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Eating disorders are now an epidemic. Singers and others in the entertainment business with their necessary media exposure are, I think, especially vulnerable to these debilitating secret maladies.

No one can come close to their full vocal potential while chained to an eating disorder. Why? Because the voice will have problems in these areas:

  • Breath (Power)
  • Tone (Way through an open throat)
  • Communication (Performance)

That’s how it is; with an eating disorder, everything I teach in Power, Path & Performance vocal training…everything necessary for the functioning of your voice…is compromised and riddled with problems; some very annoying to diagnose and correct.

From denial to her long-term recovery from anorexia/bulimia, I have been Jenni Schaefer’s voice teacher and friend. Jenni recovered using a unique therapeutic approach that involved treating her eating disorder as a relationship, rather than an illness or condition. Jenni actually called her anorexia/bulimia, “Ed,” an acronym for “eating disorder.” She and I co-wrote the song “Life Without Ed,” which is also the title of her McGraw-Hill book endorsed by Dr. Phil and many others.

Testimonials tell us her story is powerful, so here it is from our two benchmarks:

What I noticed the first time I met Jenni was her strange numbness. He couldn’t get out of the guard stance: shoulders slumped, head tilted forward, frozen eyebrows, clenched jaw, frozen spine and hips, limp arms and entwined legs. She was like a stick figure. Her voice was thin, colorless. She complained that her throat hurt when she sang. Her range was limited and she had several breaks in her voice. I tried to help her relax, but could barely get her to lift her arms up to her sides to allow for ribcage expansion. She inhaled from the top of her chest in short gasps.

Jenny speaks… “With Ed, I was disconnected from my body… I felt like a floating head. I was stiff and had difficulty moving. In therapy sessions, I was encouraged to ‘just move’, anything.”

I also had a lot of trouble helping Jenni connect with her songs. When I asked her to visualize herself singing “Valentine’s Day” to someone she loved, she couldn’t think of anyone! Finally, she began to connect by imagining herself singing to children in a cancer ward where she had worked. A rare thing… She didn’t want him to look at her when she sang.

Jenny… “I was disconnected from feelings. It lived in my head. A big purpose of my eating disorder was to starve myself and repress feelings—to keep me out of my emotions. So when I was supposed to connect with feelings in a song, not only was it completely foreign to me, it was also terrifying.”

Jenni deflated and crushed easily. She had to be very careful not to push herself too hard with the exercises. She somehow needed to sing, but the music didn’t seem to move her. Because she didn’t have the energy to maintain her upright and flexible posture, she usually stood still and lifeless. She or she walked like a zombie.

Jenni…”I had no energy — restricting, bingeing and purging takes a lot of energy (physical and emotional) and leaves little for anything else.”

Jenni couldn’t understand why she didn’t feel something. She saw me express feelings that she couldn’t experience, and I think that was a big part of why she sought help. She asked me to pray for her. She thought that since she didn’t feel something, she couldn’t pray for herself.

Jenny“Singing is spiritual. An eating disorder kills all spiritual connection. This was a huge roadblock.”

Little by little, as Jenni received help, she grew stronger. However, the voice lessons became even more difficult. She developed a diaphragmatic spasm of some kind and a kind of fatalism washed over her, making her hope that the strange oddity of uncontrolled vibrato would occur somewhere in her range. I sent her to the Vanderbilt Voice Clinic. Only when they couldn’t find anything organically wrong did Jenni begin to believe that she could overcome this strange vocal problem. Soon after, I was able to guide her through the flexible stretching of her ribs necessary to allow the problem to go away completely.

Jenni… “Anorexia is characterized by intense perfectionism. While singing, I would focus more on being perfect than delivering a great message.”

Jenni kept getting better, but she was two steps forward and one step back. It was hard for him to imagine singing for somebody. She was trapped in shyness. She began to experience feelings, but with her feelings came her anger at being criticized, which made her feel judged. At one point, I suggested that she practice differently and she flew into a rage. I did not see that coming. I didn’t read the signs that she was pushing too hard, and the lesson ended in disaster.

Jenni… “All eating disorders are characterized by constant self-criticism. It’s hard to sing when a negative voice is constantly screaming in your ear.”

The trust and friendship that Jenni and I had developed made the misunderstanding short-lived. We got back into the vocal training business and then another challenge arose. It was a long season of intense sadness. I was afraid for her; she cried, literally for days, and then fell asleep. She pushed people away, saying that she had no friends. For a while, she stopped singing and canceled singing lessons.

Jenni… “Depression is often an underlying symptom of an eating disorder. When lost in despair and hopelessness, singing can seem too vulnerable because emotions can seep in. So Ed would often build another ‘protective’ wall “.

Jenni and I started working together again, and this time each lesson seemed to break new ground. Her recovery was solid, her physical and emotional health much more stable. I saw her persevere with great courage through those monumental recovery battles. And then I heard her find her voice at last.

One of the last pieces of the puzzle was put in place by brilliant performance coach Diane Kimbrough (615-297-1524). Diane told Jenni to stop worrying about ‘going there’ every time she sang. She said this is too much pressure for an artist to have to re-experience the emotional scene during each performance. Instead, Diane suggests, forget about yourself and make THEM (the audience) feel something! It was a miracle

Jenni stopped focusing within herself and made the connection, through the song, with someone else. Her voice is now strong, controlled, confident and beautiful. She FEEL joy, frustration, anger and love. All of this is giving him a voice with which to shake the world. She speaks and sings across the country to entertain, teach, and demonstrate that recovery from an eating disorder is possible. And oh, I love to hear her laugh!

For those struggling with an eating disorder, we hope you’ll read in our story that it’s never too late to seek help, start healing, and start singing your heart out!

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