Your breath doesn’t just keep you alive — it brings your stories to life. In this episode, Kristi explores how intentional breathing shapes the emotional rhythm, tone, and impact of your storytelling. From recreating a car crash scene to guiding jurors through reflection and resolution, your breath is what makes a story felt, not just heard. Learn how to move between urgency and stillness, intensity and calm, using breath as your invisible thread of connection.

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In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. How your breathing patterns shape emotion, pacing, and vocal tone.

2. Ways to use breath to mirror the energy of a scene — from chaos to calm.

3. Why storytelling that “breathes” feels more authentic, cinematic, and memorable.

4. How quick, shallow breaths build urgency and movement.

5. How long, weighted exhales create gravity, empathy, and connection.

6. Why mastering your baseline breath control allows you to flex between emotional extremes without losing composure.

Key Takeaway:

Your breath is the heartbeat of your storytelling.

It’s what makes jurors feel what your client felt — in real time.

Favorite Moment:

“Quick, shallow breaths invite panic and urgency. Slow, weighted breaths invite gravity and compassion. Both are necessary — you just have to know when to use which.”

Links & Resources:

1. The Curse of Knowledge Study https://ucatt.arizona.edu/news/curse-knowledge

2. Revisit Ep. 36 - How Breathing Shapes Jury Decision-Making https://www.fostervoicestudio.com/blog/36

3. Listen to Ep. 41 - It's Not What You Say, It's How You Say It https://www.fostervoicestudio.com/blog/41

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If this episode helped you rethink how your breath shapes your storytelling, share it with a colleague who wants to make their openings and closings more compelling and emotionally alive.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hellllooooo! Hello, Foster Fam! Welcome back. We're officially in a season of gratitude and thanksgiving. I am thankful for this podcast. I really enjoy doing them. And, this is episode 44. 44 weeks of connecting with you, sharing insights, and hopefully, giving you some practical knowledge and action steps to grow in your courtroom communication.

As always, if you've enjoyed our weekly dates, I invite you drop a 5-star rating and quick review. And you know, "smash that like button" on social media. It helps folks find me, but it also greatly encourages me and let's me know I'm not existing in a void.

Today we're talking about how to enhance your storytelling, but before we dig in, I wanted to tell you about this study that I recently learned about. I thought it was fascinating, and a little convicting, and I think you will too.

In 1990, a woman named Elizabeth Newton earned her PhD at Stanford by creating a game she called "Tappers and Listeners." The premise of the game was simple.

"Tappers" were given a list of 120 songs, simple, prevalent throughout modern culture, songs everyone would know. They tapped out the rhythm of these songs just on a table, like this (i'll clap it)...

(clap the rhythm to Happy Birthday)

Now, the tappers thought that these rhythms made it so obvious what the songs were. I mean, they could practically hear the melody to each as they tapped. So, when they were asked to predict the percentage they thought the listeners would get right, they guessed 50%. They made allowances for some mistakes or out of sync cuing, but they thought the listeners would get 1 out of every 2. 50% correct.

In actuality, out of the 120 common, well-known songs, the listeners only got THREE correct. 1 in 40 they were able to guess.

And what was fascinating is the tappers grew frustrated with the listeners. "It's so obvious? How can you be so stupid?"

But, because the tappers know the song title, it makes it near impossible for them not to hear the tune. They know the song, and they can't imagine what it's like to not have that knowledge. They can't put themselves in the listener's shoes and imagine what it's like to just hear disjointed taps instead of a song.

This is a phenomenon called the Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we can't imagine what it was like not to know it. Knowledge has "cursed" us.

Have you ever played charades or Pictionary. You've drawn a series of lines and left just tapping them over and over, willing your teammates to see what you're seeing, and you're flabberghasted that they're not getting it.

Curse of Knowledge.

And how often is this happening in your openings. When you're in your teaching section, can you see all the ways that you might be "tapping out a rhythm" that seems SO OBVIOUS to you, yet your jury just can't get on the same wavelength with you?

I bet this happens more than you think. Open up your awareness to this; to when you're cursed by knowledge.

And, if you want help speaking in ways that your jury will understand, in ways that will help them, as listeners, maybe understand your "tapping" a bit more, start with eliminating some of your legalese. You might be surprised which words made it onto my free cheat sheet Top 20 Legal Terms to Avoid (and What to Say Instead). Click the link in the show notes to get your free download.

—BREAK—

I talk a lot about how your breath impacts your courtroom leadership. I might be beating a dead horse here, but if you're not paying attention to your breath — and by that, I mean, the mechanics of HOW you're breathing — you are grossly neglecting a huge aspect of your legal communication strategy.

I talked about this a few episodes ago, so, go back and listen to Episode 36 for a deeper dive into how breathing shapes jury decision-making. But for now, let’s do a quick refresher.

THE SCIENCE OF BREATHING AND LEADERSHIP

How you breathe determines which branch of your autonomic nervous system — that's your body’s stress-response system — which branch is activated.

When you breathe high and shallow, your body up-regulates the sympathetic branch — the one responsible for the fight-flight-freeze response. That’s not always bad. We don't want to vilify it. Sometimes, you need that little spark of energy before you walk into the courtroom. It sharpens your reflexes and boosts your focus.

But when that system stays revved up for too long, you lose control of it. Adrenaline, norepinephrine, cortisol, and endorphins flood your body — and you can start to feel jittery, reactive, and on edge.

The good news? You can shift that.

When you breathe low — deep into your abdomenal muscles — you activate your parasympathetic branch, often called the “rest-and-digest” system. That’s the calm, focused, responsive rather than reactive state you want to operate from when you’re leading a jury through complex material.

THE MIRROR EFFECT

And here’s the part that people forget about: your breath doesn’t just regulate you.

It regulates them.

Jurors have mirror neurons — specialized brain cells that subconsciously copy what they see and hear. When you breathe calmly, they will unconsciously start to match your rhythm.

So if you’re breathing fast and shallow, their nervous systems will rise to match yours. They’ll feel tension, even if they don’t know why, and even if they don't notice it themselves. Like I said, this is all happening on the subconscious level.

Start paying attention to this. If when you pause, you notice that everyone kind of does a collective sigh, that's a good indicator that YOU'VE probably been breathing high and THEY'RE not getting enough air and enough of the parasympathetic chemical dumping to counter the stress.

But when you breathe low and slow, their bodies start to settle, too. And that’s the space where emotional connection and rational decision-making can happen.

That’s why your breath isn’t just a technique. It’s a leadership tool.

BREATHING AS A STORYTELLING TOOL

Now, all of this low, slow breathing we’ve talked about — that’s your baseline. It’s what keeps you in control.That's where you should be functioning from on the regular.

But there are also moments when your breath can be used intentionally to communicate emotion and enhance storytelling.

You've got to get your baseline locked in, so work on that first. But, once you know how to breathe intentionally, then you can start to play around a little bit with breath as a storytelling tool.

Let’s say you’re describing the moment of a car crash in your client’s case.

This is not the time to be slow and still. This is a moment of chaos.

Your breath should reflect that.

Your sentences should shorten.

Your pace should quicken.

Your breath should sit higher in your chest — not because you’ve lost control, but because you’re using it to bring your jurors into the scene.

NARRATIVE: THE CRASH

She’s driving home, late afternoon light flickering through the trees. The traffic light ahead turns yellow, then red — she slows. But in her rearview mirror, headlights are coming fast. Too fast.

She braces herself, and then—BAM!—impact.

Metal slams metal. The world lurches. Tires scream. Her car spins — once, twice — the sound of shattering glass mixing with her own gasp for breath. She grips the steering wheel but has no control, no sense of direction. Everything blurs — the road, the airbag, the sound of her heartbeat pounding in her ears — until finally…

silence.

THE POWER OF CONTRAST

That’s what I mean when I say you can use your breath.

You create motion and energy through quick, shallow inhales — then you reclaim stillness when the moment settles.

Let’s take that same scene… and shift the breath.

NARRATIVE: AFTER THE IMPACT

The spinning stops.

The car tilts, then settles against the curb.

She exhales — shaky, uneven — and for the first time realizes how loud the silence feels. The ticking of the turn signal. The hiss of a leaking tire. The smell of burnt rubber.

Her chest tightens — not from fear now, but from the weight of what just happened.

That moment — the breath that comes after — carries gravity. Stillness. Reflection.

BACK TO COACHING MODE

See how that shift works?

Quick, shallow breaths invite panic and urgency. Slow, weighted breaths invite gravity and compassion. Both are necessary — you just have to know when to use which.

Your breath is what drives emotional authenticity. It’s what gives the jury permission to feel — not tell them what to think.

When you master that — when you can move seamlessly between heightened breath and calm control — you gain authority over your own nervous system and the emotional temperature of the room.

BREATH SHAPES EMOTION AND SOUND

Breath doesn’t just affect emotion; it also affects sound.

When you’re tight, tense, and breathing high, your voice gets thinner. It strains. You lose resonance, projection, and emotional warmth.

When you breathe low and free, the sound opens up. You get a fuller tone — grounded, rich, and steady.

And remember: jurors don’t just hear your words; they feel your tone. Episode 21 was all about tone.

Your voice becomes the emotional landscape of the courtroom.

So by mastering your breath, you don’t just regulate your nerves — you steer the mood, the energy, and the emotional throughline of your client’s story.

CLOSING REFLECTION

So here’s your challenge this week:

Before your next hearing or client meeting, take 60 seconds to focus on your breath.

Breathe low.

Feel your abdominal muscles expand.

Slow your exhale.

Then, once you’re grounded, experiment. Try telling a section of your opening with breath-led variation — short, quick inhales for urgency, long pauses and slow exhales for weight.

Your breath can do more than keep you alive — it can bring your stories to life.

Until next time, take a breath… and keep fostering your voice.