S6 Ep 2 - Your Heart's Voice

Summary

True Fiction Project: S6 Ep 2 - "Your Heart's Voice" Summary

Release Date: March 4, 2025

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Introduction

In the second episode of Season 6 of True Fiction Project, host Renita Hora welcomes Renee Green Murphy, an award-winning children’s book author, to discuss her poignant work titled "Your Heart's Voice." This episode delves into the heartfelt journey of transforming personal grief into a meaningful narrative that guides children in understanding and trusting their intuition.

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Guest Introduction and Book Overview

Renita opens the conversation by introducing Renee as the author of one of the first children's picture books focused on intuition. She states:

"On today's episode we have a multi award-winning children's book author of 'Your Heart's Voice,' one of the first children's picture books on intuition." (01:26)

Renee shares the genesis of her book, highlighting the absence of children’s literature that addresses intuition. With a background as a New York State certified school counselor and holding three master’s degrees in education, she recognized the need for resources that empower children to make independent, confident decisions.

"In 2018 when I realized there were no other children's books on the market. Picture books about intuition... I have to write my own." (02:18)

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Impact of Personal Tragedy

The conversation takes a poignant turn as Renee recounts the tragic passing of her younger brother in a car accident in 2022, an event that deeply affected her family and reshaped the narrative of her book.

"Grief is tremendously debilitating and I found that writing was therapeutic for me, especially in those initial stages of grief." (02:03)

She explains how this personal loss compelled her to revisit and revise her manuscript, transforming it into a tribute to her brother. This emotional infusion enriched the story, adding layers of sincerity and depth.

"I added my brother as a main character, and I dedicated it to him." (03:05)

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Book Details and Creative Process

Renee delves into the creative elements of "Your Heart's Voice," revealing the spiritual and symbolic aspects woven into the story. She discusses the name change from Divine to Jade, symbolizing deeper spiritual meanings.

"Jade means the stone of the heart and heavens as well. There's a lot of spiritual subliminal messages in my book." (07:08)

The book features various symbols, such as a cardinal, dragonfly, and turtle, each representing different life lessons and reflecting her brother’s personal mottos and experiences. Renee emphasizes the importance of these elements in teaching children about intuition and making positive choices.

"There's a dragonfly on the COVID which means live life to the fullest. That was my brother's motto." (07:31)

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Therapeutic Writing and Storytelling

Renee shares how writing served as a therapeutic outlet during her grieving process, enabling her to channel her emotions and honor her brother’s memory through storytelling.

"I remembered that my heart's voice told me to peel my book back from my closet and go back to writing." (03:05)

She recounts her daily routine of writing by the beach, a place that provides her calmness and a connection to her intuition. This setting became the foundation for completing her manuscript on her cell phone, symbolizing flexibility and resilience.

"That's the first step in listening to your intuition, is having a calm mind." (03:05)

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Spiritual Symbolism and Life Lessons

The narrative of "Your Heart's Voice" is rich with spiritual symbolism, reflecting Renee's intent to make complex concepts accessible to children. She explains the significance of various symbols and characters in the book, each serving as metaphors for intuition and personal growth.

"The heart is in indigo, which is your sixth sense... There's a turtle at the beach. We found a turtle right after Robert passed away... it means keep moving forward." (07:31)

Renee also discusses the character development of Jade, the protagonist, and how her interactions with her uncle Robert illustrate the practical application of listening to one's intuition.

"Uncle Robert laughed. 'Your heart's voice. You mean your intuition?' 'Yes, Jade, we all have it.'" (17:10)

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Reception and Distribution

"Your Heart's Voice" has garnered significant acclaim, winning three awards, including Family Choice Awards and Mom's Choice Awards shortly after its release. Renee highlights the book's availability across multiple platforms, ensuring accessibility for a broad audience.

"My book, 'Your Heart's Voice,' is available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, ebook, as well as there's an audible version." (10:44)

She is actively working on expanding the book's reach to more schools and libraries, aiming for national and international distribution to help more children benefit from its message.

"I created the Audible version... It’s circulating quickly, but I would like to expand throughout the country and even internationally." (10:44)

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Conclusion and Author’s Message

As the episode concludes, Renee expresses her gratitude for the platform to share her story and encourages listeners to embrace their intuition.

"I know he listened to his intuition because he was so confident. And he would love to be attached to a message like this, to be able to help other children tap into their inner compass and make good choices." (10:22)

Renita Hora thanks Renee for her heartfelt contribution, emphasizing the impact of her work in fostering emotional intelligence and self-trust among children.

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How to Access "Your Heart's Voice"

Renee provides information on how listeners can obtain her book:

• Available on Amazon (hardcover, paperback, ebook, Audible)
• Available at Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Target
• Purchase directly from her website: reneegreenmurphy.com
• Currently featured in three schools in New York and 11 libraries, with plans for broader distribution

For more details, listeners can visit Renee’s website or explore the platforms where her book is available.

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Final Thoughts

"Your Heart's Voice" exemplifies the True Fiction Project’s mission to transform non-fiction experiences into compelling fiction narratives. Renee Green Murphy’s story underscores the power of storytelling as a tool for healing, education, and inspiration.

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Note: Timestamps correspond to the transcript provided and are indicated within parentheses throughout the summary.

Transcript

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[Renee Green Murphy]

My little brother tragically passed in a car accident in the town that I live in. And it was a huge, tremendous blow to our family. Something that we still haven't really wrapped our heads around. Grief is tremendously debilitating and I found that writing was therapeutic for me, especially in those initial stages of grief.

[Renita Hora]

Welcome to the Tru Fiction Project, a podcast series that explores the origins of fiction. Every week we begin with an interview nonfiction followed by a creative piece, fiction inspired by something from the interview. The idea is to demonstrate, of course, that fiction is born out of our life experiences. Now here's your host, storyteller, author, public speaker, health and wellness expert, Renita Hora.

Welcome to the True Fiction Project. I am your host, Renita Ahora. And on today's episode we have a multi award winning children's book author of youf Heart's Voice, one of the first children's picture books on intuition. Your Heart voice is dedicated to her little brother who tragically passed in a car accident in 2022. This is Renee Green Murphy. And without further ado, I'm gonna let her introduce herself. Hi Renee. Welcome to the True Fiction Project.

[Renee Green Murphy]

Hello, Ren.

Thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure. I'm glad to be here.

[Renita Hora]

It's great to have you on the show and I wanna dive right into it. You are an award winning children's book author. Tell us about this specific book and how it came about. It's very special, very personal. I know.

[Renee Green Murphy]

I created the concept of my book which is about intuition. It's called you'd heart's voice in 2018 when I realized there were no other children's books on the market. Picture books about intuition. And as we know as adults, your intuition is such a powerful tool that should be used to help guide you throughout life no matter how old you are. And as a New York State certified school counselor, I have three masters in education and I worked in the school setting for 10 years. When I became a stay at home mom, I realized that there were no other children's Books that I used for my students. And now as a mother, at that point, I had two children. I did my research and saw that there were no other children picture books. There were teen books. There were books written for parents by psychologists, but there were no picture books. I said, I have to write my own. It was something I always wanted to do, was to be a children's book author. I just didn't know what I was going to write about. And it was at that point that the concept came to fruition. I began writing my manuscript. At the time, the main character's name was Divine, and I had started with creating a life lesson that she learned in the story. And then I tucked it away because life took over. And it wasn't until 2022 that my little brother tragically passed in a car accident in the town that I live in. And it was a huge, tremendous blow to our family. Something that we still haven't really wrapped our heads around. Grief is tremendously debilitating. And I found that writing was therapeutic for me, especially in those initial stages of grief, in those shocking moments and the moments of anger and depression. And I remembered that I had my heart's voice told me to peel my book back from my closet and go back to writing. And I did. I found myself at the beach every day, as that is one of the places that I find most calming for my mind. That's the first step in listening to your intuition, is having a calm mind. And I finished the rest of my book on my cell phone, Believe it or not, at the beach, I added my brother as a main character, and I dedicated it to him.

[Renita Hora]

My goodness. I mean, I have so many questions. Firstly, a book on intuition seems to this unknowing person here not the intuitive subject for a kid's picture book, a young child. So first question was, how did you come upon that particular kind of subject, topic and decide, okay, this is what, you know, kids need to be exposed to?

[Renee Green Murphy]

I always used my intuition throughout life as a young child. It evolved as I got older. I don't think I knew what it was when I was little. I don't think that I knew that it wasn't my intuition. Perhaps I listened to my gut. It was a voice in my heart. That's exactly what it was. And whenever I was faced with a decision, I listened to it. And I realized from a very early on age that the more I listened to my gut, my intuition, my heart's voice, it led me down the right path, and that always made me feel good. So I relied upon it. You know, I obviously listened to my parents as well. I was a good child. But like any children, we want to be able to make independent choices and we're not always with our parents to be able to do so. So I learned very early on that my intuition was there to help me make the right choice and I was gonna listen to it more and more. And so that's what I did as a counselor. I was very student centered and my philosophy with helping my students in the charter school I worked at was a strengths based approach. So it's very similar to intuition. I didn't have any books at the time to use as tools. As I said, there were no books like that. But I used a lot of self esteem books and focusing on their strengths because there is a direct correlation between independent thought, boosting high self esteem and making good choices, which also improves academic performance. And so I was onto something. I just didn't know exactly what until it dawned on me after my second child in 2018 that I needed to write a book on intuition. I needed to teach children if they didn't already know this powerful tool. They needed to see pictures about it. It needed to be simplified in a way they understood it because it's a very complex message and I wanted to write it in a way where any child would be able to understand. What Jade. I changed her character. What Jade was going to learn throughout the story. My brother is the one at the end of the story that teaches her that your heart's voice is indeed you called your intuition.

[Renita Hora]

Yeah.

[Renee Green Murphy]

And so my book kind of does like a 180.

[Renita Hora]

So this horrible, horrible thing happens with your brother and I am so sorry. My heart just goes out to you and your family.

[Renee Green Murphy]

Thank you.

[Renita Hora]

That must have been so hard. How did you change the book or did it. I'm going to let you speak. I mean, do you feel that this was just the order of events that would have played.

[Renee Green Murphy]

I changed Divine to Jade. I changed her name because Jade means the. The stone of the heart of heavens as well. There's a lot of spiritual subliminal messages in my book. So I changed those things. I made her 11, which is an angel number. When you see 1111, it means your angel guides are with you at that moment on the COVID She's at the beach because that's, as I said, that's where I meditate. That's where I finished writing the book and that's where I feel most calm and that where I can tap into my intuition. There's a cardinal on the COVID because that's a spiritual animal that you would see. The heart is in indigo, which is your sixth sense. There is a dragonfly on the COVID which means live life to the fullest. That was my brother's motto. There's a turtle at the beach. We found a turtle right after Robert passed away at the beach. We rescued him, brought him to my parents and fed him strawberries. My son called him Charlie. And we found out afterwards, looking it up, that turtles. The spiritual message when you see a turtle is keep moving forward, no matter how hard and difficult and heavy life gets. A turtle wears heavy shell. And so there's many subliminal messages wrapped into it. That's a definite change that I made. And then adding my brother Jade, also, aside from the three life lessons that she learns in the book, when she's not listening to her heart's voice, she's making the wrong choice. And when she is listening, she's making the right choice. And aside from the fact that Robert is the person that teaches her that your heart's voice is your intuition, she also decides to draw an angel for him. She borrows her dad's pen, and that's one of the life lessons. She didn't ask first or put it back. And her dad was happy that she was honest about that. But that was one of the life lessons in the story. I tied in Robert, where she draws a picture of an angel for her uncle and gives it to him. Her heart's voice told her to do so. And that's because my brother is now an angel. She drew it in pen because my brother was also an artist and would always say that you're not really an artist if you can't draw and pen because make no mistakes. It was one of the last things he did. He drew Bugs Bunny on a cocktail napkin at the bar. When somebody put him on the spot and said, Keith Roberts said, I can draw anything. And he said, draw Bugs Bunny. And he did. And so I tried to just add him personal touches as many ways as I could. I don't know if my book would be here today if my brother wasn't gone. So my book is very emotionally heavy in that sense. While I'm very proud of it, I've won three awards, Family Choice Awards, twice in the Mom's Choice Awards in the couple months it was out immediately. My brother was very confident, and I know he listened to his intuition because he was so confident. And he would love to be attached to a message like this, to be able to help other children tap into their inner compass and make good choices and be as confident as he was.

[Renita Hora]

Well, an award winning book on a very important subject. Renee, I cannot thank you enough for sharing this with us today. I am dying to listen to the book and I know I speak for everybody else. So do let us know a little bit more about how we can order the book, how we can find your work online, or any information that's relevant for our listeners.

[Renee Green Murphy]

Thank you so much.

My book, you, Heart's Voice, is available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, ebook, as well as there's an audible version. So for little kids who can't read yet, or even when you're on the go in the car, like your podcast, you could play it in the car, on your phone, on your iPad. It's also available on Barnes and noble.com, walmart and target.com. it's available on my website, reneegreenmurphy.com where I sell hardcover and paperback. And right now I am in the process of speaking to schools about my book. It's in three schools in New York, I'm proud to say, and 11 libraries. It's circulating quickly, but I would like to expand throughout the country and even internationally, which is why I also created the Audible version.

[Renita Hora]

Renee, thank you so much. We will definitely make sure to add all of that information to the show. Notes that was Renee Greene Murphy, the author of youf Heart's Voice. Renee, thank you so much for being on the Trufiction project.

[Renee Green Murphy]

Thank you. My pleasure.

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And now to the premise of the True Fiction Project, which of course is to create fiction out of nonfiction.

[Renee Green Murphy]

Your Heart's Voice by Renee Green Murphy.

Ms. Ed to my beloved little brother Robert, you will forever live on through us.

Your magnetic light will continue to guide.

Us, teach us, and comfort us.

Jade, when you're finished playing, please clean up before you leave the room you're playing in. I asked you many times, I almost tripped on your dolls. Mom said. Okay, jade replied. Why does mom always expect me to clean up my mess? After all, she is the mom, she thought with a snarky face. The peculiar Voice in her heart told her to put her dolls away before she left the den. But she was in a hurry and decided not to. Jade went back into her room to color, as coloring often helped her mind to relax. She was in the middle of coloring a beautiful picture of an angel that.

She drew for her uncle.

She had promised him she would give him this surprise picture the next time she saw him. And mom said they were seeing him tomorrow at Grandma Fay's house. I must hurry, Jade thought.

Knock, knock.

Yes, come in, said Jade. Jade, dinner will be ready in 30 minutes. I will call you when it's on the table, so please come downstairs, okay? Okay. Mom, do you want to see my picture? I'm almost finished. She showed the picture of the angel that was almost complete. It's beautiful, Jade. How angelic. It's for Uncle Robert. I cannot wait to give it to him. He will Love it. Jade. 20 minutes later, dinner. Shouted Mom. Jade went downstairs for dinner.

Meatballs again.

She thought her mind said no. But deep down, she had a voice in her heart that often told her what to do. Sometimes she listened and sometimes she did not. She called in her heart's voice this time. It her heart's voice told her to eat her dinner as it would make her parents happy and she would be making a good choice. So she did. After telling her parents all about her day in school, she looked down at her plate and realized she ate all her veggies too. Wow, she thought, my heart's voice really does help me make the right choice. That night before bed, her dad came in to say goodnight. Jade, I've been meaning to ask you. Have you seen my new pen I just got for my birthday? There was that voice again. She could hear it in her heart. It was whispering to her. You saw the pen. You used it to draw the angel. Tell him yes.

But she thought, what if I get in trouble?

It's his new pen. He just got it. I did not ask, what if he takes away TV and my new show is on tomorrow? She started sweating. Jade asked, dad, did you see my new pen?

Is there something you want to tell me, sweetheart?

She decided to listen to her heart's voice and shouted, yes. Dad's head flung back, almost startled. Why are you shouting? I'm just worried that you'll be mad, said Jade. It's okay, sweetheart. You were honest and that means more to me than anything else. Just please ask first before you want.

To use something of mine.

And always be sure to return it afterwards. Okay, Dad. I was drawing an angel with It. It's right here.

Do you want to see?

Jade held up the picture of the angel.

Yes. Wow Jade.

You are one talented 11 year old. It's for Uncle Robert. I cannot wait to give it to him. He's going to love it. Sweetheart, said dad. That night as Jade drifted off to.

Sleep, she thought about her day and how each time she listened to the voice in her heart, she made the.

Right choice and when she didn't, she.

Made the wrong choice.

What is that voice called? She thought. I must find out. The next day after school, she ran into Grandma's Fae's house with the picture in hand. Here Uncle Robert, it's for you. He looked up after looking at her picture. This angel is as beautiful as you and you are one heck of an artist, Jade. Thank you.

I love it.

Is this in pen too? That's even more impressive, explained her uncle.

She hugged him.

I started listening to my heart's voice and it told me you would love a picture of an angel. I'm glad I listened. Uncle Robert laughed. Your heart's voice. You mean your intuition? Yes Jade, we all have it. And that's exactly what what it's there for to help guide us to make good choices. You're smart and talented, my beautiful niece Jade.

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Here at the True Fiction Project we are always looking for great stories that make for compelling fiction. So if you have a great story or know somebody who does, or if you are a writer who would like to contribute then please do get in touch with [e-mail] contact.

[Renita Hora]

Thank you for listening to the True Fiction Project with Renita Hora. Be sure to subscribe to the newsletter to receive more inspiring stories showing how fiction is born from our everyday experiences. For more information visit www.truefictionproject.com.

[Renee Green Murphy]

All you.

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