Behind The Mic with Andrea Menard

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Hello, hello Amplify You family Michelle Abraham, your host here today. And guys, I got a treat for you today. We've got a behind the mic interview with Andrea Menard, who is one of our podcast guests, booking clients. And she is an absolutely amazing person. And I can't wait to introduce her to you. But before I do, let's say hi. Hey, Andrea. Hi, Michelle. It's so good to see you.

I'm so happy to be a part of the family.

Yes, we're so grateful that you are here. And I just recently got to see Andrea in a play in Granville Island in Vancouver that she wrote and performed at called Rubber boo. And it was amazing. I really enjoyed it. My mom took me for my birthday. And it was just such a cool experience. And rubber Boo is this kind of like it's like a meaty word for like stew and feast. And it really was it was like sort of nourishing to the soul to sit there and listen to like between stories and those injuries, music and stories and legends and all sorts of things put into this amazing 90 minutes. So I just wanted to say congratulations on that show. And I know you did it in Toronto, and then you did it in Vancouver. And it was it was really cool. I absolutely loved it.

Thank you I was so nice that the amplify amplify you family came and and that I could see you. I could see you in the audience smiling away and singing and cry. And so thank you for being there.

You're welcome. I was just sharing with Andrew, before we press record that part of the ending of it. We were the whole audience start singing and I could hear these old men behind me singing and it was like it was so nice to hear. Because that's something you hear elderly men singing very often. If it was, I bet it was like a really great experience for them too. So, so awesome. And you're just fresh off of two months of performance. And we're so grateful that you're still able to speak and you're able to be here with us.

No, no rest for the creative.

That's right. That's right. Well, let me tell you guys a little bit more about Andrew because I don't normally like share so much about people's BIOS by Andrew. He's got one of the most impressive bios that I have read in a long time and I just want to make sure that you guys grasp everything that she is up to these days. So Andrea is an accomplished Matey singer, songwriter, actor, speaker and wellness trainer. She's the founder of the Sacred Feminine learning Lodge and is seen in USA Today. Andrea is an influencer in feminine leadership and was named one of women executive networks Canada's most powerful women, top 100 award winner in 2020. She's an advocate for reconciliation and Andrea trains women to lead like a goddess and helps all gender people to reclaim and embody the qualities of the sacred feminine. She's also the author of the seeds from the sacred feminine and wisdom cards, which we're going to talk about today which are going to be launching pretty soon. And she's also you may have seen her recently on TV on Netflix. She's one of the CO stars of the new CTV series Sullivan's crossing. Andrew is also a five time Gemini nominated actress, a 15 time Music Award winner and nominated actress national Woman of the Year for 2021. She's released five award winning albums, including her latest MACIF language album, a symphony show and to television programs. And our TEDx talk called Silent no more now, and his bio goes on and on. And I just wanted to highlight those amazing thing because I like wow, wow, Andrea, when do you sleep? So many amazing things that you are up to you. Your song piece was even at the world's NATO. You was saying in a world NATO to the world's NATO generals, which is pretty amazing. And you perform different royalty prime ministers, Governor generals, residential school survivors, like oh, wow, wow, there's so many amazing things. And we got the pleasure of meeting each other in the Canadian Association of Professional speakers network, which is caps and that is really cool. And your family's from Manitoba. Your matey. And I love it. You want to share the names that you you have? Yeah, so

I usually introduce myself so thank you for that introduction and this is how I usually introduce myself I tell people do you mind if I introduce myself? So can shake your Wow Andrea mon Oddish Nica Sean ninj co takeway and, and Nia OMA North Royalton so I I'm a Matey woman from treaty, one territory and the homeland of the maytee. And I am currently living in the unseeded traditional territory of the Squamish, the slaver tooth and the Musqueam people. So what I said was, Hello, everyone, I'm Andrea Menard, I carry the names Shouko takeway, which is fire woman and initial album when a name I was given in ceremony and my Nikkyo name, my Cree name, nautical utin, which means grandmother wind, which I was also given in ceremony. So these these these names deeply informed my work, fire and wind and earthen water.

That and that was a big part of rubber boo to the performance. And from the sounds of it, your grandmother inspired, inspired a lot of your work as well.

Yeah, well, and it's also the grandmothers like those in the in the spirit realm, you know, and my memory is definitely in the spirit realm. So those who are very loud, bossy grandmothers. If you're in if you're a creative person, you got to get into a space of listening and receiving that information. I'm I'm quite good at listening to their bossy words. And impressions.

That's awesome. How, how does one start to listen? Because I think that's something that a lot of us in this busy world need to stop and start start doing some more listening.

Great question. So in a way, to me, that's the heart of the sacred feminine, you know, according to I'll give you a little bit of background. So my elders said, and I heard it for the first time in this particular way, in 2012, when there was a gathering of elders at the Seguin, First Nation and in, in the turtle Lodge. And elder Dave, Chris Shane was the spokesperson for many elders all across Turtle Island, which is North America, who said we are now in the time of the rise of this sacred feminine. And I had been hearing little things like this, but that was the moment it all made sense. It wasn't just that I'd heard that we're, it's a time being led by women. And it's a time being of returning to the circle as a time of Mother Earth. But the time of the rise of the Sacred Feminine means that's everybody, that's, that includes everyone. So every single person has a feminine and a masculine. And so in our in this very western model, which is not like the indigenous perception of way of living in that Western way of looking at the world, action is everything action is gold, and in a way, all all things masculine are valued. But all things feminine are not valued as much. And so in the Listening receptivity realm is that's feminine. And so in this, if we are society that is dangerously out of balance, if we raced towards action all the time doing doing doing doing doing and never stop. And listening, and receiving wisdom from a higher perspective, we take actions that aren't grounded in wisdom for ourselves, for others and for the planet. And that has where we've gone wrong. So how do we start listening? So with that back

story, perfect? Yeah. Yeah.

So how do we listen, we have to make it a priority, we have to make it something that we start to value. Because our systems and our activity and our dangerous imbalance will not change until individual after individual after individual decides to change the priorities. Action is only wise, when we have tuned in with our ancestors with our deep inner wisdom with our intuition to go, is this the right decision? And the answer might be not yet. Not yet. Action is good, just not yet. Or it'd be like make that phone call today. Okay. Yeah, got it. You know, so it's about listening for when, you know, or creating, you know, because if our governments did that, if we had a society of people that listened, policies wouldn't have been created that destroy the earth or destroy a nation of people or colonize women, individuals, people of color, right, those things wouldn't have happened if we valued listening to higher wisdom and took action after we received it.

Yeah, it feels like we're in such a fast paced world that slowly He seems that needing to like put her that's slowing down and turning inwards. And you feel like so many people are turning to their inner wisdom now more so than ever, which is fantastic. But in even more of a slowing down, I think is needed. So you have you help people you help women especially learn to lead like a goddess. What does that mean? Well, to me,

All of my teachings come are land based, you know, Mother Earth is the original source of wellness, for humanity, the original, sacred feminine, right, she is the mother of all of us. And when we return to the land, when we move into relationship with the Earth, with the alive things with the plants, with all our relatives that are in community with us, we change and so at this moment, in the masculine model, which again, nothing wrong with with masculine aspects of life, just as sacred, just as beautiful, but they need to be balanced with the sacred feminine, they need to be honored equally. So, in this world, where women, and I'll speak from because you asked about women, women leading like a goddess, is that women, in order for us to succeed in the systems that exist, we have been developing and over developing our masculine skills, that drive us to exhaustion that drive us past our intuition, but ignore our feelings, the whole things that make us beautiful and wise. And so, like, my own story, and for many, many, many, many of my powerful women friends, is that we were succeeding and becoming leaders in our field, whatever they were, and I mean, wherever, whatever field we were in, and we hit a wall, there was something that literally boom stopped us in our tracks. And we were not allowed to do it like we did before. And that meant driving ourselves to exhaustion, ignoring all the signs, whatever, whatever yours was, I had friends who, who, you know, brain tumors, cancer, major accident, woke up paralyzed one day, you know, emotional breakdown, mine was emotional breakdowns, one after the other, you know, mental breakdown. So you're, I'm talking big walls. And every single one of us had to change how we approached work, how we approached our lives, and every single one of us had to literally change within the industries we were in. So all of a sudden, we had to stop trying to fit in the god complex, I call it there's the god and the goddess in the god complex. And it's a pretty harsh world, for our bodies for our self care for our wellness. And we had to literally start taking our godlessness into account, we had to learn how to listen to our bodies, we had to learn how to make boundaries, to say, You know what, nope, I take breaks, I go out into, I go and put my feet on the earth for sorry, I'm not taking that call, I gotta go do these things. And it's like, within our industries, we started to change the culture of a place because we had to, and when we had to, you know, others went, Oh, I won't want that I want to what she has, because we want we want leaders to, we want these leaders to change for us. But ultimately, if it was hard for women to change within these masculine systems, imagine how hard it is for men, and those who identify as men. So I thought, we got to start with us, women, we got to start making cultures that work for us, and then others will learn from us. That's the rise of the sacred feminine.

I love it. And so now tell us a little bit about the seats and the secret feminine wisdom cards. And then sure, like, I am excited to have these cards because I think they're just gonna be a really great reminder each day to kind of bring that feminine back and I am guilty of like, going going hard and fast and can achieve and go go go in like crash and burn and oh my gosh, yeah, it's fine. And it's not easy to bring that feminine back into to our world. So those are beautiful. Tell us Yeah, I designed them to.

Well, I do yes and no. So yeah, this card these cards are for someone like you Michel, like me who who overdo it, who forget how to take breaks, how to stop the rolling machine because the machine is sophisticated. It will keep flattening everyone and it's bad. But obediently we'll all we'll all rush in obediently. Right. And this little deck is just a reminder to help you walk gently with you, yourself and to walk gently on the planet. So this is the first Matey day ACC of its kind, right so my sister Lilia Dorsey this beautiful artwork was created by Lea Dorian. So her artwork. And so I'll show you some of this. So this is the only copy right now. They're still on a ship somewhere.

Right though excited to get the hang of.

Yeah, so there's my little book. But here's a few cards just want to grab a few.

Okay, so they're listening today have to go and watch the via is, these cards are just so beautiful in the colors and the illustrations and the sign right and the designs are incredible. So I'm

You know, they're very, very simple little right, very simple teachings, land based teachings, grandmother wisdom, which you know, my name is grandmother when that I couldn't call myself a grandmother on the ground, whereas the ones from the spirit realm helped me but it's really, really simple, basic messages that remind you of your sacredness or remind you of ordinary things that are sacred, because we walk around, you know, feeling no connection to anything in order to rise are intricate for rise our awareness of our interconnectedness, we need to bestow relatives, birds, animals, plant life, wind, air, fire, water, we need to bestow things with sacredness with our honor to actually go my feelings to honor my feelings. So actually consider my feelings as sacred or my physical body as sacred. When we do little things like that. Our our heart changes, our mind changes we sort of get a boost of Oh yeah, I forgot I remember that I'm sacred I forgot. Or if you've never known your sacred, these are good seeds to plant in the fertility of your heart and mind that that we can create a better world we can create a better day even so all you have to do is pick one card a day, if you want or, or several library pick that card. You know, look at that, create a sacred fire and then the teaching and then the teachings in the book say how to do that figured out well we'll help you we'll help you create a sacred fire so it's a very simple teachings but to help you bring ceremony into your daily life

And bringing ceremony into our daily life really helps us connect with our source and connect with and nature ourselves like everything and I didn't realize how much we were missing ritual and ceremony in our lives until just like in the last few years we're moving I've been adding more of that into my life. It's like oh, wow, like this is something that I I have a deep remembering of but and a longing for but has been missing in like mainstream kind of day to day life for so long.

Yeah. And you know, here we are even in our in our zoom world right in our little boxes and even to have like a sacred fire going. I have a plant over here you know to have a live things have have your water you know, have a live things near you. And remember, this is alive. This is alive. So if we can have you know, surround ourselves with live things in our own little workspaces. We'll go Oh, yeah, hello, a little fire. Hello, plant. blessing me.

But I'm so lucky in my little workspace here and I can share with everyone on video. Those of you that are out and listening I have this little workspace that my husband built for me but I like trees in the forest and the lake okay. So as long as I feel like I'm still alive, I feel like I'm in this box in the middle of the woods, which is amazing. And sacred space right there. I love some of that inside here though, too. That's such a good idea. I know my shoes off and go for a walk in the in behind me between calls sometimes because it just read crowds me and I feel like there's so much um, the the screen emits so much electrons and energy and stuff that sometimes I just need to like go and bathe myself in the in the forest and get that all off. I mean,

Absolutely you do. I mean, we think of it as electrical and magnetic. We are electromagnetic, but we can't be stuck in electro too long or we we need the magnetizing essence of the earth. See where you live is incredibly sacred that I think you you have all of those tools right outside your window. So yeah, bring some of the things inside to

Yeah, that's such a good idea. You know, my husband and my kids and I we moved from the city EVO five years ago, for that kind of longing to like get back to nature and like hello was there to land and we do a lot of gardening, growing our food here and it feels like that part of us is just kind of re awoken. And we kind of get that anxiety when we head back into the city of like, Ah, so many people so many things. No, we're here.

Rise of the sacred feminine. So you listen to the call. That's a huge deal. Yeah. And for you?

Well, we, we talked about it for a long time. And then as some of our listeners know, because I've shared this story before we listened, and we didn't listen for a long time. And then we had a flood in our house. And that was the universe's way of picking up in the butt. Say, Okay, dynamic a decision you guys get out of here. But we're so glad that we did. Yeah, it's so great. So for people who like that, like, obviously, not everyone can just pick up and leave the city and move out into nature. And we live off the grid on a lake. So that's not obviously reality for for others, but some other suggestions for like, bringing nature close to us, and really, kind of opening up that feminine side of things. More, what are some other suggestions that people can do just on a daily basis.

And outside, it is, you know, as a mother earth is everywhere, she's under your feet at every single moment. So get outside and feel the wind on your face. Listen to the birds, because regardless of how mired you are in city life, birds always find their way into our neighborhoods, and acknowledge the living things that grow around you. And if you can walk to a little park and take your shoes off, you know, get your feet on the earth, as you said that you do Mother Earth finds you wherever you are, you know, she's trying to connect with her children. And it's up to us to say, Oh, I see you I see you growing, I see you growing through the cracks of my sidewalk, I see. Eyes hear you birds, thank you, thank you for coming and giving me messages, you know, we can do those things. But we need to go outside to we need to stop the the train for a minute or two or 10 or 15 or 30.

I love those ideas and the seeds from the sacred feminine wisdom cards are going to help us kind of with those little hints and, and things that we can do each day. So, um, where can our listeners find out how to get them?

Well, depending on where you're located, we have everyone, all the links that I could find so far are in at my website, Andrea menard.com. And right on the front page, if you scroll down a bit, there's, there's the cover. And you can just click on that. And it'll take you to the pages where you can click and find all the links. So there's all the information and then link link link link, you can find all the major sellers books out

there. So and while you're over there, check out Andrea's TED Talk and her music. She's got her music on there, too. There's a lot of amazing things over on your website. I know it's a lot. It's great, though. So you can get all sorts of nourishment over there. While you're while you're ordering the cards. So I'm excited to get my cards in soon. And so I encourage you guys to go over to her website, check them out and grab them too. And if you want to have Andrea on your podcasts, you think she'd be a fabulous guest, which she is. And make sure you reach out to us at amplify you and we can help you connect you with Andrea because she is just fabulous. So Andrea, thank you so much for taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule to share with us today. Our super honored that you spent some time with us today.

I'm so happy to be here. Michelle. Glad to be part of the family.

Awesome. Well amplify your family. Thank you so much for spending your time with us today to go on over to Angie menard.com. And check out her website. Grab your seats from the secret feminine wisdom cards. And we will see you let us know which cards you're pulling we want to hear. And we will see you guys in next week. Andrea, thank you again so much. We'll take care.