Episode 43: [GUEST] How turning her memoir into poetry transformed her life with Andrea Seiler

In this episode, Elizabeth talks with Andrea Seiler (pen name: Cheydrea) about her experience writing a memoir. During the process, Andrea shifted into writing poetry and creating art, which brought so much healing to her life creating a transformation she wasn’t expecting. Her life has been forever changed because she started writing down her stories. 

Andrea started writing down the stories of her life during the pandemic, and there was a point when depression started to set in and she knew she needed to do something to shift. She started creating artwork, an unexpected yet welcomed direction for her, because the writing process had brought up a lot of pain and her art helped with healing. 

She knew writing a memoir could take a long time and so she went back through her writing and started to take out the pieces that were easier to handle. It allowed her to manage the overwhelm of the pain she was experiencing. She was not a poet before she started writing her book, but it was through poetry she was able to find her voice and amplify it to share with the world.   

Writing was the medium that helped her through a really difficult time when she was spiraling into depression and falling out of love with so much in her life. As humans, we all have different ways we navigate the tough moments in our life, and for many of us, it is through writing that we are able to find healing. She was motivated to write to help rid herself of the pain. It was the most logical solution to write poetry and include her artwork. 

Andrea’s daughter encouraged her to publish it as a way of showing what’s possible to heal from trauma and your life stories. She discovered what was possible when you use a creative medium to share your story with others and how much bravery there is with that. 

You can hear the gratitude for the journey her writing took her on when you listen to Andrea on this podcast episode. She feels confident now and knows how to use her voice. You don’t want to miss a visit to her website which is absolutely beautiful and feels like a warm invitation from a friend to sit down and have a conversation. 

Quote from Andrea
Writing is clarity. And even now in my state as I sit here, if I'm confused about something or I'm in turmoil about something, I'm going to go sit down and start writing because I need clarity. 

Where can you find Andrea online:
Book: ​A Poet's Playground (https://amzn.to/3Y2IgbL) affiliate link to support our podcast
Website: ​https://cheydrea.com/​
Social media: @cheydrea 
She shares her podcasts @andrea.writer.artist on Instagram. 

Are you ready to write your memoir? Save your seat in the upcoming Memoir Cohort Course: https://inspired-writer-collective.ck.page/42427911ef

We invite you to subscribe to our email list to be the first to know about our weekly podcast episodes and upcoming group programs for writers!

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Transcript

Elizabeth: 0:00

Hey listener, thank you for joining me. We are doing a little bit of a series in these coming weeks on memoir. So we started last week where Stephanie and I talked about my upcoming memoir course that is now open for enrollment. You can use the link in the description to join me. And then these upcoming weeks, we're going to be talking with guests episodes and about memoir about the different forms that can take the mental and physical health benefits of writing down your story, exploring your past, and even going so far as to sharing your story. So I hope you'll enjoy this series. Um, the memoir course that I'm launching, this is the second iteration of it. I'm so excited because I've got so much bonus material. I've got new books that I'm bringing in, um, that will have big impact on your story and on your plotting and your message. I put my own book through this course, uh, in the first round back in April and it, oh, I walked away with this feeling like finally this outline, this book, this message feels like it's going to connect with my audience. And so that's what I am bringing to you. That's what I'm offering to you. If you want more information about the course, which is enrolling this week and we'll begin next week, then please. Use the link in the show description to get more information and I can't wait to talk to you more about your story and how I can help you share it. Welcome back listeners today. I am here with another guest. This is Andrea. She is an indie author, savage poet and artist who is liberating voices through fierce authenticity and courageous self expression. Now I really resonated with Andrea's story, which she'll share with us today because she started writing her memoir through a 12 week memoir course. It hit some bumps along the road, especially those emotional ones where we're writing very difficult stories, and it just it didn't seem like the right format for her. So she had to go through that pivot process of what am I going to do instead. And so what she's done is she has written a book of poems. And so Andrea, give us a little bit of details along that, that timeline. What was that like? Like, what made you decide to write the memoir in the first place? What kind of roadblocks did you encounter? And what, what did that pivot look like?

Andrea: 2:33

Yeah. So I'd say my book is somewhat of a hybrid of poetry and healing and a little bit of memoir, like little pieces of stories that explain the poetry. But, uh, so how it started was I was going through an empty nest period. A lot was happening. There was a lot of shifting in my life. We moved out of our home that we raised our kids in. I was trying to find employment. There were, we moved into some new, a new place to live. And then the pandemic came and like a lot of people. You know, I was trying to figure out what, what am I doing? I had a yoga studio. I had to shut it down, uh, because we weren't allowed to teach. So I started writing and I was writing innocently just to sort of recap the previous, uh, Decades of my life innocently not knowing what was going to come and that writing, uh, put me into a very dark and scary place because I was, uh, unsuspectingly looking at the details of my life that I never took the time to look at because I was, you know, hustling through life. And I, I mentioned this many times in my speaking, but it was like I entered a cave and then I turned around to get out and there were no, there was no way to exit the cave. It was dark and scary. Uh, I, of course, I didn't just lay there. I, you know, I did a lot of things I'm very proactive in my life. Right? So. I still did all the things you do to stay alive, eat, exercise. I still have my family. I was trying to navigate that, but I was slipping into a depression. And I, I registered for this 12 week memoir course. It was phenomenal. I learned a lot. We had to read some memoirs. We had to learn a lot of the do's and don'ts of memoir writing, um, all the things we, I watched some documentaries that were memoirs turned into documentaries. Uh, and then through that process, I was also writing and I was doing artwork, which I didn't even know I was going to do, but the artwork was a, an antidote for me. I was, I w when I was really in a lot of pain through the writing, I had to stop and I had to do something else. And I just had this intuitive feeling that I wanted to do something creative. And I have already been an artist for a long time doing different modalities of, of art. So I just gravitated toward that. And I realized that the memoir writing for me was too painful. It was like I was being flooded with, um, too many memories and trying to piece them all together. And I just, it wasn't palatable. I couldn't digest it. It was so much, it was making it worse for me, but I didn't want to stop because I knew that there was this healing process that was going to happen. And so I was You know, battling that, what do I do? You know, my intuition was like, you, you, you don't really have the time or the bandwidth or the, the emotional bandwidth to do this, writing. memoirs can take years, I guess, sometimes decades. And I didn't want to invest that kind of time and be in that kind of pain for that long of time. So, Naturally, I don't know what happened, but I just started to extract the stories into the pieces and parts that were palatable. I don't know if this is the right way to put it, but I was like, I was compartmentalizing the pain and trying to like, you know, piece it, you know, break it up and piece it out and then take the little sections and make it palatable. So I would just write poetry or write a line here or a line there. And I didn't take a poetry course. I wasn't a poet before that, but it just, it became that. And, and it took a couple of years and, it was a long process that I'll tell more later if you have any questions about it, but yeah. There's my long answer.

Elizabeth: 6:53

How was it that you seemed to know ahead of time or early on in the process when it was still painful that it would result? In healing. How did you know that? Because I asked that because that was not something that I really recognized until I got to the healing piece. Like I kind of trudged through the mud and luckily I was already connected with a therapist, but I, you know, a lot of my memoir writing went in parallel to my therapy. And my therapist basically was like, you're essentially putting yourself through, you know, exposure, exposure therapy through your writing process. So I did have, you know, guidance and support through that, but it was very hard. And I didn't recognize the healing potential of it. It was only in the hindsight that I was like, Oh, this is actually helping me process so much of these experiences. Absolutely.

Andrea: 7:48

The only example I could use is that like, I feel like as humans, we have all the tools that we need. Um, I was doing a lot of research. Into what was causing my pain and why looking when I was looking at a lot of old childhood trauma, which was, just some underlying single episode. It was a ongoing lifelong stuff, a lot of stuff. And I knew it um, what was surfacing made me realize. I needed to sit in that and examine it. It's, it's similar to like, if you find yourself with some sort of a health condition, you've let yourself go for, let's say two or three decades physically by not taking care of your physical health, eating bad, not exercising, whatever, and then you end up in the hospital, you have some event. now you're. Back at home and now you're having to do all that work. You're like, okay, I got to change my diet I have to start walking. I have to start going to the gym and you don't you can't physically see the change Let's say but you know That you have to keep going and you have to do it so you believe you just know in your mind that I have to do this because The only result is if I don't I'm going to stay the same or get worse. If I do this, I, there should be some benefits to the commitment and the discipline of the exercise and the diet. So it was the same with the writing. It was sort of like, I'm in a lot of pain, mentally, emotionally. I was depressed. I didn't want to live anymore. I, I fell out of love with everyone. I, you know, even my husband who had been married to, you know, I was examining our relationship. I had to let family members go because of it, because I knew I was suffering. And, um, and then I sat in that, and I don't want to say sat in it, but I, I sat in it and was like piecing it apart. Oh, this was that. Oh, this is that. Like, this was the verbal abuse. This was the physical abuse. This was the neglect. of like, oh, this was my pizza. Oh, this was all the drinks I was drinking. Oh, this was If that makes any sense.

elizabeth_1_08-16-2024_091824: 10:26

I think that's what I landed on too. So, you know, when we think about our past and we're writing these stories, In our minds, I think we tend to view them as sort of individual incidents, right? But when you're writing a memoir, that's when you really start to see the cycles that you have been stuck in, that you have been repeating. And so, yes, it's a little bit of that acknowledgement, like you gave the analogy of, like, getting healthy. If I don't do something about this, this cycle is just going to continue. So if I'm not willing to accept that, if that is unacceptable, if it's really causing me this much, you know, mental anguish, physical pain, sleepless nights. Then I have to believe that if I do something different than I will get a different result. And that was, that was one of the hardest parts for me from like a big picture thing. Certainly there were certain instances that held more like trauma around them and needed more processing than others. But for me it was in looking back at the cycles, Of like so my memoir is all about like loneliness and and trying to be things for people and the people pleasing and how I used a number of different tactics to feel like I belonged anywhere or everywhere and ultimately just Kept ending up in the same place, right? Because those were not healthy things I was not putting that value in myself or that worth in myself or you know the self love piece um, and so it was like You Sometimes it was people pleasing. Sometimes it was alcohol. It was whatever in that moment that I could find to create that sort of pseudo sense of belonging or attachment without it actually being real because I wasn't allowing people to see. Right. I was trying to protect that because, oh my gosh, if they actually saw me for who I am, they wouldn't like me. So let me be what they want me to be. And ultimately then you just create the cycle where you can't show up as yourself. So then the connections aren't authentic and they would, you know, there's allowed or sometimes end in less, less glorious ways. Um, And so I think that's kind of what you're saying too is like in in writing you you saw that that it's not just this one moment of like the verbal abuse, it's like the big picture cycle of like, oh my gosh, like, I lived through all of this. It's like a bigger picture. Would you say that that was accurate for your your takeaway?

Andrea: 13:02

Yeah, and for me, I felt like, and I've had people tell me this, like, my memoir, had I finished a memoir, could've turned into a movie. For sure. Like, it, it's seriously just unbelievable, right? so, but I just, like, I realized I don't have the, I don't have the ability to endure this, uh, process of turning this into a whole book and a movie. And really what became the most important thing for me was how do I get rid of this pain. As quickly as possible without avoiding it completely and and bypassing it and dismissing it and rejecting it, which would have been the easy thing to do. So it was like, I need to expedite this process of and and it wasn't like, just. black and white, that's the decision. It, I'm saying that now as I look back, but it was like, I knew intuitively that I needed to expedite the process as quickly as possible. So like emotional physical therapy, if you will, emotional therapy as quickly as possible to get me back on the playing field of life. And by writing a memoir, I don't think I would have survived that because the stories. And the, and the things of my past were so big for me. Like they affected me in such a way I was just carrying it with me. So, um, and I do remember writing poetry as a child. So I now make the connection of like, I wrote journals when I was younger. In school, I took writing classes. I loved writing. A lot of writers will say that. And I did write poetry, um, back in the day. So it's like, Oh, okay. Like that must've been how I, you know, may soothed myself as a young person too, was to write poetry. The poetry I wrote now was, I mean, my book is like, it's not the happy poetry. It's angry poetry. It's resentful poetry. It's. the feelings that, that you've even talked about on your podcast. Um, you know, a lot of writers have a hard time writing what they're feeling as they're writing, whatever genre they're writing in, right. Or what their character is feeling if it's not nonfic, if it's a fiction, but. For me, my book was all feeling. It was like my feelings were all over the pages. It's

Elizabeth: 15:37

hmm. Mm

Andrea: 15:38

people don't want to, um, acknowledge. I was just all getting it all. I was purging.

Elizabeth: 15:48

hmm. Mm hmm.

Andrea: 15:49

it's not necessarily a book a lot of people would publish. Uh, and my daughter convinced me to publish it because it's one of those books where you write it or, and it wasn't even supposed to be a book, I didn't even know it was going to be a book of poetry, but when, um, I was reading it back and sharing it with my daughter, you know, it was sort of like, okay, once I'm done with this, I'm going to crumple it up and throw it away or burn it or whatever you do with it. But instead

Elizabeth: 16:14

Sure.

Andrea: 16:14

no, let's just put this out there in the world and show people what healing actually looks like. It's ugly, it's messy. It's not beautiful. And I'm like, okay, sure. Because I'm willing to be vulnerable here. Here I am. Yeah.

Elizabeth: 16:29

Those are the real heroes in the world, at least in my book. Um, one of the things that, like, as you're talking and describing that transition from, like, memoir to poetry, the kind of thing I was thinking is, in memoir, we, we put in these stories, and we also try to, like, piece together the why. You know, like why did this happen or how did this lead up to this? And then ultimately that made me feel this. And so instead of you trying to grapple with those pieces, which honestly we don't need for healing, that's more intellectualizing the situation or the trauma, you just went straight to the, but what is it? You know, and just, just straight to the feeling of like, this is the feeling I don't need to try to explain to a reader why I felt this way or how I got to this point or how that impacted me afterwards. I can just be in the feeling in the moment of. This is what it was like as a young child being screamed at or whatever the situation may be And so I think there's there's really some beauty to the simplicity of it of not having to Somehow intellectualize it, you know I get not in trouble, but you know, I get reminded all the time about like You know, don't intellectualize your feelings, right? Like in there in a therapy setting of like, yes, you can try to like, think about like, why you might feel that way or justify this or that or, and yes, that's very logical, but feelings are not logical. And we don't need to always find a reason for them in order to accept that that's how we felt.

Andrea: 18:10

Yeah. And I will say I did spend most of my life, um, unconsciously or subconsciously on the why it just didn't make it in my book because the why for me, many years, the why was I'm not, I didn't deserve love. My. Um, I came from a single parent home and my dad abandoned me, us, I should say. And my mom was my first bully, we'll just say. Um, and there was a lot of bullying in school and a lot of stuff. And so what I internalized and then a bunch of stuff after that, like just so many things. then a lot of people go through and then a lot of things that people never go through that they just don't understand. And so when you tell them, they're like, what, you know, like, so I internalize that most of my life as I didn't belong on this earth. I didn't. I don't deserve to be here. I'm not good enough, like, in a way that was like, I had no self worth, even though my outside would never show that. You never saw that to me on the outside because on the outside, I was perfect. On the inside, I wasn't worthy of even being here. So it was weird. It's just weird to describe. And now that's totally flipped. And it's like, I am worthy and I do belong here. And so I liberated myself by, just focusing on the feelings.

Elizabeth: 19:52

I think, well, I know because people have told me this, so many people who want to write memoir or put their personal stories into some other format, whether it be poetry or fiction, um, they really struggle with what is the reaction going to be from others when I say the thing that we're all not supposed to say. So I'm curious what's been your experience now that you've put your poems out there. What were, what has the reaction been both from like family members, like your daughter, your husband, but even others who have picked up your book have. What's been their reaction,

Andrea: 20:35

So the process of that is a mindset thing. Like I really had my, I'm so glad for my daughter. She's just turned 23, but while I was writing this, she was in her 20s and, you know, I would share a poem here and there and she'd be, she'd just be bawling, right? Or she'd say, Oh, I love this one, you know, so that gave me the, the, the drive to keep going. Then I shared it with someone. like my first manuscript and because I needed to see what kind of reaction am I going to get? Right? And I paid someone to look at it. So there's a name for those people, right? Where they read it.

Elizabeth: 21:18

like a developmental editor or?

Andrea: 21:21

but I made the commitment. I said, I'm not going to hire an editor to edit any of this. Cause this is my pain and you can't edit my pain, but I just want to know what you think. So she read the whole thing and she's like, you need to publish this right now, like right now. So that really helped me. so then I just kept going, right? Then I added my artwork and whatever. But reactions have been mind blowing. Um, but what I told myself when I decided to publish it, it was like, it was like my inner child and the adult version of me were having a conversation and then the adult version of me said, You need to do this for yourself. Like, You need to do to liberate yourself. You owe this to yourself and if you're not going to save yourself, who is if you're not going to honor your pain, who is if you're not going to do this, who is? And then there was an even bigger voice that I had in my head, which was, Imagine the people that you're going to impact, do this for them, those people that are too afraid to, to liberate themselves, to say what needs to be said, to voice their feelings, to put their pain out there, and they don't, you don't have to speak, because I didn't even know I was going to speak. On podcasts, I had, that wasn't even in my periphery. I had no desire to speak out loud of my mouth. I just wanted it in my book. But once it was in my book, I was like, Oh no, it's like that normal, natural progression. Right. And I was like, I need to do this for other people so that they're brave enough, because what it did is it saved my life. It saved my. My mental state, it saved the depression that I've been carrying around. It just, it was transformational. And I'm like, I want to pave the way for people. And I can already see that it has. Cause I, I have stories that I won't go into, but, um, my, my reviews, uh, on my website and on Amazon and the messages people have sent me, um, Through texts and emails and stuff like the, the things they've said just, has just been mind blowing. So yeah, that's been the response. Now, as far as family goes, they aren't even in my life right now. And I don't even know if they've read the book. I don't even know if they want to, or if they care to. And I guess that's part of what comes with when, you know, when you share your pain and suffering, the people that love you, they either come to you and support you through that or they don't. And that's another thing that I learned is that, you know, the, part of the process. When you do your healing, people either heal with you, heal alongside of you, support you through that, or they disappear. And, um, That's, that was the painful part of it, and there, there was a lot of grief in that, like a death. I, I, that was part of all the things going on. And somebody that I talked to, another interview I had, she said that my book has an underlying theme, an energy of grief. And it was, it was grief. Yeah.

Elizabeth: 24:44

Oh yeah. I mean, I, I think anytime we, we look back at the past and we see the opportunities that either we missed or that we just, Didn't have because they weren't given to us. The kind of death of the various versions of ourselves that we could have been, might've been, et cetera. You know, there's, there's grief and loss with all of that, that, that you have to process. But much like you expressed, I have not experienced Anything in my life that's been as healing and so much of a foundation of my personal growth as writing my memoir has been. Um, I, I don't think, I mean, I guess it's hard to know, but like, I just don't sense that I would have found that level of understanding of myself and the push to make the changes, the drastic changes in my life that I've made over the last Um, I think I would have been able to do that in the last year or so if I hadn't gone through that process of like, really looking back and being honest about what things were what my role in those things were, and, and just sort of taking that really true look in the mirror, not even the mirror, because mirrors, we know are not super accurate of our, of ourselves, but, you know, just being able to look back and see those things is, has been such a source of my, you know, Personal growth. Um, it's why I encourage everyone, even if you are never going to publish it, even if you don't get to the point where you and I have gotten to where we're like, okay, I've lived through this. And my experience could help someone else potentially recognize. you know, things in their own life, or I can just speak truths that others are not ready to speak yet. And I can serve as maybe a guidepost to help someone else along their path. Even if someone never reaches, you know, that point where they want to share it, even if they stop where you were at one point of like, okay, I'm going to finish writing this and I'm going to throw it in the fire. But at that point you would already experience the healing benefits or at least a large amount of the healing benefits of writing it down. Now, I haven't shared a bunch of mine yet, but I suspect that there's even more that comes with, with actually putting it out there and that added vulnerability of that. Um, and, and getting to experience that feedback of, Oh my gosh, this meant so much to me. This has really helped me in my life, et cetera.

Andrea: 27:31

You Yeah. And I'm going to agree with you 100 percent on that because when I was in my thirties, I was told by someone that I was in depression and I was like, Oh, you don't know what you're talking about. Right. Uh, and then I had a bunch of things happen. I had a pelvic floor collapse diagnosed with depression. Um, Yeah. Yeah. thyroid disorders and all these things didn't buy into any of it. I was like, nope, nope, nope, dismissed all of it. Right. Um, and then in my forties, early forties, I drug myself literally into a yoga studio. I told my husband, I said, I'm not going to make it. I'm not, I, my depression's back. I'm not going to make it ended up. a yoga studio, got three yoga certifications and taught yoga for eight years. I took Kundalini training, Hatha training, Ayurveda training, uh, restorative training. I was teaching, teaching, teaching. I'm like, I'm good. I'm good. Right? I'm the queen of bypassing. Let me tell you. Queen of being just totally fine. Um, and I was fine for a while because when you're helping people and serving other people, that really does a lot. But the truth was All of that underlying trauma was still sitting right there just waiting and the minute the opportunity came, which I didn't go looking for it, it showed up and I remember one of the first things I said to somebody was, it was like my inner child said, okay, you're done. Get out of the way. I have something I want to say. And she just came out and she was an angry little girl young woman too. Not just my little girl in me, but the 20 year old and the 30 year old in me showed up and said, I'm

Elizabeth: 29:12

Yeah,

Andrea: 29:13

but I am pissed off and I have something I want to say. Right? So. no amount of all the personal growth, the 200 books I've read now, the probably 50 courses I've been in, all of my degrees and health certifications, the yoga certificate, none of that fixed any of it, but the writing, that was clarity. Writing is clarity. And even now in my state as I sit here, if I'm confused about something or I'm in turmoil about something, I'm going to go sit down and start writing because I need clarity.

Elizabeth: 29:46

absolutely. Absolutely. Um, there was the thought that,

Andrea: 29:52

in school than they do math classes. It would probably fix a lot of our societal problems kids

Elizabeth: 29:58

right.

Andrea: 29:58

write what they're internalizing instead of being sent to their seventh math class of the, of the, you know, it's like, I, I'm not devaluing but look at our emotional and mental state. Like writing should be on the top of the list.

Elizabeth: 30:15

It's interesting too, because I think it's, it's universal. I haven't read the book, but I've heard it talked positively about a number of times the body keeps the score, right. And so it's like, it's interesting that you highlight all those, um, Physical things, mental health things that like were early. Knocks on the door. Right. And then you ignore them. We push them aside. I had the same sort of thing, like, you know, health issues, digestive system issues, anxiety, you know, all sorts of things. Right. And, and then we just push them to the side. And eventually that voice will continue to escalate its volume and increase and increase and increase until you have no other choice but to listen. Right. And like you experienced that. I experienced that. I think. You know, we probably with our own experience can identify that or see that in some of our other close friends or family members of like Okay, you haven't answered the voice yet, but I can see it's it's trying to communicate with you that you know There's there's something that needs to be addressed here and it's going to keep getting louder until you're willing to listen

Andrea: 31:19

Mm hmm. Yep, and I I'm grateful now looking back. I'm grateful that it happened to me I'm a different person in so many ways and when you know yourself and you know the ins and outs of who you are and what has harmed you and what you need you know, I, my new term for, for now, right now is I'm an embodied woman. Like I know the ins and outs of myself. I know how to use my voice. I'm confident. I have self trust. Um, I know where my pain is. If I have pain come up, I can deal with it. It's just, it's so incredible. It's just transformational. And, um, and then I'm also confident that is life goes on, you know, life throws you these, things like. know, other than the death of my children, I don't know how anyone would ever navigate that, but, um, I feel confident that I have the wisdom and the tools and the experience to navigate things better now than I ever did. Um, in a way that's, um, not the hustling navigation of it, not the

Elizabeth: 32:33

Yes

Andrea: 32:34

navigation, but the internal wisdom of, um, You know, I can't even, I don't

Elizabeth: 32:43

healing it's healing. Yeah You know, I i've heard this Yes, I've heard this term more recently. Um, and I think writing is such a good tool for this, but post traumatic growth, right? So it's like we go through these experiences and in the processing of them, there is this amazing opportunity for growth if we're willing to face them. So in closing out today, do you have any sort of insight or words of wisdom to writers who are maybe in the thick of this struggle of, um, Maybe wanting to share their story or wanting to dig into stuff, but they're coming up against these roadblocks. Do you have any, any insights to share?

Andrea: 33:26

Oh, I'm sure I could probably write a book on insights, but I, I mean, you know, I don't want to tell people to sit in their pain. I know a lot of people go to therapy while they're writing. I mean, if you can't afford that, you know, there's online therapists that you can follow. I think really for me, I really needed to figure out what was my specific problem. So figure out. So, do the research and figure out, like, what is it that is really, that you're really trying to solve, like, that problem that you're trying to solve, and it might be a multiple of problems. Um, but don't be afraid to, you know, look at yourself and go deep, because on the other side of that, there's so much there. Um, I mean, I wish I wish I had more than that, but there's just so many things.

Elizabeth: 34:23

Well, you've said so many quotable things in this conversation. Like there were at least two moments, I know, that stood out to me in the moment as you were speaking of like, Oh. We need to make that a quote page. Like that's, that's the, a great thing. So listener, if, if you need to go back, listen again, um, thank you, Andrew, for having this conversation. We're going to have links to your website and to your book and everything else within the description for this episode. Um, so I hope listeners will check that out and follow your story as well. So thank you again for this conversation and for being here today. Thank you so much.

Andrea: 35:02

Thank you for having me. It's good talking to you.