Secret Gardens Keeley Rees

I’ve built my career and in some ways, my life, by showing up as someone else. In their voice, with their goals, their pursuits, beliefs and values.
First as an actor. (Although, let’s not fool ourselves and call that a career. A passion, a whole-hearted pursuit, yes. But a few paid gigs, a decade of rejections, and many big-dangling-opportunity-carrots does not a career make). I played their parts, wore their clothes, kissed their lovers, cried their tears, fought their fights.
There, but not there.
In my role as a copywriter and producer/director I shared their stories, sold their work, presented their beliefs, told their jokes and promoted them with abandon, unafraid.
Not heard. Not seen.
Safe.
I’ve managed to create, write and share for years without ever actually being there. I can do it for others, sure, no question. I am great at helping others show up. I can lend my voice, ideas, energy and craft to their goals. But for myself?
It wasn’t always like this. I used to be fearless. Sometimes I look back at that version of me and think: “Who even were you?” I’d write deeply personal work and share it, whether by the written word, or a short film, captions, videos, images. Taking excerpts from pages of my heart just in case they were in any small way helpful, inspiring, encouraging and I would hit ‘publish’ freely.
Somewhere in all of the madness of life, I stopped sharing.
I lost heart.
Or, perhaps more honestly, I became hard-hearted.
I think I didn’t have anything left to give? I was also resentful. Maybe it was having my work stolen and seeing other people parade it as their own and get the credit. Maybe it was the acting dream that crushed my spirit. Maybe it was the personal life events that left me feeling so damaged I doubted I had anything left of value to share with anyone. Or if I did, I didn’t want to anymore.
Or all of the above.
It wasn’t intentional or something I decided to do. I just stopped. I guess it’s kind of like when you wake up in the morning and there’s that feeling in the back of your throat - you’re losing your voice, it’s time to rest and stop using it before the sickness takes hold. Except, my voice didn’t come back. I see now that I gave it away, willingly. Put it in a nice little seashell all by myself (no Sea Witch needed) and stashed it the drawer of odd socks, tiny pieces of broken dreams and the sticky tape I can never find when I need it.
I stopped sharing, but kept writing, kept creating. I was making facebook and instagram ads, social media content, email campaigns, commercials, designing websites, writing blog posts, podcast episodes, courses, small products, workbooks, designs and more. All from the safe place within other people’s voices and brands, helping them succeed.
Then, at some point last year it was as though I heard the seashell smash in front of me: a glitter of glass, sprinkling on the floor with piercing pitch. It was time to grab my voice out of the drawer.
Even when I started publishing here it was in the space of the expertise I could offer, not my heart or anything truly connected to me, the person, just my skills. It’s valuable, sure, but not the only stuff I’m here to say. That’s why I made the pivot on this publication to what it is becoming now: Secret Gardens.
Now I’m here (hi), this is me. My stories. My words. I’m attempting to hear my own thoughts again and I feel like I’m just waking up from a deep sleep. Like I’ve been numb and silent, mute, by choice and all of these stories, words, and tales have become so loud within me. I’m just trying to distinguish one from the other as they all compete for attention at once.
I want to say this: if you feel shaky in sharing, you’re not alone.
I too am learning how to use my voice again. How to wield it in the “right” direction. I’m learning how to trust that when I go to speak it won’t break on me or make weird ‘baby dinosaur noises

We are made of stories.

Tangled and tightly woven with lines of shared memory.

Spun and undone.

Then woven again, anew.

We are made of stories.

Living our days through the story

l i n e s
…we leave


behind…
…for others.

We are made of stories.



Tuesday, the 9th April, 2024
I’ve recently been getting back into writing poetry and working with my hands and I wanted to find a way to capture this idea of being ‘full of stories’. This artwork is actually quite small, about 10cm wide and it’s made of tiny rolled up scrolls (representing our memories and stories) from ripped art paper. Watercolours in earthy tones have been used to paint the scrolls and give them an aged feel. Some of the threads represent the ways we’ve tried to make certain events in our lives work and hold the scrolls together, keeping it whole. The other strands represent the way our stories entwine with others. The scrolls all together with the strands and layers of paper hold a lifetime of stories and storylines, there for others to read.







This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keeleyrees.substack.com

Most people know testimonials are powerful and know they need them. The problem is getting them.
So, I wanted to make an episode to hopefully spark ideas on where you could go seeking out some magical words without waiting for all your wonderful clients to get back to you! The thing is, you might already have access to testimonial gold and you’re just not aware of it yet. Plus, we’ll look at a couple of new ways to use them, harness their power and organise them too.
As promised, below are the visuals and links I mention in the episode.
* Fiona Humberstone on Instagram & her program, Elevate.
* Sara' Tasker’s Instagram & Substack & her podcast with Jen Carrington: Letters From A Hopeful Creative.







And for the curious kind (I know I would be), here are the two pieces Fiona was referencing, the logo I’d designed for a fictional hotel and part of the copy included in my work for its branding.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keeleyrees.substack.com

While social media woes are truly a first world problem, there were some real threats in the recent h*cking to my security, finances and identity. So, even though I don’t want to keep going on about it, one of the ways I thought I could create good out of this saga is to help prevent it from happening to others. So I’ve got a couple of security tips and things I learned the hard way here in this episode. Also there’s some encouragement for you, if you’re feeling a bit blah about the whole social media thing.
Oh! And something I forgot to mention in the episode is that you can actually download all of your content from both Instagram and Facebook, (it takes a few days and they will email it to you in individual folders) but it’s worth it, in case if you ever do lose access to your accounts.
Anyway. Super casual episode today. Hope it helps at least one other person.
xx
PS Last I’ll say on this topic. Back to normal lovely things from here.
For those who are interested - I've documented the endless loop of insanity Meta sends you through on my Substack account. You can check it out and the rest of the notes for this episode right here.



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keeleyrees.substack.com

Is there room for you online? Or is everybody else already doing what you want to do…
But better...
And more successfully…
Let’s discuss.


Mentioned in the episode:
Ann Upton & below is an example of some of her gorgeous work.
Also mentioned: Xanthe Berkeley’s interview on Hashtag Authentic.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keeleyrees.substack.com

So it's time to write your about page? That's amazing! Because it means you're out there, doing things, putting work out into the world!
And maybe you've already sat down to write your page and found it way harder than you thought it would be, so you just added a quick bio, a picture that you don't hate and called the thing done...
OR, you got overwhelmed and put your about page in the time-out corner to sit there and think about what it's done to you.
I totally get it, these pages are kind of the broccoli of the internet world: Good for you, but really unfun to follow through with.
And to fix that, we need to look at what exactly is making them seem like such an impossible feat. (They're not, and you'll actually learn to love them after I've finished with you, but the process can feel daunting at first.)
And if you haven't written your about page, or you have but you’d like to make it a bit snazzier, then this will help you too. 
Because even though they're not always the easiest thing in the world to write, if you have something that you're sharing with the world online, yes. You do need to write one. 
So in order to get to the good bit where we make it easier, we need to look at why it can be so hard or uncomfortable. 
There’s probably stacks of things that make it difficult - but let’s just look at three for now…
Here’s the guide I was talking about: Get Your About Page Done. (For the overthinking, perfectionistic creator.)




This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keeleyrees.substack.com