools and gifts and portals of expression it shifts you know the capacity of course you know for others to do the same in this you know sort of morphic resonance kind of away and I know that you know while there is an energy of you know this is our moment as women you know to to stand together to stand our ground against all that has all the transgressors and perpetrators some of the most powerful moments of alchemy that I’ve had and that I’ve experienced have been in that sort of
(42:45) more like tender space in that vulnerability that you’re describing and I know that you know when when you’ve guided me like your voice can be huge I me your voice can be loud and big and take up a lot of space and then you can sing also like this like sweet like little whisper almost like a little girl you know kind of a a sound that is as powerful and that to me is disruptive to this idea that power like feminine power looks one way which is initially how I was attracted to expressing my my song stress if you will was like you know I
(43:25) was like super interested in like like how big a sound you know can I make and one of the exercises practices I don’t know that you took me through or we did together was to I can’t remember exactly maybe you remember how you prompted me but to sing sentiments to you know somebody that I wanted to connect to in devotion and I chose my father M and you had prompted me to speak to you know his mother and to him through song and it was like my God that was like one of the most powerful experiences I’ve had you
(44:09) know in the past year and that is saying something was so vulnerable and so intense and the way that you prompted me to like come into this like intimate space of expression but not through through spoken word to me I felt like whatever we did that day was like for the women of the world I mean it literally had that that feeling and so I know that there is a a connection that you inspire and that you embody that comes from these like deep spaces I think many of us have you know sort of cined off in the shame realm you know so
(44:46) like I wonder what you would say to a woman who is intrigued by what we’re talking about but also feels like well I could never do that that sounds like cringeworthy you know or that sounds like too you know just too vulnerable too much like how how do you recommend you know that women interact with the shame that we have adopted and then you know we’ we’ve self-d domesticated right that we have kept ourselves in this grid of Behavioral appropriateness and avoidance of our own vulnerability and tenderness like because of this you know
(45:27) m of that shame wall as I would call it you know so any sort of I don’t know ways that you would recommend people begin or enter that was a beautiful beautiful one wow so the best thing that the voice has taught me is to love and accept every aspect of my being even when it’s most difficult so the more that I fall in love and accept like every part of my myself the more I just hear it in my voice you know it’s such a reflection of my soul and I think that depth that you’re hearing that range the
(46:09) highs the lows the big the soft the quiet I would say to this woman who’s you know going through shame and vulnerability and feeling uncomfortable feeling like this might be too far out of reach for her to really exercise your ability to feel safe communing with the depths of your being because it’s not about perfection we’re not striving for Perfection it’s not about sounding beautiful or sounding perfect I believe that this comes from this shame ultimately a source from a precondition of thinking that we need to
(46:48) sound a certain way or be a certain way Society has bred us to be almost like autom mutants like perfect you know to the like do this do that cross your keys do this and it’s very inauthentic I celebrate authenticity I celebrate depth I celebrate full spectrum raw humanness over Perfection 110% I think that this is a part of creating this sort of Ling Earth Paradigm this is a part of the Reclamation of our system of our conditioning is turning authenticity as the new Perfection depth as the new Perfection you know the reason why I’ve
(47:33) been able to reach so much of a range in my voice is because I’ve sat with my pain and I’ve made it my best friend because I’ve sat with my le and I’ve made love to it because I’ve sat with my shame and I’ve just you know kissed it and sang to it I’ve turned all of those things into a song I’ve learned to alchemize the most sticky raw uncomfortable bits of being sheing and sing it home to sing to it in a way where it just feels good to my being and it reminds me who I am and it
(48:11) doesn’t always sound beautiful and that’s okay it’s that journey of accepting the full spectrum of your raw human nature and loving yourself every step of the way through the voice is what actually shapes and refines The Voice into such a crystal you know it didn’t sound beautiful in the beginning it became beautiful because I learned to love myself more and accept myself more in every way and I learned to let go of my expectations my attachments to how I should sound and accepted where I’m at
(48:45) now and it’s a continuous Journey continuous humbling journey of letting go of how I should sound and how I should be but the creatures that really inspire me the most is the kids like in indigenous tribes in Africa these primitive kids or indigenous tribes in Brazil with the yawa like they’re so young and they have such a primitive force of mric look in their eyes they’re not singing to sound beautiful they’re not singing to hit a certain key they’re singing for a God they’re singing to connect
(49:20) to Source their feet are stomping on the ground they’re full on like that like just so like with a bunch of colors and syllables they rolling out of their mouth like they’re just you can feel the life force energy exuding out of them and they’re so young but they have such a force nature in their eyes and they’re so primitive and so deeply connected and when I look at those kids I’m like ah let’s go let’s see each other home and it’s favorite thing like in inperson Retreats with women like as
(49:55) you were describing earlier how you felt this hunger of like oh what is that like take me with you I want to go that is like the essence of like the inperson Retreats is just like seeing each other and feeling each other skin to skin eyes to eyes you know just voice to voice no words no concept no mind no Story Just Pure like come on sister let’s sing together just singing each other home and you can feel like when the other person is going hi when the other person is going low you start to dance with your voices and just really create such
(50:32) an ecstatic Union of like we’re safe we’re safe in this we’re at home like of self-acceptance and love and deep vulnerability in it all in the shame and the guilt and the pleasure and all of it it’s just so beautiful to be able to like cheer each other on as sisters and just play and sing and just r i remember one of the most I don’t know mysterious experiences that I’ve had with you was that transmission you know it’s like when you instructed me to like hold this melody and just keep singing this melody
(51:07) that you had taught me and then your voice was like dancing around mine improvising around mine and there was just something in that that felt like I healed you know eight generations of women in my line in like those two minutes I mean it’s like makes me terious it was just so profound and again like I don’t literally don’t know what a music note is like I have no connection to music to the world of Music I’ve never played an instrument before and so to me it’s like I know you’re interested in these Greek
(51:41) terminologies you know like an aosa is like this like remembrance of what was once known you know like that’s what this this feels like to me and I hear so much in in what you share that it’s not only like a Devotion to to this Divine energy it’s really a Devotion to yourself you know if you are making love to your squigglies most you know disturbing unwelcome pinous parts of you that is devotion you know that is what devotion looks like and if it starts here at home then of course it’s going
(52:18) to be experienced as you know spreading forth and inspiring and igniting others in the same way so I just I love this I love this conversation with you you and I want to to end Dominique with what you might offer you know as sort of an entry point to this kind of devotional practice for somebody who is you know just sort of like what’s this about you know who who thinks of themselves as not a singer and who is just curious you know what might be in this space for them you know whether it’s in terms of
(52:52) integration or healing or self-exploration let alone really getting to a place where the sounds that come out of their body sound pleasing and feel good you know to their own vessel you know where might you recommend that somebody start do you think oh good question you know I’d like to challenge these women they have no idea where to start when you first wake up in the morning this has become a recent practice of mine and I invite you to try this very simple before you speak to anybody before you use your voice for
(53:35) communication or for the mundane weake up be silent but be very present with your voice just like breathe her in feel her in her silence feel her come up your belly and your chest and your lungs and Par on your lips start to create this sort of sensual connection with your voice as if you’re meeting a lover for the first time and feeling her in her Essence before it becomes the song and when you’re ready before communicating to anybody first thing in the morning devote yourself to your voice as if you’re singing yourself into
(54:19) your day you know and it doesn’t have to be an English words you know if it’s hard to conceptualize but can just wake up and simply put your hand on your heart and just feel her and maybe it can be something like oh I’ve never done this before and live on that good morning you know you can feel what it’s like to love yourself through your voice when you first wake up before giving your voice to anybody else for any mundane typical things and so you honor the voice you first wake up as a source
(55:08) for devotion and you’ll find that you know when you’re speaking versus when you’re singing to somebody there’s so much that can be said with less words with more tone and more emotion when you’re singing to yourself you know I think this just I feel tired today it’s like so different you know like so much emotion and depth can be reached in just the simplest word so I invite you to just when you’re singing yourselves in the morning you know to take one word and surf with it play with its colors
(55:51) see how many circles it can make see how long it wants to go if it wants to go high alone find the depth in just one part of your word or your sound and let it really hit you and you can do that for a minute or five and then just go about your day as you normally would but if you start to practice that you know every morning you can make yourself like a 30-day challenge every morning you devote yourself to your voice before anybody else I think you’ll start to really develop such a beautiful connection with her as like a friend or
(56:25) a lover you are such an inspiration woman and I am like you’re welcome everyone for for you know this experience of of Dominique I’m so so delighted you know that we could be in this in this conversation and to point people in the direction of the inspiration you know that is your self-expression and also introduce you know everyone to this path that is for all of us it is a path for all of us who identify as self-identify as artists or who are you know literally working a cubicle job and commuting on the subway
(57:06) it is a path for all of us to to explore what what is possible you know through through this kind of intimate relationship to our self-expression so I am so grateful for you to you and I know that this has been helpful inspiration to so many so thank you Dominique thank you you so many beautiful prompts those were like yeah that was gold thank you so much beautiful woman
