What 11 Women Taught Me About Finding Your Voice | Season 1 Lessons Learned

What does it really take to find your voice — and what happens when it gets taken from you?

In this special solo episode, SpeakHER Sessions host Kim Atwood reflects on the six most powerful lessons she learned from Season 1. Ten episodes, eleven women, and more honesty than she expected when she started asking questions about voice and confidence.

This isn't a recap. It's a reflection. Because somewhere between interviewing women about their stories, Kim found herself sitting with some hard and beautiful truths about her own.

In this episode, Kim shares:

• Why voice almost always gets quiet before it gets found and why that silence is part of the story, not a detour from it
• What this season's guests taught her about waiting seasons and why the waiting is never as pointless as it feels
• How grief showed up in nearly every conversation this season and why the women who had been through the most loss were also the most spacious in how they loved others
• Why your body of work is shaping you long before you realize it's doing that
• The role that people — spouses, sisters, mentors, friends — play in giving us permission to use our voices
• Why advocacy is simply what happens when your personal story meets someone else's need

Kim also shares a heartfelt thank you to the Season 1 sponsors and community partners who believed in SpeakHER Sessions before it had anything to show for itself:

• Terri Brock State Farm — insurance and financial guidance for the Columbia, SC community | 6158 St. Andrews Road | 803-772-4000 | terribrock.com
• Westmore Land of Gifts and Apparel — a women-owned boutique in Columbia, SC that champions other women-owned brands | Murraywood Shopping Center | westmorelandofgifts.com | code PODCAST for savings
• The Peanut Man — catering, restaurant, and gourmet shop in Columbia, SC | home of a monthly Ladies Night | thepeanutman.com
• Talking Donkey Designs — scripture-based apparel with original artwork by Bryan Atwood | whosyourdonkey.com
• How2SpeakU — an online learning community for women who are ready to communicate with confidence | how2speaku.com

Season 2 of SpeakHER Sessions launches soon.

If you know a woman with a story worth telling, someone who has found her voice through a hard season and has something other women need to hear, we want to meet her. DM us on social media or Nominate a guest here.

If your brand or business wants to reach an engaged audience of women navigating major life transitions, sponsorship opportunities for Season 2 are available now. Reach out at hello@how2speakU.com

Connect with SpeakHER Sessions: 📱 Instagram: @speakhersessions 🌐 Website: speakHERsessions.com 📧 Contact: hello@how2speakU.com

Connect with Kim: 🌐 How2SpeakU: how2speaku.com 📱 Instagram: @kimatwoodspeaks

If this episode resonated with you: ⭐ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It takes two minutes and helps more women find the show 📲 Share this episode with a woman in your life who is in a season of waiting, grief, or rebuilding her confidence 💬 Tag us on Instagram @speakhersessions and tell us which lesson hit hardest

SpeakHER Sessions is hosted by Kim Atwood.
New episodes are coming soon.
Follow the show to hear honest, encouraging conversations with women who use their voice to lead, serve, and create meaningful impact.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there. Welcome back to Speaker Sessions. I'm your host, Kim Atwood. And if you are a regular listener, first of all, thank you. I mean, genuinely, thank you for showing up every week, for sharing episodes with your people, for sending me messages to tell me how much you're enjoying listening or what a guest said that really impacted you. Those things mean so much more than you could possibly know. And I don't take it for granted for a single second. If you are brand new here, welcome. I am so glad that you found us. Speaker Sessions is an interview-driven podcast where I sit down with real women and we talk about how they found their voice or how it's grown and evolved over time, what shaped it through some of the most challenging seasons of their life and how they're using it today and this season. And if you like what you hear today, please go follow the show wherever you're listening right now. Leave us a review and come find us on social media. We're on all the things Facebook and Instagram and uh TikTok, all the things at speakher sessions. The community that we're building is really special and I want you to be a part of it. Okay, so you might have picked up on the fact that today's episode is a little different. There is no guest. And honestly, I wasn't sure I was ready for today's episode. This is just going to be me chatting with you today. This episode is requiring me to stop asking questions and actually sit with some of the answers that I've gotten over the season. You know, we just finished season one. We released 10 episodes. Uh, it was 11 different women. Not many people know this, but we actually recorded all 10 episodes over two days in January, which sounds completely insane when I say that out loud. And honestly, it kind of was. It was crazy. It was two days of just amazingness. Is that a word? I'm not sure. But now that it's done, now that I've had a little space from that and I've had a chance to go back and listen to the episodes along with you, I have really had a chance to reflect on some of the themes that emerged across these conversations and some of the lessons that I learned. You know, I I started this podcast thinking that I was going to ask these other women about their voice, right? But another beautiful thing that happened is that they actually began to teach me things about my own voice. And so that's what I want to do today. I want to share with you six things that I learned from season one. This is not a recap, not a highlight reel, but just some of the things that are sitting with me, some of the things that I feel like I'm carrying forward. And if you have things that you're sitting with that have impacted you that you're carrying forward, then I want to hear them. And I'll tell you more about how you can share those with me a little later. But before we get into it, I want to take a minute and share something that is genuinely on my heart. You know, when I decided to do this podcast, I had an idea and a whole lot of nerve. And I went to some people in my community, people that I feel like already believed in me, businesses that I was already walking into, and I said, Hey, you know, here's what I'm building, here's who it's for, will you help me? And there were a few of them that they said yes without hesitation. Absolutely. How can we help? And you have to understand what that means. When you are in the early stages of something, when there are no downloads yet, no reviews, no proof of concept, just a vision and a voice and a whole lot of hope. The people who say yes in that moment, y'all, they are they're not just, you know, quote unquote sponsors, they are believers. And I don't take that lightly. And so I want to take an opportunity today to tell you about a few of them. You'll hear me share some of those stories peppered in throughout today's episode as well. So well, let's start, let's get into the lessons. Lesson one, the first thing I learned, or I maybe not the first thing, but definitely one of the first things I want to share with you. And this really hit me early in the season, rather, and it hit me kind of hard. I I saw this theme emerging that voice often gets quiet before it gets loud or found, you know. One of the things I heard almost every single woman that I talked to this season describe was a season where her voice went quiet, where something or someone turned the volume down on who she was. It wasn't always dramatic and it wasn't even always obvious. Sometimes it was grief. I think about Lindsay losing her sister at 15 and feeling like the world expected her to just keep moving. I think about Joy carrying loss after loss through years of infertility and telling herself or or beginning to question whether she was the problem. I remember Hope talking about how she would isolate from her closest friends because watching them get pregnant felt like just too much to bear. Mallory talked about how she didn't really like who she was and she drank to escape that reality. And of course, Brie, oof, being told by someone who's supposed to love her, right? That she was worthless. She was told that over and over and over again until she began to believe it on some level. You know, silence doesn't always look like somebody, you know, blocking your profile or taking your microphone. Sometimes it looks like you putting the microphone down, you quieting your own voice. And what I kept noticing is that the silencing or the quiet season was almost always the chapter right before a breakthrough. The quiet was part of the story. It wasn't a detour from the story. I walked into this project thinking I was going to explore confidence. What these women showed me though is something a little more honest. They showed me what happens when confidence gets stripped away and what it actually takes to find your way back. And it's not, it's not a straight line. It is not a single moment. It's a lot of small, hard, brave choices made by women who oftentimes weren't even sure they had it in them. And I've been thinking about that a lot. And that brings me to one of the people I want to tell you about today because this lesson about confidence and about having the right people in your corner, about feeling protected enough to take up space, it makes me think immediately of Terry Brock. Terry is my state farm agent, has been for years, long before this podcast ever existed. She's helped my family navigate auto and home and life insurance, all those things. But more importantly, I went to her with this idea, and y'all, she didn't even blink. She was in. And the reason that makes so much sense is because Terry is genuinely in the business of helping people feel confident about the things that matter most. And that is exactly what we talk about here every week. Knowing what matters most is protected, having someone you actually trust guiding you through decisions that matter, that is a foundation, and confidence is built on foundation. So I cannot thank Terry enough and appreciate her support and her belief in what we're doing here. If you're in the Columbia area and you don't have a Terry in your corner, girl, you need one. So check out the show notes. I've got some info on how you can reach her and her team and tell them I sent the I sent you. They'll uh they'll take great care of you. So lesson two is pretty personal. I'm gonna be honest. Lesson two is that waiting is not wasted. I think we heard that through several of our conversations this season, but I am being honest, is this one was hard and personal for me because I'm not a patient person. I have never been a patient person. I make the plan, I work the plan, I go faster than the plan. That's that's kind of who I am. Waiting is not my spiritual gift. And then I sat across from Hope, who waited years for a husband, then waited through infertility, did two rounds of IUI, sat on an exam table in a fertility clinic and said, I cannot do this anymore. And made the decision to surrender fully, you know, not the way I sometimes, I don't know about you, but I say I surrender, but then I don't really. I still have my hands and everything, you know, I don't actually let it go. And then the next month she was pregnant with Olivia. I mean, crazy, so cool. And I sat with Joy Henderson, who walked through years and years of loss and waiting before her family began to look the way she felt it was supposed to look. That's years, y'all. And the way she talks about that season now, not as something that happened to her, but as something that made her. Oh, I'm still thinking about that. And then, oh, Mama Jan lost her husband while she was still raising young girls. My children are the age now that her children were then, and it man, that just really impacted me. You know, she had to figure out how to deal with her own grief and parent and lead all at the same time. And I was really inspired by the way she didn't rush through that. She moved through it. I think there's a difference. Really taking the time to be patient in that season and see, you know, sit in all of her feelings, but also see what the Lord was doing through her in that season. You know, every single one of these women said some version of the same thing. You know, the waiting was doing something. They couldn't always see it while they were in it, but looking back, they could trace the shape of it. And I needed to hear that. I think a lot of us do. If you're in a waiting season right now, and I know some of you are because you've told me, I want to remind you that I don't think that's pointless. I think it may be one of the most important chapters of your story, but you may not be able to read the whole thing yet. The third lesson is that grief doesn't end, it just sometimes changes shape. You know, I'm I'm still learning a lot about grief. I thought I understood some things about it before this season. I lost my dad a few years ago. I've I've definitely lost people that were important to me. Losing my dad, though, that was that was a different kind of grief, and it was a lot. But sitting with these women really stretched my understanding of what grief actually is and and how long it lasts. You know, I think sometimes we think that if there's a linear path and there's a start and stop to those things. But I remember Lindsay talked about losing her sister Amber when she was 15. Um, Lindsay was 15, Amber was 17. And when I talked to Lindsay, now she's 35, right? So that's 20 years later, and she still tears up, she still gets pulled back to being 15 years old on a bus when the memory catches her off guard. And then last year she lost her dad, and she described grieving not just the person, but the relationship that she had hoped they would finally have. And then we looked at a totally different kind of grief with Sam Butler. You know, she closed the boutique that she loved, not because it failed, but because she made choices, because her daughter, her father-in-law, needed her in this season more than the business did. And she said it out loud, like, leaving the business, leaving the boutique was harder than leaving teaching because she chose it, she built it, she had to lay it down anyways. You know, it's hard to leave something when it's not doing well. It's real hard to leave it when it is doing well. And I think that's grief too. We don't always call it that, but I definitely think that's grief too. You know, Brie lost her dad at 13, and then I think it was 37 when she she was 37 when she got her breast cancer diagnosis. And the first thing she thought of was him. You know, grief doesn't expire. But here's what I also saw in every single one of these women. Grief made them spacious, like they had been hollowed out by hard things, and that became the room that they had for the next season for other people, right? Jan was counseling families with brain tumors because her daughter asked her, not her daughter, sorry, her doctor asked if she would be willing, you know. Lindsay is now pouring into younger women because she knows how important that was, how what it could have cost her not to have that, right? Brie is showing up at sister care to give back what they gave to her. I think grief over seasons of loss, over challenging seasons in these women's hands, man, it became some powerful advocacy. And that was inspiring to witness. The fourth lesson is that the body of work, our body of work shapes us before we know that it's doing that. Let me tell you what I mean by that. I think because I think this one surprised me a little. You know, not a single woman I talked to this season ended up exactly where she thought she would. Lauren Metz talked about how she thought she was going to be a vet. Billy Williams thought she was gonna be an attorney. Samantha Butler started nursing school before she ever set foot in a classroom. Joy had a uh a couple different businesses, Mary Kay, uh, monogram t-shirt. And it wasn't monogram t-shirts, it was um I forgot exactly what kind of t-shirts, but it was a t-shirt operation, right? Raising arrows. Um she, you know, had a a healthy living, uh, essential oils-based business. All of this before she ever really stepped full into ministry like she is now, and certainly before she started a nonprofit, right? But every detour deposited something in these women, skills or credibility or relationships or perspective, things they didn't know that they were going to need until they needed them. And Lauren, Lauren, who's been doing this for 30 years, she said something that I thought about almost every day since we recorded. She was talking about the studio and her dancers. And do you remember she said she's never felt like it was work, that she still gets excited, that she can still see the five-year-old in herself who used to make her parents sit down and watch her pretend recitals. She didn't know at five that she was building something. She just loved it. I've spent 24 years teaching communication, and I came into this podcast thinking that was what I was bringing to the table. But what this season showed me is that I was also bringing every hard conversation I've ever had, every season where I had to find words for something that felt impossible to say, every moment where I watch someone discover that they actually had something to say and just needed to learn how to say it. Nothing is wasted. Not one single thing. And I mean that literally. Nothing is wasted. Because when I think about the women who have shown up for me along the way, the ones who created space for me before, you know, I really had any reason to expect it. I want to tell you about a couple of them right now because they are the type of friends that make these projects possible. And the first is Jessa, the owner of Westmore Land of Gifts and More. And Jess and I have been friends for over a decade. Our daughters grew up dancing together. And years ago, when I had a little home-based sugar cookie business, and I mean little, y'all, I was a mom making cookies in the kitchen, just earning extra money for things the kids wanted to do. But Jessa was managing a boutique in our town, and we were having a conversation, and she said, Hey, let's let's try putting your cookies in the shop and let's let's just see what happens. And y'all, it exploded. I credit so much of the success of that little business to what she did by just simply saying, Hey, I see what you're building and I want to help. She created space for me in that business before I really had any expectations of what it was going to be. And what's really cool is what I've watched her do since then, because now she has her own shop. She extends that same gift to woman after woman after woman. I can think of at least a half a dozen women whose small businesses have been amplified because Jessa said, Hey, come be in my shop. Let me help people find you. She's not just a retailer, she is a champion of women who are building something. And that is so deeply aligned with what Speaker Sessions is trying to do that. Honestly, her being a part of the season was just so special for me. So shameless plug for her. You know, go to the store. You're gonna walk in for a birthday gift, and you're gonna walk out with four things, including something for yourself, and you're gonna feel zero guilt about it. Ask me how I know, because I do it all the time. They're in the Murray Wood Shopping Center off St. Andrews Road in Columbia. You can go to Westmoreland of Gifts.com too and check her out. Use the code podcast, and she's gonna she's gonna give you a little discount. But more than that, y'all, just go shop and support a woman who has spent years supporting other women because that's what we're about here. And while I'm talking about women who create space for other women, I have to mention my friend Carrie Heinlee at the Peanut Man. If you are in the Columbia area and you have not been to the Peanut Man, first of all, you have to go. It's a catering company, it's a restaurant, it's a gourmet shop, it has old-fashioned candy and the best homemade peanut butter cups you will ever have. If you're allergic to peanut butter, I'm so sorry. But overall, the place, it's just one of those places that feels like community the moment you walk in. And the reason for that is that Carrie has been creating community for women as long as I've known her. She hosts a monthly Ladies Night. It's specifically designed to foster community among women, but she doesn't just host it. She uses it as a platform to shine a light on women-owned businesses and great causes and nonprofits. She she gives them a room and an audience and a chance to be discovered. And I know this firsthand because even before she started doing this, Carrie hosted parties for me back when I used to do, I used to have a little home party plan business. Right after my youngest was born. I needed to get out of the house, see some adults, you know, be with some women, little monogram handbags. And then when my cookie business was growing and I was running out of space in my home kitchen, Carrie offered her commercial kitchen, just like that. Like, here, come, use what I have. Let me help you grow. That is who she is. So definitely if you need catering or you need a great meal, go check her out. But if you're a woman with a business or a cause that you love, if you're looking for community, find Carrie because she will show up for you. And I think that leads really easily, really well into my fifth lesson that the people in the room will shape your voice more than you realize. You know, I saved the sisters episode for the end of season one on purpose. I wanted to close the season with the beginning, the people that shaped me before I had any idea that I was being shaped. And it's so funny that Shannon talked so much about how I was as a young child, you know. And we got to hear for almost every woman that I talked to you know, a similar story about who shaped them and who helped shape their voice. Mal talked about Dan, who showed up when she had nothing, who refused to leave when she kept pushing him away, who left her the note that said, Your daughter deserves better, but somehow made it land as a a message of love instead of judgment. She credits him as one of the things that God used to start turning things around for her. Brie had Wes, who saw her when she couldn't see herself, you know, and now if you meet Brie, she is the most alive, most fully expressed version of herself than she probably ever imagined. Jan had Mac, and even after he was gone, she had the community that they built, the Camp Gravit family, the school family, the church family. His voice kept showing up, you know, in the people that loved him and loved her. And then, of course, my sisters, Shannon and Rebecca. And what came out of that conversation, which by the way was completely unscripted and a little chaotic. I think my mom called it unprofessional when she listened to it. But, you know, it was it was this. This is what came out of that. The reason that you can speak boldly. Into the world is often because you've had somewhere safe to speak badly first. You've had people who were obligated to love you through the fumbling. And not everybody has that by birth, but you can build it intentionally, deliberately. That's really what I want for this community too. That speaker sessions becomes one of those places, somewhere you feel a little less alone. And I have to say one more thing about the people in the room because I would be leaving out the most important one if I didn't. My husband Brian. None of this, not this podcast, not any of it, happens without him. He is my steadiest voice and my biggest believer, and the person who has never once made me feel like my ideas were too big or too much. He just shows up and says, What do you need and how can I help? But Brian is also incredibly talented in his own right. He is the designer behind Talking Donkey Designs, which is apparel with genuinely stunning artwork. I have often sat and watched him draw this stuff and thought, how in the world does he do this? But this artwork is rooted in scripture. So if you're looking for something meaningful to wear or to give as a gift, something with real artistry behind that, uh I'm gonna say go find talking donkey designs. I'm obviously biased, but I am also right. The work is beautiful and it points to something bigger than itself, which is exactly what good art is supposed to do, yeah. Our last lesson. Ooh, last one. This is the one I want to leave you with because every woman I talked to this season moved at some point from I went through this or I learned this or experienced this to so I have to say something, or I'm able to say something, or I'm able to help others. You know, it's not always a big platform. It's not always a speech or a nonprofit or a movement. You know, sometimes it was Jan picking up the phone when Trip Jones called and asked if she'd be willing to talk to another family with a brain tumor. Sometimes it is Joy showing up at 10 p.m. to drop ship diapers to a foster family that just got a placement. Sometimes it's Brie standing up at a sister care event to tell her story to a room full of women who were where she used to be. None of them use their stories to prove anything about themselves, that they had survived, that they had been successful, but they used it to make someone else feel less alone. Even Billie Williams talking about raising up the next generation, speaking to the role of teamwork and the importance of teaching our kids to be great teammates. You know, I think that is at its core what I believe Speaker Sessions is trying to do. Every episode is a transfer. These women shared something hard, something real, something they've learned, something they haven't maybe said out loud before, but now it belongs to whoever was listening and needed to hear exactly that. And I don't think that's small. I think that is everything. So those are six things I'm carrying into season two. Voice often gets quiet before it gets found. Waiting is not wasted. Grief doesn't end, it changes shape. Your body of work shapes you before you know it. Everything has a purpose. The people in the room matter more than you realize, and advocacy is what happens when your story meets someone else's need. I don't have all this figured out, y'all. I want to be clear about that. I have been in the communication field for 24 years, but I am still learning what it means to use my own voice, not just to teach other people to use theirs. In many ways, this season humbled me in the best way. And I am so ready for season two. There are more women that I want to sit across from, more stories that I think this community needs to hear. And I genuinely believe that after 10 conversations, I am a better interviewer and a better listener than I was in January. You get better at everything by doing it, and that's kind of the whole point, right? Season two is in the works and it's going to be launching soon. I cannot wait for you to meet the women that we have coming. We have some exciting stories to share. But not just, you know, with the women that are coming on the show. Here's what I know about you, about the women listening to this podcast. Because the woman who listens to this podcast is not someone who doesn't have anything to say. She has plenty to say. She has lived things, learned things, survived things. Some of you have been through seasons that would have leveled most people. The issue has never been that you don't have a voice. The issue is that somewhere along the way you started second-guessing it, shrinking it, editing yourself before you even open your mouth, questioning why anyone would want to hear what you have to say. Saying never mind when you should have said, actually, here's what I think. I have spent 24 years in college classrooms and one-on-one with women just like you, smart women, capable women, women with real things to contribute who just never got the tools to say it with confidence. And so I have to do a little shameless plug here for how to speak you because that's my baby. It's an online learning community with practical frameworks that help you organize your thoughts, speak with clarity, stop rambling when you're nervous, and show up in rooms big and small, like you actually belong there. Because y'all, you do. If this season made you want more of that, if you listened to these women reclaim their voices and thought, I want to work on mine, this is your sign. Come find me at how to speak you. That's how the number two, speak the letter you.com. The voice, your voice, is worth the investment. I promise you that. All right, a couple more things before I let you go. First, if you've been listening to this season and you haven't yet left a review, would you do that for me? It takes two minutes. It makes a massive difference in how the show gets discovered by new listeners. And if you're not following us on Facebook and Instagram and all the places, come find us at Speaker Sessions. This is where the conversation keeps going between episodes, clips, behind the scenes, and comments and conversation, honestly, just a really good community of women showing up for each other. The second thing I want to say is that season two is coming, and we are actively working on that. We are actively looking for guests. So if you know a woman with a story worth telling, someone who has found her voice through a challenging season, maybe that's stepping into a new business, maybe that is overcoming a personal challenge. But someone who has something to say that other women need to hear, please send her our way. You can DM us on social media, you can reach out through the link in our bio. Our website has a submission form, speakersessions.com, any of those ways, we would love to hear from you. And finally, if your brand, your business, or your organization wants to be a part of season two, I want to talk to you. Speaker Sessions is reaching women who are engaged, who are loyal, and who act on what they hear. And so sponsorship opportunities for season two are available now. You can do the same thing, reach out through social media. But let's have a conversation about what that could look like. And one more thing, and this is exciting. We're not quite done with season one yet. Next week, I have something a little different coming that I think you're gonna love, and it involves you. So here's what I need from you. If there is a season one guest that you have been thinking about since her episode, if there is something you wish you could ask her, something you wished I had asked her, or something that she said that made you want to know more, I want to hear it. Send me your questions. Stay plugged in on social media this week because I'm gonna have some stories and some posts that allow you to just respond easily with questions and takeaways and things that you want to share to keep the conversation going. I'm gonna make it really easy for you to submit those and you can be part of the conversation. I'm not gonna tell you exactly what I'm planning just yet, but if you have been wanting to talk back to any of these women, now is gonna be your chance. Don't be shy. I want to hear from you. So thank you for being here for season one of speaker sessions. Thank you for listening, for sharing, for showing up. This community is the whole reason that I do this. And to every person who believed in this before it had anything to show for itself. The sponsors, the guests, my family, and you, thank you. You are the reason that this exists. Voice isn't just something you find, it's something you tend. So keep tending yours. I'm Kim Atwood, and I'll see you next time for another speaker conversation.