Found Voices The Podcast -- Episode #1 Why Found Voices

Oh boy,

Do I dig this music.

Welcome to Found Voices.

I'm Carolyn Ziehl.

This is a podcast about writing and voice and creativity and what I like to call creative mindfulness.

I am a writer,

But it took me a really long time to put that hat on and wear it with pride.

A really long time.

I don't think I even knew the hat existed until I found my voice.

And that's why this podcast is called Found Voices.

When you find your voice,

Your life changes.

And that process,

The beginning,

The middle,

And what comes after is really interesting to me.

We'll talk about all things writing,

All things voice,

All things creativity and creative mindfulness.

We'll talk about other things.

I don't know,

We might talk about dance and movement and cooking because you can find your voice in so many different ways.

So welcome to Found Voices.

My first episode of Found Voices.

Wow.

I've wanted to do a podcast for a really long time.

Before that,

Before there were podcasts and social media and I used to listen to talk radio.

I wanted to have a radio show.

I thought,

How fun.

I get to hang out in my pajamas and talk into a microphone.

And just so you know,

I might be in my pajamas now.

Anyway,

I love talking into a microphone and I have a lot to say.

Just ask my husband.

But it's not just about the microphone,

Of course.

There was something about it that appealed to me.

It just seemed like so much fun talking to interesting people and passionate topics,

Things we're passionate about.

It just seemed like it would be so much fun.

But here's the thing.

I didn't start the podcast.

I just put it way,

Way,

Way in the back of my mind.

I let it sit there.

And even though I always had a lot to say,

I didn't put myself out there.

I didn't know how to put myself out there.

Because I hadn't officially found my voice yet.

And if I'm really honest and think about it,

I don't even know if I knew what it meant.

Voice.

What does that even mean?

So of course I hadn't found it yet.

I didn't even know what it was.

Until I started taking a writing class in 2008.

It's actually kind of a funny story how I came to the class.

I remember one night my husband and I,

We were reading in bed,

And I just wasn't feeling myself.

I remember saying to my husband,

Honey,

Something's off.

I'm just not feeling it.

And he looked over at me.

We talked a little bit.

And he said,

I think you're depressed.

And what he meant was that in terms of my life,

In that moment,

I was feeling a little down,

Not myself,

Kind of slipping into a little bit of an unhappy place.

So that is how he used the word depressed.

So I looked at him and I thought,

Hmm,

Maybe I am feeling a little bit off.

Maybe I should do something.

And he said,

You need to do something different.

You need more in your life.

But it can't be another yoga class.

And what he meant by that is I have a tendency to love to work out.

And I always look toward movement.

Not always.

I always used to look toward movement to kind of make me feel better,

Which is not a bad thing.

And I still look toward movement,

But not only movement.

But he meant I needed something a little bit more for my mind,

A hobby.

He has a lot of hobbies.

He doesn't call them hobbies,

But he's always building something.

Or at the time,

He was sailing and I wasn't.

That kind of thing.

I needed something outside,

Something to stimulate my mind,

Something for myself.

And so I signed up for this writing class in 2008.

It's a very special class.

It teaches things not so much about plot and story,

But it teaches you how to find your voice.

And also all about language and writing and writers and tonal dynamics and how to use language to express yourself however you want.

Anyway,

My writing has improved immensely since I've been studying this particular method of writing.

So I signed up for this class and I had no idea that it would change my life like it did.

And I believe not only over the years have I become a more confident writer.

I mean,

Obviously I teach writing.

I coach and mentor and use writing as a tool.

But what happened is I found my voice on the page.

And when you find your voice on the page,

You want to put it out into the world.

When you find your voice on the page,

Your life changes.

It starts in small incremental little shifts and then all of a sudden one day you look around and you think,

Wow,

Look at my life.

Wow,

Look at the life I'm living.

Wow,

I'm recording my first podcast,

Something I've always wanted to do.

Here's the thing about voice.

We all have our own unique voice,

Our own unique perspective,

Our own unique way of expressing ourselves into this world.

So I'm a writer.

You might be a painter.

You might be a photographer,

A dancer,

A singer,

A chef,

A cook,

An accountant,

Doesn't matter.

We all express ourselves in the world in different ways.

Found Voices to me is that moment when you uncover your unique style,

Signature,

Voice,

Expression and your perspective and you begin to put it out into the world.

So I started submitting my work to journals,

Literary journals,

Started a blog,

Started a different blog,

Wrote for different publications,

Wrote a book of poetry and I keep expressing myself and I keep putting my voice out there.

I keep cultivating and practicing my craft and I keep putting my voice out there.

I keep putting my perspective,

My work out into the world.

And here I am recording this podcast,

Just another way to express myself.

So this whole idea,

I think it's pretty cool.

One of my girlfriends is a very,

Very,

Very creative individual.

She's a mixed media artist.

She is so incredibly talented and I know her because of her husband because my husband,

My husband's crazy.

Talk about expressing yourself.

He loves sailing.

He works with metal.

He's crazy in a good way.

Our bed is this big aluminum bed.

He builds boats.

He'll build anything.

He wants to build a house in our backyard and rent it out since they changed the zoning laws.

So anyway,

I always joke,

You know that TV show Survivor,

Right?

If my husband were on that island,

He'd go AWOL and all of a sudden on the other side of the island,

They'd see this huge structure being built and they'd go to tribal council and Jeff Probst would say,

Where's Bill?

And they would point to the other side of the island and he'd have built some huge complex.

He'd probably win because they wouldn't be able to find him to vote him off.

Anyway,

That's silly.

The reason I say he's crazy,

He sailed alone to Hawaii on our 33 foot sailboat and he wants to do it again.

And so the reason I'm telling you this,

Because the race that he did to Hawaii,

It was a race,

The single handed sailboat race,

Single or double handed,

Was through a yacht club and my husband helped to organize the race.

And my girlfriend's husband is in that yacht club.

And that's how I know her.

And now I am a sailor and I sail with her husband and my husband and she and I are just really good girlfriends.

So the thing is,

She's super talented.

She's an amazing mixed media artist.

And she recently,

Saturday night,

Had this amazing show.

And before that,

I went to another show,

It was smaller.

Before that,

She started her Instagram account and so on.

She's just doing her thing.

And of course,

You know,

I don't know her exact creative process.

I don't know how she came to find her voice.

But from my perspective,

I see her growing more and more confident in her expression into the world.

And this show that I went to on Saturday night was amazing.

It was with three artists in this really,

Really cool shared workspace.

And we were talking about,

Of course,

She wants to sell her work.

Who doesn't?

I mean,

I wrote a poetry book,

Please run and go buy it.

But it's not about the selling of it.

It's about the expression.

It's about taking the risk and putting it out into the world.

And when you follow those little voices that say,

Okay,

Start the Instagram account,

Okay,

You know,

Take this class or put this painting here,

Put,

You know,

Put it out into the world in this show and do this and this and this.

It's not about what you sell.

It's about listening and continuing to listen because you don't know where anything's going to lead.

So at this show on Saturday night,

She sold some work,

But what's even more exciting and so cool is there is a curator interested in her art.

And for those writers out there,

A curator interested in your art is like an agent interested in your work as a writer.

It's pretty exciting.

So I look at my friend and I see she has found her voice as an artist.

And it's a really cool thing to watch.

And I was with all these other artists that night and it was so fun to talk to them about how they express themselves into the world,

How they express their voice.

One uses charcoal,

One,

You know,

Is like painting and oils.

And there's so many different ways to use your voice and put it out into the world.

I'm a writer.

I'm a teacher.

I'm a writing coach,

An editor,

A mentor.

I record meditations and now a podcast.

And you know what?

I had no idea I would do any of this.

And how I came to record meditations is interesting.

So I started meditating three plus years ago.

So I'm a newer meditator.

And at the time,

A little after that,

I was writing,

Teaching writing at a small studio in Redondo Beach.

And how I came to that is by listening to my inner voice.

One day I was taking a walk and I probably walked by this little studio a million times since South Redondo.

And I saw a sign for it.

And it said,

You know,

Movement and meditation.

And they had a whole bunch of things.

It wasn't just going to be yoga or fitness.

It was like,

You know,

Mind,

Body,

Soul.

I reached out to the owner.

And I sent an email and I said,

Have you ever thought about having someone teach writing there?

And we met.

And cut to I was teaching writing there.

She was leading meditation and I used to work out there too and take her meditations.

And one day she couldn't be there.

And she said,

Hey,

You should sup for me.

And I did.

And one of my writing students happened to be in that meditation.

And on our way out,

She said,

Wow,

You're good at that.

You're good at leading meditation.

You should record them.

And I laughed and said,

Thank you.

And she said,

No,

I'm really serious.

And I laughed harder and I said,

Thank you.

And cut to one day,

I'm listening to a meditation on insight timer and I hear a little voice.

And the voice says,

You should record meditations for insight timer.

And I said,

Who is that?

The voice came back a week later.

And so I thought,

Okay,

I'm not going to ignore your voice.

And so clickety clack,

Clickety clack,

Clickety clack.

I send an email to insight timer.

Hey,

How do I do this?

They send an email back.

I record my first meditation on GarageBand.

I knew nothing about GarageBand.

My first meditations are horrible.

I mean,

Not the content per se,

But the sound quality.

I do sound a little bit like I'm underwater or in an echo chamber.

It's pretty funny.

But then I refined my meditations.

I learned of ways to clean them up.

So the sound quality is better.

I became better at it.

I cultivated my voice.

And I love recording meditations.

But the thing is,

I listened to the little voice inside of me that led me first to the writing class.

You know,

That night,

When my husband said to me,

You need to do something that isn't another yoga class.

And I thought about it.

And I listened to a little voice inside that said,

Hey,

You love writing.

You were an English major,

Take a writing class.

And that's how it happens.

So I start recording meditations.

I have been teaching now for a while.

We continue to grow.

We continue to cultivate our voice.

We continue to put it out into the world.

But it's that piece of finding it,

Uncovering it.

I'll talk about that in the future,

How to uncover it with writing.

I'm sure this podcast will grow and develop,

Change.

But if I'm to impart one thing out into the world,

Whomever might be listening to this,

I would say,

In order to find your voice and put it out into the world,

You first have to start listening to the little voice inside.

And so however we can do that.

And the other thing I would say is,

Don't be afraid to make a mistake,

To stumble,

To stumble a lot.

Don't be afraid.

Not everybody will agree with you.

People will critique you.

But you have something to say.

You have found your voice.

It's time to put it out into the world.

Because when you find your voice,

Doors open,

When you show up in the world,

Authentic in who you are,

Expressing yourself in a way that is true to you,

In your unique voice,

Whatever that may be,

Through photography,

Through painting,

Through art,

Movement,

Dance,

Cooking,

Teaching,

Accounting,

It doesn't matter what you do in this world,

But you make a unique imprint upon it.

So when you find your voice,

You shift your life.

Something magical changes.

And you can't help but make a difference in the world.

So thank you for listening to this first episode of Found Voices.

Drop me a line.

Let me know what you think.

Maybe there's something that you want me to talk about in the future.

I have tons of ideas.

Creativity,

How to take criticism,

How to find your voice,

So many topics.

What creative mindfulness is to me.

Inspiration,

Poetry,

How writers need to read.

Thanks for listening to my first podcast,

Found Voices.

Light on!