Embracing Authenticity

Brianna Madia spreads a powerful message about vulnerablity and authenticity on social media.

Unrein

Sitting in the heat on what should have been a normal August day in the Utah desert, author Brianna Madia’s life came to a standstill. Madia had set out for a two-week road trip in her van, affectionately named Bertha, along with her three dogs–Dagwood, Bucket, and Birdie–presumably ready to go wherever the road took them, however, she did not anticipate getting stuck. Madia left the town of Moab and headed west toward Capital Reef. About an hour later, she turned off the highway, conducted normal checks on Bertha and calmly drove down the unknown dirt road hidden in sagebrush.

She continues on the path for the next 48 miles until an eventual standstill. There were no signs, no symptoms, Bertha just stopped. Madia climbed on top in hopes of finding better reception, and calling the nearest mechanic, 190 miles away. She was uncertain a driver would make the 400-mile round trip to rescue her, but remained calm. She slid the door of the van open, letting the dogs out to run and play. She took a swig from her bottle of wine and watched the sun go down, surrounded by a sort of peaceful chaos, she realized that a certain part of her life was over, that some sort of reset proved necessary.

Madia suddenly saw the way we live life–the earth, the layers, the crust, the sudden shifting, and the moving pieces. The violent shift and the gentle flows, this was life. Coming from a middle-class family in Connecticut, Madia had never thought about this growing up. That’s not what she was taught in school, rather the message was get a job and work for the rest of her life. That narrative suggests: get married, buy a house, settle down, have kids, buy all the stuff that you just can’t live without, then hope at the end you’re still a little bit alive so you can finally go do something with your life.

“Where I came from, how much you had was always more important than who you were,” writes Madia in her memoir, Nowhere for Very Long: The Unexpected Road to an Unconventional Life. “Wealth was not measured in the stories you tell, but in the price of your car and the size of your house. And it wasn’t even the concept of wanting all the stuff that turned my stomach. I understand wanting; it was the sickness of wanting all the stuff so badly and so often that I might forget to go find what I needed. It was the insatiability of it all; that no amount of anything was ever going to be enough because I hadn’t found what enough truly felt like. So, I set out to prove what I didn’t need.” for them about the adventure,” says Madia. “I thought that was just the coolest thing in the world.”

In that moment she decided to blaze her own path, rewriting her narrative.

While Madia can rewrite her narrative, she can’t rewrite the events of a tragic past. At the age of 16, Madia’s dad packed his bags and left, leaving nothing more than a text saying, “I know you’re upset.” The traumatic event resulted in a broken-hearted mother and left Madia feeling alone, searching for answers.

“At least with death you can mourn, it feels much hollower when someone simply disappears,” says Madia.

With no further outlets, Madia was forced to put on a face, to act like everything was fine and to hide the truth from everyone around her. These emotions would later come out when she saw her father at a party after having no contact for six years. All of the pent up emotions burst out of her and she almost took her life that day.

Madia now knows there’s no use in holding back the pain and strives to use her platform of almost 330,000 Instagram followers to destigmatize mental hardships, using her memoir as the foundation to share her story and true authenticity.

Madia’s following speaks for itself, but she strives to change social media for the better, making it a safe platform where people can share their true selves, and showing off cute photos of her dogs and living out of her beloved van feel like added perks.

But nothing is easy. Madia had to tell her mother she was quitting her job to live out of a van, having only the bare necessities, but it would all be worth it in the end.

What once started out as just a fun place to share photos of her dog and the cool adventure has encouraged others to do the same. She has been able to share a more vulnerable side and in return has received praise from her following.

“One of my favorite things that anyone ever said to me about my writing and the things that I share… is you give people permission to be a little bit more themselves,” says Madia.

Madia had a passion for writing long before the compliments and support from the internet world. She started at the age of 6 by writing a neighborhood newsletter, continuing into adulthood by majoring in writing and rhetoric. Now thanks to Instagram, she has the confidence to embrace and share her story. Going beyond expectation she has made The New York Times best sellers list with her memoir, which left Madia speechless.

“To be able to write something… with or without Instagram, it’s such an amazing honor and it’s really indescribable,” she says.

Though the journey was hard, embracing the unknown and learning to welcome everyone with open arms is exactly what Madia always needed. She has traveled the world, in and outside of her van, explored places most only dream of seeing, and continues to share her story, the good, the bad, everything.

Madia’s story starts like many others, working at a job she didn’t enjoy. She was stuck in an office working a 9-5 as a technical writer for a software company and wanted more. Then she was offered an influencing gig with a dog treat company, which changed the way Madia saw influencing.

“They offered me obviously unlimited dog treats and they would give $200 a month to spend in gas to take my dogs on an adventure and take some pictures and write something

Though the journey was hard, deciding to go a completely opposite route, embracing the unknown and learning to welcome everyone with open arms. With so many obstacles to climb over while what felt like the weight of the world was pressing down, Madia prevailed. She has traveled the world, in and outside of her van, explored places most can only dream to see, and she has been able to share these experiences whether good or bad. And by getting lost in the world, she was able to find herself.