rough day

by | Mar 8, 2017 | struggle

Hi Friends!  I have to admit to you today that I am down-trodden x 10 today!  I knew it was going to come this week.  After all, I have never had Premenstrual Syndrome, but rather…POST-menstrual Syndrome.  Is that TMI?  Well, sorry if it is, but it’s true.  I don’t get down and depressed during the days leading up to it but rather during the days following.  And here I am.  My energy level is low.  I’m feeling blah.  And I just can’t seem to get any traction with the IMPORTANT things I need to do for my business.  Does this sound familiar to you?

I guess I need to give myself a break.  After all, I am just human.  But I feel like I’ve been operating in superhuman mode over the past few weeks and trying like a mad woman to get websites and social media set up so that I can just plunk information into them.  I’m also in the process of creating courses, which is the main goal for my online business…but there is just so much work involved.  It’s also not easy to do the bulk of the work unless you have a dedicated, rather large chunk of time to dedicate to do just that.  I have also kept my energy flow pretty high over the past few weeks, so it is totally normal and actually pretty predictable that they would plummet right now.  But still…

I’m also just struggling in general with creating the community that I am going to need for these courses to be successful.  I have a Facebook page.  I have a blog.  I want to start a podcast.  And there’s the courses I want to sell (my ultimate goal)…but WHERE oh WHERE are the people??  Today, on my way home from the cafe where I was working early this morning, I was just feeling so down.  I don’t take it personally when people don’t engage with my posts.  I’m past that.  I just want to know WHAT to post to make them engage.  And no, I don’t want to download any more plugins or pay anymore money to ensure that that happens.  Isn’t there another way?  How can I engage people and get information from them to help me build my courses in the process?  I know there are people out there who want to learn how to sing.  Why?  Because I’ve taught many of them and literally everywhere I go, people are telling me they’ve always wanted to learn how to sing.  Why then, is it so hard to get people to respond to my posts about singing?

My only conclusion is that I need to have content and notoriety before I can have the respect and following I need to have.  But how do I get that???  How do you get your foot in the door and get people’s respect so that they will spread your name like wildfire and shout it from the mountains that everyone interested in what you teach should come to you???

And when?  How long will this take?  weeks?  months??  years????

So what will I do?  Well, my tendency is to plow right through it all.  I know I will probably stay with that tendency.  But in the meantime, I just don’t feel like I have time to lose.  I quit my job to invest all my would-be-working time to get my business off the ground, but some days I just don’t feel like I’m getting there quick enough.  On top of that, I have Mommy guilt.  And I don’t even know if I would call it that really.  I feel less guilty and more…just sad about having to put my 3-year-old daughter in preK 4 days a week so I can figure all this out.  After all, she’ll only be little once, right?  And I feel like I’m missing out on being with her in order to figure all this out and try to (at SOME point) generate some income through all this.

Anyway…I don’t necessarily share this post to vent with you.  I do have bouncing boards and people I can go to for things like this.  But I do want to let you know, if you are struggling, that STRUGGLE IS REAL and it’s all part of the process when you are trying to create the business of  your dreams.  And I am.  I want to figure this out.  I am DETERMINED to figure this out.  But the groundwork laying part is hard.  All the setting up and days you feel like time is just flying by and working against you are hard.  And have I mentioned HOW MUCH INFORMATION there is to learn???

I’m literally taking 2 pretty big courses simultaneously.  Yep…that’s right.  2!!  I don’t know if I’m ambitious or insane or both.  But I just feel like I need to learn and this is the quickest way to get there.

YOU:  What 2 courses are you taking, Amy?

ME:  Well, glad you asked.  I’m taking “Courses that Convert” by Amy Porterfield and “LIGHTS, CAMERA, BRANDING” by Tiffany Lee Bymaster.  Both ladies are fabulous and the content is incredibly rich.  So it’s inspiring me.  There’s just not enough time in the day.

Speaking of which…gotta go listen to another lesson and GET ON IT!

Have a great day!

…and thanks for listening.

P.S. – Please feel free to comment below on some of the areas you are struggling in with your business.

xoxo

Posture vs. Body Alignment

Posture vs. Body Alignment

by | Mar 8, 2017 | singing

So which is it?

Is it posture or body alignment?

I’d like to think it is a mixture of both.  But for the sake of this post, I’ll talk mainly about body alignment.  Posture, for me, always brings up visions of a military officer.  It makes me immediately feel stiff, tense and somewhat stressed.  It gives me the feeling of being upright, unnatural and serious.  For years, none of these mental images and perceptions made sense to me as a singer.  I did it, because I was told to.  But I didn’t know how it made sense and fit together with the idea of being relaxed as a singer.  So, with that in mind, the idea of replacing the word “posture” with “body alignment” was a breath (no pun intended) of fresh air to me.

So when we talk about body alignment, we are referring to the way we stand or the way our buoyant bodies move in place.  It’s the way we energize the voice while we are in an energized but stable position.

We begin with proper body alignment by standing against the wall with our heels, buttocks, shoulder blades and head touching the wall.  When we walk away from the wall, we have more awareness of where our head should be in relation to the body.  But this is the part where we relax the shoulders, breathe and allow our bodies to be relaxed but energized with our sternum high and our feet placed slightly apart with knees slightly bent.  We’ll talk more about the bent knees in a moment, but the point is this:  we want to stand tall, but never, ever stiff.  We want to be in a noble posture that emphasizes height but never tension.

After we find this tall, noble posture with the sternum high and shoulders relaxed back and down.  Oh…by the way…did I mention we don’t want HIGH shoulders when we sing?  I didn’t?  Well, anyway…we don’t want high shoulders.  And then, after all that…(are you still with me?) we want to make sure our back and hips are properly aligned and our feet are hips’ width apart with both knees slightly bent and one leg slightly more forward and bent than the other.

What is the point of all this?  Well, we want to have stability.  We want to be able to stand without falling over.  When our knees are straight and too close together or the body isn’t properly aligned, we run the risk of our knees locking and losing balance.  With nerves already in place during performance, our sense of balance is already threatened.  And if we are standing with our body properly aligned and our feet at a hips’ width apart with knees slightly bent, we are able to sing with balance and stability.

Now back to the high sternum.  When we raise our sternum (the bone in the center of our chest) toward the ceiling, we are physically encouraged to stand in a noble position.  This high, noble position allows our rib cage plenty of room to expand and our lungs to inhale to their full capacity.

So, this.  This is the body alignment we need and want as singers.  No stiffness.  No pretense.  No high shoulders.  But we do want high sternums.  Make sense?

Here’s a wonderful diagram of how the body should look when it is properly aligned.

Enjoy!

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