Making the Unconscious Conscious for Creativity & REAL Life.

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How to Reawaken Your Creativity (By Living in a REAL Way).

Oh, hi there

This article is about reawakening your creativity. I say “reawaken” because in our natural state, we are all creative. That doesn’t mean that we’re all naturally skilled or talented – though we all have the capacity to develop skills and talents – what I actually mean when I say that we’re all naturally creative is that we all have the capacity to solve the problems in our lives.

In other words, we all have problems and limitations to deal with and can find creative ways of dealing with, them.

We also all have a natural drive towards wholeness. Wholeness means a deeper sense of connection to ourselves – by making the unconscious conscious – a deeper connection to other people by coming from a real place, and then a deeper connection to life by understanding that life keeps moving, expanding, and evolving.

And so if we want to be as real as possible, we have to tap into our creativity in order to keep being lifelike. That just means we keep moving, we keep flowing, we keep growing, and we keep becoming more connected to life.

This article, is going to be about how if you feel like your creativity is dormant, then ultimately you’re either: 1) resisting something inside yourself that is causing you to resist life, or: 2) you’re so caught up in the old way of being and seeing yourself, and seeing life because you have created a false identity for yourself,, that you stop learning because you’re filtering everything that happens to you through what you already think, you know, aka the EGO.

Living like this just causes you to kind of stagnate and to not get anywhere. And the only reason you’re stagnating and not moving and getting where you want to be is because you’ve taken yourself out of the natural process of moving towards wholeness.

So we’re going to talk about how if you put yourself back in alignment with that process, then your creativity is going to reawaken because it never went anywhere. It just kind of went into hiding because of the way you were seeing yourself and not seeing life.

So before we get too deeply into this, I want to make a distinction between the creative process that I’m talking about, which is the natural process of moving towards wholeness, that we would all be engaged in all of the time if we weren’t blocking ourselves with our own mental stuff and the more day to day kind of creativity that we associate with the word “creative” – for example, painting a picture, taking photos, writing a novel, whatever it is.

All of those creative activities are really important. And by doing the kind of things that I’m going to be talking about, in this video, you’ll find it much easier to invest your time and energy into those things. But no matter what it is that you choose to do as a creative outlet, if it’s real in the way that I’m talking about, then by using that vehicle to express yourself, you’re going to make yourself move from a state of fragmentation and disconnection to a state of wholeness.

All that means is that as you create something in whatever form you’ve chosen, the unconscious is going to become conscious. And that just means that certain parts of yourself that you may have disowned or been hiding from because of your relationship with yourself are, going to become clear.

They’re going to come surging to the surface and you’re going to find them on the page or on the canvas or in the lyrics of your songs or whatever it is. And if you struggle to be creative, it basically means – in most cases – that there is some block in your life that is stopping that process from unfolding in the way that it needs to.

We’ll go into that in a bit more detail, but the distinction I want to make is that creativity and skill and talent are interconnected but they’re different. I think that we’re all creative in the way that I’m talking about, where we have this drive towards wholeness and we can express it, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

On the other hand, if we want to be skilled or we want to be talented, then we need to work on that by being consistent, disciplined and focused and directing our energy into improving our skills.

So that’s just something I wanted to throw out, because this isn’t an article about being skilled, it’s about being creative.

The ideal state, of course, is that you have both: You’re being creative and you’re skilled. And actually, by working on your skills and going from a state of unskilled to skilled, well, you’ll grow more real in the way that I’m talking about anyway.

But ultimately, this process is about being real and aligned with nature, and the skills are kind of on top of that. So I just wanted to put that out there so you don’t think I’m going to give you some kind of a magical panacea for becoming really skilled and talented.

This is just a process of learning and growing so that you can be more creative with your skills or you’ll be less judgmental with yourself as you try to upskill in the future.

There are different levels of creativity and the REALEST level is making unconscious conscious.

One thing that might make this easier to understand is that there are different levels of creativity, and – as with anything else – you can understand this in the simplest way by looking at it in terms of either fragmentation and wholeness, ego and realness, or unreal and real.

All that means is that the deeper we go into life and the way that it works, the more real things become. And the more we move away from that, the more unreal they become.

Now, on this fancy diagram that I’ve made, I’ve broken it down so that the outer levels are, more unreal (but still real) and, the inner levels, the smaller circles, are more real. The realest level, I think, is making the unconscious conscious.

That’s the main theme of this article: that to be creative, you need to align yourself with that process so that it can keep happening in the way that it needs to, and that you can be more aligned with your own nature, and the nature of life itself.

Now, I won’t go through all these levels but, ultimately, the most unreal version is just imitation. That is ego. The ego imitates either itself and what it already thinks it knows so it doesn’t have to grow, or it imitates other things in the world that already exist. That’s the lowest level of creativity, in my opinion, because all you’re doing is copying and pasting.

Of course, it does have value. Like as Picasso said, “great artists steal” or whatever the hell he said. But ultimately, if you want to be real, you need to stop just copying other people in the world and allow yourself to see what your unconscious is trying to make conscious so that you can actually create something original that is sourced within you and from your relationship with life.

As you go through these levels, you ultimately get out of the conceptual and you get into the experiential. If people are just imitating, they may understand the concepts of what it is that they’re imitating, but on the deepest level, they don’t understand the inner experience that led to whatever that was (assuming that what was imitated wasn’t just imitated itself, and everybody’s out there just remixing and combining elements and all that kind of stuff).

The deepest level of creativity is the one that I keep talking about, like a broken record now – making the unconscious conscious – because if you can do that, then you’re going to bring up something from your own shadow that is going to allow you to be more deeply connected to yourself.

It’s also going to allow you to be more deeply connected to other people, because you’ll have a stronger foundation within yourself. Finally, you’re going to be more connected to the natural unfolding and flowing of life itself, which is the most creative thing going ultimately.

Should you find yourself incapable of being creative as you know you can be, then you have kind of forgotten that REAL ALWAYS WORKS.

That’s something that I love to say, because it’s true: Real always works.

All you really need to do is to tap into your REALNESS. And if you do that, then you’re going to be aligned with reality itself, nature itself, and, the creative impulse that we all have when that is the way we’re living.

Now, “Reality” is kind of a dirty word these days, even though it’s like one of my most overused words. And that’s because we all think that everything is relative, everything is subjective, blah, blah, blah. That’s not necessarily true.

When people say, “I have my reality”, “You have your reality” – and anything analogous to that, what they actually mean is “I have my interpretation of reality, you have your interpretation of reality, and I’m going to basically stick to what I know and feel comfortable with”.

Now, when it comes to reality itself (as opposed to our interpretations of it), nobody can argue about it because – ultimately – it’s just a bunch of natural laws that are universal and apply to every single one of us.

To keep it simple, all we really need to know about reality is two things: One, it keeps moving, and two, it’s interconnected. It’s about connection.

Everything in reality is just one big relationship, having a relationship with itself. And so, if you just take those two premises as a starting point for improving your relationship with reality, which is naturally creative, then you’re going to get much better results and your creativity is naturally going to reawaken.

One: keep growing, keep expanding, keep learning. Two: remember that everything is connected and move towards connection by choosing WHOLENESS over fragmentation (because the only thing that can stop you from being connected to yourself and the world and others is this EGO thing that we keep talking about).

And so if you do those two things, you’re going to align yourself with the natural drive that we all have towards wholeness and, as a consequence of that, your realness and your creativity are going to reawaken, and you’re going to get better results.

So, in relation to what I already said about the unconscious becoming conscious and how that is aligned with the natural unfolding of nature itself, if you live in this real way of constantly seeking growth and expansion, and constantly seeking a deeper connection to yourself, the world and reality, then you’ll have no choice but to make the unconscious conscious, which is naturally going to make you more creative.

This is because as the unconscious becomes conscious, all kinds of creative urges and impulses and intentions are going to call to you that you have to act on if you want to get to the next level of even deeper growth and expansion and deeper connection.

Now, the other reason that living in this way is so powerful is because it’s going to keep you stretching.

In coaching, we always talk about how there’s three levels. There’s the Comfort Zone, which we’ve all heard about and is essentially just the ego. In other words, we create a little box so we can stop the unconscious becoming conscious, keep hiding from our shadow and our shame and guilt and trauma – and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah – and we just filter everything that we do through our need to stay comfortable and to stay the same.

If you do that, then the natural consequence is that you are going to be blocking the unconscious becoming conscious behind conceptual ideas and bullshit – and so of course your creativity is going to be dormant because in a way, whether you know it or not, you’re actively stopping it from doing what it needs to do.

The next level is the Stretch Zone. This is where you find something that you need to do or want to do that is just going to push you a little bit beyond what you already think you know about yourself. You’re going to find what I like to call the Edge.

Being in the stretch zone feels amazing. There’s a kind of creative tension that you get when you’re there because you know where you’re going leads towards more wholeness and the vision that you may have created for that. But you’re not going so far, that you’re in the third level on this diagram, which is that you’re panicking. In other words, you found your sweetspot (and the more you live here, the higher you feel on life).

If you reach the Panic Zone, which is the third of the three – Comfort, Stretch, and Panic – then you’ve gone too far, you’re not ready to be there. And that’s why if you keep growing and trying to connect to life more deeply in a strategic way, you can stay in the Stretch Zone and always be in the sweetspot of finding the Edge (where your ego meets reality).

This is where you’re going to get the unconscious becoming conscious in a manageable, pleasurable and enjoyable way. It’s also where you’re actually going to get results because you’re not asleep in the Comfort Zone of the ego and you’re not pushing yourself too far into the Panic Zone, which again is ego not getting anywhere.

Making the unconscious conscious made practical.

To keep this really practical, I just want to give you a couple of ways in both of those areas of learning and constantly growing and expanding and connecting to yourself, the world, and reality.

On a deeper level, I want to give you some practical things that you can do so you can actually start living like this and reawaken that natural drive that I keep talking about of being connected to ourselves in such a way where the unconscious becoming conscious and we’re moving with wholeness and the flow of life – instead of trying to force everything through ego, which always kills our creativity.

Keep learning.

The first thing that you need to do, then, is you need to find a way to keep learning. If you keep learning, then you’re going to develop a growth mindset which is going to keep you aligned with the way of nature itself and your nature as a human being.

More importantly, you’re going to keep testing the assumptions that your ego and your habitual way of identifying rests upon, so that you can stretch yourself and basically evolve into the next version of who you are.

I’m not one of those guys that says we can “kill the ego”. You can’t kill something that’s unreal.

We all need an ego to survive in life, but you can keep pushing the envelope so that what you think you know is more aligned with the truth the longer that you live and the more that you keep learning, etc.

So some really practical things that you can do are simple: read more books, do more courses, talk to more people, go to new places,

Don’t just live in the same old routine day after day after day – that’s just going to cause you to stagnate. And obviously, in that state of stagnation, your ego is going to become more, impactful in your relationship with yourself and it’s going to block out any truth that may be trying to enter your life. As a consequence, that’s going to stop the unconscious becoming conscious (which is always unfolding naturally but if we block it the process gets polluted – see Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World for more). .

Basically, all I need to say is that if you can find new ways to continue learning and evolving, then you’re going to bring more truth into your life – and if you uncover the truth and live the truth, you can’t help but be real and align yourself with this thing that we’re talking about: he drive towards wholeness, where your creativity is going to come surging up.

Another vital thing that you can do to keep learning and evolving and expanding is to set goals. A lot of, creative people hate setting goals. They think that setting goals is going to somehow make them less creative. But actually, if you set goals, then it’s going to ensure – if you do it in the right way – that you’re going to challenge yourself enough to keep stretching yourself.

And by stretching yourself, the old version of the ego, which is blocking your creativity, is going to kind of dissolve and your realness is going to resurface.

Now, as long as you’re choosing goals that are REAL – and that just means that they’re going to allow you to become more of what you are, not to keep hiding behind the ego stuff – then you will keep evolving day after day.

You’ll be more aligned with the law of cause and effect and all the other laws that come with nature itself and reality itself. And by working with them to your advantage, to improve your life through conscious goal making, then you’re ultimately going to have to unblock your creativity because you’re moving.

That’s essentially all you need to know: Keep moving and you will become more real, and you’ll become more creative.

Become more connected to life.

By extension, the second thing that we all need to do if we want to be more creative – along with keep to keep growing – is to keep becoming more connected to life.

Now, the reason that connection is so important is because the ego, the thing that stops us from being as creative as we can be, is ultimately the illusion of disconnection. And if we live according to the illusion of disconnection, then we can’t align ourselves with life, where everything is connected, and it’s just systems and systems, and systems, and relationships, having relationships with themselves.

And so, if you actively work to be more connected to yourself, more connected to others, and more connected to life, and especially if you combine it with constant evolution and learning and expansion and goals in the way that I just talked about, you can’t not be creative, because by aligning yourself in this real way the unconscious is going to become conscious (because that’s just what happens when we’re real).

So how do you become more connected?

The best way to do it is to get out of your head, which is ego, and get into your body instead.

For most people, I recommend just finding some form of exercise that you love: go for a hike, do yoga (that’s the best one I’ve found). Dance around, whatever it is; find a way to get in your body.

Besides that, you need to find ways to change your perspective so that you are deeply connected to life – even when things are kind of challenging or difficult or whatever.

The standard thing there that people get told to do which works is to keep some kind of a gratitude ritual.

For me, I just write down every day I’ve got a gratitude journal. I write down ten things I’m grateful for. I write down what it is and why. So, for example, “Today I am really grateful for the trees outside, because I like looking out the window and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”. I’m just saying that because there’s some trees over there, although I am grateful for them.

Anyway, the point is, if you have gratitude for something, there is no disconnection between you and whatever it is.

And so if you do that kind of ritual every day, you’re going to be more connected to life. That’s going to make you feel better about yourself, then because you feel better about yourself, you can have better relationships with other people – and if you combine it with a constant evolution and growth and getting in your body, you’re going to be more creative.

The other thing that you can do is meditation and all that kind of stuff. Be mindful. If you can do those kinds of practices in your life every day, then you’re going to be more connected to who you are, because you’re not going to have the little chatter, the hamster wheel of the ego, telling you that you’re disconnected – you’re going to realise you’re not totally independent from everything else, because the illusion of separation also belongs to the ego.

The combination of that one-two punch of the lifelong learning, constant evolution and growth, and, the connection to life through getting in your body, getting in your breath, and being grateful for life is going to make you more creative. It’s guaranteed.

There are different levels of creativity and the deepest level is the most natural and REAL.

So what’s been the main lesson here today?

The main lesson, ultimately, is that there are different levels of creativity and the deepest level is the most natural level but it seems kind of unnatural because we have all conditioned ourselves with mental chatter and bullshit and nonsense that we have picked up over the course of our lives. That’s caused us to become fragmented and to identify as, something other than what we are.

What we are in truth is REAL, and that means that we keep evolving and that we’re connected to life – we’re not hiding from that learning, and we’re not resisting the natural connection that is always there.

The difference between identifying as a creative person and being a creative person.

Now, the key problem in all of our lives, in almost any situation I’ve found, is the way that we identify. It’s always an identity problem that it’s causing us to distort our view of life or to resist what’s right in front of us. And, the final caveat that I want to put here in this video is that there is a difference between identifying as a creative person and, being a creative person.

If you identify as a creative person, well, that’s just the ego stuff. Especially if you’re overly attached to it because you think that ‘creativity’ is some kind of magical unicorn that’s going to solve all your problems or make you adored and give you all the love that you feel you may not be able to give yourself, or whatever it is that’s causing you to do that.

In opposition to that is what I’m talking about: being creative, being real, and all that means is that you stop thinking about what you are and you just be it – i.e. you allow it to happen and you go with it in a controlled and strategic way.

So, hopefully that’s helped. If you feel like you want to go deeper. I have a free seven day course with 158 page workbook called the 7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock For Realness and Life Purpose. Check it out.

If you want any help around these kind of issues, you can book a complementary call.

Ultimately, all I want to say is that if you keep learning and you keep connecting to yourself and life, your creativity will naturally reawaken. You actually don’t have to do anything to make it happen. It’s just a natural consequence of being real, living real, and doing the real stuff that is calling to you from the unconscious so you can make it conscious.

Live a REAL life. That’s why we’re here.

Peace,

YouTube player — This article is based on a transcript from this video.

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Creative Status: Episode 64: Mandy Theis: Killing the Talent Fairy for REALNESS

Published on January 1, 2024

Creative Status: Deconstruct ego, integrate the shadow, manifest real life.

Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.

Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.

Prepare for this episode of Creative Status as we debunk the myth of the elusive ‘talent fairy’ with the incredible Mandy Theis. Join us in a conversation that challenges preconceived notions and proves that artistic and creative skills are not bestowed by magic but cultivated through discipline, consistency, and focus.

Meet Mandy Theis: A seasoned atelier-trained artist and licensed art teacher, Mandy extends her expertise worldwide, helping individuals grasp and impart technical drawing and painting skills. In this episode, she invites you to dismantle the illusion of innate talent and embrace the journey of skill acquisition.

No Talent Fairy Required: Mandy dismantles the common misconception that artistic prowess is a gift from a mythical talent fairy. Instead, she unveils the truth—realism skills are attainable by anyone willing to put in the effort. Discover the empowering shift from seeking a fairy to embracing the power of disciplined learning.

Discipline, Consistency, Focus: Learn the keys to unlocking your artistic potential as Mandy shares insights that will help you forge your own creative path in life. Find out how these pillars lay the foundation for building the skills that transform your artistic vision into reality.

From Atelier to Worldwide Teaching: Explore Mandy’s journey from atelier training to becoming a global educator. Discover the impact of her teachings on individuals around the world and how her approach reshapes the narrative around artistic learning.

Creative Status: Where REALNESS Transcends Illusions

Join Mandy Theis and me for a conversation that challenges the status quo and empowers you to take control of your artistic journey.

Tune in and discover that there’s no need for a talent fairy—realness prevails when discipline, consistency, and focus become your guiding lights on the path to creative mastery.

Stay real out there,

Oli

—————————–

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Show Transcript: Killing the Talent Fairy for REALNESS

Unleashing Your Inner Artist: Discipline and Creativity

This podcast is about two things: creativity and realness.

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. This is a podcast about two things: creativity and realness.

They’re connected because your creativity is a vehicle for you uncovering all of the parts of yourself that you’ve been hiding from that cause you to block yourself, hesitate, and hold back from life. And so if you follow your creativity where it wants to take you, you’re going to have a better life. You’re going to feel good, and things are going to generally flow and be amazing.

Today’s episode is an interview with Mandy Theis. She’s an art teacher, and she does lots of other interesting things. But the conversation really is about how if we want to make the most of our creativity, we have to use discipline to become skilled so that we can express ourselves even more.

This is something that’s really important because a lot of the time these conversations about being creative tap into the idea that we are all creative, which I agree with, but they forget to mention that we can maximize our creativity by working with life, with the law of cause and effect, to ultimately level ourselves up and to step into our potential.

I think a big thing about being real is acknowledging that we have to accept not just who we are in the moment, but who we could be. And the skill thing is really important when it comes to that. So anyway, it’s a really good conversation.

Mandy, thank you so much for your time. Everybody else, thanks for listening. Hope you get some value from this. Here we go. Boom.

Let’s talk about the talent fairy.

Interview

Oli: Oh, hi there, Mandy. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. We’re going to be talking about.

Mandy Theis: Thanks for having me

Oli: Well, thank you again.

Mandy: Already messing it up.

Oli: It’s okay. It’s all part of the process. We’re going to be talking about the magical talent fairy that a lot of people think, is going to swoop into their lives and magically solve their creative problems. Probably some other stuff as well.

But before we get into it, do you want to introduce yourself, tell people what you’re all about and what you want to get out of this conversation as well?

Mandy: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, for the second time, not interrupting you this time. And, my name is Mandy Theis. I am a licensed art teacher. I also have something called Atelier training, which is just a fancy word for saying realistic drawing and painting training.

But this crazy thing is that, this training almost went extinct during the last century. And today it’s, becoming more popular, and, more people have access to it. But there is no talent fairy that’s going to come and bop you on the head, and then you’re magically going to be able to draw and paint realistically.

However, if you connect with Atelier training, if you find these people and there’s more and more of them every day. They can teach you how to draw and paint realistically, even if you can’t even draw a stick figure.

Oli: Wow. So already this is getting very interesting. Why did this training, the atelier training, that’s what you call it why did that almost go extinct? That’s interesting.

Mandy: Yeah. Well, that’s a very complex answer. So it used to be, the default in art was that people would go to these Ateliers, get the training and realistic drawing and painting training, and then go on to their careers in architecture or easel painting or any of the arts, really. The basis was this drawing training but a few things happened.

One is that the centre of these, training, like these training centres, especially in Europe and Paris in particular, but Munich was another big centre. Things didn’t go so well in World War I and World War II. Like, the people running these schools literally died m, in some of these wars and then you had obviously a whole lot of upheaval.

Now, Americans did start, in the late 18 hundreds. There were, wealthy business owners in the United States that were like, we want Europe style portraits. And they started sending artists to Europe, to Paris, and to Munich. And then they would come back and open up schools in the, so, you know, some of these early schools were open, like the Cincinnati, art school. It had a different name when it opened, but what we generally think of as museums today often started as these ateliers.

Oli: Wow.

Mandy: But here’s where I start sounding a little bit like a conspiracy theorist. And I promise you I have receipts. I can back this up, but keep, in mind that during the Cold War, so we had World War I, World War II, that destroyed sometimes physically, sometimes the people running the ateliers. And then by the time the Cold World comes around, there is like this big emphasis between Russia and the United States.

And Russia was really into realism. And that realism training that they maintained. So they maintained their ateliers in Russia. But, there was a strong fear of communist realism in the United States. And so you’ve heard of McCarthyism going after Aaron Copeland, or big name Hollywood studio people. Well, the artists weren’t exempt from that.

And so if you were an easel painter and you’re painting in a communist realism way, you had to change gear pretty quick in order to have a career. So a lot of these people went to M, California to work in the movie industry. Many of them went into illustration. Norman Rockwell is an example of this where it was know these little secret, safe places to be a realist without being accused of being a communist.

Oli: Wow.

Mandy: So, that was part of it, yeah. Now, there were a handful of places that managed to keep this training alive in the easel painting tradition, more or less. and the most common one that people can trace their lineage back to was in Boston with this guy named, R. H. Ives Gammell.

Another one survived in Italy. Some Americans were running a school in Italy who had trained with, like, Nerina Simi and Pietro Annigoni, who Nerina Simi’s father was one of the last people to train in the de Beaux Arts in Paris before that system collapsed in World War II.

So, it’s crazy because it used to be very standard in the visual arts and similar to other art fields. Like, if you listen to a musician, you expect them to play in tune and on beat. But in art, we’ve lost our connection to all technicality.

Oli: Wow. Yeah.

Mandy: So, ironically, the atelier movement, which used to be the standard in art, is now the countercultural movement in art.

Oli: That’s really interesting, honestly. We’re going to crack open the Talent Fairy in a few minutes, probably. But in general, I totally agree with what you have just suggested about the technical skills and the foundation of the craft being something that’s super, super important, to state the obvious, but that you need to be able to understand and to have mastered before you can start breaking the rules and playing with, like, expressionism or surrealism or all these different rule breaking things that people like to kind of focus on instead these days.

And sure, only if you understand the craft, whether it’s writing or art, or whatever it is, can you actually start to be creative. Because you can’t break the rules until you understand the rules. And if you do understand them in a very technical way, then you’re going to know why you’re breaking them and why you’re pushing the envelope and all that kind of stuff.

Do you think our cultural aversion to realism is linked to the talent fairy?

So, do you think our cultural aversion to realism in, art is linked to some of these beliefs around the Talent Fairy that people think are, what’s actually required for them to be creative these days? So, I suppose before you answer that, I’m throwing loads at you. Sorry. Let’s start with the definition of the Talent Fairy in relation to all this stuff that you just shared.

Mandy: So, there’s so much in what you said, and it’s hard for me not to respond to each piece of it, but let’s, start with the Talent Fairy. This is an ecosystem that’s all interrelated. They’re not separate things that you just mentioned. Because the reason people believe a Talent Fairy exists is largely because of this, exclusivity modern art market that’s been art shaming the populace for the last hundred years into, saying, this white canvas is really deep and important, and if you don’t think so, you’re a dumb-dumb.

Oli: Right.

Mandy: Which I don’t believe in art shaming, and I strongly encourage anybody to stick to their guns. Like, if you don’t like a piece of art, it’s okay to say that. We say that with movies. Like, if Brad Pitt doesn’t make a movie or have a good acting role, you can say that. We can say that in other art forms, but we aren’t allowed to criticize what a very small number of tastemakers decides is high end art. And then we don’t understand it. And then we think that, “Oh, we don’t have it, whatever it is. We weren’t hit on the head by the talent fairy”.

And it’s so asinine. I can’t stand that whole ecosystem that makes people, like, everyday people who do appreciate beauty and do appreciate skill believe that somehow they are ignorant or dumb.

Because this kind of silly art that is being pushed upon us by a very small group of people is, constantly it’s a closed circuit up there on the high end art world. The people running museums and selecting the artwork and picking which artists are the it artists. It’s a very closed circuit. And unlike other art forms, people don’t really care anymore.

Like, everyday people don’t really care. If you walk down the street and ask anybody, name three movie stars or name three bands that you like. Right. Almost anybody can easily name that right. Of living people. ask people the three famous living artists today. The average person can’t.

Some, of them can name dead people. I think that really speaks to the disconnect between what’s being imposed upon the public as high end art and what the public actually cares about. And if you look at the beloved art figures of the 20th century, say what you will about Thomas Kinkade, he’s the guy that painted all those cottages with the light inside that were in the malls everywhere in the 90s. so say what you want about how saccharine and teeth hurting his artwork was, but they brought people real joy and lots of people real joy. He was traded for billions of dollars. He was the first publicly traded artist. And he was saying something that connected with people in this time of disconnect and upheaval. And he was giving them a place of peace, a visual comfort, and, that resonated with more people than all the blank canvases in the high end museums.

Oli: Wow.

Mandy: Yeah.

Oli: I’m going to sound really cynical now.

Mandy: More cynical me just now?

Oli: Well, I don’t know. I think a lot of the modern art it really is just bullshit, isn’t it?

Mandy: Absolutely.

Oli: Yeah. Pardon my French.

Mandy: Yeah. No, I find that I have to give people permission to say that out loud.

Oli: Right.

Mandy: Like, people are so afraid to say what they really think about modern art out loud because we’ve been shamed.

Oli: Yeah.

Mandy: They don’t want to look by these communities and not only that. But sometimes, there’s, quote unquote high end artwork that’s been designed to shame people. So there’s like a common thing that happens where a high end artist will leave garbage as an exhibit, as an installation, and then inevitably, somebody throws the garbage away.

And then they’re like, “Ha, look at the ignorant proliferate class. They just don’t get, how significant and meaningful this artwork was.” They’re even setting it up to reinforce this nonsense.

Oli: Yeah, it’s like an us/them thing. And, ultimately, I think the reason we can say that it’s bullshit is that it’s ultimately pure ego. And I think it does go back to what you’re saying about the talent fairy. So ultimately, if most modern artists are not learning those real technical skills to be able to handle reality first and foremost, then basically all they’re doing is just pulling whatever concoction is ready to come out of their ass, putting it on a canvas or taking a photograph of it or whatever.

But because it has no actual substance, because they’re not grounded in something true and it’s just their ego basically going through the motions of creating something, then what ends up happening is they create all these abstract, ideological, conceptual interpretations around this bullshit, basically, that they’ve created.

And then they try and sell the conceptual ideas as being way more inflated and valuable than they actually are and, because people are insecure, because they getting art shamed and all this kind of stuff you’re talking about, then it’s kind of like the Emperor’s New Clothes. They buy into it.

Mandy: Oh, for sure.

Oli: It’s like, oh, yes, this blank canvas must mean this because this is what they said and blah, blah, blah. But ultimately, it’s all just a castle in the sky and it can crumble as soon as you bring the truth back into the equation. And I really think that for 90% of it, the only function of it is to shame people and to feel exclusive and to give people the buzz of buying into that. Or in a lot of cases, there’s probably money laundering going on and stuff like that, which, oh, for sure, that’s.

Mandy: The least regulated market in the world.

Oli: Yeah, that’s my conspiracy theory. And so, it’s all bullshit conspiracy.

Mandy: There’s no laws that govern, or very few laws. And the ones that they’ve tried to pass have been gutted. So, I can’t even go there because there’s so many other things that you just mentioned that need to be addressed.

“I hate modern art that is not communicating visually.”

Tom Wolfe wrote a book called The Painted word, and he’s a well-respected, new York City author. And, he said that he called it The Painted Word because it’s no longer even about the painting. It’s about what you write about the painting.

And so it might be interesting philosophy with a cute little illustration, but is it art, right? If it’s not communicating visually, if the message isn’t getting through. If someone can’t look at it and understand what it is, then is it actually art or is it philosophy. With a written thesis next to it.

Oli: Yeah.

Mandy: and then another thing, too, that I want to be very clear about is that I don’t hate all modern art. I hate modern, art that is not communicating visually. So there are certainly modern artists that I really enjoy and appreciate, like Kehinde Wiley – for those who don’t know, Kehinde Wiley is an artist that, works in realism and puts, African American men and women into, kind of royal portraits. And it’s a very cool effect, and it speaks, and it has something to say that’s understood by looking at it.

Oli: Right.

Mandy: …and there are even some more abstract works that I find valuable that you can understand by looking at them. I don’t have a problem with all modern art, and I don’t have a problem with theory and art. What I have a problem with is art.

Oli: I think there is a place for theory and art, obviously, but it’s a matter of degree. Like, if it’s only theory, then the art becomes conceptual more than anything else. And a lot of the time, the concepts that people attached to the art are, concepts that they’re using to justify the way that their ego wants them to be able to feel. And I think that’s why you get the US them kind of mindset, like, within the system. You’re talking about the ecosystem.

Mandy: Well, just to recognize that a lot of the quote unquote, successful, high end artists, often started their careers in marketing or are marketing geniuses. So Andy Warhol came from a marketing background. Right. And he was mocking the entire high end art world his entire career. and he actually felt that he had helped destroy the technical skills in art and actually founded the New York Academy of Art in New York City to try to save figurative drawing.

After he thought that he killed like a lot of people don’t know that part about the history that a lot of these artists that go off the rails, like Damien Hurst was famous for putting a shark in a tank and calling it, the fear of death in the mind of someone living. Right. What a great marketing name that is.

Did, it take skill to stuff a shark? No, he didn’t even stuff it himself. He paid someone else to stuff it. but, do you know there was a period of time where he started working on what he called fact paintings, where he was, like, painting realistic butterflies, actually trying to teach himself how to paint. So even these high end artists get tired of the BS after a period of time and try to actually learn the techniques and skills of their craft.

Oli: There is another side of the coin, actually, as well, that we maybe need to explore. So, I agree with what you said. I think real art ultimately is about communicating something real or giving people an experience. It’s not just a conceptual thing. But the other side of the coin to what we’re saying about modern art being bullshit when it’s too conceptual and abstract and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But if it’s just an imitation of reality, like, if we’re just painting an apple or something, maybe that’s not really communicating anything either. And so there is an element where you need to be able to express something real, but it doesn’t necessarily have to reflect the way reality looks in order to do that. Do you know what I mean? And I think there’s a lot of skills around that. It’s like there’s a middle ground to be creating something really true.

Mandy: There’s certainly a lot of realistic artwork that isn’t good art. It’s not good just because it has technique to achieve it. I absolutely believe that, as you know, there’s lots of artists that have atelier training, Elizabeth Zanzinger comes to mind, who, has some abstract elements in her work that are done very skilfully – so, it’s not an all or nothing situation.

Ah, but I do think and this is a, ah, position as a licensed art teacher who’s worked in the public school systems, as somebody who trains other art teachers through the university program, at the Florence Academy of Art, as somebody that trains, people at large through my online class, with our Atelier painting bootcamp.

I have all these different experiences of teaching. And anybody can learn technique. It’s not unique to some people and not others and all those people go on to create different things with that technique. And I really believe that the most creative person there is, the most creative artists that exist today are the ones that can execute their vision without compromise because they didn’t have the techniques they needed.

Oli: So what are we saying here about creativity itself? Because basically what we said, if you’re just copying what’s in front of you, well, in a way, you’re just like a really intelligent monkey that’s learned some skills.

Mandy: I cannot let this point slide. I have got to address this. Okay? It’s a common belief with Atelier trained artists, like, why not just use a camera if you’re just copying realistically what’s in front of you? And I need to address this because it’s super important. And this is the level of visual literacy that we have in today’s society that even 100 years ago, most people understood, as like, a standard course of knowledge.

The distinguishing factor in artistic creation is the choices that we make.

All right, so here, I’m getting on my soapbox here, so buckle up.

Oli: I’m ready, I’m ready.

Mandy: Let me take a break first. Yeah, you have me hyperventilating here, because, here’s the deal. A camera when you’re taking a picture of something or a painter when they’re painting something, you are taking something from the three dimensional world and you are compressing massive amounts of 3D information to only 2D information. So think about how much more power your computer needs to run a video game that has three dimensional elements versus a 2D game. That was a big innovation in video games.

And it literally takes more processing power, like significantly more processing power to do that, because there’s more information there. Okay, so the physical world around us has more visual information than we can ever put on a two dimensional canvas or a picture that we print. All right, so what’s being edited out now? A camera is a machine that’s making editing choices the same way every time that you can manipulate a few key things on.

Like you can change the shutter speed and you can focus in different areas, but it’s somewhat limited on the choices that you can make. When you are painting something with a well trained eye and with atelier techniques, you have infinite choices about which information to weed out and which information to include. If you look at a Chardonnay painting of one of his pears, it is one of the most creative acts, in my opinion, in painting, because of what he edited out and how complete and beautiful. It’s more beautiful than you could ever get with a camera because it’s controlled and intentional with a vision that matches the whole.

Oli: So in a way, that’s answered my question, because ultimately, what you’re saying, the difference between just imitating something like one of these super intelligent monkeys or whatever, or been too conceptual for the sake of being clever and justifying your ego and all that kind of stuff, the distinguishing factor is the choices that we make.

And I guess what we’re saying then is a truly creative person, an actual artist instead of just someone painting pictures for the sake of it, or taking photos for the sake of it, or typing instead of writing is about the choices that we make.

Mandy: Absolutely.

Oli: Yeah. So how do we make sure that we’re making the right choices? I suppose that’s a question. And I think this is where the, talent fairy is going to come swooping back in. Because, in a way, the talent fairy, if she did exist, she would be waving her magical wand, and then we would magically be making creative choices from one moment to the next instead of just going through the motions.

Either with our left brain and being too skilled or with our right brain and, just pouring our guts out on the page or with some conceptual bullshit in the middle.

Mandy: So there’s a great story that I think illustrates this point really well, that I’d like to share with you. So, when I was teaching in the public school system, I took my students to a museum to see an Ansel Adams exhibit. And for those of you who might not be familiar, Ansel Adams was this photographer. He did a lot with, national Parks and he made absolutely stunning, beautiful photography images.

So we have Ansel Adams negatives and we have the prints that he made from those negatives. And sometimes museums, that own the negatives try to make a new print from the negative. And in theory, if there was no skill involved, it should just come out but the choices Angel Adams made in his own prints are what made his work so beautiful and so emotionally stunning.

And I, remember even my students being like, how come some of these are so much worse than the others? And I didn’t know at the time.

And so I asked the curator, and they’re like, oh, well, some of those are actually the prints made by Ansel Adams where he was controlling exactly the light and shadow and values and some were not. And Ansel Adams was running around in a circle in California with atelier trained artists. And he was applying that knowledge to photography. And the people in the museums trying to make these same prints today don’t have that knowledge. And what’s missing? The beauty of even with his own negatives, the beauty is missing.

Oli: Yeah. So where do you think he got that understanding? I know he had the training, but do you think there’s in a way, it’s more than just the training? Like, something has happened in his life experience where he’s gained an understanding of what actually makes something beautiful?

Mandy: He was a classical pianist. He was trained as a classical pianist. And to train at the highest levels in any art is about nuance and degree and precision within tiniest degrees that people without the training don’t understand even exist. So it’s not surprising to me that when he took up photography that he had that sensitivity that he had as a pianist to be able to see the small increments of change because he understands, as a highly trained artist what a small increment of change is.

Oli: Wow. So how do we get to that point? If you look around you at the world today, everybody seems to think that they’re some kind of creative genius.

Mandy: I think everybody is they just don’t have the skill set and practice to bring it out right to the fullest level and that’s what atelier training really does. It’s taking where you are and taking what you love most about the world and giving you the tools you need to enhance it and make it the most of that that it can be.

Oli: Right. So, for example, if you look at Instagram, right, there are so many people that have bought a camera and they think that because they own a camera and they know how to press the button to make it go click, that they’re like a photographer or an artist. Or people think that because they can paint their cat or something and then post it online, they’re like an artist. Or they think that because they can type some poetry, then they’re like an actual poet. But actually, that is not necessarily the case. And I think they’re the kind of people who the talent fairy is kind of deceived in some way.

Mandy: They believe that they’ve been hit by the talent fairy.

Oli: Yeah.

Mandy: They have to do the work to get the skills they need to take it. That’s an interesting theory. I definitely see what you’re saying, but to me, one, I’m so happy that people are actually taking their artist self seriously. As a licensed art teacher, I found that until about fourth grade, students love drawing, they love creating, they’re not afraid. And then by the time they hit fourth grade, because they don’t have access to the training and skills they need to make their artwork at the level that they want it to be, they start saying, “Okay, well, if I can’t draw my grandma the way I want to and have it look like my grandma, then I must not have it”. That’s where that idea happens.

But what’s actually missing are people that have the training that can teach that child how to achieve what they’re going after. Because this is hard for me to say, because I love art teachers. I’m a very avid and active member in the art education community but it’s not their fault. But we’ve all gone through college training people my age. I’m almost 40.

We, went through college art teacher training being like, if you teach skills, it’ll ruin student creativity, right? And so, if you have an entire profession whose job it is to teach art, who are afraid to teach art because they were told that it will ruin student creativity, they’re not going to be able to give the student the skills they need to create that artwork that’s in their head. And that’s where this problem is.

And that’s why I’m such an advocate of technical training. It does not ruin student creativity. It makes them more creative. It makes them be able to create the artwork that they want to, and it helps encourage them when they can grow towards what they have in their head that they’re trying to achieve.

Oli: That’s basically what I was getting at. So I believe everybody is creative. Like, ultimately, that is the human condition. It’s the theme of this podcast. We’re all creative. Creativity, ultimately, at that level, is about working with what’s going on within us.

A, psychological level, so we can make the unconscious conscious and move towards wholeness. And creativity is a vehicle for doing that. But at, that very real level of creativity, there are a lot of myths around the talent ferry, and it’s. Basically the myth that that’s all you need. All you need is your natural creativity. That’s true. But at the same time, it’s not true.

And the reason we can say that is it’s basically it’s like a muscle. And if you can choose absolutely the skills that are going to allow you to be able to be more effective with that natural drive that we all have towards wholeness and creativity and blah, blah, blah, then you’re going to be more free, and you’re going to be able to get better results. But I think because of the myth that you’ve been talking about, that all you need to do is just pick up a camera or whatever it is.

I always end up picking on photographers. I don’t know why. If you just think that’s all you need to do, pick up the camera, and then you just naturally got this creative genius, maybe some of us will naturally just be able to take amazing photos and to express something that’s so real that everyone who sees these photos is just going to be mindblown.

But probably for the average person, we need to upskill ourselves to get the results we want. And it’s not just traditional creativity. It might be like, for a certain person, your way of being creative is to have a business. And you need to develop certain skills that are going to allow you to think more creatively in a business context. It might be a parent or whatever. So actually, what you’re talking about has universal application. But a lot of us have fallen into the trap of thinking that we’re just naturally going to be gifted at something.

Mandy: That makes me so sad for people, because then they give up on their dreams. They don’t realize that there are people out there in the world that can help you achieve your dreams. Like, I had given up being a realistic painter, and when I was, like, 25, I discovered Atelier training existed.

There’s a huge societal advantage of pretending like you’re hit by the talent fairy.

It was like being told I could go to Hogwarts and be a witch or whatever – that this magical thing that I had always desired was suddenly within my grasp. And what kills me is that we keep perpetuating this myth that, oh, you either have it or you don’t, and that’s a lie. And even those Instagram people that you were talking about, I don’t hate photography.

Well done photography I adore. There’s an artist, called Cigna on Instagram that I’m totally obsessed with. She’s a photographer but when you go and talk to her, you find out that, “Oh, actually, she spent a lot of time honing her craft.”

She spent a lot of time taking classes and learning from people who knew more than her. So even the people that we think just popped out of nowhere, there’s a lot of behind the scenes work that’s being done, but there’s a huge societal advantage of pretending like you’re hit by talent. Picasso maximized that in an extreme way because his father was Atelier trained, trained Picasso. And then he spent his whole career telling people that he was a magical hit by the talent fairy.

And he had far more access to knowledge and training than almost anybody alive at the same time. He didn’t die until the 80s, but atelier training almost died out, like, pretty much died out with his father’s generation.

So he was so lucky to have that knowledge and skill and training. And then he goes around and markets him, because guess what? You can sell a whole lot more art if you pretend that you were hit by than if you tell the world anybody can do it. If you just go to these schools or have access to this knowledge.

Oli: Yeah. That is such a vital and important point that you just made. Ultimately, people, they care about the results that we’re getting. So if you write a book or something or you paint something amazing or, whatever it is, people care about the results. And if you start talking about the process behind it I wrote a book, for example, right.

If I said, “Well, every day I sat down and I typed for 3 hours” people are going to fall asleep. And all of the romance around the book itself just kind of dissipates. And people think, “Okay, well, I suppose anyone could do that”. It’s not interesting anymore.

And so that’s one side of it. People don’t want to they only want to see the tip of the iceberg, not what’s going on under the water, but also they want to believe that we can just get the results without doing the work, because then it makes them feel that it’s more attainable in a strange way. But actually, that attitude is what distances them from getting the results.

Mandy: Absolutely. Because, when you believe that you have to be hit on the talent ferry to create the painting and the style that you see that you like or what you aspire to, and if you believe that you just weren’t it, then it frees you from the obligation of doing the work to achieve your dream and I hate that myth so much. And it starts at elementary school, unfortunately, with the current attitudes in art education that are still kind of stuck in the last century, of teaching skills will ruin creativity.

But teachers are starting to change that. And I have 20,000 people on my mailing list. Most of them are teachers asking me every day, how do you do this? Or how do you teach this? So we’re starting to shift the narrative here, and help teachers get the resources they need and the training they need. Because remember that their teachers didn’t have this knowledge either – how could they possibly teach something that they’ve never had access to before?

It’s not just our teachers. I have a lot of tattoo artists that are really interested in atelier training that I work with. Almost anybody working in realism architecture. People are starting to understand that drawing is key.

Like, if they can’t draw realistically, they can’t create any of the buildings that they see in Europe that they love and adore. They don’t have close to the sensitivity they need to achieve something like, from and actually, a lot of dentists I don’t know why dentists, but dentists are in my online atelier class more and more. and the thing is, you don’t have to have an art background. You don’t have to know anything. In fact, sometimes it’s better to not know anything about drawing and painting when you start atelier training because then you have to, unlearn a bunch of bad information.

Oli: Yeah, I think what you’re saying about basically, the universality of anybody being able to learn skills is something that is not very romantic, it’s not very attractive to a lot of people, but it’s ultimately, it’s just the truth. What we’re talking about is cause and effect. Like what I found in my coaching practice. Pretty much anybody can do anything they want as long as it’s within the bounds of reality.

Like, they’re not trying to, I don’t know, summon a magical unicorn or something and then float off into. But in general, if we’re just trying to improve our lives and move towards our goals, you just need to use the law of cause and effect, which is what we’re talking about, and be disciplined, consistent, and focused in just moving towards your goals every day. And a big part of that in relation to what you’re talking about is skills.

And actually, that makes, our goals and our visions for our lives within grasp, but for some reason them, I think, because having to face that law and cause and effect is going to cause us to face ourselves and realize that, okay, we’re not quite as good as we think we are now. We might have to face some underlying shame and guilt and trauma, and we have to grow through our comfort zones, and our identity is going to change and all this kind of stuff.

Because of that we would rather believe in the talent fairy so that we can kind of just explain what we really want away and just kind of go through the motions of being stuck in the comfort zone. So what you’re talking about is super important. It has universal application to all human beings.

Mandy: Absolutely.

Oli: Because ultimately, you’re just raising awareness of how things actually work. And I think that’s amazing.

Mandy: Yes. Ah, it is work.

As you improve, you tend to want more.

And there’s something that I’d like to say here that a lot of people don’t realize, too, because when you start training, whether it’s in an atelier to learn how to draw and paint realistically, or any of these other examples that you just gave it’s, that, as you improve, you tend to want more

So when I first started my atelier training, I saw somebody that was a couple of years ahead of me in their training. And I told myself, if I could just paint that well, I’d never want for anything in my life ever again.

And then a few years later, you’re at that level and you’re like, oh, this actually isn’t very good. Now I’m trained so well that I can see what really good i. as you’re training, one, yes, anybody can get better at, ah, technical skills, including drawing and painting. There’s no talent fairy, if we haven’t got that emphasized enough throughout this podcast. And then, two, that your goals shift because you become more open to the world and more open to your own potential and possibilities.

So as you level up and invest in the skill set, whatever, that skill set is that you’re going after, it opens up more possibilities. It helps you see more. And I think there’s a balance to be had between understanding that it’s a never ending journey when you pursue an art. And I’m sure other things too. Leonardo DA Vinci, when he was 80 years old, said, “If only I had 80 years, then I could really learn how to paint”.

Oli: Yeah.

Mandy: So accepting the journey and accepting that it’s not an endpoint – it’s a lifelong pursuit, especially in the arts yeah.

Oli: That’s how I see it. We can always go deeper into awareness, basically, of who we are, what we’re trying to express in the world, and then an acceptance of how we can do that. And ultimately m, that’s why I think the realest art, is linked to the realist relationship with ourselves.

Because as we go through this journey of upskilling and understanding what we’re trying to communicate and all that kind of stuff, we get a stronger foundation of truth in our relationship with who we are, ultimately. And by doing that we can use the skills to the greatest extent possible. We can make those nuanced choices that you were talking about. We know the message that we need to put into our work. We’re not scared to use those skills to face parts of ourselves that we’ve been hiding from, actually, and to use the art to bring those parts to the surface.

And so, ultimately, it all starts, like you said, in a way, by killing the talent fairy and taking control of our own relationship with ourselves, so we can use our talents to be even more real or something like that.

Mandy: Well said. Well said. Absolutely.

Anybody can learn to draw and paint.

Oli: So, how would you sum up all of this that we’ve been talking about? Yeah, that is no mean feat to be able to do that, but I guess yeah.

What are the final words of wisdom how can we move forward with our lives now that we’ve uncovered this, addiction to the talent ferry that many people have? And can you let people know where they can find you as well and all that kind of thing?

Mandy: Yeah, absolutely. So I would love for your audience just to be able to take away that anybody can draw and paint or any other pursuit that you are interested in. But obviously, my area is in drawing and painting. It doesn’t matter if you can’t even draw a stick figure. If you train with an atelier trained person, they can teach you how to draw and paint at levels that you never thought possible. And there is no talent fairy, but there is work that goes into doing that.

If you’re interested in trying it out, I have a free online colour class on my website at, www.SchoolofatilierArts.com. Atelier is spelled A-T-E-L-I-E-R. It’s a French word and it’s on the front page there. And it’ll take you through how to see colours, probably in a way that you’ve never thought before. And my promise to everybody that takes this free class is that you will be able to see colours that you didn’t know existed by the time that you finish this 1 hour class. A

And if that doesn’t convince you that drawing and painting is a learned skill, I create that class because it’s the most impact with the shortest amount of time to really prove to people that, yes, absolutely, anybody can learn how to draw and paint better.

And here’s a little sample. And try it. Try it and find out, if you’re one of those people that’s like, “Oh, my God, I’ve wanted this my whole life. I didn’t know what it was called” – it’s called Atelier training, and I run an online atelier two times a week, where you get live critiques, and I have video instruction, and you can find that at School of Atelier Arts. And it’s called the, atelier Painting Bootcamp.

And then, if you’re just art curious and you are interested in the types of conversation that we had, I encourage you to join our massive, very popular email list. We have thousands, thousands of people on our email list, and I send out little articles that I write, little, tidbits about the art world and what’s going on. So if you just have a general interest in art, I encourage you to join the newsletter.

Oli: Well, that all sounds amazing, so I’m going to sign up for that course. I do believe there’s a talent ferry, but there’s a colour fairy, and it’s you.

Mandy: There is a colour fairy.

Oli: So, yeah, that sounds awesome. I’ll share all of the links in the show notes. But, Mandy, thank you so much for this. It’s been a good one.

Mandy: And I just thank you so much for having me.

Oli: Thanks again.

Mandy: See I had to interrupt you at the end because I started with the beginning.

Oli: It’s okay. That’s gone full circle. It’s beautiful symmetry.

Mandy: And it’s yeah.

Oli: Thanks again.

Mandy: All right. Thank you.

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Unlocking Your Core Values: A Guide to Living Your REAL Life

Published on

Life Philosophy/Coaching/Creativity

What your REAL core values are and how to live them.

Let’s talk about values:

I’m a coach. Coaches love talking about values, and that’s because values are so important – if you know what your values are, you can translate them into action or – if you want to go even deeper – a sense of purpose. When you do this, your life is going to be in alignment with who you really are.

So in this article, I’m going to show you a process that you can go through so that you can figure out what your values actually are because a lot of people are actually just running around on autopilot, living out values that aren’t even theirs. They’re just values that they picked up from society or from their parents or from the government, or from aliens in outer, space or whoever the hell it is.

And so you might need to do a little bit of inner work – which sounds painful, but it isn’t – a little bit of work, let’s say, to figure out what you actually think and feel and value so that you can start to design things in a way that is going to make your life more real, you more aligned in general, and is going to allow you to go deeper into experiencing the amazing feeling of being real because you’ll have tapped into your realness and you’ll be doing something with it -instead of just running around on autopilot.

So if that sounds good, keep reading because you’re probably going to learn some stuff about yourself. And all human beings like to learn things about themselves – after all, that’s one of our defining characteristics as a species.

What are core values and how do you define them.

Here we go. So let’s begin with a definition of what core values even are like. It’s one of these words that we’ve all heard, “values, values, values”. It’s all over the place. But what the hell are values anyway?

The simplest definition that I can come up with is that ‘values’ are just things that matter to you. But when we say “things” here, we actually mean abstract, intangible qualities. We’re not talking about things like material things in the world, although you can value those things, but that doesn’t mean that they’re your values.

Actually, your values are the intangible qualities behind the things. So let’s say, for example, you’re dreaming of getting a Lamborghini. I always use that example. Maybe subconsciously I want to get a Lamborghini. I don’t have one because I’m not rich. But anyway, let’s say you want to get a Lamborghini. That is not one of your values. You can find Lamborghinis valuable, but your values are actually the thing behind your desire to get the Lamborghini.

And if you dig into it, ask yourself why, it’ll boil down to certain things like ‘freedom’ (an intangible quality). You’ve got a picture in your head of you buzzing around in this Lamborghini, driving like a maniac and listening to Limp Bizkit (that’s what I’d be doing) -and that feeling of freedom that you envisaged is actually the value that is pulling you in that direction.

Maybe as you’re driving around in this Lamborghini, people are going to be looking at you and they’re going to think you’re like an amazing, sexy, successful person. And there’s a value there probably around ‘status’ or feeling ‘significant’ or something like that – and you could go on all day looking at the goal behind the goals which is always a value and that is going to show you who you really are ultimately and what you’re actually looking for in life.

Now, the important thing here is that when you understand it’s not just about the surface level details of the things, but the abstract, intangible qualities that matter to you beneath the things that you think you are chasing, then you also have the added benefit of being able to detach from the external goal and to start building things on that real foundation of the inner qualities that you’re actually seeking.

If you realize that, “Okay, by chasing this Lamborghini and listening to Limp Bizkit and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I’m actually chasing freedom”, well, you can still decide to keep chasing the Lamborghini if you want, or you can step back and you say, “Okay, right now I don’t have enough money in my bank account to go out and buy a Lamborghini and listen to Limp Bizkit – but there are many other ways that I can bring freedom, my core value of freedom, into my life.”

And, then you can make a list. You say, “Right, okay, I’m going to go fishing on the canal right now, or I’m going to go for a hike, or I’m going to quit my job just because, why not?”

Etc. You could go on forever. But the point is, if you understand the goal behind the goals – which is always a value based thing – then the goal is still important. But you can be outcome-independent in your approach towards it. And you can also realize that there are many, many other ways for you to get the things that are truly important in your life into your life.

And that is why it’s so important to understand what values are and how you can go about bringing them into your day to day existence. So, the definition, just to keep this clear, is that your core values are intangible qualities or abstract qualities that matter to you and that are driving the goals that you are out there chasing.

Let’s keep going.

Your core values shape and colour your whole life.

This is getting interesting. So what we’ve learned so far is that our core values are very important. That’s kind of stating the obvious, because, as I said, we all know values are important. But they’re more important than we may think, actually, because they’re constantly driving the decisions that we make about our lives and what we want, the choices that we make about who we, are, how we show up, the relationships we get in, the goals that we chase, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Values basically shape and colour your whole life. And so if you’re not consciously aware of the values that you hold and the reasons behind the things that you’re chasing and trying to bring into your life, then you risk making a life for yourself that is not a true representation of your REALNESS are and what’s actually possible you in your true potential.

Now, this comes down to something that I’ve said many times. This whole site, if you don’t know, is about growing REAL.

If you put something real into your life, i.e. In this case, real values, then you’re going to get something real out. If you put something unreal into your life, then you’re going to get something unreal out.

And, we all want the real stuff, whether we know it or not. Because if we feel restless, frustrated, depressed, like there’s more to life, that we have a void, that we feel empty, or we need to rebel against the world or whatever it is, it means that we have been putting unreal values into our lives and so the current state of our lives is quite unreal.

And so if you want to make life feel deeper, if you want to make it feel like you’re more connected to it, then you need to make sure that the values that are driving your life are actually yours. And that’s why this is really important.

Some examples of core values.

So now I’m going to give you an overview about how you can figure out what your values are. You might need to reading and do some writing, or you could just read the whole thing and then you’ll figure it out.

Either way, the point is that if you actually sit down and do this – especially if you’ve never done anything like this before – then you’re going to be able to figure out what your values are, and then you can go start bringing the real stuff into your life by putting something real into it, instead of just running around on autopilot, filtering everything through the ego, and then getting something unreal.

So let’s start, with some examples from somebody really interesting. In this case…me!

My values, I have decided and determined after doing some of this work are health. And so I try to exercise every day, do yoga, go hiking on weekends. That’s one of my values. So I feel good when I do those things. Creativity is another – which is why in my coaching business, I work with a lot of creative people. And, my podcast, Creative Status, is about the creative process, because I just love creativity, so I need it in my life. And so that’s why I’ve made some choices about what to do with my business and what my podcast should focus on. I find those things very satisfying now because my values are embodied.

Freedom is another core value. If I don’t have freedom, I go mad and I get depressed – like all human beings, tbh – and that is why I have my own business. I don’t have some boss breathing down my neck, getting me to do spreadsheets and all that kind of bullshit that they make you do. That is the worst thing in the world for me. And so by, realising that that is my value and making choices around that value, I now feel good. It’s actually amazing.

Figuring out your values is quite simple. You say to yourself, “Okay, I value this”, and then you start acting on it. Life improves. You can trust me, because I’ve experienced this myself and seen my clients experience it too.

A final value is humour. I try to value humour because I like to think I’m an amusing person. But, I don’t know, there is a chance that I just think I’ve been funny when actually I’ve been annoying.

Who knows? But it’s one of my values, and it’s why I don’t take myself too seriously with these my writing or in anything else that I do, because I think, ultimately, life is just one big joke without a punchline. And so if you take it too seriously, you’re always going to lapse into being unreal. And ultimately, that is why I say these stupid things and I like to joke around with people in real life and, have relationships where people can have banter and so on and so forth. It’s very important to me.

Maybe you’re a humourless individual, that’s fine. Like, we don’t all have to share the same values. That’s one of the good things about values. They belong to us and we can define them as we choose to define them.

When defining your core values, you need to define them on your own terms.

When you’re defining your values, so in my case, the ones I’ve just said shared health,- freedom, creativity, and humour – what those words mean to me, because these are my values, is important.

If you say, “Well, actually, ‘health’ doesn’t mean doing yoga every day and going hiking, because if you do yoga every day, you’re putting your body through too much of [whatever bullshit thing someone might say]”, that’s fine.

But for me, doing yoga every day and going hiking embodies my value of health. That’s what health means to me: looking after myself to the greatest extent possible, my mind and my body, which is what yoga does. And then that’s fine.

Creativity means (to me, again) working on creative projects, duh. It means being present enough to make my unconscious conscious and blah, blah, blah. I won’t talk about that too much. But the point is, once you’ve understood the word, or once you’ve uncovered the word that encapsulates your value, well, the only definition that it really needs to meet is yours, because we’re talking about your values.

There’ll probably be overlap between my definition and your definition but the little nuances are, the things that are going to make it truly yours.

So just remember once you’ve figured out your own values, you need to define them on your own terms so you can truly make them yours. Let’s figure out how you can do that.

Any transformational journey involves three stages: Awareness, Acceptance, and (inspired) Action

If you find yourself on any kind of transformational journey in life, you’re ultimately going to end up walking through three stages, Awareness, Acceptance, and Action. This is something I talk about all the time because I use that in my coaching practice.

Ultimately, Awareness, Acceptance, and Action are going to take you from where you are now to where you want to be. And it’s no different when it comes to your values and figuring out what they are and then translating them into action or a sense of purpose or whatever you want to do with them.

Now, Awareness is always the first starting point of these transformational journeys because it ultimately just means asking yourself different questions to the ones you normally do.

If you ask yourself different questions to what you usually do, then you’re going to get insight and you’re going to uncover some new truth or some reality that you may have been avoiding because of ego resistance or distortion or simple ignorance – or whatever it is – and you’re going to have a stronger foundation on which to build your life.

And when it comes to values, it’s exactly the same thing. If you want to take yourself through, a values elicitation exercise, which is what coaches like to call these things, then it starts with simple questions.

Although there are actually thousands of values elicitation exercises, I like to use two really simple questions which are kind of related. But if you ask them and answer them honestly and then reverse engineer the answers to figure out what values are embodied in said answers, you can actually learn a lot.

So the two questions are basically the same question in two different ways:

When have you felt most alive or best in life?
When have you felt least alive or worst in life?

Now, answering both is recommended, but just for the sake of brevity, I’ll start with the first question.

You can start to figure out what your core values are by asking the right questions.

When have you felt best or most alive?

In my case, a simple answer to that question goes like this (“Simple”. Simple is, okay):

I’ve felt best and most alive when I’m out in nature hiking. I didn’t mention it earlier, but nature is also one of my core values. But anyway, when I am out in nature hiking, I feel totally present, totally alive, totally connected to all of life around me. And I feel free. I feel totally free. And I’m also doing things which I feel like are, making me healthier. And so just in that simple example of hiking in nature, two of my values become really clear – if I look at the experience, not the concept of it, of hiking, the experience.

What do I feel in that moment? I feel free. I feel healthy and I feel alive. And so if I can take that as being a benchmark for how I want to feel all the time, I can say, “Okay, I value health, I value freedom. How else do I bring these Values into my life when I’m not out there hiking – just going about my day to day business or designing my lifestyle?

“Well, okay, I’m going to make sure I have freedom in my business, freedom in relationships. Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom. How do I bring that into my life?”

And so, if you can answer those simple questions, one, the other, or both, then you can do the same thing: you can start to figure out what your core values are. Now, if you need some inspiration, because obviously we’re dealing with abstract concepts here. Abstract qualities

There’s a big list of values here. Or, if you want to take it up a notch, I have a free course, a seven day course called the Seven Day Personality Transplant System, Shock For Realness And Life Purpose. Long ass title.

The first module of the course is about death and how you can use your time to make sure that you make real choices around your values. And the first exercise for day one of the course is about going through this big list of values and then prioritising what yours are so you can boil it down to your core five values. So you can do that or you can answer those questions.

The 7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock for Realness & Life Purpose is a complete course with 158-page workbook for deep diving into your ‘stuff’ and growing REAL.

Either way, you don’t have to do loads of work. You just have to raise awareness, ask yourself the right questions and then say, “Okay, these are my values. Now what am I going to do with them?”

Let’s talk about that now.

What to do with your core values once you’ve figured them out.

Once you’ve raised awareness of your core values, you need to actually accept the value and then take action on it. Awareness, Acceptance, and Action – it’s always about these three things.

Accepting your values means basically that you’re going to commit to them. If you don’t commit to them, then you’re just going to kind of let the world push you around and you’re going to compromise on the quality of your lifestyle and all that kind of stuff. And you’re not going to get the values that you need to be brought into your life on a consistent basis. So you need to accept them, which is about committing to them – basically saying, “Oh, okay, this truly is my value and so I’m going to do something with it”.

Then you need to take action. Taking action means that you change your values or translate your values into goals. So let’s keep it simple. If you value ‘freedom’ and your life right now doesn’t really have that much freedom because you’ve got a job that you don’t like and, your relationship, for whatever reason, is kind of toxic or whatever it is (because in this imaginary example, you’ve got unhealthy boundaries, blah, blah, blah). You basically feel that there’s no freedom in your life.

Or let’s take another example, ‘creativity’. You realise that you value creativity because the time you felt most alive was when you were painting a picture or something. And so you’re like, “Okay, I need to bring more creativity into my life. But right now, there’s lack of it.”

Once you’ve committed to that value, because you acknowledge that it is a real part of who you are, you need to act on it and turn it into a goal. So all that means is you come up with something specific that you want to do with it.

Remember the Lamborghini example right at the start where we said it’s the goal behind the goal that makes the real difference.

Maybe you think, “Okay, I want to bring more freedom into my life. My job sucks, so I’m going to quit my job right now.”

It might not be time to quit your job, although you can still put yourself on the path to eventually quitting if you’re truly committed to that value instead. Maybe a better thing to do right now is to find something like hiking or yoga or whatever it is. I’m just using my own examples because I’m so self-cantered but, basically, you need to find something that is going to bring more freedom into your life until you’re ready to quit your job and bring creativity and freedom into your life to a greater degree.

Maybe it just means you set yourself a goal: Painting a picture at least once a week. Keep it simple. None of this needs to be complicated but the point is, the more that you accept those values and commit to them, the more likely you are to act on them once you figure out what the goal looks like. And, day by day, your life is going to become much more real.

Because, as I said earlier:

Real in, real out; unreal in, unreal out.

And so if you start acting on the real stuff, with real goals based around your values, then your life is going to become much better.

You can do values elicitation work in a real way or an unreal way.

So the final thing I want to say is that – as with anything else in life – you can do this values elicitation work in a real way or an unreal way.

Real means, ultimately, that it’s putting you on the path towards wholeness. Wholeness, for simplicity, means a connection to yourself, a connection to other people, and a connection to life itself. And you can only have that connection if you’re willing to face the truth.

The opposite of that is, fragmentation. Fragmentation means that you are divided within yourself and you’re identifying with a false version, aka the ego, because of underlying emotional stuff, shame, guilt and trauma, and because of social conditioning from the world telling you that you don’t deserve to live your real values, or that you’re not good enough to live your real values or any other bullshit like that.

Now, when it comes to values, we can fall into the trap that I kind of talked about at the start of the video, where we value surface level things that we think are going to fill the void within us rather than finding the things within us that have been denied and putting them out into the world.

That’s a really subtle distinction, but it makes a big, big difference in your life. And the way that I normally describe it to my clients is that you’re either running towards something real or away from something unreal.

You want to be running towards something REAL – which means you figured out the true values within you that are aligned with wholeness and the journey towards growth and expansion that we’re all on (because everything in real life is changing and evolving). If we’re not on track with that, if we’re not moving with it, then we’re always resisting and distorting our relationship with life behind ego (running away from the unreal because the ego is always an attempt to hide from unreal emotions).

If you can figure out the values that are aligned with that journey towards wholeness – that natural drive that we all have – then you’re going to put yourself in a better position to grow REAL.

These kind of values are things like truth, because without the truth, you’re not going to be able to really dive inside yourself and find anything truly of value. Creativity, because we’re all creative when we’re real, and creativity allows us to stay curious and work with uncertainty and keep moving, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, etc.

What I’m saying is there are some values that support your growth, other values that you only really value because you’re disconnected within yourself, because of underlying emotional stuff – usually shame, guilt and/or trauma. The second type (unreal) is going to show up as, things that actually seem attractive to the ego side of you, but they’re going to stop you from growing.

And that’s things like valuing money for the sake of money, not the goal behind the goal that I was talking about earlier with the Lamborghini example, where money is going to give you freedom, it’s going to allow you to give more, it’s going to allow you to do, the things you’ve always wanted to do and get experiences.

If you just value money for the sake of it, probably there’ll be some egotistical thing going on inside you where you think, “Okay, if I have money, then I’m going to fill the void inside myself”, which won’t happen (well… maybe in the short term, but it will be short-lived)

Or maybe you think, I’m going to feel superior to other people, which is going to help me deal with this feeling of shame, blah, blah, blah.” The point is, there are real values that are going to make you real. There are unreal values that are going to make you feel okay in the short term, but they’re not really going to change anything. And so that is why you need to go through this process. I’m talking about of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action.

Remember that if you become aware and accept and act on something real, you get real out. And if you put something unreal in because you’re not being real with yourself, you’re just going to get unreal back.

That’s how life works. And so if you can figure out your real values, act on them, life gets a lot better. You’ll feel good, and you’ll ultimately end up where you need to be, whether you get the surface level goals that you think you need or not, because you know that the goal behind the goal is always a real value.

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Sexual Polarity and the Shadow Self (Divine Masculine and Feminine Energy)

Published on

Creativity/Life Philosophy/Psychology/Relationships/Shadow Life

There’s a high chance that you’ve become disconnected from your own nature – this article will help you get back in touch with something REAL by understanding the concept of SEXUAL POLARITY.

If you’re feeling stuck, you’re feeling lost, you’re feeling restless, you’re feeling like there’s a void or that there’s more to life and that you can express more of who you are in the world, then there’s a very, very high chance that you’ve become disconnected at some level from your own nature – especially in the form of either your masculine or feminine energy (if you want to use the word ‘energy’). Either that or it has become out of balance in some way.

In other words, you’ve developed an unhealthy, distorted relationship with your sexual energy because you’re not being real with yourself. And normally this happens because of unresolved emotional stuff – shame, guilt and trauma are the main ones – or because of social conditioning that is telling you that your sexual energy, your nature, is unnatural in some way, or that it should be refined in a socially acceptable manner or whatever it is.

In other words, there are outside sources, outside forces coming into your experience of yourself that are basically acting as a barrier that is stopping you from letting out what needs to be put out into the world. And so ultimately, this comes down to a theme that has come up so many times now on my YouTube channel, which is that there’s a dance between the ego and the shadow.

If you haven’t heard me rant about that before, it’s super simple:

Basically, when we feel shame, guilt and trauma, or we get social conditioning and we cave into it, we create a little version of ourselves, a fragmented version of ourselves, which is a box that we live in. And the only way that we can stay in that box is by disowning really important parts of who we are. It can be our emotions. It can be our true goals. It can be our values. It can be our sexual energy – which is theme of this article.

All of those things that we disown end up being stored in the shadow self, the shadow territory, as I like to call it. And we basically spend our whole lives filtering everything through the ego so that we can pretend those things don’t exist. But because they’re real, they never go anywhere. And it causes all kinds of problems in people’s lives in the form of friction, frustration, misery, relationship problems, the feeling of restlessness and void, and all the stuff I said a few paragraphs back.

And so the solution to many of our problems in life, as always, comes back to being as real as possible. And so this article is ultimately about how – for many, many people – the next level of realness for them is to face their own nature in terms of the predominant sexual polarity that they need to be expressing in the world – either masculine or feminine.

This article is going to be about some of the bullshit out there that you can avoid if you want to be happy, but also how you can start bringing this stuff to the surface by using your creativity, pushing through your ego, and allowing who you really are to actually be expressed instead of repressed so you can stop holding back and hesitating and go live a REAL life.

The big nature vs. nurture debate and REALNESS.

So there’s a big debate in society that’s been going on for years and years about whether nature or nurture takes precedence when it comes to the human condition and the things that impact our lives and how they unfold and all that kind of stuff.

The consensus is that we need both. We need nature, obviously, because nature is nature. You can’t get rid of it. But we also need nurture, which means that if you create the right conditions, the right environment, then you can basically create any version of yourself that you want in order to get where you want to go and be happy and all that kind of stuff.

Both of those things are kind of true, but if they get out of balance, then it causes all kinds of problems in our lives. If we lean too much into the nature stuff, then we risk kind of becoming hedonistic. We live in the short term. We become driven by our instincts and just act on any impulse that pops up in our experience and all that kind of stuff.

If we lean too much to the nurture stuff, then we kind of become a bit too neurotic and detached from life itself, because we think ourselves into a way of being that keeps us in our comfort zone and where we try and control everything. And so another way of looking at it is that nature is about chaos, nurture is about control. And both of those things are kind of disruptive if we don’t see them in a real way.

Actually, we need both, but we need to accept and embrace that, but nature always takes precedence over nurture. And the reason for that is that nature is connected to reality. It has nothing to do with human ideas. It has nothing to do with human concepts. It just is what it is. And if it is what it is, then it’s real.

The only thing you can do with reality is accept it. And so that is the foundation for building a real life. The danger of the nurture stuff is that it’s filtered through all of our thoughts. And that most of our thoughts come from the ego, which, as we said at the start of the article, has been created because of our underlying shame, guilt, and trauma, and social conditioning.

And so, when we filter nurture through the ego stuff, we actually just exacerbate the problem – the problem being a disconnection from who we really are. A lot of people fear nature, though, because of the chaos and when it comes to our sexual energy that’s why a lot of women out there have become afraid of their femininity. It’s also why a lot of men out there have become afraid of their masculinity, because they don’t actually know how to take responsibility for the energy and direct it in alignment with their true values and their true intentions.

The other thing, of course, is that society has been built in such a way where men now fear women, and women fear men. And so everybody is kind of trying to meet in the middle in general – like out in public, at least when behind closed doors, it’s a totally different story. But in general, if we’re trying to fit into society, people are kind of meeting in the middle. And you have this this kind of, uh, androgynous, kind of wishy-washy culture where people are just all trying to be the same.

That is totally unreal, because we need both masculine and feminine. We need masculine and feminine to be expressed in a real way, because they complement each other.

And if you don’t have that complementary way of being, then everything just feels kind of empty and unreal. And that void that we were talking about at the start of the essay, the restless feeling – because the truth is hidden in the shadows – just keeps getting worse and worse because nobody’s being real.

And so the way back to reality is to get away from the 50-50 thing and to go back in alignment with the natural laws of reality and life itself. And an ancient, ancient way of describing these natural laws is something you’ve probably all seen before: Yin and Yang.

I’m going to talk about that now because it actually sums up loads of stuff really, really well (and that’s probably why it’s lasted for so long). So let’s take a quick look at that.

Now, here’s the famous Yin Yang symbol. Everybody on the planet pretty much has seen this. And the reason it’s endured over so many generations is because it’s so real. It just makes so much sense of the natural laws. It sums it all up.

Basically, we have a circle, which is a symbol for wholeness, but then within the circle we have the perfect unity of masculine and feminine, and each one has the seed of its opposite within itself. That’s really, really important, because nobody is 100% masculine or 100% feminine. We all need the opposite within us to some degree so that we can become balanced and real. The thing is, you never ever want to be 50-50 because if you become 50-50, well, life just gets really boring.

Maybe you’d feel enlightened and you’d be like floating around on a cloud or something, but life would be really boring if you were just totally balanced within yourself. And it’s probably impossible here on planet Earth, which is why we need other people to complement us. This is the other reason that Yin and Yang is such a great summary of these natural laws that apply to us. All these forces are not in opposition. Masculine is not better than feminine. Feminine is not better than masculine. They’re equal, but they’re different. And more importantly, they complement each other.

That is the reason these things are so important. If you know what your predominant sexual polarity is then you can find a person that complements you. Or if you want to be single, you can go out into the world and find activities and environments and places that complement what’s going on inside you. So you can feel that real connection to life.

So Yin and Yang basically sums this all up. It’s the whole thing. So it’s all about wholeness. And it shows how within the whole, these two forces need to come together so that we can actually embrace what that wholeness is. And that’s a great summary for this whole thing – because, ultimately, if you can understand that, then you can figure out who you are and what you need, and you won’t be scared to embrace it because you know it’s real.

So all you can do now is accept it. And then you work with it and everything will work out. It’ll be amazing.

One thing that I love to say is that “the ego is the opposite of reality”. And that’s because the ego is the only thing that can cause you to distort or to resist your relationship with the truth. And if you want to live a good life, really, it’s quite simple: You just need to: 1) uncover the truth, and then 2) live the truth – because if you uncover the truth by raising awareness, then that will lead you to acceptance. And if you get to a place of acceptance, then any action that you do take in the world is going to be more real. It’s going to be aligned with who you really are. And that’s what this is all about.

So if you uncover the truth and then live the truth, things will work out. And the thing that can only ever stop you doing that is ego: the fragmented idea of yourself that stops you from moving with wholeness. Now, in relation to our sexual energy and all the stuff that we’re talking about in this article – masculine and feminine and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah – the ego is the thing that will either cause you to resist it in the sense that we’ve already kind of talked about.

When this happens you’ll bury it deep within the shadow territory, pretend it’s not there, stop taking responsibility for it and become unable to go in the direction that you want to move in whilst having an authentic relationship with that energy – either that or you’re going to distort it. And really there’s only two ways that you can distort things: You can either see it as been too little or as too much. And that happens with both masculine and feminine energy in our relationship with it.

So I want to talk about unreal relationships at both of those levels because of the way we distort by either being too little or too much in touch with it.

Unreal relationships are when you’re not grounded in reality itself – you’re either too much or too little of some idea.

The Unreal Masculine

So let’s start with the unreal masculine. I’ll keep it short and sweet, but hopefully it’s going to give you some good info. Unreal relationships basically are when you are not coming from a place of acceptance and a place of being rooted in wholeness or reality itself – that ultimately just means that you’ve been very present.

You’re totally conscious and aware to the greatest extent possible. And you’re not thinking your way through life; you’re experiencing life.

That comes with a cost. The cost of being fully present is that you have to let go of all the illusions and all the bullshit that stop you from being present. All the distractions, all of that stuff. And if you’re at the start of a journey of trying to return to presence/realness, then you’re going to have a lot of those emotions I was talking about at the start: shame, guilt and trauma. And because of that, you’ll be in an ego driven place.

The only way to return to this place of wholeness, which is real, of pure presence, is to ride through that which is obviously going to be painful. And so because most people want to avoid that pain, they go to one extreme or the other of either having a very low, weak expression of their masculinity, or they turn up the volume in order to compensate for those feelings of shame, guilt and/or trauma, and they become almost a cartoon caricature of what they think masculinity is, which is when you end up being like a toxic male bro and all that kind of stuff (whatever people want to call it).

Now, the balance is not to be too much or not to be too little, but to be grounded where you actually are in the present moment, and to be able to respond to life without letting anything shake you from yourself. That is masculinity.

In Hinduism, they have Shiva and Shakti, which is basically their version of Yin and Yang. Shiva is the archetype for masculinity, and the short version of describing it is just “pure consciousness”. Nothing can shake it from itself. It’s totally, totally grounded. And if you don’t have that, then ultimately you’ve been unreal in some way. And the way it normally shows up is too little – where people are detached from their masculinity for all the reasons that we talked about: shame, guilt, and trauma, lost behind the ego, hidden in the shadow self.

And when that happens, they become detached from their purpose. They become wishy washy. They have unhealthy boundaries. They’re constantly being told what to do. They’re detached from their true values and intentions. Their life is not their life because they’re not grounded in the truth, which is pure presence. And so they’re letting the world tell them what to do. That’s too little masculinity.

But then the opposite end of the spectrum is also unreal. It’s where people realise, “Okay, I’m detached from m my masculinity. So I’m going to turn up the volume and become like a caricature of what I think masculinity means. I’m going to become hyper-aggressive. I’m going to become a total asshole, basically. I’m going to basically try and dominate the world around me to compensate for the feeling of inferiority that I have now.”

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be aggressive. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go for your goals. It doesn’t mean you should take any shit. It just means if you’ve turned the volume all the way up because you feel like you’re detached from who you really need to be, then that’s just as unreal as being one of these weak willed, wishy washy guys that just has no purpose and anything like that.

The other thing about the purpose thing is that there’s a difference between a real purpose and an unreal purpose. And so when some people turn the volume all the way up in this compensatory way that I’m talking about, they’re acting and taking a lot of action, like a hustler or a grinder – whatever you want to call it – but they’re doing that purely for the sake of taking action to fill the void inside themselves. They’re not acting from the present grounded place of Shiva consciousness, whatever you want to call it, where they can take inspired action.

So the main difference between an unreal and a real masculine is that one is putting their being into their doing, and one is either doing f*ck all because they’ve been weak and passive, or they’re doing too much, but not as a way of putting their being into their doing, but as a way of doing things to mask the lack of connection to their being. Something like that.

The Unreal Feminine

The unreal feminine becomes unreal in exactly the same way as the masculine does. It’s either too much or too little – but too much or too little of what?

Well, if we go back to the Shiva Shakti thing, Shiva – the masculine archetype in Hinduism – is about pure consciousness, pure awareness, wholeness. In other words, Shakti, the feminine equivalent, which is complementary, like the Yin and Yang thing, is not about stillness, but about motion. And that is why a lot of the feminine qualities that we associate with femininity are about movement: whether it’s about emotion moving through them, whether it’s about dancing and getting in the body and all that kind of sensuous stuff.

The feminine is ultimately that. It’s about using movement to return to the present moment. And it complements the stillness of the masculine because those two bring each other together.

But anyway, if it’s too little, well, the feminine isn’t moving, and the energy within them becomes stagnated. They don’t express their emotions. They suppress them. Then they become stressed, they become burned out, they become depressed. And that is why a lot of feminine women use their bodies to return to wholeness.

Basically, there’s yoga, which I also do. I love yoga. But dancing, singing, all that kind of stuff. Ultimately, that is because motion and movement gets them back to the present moment.

Now, if it’s too much, they move too much, they kind of lapse into a victim mindset. They become really passive, and they just let life move them all over the place. They lose touch with their vision, etc. etc.

The problem is, as with masculinity, a lot of women, because of what we’re saying at the start of the essay – about social conditioning and the ego and blah, blah, blah – they’ve got stuck in this place where they’re 50-50, they’re trying to be like a man and vice versa. And when they wake up to that, because a lot of people do wake up to it, eventually they turn the volume all the way up and it becomes like an extreme version of what femininity is, and they lose control, basically.

They get in all kinds of situations they don’t want to be in. They have people take advantage of them. Their emotions take over completely. And then they just become so open minded that their brains fall out. And again, it’s about finding balance.

And the only way that you can find balance is by taking responsibility for your own energy, but giving it a direction to move in. If you don’t give it a direction to move in, that’s when you end up being totally lost. And that is the final part of this essay coming up, talking about how you can do that.

So you can embrace the energy, you’re aware of it, you accept it, but then you can take action with it that is going to be authentic and take you to a place that you want to go, not to one that’s just going to exacerbate the problems in your life and make everything worse.

The creative process is the process of allowing the unconscious to become conscious.

So what are you supposed to do if you realize that you have some of the problems we’ve kind of started to unpack in this essay?

If you realise that your ego, because of your emotional stuff and social conditioning, telling you that you should be a certain way, has caused you to hide your nature in the shadows? Or if you started to bring that nature to the surface, but it’s gone too far in either direction, you’ve either turned the volume all the way up because you’re trying to compensate, because you’ve become aware of the detachment?

Or what if you’re sort of aware of it but you’re afraid and you’ve just tried to hide it, you’ve turned the volume down and you’ve become kind of a weak expression of your own nature?

Well, whether it’s self-induced because of the emotional stuff or if it’s social conditioning, the problem is the same: The problem is that your shadow self is not getting an outlet for expression. And normally when I’m coaching people, what I find is there will be some goal in their life, some calling from the unconscious mind that needs to be made conscious, that is going to allow the shadow to become more ‘embodied’, shall we say, in the lives of the person in question.

Normally, that goal is going to be some creative thing because the creative process, ultimately, is the process of allowing the unconscious to become conscious, for us to deconstruct the ego, i.e., raise awareness of how we’re holding ourselves back with social conditioning and self-limiting beliefs and all that stuff, so that we can allow integration of all those parts that we disowned by creating the ego in the first place (in other words, we can integrate the shadow).

If you look inside yourself, or if you just ask yourself honestly, there will probably be something that you want to do that you’re avoiding. It’s going to be some creative thing.

Creative in this context is just anything that is going to bring you back to the present moment and make the unconscious conscious. It might be like a business idea that you’ve had. It might be a literal creative project, like some kind of a musical thing or an artistic thing or whatever it is. There’ll be something that you’re called to do, but you’re holding back on it because of the ego and the way that it talks to you and causes you to believe you have to be this limited version of yourself.

What you need to do is to create a vision for moving forward with whatever that is. And as you do move forward with it, you will basically learn to deprogram yourself from trying to control everything with the ego stuff and to get into this more fluid, chaotic way of being that your true nature actually asks you to work with. But because you’re moving in alignment with a vision, you’re going to have a sense of order and chaos, and you’re going to bring them together.

If you can do that well, you will move forward in life in the way that you want to move forward – you’ll be doing things that are authentic to you. But more importantly, you’re going to bring these qualities that you’ve been hiding from yourself back to the surface. You’re going to bring them into balance by merging order and chaos with the vision and the more chaotic stuff that’s kind of motivating that vision. And you’re going to get where you want to be.

And so that’s kind of a roundabout way of finishing this article, I guess. But what I’m saying is, if you can find something from your shadow that you can start acting on and you can turn it into a vision within the wider context of your life, then you’re going to either solve this problem or at least start solving this problem. because you’re going to not be living as an idea, but you’re going to be living as an experience of yourself and your nature going to come to the surface.

You’re not just going to be nurturing yourself, nurturing with the ego stuff, and you can be more real in your own NATURE.

Join my mailing list if you want regular tips and insights about growing real and becoming more aligned with your creativity.

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Creative Status: Episode 63: Ashton Rodenhiser: Doodling, Death, & REALNESS

Published on December 25, 2023

Creative Status: Deconstruct ego, integrate the shadow, manifest real life.

Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.

Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.

Get ready to ignite your creativity on this episode of Creative Status, where we bring you an inspiring conversation with Ashton Rodenhiser.

Join us as we explore the transformative power of doodling, the demise of inhibition, and the emergence of unapologetic REALNESS by facing life HEAD ON.

The Doodle Revolution: Ashton’s journey from frustrated note-taker to skilled sketchnoter is nothing short of a revolution.

Discover how the art of doodling can not only make learning enjoyable but also unlock new dimensions of creativity.

Courage Through Creativity: Ashton is on a mission to teach others the magic of harnessing creativity and embracing imperfection fearlessly.

Find out how doodling becomes a catalyst for capturing information in fresh, powerful, and enjoyable ways.

Death to Inhibition, Birth of REALNESS: Dive into a conversation that goes beyond the surface, exploring the death of inhibitions through doodling.

Ashton Rodenhiser guides us on a journey where courage meets creativity, and self-expression takes center stage.

Creative Status: Where Doodling Sparks Courage and Creativity

Join us for an episode that promises to elevate your creative status. Ashton Rodenhiser and Oli Anderson invite you to embrace the doodle, break free from constraints, and rediscover the joy of your unfiltered, creative self.

Tune in and let the doodles inspire your journey to uncharted creative territories back to REALNESS!

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

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Doodling, Death, & REALNESS (Show Transcript)

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. This is a podcast about using your creativity to tap into your realness. Your realness is ultimately a sense of unconditional acceptance, and you can get there by using creativity as a vehicle for making the unconscious conscious.

So you can unblock, whatever you’re blocking within yourself and find the truth. So you can have a better relationship with yourself, the world, and life itself, by extension. Today’s episode is for you if you’re ready to face life head on, but you want to play with it and experiment a little bit.

It’s an interview with Ashton Rodenhiser. Her, expertise is helping people to understand themselves and life and creativity through the process of doodling.

This is an awesome conversation where we talk about accepting life, death, how doodling can help us to take an experimental approach to figuring ourselves out, figuring out what’s going on, and basically just learning to enjoy the process.

So this was a really awesome one, Ashton. Thank you so much for your time. Everybody else, hope you get some value out of this. Please leave a review so more people can find the podcast if it helps you. And other than that, here we go.

Thanks a bunch. Boom.

Interview

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Ashton. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of creative status. We are going to talk about doodling today, which is a very important topic, I believe, and we’re going to look at how doodling can teach us to be more creative and human, I’m assuming.

Before we get into it, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about, why you like doodling so much anyway, and what you want to get out of this conversation?

Ashton Rodenhiser: Absolutely. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you so much for the invite. And, yeah, so my name is Ashton. I live in Canada. Just to kind of, like, set the scene of where I am today. I live in an old farmhouse on top of a hill surrounded by trees.

It’s beautiful. I have, three small children. Just very, like, part of who I am, important parts. That’s why I always like to mention it. And I’ve always been very creative throughout my whole life. But it wasn’t until about ten years ago I was introduced into the world of doodling and visualizing information to help, people move through, processes and highlighting their own information to them.

So I started working professionally as a visual storyteller, doodler live illustrator, about ten years ago now. So it’s been quite an incredible, interesting, beautiful, complicated journey since then.

Oli: It sounds amazing, and it sounds like you’re living in a fairy tale as well. The house on top of the hill with all the kids everywhere and the leaves and stuff in the trees. That’s awesome. So let’s get right into it.

What is it about doodling that we can call important? Like, people seem to think doodling is a trivial thing, and it is a trivial thing, but it seems like if I’m understanding this properly after our last conversation, that the thing that makes doodling important is the fact that it’s not important, if that makes sense.

Ashton: Yeah. I really love talking about doodling as a beautiful entry point into creativity. And I find that there’s this huge gap between people who think they’re creative and people who don’t think. And I feel like there’s so many people who really struggle with identifying themselves as a creative person.

And, Lisa Condon, in her book ‘Find Your Artistic Voice’, calls it, like, the beginner’s gap is, like, where you want to be. And I find some people just don’t bridge that gap because they’re like, oh, well, I’ll never be like that person who’s super creative, so I’m not even going to bother trying..

So I find doodling as, like, a non-threatening low barrier to entry, way to start making marks that don’t have to really mean much in the beginning to kind of help us start to play around with this idea of our relationship to creativity. And what does that look like?

So, the doodle has got definitely a bad rat. And Sonny Brown, who wrote the doodle revolution, kind of redefines what doodling is, which is making meaningless marks to help yourself think. And I really love that sort of new definition of a doodle, where it is actually an incredibly powerful tool to help us build this relationship with our creativity.

What does that look like? And get, the benefits of what doodling can provide, which is, like, how we think about information and getting that onto paper. So that’s just the beginning of our conversation today.

Oli: You’ve opened up the floodgates now. So let’s start right at the beginning. So some people, like you said, do identify as being non creative, which to me is almost anti human in a way which sounds dramatic, but all I mean by that is I believe that all human beings are creative, and our lives are, a process of constantly creating a deeper and deeper relationship with ourselves, others, and life itself in wholeness. So we all have that basic level of creativity.

Of course, there is another level of creativity where we need to be skilled to get the best results. So if I want to paint like Leonardo da Vinci or whoever, then obviously I need to practice to be able to do that. But in general, we’re all creative, whether we have those skills or not, because those skills just allow us to express more, not to, not be in a state of not being able to express anything, if that makes sense.

So the question is, I guess, how do people find themselves in that state? Do you think, where they think they’re not creative? Where does that come from?

Ashton: Yeah, and I’m definitely on board with you in terms of the same philosophy of really believing that everybody is creative. It’s just a matter of what that means to them. I have a very musical side to myself and a very visual arts side to myself, but that doesn’t mean I think those guys are very common ways. It doesn’t mean that that’s someone’s path to creativity. It could be storytelling or humor or whatever it is – so my experience has been, when having conversations with people about this, is that at some point in their life, whether they remember it or not, most of the time they do, it was told to them, or they had an experience that told them with or without words, you, are not creative.

And their little brain and how we get wired as, like, small children, that little wire gets fused together that says, creativity equals not me. Like, I am not creative. And when I tell this to people, they’re like, oh, most people go, oh, yes, I remember when my teacher told me this, or I remember when my parent just had this very flippant, very small comment. But it’s these little.

For some reason, I think because of what you were saying about creativity is like a human nature. It’s like it’s just part of who we are as humans, that for some reason, maybe that humanity of it, we are more sensitive to the critique of, our creativity.

So that when we’re told, I remember mine very specific, a memory where I then said in my brain, oh, I am not creative. It was my grade four teacher told me I was painting wrong because I was holding the paintbrush wrong, whatever that means. And we have this notion of art and creativity when we’re growing up, that it has to be a certain colour inside the lines, it has to be done a certain way. And, sometimes when my children, they’re like, colour in the lines. I’m like, don’t worry about it.

You don’t have to do that. But even subconsciously, we take on these ways of being when it comes to creativity and has to look a certain way and has to feel a certain way. And if it doesn’t, then we do this brain connection of saying, oh, well, I am not creative.

Oli: Yeah. Ultimately, what we’re talking about, if you think about it, is shame and judgment.

Ashton: Absolutely.

Oli: As soon as shame is brought into our lives, that’s when we end up living as a mental construct or the ego, rather than the experience of whatever it is that we really are. And so as soon as we internalize that shame and it becomes toxic, that’s when we end up holding back, hesitating, being forced, basically to conform to some idea and, set of expectations that only really exists in our heads because we picked it up from the outside world.

And so, as dramatic as it sounds, again, that is why doodling can be kind of revolutionary. Because ultimately, if I understand all this properly, getting people into the swing of things with doodling is ultimately helping them to start rebelling again, in a way.

Ashton: Yeah.

Oli: Do you see what I’m saying?

Ashton: Yeah, I love that way of looking at it, for sure. And because the doodle doesn’t have a lot of pressure, just makes some marks, right. Whereas someone who has this strained relationship with their creativity, getting them to do something might be way too outside of themselves, it might be way too big of a stretch, even if giving them, like, a paint by numbers or something like that might even be way too, like, oh, I can’t do it.

So I love the relationship we can have with doodling is like, because we see it as not really important. It’s kind of like a beautiful gateway into stepping into what creativity looks like for them, whether or not they just stop at just doodling, and that’s great, too.

Or if they go, oh, I did a little doodle that I’m proud of, or I like it, or I love how that little swirl did its thing or whatever. And we don’t have to attach our personality or who we are as people into a doodle where if we’re saying, like, we’ll make something or create something, we tend to attach our humanness to it. Right? Whereas in doodling, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case.

Oli: That’s why it’s so powerful. The main problem, I think, in all of our lives is our personality or ego that we’ve become attached to in order to try and hide from the shame and all the stuff that we picked up in childhood. And that, ultimately, is why this approach to doodling that you’re sharing is important, because it helps you to just be in the present moment, away from your personality, away from your ego and all of the ideas and limited assumptions and stuff that come with it, and you’re just back to your real self in the present moment and you’re reconnecting to just doing things for the sake of doing things.

You’ve been outcome independent instead of trying to fit into the lines or to appease your art teacher or whatever it is, you’re just doing it for the sake of doing it. And actually, I think that is a much more real approach to living and to creativity, which ultimately is real life. And so if you can train yourself to do that, then obviously that’s going to have a lot of benefits.

So are we kind of saying that doodling, for people who are extremely shame-driven at the start of this process, it’s helping them to start dissolving the shame and to kind of rewire their relationship with themselves and their programming and all the kind of things that they’re holding themselves back with?

Ashton: Yeah, I hope so. And I think it can just be a bit of a stepping stone to other explorations or getting back to forms of creativity that maybe they did like in the past. But because doodling is so low barrier to entry, anybody can just pick up a scrap piece of paper and something to write with. Everybody has those materials around them.

Whereas, from a stepping stone perspective, sitting down with paints that you went and purchased with a canvas, you’ve invested, right? So you’re like, if I don’t get into the flow of this, thing, then you start to shame yourself, right? Because we talk about getting into the creative flow, and I think you can do that while doodling.

While there’s no skin in the game, there’s no cost to us. I didn’t have to go out and decide, even I, and I’ve tried many different art forms in my lifetime, but even I would go to an art store and be like, I don’t know what paintbrush to buy. I don’t know what paint to buy. I don’t know what these material. I don’t know what the difference between this ink and this ink is.

And then it makes you feel stupid, right? You’re like, I want to try to do something, but I don’t know what I’m purchasing. And then you do buy stuff and you bring it home and then you don’t use it or you don’t want to start because one, you don’t want to use the expensive materials you just purchased, and two, you don’t want to waste them, right? Because we always feel like we tend to have this product versus process.

Whereas doodling is like a beautiful stepping stone into learning about how you might want to express your creativity. What does that look like for you? You’re like, everybody has a pencil and a piece of paper.

Oli: Yeah.

Ashton: Even if it’s like a broken crayon, like, whatever it is that you need or that you have around you and it doesn’t matter, you can just throw it away. It doesn’t have to be permanent. Right.

Oli: I love how you were talking about the process because I think a lot of the time when we’re caught up in living life filtered through the personality or ego, we’re not really in the process of living. We’re ultimately just. We’re living out scripts and patterns and schema and all these kind of conceptual things that we’ve just been following on autopilot our whole lives.

And when we’re doing that, we’re not in the real process of living. And I think the real process of living is where you’re fully present and you’re in the flow state that you were talking about, and you’re just moving with what needs to happen. You’re making your unconscious become conscious, and you’re just kind of going with life. And the way that life has taken you and all that kind of stuff, there’s no resistance.

It’s a very real way of doing things. And so, doodling is a powerful way to do it, because ultimately, you’re engaged in that process, but you’re engaged in a way that’s outcome independent. And so you don’t care about the results. Actually, you don’t care about the outcome. And that is very different way of living to the way that most people do live, where they think if I get certain outcomes, then I can finally feel good about myself.

If I make enough money, if I get these art materials, if I do this, if I do that, blah, blah, blah, if I get specific results, I can feel good about myself. But that reinforces the shame, because they’re only chasing those results to try and escape from the shame. And so, actually, it’s a really clever way of just circumventing all that psychological bs that holds us all back.

Ashton: Yeah, that’s a really beautiful way to put it. That’s for sure. I love that so much. Yeah, I think it does. everything kind of in our life goes back to those principles that you’re talking about, like the shame, the judgment, internalizing all that. That’s for sure. Yeah.

Oli: So how do we extrapolate some of these lessons about doodling in a literal sense and apply them to life. Like, can we doodle our way through life in general, would you say?

Ashton: I’m not sure.

Oli: What might it look like, though, if that’s not putting you on the spot?

Ashton: Oh, my goodness. I think I almost feel like you have to even take a stack and give yourself permission to just put pen to paper again, because even that can be a challenge for people, especially now that we’re in such a technological space – how can we set up our environment?

So that’s a way that we can, like, if you just have a notepad and pen in front of you at all times, or if you have a notepad and pen in your book bag at all times. So that it’s easily accessible, I think. So that when you’re like, oh, I need to remember this thing.

Oh, I could take out my phone and write in an app thing, and maybe you could do that, too, but I can’t remember. I wish I remember where this came from, but I was listening to a podcast a couple of years back, and they just kept, like, a stack of sticky notes in their book bag or whatever with a pen. And every time someone said something that they wanted to remember, they would write it on a sticky note, and then they’d just throw it in their bag, and at the end of the week, they would dump it all out and they would cipher through, and they would throw most of the sticky notes away because they’re like, oh, yeah, that book recommendation, I’m not actually going to read that.

So I throw it, and then they keep the things that they actually want to take action on. And I thought that was a really cool way of working. And I love the doodles and making little notes and things for yourself because we can give permission for that not to be permanent. it doesn’t have to stick around. Whereas as someone who draws professionally for a living, for others, I have to actually tell people, like my clients, please throw this in the garbage. If this is collecting dust after three years, I have to actually tell them that.

And they think, no, I never will. And I’m like, yeah, because in three years, you’ll hear my voice saying, Ashton gave me permission to throw this away because we always photograph it, and it’s so. But it’s like, I think, being able to incorporate making little notes and things for yourself in that way can also give you the permission that it doesn’t. None of it has to be permanent, right?

Oli: Yeah, that’s a really interesting point: the transitory nature of art. There’s a lot of pressure, it seems, when we create things. I’m going to take this in a whole curveball direction now that we started talking about things being temporary. But if you think about it, there’s this book. It’s a really amazing book. I don’t know if you read it?

It’s called ‘The Denial of Death’ by a guy called Ernest Becker. Basically in this book he says, because we’re all secretly scared of dying when we’re filtering life through the ego. That’s how I interpreted it.

Anyway, we try to create these things called immortality projects, and everyone is out there trying to create an immortality project, which is ultimately the most extreme version of outcome dependence. It’s like, right, if I create this business, I’m going to leave a legacy, and then when I’m dead, then people are still going to remember me. or I’m going to paint some amazing pictures, create some amazing music or whatever it is that is going to be my immortality project so that I can basically not have to worry as much about dying.

But actually what you’re talking about is, okay, we can take a very real approach to facing life and reality head on by realizing that art doesn’t have to lead us down that pathway. Like, actually we can throw things away. Like you can create a doodle. You can keep the doodle if you want, or you can just screw up the paper and throw it in the bin, and that’s fine.

And in a way, maybe that’s a more real approach to doing it, because ultimately, and, this is a curveball. Like I said, ultimately, even if you do create a lasting legacy like a business or whatever immortality project you end up creating, you’re still going to be forgotten eventually.

Eventually there’s not going to be anybody around that remembers you. And so all of your creativity is gone anyway. And so actually, by taking this temporary approach to things, you’re kind of putting yourself more actively in the process of how things actually are – and you don’t have to worry about your ego and immortality projects. You can still accept that you’re going to die one day.

But ultimately, I know I’m making this more than it needs to be, maybe, but it’s a very practical way to kind of get into the swing of how life actually is. And it all goes back to the outcome-independence thing, I think.

Ashton: Yeah. And I think because doodling, it doesn’t have that pressure that it’s going to be something that is hung on a wall right.

Oli: Yeah.

Ashton: We have to kind of redefine, what art is in general. And I love the concept of using drawing and doodling as a tool. Like it’s doing something for you, whether it’s just to be in the flow and just make some marks or whatever, or you’re trying to think about a process and get it out of your head and put it down on pape. but I take pictures of my kids artwork, and I throw it all away. We can’t hold on to all of the things we’ve ever created.

Oli: The same thing applies to our lives, if you think about it? Yeah, I am getting a bit carried away. I’ve had a lot of coffee.

Ashton: That’s okay. That’s okay.

Oli: If you think about it, ultimately, for most of us on the planet, our lives are just a doodle that’s going to get thrown away. We’re kind of just plodding along, experimenting with things here and there. Some things go right? Some things don’t.

If we’re still in that place we were talking about at the start, where we’re driven by shame and judgment, then we’re going to be putting so much pressure on ourselves to turn this little doodle into something that it can never be like something that’s going to make us immortal, ultimately, or just everyone’s going to be giving us accolades and round of applause everywhere go whatever it is.

But actually, most of us are living a doodle, and we make ourselves miserable by treating the doodle as something else. And so if we can appreciate that, it just takes off so much pressure. That’s honestly how I think. And the only way you can get into the flow state, really, and live in that real way, that real process of flowing towards your vision is to let go of all the pressure of not seeing the doodle as the doodle, if that makes sense.

So, I guess the question is, am I getting too carried away? And if not, how do we make this practical? Like, in practical terms, how can we just appreciate the great doodle of the human condition?

Ashton: Oh, my gosh. I don’t know. But can I tell you a little story of a little vision that went on in my head while you were talking?

Oli: Yeah, definitely.

Ashton: I had this vision of being in a super fancy art gallery and just having doodles, like, on sticky notes all over the wall. And the installation is me taking each one off the wall and putting it in the garbage. That’s the installation.

Oli: Yeah. I think you need to do it.

Ashton: People don’t even get to even necessarily see them – they’re not going to see them all, because at the beginning of the time, you start throwing them away one at a time. So by the end of that time is over, they’re put in the garbage, right?

Oli: Yeah. Now I’m getting an image in my head. And it’s ultimately that installation that you’ve just described is how the universe sees us.

We’re just kind of doodles that get created for a short amount of time, and then we get thrown in the bin and nobody really understands what the doodle meant or what it was all about. And we’re just all trying to grasp meaning and make sense of things, but at the end of the day, it all just ends up in the bin.

Ashton: Yeah.

Oli: What a cheerful podcast episode this is turning out to be. Death. Throwing things away, our ego shame. Oh, it’s all the good stuff. It’s all the life stuff, but we’re doodling our way through it. That’s how it seems to me.

So how do we bring this back down to earth?

So, ultimately, what I’ve learned so far is that doodles can help me to bridge the gap between my fear of creativity because of the judgment I’ve picked up, it can put me on the path to doing greater things. But ultimately, if I do it right, it will also teach me that nothing really matters. And, that somehow embracing that is going to allow me to feel a lot more freedom, I guess, and to tap into my creativity and all that kind of stuff. Maybe this is a good point to think about the benefits.

So, earlier on, you said there’s a lot of benefits to doodling. We’ve basically concluded that the main benefit is that it’s going to help us to accept that we’re all going to die one day and nothing means anything. But what are some other benefits of doodling in this fashion that we’re now talking about?

Ashton: Oh, my gosh. Well, I love to work with people and do doodling in a sense of, looking at our own wisdom. Right. And by putting notes and things on paper, it can help us connect to that information and help us remember it. So even when the things that exists are just the memories in our minds. So just doodling can help us remember up to 29% more of information that we might be listening to.

Oli: Wow.

Ashton: Right. So if you doodle for yourself, or if you’re listening to something and making a little doodle, then I, love the fact that it can help you remember things. I love talking about doodling from a learning perspective I went back to see if I could find any doodles or notes I’d made of this video that I watched a few months back, and I couldn’t find it.

And I’m like, well, I don’t remember anything from that video that I watched, and I really liked the information, but I can’t remember what the guy said, so I have to go back and rewatch it and then make some doodles about it. But I could have saved myself all the time if I would have just made some doodles when I watched it the first time. so because we only have one life, as we’re talking about life and death, we don’t necessarily have all this free time to go back and rewatch stuff, and we do live in a very instant gratification world, and doodling can actually help us benefit from this kind of way that we’ve set things up.

Because if you can make some old doodles about something that you’re feeling or something that you’re working through or something you’re listening to and trying to learn from, it can just kind of expedite. And I would hope if you’re listening to something and you want to take it into action, you have to kind of remember it in order to put it into action.

So I love talking about doodling from a learning perspective. I think kids should be not just accepted, but encouraged to doodle in the classroom. I think we’ve done ourselves a huge disservice by taking that and making it a thing that if everybody thinks it’s distracting, but it’s actually helping you stay focused, especially for students that need to be manipulating something, they need to be doing something while they’re learning.

And I feel like we’ve done, students in particular, really great disservice by not letting them and shaming them for doodling. because there’s not a ton of science, but the brain science is there because most of us think in pictures.. Putting a picture to our thinking, to our learning, solidifies that moving forward..

Oli: So that is super practical. That’s a really amazing, thing that you shared. I know you just said there’s not that much scientific research around it or whatever, but do you think we can make an assumption that when you’re doing that, you’re basically making a stronger connection between your unconscious and conscious mind?

So the level of your thoughts and learning and conceptual knowledge and all that kind of stuff. Okay, you’re bringing in information, but by doodling, you’re basically creating some kind of a picture that your unconscious mind is storing to help your memory, something like that. Like, what do you think is going on?

Ashton: Yeah, I guess it’s possible, because for me, I feel like when you get into that flow state, when you experience it, that’s what you’re doing. You’re tapping into that other side of yourself that isn’t necessarily, actively thinking in that moment, potentially.

So, yeah, I definitely think there is, like, a possibility to be able to kind of tap into, but, yeah, letting go of it and trying not to worry about the outcome. I like doodling because it just naturally lends itself to not focusing on that outcome. Because if you’re focusing on the outcome, then it’s harder to kind of get into that flow space.

Oli: Yeah. That’s amazing. Well, I feel like we’ve said a lot more about doodling than I thought we would. I didn’t think we were going to go into death and immortality projects and all that kind of stuff. If you were going to sum all this up, how would you do that?

What are your final words of wisdom? I guess based on what we’ve been saying here today in this episode.

Ashton: Yeah, let’s see if I can figure out how to wrap this all up in a bow. I’m not really sure if I can do that, but I think, doodling is natural to us in how we live life and a beautiful way to be able to kind of step into getting comfortable with our relationship with creativity in a very non-threatening, barrier free kind of entry into it. And just, would encourage people just to start doodling if they’re not a doodler, or just keep going if they are.

Oli: Yeah. I suppose one final question is, when you, teach people to doodle, is there a process there? Or do you just say, here’s a pen, here’s paper, see what happens? Or is there a bit more to it?

Ashton: Yeah. I particularly teach people how to take notes, visual notes. But usually my first few processes is like, what do they already have? Most people, whether or not they love their handwriting, can write letters. And breaking down letters. Letters are just a series of different shaped lines. So you can draw. Because you can draw lines, and lines make up everything.

Usually I start with talking about letters and kind of that foundational piece, but then I go into lines and how to use lines and how to draw lines. And why do we use lines? And then we take that line and enclose it into a container. So a square, a circle, and why you would use those pieces and how can you use them? Right?

So because I do visual notetaking, and it’s, a really. And, sketch noting is a common term. So in terms of how when you’re listening to information or you’re trying to think through your ideas, you can use something very basic, like the words you already know how to write, whether or not you like your handwriting. That’s fine. And some lines and some squares, and then you can get to. That’s like, way down the line. But usually I just like working with people to showing them that they can make little doodles just using some lines.

Oli: Wow.

Ashton: Right. As like, a foundational.

Oli: That’s amazing. Have you got, like, I guess a simple exercise that people can do? So if they’ve been listening to this episode and they’re, like, hyped up now to go doodle, is there like, I don’t know, like an exercise you can give people or anything like that?

Ashton: Well, why don’t I tell you what I was doing while we were talking, which might be interesting to people. I don’t know. I just have a little notebook in front of me and pen, and I just wrote words that stuck out to me as you were talking.

So I wrote anti human, I wrote shame brought in. I wrote internalization skills process. And then in really big words, I wrote life is a doodle. We are just going to throw it away. I connected some of those ideas with some lines and some arrows right at its core, what resonated with me while you were talking and some of the words are larger.

Like, the word doodle was really big. Shame is really big. and then just using some lines and some arrows, and I wrote a circle around something. And now, like, wow, I don’t need to keep this. I can throw it away after our call, but it was a way for me to stay present in the moment while you were speaking and being able to have some of those words that I might want to speak to as well..

Oli: Yeah, actually, that’s kind of what I’ve been doing as well. I’ve just been, just writing death over and over again, putting arrows in different places, and some of them are bigger.

Ashton: Little skull, a little crossbow.

Oli: Yes. So anyway, that’s awesome. Where can people find you if they want to check out your website and all that kind of thing?

Ashton: Yeah, I got a couple of different places. My professional live illustration work is at mindseyecreative.ca, and then all things doodling and sketch noting is at sketchnote.school.

Oli: Right. Well, I will share both of those in the show notes, but, Ashton, thank you for this. I’m going to doodle more often from now on, I think.

Ashton: Oh, I’m so glad.

Oli: And, well, I just appreciate your time and energy. It’s been good.

Ashton: No problem. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the conversation.

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Law of Attraction / Manifestation Explained (An Introduction to the Law of Attraction for REALNESS)

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Life Philosophy/Creativity/Mindset

Demystifying the Law of Attraction so you can get REAL results.

This mini-course is about how you can use the law of attraction to get REAL results.

Oh, hi there – Oli Anderson here. Welcome to this mini-course about The Law of Attraction for Realness.

Ultimately, what we’re going to be talking about here is how you can use the law of attraction to get results and to change your life in the way that you might want to.

We’re going to try and do this in a real way which means that we’re going to look at how reality actually works, how human beings actually work and we’re going to have a no bullshit policy basically so that we can avoid a lot of the misconceptions that people have about this stuff and ultimately just get to the nitty gritty – so you can start using this in a very quick way if you haven’t been using it, or to start using it in a real way if you’ve tried using it and haven’t got results yet.

By the end of this you’ll have a better understanding of what the law of attraction really is. You’ll understand how your relationship with yourself ultimately affects your life and you’ll be moving towards some kind of a vision for yourself and your life that gets you pumped up and excited because it’s going to be real and you’ll also know that you have a lot more control over that than you may have initially been led to believe.

This mini-course has six modules.

So I’m going to get right into it. This little mini-course has six modules. So this is just so you know what’s coming up.

We got: 1) An introduction to Law of Attraction. That’s what this article is. We’re going to talk about 2) Mindset and Beliefs that either allow you to get results from the law of attraction or not. We’re going to do some 3) Creative Visualization stuff. We’re going to talk about 4) Inspired Action and then we’re going to look at 5) Gratitude and Appreciation and then we’re going to look at 6) Maintaining Momentum.

It’s all leading up to this idea of maintaining momentum which ultimately just means that you’re going to make some lifestyle changes and you’re going to basically improve your relationship with yourself by improving your relationship with reality.

And then you’re going to get better results because you’re not creating friction or distortion and resistance, which is what we’re going to talk about in this course ultimately.

Your inner vibe will affect your outer world. No question.

So I’m going to get right into it. This is the first module. It’s basically just an introduction to the law of attraction. But it’s not an introduction to the law of attraction as it might have been sold to you before. It’s an introduction to it in a real way.

And ultimately – what that means – is that we’re looking at this definition, a real definition of the law of attraction.

People love to make things more complicated than they actually are. I believe that the reason we make things so complex is because of our egos and the ego needing complexity to be a thing so that we can basically maintain the ego in its current form and then avoid our, emotional, stuff and all this kind of thing.

The simplest definition of the law of attraction is ultimately this: It means that whatever vibe you put out into the world is what you’re going to get back. That’s it. There’s so many things out there that make this so complicated, and they’re all ultimately just metaphors about this same thing, which is, that your inner vibe will affect your outer world.

Now, to what extent that actually might be is up to you to decide. Like some people think your inner state will completely, 100 million% affect everything in your outer experience. Some people might think that it just affects it a little bit. Whatever.

Either way, this law is a natural law that is true and is real and applies to all of us. And so once you start working with it and embracing it – and you start seeing changes in your life because you’ve been using it – then you can decide to what extent you want to go with this. But ultimately, your vibe affects what you get. And, we can call this for simplicity, the Boomerang Effect.

What you throw out there is going to come back to you in some way, shape or form. This is just the natural law of life. Not everybody likes to accept it, because in my opinion, they’re filtering life through their ego and maybe their life sucks. And so they don’t want to take responsibility for their thoughts and say to themselves, “Oh, okay. This crappy situation that I have found myself in is actually a reflection of this crappy relationship inside my head that I have with myself”.

We’ll get into all that but, right now, this is what we are now defining the law of attraction as: “what you throw out there is what you’re going to get back”. And so if you want to improve your life, you need to start throwing out things that are more real, more true, more whole, and all of the other things that we’re about to talk about in this little mini-course.

The short version of understanding this is that if you put something real into life, you will get something real out of life. And conversely, if you put something unreal into life, you’ll get something unreal out of it.

If you’re familiar with my work – you’ve read my books or whatever – well, you’ll have heard me talk about everything ultimately boils down to wholeness or fragmentation. Wholeness means you are connected to yourself, you’re connected to the world, you’re connected to reality because you’ve raised your awareness and you accept things and blah, blah, blah. And so you’re putting the real version of you ultimately out into the world.

The opposite of that – the opposite of wholeness – is fragmentation. Fragmentation means you’ve created a little idea in your head that’s caused you to be disconnected from life itself. And that means that you’re being unreal because you’re always connected to life, whether you know it or you don’t know it. Whether you’re conscious of it or you’re unconscious of it.

And so when you’re fragmented in that way, you’re caught up in your ego, false identity. You put that out into the world, it motivates the things that you do, and your life ends up being unreal.

So in relation to the law of attraction, if you can be real with yourself, well, you’re going to put something real out into life and then you’re going to get something real back. Because of the Boomerang Effect: what you throw out there is always going to come back to you. That is a natural law.

The other thing about this law of attraction thing is because it’s a natural law, it’s always working beneath the surface of our lives, whether we know it or not. And so that means that all of us are always using the law of attraction; we’ve been using it our whole lives. And whatever we have right now in our lives ultimately is massively, massively, massively inspired by that inner relationship or impacted by the law of attraction is a natural law.

We all use it all the time – the only thing is that most of us have been using it unconsciously, without awareness. This course is about changing that so that you can use this natural law, the law of attraction, consciously.

That’s basically all you need to really pick up from this course. Most people are using it unconsciously. It applies to us all. If you want to improve your life, you need to accept it and be aware of it, of course, but then work with it instead of against it. That means making conscious choices, knowing that it’s a real thing and basically managing your inner relationship with yourself, then with life and everything else – so that when you throw these ‘boomerangs’ out, you’re throwing something real and then that is going to come back to you.

One thing that people don’t like about this is that it means – because the law of attraction is always working – that your life right now is a product of what you put out in the past.

So whatever is coming back to you, today, basically, at this particular period of your life where you’re doing this course, whatever is coming back to you is a product of the boomerangs that you’ve thrown out before.

Now, obviously not everybody wants to hear this, especially if their life sucks. And, I can understand that, I guess. But the thing is, this is actually a very powerful thing or empowering thing because it means that you have so much more choice over the future than you may initially have been led to believe.

If your life sucks and you keep focusing on that, well, you’re just going to keep putting out the same old BS and you’re going to keep getting the same BS back because of the boomerangs you’re throwing. I.e. the same boomerangs you’ve been throwing for however many years because of your conditioning and the voices in your head that you’re hypnotizing yourself with.

If you can understand that, if you start throwing out different boomerangs today, more real ones, then eventually the external world is going to catch up with that, and start throwing real stuff back at you, then you realise that we all have a lot of power over our lives. It’s a very amazing, very liberating thing.

A Quick History of The Law Of Attraction.

Here’s a quick history of the law of attraction. Just so you know what we’re talking about and the context that we found ourselves in:

It’s been around since ancient times. And, the reason it’s been around since ancient times is because it’s a natural law. Gravity has been around forever. We may have only discovered it when that apple fell on Isaac Newton’s head, but it was still there before that. It’s the same with the law of attraction. It’s a natural law. And so every human being in the history of human history has been using this law either unconsciously or consciously.

It got popular in the 19th century with the new thought movement: authors like Neville Goddard and Napoleon Hill popularized it. Napoleon Hill wrote that famous book, Think, And Grow Rich.

The Law of Attraction became even more popular with the release of the Secret in 2006 – based on, the work of Abraham Hicks. And then ever since then, there’s just been a load of bullshit and marketing nonsense: Online influencers on Instagram selling all these different techniques and offering it as a panacea to every problem in life.

And it can help you a lot. But ultimately, most of those people are just trying to sell things and it’s not complicated. People need things to be complicated for their own egos and so they can sell things to people that are confused. But basically, this is where we are.

It’s a very controversial concept. The reason it’s controversial is because you can’t prove it objectively. Like even me talking about it now, it might sound like bullshit to some people because I’m basically saying, “Okay, if you change your inner state, then your outer world is going to reflect that and everything can be hunky dory and amazing and beautiful”, but you can’t prove it scientifically because we’re dealing with the inner workings of the mind and our connection to everything else.

The only way you can really find out if the law of attraction works is to start using it.

Science likes to kind of isolate things and break them down and so on and so forth. And it works. It’s all about falsifying things and testing things. That’s awesome. But we’re dealing here with subjective experience and the only way you can really find out if this works is to start using it.

Personally, I didn’t used to believe in the law of attraction. I was very rationally minded individual. I thought that we needed peer reviewed studies for everything and blah, blah, blah. But then I actually started using it and getting results and having all these inexplicable things happen to me. And, now I will never doubt it ever.

But again, don’t just take my word for it. You need to basically start using these principles yourself and you will just see that reality is way more interesting and intricate and intense than we may have been led to believe – basically, reality is controversial.

That’s why I think a lot of people, have an issue with this: the law of attraction means that we can take full responsibility for our lives. Not everybody likes that.

So anyway, it’s controversial. I acknowledge that. I know that by talking about it, some people are going to have an issue. That’s fine. I’m just talking from personal experience and sharing what’s worked for me. And basically that’s that.

There’s a quote from Jesus in the Bible. I’m not like a religious fruitcake or anything like that, but ultimately it’s this:

“Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.” – Matthew 7:7

Now that sounds very, dramatic. And of course, this can be taken completely out of context. You could think that the law of attraction just means that you have to ask for something and then basically that’s it. You don’t have to do anything else.

I believe this quote is true, but it’s not quite as, easy as some people might make it sound or seem. You still have to take action and you still have to do the inner work so that the things you are asking for, seeking and knocking on the door to find are real.

The reason that the law of attraction doesn’t work for a lot of people is because they’re coming from an egotistical place. And so it’s the thing that we just said: unreal in leads to unreal out and so they don’t get the results that they want or they end up miserable.

Some common misconceptions about the law of attraction.

We’re going to talk about this in more detail as we go through the course.

Like I just said, you still need to take action. There’s a lot of bullshit out there that just makes people believe they can just do nothing and all of their dreams will come true. Life doesn’t work like that. You still need to take action and show the world and reality and life and God or whatever it is that you believe in.

This is another misconception: You need to show that you’re serious and you need to take inspired action – which is what we’re going to talk about you have chosen most of the things in your life. But that doesn’t make you God.

There’s so much bullshit out there where people are telling themselves that they’re God, “I’m God, I can control everything”. No, you are the creation. The law of life is the creator. We have all been created by reality itself. And you can call that God or whatever you want to call it.

We did not create everything. We did not create the law of attraction. So if you were a God you would be able to use the law of attraction to get rid of the law of attraction. That isn’t ever going to happen. And so there’s so much bullshit out there which is just ego again because the ego is the illusion of control where people use this stuff to actually make their spiritual problems a lot worse. And so if you start to believe that you’re a God and all that, you’re just going to cause problems for yourself. So that’s a misconception.

Finally. You can only really use the law of attraction with things that are real. That’s why I already said “Real in, real out”.

If you try and get something unreal with the law of attraction you’ll either get it and you’ll be totally miserable because what goes up comes down or you just won’t get it. And then you’ll be frustrated and you’ll think that the law of attraction doesn’t work.

So a lot of this stuff is about going through the process of removing the unreal things inside yourself and unlearning those things so that you can be more real. We’re going to talk about this a lot: Distortion and Resistance – but ultimately the problem for most people is that they ask for things that they really want but then they distort their intentions and desires with ego resistance.

We’re going to talk about this more in the next module, but ultimately you need to know this:

People, think you can just ask and receive, but if you have distortion and resistance, which is always ego, then this stuff is not going to work. And so again, it’s about using the law of attraction to find something real, hold onto it and that’s it.

All we’re doing here is being real, as real as possible and ego resistance is just anything that causes to avoid awareness and acceptance and the natural laws of reality so we can take inspired action. That’s it.

The main thing that causes people to get into ego is shame, guilt and trauma. So this is going to come up a little bit, but basically this is why the inner work is so important.

If you have ego problems, then you have emotional problems and so you need to work on the inner stuff before you’re going to get the outer results. And a lot of people try this without doing the inner work and so they don’t get the results or things get worse for them and they just tell themselves that this is bullshit.

But the reason it seems like bullshit is because they’re coming at it from an unreal point of view. The inner state is the key.

That’s basically what we need to learn in this course: The main thing you need to do is manage your inner state so it’s aligned with the real things that you want. This just means unlearning a lot of the bullshit and conditioning you picked up in life and dissolving into your realness.

You also need to manage your relationship with yourself so you don’t distort your relationship with REALITY worry and fear and doubts.

What we’re trying to do here to make this work and the main point of this little course is you’re trying to get to an inner state where you have a sense of equanimity, you feel good, everything is amazing and then you can start trying to manifest and all that kind of stuff.

Write down a list of things you want to attract in your life.

So that is the end of this first little mini module. If you want an exercise to do so you can kind of integrate this, well, here it is:

Write down a list of things that you want to attract in your life. It could be anything: Material possessions, experiences, personal qualities. A classic way to do this in coaching is to think about what you want to be, what you want to do and what you want to have.

Once you’ve done that, reflect on why these things are either real to you or unreal. If they’re real you’ll know why. If they’re unreal then scrub them off the list and don’t even worry about it. You need to find something real that you want to move towards.

So that is the end of this first module. I will see you in the next one and I hope that has given you a good overview of where we’re going with this!

If you’re interested in the full mini-course then you can get more information by clicking here.

Click the button to do the full course for free on Udemy right now!

I’m Ready for REAL Life

Creative Status: Episode 62: Laura Artero: Dissolving Self-Sabotage by Moving into REALNESS

Published on December 18, 2023

Creative Status: Deconstruct ego, integrate the shadow, manifest real life.

Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.

Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.

Ever find yourself taking one step forward and two steps back in your creative journey? Join us on Creative Status, where we delve deep into the transformative world of self-sabotage with the insightful hypnotherapist and mindfulness coach Laura Artero.

Healing Through Acceptance: Uncover the profound connection between self-sabotage and the need for self-acceptance. Laura Artero, a seasoned guide in the realms of hypnotherapy, NLP coaching, and mindfulness, shares her empowering journey of breaking free from inner obstacles.

A Unique Method for Inner Harmony: Laura’s revolutionary approach doesn’t battle your inner critic—it transforms it into your greatest ally. Picture a world where peace talks with your inner self lead to genuine liberation, allowing you to embrace the person you’ve always longed to be.

Creativity Unleashed: Whether you’re an artist, writer, or simply on a quest for personal growth and creating the life you really want, this episode is will give you inspiration. Laura’s wisdom transcends traditional boundaries, offering practical tools for creatives and seekers of healing alike.

Embark on Your Journey to Freedom: Don’t miss this chance to gain profound insights and practical tips. Join us as Laura Artero guides you towards a newfound sense of freedom, where self-sabotage becomes a stepping stone, not a stumbling block.

Creative Status: Where Creativity Meets Healing

Tune in for a conversation that transcends the ordinary, as we explore the intersection of creativity and self-discovery. Embrace the power within and embark on a journey towards self-acceptance and creative liberation.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

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Episode Links:

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Dissolving Self-Sabotage by Moving into REALNESS (Show Transcript)

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. It’s a podcast about using your creativity to help you uncover and accept the real version of who you are.

Today’s episode is for you if you’ve ever struggled with self-sabotage, if you’ve ever wondered if some of the actions and goals that you’re chasing are really yours, or whether they’re just something that you’ve picked up because it’s social programming or self-hypnosis and other things like that. It’s an interview with Laura Artero.

She is a hypnotherapist, a coach, a mindfulness expert, and she specializes in helping people with self-sabotage. This is a really awesome conversation. Loads of amazing insight. I found this to be very energizing and, put a lot of complicated things in a simple context. So I hope this helps you. Laura, thank you so much for your time. Everybody else, here we go. Boom.

Interview

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Laura. Thank you for joining me on today’s episode of creative status. You’re an expert in sabotage, not in a kind of terrorist, sense, but in relation to the human psyche and how we can delay our own progress by putting blocks in our path without even knowing it. So, anyway, I’m going to ask you a ton of questions about that before what I do. Do you feel like introducing yourself and letting people know how you ended up kind of specializing in this and also what you want to get out of this conversation?

Laura Artero: Yes. Thank you, Oli. I’m very honoured to be here. I can talk for ages about self-sabotage, and I love when there is a flow conversation that can get to good insights. so I have a background in hypnotherapy. mindfulness, self compassion. NLP coaching. I’m, a yoga practitioner teaching hypnotherapy.

So, I just say that I’m a, ah, big fan of the mind, and I think the mind is incredibly powerful if we know how to use it, and we don’t use it well most of the times. So we self-sabotage our efforts to be who we want. There are ways to get the training better. so, yes, this is who I am, and it comes to mind, I love to use my intuition a lot, and it comes to mind to share with you and with everyone that my first crush, ah, when I was a young girl, was Yoda from Star wars. That was not particularly handsome, but somehow I was so attracted by his power of using the mind. And so, yeah, this is where everything came from, probably.

Oli: That’s very interesting. And I think you must be one of the only people in human history that has actually been able to say that they had an attraction to Yoda. Okay, so let’s start with that. Do you think that there were some qualities that Yoda was kind of trying to teach Luke Skywalker, and the world in general that are applicable to some of the main lessons that you’ve learned about the mind and how we can master it? If that’s not too broad of a question.

Laura : No, I think that I can reply in a very normal way. Train mind. We need to train the mind. If we mind lose, we may actually not go where we want to go simply because, the way the brain works is still like when we were living in caves, and it’s not working right now for us. And the way we use the brain makes the mind, in certain ways, they are linked somehow. So, yeah, that’s my answer. Train the mind.

Oli: That is 100% how I’ve experienced things, like, in my own life. And when I coach with people, a lot of the time when people’s lives are not moving in the way that they think they want it to be moving in on a surface level, it’s because they’ve basically lost control without even knowing of their mind and the direction that it’s unconsciously taking them in.

And so maybe this is a good place to start with a sort of definition of what sabotage is. I’ll share my definition, and then maybe you can let me know if it makes sense or if it doesn’t make sense, and then we can just take it from there. So the way that I like to look at it is people have goals for themselves. But a lot of the time, those goals are only really something that they’ve grasped in a kind of automatic way, or because of social programming, or because of some inner thing that they have going on where they feel if they attain a certain thing, then it’s going to solve all of their problems in life.

So, for example, simple goals that I might be talking about are goals in relation to their health. So maybe someone has set themselves the goal of losing weight, and it just never seems to happen. They keep telling themselves that they want to lose weight, but for whatever reason, they can’t, do the things they need to do to be able to make that happen. In relationships, people tell themselves that they want a relationship, but they either never find anyone.

Or if they do find someone, they end up pushing them away, with their wealth, with their business and that kind of thing. People tell themselves that they need more money, that they want to be more successful, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they set themselves this goal at the conscious level, but for some bizarre reason, they keep pushing away the success that they want. And, I think the reason for this is because even though they’re telling themselves at the level of the conscious mind that they want a certain thing, there is something going on unconsciously where they don’t realize that they actually want something else so much more.

So, for example, with the weight loss thing, maybe hypothetically, there’s somebody. They keep telling themselves that they want to lose weight, but they have some kind of unconscious thing going on where they’re actually scared to lose weight because maybe they’ll become so much more attractive to other people that they’re just going to be bombarded with attention, and they actually secretly just want to be alone because they love freedom, something like that.

And in each of those cases that I’ve given, I believe, like, if we consistently don’t get results that we keep saying we want, there is something going on inside of us that we’re not aware of that is causing us to choose something else more. And, because the unconscious mind is actually more powerful and it directs our actions more than the conscious mind, then we ultimately are, just setting ourselves up for failure. That’s the sabotage thing, I would say. And the only way to get out of that is to kind of make the unconscious conscious by training our mind so that we can be like Yoda.

Ultimately, they’re not as attractive and direct our attention to what’s actually going inside of us so we can see our, true intentions and then reconfigure them. So that was a mouthful. But when I think about sabotage and the mechanics of it, that’s kind of how I see it. So does that align with the way that you understand this and how you help people to stop sabotaging themselves?

Laura: Yeah, I love what you just shared. it’s very profound. And I think that everything, as you just said, lies in the fact that the mind is made by two parts, and you need to work with both parts or nothing. That there needs to be alignment between conscious and subconscious mind. We, tend to use just the conscious mind. So because of my background in hypnotherapy, I, love unblocking, the blockages. And they are in the subconscious mind.

So sometimes I use a metaphor to explain things, and this is my way of explaining them. So I imagine that, there is a part in the subconscious mind that I call the guardian of beliefs. And you can imagine, like, a little guardian, very powerful. That is, like, very diligent. And its role, or his role or her role is that of making sure that you stick to your beliefs. And the beliefs are things that, as you said, come from the social background, their tradition, their religion that you grew up in, or, things you said. those beliefs are just programs.

And your subconscious mind, like a robot in autopilot, is playing those programs, even if they are a bit outdated. Most of them are created. We create them when we are very young. We are children. so the guardian of beliefs, make sure that you stick to your beliefs. But as you said, if your belief is, I cannot be attractive because I don’t like attention because blah, blah, blah, depending on what your experience has been, when you were four years old and maybe you had too many attentions or your mom kept saying, tell this in front of everyone and you felt you didn’t want to, then obviously, there will be your guardian of belief saying somehow, whispering to you, no, you can’t lose weight.

No, that’s not a good idea. And if you try to overcome the belief and force change, I imagine the guardian with a big microphone just calling all his army of thoughts, like, hey, come over. This person is not listening. Please pop in his or her mind and tell them to stop. And so the more you force change, the more you feel, doubt. It’s like your head is filled with self-doubt. I’m not good enough. I can’t do this. I will never succeed. And the more you force change and the more these thoughts will get louder and louder until you stop.

Oli: Wow.

Laura: And the problem with this is that if you keep forcing change but you don’t work with the blockage that is underneath, with the belief, you m are just reinforcing the belief that you will never be thin, that you will never lose weight because you will just become skeptical that you will ever be able to change. So it’s a trap.

Oli: Yeah. That’s amazing. And it’s so true. And I think it’s kind of a paradox because a lot of us, we don’t realize, like you said, that there are two minds operating within us at all times. And the only way, really, to get any results in life is to make sure that those two minds are in alignment. And, I think the default state for a lot of us is that we have set some intention for ourselves on the conscious level. But exactly like you said, this guardian is actually kind of causing a sort of internal conflict without us even knowing it.

Where it’s taking us off the path we think we need to be on. But the paradox, I guess, is that if we really want to get the things that we think we want at a conscious level, we have to resolve whatever issue the Guardian perceives at the unconscious level, if that makes sense. And if we don’t do that, we will end up in that state that you just, described so wonderfully, where we end up forcing life. And if we force life, that is always because of some unreal identity issue that we’ve got going on.

I think that is keeping us out of alignment. And it gets worse and worse and worse as the gap between the conscious and unconscious gets wider and wider, and it just becomes like a self-perpetuating cycle. Like you said, we get more doubt, we keep convincing ourselves we’re never going to do it, but that makes us want it more in some cases. And so we just keep running around in circles, and that will be the state of our whole lives, unless we can kind of crack open this relationship with the conscious and unconscious mind and see that the guardian needs to be appeased in some way so that we can unblock things and put ourselves back on a real path.

And this is kind of bringing us onto the territory of the podcast, the main theme of the podcast, which is, that actually the only way we can heal our lives and put ourselves back on the path towards wholeness is by making the unconscious conscious, bringing it to awareness, accepting what’s going on down there, and then taking a different kind of action based on what we have uncovered.

So I’m throwing a lot at you, but how do we do that? How do we start to close this gap and get back in alignment, so that the things we think we want are things that we want the most, if that makes sense. And there’s not some unconscious thing that we want more holding us back.

Laura: So I think the first thing, I don’t know if you agree, but the first thing is really wanting to change. And sometimes people don’t really want to change, they just think they want because they heard it’s good to change. And that makes a huge difference, because unless someone really wants to change, nothing will ever happen. But if you really want to change and you find this kind of friction resistance inside, so you want to do something, but you never end up doing it, then, as you said, I think it’s important to go and discover the subconscious mind. Knowing that the subconscious mind is good, it’s working for your highest good. It’s just that probably you need to change the direction somehow.

And one thing I always do with my clients, it’s to explain that the language used by these two parts of the mind is very different. So if you use logic, you will never get to the subconscious mind, because logic is not its language. You need to use imagination. these are metaphors, and that’s why I use a lot of metaphors, but also creative, visualizations and various types of. Yes, of imagination using all the senses. And this is the only way to get to the subconscious mind.

Oli: Do you think there’s an element where, you can look at, ah, your life, the current state of your life, and you can kind of start to reverse engineer what is going on for you. So if we use those simple examples from the start, like the relationship thing or the weight thing or whatever, if you keep getting certain results and you’re telling yourself that you want different results, is there something there where we can tell from the results that we’re actually hiding something within ourselves?

Do you know what I mean? It’s like our lives are, they’re a reflection of how aligned we are, something like that. And I don’t want to make it too woo woo, but ultimately, if there’s some kind of a blockage, and we keep complaining about the same thing, for example, so we keep saying, oh, I can never lose weight, it’s so unfair. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

I can never find a partner. I can never, whatever it is, if we keep being stuck in a way where we do find ourselves constantly complaining about it, then the results are probably showing us that we do have this kind of a block. And, if we can reverse engineer things in that way, is that part of the journey, would you say?

Laura: I think that you understand that there is a block if somehow, even if you want to change, you can’t change. So, sometimes I think people that think, now I’m going to change, I’m not going to be afraid of speaking in front of others because it makes no sense. I just do three breath and it will be fine.

But then every single time you feel terrorized, and even if you force yourself, you can’t remember a thing before, and then you sweat and you just want to abort. your speech. in that case, there is a block. Absolutely. So it’s when you, no matter how much willpower you put into creating change, nothing happens.

Oli: Wow.

Laura: I don’t know if that answered your question.

Oli: Yeah, it does. And I think it comes back to this theme that popped up like 510 minutes ago about forcing things. I think that is basically the answer to my question, yeah. Because if we find ourselves constantly forcing life, something has to have gone wrong, because the only reason we would force life is because we have some identity thing going on.

We’re clinging to something without realizing, and so we have to use willpower to get the results that we want instead of acceptance. Something like that. The only way we can actually unblock, ourselves is by letting go in a strange kind of paradoxical way.

Like, we can’t force ourselves to change even if we want to. We can’t force life to change even if we want to. We can only accept what we have been resisting. And then in that acceptance, we automatically become more aligned in the way that you’re talking about, because we put in less friction between ourselves and life, and, that gives us a stronger foundation to make the changes that we want to make. M, what do you think?

Laur: Yes. Acceptance. Acceptance and never feeling that there is something going against you, but just understanding that whatever is that you feel is standing in your way. It’s a protection. It’s something you created to protect yourself. Maybe you don’t need that kind of protection. You just need to work to transform the protection. But before, somehow, you need to say thank you to the protection, you need to accept it. And is it, Oli, that at the end of the day, everything is about accepting ourselves?

Oli: Yeah, ultimately, I think so. I think that is the final lesson of our lives, that ultimately, if we constantly feel friction and frustration and we’re not happy with ourselves and with our lives, it can only be because we’re filtering everything through judgment. And judgment is the opposite of acceptance. And the only thing you can accept is what’s real.

And so, if we’re not accepting of ourselves, then at some level, some unreal thing has happened in our psyche, in our experience of ourselves. And so a lot of this stuff that we’re talking about is just about returning to what’s real within us so we can have a real relationship with reality.

So acceptance is 100% the key. And I think when it comes to sabotage and creating the lives that we actually want to be living, if we’re not getting those results and those results are something, the goals that we’ve set for ourselves are something real, not just something we’ve chosen because of our ego and our fear and all that kind of stuff, then acceptance is the most important ingredient, actually, I think, to changing things.

So let’s make it a bit more practical. It’s super important. But if somebody notices one of these blocks, they’re constantly banging their head against the brick wall. We can basically say, based on what we seem to have agreed, is that there’s a lack of acceptance at some level in their life. And for most people it’s going to be a lack, of acceptance, of some unconscious intention or choice they’re making without being aware of it, obviously, because it’s unconscious.

So if somebody does find themselves in one of these situations we’re talking about where they’re trying to change their life and they just can’t do it, or, they’re trying to bring something into their life, like a relationship or a business, whatever it is, and it’s not happening. How can they move towards acceptance in the way we’re talking about to start solving this problem in their lives?

Laura: I think that one way would be returning to the metaphor of the guardian of beliefs, of reassuring the Guardian. So whatever you’re doing, somehow, instead of saying, oh, come on, why, I can’t do this, I’m m not good enough. It’s just what you said, acceptance. Just say, yes, I am as I am. And that’s okay. Actually, I’m not trying to do anything dangerous. It is my intention at fill the gap years old to do this because, probably the subconscious still uses the program you created when you were six years old. And this part of the mind doesn’t know how old you are, that your intentions have changed.

You just need a constant dialogue, and the dialogue at the end is with yourself. And so accepting yourself and yeah, reassuring yourself, too, that what you’re doing is fine. I also have a background and a lot of deep love for mindfulness, self-compassion. And I think that self-compassion in acceptance, it’s a key factor.

So, usually I teach, usually all my clients end up listening to this, and getting this little lesson of how to accept yourself in the sense that you cannot be perfect because perfection does not exist. And actually, when you try to be perfect, what your old brain is trying to do is just try to be worthy of someone else’s attention, so worthy of the try, because alone in nature, you would never survive. And so when you try to be perfect all the time, instead of creating connections with others, you actually create separation. It’s not your ultimate goal.

So you want to accept yourself because you are the only person available to yourself 24 hours a day, every day. You need to become your, like my daughter says, your BFF, your best friend forever, because it’s the only person you are going to have forever. And so you want to. Usually I give, like, three steps.

First step is accept that what you are experiencing that moment is challenging. And, you know, sometimes we are not allowed to say that we are suffering because there are other people that are suffering much more. And that doesn’t take away. The other people are suffering very much. But you need to recognize and acknowledge that in that moment, even if it’s like, I don’t want to deal laundry right now.

This is a moment of suffering. And once you have accepted. So this is acceptance, accepted that this is suffering, you need to tend your own suffering, your own pain, because emotional pain is painful, like physical pain. And so you just want to, acknowledge that it’s okay to feel as you feel. And only then, third step, you can wish yourself to be happy, which I think is what everybody wants. And this is my way of interpreting acceptance and of teaching it, in practical ways.

Oli: That’s amazing. You’ve just said so many things that. Sorry, no, I don’t mean it like that. You’ve said so many things that are really powerful, that have cracked open this conversation even more. And I think, as you were talking, you talked about our ultimate goal. And the ultimate goal, I believe, for all of us, is to experience more wholeness within ourselves and within life. And the opposite of wholeness is fragmentation. And the journey that we’re all on, I believe, is a journey from a fragmented state.

Because in childhood, we picked up all these scripts and all these patterns that you’ve kind of alluded to, that we just end up running on autopilot. But that also causes to be kind of more divided within ourselves than we actually truly, are. The scripts and the programs cause us to live a life of non-acceptance.

And if we move towards wholeness over the course of our lives, we ideally become more and more accepting of who we are, other people, life itself, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so that ultimate goal is the same for all of us, and it entails acceptance. But there’s a barrier, for a lot of us to living in that way. And it’s identity. And I always call it the ego.

The ego is just the fragmented version that we’ve created of ourselves after we’ve disowned lots of important things within us because of the things that we’ve been through. And all of the disowned parts end up going into the shadow territory or the shadow self. And there’s an element I’ve found where some of the whisperings or the callings from the shadow self, they, appear to be sabotaging our lives, but actually what they’re doing is they’re destroying the unreal foundation that we’ve built because of the ego scripts we’ve been following so that we can put ourselves back on path to that ultimate goal of moving towards wholeness and acceptance and all those kind of things.

So hopefully that makes sense. But the question for you is, when it comes to sabotage, how do we know if we’re sabotaging. This is a bit of an esoteric question, I guess. But how do we know if we’re sabotaging things because the ego is stopping us doing something real, or if it’s the other side of the coin and the shadow self is sabotaging the goals that we’ve been chasing that are going to keep us in that fragmented state. And so it seems on the surface, until we’ve reached the kind of acceptance you’re talking about, it seems on the surface that we’re sabotaging the things we actually want, but what we’re actually doing is unconsciously destroying the things we think we want that are keeping us in an unreal state. Does that make sense? That was such a convoluted question. But does that make sense?

Laura: Yes, it makes sense. I think for us it makes sense. So I actually think that in a portion of our subconscious mind, there is the real you. Yeah, that’s what I think you call it as you want. I haven’t found the proper name yet. I don’t know if you can help in this. It’s like the real you. The real self, the whole self, for some people, is a connection with higher power. Some others, just something within.

Oli: That’s it.

Laura: The part of you you need to ask that question. And this is going back to the beginning. How can you tap to this part of you? That I think is your intuition. You need to train yourself to listen to the intuition, because the intuition is whispering so slowly, so little voice that you can’t catch it. And just as you said, all these fragments, I usually say these are like filters. Like if you have glasses with so many lenses that make you judge everything, and to strip yourself from all these judges, sorry, glasses or judgments is possible, and it’s actually happening all the time.

But unfortunately, your mind is censoring these beautiful insights. So you have an insight, and then, oh, no, that is not a good idea. What am I thinking about? No, I’m not good enough. And this and that. So it’s like training yourself to listen to these insights, and I don’t know what you think, but for me is the more you train yourself and the more you will be able to listen to those very wise whispers.

And, for instance, I use intuition a lot, when I’m with my clients, and it’s probably easier when you do it for someone else, but when you do it for yourself, it’s harder to listen to those whispers. And I think that it starts back to the importance of training your mind. And I think there are many, many ways of training your mind, but it’s about being intentional. In training the mind, there are a lot of, things around about the importance of training the body, and that’s essential because it’s part of the mind, too. But we should train the brain. So the mind is complete. Brain, body, soul, and however you want to call that other part, you need training to be able to listen to the whispers.

Oli: Yeah. What happens if you don’t listen to the whispers?

Laura: Life is driving you, and you’re not driving your life, right?

Oli: Yeah. Sorry. If life is driving you or somebody, instead of them driving life, that ultimately is a sign that they haven’t trained their minds in the way that you’re talking about, I believe. But how do we make that more clear? Like, what are the symptoms, I guess, of being driven by life instead of driving with life? Do you know what I mean? Can we reverse engineer?

Laura: Yes. I think it’s just what you mentioned earlier is that you are just conforming to what society wants out from you, although you don’t strongly believe in that. And so you end up thinking, if I get to that weight, I’ll be happy. If I’m going to earn that amount of money, this is when I’m going to be happy. When I get to that position in my career, this is when I’m going to be happy. But there will be always something else, so you will never be satisfied. You will never live with that kind of inner peace that makes you able to enjoy the little moments of life, because this is all we have.

Oli: What I’m starting to realise after this conversation is there’s like two kinds of sabotage. There’s the sabotage that is instigated without you knowing by your realness. That’s why I call it realness. The real, whole ‘part’ art of you. Whole part is a kind of contradiction in terms, but it makes sense in this context.

It understands deep down that the life you have built is not your life. It’s the life of the ego, which means it’s a consequence of you not having mastery of your relationship with your body and your instincts and your fears and all those kind of things. And also your social programming. And so you’re chasing goals that you think you want. And at, the level of the conscious mind, you’re telling yourself you want all this stuff, but deep down, you know it’s empty. And so your realness, if you don’t listen to those whispers, it’s going to basically destroy your life. And I often say, like, self-destruction in this way is self-resurrection.

Because only by destroying the unreal life that you’ve built, which seems like sabotage at the start, only if that happens, are you going to find a solid foundation to build something true. And ultimately, if you build something true, that’s going to move you towards wholeness and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that’s one kind of sabotage. The other kind of sabotage is where you’re chasing something that you actually do want, because it’s moving you towards wholeness, it’s allowing you to be more connected and accepting. It’s moving you towards acceptance. And it’s rooted in acceptance.

But then the ego or the fragmented part of you, because of your identity and your addiction to that identity, is going to sabotage your progress so that you don’t grow towards wholeness and you ultimately just stay the same. And those two things are, both experienced as sabotage. But the first one, because it’s motivated by our realness, is actually very healthy, even though it is going to be probably quite tumultuous at times, and it’s going to cause some difficulties.

So I guess the question there is, how do we know if we’re sabotaging ourselves because of some unhealthy thing that’s going on where we’re lacking acceptance, or if it’s just bad luck, or if it’s just an ego, kind of, it’s the opposite version.

Laura: I think that everything lies in understanding if you really want something or not, if it’s your real desire. And of course, it’s not easy to understand that. But probably you start working out with what your desires you think you have. And then if you’re banging on the wall, willpower is not enough, then probably there is a blockage there. And you can sometimes m by yourself.

Very often a guidance is helpful, because otherwise you go too much into your conscious mind – you can unblock the blockages, maybe discovering also why, you have certain beliefs. But sometimes it’s not necessary to discover. It’s just to transform these beliefs. But then when you get where you want, does that make you very happy? M. it’s a question for your, realness.

Oli: Yeah.

Laura: For that true part of yourself. And I think, at the end of the day, I think that life, I was having lunch with a friend the other day and we said, yes, life is a project. Yes, is life a project? So if you run it as a project, it can become very interesting. You do a lot of self-discoveries and trials, errors, but there is growth. And that is what keeps you somehow interested, into your life if there’s no project, there’s nothing intentional. Then it becomes a little bit like, empty. and it requires, as you said, sometimes to go through some kind of suffering to destroy what you have created. Because this is how you resurrect. Yes. And when people are willing to do that work, then life is super interesting.

Oli: Yeah. It’s the best project going. Do you think there’s a, kind of phenomenon when people are working on this stuff, that when they first start a transformational journey in their lives, they think they want all these things?

So they think they want to lose weight and they want to start a business and they want to do this and they want to do that. But then when you start working with them, for example, in your practice, you dig into some stuff and they get to a point of acceptance of their realness. And then a lot of the things that they were chasing just slip away. And so it comes back to the idea, I guess, that a lot of the goals they were chasing, it just belonged to the ego.

It wasn’t real social conditioning and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it’s no longer about not getting results because they realize exactly like you said, and I suppose the main theme of this conversation, because you kind of came up at the start.

But actually, the only reason they weren’t getting the results that they wanted and that they were sabotaging, in scare quotes, was because their true intentions, their real intentions, were just to accept themselves, basically. And accepting themselves would have meant accepting some totally different intentions that they’d been hiding because of social pressure or whatever it was. And when they dig deeper and do the work, they align themselves with that stuff and then they end up flowing with life instead of forcing it. Something like that.

Laura: Yeah. Flowing, yeah.

Oli: Wow. How would you sum up all of this that we’ve been talking about? We’ve covered a lot and, we bounced all over the place because of my, rambling. But how would you sum this up? What is the main theme of this conversation or the main lesson? And can you let people know where they can find you as well if they want to work?

Laura: Yes. First of all, I enjoy this conversation so much because it makes me have great insights. And I love how you summarize all that we shared. And I think that the main thing is to start working on your growth, self-growth, and you can start from different places. Some people start with seeing a coach, seeing a therapist. Some other people start meditating, start listening to things.

It doesn’t matter, but just start the journey so that when you start, there’s so much to discover and step by step. It’s an incredible journey – so that probably would summarize everything. Just start somewhere. And I think that it’s important to train your mind. Start in one way that will lead you somewhere else for sure but it’s so important to start training the mind and working with the mind.

Oli: Yeah. Do you know what, the training the mind thing is the key and the reason it is the key in the context of everything we’ve said, when we’re training it, really all we’re doing, I think, is teaching it to accept what’s real. And that’s it. Like, training your mind means that you get out of that hamster wheel of focusing on things that are not real or, mental, cognitive distortions or limiting beliefs whatever it is – focus on the real stuff, and you can learn to accept who you really are. And then all of these issues we’ve been talking about, like the gap between the conscious and unconscious start to take care of themselves and you get into that flow. So that was awesome.

Can you let people know what your website is and where they can find you if they want to have a session or anything like that?

Laura: Yes. Thank you. So my website is my name and last name, but I’m going to spell it because it’s not so easy. So it’s, ah, Laura, or Laura, and then it’s Artero. Artero.com.

Oli: Brilliant.

Laura: This is where you can find everything, right?

Oli: Well, I will share that in the show notes, but Laura, thank you so much for this conversation. It’s been a good one.

Laura: Thank you.

Oli: I really, really appreciate your time and all this insight and everything. So thank you.

Laura: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I hope we’ll stay in touch.

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Creative Status: Episode 61: Carl Serapian: From Trauma to Trust & From Victim to REALNESS

Published on December 11, 2023

Creative Status: Deconstruct ego, integrate the shadow, manifest real life.

Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.

Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.

In this episode of Creative Status, I go down the rabbit hole with with Carl Serapian, a man with a life story marked by resilience and transformation.

Born into the chaos of war, Carl’s early memories involve seeking refuge in bunkers as his family faced the harsh realities of conflict.

At just 12 years old, heartbreak forced him to leave his homeland, setting in motion a journey of self-discovery that has lasted a lifetime.

His pursuit led him through religion, psychotherapy, yoga, meditation, literature, seminars, and encounters with spiritual gurus. What he found was that these paths offered insights but there was still something missing – undeterred, Carl determinded to challenge the foundations of these approaches.

In a powerful revelation, Carl discovered a simplicity at the core of transformation that had eluded him for years. In this episode, he shares the essence of this transformative approach with fellow explorers of the human condition.

Tune in to this episode and learn how Carl applied this newfound wisdom, transcending confusion to find clarity, liberating himself from medication, and transforming depression into enduring enthusiasm for REAL LIFE.

Stay true,

Oli Anderson

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Show Transcript: From Trauma to Trust & From Victim to REALNESS

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. If you’ve ever wondered how you can transcend your ideas about yourself in the past, the things that you might have been through that are holding you back, trauma victim mindset, limiting beliefs, the feeling that nothing really means anything, then this particular episode of the show may be for you.

It’s an interview with Carl Serapian, who is a spiritual life coach. He helps people to deal with their trauma, brings in a lot of his own experience. This is a really powerful conversation about his journey, the lessons learned, and ultimately how it all boils down to trust and allowing life to do what it needs to do so we can become who we need to become. Carl, thanks for your time. Everyone else, thanks for listening.

If this helps you in any way, then leave a review somewhere. But other than that, here’s the interview. Thanks a bunch. Boom.

Interview

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Carl. Thank you for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. You are a, uh, spiritual Transformation coach, which is a wonderful title, and I think that is going to crack open some things for this conversation that are very relevant to the kind of things we talk about on this podcast. I’m going to stop rambling and ask you to introduce yourself. Can you let people know who you are, what you do and what you want to get out of this conversation that we’re about to?

Carl Serapian: Sure. Thank you, um, for the introduction, Oli. Um, I’m very happy to be here. I kind of looked up the subject that you cover and all that, and it’s very interesting. It resonates a lot with what I want to share with the world. Uh, yeah, so I’m a spiritual transformation coach.

Um, basically I’m just sharing my experience of life, of how I went from being in a very, um, victim personality going through war. I was born in a country of war. I had to flee my country at the age of twelve. Um, uh, I was victim of physical violence, emotional violence, very strict education, not necessarily at home, but just the school system and all that. And I could say we could, you know, if you want to put words, I’m more of an open energy, a sensitive, um, you know, there’s many words, they give in these today.

So I was absorbing everything and I thought that was me, that was it, and that’s about it. There’s nothing to do, um, and that’s what creates, right, mental illnesses and all depression and all that. So I went through a lot of that. Um, but something that, I don’t know how it came to me is that I knew there was something better available. I did not accept that this is what life is.

You grow up in this beautiful planet Earth, sensational, but you have to suffer. It didn’t make any sense. It was too much of a disconnect. So I took it upon me to search, to take seminars, to do yoga, meditation, follow, uh, gurus, uh, uh, try everything. Uh, um, try having big projects. So I get excited about it. Or running after money or women. I tried everything, like, everything, right. And then after a while, with, um, a lot of ups and downs that, if it’s, uh, appropriate, we could get into, I kind of started seeing the big picture and committing myself to getting going step by step, following that picture, that feeling that I had, which was the path of transformation.

Oli: You just said so many amazing things that we can just crack open. We could go in a million different directions. Uh, I think a good way into this is what you said about being a victim and, like, getting over the victim mindset. Because, actually, the story that you just shared, you’ve also shared, within the context of the story, the paradox of transcending victimhood. Because if you look at your story as an objective observer, you can say, okay, this poor guy, he had to literally flee from his country.

And sounds like the education system was really strict. And you went through all of these different things. Uh, if you did decide to call yourself a victim, in a way, it’s probably justified, but at the same time, if you did do that, it would just hold you back from that bigger, uh, picture that you’re talking about and alluding to where really nobody is a victim, even though we do go through things.

And so I think a good starting point to kind of open all this up is that, so what is the difference between seeing yourself as a victim and being held back by the mentality that comes with it and just seeing instead that, okay, sometimes bad shit just happens. And it doesn’t have to define us, because in the context of the bigger picture of wholeness, as I like to call it, it’s not really a problem. It’s just part of the process of returning to who we really are. Something like that.

Carl: Yes. Awesome. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there’s a lot of traps. Right? There are a lot of traps when we go through difficult things. And it could be individual traps or collective agreements of how we should react to certain things. Right. So, I mean, we have an agreement today that if I don’t agree with you, then I could eventually go to the point where we could go in a fight and it could go very bad.

Well, that’s okay, right? I mean, we watch it on TV, in movies. It’s actually very, um, Hollywood puts it as wow. So there’s a lot of, uh, traps, I think. And mainly it’s because biologically, they’re chemicals that actually get hooked on, I really think. And I’m saying, with all due respect, we’re all druggies. We’re all addicted to feeling something. Whatever it is, just give it to me. I want it now. That’s why we go on Netflix. That’s why we go on YouTube the whole time. It’s because, uh, it’s much easier to just get a cheap drug right away. The next moment, I don’t care.

We’ll manage the next moment, where my life is going, I don’t care. As long as I don’t face the stuff. That’s literally what happens. Um, so the victim identity is. And it’s so powerful is because we actually protect it. Because what happens as a kid, you don’t know better. You’re like, okay, well, uh, for Mo, I think most kids, when I see them, they’re all open energies. Some of them, I believe, have genetically more sensitivity to, uh, loud noises, fear.

I could see it in my friend’s child. One of them is very Tarzan. He doesn’t care. He’s just walking and he doesn’t care. But the other one is always. And nothing happened to the other one. He just has these very sensitive, um, cords in him. But he is much more subtle about life. And he could be an artist, maybe. But when you go through trauma and you have that, then you’re absorbing it. And I think it’s been scientifically proved that until the age of seven, you’re just a sponge. You have a recording mechanism in you saying, okay, what is this thing called life?

Let me record. Let me see what it is. Okay, there’s war. Okay, fine. Oh, there’s a lot of fear. Okay, um, fine. There’s a lot of violent. Okay, fine. There’s also some good things. Okay, good. So I think the victim identity comes when certain events are very intense. And they actually leave impressions in us, in emotional, mental impressions. Something that really overwhelms our system. Uh, and the way I see it is our system says, okay, well, this seems to be the most important thing in your life. This happened to you. And because the level of intensity is so high, then this is it. This is you. Even though it’s not true, your attention starts going there because your attention goes where there’s most intensity happening. If during our conversation. Now there’s, God forbid a bomb explode somewhere. This conversation is over. We’re like, what the hell happened? It’s about the bomb, right?

Oli: Yeah.

Carl: So that’s where I think the victim mentality comes, where these events of people actually doing things. Sometimes it’s maybe exaggerated in our mind if we’re sensitive or maybe even invented, who knows?

That could go into mental illnesses. But the impression is so strong that we cannot, even if we try to hide it with drugs, we try to do things and have party all the time and be outgoing and react the opposite of what we feel. It’s there. It’s not going anywhere until you don’t face it. And so it’s a victim mentality, because, uh, that’s who you think you are eventually. So you fall in the trap as a kid, you identify with these things. I’m scared. I’m anxious, I’m weak. I don’t know how to handle people. Uh, people scare me.

And all these come whether just naturally because you’re introvert or because you had trauma, whatever it is. And then as an adult, you don’t even realize that you think you are these things, and then you protect it like it’s this very precious thing in you. And then we get insulted if someone tells, well, come out of your comfort zone or all these things, because we’re like, no, that’s me. So that’s in a nutshell. What I think is this whole, um, mentality of being a victim, acting like a victim.

Oli: Yeah. So there’s two interesting things there. The first thing is, it’s exactly what you said a lot of the time. Victimhood and the victim mentality, it’s a trauma response. So something terrible happens, we freeze up. And by freezing up, we end up creating a kind of fake version of ourselves so that we can stay frozen.

Ultimately, it’s an ego problem, I would say. Uh, the other interesting thing is exactly what you said as well. We end up protecting that false identity that we create. Uh, and it originates because at some level, we’re not ready to face life head on again because we don’t want to have to go through some traumatic thing in the future that similar to what we’ve already been through. But actually, in many, many cases, the odds of something terrible happening again, especially in adulthoods, when we have more autonomy and more control over our lives and all that kind of stuff, is very low probability.

So I guess the next question for you is, what are the benefits of being a victim? Because I think when we get into that state, where we’re trying to protect the ego and, uh, the victim incarnation that is taken on ball, we protect it because it offers us certain benefits. And, um, those benefits, they’re always only short term things.

In the long term, they keep us away from that bigger picture that you were talking about and then we’ll get on to you. But why do you think people fight to protect the victim mentality, the victim identity that they picked up, when at some level they probably are aware that it’s holding them back from being as real as they possibly could be?

Carl: Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. So I think it’s because it has to do, and I’m not anybody, but it’s what it is. I think education lacks tremendous amount of awareness about the inner dimension of life. We are stuffed with information that is, to a certain point, very necessary. I mean, you have to know how to count, you have to know how to, um, uh, learn about countries, your country, all that. But I think it’s way over, like, way too many things that are not necessarily as important.

Actually, to me, they’re not at all close to being as important as learning how to be well, inside of you. We’re learning how to have inner peace no matter what happened. But because nobody, it’s a catch 22. How many teachers experience inner peace? And with all my respect, I love the whole idea of teaching and all that, but it’s our message and you and all of us that kind of bring a wakeup call saying, hold on, somebody’s got to start the wave and break the momentum the other way, saying, hold on, this is not it.

Um, the reason why I think we get stuck is because right away when the trauma happens, you’re alone. There’s nobody teaching you what to do with it. So when you do that, well, you’re a living being. Even if you look at an ant, if you try to try to kill the ant, it’s going to run away. So we’re programmed, anything that’s living is programmed to try to live as long as possible. So if there’s this thing here that’s very threatening to me and nobody’s teaching me how to, let’s say, tame the ego and kind of go into it and see what happened and all that talk about it, which, that’s just the first level, then the next thing is to run away from it because we don’t know it’s too painful. And that’s where dissociation happens.

That’s where a lot of mental illnesses where you’re completely cut off from the present moment and you just want to create a reality of yourself that is more acceptable, uh, more okay, to you to live. So the reason why I think we get stuck is because something major happens that leaves a very strong impression on us. Our whole system gets shocked. Uh, it’s like any alarm system. It says, okay, well, from here on, like you’re saying from here on, we’re going to watch out for this thing. Because look what happened to us, right?

So instead of having support or somebody helping us to kind of, um, melt that away and find that. And I’m not blaming anybody, it’s just our job as a collective to have the responsibility to do it. Um, so then we don’t have that help. So then we say, okay, well, the next solution. We don’t think about it this way, but the next unconscious solution, okay, well, let’s run away from it. Let’s suppress it. Let’s keep it as far as possible from us. And then once we do that, we are adding so many layers of, okay, well, you know what? I’ll work on looking better. I’ll work on, um, getting more girls. I’ll work on making more money.

All these things to replace the simple fact of having joy, of just living, of just existing, just vibrating for no reason. Because we’re a vibrational being. So I think that’s what happens, um, with the whole victim identity. So that’s why we get stuck in it. We don’t have anybody helping us to see through it. And then we go to our reflex. Our default system is let’s run away from it. Let’s suppress it. Let’s not ever talk about it. And then let’s build a whole other life on top of this one to pretend that nothing ever happened and that we’re actually maybe even the opposite of that.

So I think that’s, uh, how it develops. And then there’s something about what we call the ego, which the way I see now is the ego is like this identification, this attention that we give, this, uh, consent, this, uh, conviction that we convince ourselves, coming also from the collective convictions that I am this thing. I am this. That, for me, is what the ego is.

Now, I am anxious. I am. It’s not like I have anxiety. I am depressed. It’s me, right? And life tells you, fine. Life is just an energy. Fine. Okay, you want to play that role? Okay, fine. Uh, you could do it in a movie, or you could do it in life, all your life. Fine. And I think that’s where there’s a benefit, to answer your question. A benefit which is this entity called go, which actually is no entity. It’s just the way we describe it, because it’s all one. We are just putting our attention to the lowest part of our energy being. That’s how I look at it. And we’re saying, well, you know what? I’m choosing these things about who I am. I’m choosing that I’m anxious and that I’m depressed and nobody likes me.

Fine, okay, let’s go with that. That’s my life. So that’s what we do. And then every time we could reinforce this thing, we feel stronger about it. So the benefit, one of the benefits that the ego feels invaded. It’s like I am the most victim about, uh, among all the victims. Wow. Or the other way, somebody could say, well, I’ll prove it wrong, and I’ll be accumulating as many things as possible. So I have the finest car, the most beautiful wife.

Um, I know a lot about some stuff, either finance or I have a lot of knowledge. Um, so all these things, we start adding them and it becomes a truly living being. I mean, it’s not true, but to understand it, we have to actually exaggerate it to see it. It becomes an operating system, which is just basic energy. There’s nothing there. But every day we are supporting it. The moment we don’t support it, it’s going to go away. But we’re attached to it because it gives us that high.

If I could say, Oli, I’m better than you. Wow, I feel so good moment. Uh, uh. I play soccer on Sundays and I used to be, uh, um. I’m sorry, let’s say football. So I used to be a goaltender when I was a kid, and I did it through adulthood. We play a bit more, uh, whoever wants to go in nets and we switch. So I made two very nice saves. And my ego just was so big. It’s not only ego, it’s just a great sensation. But I was watching and I was saying it.

Wow. If I would fall in the trap of thinking that I’m somebody all of a sudden because I did something great. People are applauding. And then, um, I was looking at documentary about, with Robin, uh, um, what’s his name? Um, not the actor. Um, the singer. Yes.

Oli: Robbie Williams.

Carl: Robbie, amazing documentary. Because I love learning from these people. It’s a gift that they do these things and they’re vulnerable enough to let us go in their life. That’s what is going. I mean, how could you not have issues when at 23 you have 80,000 people screaming your name. So that’s what it is. We could go in other directions, but I think that’s what happens. The benefit is you feel inflated for a moment. Um, and also you could get attention from others. Poor little you, ah, work so hard, but things don’t work for you. Um, but you have that, okay, then you say, okay, well, I mean, that’s good enough, I’ll play small and that’s enough for me, and I’ll just take it.

Oli: Yeah, you’re right. Ultimately, if we’re filtering everything through ego, and that is, uh, our predominant way of identifying and interacting with life, we have become disconnected within ourselves. We become disconnected from our realness, disconnected from our truth. And if you become disconnected from your realness and the truth, you always feel like there’s something missing. And the thing that is missing is the feeling of love, of joy, of bliss, whatever word you want to use, the default state when we have been real and we’re aligned with truth. And so the benefit is exactly what you said.

The ego ends up being a device that we use to get attention, basically, or, uh, to do things that will get us attention. And we use that attention as a substitute for the love that we’ve been disconnected from. And so it can be positive things like in the example you gave, like you get a goal, that’s a good thing, right? It’s not bad. And you get attention from that which makes you feel like you’re lovable, let’s say with the victim mindset. It’s the same structure, the same principle, but instead of chasing positive attention, it’s negative attention.

And so you go around and you tell everyone how hard your life is and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, people give you attention or sympathy and you experience that as love ultimately. But actually you can have a more real version of love anytime you like. By realizing that that structure of the ego is completely unreal.

You can dismantle it, actually, and then you can step into your, uh, real life and put yourself on a path of moving towards things that actually matter to you and that are going to bring you a deeper, uh, connection to yourself, other people and life itself in a more authentic way. And that’s when you’re going to bring actual love into your life because you’re going to have found the foundation of love or realness, whatever word you want to use within yourself. And then that is going to be something you put out into the world. Instead of using the ego as a device to get little grasps of attention in any way that you can.

Carl: And also, I don’t want to disregard at all what happens to us and whoever’s listening. Uh, not at all, because it actually has nothing to do with that. It’s just, um, what happened is just then after that, I was calculating, um, let’s say somebody lives until they’re 80. I mean, maybe I’m being optimistic, but I like to be optimistic. Right. So, um, I calculated that’s, um, 2,524,800,000 seconds.

Uh, that’s how much you live if you’re living till you’re 80. So that’s 2 billion. That’s one thing. Then you add 524,000,000. And then you add, uh, 800,000 seconds. That’s our life. So how many bad things happen in our life? Uh, if you have these 5 billion, uh, more or less seconds, how many moments were really bad, traumatizing events?

Oli: Very few.

Carl: Let’s say somebody had, like, ten amazingly hardship life. Uh, um, some people might have worse in these days. I know some places are in tremendous, uh, trauma, uh, and difficult times, of course. But I’m just saying that what’s happening. So you have ten. So let’s take, uh, 2,000,000,500 minus ten M seconds. Or let’s say it took two minutes each. Whatever. So then you have all the rest of your life. What is happening is that we are repeating.

Oli: Yeah, exactly that.

Carl: We are repeating it every. We are recreating that reality every moment for the rest of the 5 billion second.

Oli: Yeah, that’s it. We take ourselves out of the present moment.

Carl: Mhm.

Oli: Because our bodies ultimately are just replaying the moment over and over again. And actually, that is a natural response in a way, because it’s helping you to process it. But the problem is, if we think we have no control over that and, uh, we don’t take responsibility for it because we’re scared, then those two minutes, whatever it is, end up defining our whole lives. And you’re right.

Like talking about victimhood and stuff, you do have to walk the tightrope of being real, but also been sensitive because, of course, some of the stuff that does happen is awful. There are awful, awful things going on out there in the world. And it is hard to get over some things. But the message, I think, is that we can get over them ultimately always. And there’s another element as well. You can take it to the extremes, but it seems to me, at least if I look back at my life, all of the bad shit that’s happened has been a blessing in retrospect. It’s shit when you’re going through it, obviously, and it’s shit when you kind of come into terms with it. But then when you are able to alchemize, if you want to use that word, or transmute the experience into lessons that give you a solid foundation to stand upon your own realness, that shit becomes a diamond.

And actually the only thing that stops you from getting to that place where you’re holding the diamond in your hand and you can use that to shine more light in the world. I’m, uh, laughing because that sounds so dramatically poetic. But anyway, the only way you can get that diamond, and it’s always there, is to kind of get the strength or the trust to wade through the shit. And as long as you can trust, you will find that diamond because there’s always a lesson and there’s always an opportunity. And I know that is offensive to some people. Like, if you’ve been through extreme, extreme abuse or trauma or whatever, then obviously it’s going to be harder to wade through all that shit. But there’s always something there that is going to allow you to be more real in the long run.

Carl: I think the trap that could come, that I observe in myself as well, is that the moment you want to do that, we forgot about the little ego that we gave so much energy and care and we’re protecting it. That’s going to come up. It’s going to say, uncomfortable stop it right now. Yeah, uncomfortable stop.

So that’s what if we look at it moment by moment, let’s say someone says, okay, well, Oli and Carl, very nice. It’s very nice what you’re saying. Let me try it. Let me try just, uh, using it. What the hell? No. Who’s saying no now? It’s the ego. Because, and what I mean by ego is that us giving attention to these events that happen and saying, no, I am these things. This is not what I want. I want to keep these things.

So, no, I don’t want to. You’re wrong. It’s not true. Um, and then there’s a whole mind that could, anything you want to give the mind to wrap around and protect itself, explain itself, it’s a genius to do it. It’ll find amazing arguments as to what we’re saying is not good and it’s crap and doesn’t make sense and just go back to whatever is comfortable for you, which is fine. You’re missing out. That’s all, what it is.

Oli: Yeah. And I think there’s another level as well, where stepping into truth, stepping into realness, you actually end up stepping beyond judgment and duality and any ideas of good and bad. And actually, that’s part of the process. Because if you can step beyond the judgments of the bad scare quote things that did happen to us, we realize that, uh, okay.

Even though it was really hard and it was painful in the short term, in the context of our lives overall, because in the big picture, we can get those diamonds. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. It just was something that happened. And now that that’s over and we’re stepping into taking responsibility for our lives and our own growth and expansion and all that kind of stuff, it’s just fuel for the journey. That’s literally all it is. It’s not good, it’s not bad.

There’s like a saying, I can’t remember it exactly. It’s like the same rain falls on some seeds and they turn into a rose bush or whatever. The same rain falls on other seeds and it turns into weeds. In the context of what we’re talking about, the rain is our attention and what we decide to do with what we’ve been through. And as long as you have a vision for where you’re going and the trust that’s going to get you there, then the judgment of the past can be let go of, basically, and you just keep moving. Do you know what I mean?

Carl: Oh, yeah. It absolutely is fuel. And the way I experience it is that. Wow.

Oli: Uh.

Carl: Anything that bothers me.

Oli: Mhm.

Carl: If I allow it.

Oli: Exactly. If you allow it.

Carl: If I allow it fully. It sounds too simple, but that’s the only place where we get caught. But it’s such a big trap because right away we say, this shouldn’t be like this. That’s our first reflex. And that could take a lifetime to even realize. This shouldn’t be like this moment shouldn’t be like, no, I’ll go on Netflix. I’ll convince myself it’s not there. I’ll get high. I’ll call a friend. And even if I say it, we all fall for it. I do fall for it as well.

But even if I said a million times when it happens, it’s so real. It’s such a seductive movie. It’s such a seductive, uh, fully, uh, uh, five M dimensional, um, with all the feelings and the biology going your way and saying, you’re right, don’t. It’s such a good movie, don’t come out of it. But it’s just. Nothing is happening. Nothing’s happening. You’re just in a movie telling you that this is awful. And the only practice that is really needed is the practice of allowing.

Oli: Yes.

Carl: And that’s how you become one with everything. And that’s what yoga means. It means one, uh, like you’re saying, right? There’s no bad, there’s no good. And if you look at, um, the reason why people do things, and that’s really, really hard to get your mind around, even, uh, I mean, for anybody, and I even dare say it’s never about you. It was never about you. In any case, that original trauma was never about you. You were there. It happened to you. But that person, if they did something to you that is so awful, imagine what’s going on in their mind. That’s how they see life.

Oli: Uh, yeah, that’s it.

Carl: Now, why are you convincing yourself that it’s about you? That’s on you. That’s your responsibility, like you’re saying, right? Yeah. Uh, that’s on you.

Oli: Yeah. It’s ego again.

Carl: Exactly.

Oli: That’s exactly it. When bad things happen to us, for most of us, our initial reaction is exactly that. Why me? What have I done wrong? Why am I being punished by the universe or God or ever? Like, why it shouldn’t be this way. It’s not fair. Exactly like you said.

But the key point is, it doesn’t matter how you think it should be or what you think is fair or isn’t fair. It is what it is. And this is why I’m always saying, the final lesson is acceptance. That is the key thing. And actually, it’s funny you mentioned yoga. Like, yoga has helped me probably more than anything else, with all this stuff, because it is what it is.

If you fall over in a yoga class, for example, there’s no point judging yourself. You get back up and then you keep trying till you can do the pose. And if you can’t do the pose, well, so be it. You do your best, you forget the rest. And that is the key thing, and that is the skill, ultimately, that we’re talking about. To accept that it is what it is, to take ourselves out of the equation, but not to use it, is what it is, filtered through the ego. That’s another level of this, because a lot of the time, people say it is what it is as a way of avoiding what actually is.

Do you know what I mean?

Carl: They disconnect from it. It is what it is. And you see it in their face that they’re just not happy about it, they’re a victim about it, but they’re mentally trying it out and saying, well, it is what it is.

Oli: Another example of that people say “I don’t give a f*ck”, but you can tell by m the way they’re saying.

Carl: Oh, yeah, you do, that they give.

Oli: More f*cks than anybody else.

Carl: Exactly.

Oli: At that moment. And so m it’s just acceptance. All you need to do is, uh, that accept where you’re standing. Because only if you accept where you’re standing can you decide where the next step is going to take you or what direction it’s going to be in.

Carl: Awesome.

Oli: And so without that acceptance, you’re always going to be an ego. Like, ultimately, that’s it. That’s basically all I ever talk about, really. If you boil it down to the basics, the ego is stopping you from accepting yourself, the world and reality. And without that acceptance, you’re always living in that movie that you’re talking about, that dream world that you’re projecting over what actually is.

Carl: Yeah. And, um, if you look at it, um, in a way that maybe we’re not used to look at, it is when something happens, if we really try to be as meditative as possible and as calm and in relaxed mood as possible. And just look at it objectively. Like you said, initially something happens. Is it the event? I mean, some events are painful. Somebody hits you, you’re not going to say, well, I’m imagining it. Somebody’s hitting you, fine. Or even if somebody screams at you, there’s an initial energy. The energy is coming is an aggressive one. Uh, it’s only normal for your heart to fluctuate a bit. You feel something. Of course it’s normal. We’re not made of steel. Right. But beyond that, most of the time, I would say 99% of the time, what we are traumatized about is what we are saying about it.

Oli: Yes, exactly.

Carl: So something happens. So, uh, the question is, are we bothered by what is happening or are we bothered by the violent reaction we have? Which is the ego again, exactly. Saying something like, am, ah, I, over my dead body, answering somebody. Or, how dare you say this to me? Or you are talking about this subject, all these things.

So what is bothering more? The words, which are just sounds coming from someone or you having your set of data sitting in the data room. Right. Let’s say you’re an it guy. You have all this data and you’re okay. Well, I’m going to reinforce this data and that data because I’m a victim and nobody talks to me like that. Because if they do, I feel bad again. That’s what’s screaming inside of you and saying, this shouldn’t be?

Oli: Yeah. It’s all about our relationship with the truth. So the only thing we can do with the truth, really, it’s two options. We either accept it and feel good in general, or we don’t accept it. And then we bring friction and frustration and misery into our lives because we’re adding extra levels of complication. And so, uh, a lot of the time when bad things happen again, it’s exactly what you said, right?

Bad shit, of course, does happen in life. Someone might punch us, we feel pain. Someone might shout in our face, and it’s annoying or whatever it is. But if we’re aligned with the truth, our experience of those bad things won’t be as bad as it would be if we were trying to resist it or we were filtering it through the ego. And so I guess what I’m saying is acceptance is about understanding, uh, that, okay, bad things are going to happen.

We’re not going to feel amazing all of the time. But if you’re living in this real way and you’re not filtering everything through ego, the bad things or the effects of the bad things kind of dissipate and dissolve more quickly. Because once it’s done, it’s done, and it’s easier to move on. If you’re filtering it through your ego because you need the truth to be something other than what it actually is, you’re avoiding that is what it isn’t us, then the ramifications of whatever it is are going to echo for way longer than they need to. And that is the distinction.

So you can either have a life where bad stuff happens every so often, because that’s just life for all of us, or you have a life where bad stuff happens, but you make it shit because you’re filtering it through your identity rather than seeing it as just part of the process and the bigger picture.

Carl: Yeah. And you did bring the word skill, uh, earlier in the conversation, and I want to bring this to our listeners as well. Is that it is a skill. It’s okay if it doesn’t work out right away. Years ago, when I was in therapy, my therapist gave me an image which is basically like, uh, uh, stairs. Just how you draw stairs. Just rectangular, up and up and up. This is it.

We want to make it one large step and reach the goal. It doesn’t work like, in anything. Why would it work in the spiritual path? It doesn’t work to ride a bike. It doesn’t work to, I mean, just to utter words. Uh, it’s so many things, complex things happening. It took so much training to just talk and speak and all these things. So we got to be able to say, okay, well, if I’m at level, not that there are levels of how good you are, but it’s a skill.

So if I’m starting off and I apply it and it felt uncomfortable, and I say, well, never again. Well, you’re putting yourself out of the game. It’s supposed to take some time. It’s supposed to be a step by step thing. There’s a skill level, unless you’re someone lucky, that gets enlightened all of a sudden. That could happen also very rarely, but it could happen where it’s so painful that you just make a switch and you’re enlightened.

But for most of us, it’s going to be a skill. How long can I hold? Can I stay with what it is? It doesn’t have to be the whole day. Can I start with 5 seconds? Can I do 10 seconds? Uh, when somebody says something and I don’t like it, can I at least wait 5 seconds before I reply and then, like you’re saying, don’t judge it, just let it be, and then say, okay, well, next time I’ll do this.

Well, next time I’ll do better. Well, next time. Well, when he said this thing, I think it brought me back to my past because I’m very sensitive about this and this that happened to me. So you start learning, and it becomes a journey. It becomes like you almost become impatient for the next thing because you want to learn.

You’re like, okay, um, I want to learn what else is in me that I forgot about because I suppressed it for so many years. And life is actually exactly giving us the opportunity every day to process this once and for all. And most of the time, we say, no, I don’t want.

Oli: Yeah, that is an amazing way to say it. Life is constantly helping us to return to life. The ego, um, is the opposite of life. It’s the illusion of death. Ultimately, that’s what I think. It’s the only true death. Because anytime you’re identifying through ego, you have taken yourself into just the realm of illusion and status and fragmentation and disconnection and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Life is always calling you back, and that’s how you have to see it.

Like, everything that happens to you is ultimately helping you to return from a place of fragmentation and bullshit, basically to wholeness and connection. That’s it. And if you know that, that’s why it’s easier to learn to do all this stuff we’re talking about, to train yourself to do it, because you can trust life. You can’t go through this path that we’re talking about. You can’t return to the bigger picture without trusting life.

You just can’t do it because otherwise, you think it’s all up to you. You think it’s all about your perceived strength, your perceived power. That’s all ego stuff. It’s like you were saying about the victim thing, right? The other side of the victim coin is the hero. You try and be a big hero, and you’re trying to do everything by yourself. It’s just as unreal. And it’s because you’re trying to take everything into your own hands instead of realizing that from moment to moment, day to day, life is showing you which direction to go in. And it’s always the same wholeness. And if you know that actually things aren’t bad because you’re just living in that place beyond.

Carl: Yeah. And more and more, what’s opening up to me is because you like to keep it real, and I’m actually sharing what’s going on with me every day. Is that what I’m seeing is that, um. I don’t want to say, theoretically, you got to start experiencing that we were in life energy. So if you’re not experiencing, fine, just go, run, jog. You’re going to see. Sit down.

After you jog, um, or whatever. After you make love, whatever it is, just sit down and experience. If you feel something vibrating in you, do you feel something which is not the body, not the mind, something different that is just making you feel so good. Right.

If you don’t see it, like, I guess, run, do, uh, push ups, play, uh, music, whatever it is, whatever makes you feel good. So, um, that feeling is there. So, um, then you want to do is what I’m seeing is that we learned to live through our mind. So the roadmap that we learned, again, I go back to education, is that we learn to stuff things in our mind and then go back and use that information to navigate the world, which is okay. If you want to learn math, geography, history, that’s fine.

You want to drive a car, you have to remember how you drove last time. What this is, that’s a pedal for the gas steering wheel. Fine. But there’s another part where, like, you’re saying where the trust comes in is if you experience. So, step one, experience that. Your energy being step two, what really is happening, from what I’m seeing, how we could live. The ultimate, uh, highest level of life is if we realize that this energy being has its own intelligence. But moment by moment, not by sitting down and saying, my life will be this way, because that secures how I feel right now.

It’s more, okay, this moment, my body, I feel energy in me, and this energy is drawn to take this next action that’s not just, uh, uh, not a benign thing that happened, is that the way I see it, is that we’re energy beings with antennas, and you’re picking up the information you need in that exact moment. And I’m sure it happened to all of us. We meet somebody that we fall in love with just by pure luck, or we’re inspired to say something and we don’t know where it came from, or, uh, we do so well, when we play piano or whatever it is, or even when we’re talking with someone, the conversation just carries because we’re picking up.

We forgot about our ego for a moment, and we’re recognizing. Maybe we’re not realizing it, but we’re recognizing that we are an energy being picking up data from the universe telling us what to do here and now. So that becomes the other way of operating. So one way of operating is, I’ll, uh, worry about everything. I’ll try to plan everything in my head, and I’ll just try to figure all the million things that could go wrong. I’ll try to figure now.

Or the other one is to just test it out like you’re m talking about the notion of trust, saying, okay, well, I might be an energy being. I feel this energy when I do sports or when I listen to music. Okay, so what is that telling me to do next? Now what’s the next thing? So now we’re trusting life itself. I’m not saying it’s easy.

It’s for anybody. I’m saying it’s easy. I’m not saying it’s the hardest thing, because, again, we go back to how we gave so much attention or how we cherished our ego, telling us, screw all this stuff. Stay where you are, complain, cry about it. At least we get high right here, right now, and it’s okay.

Next moment, we don’t care about our miserable life. We don’t care about just fine. That’s it. So that’s how I’m starting to see it as we are an energy being when we have antennas and we are just downloading. But to do that, we got to allow the stuff that’s blocking it to go away first. And gradually, we’ll start more and more, able to download what we’re supposed to download in that moment as information, like me and you, how we connected. In a million years, nobody would have said me and you are going to connect.

Why? Because nobody knows. But it’s just I was following something, you were following something, and our path crossed. So, um, that’s an example of it.

Oli: That’s a perfect example. That’s what I mean by trusting life and saying that it’s not all up to you. If you look at your life, if most of us look at our lives, if any of us look at our lives, all of the amazing things that we have done as individuals, we didn’t do it by our own power. The example I use when I talk about this is writing my book. So I could say if I was coming through ego, okay, yes, I wrote a book, and blah, blah, blah, I’m so clever. Look at me.

Uh, if, uh, I’m honest with myself, when I wrote that book, I was just open to allowing my unconscious to do what I needed to do based on all the other things I’ve been through in life. And it came pouring m out of me, and it’s not me. If my ego was going through that writing process saying, right, I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that, I’ve become a control freak. I would not get results, but it’s anything in life.

The best friendships I’ve got, the best things I’ve been, the experience I’ve had, it all just kind of fell into place because I was doing what you’re talking about, listening out for the promptings of which direction to go in. The power we have over our lives is training ourselves to be able to distinguish fragmentary bullshit information from the ego and all that kind of stuff and from things that are sourced in the whole. In wholeness.

That’s a big shift for me this year. I used to be one of these people. I was always doing things. I was always going to do this and do that and do this and do that. I wasn’t getting the results I wanted, so I was like, okay, I need to change something here. Uh, so I stopped just forcing things like that, and I would do what you were saying. So if I didn’t really know the next step, I’d meditate, I’d go for a walk, I’d take a day off instead of just doing things for the sake of it, which is always ego.

Uh, and by making space like that, these kind of promptings, my antenna would pick up the things that I actually needed to do. But you have to trust that those next steps are going to become clear. And they will never become clear if you’re filtering things through ego. But Otherwise, they’re just always there.

That’s the whole point. That’s why you can trust life. So this has been awesome, but I’m going to wrap things up. How would you sum up this whole conversation? Like, no pressure, because we covered a lot. What’s the main lesson? And also, can you tell people where they can find you if they want to work with you or whatever?

Carl: Sure. Um, let me just let it sink in.

Oli: Get the, uh, antenna up.

Carl: Yeah. So I really would go back to the initial opening or somewhere in, uh.

Oli: The middle of it.

Carl: We spoke about the allowing because eventually, um, if you train yourself to know when the ego is telling you, and I know it can be hard at first, but if you train yourself, and usually it’s a negative feeling, the moment you have a negative feeling about something, there is the ego awakening again and trying to, uh, control and tell you what to do. So I could only go back to the allowing. And if you tell me, yeah, but Carl, I could allow all this, but not this. Nope.

Allowing, yeah, but you don’t. Allowing, yeah, but nope. Then we’ll talk. Because once you allow something, then you’re able to find creative solutions. So I’ll have to go back to, um, the one answer, which is the allowance of everything. And to me, an enlightened being is one that feels one with everything around them. Um, yeah, so that’s what I would say.

Um, and I really, uh, want to thank you, Oli, for this conversation because for me, it’s the best job in the world. Comedians could think that cracking jokes is, and I love cracking jokes and I would love to try it out once to be a stand up comedian just for a night. But I think when I look at this, I say to me, it’s the most beautiful job and I hope some people, people get something out of it.

Um, if some people are listening, are interested in connecting with me. Um, I’ll send you the links. Uh, my website is, uh, innerpathwithCarl.com. Um, I’ll be adding a page with some bonuses and stuff like that. Um, my Instagram is also inner path. Carl. Carl.

With the, um, mean, I’m willing to offer a free session where we could just talk on and I’m all about value. And if you think that you need more guidance and more close guidance, and you have a lot of questions, then we could work together, but if not, uh, my job will be done by sharing something with you that could hopefully impact. So, yeah, um, amazing.

Oli: Carl, thank you so much. This has been really awesome. Like, I really appreciate everything that you’ve shared your whole life. So thank you so much.

Carl: Thank you. Oli, thank you so much.

Creative Status: Episode 60: Heather Isgrigg: The Art of Aging into REALNESS

Published on December 4, 2023

Creative Status: Deconstruct ego, integrate the shadow, manifest real life.

Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.

Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.

Join us on this illuminating episode of Creative Status as we delve into the profound and transformative journey of aging with Heather Isgrigg.

Heather, a passionate advocate for redefining the narrative around growing older, is a coach who leads an engaging online support group that weaves together the art, humor, philosophy, and psychology of aging.

In this insightful conversation, Heather shares her wisdom on navigating the intricacies of aging gracefully, embracing REALNESS, and finding joy in the process.

In this conversation, you’ll discover how the art of aging becomes a masterpiece when infused with a sprinkle of humor and a dash of philosophy – Heather’s unique approach creates a space that is not only supportive but also fun and loving, offering a guiding light for those seeking their path in the art of aging.

Whether you’re on the threshold of the golden years or simply curious about the profound wisdom that comes with time and applies to us ALL, this episode promises to be a celebration of life’s evolving canvas.

Tune in for an uplifting exploration of the beauty that emerges as we age into realness and cultivate a deep acceptance for ourselves and life itself!

Stay REAL out there,

Oli

—————————–

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Show Transcript: The Art of Aging into REALNESS

Heather Isgriggg Creative Status

Intro

Oli: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. This is a podcast about cultivating a deep acceptance of what’s real in life so that we can have a solid foundation for building the lives that we want by embracing who we really are, embracing other people, embracing life. And we explore how creativity is a vehicle for allowing that to happen by making the unconscious conscious… if you really want to get into it.

If you’ve returned into the show, thank you very much. If you’re new, then welcome. My name is Oli Anderson. Like I said, I’m a creative performance coach. Help people to bring more realness into their lives, work with a lot of creative people, hence this podcast. Every episode of the show, I interview somebody who is scintillating and interesting and has some life experience that they can share through their personal philosophy, let’s say, about what it means to be human and all that kind of stuff.

Today’s episode is no different. I’m talking to Heather Isgrigg, Aka Hizzy to the Hizzy, aka again, My So Called Reality. Hizzy / Heather is on a mission to help people redefine aging itself. What it means to go through the aging process, how we can use that process, which is going to happen to all of us if we’re lucky and don’t die beforehand. To get into a sense of flow, to accept ourselves, which is the theme of the show, like I said, and how we can basically work with the aging process to allow some of the things we may have been hiding from ourselves to re-emerge so that we can get a more solid foundation and a deeper understanding of what it means to be human before we actually do drop dead and our lives end.

So this is an awesome conversation about life itself, ultimately, what it means to be human, how we can work with it, how we can get the most out of it. Heather, thank you so much for your time. This was an awesome conversation – love the energy, love the vibes. I’m going to stop talking. Thanks for listening. Here we go. Boom.

Interview

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Heather. Aka Hizzy to the Hizzo. Thank you for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. You have a lot of, um, very wise things to say, I believe, about the aging process and death and how we can, uh, use life itself and some of its inevitability to become more real and to create the kind of life that we want and etc.

I’m going to ask you loads of questions, but before I do, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people how you became who you are and doing the things that you do and also what you want to get out of this conversation?

Heather Isgrigg: Thank you so much for having me. I am such a huge fan. So, I’m a bit of a fan girl, but I am so happy to be here. And I kind of fell into everything by accident, which I sometimes I think that sometimes is the best way. Um, I like to say I like to hold space for people and I like to be a tough love cheerleader, but predominantly I like to focus on the aging process and letting us know that it’s okay and it’s healthy and it’s natural.

Oli: Yeah. So let’s get right into it. Right. Although I kind of do want to know what you want to get out of this conversation before we do that. What do you want to get out of what we’re about to embark upon?

Heather: Well, I just want people to see a different perspective on aging. I think a lot of times, especially women, we tend to kind of think it’s the same for everybody and it isn’t. And so my focus is more of, like, people really kind of authentically, finding out what their definition of aging is, because I find everybody, especially at my age, we kind of hit this midlife section, and we kind of decide whether we’re going to double down on what we’ve already done or if we’re going to change up. And so I think that a lot of times people are scared to do the change up. And I have. And I feel like it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done. And I would like to let people know there’s a life past. Grey hair.

Oli: Wow. So you just cracked open this whole conversation with what you said because ultimately it’s exactly that for most people. Like, everybody thinks aging is the same for all of us. And it basically means that, uh, at some point in our lives, we’re just going to start deteriorating in all areas. Our body is going to start falling to pieces and no one’s going to find us attractive anymore. And then we’re going to become invisible. And society is just not interested because we’ve deteriorated socially as well.

And ultimately, as you have found in your own life, that is not true. It actually only becomes true if you double down on trying to be the same instead of learning from the process of awakening, I guess, to what aging has to teach us. So let me really and keep it simple. What would you say is the perspective on aging that needs changing? What’s the main assumptions and narrative around getting old that people have that you have found to basically be bullshit and that needs shattering?

Heather: Well, I think that somehow and I have to speak from my woman’s perspective here, but I find a lot of times it’s kind of glorified to hold on to youth, uh, where I’m hoping that people can see that you can kind of transcend both of it. And for me, when I look at it, I feel like a lot of women look like they’re desperate when they’re trying to hold on to being 23, you’re just not going to be 23, 25. And honestly, being in middle age, you hear about this midlife crisis. And now that I’m here, I understand why.

It’s because you kind of grow up in a society where you see all of these, uh, pressures on women to look a certain way, be a certain way, act a certain way. Um, and there’s elements of that that are true, that you do enjoy, but then there’s a whole other side of it that gets kind of thrown out the window. As far as I tell my kid all the time, and I’m ranting here, but, um, you spend a lot of time on the outside as a kid, but then as you get older, you realize it’s the inside that matters. It’s like the glow up that you get on the inside. You can’t put a price tag on that.

And I think a lot of people feel like once they hit a peak of, uh, whatever it is they feel like their physical attractiveness is, then there becomes this huge depression that comes like they lost everything. Everything was based on this appearance. And then it’s this rat race to kind of keep up with the new lip filler or the new procedure that’s out that’s going to MICROBLADE your brows or whatever the case is. And I’m not disregarding. Good genes come into play. I mean, good genes are good genes, right? But there’s also things that we can do that we nurture a correct environment for ourselves.

Oli: Mhm, I love what you just said. Ultimately, the aging process is something that’s going to happen to everybody. And when it does happen, and it is always happening, but when you start to realize it’s happening, you basically have a choice. You can try and hold on to something that no longer exists, which is obviously futile, but I guess there’s a lot of modern conveniences that make you feel like you can hold on.

So I’m talking about cosmetic surgery and makeup and whatever else people do. But ultimately you realize, if you’re lucky, that it’s a shift, like you said, from focusing on all the external things to turning inwards and finding some kind of lasting sort of value within yourself and your relationship with yourself. Rather than just trying to get value in all these superficial ways that we’ve been conditioned to try and, um, get value from, uh, for our whole lives.

And so, um, I guess this is why your work coaching people around transitions into older age or older age and making the most of it. Your work actually has kind of universal application, because even though we’re talking about a specific period in life, what you’re actually doing is helping them to tune back in to realness, uh, or to reality.

Because if they spent their whole lives focusing externally, and then suddenly they realize, oh, okay, there’s a stronger foundation inside anyway. And my connection to that foundation has nothing to do with all of these things that change and that I can’t hold onto anyway. Because what’s real is always real and blah, blah, blah. By helping people to do that, you’re actually aligning them with universal truths that apply to all of us, no matter how old we are, whether we’re male or female or blah, blah, blah.

And so I guess the question is, what is the main thing or what are the main qualities that people need to start cultivating in order to be able to manage this transition that you’re helping them deal with?

Heather: Well, I think it really is simple to some degree. Is really simple is never really easy, is it? But, um, what do you want? What do you really want? Because I think that a lot of times we realize that especially, uh, people are like, oh, it’s just hair. It’s just grey hair. But it is hair. Hair is a big deal for a lot of people. And so you really see the resistance when you start doing something as simple as letting your hair go grey, how it can ruffle some feathers, and you’re just like, wow, because it reminds everybody else that we’re all getting older. And so then you’re like, wow, I just thought this was for me.

And so it will build up a resilience of, um, showing you that there is a lot of things in your life that kind of fall into that same pattern. And, uh, once you can see that, I always tell that story about the elephant. You always say that too. I love that story about where they put the elephant on a little stake when they’re young and they pull it and pull it, and they can’t pull out. And then when they get older, they’re just stuck there. They don’t even try to pull it anymore because they just have given up. And I feel like a lot of times, especially women, we’ve been told since birth that basically after 30, you’re useless at this point. I can’t tell you how much further from the truth that is. I’ve had more freedom and, the older I get, I have enjoyed every age to the point where I just want everybody to feel that way. And when I see women that are trying to hold on to 25 or whether it be I mean, you can take those same principles that you want, have a funky style, do a different thing, but don’t, um, try to hold on to these societal things that are and that’s the thing, is people act like they’re not there.

But when you start pushing up against them, you find that they are very real. Especially from the people that you love the most, which is almost the most shocking, because you’re like, how are all these strangers giving me more support than these people that are in my inner circle? And those are the people that are the most vulnerable with you. And so those are the ones that get most stirred up. So, uh, I find in my work that people are like me where they want to make this change and they try to make the change and then they get this pushback and then they get scared because they don’t have a safe space to kind of let this go. It’s just crazy how it relates or it connects like that.

Oli: Yeah. So for people that don’t know, the change that you’re talking about ultimately is just embracing the fact that, uh, aging is a thing and that people go grey and you don’t need to hide that you can own your grey hair and basically just rock the hell out of it. But what you found is a lot of people, like you said, by seeing women in particular embrace their greyness and the fact that they’re getting old and everything, a lot of people have a problem with it.

And they’ll try and convince them to go back to the old way of being where they feel like they have to dye their hair, they have to mask it, they have to pretend to be young and so on and so forth. And it’s because by truly accepting who they are, these grey haired women are actually making a stand against all of these kind of cultural narratives around beauty standards and aging standards and blah, blah, blah. And the wider issue there, which I find really interesting, is that purely by accepting themselves and where they are in life, it’s triggering unreal people who are actually being unreal with themselves and would rather hide from life and reality than truly go through this kind of internal shift you’re talking about and embrace who they are and what life is.

And so I guess this is where it’s a good point maybe, to get into your pathway that you’ve created for your clients, which is about helping them realize that they’re in a kind of prison, starting to awaken to the truth about life and how it works and grey hair and etc., etc. Learning to flow by owning themselves and then finding the kind of freedom that you’ve got and that you talk about where basically you’ve enjoyed every age and you’re happy in, etc., etc. Because you’ve embraced and accepted the truth about who you are and what life is.

The interesting thing that you’ve just shared is the one I’ve just been rambling about where people who, uh, decide they’re not going to buy into that cultural narrative and pretend that aging and death, etc. isn’t a thing. They let their hair go grey and they show it off and its natural colour. But then people try and make them feel guilty or they shame them or whatever it is, purely because people would rather stay in prison and keep other people in a kind of mental prison so that they can feel good about themselves.

So I guess the question is, what can you tell us about this prison stage? And, um, maybe on a deeper level, why do some people prefer to stay in the prison, even though actually it’s making them miserable?

Heather: I think that’s the biggest question. I think it’s because they don’t know any different. I think that once you have a taste of the freedom, you don’t even think about going back now. It’s just such a different mindset. But that prison kind of goes back to the story about the boiling the frogs.

Like, they put you in the water and then they slowly turn it up. It’s like, if you’re like me, who somebody that was going grey at like 19, it’s like, oh my gosh, you just don’t let your hair go grey at 19. So you’ve been doing this over and over and over again. And then you get to middle age and now you’re losing all your hair. And everybody’s kind of telling you, it’s not this, it’s this, and this and this.

You have everything checked and you realize your body, if you listen to it, is saying, hey, just try something else. And so you try something else, you realize, holy moly, you break out of that prison and then you realize you were in one. So a lot of times we don’t even know we were in that boiling that boiling pot or that prison to begin with. But there are little signs like hair loss. I mean, I was at a point where my hair loss was so bad, I didn’t want to take any pictures with my family or my friends or anything. Um, and I was wearing a hat where when you’re colouring your hair all the time, you’re wearing a hat just occasionally when you need to colour. And then I was wearing it all the time because I just didn’t like my hair at all.

So now you were kind of on either side, you just didn’t like it. So it’s like, I would much rather try something else. So it’s, uh, recognizing those little things and when everybody you are kind of reaching out to is kind of giving you the back push of, no, that’s not what it is. But your body tells you one thing once m it gives you the evidence, then you’re like, okay, there’s a little evidence. Let’s build on that evidence.

So then you kind of make a plan of how you’re really going to do it. I mean, I tell people all the time. It took me three times to actually go through with it. Where I let it go, where the roots? Because with ladies, it looks like you just haven’t been to the hairdresser for a minute. But you’ve got to get past that six month mark. And that’s really, for me, that’s the biggest crutch. I would like to help those women that maybe feel like they’re in a prison. And that first six months is the hardest to get you.

You’re almost on the end of a diving board, just looking down, like, am I really going to do this? Am I really going to do this? And you get out. And then once you get in there, you’re like, the water is great, everything’s awesome. Look at this. I’m in an ocean. I could do my own thing. But it’s just that first getting that jump, and then, uh, after you start feeling good, then you hit that flow, and then you’re gone. After that, nobody can stop you. You’re so dug in, and you realize that so much of that stuff was so unreal. I mean, you hear that it’s unreal all the time, but when you actually feel it and you have that experience of it, and you feel so much better on the other side of it, there’s just no going back.

Oli: Yeah, I know. You focus on the Silver Sisters, as you call them. At this prison stage, it shows us and teaches us a lot about the human experience. Because actually, there are so many people out there that are stuck in a kind of prison. And I know it’s a cliché, right? It’s so obvious. But people are stuck in a kind of mental prison, and they don’t realize it because they’re filtering everything through their ego and blah, blah, blah.

But the weird thing is, people get so used to being in the prison that instead of trying to break out of it because I guess they’re not aware of it been a prison yet. But they get so used to it that everything they do is basically informed by the limited assumptions they’ve picked up because of the prison. And so they constantly try and adapt their lives to fit into the prison instead of breaking out and becoming whoever it is that they really want to be. And so, in the case that you’ve just shared, right, people are in prison because of the stuff that they carry around silver hair and grey hair and all this kind of stuff. And so, uh, they do all these weird things to try and cope, like dye their hair and all these different remedies and stuff that may get recommended on the Internet.

It’s the same for regular people that have not necessarily got this issue of grey hair out there in the world who are trapped in lives that they don’t want. Instead of actually trying to change things in a real way, they try and modify themselves to fit into the prison that doesn’t even need to exist. And so I guess the question for you is, how can we speed up the process of, I guess, waking up or awakening to the fact that the prison is even there in the first place, if that makes sense.

Heather: No, it does. And to me, I think that is like such a quintessential, uh, question of life, because I truly believe that you can’t be creative without limitations. The limitations is what gives you that creativity. But then some people, you give them the limitations and they’ll never go outside of them. So I don’t know what the mindset is that changes people. I mean, I just hope that people are open enough to be inspired by other people’s actions. And you can look at, uh, things and be like, wow, I like how they did that, but I’d like to put my twist on it or do something like that.

But if somebody isn’t born with a curious seed, I don’t know that you can actually give that to somebody or let them help facilitate. I mean, that’s why I say I try to hold space for people to see if they want to do that. If that’s even something that is something that is interesting to them. But I think passion comes from a place that I don’t know, but give me a cardboard box and I’ll make it look good. But some people, they’ll just sleep on it. Uh, I don’t know what does that sorry, no, I was going to say people that can inspire motion. That’s where it’s at.

Oli: Yeah, that’s so interesting because actually, I think in my coaching practice, people that have started to wake up to the fact that they need to change their lives have always reached out because they’ve reached some kind of a breaking point or the restlessness that they feel has just got so overbearing that they’re like, right, I actually have to do something.

But I think one of the traps of the prison that makes it more insidious and dangerous than it may even face first look, is that if it’s just the right amount of comfortable that it is tolerable, then people will never want to leave anyway. Because it’s not so uncomfortable that they do reach that breaking point where they’re like, fuck this, I need to change something.

They’re just kind of going through the motions and they can stay on that loop of just doing the same old thing again and again and again, even though it’s not really that satisfying, but it’s not that uncomfortable either, that they’re actually going to do something about it. And so maybe there’s something there. Like in your case, what made you wake up and say, right, this is it. I’m not going to keep dyeing my hair. I’m going to own the fact that I’ve reached a certain age in life and that, uh, my hair is just grey. And that’s that what woke you up and made you, I guess, reach that point of no return. Maybe there’s a lesson there.

Heather: Well, listen, it sounds woo woo, but it really is tuning into my body. I know women, we become so out of balance that we don’t even realize that we’re out of our homeostasis. And so when my hair was falling out and everybody was telling me it was a thyroid this or that or whatever, not one person was telling me that it was the dye, but my body was my body was right there saying, just don’t do it. Let’s just see what’s the worst why not?

In all true transparency, I was dealing this through the pandemic. So it was a little bit easier because you weren’t dealing with the whole social pressures of having a lot of weddings or a lot of different, um, activities. That is silly. But as women, and if you’ve been dyeing your hair like I was, you plan a whole dye schedule around your whole, ah, social schedule, as silly as that is. And that’s a part of being in a prison.

I can’t tell after having so much of my life in that particular, I have to have schedule to make sure I get the most out of it, to not even thinking about it. That is just you can’t put a price tag on that. Uh, I guess you can, because I’m saving tons of money, tons of time. You can actually it is crazy the amount of energy that’s spent on something like that.

Oli: Yeah. And if you think about it, it ultimately boils down to having either a real relationship with yourself or an unreal relationship with yourself. Surprise, surprise. That’s what everything boils down to you. But when you’re in the prison, the only reason you will be there or end up there for a sustained amount of time is because there’s a lack of acceptance.

And, um, by shifting into acceptance, which means that you’re accepting reality itself and what’s real about you and blah, blah, blah. Because the only thing you can do is accept reality by shifting into that way of being, all of the unreal choices that you were making, which were keeping you in the prison anyway, fell by the wayside.

Like, as soon as you realized that you’ve either been real or unreal, well, the choices that you make can only become more real. And that’s when you put yourself on the path to, I guess, the next stage of your pathway after prison and awakening, which is to start flowing. And so what can you tell us there, I suppose, from your journey around waking up to a deeper sense of acceptance, making real choices, and then flowing with life a lot more?

Heather: Well, I think that’s the key is flowing with life. I always say downstream effort. Downstream effort. So you’re not trying to take your boat, flip it around and trying to go upstream. It’s already flowing. You’re part of it.

So let’s get in our raft and just flow down there and let’s pull the things on the side that are already going in our direction. Once you start feeling, uh, that and then you feel the momentum of that picking up, it’s like now it’s a no brainer on the hair. Like, when people even make a comment of it, I just laugh because it’s like I don’t even get it that often. But every once in a while, they’ll be like something said and I just laugh because it couldn’t even touch it. Like the happiness and the downstream flow effort. Because now that has I’m like, what else is like that?

Now that I’ve done this with the hair and I’ve gotten such great results, it’s like, okay, let’s start a business. Let’s start a coaching thing. Let’s see what else has been told that you can’t do it because the flow is just coming in. You’re like, wow, this is kind of like an athlete or anything. I always say life waves, it’s all about waves. And you’re the surfer that’s sitting on the beach watching these waves.

Now, if you go out to the beach and there’s just no waves, you can get out there and make a wave. But the wave is probably not going to be the best wave. You’re going to have to make it work. And it’s not going to be exciting, it’s not going to be great. Or you can just come back the next day and do it when the waves are there. But choice to jump out into the wave. If you sit out there with your surfboard on the beach, you’re not going to have the fun experience, but you might get taken down, you might get under the undertow for a little bit, but m, you have to take the opportunity to ride the wave. And as soon as you hit that flow and you get that sweet spot, you don’t want anything else. Um, it has just gone over into everything. As silly as that is.

It started with hair and then it just snowballed into like a million other things. Um, in the three years that I’ve done it, it’s like I’m a completely different person. And it’s so silly that it started with that kind of by accident. But m, it’s real and the results are amazing.

Oli: Yeah, I don’t think it’s silly – I think anything in our life that reminds us things are changing and that we either flow with it, like you said, or we resist anything. Whether it’s hair or, I don’t know, uh, pet, dying, whatever it is…

Heather: A job, losing it or anything.

Oli: Yeah, literally anything. Right? It’s going to lead us back to the same place because everything actually leads to the same place, which is reality itself, truth, the nature of being, and blah, blah, blah. And so that is why your journey is so interesting, because it starts with this specific thing and it took you to a super universal place. The thing is that with the flow thing, I guess ultimately part of embracing all of these truths about life and everything is ultimately everything is flowing towards death.

Heather: Yes. My favorite.

Oli: I wanted to squeeze that in there. Everything is flowing towards death. You now accept that, I guess, as, uh, you were talking about flowing everything. I was thinking about that. Do you think one of the reasons people want to. Stay in prison is purely because they don’t want to face death. And so by creating this little bubble to live in. And you already know the question, right? So yeah, how does death feed into all this? And how can we accept it in the way that we seem to be talking about so that we can flow properly?

Heather: No, I think that’s exactly what it is. I mean, you’re essentially sitting on the beach and not getting out there because you don’t want to get pummelled because you might die. I mean, isn’t that the worst thing that can really happen to us? So, uh, it is, but it isn’t safer because then you’re resentful for everybody else.

If you’re on the beach, you’re going to be resentful for everybody else that’s killing it out there. And then you’re just going to be eaten inside, uh, out. So even if you look great, it really is about like the train has already left the station.

So, I mean, it’s a slide. And nobody really knows what happens when we’re done with this body. We could all just be floating in our little butterfly ethers or whatever. So to not enjoy every moment as much as you possibly can, I just think it’s a waste. But I could also see where if you’re eating the same thing every single day, how you can just get to the point where you don’t want to go outside of that because you’re too scared.

So, um, I don’t know what makes it, but I do think that once you taste the flow, once you taste it and you feel it throughout your body, you’ll want to try to do anything you can to get back to it. It’s the rush. It’s the rush. You get on whatever. When you’re in the zone, there’s just nothing like that. But you also realize that you can’t stay there forever.

I mean, there is fluctuations in life. So it’s about realizing that I might be low right now, but I know I’m just, uh, in the undertow. I’m going to get back on my surfboard here in a minute, and then I’m going to go after it again. But, uh, some people, they hit one bad wave, and then they’re just done. They’re done, and they’re not going to even try. I don’t know. What do you think gives people that spark to want to get up and fight the waves?

Oli: I think it’s exactly what you just said. Even if we’re in prison, we’ll get a little taste of bliss, and that’s just because the way life is, right? It might be something super simple, like we’re walking down the street and we see some reflections in a puddle, or like the sun, um, breaking through some leaves in a tree or something. And we have a little moment where there’s a little whisper in the back of our mind saying, wow, okay, that’s real. Or maybe it’ll be.

We’ve been a relationship. We’ve been making love and we become one with everything, or we do whatever it is, we’ll have a little tiny taste of it. And I think I’m being kind of romantic in everything I’m saying in this particular moment in time, that is enough to give you hope to kind of keep going. And if you do keep going, then probably you’ll get more and more and something will happen to give you a greater taste of what it feels like to be riding those waves.

But you’re right as well, because eventually the world is going to creep in. You’re going to have to worry about paying the bills maybe, or, uh, there’ll be something going on or someone’s going to die because that’s all that keeps happening in life. We’re all dying. And then you’re going to go back into your head and then you’re going to go back out into the world. And I guess it just depends at which stage you’re at, how frequently that is going to happen.

Because for me in my life, as I’ve stepped out of the prison I used to live in because of my own mind and become more real and started doing all the things I talk about and living in this real way where I’m trying to be creative all the time and move towards wholeness and all the stuff we talk about on the podcast. The more I live like that, uh, the more tastes of that I get, the more waves I get to ride with. And even when the world does creep in, I know where I need to return. Because once you’ve had a taste, even though I’ve been very poetic, all of a sudden, I don’t know why, even though, uh, you’re not literally eating the fruit, there’s still a kind of residue in your mouth and you know the direction you need to move in because of the juices that are still there, right?

And so it gets easier and easier to return to that place. So, uh, I guess in answer to your question, if you’re in prison, there’ll always be some little moments of truth that seep in between the cracks. And I guess they’re enough to kind of stir you to the feeling that there’s more, or to justify the feeling that you have that there is more. Because if we’re in prison, I believe our real version of who we are, the wholeness is always kind of trying to break out.

And those little tastes that are always there or, uh, those little signs that it’s there, seeping beneath the cracks or between the cracks, are going to be enough to kind of keep you going. Otherwise, everyone in prison would just kill themselves. But if you don’t listen to that or you don’t pay attention to it and you keep avoiding your own realness, that’s where you get this situation where self-destruction is resurrection and you’ll hit rock bottom because you’ve been ignoring all the signs and you’ll become totally static and totally shut down because your mind and ego are, uh, basically doing everything they can to keep you in prison.

And then something has to happen where you’ll be woken up, like somebody will die, you’ll get ill, you might lose something. Something will happen, basically, where you hit rock bottom. And then you have no choice but to wake up. And in either case, whether it’s these little whisperings of truth, seeping, between the prison bars or hitting rock bottom, and you’re like, right, I need to make some changes. The end result is always the same, which is awareness, ultimately. And then you get onto the stage of flow and awakening and then flow and all that kind of stuff. So that was a super ramble about that.

Heather: No, it goes back to that. It’s the acceptance. But it’s like, almost a radical acceptance. And then here you finally are like, yay, I got my radical acceptance. And then everybody’s like, what are you doing with that radical acceptance?

You’re not allowed to have that. You’re like, wait a minute. It took me so long just to get to this point, and now I have to deal with all these external stuff. You’re like, uh, man. You’re like, I’m out. I’m going to off myself, and I can’t please everybody if I can’t please myself. So it’s like, you see that. So people need to let you know.

Yeah, they say that that’s not there, and this is going to be, but it could be there. And I think if you’re more prepared, what is it you idolize? The worst case scenario, people are always like, oh, it’s not about that. But it is nice to know if you have that in mind, that you’re not going to be surprised by it anyway.

Oli: I think that’s part of acceptance, because the only thing you can accept is reality, right? And so if you accept reality, you also have to accept the reality of yourself and other people. And part of accepting that is that if somebody is saying things in an attempt to prevent you from embracing acceptance of yourself and life and basically having that unconditional radical acceptance, if they’re trying to stop you having that, then at some level they lack it.

That’s the only reason they would try and hold you back from that way of being. And so if you accept that, uh, as power for the course I know you’re a golfer, so that’s why I said, yeah, totally. If you accept that as power for the course, then even other people saying those kind of things to you will kind of slide off you like, uh, water off a duck’s back, because you realize it’s not real. And so you’ve got that real foundation yourself because of acceptance.

Um, the unreal stuff from others bothers you way less. And then I guess you can get into the final stage of your little pathway, which is freedom. But one final thing, actually, sorry, the other thing about flow and acceptance is that once you find that real place within yourself, you have to flow. Because reality is always flowing.

And the only thing that stops us is the mental bullshit of the prison and so on and so forth. And so if you can get to that point, you have no choice but to flow, and then you get to your final stage of freedom. So I guess the question is, how do we go from flow to freedom? And what is the difference between the two?

Heather: I suppose for me personally, it’s just not even thinking about my hair, and then it not even being a thing, um, from it being such a huge portion of my daily everything from my hair dye schedule stuff to then the whole transformation process to now, I just don’t even think about it. I mean, the freedom of it just not being on the plate at all, really, other than when I need to get a haircut or something like that.

And then the freedom of realizing by breaking out of that prison that it gave me the blueprint to do it in so many other things on bigger scales. And it’s like, wow. At that point, you’re like, wow, this is crazy. This was the door that I walked through. And now this is where I’m at. And now I just want to help as many people see that they can do that too, in their own way. That’s the thing. And I don’t know, it’s different for everybody. Just like some people can sit and meditate, some people can’t sit and meditate. But I’m a huge advocate for women to get into their bodies, um, and learning some values for just the beginning staples of this, and then having a support group, because a lot of my YouTube channel is basically more of a support group for these women to help support them to get to this freedom.

Because a lot of again, going back to the women’s, uh, even in the grey hair, it’s more about the beauties that you can do with the grey hair and stuff like that. And we’re not really talking about the mental aspect that happens as you’re watching that hair change from that color that it’s always been, and in my case, it was very dark, to a totally different look. Um, there’s so much more after it. And when you see all these women not only surviving, but totally thriving in this where you’re supposed to be invisible and you’re just like, oh my gosh, girl, come sit down. Let’s talk, let’s talk. Let me show you some more stuff. And, ah, show you how good it is on the side.

Oli: Wow. I think, um, what you’re kind of saying is that if you become aware of the prison and you stop it from holding you back because you let yourself flow with life and you’ve got that natural deep acceptance of the way that things are and so on and so forth. Eventually you’re going to flow to this point where you basically realize you can do whatever you want within reason. And because you have that foundation of acceptance, basically, you can start to use that to shape your life. So that it’s an expression of who you really are and there are less external barriers and all that kind of stuff. And it all starts by just embracing some specific thing, like you said, like in this case, grey hair, and then riding the lessons it has to teach you to wherever it ends up going.

But for all of us, no matter how we wake up, whether it’s through grey hair or an illness or a relationship falling to pieces or just a bad day in general, whatever it is, that is the end result of just trusting life and following these lessons where they need to take us. You can do whatever you want, really. And it seems like that’s where you’ve now found yourself by just going through this process.

Heather: Well, and it’s so funny too, because the freedom resonates with so many people. Like the older women that see me that are still dyeing their hair are like, man, m, maybe I should do that. And then I have a daughter who is younger and she’s going to have to grow up with these TikTok filters and all this stuff. And so when her kids or her friends see me with the grey hair, they love my hair.

So it’s like, I want them to realize that they have other options, too, that they don’t have to go that path. And the only way we do that is to, uh, be represented. So going back to the whole beauty thing, it’s like everybody’s out there, but they got to see all the options.

Oli: Yeah. So your freedom is freeing other people, basically, right? M well, I think I’ve learned a lot today about aging in general and I’m kind of looking forward to getting even older and then dying. So thank you for that. How would you, uh, sum all this up? And can you let people know where they can find you? So your website, if you want to share that, and your YouTube channel definitely, and all those kind of things, so.

Heather: Uh, you can find me? Um, well, I guess to sum it all mean, I think that don’t take your life too mean. I know that that sounds silly, but there’s a fine line there. I think that a lot of times we do that. And I think when we loosen up a little bit, sometimes it takes a minute, but when we do, we find a lot of enjoyment out of that. And whether, um, that translates to happiness for that person or not, that’s I guess, relative to them. But I think that life, um, is short. Very short. Mhm so don’t spend any time if you can regretting it, the things that you did.

Oli: Stay out of prison, kids.

Heather: Good advice, then, yeah, stay out of prison. And you can find me at you, um, can reach me on my website@mysocalledreality.com or my YouTube channel, which is the same, or on Instagram. But I’m more active probably on my YouTube channel than anything as far as responding. I haven’t, um, been that active of late, but I’ve had some things going on. I will be back there.

Oli: Um well, I will share that and everything else in the show notes. Hizzy to the Hizzo. Heather, thank you so much.

Heather: Thank you.

Oli: I’m glad we did this, finally.

Creative Status: Episode 59: Rev. April Kling Meyer: REALNESS, Peace, & Creative Transformation

Published on November 27, 2023

Creative Status: Deconstruct ego, integrate the shadow, manifest real life.

Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.

Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.

Step into the world of transformative creativity with Rev. April Kling Meyer, am ordained interfaith minister and Creativist.

In this episode of Creative Status, we dive deep into the profound connection between creativity and peace. Rev. April, with her specialization in healing trauma through creative expression, spiritual counseling, dreamwork, guided journaling, and co-creative ceremonies, sheds light on the power of creativity as a pathway to healing.

Rev. April’s approach is truly unique — open to individuals of any faith or none at all, she extends a compassionate hand, unraveling the threads of creativity that weave a tapestry of peace in the lives of those she serves.

Listen to this episode of the show if you want to discover how creative processes can be catalysts for personal and spiritual growth, fostering a sense of belonging and understanding.

Rev. April’s insights provide a roadmap for anyone seeking solace and healing through the intersection of creativity and spirituality.

Tune in to this episode of Creative Status as we embark on a journey towards inner peace through the lens of creativity and spirituality with Rev. April Kling Meyer.

Stay REAL out there,

Oli

—————————–

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Show Transcript: REALNESS, Peace, & Creative Transformation

April Kling Meyer Creative Status

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status.

This is a podcast about using your creativity to improve your life. Every episode of the show, I like to interview somebody who had some something interesting to say about the human condition, the universal truths that apply to all of us, no matter what path we’re walking on the way to return to those truths. And today’s episode is no different. I’m talking to Reverend April Kling Meyer, who is an interfaith minister who has looked at all kinds of different religions and theological ideas and philosophies and so on and so forth, and gained some understanding about the universal patterns that can help us to improve our lives and move towards more peace.

That is the main theme of the conversation, how we can bring more peace into our lives, how that will make us more real, how creativity comes into that. Because, Reverend April thinks, like I do, that creativity and spirituality are, linked and intertwined. So it’s a really good conversation, lots of good insight. If anyone wants to talk to me about any of this stuff, you can book a call on my website. April, thank you so much for your time.

Everybody else, hope you get some value out of this and that it brings more peace to your days. Here we go. Thanks a bunch. Boom.

Interview

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, April. Thank you for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. I think we’re going to be exploring the topic of peace and how that relates to the human experience, the kind of misconceptions people might have around peace itself and all that kind of stuff. But that’s just me making assumptions. Before we get into it, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about, what you do, and also what you want to get out of this conversation we’re about to have?

April Kling Meyer: Fantastic. Thank you so much for having me here, Oli. as Reverend April Kling Meyer, I’m an interfaith minister, which means I work rather independently, and my ministry is for all faiths or no faith at all. I’m happy to minister to anybody, and not being affiliated with a particular religion certainly takes the pressure off of having to evangelize or convince anybody to feel a certain way. I was ordained a little over a year ago.

Before that, I was and still am the proud founder of Creativity Is Spirituality. I used to refer to that as my mission statement. It became then, my ministry, and really focusing on the intersections between creativity and spirituality in so many respects has turned me into a peace worker.

Oli: Wow.

April: So I’m studying conflict resolution international peace studies at, Trinity College, Dublin. And I am excited to be here.

Oli: Well, I think you’re in the right place after everything you just said. So the main theme of this podcast is that creativity is ultimately a vehicle for spiritual growth or healing or whatever word people want to use.

And that if we can follow our creativity where it wants to take us, we can make the unconscious conscious and integrate all kinds of parts of ourselves we may have been hiding from and then feel less friction and frustration within ourselves because we’re more connected to wholeness and the kind of peace and stuff that comes with it.

So that’s how I see all this stuff. I suppose the first question I need to ask you is what is the link that you’ve, uncovered through all the work you’ve done with universal truths of your theological teachings and stuff like that? What are the lessons you’ve learned about the link between the creative stuff and the spiritual stuff?

April: Fantastic. I myself have started to see my own creativity as not just a vehicle for a connection to the divine, but a way of relating to myself. I started to see spirituality as the practice of being in relationship not just to the divine, but to the self and to the subconscious and also to other people and also to my own body.

What greater way to express that relationship between ourself and the body is through creative skill or creative expression. And in developing my creative skills, of which I have a few, I’m one of those people who has multiple interests, creatively speaking. I used to have a more adversarial relationship with my body. I used to see my body as the thing that got between me and my ability to be a better singer, be a better instrument player, or be able to so well that it looks like it just was, a flow of black and white photograph.

I started to evolve that journey with my body when I deeply connected to the intersection between creativity and spirituality. I started to see that relationship I had with my body as a relationship not as an adversarial situation, not as my enemy, not as my limiter, but as my collaborator. And I also started to view my body as a trusted, loyal friend. I would have to say in retrospect, and I didn’t think I could name this at the time but I had to go into the conflict resolution and reconciliation process with my own personal body. And, I think I speak for a lot of people that that’s not a journey that people typically undergo.

I think that what I see in the world is a more adversarial journey. I see that with creatives and people who identify as non-creatives alike and as you and I know, everybody’s a creative. But, people who really and that’s another thing. People who identify as non-creatives are likely in adversarial relationship to their body and see that body as the limiter. So I started to realize the way that I related to my body was, not the way a friend of mine would want me to. Somebody who loves me would not want me to relate to my body in that way.

So in undergoing that peace process with my own body allowed me to see that there is a peace process that we all need to be going through with ourselves m somebody else. I think that what we see in the world is really just what, we’re undergoing personally on a macro level. And I believe that so deeply that I’ve taken this work into more global study m to see what the relationship really is.

Oli: Wow. Do you think ultimately what we’re kind of starting to talk about is judgment versus acceptance? And the reason? I think that’s kind of what we’re talking about. I think the human journey of growing real, as I call it, is ultimately a journey from fragmentation to wholeness.

And the only way that we can have conflict in our lives, I think, is because we’re attached to some fragmented view of ourselves, the world and reality that is causing us to believe that we’re separate from everything else and also to judge ourselves. Now, for me, the opposite of judgment is reality. And reality is when we get into the kind of spiritual realm of wholeness and divine connection and all these things people like to talk about. And this path that we’re all on from being in a fragmented state because of underlying emotional stuff, normally shame, guilt and trauma to a, state where we’re more connected to wholeness is ultimately about letting go of the illusion of judgment, which keeps us in this fragmented state that causes all kinds of conflicts, internally and externally in the world.

And it sounds like the process you’ve started to unpack is ultimately that starting with the body. Because you’re right, a lot of people have, judgments of their body that cause them to have inner conflicts mentally and all this kind of stuff that is projected out into the world and then they see judgment everywhere. And ultimately, that is one of the main reasons why people don’t feel the depth of peace that they could be feeling.

So is there something there, I guess is the next question around moving from a state of judgment to acceptance? I think the creative process of going from fragmentation to wholeness ultimately leads to that. But what do you think?

April: I think that’s very beautifully put. I think that ourselves and othering other people is really the basis of conflict.

Oli: Yeah, 100%.

April: If we’re not trying to find common ground to start with, and we’re only starting with differences and separation, we’re starting off from a place of what I believe to be egoic illusion.

Oli: Yes, exactly that. Yeah. And when it comes to conflict idea, I would say nobody has ever argued about the truth because the truth speaks for itself. The only thing people argue about when they’re engaged in a conflict is their interpretations of the truth. That’s what everybody gets caught up on is thinking that their interpretations are, more right or more justified or whatever than other people’s interpretations.

And because we need those interpretations to keep our ego and the illusions that it’s founded on in place, then everybody gets hyper worked up about, been defensive about the interpretations they’ve attached to or etc, etc.

But the truth itself, I believe, is absolute. It’s an experience of wholeness. And you can’t argue about that. And so, in relation to the work that you’ve done with Peace and Peace studies and all this kind of stuff, is peace in that sense, just about stepping beyond that judgment and the interpretations that come with it and all that stuff so that you are more aligned with the truth. And if so, I guess how can we bring more of that into our lives? In a practical kind of way.

April: I think we have to get very comfortable with the idea of unknowing. I think we have to become very willing to embrace mystery. Because to me, judgment comes from this place of needing to know, needing to feel like we know when really we know so very little.

Our mind are not built to handle what you refer to as integral truth. We could not possibly with our and I hate to speak so adversarial about my brain, but I’m in acceptance with this, truly. But our brains aren’t really built for their purposes. They’re not really built to encompass the complete and utter truth of reality.

Oli: Yeah, I agree.

April: Built to perceive a very limited scope – we have to accept that limitation. We have to become very comfortable with the idea that we know very little and that that’s okay because if we come from the place of not knowing, we’re more receptive, receptacles m of true knowledge and truth. We’re more receptive listeners, we’re more perceptive people and are heightened and we’re able to absorb more.

We’re able to relate to others better because we’re able to perceive m if we’re in judgment where you’ve already decided so much m about what that other person’s reality really is, when really we know so little m we know so little. It’s that unknowing and that unknowability. That is our indication that life is a great mystery and that we must treat it all like a gigantic question that we may never have the answer to and treat that very dynamic of never having the answer to this question as, something really beautiful and precious.

Oli: Yeah, that’s so amazing. And ultimately, this is why nearly all of these conversations that I have with people come down to the idea of trust. Because you’re 100% right. Our brains are limited. Our brains are, fragmented actually. They filter the world through fragmented concepts, fragmented perceptions, because of our fragmented bodies. And that just means that from the outset, we’re never going to just perceive the truth by taking things at face value. Because the face value that we interpret and perceive is limited, but the truth itself is not limited.

It’s an experience beyond concepts and blah, blah, blah. And so human beings can never know everything. They can never control everything. We’re always going to be flawed and so on and so forth. And only if we accept that can we stop trying to control everything, stop trying to force everything, stop trying to be right all the time, and stop acting like we have all the answers, which we never can have anyway. That is actually just ego. And then we have to trust something bigger. And I suppose this is going to segue into some of the work you’ve done with the interfaith ministry that you have.

Because ultimately, that, I believe, is the lesson of basically every religion on the planet or every spiritual text. They say, let go and let God. I don’t know who said that, but that basically sums it up. You have to let go of that, egotistical way of trying to control everything and make sense of everything and force everything and let God or let the universe or let source or whatever word people want to use let things unfold as they need to. And that actually takes a strange kind of strength. And I guess you can’t have peace unless you find that strength to be able to let go and to trust.

So I guess the next question there is, how do we do that? Based on what you’ve learned from all the different religions and everything, how do we let go and trust and see that it’s not up to us to have all the answers? And actually trying to have all the answers is just going to make life more difficult than it needs to be?

April: Well, I feel like the answer to that question truly is curiosity. M, because m, when I think about people in my life that I have witnessed who I consider to be holy, and that doesn’t necessarily mean somebody that’s been ordained as holy or deemed as holy or, ratified in the church as a saint or anything like that.

I’m thinking about particularly for an example, Mr. Rogers. He’s a beloved TV, a beloved TV host for children’s television in the United States from a couple generations back. And I would think about how he treated the world, and I consider him to be a holy person, incidentally, an ordained reverend. But that was a little known fact about him. He was also an accomplished jazz musician, so a creative as well.

And I remember very well about how he spoke openly about his limitations as an artist. Whenever he would have to draw on his TV show, it didn’t matter how good it looked, but that it was just the act of doing it. and to say that to little children was so crucial. And I think about this all the time, but treated everyone he met with curiosity. And when you watch documentaries about him. There was a movie made about him starring Tom Hanks, Mr. Rogers.

And, people always say that what struck them about him was his curiosity about life. I’ve started to see that my most intimate, most precious warding relationships in life are the ones that I, treat with curiosity and that treat me with curiosity in return. I think curiosity is the name we give the state of unknowing the full acceptance of being in.

Because if I’m curious about somebody or something, I’m not making assumptions about it. I’m being truly receptive and perceptive about that person or thing.

Oli: Wow.

April: And I found that I really feel much more of a connection with someone when I notice they’re being curious about me. And I notice that they feel more deeply connected to me when I express a curiosity about them.

Oli: That’s amazing. And it’s so true, because when we’re curious, it’s exactly like you said. We kind of circumvent that default ego way of being where we look at life or we look at somebody, or we look at a situation, and we think we’ve already got it all figured out. And instead of filtering it through all the things we think we already know, we’re actually putting ourselves in the present moment so that we can actually learn and experience what’s truly there. And I think the other thing about curiosity is there’s kind of an element of playfulness.

So what you just said about Mr. M. Rogers, just the act of doing it instead of thinking about it and having all these preconceived notions and everything, just the act of doing it is enough to put you in that curious place. Because if you see everything as an experiment or, like a game that you’re playing or whatever it is, then you’re kind of moving in a kind of more joyful way. And I think you’re right. Like, curiosity is the best way to kind of navigate uncertainty in a very real way, but, a deeper level, it also connects you to life on its own terms. Do you see what I’m saying?

And so, when you’re curious, you’re an expression of life instead of an expression of death, which sounds very dramatic, but actually the ego, is a kind of death because it’s just totally unconscious. And so I guess the question is, how do we be more curious or how do we stay curious if we’re being a little bit curious? Like, is there any practical stuff there that you’ve learned?

April: I really feel that every time I enter creative process, the truly creative process with no outcome in mind m that it is a great way of taking my curiosity to the gym, as my friend Cheyenne would put it. It is a way of allowing when I get into process now, as opposed to before my connection of creativity and spirituality happened for me, I had an outcome in mind. I knew what I wanted to appear in my art or in my music. And I became very attached to that outcome. And if it didn’t go the way I’d hoped, I’d become very discouraged, very angry with myself.

If I treat the creative process like an act of curiosity and allow that to unfold as it is and go into mods and mediums that allow things to happen rather than to me, that’s the best way to practice it at least. And I think in terms of practicing curiosity with other people, we have to learn to become better listeners. We have to learn, maybe even take a class. I was just saying this on LinkedIn earlier, there’s no shame in taking a class on being a better listener. I think listeners, it comes right down to it, we’re probably not as good a listeners as we could be. And all of us could build our skills at being better listeners.

Deep listening is essential to curiosity. Deep listening is essential to helping people feel seen and understood and in connection with other people. A valuable portal to understanding reality, peace, connection, the divine in relation to other people, listening is the framework that builds connection.

And if we go into every, interaction we have with another person, with the act of listening rather than the act of needing to express ourselves all the time, I mean, naturally there’s going to be some give and take. But if we put the emphasis on listening, if we tip the scales toward being better, deeper listeners, towards the people that we love and care about and the people that we interact with every day or in passing m, I feel like there would be some kind of miracle that would happen, don’t you?

Oli: Yeah. Like active listening, deep listening, ultimately it’s teaching people to be curious about each other, like you said. And it’s also showing us that the main barrier to, actually truly listening and seeing what’s in front of us and experiencing it is all of the ego stuff that causes us to try and force life to our preconceived ideas about how things should be based on our relationship with ourselves. And so I think even though we’re talking about deep listening in relation to relationships and other people, all of those skills that you’re talking about that can help people become more active listeners, you can apply them to life as well.

Like you can have a deeper relationship with life by learning to listen to it and be more responsive in the moment. And all these things that we’ve said about the creative process and just doing it without any outcome-dependence or expectations about where we’re going, just allowing the journey to unfold in the way that it needs to, that is a very real way of living.

And ultimately it brings us back to the peace thing because we’re basically talking about living in a way where we’re forcing everything through ego so that we can try and maintain the illusion of control and separation and all that stuff. Or instead of forcing, we’re flowing. And I think that is the main difference between a, creative life where we’re flowing with life and a kind of empty, dried up life where there is no creativity because we’ve become disconnected from it, because we’re trying to force things.

And I think that’s the main issue in life for many, many people. They don’t trust life because of the kind of things we were talking about earlier. And so they try and force it. And as soon as you try and force life, you take yourself out of life. Something like that.

April: Oh, absolutely. that you said really triggered another thought about this, about not needing to be so attached and being so in control. Reminds me so of the process of meditation, too.

I feel that’s worth mentioning here, because meditation is all about relinquishing control. And I think where we fail in meditation, or at least where I fail in meditation, is when I try to control it, when I try to be in control. And any activity that allows us this space to be silent, like breathing, for instance, solo walks in nature and meditation, I think those are really excellent build our skills in the art of curiosity and that ability to remain silent and let our senses take in what they perceive.

Oli: What do you think is the main cause of human beings in general, trying to control everything? And I know that’s a massive question, but the human condition, ultimately, is that we have way less control than we think we do. And if we can relinquish the need to control, then we can be more responsive and usually get better results anyway, as long as we do have some kind of a sense of vision and purpose and etc.

But even though letting go of control tends to be better for our, mental health and physical health to some extent, because we’re not adding unnecessary stress and all that kind of stuff, most people out there are trying to control life, some more than others. But where does that come from, do you think? How do we account for it?

April: Oh, absolutely, it’s fear. fear of not getting our needs met. And I refer specifically and I know that’s problematic in a lot of respect ASLAV’s hierarchy of needs, our most basic needs being food, shelter, and connection, with other people and all that we require for survival. fear that somehow, some decision that we do or make will eliminate our possibilities of surviving. And that’s a very instinctual need that has become perversed by tendencies of needing to assume everything. And it does come back to that animalistic need to make assumptions.

Our mind’s ability to see pattern is where our ability to make assumptions comes from. Because our need to see patterns, our need to establish cycles in the way that we perceive our, the way that we perceive our food sources, et cetera, those arise from our need to survive. And it’s something we need to be conscious of that we need to I wouldn’t say overcome because there’s a beauty in the observance of cycles and the observance of patterns. It’s just our need to make judgments about it. I think that gets us into a bit of a situation where we’re interacting, our lives as if we are truly fear based beings and that we aren’t going to get our needs met.

We assumption that our needs are not going to be met unless we have complete control over everything that happens around us. And we’ve seen how that leads narcissism we’ve seen how that leads to, long term scuffles and strife and starvation and on upwards into global war. And we have this sincere, opportunity, this unique, I think maybe unique and very special opportunity of this time period in the grand scheme of things to, overcome and transcend that fear that even if we don’t survive it’s okay. I think the greatest fear of all is the fear of death. And death is inevitable. Death is just fine. It’s the next big step we’re all going to take.

Oli: Wow.

April: I think that if we develop a very comfortable sense, is okay. Death is where we’re all going and have a very sense of death being the great ending of our lives and the great rest we all have come to deserve at some point when we’re ready for it, when it comes for us, we will be very surprised at how great death can be.

So I think that if we have a better relationship with death and we stop seeing death as something to fear than all other fears when it comes to survival, because survival is prevention of death, that, we can concentrate on other things and we can transcend that fear. Wow, that is a lovely thing for me to be able to sit here.

Oli: And say no, but it’s so true. It’s powerful.

April: It’s hard to actually put into practice.

Oli: Yeah.

April: Hard.

Oli: So in my life, that is exactly thinking about death and facing death is the thing that woke me up to a lot of this stuff. And it made me get into a place where I can kind of trust life and kind of just go with it without really worrying anymore. And it’s because of exactly what you just said.

Like if you face death and you realize that death is coming no matter what, and that it’s not really a bad thing or a good thing, it’s just a neutral thing that’s going to happen if you accept it. Then when you are here on planet Earth, you can realize that your time, energy and attention are the most important things that you have. You will basically stop worrying about things you can’t control. And then a lot of your fear around surviving and then hopefully thriving, a lot of your fear just kind of melts away and dissipates.

And it’s because you’ve been more present, you’ve making conscious decisions in the moment about what you’re doing. And when things do pop up, these little niggling things, well, you can just say to yourself, like you said, well, okay, I’m going to be dead one day anyway, so I’m not going to worry about it. And then paradoxically, by not worrying about it, which we are wired to do, but if you can train yourself not to worry, things basically always work out.

And, you could come up with a million theories about why that might be. But ultimately, even at the most practical level, by not worrying about it, because you’ve circumvented that natural, fear of death, then you can just focus on changing the situation and being responsive in the moment and all that kind of stuff.

So the ultimate question now is, I guess, how do we kill that fear of death and start to find peace in our lives? Because obviously we’re hardwired to survive and to think that death is the worst thing that can happen. But regardless of whether we all go to heaven or whether we all just melt away for eternity and then that’s it. We’re just gone. Death is coming and it can bring us a kind of peace by making us more present. But how have you learned to do that? I guess by looking at all the different religions and working with people and etc.

April: I would have to say the grief process. Grief.

Oli: Wow.

April: If we have a chance in our lives to experience, become intimate with, or at least befriend grief we will truly death before our time to die. We will lose the people we love, we will lose the animal members, family, we will lose pets. I know that’s a grief that’s sometimes worse than losing a friend, the human friend, really. if we come to know grief and to fully feel our emotions of loss and around loss, I feel so strongly that grief is here to teach us about the inevitability of death and how not to any longer.

It also offers the opportunity for us to fear death more because we know that we don’t want our loved ones to feel what it is we’re feeling when we lose a loved one. That’s a very natural thing to want to avoid. But I think that if a more complete grief in our lives, if we allow ourselves a more complete, more whole, more defragmented grief, that we understand that when we come through that process and it is whole and complete, that we see that it is indecipherable from a gratitude process.

Oli: Wow.

April: Grief and gratitude are twins. In fact, I think they’re not even twins. They are just in fact the same person. Like Clark Kent and Superman.

Oli: Wow.

April: They’re just wearing different clothes. So grief. And gratitude, if we understand them as the same process in this psychospiritual community is saying and I mean, that not as being psychotic. I mean, it as, like a psychological thing is saying that gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.

We can treat gratitude as a bypass, but if we don’t allow gratitude to be a bypass, we really need to know grief. We need to get to know what it is we’re grieving. If, we become very connected to our grief and really able to identify what it is we’re grieving.

Sometimes working with dream work or any kind of hypnosis or any other kind of subconscious work helps us identify what it is we’re grieving, then we will become comfortable with death. And we’ll understand death as part of the cycle, part of the seasonal cycles of life. And we become able to befriend, it as well. And that’s, again, so much easier said than done, so much easier to talk about than to actually put into practice.

Oli: But I think it is doable. And everything you just said is kind of brought us full circle, because what we’re actually talking about, again, is judgment versus acceptance. And ultimately, by facing some of the harsher truths about life, in this case, death, it’s leading us towards acceptance ultimately. And that leads us towards gratitude.

Like, ultimately, I think gratitude is just a deep acceptance of what’s in front of us and how things are. And the fact of life is exactly what you said. Everybody we love is going to die. We’re going to die. Our, pets are going to die. It sounds awful, and it is awful. I don’t think we should just be stoic about it and pretend it’s like a cheerful thing or that we can just have no emotions around it.

We should grieve. We should grieve. But when we’ve, awakened to this fact of life, death, when we’ve awakened to it, we can kind of go through the grieving process before people die or before we die, in the sense of grieving for ourselves and our own passing and all that kind of stuff. And that always leads to gratitude. This is what I’ve found in my life. I know I’m going to die. I know all the people I love are going to die. And so actually, any judgment that I may have had of, them has been whatever.

Like, people annoy each other and ETT, all those judgments are now irrelevant. Because actually, not in all my relationships, to be honest, but in a lot of relationships, there’s way more acceptance. Because I know, okay, this person I am talking to right now is a limited edition. They’re not going to be here forever. I don’t want to waste time basically, like, with pointless arguments or, like, drama or etc, etc. And it’s because I’ve kind of projected forward grieved and then learned to have gratitude, which is ultimately just acceptance for that person. And I think we can live like that and it will bring more peace into our lives and relationships ultimately.

April: I completely agree. And what you said brings to mind another really, framework around grief. And I’m really paraphrasing you here that we have a chance to practice grief by grieving the projections that we have of the people in our lives before they’re gone.

Oli: Wow.

April: I feel like so much of our conflict that we have between ourselves and others that so much of the things in our relationships and friendships that don’t bring us peace are the things that we are projecting upon other people that are really our stuff that really we need to deal with by ourselves. I feel like if we are able to practice grief safely, we can start and use it as a tool for peace. Building as use it as a tool for inner peace is to start by grieving the projections, the assumptions we make about other people.

Oli: Yeah, and again, that kind of comes down to moving away from that default egotistical way of thinking and perceiving and experiencing life. Because ultimately, the ego is just the illusion that nothing is ever going to change but life itself, reality itself is constantly changing. And that’s why the death thing is so important.

Because actually, we know that death is coming. And so, that fact in itself shows that all of the ego and the way that the ego shows us life, it has no foundation. And so actually, the best way I found to step away from the ego and all the stuff that comes with it illusions, separation, disconnection, trying to force life, all the things we talked about death is actually the way to step away from all that and find a sense of peace.

So we’ve covered loads and I’m kind of super happy that we ended up in death. That’s one of my favourite topics. I wasn’t expecting that.

April: Me too.

Oli: But how would you sum all this up? How would you sum up this conversation that we just had? What are your final words of wisdom? And also, can you tell people where they can find you to learn even more about death and all the things that you talk about?

April: Great. Well, I will say that the peace process starts within and moves out in concentric circles to the people you’re intimate with and to the people that you know and outward and outward from there can all take part in the global peace process by making peace with ourselves and our bodies first and with the people in our lives second.

And if you want to get to know more about my work, you can go to Creativityispirituality.com and you can pick up my books – they’re workbooks so they’re fill in the blank. It’s all about you.

You’re the one writing books, I’m just the one providing the portal. And then you can also interact with me by scheduling time to talk. Your first visit with me is always free on Zoom. And if you’re local to my area here in West Waterford, Ireland, I have three locations where I can serve you one on one in person. But just go to Creativityisspirituality.com for starters. And then, you can also find me on Facebook and on Instagram.

Oli: That was amazing. So I’ll share all that stuff in the show notes. But, Reverend, thank you very much for this conversation.

April: Thanks for having me.

Oli: I think I’m ready to die now. That sounds a bit dramatic. I was just trying to be funny.

April: Let’s bring it on to all right.

Oli: Thank you again. That was awesome. Thanks.

Oli Anderson

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