Finding My Voice Again

More than a couple of years ago I lost my voice.

Not that I lost the ability to speak, or express myself. More I lost my singing voice. Music was a massive part of my life when I was younger. I actually thought at one stage that I might study voice fulltime; I trained hard, I sang professionally at a few weddings, I also sang with some award-winning choirs, recorded some albums with them (with a solo too).

I’m not comfortable explaining exactly why or how I lost my voice. Let’s just say that one day I could sing, and then I couldn’t; and so it has continued for many years since, long before my eldest (now 7) was born.

My parents in particular always tried to encourage me to try and sing at family occasions. The piano is central to family get-togethers and parties for sing-a-longs and fun. Over the years I would have joined in, and then shied away, or lip-synced along, or sung “sotto voce” without using my voice.

When I started out with the new training programme, my trainer asked me about breathing and I mentioned that I had a decent lung capacity because I used to sing so much. That is true anyway.

With this extra exercise and training, all the hard work is beginning to pay off. My mood has improved so much, and I feel so much more confident in myself.

There have been so many benefits to training regularly:

• Losing over 3kg in the space of my 6 week programme, and a couple of inches off my waist.
• I went to buy a pair boots the other day and was able to try them on without getting into contortions trying to zip them up. I used to go for the wider calf fitting, no need to now.
• I had to go a size down when buying trousers too, and I will have to drop another size in the next few weeks. Okay if I’m honest I could have gone down 2 sizes but I preferred the comfier fitting!
• More quality sleep at night; not tossing and turning so much, I’m just too darn tired! I could do with a couple of extra hours a day but I’m hoping that will come with time.
• Better hand/eye coordination and strength. Washing baskets and four year olds don’t feel like a tonne of bricks anymore. Plus my husband chucked a set of keys to me across the room the other night and I caught them no bother. Normally I’m standing there with an empty hand and a daft look on my face.
• My resting heart rate has gone from 75 beats per minute to 66 beats per minute – which is a huge sign of a change of health.

Training has not been without its challenges, not least breaking my wrist just 5 sessions into the new programme! I took a break for a few classes until I had a lighter cast and I could handle doing core work and leg work without feeling lopsided. Oh and I did all the core work, all of it! Really tried to perfect “my form” so as to get the n’th degree out of the exercises I was doing.

Now it’s nearly Christmas and the other day I took a breath and felt all the core work engage (I’m told this is the technical term) and my real singing voice came out. I could feel the notes vibrating around my head, I opened my mouth, and the sound filled the room. Properly.

I don’t care if I ever sing to an audience again. It feels amazing to have my voice back.

You might not understand how important or significant this is to me. I just have to mark it, so that I can come back to this post in the future to remind myself of the day I shed a little light on a dark corner.

If you’re interested in getting in touch with my trainer,  you’ll find his Facebook page by clicking on this link. Note this is not sponsored.