#079: What Happens When Your Inner World Outgrows Your Outer Life With Lizzie Thomas

What happens when your inner world wakes up… and your outer life refuses to catch up?

In this intimate conversation, jazz singer-songwriter and producer Lizzie Thomas shares the story of an awakening that asked everything of her: her marriage, her beliefs, her relationship to patriarchy, and the version of herself she’d been performing for years. Songs began arriving through dreams and meditation, carrying lyrics and melodies that pulled her toward a truer life, even as old structures and expectations clung tight.

Lizzie talks about realizing that what was happening inside no longer matched the life she’d built outside, and the grief of setting fire to beliefs inherited from culture, family, religion, and the “American dream.” She names the quiet courage of buying a home alone in midlife, starting over on her own terms, and daring to believe in a self she can’t fully see yet but is committed to becoming.

We also explore community, bandmates, and the power of relationships as the real point—not just the backdrop—to a creative life. Together, we wander through grief, deeply feeling, and what it means to let your art be both your spiritual walk and a beacon for others who are still finding their way. This one is for every creative who has felt the lag between who they are becoming and the life they’re still standing in.

Lizzie's Profile
Lizzie's Website

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Transcript

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Dwight: Welcome to another fun edition of the For the Love of Creatives podcast. You've got your Connections and Community Guy hosts, Dwight and Maddox, and today, we are joined by the fabulous Lizzie Thomas. Welcome to the podcast, Lizzie.

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Lizzie Thomas: Hello! Thank you, Dwight. Thank you, Maddox. Happy to be here today.

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Maddox: We're glad to have you.

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Dwight: Yes, absolutely. Lizzie, could you share with the For the Love of Creatives audience a little bit about who you are and what you're about?

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Lizzie Thomas: Absolutely, I would love to.

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Lizzie Thomas: I am Lizzie, Lizzie Thomas. I am a jazz singer-songwriter, producer.

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Lizzie Thomas: musician. I am from the South of America, like the good old brought up in the South.

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Lizzie Thomas: And really wanted to move to the big city and the jazz capital of the world, so I moved to New York City. I've lived in New York City, Manhattan, about 20 years.

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Lizzie Thomas: And have just submerged myself into the jazz community and the community that exists there. I am a touring, internationally touring musician. I have… I'm about to… I have 9 albums.

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Lizzie Thomas: 7 of them in the classic American songbook. I have worked with incredible musicians, like the late Russell Malone, guitarist, Ron Carter, bassist, Shedrick Mitchell, pianist, organist.

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Lizzie Thomas: It's my great delight to share music with the world, and I think what's really the most interesting kind of pivot turn in my career has been I have gone through a personal awakening within the last, I think, 3 to 4 years now.

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Lizzie Thomas: And how that has influenced my music.

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Lizzie Thomas: And my approach to, my music has been pretty profound.

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Lizzie Thomas: I have released an album called Awakening last year.

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Lizzie Thomas: And the way I received those songs was through dreams, through meditation, I hear lyrics, I hear melodies, and as a pianist, that's my first instrument, I go to the piano and I work through, and I have these conversations with songs.

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Lizzie Thomas: And there's this objectivity that has given me such freedom

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Lizzie Thomas: An ability to express myself through the music.

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Lizzie Thomas: takes me to my next album, This Is Freedom, which is, again, an extension, a deeper reflection on what is it like to live a life when you decide that you're gonna start making your own rules.

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Lizzie Thomas: That you are going to start to dream big and dare to believe

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Lizzie Thomas: The things that you hear, that quiet voice that says, Can I do that?

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Lizzie Thomas: Should I do that? Oh gosh, I don't know if I want to do that. That's pretty scary. So my music is a reflection of the…

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Lizzie Thomas: I would say spiritual walk that I have been on, and of course, I still love the standards, I still go back to my Cole Porter, my George Gershren, my Miles Davis, John Coltrane, but at the same time, I infuse my original songwriting and my ability

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Lizzie Thomas: To heal through the frequency of music.

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Lizzie Thomas: That's in a nutshell.

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Lizzie Thomas: Of who I am, and what motivates me.

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Dwight: That's incredible, and… oh my goodness. I know it's hard to just capture everything in just a neat little sound bite, but I feel like we're just getting the tip of the iceberg.

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Dwight: And you're unearthing some great things to come. I mean, beyond the…

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Dwight: accomplished recording career. Like, 9 albums, that's… that's a lifetime of music in itself.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah, it's blood, sweat, and tears.

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Maddox: Yes, Lizzie, I'm curious, how has…

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Maddox: Your music, the things you've written and produced, how has it been received?

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Lizzie Thomas: Well, really beautifully, from those who have heard it. I think the biggest challenge of an independent artist is really

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Lizzie Thomas: Having your music heard.

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Lizzie Thomas: I was with a label, I left, I started my own label called Goddess Legacy Records. It's very specific to empowering female artists and female producers, so…

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Lizzie Thomas: To really answer your question.

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Lizzie Thomas: People love the music. They can dig as deep into it as they want. The lyrics are very, engaging, compelling.

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Lizzie Thomas: You can just listen to great music, or you can really dig deeper and go, whoa, these themes, where is she going with this?

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Lizzie Thomas: I have a lyric book as well that I've produced, so it's an investigation that I could talk hours and hours and hours about, but I know that that's not what we're gonna do today, so…

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Maddox: So it's thought-provoking, is what I'm hearing.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yes.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yes. That's beautiful. The original… yeah, the original music is thought-provoking, and it's also… Always asking… Who are you?

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Lizzie Thomas: Are you living the life that you want? Are you living the life that you are here to live?

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Lizzie Thomas: If you don't want to go there, you can just listen to the music, because the music is infused with frequencies of healing, because every one of these songs have been a process

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Lizzie Thomas: of healing for me to actually write them. Some of them come easily, some of them… I have one song that took me over a year to write, and it was a process of me understanding that

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Lizzie Thomas: No one was coming to save me.

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Lizzie Thomas: And guess who gets to save me?

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Maddox: You do.

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Lizzie Thomas: I do!

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Lizzie Thomas: So…

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Maddox: going after a pretty specific niche, especially for the people that want more than just lyric, I mean, more than music.

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Maddox: That thought-provoking… thing, I mean, that is…

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Maddox: there… there is a… literally a genre of people out there that I believe that will seek that out. They want to have that thought-provoking aspect of something in their life. We…

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Maddox: We recently discovered a playhouse that a lot of their plays that they produce are very intentionally set to really be thought-provoking for the audience, and I believe that's definitely a very specific niche.

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Maddox: How do you… how do you go about… like… reaching that niche.

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Maddox: Do you have any suggestions? Whatever pronounce.

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Lizzie Thomas: I'm raising the flag, do you have any suggestions?

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Lizzie Thomas: I don't know, Maddox. It's, it's, a lot of…

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Lizzie Thomas: That's one of the reasons why I'm talking to you guys today.

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Lizzie Thomas: One of the reasons why I'm here.

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Maddox: The first thing that comes to my mind is

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Maddox: You have to educate that.

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Maddox: niche.

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Maddox: you have to… or you have to educate the people about your music and say, you know, they need to hear from you. We talk about this a lot with creatives, because we're so quick to put…

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Maddox: Our art, our dance, or whatever, our music out there, and sometimes we forget to put ourselves out there, which is what people are really hungry for.

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Maddox: They want the person behind the music, or behind the art, or the… And, and it's…

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Maddox: The creatives community hasn't quite embraced that yet.

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Maddox: I mean, what comes to my mind is you just simply producing short videos where you speak, a talking head video where you speak with your audience on varying different social media channels, telling them that your music was… you write your music for it to be thought-provoking.

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Maddox: To make them go deep, to have them, perhaps, after listening to one of your songs, know themselves just a little bit better than they did before they listened.

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Lizzie Thomas: It's powerful, right?

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Maddox: Yes!

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Maddox: Yes, but it is tricky reaching those people, but I think right now, more than ever, I mean, I have a love-hate relationship with social media, but…

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Maddox: We have a means of reaching people across the entire globe that we never have had until now.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah, very true, Maddox.

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Lizzie Thomas: Very true, and yes, you are…

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Lizzie Thomas: clarifying, confirming, mirroring back the very thing that I… Am doing, trying to do.

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Lizzie Thomas: As an artist, one thing that is a real hard…

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Lizzie Thomas: Question to self is how public

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Lizzie Thomas: do I make my personal life as an artist? I'm a very private person, yet…

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Lizzie Thomas: I mentioned before, I have an objectivity

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Lizzie Thomas: an objective relationship with these songs, because even though they're coming through my hand, through my being, there's a level of…

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Lizzie Thomas: third-person objectivity that I have about them, and because of that, that, for the first time as an artist, has given me the ability to speak about them as if they're these entities that exist that aren't just about me.

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Lizzie Thomas: I hope I'm being clear enough,

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Lizzie Thomas: And my explanation, because with that being said.

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Lizzie Thomas: I can speak to certain songs and the journey and the motivation and my experience, but when you hear it, you might have a totally different experience.

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Lizzie Thomas: And I think as an artist, we have to allow the art To do as it wishes.

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Lizzie Thomas: The creativity channel to infuse itself and move through the listener, the one experiencing the art. So there's this…

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Lizzie Thomas: Perfect balance of me Stepping out of the way.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yet, doing exactly what you just said. Me also communicating my experience with the art.

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Lizzie Thomas: Because my experience with the art might help you experience the art in a different way.

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Maddox: Exactly.

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Dwight: Yes.

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Maddox: You know, the same is true of physical art. Abstract painting, people see things in your painting that you didn't put in there.

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Dwight: And it… well.

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Maddox: And it's their interpretation, and that's the beautiful part of it. Every person gets to have their own interpretation of each one of your songs.

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Dwight: Right, and I imagine each…

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Dwight: performance is a kind of meditation. It's a… it's a way that you get to revisit it, and to have the audience have their own unique experience in that moment.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah, you bring up an interesting point as a performing artist. When I step on stage, I have to remember

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Lizzie Thomas: Sometimes it's the first, second, third time that someone's heard a song.

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Lizzie Thomas: And the level of preparation and the level of intimacy that I have with the songs is probably…

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Lizzie Thomas: Like, hours and hours and hours.

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Lizzie Thomas: And, part of that is really delightful, and also part of that is, like.

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Lizzie Thomas: I have to, again, step back and remember.

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Lizzie Thomas: This is the first time that someone might be hearing this song, ever. This is probably the hundredth

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Lizzie Thomas: or more time I've ever sung this song. So, you're right that people perceive the art and experience the art through their lens.

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Lizzie Thomas: And also, you know, I can relate to when, you know, when you hear, like, really successful artists say, I've sung that song 8,000 times.

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Lizzie Thomas: And I'm so done doing it, but, like, we still want to hear it!

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Maddox: You know, I think, Lizzie, that awareness that you just spoke about, your awareness that you have your experience of it, but that they have their own interpretation, that's going to work in your favor in a really, really big way.

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Dwight: Yeah, but I feel like we are probably teasing a large section of our audience who aren't yet into your world, because, I mean, the beautiful thing about

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Dwight: planting your little stake in history and going on these podcasts is… it's another point where people are able to see that you've planted your flag, they see your name, Lizzie Thomas.

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Dwight: And they can plug it into their, their podcast player, Spotify, Apple, what have you.

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Dwight: And you've got a catalog.

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Dwight: And they get to go on a journey, and having had that experience, I was blown away, because I was…

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Dwight: I was struck by a certain maturity and elegance, because of your… you've chosen to honor an art that is, in a lot of ways, uniquely American.

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Dwight: And you… it's not one of those things where you're just doing a cute lip service kind of thing to it. You embody it, and oh my goodness, does it come through.

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Lizzie Thomas: Thank you.

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Lizzie Thomas: Thank you very much. That means a lot to hear.

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Maddox: So, you spoke about the awakening. I want to go back and start there, because I think that what you're tipping on is one of our pillars, which is

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Maddox: becoming.

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Maddox: And my question is… Hmm…

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Maddox: As you begin to have the awakening.

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Maddox: And these things begin to come to you in dreams and in meditation. It was lyrics, it was music that you could hear, the keys being played on a piano, perhaps.

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Maddox: That called you to step into a totally different… Level of who you are.

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Maddox: You were being called to become a different version of yourself, more of yourself, perhaps.

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Maddox: Let's hear a little bit…

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Maddox: About that, how you experienced that, what it looked like, smelled like, tasted like, and…

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Maddox: And… just how it impacted you.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah.

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Lizzie Thomas: There's a lot, a lot there, Maddox, and I will say yes.

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Lizzie Thomas: I am more.

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Lizzie Thomas: of myself. I am a more authentic version

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Lizzie Thomas: of Lizzie today than I ever have been, even than I was yesterday.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yet, I will say this.

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Lizzie Thomas: We'll call it becoming, we'll call it ascension, we'll call it recognition of self.

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Lizzie Thomas: I will say that… There is a problem.

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Lizzie Thomas: to Ascension.

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Lizzie Thomas: And the problem that one has, that I specifically had, was I began realizing that what was happening internally was not being reflected externally.

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Lizzie Thomas: And I had to begin to look at all the relationships

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Lizzie Thomas: all of my circumstances, all the choices that I had made that had led me to that place, and realized that a lot of them did not…

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Lizzie Thomas: have… Integrity of relationship.

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Lizzie Thomas: with… this newfound becoming and awakening that I was having within myself.

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Maddox: Are you saying they no longer served you?

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Lizzie Thomas: Yes.

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Lizzie Thomas: They no longer served me. They no longer… you know, I remember really coming…

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Lizzie Thomas: Having a conversation with the word integrity.

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Lizzie Thomas: And my understanding with integrity was.

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Lizzie Thomas: One can… one has integrity when Internally, The internal world

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Lizzie Thomas: Is reflected in the external world.

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Lizzie Thomas: A lot of people say, as below, as above, as above, as below, there's a lot of different ways to say it. But I realized that I had conflict.

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Lizzie Thomas: And I had to deal with it, and that was my responsibility.

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Lizzie Thomas: And what I mean by the conflict was a lot of my external world did not…

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Lizzie Thomas: Represent this authentic version of myself.

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Lizzie Thomas: I was a people pleaser, I was, a self-abandoning wife.

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Lizzie Thomas: I was… There were a lot of things that I was not… coming…

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Lizzie Thomas: To relationship with, in my external world.

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Lizzie Thomas: That was reflecting my true, authentic person.

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Lizzie Thomas: Does that make sense? Am I… I mean, I know I'm being clear, but am I hitting on something here?

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Maddox: It makes…

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Dwight: Yeah. Perfect.

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Maddox: sense. You know, what's coming up for me right now, in my experience, and I want to know your take on this.

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Maddox: I believe that there is a natural lag that happens When you go through…

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Maddox: an awakening, or you embark on becoming more of who you really are. You make those changes internally, and for a period of time, no! The external world does not align. And you go through this

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Maddox: you know, kind of a WTF moment, where you're wondering what's… what's wrong here? But I think that it's just like anything else, you know, when… when we…

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Maddox: no longer needed to shred raw meat off the bone. We lost our jagged teeth, you know? We evolve, and there's a part of that that I think happens here.

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Maddox: That it takes a little while for the external world to catch up with all the changes you've made internally.

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Maddox: Because it's waiting on you to take action on those internal shifts, and when you start to take action, and based on what you're telling me, that meant you had to cut some people loose.

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Maddox: Cut some situations, cut some ways of doing things, some limiting beliefs, perhaps.

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Lizzie Thomas: Not perhaps, absolutely. I feel like I set fire to my entire life, which was me uncovering all of these limiting beliefs. And when I say limiting beliefs, what I'm speaking to are beliefs that I was taught through culture.

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Lizzie Thomas: Through ancestry, history, through religion.

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Maddox: Hmm.

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Lizzie Thomas: this is just the way. Through, you know, all the different things that I was taught, I started looking at it and going, do I believe that?

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Lizzie Thomas: And I just started writing down all the beliefs.

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Lizzie Thomas: And I became a curious explorer of my life.

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Lizzie Thomas: Do I believe that? I don't know, let's put that one on the shelf. I'm not sure if I believe that.

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Maddox: This is so rich. What you're describing now is so rich, and I hope the listeners are really tuning in, because what you're telling me you did with writing down all of those beliefs to look at, well, is that true? Do I believe that? Is brilliant.

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Dwight: Yeah, that's the most essential me search.

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Lizzie Thomas: I like that. Me, sir. Yes.

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Maddox: Instead of research. That's cute, Dwight, I like that. It's the first time I've heard him say that.

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Lizzie Thomas: So I went through this process, and I'll tell you guys, the process is long, because once you uncover one belief that you don't believe, what happens?

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Lizzie Thomas: Another one pops up.

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Maddox: It's a domino effect.

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Lizzie Thomas: Absolutely. And then pretty soon, You're left with…

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Lizzie Thomas: oh my gosh, I don't know what I believe! And then you start… what do you do? You tune in to yourself again. Then you… you begin to…

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Lizzie Thomas: Restructure.

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Lizzie Thomas: build. And that is my word right now. I am building. I am believing. And I love to say, I'm daring to believe. I'm daring to believe that I am all these things that I believe that I am, and that I believe spirit, universe, God, Goddess, says that I am.

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Lizzie Thomas: Because the reality is, I still don't see it. You were talking about lag time?

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Lizzie Thomas: I still don't see all those things in my…

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Lizzie Thomas: external world that I am living in today. Funny story.

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Lizzie Thomas: I just bought… I just completely… Changed my life.

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Lizzie Thomas: And I think I want to bring it up because you can.

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Lizzie Thomas: You know, we are taught from early on, you do this, and this, and the latter.

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Lizzie Thomas: You know? You're climbing the ladder, and you get to the top at some point. I don't know what happens. Do you fly away, or do you just, like, look at my kingdom on top of my ladder? I don't know.

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Lizzie Thomas: Well, I just burned the ladder, basically. I just set a torch to it, and I was like.

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Lizzie Thomas: I'm not doing the latter thing.

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Lizzie Thomas: I believe that in any stage of our life, we can just totally restart. We can do over. Like, why not?

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Lizzie Thomas: So… I am living in a home.

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Lizzie Thomas: That, as a woman.

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Lizzie Thomas: It's a very powerful moment for me in the middle of my life to buy a home.

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Lizzie Thomas: All by myself, no cosigner, no masculine energy to support me in it,

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Lizzie Thomas: And there's nothing in my house.

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Maddox: there's.

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Lizzie Thomas: There's no furniture.

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Maddox: Can I… you said something, can I give… can I have permission to… Please! …to give you, perhaps, a different perspective?

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Lizzie Thomas: I'd love it, yeah.

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Maddox: When you said, no masculine energy to support me, and I get exactly where you're coming from, because we do… we do…

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Maddox: definitely think of masculinity as being men, and femininity as being women. But the truth is, you have

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Maddox: both masculine and feminine energy within who you are, in your being. I wish that we had been smart enough to name those energies differently. The whole thing would be different if we hadn't named them after a gender. That was… that was a stupid move on our part. Bad move.

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Lizzie Thomas: Totally right, and I completely agree with you. Continue.

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Maddox: You, you have whatever masculine energy that you need inside of you.

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Maddox: You know, it was a big moment for when I realized that I had only been honoring one of the energies and hadn't been honoring the other one, and when I began to honor both of them, there was this integration that happened, and when the integration happened, suddenly.

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Maddox: My central nervous system just went peaceful.

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Maddox: Something that had been fighting, and this just happened maybe… mmm… 5 years ago.

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Maddox: I had been fighting internally my whole life, masculine, feminine, masculine, feminine. They'd been fighting with each other. And one day, I just sat down and decided to…

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Maddox: To really figure it out.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah.

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Maddox: And I wrote, I wrote, I wrote, I wrote.

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Maddox: And when I got finished, I wrote… read what I wrote. It was like I was channeling. And it was all about just this honoring of both, realizing that you have both, that those energies don't have anything to do with gender. Nothing.

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Maddox: Those energies are in all of us, and when we can make peace with them.

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Maddox: When we can, as a planet, as humanity, when we can individually make peace with those two energies inside of us, wars will stop.

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Maddox: We, we will have… We will have peace planet-wide.

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Maddox: Not only internally, individually, but we'll have it Externally, as well.

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Maddox: But you have everything you need inside of you.

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Lizzie Thomas: It's so exciting!

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Lizzie Thomas: Why are we not taught that?

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Lizzie Thomas: We are taught to look outside of us for everything that we need.

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Dwight: Well, we're taught to have… we're taught that we have needs that, you know, if no one had ever polluted us, to think that we needed to ascend the ladder and drive the fancy new car and get the big house and…

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Dwight: all those things, then, you know, there are… there would be a lot of people that would be sorely disadvantaged, because that's their dream, and in order for them to achieve what they want, we need to think that we need to pursue it, too.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah.

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Maddox: Yeah, the American dream is a joke, it's a fluke.

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Lizzie Thomas: Totally!

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Maddox: It's like we just pass it out at a certain age, you reach a certain age, and your family, your people around you, they give you the American dream.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yes.

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Maddox: And it… and it fucks us up in a way that's just, like, wow.

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Lizzie Thomas: It's the great lie.

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Maddox: Yes.

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Lizzie Thomas: great lie that keeps us in cages, that keeps us enslaved, and I'm so glad that I said what I said the way I did, Maddox, for you to speak to the feminine and masculine energy.

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Lizzie Thomas: Because it's so important, and it inhabits… it inhabits us.

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Lizzie Thomas: And we must have the balance of the two.

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Lizzie Thomas: So, I'm gonna, ask… for the ability to… to edit what I said.

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Maddox: You know, you exhibit both, you do know that, right?

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Lizzie Thomas: I do, you know.

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Maddox: Outwardly, I can see it. Visually, you're exceptionally feminine. For those that are not seeing video here and having the audio, she's dressed to the teeth, her makeup is flawless, her hair is beautiful, the jewelry, the whole.

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Dwight: Yes.

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Maddox: And the house behind you, there's this Brian…

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Dwight: Perfection.

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Maddox: behind you, there's a hot pink wall and a blue sofa. It's like, oh my god, can I come live with you? It's just fabulous. But there's a lot of feminine energy

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Maddox: Visually, but also, just… you could just feel the energy, but then…

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Maddox: On the other hand, you're a tiger by the tail.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah…

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Maddox: Doesn't take but 2 minutes to figure that out.

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Maddox: If even that long.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yes, you know, it's interesting, Maddox. I've worked a lot on embodying my feminine energy.

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Lizzie Thomas: Because as a woman brought up in this very… and also in jazz, as a musician.

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Lizzie Thomas: I'm surrounded by men.

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Lizzie Thomas: Always. I am in a male-dominated genre field of music, and so, as a teacher, as a…

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Lizzie Thomas: entrepreneur, I've learned that I have to speak very clearly, I have to say what I mean, mean what I say, not be afraid to speak, and be very,

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Lizzie Thomas: not domineering, because I don't think I'm domineering. I just think I'm very clear at my…

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Maddox: You're assertive. You're assertive.

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Lizzie Thomas: And I've had to be. So I appreciate, I, I appreciate you, and,

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Lizzie Thomas: your assessment. Thank you. So, my edit is…

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Lizzie Thomas: I did not have a male escort.

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Lizzie Thomas: A male beside me to a male representative.

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Lizzie Thomas: to buy my home, and that was a big deal. And then… and that's,

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Lizzie Thomas: that was something that, throughout my… especially being brought up in the South.

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Lizzie Thomas: I mean, I was a debutante, I was in pageants, I was always… Brought up beside

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Lizzie Thomas: a male, and I want to say beside, because I want to focus on that, but most of the time, the male's in front in that society, and it is true.

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Lizzie Thomas: Make us think that, oh, well, you know.

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Lizzie Thomas: he's helping us embody our feminine energy. Well, it's bullshit. So…

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Maddox: I agree. I'm totally against the patriarch. I think it is… it, it is…

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Maddox: what… it is the biggest thing that keeps us from having what we would all really love and enjoy. It's bad. It's just bad. There's no two ways about it.

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Lizzie Thomas: Agreed, agreed, and…

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Maddox: It's even bad for men, you know? The patriarch… if you really do the math and look at the statistics, it's killing us. Living up to that thing that we're taught.

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Maddox: It's killing us.

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Lizzie Thomas: I completely agree.

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Maddox: So if you had… if you had to sum up… oh, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

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Lizzie Thomas: I'm like, so what do we do? We just keep living our authentic lives, right? I keep making music, I keep communicating this message, I keep sharing the wisdom that I have. What do you think we do, Maddox? What do you think?

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Maddox: Well, I think, you know, you're empowering… you're… you're empowering women. I think that's really, really important. Yeah.

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Maddox: Dwight, you take a stab.

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Dwight: Yeah, I think that as long as you continue to be true to yourself, as long as you continue to produce the beautiful music that you do, to speak out in the way that you do, it's…

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Dwight: Sending up a beacon for others who might not even know that they're… that this is a possible way of being.

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Dwight: I think that just like when you bang a tuning fork and there's another one that resonates at the same frequency that knows that it has permission to sing.

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Dwight: You're lighting that path.

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Dwight: And the best that we can hope for is that as you continue to show what it is to live out your genuine way of being, it's gonna give others permission.

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Maddox: Bingo. Well said, Dwight.

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Lizzie Thomas: Well said.

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Maddox: Very well said.

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Maddox: You know, my hope is that sooner or later, the patriarch will just die off.

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Maddox: That we're slowly… the younger generations are not sucked into that as much as They used to be.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah.

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Dwight: And… Unfortunately, it's too easy to trade in greed and fear, and that's what perpetuates it.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yes.

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Lizzie Thomas: And I think… Eventually, What will happen is we…

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Lizzie Thomas: as awakened people who desire more, who see the truth of the puritanical patriarchy, will continue to rise and realize that

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Lizzie Thomas: We have no use for it.

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Lizzie Thomas: And eventually, it will have no use, and it will crumble. I have a song called Kingdom's Fall, and it speaks to this.

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Lizzie Thomas: It speaks to the crumbling… patriarchy.

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Lizzie Thomas: But it doesn't speak to the patriarchy, it speaks to… When we become authentically ourselves, it just…

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Lizzie Thomas: it becomes obsolete. It's not something we even care about anymore. Like, it's… we disregard it. And in it not being important, it's where it begins to fall and lose its power.

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Maddox: I love that.

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Maddox: Love, love, love that.

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Dwight: Yeah.

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Maddox: So, I think we've… we've done a really good job of covering the whole becoming thing. I think your story is, like, all about becoming…

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Maddox: But let's touch a little bit on community and how that's played a role in all of

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Maddox: the things that you've achieved, the awakening? How did community play a role in that?

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Lizzie Thomas: Well, I can't help

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Lizzie Thomas: let's say I wrote a song, and the title is Community, and that was the first song I ever heard from Spirit.

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Lizzie Thomas: And the lyrics are, community, you and me. Don't forget that we are free.

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Lizzie Thomas: I believe we'll come together in time.

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Lizzie Thomas: And it is a song that speaks to… and there's a beautiful music video set in Manhattan, and it speaks to,

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Lizzie Thomas: we all are different, we all look different, we come from different backgrounds, I celebrate difference, I'm a xenophile, and I think that in celebrating difference, we actually honor it, and that's what this song, community, is about. So.

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Lizzie Thomas: Big believer in the fact that we can't do this on our own.

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Lizzie Thomas: my band, they're very important to me. My female friends are very important to me. I have had to learn as a very independent

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Lizzie Thomas: woman who is an Aries sun. I usually get shit done faster than anybody else in my world, but you know what?

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Lizzie Thomas: I'm alone. I get it done faster, but I'm alone. Is that serving me?

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Lizzie Thomas: Mmm, sometimes not. I mean, I got the task, I can check it off, but I'm alone. And the value of community is incredibly important.

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Lizzie Thomas: not only as a person, but as a musician, I can't…

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Lizzie Thomas: I mean, I can sit behind the piano and play my songs and sing.

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Lizzie Thomas: But… how much more powerful it is when I have

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Lizzie Thomas: My band with me, and we're all

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Lizzie Thomas: passionately, emotionally expressing our love of the music. I mean, that's powerful. That's where things are really accomplished.

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Maddox: That's beautiful.

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Dwight: Indeed.

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Maddox: Speak a little bit more about

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Maddox: in that awareness that I can get shit done really fast by myself, but is that really serving me? How have things shifted in that awareness?

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Lizzie Thomas: Well, that awareness came a couple years ago.

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Lizzie Thomas: And…

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Lizzie Thomas: how… you know, I am not a patient person, but I think I've actually become a pretty fairly patient person.

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Lizzie Thomas: Over the last several years,

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Lizzie Thomas: And it's also made me become, more of a clear communicator.

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Lizzie Thomas: that speaks to deadlines, that speaks to… this is what we, you know, as an entrepreneur… a musical entrepreneur, I have my own record label, I'm my own artist, I have a team of people that's very, very small, but

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Lizzie Thomas: It's helped me… Realize that I'm better when I have people around me.

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Lizzie Thomas: Because I'm not the expert in everything, I mean, that's ridiculous.

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Lizzie Thomas: So I'm better when I have people around me, because I have to understand what it is that I need, what I want, who I am, and how I communicate.

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Lizzie Thomas: Getting the job done.

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Lizzie Thomas: That's business on a personal level, I'm an empath, and so I love being around people, and I…

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Lizzie Thomas: Enjoy the stories, and enjoy the experience of sharing life.

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Lizzie Thomas: So… That's really it for me.

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Lizzie Thomas: I'm… I'm in it, but if you're in it by yourself, then what's… I don't know, what's really the point?

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Dwight: Yeah, it seems like a great callback to how you got off the ladder.

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Lizzie Thomas: Exactly.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah.

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Maddox: You know, there's this…

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Maddox: I don't know if this happens for everybody, but there was a point in my life, and I can't pinpoint exactly when it was, but it's been a few years ago, when I realized that aside from

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Maddox: oxygen… water and food.

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Maddox: One of my greatest resources are my relationships.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah.

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Maddox: I mean, literally right up there in that spot number 4 after those 3, you know, life-sustaining necessities.

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Dwight: Yeah, and I would argue that I reached a point. Unfortunately, grief

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Dwight: caused me to mature in ways that I never could have.

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Dwight: imagined, and I realized that the relationships are the point.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah, I… I like to say grief is my friend.

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Lizzie Thomas: Because I, too, have had… A long, long relationship.

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Lizzie Thomas: with grief.

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Lizzie Thomas: And… It makes us… it chisels us. It softens us.

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Lizzie Thomas: It defines us, it refines us. So I'm… I'm not afraid when I have a friend that's in need, or when I have a friend that's grieving. I find it very comfortable to… to be there with them, and know that I don't have to do anything.

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Lizzie Thomas: But just be present with them, and that's… That's all that's required.

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Maddox: You know, we… we tend to think of grief as, like, a really bad loss.

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Maddox: Somebody died, or somebody pulled the plug and walked away, or…

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Maddox: But I had a huge awareness

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Maddox: It's been now a couple of years ago.

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Maddox: That grief happens to us in small ways all day, every day.

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Maddox: You know, you go to your favorite restaurant and sit down, and you can't wait to order your favorite item on the menu, and the chef comes, or the wait person comes and says, I'm sorry, we're out of that today.

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Maddox: And in that moment, you… you literally experience… it is a form of grief. It's not like somebody just died. Well, for some of us it is, but… but we… we do, anytime we get disappointed.

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Maddox: Whether it's some… somebody has disappointed, or something has disappointed, something didn't go the way we really wanted it to go, we experience

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Maddox: Some form of grief.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah.

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Maddox: It's all around us.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah, it is.

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Lizzie Thomas: I think that that's been my lesson in being present.

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Lizzie Thomas: not being afraid to experience all the emotions that move through me all day long. And as an emotional…

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Lizzie Thomas: And I say emotional with love, because we've also thought of emotional as bad, or toxic, or… but as an emotionally evolved person.

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Lizzie Thomas: It… It's, one, a challenge to navigate through that.

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Lizzie Thomas: But once you learn how to do it, it becomes a really rich, present life.

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Lizzie Thomas: and being able to be there for the relationships in my life. You know, I will say,

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Lizzie Thomas: I experience all emotions pretty frequently throughout a day.

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Maddox: I can raise my hand there. I… I'm… and look, too, we're both deeply feeling human beings, and we're not afraid of our feelings, so we're pretty good about feeling them, pretty good about

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Maddox: Expressing them.

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Dwight: You're better than I am. You can read mine before I can read my own, and that's okay.

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Maddox: I'm an empath, too.

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Lizzie Thomas: I like that term, deeply feeling.

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Lizzie Thomas: I'm gonna use that instead of emotional, deeply feeling.

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Lizzie Thomas: I like that.

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Maddox: Yeah, it does, it has a little different context to it than emotional. Yes, I'm a very emotional man, but what's underneath that, what creates that emotion, is my ability to deeply feel.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah.

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Dwight: Oh… This has been… An amazing and far-ranging conversation, and we've covered a lot of… Amazing topics.

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Dwight: Is there anything that you would like to share with our listeners?

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Lizzie Thomas: I would be amiss to… to not give them the way to get in touch with me.

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Lizzie Thomas: And that is Lizzie, L-I-Z-Z-I-E, thejazzsinger.com. All my socials, Lizzie the Jazz Singer.

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Lizzie Thomas: My name is Lizzie Thomas, but sometimes it's easier to remember, oh, wait a minute, Lizzie the jazz singer.

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Lizzie Thomas: Because I want to hear, you know, I love…

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Lizzie Thomas: getting random emails and DMs in my Instagram. I'm still that person that looks at it, and I respond and connect.

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Lizzie Thomas: So…

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Maddox: Well, just so the listeners know, that

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Maddox: Web address will be in the show notes.

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Maddox: On our website, when you visit, the episode there, there will be a detailed profile on Lizzie, with a photo, and a bio, and all of her socials, everything you want to know, except for her personal contact information.

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Maddox: But you can go to her socials and certainly contact her through there, and she's just invited you to do that, so…

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Maddox: What a beautiful thing!

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Dwight: And don't sleep on the chance to hear something really magical. If you go and seek her out on Spotify or your music service of choice, you won't be disappointed, because there's so much that is just product that's out there.

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Dwight: Listen to something with some soul.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, you guys.

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Maddox: Lizzie, this has been delightful.

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Lizzie Thomas: Yeah, I agree. Thank you, Maddox. Thank you, Dwight.