Angie Greaves: Your Voice Is Your Tool -Healing, Storytelling & the Courage to Face Fear |

Believe in the value of your story because there's power in vulnerability. Sometimes the hardest task is to do a 180 and face your fears. It will be frightening. Yeah. It will hurt. At some point you're going to have to face your fears, your trauma, your pain.

Here we are at Her Voice Impacts, another jam-packed episode. I'm Daniela Eon, here to amplify women's voices globally. I've had the pleasure of traveling the world to meet so many women in arts, culture, entertainment, business, politics— so many wonderful women. And today I am at Point Blank Music School. My favourite place is behind this desk, but I'm not going to be interviewing myself today. I'm actually going to be talking to Angie Greaves. Now, she is a radio host and broadcaster of the Smooth Drive Home episodes where she plays music, she gets to speak to people between 4 and 7, which is like crazy hour. But we're actually here to talk about storytelling, the soul, spiritual things, and how she's pivoting into her next level. This is really important as women are going into a new creative era of self-expression and authenticity and I can't wait for you to hear some of the golden nuggets she has for you today. Here we are at Her Voice Impacts. This is the perfect setting for you, Angie.

Absolutely.

This is your home.

Absolutely.

Do you want to press a button?

If I press one, I'll probably end up pressing— I mean, this— I love studios. I love studios. It's about the unknown of what's going to come out the other side, having operated a studio. So I walk into a radio studio every day, and even though my show is playlisted, it is about what I play, but it's also about what I say. So it could be that a mother is getting her kids ready for after-school club. It could be that somebody can't wait, they're looking at, oh, come on, 5 o'clock! It could be a number of things. It could be that a shift worker that's actually getting ready to go to work. It be the taxi driver, it could be the nurse or the medical worker in a hospital or a clinic, it could be someone in a shop. It's about what's going to happen in that time frame.

Yes.

Once they turn the radio on. So even though I'm going to go in, the fader's there, um, you know, Zeta A's there, Zeta B's there, you know, it's— and I, I do that 5, 6 days a week, but my conversation is different. Yeah. So you might hear me play Elton John or Robbie Williams or Luther Vandross 4 times a week, but my conversation where, you know, I'm going to meet you where you are. Yeah. So yesterday you might have had a great day at work. Today you might have had one of those days where you're looking for 5 o'clock. Might be playing the same song, but my conversation—

wow—

will get you through those last few minutes of the working day. Why would I want to do anything else? And so this podcast now, Her Voice Impacts, it is about her voice. It's about—

and it's the collective voice. And I think we talked about these. It's not about an individual's one voice. No, it's about the feminine voice.

Absolutely.

And how we're bringing that forward. And how are you doing that through your line of work? It's not a—

call it work. I don't call it work. I call it more of a service.

It's a service you're giving.

Yeah. If someone— I have to— I choose to think, why is somebody going to stop what they're doing at 4 o'clock and turn the radio on? Why is that taxi driver at 4 o'clock who's probably had goodness knows How many customers? Why is that taxi driver going to turn the radio on at 4 o'clock? If that taxi driver doesn't turn the radio on at 4 o'clock and is just scanning through some stations, why does he stop at Smooth? Why does he or she stop at me? Why do college principals say, "Angie, we'd like you to come and talk to the kids"? Why do People in care homes say, Angie, can you come and talk to the staff? Can you come and talk to those in the care homes? And I never take it for granted, and that's why I look after my voice. It's my tool, in the same way that a plumber looks after his spanners and his monkey wrench. He looks after the tools.

Wow.

And It's not something that I ever stop and think, oh, it's just a job, because it's not a job.

You live and breathe it.

Yeah, it's, it's not a job.

It's not that you're there for those amount of hours and that's it, and you've— I've clocked off now. No, it goes with you, right?

Absolutely. I mean, I'm very blessed. I'm going to get to work today at 3 o'clock.

I know.

I'm going to do my show. I'm going to leave at 7. But it's— I'm, I'm always thinking about what's happening the next day.

You're right.

So today is Friday, I won't be at work on Saturday, but I will be on Sunday, and there's a different energy on Sunday as there is Monday to Friday. So drive time in the week, you do think about the after-school run, you do think about rush hour, you do think about what are people doing between 4 and 7. I normally say between 4 and 6, because at 6 o'clock I envisage you're at the dinner table.

Yeah. Everyone's—

That's it.

Relaxing.

That's it. Or it could be the flip for somebody, it could be the shift worker that's just getting ready to go out. So they're having some family time and then that shift worker is going to work. Now, it may be that the parent that's left behind is thinking, fantastic, I've got some time for myself, or it could be that they're like, do you know what, this shift thing's got to stop because I need family time. Now, on a Sunday, even if you work on a Sunday, the Sunday energy is different.

It's more relaxed, isn't it?

It's more relaxed.

Easy, yeah.

And I find that my show on a Sunday on Smooth is less structured.

Wow.

So, um, I'm not doing travel updates unless there is something really, you know, absolutely. It's about how was your Friday, how was your Saturday, what's the plan for Sunday. Are you just going to stay on the sofa and do nothing? Are you going to do a bit of baking, whether you like baking or not? Are you going to get through that pile of ironing that you've been looking at that's getting higher and higher and higher? Or—

or relatable, everyone's related.

Do you see what I mean? Or are you going to look at that pile of ironing and think, you know, I'm not going to do it, I'm going to actually pay somebody to do it for me? Are you going to sit down around the table and have a Sunday roast? Are you going to say, do you know what, the kitchen is closed, let's go out? Are you going to go for a walk? It's a very different day.

Every day.

Every day, yeah. But there's something about a Sunday.

I do believe it. I feel like the energy of a Sunday is the beginning of the new week.

It's the reset.

It's a reset, right? So we're all pressing that button, whether we know it or not. It's subconsciously we're going, oh yeah, get ready for it, right?

Well, if you've got small kids, have you done your homework?

Yes.

Have you shined your shoes? I mean, I don't know if kids do this anymore. This is what I used to say to my ear on.

We had to shine our shoes.

There you go. Have you done your done your homework? Have you shined your shoes? Have you got your uniform ready on your bed? Is everything in place so that Monday morning, off you go?

And there it is.

Yeah. Wow.

Angie, tell us— well, even tell me— amplifying this tool that you have, this voice, how do you work on it? And how important is it to you? Because it's there for life.

Yep.

And this is your craft.

Yes, it is.

So how do you keep that?

I look after my voice. I'm an ex-smoker.

Wow.

When I— when the light bulb went on for me that this is your craft, this is your job, I gave up the cigarettes.

Like that?

Yeah. Okay. I read a book called Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Alan Carr. Wow. And I knew everything. Everything he put in that book, I knew. But it was the chapter that said— it was a buildup to the chapter that said, "We're moving on now to the benefits of smoking." And the way he built up this chapter, he said, "Right, if you're ready, we're going to now read about the benefits of smoking." I turned the page and it was blank.

Oh boy. What a great author.

Fantastic.

There is no benefits.

It was fantastic. And I thought, if I were a plumber and my tools were stolen, yes, that's my job out the window. If I were a carpenter, yeah. If I were a dancer and broke my leg, or my ballet shoes or my tap shoes got stolen. And I thought, Angela, do you know, you could break an arm or break a leg, you could have diarrhoea, you could still go to work.

You could still use your voice.

So I had to really look after this tool. When vaping came in, I started to vape because I liked the flavours, but I thought, no, Angela, you've got to look after this tool. So it really is honey, lemon, no cold drinks before I go on air.

Late night out.

Um, I have to be very careful. Loud places where you have to go, hi, yeah, I've got to be very, very careful. Warm drinks because they, they, um, soften the vocal cords. Yes, cold drinks, not good. I'm the same. Sugar, no. So I don't do fizzy drinks. Yeah. Um, I drink 3 liters of water a day. Um, I like honey and lemon, I like lemon and ginger, and I make that myself. So I get the fresh ginger I peel it, I shave it, I put it in the cup.

It's a ritual.

Hot water. Yes. I smell that aroma coming up. I squeeze the lemon. You've got to look after your tool. I once heard Barbra Streisand say that—

Oh boy.

Okay.

We're talking about the master of the voice.

Okay. I once heard her say words to the effect of her tool—

Interesting.

—is her voice. She sharpens it, she looks after it, she, you know, she checks in on it. And I thought, well, Angela, okay, you may only be doing a 3-hour radio show, this woman's doing live shows and albums, but it's the same thing.

It is the same thing.

You look after your tool. Yes.

When we had a little conversation before this, You were talking about how important it is as a woman to follow that gut instinct. Yeah. And your intuition. Yeah. And this is coming together with the tool. Absolutely. Because without it, you're not talking or expressing from that authentic place.

Not at all.

And this is needed in radio as well, because you can tell—

well, say it, go on—

you can tell if someone's saying something I'm just not buying that.

Well, look, anybody can go into a radio studio and read— What's on a paper. What's on paper. But are you speaking to your listener from your soul? Are you speaking to your listener from a place of understanding? So I've done many radio shows on many radio stations at different times. Yes.

Yeah.

I, my language to somebody who's on late night radio is going to be very different to my language to somebody who's listening to me on drivetime. Yeah. My language to somebody who is listening to me on drivetime is going to be very different to my language to somebody who's listening to me mid-morning. Yes. It's, you have to, you have to feel and understand your listener. Yes. Now, being a female doesn't mean that I only broadcast to females, but I do get the female connection. Yes. When I do broadcast, I think of the parental connection. Wow. I think of the student connection. I, I, I do—

Your brain is just— oh my goodness, I'm just listening to you thinking, I don't think I could do all that. And I think that's the gift. The gift is to be able to— okay, you— I think you've heard about this, I don't know, as a musician, the split brain, where you can hear the music and then you're in the studio and you're singing and you're hearing them. Is that what's—

is that similar to what should be happening? Very much so.

Like, you're hearing here, you're speaking there, so I'm looking a bit loopy. Yeah.

I think as women, in any case, we are female octopuses.

I was just saying, I feel like a human octopus sometimes. I'm here, I'm there. Tell us.

So, okay, you, you are a woman. You're— if you're a wife, that's a different arm. If you're a mother, that's a different arm. And then as a mother, you're a chef, You're a doctor, you're an unpaid Uber driver, you're a cleaner, you're a business person, because to run a home, that takes a business brain. So you're, for want of a better way of putting it, making sure there's always food in the cupboards, in the fridge. You're making sure that your kids are ready for school, after school. There's a lot to do. Yes. And I see that as well as a radio presenter. So I imagine myself at the head of a table and I'm at a dinner party and there are different guests sitting around the table, different ages, different races, different sexes. And whilst I'm playing my 3 songs in a row, we're eating, we're drinking, and then when I open the mic, I'm talking to my dinner guests.

Wow, so what a visualization!

That, that's how I see it. Wow. So I may have male guests, I may have female guests, I may have black guests, white guests, Asian guests, vegan guests, vegetarian guests, all of them. So you find the language that doesn't offend any of your guests. And I say that without apology, that is a skill.

I have to say that is a huge skill. Yeah, it's probably one that would be the top of the list, right? Absolutely, absolutely.

So I may play an artist who is not necessarily in my personal record collection. So how does that happen? Nobody around the dinner table needs to know that. Nobody around the dinner table needs to know that I don't have this artist in my collection, but I'm telling you about this artist. Interesting. So it's a language that's non-offensive, it's universal, it's got to be warm, it's got to be connecting, and it's a skill. And I say it without apology, it's a gift, um, and I love it.

I absolutely love it. That is I've never heard of it that way, and I didn't know until now. And I guess it's the same way as an artist who's going to be— definitely, you need to know how to do that because you are literally putting yourself out there to everybody.

Well, yeah, I mean, imagine now you're, you're getting ready to go on stage to an audience of 500 people, and let's assume 200 know you, and the others, they've all bought a friend Yeah, that's 400. Let's say that the other 100 don't know you, don't know who you are, never heard of you, have nothing to— you know, they're not, they're not connecting to your musical genre. You don't know that, but your job when you walk out on stage is to envelope each and every— everyone. There you go, with your voice. So the, the 200 that brought a friend are going to go home saying, I told you she was good. Yeah, yeah. And they go, oh yeah. And the 100 are going, my Goodness, I've never heard this woman before, but my goodness, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna check her out now on Spotify. I'm gonna follow. There you go. There you go. And your voice and your presence, your stage presence, your, your, the way you entertain and speak to people in between each song does that. That is your voice and then some.

You've said your voice so many times, and this is it. This is what it's about. The— I'm bringing it back to the female voice. Yeah.

Holds so much. It does, it does. Tell me a little bit. And the female voice now is a voice that can be heard unapologetically. Yes. I think females are in a place now where they can unapologetically use their voices, even if we look at work genre, let's look at myself as a radio presenter. When I started in radio in HR, the station I was at had one female presenter.

Now this is a story.

If you look at the amount of female presenters there are now, because we can unapologetically use our voices. Let's take it out of radio, let's look in the corporate world. The corporate world is still quite cutthroat, but the female, the rise of the female in the corporate world, I believe has softened the need to be so cutthroat. There's no need to be cutthroat. Why do you want to be that? Why do we all have to be the same? Absolutely. And if you want to get the best out of somebody, why not use that softer female delivery to get the best out of somebody. Yes, I agree. There would be a time that you would maybe call for a handy— I'm going to say a handyman. It's now a handy person. Person. There you go. So there's many sites at the moment. Let's take TaskRabbit, which is a site. If you've— if you have a job that needs doing in your home, you would— let's just say you need a flat pack. Cupboard or bed building, you would call TaskRabbit, you would automatically assume that a man's going to turn up. Yeah. A female turning up, I think, is— it's a whole— it's a different energy, isn't it? Yeah. And I do think the female voice and the female energy is starting to move its tentacles around the world, and it's a beautiful thing. Yes, it is a beautiful thing.

How would you position this to say that even to this extent, the female voice is bringing healing into the world? Now, without sounding, you know, like I'm going off into fairyland. No, no, no, not at all. But there is a kind of soothing or transformational part of this, and I want you to express that to our audience about how important that is in this time, this era that we're living in now, as we merge with technology and— Yes. All of these things. Yes, yes.

From a healing perspective, because women, whether they're mothers or not, have a different nurturing spirit, Let's say— I'm not saying men don't have a nurturing spirit. Just different. Let's, let's say, to put it bluntly, that the, the female nurturing seed is slightly larger than the male nurturing seed. And from the perspective of being in HR, I know when I started in radio in HR the conversations that I would have with females were different to the conversations that I had with males because there was this need to appear to be strong. Wow. There was a need to make sure that a male was not being vulnerable, but there's power in vulnerability. Absolutely. Power in it. And I do feel that with the female voice becoming stronger in the workplace, whatever that workplace is, it's giving healing vibes everywhere. And, and the permission to give those healing vibes is actually less because it's becoming more of a natural thing.

It's becoming normal. Yeah. And it's normal to talk about these things.

Well, once upon a time, if you said you had a therapist, people thought you were crazy.

Now it's like, who's your therapist?

Right, well, having a therapist in America was like a fashion statement. Yes. Having a therapist in the UK, something was wrong with you. Yeah, yeah. But we're now in a place whereby I believe we've all acknowledged that our inner child needs healing. We are all damaged in some way. There's different levels of damage. We need to heal. Yeah, there's different levels of trauma. Yep. And we've all got this inner child in us that desires healing, which is why we go ahead making the same mistakes over and over again, because the little child in us is crying out and saying, please, please help me, I need some healing, I need some help. So I think as women, and I say this unapologetically, are more open about the fact that we desire and require healing in order to grow. Yeah. The female healing spirit is now something that's— well, it's the norm now, isn't it?

It is the norm. And it's not just one type of therapy. It's not like you're going to see a psychologist. There are many ways of getting healing which cannot be ignored. No. Because if you want to be authentic and you want to be true to yourself, you have to face those, you know, those shadows, bits that are coming constantly. You think, will they just go away? But it won't go away.

It won't go until you heal. And I always say, sometimes the hardest task is to do a 180 and face your fears. But in doing that 180, It will be frightening. Yeah. It will hurt, but you have to go through that to get to the other side. On the other side of fear is freedom. Exactly. And I tell a story to— when I talk to students, and I never make it a media story. So I talk about a man who's in the jungle. I ask them all if they've seen the film Jumanji with Robin Williams. Okay, so he's in the jungle and he hears a rustle and he thinks, "Oh my goodness, I better start running." And he's running and he's running and he's running and he looks behind him and he sees a tiger. And he's running and every time he looks behind him, this tiger gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. But then he gets to the end of the jungle and there's a river. Now you either jump and swim or you turn around and you face this tiger. 'One of two things will happen. You will either face the tiger or you will jump.' Wow. He decides to turn around. He's sweating, his heart's pumping. He faces the tiger, and when he turns around, it's a kitten.

Isn't it all like—

Because it's in here, and the more we ignore it, the bigger the issue becomes.

Oh, please tell this. I'm, you know, it's so important that women hear this. Yeah, I think it's an unspoken taboo that we don't talk about these fears. Yeah, it's the fear of, you know, and where does the fear come from?

It's something that was planted in you, possibly as a child, could be, that you never dealt with, and so it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. If you tell a child over and over again as a child that they're disgusting, they're going to grow up believing they're disgusting. And then when they start to achieve things, they'll never get to their full potential because they're going to believe, oh my goodness, the mask is going to drop and somebody's going to actually see the truth. I am disgusting. But you're not disgusting. It's something that was told to you.

And unfortunately, the person that said it, whether it's caretaker or mother, father, they got their own situation.

You don't if you didn't— I mean, how can you project on a child and tell a child that? Do you know what I mean? You wouldn't do that. But then, and that's where it goes back to the inner child needing healing, self-awareness. Yeah, self-regulate.

It's funny how it says self everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have to do our own self-work. Nobody is going to fill that void. No, no one is going to heal you. You have to face it at one point. It's a responsibility, and if you want to elevate into your calling—

and I do believe humans are now getting that message. Yes. I think women are more vocal about it. I'm not saying men aren't, and I love when I do meet a man who is open about the fact that he's damaged He needs healing because he wants to be the best that he can be. I love that.

It's more regular that you meet a woman doing that who's pioneering and trailblazing it and starting it. And I— look, we're in a very— we're at a crossroads. Yeah, the creative era is about to shift. Absolutely. I think it's shifting into another dimension. Yeah, yeah. And we either jump on board, like you said, face that, or we become Really not small, but kind of—

well, you, you remain stuck, you say, don't you? You, you remain stuck. And I think women— gosh, because we have all these hats that we wear, it's almost as though we forgive ourselves for being on the hamster's wheel, because whilst we're running and running and running and running and running, we're putting all these different hats on, but you still do all this running and running and running, and then you get off of the hamster's wheel and you're in the exact same place where you started. My daughter used to have a hamster. That hamster used to run about 10 miles a day, and when it got off the wheel, it was in the exact same place where it started. But we kind of override that because whilst we were running, we, we went to work, we did the homework, we cooked the dinner, we cleaned the house, but we're still in the same place. Yes. And we have to acknowledge that healing needs to take place, and we need to listen to our own inner voice. Because whilst we're running, those messages are still going around in our head. But because we've cooked the meal, because we've done this, because we think, right, well, I've achieved it, I'll leave the voice for now. No, no, no, it's going to come back.

It's going to push you anyway. I feel like energetically we're going to be pushed into using our voice. Authentically, and somehow with technology, yes, we have to merge.

We'll never get away from it. We'll never get away from it. And however you choose to use that technology or not, at some point you're going to have to face your fears, your trauma, your pain, because your voice, whether you're in radio, whatever profession you're in, yes, look, you could work in a shop. How you serve a customer could change their day. Yes. My daughter works in social housing. She works from home on a Monday, and sometimes I sit there and I listen to her talk to people who have got homeless cases. They are— their lives are nowhere near— they didn't plan their lives. Their lives are nowhere near what they had envisaged. And when my daughter speaks to these people and they are offered accommodation and they can come out of temporary accommodation, the way that they— oh my goodness, the way that they say to her, you have no idea how much you've made my day.

Yeah, they don't even know how.

And that is— she, I mean, she's got a lovely voice, but it's It's her tone, it's the way she talks to these people. So we have to be realistic in that we're living in a time where our voice, our mission, the work that we do is going to change lives. Oh my goodness. And we need to be aware of our own inner child. Who needs to be healed and come out. Your inner child can still be in there and you can still do the work that you've got to do. Imagine when that inner child is healed. Imagine when you go into the process of healing that inner child.

Nothing would be like impossible. You would just, everything, actually you'd probably collapse time and space and then everything you've desired becomes an honest, like, reality in front of you. And I think that's where we're at. Yeah. In moving forward, imagination is the key because we have so many tools we can use now, so many platforms. Yeah. I always say to everyone, you have no excuse not to be heard.

You have no excuse and utilizing platforms. And this is something— I'm really glad you brought that up. I'm on Insta, I'm on Facebook, but I am very much radio-driven. Yes. So I'm at the moment— you're in that place. I'm, I'm finding that social media is not my strongest skill. So I tend to talk quite a lot on social media about what I do on radio. Yeah. Whereas I find my social media audience want to know what I'm doing outside of radio.

And this is—

this is where I'm starting to compile videos now to use my voice. Now it could just be, how was your day today? It could just be— I did an Insta post, I did a post on Insta Story not long ago. I got a parking ticket it. I went to pay for it, but I don't remember getting the letter offering me to pay it at a reduced rate within 14 days. Ah, so I'm in the car and I'm actually telling this story, and something's— and I said, you know, something's telling me, don't, don't pay it just yet. Call the company and find out whether they sent a letter allowing me to pay within 14 days. And if so, I didn't get it, can I have a copy? And it just so happened that because I called, wow, they then said, because you've called, you can pay at the reduced rate. So I then said, well, had I not called you, would you have taken this humongous amount of money? And they said yes. Now, I told that story on Insta Story. The amount of response I get. So that's another way of using your voice. So what I'm now working on is telling the stories on social media that I don't have the time to tell on music radio. Oh, I like this. So that's something that I'm really working on.

And this is your real life. Absolutely. This is real life. I mean, not saying that what you do is not real life, but it's another snippet of what's going on in Angie's kitchen.

And I'm very, very open on social media about the fact that it's not my primary skill and I'm working through it. And the amount of people that say, do you know what, Ange, I hear it, because I don't understand why people want to see me getting dressed. I don't understand why people want— I don't understand But it's telling stories, isn't it? It's using your voice, it's utilizing your tools. Yes, on platforms to assist people. Now, I know a lot of people get trolled, and I always say, if you've got the time to troll, that is your business. You need to look—

I don't know how people write some essays down these comments.

You need to look into yourself as to why you'd rather troll than praise. And that's down to you. But it is, at this time, we're in such a great place to utilize platforms to tell our stories, because believe it or not, we're all going through the same thing. Oh yeah, we're all going through some kind of ups and downs or rounds.

We all get pivoting, we're all changing careers. Suddenly you're doing these things.

So share these, share these stories, and it inspires others.

You have a perfect position to inspire so many women, which is one—

and it's really interesting, when, when you asked me to come on here, my initial was, oh my goodness, I can't, because it's— because social media is not my primary skill. But what an opportunity to start to develop that. What an opportunity to start to develop that and to just share and not feel vulnerable, not feel vulnerably negative about sharing, because there's power in vulnerability.

But we don't know where from this point you might go, I'm going all in now.

There you go.

I feel comfortable with it. Absolutely. It just, it elevates it to the next level. And you can also see that as we're talking here, it's inspiring me. Well, but that's the art of this, isn't it? It's about giving and sharing the light and giving and sharing your own story.

Mm. Because we all have our own story, and somewhere along the lines, our stories meet. Oh, but they do, because you can say something to somebody and they go, do you know what, I didn't think that, or I like that. Yes. And that, that's now going to put me in a place whereby I've been going down this road all the time, I've been seeing all these side roads, but you've just said something to me to make me think, do you know what, let me take a risk and go on that side road. Let me take a risk and see what I'm going to learn on side road. It might bring me back to my road, but then I continue my journey with more knowledge because I went on the side road and learned something. See, and that's the difference. There's a guy in America called Andre De Shields. Oh, he is, um, an actor. He's in the theater. He— flamboyant is an understatement. I believe he's currently in Cats. But I loved him in Hadestown. Mm-hmm. And he said his 3 carnal rules that have kept him going as long as he has been in the industry are: surround yourself with people whose eyes light up when they see you coming. Oh, wow, I like that. Slowly is the quickest way to get to where you need to be. Listen up. And the top of one mountain is the bottom of another, so keep climbing.

The top of one mountain is the bottom of another.

Isn't that life? Isn't that life?

It's that you don't stay at the top of the mountain.

Now there he is in the States receiving an award, and he says these three things, and I'm like, yeah, yeah. My goodness.

Breathe that in. My goodness.

And I just love him for that. And the only other— the other nugget I'd like to share with you—

I love nuggets.

I'll send you this. Maybe you want to put this in as an overlay on this. There is a beautiful meme of a little girl in some pink silk pajamas, and she's touching a mirror. Oh, and on the other side of the mirror is her grown self in the same pink pyjamas. So little Angie is touching grown Angie, and the caption is— and the little girl is crying, so little Angie's crying, big Angie is there, and the caption is, "The pain was not your fault." but the healing is your responsibility. Oh wow.

And just hearing that, it makes you go inside, and you do ask yourself that question: where am I in pain? Yeah, where people think I was You wouldn't have. Stiff, you don't have anything to worry about.

But we're all carrying this thing.

We're all carrying. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, as a woman, we carry, but we still carry on.

Yeah, we do. Well, it's, uh—

We have this gift of just being able to—

It's a gift. I also say it is a crutch, because if you, God forbid, were to break your leg, once your leg is healed, you give the crutches back to the hospital, don't you? So, why do we hold on to this crutch? Is it because we feel We're giving and giving and giving and giving so much that we don't have time to deal and heal ourselves. But in giving and giving and giving and giving, what if you burn out? Who are you then going to give to? You have nothing left. You can't give from an empty cup. So you have to, as much as it hurts, you have to turn around. You've gotta do a 180. You've got to deal with it. But I understand why we do it. The world is changing. We don't want to get left behind. No. So we think, if I just carry on and carry on and carry on.

But you have to pause.

You have to pause. There's a pause moment. And you've got to refuel. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could drive your car without refuelling it? Even your electric car, you've got to recharge it. You've got to recharge your batteries.

We must recharge. Yeah.

The other day I got my car serviced. It was really funny. And I went to drive off, the mechanic still had the key in his pocket.

You're ready to go.

Now the car started. What? And he was like, Ange, Ange! And I was like, oh my God, I said, I've gone already. And he said, you know what, he goes, you could have driven home. I've not even known. You could have gone. You could have driven to Scotland. But the minute you stop that car, it goes— it won't restart because you have to recharge. You, you have to have the right keys to open the right doors.

Wow, that's very important.

Yeah, you have to.

And this is a spiritual recharge. I do believe it's not just a physical— I just want to sit down and watch 10 hours of reality TV or something. I'm talking about going in deep into spiritual reset, which I think should happen regularly, all the time.

I say we need to have rechecks mentally, yep, physically, yep, emotionally, spiritually, financially, yes. And we need to also look at how we spend our time, which is a commodity now, yeah.

Yeah.

So you can keep going and going and going and going and going. How much time are you investing in yourself? Yes. How much time are you using to replenish your spirit, your emotions, your physical body, your soul? Your soul. Your soul.

What is the soul saying? If it—

you can't— look, you can keep going, You can if you— It's robotic. But if you don't check in with yourself, ask yourself, you know, if you don't listen to your own inner voice, within, I don't know, weeks, days of checking in with yourself, you're halfway down the road. When you look back, do you even recognize where you are, who you are, what you're saying, what you're doing. You have to check in with yourself.

You have to check in. I love that. Angie, what's next for you? I keep feeling books. I don't know what's going on.

It's really interesting because—

I don't want to sound like— the minute we said to her, she's going to write books. She's going to write books. This situation, this inner child, this healing, the woman's voice, something's coming. Something's coming your way.

I've had 3 publishers asked— yeah, asked me if I would write my radio story.

Oh my word, yes, coupled with life.

Yes. Um, and I've sat down with one publisher. Yeah, good idea. And it wasn't until she said, that book will spark off public speaking. I was— women. Yes, yes, yes. So it is something that I am—

that's a confirmation today. Yeah, it's a confirmation. Yeah, it just dropped and I was like, I better just— yeah, I'm gonna step out and say it.

Because she said to me, this one specific publisher said to me, at the moment you are utilizing your voice and sharing yourself effectively in an empty room. Yes, right.

But now I need to fill the room, right?

So she, she said to me— this is so— oh God. She said to me, you go in an empty room and you are— when people say to me, what do you do for a living? I never say I'm a radio presenter. I always say, oh, I sit in an empty room for 3 hours talking to myself, hoping that somebody's listening.

They're like, you okay?

And then when I explain it, they go, all right, great, okay, I get it. I go into going to the radio studio. And this specific publisher said, how about going into some rooms full of women? How about walking into some rooms full of women now, full of families, full of little Angies that are breaking the mold to become healed and bigger Angies? How about doing that? And then she said— and then she said to me, And when you've finished in the UK, how about Europe? When you've finished in Europe, how about America? When you finish, how about Canada and Africa and the Caribbean? So you're saying that you're the first person I'm sharing this with?

Well, I'm telling you now, it is— it has happened because there is a version of you doing that already, and you know this. Yeah. So you're just going to quantum leap into it. That's what's happening because it has to expand. Yes. Creation doesn't stay in one spot.

The top of one mountain is the bottom, right?

So you're getting going into the next era of your creativity, and that is where there's more people responding back and saying, wow, okay, so she's come from that to that. Yeah, yeah, I'm inspired by this. I want to take action in my life. Yeah. How do you not know there could be so many young girls listening even today and going, I want to do that. Yeah, I want to do what she does. How do I even get there? What do I do? But you're giving them the real guts of this. It's the real, real stories. And I think that's important. And already people are saying that you should be doing that. You're gonna get—

sorry, but you're gonna get pushed into it.

Yeah, yeah, probably whether you like it or not. But you know what, you're going to be absolutely fine because you know it's part of your mission. Yeah, isn't that important?

It, it, it definitely is. It definitely is.

It's a very powerful thing to be, be able to give in a platform such as yours that will actually bring some good into humanity. It really is, because you have such, one, a responsibility, and two, a necessity to bring goodness to people. It's a very powerful place to be in, and it's not about, I got power. It's a spiritual thing. That you have been granted this responsibility to speak into people's hearts. And that's going to change. That's going to change everything, I think, in your life. From the room— we shall see. I do believe.

Isn't it amazing? Honestly, I've not shared that. When, you know, when she said, you're sitting in an empty room, she said, How about taking your voice into some full rooms? And because I say social media isn't my primary skill, she said, people want to see you. She goes, you might feel, oh no, they don't want to see me. She said, oh, anyway, anyway.

This is very exciting. I'm looking forward to it because I can already sense it. I can already see, I'm a visual person, I see. So I can already see you doing that. And I see Q&As, people actually asking you real questions. Because their life is at crossroads and they want to know, tell me the real truth of the matter. Yeah. How do I get through this situation? Because we're not now looking for, um, I would say word gurus or one person to have all the answers. We're looking for real feedback. Yeah. The authentic.

Yeah, truth, not the formulaic answers.

No, no, no, no, here's my theory, step 1, step 2, step 3. No, no, no, I've been there. Yeah, yeah, I know what you feel, I, I sense it, and all I can say from my experience is this. Yeah, not, oh, you have to do it. Yeah, yeah. Can you see that? That's a shift, because while we're going to social media, we're looking more deeply into that We're not looking for someone to tell us, these are the 5 steps to shift your mind.

We're sharing our life stories, aren't we? Yeah.

And it always comes back to the women in the circle storytelling. Yeah. Which created what? Culture.

Yeah.

And that's a part of what you're doing. Oh, I don't want to say that. I didn't want to say that, but that is— you're shifting culture.

You've just got me.

You're shifting culture. I don't know what that might mean to you, but I sense that you are shifting culture, which is stories. Yeah. What stories are we telling ourselves? Can you tell the women one thing that you would like to express to them about how important their story is?

Yeah. Believe in the value of your story. It could be painful. Yeah. You will be triumphant. Pain don't last for long. No. At the time, it might feel, when is this gonna end? Mm-hmm. But I would be, I would hazard a guess that anyone who's gone through pain in whatever shape or form will come out the other side. And when they stop focusing on the pain, will say, do you know what? That's why I went through that. Which is why when you go through things, you never say, why me? You come through the other side, you see the lesson, you see the triumph, you see the result, and you go, that's why I went through that.

And somebody else is there waiting.

So your story carries weight, it's powerful. You may tell a story believing you're the only person going through this scenario, because we do that, don't we? We think we're the only one. That's why we isolate ourselves, because we're embarrassed and we think, oh my goodness, I feel so stupid, and whatever. And it's not till you start opening your mouth and telling your story that someone either gives you an answer or says, oh my goodness, I went through that. Yeah. So your story carries weight. It has power. Yes.

And it travels.

Because we're all going through— somebody right now in Canada or America or wherever in the world is going through something similar. Similar, if not identical, to me, to you, to— we're all going through it. And I think that's the global connection that we have as women. Yes. And I think as women as well, especially since the rise of the woman's voice, and she's become a force to be reckoned with. Yes. And her place in the workplace, whatever that workplace is, is being embraced more. So we need to hear each other's stories.

We do need to hear each other's stories. Because that props us up. Yes. So we're encouraging the women to speak their story. Absolutely, absolutely. Get out there and put it on social media.

And if you're going through something, whether it's marriage, financial, health, you know, job, whatever, there must be somebody in your life that you know that you can be completely at ease with telling that story to. They will either, if they're not going through the same thing, they will embrace you and hold you up and feed your soul and give you the strength to carry on, or they'll go, do you know what, I thought I was the only one. Yeah, but really, do you know what I mean? I'm not going crazy. Yeah, thank goodness it's me.

And you then give that person permission to open up because you told your story, and then opportunities come where you think, hey, I know this person that knows that person, we can all share stories. And then suddenly—

and that's where the global connection comes in. So is it Marianne Williamson that says, you do nothing— what is it? There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others will not feel intimidated in your presence. You may have a story that needs to be told, but because of embarrassment, you shrink. Yeah, I— that's how I also take that. It's not only about me elevating at work or in a position, and I think, oh my goodness, I'm upsetting her, let me hold back. No, it's not just that. It's about shrinking because I'm also embarrassed because I didn't say whatever or do whatever. But I'm not enlightening myself. And because I've told you, you then go, do you know what, I've gone through exactly the same thing. Straight away I open up. Yes. You then open up because you realize, hang on, I'm going through the same thing. There's our connection. There's the double flow of something fantastic that could happen.

And there's the energy, and there's the expansion, and there's the creativity, and there's the books, there's the music, there's the films, there's the artistry of the new Renaissance birth because we all decided to tell a story. Stories are not going anywhere.

No, they're not. They're not. And the day they do— well, they're not.

They're not going anywhere. They're not going anywhere. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Are we done? I know, but we might as well have part 2, part 3. Do you know, and I have not looked down at anything, nothing that I wrote here, by the way, was even discussed because I do believe this was orchestrated.

The path we went, we were meant to go.

It was orchestrated in a very different way. And this is such an amazing talk with you. And I am believing for the next level.

I know, it's crazy, isn't it?

And you're going to keep in touch with me about it. Yeah. And we're having you back on the show anyway.

I'd love to.

And talking about now the full room. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah.

Get your moves ready. Yeah. Um, but thank you, Angie.

Thank you, Danielle.

You can keep it rolling. Yeah, today I'm wearing Celine Dion top. I'm actually wearing this Celine Dion top today because it's important to me, as she is someone who I have a deep, deep, deep resonance with her and her artistic discipline of looking after her tool, which is her voice. Her voice is her tool, and we all know what that feels like if your tools go missing or they get taken away. How on earth are you going to utilize what your gift is, which is your tool? Now, today I had the pleasure of talking to a very well-respected radio host and broadcaster, and she specifically talked about her voice being her tool and how much she needed to look after it. Now, this was quite interesting because it's a topic in an area that I don't think it's been really spoken about to this level and depth because we went into spiritual attributes of what the voice holds. It holds power, it holds influence, it also holds expansion. So if you're not looking after it, what could possibly happen is that it becomes silenced, damaged, and even to the point where it's non-existent. Where are you looking after your tool? Where are you looking after what your gift is? What are you doing to keep it at its highest? You know, she had said that she doesn't go out late at night to loud places where she has to use her voice. She drinks warm clothes— she drinks warm drinks. And doesn't have cold drinks. These disciplines are what actually gets you to the next level. Now, I'm sure people like Celine Dion, who I don't personally know, she's had to sacrifice a lot of things, maybe not go to late-night parties, maybe not go to after-parties, maybe not do the things that she really wanted to do so she could look after her gift. You see, when you are amplifying your gift and your voice, you have to look after what you've been given. You have to nurture it. You have to take care of it. You have to love it even when you feel like you don't want to be a part of it. Sometimes you just want to give up, but the greatness of this is that every low and every high has such a learning experience for you. It's teaching something about you, your discipline. Are you getting up in the morning? Are you doing the things that you love? Are you learning? Are you expanding? This is all part of amplifying your gift and your voice. This is all part of the story. It's all part of your soul work. It's all part of what Her Voice Impacts is here, is to see you be the best and biggest version of yourself and to be inspired to take small steps towards what you really desire. I'm not asking you to jump and leap everywhere and then fall on your face. It's more about, I've taken that little small step, and now I'm going to take the next step. And then you start to see the road ahead, but it's all part of discipline. It's all part of becoming that version of yourself that is consistent and not needing outside exterior people or situations to push you. You can motivate yourself. You are your story, and your soul wants to be heard.