“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

― Franz Kafka

Solitude offers an opportunity to reflect on spiritual matters. In all forms of Mastery, Mastery is only achieved when integrating mind/body/spirit. While we often understand this in spiritual practices like yoga or meditation, we don't typically consider solitary time as beneficial in other areas, such as personal growth or improving proficiency and effectiveness at work.

However, studies show that just 15 minutes of solitude can have an "emotional deactivation" effect—reducing high-arousal emotions like excitement and anxiety while increasing low-arousal feelings like calmness.

In Vocal Awareness, solitude is not about loneliness but rather time spent in conversation with your Self, specifically your Deeper Self. It is a creative moment to connect with your Self without distractions.

One of the goals of the solitude moment is for me to transcend the spiritual ecstasy, this conversation between Source and Self. In this segment of my prayer time, I’ve been given the challenge and the opportunity to actualize what I am praying for, so that it becomes who I am, not merely an aspiration, a dream of what’s possible, but true reality.

I know that I am ‘not my behaviors.’ So each day, this moment allows me to continue ‘rewiring my brain, rewiring my Self.’

I often look at this truly intimate, personal moment with myself in this portion of my daily prayer as an opportunity to claim my birthright, the opportunity to challenge myself to live in the integrity of the truth of who I am—without fear!

Without this sounding trivial, it is a bit like exercise. Each day when one exercises, it’s almost like ‘starting over.’ But also, each day, when I repeat a routine, I become more flexible, faster, and there is less pain. But should I not exercise for a few days, once I resume, it becomes more arduous.

I felt compelled today to share this moment as an example of the importance of discipline, gentleness, consistency, the building of ‘spiritual muscles’, and more, because I want to help us break down the dichotomy that exists when speaking about spirituality and prayer.

I encourage prayer, I encourage solitudinous focus, as it is such critically important and creative touchpoint that supports us in living a life of the greatest contribution possible.

Through this very personal story, I am striving to illuminate for you that once we complete our spiritual practice for the day, it is not truly over. Rather, in Vocal Awareness, through Conscious Awareness and living in our deeper listening, we have an opportunity and responsibility to actualize what we pray about and this is where forgiveness comes in. This is where gentleness comes in. 

We are not automatons, though we have been hardwired from conception to live in mind/body/spirit consciousness. When we emerge onto this plane, that connection is lost. The wires have been frayed.

Through the intimacy, the delicacy, the preciousness, the specialness of this Work, we now have a path that reconnects us to our Deeper Self, to the truth of what we have been designed to be. And each day, as we rewire our mind/body/spirit, we truly create the ability to confidently live in the truth of our full possibility.

Vocal Awareness—A New Form of Mastery. It's truly that—it is Mastery. 

As you know, I've trained myriad elite artists and myriad elite athletes. They are fully in Mastery, in their art, in their sport. But when they leave their art or their sport and resume simply being ‘themselves,’ they are no longer in mastery. They're in the unconscious behavior of what we all are—simply a human being.

Vocal Awareness—A New Form of Mastery, there is ‘no off switch.’

So, I humbly offer you this treatise on prayer and Self-actualization. Not as a philosophical or spiritual precept, but as an earnest action plan—a pragmatic blueprint for living the life that we were designed to live.