Andrea Menard WILD Tribe - Hosted by Val Nichols

Welcome to the Wild Tribe Summit with women influencers, leaders, and dreamers are learning how to tap into their deeper purpose through business and entrepreneurship. We have with us today a beautiful guest. She is an acclaimed actress. She's in the Netflix series Blackstone. She is a singer, a songwriter, and an amazing woman. We have today Andrea Menard. Welcome, Andrea.

Hi, so nice to see you, Val. Happy to be on your Wild Tribe Summit.

We are so glad to have you, and I would love for you to tell our audience a little bit more about you.

Thank you. Tansi ki waw. Notogoyutin dishnikashon. My name is Grandmother Wind in my Cree language. And Nishkotekwe, my name is Fire Woman in my Anishinaabe language. I am a Métis woman from Canada. I presently live in the unceded territory of the Coast Salish people here in Vancouver. And I am on this planet to help facilitate the rise of the sacred feminine. So everything that I do, if it's acting, singing, writing, creating the founder of the Sacred Feminine Learning Lodge, all these things, doing sacred retreats, All of it is to help facilitate the rise of the sacred feminine. So that's about me in a nutshell.

You are one of those types of people, Andrea, who doesn't just talk the talk, you walk the walk. I've seen it. I've been following you for a while. Like, you are— everything you do embodies this beautiful spirit, and you're so genuine and so authentic. You are just kind of that, that woman who's so unleashed. So comfortable in her skin. How did you get there?

Well, thank you for that. You know, it doesn't feel like it all the time. And, you know, it's never— thank you for the appearance of that, because you know what? We work at it. We are, right? Taking a step into our power every day helps us, you know, appear that way, right? But, you know, just like you and just like all the women probably on this Summit is that you start somewhere. You start with what you've got, and then you know you take the steps to to becoming the woman you were meant to be. And I'm still in process, and especially like you were watching my TED Talk, and you know my TED Talk. I talk about my TED Talk is called Silent No More: Ending Using Your Voice to End Violence Against Women, and obviously. violence was perpetrated against me, and I had— I lost my voice for many, many, many years. And I'm a singer, and I'm an actress, and a speaker. That's not something that— that's my tool for this life. So when you lose your voice, or when you lose your, your right to speak, that's what it felt like. It's not— I, I could still talk, I could still sing, but it was more of the feeling of I lost my right to speak, or I thought I did. We never lose that right, ever. But, you know, coming from that journey to who I am now and owning myself has been a tremendous journey. Huge.

To go from the place where you completely lost your voice and you felt like you had to remain silent. As a matter of fact, I remember something about that in your TED Talk when you said, I will be silent no more. Can you take us back to that moment when you realized that you had the choice, you could make that stand, and that you were going to choose, make that choice, to not remain silent?

Well, even in the creation of my TED Talk, I had no idea this was going to be my subject. In fact, I thought it was something way over here, something more on the sacred feminine. But in the platform of TED, they have a very beautiful little box that you fit in, and I— and this other thing wouldn't fit. Maybe it's because it's the sacred feminine, the circle. I'm indigenous, right? It didn't quite fit in the box. And so, I didn't realize, though, that this perfect little box helped me once again Because over throughout a time, I mean, once you've experienced violence and once you've experienced those things, it's a long time journey. It's a lifetime of peeling layers off, you know, and most women have experienced some form of violence, isn't it? 3 out of 4 women, you know.

Yeah.

So, or 2 out of 3 women, I think that's it, that the unraveling is continuous. So even at the creation of my TED Talk, I had to have the courage all over again to be silent no more on a very public platform because I've been silent no more to friends and to certain audiences and things, but to on video for all— for 125,000. I think I'm at 125,000 views right now. There were 125,000 people to view and beyond that. So it's like I had to come to terms with the courage to speak all over again. You know, and, and, and of course, because of where I am at in my journey, because of this unraveling of healing and expanding throughout the years, and I went back on all my teachings and I went back on the wisdom and the tools that I have gained over the years from my elders, from all sorts of avenues, I remembered I remembered, because I'm Indigenous, I tend to look at things in fours, like the medicine wheel. I think that's a pretty universal symbol that people are used to seeing now, is the medicine wheel, which is a circle with 4 quadrants with different colors. So that seems to inform a lot of my work. And the work that I needed to do around it was the 4 sacred voices. Mm-hmm.

Wow.

So, I do this work called Honoring Your 4 Sacred Bodies, which is your emotional, your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies. So, I do that work. I have this work called Reclaiming the 4 Goddesses, which is Earth Woman, Water Woman, Fire Woman, and Air Woman. So, it comes in 4s, but for my voice, and to reclaim me, I have to look at all 4 of my voices. So there's the physical actual instrument, there's the emotional voice, there's the words you actually need to say, and then there's, you know, opening yourself up to the grandmothers, or as we say, or the grandfathers who can speak through you. So there's like 4 voices. And my TED Talk, I had to play with all that all over again. Go back to the teachings, go back to what you know, Andrea.

And it's interesting how it, for you, it comes up in the fours. I think that can be pretty common for people who are in touch with their spirituality or in touch with something bigger than themselves, that things will happen in these series. So when you talk about the sacred feminine, for those people who are watching who don't know what that is, could you tell us a little bit more about that and then also how that plays into your life today?

I would say the sacred feminine is an aspect of life, of everything on this planet. And it has its opposite on the spectrum, the sacred masculine. And many successful people are very gifted in the sacred masculine because it's valued in our society. It's valued in the Western culture. And that is drive, determination, single focus, Expansion, movement, action forward, and those are great. But as, as my elders say, as the Indigenous elders say, that without balance we are harming— we have the danger of harming our relative, the Earth, our mother, our relatives, the plants and animals, the waters.

Mm-hmm.

The, the air. And that's not our true role. Our true role are to be caretakers. That is what humans are. We're caretakers of this planet. And just some of us have forgotten because the, the sacred feminine has been denigrated, has been, um, rejected and erased and, well, attempted to be obliterated. Which you can't, but it's an aspect of life, remember. So the aspect, so if the sacred masculine is forward action, expansion, drive, determination, focus, then feminine is receptivity, is inclusion, is listening, is—

Compassion.

What are some words? I'm drawing. Well, those are some, you know, like, it's very different. So if one is driving, one is receiving and softer, you know, it's like a curve rather than a straight line. And so that's happening all over. Like, this summit is part of the rise of the sacred feminine. This is an example of it happening everywhere. And the rise of the environmental movement is the rise of the sacred feminine. The rise of indigenous voices is the rise of the sacred feminine. The women, the MeToo movement, the All of this stuff is examples of the rise of the sacred feminine. And men becoming nurturing parents, that's the rise of the sacred feminine. Them men looking towards learning how to express their feelings, going to therapy, and learning how to be nurturing. Oh, there's a good word for the sacred feminine. I was blanking. Nurturing.

Mm-hmm.

So that is, you know, those are all examples of the rise of the sacred feminine. Which is needed. It's time, it's right on schedule, and it is needed to temper that drive forward. Because when the sacred masculine gets forward motion, which is what is so sacred, it's needed. But when it gets out of balance, you need the sacred feminine to temper it, to maybe move that forward motion over here a little into a circle instead of a straight line that keeps going and going and going into nothingness. Like, come back and let's make a circle and let's take care of what we've got now, what we've created. And that is a wise aspect of creation, isn't it? It's, it's a perfect balance. But when we have systems in place that denigrate the feminine, then more work has to be done to create that balance. And that's what we're doing. Those— thank you for doing your part. And women, thank you for doing your part, for tuning in and finding out what your deeper purpose is.

Uh-huh. Absolutely, it is. It's such a collective effort. And I love how every single woman who's been on this summit so far has had some sort of voice in that, like the rise of the women, women stepping up into leadership. And we see that all over. And we see where things are changing so much with feminine, masculine, you know, dads staying home and being stay-at-home dads. Well, the mom is the breadwinner. Or, you know, things that are happening. I know that you were a part of something that happened in Canada. Could you tell us about that?

Yes, the 2nd Annual Indigenous Women's Leadership Summit, which is knock-your-socks-off powerful and, and evidence that things are being different. Things are being done differently because most women leaders Are very good in their masculine aspect, but they're also burning out. Right on cue. They're supposed to be burning out too, because if we got to where we needed to get through the masculine models, because that was what was in place, great. You know, you made sure that you got that education, you made sure you got that role to learn this, you went after that training, you went after that. You know, we did things in a masculine style. And from what I'm understanding, and it just seems to be collecting this data, is that my sisters, our sisters out there, are kind of burning out and exhausted and wondering why they can't keep to the pace they did to get where they needed to get to. Well, I have— I seem to have come up with a theory about that. And my theory is, is that We are where we are, need to be in leadership positions, and now we're going to flip.

We're going to flip it all.

We're in those positions and now we have to do things differently. And if we, if we who are women and of the sacred feminine are here to having to change, imagine what and how difficult it is having to learn to accept our Emotions, our crying, our exhaustion, our, our, our need for family, our concern for the environment, our way of including people, of having circles, talking circles, having people communicate in a new way. When these things are pressing against us, we have to put them into action. We have to implement those new ways, or it's kind of— destroying us, but it's right on cue because if we don't do it, then how do we expect our masculine counterparts to do that if we won't? And it's hard for my strong goddess women. It's hard to shift from one structure to a new one, to another one, not new, another one in public or in a workplace, you know, because maybe that's different because at home it worked, but maybe at work it didn't. So now we're having to practice new ways. And that means bringing your emotions into work, because if your feelings are dampened, dead, shut off, rejected, then who's going to feel the pain of the planet? Then who's going to feel the pain of that this product and this project isn't working? Who's going to feel it if we shut all that off? And women are meant to feel. That's our gift, and we're here to bring it. to the planet and bring it to the system so that they shift.

Wow. That way of thinking that you just expressed is so beautiful because I'm thinking about the woman right now who's watching this, who a lot of times I hear that because women who are successful can get in that very masculine energy of get things done, get things done, get things done. And at the same time, as you just said, they'll tamper that part of them that is the feeling, that is the the compassionate side. And I'm thinking about the woman out there who's watching right now who might think that— at least what I have heard is some women will say, I'm too emotional. Mm-hmm. You know, they shut that piece of them off when I'm right there with you saying, you know, whatever's supposed to happen, feel whatever you want to feel. What would you tell to the woman who maybe she's feeling like I want to accept my emotions. I want to accept that side of me that feels and is beautiful and is compassionate, but it's scary because what if I get hurt? What if someone rejects me? What if I get made fun of?

Well, here is the trick. Here is the key, is that when we feel passionate about something, when we get emotional about things, that's just natural. That's just the flow of life. That's just information from the world around you of how you feel about something. Oh, I don't like that. Oh, I like that. You know? And if the woman herself, you, shut that down, that life down, then it's you rejecting you. Then it's you saying no to your vulnerability. It's you. It's starting with you first. And so if, if before you ever take it to the public, which may not, you know, sometimes it happens without your wanting to, but, you know, if you can practice or develop a practice where letting the emotions flow within your own world, in your own private space, if you give yourself permission, that's you taking off the rejection, that's you taking away off the judgments, it will change many, many things. For example, at the Indigenous Women's Leadership Summit last year, in the first one, I was the Keynote. I was at Keynote, and I noticed that almost every woman that spoke got passionate, and almost all of them had tears come up, and almost all of them, all of the speakers, said, I'm sorry. And so when I came out, I said, okay, I have an invitation for the ladies, you know, and of course I was talking about this, which is about allowing our emotions to flow. This is Our gift to the world, and no one's gonna tell us that, so we have to start practicing that and sharing it with each other and encouraging each other and loving each other through it, and our men too, and our children too, and our elders too. And so I created an invitation to all the guests. I said, how about from now on, instead of apologizing— So Hashtag this. Instead of saying, I'm sorry, go, just a second, I'm blessed, I'm blessed. Hashtag I'm blessed. So instead of I'm sorry, I'm blessed, just a sec.

Whatever.

Let her cry, but let the world know that you're not judging it. It might take a second for me to clean this up, but just a sec. I'm blessed at the moment. And so were you, and so were you, by this flow of life coming through me. Hashtag I'm blessed.

Hashtag I'm blessed, everybody. Hashtag I'm blessed. Andrea Menard.

You bet. Wild Crowd.

Make it a hashtag. Make it famous. I absolutely love that you said that because, um, I have cried in front of an audience before. I didn't know it was going to happen until I was up there. And it was the support and the love that I felt in the audience, and I just cried. I just let it go, and they let me just keep on talking. And I also love what you said about that because of the fact that women have this tendency to say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, about everything.

Mm-hmm.

You know, like, even if— I was reading a study the other day that said And she said that even if a man were to bump into a woman, she would turn around and say, I'm sorry, when she might have just been standing there and it wasn't her fault. And I'm not saying anything about men or women, but I'm just saying like women are more likely to, you know, say, I'm sorry.

Yeah, we apologize for our very existence.

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and that's a deep, deep training because of the lack of respect for the sacred feminine. So it's, it is just in the programming that all of us, all of us have endured. And where it came from, whatever. The fact is, is that we have been programmed and it's against our, it's against the natural laws. They are actually out of balance. That's not how the world works. That's not how, how well the world may work that way, but that's not how the natural laws work. That's not how real human beings work, is that there is a balance of the two, and every single person has it within them. Which, you know, as an example of shifting though, so here's some good news, is that yes, we will apologize for our very existence, but when we are— when that's brought to our attention, for instance, I was the host of, you know, for 2 days at the Indigenous Women's Leadership Summit this year. And that just ended. And not one woman apologized on stage when they started crying.

Aww. Not one.

So from all of them, almost all of them last year, to none this year. Now tell me that isn't, like, taking something and making it your own. Like, that's fast. That's fast. So women, you know, we're catching on quick because this is our time. We have work to do, don't we? You have work to do, ladies.

Yeah, work to do. I love that because it's so empowering the way that you put it, that you created that change. Another thing I loved that you said was that it's our programming, which means to me, what that tells me is that if that's our programming, we can make a conscious effort to change it. Just like the example you used where you expressed Let's just allow the permission for us to cry. Let's do this. And then a year later, here you saw all these women having a different programming and a different mindset about that.

And the thing about programming is that it's— I like to think of it as like this invisible veil that just hangs over everybody. And so you don't really know it's there until like Something you do or something you say or something somebody else says, like pokes a hole, like poof, and this little bit of light comes through. You're like, what's that? And then like a whole bunch of little poke holes come through and you see light come through the veil, you— this little shadow over you. And like the more little beams of light that break through, eventually it kind of goes And just shatters. And I think that's what's happening over the global citizenry of our brothers and sisters all over the planet. And it's going to happen with the women and Indigenous people and people of color and the, the Two-Spirited community, the trans community, because the ones who have been silenced, the one who've had no voice at the big driving force masculine forward motion systems, those ones that don't have voices, are going to be the ones to wake up first because it's— this doesn't feel as good as it could be. How come I feel less than? How come I feel unvalued? And it's because of that that we are all turning inward to find our value. And once we do find our value, we're taking it to the world. Alas, the rise of the sacred feminine.

Yes. That analogy was so beautifully used about the holes poking through, and, you know, because we don't know what we don't know till we know it. That's such a beautiful way to think about it. Like, we have something that's covering our view, but we see little glimpses here and there of what is possible.

And the programming happens, you know, 90— I don't know where I got this, this, um, this stat, but I've heard that 98%, maybe it was, anyway, wherever it came from, 98% of information comes from a source other than someone we love and trust.

Hmm.

98%. So that means that our technology, our media, our televisions, our phones, our internet, our social media, all those things are coming to us from other content creators. Somebody's creating content that you may not have wanted into your sphere.

Hmm.

And this came to me as— because I'm a singer-songwriter, this first came to me about 8 years ago when I— or maybe 10 years ago now, when I discovered that I wasn't just a singer-songwriter, I'm a songkeeper. And that meant something very different. It meant, as a songkeeper, I have a responsibility to uplift the tribe and to bring them back to themselves. I have a responsibility with my content that I am creating. 'Cause in the past, I think all tribes of the human race, All used to be honored by— used to— you used to have to train to be someone who sang the tribe's stories or spoke the tribe's stories. You needed to train and make sure you got it right so that you were creating a lineage of, of, well, of a future existence. So Instead, today, for instance, as a content creator of music, people are just sending out their pain. I did too, which is okay, which is fine. But when you take it to a higher level, to a spiritual level, to the lineage of forward, you know, of the generations forward, is, am I uplifting tomorrow's children?

Hmm.

Is my pain helping anyone? Or is it keeping them in a program, in a loop of helplessness, victimhood, revenge? Oh my gosh, all these things that we hear in songs every day that somebody else is broadcasting you against your will.

Mm-hmm.

And then, you know, so this is, this is where I'm at these days, is it's difficult to deprogram yourself, but necessary. So you'll find, start listening to your music, you know, just like we, we want to eat better. Right? We're supposed to eat better food, we want to have healthy bodies. Well, healthy minds, we need to feed them with positive content too. Maybe from ourselves, maybe the content from our own spirit instead of what's the 98% that's trying to influence you.

That's beautiful. So it sounds to me like what you're saying is to really look within, And seek without. Heal yourself, take responsibility, and take responsibility for what you're putting out there in the world. That is such a beautiful message.

Take responsibility for the power that you have that you may be not sending out to the world.

Yes.

If other people are sending it to you, then you're just You know, you know, loaded up with other people's stuff. But you're here to provide your own wisdom, to bring your wisdom to the table, to bring your knowledge and your heart and your love and your passion to the world. That's why you're here. So don't let others influence their stuff. Do your own. Create your own. Love your own.

You have such an inspiring message, and I know that our audience would be just so privileged to spend time with you. And you have a retreat coming up in April. I would love for you to tell us about that.

I do. I have a sacred retreat because it's definitely, you know, as you hear, I speak from a spiritual place. So it's a goddess gathering for women for 7 days. Sorry, 7 nights, 8 days in Hawaii on the Big Island of Hawaii, April 18th to 25th. And they can find this all on my website, andreamenard.com/retreats. Yeah, I would love to have you. Come on over, Val.

Let's go for a little trip. I've never been to Hawaii, believe it or not.

Oh my God. Powerful grandmothers live there, the powerful goddesses. Why do you think we're going there? Fire goddess Pele, the water goddess. Oh, powerful place for women to reclaim their goddesses.

That sounds amazing. And I know that you have a really great gift for us today, for the viewers, um, the 4 Sacred Body Rituals.

Yeah.

Tell us more about that, and we'll put the link below so people can find it.

Oh, great. Okay, the 4 Sacred Bodies Ritual was created because, again, I work with the medicine wheel, just in looking at the world. And this one's for— I have a whole other work called Honoring Your 4 Sacred Bodies, but this one is just a little process, a free gift that I've created to help you. Because most women on this journey, and most people on this journey, but women especially, when you're saying yes to your life, to your passion, you know, you kind of get thrown around a bit when you're deprogramming your life. You get thrown around a bit. And so you're kind of all over the place. You get triggered, you're like, ugh! So I created a ritual that helps you move from like being totally triggered to calm in just 11 minutes and 11 seconds.

11:11.

So it's me talking you through. All you have to do is listen. It's a little download MP3 for you where you, where you just listen. I'll take you through it and you can listen to it whenever you are triggered. It's just meant to Start, oh yes, look at a bigger version of yourself, not just the trigger, but, oh yeah, I have a physical body reacting to this. Oh yeah, I have an emotional body reacting to this. Oh, and my mind is thinking stuff. Oh, and my spirit. So it's like, oh, it's just another tool to add to your toolbox for creating peace and harmony in your life, because we need it daily.

Absolutely. That sounds like a very needed gift. And I love that we can all use that. Just download it. We can use it for 11 minutes and 11 seconds, the angel numbers, of course, the powerful numbers, and use it whenever we're triggered. Because I know that each one of us, no matter what stage we're in, whatever level we're in in our growth, there's going to be those times when that happens.

Totally, totally, sister.

Thank you so much for that generous gift. Where can people contact you?

Well, they can— I have a Facebook page, Andrea Menard, and I have my website, andreamenard.com. And I think my YouTube is Andrea Menard Music, I think. So yeah, I'm out there. andreamenard.com, you can find everything. I'm on iTunes and my music is on iTunes and Spotify and You can find all my stuff and my offerings for courses and stuff, which are still in development, some of them. I am an actor and a singer, so sometimes creating courses in between is trickier. But you can all find me on my website, andreamenard.com.

Thank you so much, Andrea, for lending your wisdom and your beauty. I think I said this before, but talking to you is Gives me this sense and this feeling of coming back home to spirit.

Hmm.

I love connecting with you, and I'm sure that the audience has been inspired to pay attention to those signals, tap into their sacred feminine, accept their sacred feminine, and also, you know, pay attention to that reprogramming to become a bolder, brighter light into the world. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Val. I am honored to be on this Wild Tribe Summit because women are wild and we need to be. And you are a great facilitator for this, so well done in doing your work. Thank you.

Thank you. Bye, guys.