Launching a Podcast
28th August 2020I’ve done lots of firsts, first kiss, first love, first plane trip, first job, first time travelling alone, first home. Every time you do something for the first time there is fear, then enjoyment and then elation at facing the fear and doing it anyway !
Now at 47 I’ve launched my first Podcast !
I’ve not done this alone, I’ve been part of a small team that have spent hours researching, recording, editing, reaching out to people, researching more, creative “discussion”, more editing, more recording and finally ending up with a product we want to share with the world. Jo and Jeff have become family while we’ve been building and creating this podcast. This has happened because we’ve been a team working through everything together, the rawness, the joys and the hard work.
I’ve talked about being reasonably reserved in nature on what I share, the truly personal.
Well, this podcast is about everything personal to me, all my vulnerabilities and insecurities. But it’s a topic that I feel so strongly about I’ve worn my heart on my sleeve and I’m talking about it all. My disenfranchised grief, my miscarriage, how the world made me feel about it, how the world didn’t seem to notice what I was going through. Its all real and raw but I talk about it honestly. It’s a revelation to me and its like a weight lifted off my shoulders.
I hadn’t realised what I was carrying out in my heart for so long could be pulling me down so much. That I wasn’t being truly authentic because I wasn’t allowing people to see all of me, know all of me.
Talking about being childless and just what that means to me has taught me so much more about myself. I’ve been deep diving into research and can’t get enough of finding out more information and talking to researchers who are focussed exactly on this topic. I’ve found so much information already and I’ve also learnt just what an amazing community of voices already exist out there. Everyone we reach out to from counsellors to researchers to fellow women without children, everyone is so open to sharing their stories and wanting to be part of what we’re creating. This makes my cup overflow. Slowly, but surely the collective is working to bring this conversation out into the open and one day make it a normal discussion over the dinner table.
I’ve been nervous, will I offend people, will I offend those closest to me. I’ve had all those thoughts. But the fact is, I haven’t been fair to them in not sharing 100% what I was going through, and to be fair to me, just as much as they never followed up with me when I was upset or distant.
So hear it is, all laid to bear. The huge part of my life which has been locked away. The rusty key has been turned and the butterfly has been released.
We launched our Trailer episode 2 days ago and we’ve had over 100 downloads. Can you believe it !!
People are listening to what Jo and I have to say on being childless or childfree.
Launching a podcast in the middle of a pandemic is all I know so there are no face to face comments or hugs, its all online and there has been so much feedback !
I’ve had friends reach out to share long messages on how moved they have been by the topic and that they are so keen to hear more. I’ve had friends who are mothers and friends who are not mothers reach out to me. I’ve been inundated with positive feedback and congratulations from the Lady Start Up community we are in as we create this side hustle, the community we are making this for and by my personal community.
My family have been pretty quiet about it. Perhaps they are concerned about what I’ll say. But they don’t need to be, I’m speaking my truth and they will in fact get a better understanding of why I’ve removed myself at times or not turned up. They should be proud. I’m taking the experience I’ve had and turning it into a mission.
I’ll give them some time, change is difficult and its not often easy to cope with change when you thought you had someone all figured out and you realise there was a side that had been locked away all this time.
We launched a podcast for UnRipe Community for and about Childfree and Childless women in Australia and New Zealand!!!!
I’m so grateful for the positive feedback and can’t wait to start sharing the next episodes as they drop each week. We’ll talk through a whole bunch of topics to start and then we want to be guided by our community on what they want to hear more about. Don’t worry, we have a pile of things we want to say, now that the padlock has been opened there is no stopping us !
We do want to celebrate, and we will, once all this settles down and we can visit each other again.
WE LAUNCHED A PODCAST !