Meet Matheus Macedo

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Matheus Macedo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Matheus, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

For a good chunk of my life, I truly hated myself. There was a time when I didn’t care what happened to me because I didn’t see any value in myself. The only thing I thought made me worthy was being there for others. My friends could always talk to me, or ask me for anything, and I would be there. I genuinely care for them, and have always loved being of service, but it wasn’t coming from the right place. It wasn’t coming from love, it was a desperation to be needed, wanted, to be shown my worth.

Things started to change when I began to inspect my own thoughts and feelings, rather than just accept them at face value. When one of my best friends asked me to be her “Man of Honor”, it occurred to me to ask myself, if you’re so unworthy, why would someone as funny, cool, kind, and amazing as her want me for this? If my friends love me, and they’re amazing, then maybe I’m missing something. Maybe the bullying in elementary school, or the betrayal in relationships, maybe all the things that made me feel small and worthless weren’t facts but others’ opinions that I absorbed as parts of me, but that which never actually were me. When my therapist told me there was nothing wrong with me, I cried. That thought hadn’t occurred to me before.

But things truly shifted when I was treated disrespectfully by a friend who I had given so much time, attention, and energy to. It was the first time I realized I deserved better. Slowly, I stopped calling myself an idiot, or ugly, or a loser in my head and began talking to myself like I would talk to a good friend. I started allowing for mistakes, reminding myself I was human and humans err sometimes but we can learn and grow from those errors.

I learned that the past actions I was ashamed of came from a place or hurt and fear, and began to forgive myself for acting that way, because I knew I would never again do those things, especially if I listened to my darkness rather than condemning myself for having aspects to me that were there only to protect me from harm, like being controlling as a response to being terrified that I would be abandoned. But I learned that, if I’m there for myself, if I truly become my own best friend, then I can’t be abandoned. So, I became for myself all the things I felt I needed from others.

It was a slow process, the things that truly shift out mindsets are always a marathon, it takes training, repetition, the ability to fail, get up and start anew. You can only do this with grace, forgiveness, and eventually, love toward self.

But the greatest gift as far as becoming confident and having high self esteem was fear. Without fear, you can’t see who you are once you’ve walked through terror and come out on the other side. It’s hard to measure growth without those moments of looking directly into the unknown, moving through it, and coming out on the other side.

The trick is, knowing you can take whatever happens once you walk into the black. This you can only do by slowly, bit by bit, shifting your perspective and getting to know yourself, building yourself up which again, is a marathon.

Nothing gave me more confidence than moving across the country alone, to a city where I knew no one. But I have since learned to think about the unknown as, not a place filled with only scary things hiding in the dark, but also amazing things you haven’t experienced before. If you want your dream life but haven’t achieved it, then it’s in the unknown, because you don’t know it, so that’s where it has to be. Once you begin facing fears and coming out on the other side, once you know you can handle tough emotions by building tools and learning ways to overcome, then you begin to see yourself not for who you were told you were, or what society says you have to be, but by who you truly are, and what you are becoming.

Once you build boundaries so that those who pull you down are no longer able to affect you, you see that the only reason they tried was because they saw your potential but didn’t see their own.

You don’t have to take yourself off a pedestal to make others comfortable, they just need to see that they too can climb to your heights and build their own pedestal.

I realized that if others can achieve seemingly impossible things then why not me? I looked at what I was good at, how kind I was, not to be noticed but because it was something that was truly in my heart, I chose (intentionally) to look at all the good and great things about myself and celebrate them, and look at the not so great things and and heal them, accept them for what they were, and use them to garner more peace within.

In getting to know myself, I fell in love with who I am, forgave who I was, and shed any parts of me which once served me but did no longer. My confidence comes from knowing who I am, from my faith that I am where and who I’m supposed to be, even when it doesn’t feel like it, and in all the hard work I did to get here.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Writing for me is an act of transmutation, though it took me a while to figure that out. I take the things I’m scared, or ashamed of, things that hurt me, versions of myself that live either hidden in my subconscious, or simply some place I don’t want to look at, and bring all of that out into a story which, usually without my realizing it, becomes a metaphor. Horror is great for metaphor. Sometimes writing is pattern recognition. Like seeing history is on its way to repeating itself and telling a story that will reflect the old patterns as a way to lift a mirror to the reader and allowing them to see what they will with the info you’ve given them. Writing for me is often self exploration, but it can also be a way to ground my fears in reality so I don’t have to carry them in my head, I have them in writing.

I’ve always been drawn to screenwriting, even when I tried to quit, thinking it was impossible, I couldn’t. I’ve left screenwriting to be a singer-songwriter, to write novels, novellas, short horror and sci-fi stories on my podcast, SessionsX. But always, I come back to writing for the screen, and have even had some success writing for some of the bigger scripted youtube channels.

I had decided that to be successful I had to put my head down and write, so I did that for many years, perfecting the craft of screenwriting, learning about it, reading about it, etc. But as much as I told myself that I had to live with my parents so I could do this and become great before moving out, I also knew I was scared and had no true intention of moving from Boston to LA, even though I told people that’s what I was going to do.

But when space became too tight at my parents’ and my girlfriend broke up with me, I knew I had to go, I felt like I was being pushed out by life itself. Only, the fear hadn’t left yet, and I felt paralyzed. One day, while still trying to decide to go or stay, a friend brought some tarot cards to a party. She pulled past present future and the first two were so accurate, I felt like I was being talked to directly. I held my breath for the “future” card. It said: “Look to the horizon, there’s nothing for you here.” Later that night, I saw the deck and picked it up in the middle, cutting it in half and I saw I had picked it up at that exact same card. That’s when I knew I had to go.

My story isn’t exactly normal, that was only the beginning of me being guided every step of the way. I’ve quit safe, high paying jobs, stayed unemployed for a year, lost all my money, only to get it back, all by following my intuition, guidance and faith. My goal through the way I live and my work, though it can be hard to believe since I write a lot of horror, is to bring about authenticity, growth, non-judgement and unconditional love to as many people as possible, all of which begins with the self. If you don’t have love, you can’t give it, and the only way to have it sustainably is to cultivate it for yourself. My road has been scary, at points its tested me every moment for years, but I have always believed, or rather known, that I am meant to live the desires of my heart, I know that living my dream would show others they can do the same, and in loving myself, I can share that love and in turn show people who think themselves unworthy, like I used to, that we are all inherently worthy of love and grace and happiness.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I think the most important qualities people should cultivate within themselves are: courage, the determination to follow their passions, and balance. A quote of mine that I’m pretty proud of is; courage is a side effect of conviction. People are constantly stopping themselves from doing what they know is right for them, from following the path they know they were built for, because of fear. And that makes sense, especially if you’re not accustomed to facing your fears, because if you are, you realize it’s not a brick wall you can’t walk through, fear is a fog, you can move through it, if you have a conviction that is stronger than your fear, the terror will not hold you back. My passion for screenwriting was that for me.

The thought of being on my deathbed at 85 after having lived a safe and comfortable, but perhaps somewhat unfulfilling life, asking myself, “what if I really did go for it? Could I have achieved my dreams if I only tried?” was one I could not abide. I had to take the leap at least once, if it didn’t work out, I could always come back, make money again, live uncomfortably while I got myself back on my feet. But at least I would know I tried. I found that what was within me was much stronger than any barrier in my way. But to know this, had to take the jump in the first place.

I also knew that my resilience and determination knew no bounds, so I would not give up unless the choice was taken from me. Following your passion, I believe, is the secret to a fulfilling life.

The passions you have are there for a reason, I believe that to my core. The people who follow their dreams and don’t give up end up (if they do it for the love of it, the joy, and don’t lose themselves once they achieved what they wanted) becoming examples for the rest of us. They show us, what’s possible when we don’t allow fear or societal norms to stop us.

But this is what balance is so important. It’s easy to burn out, or think you’re not doing enough, it’s easy because that is the way we’re taught to be, our society needs workers, and balance is not much a part of the lifestyle we’ve built. We see so many starts lose everything because they think they’re not enough. Once I began taking care of myself, and detaching from the need to do more, to be more, once I let go of the “I’m not enough unless I’m being productive,” mentality, and began to actually care for myself, move with the natural rhythms of my body, resting, having fun, and not counting my worth in how many words I had written that day, but rather allowing myself to know I am worthy as I am, then I became much less anxious, more relaxed and able to avoid burnout.

My power lies in knowing that worth, and knowing that no one else on the planet, living or dead, is exactly like me, so all I have to do is be who I am authenticity.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Between learning the craft of screenwriting by putting in hours everyday for decades, for no pay, and healing the thoughts, beliefs, and past traumas I carried which not only held me back but also made me dependent on others, I’ve done a lot of work. That’s what I’d like to receive in return, people who have done the work.

My future partners would also have to have the same passion for storytelling that I do, I wouldn’t work with people who are purely motivated by making money or achieving high status.

I want to work with those who know that love, for the work and for people, is paramount to living a successful life, people who are emotionally self reliant, who know how to have fun, who are honest and passionate in what they do and how they interact with the world. People who hear the words of mother Cabrini such as “The world isn’t big enough for what I plan to do,” and resonate.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mhmacedo.weebly.com/
• Instagram: @matheusHmacedo
• Twitter: @matheusHmacedo
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/matthm
• Other: Tiktok: MatheusHmacedo