EPISODE · Apr 29, 2026 · 1H 3M
#160 What Made Me Feel Most Alive Was the First Thing I Learned to Abandon with Debby Meadows
from Be The Wolf · host Genea Barnes
She sat down at a piano at seven years old and played a song she had never learned. Both hands. First try. Every adult in the room went silent. That was the moment Debby Meadows discovered what she was made of. And it was the moment other people decided what that gift was for. In this episode, Genea sits down with artist, musician, and educator Debby Meadows for a conversation about what happens when the most alive part of you becomes someone else's resource. Debby grew up in a high-control religious environment where her extraordinary musical gift was celebrated and claimed in the same breath. She gave everything she had, for free, to a system that called it holy. And somewhere along the way, the music stopped being hers. Then it stopped altogether. For almost twenty years, Debby didn't touch an instrument. Not because life got busy. Because owning her gift had become too dangerous. This is the conversation for the creative, the over-giver, the devoted one who has quietly wondered why the thing that once made them feel most alive now feels like a distant memory. Here is where this episode cracks open: 🔹 The moment Debby's father tore up a job offer from Kings Island and threw it in the trash … and how that single act became the blueprint for every upper limit that followed 🔹 How a televised praise and worship stage, an unwanted marriage, and government housing while giving away $200 a paycheck, taught her body that her gift, her money, and her choices were never really hers to keep 🔹 The nearly two decades she spent unable to touch a piano … and what the silence inside that absence was actually trying to say 🔹 How a cervical fusion surgery, a YouTube rabbit hole about Steve Perry, and a single morning of stillness in nature cracked open a creativity she had believed was gone forever If you have ever given the best of yourself to something that couldn't hold you, this episode will meet you exactly where you are. Come listen. About Debby: Musician. Artist. Writer. Educator. Multi‐instrumentalist and visual artist turned memoirist, exploring what happens when performance becomes a cage, and what it takes to walk out. I spent 15 years in creative exile after high‐control religion and relentless service broke my relationship with music. Now I’m writing about reclaiming the gift, healing the mind/body that carried it, and creating from sovereignty instead of obligation. Currently writing Tell Me Something True: The Perry Parallax—a memoir about creative burnout, religious trauma, and recovery that doesn’t skip the shadow work. Using Steve Perry’s archetypal journey as a mirror for my own 15‐year exile from music, I’m mapping what it really costs to step away and what it requires to return whole, owning your art, your story, and your life. I write at the intersection of embodied creative practice, somatic integration, and deconstruction: how to listen to the nervous system, metabolize grief and shame, and make work that’s authentic instead of merely performative. My lens is part musician, part artist, part educator, part mystic, part farm‐raised Kentucky girl who refuses to abandon either rigor or wonder. Connect with Debby: Website: Substack.debbymeadows.com Instagram handle: debbymeadowsstudio TikTok: debbymeadowsstudio Connect with Genea Weekly Freedom Calls - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ Instagram: / geneabarnes Facebook: / bethewolfnow TikTok: / geneabarnes
What this episode covers
She sat down at a piano at seven years old and played a song she had never learned. Both hands. First try. Every adult in the room went silent. That was the moment Debby Meadows discovered what she was made of. And it was the moment other people decided what that gift was for. In this episode, Genea sits down with artist, musician, and educator Debby Meadows for a conversation about what happens when the most alive part of you becomes someone else's resource. Debby grew up in a high-control religious environment where her extraordinary musical gift was celebrated and claimed in the same breath. She gave everything she had, for free, to a system that called it holy. And somewhere along the way, the music stopped being hers. Then it stopped altogether. For almost twenty years, Debby didn't touch an instrument. Not because life got busy. Because owning her gift had become too dangerous. This is the conversation for the creative, the over-giver, the devoted one who has quietly wondered why the thing that once made them feel most alive now feels like a distant memory. Here is where this episode cracks open: 🔹 The moment Debby's father tore up a job offer from Kings Island and threw it in the trash … and how that single act became the blueprint for every upper limit that followed 🔹 How a televised praise and worship stage, an unwanted marriage, and government housing while giving away $200 a paycheck, taught her body that her gift, her money, and her choices were never really hers to keep 🔹 The nearly two decades she spent unable to touch a piano … and what the silence inside that absence was actually trying to say 🔹 How a cervical fusion surgery, a YouTube rabbit hole about Steve Perry, and a single morning of stillness in nature cracked open a creativity she had believed was gone forever If you have ever given the best of yourself to something that couldn't hold you, this episode will meet you exactly where you are. Come listen. About Debby: Musician. Artist. Writer. Educator. Multi‐instrumentalist and visual artist turned memoirist, exploring what happens when performance becomes a cage, and what it takes to walk out. I spent 15 years in creative exile after high‐control religion and relentless service broke my relationship with music. Now I’m writing about reclaiming the gift, healing the mind/body that carried it, and creating from sovereignty instead of obligation. Currently writing Tell Me Something True: The Perry Parallax—a memoir about creative burnout, religious trauma, and recovery that doesn’t skip the shadow work. Using Steve Perry’s archetypal journey as a mirror for my own 15‐year exile from music, I’m mapping what it really costs to step away and what it requires to return whole, owning your art, your story, and your life. I write at the intersection of embodied creative practice, somatic integration, and deconstruction: how to listen to the nervous system, metabolize grief and shame, and make work that’s authentic instead of merely performative. My lens is part musician, part artist, part educator, part mystic, part farm‐raised Kentucky girl who refuses to abandon either rigor or wonder. Connect with Debby: Website: Substack.debbymeadows.com Instagram handle: debbymeadowsstudio TikTok: debbymeadowsstudio Connect with Genea Weekly Freedom Calls - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ Instagram: / geneabarnes Facebook: / bethewolfnow TikTok: / geneabarnes
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#160 What Made Me Feel Most Alive Was the First Thing I Learned to Abandon with Debby Meadows
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