Reprint from Feature article in
The Whole Person Calendar
Los Angeles ~ 1990

Singing From The Heart

by Jack Coats

The way a person speaks and/or sings is like a thumbprint of where they are in their consciousness. I teach my clients not only how to access their natural sound but to concentrate on their words and the message of the words they wish to convey.

~ Dr. Carole G. Moskovitz, M.A., D.S.S.

 

Carole Moskovitz first began teaching through her business, Singing From The Heart™, when her clients consisted primarily of professional and amateur singers.

While she initially gave voice and performance lessons, Singing From The Heart™ has evolved into a metaphor for expressing on ALL levels, singing included, but not exclusively that.   Consequently, her clientele now ranges from professional and amateur singers and entertainers, to public speakers, business people, doctors, venture capitalists, homemakers, investment bankers, teachers, CEO's and others, where the focus is on fine-tuning individual expressions both inwardly and outwardly in such a way that the results are demonstrated in greater levels of excellence and self-mastery. Carole has become a teacher and personal effectiveness consultant.

Her work enhances the natural abilities of a client to make positive choices and take direction action based on integrity (listening to one's inner voice), whether that client comes to her for voice and performance lessons, personal effectiveness consultation, more effective expression and communication or whatever.

The study of physics teaches that a transformer is a device that matches one energy to another for the purpose of transferring power. When an individual emerges from an experience larger inside than when he or she entered, transformational learning has occurred.

A larger power has been activated or drawn out from within the individual, typically not only in the natural sound and resonance of the voice, but also in the form of more joy, abundance, self-esteem, loving , intuition and intelligence.

Carole uses the powerful tools of LISTENING and LOVING. Her company logo, a heart with an eighth-note in the center, reflecting the focus of harmony within a loving heart, signified much of what her work is all about.   And she draws on her own transformative experiences, demonstrating self-mastery, in powerfully guiding and assisting her clients toward achieving their desired goals.

Carole stresses the need for inner work first with all her clients, referring to a quote from Abraham Lincoln, who, after being asked how he would cut down a tree if given eight hours to do so, said, "I would spend the first seven hours sharpening the axe."

"Carole has assisted me greatly in tapping into my own creativity and gaining a clearer perception of my own vision," said client Mark Samuel, owner-founder of IMPAQ, an international company teaching personal effectiveness, leadership and team-building through seminars for large and small businesses and corporations.   "She has also helped me in being able to reduce my own stress levels during the work day, to think more clearly and become more centered as part of my everyday routine."

"Carole's approach to teaching is very integrated," said another client who is a storyteller, musician and writer.   She not only helps the student to develop their voice in a technical sense, but guides the client to release his or her voice in a whole body sense - to release resistance and remove the blocks, and these blocks are sometimes very, very deep.   She helps the client to get in touch with their whole being to express from the heart and not just the voice.   And Carole does this with confidence, love and full support.   She teaches her clients to express to their fullest potential.

The fact that clients learn to use their new skills not only in voice training and public speaking, but all areas of their lives was referred to by still another person who sees Carole on a regular basis.

That individual, an investment banker, said, "Throughout the time I've been going to Carole, I have come to realize that although I started with her for voice lessons, I now am learning that the ability to sing involves more than just your voice.   Your whole body is involved.   Your entire being IS YOUR EXPRESSION!   I now have a real sense of clarity and an ability to express myself in a more meaningful and succinct way. "

Since beginning her lessons with Carole, this client says she is now expanding her investment banking activities to include more service projects, helping to locate financing for board-and-care and healthcare institutions. "My life has really become energized as a result of this work. "

Carole is goal-oriented, and she uses this same approach with her clients. They are asked to write down a series of questions and their answers to those questions and to bring two copies of the questions and answers to the first session for review... one for the client to keep and review, and one for Carole's records to track and support her clients.   Sessions are sometimes recorded for the client's future use.

The basic questions are:

• What do you want?
• What goals and experiences are you seeking, inner and outer?
• What, if anything, has stood in your way in achieving these goals?
• What specific steps do you perceive necessary to take to achieve these goals?
• Are you willing to take these steps?
• What is the inner experience you are looking for?
• What specific criteria need to show up for you to know you have achieved these goals?
• Are you willing to have your goals show up?
• What is your experience of your voice, sound and presentation style?
• What do others tell you or do you perceive others think about your voice, sound and presentation style?
• What are your strengths?
• What are your improvement opportunities?

"In addition," Carole explains, "there are other questions designed to fit specific situations. Because of my background in human growth training and psychology, I can go really deep with a client who is willing to go deep.   I can work with them right to the level they are willing to bring forward, always respecting each client's natural timing and individual process of learning and growing.

"I work with my clients from an intuitive level.   I believe that everything we need is fully present at all times for our highest good... and that we will never have more to handle in any given moment than we actually can.   If I am willing to be totally present, in the moment, to do the work, then what is needed to assist the client in their progression will also be present. I only need to surrender my ego to the process and to Spirit (G-d/higher power) working through everything at all times."  

Carole uses affirmations (positive statements about oneself or goals which are repeated over and over), closed-eye and mirror (open-eye) processes, treasure mapping (graphic illustrations of what is desired), scanning (reviewing the activities of the day each night before retiring and cleaning up and tossing out the negative memories) and breathing exercises in addition to additional vocal exercises and toning.

The closed eye exercises involve visualization of that which the client would like to become or manifest and learning how to attune themselves to the inner voice (that wisdom/voice inside everyone which knows what is for the highest good in any given situation).

"Self-exploration and awareness are part of the open-eyed mirror exercises many clients experience at home.   Mirror work is an invaluable tool for enhancing self-awareness... how you look... how you present yourself.   With performers and speakers, practicing in front of a mirror provides an opportunity for a client to become more aware of body language and posturing.   These activities, along with out work together in sessions, add up to a presentation style that's more congruent with the whole process," Carole explained.

"With the breathing exercises, I generally ask the client to lay flat on their back, with one hand over their chest or heart (the loving center) and one hand on their tummy (the creative center).   In this prone position, a client can closely observe the way they breathe naturally without thinking about how to breathe correctly.   I ask them to use deep breathing as a cleansing agent, and to imagine their breath as a color... to inhale with each breath and to exhale with sound, learning always to sing or speak on the breath.

"Breathing is something we all do, usually without thinking about it. The process I do involves assisting clients in becoming aware on many levels of what they already do well...naturally... and to bring more of that into areas of desired improvement and expansion.

"I teach them to deal with performance anxiety... how to effectively funnel their energy (which we often refer to as butterflies in the stomach) through positive visualization with the knowledge that things may happen as a result of that visualization, " Carole said.   "The willingness is the key.

"We utilize lots of home-play! Fun and discovery, growth and full self-expression are keys to success with clients.

"The way a person speaks and/or sings is like a thumb print of where they are in their consciousness. I teach my clients not only how to access their natural sound but to concentrate on their words and the message of the words they wish to convey.

"When anyone allows the truth of their loving, their truth in the moment, that is when they feel connected inside of themselves. when that is expressed, everyone feels truly united."

Carole believes that everything she has done thus far has been preparation for what she is doing now... and will do, including being raised in a home of classical music, working in advertising and public relations, professional singing, executive direction of an East Coast wellness seminar company, earning a bachelors degree in sociology and fine arts from the University of Pittsburgh where she was a Dean's List student, and a Masters in psychology from the University of Santa Monica with highest honors, the est© training and leadership programs, Insight I, II, III and IV, later becoming a facilitator-in-training with Insight Seminars, a wife, mother, divorcee.

Even her divorce, as a result of her own efforts, was completed in a way to achieve a win-win situation for everyone concerned, such that her attorney acknowledged her personal effectiveness skills and her ability to consult with others in this area.

"A major key is to hold the vision of what you want and become willing to take one step, and the next step, and the next," she explained.   "Small steps, consistently taken, result in major impact.   Quantum leaps are made up of lots of baby steps along the way.   The important thing is to keep stepping forward.

"When you become more in tune with yourself, the whole of your being reflects the attunement, and the result is greater harmony and congruence. "

With a growing list of individual clients - from Malibu and the Valley to San Diego and Catalina and as far east as Washington, D.C.- from the entertainment, private, business and professional communities, Carole is now responding to requests to do more group work in private and corporate organizations.

Working with enhancing personal effectiveness and voice and presentation skills with corporate heads and organizational leaders greatly magnifies and assists the whole of an organization.   It's exhilarating to work so closely with people and assist in facilitating individual and group excellence!