Finding Your Voice Again

Her voice has filled arenas alongside legends like Pink Floyd and Sting, but the most gripping part of Machan Taylor’s story is what happened offstage. We talk about the private weight that can live behind public success: imposter syndrome, loneliness on the road, and the long echo of childhood trauma. Machan takes us back to her earliest chapters, from being born in post World War II Japan to moving to New Jersey in 1960, where identity, discrimination, and an alcoholic, emotionally unavailable father shaped how “belonging” felt for years.

From there, we follow the thread of music as survival. Machan shares how singing in church and school gave her community, purpose, and a place to breathe, then how the pre-internet live music scene helped her build real-world chops through bands, clubs, and early touring. We also pull the curtain back on the music industry reality: life out of a suitcase, constant travel, hotel-room isolation, and the pressures that make it hard to protect your mental health, even on a high-end tour.

Her memoir, "Naked Out Loud", becomes the bridge between the artist and the human being. We dig into vulnerability, aging into authenticity, and the responsibility of healing without staying stuck in blame. The biggest takeaway stays simple and brave: don’t give your power away, and redefine success as self-love, peace, and joy.

If you’re drawn to conversations about creativity, identity, women’s empowerment, healing, and finding your authentic voice, you’ll want to hear this one. Subscribe to Virago 24/7, share this episode with a friend, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show.

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Everyday growth, everyday healing with everyday warriors!

Music by Deli Rowe: "Space to Move"
Logo by Kaylin Talley

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Spotlight

Speaker 3 0:00

Today's guest is a powerhouse artist whose voice has literally echoed across some of the biggest stages in music history. Machan Taylor is a singer, songwriter, performer, educator, and a creative force whose career spans decades of touring and collaborating with legendary artists including Pink Floyd, Sting, Pat Benatar, Foreigner, George Benson, and Government Mule. She also fronted the Grammy nominated band Hiroshima and has built an impressive career as a solo artist and vocal educator. But what makes Machan's story so compelling isn't just the incredible resume, it's the woman behind the music. From performing in front of massive audiences around the world to helping others find their own authentic voice, Machan brings wisdom, vulnerability, and a deep understanding of what it means to evolve as an artist and a human being. Today we're diving into creativity, reinvention, identity, music, healing, and what it really takes to stay true to yourself through all the seasons of life. Please welcome the incredible Machan Taylor. Hi, I am your host, Lyanette Talley, and you are listening to Virago 24-7. Virago is Latin for female warrior, and 24-7 is for all day, every day. Virago 24-7 is a weekly podcast that brings diverse women together to talk about life and our experiences in this world. We share our views on self-love, mental health, marriage, children, friendships, and really anything that needs to be talked about. Here you will find everyday growth, everyday healing with everyday warriors. Okay,

City Life Versus Quiet Mountains

Speaker 3 2:10

so you're East Coast. Yeah, and where do you live?

Speaker 2:14

Uh right now I'm upstate New York. Oh, nice. Very nice. Yeah, so I I split my time between New York City and and upstate. My husband and I have a home uh in the Catskill Mountains. Okay. So it's like two two hours, two hours north of Manhattan. Is it really quiet up there?

Speaker 3 2:33

Very yeah. I'm starting to crave more of like just being away. Um where I live, it's just a lot of traffic, and we're close to Atlanta, we're close to the city, so it's just a lot of people. And yeah, my as I'm getting older, I'm like, man, it'd be nice just to move away, far, far away somewhere. And if I want to enter society, I can. Yeah, and if I want to go back to my home, I can. So good for you. Good for you. All right, Machan. Um, so today we have Machan Taylor on Virago 24-7. And I've done a lot of research on you. So um I'm excited for this conversation. No, it's, it's, it's before we start, I I'm I was looking at all the different people that you've collaborated with, and I was telling my 15-year-old daughter that I was about to, you know, we were gonna uh talk today, and I mentioned Pink Floyd, and she's like, is she the one that sings? And then she starts mimicking your voice. I'm like, how did you know? So 15-year-olds, 15-year-olds know your voice. I was like, I I had no, I didn't know. I I I'm like, I didn't really listen to Pink Floyd growing up, but um, I know the other people. I know the other people. So you're a songwriter, you're a singer, you're a performer, uh, you're now an educator. I read. Um, you're just a creative force. You have collaborated with many, many legendary artists, um, including Pink Floyd, like I mentioned, Sting, Pat Benatar, Foreigner, George Benson, um so many more. I saw so many names. Um, you were also a front woman for um the Grammy nominated band Hiroshima. And you have a book that's called Make It Out Loud. And I definitely want to talk about that because my podcast, I love the music part. I'm excited about that, but I like the more personal, intimate um conversations of like how did you get here? So welcome. Welcome, welcome, Sean. Thank you so much. Like

Leaving Japan And Early Trauma

Speaker 3 4:36

I mentioned, you've had an amazing music career. When you were younger, you're from Japan, correct? Were you born there? I was born there, yeah. When you were younger, did you envision all of this success?

Speaker 4:50

No.

Speaker 3 4:51

So let's start from the beginning. Let's start from the beginning.

Speaker 4:56

No, um, yeah, I, you know, I'm a I'm a post-World War II baby, so I have a few years on you. So um, my father was American military. Um, you know, he was stationed in Japan after World War II. My mother was a singer, and she was singing in clubs around Tokyo and uh, you know, all around that Tokyo suburban area. And one of the places she performed in was the officers club on the army base in Yokohama. And my father was the manager of the club, and that's how they met.

Speaker 1 5:38

Wow, nice.

Speaker 5:40

So it's like uh like a Hollywood movie, you know, how they met. And and uh long story short, you know, my father ended up uh retiring from active duty from the military, and then he needed to find work, so he found a job in New York. He was from New Jersey, and my family had to pick up and move from Japan to New Jersey so my father could find a job. Uh, and it was, you know, it was a very traumatic. Um I call it the original sin in my life. Uh, it was very difficult leaving my family in Japan. I have an older sister, and then the two of us, um, you know, she was nine years old, I was four and a half years old, and including my mother, the three of us were really pretty traumatized by that um big shift in life. So uh I never imagined my career the way it ended ended up. I'm very lucky the way it ended up, but it was uh a difficult road. It was a long and challenging road for me.

Speaker 3 6:55

What um I read a little bit about that because I know there was difficulty with relationship with your father. Like, are you okay like getting into that? I know it's a part of your book, but um that's part of your your origin story. So um tell me a little bit more about that.

Speaker 7:12

Well, my father, my father was an alcoholic. So excuse me, I think unfortunately, like a lot of military men or people, I should say, probably women as well, um, and especially that generation, that World War II generation, my father was very emotionally unavailable. He was very macho and you know, that very old typical way of male identity. And I think my father buried a lot of his emotional, his own emotional pain with alcohol. And he was also a gambler, he was a womanizer, he was a bad boy, you know. Um, and it was very difficult on the family. So, yeah, it was, you know, in that along with my mother, my sister, and I experiencing discrimination um when we moved to America, it was a very different time. It was 1960 when we arrived in America. So there were still a lot of very anti-Japanese feelings post-World War II. And uh yeah, it was an incredibly different time. I don't remember as a child ever seeing anyone Asian on television or in movies, except for very few uh very stereotypical kinds of roles at that time. Um, it's different now, which is great. You know, we have a much more uh multicultural, uh, is it safe to say diverse diverse uh you know community of people in the entertainment business and in all fields now. So it's a very different time, um, which is great. But that was not the case when I was young. So growing up in in a very, you know, white middle class neighborhood in New Jersey, my father being an alcoholic and had a having a lot of problems, it was it was a difficult childhood.

Biracial Identity And Not Belonging

Speaker 3 9:31

How do you think that like all of that shaped you, like the you know, the two different the different cultures that you you were a part of that you grew up in? Um how did that shape you emotionally, spiritually? Like what did you learn from that?

Speaker 9:46

Yeah, I grew up feeling very confused about my identity. I was biracial, I am biracial, you know. Um I didn't know where I belonged, whether because I'm not fully Japanese and I'm not fully white Anglo-Saxon. So as a child, I was like, who am I? And you know, where's my people? You know, who are my people? Because I'm in between everything. So I really struggled with my personal identity and trying to figure out who I was. And then on top of that, with the emotional difficulties with growing up in an alcoholic dysfunctional family, um, I, you know, I wasn't uh safe. I didn't feel safe and supported. And even though I know my parents loved me and loved, you know, my my sister and consequently my younger brother and sister who came along, um my my parents were were so wrapped up in their troubles that it was hard for them um to to show their love, you know, was sort of very buried underneath um all the dysfunction.

Speaker 3 11:12

So

Writing Make It Out Loud

Speaker 3 11:13

your book Um Nake It Out Loud is about it's a it's a memoir about your life and about um the music industry and all of that. What um what does that title like mean to you? Like how did you come up with that title and what does that mean?

Speaker 11:30

Well, when I started writing the book, which which I never really intended on publishing a book, but um there were people in my life at one point that said, you know, you really should write a book and talk about your story because it's it's so multifaceted and interesting. And I thought initially I thought, oh my God, who you know, who's gonna care about my book and me and my story. But I started journaling and I just started going back to my journal and writing and staying in the process, and I I've learned that I really enjoyed the process of writing. I could write for three, four, five hours, and it it didn't feel like very much time had passed. So I discovered this wonderful space of creativity in a way that I had never known before. You know, I'm used to being a songwriter, and that it's a very similar process, but um just writing words was new to me. So I just kept going. And over two and a half, almost three years of writing, then I realized I had over 60,000 words written, and I said, Oh, okay, I I have a book. I have a book here. Um, but the title came to me because what I realized I was writing about was my internal, emotional, spiritual part of my life. My yes, I talk about my career, yes, I talk about the people I work with, but that was to me the surface story. And the really important part to me was talking about what I've gone through in my personal evolution through my life. Um, you know, I'm gonna be 70 in September, which is no way, yeah. Yes. Wow. It's I would have never guessed that.

Speaker 3 13:38

I would have never guessed that you were about to turn 70. Oh, thank you. Thank you. You're beautiful.

Speaker 13:44

Thank you, thank you so much. Um, but it's real. Time, you know, time is ticking. And um, yeah, so now I'm I'm at a place in my life where I feel certainly much more at peace, much more comfortable within my skin and in myself. But it's taken a lot of years of personal work, a lot of therapy, um, a lot of self-discovery. And so that's where the title really kind of came from because I realized I was telling a very vulnerable story, a very personal story. Yeah.

Speaker 3 14:24

I love that. One of the questions I I just love talking to people that have been through some things because I I learned a lot from from you all.

Aging Into Honesty And Responsibility

Speaker 3 14:32

But um, how do you think like you mentioned like authenticity and and being um a different version at this age? Like, how do you think that changes as we get older?

Speaker 14:43

Well, that's a really good question. Um, for me, I feel that being honest and being vulnerable are very important characteristics to embrace. And with that comes responsibility for ourselves, for our mental and emotional health. And there is a certain amount of work that comes with that responsibility. And you realize as you get older, if you've come from a difficult childhood and you've had trauma in your life, which I think everybody experiences trauma on one, you know, one level or another. There's big traumas, there's little traumas, but we all we all have our difficulties. Um but we all come, or hopefully we all come to the point of realizing that it's our responsibility, uh, and no longer blaming our parents or people along the way, that it's our responsibility to heal and to take care of whatever it is that's making you unhappy or um difficult in your life, that we uh ourselves have to assume the work.

Speaker 2 16:10

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 16:11

That's wonderful.

Speaker 3 16:12

I love that. Um because I I've noticed that not everyone that ages evolves. So I like to ask the question for the people that have evolved and that have changed.

Speaker 16:24

Because some people, uh, if we're gonna be honest, they stay stuck and they're always yeah, and it it's it, yeah, and I see it, you know, I see it in with people in my you know generation and people I know, and and it's sad, it's really sad to see. Um, but we all have our own journeys and we all have our own ways of dealing with things, with things, and and I realize that. Um, but for me, I feel like I've always been a seeker, I've always been driven. Um I don't know where that that drive came from, but I've always had this sense in myself that I wanted to know more, I wanted to um be better, I wanted to achieve and progress and and keep growing. And I still feel that way.

Speaker 3 17:17

Yeah, that's wonderful. Can we

Breaking Into Live Music Young

Speaker 3 17:20

talk about um how did you get into this industry? Like like what doors were opened? I let's start from the beginning of how did you get here? And how were you able to meet all these amazing artists?

Speaker 17:35

Um well, I feel like I was very lucky, incredibly lucky along the way. But also the the music industry was very different when I was young and I was coming up. Um, you know, when I was a teenager in New Jersey and in the New York area, and I think most of the United States, the drinking age was 18. So it was a really different time. So there were so many clubs uh with college students and 18-year-olds partying and hanging out and listening to live music. It was pre-the internet, it was pre-cell phones, it was pre-um, you know, Spotify and all of that stuff, all the digital online platforms. So people went out to hear live music. It was a very vibrant time for for live music, which gave us, you know, singers and musicians, wonderful opportunities to get gigs in clubs, play in clubs, develop our skills. And um that's really how it evolved for me was starting out, you know, in high school, um, singing in in bands, playing in battle of the bands and things like that. And actually going further back, it really started in in school and church because I went to Catholic school in grammar school, and I sang in church choir. And that's really where I discovered that I could sing and that it gave me a sense of identity, it gave me a community uh to connect with musicians and other singers, and it it gave me a sense of anchoring in my life that I wasn't getting in my my personal life. So music became a sanctuary for me and very healing and empowering. So from clubs in New Jersey, um I I my first actual uh professional, so-called professional, even though I was making money from the time I was 16, you know, playing in bars. Yeah, and and so really they say once you get paid, you're a professional.

Speaker 3 19:59

But um but I didn't realize you were so young starting off. 16. Okay, wow.

Speaker 20:05

Yeah, yeah, and I and I started before that just with acoustic guitar and myself singing in little coffee houses, you know, when I was like 14 or something. So yeah, I started really young. My first big audition was when I was 19, and it was with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, which is so off like off the beaten path for me when I when I look at my my career, you know, I look back on what I've done. It wasn't necessarily the kind of music that I wanted, but it was an opportunity, and it was my first big, you know, tour. So with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, I traveled all over the United States. I went to Japan, um, did a little bit in Europe as well. So that gave me that the taste of what it would be like touring, being on the road, and and living that lifestyle. And then, of course, later it led to more rock and roll, you know, opportunities and and more of the music that I wanted to be doing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 21:16

Well, your voice is gorgeous. I was listening to um, you know, some of your songs and clips, and I was like, man, I've always wanted, I don't have the gift of singing, but I'm like, maybe when when I get to heaven, the Lord will gift me with that with that talent. It's I just I really wish I could sing. I really, I really do. So have you tried? Have you tried? Trust me. My my husband, my kids are like, yeah no, no, no, no. And my siblings before that, like before my kids, it was my siblings, yeah no, yeah. I I don't, I don't, I don't. I I don't know how to use my diaphragm the way I should. So with Touring with um, you know, these different bands and just using your gift that God gave you on the outside, it looks so glamorous for us.

Imposter Syndrome Behind The Applause

Speaker 3 22:11

Like, oh wow, look at them. What is something, what are like some emotional things that people wouldn't know about that you were going through at the time that you're touring and and you know, using your gifts and and doing what you set out to do?

Speaker 22:26

Yeah, yeah, that that's you know, again, it's a lot of the story in my book. So when I was on stage singing in front of, you know, hundreds of thousands of people with Pink Floyd or Sting or whoever, whatever the case may be, I carried with me from my childhood all of those feelings of not feeling enough, um, the imposter syndrome, feeling like I didn't belong there, that I wasn't worthy of having those opportunities. And it was really an internal struggle that I carried with me for a very long time. You probably wouldn't know it, you know, if you looked at me on stage. Um and and, you know, maybe no one I've worked with even realized what I was feeling. But that's what I was really experiencing inside. So when I look back on that now, of course I don't carry those feelings like I once did, but it's it's so painful to realize how that younger version of me was really struggling. I feel so badly for her. You know, that version of me was was really confused and uh in a lot of pain, actually.

Speaker 3 23:56

It sounds like even though you're surrounded by a lot of people, it's like a lonely feeling.

Speaker 24:01

Yes. It was a very lonely feeling. And again, you know, I think a lot of people in in the entertainment business experience imposter syndrome. It's nothing uncommon. Um everybody has a different story, though, as to how they arrived, you know, with those feelings, how those feelings develop, where they came from, what are the roots of them all. Um but for me, it's a very, to me, it's a very clear-cut story in terms of growing up feeling um, you know, very unsupported and uh in a very dysfunctional family. And then experiencing that first really big trauma in my life of leaving Japan when I was four and a half and losing that contact with my family there and my grandmother who I loved, my grandmother, and I never got to see her again, you know. So that was that was a big that was a big scar.

Speaker 3 25:02

That was a big heartbreak. Yeah. Oh man. It's it's fascinating to me how people with such big talents still have imposter syndrome because like we're looking at you thinking, wow, what a gift. And to know that you were struggling with that is it um that this is why I like having different people on this podcast because you realize we all go through this as humans. We all have like this internal struggle. And so for someone like you who's so, you know, so successful to have had that similar feeling, you know, it just feels like, okay, we're not alone in this, in this world.

Speaker 25:38

No, we're not alone. And I think that's a lot about um why I want to speak out, why I agreed to do these podcasts that I'm doing lately and to talk about my book further and my story, is that we're not alone. I'm not anything unique in regards to the human condition and the human experience, you know. And if I can, by speaking out about my story, if I can give hope uh to one person, if I can help one person to, if they're in a bad situation, to maybe go get help or to feel better about themselves, then that makes me feel good. That makes me feel like I'm doing something positive in the world.

Speaker 3 26:28

You know.

The Real Life Of Touring

Speaker 3 26:29

So in the music industry, we like to romanticize and glamorize it. What is it? What is something that you can tell us that you can shed light on like the reality of what it really looks like?

Speaker 26:42

Um, well, I do talk about this a little bit in my book. Oh, you do?

Speaker 2 26:46

Okay, okay.

Speaker 26:47

A little bit, yeah. You know, when I toured with Pink Floyd, I mean it's it's quite a few years ago now, you know, it was 1987, 88. So probably probably before your time.

Speaker 3 26:58

But actually, I was born in 79, so I'm not that young. Okay. I am not that young.

Speaker 27:07

Oh you look you look very young. I know. So so yeah, so it was the 80s. Um, it was a very long tour, it was a year-long tour. And the reality, even though it was a very high-class tour, and and I had a lot of fun, I'm certainly not putting it down. Um, you know, yes, we were traveling on, you know, first class or on private jets and staying in, you know, four or five star hotels. Yes, it was very nice. But the reality is you're mostly traveling, you're living out of your suitcase, you're going from town to town, you're you're very ungrounded, you know, you you're in a little microcosm with the people you're working with, uh, like a gypsy, going from place to place. And maybe you're on stage for two hours, maybe three if it's a long show, um, like Spring State or something, because he does three-hour shows. But um besides that, you know, aside from being on stage for those couple of hours, you're trying to figure out how to keep your mental and physical health together. You're dealing with a sense of homesick sickness, feeling a sense of loneliness, even though you're surrounded by a lot of people. You go to your hotel room at night alone most of the time. When I was when I was young, maybe sometimes I wasn't alone.

Speaker 3 28:44

That's hey, you gotta fill up the time somehow, right? You can't just like go perform and not have a life.

Speaker 28:55

Yeah, but um, I was young, I had fun. Good for you, good for you. Yeah, but there's the other side of it too. And it for me in that time period, you know, in the 80s, there were a lot of drugs, a lot of alcohol, a lot of partying. It was pretty crazy too. So um, you know, dealing with that is also part of the job because there is a lot of that that goes on. Um, I don't know how it is for younger generations now on tour. I I think, I I hope that the younger people have found better ways to cope. Um, but there's probably still some some of that craziness going on, I would imagine. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 29:48

So you have been a performer, a teacher, writer, mentor. You've done a lot.

Choosing Courage And Reinvention

Speaker 3 29:56

And so with all these different um hats that you've worn, what have you learned about like courage and fear? Because a lot of us don't do what we want to do in life because of fear, lack of courage. What can like what words of uh encouragement or wisdom you can share about like how you were able just to jump from these different things?

Speaker 30:20

Yeah, uh well, fear is a common human emotion. I've had lots of fear in my life. Um, putting this book out was scary, has been scary for me to reveal, you know, some very vulnerable personal stories. Um but in the face of fear, we find our our courage, we find our strength, we find power, we find evolution, we find growth. And when I look back on my life from this point, I can see, you know, all the the different times in my life when I I did some scary things and didn't know what was on the other side of that fear, but I knew that I needed to move from the point where I was at, and had to take a leap. And that leap of faith, if you have the courage to just take that little step, that little leap of faith, it's incredible what you will find on the other side of that. So I think that's the thing that has kept me going since I'm a a young girl, um going out into the world. I left home when I was 18 because I was so unhappy at home. I moved out the week I turned 18. Um, I left and I, you know, was working already as a singer and got myself an apartment and a car and just went out into the world. And fast forward to um in nine in well, I toured with Sting 1999-2000. When I got off the road with from that tour in New York City, there was a screen actor's guild strike that was happening, and I'm a a union member. So I came home and I couldn't work. There was there were no jobs that I could do in in recording studios in New York because um union. So um, and it was a very big, long strike. It was like six months. So I just yeah, and my husband also, who was my boyfriend at the time, he had just won a big commercial and uh writing, he was writing commercials for television, and he couldn't do this big campaign that he had just won because he was a union member. So I was trying to figure out what to do, and I thought about teaching uh at one point, teaching voice, and that was the moment that I said, okay, I need to find some work, and I wasn't going to go back on the road. I had made a decision that after the sting tour, I was no longer going to pursue that kind of work. And um I started teaching out of my apartment in New York City. I took an ad out in the Village Voice, which was a very popular paper in the city back then. It's it's defunct now. Um, and I started taking on students, and I just I discovered that I loved teaching. And um, and that's how my teaching career started. And then fast forward, um maybe 15 years down the line from that point, I decided that I I wanted to go further with my teaching career. I was only teaching privately because I had never gone to college, so I had no degree, so I couldn't apply for jobs at any universities. So I went back to school in my 50s and got my bachelor's degree and got my master's degree, and now I've been at NYU for 12 years. What a wonderful story. So it's never too late. It's never too late, is it? It's never too late. It's never too late to discover something new, to try something new, to um conquer your fears and follow your dreams. And I am here to attest to that. So yeah, I never imagined myself with a university job, but here I am. And so you're still doing that today.

Speaker 3 35:01

That's what you you do now.

Speaker 35:03

Yeah, yeah. I teach at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. And and I'm an adjunct, I'm not a full-time professor, but I'm I've been there for 12 years and I love it. I love my school, I love my students, and but I couldn't have done that if I didn't go back to school.

Speaker 3 35:20

Good for you, and got my degrees. Good for you, good for you. That's amazing. Good for you. I love I love that. Um

Forgiving Yourself For Hard Choices

Speaker 3 35:28

so we talk a lot on this podcast about forgiving others, forgiving ourselves. What is something that you had to forgive yourself for?

Speaker 35:40

Myself. Oh wow. Um, wow, there are a number of things. Um, I would say the biggest one, the biggest event and decision that I have needed to forgive myself for was my first marriage. I met someone when I was touring with Pink Floyd. I and I do talk about this in the book. Um, he turned out to be a very abusive person. It was a very difficult time in my life. And on the surface, this person was successful and dynamic and, you know, made good money and was creative and uh seemingly just a great guy. And I saw the red flags subconsciously, I saw the red flags before I married him, but I went ahead and married him anyway. And it turned out to be a really difficult time and a not very good decision, you know, that I made. You know, I I picked someone that was very similar to my my dad in a certain way, even though my ex was not an alcoholic, but he was a rageholic. And um uh those dysfunctions come in many different forms. So yeah, I do forgive myself. Um, it was a big forgive, but I know now that I needed to go through that challenge and difficulty in life to heal something within myself and to grow and to also detach from my past and and my family stuff, you know, because I I was carrying that family stuff forward and uh and it got played out in my first marriage. So that's a big one.

Speaker 3 38:35

Yeah, yeah. I I I yeah, I've talked to um other people where they that's it's like you know the red flags are there, your instincts are just like, what are we doing? And we do it anyway. So I think we all have that kind of uh story in us, yeah. And then we beat ourselves up and yeah, yeah, yeah, I did for a long time.

Speaker 38:57

But you know what? When you look back on these things, you're a better person having gone through that. Yeah, you know, yeah, I really believe that. And again, I think you know, it it only gets better if you actually do the work and you work on healing yourself, yes, and learn, you know, because there are people that will take situations like that and become a victim for the rest of their lives, you know, which is so sad. But but that's an agreement. That's, you know, if you're accepting that role of you being a victim, um, it's very difficult to get out.

unknown 39:36

Yeah.

Power Without Giving Yourself Away

Speaker 3 39:37

What does power look like for you now versus what it looked like in your 20s and 30s, like what you thought power was or success was versus what it looks like today?

Speaker 39:47

Oh, that's so easy. You know, when when I'm I was young, and I'm sure this is true for a lot of young people, money, success, you know, are the are the golden, you know, rings that we're reaching for. And um, you know, I had my share. I had my share of that, and I probably could have had more had I had I were in a different place personally, you know, 30 years ago. But now what I feel is true power is a sense of self-love, um, confidence, peace within myself, um, having people in my life that I love and that love me, that are there for me, that have my back, and vice versa. And joy and finding joy, you know, with with the people that are in my life and the things that I do. Money is nice, it's good, we all need it. Yes, of course, but it does not buy happiness, it really doesn't.

Speaker 3 41:06

Yeah. And it's it sounds like freedom. Like once you get to this place of knowing who you are, forgiving yourself, forgiving others, what whatever that looks like, whether they stay in your life or you keep them at arm's length, it just feels like freedom after a while.

Speaker 41:22

Absolutely, and and money can't buy that. You know, that that comes with experience, with age, time, doing the work, and and just being willing to um, yeah, do what you gotta do to get there, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 41:44

If the women listening to this episode could take anything from like one truth from your life and what we talked to talked about today, what would that be?

Speaker 41:57

The one thing.

Speaker 3 41:59

I could be more than one.

Speaker 42:01

I could be more than one. Um I think the biggest message, and and it's and it's something I I think I still work on, is not giving your power away. And I think it's a very tough one for a lot of women because we're raised in a society that uh still tends to be a male-dominated world, no matter what profession you're in. Um, I think we've all been socialized as little girls and women to acquiesce to men, uh, to bow down to power, uh, to not be too aggressive or too angry because otherwise you're a bitchy. Uh, you know, we've we've been trained, we've been trained on many different levels to uh subjugate ourselves and be subservient in many situations and give our power away. And like I said, I'm still working on it, you know. It's um, and I have a double whammy because my mother was Japanese, so I grew up with watching my mother be very subservient, you know. So I've had to work on breaking those bonds culturally, but um yeah, I think that's that is the biggest thing we all need to embrace is our own um power, you know, emotionally, spiritually, um, mentally, and even physically, you know. I see, I have to say, because I teach at university, I see a lot of young women that tend To really oversexualize themselves online on Instagram or you know, whatever it is. Feel and it seems like they feel like that is their only power, is their sexuality. And it is a power. Let's not, you know, fool ourselves that, you know, our power as women and our beauty, our our sexuality and beauty as women is powerful and can be very powerful. But it's all in how you use it, I think. And I I hate to see a lot of young women really kind of selling themselves cheaply by oversexualizing their images. Um, because that's just buying into the male structures and of our society. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 44:50

Oh, yeah, definitely. And and you don't really get respect from that. Like you get a lot of attention, but it doesn't mean you get respect from men. Exactly.

Speaker 45:03

Exactly. Yeah, it's tricky. It's really tricky.

Speaker 3 45:06

Yeah. So

Where To Get The Book And Closing

Speaker 3 45:08

make it out loud. Where can we buy your book?

Speaker 45:12

So the book is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and and most um, yeah, pretty much, you know. I see, you know, my publishing deal is with a small company, so they're not stocking a lot of books in stores, you know. It's it's sort of a print on demand design. Um, but it is available.

Speaker 3 45:32

So wonderful. Yeah. I will make sure that I put your website um on on the notes, on the show notes. That way people can like because everything is on there. Everything about you is on your website. So we can buy the book, we can read about your lives. And I just really, really appreciate talking to women that are vulnerable and authentic and and share their stories because we can learn a lot from each other just by sharing our stories.

Speaker 46:02

Absolutely. Yeah, thank you so much. It's wonderful that you're doing this.

Speaker 3 46:06

Thank you, Machan. I really, really, really thank you for coming on, and um, I appreciate you being here. Thank you, Lyanette. Thank you. My pleasure. I'll leave you all with this. She chose to heal instead of hate. She trusted time, she trusted fate. Her heart once broken, her voice once dim, now sings with courage deep within. She chose to heal, she learned to grow, she faced the pain she used to know. Each wound she bore became her guide, her strength no longer had to hide. She chose to heal, her soul is free, she found the truth of who to be. No weight could break, no night conceal, for she is proof that hearts can heal. Thank you so much for listening to Virago247. If you haven't done so already, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and please give us five-star ratings. Also, don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Virago24 underscore seven and on Facebook at Virago24 slash 7. And just connect with us and share your story. We'd love to hear from you.