Film-photography guru Jonathan Canlas talks a lot about the importance of shooting personal work. Yan said it too, at the workshop I attended with her in April of last year. Shoot what inspires you, shoot what you love, and opportunities will come your way because people will see the sincerity in your work and want to become part of your creative process. They are photographers, talking to photographers, but I think you can replace the word “shoot” with create/write/craft and the results will be the same.
My Womanhood Beyond Motherhood project was born out of the desire to share and connect with other people. In October of 2014 I received a message from a woman named Cami. She referenced my Womanhood project and asked if I would like to be a collaborator on a podcast/organization she was starting, aimed at helping women experiencing identity shifts and transformations. After a few months of working together, Woman Evolving was born. In my experience, Jon and Yan were right - create and share, good things will come.
The effort was founded by a group of ex-Mormons, but our hope is to keep the scope broad enough to apply to any woman who is moving from one mode of thinking or life-stage to another. The podcast is so new, and there are still a lot of kinks to work out. After listening to my first recording on working on softening my consonants and rounding my vowels and not being so quick to fill the silence. I hope you’ll be patient with us if you listen to one of the initial episodes, we’re definitely learning as we go.
I wasn’t going to announce it here until we had a larger library for all of you to sample, but I think the episode Cami did on Gender Based Violence and the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) is incredibly important and something I hope all of my readers will listen to. The episode combined with the blog post it’s featured on make it very easy to take action and affect change. That’s something I want to do more of in my life. Please visit the post, listen to the episode, and get in contact with your representatives to express your support for the bill.
If you aren’t a podcast lover already, but want to start listening to them (Serial, anyone?) there are lots of apps out there that you can set up so that new podcast episodes you subscribe to download right to your phone whenever they are available. I use an app called PodCruncher and have been really happy with it for over a year now.
We as panelists are all pursuing our own personal side projects within the umbrella of W.E.. I’m going to start out by doing one-on-one or small group interviews with people I know, sharing transitional experiences they’ve had. So far I’ve had a friend agree to talk with me about being raised in a religious household and coming out as gay, another who is willing to share her evolution into a feminist over the past year, and another mom friend who is going to talk to me about being married and still wanting to be desirable (remember the post after I chopped off my hair?) I love my hair now, by the way. I just needed some time. It grew on me. Hopefully the podcast will grow on you too.
You can hear me as host on the episode titled Making Your Evolution Known. What do you think? Tweet with me, @jennacole, or leave your thoughts on the That Wife Facebook page.
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