But sometimes the universe sends you a little nudge to tell you, “It’s time…”  My nudge from the universe came from a woman all the way on the other side of the world in Australia who read my post.  Angela is a singer also,  and she, too, was diagnosed with vocal cysts. To lose one’s voice can be a nuisance to anyone, but to a singer, it is deeply painful to lose the way we express ourselves creatively.  One of my singing coaches used to say, “When you sing, your voice is the sound of your soul…”  Needless to say, I felt her pain because of my own pain. I knew I had to reach out to her.  Angela catalyzed me to share the rest of my story, what happened and where I am now on my own healing journey… And I could feel an “angel”  gently nudging me to post the letter I wrote her.  ( I actually just got that her name is Angela….angel….Angela…hmmmmm)

You may be thinking, “Well what does all this have to do with beauty??”  Everything.

Angela was the first to hear my story and now I am posting it for anyone else who is interested and has continued to read on:

November 25,2012

Hello Angela,

My response to your question is probably more than you anticipated.

I apologize for taking so long to respond to your email. I could not respond in a quick email because my experience with this condition has not been simple. As a singer, I personally know the frustration and fear you must be feeling around getting a diagnosis of vocal cysts. Our voice is such a big part of us and the meaning of “finding our voice” goes way beyond the sounds that we produce with our vocal cords. Only another singer can especially know how challenging this is and I would like to offer you my support in any way that I can. What I can offer you is my own experience and where I am on my own healing journey. Please take what you find useful and discard what doesn’t resonate with you. I believe our best guide is the intuitive voice deep inside. Listening to that true voice and speaking from the stillness of my heart is something I strive for in daily practice.

I owe an amends to anyone who read that post from February 2011 and was misled to believe that it was ONLY EFT that healed my vocal cysts. That post was the first chapter of the story of my healing and I never posted the subsequent chapters. I am going to share with you why I never posted the rest of the story because I am now ready to do so.

So, I want to be completely transparent about how I was working with what was going on in my throat. EFT was one of the energy methods I was using. As I wrote in my post, when the cyst reappeared in 2010, I was frustrated and angry that it came back a second time after having had surgery a few years previously. I felt like I was being punished. Again.

I was slated to have surgery again but needed to wait for my throat surgeon to recover from his own foot surgery. In the interim, I was using alternative healing modality techniques that started with EFT, and then TAT (Tapas Acupressure Technique), intuitive body work with a brilliant  healer as well as acupuncture. The work of Dr. Zhing Sha, Soul Mind Medicine was particularly powerful in my healing. I was willing to use any and all energy methods to understand the coagulated energy in my vocal cords. I even went back into the studio and recorded improvised songs with the raspy voice I did have. There was a lot of beauty and texture and emotion in the sounds that came through me in the studio at that time. For me, it was a practice of acceptance and willingness to sing from a new place with a different voice. I was committed to really listening deeply to understand why the cysts had manifested again. I knew (believed) that energy (beliefs, emotions) created the cysts and that, as matter, they were nothing but energy. There were all kinds of significant emotional issues I discovered in the process. I discovered that I held grief, regret and fear in my throat and began to use all my energy tools as well as EFT to tap on the memories stored there.

What happened as a result of all this really did feel like a miracle. With all of the energy medicine tools that I was using, my vocal cords did, in fact, heal completely. The truth is one day I was singing and I realized that it didn’t feel like it required as much energy to push the air through my vocal cords to produce certain tones. I discovered that I felt freedom in my vocal range once again and could access my middle and top notes that had not been available for so long. I noticed that my speaking voice was clear and my singing voice felt restored back to the strong, clear voice that I remembered having. The timing of it felt like a miracle because that very same week I was asked to be part of a performance with a band. Synchronicities seemed to be lining up for me.

I emailed my surgeon with the news that I recovered my voice and felt no symptoms of the cyst. He wrote me back saying that it was highly unusual. These cysts don’t normally get reabsorbed back into the body.

So, Angela that is the good news that I have to share with you. As God as my witness, I had vocal cysts and then they were gone after using energy medicine techniques. For a whole year my voice was clear, strong and free. It had been my intention to blog my whole story and to divulge all the different energy modalities I was using along with EFT in my subsequent posts. That was my intention. But I never got to it….And there was a good reason for that.

Here comes the tricky part.

It was just before the 2011 Tapping World Summit and I wanted to spread the word to as many people as I could. So, I posted the first chapter of my story on my blog. After I wrote that initial post, one of the practioners whom I worked with had a very strong negative reaction to what I wrote. I think there were slighted feelings because that first post was about how EFT was a big part of my healing journey. I had intended to post the subsequent chapters of the story of my healing experience but I was feeling like I had to defend myself and justify what I wrote.

There were things, memories that I had discovered about the energy that was trapped in my throat that were deeply personal. I started to question telling my whole story for fear that I may be further criticized and attacked. There were some very tender feelings I had gotten in touch with in my healing process and suddenly more than one of my practitioners was feeling slighted for their work not being recognized as THE healing cure. The fear of being too visible and not feeling safe became very real for me.

Within the next few months after all this happened, I noticed a different sensation in my throat again. I noticed a shift in my voice and the familiar hoarseness started to return again. I felt like I had failed.

I resisted writing the subsequent chapters of my healing journey because I felt ashamed that the cyst returned. There were definitely parts of me that felt vulnerable and ashamed and I realized those feelings all manifested in my throat again. But that has changed and is continuing to change even as I write this email to you.

EFT is the modality that really resonates with me. The past year and a half or so has been an incredible ride. I have been studying and working with my own EFT practitioner to gently embrace all the parts of myself that needed to feel safe and held. I realized that my cyst came back because there was more for me to learn, embrace and accept about speaking my truth with compassion. But most importantly, I have learned about forgiveness and compassion for myself. I have really come to understand that love is indeed, the most powerful healing salve there is and it can create amazing transformations. I know deep in my heart that if I could completely heal my vocal cysts once, then I could do it again and this time deeply and completely. What I have learned (am still learning) about healing is that deep transformation happens when I am willing to love all the parts of me (emotions, my inner critic, conflicting feelings, fears etc.) into wholeness.

The traditional setup statement in the EFT work is, “ Even though ________________(fill in the blank with whatever negative feeling /situation feels true for us), I truly and deeply accept myself.” For me, it all starts there. And complete healing doesn’t always happen quickly especially when there are long held beliefs or patterns of behavior. Sometimes people have miraculous one minute miracles with EFT. Big shifts can occur and I have seen them for myself and for others for certain situations/conditions. But for other situations/conditions healing may be more complex and take a little longer. But in any case, practicing love and acceptance of ourselves is never a waste of time and truly does open the door to transformation in our lives. That’s what I am experiencing these days in my own work.

I don’t believe in accidents but rather synchronicities and good timing .Your email has been a catalyst for me and a definite sign that it is time to come forward and share my story. I have gotten to the point where I feel no more shame in it because now I am committed to loving all the parts of myself that I have judged and punished for far too long. I have realized that my own perfectionism has kept me from really living my life full out. I am not perfect, the healing I had was not perfect and my singing voice is not perfect . I can lovingly accept that now. The power of my voice now comes from a deeper place and I have no doubts that the cyst that reappeared is already being reabsorbed as it did once before. I am definitely looking forward to more studio time to do more recording with the rich voice that I have right now. I won’t wait for it to be “perfect” or to return to what it once was. I won’t waste my time because life is too short and life is a new adventure each day.

Lastly, we are total strangers to one another but we have both experienced something very challenging. I wish you peace and healing on your path. May the guidance deep within yourself bless you with every step you take.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.

Blessings and light,

Kathleena

PS: I highly recommend a book called Teach Only Love, written by Jerry Jampolsky which is about the power of love to heal.

Styling for actor Michael Fassbender, interviewed by Philip Siddiq about “Shame.”

Girl Up is a campaign of the United Nations Foundation that gives American girls the opportunity to channel their energy and compassion to raise awareness and funds for programs of the United Nations that help some of the world’s hardest-to-reach adolescent girls.

Close to half of today’s 1.2 billion young people between the ages of 10 and 19 are adolescent girls, and most of them live in developing countries. Many girls struggle for basic opportunities to go to school, see a doctor, or be included in their communities. By making these opportunities available to girls, we can make a lifelong impact on their well-being and the well-being of their families, communities, and our world for generations to come.

The Propville Directory’s Dog & Pony™ Shows are educational & networking events designed to bring the local production community together to learn new tricks, share ideas and network with other production professionals. Because the production markets (film, photography, theater and event) often need the same resources, we find that a room full of creative people bring all sorts of new elements to the table. Everyone has something unique to offer, from a service, to a viewpoint, to another connection.

I had a great time working with the amazingly gorgeous Emma Stone for her press interviews when “The Help” was released in August 2011. Check out the great interview she had with Phillip Siddiq.

I helped John Lasseter prepare for an interview with Wheezy News. Start at 0:46 for the classic “That’s how we do it at Pixar” line.