11. From Hiding to Being Seen: My Journey Through Voice, Creativity, and Podcasting

Andrea Matthies: 00:00:00

I'm Andrea Lee Matthies, writer, photographer,

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and Clairvoyant Medium, and this

is the Bold, Brave Woman Project.

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This podcast is a living, breathing,

unfolding of what it really

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means to step into our becoming.

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Born from the ashes of a failed YouTube

channel, this weekly podcast brings you

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real unfiltered moments of failure, of

bravery, and of deep intuitive knowing,

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so that you too can step into who you are

becoming with even more trust and bravery.

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Let's dive in.

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Welcome back to another episode

of the Bold, brave Woman Project.

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Today.

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I thought I would share with you my

podcasting journey because when I

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was reflecting on it the other day,

I could see how when I first started

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out with my podcasting, it was

actually coming from a really strong

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desire to do something meaningful.

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Driven heavily by fear.

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Now, first I wanna take you back, so

I'm gonna take you back to my childhood

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to paint a bit of a picture as to what

my journey with my voice has been like,

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as well as my relationship with being

seen and being heard, and being in my

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authority through to now through to this

podcast and some of the learnings and

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the lessons that I've had along the way.

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So when I think, right back, and I had

a chat with my mom recently just to get

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a bit of insight from her perspective

of what I was like when I was younger.

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Apparently when I was really

small, I was quite vivacious.

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I was quite creative and quite chatty.

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I would stroll up to strangers

and strike up conversations.

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I was unencumbered and free.

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But as I grew up and things in societal

conditioning, like stranger danger,

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you know, parents were encouraged back

then, and I know they are now, to teach

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children, not to speak to strangers,

to fear strangers, to fear, all the

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things that do occur in our society.

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This conditioning started to filter

down into me, and my mom said

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there was a dramatic shift between.

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Walking up and chatting fearlessly

to strangers to becoming quite

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reserved and becoming quite fearful.

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And as I moved through puberty and

social expectation and trying to

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fit in, particularly at primary

school, self-esteem and body issues

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became quite a big thing for me

that I started to hide even more.

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I started to pull back.

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A girlfriend of mine and I, we used

to love creating these little dances

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and performances with costumes and we

would knock on the, the doors of other

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classrooms in the school and we'd ask to

put on little performance for the class.

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And when we were quite

small, this was great fun

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And we loved it.

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But as we got older and bullying

started to come into play, judgment

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The kids just making fun of us.

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as I kind of moved into the, that

10-year-old, 11, 12-year-old age

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period, I also started to gain weight

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When I reflect back, I used to

sneak a lot of food because I was

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using food to cope with stress.

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And so between withdrawing from society

and trying to become invisible, eating

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my feelings, my weight gain increased,

which then increased the bullying and

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the teasing and the exclusion, which

then fueled this cycle of pulling

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back even more and eating even more.

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That it actually at that very young age,

created not only self-esteem and poor

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body image issues, but at the beginnings

of an eating disorder, a binge eating

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disorder, which later turned into bulimia.

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And, here's the thing, even with

all of this on board, there was

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still a strong undercurrent of

creativity that existed within me.

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I was lucky enough that from an

educational perspective, my parents

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allowed me to take some multimedia

subjects, which opened the door for

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me to filmmaking, to digital audio

production, to creating my own films,

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but because I had these self-esteem

issues still on board, I made sure I

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executed this from behind the camera.

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Instead of being the one

performing or dancing.

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It felt much safer for me to explore

my creativity from behind the lens.

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Always directing, always producing,

always writing, but never performing.

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It didn't feel safe to perform

anymore, and as my self-esteem

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issues and my body dysmorphia, grew

into bulimia and really struggling

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My need to step back further and

further progressed that eventually even,

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although I went on to study multimedia

and filmmaking and I worked in film

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and television for quite a number

of years, this feeling of not being

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worthy, of not wanting to be seen, of

not being good enough overtook that,

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that I stepped away from it completely.

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And it actually took me a really long time

and a number of careers, which I described

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in the earlier episode to find my way back

to opening the doors of creativity again.

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And there was a lot of trauma

and conditioning and beliefs that

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I had to decode along the way.

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There was one point where I'd convinced

myself that I wasn't creative.

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And I just, I just wasn't creative.

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I'd lost my ability to paint.

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I'd lost my ability to write.

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I wasn't even journaling at the time,

like I couldn't even pick up a pen.

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There was such worthlessness and such

devaluing that had happened in my mind

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about my value in who I was that had

really put up this incredible block

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between myself and my creativity, and

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And so I spent most of my career

moving in and out of different science

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or math or strategic based careers.

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Until the COVID pandemic hit, and this

was really interesting because I had

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been suppressing this creative side

of me for decades, by this point, I

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had gone through significant health

challenges based on all of the damage

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that I had done with my eating disorders.

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I was even misdiagnosed as bipolar

there by a medical professional at one

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point and popped on a whole bunch of

different bipolar regulating medication.

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I was basically sedated, for a

significant period of my life

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But it wasn't until the pandemic

that I really decided to dig

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in and start to change my life.

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I decided to take my life back to take

control of how I was feeling and the

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conditioning that was making me feel

and think and act in these certain

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ways, and to start to excavate and

uncover who it was that I really was.

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And so with a brave leap of faith,

I decided to get off my medication.

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Of course, I was medically supported

in that decision to start to tap into

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my spirituality and my nature as a

psychic medium, as a channeler I started

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to reawaken the gifts that I'd always

had, starting with kinesiology and EFT

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tapping to really strip back all of

these layers and these masks of the

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person that I had become to uncover

who it was that I truly was underneath.

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And through this I realized two

very, very important things.

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One is that I, I had this deep desire

to be in service to others, and

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that was really evident in a lot of

the career changes that I had made.

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Every time I got overwhelmed in

my marketing and sales career,

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I would always go and retrain in

something that was in service,

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Whether it was in nursing or whether

it was in teaching, I would always find

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myself gravitating to doing something

that was in service, and I knew deep

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down, once I'd stripped back a lot of

this conditioning and the shoulds and the

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expectations that I'd placed on myself,

that making my life be more than just

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making money for others, or climbing the

corporate ladder to do something that was

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actually meaningful and enabled me to get

to the end of my life and look back and

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be like, I lived a life that was not only

in service of others, but was meaningful

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and purposeful, and made a difference.

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And the second thing that started to

reveal itself very, very quickly was

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that I wanted to reignite and reconnect

with my creativity and my creative

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side, that side of me that had been

there since I was a little girl, but

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got suppressed and compressed under

trauma and under expectation of what

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was good and what was successful.

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When I started to realize these two

things, I was in a massive transitional

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period in my life where I was stepping

out of a relationship that was no

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longer in the highest of my health

and in the highest of my good.

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I had had the beautiful opportunity to

be a stepmom to a beautiful little boy.

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And stepping away from that relationship

meant leaving him behind and taking

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off that hat that I'd worn for

almost a decade as a stepmom and

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putting it to the side, and no longer

having that relationship anymore.

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It was such tumultuous time of who am I

if I'm not a stepmother, if I'm not in

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this relationship, or wanting to have the

life that I had just fixated on building

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for such a long time, who am I and

where am I and what am I gonna do next?

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And as I transitioned outta that

relationship, I had to sell the

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home that I had worked so hard to

build and move into my own place.

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I changed careers at the same time.

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I transitioned from one corporate

organization into another because I just

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needed to clean slate on all levels.

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And soon after all of this

transitional period into this new

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career and this new place, COVID hit.

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And that changed everything in that

it really slowed everything down.

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I was fortunate in that my

work was able to continue.

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But like all of us, everything

else, all of the distractions, all

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the extracurricular stuff stopped.

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I had all of this time to really

reflect on who am I, where

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am I, and what do I wanna do.

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I started to paint, I started to

draw, and this amazing idea, which

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I'd never had up until this point

to create a podcast popped into my

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mind, but I wanted it not to just be

a podcast for the sake of a podcast.

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I wanted it to be meaningful.

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And I had been doing a lot of

reading at the time around racism and

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systemic privilege I thought, I know.

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I'm gonna create a podcast that

invites voices of people of color

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onto the podcast to open up channels

of communication around where we're

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actually getting it wrong and what we

could actually do differently to start

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to address some of these problems.

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I created the very first live stream

podcast with a video feed into Facebook,

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for a show called Life In Contradiction.

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And each week I would live stream an

episode with a guest who would come on and

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talk about their experiences with racism.

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And starting to hold the

conversation of what could change.

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And this project, honestly,

it changed my life.

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There was something about holding space

for difficult conversations that really

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fueled me and I realized that I loved,

creating space for stories to be told.

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For asking hard questions for people.

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Really challenging my point of view.

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I I realized very quickly that

creating these kinds of platforms

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and spaces and conversations

was what I really wanted to do.

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And whilst Life In Contradiction only

had one season, and it was mainly ended

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because I ended up in a major health

crisis that resulted in some major

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surgery, That feeling never left me.

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The surgery that I had to have

was actually a hysterectomy.

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And it had taken me on this pathway

of one minute I am a woman with

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all of the complete body parts, to

having to swallow the fact that the

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body parts and the things that made

up a woman and a mother were no

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longer going to be there and dealing

with the emotional fallout of that.

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And I had already, as I'd mentioned,

been on such tumultuous journey with

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my body to realize that we don't talk

about the journeys of our bodies a lot.

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And all of a sudden I'm laid up on

the couch in this recovery period.

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Why don't I create a podcast that

creates space for women to come

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on and talk about the journeys

that they have with their bodies?

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Everything, the good, the

bad, the hard, the unspoken,

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and so Body Diaries was born.

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And I set about reaching out to women

right across the world to see if there

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was anyone who had had a journey with

their body that they wanted to come

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and share and talk about, the things

that that helped them get through.

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That was an incredible podcast.

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We had so many different women talk, about

all sorts of journeys, everything from

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escaping domestic violence and alcoholism

to overcoming eating disorders and even

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managing and living with adult ADHD.

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It was a beautiful podcast and don't

worry, that podcast is still around.

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It is gonna be back in its

second season very soon.

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But it took me on this journey

of realizing that stories matter.

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And the most interesting thing about

Body Diaries is that it started to

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awaken in me this desire to start

stepping into being seen again.

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It was amazing how using your voice

and telling stories, being brave enough

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to finally tell those stories into a

microphone just chips away another layer

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of fear that we put on ourselves, about

speaking up, And it opened the door of

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this curiosity that I had about, well,

what if I was to explore being seen?

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And performing and being on stages,

and so soon after Body Diaries

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launched, I became very curious

about taking some improv classes.

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And improv led to acting, led back to

improv, led back to more performance.

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And before I knew it, I had overcome

this fear of being seen by putting

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myself out there, by starting to

allow the world to see me on stages.

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I got better at showing up on social

media, on video, and sharing my thoughts

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and feelings that soon I realized I

wanted to do more than just have podcasts.

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I was ready to not be hiding behind the

microphone or behind the camera anymore.

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Part of my journey and part of my

destiny is to be seen, is to share, is

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to be on stages and is to be on screens.

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I wanted to share this because what

can feel as a fear and as hiding can

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transform into something incredible and

beyond even more than what you think.

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If you had have told me that one day

I would be declaring to the world that

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I wanted to have my own show and be a

host back when I was stuck in the eating

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disorder in the dysmorphia, in the feeling

of not being good enough and hating being

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in my body, I would've called you crazy.

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I would've said, no way.

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Like, I don't need, I can't see that.

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I can't feel that.

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That just feels impossible, and it is

absolutely categorically not what I want.

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Because at the time, I was in

that frequency of hiding, of being

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contracted, and allowing my fears

to rule the frequency that I was in.

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Whereas now through the journey

of all of the healing that

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I've done, it feels possible.

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but not just possible.

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It feels desirable.

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And so if you've got a project that you

wanna start At whatever level that you're

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at right now, if it's just speaking

to a microphone, if it's showing up

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on camera, if it's writing a book and

putting everything into the words right

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now, because you're not ready to be seen.

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Do it, embrace it because it will

open the door to the healings that

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are needed for you to then step into

the full potential of who you are.

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That next chapter, that next

level of expression of creativity.

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Because within you, no matter how

suppressed it is, no matter when it

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got shaken out of you, creativity

and expression exists and it lives.

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It's just waiting for you to find

the channels to open the door to

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let the light in enough for it to be

stirred up and vibrated and poured

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out to then lead to the next thing

and the next thing and the next thing.

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I'm personally really excited to see

where this chapter flows for me, and I can

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guarantee you that wherever I end up in

the next 12 months, 24 months, five years,

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10 years, it is gonna be even further and

even bigger than what I can see right now

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But what I promise and commit to myself

to doing is to continue to dream.

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To continue to hold visions and ideas

of expansion for myself, because every

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step I take allows just that little bit

more creativity and expansion in which

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then can catapult us to destinations

even beyond our wildest dreams.

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So if you have been looking for

a reinforcement to go and do that

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thing, take that first step or

even the 50th step further into

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your creativity and expression.

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Here it is.

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And of course I wanna hear all about it.

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I wanna hear about the dream.

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I wanna hear about the steps and

the progressions and the bold moves.

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So please reach out to me,

send me a dm, send me an email.

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I wanna celebrate you because taking

those steps is really bold and it

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takes so much courage to keep going

and to not let the fear overtake you.

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So the more I can celebrate you

to put more energy and excitement

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behind you to keep flying forward,

that makes me so happy, and it is

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something that I would just love

to be able to do in service of you.

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And I cannot wait to see

you in the next episode.

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As always, thank you for being here.

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If this episode stirred something for you

and you wanna book a channeled reading,

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jump on the link in the show notes.

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There's only a few channel reading

sessions available each week.

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And of course you can reach

out to me anytime on my main

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Instagram handle @andi.matthies,

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or follow all of my art and photography

on my art feed @pathandnine on Instagram.