Ep2 – At-Home Retreat Prep Day and Free Your Voice
Unveiling Your Authentic Voice: A Journey of Self-Discovery and Expression
Unlock the power of self-discovery and authentic expression with my latest episode, where I take you on a journey through an at-home retreat designed to rejuvenate both mind and body. Imagine setting transformative intentions for a weekend filled with liquid fasting, meditation, breath work, and contemplative practices such as reading and journaling.
The episode also ventures into the profound joy of finding one’s authentic voice, a path shaped by my own experiences of hiding behind masks throughout my life.
Finally, challenge yourself to engage in a week-long exercise of expressing your genuine voice and take joy in your own authenticity. I’m eager to hear about your experiences!
I look forward to our walk this morning!
Want to reach out? Do so here: contact@shariseparviz.com
Transcript
Sharise Parviz
00:00
Good morning. It is good, it is a good morning. So I thought I would go ahead and post about this is the first day of my at home retreat and I thought I would share what I did to prepare for the retreat bit of an update of what’s going on for that day. If I post daily or whatever I post, give you an update of what’s going on and then also maybe what a takeaway is that? I a revelation or a takeaway or an aha moment that I had and we’ll see how that goes. So you have to excuse me, you know I get up in the morning. I do decide that morning is a really good time for me to get up.
00:44
So I’m a little gravelly from being in the morning but also been really sniffly and sneezy and I’m like I’m detoxing, something obviously, which is good. I don’t know what I might’ve gotten into. It could be just that we’re redoing the house or, you know, doing the touch-ups, like I’d mentioned. So today I’m just going to go in and do some neti potting and neti potting I don’t know if that’s how you say, neti, you know the neti pot and maybe do some essential oils and inhalations to help, to help support my body to detox and do what it needs to do to clean out whatever it needs to clean out. So if I’m a little snuffly or sniffly and gravelly, please forgive the sound of my voice.
01:24
Okay, that all being said, what did I do yesterday to prepare? So yesterday was Friday and so I decided to do the liquid gaps fast, as I mentioned, this weekend. I think it’s a really good time to do a liquid fast over the weekend, because not much it goes on over the week. You know, on the weekend I can just chill out. I got a lot of reading material that I can do. I’m not going to be doing a lot of workout or strenuous work anyway on a liquid fast. So picked up my reading material that I want to do. I’m working on some different meditation works and breath work. So a lot of just kind of doing that type of thing meditation, a lot of just kind of doing that type of thing meditation, some breath work, reading, contemplating, journaling.
02:09
I keep a journal with me. I’ll tell you a little bit about journaling, getting off topic and then getting back on. I’ll get back on. But so I’ve hated journaling like my whole fricking life. I mean hated it, and it’s just like oh gosh, well, okay, so my brain works faster than my hand Okay, but maybe most people do, but my brain works faster than my hand.
02:33
I can’t keep up with the thoughts that run through my head and so my handwriting gets super, super messy. I mean, just like you know, chicken scratch Right, and um, I mean, so bad, I can’t even read it. I mean, I know, when I was, when I was working in the business and I and I’d have to keep my notes, uh, this is before I. I just like doing handwritten notes, I don’t know why instead of computer, but I’ve moved to the computer to do it because nobody could read my handwriting. And they’re like what are you? What do you write? What was the post-it note you put on my computer? I’m like, I don’t know what I said, I can’t read my own writing. Later I moved to a messaging board on the computer and it was much easier, but I still do a lot of jotted, you know whatever post-it notes, but I can’t read my own writing.
03:16
So I never liked journaling because I just I couldn’t keep up with my thoughts. And so I’d start a journal and I’m like, okay, I’m going to start drilling and then I may be like a day or two, and then I just dropped it. And then I thought, you know, anyway it’s just, it’s more stuff that I want to keep around the house. I’m really not about keeping a lot of. I have a lot of you know stuff, I guess you would say. But all the stuff I have is important to me. You know, it’s either sentimental or it was given to me. I don’t just have stuff to have stuff, and I’m a purger.
03:50
So like twice a year I did this when my kids were little too we would go through all their clothes, go through all their toys, and at their Christmas time and after each of the birthdays we’d go through and we’d gather all the things that you know we didn’t want anymore and we’d either donate them or give them away or what have you. And I’m the same way, you know, if it, if it’s just a you know, a dust collector, then I don’t keep it. If it’s something that’s a memento, absolutely without a doubt, I’ll keep it for life. I’ll be buried with it, right? But yeah, so you know I’m not a big clutterer. And I thought what am I going to do with all these journals? If I keep a journal, I’m like OK, you know anyway.
04:31
But it’s funny though is that I started journaling because I’ve been trying to keep track of my dreams and being more conscious about my dreaming. So I started just keeping a dream journal and then a lot of times, when I wake up in the middle of the night, you know, and I’m tossing and turning, it’s really just I realized, just letting that happen because a lot of things are coming to me, but I don’t want to lose those. So I’ve been journaling those. So now, now I keep a journal with me wherever I go. It’s ridiculous, but I do, because thoughts will pop into me or things I want to share with you or you know, and I’ll write these things down because I don’t want to lose them. So now I keep a journal by the bed and then I wake up and I take it with me and wherever I go because you never know, when you know, a thought or an inspiration, an idea, uh, or something I want to share with my clients will pop into my head, head I got to, I got to write it down before I forget it, and so, anyway, so I do that, and so now I I love journaling because now it’s, it’s useful to me. That makes sense.
05:35
Anyway, it’s just my, you know, it’s just the way you think of things. So it’s just, it’s amazing, when you change your perspective on something, how we can change everything, right? I mean, we don’t live in reality, we live in our perception of reality, and I don’t mean that like we’re living in a matrix, I mean, I don’t mean that in that sense. But meaning what we see is not necessarily what we’re responding to. We’re responding to what we see, what we believe it to be, the message we’re giving about what we’re seeing. You know what we’re receiving. So there’s reality, and then it’s our perception that we place on our reality that we respond to, right, and that’s why people can have the same experience but respond to it differently, because their perception of it is different, right? So I’ve changed my perception, my perspective, on journaling, and so now I not only journal, I journal all day long, okay. So, that being said, I don’t even know why I shared that, but I have my journal with me. That’s why. So I have my journal.
06:46
I know I want to do some deep meditations and some breath work and some reflection time this weekend, so it’s a perfect time for me to do a liquid fast. So what did I prepare? As I said, my fermented drinks, right, my beet, kvass, cabbage, tonic, vegetable medley, and what I do is these are fermented drinks that I will just drink the brine or just the liquid, and these are all drinks that are very, if you’re part of nourishing traditions, if you know about nourishing traditions or the GAPS diet, and GAPS just real briefly stands for gut and psychology syndrome or gut and physiology syndrome, and so all these fermented foods, like fermented dairy and fermented vegetables and fermented vegetable brine, vegetable drinks, right, are part of the GAPS diet. So, on the GAPS liquid fast, I’m going to be drinking all the fermented liquids.
07:41
I made a meat stock, but I made it just with clear, no meat, no vegetables, just the clear liquid. I also, of course, made lots of herbal teas. I like really doing cold infusion teas, so I will do so. I did some dandelion root and dandelion leaf, some milk thistle, I did some cleaver’s tea, and these are all teas that I infused in water, in just room temperature water, overnight. I put into a half gallon jar with a two part lid, you know mason jar, and let them infuse overnight, and then I drink those teas. You know I strain them and then drink them throughout the day, and these are teas that I made that will help to support detoxification of the liver and the kidneys and the lymph system. So I have my herbal teas, I have my meat stock, I have my fermented drinks, I have also, of course, water, and I’ll do lemon in the water because lemon is a wonderful stimulate for the liver and the kidneys and helps to flush the kidneys and liver. And then, of course, just what else. I guess I think that’s about it as far as diet-wise is concerned. And then, so now we’ll just focus on that for the next two days, saturday and Sunday, and then, of course, like I said, in reading and preparing and doing some meditations and doing some breath work and that, and journaling and praying and reflecting and all that. So that is the plan. I think that is all I need to share about preparing for this retreat. So now I’ll share a big takeaway.
09:32
Okay, so it was a lot of fun yesterday posting something just off the cuff. Hopefully it wasn’t too boring for you. It’s like okay, is she going to get on with it? I guess maybe at some point I will have to begin, do an outline, and so I can, you know, not go on and on, but I have to say one of the things I got done, doing that I actually was super excited after doing the recording and I’m going to explain to you why. So a little share, a little honesty here.
10:08
You know, my whole life I’ve been a performer, I mean, you know, whether dancing or acting, and I love playing characters, you know. And, and one of the things I loved when I did my Restrain no More show during 2008 and 2009, which was a political satire show, and I did all these characters and I love characters, I love character acting, character acting where you’re just really doing all these kind of, you know, extreme characters. Right, it’s fun. And I learned early on that I had a? Um, a good handle on accents. I could pick up accents. There’s a few I can’t, um, there’s a few I have to still kind of working on, it’s like you know, but a lot of accents if I hear it, if all I have to do is kind of hear it and I go and I can, I can, I can do it, which is which is great.
10:56
Unfortunately, it almost sometimes I’ll pick up people’s accents and I start to use the accent unknowingly, and so it’s like, and I have to catch it because maybe it makes you know, I’ve never been told, you know, criticized for it. But I will catch myself like, oh, I’m using that, you know this person’s accent because I’ve been talking with them and hearing them and then picking up their accent and I have to kind of catch myself. I hear myself because of course I don’t want them to think that I’m mocking them or anything, because I’m not at all, but it’s just something that naturally happens for me and nothing I try to do. But anyway, but I love accents and I have used throughout my life as performing.
11:41
Quite honestly, I hadn’t been very comfortable throughout my life using my own voice. I know that sounds weird or maybe it doesn’t, maybe you understand it that just speaking in your own voice, and I thought about that yesterday I thought you know why is that? Why is it? I really hid behind a mask and whether it was a mask, behind just another character playing on stage or on film, on camera, or whether it was an accent, putting my opinions in my Restrain and More show, I wrote it and produced it and obviously it was my own thoughts, but I put these opinions and these thoughts behind a character, thoughts behind a character right, and it’s kind of a barrier, it’s kind of a protective covering that an actor can use, is using, obviously, a character right, so you can be vulnerable without really being vulnerable. If that makes sense, you can expose yourself, and I don’t mean exposure in an X-rated, but I mean expose your inner thought or your opinions without really exposing yourself.
12:55
Okay, and I’d done that and I thought to myself well, I wonder why that’s always been comfortable for me, but using my own voice has been so uncomfortable, right, and I always go with I wonder and, and you know, just using asking, saying those words, I wonder, you know it immediately. Um, especially if you’re in an emotional state, you know, say I wonder why I’m feeling this way, and it immediately helps you to kind of get out of the emotion, get out of the getting in the middle of something and get into a place of just observing and where now you’re able to see it and separate yourself from any kind of heavy emotion. It’s a really great trick for you if you’re in a heavy emotion. Just I wonder. But also, there’s no judgment in wondering, right, when you say I wonder, there’s no judgment, you’re just curious and you’re asking a question that you really know the answer to, but you’re kind of asking it to kind of go hmm, I wonder what that is. And then you’re allowing those answers to come up without judgment and allowing whatever to reveal itself to you. And so I asked myself, I wonder why I never really felt comfortable in my own voice, but always felt comfortable behind a character or in character voices or accents or what have you. And I think a lot of it had to do with the answer that came to me and I’m still wondering. So more might come or deeper truth might reveal itself.
14:18
But is that when I was young I was bullied. I mean, from a very young age probably, I think like first, second grade. I just remember being bullied all the way up through, I think, at high school. I was done. At that point I was done, I had had it and I stood up and I made myself known, let’s just say, and from that point forward nobody messed with me anymore.
14:45
But I put up with a lot of bullying and had to learn to defend myself and had to learn to fight and had to learn to protect myself. And I was teased a lot, you know, just teased and not just teased by other kids but teased by teachers and, and there’s a lot of reasons for the teasing. I wasn’t really well dressed, you know. You know I I really wasn’t well taken care of as a child and not, you know, not to. So I was easy, I was an easy target and I remember thinking like Lord, do you do I have a kick me sign on my back, like you know, like all the time, like is it perpetual kick me sign on my back and is it tattooed on my back? And because it just seemed to be, that’s the way it went, you know, and I’m OK with that now because I realize it made me very resilient and it made me stand up for myself and made me become a fighter, and a fighter in my spirit to never allow somebody else, to never allow somebody else to be kicked around. So it really made me someone who would want to protect others. So, you know, everything in life helps you. All this tough stuff it’s painful, but it’ll tell you what it does. You can use it to help someone else. So, even though these were moments of pain in my life, I realized they helped me to be what I am.
16:14
But because of the teasing and the bullying and so forth and so on. I just learned to shut up. I just learned not to speak, right? You know? Um uh, just learned to just say as as little as I possibly could. And then I went a little deeper and realized it was also my father, and my father I mean, you know, he’s still alive, he’s in his eighties now and we have a very strained relationship. I mean, we haven’t so strained, we haven’t talked for 14 years and I’m not laughing, it’s just, you know, I think we have spent more time not talking in my life than talking and there’s a lot of reasons for that. And I love my father and I’m not angry with my father and I reach out to my father and don’t hear back, and that’s okay, that’s it, and I’ll get into that another time. But when I was younger, my father’s very intelligent, I mean like super intelligent, and he came here from Iran, I think at the age of 17, to go to school and he’s a very no-nonsense kind of guy and I’d love him dearly.
17:20
But if I said something wrong or even mispronounced something or whatever, or I was just figuring out my own thoughts as a child, you know, growing up, you know he would jump on it, you know, and he would criticize it. And if it wasn’t, just if I wasn’t, you know, if my what I said wasn’t making sense logically, you know, and I was a kid like we’re talking 12, 13, and you know, growing up he would jump on it and he would criticize it. And I always felt very stupid around him to say as very little as possible, because I felt like if I wanted to speak, I need to make sure I crossed all my T’s and dotted all my I’s and had everything very well thought out before I opened my mouth to speak it, because if I didn’t, I was going to come become down hard on right, I mean, it was just so I just learned to say as little as possible and and avoid speaking. So when I was on stage, man, it was like whoa, it was like how am I? And you know, it’s true, I mean you find that a lot with performers you know in in real life, many of my friends, many people I know many people that you know of right that you watch on film.
18:39
They’re not big extroverts, hey, look at me in their own personal lives, you know, and so. But when we get on stage or we get in front of the camera. For me, I love the stage much more than camera. It’s just that’s where we come alive, because that’s where we can be free, that’s where we can finally be expressive.
18:58
But a lot of times in our personal lives we’re more introvert, right, and I’m that way. I mean, I’m very introverted in my own personal life. You know, I love people, but I get more. You know, it depletes me to be around a lot of people at a time and I have to, you know, to re-energize alone. But I’m very comfortable, almost like being at home. When I’m on stage, I mean, it’s like, oh, this is like home to me, it’s like, you know, this is where I belong.
19:34
So, or teaching in front of a class or doing something like that is very easy for me to do, um, whereas being in a social environment is not as easy for me, um, you know, and and so it’s just, it’s just funny. So anyway, um, but you know, that’s actually much more typical than uh, than people think, that they think artists and performers are these big extroverted people, and a lot of them aren’t. A lot of them would rather just go home and just be at home body and then go out and go to the parties and do all the things that you need to do when you’re in the business, like that. A lot of people would just rather go home Anyway. So, that being said that, yeah, a lot of people would just rather go home anyway. So, that being said, so yesterday was a really big, uh, really enjoy, a really big, enjoyable moment for me, because, you know, I went and recorded and I and I didn’t really, I mean, I thought about what I wanted to say, I wanted to share my overview of what I was doing and why, but I was able just to do it without being scripted, without thinking about how I was saying something.
20:42
Did I mispronounce something? Did I use a word in the wrong way? And I know better. But whatever, and hopefully they’ll get it, and I’m just like, yeah, they’ll get it, they’ll know what I’m trying to say, or you know, did I make a mistake or did I miscommunicate anything? I didn’t worry about any of that. I just spoke from my heart and it was a wonderful and exciting time for me. I wasn’t hiding behind a character. You just got me with all my imperfections and all. And, yeah, add that to me. It was wonderful and I thought about, you know, because I talked to my clients, like you know, learning to use your voice, your voice, your authentic self, speaking your own. You know what’s real and right for you.
21:26
And you know, sometimes we have people speaking too much. I mean I think people share a whole lot too much on social media and everybody has to share everything. I mean you know, I mean this is what I’m eating today for breakfast, for lunch and for dinner, and how I’m having for a snack, and it’s mean, you know, I mean this is what I’m eating today for breakfast, for lunch and for dinner, and and how I’m having for a snack. And it’s like you know. I mean I get it if you’re a food channel, but or you’re a diet channel or whatever, but I mean I don’t need your whole life spread out in front of me.
21:48
Some things are just meant to stay private, you know, unless there’s a purpose to it, right, and you know, and my purpose in some manner. But to use your own voice, and sometimes I have clients who’ve been afraid to. They want to say something nice to someone, or to compliment someone, or because they’re afraid that they’ll, or to smile, even smiling at someone because the fear of rejection, or give their opinion on something as simple as going out to dinner. You know, where would you like to go eat? Oh, wherever you want to go is fine.
22:33
You know I run a program called Lights Camera Action and it’s about stepping out of the shadow and finding your light, you know, and finding your light and getting away from being an extra. You know, an extra in the film or in or, uh, in the theater is the is basically a walking prop. You know, you’re there to, to fill in the scenery and, um, a lot of people feel like extras in their um lives, and so my lights camera action is about helping you become the leading lady of your life, right To finding your light and speaking your truth and using your voice. And again, you know, speaking your truth right now has, you know, it’s just such a strange what all, everything that’s going on, but your truthful, authentic self, not being afraid of being who you are right and discovering who that is. So yesterday was a really wonderful reminder to me that, oh, I have my own voice too and I can speak my own voice and just and be just, truthful and authentic.
23:37
And I thought, well, you know what, so can all of you, you know, and so if you’re listening to this, like I, you know I, I one of the things that I challenge anybody who goes to my program, and this isn’t to sell my program, just sharing with you. What I do is to say you know one of the things that I challenge anybody who goes to my program, and this isn’t to sell my program, I’m just sharing with you. What I do is to say you know, today, today, every, you know, just maybe for the week, make this a challenge. Say something using your voice. Maybe you, when you go get your coffee at the coffee shop, look at you know and be authentic, be sincere. But find someone and compliment them on something sincerely right, and just to use your voice. You know, I really love your hair and because maybe you do and you’ve just been too afraid to say it, to say, you know, I really think that’s a really pretty hairstyle on you, or love your dress or whatever it is.
24:21
Again, make it sincere, don’t just say it just to throw it out there, because people, you know, we always want to be sincere in our speech, in our speech, but find something in someone that you sincerely see something in, and actually we could always, if we truly try, we can always find something to compliment somebody on, right, there’s always something if we look for it. Again, it’s about perception. And so look and, just for you know, once a day for the week, find something to say to someone, even if it’s just good morning, and using your own voice, and very gently start to step out using your voice, using your authentic, you know, voice of your thoughts and your feelings, and sharing authentically what you feel and to say hello, good morning. Really, you have such a beautiful smile, you know. Or someone says where do you want to go for dinner? Tell them, you know what, I know, I don’t really feel like whatever today, you know, I feel like this and just very simple, something easy, you know, nothing that’s challenging or that you feel might be started argument, nothing, nothing like that, right, but just something easy that you can just put out there and start to feel comfortable in your own voice. All right, that’s it for today.
I probably went on and on way too long. So anyway, I I challenge you. If you take the challenge and you say something, post it, you know, send it to me on X or just message me on um, on my website. I’d love to hear about it and I, I mean I do have other social medias but I kind of dropped them. You know, I, I, I mean I, I have a channel on Instagram and um and all that, and I don’t really am not active on it. I’m really more active on Twitter and I’m more or X sorry on X and then, of course, on my website. So I’d love to hear how you made your voice heard this week, simply easily, with very, you know, low, low, low cost. Low, low, low. You know pressure. What low pressure way you used your voice this week. All right, I’m out of here. I’m going to start my liquid fast. I will let you know how it goes. Have a beautiful, beautiful day, all right, bye-bye.
26:44