What shape do you make?

A love letter to shape-shifting chameleons

I talk a lot about shape in the work of Ecstatic Voice, because I believe that sharing your voice is directly connected to taking full shape in the world. But what shape is that, exactly?

A version of this question shows up in a cue in the Linklater Voice Method,¹ which I’m formally trained in and recently taught over the course of a year. In the method, before you even think about making sound, you take a moment to first notice the shape your body makes. The exact cue is:

Be aware of the shape your body cuts in the air.
Be aware of the feeling of air touching your skin.

Every time I hear or give this cue, I stop and go: Oh right, I have a body! A body that makes its own unique shape without having to think about it. It sounds obvious, but it’s easy to forget in a world of lines, screens, and other flat things: that we take up multidimensional space just by existing. 

When we carry that concept into our work and our lives, it can be just as easy to forget.

I’d certainly forgotten it when I was deep in the part of my career that I’ve come to lovingly describe as my Flat Matthew McConaughey era.² If you’d asked me what shape I made back then, I probably would have answered your question with another question: What shape do you want me to make?

I had become a master of shape-shifting. A chameleon extraordinaire. Queen of the plate-spin, cartwheel, and backflip—often simultaneously.

On the outside, I was the picture of someone living a highly productive and multifaceted professional life with a robust portfolio to match.

On the inside? I felt as two-dimensional as a PDF.

In fact, most of the ways I described myself and tried to make sense of myself back then were either one or two-dimensional: a multi-hyphenate, a slashie, a human Venn diagram.³ I even co-owned the human Venn diagram trademark for a while. It was the tagline of my podcast. I creative-directed photoshoots with Venn diagrams made out of hula hoops. I wholeheartedly tried to make being a diagram work.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this in theory—as the Barbie movie recently pointed out, it’s something we do as part of an ongoing effort to understand ourselves and the world. To quote Greta Gerwig: “We’re in constant conversation with inanimate objects.”⁴

What’s ultimately more important than the objects we create and the ideas we come up with is how we interpret and identify with them—how we put them into practice. That’s when it can be all too easy for even our best intentions to box us in; for the very tools that we designed to support our multifaceted nature to become another thing that we have to shape ourselves to.

It’s even easier for this to happen if you’re a seasoned shape-shifting chameleon like me. One day you’re half-jokingly describing yourself as an inanimate object, and the next day you’ve become one. And in my case, that’s exactly what happened.

For example: In my human Venn diagram, the circles represented all of the things I was doing and/or interested in (editorial direction, content strategy, podcasting, math, wigs, etc.), and I was the shape at the center where they intersected. The challenge was that the more things I added, no matter how creative or dynamic they were, the less full I felt.

That’s how Venn diagrams work: the more circles you add, the smaller the center gets, until it’s not really a shape at all. It’s more like a fragment of what it used to be. 

A visual.

And that’s what I felt like, as I unwittingly shaped myself to the Venn diagram of my own making: like a fragment of what I used to be. Of who I used to be.

Who even was that? I had a clear sense of the diagram. The human? Not so much.

And that’s a problem. Especially when you do work that relies on your humanity. That can literally only happen because you’re a living, breathing, whole-bodied person.

I knew that having a lot of different outputs and interests wasn’t the problem, because those were all signs of life: evidence of my insatiable curiosity about the world around me. I just needed a way of seeing them as natural extensions of my aliveness, instead of a growing collection of flat circles that were eating me alive.

What I really needed was a way of seeing myself—not as a diagram, slash, multiple hyphens or any other inanimate thing that I’d inevitably try to fit into—but really seeing myself: my kaleidoscopic humanness and everything that comes with it, the logic that I naturally carry without having to add anything on, the shape I uniquely make.

I sensed, deep down, that I already made sense. That somewhere inside of me there was a cohesive through line, connecting and powering all that I was doing and all that I was. And that if I could just see its colors, understand its logic, and feel its shape, I could stop trying to fit myself into things and start letting myself be me.

I will always have love for the hyphen, the slash, and the Venn diagram. My wholehearted trying out of each one was an essential step on the road to developing the Ecstatic Voice approach, and it brings me joy to see how others have claimed them and made them their own.

I also still love my shape-shifting chameleon superpowers: they’re a key part of my ability to communicate through bold changes, to empathize with experiences other than my own, to pull off a quick change with Olympic speed, to read the room. The difference is that now I no longer feel compelled to instantly match the wall color of whatever metaphorical room I’m in. I’d rather bring my own colors to the party, preferably in the form of a kaleidoscopic suit.

And while I still enjoy a good identifying framework, especially now that I can treat them as the well-intentioned, made-up things that they are,⁵ I’m much more interested in what it means to be the well-intentioned, actual human that I am. What it feels like to grow fuller in that humanness in all directions—not just one or two.

Because I always go back to this: If I could do all of that plate-spinning, cartwheeling, and backflipping as a fragment? Imagine what’s possible as a multidimensional human on a humble quest to take full shape.

So, my fellow multidimensional human: What shape do you make? By not shaping yourself to even the most well-intentioned made-up thing or to anything else, how might you begin to take full shape in the world—just by being you?

P.S. As always, if you know someone who would enjoy The Ecstatic Review, please pass it along! All are welcome, and every voice makes this show that much fuller.

P.P.S. Playing some catch-up? Same! Here’s a review of the show so far:

• We looked at the many meanings of the word “show,” and why just showing up can be challenging when you’re multifaceted and dynamic.

• We invited mystery and good conversation as we bet on the generous risk of sharing your voice, and its real possibility of genuine connection.

• In a special revival issue, I re-examined the tricky part of arriving along with the expansive homecoming part, all while considering the value of letting something live again.

1. I first referenced Kristin Linklater’s teachings in “Just show up.” Although Linklater Voice focuses specifically on the speaking voice, unlike the multidimensional view of EV (work, words, and speaking), it translates nicely.

2. Flat Matthew McConaughey was a Doritos Super Bowl commercial concept a couple of years ago. Content warning: If you’re claustrophobic, skip the ending.

3. If you need a refresher on the Venn diagram, you can find one here. I love this website because it looks like websites used to look in the Netscape days, and its descriptions are really clear.

4. Paskin, Willa. “Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie’ Dream Job.” The New York Times Magazine, 11 Jul. 2023.

5. Though I’m convinced that some will never work for me. Case in point: I’ve taken the Enneagram test multiple times and have gotten a different type every single time. I’m untypeable [said like George Costanza]!!!