What is Inner Voice Integration Practice (I-VIP)?
Inner Voice Integration Practice (I-VIP) is a unique practice combining principles of mindfulness and self-care, voice techniques, and cognitive-behavioral strategies in order to improve your relationship with yourself and express yourself in the world with authenticity and power. When you respect and love your voice, you can show up in the world with impact and confidence. A strong voice is like a shield- a buffer between you and the negativity of the world. I-VIP teaches you how to create this shield by listening to your voice and making it the authority in your life. Your voice shows you that are infinitely loved and lovable and that you can provide yourself with the support you need. All you need is your voice, a recorder, such as on your phone, and some guidance.
I-VIP was born when my friend and coach suggested to me that I record a music track telling myself the postitive things people had said about me and what I needed to hear and believe about myself. When I recorded the track, I did it, more or less, as an experiment to see if it would help my subconscious mind embrace more postitive thoughts and beliefs. I had struggled with self-criticism as a child due to childhood bullying and other experiences in my life. I needed to believe in myself so I could show up more powerfully and reach my goals of having my own business as a healing arts professional, but my confidence was sorely lacking despite attempting to heal myself over many years. I had worked with many coaches and mental health profesionals along with reading tons of self-help books, but I was still struggling with the fallout of the trauma I experienced growing up, including social anxiety and persistent loneliness that was affecting my daily life.
As I listened to the track, I found that I was analyzing it with my inner critic. Did I like my voice? Did I like the way it sounded? Could I do better? It was my critical mind seeing if it was up to my standards… but the more I listened to it, the way I listened changed. I started to find that when I was stressed or feeling low, the track calmed me and shifted my energy into a positive, hopeful state. It was healing to hear my voice saying and singing these things to me, and most importantly, I started to really believe thost things. Thus I-VIP was born.
I put on my speech therapist hat and started asking myself why or how this worked for me. For example, could I just speak the beliefs and affirmations and listen to spoken words and feel the same way or was singing the affirmations important? I am not 100% sure, but when I thought about the psychological affects of sound, including singing and other sound principles, I developed a theory of why I think the singing is important and should be used in addition to speaking. In a future blog post, I will dive into some of the theory about why I feel I-VIP is effective in communicating new beliefs with the subconscious, but for now, I will end this short blog post with a quick exercise so that you can get a sense of how I-VIP works.
At its core, I-VIP is a simple process. Get used to using your voice and singing simple phrases. You can pick 1-4 affirmations for example. You first center yourself by connecting to your heart space. You can do this with simple mindfulness techniques, such as a quick body scan or breathing in and out of your heart space a few times with your eyes closed. Then you speak the affirmations and also sing the affirmations into a voice recorder, such as on your phone or in a video app. Finally, you listen to the recording with an open heart. I recommend using the word “you” for the affirmations, such as “you are safe and loved” instead of “I am safe and loved”. You can certainly try both, but I find when I listen back to the recording, the “you” makes me feel like I am singing to myself.
That’s it! Give it a try. There are different nuances to this practice, such as humming and toning to open up the voice, and you can use other instruments or backing tracks to support your singing. In an I-VIP session or series of sessions, I will go even further with you to provide more insight and guidance into the practice as well as the cognitive-behavioral strategies. Essentially, what I described is the core practice however. I love doing I-VIP in a group setting as well because we sing together and explore singing the beliefs we want as a group. It’s quite magical.
The last thing I will mention about the singing in I-VIP is that when you are singing, it is not about performing or sounding great. It’s about singing for you and learning to love your voice. When you learn to love your voice no matter how it sounds, whether it is hoarse, or creaky, or off pitch, or on pitch, it teaches you that you can love all of yourself. When your voice becomes this source of comfort, it then has the power to heal and support your through every experience, including difficult situations and challenges, grief, worry, etc.
This practice is easy to learn can be done in groups or one-on-one. In addition, it can be taught to people of all ages- kids, adults, and seniors. When you have developed a powerful voice, you can even use some of the voice techniques to help others heal, such as those in difficult situations, or people who are ill for example, especially those who cannot use their voice for one reason or another.
If you would like to learn more about I-VIP or experience it for yourself, reach out to me. It’s applications are endless and its accessibility is a great addition to anyone who needs support in strengthening their self-love and self-expression, including finding belonging in a world that can often make it difficult. Much love to you!