Radio Baby

    My big joy these days is being on the radio. I am so surprised that I can say that. I would never have rediscovered this joy if it hadn’t been for a friend encouraging me to volunteer at our local community radio station. It would not have happened if I hadn’t decided that I was no longer saying No immediately when someone made a suggestion. It was my year of Yes,  having decided that I was not happy with my life direction.  I wanted to stretch out of my comfort zone and explore things I would usually say no to. No is a good way to stay stuck and I was tired of being stuck.  I was getting old and it was now or never. Even after I said yes to doing a demo for the radio station it was not easy. I had to overcome my fear that had settled into my psyche for a long time. I had done radio when I was young but had a bad experience where I suffered an air anxiety attack in front of my peers  that caused me to stutter and barely be able to talk without sounding “like I had a vibrator under my seat.” Yes that is exactly what a fellow dj said to me while I was on the air having this attack. After that night I lost interest in radio and the life I was leading and turned my back on music and all that went along with it.  I never really thought I was that good of a dj when it came to announcing, I did think I had good taste in music and I  knew how to arrange a playlist something I think is key to an enjoyable radio show.

     Twenty years would pass before I went back to a radio station and did a few shows encouraged by a friend. I did okay, it was fun getting out of the house and doing something that I once loved.

     Thirty years  later this same friend would encourage me once again to come and do some radio. It took a couple of years thinking about before I said yes. I knew before I would be able to do it and be happy with what I was doing I had to let go of the trauma that had caused me to stop loving radio in the first place. 

     How do you let go? I wish it was as easy as snapping your fingers but for me it took some concentrated rewriting of thoughts and patterns that had sat in my head for fifty years. And what had I been doing for those fifty years? Looking for my passion. Searching for purpose, a way to be creative doing something I loved. Making Art. 

       It wasn’t easy the first few months, I never slept the night before my show and would often get up in the middle of the night and get sick. I was constantly having to talk myself down before the show so I used a meditation tape to help me stay calm because even though I was a nervous wreck I was loving being back on the air, in the studio, at a radio station.  I would make sure that my show was well planned. I  knew that if I just kept at it and stayed focus I would improve with time. I made sure to take any fill in time I could get so I could practice as I only had a show once a week for one and one half hours. And it helped, the more I was on the air the more comfortable I became with myself, the equipment and the process of doing radio. And I loved it, I felt like I was home.

I can be heard on KPTZ.org on Wed from 1-3pm and on Friday mornings from 9:30am to 11am.