The Aha Moment

In this episode of Sorry, That’s My Inside Voice, host Kat Garcia shares a major realization that hit her like a sunbeam through the clouds—her years in high school speech and debate have been influencing her podcasting all along. This aha moment came to her before a recent therapy session, and she couldn’t wait to share it with her therapist (and now, with all of you).

As always, Kat’s storytelling is filled with humor, introspection, and a few unexpected interruptions from her feline co-hosts. She unpacks how impromptu speaking skills, developed decades ago, continue to shape her approach to podcasting—why structured episodes make her anxious, how movement plays into her thought process, and why leaning into a more natural, free-flowing style just feels right.

With a mix of self-awareness and laughter (plus some existential dread about how long ago high school was), Kat challenges listeners to think about their own unexpected connections. What skills or experiences from your past are still showing up in your life today? Tune in and start connecting the dots!

Transcript

Kat Garcia 0:20

Greetings and salutations. Welcome to Sorry, That's My Inside Voice. I'm your host, Kat Garcia. And as always, I'm here with a cat. For tonight's recording in the vibin' recording studio, aka my office, one orange kitten has decided to grace us with her presence. I will let you all know that, uh, miss Lily, who is sitting surprisingly further than arm's reach away from me whilst I record, was kicked out of my office twice this week for, uh, various crimes. Failure to comply was one. Not following directions was another. Being an absolute menace to society was probably one of the top ones and using really sharp teefers to get mom's attention was the final straw. So we'll see how long she lasts. Also, apparently Nala and Lucy are having a cat fight in the office doorway. So this could be an interesting recording session. But I realized, like, not even realized, I had like an aha moment. this week and not like a, Oh, light bulb, aha, but like the clouds part, the sun beams down and a chorus of angels go, Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. that's what happened in my, in my life this week. and it was so funny. I had to share `it. So I had therapy today. And as you all know. I love therapy. Therapy, everyone should be in therapy, honestly, life just gets better when you talk about shit, especially to a person who's not immediately involved in your shit, it's delightful. but y'all know I love therapy and y'all know I love my therapist. My therapist is rad. so I told her in my session today, I was like, Oh my gosh, I put up a new episode and she was like, Oh my gosh, that's so exciting. She doesn't sound like that. that's not her voice, I'm not going to record my therapy sessions to share with you. Uh, we don't have that kind of a relationship, so that's not going to happen. So you just get to experience my exaggerated retellings of what happened. so I told her she was really excited, and then we kind of -got to talking, shocking in therapy. and I kind of started telling her about this aha moment. I mean, I didn't tell her about the angels singing in the sun and stuff. That, that just came to me. It was very poetic and lyrical. As I'm sitting here in the vibe space, like, that's what's happening. The vibes are translating through the colorful microphone, which naturally, I also had to move my camera and show her. But Back to the point. So I was talking to her about this aha moment that I had, when it came to podcasting, because she and I have talked about podcasting a lot, you know, since I started the podcast two years ago, it's been that long. and. You know, she's, heard me talk about the things that stressed me out about podcasting the things that are hard and she'll ask me, Hey, have you recorded yet? And I'd be like, no, but I've like played around. But. You know, we, she's been on this journey with me which is really cool. Like, not like with me, she's not sitting next to me, like holding my hand while we journey. but she's been a witness as this is going on. Right. And so talking about this aha moment, I'm like, oh, obviously I have to share it with her. She will appreciate this. So I. I was telling her all about it. We spent a vast majority of my therapy session this morning talking about this aha moment. So I don't know if I've talked about this, uh, on the podcast yet, but I doubt it will come as a surprise to any of you. Uh, I am not cool. Uh, it's very important to preface it with that. I'm not cool. I've never been cool. I won't ever be cool. And that is perfectly fine for me. I have been weird and kooky since the beginning of whatever. So when I was in high school, I was signed up for speech and debate class. I did not sign myself up for that class. Hence. My mother at forecasting night saw the speech and debate table, made a beeline for it, and signed me up. I will say, in hindsight, that of the two classes forced upon me, one was, was band. And one was speech and debate. One of them was beneficial, one was not. the one that was not was band. band was not beneficial to me in the long run. At all. It was not a great experience, but speech and debate, speech and debate was a great experience. It, looking back now, so my freshman year of high school was, oh Jesus, uh, 2002. It was in this millennium. Some of my listeners maybe weren't even born yet. I don't know your age demographics. Feel free to share. but. You know, 2002, I was 14 and I could not speak in front of people to save my life. I said, um, a lot. I mean, I do now, but when I do, I'm aware of it. Back then, I did not know what was happening and I could not give a speech in front of people and if I did, I blacked out, so like, I couldn't tell you afterwards if it went well. I could barely tell you if I gave the speech, but it was just not great and back then, in the old days, there were like these benchmarks that we had to hit and for them, you had to do like speeches and all this stuff and writing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, testing for tests and things. Some things don't change. But my mom signed me up for this, for this class and, you know, through this class, I gained valuable skills that I'm still using. Now, in the year 2025, so that's a slight gap. How big of a gap is that? Hold on. I'm mathing. Oh, oh, I don't like that. Oh, that's gross. That's like 23 years. We should never talk about that again. Um, I just feel really old now. I'm gonna go pet my knitting and use my hanky and just reinforce that feeling. But You know, as a, as a 14-year-old, high school student, I was uncomfortable. And I was like, I don't like talking in front of groups of people, especially not strangers. And none of my friends were in this class, right? None of them were in this class. I didn't even wanna be in this class. And the first real assignment I remember was, uh, we had to write eulogies. We had to write a eulogy for somebody. Because when you're 14, 15, 16, blah blah blah, up and up from there, because there were kids from, a variety of ages in this class, most of the time you've never thought about writing a eulogy. I know I hadn't really, but I digress. So that's the thing I remember the most from that very first speech term. And from that, I joined the speech and debate team. This is where we get back to the part where I'm not cool and I'm super nerdy. So I, I competed in speech and debate at like the regional level and the state level. I was never like super great at it, but I did, and parts of it were really fun. And since graduating from high school, since that very first speech and debate class, truly. I can draw direct lines from those experiences in that classroom to specific moments in my life. Without having done speech and debate, I would not have been able to participate in and then direct The Vagina Monologues. When I was in college, I would not have been able to do in home parties and talk to groups of absolute strangers about vibrators, lubricant, and, sexual health, which we will talk about in another episode. Cause I'm dying to get to that. Uh, not actually dying, but like, I am just jonesing for that one. but like I can draw very specific lines in my life from one Instance to another. I don't know if you guys have like, had that epiphany moment or you know, had that realization that, aha, like, oh, this thing I did is still impacting me today. Like, in a positive way. I know that for myself, a lot of the time I will focus on like, the negative things that are still impacting me. Uh, hello, trauma. But, uh, but it's, it's not often that I am able to think about and focus on the positives. And Lily, I love it so much that you're trying to rub your butt on the microphone. That is so cute. So helpful. Thank you. Do you want to say hello to the people? No, you just want to create chaos and mayhem. Okay, great. So just like a Monday. Um, oh yeah, so I squirreled so hard, but I I don't really hear a lot of people talking about those positive, experiences that they're pulling forward with them, whether, it's intentional or not. Lily just pulled the microphone across the desk with her butt, mainly her tail. It's very controlling. But yeah, so I've, I've had this, this like aha moment. And so I started like digging into it more, really thinking about it, like what, how is it impacting me now? You know, like, okay, I can see. This was just kind of the progression of the thinking, you know, I can see generally how this, this podcast, like doing this is impacted by and influenced by that speech and debate class. And it wasn't until I really sat down and thought about what I did when I was competing for speech and debate and when I was, you know, practicing because you have to practice. I don't know if there are any speeches out there, but like you have to practice. There are certain skills that you have to develop walking in a diamond shape without looking at the floor. That is a very important skill that you don't think you need, but you do. Learning how to just pause and not say um, or uh, or like, which I do all of those. Because I'm an adult and I can now. See, I almost did it right there. I was like, don't do it. But you know, there are, there are very specific skills that I gained from those experiences and I realized that the skills that I use the most are the skills I learned from Competing in impromptu speaking. So, so for those of you who don't really know what that is, I like to call it, um, professional bullshitting, you know, semi professional bullshitting, where you can be given a word or a general topic and you have a set time. Minimum time that you have to hit and a maximum time that you can't go over. So for those of you who are competitive, I can, I can feel you going, Oh yeah, I could do this. Oh, I could totally do this. Let's like throw down. Don't throw down. Don't throw down, especially if you're throwing down with somebody who has that skill and that experience, they will just wipe the floor with you. And gleefully so. But doing impromptu speaking requires The ability to think on your feet. The ability to pull random ass facts out of the middle of nowhere. So thankfully I was always able to connect mine to movies. If you don't know about my secret superpower, one day I'll tell you. But Those are all parts of, of the, the training, the practice that you do and being aware of time, like the passage of time in smaller increments. because when a second makes a difference, you know how many seconds you have left. And like fitting that in and knowing how that works and knowing, Okay, I've moved from my introduction to my first point over here at the top of the diamond, and then you're walking, and you're walking, but you can't go too fast, and you help to pace yourself with the talking by walking. I pace myself by walking. with hand gestures. One of these days I will record on video me recording the podcast. It'll be very meta. You'll see lots of cats, and you will see me hit myself in the face while I'm gesticulating because I get that excited. But, you know, talking about it and like out loud, because I would talk about it with the cats, of course, naturally. I run so many ideas off of them, but it's It's realizing, oh, oh, that's where that skill comes in. And so when I was talking to my therapist, you know, I said to her, you know,, when we've talked, I've told you that, you know, having, doing research on a topic and then trying to, map it out and talk about it stresses me out so frickin much. Lily, I need you to decide where you're gonna be. Are you gonna be on your shelf? Are you gonna be on the floor? Are you going to be on my lap, or are you going to be over there with your sisters? I need you to pick one. We're going with the shelf. Great. I appreciate that for you. You know, I keep thinking she's a kitten. My little kitten, my little baby, she's going to be four this year, you guys. That's how kitten she is still. It's orange cats, but back to before Lily's butt got in the way this time. So what I realized was. You know, when I had to sit down and plan out an episode, I'm going to hit, you know, these points and blah, blah, blah, blah. In my brain, I'm like, yeah, we're just going to do this and this, but like the, the muscle memory that's built in thinks about it like a speech. And so I competed in impromptu speaking. Professional bullshitting. I competed in poetry where you like read and connect poems and blah, blah, blah, stuff and things. And, which is a different timeframe than impromptu speaking. I also did prose, which is you know, you read a section of a book, you do an introduction, you do a conclusion, you have to talk about why, blah, blah, blah, stuff and things. Different timeframe for that also. Like there's a bunch of different kinds of speeches. There were some that I was better at than others. And now. Those skills transfer really well if I'm working on like papers for school or when I have to do role playing videos. I hate them. But that part of it when it comes to podcasting makes me super anxious and part of that is because when I podcast I am sitting down, right? I don't have, I don't have the movement to help me go from my introduction to my first point. And then my sub points and then move to my second point and sub point. Like I'm not physically moving. So that adds to the anxiety. And then there's the, Oh, did I research enough? Do I really know what I'm talking about? I'm doing a podcast. I'm doing a podcast where people seemingly like to listen to me talk about random shit and my cats and yarn and whatever else. So it's. It doesn't have to have that structure, right? And I've gone back and listened to some of my episodes, which, oh God, painful, so painful. But I can tell the episodes where I did more research, and I tried to do it really structural. And it felt so forced, and listening to it, I can hear that in my voice. But episodes like this one, where I'm like, Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, words and things, right? It's a lot more because of the nature of what it is. It's a lot more fluid and free flowing. And I'm not anxious when I record like this. And my therapist was like, that's really interesting. Also, I didn't know you did speech and debate. I'm like, I know. Low key. Low key, nerdy, awesome. And I actually am still friends with some of my speechies. I used to regularly see our speech coach when she would come down to state. I would visit with her when she was in town. It was really funny, but like very impactful in my life and reflecting on it now. It's like, Oh man, this is still like, this is still active and still hitting. And, you know, I, I've found a happy medium when I have, when I've had guests on who, who are, you know, chit chatting with me. And that is more, Because usually it'll be like a general, this is what I'd like us to talk about. so with Sam, it was talking about grief and loss with Evelyn, AKA Xavier Javier xavier. It was talking about, you know, drag and mental health. And so like there are these more general broad categories, but areas that are specifically. for that person. And I'm like, this is what I want to talk about. And, you know, I'm going to try to ask these, get to know you questions or whatever. And then I would like to hit maybe these topics if we can get there. And that's, that's like the layout of, of when I, when I do like a, an interview guest situation and it doesn't feel forced. It doesn't feel part, well, sometimes it does until you get like into the flow of actually having the conversation with somebody. But. It's different than that, that rigid structure. I've listened to lots of podcasts where they have a very specific structure. You go in, there's your intro. Then there's this first section, second section, this other section. They do, like all of these things, they're very structured. I've wanted to do that. My brain doesn't work that way. So if you were coming here for some structure, uh, and predictability, I hate to be the bearer of, uh, news. I wouldn't say it's bad news. It's just news. Uh, this is not where that will happen because that's, that is not how my brain is spicily wired. So being able to make that connection and say, Oh, that's why doing things this way works, but doing things this way doesn't. Oh, it all makes sense. It was just, it was a really cool moment to, to connect these seemingly disparate occurrences and events in my life, but also be like, no, these are having direct impacts on what you're doing right now. So, the thing that I, I wish I could ask everybody, Who's listening, um, like in a, a person to person conversation. I wish I could ask you what that, what that connection is for you. You know, what is, what is, if you think about it, what is one positive thing? skill, uh, experience, whatever. What is one positive thing that you can look back now and recognize throughout different points of your life? I'm like waving my arm like it's a river and it just kind of winds. I'm going to record this one day and you guys are just going to laugh at me more than you do already. But I wish I could, I wish I could ask you and like, Keep track of what what the answers are. I think this stuff is so interesting because the things that we do I mean, this is the same throughout our lives, right? The things that we do when we're younger reverberate as we age, you know as we gain more and more experience and It's not always in the way that you expect, you know, I wanted to be a teacher when I was in high school. When I started college, I'm like, I'm going to be a high school social science teacher. Because there's so many dudes and that's just obnoxious, but I also, I loved history and the blah, blah, blah. But, you know, the, the mindset was, Oh, I'm going to need to be able to talk to my students. Yeah. So maybe this could be helpful once I got over the instantaneous fear of standing up in front of strangers. That was a big one to get over, but you know, I would not have guessed sitting in that classroom in 2002. Oh God, I'm old. I would not have guessed that I would be utilizing those skills, to record a podcast episode the thirty first 32nd podcast episode for my multi year podcast like that, that was not on my life bingo card. But I'm glad it was. You know, it makes me think what I'm, and the what ifs will drive you crazy. If you start what iffing You're just gonna what if until the end of time and then you'll be like, oh, what if I hadn't like what if'd? What could I have done with my life instead? So be careful with the what if ing, but you know, like what if I hadn't done speech and debate? What if my mom hadn't signed me up for that? Would I, would I have been able to, Asked to do my senior project at outdoor school and then present it and talk to teachers and make the whole thing work when it was very complicated and confusing and relied on my brother to turn in my final paper. But like, would I have been, would I've had the confidence and the skills to do that? Probably not. Would I have gone to college and signed up to participate in a, staged production of this thing? Absolutely the fuck not. Uh, I would not have done that in a bajillion years. Had I not done Speech and Debate first. And like all of these moments, it's, it's so clear looking back and always hindsight is 20 20, but I love that I'm able to see the glimmers and the bright spots and the positive things that I've been able to carry forward with me. Because like I said, you know, we focus a lot Not all of us, but a lot of people, including myself, focus on not even necessarily by choice, but by habit and conditioning to bring forward and just hone in on the, the more negative experiences that shape who we are and shape what we do. So to be able to, to look back and say, This really positive thing that absolutely scared the shit out of me at the time has led to so many other positive things. And I think right now, especially, I don't know if you've looked at, you know, the news or the social medias or really anything at all, but the world is kind of a dumpster fire right now. You know, we all, we all joked during COVID that everything was just a giant dumpster fire. But right now it really feels like it is. And it's hard to. To focus on the positive when we're inundated with so much hostility and hatred and negativity all the time, right? It's so hard to to find the glimmers, to find the silver lining in a thing and just to find something positive. And I don't think that it's, I don't necessarily think that it's the glass is half full or But it could be worse. No, I don't think it's that. I think it's for ourselves, for our mental health, our physical health. We need to be able to, to find and focus on some of the good things too. Right? cause I know, I don't know about you guys, but like I doom scroll. I've been trying to get better at, like, I moved things off of the main screen on my phone. I have to consciously go, like, in and search to find my social media stuff. It's a whole thing because it was making me so anxious and I'd sit there for hours and be like, Oh, guess I have to go to bed now. And then that was what was in my brain going to sleep. So I decided maybe not so much. Let's, let's figure out how to, how to work on that. And I'm not at all saying just pretend like everything is fine. Everything is not fine. Everything is a thousand percent not fine. And there are, there are things happening right now that are positive and things happening right now that will bring a smile to your face. And like, I got a video chat from my niece a couple of days ago. She was so excited because her, her tooth came out and I got a whole video and it made my whole evening. And it's just a little, a little thing in my life that can bring a just a moment of happy shimmer, right? And in a world where we're inundated with so much negativity, being able to find a moment that doesn't feel so bad, can feel really nice. So that I guess is kind of what I wanted to talk about, you know, eventually we got there, but it's, it's really finding out later on that you're like, Oh, this thing I did was a good choice. This thing I did made a difference for me and I can see how. So my challenge to you would be, do you know what that thing is for you? And you might know. You may be so advanced that you've already had all these thoughts. you figured this out years ago and I'm late to the party. Guys, What did we talk about earlier? I am not cool. I will never be cool. If I show up to the party, it's because I'm late and somebody else brought me and told me there were snacks and possibly someone to pet, like a cat or a puppy. You know, that's how you get me out of places. Like, that's how you get me out of the house. But, you know, that's my challenge. Find, find this thing. That, that you can draw the line with, right? The positive, the positivity line. That's a bullshit name for that. We'll workshop that. You know, the, the bright line, call it the bright line, whatever you want to call it. But look back and see what that is. You know, I know for me, a lot of the time I look back and I'm like, Oh, trauma and, and depression and hard time and. Blah, and blah, and blah. But in between all the blahs and the, not great stuff, there are bright spots, and they're connected. That is why I decided to record tonight's episode. I actually feel, this is totally off topic, but I feel like this is what A DJ in the 90s at night would have felt like in their vibey office with the lights out and the twinkle lights on, but like they were the Christmas colored ones and they didn't have the cool light with the ripples. So like, I didn't know that this was a dream I had, but I'm living. An unknown dream. Go me. Find the brights. Find the, the, the glimmers. Find the shimmers. And, you know, if you have that aha moment, fucking tell somebody. It's a big deal. Like, recognizing that for yourself. Share that shit. Share that shit. If you don't feel like you have something to share it with, send it to me in a DM. Send it to me in an email. I will absolutely cheer for you. Because everyone needs a goddamn cheerleader, and I cheer really, I, I cheer so loud, so loud, it's, it's deafening for other people. But, you know. I, when I recorded last week, I said in the episode, I didn't know what, what a schedule was going to look like. And as we've established, I struggle with structure. So, you know, this is week two. We'll see how it goes. But if you've ever wondered how I organize my podcast stuff, Now, you know, I don't. Usually it's, Oh, I have an idea. I'm going to try to talk about it. Maybe I'll even loop back at the end. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes it doesn't. Um, but it's, it's a little fly by the seat of your pants and you know, that's kind of how I like it. So when you're listening to episodes, you're like, well, this feels weird. No, it probably actually felt weird to do, but everything feels weird to do when you're starting out. So do the thing. Do the thing that freaks you out and who knows, maybe you'll start a podcast that accidentally utilizes skills that you developed 22 years ago, 23 years ago. Oh God. That's, that's just old. That's what that is. So with that, the cats and I are going to go. Uh, Lil remained on her shelf. Ayla just jumped up to join us. So obviously I need to get going before they maul me. But. Thank you for listening and thank you for, for sharing the show. that's always really exciting. I love, I'm such a nerd. I love seeing all the stats, like people download from what location, like what countries? I, there have now been downloads on every continent. But Antarctica, I nerded out about this with my therapist, but you know, if you have things you want me to talk about, I will talk about them. DM me. Instagram is, sorry, that's my inside voice. You can email me at the longest fucking email ever made, which is `Contact Inside Voice podcast@gmail.com because I'm a glutton for punishment. But. Thank you for being here and for listening and for coming back. Even when you don't know if there's going to be a new episode for a while, just, you know, find the joy you can, where you can find it. And sometimes that's looking back and going, Oh, that was a good choice. So hang in there. We will be back and we will talk to you guys all very soon.