The Most Human Journey: On Finding Your Authentic Voice
What does it truly mean to find your voice?
It is, perhaps, the most central and important dynamic of our lives—and often, the most frightening. The process of discovering our own voice is not just a journey for the artist, but for every human being. It’s the quiet, persistent work of understanding: What is it that I’m on about? What is the value that I have to bring to others? How do I want to speak from my own authentic place, in relationship to all that I have received?
This month’s episode of The Artist’s Journey is an exploration of this profound question. It is a meditation on the dynamic moments that awaken us to who we are and give us the capacity, the skill, and the courage to put forward our own voice into the world. It is about finding our own sense of empowerment, and the story of how we learn to become ourselves.
Key Takeaways
For those who prefer to read before they listen, here are five central ideas from our conversation:
Finding Your Voice is a Universal Human Journey: While we use the artist as a metaphor, the search for an authentic voice—for a sense of self and purpose—is a struggle and a triumph that belongs to everyone.
Our Voice is Forged in Relationship: We first discover who we are by pushing against the world and having the world push back. Our identity and moral compass are formed in the dynamic, relational space between ourselves and others.
Mastery is When Technique Disappears: True artfulness, whether in music, painting, or therapy, is achieved when the learned skills become so ingrained they are part of our “unconscious repertoire,” allowing pure emotion and intuition to flow through.
Art and Love are Mirrors of the Soul: The vulnerability required to create art is deeply similar to the vulnerability of falling in love. Both are acts of putting our deepest selves forward, hoping to be seen, understood, and accepted.
The Modern World is a Distorted Mirror: In an age of social media, the challenge of holding onto an authentic self is more profound than ever. We are all navigating a new frontier of human evolution, learning how to stay true in a world of constant change.
Show Notes
(00:00) The central question: What does “finding your voice” really mean, not just for the artist, but for all of us?
(02:15) The first steps of individuation in childhood, and how the “push and pull” of relationships forms our moral compass and our ability to be responsible.
(04:30) The musician’s metaphor: How learning an instrument, and learning from mistakes, accelerates the journey from conscious effort to intuitive mastery.
(07:10) The painter’s process: A moment of surrender and bold self-expression, where the externalization of an inner feeling becomes a story that speaks back to us.
(09:00) The profound parallel in human relationships: The vulnerability of “putting our best foot forward” while hoping our deepest self will be accepted.
(12:45) The therapist’s journey: Learning the “micro-skills” of empathy until they become an invisible art form, allowing for true presence with another.
(15:20) Clarifying our focus: Using the artist’s journey as a metaphor for the deeper, more important human project of finding an authentic voice in a time of historical struggle.
(18:10) How style emerges over time through focused work, and how the “narrative of becoming” shapes our very personality.
(22:00) The simple, yet deceiving, steps to finding your own voice: listening, observing, and engaging in the feedback loop of action and awareness.
(23:45) The metaphor of the mirror: Contrasting the soulful reflection of ancient mirrors with the often harsh and distorted mirror of social media.
(27:30) The universal struggle: How we are all, as a human family, now engaged in the artist’s timeless challenge of maintaining identity in a complex public sphere.
(29:50) A call to connect and continue the journey together.
Resources & Links Mentioned
Our Home: Visit our website at OzFineArt.au to view our full collection of artworks.
The Model: The Artist Process & Prosperity Business Model we discussed is a core part of our philosophy.
This Publication: If you’re reading this in your browser, subscribe to the Oz FineArt Collective to get our publications directly in your inbox.
My Personal Reflections: The Power of a True Mirror
In the episode, I speak about the distorted mirror of our modern, online world. It can be a confronting and alienating place, reflecting back an image of ourselves that feels untrue. It made me reflect on the profound need we all have for a true mirror.
A true mirror is not one that simply shows our surface; it’s one that reflects our essence. It can be a person, a place, or, I believe, a piece of art.
When you live with a work of art that resonates with your soul, it becomes a quiet, steady presence in your life. It doesn’t shout or demand attention. It simply is. On a chaotic day, a serene landscape can reflect back the peace you are yearning for. During a time of uncertainty, a bold abstract can mirror the courage you are trying to find within yourself.
This is the sacred role of art in our homes and in our lives. It is a way to curate our own reflection. In a world of distorted mirrors, a thoughtful art collection becomes a sanctuary of true mirrors, each one gently reminding us of who we are, what we value, and the story we are here to live. It is a quiet conversation with the deepest part of ourselves.
Join the Conversation
The journey to our authentic voice is paved with moments of breakthrough, where the struggle of learning a new skill suddenly gives way to a feeling of effortless flow.
Think of a time you learned something new—a recipe, a song, a new role at work, or even how to drive. Can you recall that magic moment when the technique disappeared and your own unique style began to flow through you?
Share your story in the comments below.
Which area of life currently feels like the most powerful “mirror” for you?
Full Episode Transcript
(For the benefit of accessibility and for those who prefer to read, we’ve included the full transcript of the episode below. Please note that this is a direct, verbatim transcript from the recording and has not been edited for polish.)
Join the Conversation
The journey to our authentic voice is paved with moments of breakthrough, where the struggle of learning a new skill suddenly gives way to a feeling of effortless flow.
Think of a time you learned something new—a recipe, a song, a new role at work, or even how to drive. Can you recall that magic moment when the technique disappeared and your own unique style began to flow through you?
Share your story in the comments below.
(A Substack Poll will be embedded here)
Which area of life currently feels like the most powerful “mirror” for you?
My closest relationships
My work or career
My creative pursuits or hobbies
My connection with nature
My spiritual or reflective practices
Welcome back to the Artist’s Journey on Oz FineArt. This show today is about finding your voice.
What does finding your voice really mean? It is such a central and important dynamic and scary process to go through to find my own voice, not just as an artist, but we’re talking about as a human being, as a person.
What is it that I’m on about? What is it that I want to convey? What is it that I want to respond to? How is it that I want my voice to come forward? In what ways do I want to express myself in relationship to all that I’ve received from my parents, my culture, my school, my upbringing from social media and all that, I’m
downloading into my brain every day? How is it that I want to speak from my own authentic place? I think the metaphor of the artist’s journey is helpful, but God, this is about all human beings. This is about finding my own sense of empowerment. My sense of myself - who am I? And what is the value that I have to bring to others?
What is it that I want to convey? Huge questions, but it comes down to a few central steps. A few dynamic moments that just awaken us to who we are and give us our voice, give us the capacity and the skill, and the ability to put forward our own voice into the world. Join us on this journey of discovery.
The first steps to individuation, to finding ourselves to our own personal identity come forward in our early childhood when we are interacting with our parents and coming to terms with myself in comparison to my mother and my father, my sisters, my brothers. This sense of identity that’s emerging in these early years is fragile on one hand, but it’s also really strong and robust because we can push out our identities against the world.
We often push out against the world. To find who we are. And so we often push too far. We’re pushing boundaries all the time. We’re trying to see where the boundary is even, or if there is a boundary. And when we have good parenting, those parents are pushing back at us. They’re pushing back boundaries.
They’re giving us a sense of, of right and wrong of. I can do this, but I shouldn’t do this. I should do, do the right thing and learn not to do the wrong thing. And we have this emerging sense then of, uh, a moral. Compass that guides us as we grow older, and this gives us a sense of valuation and becoming a valuable human being.
Becoming a valuable person means that we form values. But we also respond through values. So that’s really the core definition of becoming responsible, is being able to respond appropriately in each situation and every situation is different. And knowing how to respond in one versus another is the, the depth of the breadth of the, the extent of, of responsibility.
The ability to respond in different situations. Coming to terms with our identity, then as we grow older, is a dynamic process that involves the push and pull of relationships, the ups and downs of learning, the making of mistakes, and being able to pick ourselves up again and learn from those, those errors and those mistakes. To realize
that learning itself is like a musician. Learning the guitar and each chord that you make on the guitar can be, at first a very painful process. I know, I know. I studied guitar for a number of years and I advanced in, uh, folk. And in classical guitar work, and I loved it so much. I spent hours after hours, day after day, night and morning and evening and afternoons, all passionately focused on improving my music. And mistakes for me
became a routine practice. The more mistakes I made, the more learning I made, and the more I could learn from mistakes and be aware of them and make the correction more quickly. The faster the learning process became, so it kind of accelerated itself. The, the, the wheel, the hamster’s wheel of learning got faster and faster.
When I learned to correct the, um, the mistakes that I was making and how I was holding my hands, for example, on the neck of the guitar, and being able to switch between the chords with the fingers more quickly was both a memory process, in the muscles, but it was also a cognitive process and awareness.
And the more I became aware of the musculature process, of the communication between the muscles and my mind - and how my unconscious self, my gut, my intuition and my feeling part of me was interacting with this process of learning, of the technical aspects of that - it was a combination of emotion, sense, feeling, and intuition that emerged within what you would call art, the artfulness of music and the same
principles, same basic principles apply to how do I find my voice as an artist, as a painter when I’m working with Paint on the Canvas? It is a similar process for me as it was years ago, learning classical guitar in that I need to learn some of the techniques of how to hold a brush, for example, how to apply a bit of paint on the canvas, and then how to blend that paint.
But at the same time, that technique interacts with emotion, feeling, a sensate experience a visual sense, an ability to, to move with the, the emotive feeling, the emotive sense, and the intuitive direction that this painting might be taking - to interact with how the paint is emerging on the canvas through that emotive process is really a profound moment.
It’s a moment of surrender, but it’s also a moment of bold self-expression that kind of focuses not the mind so much, but the being, the heart, the, the, the a, the energy of self towards a communication towards an expression of meaning. And that meaning that expression becomes a story. It becomes an embodiment.
It becomes something other than myself. As I reflect on that, that creativity process, that externalization of something inward is expressed in, speaks back to me, a story of my own becoming. And isn’t this the way in our human relationships as well? In our relationships.
Isn’t it true that uh, when we’re, when we’re falling in love with somebody for the first time, we put forward what we feel might be our best self, obviously, and we’re hoping to God that that person really loves what we have to offer. We’re afraid very often to show our shadow side to them because we feel vulnerable and we’re cautious about sharing the parts of us that
are contentious and difficult to live with. We want to pull in that person to have them be part of our lives because we love them so deeply and we want to be a part of that forever. And the same is true with that other person. They’re dealing with the same sign of kind of dynamic of of, of putting the best foot forward.
And yet being cautious about showing themselves too much. And isn’t it ironic that, we, in a way, we hope to be accepted in our deepest selves. And the parts of us that are most vulnerable is where we hope the most, that our loved one would accept us. And isn’t it painful when that doesn’t happen? It’s a similar process as, as an artist or as a musician, that when we interact with the music itself, that music is what we fall in love with, and we express our energy towards that beautiful music.
And learning the intricacies of that music and hearing and feeling that music expressed back to us through our artistic expression. We come to terms with a part of ourselves that is also deeply emotive and vulnerable. And, And deeply insightful in that we are combining parts of ourselves that are both our best foot forward and our deepest
parts of vulnerability. And the expression of our deepest emotion through that musical expression. And a similar way as a painter will bring forward their best self to express on the canvas, the epitome of their capacity, their best skills, put forward on the canvas. At the same time, expressing the shadows and the nuances and colors that express their deep feeling.
Sometimes despair, sometimes a profound loneliness. Sometimes a existential, really profound grief and loss that emerges through the colors of a painting. I think of some works by the impressionists - where they express this depth of personal feeling through the beauty on the canvas that makes the viewer almost intuit immediately, through an immediacy of presence, what that painter may have been feeling in the moment that they express this on the canvas and this raw emotion in color emerged through this beautiful, um, inspiration of what we came to know as expressionism: the ability to express pure emotion and pure color on the canvas that conveys this immediacy of depth and meaning and a sense of purpose through sharing our most vulnerable places as human beings.
You know, this reminds me so much also of the journey of becoming a therapist and my teaching of counselors for so many years. How to learn the skills of empathy, how to learn the skill of intuitive presence, to be with somebody, to listen to their story. To put our own ego identity aside enough that we can be present to another person and to deeply listen to deeply, you know, be with them, to journey with them.
And this process of learning the skills of therapy, we call them micro skills in communication, is a difficult process for a therapist coming into the profession because you are, again, learning the techniques, learning the techniques of the artfulness of therapy. Just like a musician or a painter learns the techniques of the artfulness of that approach.
And it takes time to learn those skills in such a way that they become part of our unconscious repertoire: our innate ability to flow with those skills in such a way that they no longer are the focus anymore. The focus of the technique on the canvas, for example, isn’t the focus of the work. It’s not what a person might try to convey on unless that is what they’re trying to convey, but usually
it’s the theme. It’s the overarching um, message. It is the feeling, it is the scene and how that scene is conveyed on the canvas. It’s the artfulness of putting all of those tools of the trade together in a package that almost makes the technique disappear. And what emerges is the immediacy of that artwork for the viewer, for the person who is participating and appreciating in that artfulness.
Much like as a client, I find it very difficult as a therapist being a client in therapy because I’m always looking at what the therapist is doing, how they’re engaging the skills, and they’re usually not doing very well. And it’s really kind of ironic and funny to observe them trying to be a therapist when you’re very much aware of the techniques and of the areas that are involved.
In such a similar way, artists with other artists are keenly aware of the skills and technique and processes and steps involved in the artistic process, which is why there’s so many videos on YouTube that are process oriented. Where artists are sharing techniques with each other or helping emerging or beginning artists to learn those steps, those early steps in that process of learning and growth.
It’s a great process, and it’s really important to have that interprofessional dialogue. It’s not so much my focus here, though, in this series, although we’ve called this ‘The Artist’s Journey,’, we’re using this as a storyline, as a metaphor of something much more profound, much deeper, and much more sort of, uh, I would dare say important.
More important and relevant to the human project that we are engaged in right now at this time, historically. Where we are all struggling so much, so deeply, to find that authentic voice, to find that voice within a spirit of respect and of responsibility for ourselves and for others within society. This is part of the journey that we’re going through as the human species.
To come to a place of altruism after years of division. To come to a place of giving of the self to others in a world of abundance means that we must grow. We must transcend our hiccups, and hour, our shortcomings to find a place where we can be more powerfully ourselves and more engaged in an act of loving kindness and of mutual communication with each other in respect. In all of these areas, I think, you know, in art, in music therapy, in business, in commerce, in so many areas of life that I have experienced where you focus on the work at hand, the, the style emerges over time where you focus on, on the work as its own entity, as its own energy, as its own purpose and focus.
That work begins to express themes. And those themes over time emerge to become what we call an artistic style. A style of personality. A style of working in the world. And it is such that our personality itself is a construction of, of this thematic uh, emergence. This emerging of the themes of who we are as a person is what we call personality.
In my understanding of that, then there are obviously dispositions of personality. But there is also a thematic, a narrative quality, a storied quality of who we are. Uh oh. This is who I am. This is where I come from. These are the relationships that helped to form me. This is who I am emerging to be. This is who I hope to be.
This is all about a story. This is all about a narrative of becoming. And when you understand that, it’s going, it’s like a wow. It’s a big wow because you go, wow. You know, this is part of the reality of my life. This is how my life interacts with other people’s lives. And as we interact and overlap in our stories, we, we change each other.
We influence each other. We grow and we evolve as human beings. And this is the nature of relationships. This is why ‘The Artist’s Journey’ is such a powerful metaphor and a powerful process. Because the journey itself is about a responsiveness and a reflexivity that enables us to be responsive and to be reflexive. To respond in a way that is flexible and engaging of our critical sense, our sense of right and wrong.
Our moral compass is engaged through the artistic process as, wow, I first realized my sense of my own artistic style was emerging after having painted several works and coming to terms with the sense that I was expressing an emotive. Impression on the canvas that had a psychodynamic element to it. In other words, I was expressing emotion and feeling with a therapeutic edge.
It was like expressing something that wanted to emerge. To share a story of transformation. To share a moment of insight. So that I would be able to communicate that. And the viewer would grasp that when they saw this work, when they saw this image. They would go, wow, I wonder what that means. I wonder what that feels, how does that make me feel?
They would get an immediate sense of the feeling. An immediate sense of a narrative or a story. For example, it could be as simple as a tree. Or I would often use the image of a wigwam from the Mi’kmaq Nation as a symbol of family and relationship and place where the fire in that wigwam expressed the warmth of family, the intimacy of a home. The context of that home within nature and the unity that that vision conveyed.
Also counterpoint to my current feeling of disjointed culture. Of a culture that has lost its way. Of a modern experience in the world of alienation where this image of the wigwam and the fire, the hearth fire of the family, would express this yearning for connection. This yearning for family and for place that had been taken away from a people. But not just a people, from all of us in a way, from all of humanity.
Through this historical process that we’ve been going through of human evolution, we are all, as a human family, struggling to connect in these ways. And so these metaphors have power. They have a commonality to them. A story that we can understand. A story that we can share. I think this is central to the artist journey. But it’s also a human journey.
It’s a journey of everyone and every place, and every time. The steps then, you know, of finding your own voice are quite simple, but deceivingly so. And I would just like to convey this in this sense that listening to yourself is a process that happens over time only when you engage with life.
As you engage with life in relationship or with an artful process or with music or you know, in business or in commerce, when you engage in a process of collecting art, for example, or in art appreciation, you are engaging in a learning process as well as an active participatory process. You’re learning as you are acting. And the action feeds back to you insights and new awareness. And so that, that feedback loop is itself where you begin to learn to listen, to observe. Listening is a form of observation, just as watching, seeing, is a form of observation. Seeing is believing in a sense.
When we see ourself reflected back to us, we then begin to see, you know, another layer of the reality emerging. When you think about the, um, metaphor of the mirror, today’s mirror is very bold. It’s very crass. It’s very, it’s very flat in a sense. The mirror that we look into in in the, uh. In the washroom in the morning, the mirror on the wall is very transparent and reflects back immediately what it sees.
But in older cultures, the mirror was a refractive surface of metal. And so the surface was bent and it conveyed a much more artistic sense of reflection. And that reflection in the mirror in the old cultural sensitivity was a form of a, of a poetic sensibility. It was even less so than looking at your own image in in, in a pond, in a clear pool of water.
The water was very also clearly reflective and a bit confronting for an individual without any mirrors in their lives. To see the likeness of their face reflected back in the clear pool of of the water. And so there was a mysteriousness about this. There was a sense of a sacredness to the mirror and the role that the mirror mirror plays.
And so in our present sense of this, now in today’s world, we have a social media that’s pointing back this very refractive, very harsh view of self. And at the same time, social media distorts and provides a almost medieval mirror-like quality of a refraction of self, where it distorts the image of the self.
And what we see reflected back to us is sometimes a very alienating image of who we are. And that filtering of that social media online is is very confronting and very difficult and can be a source of alienation for people that don’t have already a sense of themselves emerging inwardly. And so it’s a fragile place to be when we’re putting ourselves out there on this social platform. And what will we see reflected back and how will we deal with that internally in ourselves is a very powerful question to ask.
But I have to say that in one sense artists are some of the best at knowing what this process is, over a very, very, very long time. Over centuries past, where artists have been continually needing to put themselves out there to share their most vulnerable uh, selves with the world through their art and their artistic process and their production of art in the world.
They have engaged in this process of performativity. That is the performance of the art in the social milieu. In the social forums. And the struggle with coming to terms with what does that mean? Who am I? As an artist? How can I maintain my sense of identity in a world that doesn’t necessarily understand or even appreciate what it is that I do?
These are questions that we ask today in the world of social media. And now everyone in society is engaging in this process. And I would dare say that most people, the vast majority of people engaging online, are struggling with these very questions. How will I find my voice? How will I articulate my perspectives?
How will I cope with putting myself out there and having this reflected back to me in ways that may be quite distorted at times? How will I cope with this social world that is emerging? And what does this mean? And who am I in this?
These are profound questions. And I think at the heart of this is, you know, this metaphor of the artist and the artist’s journey, which we all share most profoundly now as a human family. We are together in this struggle. We are in a sense exploring this new frontier of human evolution. Of sharing our identity in cyberspace. Of sharing our identity through artificial intelligence. Of sharing our identity through these applications and formats and structures and environments online.
And what does this mean for us as a human family? What does it mean for me and for you in your identity? In who you are in the deepest self? And how can you hold onto that in a world of constant change and constant evolution? These are profound questions. We’ll explore them more in this series together.
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We are OzFineArt.Au. Visit our website, OzFineArt.Au and we are on Substack. and the publication is called Oz FineArt Collective And thank you so much for participating and for being with us today.
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