Creative Status: Deconstruct ego, integrate the shadow, manifest real life. - Page 3

Creative Status is a podcast about using your creativity to grow towards wholeness so you can live a REAL life.

In general, this involves a three-step process:

1) Deconstructing the EGO - looking at how your fragmented beliefs hold you back from yourself and life and how your conditioned sense of identity might keep you in this state.

2) Facing and Integrating the SHADOW - exploring how the creative process allow you to move towards self-acceptance and owning the hidden/disowned parts of yourself.

3) Manifesting a REAL LIFE - moving towards your greatest vision for your life.

 

Navigating the Ocean of Self (Creative Status: Episode 80: Barry Winbolt)

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 compelling episode of Creative Status, we plunge into the depths of mental health and the power of self-awareness with the insightful Barry Winbolt, a seasoned therapist and writer.

As we navigate the turbulent waters of life, Barry shares his profound understanding of depression, the traps of our own minds, and the transformative potential of facing our challenges head-on.

The Illusion of Stasis: Barry dissects the deceptive nature of depression, illuminating how it convinces us of our own immobility and the necessity of challenging its narrative to rediscover life’s shore.

The Art of Letting Go: We discuss the liberating act of releasing our ego and the false identities that shackle us, enabling a return to the flow of existence and the pursuit of a life aligned with our truest selves.

From Learned Passivity to Proactive Living: Uncover the steps to break free from the paralysis of inaction and how, by embracing humility and the transient nature of life, we can reclaim our innate power to change.

Creative Status: Where Realness Guides the Way

Join us on a voyage towards REALNESS, as we learn to shed the weight of our misconceptions and sail back to the shores of authenticity and purposeful living.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

(www.olianderson.co.uk)

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Episode Links:

Barry’s website: ⁠http://www.barrywinbolt.com⁠

Barry on YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/user/barrywinbolt⁠

Podcast: Get a Better Handle on Life (Available on Spotify, Apple, Google, and more)

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Navigating the Ocean of Self (Show Transcript)

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. This is a podcast about using the creative process as a vehicle for growing more real. More real just means that you’re moving to a place of deeper acceptance: Acceptance of yourself, acceptance of other people and the world, acceptance of life and the way that it works.

If you can do that, then you can put yourself in a place where your unconscious mind and your conscious mind are pointing in the same direction instead of pulling you in different directions and, making your life miserable.

Ultimately, that’s how I now see the creative process. It’s about making the unconscious conscious because it brings up things that we’ve been hiding. It helps us to face life, helps us to see how we can move in a way that is life enhancing instead of life denying.

Anyway, today’s interview is with Barry Winbolt. Barry is a therapist and a writer. he’s been doing this kind of work for a very, very long time. And he has some amazing insights about just mental health in general, how we can look after ourselves, how we can avoid depression and those kind of unsavoury emotions we break down why people may get depressed in the first place, what we can do about it.

And ultimately, this is really just a conversation about how sometimes life asks us to face difficult things and that we may be tempted to run away from them because of our programming and, our habitual ways of identifying. But if we can face them, we can really dissolve a lot of our own inattention and get back into the flow of life.

So, Barry, this was a good one. Thank you so much for your time and energy and all your insight that you’ve, garnered over the years. Everybody else, thank you for listening. Hope this helps. Here we go.Boom.

Interview

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Barry. Thank you for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. This is gonna be. Sorry, sorry.

Barry Winbolt: Cut you off in full flow there.

Oli Anderson: It’s okay. I like to just dive right into the start and just ramble over my guests.

Barry Winbolt: Yeah. you did that very, very proficiently.

Oli Anderson: Well, thanks. I’ve had a lot of practise now.

Barry Winbolt: Yeah. Well, look, this, Oli, it’s a real privilege and a joy to be here. Absolutely. Genuinely, because to be on the delivery end and not having to do all the stuff you’re doing to get this into a podcast, it’s. I do what I prefer to do what I like doing most, which is speaking. So thank you for the opportunity.

Oli Anderson: Well, thank you for being here. What I was about to say in my little ramble was that this could, be one of those conversations that goes in absolutely any direction. I’m not quite sure where we’re going to end up. before we start kind of conversing and exploring things, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about, what you do, what you care about, and also what you personally want to get out of this conversation that we’re about to have?

Barry Winbolt: Can I start with what I personally would like to get out of the conversation? It is the engagement with you. It is the meeting of minds which, not to say grand or special minds, but I am a firm believer in the fact that when people converse, when people speak, something else happens. It’s kind of like we create a meta-mind to include both of our minds and new ideas emerge. I’m looking for, I’m not actually looking, but I’m open to any sort of inspiration, new ideas, freshening up of my ideas, and adding to them that we might produce together.

That’s kind of a rather nebulous way of saying it, but I’m looking forward to it because I think good things happen when you talk, basically. And the next thing I, I’d say is that about me? Well, the short answer is I’m a psychologist, therapist, coach, conflict resolver. That’s kind, but what actually, Sorry, you’ll have to cut that bit out. I needed to clear my throat.

What it actually is, I do. Let’s start with the podcast because I’ve been, for 30 odd years I’ve been a trainer, psychologist, coach, all of those things. I’ve shied away from too many labels, but obviously I’ve needed the label of therapists. That’s been a lot of my work. And consultant has been in organisations and training, done a lot of training of people, both professionals, counsellors and social workers and people like that and also corporate people like employees, managers and so forth. That’s how I’ve earned my living for 30 odd years.

About ten years ago I thought this travelling is no fun anymore, bit less than ten years. And I decided to how can I make a living by thinking, I thought. So I googled that and there was no satisfactory answer so I had to come up with it myself. but it’s kind of morphed into that. I sit and think and then I talk and I do some radio, I do a podcast and I still see clients. And my philosophy now is if somebody stumbles across my path and I can be of use reasonably speaking, I have to protect myself as well, not just take on anything, but when therapeutically speaking somebody is there who can benefit, I think, and we start a conversation and that’s the way I work and some of those pay me and some don’t, you know, I’m working with somebody from Ukraine at the moment.

I’ve worked with people all over the world in that capacity and that people find me by various means because I’ve been around a good few years. and I suppose really my mission is, as I said summed up in the podcast, which is life doesn’t have to be like that, or get a better handle on life. Choose which title you like. The podcast title is Get A Better Handle On Life.

What really drives me is when I see how we, including me, and I’ve got an example of that, how we all screw up, but for the want of a bit of awareness or a bit of knowledge. And where I think this really shows up is in the idea that you have to be qualified to help your neighbour if it involves anything from the neck up, you know, so when people, I have met so many people, and a man in the gym sort of got me going down this path about twelve years ago, he said, no, I’ve been asked to work for victim support as a volunteer and I’d really like to do it, but I think I’m not qualified. And my hackles went up when I heard not qualified.

And I said, well, since when were you not qualified to be a human being? You know, and you’ll get training for all the rest, don’t worry about that. But compassion, support, guidance, mentorship, role model, whatever role you take in that capacity of working for victim support, you will be a role model and you will be a human being. So that kind of got me started. Now that’s a very long answer to a short question, but I hope I’ve given enough of a drift on that.

Oli Anderson: Yeah, I thought that was a great answer. You’ve opened up so many different avenues for exploration in this conversation. There’s a couple of things I love that you’ve said is this idea of not having to be qualified to be a human being. One thing I’m always saying is that real always works. Like ultimately human beings are just looking for that human connection and we can give that to others by just being real.

Ultimately, that’s all anyone is looking for, like a real connection, real experience. And there’s a kind of issue, I guess, in our culture where people buy into credentialism they think they need a certificate or a diploma or, you know, whatever it is, like a scholarship or something like that, so that they can feel qualified in the way you said, to just be human and to help people when the opportunities arise.

So 100%, there’s something there. But I think also this little phrase that you’ve thrown out there, which is kind of connected about life doesn’t always have to be like that. Life doesn’t have to be like that. Ultimately, that’s the theme of this podcast, life doesn’t have to be like that. And I think we need to clarify what we mean by that. But ultimately, I think a lot of people, they buy into all these unreal ideas because they lack awareness, ultimately, because they’re just running through life on autopilot and just following the promptings of all this cultural stuff that tells them they need to be qualified or they need to be something else other than what they are. And it causes all kinds of problems.

So maybe we can bring all this together. Like now I’m running a little bit, but what do you mean? Let’s start with that. When you say life doesn’t have to be like that, what are you talking about specifically?

Barry Winbolt: Right. With my clients, I’ll start with 30 odd years ago, I became a therapist, among other things. Excuse me. And I’ve always had kind of two parallel or two strings to my bow at any given time that don’t seem capable of just doing one thing. So I was training, in therapy, first of all, various forms, for about ten years, actually. I was very lucky for various reasons. I got exposed to all sorts of stuff, because the other string to my boat at that time was publishing and with a colleague, I’d started a psychology kind of professional journal called the therapist at the time.

And, so we got lots of offers to go places and do stuff. I was exposed to many things, and that’s very valuable when you’re training in these sort of human skills. I always say to trainees, look over the fence. People tend to buy into a model of therapy, and there are over 400 and counting, so people tend to buy into their preferred model. Initially, they become a bit evangelistic, and they want to save everybody, and they think, and I did this, of course, and then we gradually calm down and get a bit more realistic, bit more balanced. And I always say to people, look over the fence.

Don’t just buy into one model. That’s the first thing. so that was how I came to this. But I very quickly started to see people that who, but for want of a bit of knowledge, were suffering? so let’s take depression because that’s a really big problem. And I’ve specialised in depression, all my working, all my therapeutic working life, mainly because I was very fortunate to be trained to, attend a number of trainees, but principally by a guy called Doctor Michael Yapko in the states.

And he just gave me a picture that I could understand. And I’ve had depression in my life earlier when I was a teenager and after that for probably good reason. But anyway, I think I was probably depressed. but I, and I’ve had several life events when I’ve had great opportunities to be depressed, but I’ve chosen not to be because I’ve got kind of the tools now.

And so I think I can speak in a qualified way, having worked with it for 30 years. And most of what let’s just talk about the lowlands of depression, the early days, you know, the mood change, the low mood that people can’t shake off, lack, of motivation and the various other indicators, if I can call it that, one might say maybe I’m depressed, maybe I’m not. This sort of thing now at that point, social contact activity, we know what works and what works is not therapy and it’s not doctors necessarily. It is social and it’s making sure your life is balanced.

And all the stuff you talk about, Oli, you know, social, connection, being with the right people, clearing up your life. I brought this down to. It was a joke at the time when I was doing my seminars, but more and more, and I did this 20 years ago, I came up with this and more and more. I think it’s an element of truth in it, in a rather clumsy way.

And I’d say to people at the beginning of the seminar, look, I’m going to tell you how to be happy. I guarantee that I can give you the recipe. Whether you choose to use it or not is another matter. But after 30 years of experience, blah, blah, blah, I give him the big build up. 20 years, what it was at that time. And it was a joke, but it was a bit of a cliffhanger to keep people paying attention. And then right at the end of the day I would say, oh yes, by the way, and I forgot a couple of times and somebody would actually come to me and say, you forgot to tell us.

So I said, “Oh, yeah, it comes down to two simple questions or two simple steps, really, in theory”. Simple, yeah. Find out what’s bugging you and do something about it. And that, you know, jocular joking though it is. I mean, actually, you know, there’s a grain of truth in it, isn’t there? So. And I was seeing people in my clinical practise who were, bothered by something but not able to do anything about it.

Yeah, very often because they didn’t realise they could. And so their life was like that, you know, in the doldrums or one, woman I spoke to had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. you know, they crossed the board. Another person with, alcohol dependency problems, more. Less serious. Perhaps somebody wanted to stop smoking. People with relationship problems and they didn’t realise that the starting point for most of these things might only be a decision, go and get help. It might be something technical like get the right sort of help. It might be read a good, self-help book or something.

But they had kind of, relinquished responsibility for themselves because they didn’t. They didn’t realise that they could actually, If they have a conversation with the right sort of person. And it doesn’t have to be a therapist by any means, they can actually start to improve their outlook. But that conversation has to happen a certain way. or more to the point, it mustn’t happen the way they so often happen. It has to be forward looking, it has to be, curious and inquiring on the part of the person speaking to them and so forth.

So my view is, I’ve been peddling this for about ten years now, that if we could get more of this information out among people, and it’s happening in some countries, you know, they’re using sort of folk therapists in Nigeria, in India, you can find all these things on YouTube, because they haven’t got enough psychiatric or psychologically trained people. They’re training people from the village or people from the township or wherever it happens to be. And those people, for one example, is they have friendliness or friendship benches.

I’ve forgotten which African country it is. And every day at a certain time or every week, the wise woman of the village who’s been trained will pitch up and sit. Typically a woman pitch up and sit and anybody who comes along and talks to them, they get some support. Now, a large part of that we know from research is being heard. That’s the first thing. And then there may be some strategic. Well, have you tried this or have you thought about that? Have you actually said this to the person? That sort of thing. Low level stuff, common sense, day to day stuff, but oriented in such a way that it’s a bit more valuable than what your mates tell you down the pub, but beyond that it’s pretty much the same. And that’s so people find themselves in a difficult situation and that’s the. Like that, okay?

And I want to say to them, and do say to them, life doesn’t have to be like that. You can stick your head up above the parapet and look around you, but first you have to believe, and goodness knows it’s easy now with the Internet, not so easy to get the right stuff, but easy to get information. Somebody somewhere in the world has solved your problem. Find them. So when I was grieving a number of years ago, my late wife died after a long illness, and I was in a pretty unhappy state, as you can imagine. And I was getting all sorts of very unpleasant physical symptoms.

And I thought at age 20 years, give you an example. I was teaching in London at the time, at the, ah, university, and I in the afternoons, and I got the train up to London from where I live, which is about two hour train ride. I got to the Victoria station and I couldn’t stand, I saw, this is really embarrassing… I’m going to have to ask somebody to help me stand up and walk off the train. And finally, after about five minutes, I managed it.

So I was getting all these weird symptoms and eventually I found a psychiatrist, a psychologist in America, who said she understood it, she’d done research and she said it’s only with women. But you’re describing exactly the same symptoms, which is really basically the somatization of emotion that I couldn’t otherwise accept or deal with. And that doesn’t make me a failure, it’s just I have locked gate mechanism in my mind.

You give me a little bit of crap and I’ll deal with that. And then just so I’m feeling okay, it’ll hit me with some more. But in my case it tends to be physical and I’ve been through that process twice since one sort of now because my mother in law died, but that triggers all sorts of other stuff, and supporting my wife. So, you know, and I know now that if I start to get physical symptoms, I know where that is.

Oli Anderson: Yeah.

Barry Winbolt: Doesn’t mean they don’t need checking out, but I don’t panic. And so that was my little bit of, it didn’t have to be like that. I know it’s a process of time, I know that I will get over it, if you can use that term. and so on and so forth. So that’s what meant by life doesn’t have to be like that. And it’s partly driven by frustration in a society where we can’t get help anyway, and yet people still try and look for help and it’s not available, or they just don’t realise that this, and this is very common. They just don’t realise that actually there is something that could be done to help them.

Oli Anderson: Yeah, amazing. And in a way, what it comes down to is being human and embracing the human condition. And I think a lot of the time when we’re stuck in that gap between finding out what’s bugging us and doing something about it, and, getting caught up in the kind of learned passivity that comes from that, the only reason we stay stuck there is because with we’re identifying with some narrative in our heads, ultimately that’s telling us that our situation is so unique or so complex or, so convoluted that there’s nothing we can do about it. And ultimately it comes down to what you said, like, no problem is a singular thing, ultimately.

Like, first of all, there’s a state of interdependence between us and everybody else. So if we reach out for help, then we can get moving, or there are going to be people out there that have already been through the same thing and we can learn from their experiences and we can see that actually there is a way forward. And so the thing that I’ve found that keeps people stuck in a life like that is this learned sense of passivity, ultimately, which means they’re not taking action because they’re identifying with some emotional thing, let’s say, that’s causing them to hold back from the flow of life.

Or they have kind of blown everything out of proportion, again, because of some underlying emotional stuff. And it’s causing them to forget about their own power, ultimately, the power to actually get back into the flow of life by taking action, like those small steps day by day, they’re actually going to start moving them again towards flow and freedom.

For me, I think that a lot of the time when people are depressed, it’s exactly like you said. They’ve got caught up, in, that gap between finding out what’s actually bugging them or taking a good look at it, at least, and then figuring out what to do about it. They caught in that gap and it’s basically taking them away from a sense of kind of purpose and movement and momentum. But actually, when we’ve been real, that purpose and movement and momentum is always there. And so anytime we take ourselves out of it. Reality continues to move without us, but we’re basically in this state where we’re fighting against it in a passive way because of our unconscious stuff. And so if we can unblock, it by taking a good look first of all, at what’s bugging us and then deciding, right, what am I going to do about it?

We can put ourselves back into that flow. So I suppose the question for you is, does that align with how you see things and how can people, I suppose it’s a twofold question. How do people learn to be passive in the way that we’re talking about or the way that I’m ranting about? And how can they kind of decondition themselves so they can start taking action again and trusting that that’s the way forward?

Barry Winbolt: I rightly say, it’s also been called depression, the selfish disease by Michael Yapko. Because we become so self-centred, me, me, and we think nobody knows how we feel and well, nobody knows how we feel in life generally, really. But you know, we get so absorbed with our uniqueness in our pain and our self-pity and I don’t want to, I don’t want it to sound like I’m putting depression down.

I’ve been there, I’ve lived for a very long time with somebody who was depressed and I’ve watched it as a clinician and a partner. So you, you know, I’ve had close hand, including those close to me and one in particular. So I’m not judging people who get depressed, but I am frustrated by the hold it has on our societies. It’s on the increase worldwide in all developed and developing countries. And this is not explained by being a medical illness. Okay, let’s get that out of the way straight away.

It’s a sociological and cognitive syndrome, if you like, as much as anything else. Now that’s not to say that some people don’t get depressed for clinical other, you know, it’s comorbidity with something else. They get depressed because something bad has happened to them. But even that. So let’s take a man I saw some months ago had a heart attack. 53 years old, had a heart attack.

Understandably, the poor guy’s depressed because suddenly he’s learned about his own vulnerability. Active sportsman, you know, all this stuff and suddenly he’s got to rewrite his maps and how he lives his life. So quite reasonable to be depressed at a time like that. It goes on for six months, for a year maybe. It’s not so reasonable anymore. Maybe he could do something about it. But to say that that was a choice of his, to be depressed. Of course it wasn’t. It was a, if you like, it’s an evolutionary development. He needed to be at that time to withdraw and reflect and remap his terrain. But that doesn’t mean that he can trust his thoughts. And that’s what I mean by the logic of depression, that depression lies to you. You know, it’s quite clear, and it tells you all of those things we’ve talked about.

You know, you’re unique. It’s your problem. Da da da. So I think to some extent, we have to understand the metaphor I’ve used lately, because I was speaking to somebody, we lived near the sea. So I speak to somebody who was a bit boaty. And I said, well, have you ever been rowing, out on the water in some way in a hand powered craft, a boat or a kayak? And you can see the shore, but the current’s against you or the tide is against it. Doesn’t matter how hard you paddle.

You can see the shore. So, you know, eventually, if you’ve got any familiarity, that you’ll either find a way of zigzagging, tacking, or the type will change or something will happen and you’ve still got hope. You will get to the shore because you can see it but as soon as you’re out of sight, as soon as you’re over the horizon, it’s a much more hopeless situation and I think that’s what depression is like.

When I was very depressed after my lake rift died, I knew the shore was there. I wasn’t on it, and I didn’t feel like going to it. Because that’s the other thing about depression. It’s very persuasive. But I knew it was there. it’s kind of like I had a handhold on something, an alternative way of life. But truly, seriously, deeply depressed people don’t even know there is another place to be, another way of being. They’ve forgotten that.

Oli Anderson: Yeah.

Barry Winbolt: You know, they would have been like it all their lives. They would have had moments where they were not depressed. But they will be unable to grasp that, or remember it or relive it, because if they could, they could start to move towards it. And that’s really the role of therapy, I think so. I seem to be talking a lot. So have I answered the question?

Oli Anderson: Yeah, I think so. The question ultimately was like, how do people find themselves in that gap where they’ve basically learned a kind of passivity that stops them from kind of paddling back towards that shore. And I think, you’ve said that there’s various reasons why that can be.

Like, ultimately, there is an evolutionary advantage to being depressed in the short term. but then eventually we can identify, I think, too much with all of the thoughts and the distortions and the resistance just getting back to the shore that the depression shows us. And for me, that’s why it always comes down to the same thing, which is that when we’re depressed or we’re anxious or we’ve got some emotional thing going on inside of us that doesn’t feel that good for a prolonged period, then we’ve ultimately lost our view of reality.

So I suppose in the metaphor that you just shared, reality is just the shot. It’s always there. Like, it’s always, always there. Like, reality can’t go anywhere. But if we’re lost in our thoughts and the ocean of emotional stuff that’s kind of holding us back, then the situation just gets worse and worse and worse. The more that we cling to the boat, so to speak, and try and stay where we are. And I think the only way out is exactly what you said.

To start to basically remember that the shore is there and to find a path back to it. And I think therapy can help if it’s not just one of those therapeutic, interventions where people are just talking about the problem. So it’s like, you know, what does the boat look like and how disagreeable. Yeah, all that stuff. We need a vision, basically, is how I see it. We need a vision for what we want to do. Let’s say once we’ve returned to the shore. The reason the vision is so important is because we can design it based around what we remember about who we are in our most real moments, like our true values and our true intentions and all that stuff.

 It puts us back into the flow of life. I keep using this phrase, or the flux of life. Like, life is always, always moving. We’re always moving towards wholeness, but we block it behind cognitive concepts and identifications, basically, that put obstacles in the path that actually aren’t there. There’s something that we’ve thrown in our own path, basically as a way of surviving in the short term.

But in the long term, if we stay out at sea for too long, then we’re basically just going to deplete in terms of our energy levels and our motivation and everything. And, life becomes like that. And so I suppose the question now is, how do you think we can get back to the shore without therapy and things like that? Is it even possible, as you understand it? Like, in my own life, I’ve been really depressed, like, at times, and I’ve never had therapy or anything like that. Like, never.

I’ve had some coaching and things, but in general, I’ve never done the talking therapy thing or anything like that. And I’ve found just by, I suppose, taking responsibility for my life is the short version, and just incrementally building a bridge, let’s say, back to the shore, then I’ve been able to get to a place where I feel better than ever, ultimately. But obviously what worked for me isn’t going to work for everyone. It’s not like a one size fits all thing. But I suppose, yeah, like, how do we get back to the shore? How do we start getting back to the shore?

Barry Winbolt: Well, first of all. Sorry.

Oli Anderson: Sorry. No, no, I was just going to say by ourselves, if possible.

Barry Winbolt: Yeah, if by ourselves, or possibly with our close ones, with our families or, you know, people we trust, that type of thing. I think you’ve really nailed it, actually. We use slightly different language, but the first thing is understanding. I call it getting over ourselves. you’re nothing. While I was writing my first book, I couldn’t finish it. I couldn’t even start it. I’d spent the advance, until I persuaded myself. I suddenly realised one day that probably nobody’s going to read it. And then I just. I flew through it.

It was some sort of I didn’t know what it was. It was being intimidated by the idea of putting this stuff on paper. It was a non-fiction book, by the way. It was about photography, so it was hardly great, art. And once I got a perspective. Look, this is a small publisher who’s going to buy this book. I’ve been paid for it. Just do the job, deliver the goods and take the money. M and so once I got that in my head, so I got a perspective.

And, you know, the Buddhist idea that we’re all great grains of sand, I think, or that were insignificant in the universe. It’s good to remember that. It’s good to be humble about our own sense of place in the world, which is nowhere, you know, nobody cares. Nothing cares about you. And now that sounds very harsh and blunt, but it’s not a bad starting point. I would certainly say that of myself.

Now, I know I’ve got people who care for me, but if I’m so full of myself that I think that I am important and I deserve stuff. I only deserve stuff on my own merit. I deserve stuff that I work towards, you know, I mean, you might say that I deserve respect of other people. I think we’d all like to say that. Yeah, but you don’t get respect unless you are respectful. You know, it’s not something you get with your job position or a title or a bigger car. You get respect not from people who matter anyway. You get respect because you’ve earned it.

And so, you know, that’s where I’m coming from when I’m saying getting over ourselves, just getting a sense of how minute we are in the grand scheme of things, and spending some time with ourselves and thinking what it is, our, true values. How do we want to show up in the world, as people say these days, and what do we want to represent and what fits with our values? And to come back to a question, you know, how do we get from what’s being called this sleepwalking state or this sleep and this state of non-awareness?

And I want to make it clear, I’m not talking about depression anymore at this point because, as I said, I think it’s a slightly special case because it’s harder to break free from, because of the logic of depression that goes with it, that’s constantly trying to keep you stuck where you are. And I really do present it often to clients as an adversarial position. I don’t like terms about beating or winning, but negativity loves, you know, I mean, what is it? What do they say? I don’t know, something about negativity loves company or something like that.

Oli Anderson: Misery loves company.

Barry Winbolt: Yeah, that’s the one. Yeah. And so it is in ourselves, you know, depression wants us to stay where we are. Thank you very much. And so we do have to do something, to break away from it.

Oli Anderson: Yeah.

Barry Winbolt: Now I was speaking to a guy yesterday who is 24. He’s a, motivational guy in Denmark called, Daniel Hauger. And very impressive guy. 24 years old, history. Father died at 13. He mentioned at the end, because I asked him about his support structure and he said his mum and his little brother. Now this guy has made such a transformation in his own life from being a druggie 16 year old to having an epiphany to doing what he does now at 24. And I naturally wanted to know how he’d done that. And he did it; I think he used sport quite a lot.

He did it through, a decision he looked forward into the life he wanted. He wanted a good, quality life and he wanted to. Not a mediocre life, as he described it. And he knew the path he was on was potentially disastrous. So he took the decision to change. And he said it wasn’t easy. I had to change my friends, had to change the people I hung around with. I slipped back a few times. I read every self help book I could, get. I enlisted my mother and my brother, who were very, very helpful and supportive. Best mother and brother in the world, he said.

So it was a slog, but it started with him realising, even if he couldn’t see the shore, he knew it was there. And then he took the steps. So I think if I’ve understood the question, then there’s only one place to start, and that’s with yourself. And that’s with being brave enough to think. Maybe everything I’ve thought up until now, or anything I’ve thought up to now, maybe that’s not the only way. And once again, life doesn’t have to be like that. What if. A really powerful question is what if, you know, if you can’t see a different life? And I use this a lot in my work.

Well, you know, this, that and the other, and nothing is any good, and blah, blah, blah. Well, what if it was? Well, it wouldn’t be, would it? Because blah, blah, blah. Yeah, but what if it was? And just keep going with what if it was? And not everybody can do it. Actually, some people are so sort of blocked up that they can’t get there and they just get irritated. And irritated isn’t bad either, by the way, but. So I think we have to realise there is a different way of being. We don’t know about how to get to it yet, but we have to accept that our, current reality is not serving us well. Does that answer the question?

Oli Anderson: Yeah, very well. I think it all comes down to this idea that you have to lose yourself to find yourself. I think depression is a special case, like you said. But the reason it’s special is because the volume on the problem has been turned all the way up. And what I mean by that is the main problem that stops us from returning to the shore or moving towards the life that we actually want to be living. That is possible in many cases, is our ego, the false self-image that we have picked up because of underlying shame, guilt and trauma and all this stuff that causes us to become fragmented within ourselves.

The more strongly we are attached to that image, the more we end up falling into the self-centred nature of depression, as you described it earlier. And ultimately the reason we become self-centred when we depressed m in the clinical sense or in the extreme sense, we become self, centred. Because ultimately, the battle that you’ve mentioned between this idea in our minds that’s causing us to believe that we’re stuck, that everything is static, that we can’t grow, we can’t change, there’s no hope, all of those kind of things. That battle is actually just our old identity fighting to keep its hold over us, even though reality is calling us to move in a different direction.

And the more we cling to that identity, the more friction that we bring between ourselves and ourselves, between ourselves and others and between ourselves and life itself. But because people are scared to kind of lose themselves, to find themselves and then get back in the flow, that battle ultimately causes them to freeze up. And, that’s how you get the learned passivity and all the stuff that we’ve been talking about. And so the way forward, ultimately, is humility.

Like, you kind of alluded to this in your answer. Like, ultimately, humility means, I believe now at least accepting the truth about life. The truth is embracing all of these kind of facts that I, like the one you mentioned. Like, ultimately, we are a lot more insignificant than we may originally believe. At first, when we become aware of that and have to start accepting it, it seems kind of terrifying. Like, oh, my God, I’m insignificant, people don’t care, whatever, blah, blah, blah.

Actually, it’s a gift. Like, if you’re insignificant, like, you’ve learned in your own case with the writing, you can free yourself up because you don’t have to worry about being judged. Another one is that we’re all going to die one day. Like, at first that seems like a kind of depressing thing, but actually, if we’re going to die one day, then again, we can kind of loosen up a little bit because we realise, okay, things are changing, I need to grow with it and I can let go of this and I can let go of that, etcetera.

It’s all about stepping into the humility of accepting that life keeps changing, that it’s not within our control. And so we don’t need to be a big hero who’s in charge of everything, nor do we need to be like a victim who rolls over and kind of tries to escape from these facts. And the humility, basically is putting is in alignment with not being omniscient, not being omnipotent, but kind of learning to trust and go with the flow in the way that you’ve kind of talked about.

So we can get to the other side of the, ocean, so to speak, and find the shore again. And I think it all comes down to identity, basically, if you attach to your identity too much, then when something bad happens, you’re going to get very depressed because you’re not going to go through the grieving process. But if you can let go of it and get over yourself, then probably things are going to be okay because you’ll put yourself back in touch with reality and then you can be responding, you can be responsive with life. Sorry. Rather than just reacting to it based on all that old conditioning, something like that. That’s how I see it, in it.

Barry Winbolt: Well, I think, you know, that. That’s all. I’d agree with all of that. And I think the thing about it is that, ah, we come back to this fundamental idea of non-awareness. You know, many people, well, first of all, in this country, particularly the UK, I’m m talking about now, we pooh pooh the idea of personal development. We’re terrified of psychology.

I’d go to a party, I’d never tell anybody I’m a psychologist or a counsellor, because the first thing they do is they find the other counsellor in the room and chances are we’ll be diametrically approached to each other in our thinking because the other one will be somebody who thinks it’s great to talk about the problem ad nauseam. Which I think is fundamentally immoral, actually. If people want to talk about the problem, that’s fine. But every time they repeat it, repeat it, repeat the story, you know what happens. So it just gets reinforced.

So I think that’s not to say there aren’t some very good analytical therapists out there. I don’t mean that, I don’t mean to pooh pooh it, but, you know, a bit light heartedly when I say, but it has happened several times. Oh. So and so is a therapist or a coach, you must meet them. And, chances are we got nothing to talk about because we’re all pretty individual in our…We’re all trying to carve off a furrow of a living somewhere, and we very readily see competition where it isn’t and all that. So I think, quite often, people, when you say you’re a psychological therapist, people think they put meanings onto that, like, oh, you’re going to analyse me, are you? No.

There are so many different types of psychologists anyway; it’s just a natural term. so I think, yes, I certainly agree with those ideas, but the thing I hear is notions of responsibility, people very quickly get into, and don’t ask me how they make the leap, because I never have in my own life.

If you imply there’s a choice somehow to some people that equates to blame, that they’re not doing something right, and it’s blameworthy, which is part of the problem, of course, that you’re describing, which is all the baggage they bring with them and that sort of thing, you have to be open to realising that whatever the words that are used, the concept, you know, change the words, fine, you don’t like responsibility, use self-awareness or whatever, but, you know, it’s, don’t rebel against a bit of language when basically the idea is a good one. And I do think, too, that there’s been a tendency.

There is still a tendency, probably, but I’m not as active out there in the world as I was. I do most of my work online now, so I don’t go to conferences as much as I did and that sort of thing. But there is a tendency to, over sympathise, over empathise with people’s plight. And of course, when we see a person who has a plight, whatever it is, or is in plight, whatever the expression is, we lay straight away our own interpretation of that.

So I had a scary health related event not so long ago, and I remember when my late wife died, soon shared the diagnosis, and, that meant probably she wasn’t going to be very well for quite a long time, probably would die, although we didn’t know that at the time. Straight away, she got the address book out and she put a red line through about 50% of it and said, I’m not going to speak to these people for the duration of this illness, because I know they won’t deal with it, because what do people do?

They start telling you, you tell somebody, oh, I’ve had a condition. Oh, is it cancer? Oh, yeah, my sister in law had that. She died, and these sorts of. And I think it’s probably stress or worry on their part, but all the wrong stuff comes out. And so she quickly weeded them out. And I think there is a tendency when we put forward our vulnerability, our, you know, the thing we fear, and there may be a lot of shame under it, there may be trauma, as you say, we’ve spent a lifetime keeping it at arm’s length, or mostly. And of course, that’s very tiring as well.

Oli Anderson: Yeah.

Barry Winbolt: You know, it’s burning up energy for nothing, fighting with ourselves. And the moment you open your arms and welcome it in. Sounds terrifying, but works for me every time because suddenly it’s not such a big problem.

Oli Anderson: Yeah.

Barry Winbolt: And then it can start to become something to deal with.

Oli Anderson: That’s an amazing way to sum all this up. There’s a quote that I loved by Joseph Campbell. He said, well, I think he was quoting like, an old proverb or something, but anyway, he said, when the angel of death appears, it’s terrifying, but when it reaches you, it’s bliss. And I think that’s ultimately what’s going on in a lot of these cases.

Like, things are calling for us to start moving again and it seems terrifying because of what’s going on beneath the surface. But when we do actually reach the shore to keep this metaphor going, it is bliss because we get back in the flow of light.

So, Barry, we’ve covered a lot to say we didn’t know where we were going to go. Can you quickly tell people where they can find you online?

Barry Winbolt: Certainly. yes, thank you. My website is barrywindbolt.com, and that’s Winbolt, w I n for November, bolt.com, because occasionally people put an m in. Well, often they do. That’s Winbolt, and, barrywinbolt.com, that’s my website, YouTube. You’ll find me same name, Barry Wimble. the podcast is called get a better handle on life and that is on the usual platform, Spotify, Apple, Google, that sort of thing.

But if you google it, it’ll come up and. But you’d probably better to say get a better handle podcast. Better handle on Life podcast to Google because otherwise all sorts of other stuff comes up. So that’s where you can find me. And, you know, I’m always happy to chat to people if they want to chew, over some of these ideas.

Oli Anderson: That’s awesome. I’ll share all your links in the show notes as well, so it’ll be easier for people to find. But Barry, thank you so much for this conversation. It’s been a good one. And, let’s keep paddling to the shore, so to speak, and, staying real. So thanks again.

Barry Winbolt: Well, thanks for the opportunity, Oli. It’s really, really, I was going to say inspiring. Well, it is, but it gets overused, doesn’t it? But it’s true. So thank you. I’ve enjoyed the conversation immensely.

Oli Anderson: Thank you again.

Creative Expansion for REALNESS (Creative Status: Episode 79: Phoebe Camilletti)

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, we delve into the concept of expansion and how embracing creativity can lead us to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the universe.

I’m joined by Phoebe Camilletti, a writer, artist, and coach whose insights on creativity challenge us to rethink what it means to grow and expand.

The Essence of Expansion: We explore the often misunderstood concept of expansion, revealing how it’s not about grandiose achievements but finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life.

Creativity as a Path to Self: We examine how even the simplest acts of creation can be a catalyst for profound self-discovery and change.

From Fragmentation to Wholeness: Explore how societal pressures and self-judgment lead to fragmentation, and how the creative process helps us unlearn limiting beliefs, inviting us into a state of wholeness and flow.

Creative Status: Where every moment is an invitation to expand.

This episode is an open door to anyone seeking to embrace their creativity, expand their understanding of self, and live a life aligned with their true nature.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

(www.olianderson.co.uk)

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Phoebe on Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/synaesthetic__/⁠

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Expansion, Creativity, Self-Discovery, Meditation, Incremental Growth, Wholeness, Flow State, Identity, Playfulness, Gratitude, Societal Narratives, Self-Acceptance, Fragmentation, Inner Reflection, Personal Transformation, Mindfulness, Creative Expression.

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Creative Expansion for REALNESS (Show Transcript)

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to creative status. This is a podcast by exploring the depths of the creative process to see how deep it can take us into life itself. Just made that up. It sounds quite good, but, yes, if you’re into creativity, this is the place for you. If you’re into being human, this is the place for you. If you’re into growing real… Well, welcome.

Today’s interview is with Phoebe Camilletti. Phoebe is a writer and a speaker and an artist. And this is just a really nice, free flowing conversation about how creativity can help us to expand what expansion is, what it means in practical, real terms, and how we can go through the creative process in a way that’s going to make us more aligned with who we really are, what life really is, and what it’s all really about. So, Phoebe, thank you so much for your time. Everyone else, here’s the interview. Hope you enjoy it. Thanks a bunch. Boom.

Interview

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Phoebe. Thank you for joining me on today’s episode of creative status. We are going to have a conversation that could go absolutely anywhere, but I believe we’re about to start with the topic of expansion expansiveness. But before we do, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about and what you actually want to get out of this conversation?

Phoebe Camilletti: Yeah, absolutely. So, first of all, thank you so much. I just… Any opportunity to talk creativity with someone who is well-versed is very delightful to me. So I’m very honoured. It’s very privileged to be here. My name is Phoebe Camilletti. I’m an artist, I’m a writer, I’m a coach and a speaker, with my platform being one of creativity.

So I believe that creativity is a main lens for expansion, and I help people who don’t feel creative embrace creativity for themselves to essentially arrive at whatever growth and purpose they’re looking for, but maybe they haven’t been able to find. So, in terms of what to get out of this conversation, I’m honestly just psyched to be here with you, Oli.

Like, we’ve had some good conversations so far, and you’re a very creatively minded guy, obviously, because this is what you’re doing. So I think it’s just going to be fun, and I’m looking to get out of it, whatever we both get out of it. So I’m ready for it.

Oli Anderson: I think that’s the healthiest attitude. Like, no expectations, except to both be as awesome as possible, because we’re recording this and whatever we do say is just going to be there, there forever. So there is a little bit of pressure before we get into. Well, not before we get into it. Let’s actually get into it with the expansion thing.

What do we mean? Because some people might have heard us say that already, and they think, right. That’s one of those kind of buzzwords that all those hipster coaches like to use. What does it mean? Because I think it’s a very valuable, very important word. But what are we referring to with that?

Phoebe Camilletti: That’s an excellent question. I will say first, what comes up for me is the idea of gratitude. And I don’t mean to say that expansion means gratitude. I don’t mean to say that expansion has to mean gratitude, but I’m just expressing that. I think that that’s one of the pieces that we don’t necessarily connect to this puzzle of what is growth for me? What is expansion for me?

What am I looking to achieve in life? Because it starts with this place of deep reverence for where you are, right. And it’s not just like gratitude. Like, oh, say thank you and move on. Right. It’s. It’s. It’s a very creative thing, I think, to be able to deepen into where you’re at with the discomfort, perhaps, of where that is, to be able to fully embrace it because it’s part of you.

So when we talk about expansion, Oli, I feel like that at least has to be a platform, if not an essential part of it. So I’m wondering kind of what you feel about that, too.

Oli Anderson: Yeah. I love how you’ve taken it in that direction. I think gratitude is one of the key things that we need to cultivate in order to be able to put ourselves into the flow state. And for me, expansion, ultimately is about growing in a way where we doing what we can do that’s under our control, but then we’re kind of trusting and leaving the rest to life to present the opportunities that we need or to kind of allow things to swim up from the unconscious that maybe we didn’t know we can be there or to let go of things.

Whatever it is, gratitude is actually the best way I have found in my own life to build a solid foundation for allowing that to happen. Because if we can get to a place of gratitude, then ultimately we get to a place of acceptance.

And only if we get to a place of acceptance are we going to be able to accept life itself on its own terms, without all of the ego distortions and the scarcity, thinking and all those kind of things. And so gratitude, it’s almost like I had a coaching client, and he summed it up really well with my coaching clients. I get him to do this thing every day in the first months where it’s like a little gratitude journal and a thought log.

But anyway, he was saying of the gratitude journal, he said, I love doing this gratitude journal because it makes time stop. And, like, the way that he said that, I was like, “Wow, that’s exactly what it is.”

When you list things that you grateful for, but more importantly, really tap into that feeling of gratitude, you see that actually, your life is just amazing. Like, when you accept life on its own terms, it is amazing. And that means that all of these other things you’re trying to bring into your life as you’re trying to expand and grow into the next version of yourself, they’re not something that you need in an outcome dependent way.

Like, you don’t need them to fill the void inside you. You’re already kind of full, but you’re actually just bringing them as an expression of that fullness. And so, for me, gratitude leads to acceptance, and then acceptance allows you to get into the flood. So I don’t know if that’s how you see it.

Phoebe Camilletti: Oh, I mean, absolutely. And there’s so much about what you just said that I find really exciting, but I think I’ll touch on one point to start and then maybe two. The first thing that really stood out to me that I want to talk about is how you said your client conveyed that when he does this practice of the journal, its like, time stops. And the reason I love that is because, you know, you’ve used the word flow a few times, right?

Like, this idea of being in a flow state and how that’s related to time, because we tend to think of time as very linear. Everyone does. Even if you’ve done work surrounding, like, how do I manage my time? Or how do I perceive time the way that I want? We still are locked in this mentality of time as a very linear, deliberate thing. But the reality is, when you access that flow state, I think that you are more perceiving time correctly, by which I mean, it’s all happening at the same time.

Your future, your past, your present, it’s all right now, right? There is no real time as such. So when you’re able to use gratitude, especially as a way to get into that zone. Oh, my God. Like, talk about the endless possibilities for yourself emotionally, creatively, in terms of your expansion, as we’re saying.

So that’s one thing that I think is really cool, conceptualizing flow, within the practice of gratitude, within the grounding of timelessness. And so that’s what that brings up for me.

Oli Anderson: Yeah. And I 100% agree. And I think that is the power of gratitude. It’s allowing us to taste wholeness. So on this podcast and everywhere else I go, I’m always blabbering on about how it’s ultimately about the journey from fragmentation to wholeness.

And what you just said about, like, linear time. We perceive time has been this linear thing because we caught up 90, 9% of the time in the perceptions of our fragmented bodies, which means that we caught up, in. In the illusions, so to speak, of time, space and causality, which are all just fragments based on the way that we have fragmented our experience, because of the way we’re embodied in these fragmented bodies. And we project it out into the world.

The truth, I believe, based on what I’ve now experienced in life, is that it’s about just stepping beyond that every so often. So you get a taste of your true identity. And your true identity is that timelessness that you’ve just alluded to. That timelessness is a taste of wholeness.

And maybe you can’t live there all the time because obviously the world is going to creep in and things are going to happen, and we’re going to have problems and obstacles, and we’re going to have this very human thing going on. The duality of man, where we just get caught up in all of the bullshit of the world and the past. And now it’s keeping a hold of us and all that stuff.

But if you get a taste of that timelessness, that’s all you need to be able to stay in this flow state as much as possible. And if you can get there, even just a little bit every day, then you’re going to be able to experience it more and more.

And as you do that, you’re going to let go of all the things that are going to stop you from being in that state, if that makes sense. So all of the fragments, basically, that block the flow of the unconscious becoming conscious are, things like time, space, causality, fragmented emotions, fragmented beliefs, etcetera. I’m getting very rambly, I can tell, and I told you I’d had a lot of coffee.

But ultimately, if you can cultivate rituals like that that just remind you who you really are, then the expansion process is going to become a lot easier. That’s how I found it.

Phoebe Camilletti: Oh, yeah. I mean, I completely agree. First of all, I think you made some really excellent points. One of my favourite ones, I actually just wrote down. You said, timelessness is a taste of wholeness, and I want to compliment you for that, because I think the phrasing itself is really important, and I think someone just hearing that phrase alone could really get some real value out of that.

But timelessness as being a taste of wholeness. Not only do I agree, but I I want us to kind of maybe take it a step further into the idea of play and creativity through play and how we tend to, all of us, look at play as antithetical to what it means to be a productive adult. Okay?

So even if you’re someone who does embrace creativity in some way, there tends to be that idea of, like, okay, you know, this frivolous thing, this frivolous thing that’s not for me. But I think that when we really embrace play, that is a way of embracing flow and gratitude. So a lot of these concepts, of course, just fold in on themselves.

Obviously, that’s. That’s. That’s why this is so fun to talk about. But I really believe that how can you let yourself play? How can you let yourself maybe go back to a more wholesome place, a place more of wholeness from where you were a child, for example? How does that bring up gratitude for you? How does that bring up expansion for you? How does that bring up a new sense of seeing time and seeing yourself and play?

I like, the reason I’m talking about it is because I think that’s a really approachable thing for people. It’s only not approachable in your mind, but something that you can do to experiment; just a little action that you can take that is in the direction of play. I think that’s all wholeness and gratitude and creativity.

Oli Anderson: Yeah, I think a lot of the things that we’re now talking about are just about returning to our nature. I really think our nature is to be as connected to wholeness as possible, to be playful and spontaneous and joyful, to allow our creativity to flow and to take us where we need to go so we can release things that need releasing and integrate things that need integrating or just be. Be.

Instead of being caught up in the human doing stuff that we have kind of valued so much as a culture, that’s causing people to be locked inside themselves. And these things that we’re talking about, like cultivating gratitude in an active way or, reminding ourselves to play and finding ways to do that, they’re ultimately about deconditioning ourselves from the limited image that we’ve attached to of who we are and what’s possible that stops us from actually just being in this state. And I think one of my buzzwords these days is flow. Because it ultimately does come down to that.

Like, if we can put ourselves in that natural state by aligning ourselves with who we are, away from all our conditioning, then we do just flow. Like life is about flowing towards more wholeness constantly. And we all have this natural drive towards wholeness, but we block it with all of the things that stop us being grateful, stop us playing, stop us just being, or at least being before doing.

And if we are doing things, making sure that it’s inspired action, which means that we’re injecting the being into the doing, if that makes sense. And so I suppose the question is this twofold. One, what other things can we do to kind of return to this, realness, as I call it, like our true nature? And, two, how do people find themselves in this state in the first place, do you think? Where they have become fragmented and they’re disconnected from they’re birthright?

As dramatic as that sounds, which is this capacity to actually flow with life instead of, you know, living a life as quiet, quiet desperation as through said, which is another quote I’m always flinging out now these days.

Phoebe Camilletti: Yeah, absolutely. Again, so much good stuff in what you said, and I think those are two really great questions. I’m going to suggest that we start with the second, like, how people find themselves in the state, especially because that’s coming off of something you said that I really liked, which is there was one segment of what you were saying where you kept saying, like, stop this, stop this. And for me, that brings up that idea of fragmentation that you focus on. Right?

So in other words, when you are stopping yourself from doing something that is creating fragmentation, because if you think of it like a line, right? If you. If you’re letting the line flow, so to speak, you’re not like stopping at different points on the line. It just creates itself, right? It’s just progressing. But the stoppage is like the distinctive breaks in that line. So why and how do people find themselves in a state where they feel unsure, they feel stuck, they feel demotivated?

I think a lot of it comes back to that idea of what you’re stopping yourself from doing more so than what you’re allowing yourself to do. Like those limitations that are creating the stoppages, the chinks in the belief system that you have let be created because of what society has fed to you with this narrative of scarcity, with the narrative of productivity. It’s actually kind of funny when I put those two words together in this moment, because productivity and scarcity, both of those are extreme values of our society, but they are, in a way, kind of antithetical, yet related.

At the same time, when you do have scarcity, you feel more inclined to operate from a place of productivity that other people will see as productive. But at the same time, productivity implies a certain expansion, a certain moving forward, whereas lack doesn’t. So I think that all of this to say, okay, all of this to say that I think really, we have abandoned our ability to think critically for ourselves because we see other people not thinking critically for themselves.

We see other people flowing along with what we perceive to be reality. And so that’s what we go with. And we don’t develop or cultivate our own belief system. We don’t cultivate our own critical thought. So I would suggest, I mean, there’s so many ways we could discuss this, but I think that’s one way that people find themselves in this state. It’s succumbing, whether due to fear or indecision, it’s succumbing to this idea of what other people do and what that should mean for our lives, and we stop ourselves.

Oli Anderson: You just said so many interesting things, and now my brain is dancing around, and I could go in a million different directions. Like, ultimately, what you’re talking about is kind of a case of monkey see, monkey do. I like. People are brought up in a culture where many, many people are, kind of locked inside themselves because of other people been locked inside themselves.

And it’s basically this intergenerational trauma thing that everyone talks about, where down through the generations, people have become disconnected from the truth about themselves. They have had horrible, difficult lives, and that sent them hurtling into a scarcity mindset, which is understandable, but it’s a very overly survivalistic way of viewing the world, and it causes people to focus on doing things in a way where they force life ultimately instead of flowing with it.

I think that’s kind of what I was getting from what you were saying. So when you were talking about scarcity and productivity and all that kind of stuff, what we’re actually talking about now is the approach that human beings have to action that either allows them to expand or to shrink inside themselves. And I think obviously, we need to do things. Like, I think there’s two ways that people go.

Like, they tend to choose one way or the other. Like, they become so open minded to the idea that the universe just loves them abundantly and cares about them that they don’t actually take any action anymore. And then their lives go horribly wrong because they’re not taking any responsibility for their own lives. And then they start to believe that the universe doesn’t love them or whatever it is. But then the other approach is people think that their whole lives are up to them alone. And so they become hyper-productive.

But the actions that they’re taking are, fear driven because they’re hyper productive. Because they feel like if they don’t stop moving, if they don’t stop taking action, then they’re going to lose control completely. And in that case, they just end up forcing life. Many times they end up burning out. And because they are forcing things, they don’t actually get any results anyway because they’re not being open and responsive to the information that life or the flow state is giving them about what actually needs doing if they take inspired action. There’s an awesome quote I heard the other day by an ancient Greek philosopher whose name I can’t remember is, like, Xenophon or something.

And he said, “Nothing forced is beautiful.”And I think that kind of applies to, like, life itself. Like, if we want to live the beautiful life, which is like a real life where we’re aligned with our values, we’re allowed with that, aligned with our true intentions and all that stuff, it can’t be false, but it’s finding that sweet spot where we’re expanding with the promptings of life, and we’re taking action, but we’re not trying to control everything. And I think there’s something, something there to be kind of cracked open based on everything you’ve shared.

Phoebe Camilletti: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I really like a lot of that. But one thing that’s standing out to me is how you talked about forcing just now. And for me, that brings up, like, a visual of, whenever you’re applying pressure to something, pretty much anything, right? If there’s, like, a compressor, if there’s, like, an extreme force, that thing that has the pressure applied to it, it’s going to break, it’s going to fragment, right?

So when you force, that is another way of looking at this idea of fragmentation. You are going to split things apart, okay? Like, whether it’s beliefs, whether it’s, a certain emotion that you have, I don’t care what it is, it’s going to. It’s going to be forced apart. Whereas if you are able to nurture that in a space where there is some pressure, because you have to hold it in some capacity, you have to take ownership of it, right. But it’s the right amount of pressure.

And so I think that part of life, one way of looking at life is like, actually to say, what is the right, like, pressure? What is the right container? How do I hold and own and take responsibility and take care of this thing about me or this dream that I have? But I don’t assume that my ego is calling the shots here, because when you call the shots with your ego, that’s when the fragmentation happens. Right.

So it’s like the right amount of pressure. I like that as a way of kind of looking at what you’re saying about, like, your beliefs in alignment with your actions, because that’s the last thing I’ll say on this. Maybe this idea that I think we, when we look at productivity as the ideal, that is us taking a belief that’s ready-made and not processing it, and we just roll with it.

So in other words, it’s just action. That action is not coupled with the critical thought and the introspection of defining our own belief system. But it’s when we take that time, we cultivate the critical thought in a creative way, and that’s when we can take the action. That’s the full package. That’s what we want.

Oli Anderson: Yeah. So the question now is, how do we find that sweet spot? Because I, 100 million% agree with you. Like, in coaching, there’s these three different levels that people always talk about:

There’s the comfort zone, which is ultimately just staying within the confines of your ego. Nothing’s going to change. Your edge is basically determined by your fears, by yourself, because of underlying shame and guilt and trauma and all that stuff that leads to the creation of the ego in the first place. If you go too far, you find yourself in the panic zone, which means that maybe you’re trying to overcompensate or whatever it is.

You’ve set some goal that is, like way outside of your comfort zone. And, it basically scares the shit out of you. And then you just end up stressing your whole, whole nervous system, and then you don’t get results.

The sweet spot is the stretch zone, and it’s kind of what you’re talking about where you’re just beyond your comfort zone. You’re just beyond your ideas about yourself and the ego and all that stuff. So you’re, like, really pushing the edge, as I call it, which is just where your ego meets reality, and then you can kind of transcend your ideas by yourself. But to get there, there are, ah, just myriad different ways and different approaches.

Obviously, we’re talking about the human experience. It’s not like a one size fits all approach, but the underlying structure of it is ultimately the same for all of us. And it’s that we need to find that place where we are stretching just beyond our current capacity, I think. And if we can do that and we’ve done the work that you’re talking about beforehand, where we actually have a strategy behind it, we know who we are, we know what we want, we have a real vision, and we’re moving forward in a way that’s real, real, rather than been something that’s prompted or motivated just by ego. If we can do that, then we find that stretch zone, and, that’s when, you know, we get in the flow state and the magic kind of happens. But how do we do that?

Phoebe Camilletti: Like, how do we do that indeed? I mean, I think that one path that we can go down together about that question is literally applying creativity. So not just the creative thinking that we’re doing, but the actual, actual act of creativity in whatever. Whatever form that takes, right?

So whether that means picking up an instrument that you maybe haven’t played before, but you’ve always wanted to play since you were a kid and you just didn’t give yourself permission or, you know, like, a pencil just to do, like, a simple sketch on a piece of paper where you were taking notes.

Anyway, like, how can we implement m creativity is as that vehicle, as that catalyst, maybe, for what you can use for yourself, for recognizing that you are uniquely capable and that no one else is going to be able to cultivate the same kind of life experience. No one else is going to be able to fulfil their dreams the way that you do, because your dreams, and, this is something I was thinking about yesterday a lot. I love this idea that I think our dreams are as unique to us and as much a part of us as, like, our body parts.

Like, no one’s teeth look like your teeth, no one’s dreams look like your dreams. We’re just like, oh, they’re dreams, but they’re a part of your being. They are as much a part of your being as your physicality. So what are you doing to take care of them? Right? You’re taking care of your teeth, you’re taking care of your skin. What are you doing for your dreams?

So that’s a, that’s a form of fragmentation, as well, we’ll just kind of put these ideas of, like, what we’re told or what we believe into boxes instead of opening up the boxes with curiosity and creativity to see, like, oh, hey, maybe I know what was in there, but you’ve actually changed. Or, hey, maybe you weren’t in this box at all. Maybe you were in a different box. So… So I know that that’s a little bit of a tangent, but to return to my point, how can we use any creative act that we want to label as creative?

Because everything’s creative. How can we use any creative act as a way of moving forward in ourselves? Like, how can we use that as a vehicle for expansion?

Oli Anderson: Yeah. Wow. Ultimately, I think the creative process is exactly what you just said, is a way of clearing the fragmentation that we have become attached to so that we can have these tastes of timeless homelessness and we can see who we really are.

Like, in those moments, we strip it all the way. It’s like the wholeness is basically the unconditioned consciousness that kind of flows through all of us, and we all have different ways into it, I suppose, because of the individual fragmentation that we carry. But the end result is ultimately always the same. It’s that we put ourselves in this magical flow state that I keep talking about, and that’s when we kind of get the answers, I think, about what actions are going to be the right actions for us to take.

And so, if somebody is really fragmented, like, they’re constantly holding themselves back, they’re hesitating, they’ve got imposter syndrome, and all these different symptoms of underlying shame driven relationships with themselves that show up as fragmentation. If they’ve got all that going on, the creative process can help return them back to themselves. And then they’ll start to kind of get some inspiration, let’s say, or promptings from who they really are, which are, ultimately just showing them the direction they need to move in to, you know, live the dreams that you’re talking about and stuff like that. T

here’s a kind of… There’s like, a way you can get into that place by…It’s basically like, I’m going to get a big kind of off the wall here, maybe. But, like, ultimately, what we’re talking about is the union of opposites, so to speak. So, like, the only way you can get in that creative place when you’re playing your guitar, or whatever it is, is you have to let the unconscious and the conscious minds be pointing in the same direction. But it’s not just at the level of the unconscious and unconscious mind. It’s basically all of the duality we carry kind of coming together in a kind of weird zero point so he can transcend it.

So I know that, like, the unconscious and conscious mind, that’s a, fairly common example, I guess. But another way of looking at it that might make this more tangible for people and make me sound like less of a lunatic is the. The masculine and feminine sides of us. So recently, or ying and yang. Let’s call it yin and yang, right? So I think we all have masculine and feminine energy, and we predominantly have one over the other.

If we have predominantly masculine energy, we need to find a way to loosen up and to be receptive, which means that we’re putting ourselves in the yin stair. Like feminist, receptive to these intuitions and ideas that are available when we get in that place. If we’re, predominantly very feminine, then we actually need to be a bit masculine, which means we set a vision in a direction. The end result of both, either the masculine stepping into the feminine or the feminine stepping into the masculine is that they get that kind of resistance that you were talking about.

And if you get that resistance, that’s when you kind of reach the zero point. Like an example from my life recently to make it even more practical. Like, I do yoga every day, Monday to Friday, I do power yoga. Power yoga, as the name suggests, it’s very yang, energy. Like masculine. Like, you’re doing all these standing poses like a warrior, and you’re doing push ups and all this kind of stuff.

On the weekend, I’ve been doing the yin yoga, which is just. Yeah, like yin yoga. If people don’t know, it’s where you basically just slow down. There’s no standing poses, and you hold the poses for a very long time. And, like, when you hold those poses for a long time, you eventually just get to this point of stillness, like real stillness, where your body is just doing what it needs to do. But then there’s this next level where in that stillness, you kind of get this, like a presence of motion. Because I think everything is constantly moving.

And I think the reason you get that presence of motion is because you’ve kind of. I am making this very complicated. But anyway, it’s because you get that union of, like, the masculine and the feminine, the yin and the yang, and in that place, this is how I’ve experienced it anyway, this is where you get all these ideas kind of swimming up about, like, what you need to do next.

Like, the answers to certain questions that you might have been, thinking about unconsciously or consciously about the next steps you need to take and stuff like that. So I suppose the question for you is, is that a load of bullshit, or does it make sense? And if it does make sense, have you experienced anything like that? And what are the practical implications, if they are?

Phoebe Camilletti: Okay, first of all, it makes complete sense to me. Second of all, I love that you’re a fan of power yoga, because I am as well. I. And I especially like that you’re saying that you deliberately counterbalanced the power yoga with more yin style yoga. Like, I think that’s incredibly smart.

For myself, the way that I like to experience yoga is just on the power side. I don’t actively counterbalance it. So any yoga experience that I…That I partake in, I use, like, weights as part of it just to make the intensity breeder for myself, because to me, the ability to challenge myself in this place of meditative work and flow is a sweet spot for me. And so I feel like that’s very generative for myself.

I think that other people don’t understand. I feel judgment sometimes from people who will kind of. At least this is what I perceive, right? People like, oh, like, she’s trying too hard. Or like, oh, like, this is a yoga class. Like, why is she using weights? But for me, that’s just it. Like, that is my creative license. That is what I do for my body, for my spirit, for my whole mentality about everything, to have that deepening in the way that I want.

So that was maybe going a little bit off from your question, but that’s just to relate back to your experience, because I think that yoga is a fantastic tool for everyone. But you had been asking if it makes sense. You asked kind of like, what do we do with that? I forget your exact question, but I can still speak to the generality here.

One thing that this is bringing up for me, and I…I hope this is along the lines of what you were looking for, is this idea of comparison and competition, I feel like. And what I mean by that is specifically in regard to your focus on fragmentation. So I think a lot of the time, one of the barriers to creativity that we run up against, especially if you’re a person who doesn’t identify as creative, is this idea of what creativity should look like or what that means?

Right. But all of that is based on looking outward to other people, seeing what they’re doing, seeing Michelangelo’s this or da Vinci’s this or whatever, right? And so we have these implicit standards of what creativity is. But the true reality is that what makes creativity creativity is that it is unique to every single person. So in another way of looking at it, everyone’s identity is their creativity, and everyone’s creativity is their identity. But when we look to other people, when we look outside of ourselves that is the fragmentation.

That is a way of looking at fragmentation, because it’s this idea of, like, oh, we are against each other or we are separate, but the reality is that we are all together, while being a unique angle of that togetherness at the same time. So I like this idea of, like, how is creativity something that we can re embrace a narrative of so that we can find these things about ourselves that you’re talking about?

How can we access flow, and how can we access this balance, and how can we reinterpret creativity, to reinterpret our identity? So I do realize that was a little bit off from what your question was, I think. But I think that’s still a generative thing to talk about.

Oli Anderson: Yeah. And it’s really is powerful, because ultimately, what we’re talking about is how everybody. What we kind of talking about is what. How everybody has a relationship with life, first and foremost. And if you forget that, that’s when you kind of get into all kinds of trouble with fragmentation and all of the symptoms that kind of stem from that.

Like, I really think now, in the simplest possible terms, all fragmentation is just because of a disconnection from the truth. Basically. It’s that simple, right?

Like, the truth is whole, the truth is real. And if we detach from that because of stuff that happens in childhood normally, is ultimately just causing us to feel shame about who we are. Then we end up creating this whole kind of veil that we project thing over reality and treat has been the real deal, which leads us to look outside of ourselves, because we have to keep looking out.

We have to keep looking outside of ourselves in order to uphold the illusion. And so, when we get in that state, that’s when everything we do, like, not just our creativity, but literally everything we do, is not for us, because. But for some imaginary idea of the outside world. And it ultimately comes down to judgment.

That’s how I see it. Right? Like, if we’re aligned with the truth in the way we’re talking about and we’re expanding, then we’re in that place of acceptance, because the only thing you can do with the truth is accept it. That’s why gratitude is so powerful. I was saying, it’s why playfulness is so important, I would say because they put you in an acceptance of yourself and an acceptance of life. If you don’t have that, well, the opposite of acceptance is judgment.

You’ll be judging yourself first and foremost, which is why you have the inner split, the fragmentation in the first place. Although there’ll always be some, because we’re like human beings and like fragmented bodies, but you can get rid of a lot of it. And, when you’re judging yourself, you’re going to project that judgment out into the world, and you’re going to just experience judgment from others, as well as a kind of extension of that.

Or the actual judgments of others who are fragmented and judging themselves are going to bother you because you’re judging yourself, basically. Like, if you’re not. If you’re not judging yourself, the judgments of other people don’t bother you because you know that, first of all, you can’t be judged because it’s not real. It’s fragmentation. But also, the only thing that can judge you, if judgment is even the right word, is life itself, based on the results you get in the actions that you’re taking.

So, in relation to what we’re saying, like, ultimately, the creative process, I think, and creativity can be anything. Basically, like I was saying, it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. It’s anything. It’s anything that puts you in our place of presence that is creative, because it’s going to allow you to flow with the creative flow of life, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So anything that puts you in that state or anything that allows you to cultivate these kind of qualities that we’re talking about is just undoing the conditioning. Like, we kind of said this right at the start of the conversation, but like, all of that comparison, all of that competition, all of that forcing life to keep running away from ourselves instead of facing ourselves head, on all of that is just conditioning. And it’s this classic thing that people love to say.

The way we heal our lives isn’t about learning anything new. It’s unlearning all of that bullshit. And the creative process, in whatever form, is just about that. Unlearning all of these things that keep us from seeing what was already there, ultimately, and allowing ourselves to start moving with it instead of kind of doing all these crazy, absurd things that people do because they don’t see it.

Phoebe Camilletti: Yeah, I mean, really, profound things in what you said. A lot of different ones. One that I’ll touch on is I like how you said, look outside ourselves to maintain the illusion. That’s something you said kind of early on in that train of thought. And I like that because I think I’d like to use that as a way to return to one of your questions, which is what people can do, you know, when they’re feeling like maybe they don’t know what to do.

So it’s not easy to look in, inwardly, Even for people who are practiced at it, you know, it, it. There’s difficulty. It’s never just something that you perfect. It’s not something that you just, you know, arrive at one day and you’re done. It’s a constant process of learning how to reflect and learning how to be with yourself. But that idea of yours, of looking outside ourselves to maintain the illusion, I think an approachable way for someone who wants to do something that we don’t usually see as creative. But it is truly creative.

Don’t think of meditation as such, where it’s this narrative that we’ve all been given of what meditation should look like, what it is, what it means. What if you just took 1 minute blips of like, I’m setting a timer, or, heck, don’t set a timer. I don’t care. Close your eyes, breathe for 1 minute. That is your meditation for the day. Because at least it’s starting to get you into yourself. At least you are starting to cultivate the looking inward versus the looking outward that you’re doing 99.9% of the time.

So I, don’t care if you don’t think it’s real meditation or not. It is. It is real meditation to do even something like that. Let yourself show up, let yourself know whatever you feel in the 1 minute. Maybe you feel uncomfortable. Maybe you’re judging yourself. Maybe you’re like, I don’t know why I’m doing this, but some girl on a podcast told me to, so I’m going to do it. Right. So it could be any of these things. Just a minute. Do it and then see what that brings up for you. Maybe it doesn’t bring up anything. Okay.

Maybe I’ll try it again a few days from now. Do it again. Right. So I think that this idea of increments is, something that I really want to underscore, ollie, because I think that a lot of us, when we think of incremental steps, we’re like, oh, that’s such a small thing to do. That’s bullshit. I don’t want to do that. You know, like, what’s the point? Why I’m so busy? Why would I do something?

That’s how we get anywhere. I don’t care what expert in creativity, I don’t care who the heck you’re looking at. They got to where they wanted to be, be, because they allowed themselves the discomfort of the steps, they allowed themselves the discomfort of that, looking inward instead of looking outward. So if you’re here listening to this podcast, because that’s something that you want, you want to progress in your life, you want to arrive at yourself better, let yourself have permission to do little things. So I would say that like minute of meditation, I think that’s a cool idea.

Oli Anderson: This is a super cool idea, and it’s super real. Like ultimately, there’s two things in what you just said that I want to elaborate on, because I think they’re super important. The first thing that you said is that people fall into these traps where they tell themselves, right, this isn’t real meditation, this isn’t real yoga because I’m lifting weights, this isn’t real creativity because blah, blah, blah, that is all bullshit. And it’s ego.

And it shows you that people like to dogmatize any little thing so that they can create a sense of kind of control, or because they have ego resistance to actually just facing the flow of life and moving with it. Like by the sounds of it, like what you’ve seen in your yoga class is kind of a similar thing. Like people have got this very rigid idea about what yoga should mean on etc. And any deviation from that. It kind of affronts, it’s like an affront to their whole sensibilities and the identity that they’ve created for themselves.

That says nothing about you lifting the weights. He says a lot of stuff about them, actually, and how they relate to themselves and how they’ve turned yoga into kind of a set of stabilizers on the bicycle of life, so to speak, because, because it’s giving them control and actually that need for the control and saying, this is real yoga, and that’s not real yoga is actually holding them back from, from m making the changes they want to make, which is moving towards wholeness.

But that happens in all areas that’s no different to like a, you know, like a religious extremist getting really worked up about their religion. Let’s say, I was going to paint a very crazy picture there when I’m going to rant about it, but anyway, like, it’s the same thing. Like, dogma is dogma, and it’s always going to hold you back. It’s control freakry. But the other thing you said, which is super important, it’s about the increments, the little steps, like the ego.

When people are coming at, life through the lens of the ego, they think that the only way they’re going to solve all their problems is by having some, you know, angels swoop in and give them some divine inspiration, or to make some massive, grandiloquent change that is just going to be so massive that nothing is ever going to be the same ever again. But actually, what we’re talking about is flowing. Surprise, surprise.

Like, I’ve used that word like, 6 billion times now in this conversation. But we’re talking about flowing. Flowing is about being real and embracing the flux and movement of life that is always taking place. And so we’re going from fragmentation to wholeness. That means we’re going from one state to another state, which means that we’re talking about the fundamental law of cause and effect, which applies to everybody. And we don’t need massive, swooping changes in order to use that, law, of cause and effect. We build incrementally, day by day, moment by moment, because that’s how it works.

Ultimately, it’s a process that we’re talking about, not these events that are going to change things forever. It’s the little actions, day by day, that actually build up and make a difference. So, for example, if you’re writing a book, you write 100 words a day, then you got 700 words at the end of the week, and then before you know it, you’ve got, like, a huge book. That’s how life works. So those increments are the thing that makes a difference, but only if we understand that, it’s only if we’re not judging ourselves and the actions that we take, are we going to be able to put ourselves in that place and to work with life on its own terms? Something like that. Ah, that’s my rant about that.

Phoebe Camilletti: Oh, no, that’s perfect. I really, really, really like this thread of our conversation, because that’s bringing up something for me that I feel passionate about. So what I’m thinking, and I hear you on all of that, I think I agree completely. what that’s bringing up for me is this idea of what we think of when we think of the idea of expansion. So, to return to, like, our original topic of the soul, conversation. So, expansion.

We tend to look at societally expansion in these broad, sweeping terms of, like, what it means to be expansive, what it feels like. And then we look at these people who have achieved success, maybe in ways that we wish we could, whether that means financial abundance, whether that means recognition, whatever that means. And we think, like, oh, like, that’s expansive, right? Like, that is like, the full expression, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

 So we look at expansion in that huge, grandiose sense, pretty much exclusively. But what if… What if we could look at the expansiveness of each step that we don’t see in that larger mural that we tend to think of as expansive? What if. What if true expansion? What if true expansiveness is the minute of meditation? What if it is that moment of discomfort that you sit in instead of judging yourself?

What if it is picking up the paintbrush for five minutes? What if each of these is true expansion, and we just don’t want to see it that way because we would rather be hard on ourselves to keep us from the thing that we actually say that we want.

Oli Anderson: That’s exactly what’s happening. Like, actually, I could maybe even take it a level deeper, where we are always being invited, to take the next step towards expansion. Like, in every literal moment, like, every moment, we can either choose wholeness or we choose fragmentation. Basically.

If we choose fragmentation, well, we just cling into those old patterns. If we choose wholeness, then we just take the next step, and then the next step, and then the next step, and then the next step, and then before we know it, we’ve expanded. Because this is just always happening.

Oli Anderson: Yeah, so, Phoebe, we’ve been talking for 43 minutes already, and I can’t believe it because, it feels like I’ve been talking for hours. But, not in a bad way. Like, normally I say, like, the time. If it feels like a long time, then obviously it was boring or something, but it’s the opposite. I suppose what I’m saying is we reached that place of timelessness somehow. Let’s… Let’s say it like that if you were going to sum this up, if you could, because we have covered all kinds of things, how would you do it? And can you also let people know where they can find you, please?

Phoebe Camilletti: Oh, yeah, sure. Okay. so I’ll speak to the second point first. I have a website that is under construction, so I will not share that specific link. But I am reachable on Instagram and on, TikTok. Those would be two great ways to connect with me in this exact moment.

My username on Instagram is synesthetic, and I’m sure that text could be posted somewhere with the podcast. and my TikTok name is alightent. So I very happy to connect with anyone on either or both of those platforms.

I would love to see you. I would love it if you said, hi. I’d, like to talk to you and hear what you got out of this conversation as you were listening. So that would be great fun for me.

Quite delayed, to come back to the point of wrapping up conversation. Ah. so there’s been a lot of really great threads here. And the thing about it is that this conversation itself is kind of a microcosm of the last idea of expansion that we were touching on. And here’s what I mean, and I’m very interested in this thought creatively, how when something looks like it’s condensed, when something looks like it’s compressed, that doesn’t necessarily means that it’s limited. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it needed to be more.

I mean, after all, if you look at big bang theory being what it is, like the whole cosmos came from a very small, dense space, right? So I think that, Ali, you and I have talked about a lot of stuff, and even though we could have expanded more, Uncertain things, that doesn’t mean that the conversation in and of itself wasn’t expansive. Right.

So it’s all just a matter, I think, of course, of perspective, and it’s a matter of what you listening to this podcast, or you in a broader sense, allow yourself to deepen into whatever, whatever small thing, whatever thing in life that you think might be frivolous to other people, and you’ve convinced yourself it’s frivolous, too. What expansion can you actually achieve in that thing? How can you actually rewrite the script for that thing? I don’t care how small it is. I don’t care what someone else has told you. Their perspective is of that thing. You feel drawn to it for whatever reason. So go there.

What expansiveness is in that small, stupid thing? Like, you know, like, where, where can you go yourself? And by doing that, how can you allow yourself to expand your view of yourself? It’s all expansion. Everything. Yeah. everything can be a vehicle for expansion.

Whether that’s someone’s crass comment on Facebook, where they were, like, trying to argue with you about something that didn’t matter, that can be a vehicle for expansion. I don’t care what something looks like. If you want to grow. If that’s why you’re here, you can find it. So this is this, and, ah, and the funny thing is, like, this is one way of summing up this conversation, but I’m not choosing to look at it as like, oh, I didn’t cover all of these different points when I was summing it up. Right.

This is just like one. This is one lens. And that’s all anything is. It’s a lens. Use your lens. See how it expands for you. See how you expand for it and then move to the next thing you know, like, like allow yourself that. That’s, that’s one response I would give.

Oli Anderson: That’s what I would say right there. Like, basically, that’s it. We’ve always been invited to expand.

Phoebe Camilletti: Yes.

Oli Anderson: And if we decide to accept the invitation, life will probably be awesome. And if we don’t, it’ll still be awesome, but we just don’t see it or something like that.

Phoebe Camilletti: Exactly.

Oli Anderson: I am going to stop talking, believe it or not, but Phoebe, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for your energy and the insight. And, I don’t know, let’s just go expand and, see where we end up.

Phoebe Camilletti: Absolutely. Thank you so much. I really, truly enjoyed this. I thought it was fantastic.

Oli Anderson: Thank you.

Creative Relationships with Life & Death (Creative Status: Episode 78: Lauren Spangler)

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 thought-provoking episode of Creative Status, we dive deep into the essence of creativity and its profound connection to our sense of purpose and wholeness.

Join host Oli Anderson in an enriching dialogue with creativity coach, artist, and strategist Lauren Spangler, as they explore the transformative journey from ego-driven ambition to authentic self-expression.

This episode will help you improve your relationship with your own creativity!

Uncovering Creative Purpose: Lauren imparts her insights on cultivating a healthy relationship with creativity, urging us to move beyond external validation and towards a more fulfilling, purpose-driven practice.

The Art of Being and Growing: Discover how embracing the creative process with intentionality and play can lead to personal growth and a deeper understanding of one’s artistic journey.

Navigating the Practical and the Profound: Lauren and Oli tackle the artist’s conundrum of balancing the existential drive with the practicalities of everyday life, offering wisdom on how to harmonize these often conflicting aspects.

Creative Status: Where Artistry Meets REALNESS

This episode is a call to all creators to reflect on their creative well-being, to align with their true purpose, and to embrace the finite nature of our existence as a catalyst for meaningful work.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

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Lauren’s Spark or Sputter Test: ⁠laurenspangler.com/spark⁠

Lauren on Instagram: ⁠instagram.com/laurenspangler⁠

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Creative Relationships With Life & Death (Show Transcript)

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome. This is a place where we talk about how the creative process is actually a process of growing real. Growing real means that we’re becoming more authentic, that we’re unpacking our true values, our true intentions, that we’re stepping away from social programming, from emotional self-hypnosis that keeps us down and keeps us stuck. And ultimately, that we can make the unconscious conscious and move towards wholeness instead of a fragmented and divided state within ourselves.

Today’s interview is with Lauren Spangler. Lauren is a, creativity coach and an artist and a strategist. And I really enjoyed this conversation a lot because we ended up talking about death, which is one of my favourite topics, but also because we took it a little bit deeper than usual in the sense of normally we look at, how creativity can help us become more real, which just means that we improve our relationships with ourselves.

In this episode, we talk about how we can improve our relationship with creativity itself, how we can clear away some of the mental cobwebs, I guess, that keeping us stuck, how we can, be more outcome independent, how we can just use anything that happens in our lives as a kind of springboard for getting where we need to be, and ultimately just having the attitude required to get to that real place that I keep talking about. So, Lauren, that was, an awesome conversation we had – thank you so much.

Everybody else, thank you for listening. If this podcast helps you in any way, shape, or form and, you feel like sharing it with someone or leaving a review, that would be most appreciated. But either way, here we go. Enjoy the conversation. Boom.

Interview

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Lauren. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. We’re going to be kind of exploring the idea of healthy relationships between ourselves and ourselves and ourselves and our creativity so we can move towards wholeness that could lead us in any direction.

Before we, get onto all that, 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?

Lauren Spangler: Sure. Oli, thank you so much for having me. It’s a treat to be here with you. I’m Lauren Spangler. I’m a creativity coach. I’m also a painter, a musician, a writer, and a wife and a mom of two young boys. So there is never a dull day at my house. And, man, I’m just so excited to talk with you about creative wholeness and healthy relationships with our creativity and how that can help us experience a sense of wholeness. Yeah, just really excited to dig in.

Oli Anderson: I’m getting very excited hearing you use all these words like creativity and wholeness. I like to rant and rave about wholeness every day as part of my self-care routine. So I think this is a good opportunity for me to dive, into that a bit more. Let’s, start right at the beginning.

So there’s all kinds of definitions that people use about creativity, just as a thing, like what it even is. How do you see creativity? I guess as a creative person doing all those things you mentioned, painting and writing, but also helping other people with your coaching business to kind of tap into their, I guess, core essence of creativity, or however you want to describe it, and putting words in your mouth now.

But how do you define creativity basically based on everything you see?

Lauren Spangler: I think creativity is actually pretty simple. I think we’re all creative. I, think creativity is just the act of making something that wasn’t there before, and that could be as simple as a connection between two things. it could be something we think of as a traditionally creative act, like creating a painting or a song or a poem. It could be baking a cake, putting an outfit together, having.

You and I are creating a conversation right now. We’re creating connections between thoughts, connections between people. All of these things are creative acts to me. And I think different people go about cultivating their creativity in different ways. And people who have decided to devote their life to creativity in some capacity, just have a more intentional and more invested approach in how they’re relating to their creativity and what they’re pulling out of that relationship.

Oli Anderson: Yeah, that’s awesome. So, ultimately, it’s a kind of universal thing that we all have in some capacity, but like, some of us, I guess, take it a little bit more, maybe seriously is not the right word. We treat it with a bit more reverence, let’s say, because of what we think it can do for us.

Where others have maybe a bit more of a passive approach, but it’s still there in all cases, because it’s actually just a very human thing. where does the wholeness come into, just to kind of crack this up? And like, how does creativity align with wholeness as a whole? Which is a weird way of saying that.

Lauren Spangler: No, I know what you mean. I think for some people, creativity is a frame of mind or an, ah, approach that is imbued into everything that they do throughout their day. And don’t it’s not really a conscious act for other people. I think that there’s this urge, this desire to go create something that they feel this pull to go write their book or to go, make their album or whatever it is.

And for that second set of people, I think if they are not engaging with the creativity intentional container in that really intentional way, I think there can be this sense that something’s lacking. there can be this sort of hunger or this feeling like they’re craving this activity and, when they’re not attending to it and they’re not spending time there, sort of like, there’s this piece of themselves that’s not getting daylight.

And I think when they start to act upon that desire to go make something, it can feel like now they’re sort of circulating oxygen through all the different parts of themselves. Right. And their personality, that can be a really gratifying sensation and I think sometimes when we are, when we consider ourselves artists or we consider ourselves creative people, like capital c, capital p, like we are creative, you use this really interesting term earlier.

You said, we take it seriously, and then you kind of cross that out and you’re like, actually not seriously. We’re just more invested. But that’s interesting because this thing happens where deeply creative people start to take it too seriously and actually block themselves into this sort of serious, rigid space, and they lose a lot of the play and a lot of the sort, of light-heartedness and curiosity that I think actually fuels their creativity.

And that’s one of the places where I think they can start to chip away at their own sense of wholeness, because when they get into that space where they’re being creative and they’re wanting to relate to themselves creativity creatively, if they’re doing so with too much seriousness, too much rigidity, it can start to feel frustrating.

And, yeah, so I think wholeness. So back to the topic of wholeness… I think when we’re really clear on what we want out of our relationship with our creativity, and then when we’re taking steps to do that and to bring that into our daily experience each day, it starts to round out the way we’re experiencing ourselves, the way we’re experiencing our life, and it starts to bring a sense of fulfilment and wholeness.

Oli Anderson: Yeah, that’s amazing. I think there’s so many things you’ve just kind of talked about that have kind of opened up some of the deeper themes around creativity as a whole. And it all comes back to the idea that creativity is something that we all have. It’s part of our nature, but that our attitude towards it is going to affect where those creative impulses are going to take us.

And as you were, talking, I kind of broke it down into three different levels, which I’ve kind of seen now quite a bunch of times on the podcast and just in general with people. But it goes basically, there’s one level of creativity where it’s almost like people are trying to prove themselves in some ways.

Like they’re trying to create something in the serious way that you’ve talked about, not the playful way, which is a bit more real, in my opinion. They take their creativity very seriously because they want to prove to the world that a certain image that they carry of themselves is the truth, even though that image may just exist as a kind of, way of compensating for underlying emotional stuff, shame, guilt, and trauma, as I normally say it.

And that first approach, it’s kind of a choice about the creativity that’s causing them to try and cling to the ideas they already have. Let’s say the second approach is that some people just use that creativity as a way of just putting themselves in a place of being. So instead of being a human doing, as people say, they’re just being. And so they’re just creating something, for the sake of it.

Maybe they’re doodling or they’re just painting a picture. And, you know, the unconscious is becoming conscious in that process, but ultimately, they’re just, they’re just being like, they’re not trying to get anywhere, and they’re not trying to prove anything. They’re just being. And then the third level is kind of the one that I normally end up ranting and raving about, which is where we’re using our creativity as a way of consciously growing more real or towards wholeness. And like, these elements, these three elements, we’re either trying to prove it, prove something, sorry. Or just be, or to grow.

I suppose they’re all interconnected, but I think if we make the conscious choice to learn to listen to ourselves and those creative, pulls that you talked about, then 90% of the time, those pulls are some unconscious thing from the shadow self, I believe, calling us to either release something or to integrate something so that we can move towards wholeness. And the creativity in that third sense can be a conscious vehicle for growing, obviously.

Like, that does sound very serious, but I think if we take that playful attitude as we go down that path and we don’t overthink it, even though I’m clearly overthinking right now, then we can use our creativity, to consciously become more whole, because we have to be more responsive to ourselves, and we have to kind of trust the process of following those creative, poles where they want to take us so we can, I guess, release the things that are making us all.

So I’ve thrown loads and loads of you right there. I apologise for the verbiage, but what do you think about, I guess, that deeper level of kind of using our, creativity to grow? And how does it maybe contrast to the other two levels if you think it does, absolutely.

Lauren Spangler: Yeah, I love that. I love that way of breaking it down into these tiers of prove, be and grow, because, I think as creatives, we’re all sort of fluidly moving through all of those at any given time. I know a lot of creatives who spend a lot of their time up at the top of that sort of evolution where they really are sense making with their art, and they’re very conscious in how they’re impacting the world with what they’re making or themselves what they’re making.

But, they still have days, right, where they wake up and that ego kind of rears its ugly head and they’re like, I gotta go show somebody I know my stuff, right? Like, I’m gonna go make this great thing to be great, right? so I think we all sort of, I would say we oscillate among those three things. And part of building a healthy creative mind-set is being able to be conscious of where you’re falling on that scale in a given moment, in a given point in your career, or a moment within your practice, even, and being able to use that consciousness to then pull yourself up a level or two and sort of move into that most meaningful space where you really are filling your full capacity as a creator to be making sense through your work and to be, bringing true meaning through and forward.

I like to think of it, I always go back to this principle that there’s a relationship between an artist and their own creativity, and that that relationship has various states of health, just like any relationship between two people or entities. Right?

And so if I was going to try to overlay your three tiers with my philosophy of, like, the creative relationship, it totally matches. I think there’s a lot of alignment there, because in the lowest tier, where you’re trying to prove something, I think about that in terms of an artist whose relationship with creativity is oriented around the approval of others, oriented around external validation.

And if you think about, I liken it, to any important relationship in your life, a relationship with a friend or a loved one or a significant other or a business partner. In all of those relationships, we have to be really intentional about, the way we’re treating the other, the energy we’re bringing into that connection and what we’re expecting back out of it, and the clarity we feel on why we’re connected to that person and what service we bring them and what they’re giving back to us.

And all of those things are places where we can either enrich and deepen the relationship and the connection, or where we can sort of undermine ourselves and shoot ourselves in the foot and set our relationship up to fail and be evil and difficult. Right? And so back to these three tiers. An artist who is creating for the sole purpose of proving their skill or their worth, really, in my mind, they’re not relating to their creativity in a whole and fulfilling way.

They’re using their creativity to try to pander and appeal to others. And it’s so tempting and easy to do that. We’ve all fallen into that trap. I know that I will fall into that trap many more times before my career is over. it just, it happens because it feels good to get a gold star and a pat on the back and we want someone else to say, hey, you’re good at this. But if that’s the sole driver for our relationship creativity, I think we’re really building something hollow. And over time, we’re going to start feeling the lack of strong foundation in that relationship.

So if we move up one tier into, you know, you talked about artists using their creativity as a way to be, as a vehicle for presence and, like, being in the moment. I would say for me, probably this is my default at this moment.

Like, if I have my, if I go into my studio and I can just be with my work, that’s pretty good day for me. Like, you know, I would be okay with that. and then I love those days when I’m able to transcend even further and, like, find this meaning. And that’s great when that happens, but, most days I’m happy to just to just be present and be able to let go of the things outside of, outside of being my work in the moment. So in that moment, I would liken that experience to someone who’s really present in a relationship and who is enjoying the company of the other person.

In my relationship with my kids, I strive to be present; to just be with them is great. And that’s sort of, I think, an honourable goal. But then if we can move up one level to that top tier you described, where creativity is a vehicle for meaning making and for, really attaining this sense that we are bringing our deepest gifts to bear and bringing them out into the world and doing something meaningful. In my mind, that’s a relationship where you have a deep and abiding connection with someone.

You both feel a sense of shared vision. You’re not just looking at each other; you’re looking in the same direction. some of us have been lucky enough to have a best friend or a partner who we feel that sense of connection and synergy with, where, like, yes, you’re my spouse and I enjoy spending time with you, and I enjoy being beside you, but also together, shoulder to shoulder, we are pointed in the same direction. We have the same vision, we have the same dreams. We’re building this life together. And I’m looking out 510, 2030, 40 years with you in what reality I want us to create together, and that is the most fulfilling and meaningful type of connection. And I think artists can build that and can have that level of connection with their creativity as well.

Oli Anderson: You’re just given such an amazing breakdown of all these different tiers, as we’re calling them. I think in a way, there’s a theme emerging here around, like, intimacy, if you want to call it that. Like, I think in terms of what we’ve been saying about relationships, I think the healthiest relationships, the most real relationships, are the ones with the least barriers to intimacy. And in relation to, like, these tears that we’ve now brought into the conversation, if we enter a relationship with ourselves or with others or with life at, that first level of just trying to prove ourselves, ultimately, then we come in from a very fragmented place.

We’re fragmented in the sense of being disconnected from our fundamental, core being, ultimately, which is what causes us to create the ego, the false image, false version of ourselves that constantly needs validation from the outside world to continue existing because it doesn’t actually have any grounding in anything. And so if we approach relationships as a vehicle for kind of proving to ourselves that we’re who we think we need to be to compensate for all of the underlying emotional stuff, then we’re going to have a fragmented relationship ultimately, that is always going to have barriers to communication and to that intimacy, which is just two people really seeing each other in the realest possible way.

The next level about being like, also, ultimately, like, being is what it’s all about. Like, we want to get to a point where we’re being like, we’re just being ourselves, which ultimately means we’re just enjoying, I suppose, a moment of intimacy, let’s say, between ourselves and life and between ourselves and whatever it is that we’re doing. In this case, creating a piece of art, or something.

But I think being is often misconstrued as being about just stillness. But actually being is about putting ourselves back in the flow, I think. Like, when we’re really present, things are still moving. Like, ultimately, like, you know, the present moment is just motion from one moment to the next. And if we can put ourselves in that flow, so to speak, then we’re going to end up eventually flowing towards wholeness. But if we can get to that third level, then we can flow towards wholeness in a more conscious way, because we are just being. But we also understand that our being needs to bring in the vision ultimately that you kind of you talked about, which is the thing that gives us a direction to be able to use as we navigate those moments of being from one to the next, if that makes sense.

And, the relationship quality as we do that, whether it’s just the relationship with ourselves and life and knowing what our vision is based on, where we’re going, when we’ve kind of transcended the. Transcended, strong word, but stepped back from that need to prove ourselves, which is blocking this natural expression of a vision that’s probably always there. But the quality of the relationship with a vision is it’s gonna be more long lived than a relationship that is just about being, if that makes sense.

And so, yeah, I am rambling a lot, but there’s something here about the healthy relationship with our creativity in relation to, I guess, being present, but also moving at the same time and how we. Yeah, so. But, yeah, sorry, I can tell you’re gonna…

Lauren Spangler: No, no. You call it rambling. I call it digging deep. I’m loving it. Oli. I think this is good stuff.

Oli Anderson: Yeah, I think I’m no longer a rumbler. I’m a dig deeperer, deep digger.

Lauren Spangler: I think that’s great. I think. Wonderful. Yeah. I think I would bring in the word purpose, I would say when we’re being. I, agree with you completely. It’s dropping in flow. It’s allowing. Allowing yourself to be present with what is. And, man, I’ve tried meditation, in the traditional, like sitting on a meditation pillow, eyes closed. I’ve tried that so many times, and I’ve just.

I’ve never been able to get past, like, five or ten minutes. I cannot seem to break into that club of people who can be there, sort of in this peaceful stillness for 20 to 30 minutes. I just can’t do it. But I will tell you, when I do feel a heightened state of mindfulness and awareness and, like, transcendence of, like, the daily whatever is when I’m doing dishes.

Oli Anderson: Wow.

Lauren Spangler: Don’t know what it is about doing dishes. The repetitive motion, the ease of, like, I know what. Like, I’m just scrubbing a plate. Like, this is easy. there’s something about it where if I can get really mindful and I can get really aware and really in my body and in the moment, I can actually experience a deep level of peace when I’m doing these really mundane daily tasks.

And I think it’s the same in the studio where if we can get into this space where sharpening our pencils is an act of creative, enjoyment, and where watching how the paint is spread. I started working with watercolour a while ago, mostly as therapy for my perfectionism, because I could not control the watercolours the way I could control the other mediums I worked in. and, like, watching as soon as I started to just, like, notice, like, what is the doing? How is the pigment spreading?

The water is moving in a way I didn’t totally expect it to. What happens next? There is this same type of allowance and awareness that we can bring into a creative practice where it can become this really peaceful, mindful act. And I think purpose comes in when we can both be in the moment, like, deeply grounded in just what is happening now and simultaneously be able to zoom out and say, okay, I have a finite number of years on this planet. Like, we’re about to go deep, Oli.

 Like, if I’ve got 100 years to work with, I’m lucky. And what am I doing with that time? Like, the fact that I’m sitting here watching the watercolour flow across the paper feels meaningful to me. And why is that? And what am I wanting to bring? And what am I wanting to leave? And. And why am I spending my time this way?

Because my time is finite and my time is precious. And when we get to that deep of a level and, we can answer those questions for ourselves and come up with, like, a solid response where we know exactly why we’re painting that painting or exactly why we’re having this conversation right now, I think that the union of this deep, mindful act with this broader, like, large scale alignment.

That’s where we find this purpose and this sense that the tiny little steps we’re taking in the moment are incongruence with this bigger purpose and reason for being. And if we’re not afraid to go there with ourselves and we’re not afraid to sort of fumble through the dark at first and go, gosh, I don’t know why there are all these little gremlins that will come out as soon as you ask yourself that question. Right?

It can be a really challenging experience, but if you walk yourself through sort of those dark woods to find those answers, I think that’s where we can really get in this fun place where, creativity and artistry can move into this deeply personal, purposeful and meaningful, experience.

Oli Anderson: Yeah. First of all, I’m really happy that you kind of brought death into this conversation. I feel like if somebody mentions death, then it’s a successful podcast, because ultimately.

Lauren Spangler: Ring the bell, then death bell. Ring the bell. Yeah.

Oli Anderson: But death is kind of the doorway into all this because like, if you accept death, memento mori, all that stuff, you start to make real choices, and ultimately real choices, as opposed to unreal ones, which I for brevity think are just the choices motivated by ego, rather than the real stuff that’s going on inside of real choices, are, always going to bring you back to your purpose.

And if you have a sense of purpose, like you said, then it’s no longer just about what you do, but it’s also about how you do it, because everything that you’re doing is kind of feeding into that sense of purpose, and it’s allowing you to be present in the way we talked about, but it’s also moving you forward. And I think if we have a sense of what our real purpose is, then it basically brings in like all of the levels we’ve talked about so far, because initially we may set out to prove something to the world or whatever, but as we kind of go down the path towards manifesting our purpose, we’re going to grow more real in the process, because it’s going to challenge us to grow through all of those kind of outdated ideas about ourselves, or the fragmentation that we’ve kind of become attached to and etc.

And as we do move forward, we become more whole, ultimately. And so this idea that you brought into the conversation about creative purpose, I think is kind of a linchpin for understanding a lot of these things. And so I, suppose I’ve got two questions for you now, like, one, in relation to what we were kind of trying to unpack about, like, a healthy relationship with our creativity. Are we saying that it ultimately comes down to being purposeful with our creativity?

But the second thing, which is going to open things up maybe a bit deeper. So bring death in if you can, like 100 million%. But, like, the other thing is, like, how do we find that purpose? And, I’d like to think it has something to do with what you said right at the start of the conversation about feeling the pull. And I think feeling that pull in many cases is about something beneath the surface telling us to get back on track, ultimately with that purpose.

So, again, I’ve thrown words at you, but is it all about creative purpose in terms of having a healthy relationship with our creativity? And then two, how do we start to, become aware of what that is by listening to ourselves in life?

Lauren Spangler: Yeah, I do think purpose is the keystone. I think that it may not be something that has to be a conscious element of every single day, an artist. Like, it’s not something you have to constantly be sort of wrapping yourself around the axel about. But I do think that if you haven’t, if you haven’t visited that topic and found some truths there, then it’s one of those things you’ll miss as you go along, and other things will start to unravel and crumble a little bit. So do I think it’s all about purpose? I think that purpose is a key ingredient. It would be like making a cherry pie without the cherries. Like, you’ve got to have it somewhere in there, or nothing’s going to work.

And when I work artists, this is where I always begin. Like, our first conversation is always about purpose. I sit them down and I say, look, you’re going to die. No, I don’t, I don’t start there. but really, I do think that that’s where most creative, dysfunction stems from, is when we haven’t had that conversation with ourselves around why we’re doing what we’re doing.

 So how do we figure that out? Typically, it’s deeper than we think it is. There are several layers on top. We kind of have to dig through a lot of, motivators that we’ve experienced in our lives and that drive our work. And all of those external sort of things are clues, and they sort of lead us down into this core where we can start to uncover what really is driving us, or maybe what is driving us and what we want to be driving us, which may be two different things, and then we reconcile that and we go about sort of mending and, like, recalibrating ourselves around the purpose.

We want to be driven by one, exercise that’s useful that I would recommend if someone was listening, to this conversation and wanting to sort of guide themselves through a process like that would be, you know, through drinking or maybe a long walk or whatever, asking themselves why about five or six times, like a chain of six whys, you know? Okay, why am I doing this? Well, I’m doing this because I want to win such and such. Okay, why do I want to win that award? Well, because, you know, my mother won that award, and it’s important to me that, I wrote rise to that same bar. Okay, why is that important?

Well, because we have this legacy in my family of, you know, we all are artists and we all, you know, okay, well, why is legacy important to you? Why? You can dig down. You can dig deep, deep, deep in. Or, you know, a different artist may ask themselves, why am I doing this? And decide that, well, I really want to write this book because I really want my kids to read it. Well, why do you want your kids to read it? Well, because I want to impart this, you know, gem to them.

Okay, why do you want to impart, like, if we can ask ourselves five or six times in a row, what is really motivating our actions and our desires, a lot of times after about half a dozen rounds of that, we get down to these fundamental core values and, we start to go, oh, I’m driven by play. You know, when I’m in my studio and I’m in a painting, everything else kind of falls away.

When I can get in that flow zone and I can start to escape the, like, administrative of my life or like, whatever conflicts are distracted, like, I can forget all of that and I can just be in the zone, escape. Okay, well, why want to escape? Oh, because, you know, and then we get deeper and deeper. So it might be play. It might be catharsis. It might be. It might be that we have something we deeply want to express. It might be that we have something we’re trying to, shine light on to bring others awareness.

You know, everyone is going to have a different reason for why they do what they do. But if you can ask yourself over and over and over again until you get to, like, a one word answer, a, one or two word answer, that’s when you start to know that you’re really circling in on the core motivators that can guide your creative life and can sort of become your north star. Because when you peel away a lot of that external, stuff, you peel away the award, you peel away whatever revenue goal that you might have for this year.

When you peel all that external stuff away and you get down to what actually matters to you, then when you layer the external pieces back on, you can do so with intentionality and you can say, okay, if what I’m really trying to experience is play, I always go back to that one a lot because I find that most of the clients I work with at the end of the day really enjoy the playful pieces of their work.

But if it’s play, right, then you can still go after that award, you can still hit that revenue goal. But if you’re doing it with a spirit of playfulness and wanting to spread that sense of play to others and wanting to share and make that playful spirit in your work a contagious thing and allow people into that sensation, you can still reach those external markers, but from a totally different angle than this. Sort of like, egocentric, scarcity based, like, I better get that award or else, right? Or else I’ll be. I’m not going to feel good enough. I don’t know.

You put a lot into your question. I put a lot into my answer. I hope this feels like I’m actually answering what you asked, but I think it’s possible for any artist to drill down to what that is. And if they’re willing to do it alone, this is where a trusted friend or a creativity coach can help, because they can ask you those questions and help you sort of shine the light on the spaces you may not have seen or considered before.

Oli Anderson: Yeah, I think, what you just shared is so important because ultimately, a lot of the time, unless we, unless we do some of that work of raising awareness, ultimately by digging into our assumptions, then we’re just running around on autopilot, not realizing that the assumptions that are driving us are either going to be real or unreal, to sound like a broken record. And this comes back to what we were saying about choices.

Like, ultimately, the only way to have a healthy relationship with your creativity and with life itself is to be acting intentionally, because you know that the choices you’re making are coming from that realist part of you. And I think if we look at that three, pronged kind of tier system that we were talking about earlier, if you’re at that earlier stage or you’re just trying to prove yourself to the world.

Ultimately, then you’re… You kind of lost, like you had been driven by the right thing deep down. But because you don’t know what it is, you end up in this trap that many people fall into you where you’re looking for the right thing, which is wholeness in fragmented places, let’s say. And if you do do some work, either consciously or, because that system that you’ve built for yourself of kind of chasing these things, eventually just runs out of steam and you have to confront yourself to some degree.

If you do that work, then you’re always going to end up back in the same place, which is you’re going to be reunited with your creative purpose in the language you’ve been using, but also your being. Like, deep down, when you do that five, six wise exercise, it can only really lead to the things that give you that feeling of being the things that make you feel most alive. And, only if you consciously bring more of that stuff to the surface are you going to be able to kind of move in the direction that you want to move in. So it’s super, super important, I suppose, what I’m seeing here.

Lauren Spangler: Absolutely. And this is where. Oh, nope, go ahead.

Oli Anderson: No, sorry. It’s okay. Please go ahead.

Lauren Spangler: What? This is where I’m gonna throw a monkey wrench in. Are you ready for a monkey wrench?

Oli Anderson: I’m always ready for a monkey wrench. Let’s go.

Lauren Spangler: So artists have this interesting conundrum because we are answering all of these beautiful existential questions, and we have to be driven by these existential things, but within the constraints of our, very real life. And so artists, especially professional artists, walk this line where they have to be driven by their deepest purpose, and they also have to be driven by needs and demands of their lifestyle. What do they require to support themselves?

What are they? You know, they’re going to have to pay the mortgage next month. Right? And so I think one place we get tripped up is many of us love to live in this sort of abstract, esoteric, nebulous space where we can talk for days about why we do what we do and why it’s important, and then at some point, we got to go pay the bills. And I think that’s one place that can be really challenging for artists to navigate, because they feel like these two things are at odds with one another. And so the other thing.

I love people. why do you do what you do? Is, why do you do what you do? And how can you support yourself to do that in a way that will give you the space and time that you need to reach those highest levels with your creativity, find that fulfilment and that experience that you want out of it. And so that’s the other piece, because in this relationship we have with our creativity, one of the biggest strains can be money.

It can be the financial reality that’s pulling us in different directions, and, you know, causing us to fixate on some of those external markers. Because, yeah, you know, as an artist, we never want to be driven by what someone else thinks, but as soon as that someone is a collector who’s either going to pay you for your work or not, dang. It’s hard not to be driven by what that person thinks.

So this is the other piece where I think it’s critical for artists to sit down and get clear on what is the big picture for them, what is their purpose, what are the tangible ways in they can support their creative spirit and give themselves the financial stability that they need over the long run. And that’s a hard question to answer, but I think it’s a critical one.

Oli Anderson: Yeah, I think this is where it comes down to understanding that, I guess two things. Like, first of all, creativity applies to everything, as we’ve kind of been saying. And so, it’s not just about creating our work. Like, on the deepest level, what we’re actually doing is creating ourselves. And so everything that happens is actually fuel for creating this next version of ourselves, this next level of ourselves. I’d say that’s taken a step or two closer towards wholeness.

And it doesn’t need to be a massive step, but it needs to be some kind of a step. And we’ve always been invited, ultimately, to take the next step. Like, in every moment. Like, I seem to say this all the time recently, but, like, literally every moment, there’s a choice between wholeness and fragmentation, between a connection to ourselves or, to just go back to the old ways of kind of thinking and doing things that are kind of outdated software, let’s say.

So I think that’s one important part of this, because even if we find ourselves as an artist or something, painting something, just to make money, well, we can still use that challenge in some way to look at, what we actually want in the long run and all that kind of thing, and to just even just become more solidified in our commitment to our purpose overall, because we say, right, well, you know, right now I’ve got to take this commission or whatever so I can pay the mortgage, but ultimately, my creative purpose and vision is going to lead me to a place where I’m not going to have to do this, because, you know, I’m just going to have artistic integrity all the time, or, whatever it is.

But the other thing as well is nothing exists in isolation, does it? So it’s. It’s kind of what you said, like, it’s about understanding the bigger picture. And I think this is so vital and important not just to creating, like, art in the traditional sense, but to, again, creating ourselves and, like, the real lives that we want to live.

Like, life is just one big process. And I think we’re all on this. We’re all on this journey from fragmentation to wholeness. We can always go deeper into wholeness, as throughout the course of our lives. And then we die, of course, and we just become one with everything, finally. But this journey of fragmentation to wholeness is always taking place.

And so, if we just look at things in isolation, like individual projects or individual, scenarios and situations that pop up throughout the course of the day, then we kind of taken ourselves out of that flow. And I think we can get to this state where no matter what is going on, ultimately, and maybe it sounds a bit idealistic, but I really think we can live in this space. Like, no matter what’s going on, we’re just taking everything as fuel for that journey towards more wholeness. So even if something bad happens or something that goes, something that deviates from our plan or vision, there’s always going to be an opportunity. There’s always going to be a lesson. At the very least, that’s going to give us fuel for this wider journey towards our vision and purpose and all that stuff. That’s how I see it.

Lauren Spangler: So I don’t think that’s too idealistic. I think that’s the goal. I think that’s attainable. And I think the artists who I’ve worked with, who are the happiest and who are able to maintain their inspiration and their consistency and their momentum over a long career have done that. I think that’s the key.

And I think a lot of times the fragmentation we’re experiencing is, like, self-imposed because we have all of these preconceived notions around the value around what we’re doing. Like, is it worthy money if we’re not making it with our art? Is it, you know, does it make us less of an artist if we have an income stream that doesn’t directly tie back to our core, like, passion? and I think if we can deconstruct a lot of the value charges we’ve placed on the various activities in our life, we can start to pull these things together and start to remove the polarities and go, you know what?

Yeah. Like, the fact that I’m taking that commission is allowing me the space that, you know, I can spend most of the day working on that commission, and then I can spend the last part of the day working on my passion project. And the two things are in harmony with each other. they are supporting and feeding each other. And, like you said, we’re on this continuum. We’re, like, on this path to ultimately, like, fulfilling this beautiful, creative act of living our life. And if we can start to see these things as, you know. I would argue that if you have like, I had. I was a, I served coffee for a while, and for a long time, it was just, like, this never ending source of frustration for me that I was, like, serving coffee.

 Like, oh, my gosh, I should be making music. I should be painting paintings. Like, why am I serving coffee? This seems completely perpendicular to everything that I say I want to do. And if I remove that value charge and go, you know what? Yeah.

Of my entire set of knowledge and expertise and skills and opportunities in that moment in time, I had the opportunity to be playing music and releasing an album and building, you know, a collector base for my art. I also had the opportunity to be making delicious mochas and serving them to people who like to come back to my coffee shop because we liked to connect with each other and, like, that’s beautiful and valid also. And that day job was an ally.

That day job was giving me. It was affording me the stability, the creative freedom, the time and space to become the artist that I was becoming. And when I began to treat that day job with gratitude, like, it’s part of my origin story. Right? Like, I cannot do. I can’t afford, a keyboard without it. Like, I’ve got to have it. And as soon as I began to see it not as a threat to my creative identity, but as a tool that supported the development of my creative identity, then all the resistance sort of falls away, and you go, yeah, okay, I’m gonna go serve coffee for a few hours, and then I’m gonna go make some music.

Oli Anderson: Yeah.

Lauren Spangler: Like, this is great. This is my life. This is my day today. And, you know, even today, ten years later, there are still parts of my life where I make choices based around my values, based on my desire for stability, based on my financial commitments to my family, and instead of villainizing those choices to be able to say, yeah, I’m one 3d person with a bunch of facets to my life and a bunch of different things that are driving me, and all of those things are valid, and all of those things are living within this ecosystem that is harmonious, and I can allow it to be harmonious.

That’s where I find even less resistant. Like then when I’m doing the things that I really, really do care about, when I’m working with a coaching client that’s just lighting me up, or when I’m making a painting that I’m just so proud of in those moments, then I’m available to enjoy, the reward and joy and excitement and happiness of that, because I’m no longer burdened by resentment or a sensation of failure or whatever else it was that I was layering on top of myself the entire time. You know what I mean?

Oli Anderson: Yeah. I think the lesson is that everything that happens can be a springboard into what we want to have happen next. Like, it’s really that simple. Like, it’s all fuel for moving in the direction that we want to move in. And, the only thing that stops us is the ego stuff we were talking about.

Like, when we feel we have to prove ourselves to the world and when we become outcome dependent, basically, instead of outcome independent. For me, outcome independent means that we are investing our self-worth in some external thing happening.

So, for example, maybe you’re an artist or an author or something, you want your art to be received in a certain way, and you’ve decided, purely because of arbitrary emotional reasons, really, you’ve decided that you’re not going to feel good about yourself until that happens. And then that just distorts you, that distorts the view of everything that happens instead. And then you become resentful and judgmental, and you’re not grateful for what you’ve got. And then that takes you out of the flow and it stops you spring-boarding with what you’ve got into where you actually need to be. And so it’s all about that, in my opinion, just the choices we make to kind of stay present and to keep growing towards that vision. Something like that.

Lauren Spangler: So, well said.

Oli Anderson: Well, thank you. But now I’m going to challenge you to sum up everything we’ve talked about, if that’s even possible. Have you got, like, how would you sum all this up? What’s the main theme of this conversation? Have you any final words of wisdom? Can you let people know where they can find your website as well, please. And anything else you want to share.

Lauren Spangler: Absolutely. Let’s see. I think if I was going to sum up the last 45 minutes here, it might take me 45 more minutes to sum up everything we covered.

Oli Anderson: Well, we can die soon, so we don’t have 45 minutes.

Lauren Spangler: We don’t have 45 minutes. Let’s go. I, think it would come back to the fact that we’re, working with a finite amount of time. We’re working within our very personal realities. And the more honest we can be about what we want to make of that and why we want to make what we want to make, the more clearly we can begin to align ourselves to the things that are really the most important and the easier that will make it for us to create the work that we feel called to create.

And that deep digging conversations like this one, might be the medicine if we’re feeling frustrated or stuck or blocked, because sometimes, the deeper challenges we face have to have deeper answers to resolve them. And so if I was going to encourage, if I was going to encourage a listener to take a step out of this, because it’s nice to take these big, abstract things and make it something that’s, like, concrete and doable, I would encourage someone to sit down and really take stock of their relationship with their creativity.

And, you know, not in a self-judgmental way, we’re not giving ourselves a grade or a score, but to sit down and just really honestly ask, how am I doing? How am I relating to my creativity? Am I going in the direction that I want to go? is it feeling the way I want it to feel? And to just let that answer come honestly and to just receive wherever they are in the moment and meet themselves where they are and move from there and start to more intentionally build the relationship that they want to have with their creativity.

This is really my favourite stuff. I’m so passionate about this, and I just feel like any artist can benefit from having that honest checkpoint with themselves. And so I actually made a tool that folks can use. It’s completely free. You don’t even need an email to download it. It’s totally just a free gift but I made a self-assessment tool that helps people take a pulse on their creative wellbeing. And it’s ten questions long, takes about ten minutes to complete.

And it gives you a holistic picture of where you might be really strong in your creative relationship, or where there might be places that you could make some changes to set yourself up for more fulfilment over the long run. So I call it my spark or sputter test. It’s, again, totally free. It’s at laurenspangler.com spark. So that’s one place people get introduced to me in my work. It’s a good place to start. And if you go down, I hope it helps you shine light on some things that’ll improve your creative wellbeing over time. The other place to connect with me. If you want to see what’s happening in my studio this week, I do hang out on Instagram. I’m Laurenspangler, and I would love to connect there too.

Oli Anderson: Awesome. So I’m going to share both of those links in the show notes. But, Lauren, this has been a really good one. I feel like it’s just flowed really well. So thank you for bringing that energy to allow us to do that. And, I feel like I should write this up somehow in a humorous way. I’ll say something about death.

Lauren Spangler: Ring the death bell again. Yeah, yeah. No, no.

Oli Anderson: There we go. We’re all going to die. Thank you so much.

Lauren Spangler: Thank you so much. Oli, this has been a total blast. It’s been the highlight of my day. I appreciate you taking the time, and I hope this conversation helps people.

Oli Anderson: Thank you so much once again. Lauren, that was awesome.

Dharma, Purpose, & Realness (Creative Status: Episode 77: Nikita Thakrar)

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.

Embark on a journey of self-discovery and purpose with Creative Status as we delve into the realms of dharma and realness with Nikita Thakrar – a multifaceted teacher, mentor, and coach, shares her wisdom and guidance on finding life purpose through transformative modalities such as yoga, reiki, and NLP coaching.

Exploring Life’s Purpose: Tune in as Nikita shares insights into the concept of dharma and how it relates to finding one’s life purpose.

From her free guided meditation channel to hosting monthly masterclasses and facilitating workshops and retreats in luxury locations, Nikita’s approach to purpose discovery is both holistic and transformative.

Living With REALNESS: Join me (Oli Anderson) and Nikita Thakrar for a conversation that celebrates the journey of self-discovery and living authentically. Explore how embracing our true purpose can lead to a life filled with meaning, fulfillment, and realness.

Creative Status: Where Purpose Meets Realness

This episode is your invitation to embark on a journey of self-discovery, mindfulness, and transformation.

Tune in and discover how embracing your true purpose can unlock a life of authenticity and fulfilment.

Stay real out there,

Oli

Episode Links:

Nikita’s website: ⁠https://journeywithnikita.com/⁠

Nikita on Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/journeywithnikita/⁠

Everything else: ⁠https://linktr.ee/journeywithnikita⁠

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Dharma, Purpose, & Realness (Show Transcript)

Interview

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. This is a podcast about tuning into life, tuning into the laws that apply to all of us so that we can evolve as individuals and collectively, if you’re into that kind of thing.

This ultimately means that we put ourselves on a path towards wholeness and acceptance, and that we use our creativity as a vehicle for doing that. Because creativity, it turns out, can allow us to make the unconscious conscious. So any blocks that we do have to flowing with life in that way can be dealt with, dissolved, and we can keep moving forward.

Today’s interview is a really cool one, in my opinion. I know I always end up saying that, and it’s often true, but it’s 100 million% true today. This is an awesome conversation with Nikita Thakrar from journeywithnikita.com – Nikita is a yoga teacher and NLP master and ultimately, this conversation is about the idea of dharma or life purpose or acceptance of universal laws.

Nikita gives some amazing definitions to help you understand this concept in the conversation but it covers all kinds of really, important and really life enhancing topics that can help you to just get into a deeper sense of acceptance of who you are and what your fate or destiny or, purpose is here on planet Earth.

We go into some of the, philosophical issues around those topics, but ultimately, it’s just a very practical conversation about purpose. so, Nikita, thank you so much for this. Dharma is a really interesting concept that I’m just so happy that you helped me to explore and learn more about everybody else. Hope this helps you to grow more real. Here we go.Thanks a bunch. Boom.

Interview

Oli: Oh, hi there, Nikita. Thank you for joining me today. On today’s episode of Creative Status, we’re gonna be talking about some of my favourite topics, because you’re a yoga teacher and amongst other things. And I’m very obsessed with yoga and yoga philosophy, but you actually know something about it. So I think we’re gonna dive into it. Before we do, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about and what you do and also what you want to get out of this conversation?

Nikita Thakrar: Yeah. Namaste. Thank you so much for having me. And, I’m Nikita. I’m a yoga teacher, meditation facilitator, and a Reiki healer. And in recent years, I’ve been incorporating all of these modalities together along with Neuro Linguistic Programming. And I’ve always had a fascination for the word dharma. In fact, I would say it’s my favourite word, I just light up when I hear it. And what I’m hoping to gain from today’s conversation is to really explore the depth of that word.

Oli: That’s awesome. So, Dharma, I think it’s one of these words that a lot of people have kind of heard, like, here and there. It pops up on social media or in different videos on YouTube or whatever it is. But nobody really knows what it means. That’s the kind of impression that I get. Unless I’m just projecting, because I was one of those people.

The first time I heard the word dharma was in a book by Jack Kerouac. It’s called the Dharma Bums. But, even after reading that book, I didn’t really know what the word meant. So maybe we just get right into it about, defining it. Like, what is your definition of dharma? And why does it light you up so much?

Nikita: Yeah. So the word dharma is an ancient Sanskrit word. So we all know Sanskrit is the oldest language in the world. And it loosely translates as meaning in life or purpose. But, of course, it goes much more beyond that. And the reason it lights me up is because I’ve always had this understanding as a child even, that there must be more to life.

There must be a greater meaning behind it all. You know, we’re not just here to eat, drink and be merry, so to speak. There must be something. And so I was, you know, a young girl when I first heard this word dharma. And the way that I heard it was actually through the Bhagavad Gita, which is the Hindu text. And Krishna was coaching Arjun. And Arjun was on the battlefield, and he was having to fight against his cousins and his siblings. And Lord Krishna was giving him advice and saying, in this moment, when you’re fighting, you’re a warrior, you’re a soldier. You’re no longer in your bodily form.

And he was saying, well, no, how can I, you know, kill my own brothers? It’s not ethical for me to do that. This is where Krishna introduced the idea that actually, this is your duty. So this is how the, story I heard when I was quite young. And then I was kind of pondering all my life on this idea of duty and, purpose and meaning. And I really believe that each one of us has an individual purpose.

Oli: Well, listening to you talk about this word dharma is making me light up. I can feel the, passion exuding through the way that you’re, kind of sharing these stories. So one thing that you just said that I kind of lit up over was when you said, when was it Krishna? Sorry, it might not have been Krishna…When somebody was in this warrior state, they were no longer in their bodily form.

Nikita: Yes.

Oli: And, I find that really interesting because I think, in a way, the way that I look at and understand our real purpose, he is kind of about transcending the day to day limitations of, like, the fragmentary world that we found ourselves living in and getting, I guess, inspired by or moved by something bigger. And is kind of what you’re talking about with that, you’re no longer your bodily form, but you’re moving with something much higher, maybe even like, on a metaphysical level or something like that.

Nikita: Yeah. So we all know that when we were in a state of flow, we lose ourselves, and so we completely lose track of time. And, you know, we get completely absorbed and immersed in the present moment. And that’s really, as you say, when we can transcend the physical realm, start to tap into our higher self.

Oli: Like, for me, that’s ultimately what it’s all about, putting ourselves in that flow state. And the only way we can do that is literally, as you just said, by transcending our ideas about ourselves, aka the ego, so that we can align ourselves with wholeness instead of just fragmentation. So, how do we do this? I guess that’s the question.

Nikita: The first thing is to understand that I am not limited to this body. And I think that’s the biggest thing. And of course, to intellectually understand it is one thing, but to experience it is another. And that’s why to experience it, we need modalities like yoga and meditation, because they provide us with tools to be able to tap into that higher self. And unfortunately, today, a lot of people are using yoga, but their ego is expanding as a result and not supposed to happen. In fact, the ego is supposed to dissolve.

Oli: Yeah, that’s my experience. And it’s funny you use the word dissolve because normally I throw that out a million times a week when I’m talking about these things. Like, for me, the reason that I love yoga so much is exactly that: It helped me to dissolve all of these limiting beliefs and perceptions and things like that, even if it’s just for a little moment so that I could see who I really am and, what I’m kind of really capable of.

And it just allowed me to let go of all of that resistance that was stopping me from flowing so that I can kind of get to the state that you’re talking about, which is putting ourselves in that state. You know, to a great extent, as much as possible. is the dharma, though? Is dharma just being in that state? Or is it more the kind of sense of the direction we need to move in or navigate that state towards, if that makes sense.

Nikita: So I mentioned earlier that I combine a lot of different things together. And one of the tools that I’ve studied is neuro linguistic programming. And what I do is I use one of the models, which is called the neurological levels of change. And it’s a pyramid, and it starts with environment at the bottom. It goes into, your behaviours towards your beliefs, identity. And then all the way up to the top, which is your purpose. And I use that model as a framework to guide people through the different stages of their lives.

So you asked me, what exactly is dharma? So, in my opinion, dharma is not one thing. It’s an amalgamation of, everything. It’s who we are on a physical level, on a mindful level, on an emotional level, and on a spiritual level. So it’s all come together as a whole. And in order to do that, we need all of our preferences to be met.

So, for example, on the environmental level, if we’re not happy in the house we’re living in. Or if we’re not happy with our partner or our, job, we’re not going to be able to move up the stages to find our true purpose. Because we’re being held down by this almost materialistic world. Or, the belief that, oh, no, I won’t be able to change my job because I have to pay my bills. And, you know, all the things that are limiting us. But actually, in order to really tap into our purpose, we need to free ourselves from all of that.

Oli: Yeah, I love it. Like, ultimately, it seems like dharma is what emerges. Or it’s the state that emerges when everything is aligned with our nature. Is that a good way to say?

Nikita: It’s a perfect way of saying it.

Oli: How does… How does pre-determinism come into this? So, one thing that I read years ago and I can’t remember where, it basically said there’s a difference between fate and destiny. Fate is ultimately the things that we can change about our life as a whole.

Ultimately, the cards we’ve been dealt with, let’s say destiny, is more about the choices that we make. And I suppose in the language that we’re now using, bringing dharma into it. It sounds like dharma is accessible when we make choices that are aligned with our fate. Something like that, yeah.

Nikita: So there’s two things. There’s karma and there’s dharma. And as you rightly said, dharma is a state. It’s not a particular thing that, you know, people say, oh, that’s my purpose. That would be very limiting. It’s a whole state. It’s a way of being. And our karma is the actions through which we have to go through in order to get to that state. So the fate and the destiny that you’re talking about, that comes under karma. That’s the actions that we have to go through. And eventually, the goal is for the two to align.

Oli: How are these actions determined, if that makes sense?

Nikita: Well, in Hinduism, we believe that it’s based on reincarnation. So anything that we have gone through in previous lives, we have to come back, and we need to repay our debts, so to speak.

Oli: So it is predetermined in a way. Like, ultimately, if we want to, reach the state of dharma, then there are going to be certain things that we have no choice about. And so part of the journey of moving towards dharma is going through, the process of acceptance, ultimately learning to accept what is meant for us and then acting in alignment with it.

Nikita: Yes. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have control, because we’re still in a position to create good karma, and the good will outright the bad. So if we just like a bank account, if you put more money in, you’ll get more interest. So in the same way, it’s not like, oh, you know, I just have to sit back and there’s nothing I can do, is my karma. That’s very complacent attitude. We’re able to change our karma. We’re able to dissolve it back to that word.

Oli: Okay, can we dissolve it in this lifetime, though?

Nikita: Of course, if we. If we do a lot of good deeds and a lot of spiritual practices, of course.

Oli: That’s awesome.

Nikita: In fact, for many of us, it’s one of our last lifetimes, I believe.

Oli: Because I guess what I’m trying to do now, I’m trying to find the balance. So when I look at all this kind of life philosophy stuff that gets kind of propagated out there in the world, there’s two main school of thoughts, and I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, and it sounds like that’s the path you’re describing.

On one side of it, we have people that are just so open minded. Their brains fall out, ultimately, and they just surrender completely to what they think is the flow, although I often think it’s an extension of the ego and its needs. But anyway, they’re just so open that they don’t take, take any action. They think that things are going to just resolve themselves magically.

Let’s say the other side of the coin is that people, they become complete human doings, and they end up forcing life completely neurotically through their need to make life conform to what they think they want, which is often not what they really want, because it’s not aligned with Dharma and the language you’re using. It’s aligned with their desire to try and escape from all of the underlying emotional stuff that they haven’t faced yet. Something like that.

And so on these two poles, there’s all kinds of problems that arise, but it seems like what you’re talking about is the balance between the two, which is obviously, more aligned with reality and how it works. I don’t know.

Nikita: Yeah, exactly. It’s about finding that balance, that state of harmony, that oneness. So we live in a world of duality. There’s an opposite to everything. And we want to find that state of, oneness. And that can only be experience that can’t be intellectualized. And going back to the second group of people that you mentioned, those that are not ready to make a change, it’s usually an external circumstance that has to happen in order for somebody to make a change.

If everything is seemingly going well in life, there’s no reason for them to want to do anything differently, because most people think that life is just to eat, drink, and be merry, as I said at the beginning. And it’s only when something hits them, like they get made redundant or they go through a pencil, or they have, fertility issue. Something major happens in life that shapes them, and that’s when they seek a more spiritual path.

Oli: Yeah, like, there has to be something that causes people to wake up in most cases, yeah. But how do we help these people who maybe they haven’t hit rock bottom, yet, or something bad and external in the way that we’re talking about has, hasn’t, or doesn’t happen, but they’re stuck in that state that you kind of alluded to at the start, where there’s kind of an existential void and they just feel like there’s something more to life. And, you know, they’ve. They’ve got an itch that they can’t scratch.

Nikita: Yeah, we can’t, unfortunately, because everybody’s got to go through their own karma. So no matter what we do, we could put a leaflet right in front of them for the most ideal place or workshop or coach we could literally pick them up, take them there, drive them there, pay for their ticket, but if they’re not ready, they will not do it.

Oli: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make a drink.

Nikita:  Yeah. And it’s frustrating being in that coach position, which I’m in as well, the same as you, where you see people and, you know, that you can help them, but they’re not ready to be helped.

Oli: I agree with you. Like, I, I would never coach anybody who was not ready to be coached because obviously they need to be coachable, as we say. And that just means that this, there’s some stirring inside them already. Like, the truth is awakening, and it’s showing them that there’s a gap between, you know, the life that they’ve built for themselves ultimately and the identity that they’ve picked up because of what they’ve been through versus their realness, as I call it, like, who they actually are and what is waiting to be expressed.

Nikita: Yeah. All we can do for them is hold space.

Oli: Yeah. Yeah. But is it inevitable? Do you think that something will happen then?

Nikita: Yes, it has to. It has to happen.

Oli: Like, like, there’s the universal, law kind of that what goes up must come down.

Nikita: Yeah.

Oli: And the truth is always gonna creep in eventually. And so it’s true, like, ultimately, people, they only do change when they’re ready for it.

Nikita: Right.

Oli: But a lot of the time, you know, people get in all these complicated relationships and they make, like, life difficult for themselves because they’re trying to change other people. They can’t be changed.

So are you saying ultimately, we just have to, I guess, accept people as they are? Which makes sense. But if somebody, what if somebody is in that, state, I guess, where they, you know, they living life in the void, but they’re not quite ready to wake up yet, but they’re causing all kinds of, let’s say, damage in relationships and things like that.

How do we, I suppose, see that through the lens of our journey?

Nikita: This is where the understanding of karma comes in, that everybody has a role to play. So Shakespeare said, the world is a stage. We are all actors. And so if we understand that we’re all actors, we can’t all be heroes. There has to be villains. And so it may be that they have that role to play where they are causing damage, as you said, right now. But then that’s what they have to go through, and that’s the karma has to take place in order for them to then come out of that and purify the ultimate goal, to purify the soul.

Oli: I’m always talking about these kind of things in terms of it’s either real or it’s unreal. Real means that we’re aligned with wholeness, ultimately, and unreal means that we’re identifying with all kinds of different fragments in the way that I choose shared earlier. The whole point of the human experience, as far as I can tell, is that we’re on a constant journey towards more wholeness. That’s basically it, right?

And things happen in our lives that are ultimately a process of spiritual purification exactly like you just said. And one thing that I found really helpful is when I do meet difficult people or, challenging people, I can normally kind of see it as a case of hurt people. Hurt people. Like, it’s not the real version of them that is causing the damage and destruction.

They’re just acting kind of an, autopilot. But I suppose what I’m curious about now is, like, how do we, how do we get that kind of, equanimity around that? Like, I totally agree. Like, ultimately, all we can do is just let things be and focus on our own journey towards wholeness and purification. And if we do meet difficult people, we see it as a lesson. But I suppose. Have you got any tips?

Nikita: Of course. So there’s a belief here that I hold that everyone is pure.

Oli: Yeah.

Nikita: This is a really strong belief. And without belief that everyone is pure, I don’t look at people and think you’re a bad person. You know, even criminals, everybody, if you think about it, once you remove that shadow, as you say, or those layers, we are all pure souls. And so when I hold space for somebody, with my own purity, I invite them to experience theirs.

Oli: Yeah. Yeah. So really all we can do is get into that place of wholeness as much as we possibly can and then kind of lead from it, so to speak, or create a container unknowingly inspire them.

Nikita: Yeah, yeah.

Oli: And then maybe the truth will stir, they’ll wake up. I find that in coaching sessions, like, ultimately, a coaching relationship gets its power from creating that container that allows the truth to shine through. Ultimately, it’s not anything necessarily I do or say. It’s just the space that you create. You bring reality into it, and then it allows people to be more real..

Nikita: My favourite style of coaching is people-centred coaching, which is where you’re just being present, you’re being in the moment, and you’re sharing that space with the client, and there’s no objectives, there’s no goals to set. You just are, both open to school. Whatever comes up in that moment, powerful.

Oli: It’s being like you were saying, and it’s coming from that place of wholeness or purity or whatever we want to call it. I have got a question that, has kind of been plaguing me for a while that I’ve kind of wanted to ask somebody who understands all these things. So I think you’re going to be a good person to ask.

 I agree with you 100 billion% that everybody is pure or everybody is real. Like, at the end of the day, we’re all whole. We’re all connected to wholeness at, all times. But we get this kind of parasite in our minds that kind of stops us from seeing.

Like, the parasite is the ego, as I call it. It’s our, past conditioning, shame, guilt, and trauma that causes us to become split and fragmented within ourselves. And then it’s almost like when we’re in that state, even though we are whole or pure, we can’t taste or experience that wholeness because there’s like a layer over everything that we do. And I think in Hinduism, there’s the veil of Maya. Maybe the answer has something to do with that.

But, like, how do we… How do we come to terms with the fact that we live in two realities all times, and one of them is just a pure illusion? And if you can step away from it, that’s when you put yourself back in the flow, because you’re aligning yourself with that wholeness, purity, etc.

Nikita: Yeah. So it goes back to that realization that I am not this body and I am, here for something bigger. And that’s why the word dharma purpose, it’s in Japanese, by the way. It’s called Ikigai, which is a really lovely word. And so this idea that I’m here to express my pure self in a bodily form, and until that realisation happens, we will be in a state of Maya, we will be, in ignorant bliss, as we call it.

You know, it’s almost like a veil in front of our eyes, and we’re unable to see the truth. But it is usually, as I said, when an external circumstance happens or something happens that triggers that inner, ah, urge, for wanting to know more.

Oli: Once that urge gets triggered enough, can we speed up the process of freeing ourselves from the veil and the ignorance of bliss? And often not bliss as well. Ignorance causes all kinds of friction and frustration. But anyway, can we speed up our, I guess, liberation from being in that state by actively starting to choose a purpose for ourselves or trying to figure out what our purpose is?

Nikita: Definitely. I mean, I’ve been studying spirituality for about two decades now, and I’ve seen people that have come to it in just recent years, and they’ve already accelerated and gone far in their journey. And so once they’ve got that realization, that knowing, that awakening, then the sky’s the limit for them.

Oli: How do we start to decide what our purpose might be? Like, I know we’ve talked about acceptance and, like, letting things swim up from, you know, beneath the veil and things, but, like, are there some practical steps already?

Nikita: Yeah. So, going back to the pyramid that I described is, it’s about going through each stage and making sure that each one aligns, with our true nature. So we talked about environment. Like, am, I living in the most ideal place? A lot of people are compromising where they’re living, for example, or during COVID they realized that they didn’t have enough outdoor space. If they were living in a flat, they would have preferred a house.

So it’s like, the typical place that I’m living, the town that I’m living in, the country I’m living in, does that serve me? And then looking at your job, does your job serve you? Am I doing something that I love doing? And then looking at all the other parts of your life, am I doing the hobbies that I love doing?

You know, I recently realized that I love swimming, but I never go swimming. And, I was like, why do I never go swimming? Like, it just. It baffled me. And then I realized that actually, if I make an effort to go, I’ll actually be a happier person. And making those simple lifestyle changes to meet our patterns. So that’s step one. And then we move up towards understanding our behaviours, our actions, and not just the conscious ones, the subconscious ones, as we know, are equally as important, if not more. And then, of course, our beliefs, making sure that we have more empowering beliefs than limiting beliefs.

And it’s only when all of that aligns, that’s when we really tap into this identity. Who am I? That’s the big question. And this can’t be intellectually answered. No matter how much you read or write or speak, you’re never going to be able to get the answer. It has to be experienced.

Oli: So I have, another million questions now after what you just shared. So there’s two things there that you said that I find really interesting.

The first one is that you’ve basically said that really moving towards our dharma is just about making these small changes and small choices. I think a lot of the time when people think about changing or improving their lives, they think they need to make some massive, dramatic changes that, you know, where is the kind of thing where nothing’s ever going to be the same ever again because it’s so gargantuan. But actually, it is just those little choices, because real life is a process. And day by day, the little choices that we do make, like going swimming or whatever, doing yoga, like, they’re the things that are just going to keep building on themselves in increments until our life becomes more and more real.

Nikita: So is it also not to say that we’re going to, like, we’re always evolving as well? Important to recognize that perhaps five years ago, I didn’t want to go swimming, and now I do. So it’s like always adapting to what, we are really wanting inside. And many of us have beliefs around that, and we’re like, oh, no, I can’t do that because of this. There’s always excuses. And actually, it’s about making your life. It’s almost like you’re designing it according to your very core nature.

Oli: Like, ultimately, I, think that’s the best way to do it. Start diving into that nature a little bit and then designing a lifestyle that is going to allow that to keep expanding and evolving. But also, like you said, to periodically reflect on the progress you are making and see what’s changed, because we do. We do evolve.

 Like, I’ve, I’ve noticed this with my workouts. Like, at the minute. Like, last two years, I’ve been doing yoga every single day, basically. But maybe like two years ago, I was doing, like, weights and I was mixing things up and so on and so forth. But then I, I kind of realized I was only doing that because I identified with doing it, if that makes sense. And so I needed to mix it up. And so I love this, this thing you shared about, you know, constantly reflecting because we start identifying with our habits, and then eventually, you know, things, reality changes, we evolve, and we need to, reboot.

Nikita: Almost so many people go to the gym just because they think they should, but maybe they would enjoy playing squash more or tennis or, you know, they just haven’t given themselves that opportunity to explore.

Oli: Yeah.

Nikita: And that’s what this is about. It’s like, who am I? What do I want? I mean, do most people even know their favourite colour. If I ask the listeners, what is your favourite colour, would they be able to answer straight away, or would they say, well, I sometimes like purple sometimes.

They don’t know themselves. And that’s where the gap is. We need to do more personal development. We’re always studying the world around us, other people, we study animals, we study subjects. How often do we turn inwards and study ourselves?

Oli: And the other thing there is that there’s, throughout the course of our lifetimes, there’s going to be so many different versions. And so we do have to just keep chipping away, ultimately, to see what’s changed and what, I’m going to segue a little bit another question that I had based on, what you were just saying about going through the triangle and looking at the things that we really want and our ideals and all that stuff.

How do we know the difference between what we really, really want in our purity, let’s say, in our wholeness, versus what we think we want? Because of our ego and our conditioning. Because this is something that I’ve seen a lot of people kind of fall into the trap of.

They set a goal for themselves, or they set a vision for themselves, but they’re only really doing it to compensate for underlying feelings of shame and whatever else is going on inside them. And as they move towards that, they think it’s their ideal, but actually it just ends up being something that exacerbates the problems they’ve got in their lives, because it’s causing them to run away from the truth instead of running towards it. So is there anything there in your philosophy?

Nikita: Yeah, so there’s two very different things. So the ego, as you say, which is made up of the logical mind, and the logical mind will always tell us things that we should do, and not necessarily what’s good for us, but just what makes practical sense. Then there’s the intuitive mind, and that’s coming from the third, eye. That’s our higher self. And so it is a challenge sometimes to be able to differentiate the two, but that’s why the practice of yoga and meditation is so important. And I have a third eye meditation, actually, which is available, and I really strongly, encourage people to practice that on a daily basis.

The more you open your third eye chakra, the more you start to unlock your intuition. And some people think only special people have these mic abilities, and we all have it, we just haven’t tapped into it. And when we do, that’s when we start to understand what we really want all of the decisions I’ve made in my life, professionally and personally, from my intuition, I wouldn’t trust my logical mind.

Oli: You need your logical mind to kind of weigh things up and reason and so on, all that. But ultimately, it’s always from the past. All of the premises that your logical mind is kind of fueled by are just old, outdated thinking. And so they’re fragmentary in the language I use, and they hold us back from the whole if we attach to them too much. Where is this, meditation that you mentioned? It’s on your website?

Nikita: Yeah. It’s a free, guided meditation. And I encourage people to download it and look into it on a regular basis because it really starts to create synchronicities in life. You start to understand things more, but again, then the ego can get involved there and be like, oh, I’m sensing things before they happen. I knew the call was going to ring before it rang.

Oli: I’m so enlightened.

Nikita: I’m so enlightened. Yeah. And that’s where, again, we’ve got to work hard to make sure we dissolve that.

Oli: Like, it’s like we have to constantly be dissolving things. Like, constantly. Even if we do, like, say I wake up tomorrow morning and I become, like, really enlightened because I’ve opened my third eye and stuff. And, I reach my dharma or feel that state of dharma, like I’m flowing with it. If I get too attached to that, then the next day is going to be gone.

Nikita: Yes.

Oli: There’s something we need to dissolve. So where do those waves keep coming from? Is it just because we’re in bodies?

Nikita: And it could be our karma as well. So sometimes I deliver a workshop and I’m completely in a state of flow. And I know that it’s almost like it’s not me doing it. It’s as if it’s, I’m being channelled. And then afterwards, I will take credit for people write to me and say they had a transformative experience, and that’s not me. That’s. That’s my wanting to take credit.

Oli: Like, I know what you mean. Like, I, I try and maintain that perspective in my, my coaching sessions, because if, if someone gets results, it’s not anything I’ve done.

Like, first of all, they’ve done the work. But, what I mean is, in the context of the coaching conversations, when they’re getting insights and things like that, it’s like we were saying earlier, all we’ve done is introduced the truth. And the truth just does things by itself.

Like, it’s nothing to do with us, really. It’s just creating those conditions for it to happen. And, I think taking ourselves out of the equation is almost always the way forward. That seems to be the main theme of, what we’re talking about.

Nikita: Yeah. So when I did my coaching training, my teacher said to me that I should cease to exist.

Oli: Yes.

Nikita: Completely getting rid of this sense of self. And it’s almost becoming a m medium. And I guess that’s what Dharma is. If we’re going to wrap up, what is the idea of dharma? It’s becoming a medium for the higher power to flow through you.

So, you know, some people would say, I’m doing God’s work on earth. I’m performing duties which are aligned with my higher self. Now, that doesn’t have to be anything momentous. You don’t have to be a prime minister or write a book or anything. Even the most simplest of jobs, if they’re done with pure sincerity and duty, that is dharma. So it’s not really the job itself. It’s more like the, ah, attitude.

Oli: It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. That’s why. That’s why I love yoga, because that’s what it taught me. What are some other things like, simple things, simple practices that people can do to start figuring that out for themselves. So, like, I remember last time we were talking about the idea of take, your yoga off the mat. Yoga basically has shown me, like, how to show up in life ultimately by just giving me a space to practice it. And then when I am not doing yoga, I can still kind of remember those lessons and try to show up in that way. You mentioned meditation, I suppose, just to wrap this up, are there, like. Yeah, other simple things?

Nikita: I mentioned earlier that I’m a Reiki healer and I really believe in energy. And energetic fields are, all around us. And one thing I would ask listeners to become aware of is their own personal energy. So whether you know it or not, people can read your energies. Maybe not consciously, but they can get a sense of what’s going on for you. So if you’re going through things in your life, it’s showing on your face.

If you’re going through, you know, if you’re overthinking or worrying or analysing, that’s all coming across in your body language and in your energetic fields. So I would encourage people to clear that on a daily basis. And there are many ways that you can clear that meditation is one of them. Sage is another one way. Having a reiki or any kind of energy healing treatment is another way. But just to start becoming more aware of what energy am I projecting?

You know, if not many people want to hang around with you, it’s probably because they’re picking up on something to do with your energy. So that’s one thing that I’d really encourage people to become aware of.

Oli: That’s amazing. So ultimately, just monitoring, I guess, our vibe, let’s say, like, how we’re showing up, how we feel, how much friction we’re carrying inside ourselves.

Nikita: That doesn’t mean to say we have to be happy all the time or need to put on a fake Persona, but it just means start to really think about actually how am I showing up?

Oli: Being real, ultimately. So we’ve covered a lot in a short amount of time. Like, that was awesome. If you could sum this up, how would you do it? And can you let people know what your website is?

Nikita: Yeah. So there’s so many coaches out there claiming to be able to help people to reveal their life purpose. And I think what the biggest message that I want to get across is your life purpose is not one thing. It’s not like you’re going to do a series of coaching sessions or go to workshops and come away with one sentence and be like, that’s it. That’s my purpose. That’s very limiting to think that way.

Purpose is your whole existence, the whole reason that you’re here on earth. and that is what dharma is. It’s a state of being. And you can tap into that state at any time. There’s probably areas of your life where you’re already completely aligned. And so the goal is to just align all of the areas because you have a choice. You don’t have to live the way that you live. You don’t have to be unhappy. You have a choice. So that’s the biggest thing.

Oli: I love what you just said. Like, your purpose is your whole existence. Boom. What’s your website again? Social, media?

Nikita: So it’s journeywithnikita.com. And I do have, Instagram, Facebook, journey with Nikita. I do a range of workshops, retreats, online courses as well. I mentioned I have free guided meditations on my website. And every month I have a free meditation masterclass as well. So I’d love to invite listeners to join me for a live meditation class.

Oli:  Amazing I’ll share all your links in the show notes, but, Nikita, thank you so much for this. It’s been, It’s really been just very edifying. So thank you so much for your time and energy and all that stuff. Definitely living your dharma.

Nikita: Thank you.

Creative Catharsis, REALNESS, & Shadows (Creative Status: Episode 76: Cami Ostman)

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.

Embark on a journey of transformation with Creative Status as we delve into the power of narratives with the inspiring Cami Ostman, founder of The Narrative Project and Chief Story Warrior.

Meet Cami Ostman: Join us for an enlightening episode where Cami shares her profound insights into the transformative potential of storytelling and the creation of authentic identities through words.

The Power of Words: Tune in as Cami explores the profound impact of words on our identities and truths. Learn how storytelling can shape our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us, and discover how writing can become a vehicle for self-discovery and empowerment.

Creating Authentic Lives: Delve into Cami’s approach to helping individuals authentically author their own lives. From her memoir, Second Wind, to her work with writers at The Narrative Project, Cami guides individuals in uncovering their truths and bringing their best work into the world.

Inspiring Honest Writing: Join me (Oli Anderson) and Cami Ostman for a conversation that celebrates the power of honest writing and storytelling. Explore how narratives of REALNESS can inspire and empower individuals to embrace their authenticity and live their most fulfilling lives.

Creative Status: Where Stories Shape Lives

This episode is your invitation to explore the profound connection between storytelling and personal growth, and discover how writing can empower you to rewrite your narrative and live authentically.

Tune in and let Cami’s wisdom and insight guide you on your journey of self-discovery and empowerment.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

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Creative Catharisis, REALNESS, & Shadows (Show Transcript)

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome. This is where we talk about the creative process as a vehicle growing more real.

That means that we are, we’re more connected to ourselves, we’re more connected to other people, we’re more connected to life itself. And creativity is ultimately a way of making the unconscious conscious, which means that we’re bringing up some of the parts of ourselves that we may have been hiding from – releasing some of the emotional stuff, breaking through some of the limiting beliefs and all that kind of stuff.

Today’s interview is with Cami Osterman from the narrative projects. Cami is an author. She used to be a family therapist. Now she helps people to write their books.

This is a really interesting episode, which of course, I would say, but I genuinely, truly mean that. There’s loads of good stuff in this conversation about figuring out what it is that you want to say to the world, diving inside yourself, moving with speed to get it out there, excavating things from your unconscious mind, and then refining it so you can make it mean something, first of all, to yourself, but then the people that you want to share your message and your work with. so, yeah, this was an awesome one.

Cami, thank you so much for your time and your energy and all your insight – everybody else, thank you for listening. Here we go. Thanks a bunch. Boom.

Interview

Oli: Oh, hi there, Cami. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. We’re going to be talking, I assume, about a topic that I’m always talking about without realizing that I’m talking about it, which is catharsis.

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

Cami Ostman: Yeah, sure. I do feel like doing that. Well, yes. So I’m Cami Ostman, and I’m the founder and the director of, an organization called the Narrative Project. And our primary, focus is to help writers get their books done. Business that grew out of my long time, support of writers and my passion, for the written word, and also, just my own kind of capacity to get through things, to get things done. That’s the thing I do. I run this organization, and we shepherd writers through the writing and publishing process.

Oli: That’s awesome. So what I’d like to do in this conversation, I think, is to try and explore some of the lessons that you’ve learned as a writer that can be applied to life itself. I kind of understand what you mean when you say it’s about getting things done. I always use writing as an example of just how in life we can kind of navigate cause and effect and get results by looking at it in the same way we do a writing project.

So people think like a book, for example, is a massive deal and it is kind of a big deal, but ultimately it’s just one word at a time. And if you can understand that, then it actually makes it much easier to kind of go from not having a book to having a book. And I think we can see life in the same way.

Obviously, along that pathway of not having a book to getting a book. We’re going to go through all kinds of little challenges and things like that. And I think that’s where the catharsis things come in. But just off the top of your head to open this up, what are some of the main lessons, do you think, from writing that we can use to be more human and to be more real and all that kind of thing?

Cami: Yeah. Well, I think one thing just for context to know about me is that, in my early life I had a career as an English teacher, and then I went back, got my master’s degree and became a family therapist. So I spent 20 years as a therapist before starting this business.

So I’ve been in the business of supporting people in their transformations for many years and in many different, capacities. And it’s been my observation the last eight years, supporting writers and completing their books that the relationship that people have with their thoughts and their subconscious on the page is really, a profound relationship where somebody goes to the page and they have this idea of what they’re going to write and they do it. But then as they do, so if they do it fast enough, this kind of gets to the catharsis.

If they do it fast enough, then, they’ll start to say things they didn’t know they meant to say on the page. And I think this is like a lovely container for all that happens under the surface. So if we can bring to consciousness that which is in the subconscious, I think we can learn to do that in our daily lives as well.

Oli: It makes total sense, actually. This is something I’m always kind of banging on about. The creative process is ultimately the process of making the unconscious conscious. And, the way that I see creativity now, whether it’s literally writing a book or painting a picture or even doing yoga or something, depending on your attitude that you’ve got towards it, it’s always the same thing, which is that it’s like a testing ground for making the unconscious conscious, facing what’s going on inside yourself and holding it out in front of you for observation. And I found that myself with writing.

Like, initially, you set off thinking that you’re going to be writing whatever it is, but then ultimately you end up in a similar place to how you imagined, but different at the same time as you make some of these things become more clear.

So with the catharsis thing, maybe we need to start with a, definition or something like that, because I think your definition of catharsis might be a little bit different to what most people who are listening may be used to. Is that fair to say?

Cami: Sure, yeah, sort of. The dictionary definition is, it’s the process of releasing. It’s like, providing relief, expressing repressed emotions, that kind of thing. And, I think that’s related to how I think of it. But, I actually think of catharsis as excavating the clay from the ground that you’re going to use to craft or to create a sculpture. In this case, the sculptor is the book.

Oli: Can you, elaborate a little bit more? Because I think I know what you mean. The typical definition of catharsis, it’s like you go through this cathartic process, and then that’s the end of the line, die thing, the way that you often talk about it. Well, in our previous conversation, anyway, you use the cathartic process to kind of bring everything up to surface. But then that’s not the end of the line. You kind of polish or refine it after that. Something like that.

Cami: Yeah, that’s right. So, in my work with writers, I talk about seven stages. And the first stage, of turning yourself from a writer into an author, really is contemplation, where you’re just thinking, what is it that I want to create? And then you do some strategizing, you go to classes and you sketch out an outline, and you sort of think about, oh, maybe I’ll block off some time in my life. And then we have what we call the catharsis draft. And rather than thinking of it just as an expression of something that then goes out into the ether and like, whoo, I got that off my chest. That’s amazing. which is lovely.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m totally in support of that. I feel that when I run sometimes, like, go out for a hard run and you’re like, okay, good. Got to leave everything out there. But what I talk about with my writers is we’re expressing on the page this narrative arc. We’re working toward meaning making, which is the next stage. and so, first of all, we have to just kind of, like, dig out everything that’s in there, everything that’s been waiting, been holding, like, a weight on your chest, and it’s on the table, which is a metaphor for on the page.

There it is. And now what we’re going to do after we get it all out on the table is we’re going to circle it, we’re going to walk around it. This is what I call a no red pen read through, where I ask my readers to put everything, my writers, to put everything together in one document, paginate it, print it out, and read it through as fast as possible without touching it. It’s so hard for writers but in that, like, you’re looking at what you’ve ‘catharted’.

You’re looking at what you have said, what the subconscious has, added to the conscious, and you’re just going to circle it and see what’s really here. And what we’re doing is we’re actually wanting to, From a psychological perspective is we want to reintegrate or metabolize what’s meaningful and what we’ve put on the table. So it’s not just like, expressing it and putting it out in the world and being like, okay, good, that’s out of me. But it’s actually reintegrating the insights, from a psychological perspective and from a writerly perspective, it’s then shaping that narrative so that it serves, the question that’s being asked in the book.

Oli: Yeah, there is a kind of element here where a lot of the time when people talk about catharsis, they only look at it at the level of the individual, which makes total sense, because obviously, going through this process of purification or, catharsis or whatever is a very personal thing.

But ultimately, I think the next level is what you’re talking about, where you have to kind of look at the material, the raw material that you’ve kind of been able to dredge up, but then decide, how are you going to share this with the world?

Like, what questions are you going to answer? What have you learned through that process of bringing it up that’s allowed you to transform? That’s maybe going to invite other people to go through some kind of transformational journey as well?

And so maybe I’m overanalysing it but there is an element where it’s almost, we transform ourselves through this creative process which allows us to have a deeper relationship with life, life itself. But then that’s not the end of the line. And I think sometimes I fall into that trap myself when I’m thinking about this stuff. I think, right, we’re just going to go through this process of spiritual, purification, whatever language I usually use, and then that’s it. We’re just going to be more whole.

We’re going to be more connected to life and everything. But actually, the only way you can be more whole and more connected to life is if you’re more connected to others as well. And so there’s something there, I’m assuming, about the way you get writers to look at the raw material, but then they say to, themselves and to you, how am I going to make this more meaningful to the collective? Almost?

Cami: Yeah, there’s so many things you said there that would just be. We could talk for hours. But the thing is that what I always say to writers when they come into the program is that your desire to write a book is your calling to write the book. Because, look, it’s a long journey, and, it’s not for the faint of heart.

And it’s ultimately a very generous thing that you do to cull through, draft, and especially if you’re writing memoir, to cull through your own life and to bring meaning to it that you might offer to other people. Because we’re in this together. We are socially constructing our, reality. This isn’t something like you’re over there in your corner, on your island, having your reality, and I’m over on mine. No, we’re negotiating what all this means all the time. And that’s why the collective one person gets more conscious when it comes to that initial calling for what it is that we’re going to write, where do you think that comes from?

Oli: So maybe this is where it’s going to open this up even more. And, ah, we’ll be talking for another 10,000 hours or something. But right now, for example, I’m currently working on a new book about trust. And, I never really thought I was going to write another kind of self acceptance, self help book, whatever genre you want to call it. I actually wanted to revert to writing bad fiction. I think that’s where my heart really is.

I wrote a bad novel years ago, and ever since, I wanted to write another one. But I keep getting these callings to just write about this stuff I’m talking about on the podcast, the trust thing. It was something that kind of the seed of it was planted a few years ago when I was having a coaching conversation with someone.

This theme of trust just emerged, and ever since then, it’s just kind of been bubbling away inside me, and it keeps coming up in these podcast conversations. But then eventually, I just started typing one morning, and now I’m like 200 pages deep into this manuscript. And I think, it is awesome, but it’s something that kind of just carried itself forward by me acting on that impulse.

And when I think about it now, I think I’ve said this to you before, when we spoke last time, but it’s not that I chose that topic. That topic chose me because there’s something in me that needs to understand the trust thing more. And obviously, I’ve got my theories about why that is. But what do you think causes that kind of thing based on what you’ve seen?

Cami: Yeah, I look forward to hearing, your thoughts on that. My observation with writers is that, there’s usually something kind of niggling at them. And, so the source of that niggling comes from different, like, for self help and how to writers. I feel like, there’s a theoretical, or there’s a question that’s bugging them, and in some ways, they feel like they are, qualified to ponder it or grapple with it on the page.

Whereas memoir writers, I tend to notice that there’s something that has happened to them or that they’ve lived through. They’ve experienced a transformation, and they believe that their wisdom, a lot of memoir writers don’t want their wisdom to go to waste because it was hard earned, the hard stuff that they’ve been through.

And then fiction writers, fiction is interesting because to me, it’s like fiction writers are often like a channel for a story that wants to be told, and the story comes to them through something, happens on the bus or whatever, and all of a sudden, there are characters that are like, you’ve got to write me.

So I think that the skills are very similar for each genre, but that the source of the drive is a little bit different. So I think it has something to do with our longing to make an impact on others, when we feel like we have something insightful to say, but I mean, to kind of distil it. But what do you think?

Oli: Well, first of all, I love what you just said about that longing to make an impact. I think in all of those examples that you just shared. So the self help thing and the fiction and etc. Even though there’s different genres, I think the underlying desire for impact is normally because they’ve noticed some universal thing about the human experience that they need to express to help them understand their own humanity more and themselves more, but also to help others be more human.

And I could be romanticizing that a little bit, but let’s say you see someone on the bus, for example, and you create this whole narrative around who this character is and what it means to be them, and so on and so forth. Ultimately, that’s a reflection of what the writer feels about humanity as a whole. And I think there’s definitely something there. But when I think about these unconscious nigglings, I think it’s some shadow thing, like some shadow self thing.

I think the shadow is always calling to us so that we can make the unconscious conscious, as we keep saying, and move towards wholeness. And the way that I always talk about it. I don’t want to be a broken record too much for people that listen to podcasts, but it always goes at some stage in childhood, as you, are very aware, because of in your background, something happens that causes a kind of split within us, or a sense of fragmentation. Shame, guilt and trauma are the main ones.

Trauma makes the dissociation more extreme. But when that happens, we create this false version of ourselves, and then we disown all kinds of natural impulses and natural instincts and parts of ourselves that are very real, and they’re never going to go anywhere. And then we get into adult life, and we’re kind of locking all of those parts away in the vault as we filter everything through the ego. I think a lot of these creative impulses are just things from the shadow calling for our attention.

 Because for whatever reason, we’ve experienced life in such a way that we’re finally ready for them to re-emerge. And we could take it maybe a bit deeper. It depends how many more hours you’ve got to talk about it. But I think some things, like trust, in the case of, this book I’m writing, I think some things like that are part of our nature, but we become kind, of detached from them and disillusioned about them because of the way society is structured and social conditioning and the experiences they have, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so a lot of these nigglings that we get is a calling back to our real self. That’s ultimately how I see it. but does that fit your experience?

Cami: Well, yeah. I practice, as a therapist, internal family systems therapy. the way that I would frame that is that there are parts that are exiled. Right? And those exiled parts are, unexpressed and they’re locked away and they’re kept safe by the manager parts. The parts which you might call ego aspects, which are out in the world and sometimes managing things well, but oftentimes managing things by beating us up as the inner critic or pushing people away or whatever.

And what we’re wanting to do is to achieve leadership of the core self from the, internal family systems perspective, that the core self is in leadership and is pulling in the manager and the exiled parts and saying, come on, come on, everybody. Come on in here. We’re going to take care of you now. We’re going to calm you down, we’re going to heal you, we’re going to integrate you. And, ultimately, you don’t all have to work so hard in there. And so I would say that really resonates. And I think in terms of what happens on the page is that even when you’re writing memoir, but especially when you’re writing fiction, you have to say that all of the characters are aspects of the self.

Oli: Yes, 100%. I think that’s right. Yeah. just to bring you back to the catharsis thing, ultimately, what we’re kind of saying is that the creative journey of literally creating things or just living life is the journey of returning back to that integration and the release of all of the things that, are holding us back from aligning with that natural drive that we all have.

Cami: I think that’s fair to say. And I think, in the writing process, we talked about, like, the catharsis is the excavating all the clay from the ground and putting it on the table, but then you’re in the meaning making phase where you’re really trying to bring this into order. And I think that is a, fast track to integration, because, what I always say to my writers is that life does not happen in a narrative arc, but a book needs to have an arc, right?

And so we have to impose or apply or discover. I mean, people approach it from different perspectives. Meaning to all that stuff that we just ‘catharted’.

Oli: I love what you just said there about, like, life doesn’t have a narrative arc. Like, it doesn’t happen in a narrative arc. Do you think, a lot of the time we’re trying to make it seem like that is the case, and sometimes it can cause problems.

The Hero’s Journey, I think it is a real thing and it aligns with the human experience, and ultimately, that’s what we’re talking about. We go from this place of fragmentation because of the inner fragmentation we pick up in childhood and all that stuff, to wholeness. That’s ultimately an abridged version of the hero’s journey. But if you look at life itself, I’m going to get a bit morbid, maybe. In fact, I definitely am.

Obviously, life ends, as we all know, when we die. It’s not like it’s a movie or something. And there’s this great catharsis and, we’ve tied up all the threads and everything. When we die, we’re all going to leave a lot of loose threads behind us.

Cami: Right.

Oli: Because that narrative arc doesn’t exist. So is there something there? Like, part of catharsis is accepting that, if that makes sense, like, when we’re applying it to life, not just the writing process.

Cami: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I would even say that in the catharsis phase of the writing process, I talk a lot with my writers about their relationship to imperfection and their relationship and tolerance for messy, because I actually think that, to be a healthy psyche, we have to have a healthy relationship, with not knowing, with mess, with confusion.

I was talking with a friend the other day, and there was something we didn’t know, and we were like, well, let’s google it. And then finally he said, let’s not google it. Let’s go to our graves not knowing this, just to practice that. I do think that, that is a healthy psyche, is the relationship that we have to things like grief, complicated grief, or our trauma. I mean, we’re always seeking to be in relationship with these messy things and messy processes.

Oli: Yeah. Because life itself, when it’s real, is messy. Yes. I think that’s maybe the next level of what we’re talking about. And I think if we can excavate all this stuff, like we’re saying, as we go through the creative process and we realise what’s really going on inside of us and we face our unconscious mind, but then the next level is going to be a kind of humility or something that comes from that. I think at the start of this journey that I keep talking about of going from fragmentation to wholeness, we’re going to be more attached to needing order and to avoid messiness, because it’s going to trigger all of that underlying shame and stuff like that. When we get to the end of the journey, because we’ve been through the cathartic process that you’re talking about, we’re going to realize, oh, okay, actually, there is no order.

 There’s a lot of chaos inside me, as I’ve just witnessed by going through, by catharting myself. And, ultimately, I have to now operate in life in accordance with those rules that I’ve just learned about life, that it’s not perfect and it is messy, and so on and so on. And I, guess in relation to what we’re talking about and your process, this is where it comes down to the meaning making. So if I’m not making this too complicated, if I am, tell me, because I totally will be offended. How do we get to that point where we go through a process of catharsis?

We realize, okay, all of the order and stuff that I was clinging to was ultimately an illusion because of my past conditioning. How do I make meaning knowing that? If that makes sense.

Cami: Yeah. Well, I think if I understand what you’re, sort of tapping on here, it’s like, what is that meaning making process? as you were talking, I was thinking about how I know you do yoga and I’m a long distance runner. and these processes are like, you really learn that there’s no end product. Even though you do cross a finish line in a marathon, ultimately that moment is not the thing. The thing is the journey.

I think when we take on a creative project, I think it’s really important, first of all, to have that mentality and that attitude that the process of creating is the thing. And one of the things that we’re going to do in that process is we’re going to collaborate with other people in the meaning making. in this case, a story. But it’s like when you go into a museum and you look at a painting and, one of my favourite, paintings is, the Madonna by Edward Monk.

And when I look at that, I have a whole story about that painting that bears no resemblance to probably why he painted it. So we’re in relationship, that painter and I, and in the writing process, first of all, you get into critique and people are giving you feedback. Here’s what I’m hearing in your story. Here’s what’s touching me. Here’s what’s, annoying me about what you’re writing.

So in that critique process, you’re engaging in that social construction of meaning and then when you’re done with the book, the last stage of my seven stages is surrender. You finish that book and you put it out in the world, and I pick it up and read it. It’s really none of your business what I get from it. So I guess what I would say is that that is a collaboration, that meaning making process. Is that touching on what you’re getting at?

Oli: Yeah, like, in a way, I was overcomplicating things because I was thinking about how, if ultimately he gets this point where everything is really, we understand the messy, chaotic nature of reality itself, and when we let go of all the order, how do we make meaning for the future? I suppose when we know that ultimately there is no meaning, but that’s a whole other kind of worms.

And actually, what you just said about the surrender to just giving the meaning of your creation away to life itself kind of is interconnected anyway, because ultimately, whether we’re talking about a piece of art or literally ourselves as beings that have been created by our experience and all that stuff, there is that element of surrender and trust that comes into it. So I’d kind of like to pick your brain on that a little bit more.

But, before we get into that, what do you think about this kind of debate that you just alluded to, where once someone’s created something and it is out there, it’s almost like they have to let go of their authorship as well? I think it was the deconstructionist or something like that. They basically said, once something’s out there, it can mean whatever it means to other people. But then there’s a whole other school of thought where it’s like, the author has the authority because he’s the author, and therefore it means what it means. I know you’ve kind of just answered this a little bit, but what do you actually think about that specifically?

Because a lot of creatives I talk to do have that kind of issue. They’re like, right, I’ve created this work, and now people are telling me it means something else, and I might be offended.

Cami: Yeah, I can understand that. When my first book went out into the world, the first marathon that I chronicle in it, I missed the starting line, the starting time, because I had my time off, and it was in Prague. and so I ended up, starting the marathon like, ten or 15 minutes after everyone else did. And the course was, deconstructed along the way, so I didn’t even know where I was going, and I jumped in and skipped a mile or two.

I just had to, because I didn’t know where the course was. And there was someone who read the book, and he launched, I mean, really lit into me, in a review about that, which is, from my perspective, was to miss the whole point of the chapter, which is that life is not perfect and we do the best we can, and it’s still long and it still hurts your leg. But I had to say that it still is a negotiation. I mean, he. He was reading into my story what his meaning of the marathon is and was. And he’s allowed to do that, and he’s allowed to be mad about that. And then ultimately, that debate, as other people engage in it, informs us all. We all come out of it changed, even if the way that we change is that we’ve doubled down into our own perspective.

Oli: Yeah. Do you think the process of catharsis ever ends? Because in a way, once we excavate things and we try and mould them so that they’re presentable to be put out into the world, then we just end up getting dragged back into the process where there’s the negotiation that you talked about on the surrender, but in a way, that’s just going to take us into a deeper catharsis, because when people give us bad reviews or they disagree with the points that we’re making, or they put their own interpretation on it or whatever it is, that’s going to cause us to ask more questions of the unconscious, and we just go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And is that the surrender part? Maybe.

Cami: Oh, I don’t think the catharsis, ever ends. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I have journals that I wrote in the fifth grade, and every once in a while, I’ll go back and grab an old journal and read through it, and I have one of two thoughts, like, I am so glad I’m not there anymore. And, oh, my God, I’m still asking the same question. What a bummer. But with a new twist. I, don’t think it ever ends, and I don’t think it should. I think we’re always taking in the world and metabolizing it and then putting it back out in some way. Whether it’s our attitude toward others or, a choice we make. No. yes, it ends, I suppose, when we die. Or maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. I don’t know what happens then.

Oli: But also, we can just keep going deeper and deeper and deeper and there’s always more layers to peel away and things to kind of pick up. When you talk about the surrender stage, what is surrender in your terms? I guess? And how does it relate to all this stuff we’re talking about?

Cami: Right. Well, So let me answer that by way of the other stages. So after catharsis, you have the meaning making where you’re going in and you’re drafting for your sculpting, you’re really trying to figure out what’s here, and, how do I need to manipulate it, or what does it want to be? This little combination of both. And then the next stage is what I call story making. And this is where you actually consciously turn your attention to the potential audience.

Up until now, I really don’t want people thinking about what other people are going to think, because if you’re worried about what your mom is going to think when she reads the book, you’re not going to cathart on the page, you’re going to hold back. so in that story making stage, you’re really dotting your I’s, crossing your t’s, making your commas in the right place. You’re really making it pretty because you know that it’s going out into the world. And then the next stage is advocacy, where you determine how you want to engage other people with your content.

Are you going to have an art show? Are you going to, publish this? How are you going to publish it? And then once it is there for other people to consume, then it’s incumbent upon the creator to step back and allow it to be a collective piece, even if you’re standing next to it saying, no. But here’s what I really meant, which really with a book, you should be doing that in the book. I mean, it’s maybe a little bit different with visual art where somebody’s like, why is it blue? And you could stand next to it and say, well, it’s blue because, But in a book, you have words already.

Oli: Yeah. Use your words.

Cami: I feel like it’s an emotional process to say, I did what I could do. I was as authentic and as full of integrity as I could be in creating this for how evolved I am right now. I mean, if I were to write my first book right now, it would be a completely different book. And that’s okay. I mean, it is a representation of, a catharsis process, and then the meaning making and story making that was happening at that time with the skills I had then.

Oli: Yeah. That’s amazing. One word that you’ve used quite a lot as you’ve, been sharing. Your kind of process for writers is fast. Like, you want people to move fast in those initial stages. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Because I can see the value in it and I think it’s really interesting.

Cami: Yeah, well, what I’ve noticed, when I first started the business, is that, I had a lot of people come in and they had a book they wanted to write. And they had written the first three chapters over and over and over. They had revised them, they had wordsmithed, them, and they couldn’t get any further. And I knew instinctively, and this is now borne out over the years of working with hundreds of writers, that the reason is because you don’t know what needs to happen in chapter one until you know what happens in chapter 17.

So we have to get you all the way through the arc, we have to get all the clay on the table. And then, yes, indeed, you will revise chapter one over and over again. But if you’re trying to make it perfect so that, it’s a perfect pillar on which to build the foundation of the book. No, we need the plans drawn before we know what we’re going to do here. And so, that’s probably a terrible metaphor. I don’t really know how houses are made, but I think you get the idea.

Oli: Yeah.

Cami: So I want people moving quickly, and so I put a word count. Like, I want you to write a certain number of words, per week. And like Anne Lamont’s shitty first draft, I don’t want them to be good. I want volume. Because only by creating volume and moving you through that storyline are we even going to need to know what is the job that chapter one needs to do. Right? Because we don’t know what it’s a foundation for until we have the plan. Strong.

Oli: Yeah. I love that approach, and it just resonates with my experience writing things. It just makes so much sense as well, in relation to what we’ve been saying about the ego and all that kind of stuff. If you move fast, then you can basically circumvent the ego and just get things on the page, do the excavation work, and then see what you’re actually working with. I think this is the key thing and it’s why your process is so valuable.

Like, when people set off on a journey of writing a book or creating whatever it is they’re creating, they don’t actually know until they’ve got deep into the process what it is. And, I found, like, a bit of a breakthrough for me when I was, writing my bad novel all those years ago, was that, you can write backwards, and it’s exactly what you said.

Maybe you get into chapter 17, but then you think, okay, if only I had this in chapter one, then I could now put this in this chapter. And you can go back and edit and all these kind of things. And you don’t actually write in a linear sequence, do you? If you think about it like that, you write by looking at the whole, this is going to sound very pretentious. It’s like you zoom out from time and space and causality, and you can just see the whole thing kind of laid out in front of you.

And then you go back like you’re kind of rearranging the notes, sort of symphony or something. But you can only do that if you move fast initially, so you’ve got it all down there, but then also so you can let go of your inner critic and all that stuff that’s going to cause you to hold back and hesitate. It’s like this Stephen King said, the first draft of anything is shit. I think it was Stephen King. And as long as you give yourself permission to be shit, you can get to that point that we’re talking about.

Oli: Yeah, that’s awesome. Does the surrender thing come back into that, like, getting to that place and moving with speed and all that kind of thing?

Cami: Yeah, I mean, I think you have to surrender into, not knowing, and just trust. And this is, I think, why people get stopped is that they. And why in my program, it’s like I’ve created a process and a structure. So in some ways, people don’t have to trust themselves. If they trust, the design of the structure that we’ve created, then they can just keep moving. And I think that it is truly very hard for us to trust ourselves in the creative process, don’t you think?

Oli: Yeah. Why do you think that is, if that’s not too broad of a question?

Cami: Well, to put on the spot, to say, I would have think more about this, and might come up with more answers, but I think that we all are bumbling through this life, generally speaking, and we’ve all sort of been given this idea that we are, supposed to know what we’re doing, and yet nobody really does. And so I’m looking at you going like, well, he seems to know what he’s doing. How come I don’t? I better not tell anybody that. I don’t yeah.

Oli: It goes back to what we were saying about the narrative structure of life not really existing. We think everything is just going to be clean and there’s going to be a beginning, a middle and an end, but there’s just, life is just lifeing along and we go with it, or, we don’t.

If we do go with it and we can surrender to it and trust the process, then there’s a lot less friction and stress, I find. And if we don’t, that’s when we meet all these roadblocks that don’t necessarily need to exist and things like that. And I think the creative process is difficult to trust ourselves with because a lot of the time we don’t know ourselves as much as we potentially could. And it’s going to reveal all these things that, we’re saying are hiding in the shadow territory and all that kind of thing. And the oracle of Delphi said, ah, know thyself.

Ultimately, that was supposed to be the pinnacle of wisdom. Know thyself. But for some reason we fear that because of our conditioning and things like that. So that’s my little ramble about that. I don’t know if that makes sense to you.

Cami: No, I think that’s true. I think we’re really afraid of our shadow. I think we’re afraid that if we really get to know ourselves, what we’re going to find there is that we’re bad. We’re not. I’m just going to say, the people listening, you’re not. You’re going to find out that you’re complicated, you’re going to find out that there’s a little bad, there’s a little good, there’s a little neutral, there’s a little of everything. It’s okay. It’s okay to look in there.

Oli: But when you get to that point, it’s not good or bad, it’s just real. And you can get that unconditional kind of acceptance. But I think there’s something around how when we do bring up the shadow and we go through the creative process to do so, it disrupts our lives. That’s another reason people don’t trust them.

It’s not that they don’t trust the process of creativity. Let’s say it’s almost like they’re scared of the consequences. Because if you do bring up all this stuff and you’ve built your life on a foundation of something that’s less real in relation to it, then you’re going to have to make a lot of changes. And probably that’s quite disconcerting and discombobulating.

Cami: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, I think the more you know yourself, once you know something, once you’ve gone in and you’ve really looked at the shadow and you integrate it, you heal, you do the things that you need to do, you have to respond now in your life, right? You have to do something different. Whatever it is, you’ve got to make a change in your work or your habits or stop drinking or whatever. and those things are, Some of them take an act of will. Some of them take being really vulnerable and reaching out for help. It’s just scary.

Oli: Yeah, ultimately. But if we go through it, it makes us more real, I guess. But that is the surrender. So, I don’t know where we’ve ended up in this conversation. I feel like what we’ve basically said is that life kind of sucks sometimes, but if you trust it, then you’ll feel better and then you’re going to die anyway. And there’s going to be all these loose threads and maybe something happens after that and just, keep writing. In the meantime, that’s my final take on all this.

How would you sum this up if you could? Like, have you got any final words of wisdom? and can you let people know where they can find you and learn about your program and all that stuff? Because it sounds amazing.

Cami: Sure. That was a great summary. I loved it. but I think I would add, but be afraid, but go in there and examine your story. Like, story is the essence of how we experience reality. So start where you are. Be messy and, yes, be scared, but know that ultimately it’s okay. It really is.

And I would say if, people want to reach me, they can find me on my website, which is the narrativeproject.net. And, you can see our offerings and our philosophy, and we have everything from, inner critic support to full year long programs to write a book. And, we’re a really supportive, positive community with a lot of accountability and, solid skills building.

So we really welcome and feel, it’s an honour to support people who have a calling to complete a story and get it out in the world.

Oli: Yeah, honestly, it’s an awesome project and I just love your whole structure that you’ve built around it to support people, to get results. So that’s awesome. And thank you for sharing all your insight on this podcast today and all your energy and so on and so forth. It’s been awesome. So I’m going to go do some writing.

Surviving, Thriving, & REALNESS (Creative Status: Episode 75: Hedi Schaefer)

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 full potential with Creative Status as we dive into an empowering conversation with Work-Life Innovation expert, Hedi Schaefer.

Join us for an episode where Hedi shares her transformative journey from high performer to thriving life designer, and how she’s here to support you on your own path to REALNESS.

Meet Hedi Schaefer: As an author, speaker, and Work-Life Innovation expert since 2010, Hedi brings a wealth of experience and insight to the table, empowering others to thrive in both their personal and professional lives.

From Surviving to Thriving: Hedi shares her personal journey of transformation, from navigating the challenges of high-performance culture to experiencing an identity crisis and burnout.

Learn how she turned her wounds into wisdom and redesigned her life from surviving to thriving, inspiring others to do the same.

Designing a Life of Fulfillment: Discover how to break free from the cycle of stress and pressure, and design lives fueled by fulfillment, purpose, and ease.

Creative Status: Where Inspiration Meets Transformation

Join Hedi Schaefer and Me (Oli Anderson) for an episode that ignites the spark of possibility and empowers you to thrive in every aspect of your life.

This episode is your invitation to awaken to your full potential, embrace your authentic self, and create a life filled with purpose, passion, and REALNESS.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

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Surving, Thriving, & REALNESS (Show Transcript)

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Oli Anderson here you’re listening to Creative Status. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome. This is a place where we talk about using the creative process as a vehicle for moving towards wholeness.

That means a connection to ourselves, connection to other people, connection to life itself as the creative process allows us to make the unconscious conscious so we can release some of the emotional stuff we’ve been clinging onto, maybe, and integrate some of the hidden parts of ourselves that are locked behind false identities and all of the underlying emotional ‘stuff’ that I just mentioned.

Today’s interview is with Hedi Schaefer. Hedi is a coach who helps people to turn their wounds into wisdom and to get out of survival mode and into thriving. That’s ultimately what we talk about in this conversation: what thriving is how you can start to thrive, how you can step away from all of the friction and frustration and misery that comes from being stuck in survival mode, how our perspective sometimes keeps us in that place because of self-limiting beliefs and all that kind of thing. Lots of good stuff.

So Hedi, thank you so much for your time. Everybody else, hope this helps you unblock yourself and get moving. Um, if this does help you, please share it with someone. Please leave a review. And other than that, here we go. Thanks a bunch. Boom.

Interview

Oli: Oh, hi there, Hedi. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. We’re going to be talking kind of about how we go from a state of survival to thrival and some of the issues and ideas that may pop up along the way down that path.

Uh, before we get into it, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about, and also sharing what you want to get out of this conversation?

Hedi Schaefer: Love to do, yes. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I’m Hedi. I call myself a work life innovation coach. So I’ve been in the innovation industry for, uh, since 2009, so almost 15 years and always high performer. Before that I was artist management in Germany, but then I crashed. I crashed six years ago when I had my daughter and nothing made sense anymore and I recreated myself and my work life.

I was having this innovation background so I could pick on that, but recreated everything myself, my work, my life. And today I’m this work life innovation, actually self-actualization coach who is also speaking and also authoring, so writing books and also being a mom and just living my life, being a human being and not a human doing at times. And yeah, my mission is to just get everything out there and what I’ve learned so people don’t have to have this painful experience for such a long time, but have more shortcuts.

Oli: Yeah, that’s awesome. So basically you’ve taken what you went through and you’ve kind of, I guess, packaged it up, so to speak, so that you can use your, uh, experience and your coaching services and all that kind of thing to help people avoiding the kind of crash that you were talking about. Is that a fair thing to say?

Hedi: I think it’s not avoiding, it’s exactly the crash, but using the crash as the greatest chance of your life, I think, wow, we’re in this avoiding, I don’t know, era so we don’t hear. Um. But it’s actually the path, like going through the darkness is the path into the light and going really step by step through, as some clients just said, like going through the mud but with rubber boots on.

You can go through the mud and just get stuck all the time, but I think you don’t have to. You can really move forward. And this three C, as I call it, just three C innovation, canon framework helps you to get into this clarity, into this cleansing of your blocks of your old trauma, and then get into the creator mode, which is basically the path forward and not backwards and not stuck in this mode.

Oli: You’ve just raised so many of my favourite topics that it’s going to be hard for me to decide which direction to go in. I love what you just said about not avoiding the crash.

Ultimately in my life, some of the worst things that happened in my past where I have thought that I’ve crashed, in retrospect, actually turned out to be a blessing when I got to the other side of them. And I think if I had found a way to avoid those situations which sucked at the time, then actually I would have missed out because they taught me so many things.

They removed so many layers of bullshit that I was holding on to and stuff like that, and they ultimately showed me who I am and what life is. And it seems like with the little three steps that you’ve just given about clarity, cleansing and creativity, you’re kind of helping people to reframe or to take the lessons that the crash is offering them so that they can move into a kind of more real, truthful way of being. Is that like a fair thing to say?

Hedi: Wonderful pitch. Yes. One, um, hundred percent yes.

Oli: So let’s break that down then. So let’s look at the two different themes that are kind of coming up. So one is the avoidance of the crash. I think a lot of the time before a crash comes, we kind of do know, uh, that it may be on the way, unless it’s like an extreme act of God or something like that. But in many cases, we kind of know that the crash is coming, but we’re just putting structures and systems in place to avoid it.

And actually, like you said, that avoidance can end up causing us problems in the long term. Um, but the other thing as well is when we do eventually crash and we hit rock bottom, then we find some solid ground on which to build whatever is going to come next, as long as we can learn the lessons that it’s teaching us.

So, literally, I suppose let’s just break down that process, uh, from beginning to end. So we’ll start at the beginning, if you don’t mind bringing your personal experience into it. Obviously, that might make it more real for people as you’re talking about, but it’s totally up to you.

So you went through some kind of a crash, and, um, before you literally did crash, what was going on for you? Were you feeling overwhelmed? Were there any other signs and symptoms that something was going to happen?

Hedi: This is a build up, right? And I think this crash, um, it’s just like there’s cause and effect, right? So this is like depression, I would say. I even had a depression, which is not a thing that it’s not a symptom, it’s like building, building, and then your body shuts down. So this was my escape mechanism.

So I was having a child, I was in this high performance mode, literally. I was so tired all of a sudden of my life, of the person I was, but I had no clue. And I was also, at the time, I was always identifying with what I was doing outside. So I was in Germany working for the pop stars when I was like in my twenty s and twenty five.

I was part of this innovation consultancy. So I was jetting across the globe and being in big companies, always working, working 14 hours, totally normal, more and more, trying, achievement, achievement, achievement. Always not enough. I didn’t know that at the time, but, um, that was sort of the driver. And then I had my baby. And as you might know, or people outside know, that when you have a baby, your whole sort of childhood comes back, you realise, “Okay, wow, uh, I haven’t even mothered myself, so how can I be a mother?”

Then this whole high performance thing, I was like, what am I doing? Like, this whole meaning, I didn’t find meaning because I wanted to be with my baby and with my family. And I found peace also with this new role. But I couldn’t identify with it. Like, I had nothing to prove anymore. And I was not really, uh, before I, uh, could tell you great things, what I was doing now, I didn’t know what I was doing anymore. And the worst thing, I didn’t know who I was.

So that was really painful. And to look at that wound, to look at, okay, into the mirror and who am I? And how can I pivot this? And how can I stay home when I can’t even. I couldn’t go travel anymore. It was not possible for me anymore to go on a train, on a plane. It was just absolutely not possible. Outside, there is so much noise. I am so sorry.

Oli: No, it’s okay.

Hedi: Are you hearing this? Sorry. I’m very sorry.

Oli: Yeah. Hopefully, though, by the time this episode comes out, I will have got rid of it all. I’ll use some kind of AI magic or something. So don’t worry. Um, it’s totally cool.

Hedi: Okay. Yeah. So, um, that was the beginning of my story, basically, because I was very tired of myself, of the mask I was playing. Um, then I was realizing, okay, depression is actually a sign of deep rest, like, resting from the masks, and also up levelling.

And, uh, I was going through a very severe grieving process. So what I think people don’t realize this change process is actually very similar to a grieving process. Grieving your old identity, but not knowing what is next. And this space of this uncertainty of the unknown is very painful, and I had to heal. Extreme, um, generational trauma.

Limiting beliefs, like, when you’re with a baby at home, you hear yourself talking to yourself, like, all these limiting beliefs that I wasn’t good enough for this, I was just not smart enough. I was just not getting it right. I was the only one who doesn’t get it right because people are not talking about it. And I was like, am I the only one? I was like, yeah, you’re the only one. But going outside then, luckily saved me. So that was the first step.

So I knew from my old identity, let’s say, from this innovation, you go outside and you talk to people, like, what is really the problem? And I needed to figure out what the real problem was and if I was the only one. So luckily, I went outside and I met tons of people who were in this change process, in this transition, and felt exactly the same. So I didn’t feel as shitty anymore. And I got help. I got a lot of help. And I was literally like my daughter was sleeping 3 hours, um, during the day.

So these 3 hours I took to heal my nervous system. Sleeping a lot. I was literally like sleeping sometimes, I don’t know, 19 hours a day. No, just kidding. But a lot and doing so many meditations, so many reprogramming my subconscious mind. I went into energy healing what I do also now with clients, going into the subconscious mind what I do with my clients now, because I wanted to create or I wanted.

I come from a psychology, my family is psychologist. So everything is analytical, everything is with your brain. And you have all these chapters for people or like boxes. I’m not like that. And also there’s this saying that I always, until that point kept in my, yeah, in my subconscious was like, how is that in English? Um, uh, you wear your, um, you wear your baggage all day, um, all of your lives you have this rock sack. And I didn’t believe that. I couldn’t believe that. And I was then really on a mission. I was almost like a drug addict.

What are the fastest, most effective, uh, tools to break patterns, to break limiting beliefs, to break trauma that goes back to sometimes 13th century because there’s six really, um, uh, states of um, your being where you need to look at when it comes to unblocking trauma or limiting beliefs or the shit that you carry. And I didn’t know that at the time. So now I know that it’s not just what can I just carry on? I’m like, blah, blah, blah.

Oli: No, it’s good. Ultimately though, there’s a kind of pattern that’s emerging which I think is very human. What you’re talking about is very universal in a sense. And it’s that people, they end up in this survival mode, human doing, because of all of the underlying trauma and shame and guilt that they’ve picked up. But they don’t necessarily realize it’s there. It’s driving them unconsciously.

When that kind of trauma etc. Is driving them, they have to create a kind of false, unreal version of themselves to be able to cope with it. And then they go out into the world and they try and build a life for themselves on top of what that kind of false, unreal ego, let’s say version has shown them of life. And that’s when they end up chasing all of these things like uh, power, career, responsibility, etc. And they can be good things, but they treat them as been the thing that’s the ultimate. Like it’s going to fill the void.

Actually, the only thing that can fill the void is reconnecting to the truth about who they are. If they don’t know that, then eventually something happens that reintroduces the truth back into the equation. And in your story, based on what you’ve shared, that was having your daughter, like when your daughter entered your life, it kind of cracked open this gap between how you were seeing yourself and, I suppose, how you really felt inside because of this kind of disconnection that I’m talking about.

And then you had to kind of start to raise awareness of what was actually going on and then go through the process of learning to accept yourself again so that you had a more solid foundation, and then you could start building on that foundation and start building the life that’s more real and where you can start to feel like you’re thriving.

Hedi: Absolutely. And in my case, it wasn’t really again, it was for the first time. Right. So for a lot of people, it is accepting yourself for the first time.

Oli: Wow. Yeah.

Hedi: Because, as you said, you have so much stuff from older generation, there is no blame because that’s going back centuries. Uh, but I think there’s so much beauty in us talking and in all of these transformation that’s happening that’s very outside, in the open on social media, whatever, where people actually start to make this normal and make this applicable and that it’s the first generation who breaks the curses or to cycle break.

Um, that is, to me, uh, sometimes I go to bed and I’m like, I’m so flipping grateful to be alive at this time where we can actually do this kind of work. And we have peers. We’re talking now. Okay. Six years back, I was like, I’m the only one. No, of course not. It’s universal, and people are waking up at lightning speed. And there are such heroes, and heroes sometimes. Wow. I’m, um, so in awe. What they’ve been through and how they really mend themselves like puzzle pieces to this incredible, new, real powerful version of themselves. Not taking any bullshit anymore, but just building a life, being alive.

Oli: Where do you think, um, that intergenerational trauma comes from? Maybe, uh, that’s a stupid question. How do you think that intergenerational trauma is passed down? Because it’s true. A lot of the main reasons that people are stuck in survival mode and they don’t live the lives that they want to live is because they’ve been shamed in childhood, and that shame has caused them to go into hiding, basically, and to disown the real version of themselves. Etc. Etc.

But what I’ve seen, like in my coaching practice is once people do become aware of the kind of thing that you’re talking about, which is that if you just face yourself ultimately and kind of ride through these crashes and start rebuilding, then it’s almost like you’re pressing a reset button and you can kind of go back to being the version of yourself that you wanted to be, and then you’re less likely to pass down the shame and so on to the next generation. And that’s going to have the ripple effect of, uh, meaning that they’re less likely to pass it on and so on and so forth. And so the chain is broken. But when we put it like that, it sounds kind of easy.

So what do you think caused the previous generations to keep in that cycle?

Hedi: To keep passing it down, not healing, as you said? Um, what do you say? Um, traumatize people or hurt people? Hurt people.

Oli: Hurt people. Hurt people.

Hedi: Yeah. And healed people, heal people. So I believe if you don’t heal your stuff, you will automatically pass it down subconsciously, because this is what. And to your question, it’s all energy. When we look at the states, what I’ve just, um, observed in my coaching practice, when we unblock it and unblock the energy, there’s one. Your adult life right now, you become aware of things like your patterns, your limiting beliefs, and then you can sort of consciously break it. Right?

You can create new patterns that are more healthy, that are more functional. Then the second, uh, state of your being is childhood. Like the first years of your life, you’re in theta mode. Like, your brain is very suceptive. It gets ingrained super easily. Like how you observe people are your parents, or, uh, how they are with you. Um, if you can actually climb a tree. Sounds stupid. Or if it’s the most dangerous thing and you’re like, “Oh, okay, I can’t really express myself, whatever it is.”

And then the third one, it’s six, right? We’re only, um, on two. So the third one is in the mother’s womb. What kind of trauma have you experienced there? What kind of choices did your mom make that is ingrained energetically in your body? The fourth one, now, it gets really freaky. Is your parents, like, belief system or the trauma that they experienced? I didn’t have a dad, but I had to. I, uh, wouldn’t say break, but I had to heal his trauma, which was sexual abuse. I was never sexually abused, but the energy was in my body.

The trauma was in my body. Now we’re on to fifth. And, um, that is all of the ancestors that came before that you are able to. I mean, not everyone’s saying, or some people are like, so do I have everything in myself? I think those people who are brave enough to feel it, they are able to heal it. Not everyone out of a family is feeling it. Uh, are cycle breakers. I don’t think everyone is. And then the 6th one is maybe also. I know it sounds freaky, but, um, your own, um, past lives.

So sometimes, or often, very often, we go back to when witches were burned. You had a gift and you were afraid to show it because you experienced this death, or you experienced another death, like stabbing. I have a lot of stabbing, believe it or not. Or like, um, war trauma, when it’s always, always about decision making. It sounds very complex. Um, but if you understand, or if you are like a detective and detect what kind of choice was made that is still ingrained in your body, for instance, life is not, um, life. I give up on life.

That is a very common, um, belief, or like a trauma that can be ingrained in your body, like from 16th, 14th century, it doesn’t matter. But, um, in order to, uh, when you detect it and cleanse it, then, yes, of course, your whole life comes completely different. And I had an, um, extreme client.

And she also realized, well, on top of that, I am a karma carrier. So someone who is like, who is taking on the shit of also other people and trying to cleanse it, and it’s like this, people, please, or whatever, it’s just energy, but from different parts of your existence. And you can just detect it. It’s in your system, it’s like your computer, and then you find sort of the default and fix it. It sounds very weird, but yeah, that’s ultimately what I think it is.

Oli: Yeah. How do we distinguish between survival energy and thrival energy? So I suppose if we’re going to make this, um, really practical, how would we distinguish between the kind of, the survival energy that we’re carrying inside us that’s maybe holding us back from the life we want to be living, and then a, um, more kind of thrival energy, if that’s the way of phrasing it, what are the things to look out for? I guess.

How do we know, um, if we’re carrying this stuff inside us and we maybe are being driven by some unconscious thing, which obviously we’re not aware of because it’s unconscious that’s causing us to keep repeating these old, unhelpful patterns that we’ve picked up from previous generations, but also that we’ve learned to identify with, actually. And we think that are part of who we are as well. So if we step beyond just the way that we look at life to the level of the energy we carrying, how do we know where we are? I guess on this continuum of surviving to thriving, if that’s not too weird of a question.

Hedi: No, that’s very good. Um, I think in terms of trauma or in terms of survival state, this is our brain, right? So we’re always looking for outside approval. We’re always looking for the next big thing. We can’t really be with ourselves. And this distraction can be a lot of things. Like, it can be shopping. For me, it was compulsive shopping. Uh, it could be social media, it could be sex, it could be drugs, it could be alcohol. It could be anything that you feel like you need in order to calm down your nervous system, that you feel connected, anything that you need outside. And then it’s gone.

Like, the next second is gone. Like, I needed to go shopping the next day because I didn’t even like what I was shopping. It was just, uh, the immediate satisfaction. And so that is a big sign. And not being able to really breathe and being with yourself for a longer period of time. Now, also, when I ask this question, like, who are you? Most people can’t really say. Then they talk in boxes or in labels. Uh, I was introducing myself. I’m Heaty. I’m the coolest being on earth. I’m just a fun, really loving being that just wants to experience life. That’s actually who I am. Um, uh, my purpose is love and light.

And this is also the part where it gets a bit. I mean, this is work, right? This is evolving. I found out my purpose was love and light. I was laughing because I wasn’t love and light at all. My heart was so closed off. And so all this clarity that we were talking about at the beginning and then really stepping into, okay, what is my purpose? Asking yourself, what is my purpose? If you don’t have an answer, then you can’t really thrive. I think. If you don’t know your values, how are you supposed to navigate?

Because values tell you, okay, well, this relationship is really matching, and this isn’t. And then all the visions that I’ve got, are you forward moving or in your past? Uh, are you still living in the past? Can you be present and still look out for a brighter future? So these are, I think, the most common nominators. I don’t know if that’s the word. But, uh, yeah. For the survival state and also not knowing what is actually thriving.

Oli: Yeah.

Hedi: True. Thriving.

Oli: Yeah.

Hedi: Not this excitement. No. Thriving is a state, I believe.

Oli: Yeah, I think we’ll pick that state to pieces in a second. I think that’s going to be a vital part of this conversation.

But I just think it’s so interesting what you said about people are out there, they’re in survival mode, and, um, because they’re in survival mode, they’re basically in a state of panic, let’s say. Or they’re living in a very fearful kind of way. And because they’re not ready to face the source of that fear, which I believe is the disconnection from who they really are and the kind of purpose that you’re talking about, they end up trying to kind of outsource their good feelings about themselves with some other external bullshit thing.

So in your case, it was like shopping, like compulsive shopping. For some people, it’s compulsive relationships. For some people, it’s compulsive addictions to drugs, or, I don’t know, pornography or whatever it is. People just get so caught up in these compulsions that actually make surviving a lot harder, purely because they’re disconnected from themselves and their purpose in the way that you’re talking about.

And they end up spending so much time kind of chasing the next big thing, like you were saying, which is obviously coloured, uh, by whatever it is that we’re addicted to, and we’re trying to fill the void with that. It exacerbates the problem, basically. And it makes it worse because the more time they’re spending on shopping and so on and so forth, the less time they actually spend just being still, I guess, and being with themselves. So that this sense of purpose that’s always there can kind of swim up to the surface. Sorry.

Hedi: And just to add on that, I think what you said is very interesting, because, um. They feel shittier because they did it again. I felt shittier because I did it again. Clients are feeling shittier because, again, pornography, as you said, or again. Ah. And, um. You always have to tame yourself. That’s how it feels like. And you’re so full of judgment about yourself and about other people. That is a huge sign of, uh. Not really in a thriving mode, because, uh, this whole judgment thing just. Wow. And not realizing that you are enough.

Oli: Yeah.

Hedi: Unconditionally enough.

Oli: Yeah. Ultimately, that’s what it all comes down to.

Hedi: Yes.

Oli: You’ve just hit the nail on the head. Right. Like when we’re thriving. We’ve basically got to that point where we accept ourselves unconditionally, good and bad. And in accepting that, we realize that there is some gift that we have to offer the world, which for brevity, is our purpose. Right?

When we don’t accept ourselves, we feel all of this underlying shame and fear of life itself, which turns up the volume on survival mode. And that’s when we end up getting addicted to all these different things that we’re talking about that we think are, ah, going to help us feel good in the sense of being able to avoid all of that unresolved shame and so on and so forth. The problem is, in the short term, at first, that stuff does make us feel good.

So probably the first time, let’s just hypothetically say when you first went shopping and it became something that was, uh, mood altering and that you eventually became addicted to. It did feel good. Like maybe you had a bad day, you were feeling depressed, whatever it was, you went out and you, uh, bought a nice handbag or something.

Sorry, I’m making a bunch of assumptions here. And it made you feel good. You’re like, oh, okay. All of that tension I was carrying by resisting myself, it’s gone in the short term. So then the next time you feel that tension, you’re like, okay, well, I’m feeling a bit shit today. Last time I was feeling shit, I went shopping and I felt this buzz, I’m going to go do it again. So then you go do it again and again and again.

Eventually the buzz starts wearing out, and you realize, oh, okay, this was just a temporary kind of feel, uh, good thing, because I’ve been able to release some of those, uh, bad feelings I was holding on to you. Now I’m addicted. And then I’ve got this extra level that you were talking about. It’s like, uh oh, I feel bad because I keep doing it. I can’t give it up. And then we just keep adding all these layers, which make us feel worse and worse and worse. And then eventually, because we’re not chasing real life, that’s when we have a crash.

Ultimately, something like that. But either way, it’s all about trying to avoid the feelings of self-worth, which can be dissolved by, I guess, facing them head on. And then we get to the thrival stage.

So I guess I got two questions for you. One is, do you agree with all this stuff I’ve just rambled about? And two, what does it tell us about actual thriving? And how do we get into that thrival state that you were talking about.

Hedi: Yeah. Very good. Yeah. First and foremost, yes, of course. I, uh, think it’s also hormonal. Right? So dopamine is a very big thing in all of that. Right? It’s like this, like on Instagram. How many likes do I have today? How many releases, and how many dopamine spikes do I have today? Shopping, or whatever it is. It’s like this spike. Also feeling alive. Also feeling alive, like, uh, my nervous system calms down.

I may be in control of something. So I go shopping. Not somebody goes shopping. Like, goes me shopping. I don’t know. I am in control of my money. Uh, it’s all of this false concept of holding on to something that is an illusion, basically. Now, thriving is not an illusion. It’s very real.

Yes, thriving is a very. I, uh, mean, it sounds Hollywood, but it’s actually a very substantial state of being and operating, as you said, because everyone has a gift. So if you know your purpose and you know what you’re here for, what your gift is, and what kind of service you also can give to the world so that other people are thriving, we’re all connected. That is the ultimate. It’s the dopamine.

I don’t know, the dopamine, uh, stage, right. You have this gratitude for being alive, for being able to be here and create a life in this crazy world, and you’re not affected. Like, thriving is also. You’re having these boundaries, and you’re not affected by anything that happens outside. I’m so bored by the news. I’m so bored by drama, by conflict, by anything that has lower vibration. I’m really bored when people try to gossip about something or someone.

I can’t handle it. I’m just extremely bored. I get so tired and have to go. I think, yeah, it’s a frequency, ultimately, it’s a frequency. I mean, if you’re looking at the scale, which often is like an aha moment for a lot of people. It was for me, uh, this, uh, scale of consciousness by Hawking’s, which is a revelation. When you see…wow.

When you’re operating, as you said, in shame, in fear, in drama, in outside recognition, you’re hyper vigilance, you’re in this constant hyper mode, or depressed. I mean, either or, but you’re not in the zone. When you’re moving up, like optimism, forgiveness, you’re really getting into your power, and that comes often already with clarity and with getting some of your old stuff, uh, that is just going hand in hand.

You’re a creator, you become more. You’re getting out of the victim state. And everything, like, life happens to me, into life happens for me, and maybe also by me. And then now you’re completely new person that creates life rather than is created by outside circumstances, by people, by how the world is. Is it now winter, is it now summer? Whatever, doesn’t matter. Life is every day. And then you are kind of moving your frequency, I guess.

And when you do that, we create our reality. And we were in a magnetic. In, uh, a quantum field. Right. So you also attract, like, these people that are surprised that you didn’t meet before because you are not vibing the same. Right. If you. I would go into a room and just tell people my drama. Those people were repelled. Now they’re not, because we like the same thing. We just like to go for a coffee and talk about weird things. The sun, maybe, or. I don’t know, angels, I don’t know. But, um, things that. Yeah, that’s thriving for me.

Oli: I was about to ask this, like, it was a really deep question, but it’s actually a little bit of a cliché as well. But anyway, thriving. It’s about letting go, isn’t it?

Ultimately, it’s just letting go and trusting life to work with you in the way that you’re talking about. And, um, the only things that we can let go of are all of the unreal things that keep us stuck in that, uh, survival mode that you’ve been talking about. So we have to let go of our needs to dramatize everything. We have to let go of our need to control everything. And like we were saying, with our addictions, whether it’s shopping or whatever else, that is about control, isn’t it?

Like, when we’re shame driven, which is why we feel that we have to be stuck in survival mode anyway, because we’re driven by the shame and the false version of ourselves we identify with because of that, then we end up just filtering life through the same old bullshit over and over and over again, and it just holds us back. And the more of that bullshit that we let go of, which is drama, control anything else like that, then we do move up that Hawkins scale that you were talking about, where we’re just free to just, uh, be like another cliché, really. But it really is that simple.

Take forgiveness, for example. I think you said forgiveness is up near the top of the Hawkins scale. Forgiveness really is just letting go of all of the grudges and resentment and the ideas and so on that we’ve got about other people and life, so we can actually just be back in life that is thriving. And so, for me, there’s something there, like, to really thrive and scale this survival mode, we have to kind of take a leap of faith initially, maybe because we may have been in survival mode so long that we’ve just been putting this energy out that keeps bouncing back at us that it seems like life can’t be trusted, but it’s actually just a reflection of us not trusting ourselves. But anyway, if we can understand this and let go and trust, then we do move up that scale that you’ve shared, the Hawkins scale, where we’re just flowing, basically, and that’s when thriving is just flowing. Something like that.

Hedi: Absolutely.100,000%. Very nice. And it’s really, as you said, yes, get clear, yes, cleanse. But as you said, it’s more like this onion. Peeling an onion. Your gold is already there. It’s just plastered with all this stuff from all this generation, from society. And it’s not your fault.

I mean, we also have to be very…This is not judgment based. This is just how this has evolved up to this day. And I think the chance, as you said, to unravel bit by bit and then just flow. And forgiveness is just one way of letting go, forgiving yourself and others. Um, that’s just one big part. And you said something so beautiful, and I can’t remember. I wanted to. Yeah, very good. Yes.

Oli: And I think it all comes down. Um. Sorry, go on.

Hedi: Security. So, when working with clients, often or 100% of the time, obviously, it’s coming down to, if I want to control, I’m not secure. I am not secure within myself. Like, my root chakra is often not even placed where the root is. And that is so based off of this early childhood confusion and shaming, as you said. But it dictates us from the back door all of our life if we don’t look at it. And that’s how we began. Honest look makes things really.

Oli: Wow.

Hedi: Um. Speeds things up if you’re avoiding, and I was a long time, and I’m lucky because my husband then said, I think you should do something now. Um, then, yeah.

Oli: I love how you said ultimately, to cross that threshold, let’s say, and kind of pick out the main threads that we’ve been talking about, to cross that threshold of surviving to thriving. It is about taking that honest look. Like, I love how you just phrased it like, uh, that. Like, you take an honest look if you take an honest look. The only thing you’re going to see is the truth. And that is ultimately the difference between survival mode and actual thrival mode.

I found when we’re stuck in survival mode in the way we’ve been talking about, it’s because unconsciously we’re not taking an honest look because we’ve been so. Yeah, everything’s been so distorted by that intergenerational trauma and then our own self-hypnosis with self-limiting beliefs and all that kind of stuff, that we’re not ready to look at the truth. And, um, that’s when we end up kind of going down this crazy rabbit hole of getting addicted to shopping and whatever else it is people get addicted to. But if we do just take an honest look, then we’re going to see that true connection that we all have to life at all times. And it’s like you said, the gold is always there, but we just plaster it with all these different layers of, uh, self limiting beliefs and the labels and boxes that you were talking about and all that stuff. And as soon as we look beyond it, then in a way we have no choice but to thrive. Because we just move with life. Absolutely.

Hedi: And on top of that, um, speaking of shortcuts, don’t make the mistake, which I also did. A lot of people takes just a lot of time going outside, blaming others, trying to. Trying to heal others. No, you are the center of attention. Yes, maybe you’re traumatized like most people are in some way or another, but it is our duty to heal it. It’s not somebody else’s duty to heal themselves, because it’s done. It’s just energy. The energy is just in your body. It’s covering you up. And don’t be scared to look at the truth. I mean, there’s so much scarcity around, because what if I fall?

Yes, maybe you will fall, but maybe you have also people around you, or falling means also then thriving. Because I always heard, this is one thing I’ve never shared, but, um, when I was really in panic, I always asked the universe, because I didn’t trust it at the very beginning, but I heard Jim Carey say, just ask the universe. I said, okay, if Jim Carey did it, I can do it as well. And I went for a walk. And then my intuition or whatever voice comes up and says, lose yourself to find yourself. Lose yourself to find yourself.

And that became a mantra. I hated it. I didn’t like it at all, because, again, security. But that brought me to who I am today because I was losing that version, which wasn’t me. Uh, now I am who I am. And just to make it very practical, just one example, because I know this is oftentimes very philosophical. There are two books I wrote.

One was before and one was after. I kid you not the time, because you were talking about the flow state. The time that I spent on the first was, I don’t know, I don’t want to, like a long time because of this limiting beliefs. And I wasn’t really satisfied. I hated it. Not because it was bad, just because I hated myself. And the second one, I loved it. Six weeks and it was done. So that’s what practical flow state means, because you’re just putting it on paper or whatever you’re doing, you’re putting just out. And that’s it.

Oli: Yeah, I love it. That’s my experience as well with creative work or, uh, just life in general and the creation of myself, as pretentious as that sounds, the only thing that holds us back is this false identity that we’re talking about and all of the things that we build on top of it, or the things that we try and do to cope with it, like all of the addictions and distractions we were talking about.

But when you strip all of that away, then even though life is hard, you can’t really lose the battle, because life is always moving towards more wholeness anyway. It’s always flowing in the direction that you really want to be going in, and you just have to let go. You have to lose yourself to find yourself in the way that you said, lose that false idea to find the truth and then move with it. And when you do that, you save yourself time with all this creative work, because you’re not putting obstacles in your own path.

Basically, with survival mode, a lot of the things that we’re trying to survive are, uh, just things that we’ve created without knowing because of unconscious blocks and all that kind of thing. And when you align yourself in this way, you’re talking about a lot of that stuff dissolves, and then everything just. Life starts thriving and you thrive with it. Basically, a lot of the obstacles in survival mode are just a reflection of us reflected back at us, projected out and reflected back.

So, um, we’ve been talking a long time. It’s actually gone very quick. Believe it or not, we’ve been talking for 46 minutes, and it, uh, doesn’t feel like it. And I think we found a flow as we were hopefully aiming to do. I was trying to create some kind of clever pun there, about the flow thing, but it didn’t work. But anyway, if you could wrap all this up, if that is possible, how would you do it? What are your final words of wisdom? And can you also tell people where they can find you, like online or elsewhere if you so design?

Hedi: Yeah. Now I’m trying to find something really smart to say to wrap it all up.

Oli: No pressure.

Hedi: No pressure. Thanks. So, yes, to wrap it all up. What are, uh, we talking about? Survival to thrival. We’ve said a lot. Uh, my final hope is that people become unafraid. Or let’s put it so curious to experience what the potential could be and not be like a lot of, you know, this research that when they ask people when they die, what was your biggest regret? And they’d say, not living my truth, not walking my path, not really following. That’s a huge part. Intuition, uh, not thinking, trying to control with the brain and what other people would think of me.

But not with your heart, not leading with your heart and with your soul. So this is what I would love to that people. Yeah, I think that’s very simple. To listen to your heart and love yourself. Learn to love yourself so unconditionally that because love heals, love is very high on the scale. Martin Luther King knew it, he had to die. Mahatma Gandhi knew it, he had to die. John Lennon knew it. Yet to die. So this is real.

Oli: It’s real love. You’ve kind of turned me off now. I’m scared to love in case I’m just going to drop dead or something.

Hedi: No, it’s a different time.

Oli: I’m just joking.

Hedi: I think we’re too many now. Um. A whole army? No, I mean, that’s ultimately what it is. Listen to your soul, because that is like a massive ship. And if you’re not following it and you’re going into rough water and you’re going away from it, the water gets rougher. Don’t do that to yourself. Life is more than that. And if you have that calling and if you have that crisis, there is a reason behind it. You are meant for more.

Oli: I love that.

Hedi: That’s all there is to say. You are meant for more. That’s why you have this crisis. And not everybody around you, but you have this crisis. So you can grow, you can learn, you can outgrow that stuff and create a life. Stuff versus life.

Oli: Yeah, that’s it. You’ve summed it all up. Basically, it’s about, like, I think love and acceptance are the same thing. And if you can truly accept, then you accept the truth, and then you’re going to basically dissolve a lot of these problems that we’ve been talking about and get flowing again. So, Hedi, that was awesome. I really appreciate all this, uh, insight that you shared. What’s your website and stuff like that?

Hedi: Oh, right – hedischaefer.com. You can find me also on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on Facebook, and yes, my shop is there, and also my programs, my mastermind, and my membership. So if you feel called, I’d love to meet you and help you navigate this crazy, wonderful journey called life.

Oli: Boom. Hedi, thank you so much.

Hedi: Boom.


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World Peace for Realness (Creative Status: Episode 74: Nick Girard)

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 an inspiring conversation as we explore the pursuit of world peace through the lens of author Nick Girard who shares his journey from the financial sector to the realm of fiction writing, driven by a deep desire to unite society around a shared vision of peace on Earth.

Meet Nick Girard: With a passion for creating bold, inspirational works, Nick is dedicated to using his writing as a catalyst for social change and global unity.

A Vision for World Peace: Tune in as Nick discusses his book and the powerful message it carries. Explore how fiction can serve as a vehicle for inspiring dialogue, fostering empathy, and uniting individuals from diverse backgrounds around the common goal of world peace.

Inspiring Bold Action: Join me (Oli Anderson) and Nick Girard for a conversation that challenges listeners to envision a world of peace and take bold action to make it a reality. Discover how each of us has the power to contribute to a more harmonious society through our thoughts, words, and actions.

Creative Status: Where Dreams of Peace Become Reality

This episode is your invitation to join the movement for world peace, as we explore the transformative power of fiction in shaping a more compassionate and united world. Tune in and discover how you can be a part of the journey towards a peaceful future for all.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

—————————–

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World Peace for REALNESS (Show Transcript)

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. This is a podcast about using the creative process as a vehicle for growing real. Growing real means that you’re moving towards wholeness within yourself – that just means that you’re not hiding the truth about who you are because of, social conditioning and self-hypnosis, but that you’re allowing all of yourself to be expressed in a real way so that you can release all of the emotional stuff that you may have been holding onto, that’s holding you back so you can integrate the parts of yourself that need to be expressed so you can be the fullest version of who you are. And, ultimately, that boils down to moving towards the truth.

Truth is a controversial word – I personally think it’s absolute, and that what’s true is always true. I understand the irony as well, of me saying I personally think, but that’s just the trick of language, and how things work.

Today’s interview is with an author called Nick Girard. Nick has written a very controversial book about religion and God and the devil and all these kind of things. It’s called in the beginning, ultimately, what he’s interested in is helping people to find, peace in themselves, let’s say, and help us figure out how we can move towards world peace collectively.

That’s a very interesting topic, in my opinion. I think world peace is something, that everybody says they want, but I think when we start breaking it down, it gets a bit more difficult than that.

So, ultimately, that’s what we talk about in this conversation, what world peace is, if it’s even possible, what needs to happen on an individual and collective level so we can move towards it. I really enjoyed this one. Nick has such a great energy about him. check out his book. Check out his Instagram. There’s some good stuff on there. His social media stuff is a sight to behold. And, ultimately, I think that’s all I need to say. I hope you enjoy this conversation. And, Nick, thank you for your time. Here we go. Boom.

Interview

Oli: Oh, hi there, Nick. Thank you for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. We’re going to be talking about one of the biggest topics in the world, which is world peace and how we can, potentially create that, in our own lives, I guess, and collectively. Before we get onto it, do you feel like, introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about, why you’re the person to talk to about world peace also, and also what you want to get out of the conversation.

Nick Girard: That’s all right. Yeah. What’s up, Oli? Good to talk to you, man. Yeah, it’s been a little while and, thanks for having me on your show here and I’ll give a quick little intro to myself:

So, I’m an author living here in Wilmington, Delaware, in the United States. You’ve probably never talked to anyone from Delaware. No one’s from Delaware. It’s like a really small, weird state here in the US. But yeah, my wife and I have lived here for just a few years, but after bouncing, across the United States for a while, from New York City to San Diego to Miami and now here in Delaware, kind of an odd, new geographic location for us.

But, we move around a lot and that’s kind of maybe because we’re immature, but hopefully that’s changing. But also I really have two jobs. My job of passion is writing this book I wrote in the beginning, is my passion project. And, my job, for necessity, is in the financial world. And, I basically do trade support, for institutions, within the financial world, which is something I actually cannot stand. And I’m actually at work right now. I told my fault, my boss knows I do these. And so I was like, look, I got a podcast I got to do. So I’m stepping away from eleven to twelve. But, I like to mix it in with some – I can’t let my, passion go to the side for my other job.

But, yeah, juggling these two items is a bit difficult. But, that’s really a, little bit about myself. And then when you asked about, world peace, so I really like that. So that’s really why I wrote this book, is because I am like yourself, and like most people on planet Earth, is that we want peace. And, it’s horrific what you see in the news every day, and you want humanity to unite. And so that’s what kind of drove me to writing. And we can get more into that as we chat.

And then I know you had your other question of what do you want to get out of this conversation? And so, look, really what I want to get out of talking to you, with your listeners on the line as well, is that I want to connect with people about achieving world peace. That’s what I’m trying, literally trying to do. I’m trying to connect with as many people as possible to get that, message across of how we can unite. And, yeah, we’ll get into that a bit. But how I do it is kind of, a little controversial, but, a good message I have here in the book of how we can achieve that – but, yeah, that’s basically who I am, really.

Oli: Well, there’s a lot of interesting things going on there.

Nick: Yeah.

Oli: Obviously, you’re kind of, a walking metaphor for the human condition itself, based on what you just said. There’s this struggle within all of us between following our passions and living as a real expression of ourselves and everything that we could be if, it wasn’t for that goddamn society getting in the way.

But then at other side of the scale, you’re quite deeply entrenched in the financial world, which is often held up, if you don’t mind me being a bit controversial, potentially. It’s been held up as one of the main reasons why we don’t have world peace. Because actually the banking systems and all these kind of shit have created Earth’s system – let’s say – that is causing a lot of people to be unreal and to have to hold back from their potential.

There you are right in the middle of it. From the outset, is there anything we can learn based on your experience about that kind of conflict between the passion and the realness, so to speak, showing that need to fit into society?

Nick: I am totally on board with how you think about the financial sector. Like, that’s something I can’t stand, and it’s a big problem within the world. So I only got into the financial world because I was in student loan debt and I got graduated college. And I think that’s a great point for us to chat about, is that, I’m not from much. I don’t hope you don’t mind me saying that.

And my parents couldn’t afford for me to go to school, and so we took out, these giant student loans, and then I didn’t really know what to do in college. I was 18 years old, and so trying to figure out what to do for your life and you don’t know what to do. And so after you graduate, you’ve got a bill to pay. And so I didn’t want the job. I needed a job.

Yeah, I graduated with a degree in economics. I have no passion for economics. I just did it. I didn’t know what to major in, so that’s what I made fell into it. And then as soon as I graduated, I basically got to start working in the financial world just a couple of years after graduating. And did it ever since, literally, just to pay off my student loans, which I finally paid off. My wife and I finally paid them off probably, I guess, five years ago or so. But that’s why I stuck with it.

And it was, man, I got to tell you, it’s just so depressing because, you know, you’re doing something that you hate and know there’s nothing you can do about it. Like, yeah, is somebody going to give me 80 grand to pay my true loves off? No, but. So you have to do something you don’t like to do. And that’s a big problem with society is really opportunity; opportunity to get a position that you want and also have the money to explore. Finding a position you need money to explore.

Like, yeah, I want to be involved in, environmental science, let’s say. Okay, great. Well, I don’t have any money, so I can’t quit my job and do that full time. It looks like I have a ton of money. So that is a big problem with society. It’s something that can change, but we can’t be short sighted. It’s going to take a long time to change something like that. But what it did do, what I think you might like, is it drove me to create this bullet pain and I think you and I have talked about this a bit before. I used that pain as energy and just turned that into something positive.

 Like, every time I got upset about work, which was, let me tell you, I mean, every minute of day. But on my ride home in New York and Philadelphia on the subway, I would have my little journal out and I would, like, write start. That’s when it started. I started writing my ideas down about a story, and I just kept doing that. And then it started to become something and I just kept going with it. But I think that pain was a big part of it. Like hating how society is made up, wanting that to change, wanting there to be unity among humanity, wanting the system to be difference, to affect other generations – that’s where it came from. Yeah.

Oli: That process of starting to write the novel and kind of to do something with the pain, to kind of purify yourself with it almost. That was your human way of reclaiming your humanity despite having fallen into the trap of getting sucked into the financial system, basically. I think a lot of people, they end up living lives like that. There’s a famous quote that I’m always throwing out by Thoreau. He says, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation”.

Nick: Oh, there you are!

Oli: The reason most men end up living lives of quiet desperation is because of, exactly what you said. There’s all this pressure to play it safe. Ultimately, you end up doing a degree that makes sense, like economic viability and all this kind of stuff. You don’t follow your passions, and, then you end up regretting it. But because of the student loan system, especially in America, you become trapped, and you found yourself in the wage cage. Ultimately, you’re no longer your real self.

You’re just basically going through the motions, and you’re constantly feeling the void, like, why is life so meaningless? And then, if you’re lucky, there’ll be some creative calling within you, which in your case, was your book. And if you follow that creative impetus, you can start to free yourself and allow the real version of you to kind of come to the forefront, even though there’s all this conditioning and social programming and so on and so forth that’s trying to keep you from that.

In my life, it was the same. I’ve only written one novel. I’ve written more books about the self-help stuff and things like that now. But my first novel was the same. Like, I went through some difficult period in my life. I found myself in the wage cage having this crappy, horrible job, and I’d go home every night and just write. And as I was writing, all right, I was bringing the real me back to the surface. That’s why creativity is so important.

Nick: Yeah, I agree. When you mentioned, too, I’m a big Thoreau fan. That line you said. So I read Civil Disobedience and Walden, but I think it Walden, when he said another great quote was, he didn’t drink coffee, and didn’t eat butter, so he didn’t need to work to get them. And it was, like, so simple. It’s like, yeah, why are you breaking your back doing something that you hate just to have things that you technically don’t need?

I mean, yeah, he didn’t live forever on that pond. I mean, he didn’t last that long living in solitude. But it’s quite a realization when you said, you slip into despair so easily with the job, and then once you get to a certain level, like you and I both did, I think you’re like, I must create something. I have a worth. I have to do something. And when you have two jobs, like you and I both do, it’s so hard. You have to do that. It’s so hard, but necessary.

Oli: Yeah. So how do we use this creative impetus that eventually calls to us when we reach that breaking point? Realizing, right, I need to do something. I need to act on this call, basically. How do we use that to move towards the world peace stuff? Like, is it even linked?

Nick: That’s a tough one. I think they are lightly linked, and I think that if more people had the mindset that you and I are sharing right now, that they, “Hey, I can’t just be short sighted and just do the day to day and not be creative or not try something different”. Like what you said, the wage cage. I like that, expression.

Most people just fall into that and then all of a sudden they’re 70 years old and they’ve been doing something they’ve hated their entire life, and it’s like, okay, now I’m 70, and I guess I can retire and I’ll just do whatever, and there’s probably a lot of regret. But if more people, share this mindset that you and I are talking about right now, about wanting to do something with purpose, which a lot of times is you have to create something, create an opportunity, or create something within, a new passion within yourself, then more people wouldn’t be short sighted.

And the problem with, achieving world peace, why we can’t achieve world peace, is because most of humanity is short sighted. They just have a very difficult time looking beyond the day to day. Today I’ve got to go to work, and I got to pay this bill today and tomorrow, and that’s that. I’m just going to keep doing this because I have these bills and that’s that whatever else happens, and maybe I’ll try to go on vacation or something, but they’re not really living. And, if we get more of society to be on the same page with how we think and what we want out of life, then that’s another avenue of how to achieve world peace.

Actually, not lightly – I do talk about that a lot in my book, is that if we can all agree on a way to live, that we need to have a fulfilling life where everyone has a basic opportunity, everyone can work as hard as they want to make as much as they want, but there’s an integrity behind. We’re not cutting down all the trees to make as much paper as we can like, yeah, we need paper. We’re all realistic here, but we need to have some sort of unified human strategy of how earth should be used, how we should use the resources, how we should make sure everyone is educated as health care, and it seems when you have a conversation like this with someone who is short sighted, there is like they kind of shut down because.

I think, it’s just too big of a picture for them. The forest through the trees, they just can’t see beyond the nose of their own face that something has to be different. This world will die. Children keep on having more of a crowded world and a more terrible world as generations go on. So they got a repetitive cycle of humanity. It’s very sad.

Oli: There’s two really important things that you just said, and I’m going to try and attack them one by one. The first thing is the short sightedness. Like, you’re right, the short sightedness is a huge problem because, if you can only see what’s right in front of you and you’re caught in this wage cage, as we keep calling it, then you’re not going to see a way out because you’re just focusing on the prison bars, so to speak.

There’s so much external pressure on people to pay their bills, and they’re living in an economy that’s fuelled by scarcity and so on and so forth, that they’re driven by fear. When they’re driven by fear, that puts a frame around what they can perceive, and they’re just living in the moment, but not in a good way where they’ve been present, like, some kind of butter monk or something. They’re just running out, adrenaline, basically. It’s like, “Oh, my God, I got to pay this bill. I’ve got to please my boss and get that report done.”

That takes them out of the process of living a real life. The process of living a real life is thinking about a vision for where you’re going in the long term. And that comes on to our second thing that you said, which was about purpose. Like, it all comes down to having a purpose. And actually, I would say the link between what we were saying about the creative impulse, freeing us and, this world peace stuff is the purpose thing.

Like, in many, many cases, in fact, for 90% of people, I’d say that do not have peace in their own lives, it’s because they’ve become detached from purpose. If you have a purpose or a vision, you can see a way out of the cage. So that gives you a bit more like peace. You can make decisions easier, you’re using your time properly, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It ultimately all comes down to having that purpose. And if we all do have a real purpose as individuals, then we’re going to grow more real day to day, which means we’re moving towards wholeness, then we can start being more connected to other people and supporting them on their journeys towards their own purpose and etc.

But if we’ve got that wage cage mindset where we’re driven by scarcity, basically, and not abundance, and purpose, then we’re just never going to have peace because we’re always going to be too divided within ourselves. So is there something there? Like the world peace thing starts with individual purpose? Something like that?

Nick: That’s true. That’s true. Yeah. It’s on the individual level. Really well said. It’s not like everyone needs to have a conversation like we’re having right now to explore what their purpose is, what their passion is. And a lot of people, you just get stuck in that grind. I felt it too, before I started writing. I was a mess. I would drink too much because I’d be upset after work just to get my mind to a different place. And that was really unhealthy and just limited me.

And then I became more depressed. I would just get so upset after leaving work. And then all of a sudden it’s just like, I got to do something. I just can’t live like this. It’s thinking, I’m still stuck in, this financial job I have now. I mean, I’m not exactly as stuck as I used to be, but I’m trying to explore other options. But it’s hard to explore other options. You almost become like a lemming because you’re like, well, then how?

I got to get another job, which really just means I’m going to make a lot less money, and then how am I going to get involved in that? It’s like you create situations in your mind to not explore something else because of all the change it’s going to make. I’ll sell my house and I’ll move to a different area and it’ll make it more difficult. But what we should think of is that difficulty. That’s life. That’s real life. That’s the adventure. That’s what we’re doing right now.

Nick: That’s why I like what you talk about with living your real life. That’s what you said about moving towards self-acceptance with the creative process. I really liked that you focus on that a lot. That’s true. And some people don’t think that they can be creative, but everybody can. They just need a bit of encouragement, a little support, and that’s difficult to get, too. But we can all get there.

Oli: Yeah, we can all get there because it’s our nature. And I think it all boils down to the choices that we’re making, right? Like, if we keep making choices that are unreal, I e, they’re, motivated by a lack of self-acceptance, basically, that’s when we end up having a life that doesn’t feel real, it doesn’t feel authentic. We end up in the wage cage, and it’s basically because we’ve just allowed ourselves to be told what to do by society.

Oh, you got to play as a friend. You got to do this, you got to do that. That actually isn’t the case. Like, in reality, we can do whatever we want within reason. And, if we start making choices that, are just a little bit more real, that’s when we can start reclaiming our happiness, ultimately, and inner peace to a great. The misery and desperation that you’re kind of describing going home after work and having a drink and trying to take the pain away. People only feel that existential void for, one reason. And the reason is that they’ve become disconnected from the truth about who they are.

Nick: That’s it.

Oli: It’s a process of mourning for themselves. And, when we’re mourning for ourselves like that, our real selves, because we’re living in an inauthentic way, that’s when we end up distracting ourselves with all kinds of things that take the pain away in the short term. Video games, shopping, porn, alcohol, whatever it is, there’s a million different things. Or we become addicted to those things. And that makes it even worse.

The only way back home is to do what you’ve done, which is to start reclaiming these little pockets of authentic expression. And that can be through creating a book or creating a project or wherever it is. Like, I’ve seen your social media, even though you’re working in the financial sector, your social media stuff, for anyone hasn’t seen it, is a very free, spontaneous expression of, like, your free inner child, let’s say. Yeah, that’s the real version of you. So even though you’re exactly where you want to be, you’re reclaiming it more and more and more, I think it snowballs.

And that’s when we get this kind of peace. So, basically, what we’ve said so far and about, world peace, is that the starting point, it seems, is individuals finding purpose in their lives. A next step, obviously, is because we’re talking about world peace. It’s a collective thing. So let’s try and pick that to pieces a little bit. So, obviously, world peace. Creating world peace is a huge project, right? It’s probably the biggest project of all.

One thing that I often think when it comes to world peace, it’s going to sound a bit off the wall, but I think about public toilets now. Have you ever been to a public toilet you’re like, “Oh, my God, what is this place?”

The standard of some of these public toilets is an outrage. I’ve been to Starbucks a few times. Like, I’ve walked in, seen the situation, done a 180, and just, like, walked out.

Nick: I’ve done exactly the same thing at Starbucks, too. No way.

Oli: I don’t know what it is but anyway…

Nick: I know.

Oli: So the question is, right, like, if human beings cannot even collectively work together with something as basic as a public toilet, what do we need to do to be able to move towards something so lofty as world peace?

Because it’s the same basic principle, right? We all need to work together to maintain the vision and so on and so forth. And, there’s something missing, basically, as far as I understand it, based on your experience.

Nick: Absolutely right. Yeah. Nice. The way you say that is very simple. It’s like, can’t we all just be on the same page to have. If we can all just agree on this, then we’ll have, like, start binding all us. Binding all of us together. That’s a very basic thing that you said, but it’s so smart. You’re right. How can we all get on the same page? And that, quite honestly, is extremely difficult.

We need all of humanity to accept a vision of living together in peace. And really, and I want to be very careful. So I say a lot of what I say in my book is pretty controversial. And I’m not trying to offend any you or your listeners, but a big part of achieve a world peace,

So we will never have world peace if we don’t have human equality. Everyone, and that’s a big part of my book, is everyone has to be on the same page with human equality. Obviously, there’s racial inequality, there’s gender inequality, and, ah, the list goes on about how many different things within humanity isn’t equal. A lot of humans to think that they’re better than others because of, the religion that they believe in. And a lot of it comes down to religion. And, this is a very controversial thing I’m going to say, but we won’t have world peace as long as religion exists. And we won’t have human equality as long as religion exists.

So that is the key to getting world peace. And that puts us all on the same page. If there is no religion, those missing pieces of humane equality that many times stemmed from religious beliefs won’t exist. And imagine if that’s like what John Lennon is saying. His song Imagine with our religion, it makes everything easier to unite.

So when you’re saying about a toilet not being cleaned Starbucks, the biggest picture to make that toilet clean at Starbucks is to broach the topic, to make people explore that, hey, we’re limiting ourselves by human equality. As soon as we have that, which is a huge, tall work, but as soon as we do have it, we can create opportunities for everyone. We can have, ah, what do we all want? We all want peace on earth. We all want, like, imagine, a world.

And it sounds like a fairy tale, but it could be achievable. Imagine a world where everyone has access to health, everyone has access to college education, so everyone is on the same level playing field of, oh, hey, I do have an opportunity, I can go to school, I don’t have to go into massive debts. The same for me here in Delaware, in the United States. It’s the same for someone in, a similar area in China or Russia or like, everyone should have that opportunity, but we will never get there if we don’t first focus on achieving human equality.

Oli: What you’re talking about is equality. Are, you ultimately just talking about rejigging, reconfiguring the system so everybody has their basic needs met?

Nick: Yeah, very well said. Yeah, that is it.

Oli: Is there more to it? I know you said religion is the main problem, but is it fair to say, though? more fair to say the problem is dogma and doctrine and attachment to ideologies of any kind, like the more attached we are to ideologies like, let’s say, Marxism, for example, right? If someone was an extreme Marxist, they’re eventually going to have ideas that are purely conceptual about human beings need to operate in order to function within that system, etc.

And it’s not so much the human experience that has been respected, under the aegis of those ideologies. It’s just ideas about people. I’m making it, but basically what I’m saying is it’s the ideas that we have about people and human nature that screw things up and stop us from having world peace.

And I think even if we have all of our basic needs met and the system is giving people free health care and everyone’s got a shared vision about how the toilet should work at Starbucks and all this kind of stuff, there’s going to be some extra work that needs doing at ah, the level of how human beings as individuals relate to ideas because I think that’s the thing that we need to deal with more than anything.

So let’s say for example, we’ve got universal health care and everyone’s got like universal basic income or whatever it is. So all of our needs in terms of scarcity have been met when it comes to the shared vision of what it actually means to be a human being and to have world peace.

So we’re all getting along and holding hands and whatever it is that we’re doing, there’s going to eventually be some disagreement, purely, because people are going to have different interpretations of what a clean toilet as Starbucks looks like, or they’re going to have a different interpretation of what equality looks like, or they’re going to have a different interpretation of why one group is better than another, because they value creativity whilst another group still wants to work in the financial sector or something like that. I think there’s more work that needs to be done at the level of the individual. And it comes back to what we’re saying earlier about it starts with individuals having purpose and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I really think if people are in touch with their real purpose and they constantly growing and evolving towards being more real, towards wholeness, they’re actually way less bothered about other people anyway.

Nick: Yeah, you’re right.

Oli: Yeah, because they’re just living their own lives, they’re not judging themselves, so they’re not going to judge other people. And so it’s not about dogma and ideology and all that stuff, it’s just about self-acceptance. is the system allowing you to accept yourself so that you can accept others?

Nick: Something like that, yeah, I like that a lot. Self-acceptance, that’s a big one. Because you’re right, there will always be people that are kind of judging the systems, judging people. And if those types of people, people that are constantly judging and not trying to improve themselves that is definitely a problem. That’s a problem we’re facing since the dawn of humanity.

Everyone must have a purpose, work on getting their own purpose, but also they need to accept the reality that they’re in a lot of times to find that purpose. There’s no magic light switch. No one’s going to hand you anything. You have to go out and figure it out yourself. who doesn’t want a magic light switch? Yeah. I hate sitting on my couch and being like, I wish something was different than this, or wish I could have more money for this or wish I had a different job.

But when I’ve trained myself now and it’s taken, I mean, I still have a lot of work to do on myself, but a big part of peace within myself comes from accepting my reality. I’m, like, oh, I will be in my financial job today, and I’ll be there tomorrow. I got to go to the office tomorrow. I know I’m going to have a horrible day, and I know I’m going to hate it, but that is going to happen. I don’t have to go.

Sure, I could just not go and eventually get fired. Maybe I should just do that anyway. But I don’t want to get fired. So I want to transition to another job, but I’m going to have to keep doing this in the meantime. And when I come home from work, yeah, I’m going to have to work hard at another job. My book.

And with finding another career, path, you have to accept that it’s going to take a lot of work. And people that have that problem figuring that out, they shouldn’t beat themselves up for it. We’ve all thought like that. It’s flesh and blood here. It’s hard to get to that realization of accepting reality in order to improve yourself. It’s a lot easier to be short sighted and to have 15 drinks after work like I used to do to try to block it out. It’s easy to do that. but, yeah, you’re absolutely right.

Once we get to a point where humans are on the same page of what we need to achieve a purpose that everyone should have, that will get us to peace as well. It sounds silly, but conversations like we’re having right now are helpful. It’s not for everyone listening, for yourself and I, and then we can talk to people about it. That’s what’s great about something like this.

Oli: As you’re talking, I’m thinking there’s two approaches to bringing about world peace. One is a kind of forced world peace. What I mean by that is we’re kind of forcing people into this box of all been equal, and we’re all the same. And everything is just at this baseline level where our kind of individuality and the strengths that we have, the weaknesses that we have, kind of get effaced a little bit because we’re just forcing everyone into this box of being equal, which, in a way, if you think about it, it’s not real.

Actually, it’s not. I’m not saying we shouldn’t all have the same opportunities and that we shouldn’t respect everybody and stuff like that, but if equality means we’re all the same, then it goes against what we’re saying about world peace really been about acceptance. It’s about accepting, our strengths. It’s about accepting that some of us are actually just better at some things than others.

Like, maybe you might be better at writing than the guy down the road, for example, that guy down the street, but he might be better at dancing than you are. And actually, if you follow your writing, that’s going to allow you to express yourself more and to accept yourself more. If he follows his dancing or whatever, then it’s going to have the same consequence. And so there’s something there, like one way of bringing about world peace is this ideological way. Basically, we were talking about where it’s like, right, we’re all going to be equal, and that means we’re all going to compare ourselves to each other all the time.

Basically, the other way, is more real, I would say. And it’s about learning to accept ourselves, not to feel ashamed. That’s true, right? If we have shame, then we don’t look at our strengths and weaknesses in a real way. We try and run from the weaknesses, we try to mask them. And that’s when we end up in the wage cage, because we’re not facing who we are. My whole thing is exactly what you said. You can only change your life. You can only get where you want to be if you accept reality.

And I think a lot of the time when we’re talking about equality and all this stuff, actually, we’re trying to avoid looking at where we need to grow, where we need to accept ourselves with no judgment or anything like that, but just accepting who we are so that we can decide what we do with it. And, that is the more flowing way of bringing about world peace. I would say we are algorithm no judgment about whether someone’s better at us, better than we are at whatever it is, dancing or writing, or blah, blah, blah.

No matter what we find in ourselves, basically, we still love who we are, ultimately, and then we can say, well, okay, I’m good at writing, but I suck, doing financial reports or whatever. Sure, it doesn’t matter. I got to focus on the things I am good at. And if you can tap into that, that’s when you’re going to find this sense of purpose for yourself as an individual. And then you won’t care about equality, actually, in the sense of thinking, oh, this guy’s got more than me, or, I’ve got more than this guy.

And you’re constantly comparing yourself, living in this unreal world of duality and judgment, which is the opposite of. So the only way forward to world peace, I would say, is learning to accept ourselves and forgetting about other people almost completely.

Nick: That’s really well said. We accept that everyone is an individual and has talents, and if someone has done something better, then you should be happy for them. You should encourage them. You shouldn’t, like, well, they’re good at that, and, well, I can do it, too. It’s like this weird human thing that’s been beaten into us as cavemen.

And you focus a lot on ego, too. I like that a lot. Because ego is like, who needs an ego to be arrogant? It’s meaningless. Accept what you can do. If someone else can do something better, try to learn from them and encourage them to teach others about it. It’s this ridiculous form of competitive nature that’s, like, ingrained in humanity that really needs to leave. And I think a lot of people. Our main topic of world peace, empathy.

You need to try to understand someone. That’s what it means to be empathetic. If I want to understand the hard times that you had that you mentioned when you were in a job that was terrible and you’re in a struggle. I need to spend time to think about that. All right.

What’s life like in Ollie’s shoes? And somebody else that I see, if someone else on the street that’s maybe doing something that’s judgmental or something confrontational, like, all right, well, I need to understand what’s going on with that person. I want to try and understand. And if more people think in a more empathetic way, not just sympathizing, empathizing with someone, like, understanding how they feel. If you understand how someone feels, you’ll want them to be happy. You’ll want happiness for everyone.

So I like the ego, the arrogance. Such a problem in society. Well, you know how it is. We see it every day. I mean, it’s just like. Especially with a lot of world leaders out there. It’s the arrogance and the egos, and it’s just hurting everything. And, a lot of it stems from men. Men are the big problem. They’re these ridiculous egos. And, it’s frightening when you see people in positions of power, especially here in the United States, where they have these giant egos and arrogance. This is not good for anyone.

And I feel, you know what I think people that probably don’t have much, people, that haven’t accepted reality, the reality of themselves, those people are very easily influenced by people that have these bombastic, large egos and will just follow blindly and not think about what they’re doing.

Oli: Most of the people that I set in the agenda called world peace, they’re those kind of people. Like, they’re filtering it through the ego. And it sounds, it sounds nice, doesn’t it? Like, oh, let’s just all be equal and we’ll all their hands and skip through the forest and everything’s going to be amazing for all time. But actually, it’s deceptive because that way of doing things is, as we basically lend in this conversation, I think, is causing people not to accept themselves.

That is the barrier to world peace, actually. If you truly accept yourself, then you’re not judging yourself, because acceptance is the opposite of judgment. If you’re not judging yourself, you’re not projecting your judgment onto others and kind of judging everyone else and nit-picking and stopping them from growing and moving forward and accepting themselves. And so I think we just need to be really careful.

We often think that we are moving in that direction of world peace. But if it has been filtered through the ego, then it’s actually a resistance of our own self-acceptance. It’s causing to judge other people that aren’t meeting our criterion of what’s going to lead to world peace. And so it’s just going to exacerbate the problem, basically, and cause all kinds of issues down the line.

Nick: Yeah.

Oli: And so ultimately, in my view, just my opinion, I think forget about world peace in the sense of telling other people what to do and just look at ourselves like, is this classic AI, the old Ghandi thing.

Nick: You’re right.

Oli: Be the change you could be the world, blah, blah, blah. Anytime we focus on other people, it’s actually just judgment of ourselves projected outwards, because we don’t accept who we are. And that is the only way forward, in my view, to forget about everyone else. Not in a selfish way, but in a way where we say, right, what do I need to work on. So I set myself more so I can give something real to other people.

Nick: The answer is within. It’s within all of us. If everybody has your mindset, we will have.

Oli: Saying, like, if everybody was me, we’d have wealthy.

Nick: Everyone would be like, all right, you make a great point. You make a great point.

Oli: Basically, we just need to work on, not judging ourselves and not judging other people. And, we still have to take action and we have to accept reality, like you said. But that means accepting that world peace is not all puppy dogs and rainbows. It can be because reality means very difficult. Even if we did reach that state of world peace, we’d still have challenges. We’d still have emotional stuff that we have to face and integrate.

We still have our ego to work through and, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Accepting reality comes with problems, actually. But that is a good thing, because as we face those problems, we become kind of purified. Or we go through a catharsis, like with the creative process we’re talking about. About writing or whatever it is. And then we accept ourselves more. We go from fragmentation to fullness. So that was my ramble about all that. I think we basically figured out how humanity can move towards world peace. So we should give up.

Nick: I love talking about this with you.

Oli: This is great. If you were going to sum all this up, if that’s even possible, how would you do it? What are your final words of wisdom? And can you let people know what your book’s called in great detail and where they can find you and where they can buy it?

Nick: Yeah, sure. Of course. Oli. Yes. I mean, really, to sum it all up, like you and I were saying, is that everyone owes it to our global, world society to accept the reality, to accept their own reality, to accept themselves, to want to improve themselves, to become more empathetic.

If everyone gets on that same page, then we will have a different society. And it won’t be. This won’t happen tomorrow, except everyone should accept the reality. This is going to take time, and I’m talking a few generations for sure, like hundreds of years for this to happen. And that’s okay. But we owe it to humanity to do that.

And that’s really what I’m focusing about in my book. In the beginning, it’s a work of fiction that I wrote that is centered around the need for world peace, quality and true love, the most important things in the world. And finding a purpose, that everyone needs to find a purpose. That’s why I write that’s why we’re talking, right?

There’s a few ways that, your listeners can, find me. So I basically do all my marketing on Instagram. I’m Nick D. Girard on Instagram. And it’s funny, my book about it is pretty heavy. You said it well, when you were like, yeah, it’s not easy to get to world peace. It’s not easy.

Even when we have world peace, there’s a lot of difficulty. And the book is, it’s a true adventure. And adventures are not easy, but they are original, thrilling, entertaining, and, life changing. That is what my book focuses on. And everyone needs to go on an adventure. And you can find the book on Amazon. Just put in Nick and my last name, G-I-R-A-R-D Girard, and it’ll come right up.

But, yeah, that’s where I’m on Amazon. And, I’m on Instagram. You can see my shenanigans. They really don’t match the, like, I’m doing really silly things and goofy stuff because I don’t know what else to do. And then people will read the book. They’re like, whoa, your book’s a little heavy. I didn’t expect that from you. I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, it’s out there.”

Oli: You’re just showing the duality of man. That’s awesome.

Nick: Yeah.

Oli: Well said – this has been a good one. I think it’s just reminded me, like, something I love to say. Real, always work. Face reality at, the level of yourself. Then you can accept other people, then you can accept life. And then maybe you’ll feel some peace, and maybe you won’t. But either way, it’s all the same in the end.

So, Nick, thank you for this conversation. I’ll share all your notes and stuff, links and stuff in the show notes, but, yeah. Thank you so much.

Nick: Thanks, Oli. Great talking to you. You’ve got a great vision. Keep it up, man. You’re doing a lot of good.


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Reclaiming the Power of your REALNESS (Creative Status: Episode 73: Verónica Moreno)

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 Creative Status as we dive deep into the transformative journey of reclaiming your power with Veronica Moreno.

Join us for a profound conversation where Veronica, a Life & Mindset Coach and Energy Healer, shares her unique approach to self-development and healing, guiding listeners on a path to unlocking their inner treasures and living authentically.

Meet Veronica Moreno: With a global reach spanning almost 20 countries, Veronica has empowered countless individuals to elevate themselves beyond their stories and step into a life of authenticity and fulfillment.

Unlocking Inner Treasures: Explore Veronica’s unique approach to healing and self-development, which combines powerful energy healing techniques with coaching and therapeutic counseling.

Breaking Free from Limiting Beliefs: Tune in as Veronica shares insights into breaking free from old ways of living and the social programming and conditioning that can ruin our lives.

Discover how reclaiming your realness empowers you to confidently create the life you truly want to live, leaving behind the constraints of the past.

Living Authentically: Explore the power of reclaiming your realness in a world that often imposes societal norms and expectations, and discover the freedom that comes from embracing your true self.

Creative Status: Where Authenticity Ignites Transformation

This episode is your guide to unlocking your inner treasures, breaking free from past conditioning, and embracing the transformative power of your REALNESS.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

—————————–

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Reclaiming the Power of your REALNESS (Show Transcript)

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 so you can grow real and align your thoughts, words, and actions with who you really are.

Every episode, I like to, interview somebody about the human condition, what it means to truly be a real human being who is aligning themselves with wholeness instead of fragmentation. Today’s episode is an interview with Verónica Moreno – she is a life coach and energy healer who has loads of amazing, interesting, very energetic things to say about what it means to be a human being that’s stepping into their power.

We talk about what power even is in this context, what holds us back from being the powerful version of ourselves that we were all born to be and looking at a three step process that can allow pretty much anybody to start getting results and improving their lives. Feeling more flow by embracing all of the amazing things that Veronica has to say.

So, Veronica, thank you so much for this episode. I was really hyped up by the time we finished this conversation. Everybody else, hope that this, interview gives you some value, helps you figure out a few things in relation to your own stuff. And, if it does help you, please leave a review somewhere. And pretty much that’s all I have to say. Here we go. Thanks a bunch. Boom.

Interview

Oli: Oh, hi there, Verónica. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of creative status. We’re going to be talking about reclaiming our power, which I think is one of the most important topics in the world because so many people out there seem to be living what Thoreau called “lives of quiet desperation”. I’m throwing that quote out there all the time these days.

Before we get into it, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you do, what you’re all about, why you are, interested in this particular topic as a kind of coaching niche that you’ve got for yourself and also what you want to get out of this conversation.

Verónica Moreno: Hi, Oli. Welcome. Thank you, for having me here – and hello, everyone. who’s listening? My name is Veronica. I am a, mindset coach, energy healer, and counsellor. And the work I do is all about helping people reclaim their power.

So it’s about helping people to break free from the conditioning of the past, for all that programming, all that conditioning that is keeping us stuck, and to really step into our power, our, true self, so they can live their highest life, so they can live the life that feels right for them and that they truly want to live, not the life that others expect you to live, or that we were programmed to live, but a life that feels authentic and aligned.

Oli: Amazing. And, what do you want to get out of this conversation that we’re about to have?

Verónica: Well, I think I, would love to share some insights. I think what we do, you and I have a big overlap and we have lots of things in common in the work we do. So hopefully, bringing our ideas together, our experiences, our journeys, our insights, hopefully will inspire other people so they feel more empowered and more free to start really creating the life they truly want to live.

Oli: That’s an awesome way to look at it. So hopefully, if we do this right, we’re going to help people get in touch with their own power. So I’m going to dive right into it:

One thing that you just said in the, introduction to yourself that you just shared with us is that there’s kind of a link between our power and our real self, our authentic self. When I like to think about these topics, that’s kind of how I see it.

I think the main thing that takes power away from people is this disconnection from who they really are and, from what life really is. So for people who know my work or have listened to this podcast before, it always comes down to this idea that: “real always works”.

And the reason that real always worked is because it’s ultimately putting us in touch with the power that we all have to be connected to life and to get results from life by embracing life. So let’s kind of crack that open a little bit. How do you see that link between power and the real self? And maybe as well, we need to define power as a word. When we’re talking about power, what do we mean?

Verónica: Yeah, so, as we grow up, we are exposed to a lot of conditioning, right? It starts with our parents telling us what’s right, what’s wrong, that we are a good girl or a good boy for doing this or that. But if we behave in a certain way, then no, that’s not good. And then we have collective programming, right?

We have the society, we have the culture, religion, we have the school, our teachers, other role models. And as we grow up, because when we’re young, we are like a sponge. Our brain is like a sponge. So we absorb everything. We see some things we copy, and we start making decisions about ourselves, about others and about the world. And this is not ours.

This is something that we copy, that we inherit decisions that we made based on certain circumstances. So we start to put layers on ourselves, right, of what we are expected to be, what we are expected to accomplish. And we start to put, layers on top of our true self to fit in, to make sure that we are loved, that we are accepted, that we’re not going to be rejected.

And when we live our lives based on this conditioning, when this conditioning, which, shows us subconscious beliefs, beliefs about ourselves, about others, about the world where we live our life based on this conditioning, on this programming, then we are not in our power. Because it’s someone else’s projection, someone else’s beliefs, right?

So we are not ourselves. It’s when we release, when we let go of these layers of this programming, then we can start connecting with our true self, with what was always there from the beginning. Our true essence, our gifts, our talents, what we came here, to the world, what we came here to share. And for me, that’s being in our power.

For me, being in my power means that I am living my life consciously, that I am the creator of my life, that I am not creating my life on autopilot and creating things that are not joyful, that are not what I want to experience, right? That I’m not subject from that conditioning. And for me, that is power. And like you said, it goes hand in hand together with being our authentic self. And that realness that you talk about.

Oli: Wow. You just use so many of my favourite words and phrases, I feel like brain is about to explode. It sounds like, in a way, what you’re talking about is power, ultimately, is about making conscious choices. Like the little choices that we make on a day to day basis are, ultimately what create the lives that we end up living.

And if we don’t know who we really are because we’ve got all these layers of social conditioning and bullshit and limits and beliefs and all this kind of stuff that’s not real, then the choices that we end up making are going to be a reflection of that, and we’re going to end up choosing an unreal life rather than a real life. And that’s exactly how I see it as well, really.

Most of the work that I end up with doing people when I’m coaching them is about helping them to just get back in touch with the choices that they actually want to make from their essence, as you called it, from their realness, as I call it, so that they can live the lives that they want to live that are an expression of something true, rather than all of this conditioning, which is ultimately just a bunch of illusions that we’ve picked up.

So, let’s break that down a little bit more. When you talk about all these extra layers that we add to our relationship with ourselves, what are some examples of these layers? I totally agree with you, but just so we can make it a bit more practical, maybe, what are we specifically talking about?

Verónica: Yeah, of course. So, for example, I’m going to give some very personal examples, here to make this easy. so, for example, if you develop the belief that you’re not good enough or that you have to be perfect, for example, for me, I grew up, always being really good at school, getting good marks.

Why? Because my parents, especially my mom, will always compliment me. Oh, you’re such a smart girl. And love and appreciation will always, not always, but mainly come from me. The best marks. I need to be the best employee. I need to be the best. I need to be perfect. And then I put a layer on. It’s kind of like a role. And that becomes a, part of me. Oh, I have to be perfect.

And then, years down the line, I was following a path, when I started working in the corporate world, in banking and consulting many, many years ago, before I started my coaching practice. And I was kind of on autopilot, right. I was just following this programming.

Okay. And then I started working in the corporate world and things were going well, and I was making a lot of money and more compliments and more love and more appreciation from my family, my friends. Oh, that feels so good. Right? Our ego goes, oh, I love that. Right? So these, are layers that I have put on myself. The corporate girl, the one who makes a lot of money, the one who always gets the promotion, the successful one, that’s not me.

That was a job. That was not who I truly was. There was much more to me than just that, corporate world. And then eventually I hit, not rock bottom, I think, feeling, very bad, but very empty. Very empty. And I thought, but why? If I have all this mass, I have this wonderful job on making lots of money. I’m so successful based on what society would consider a definition of someone successful. If I’m so successful and everyone is like, wow, jealous of me, why do I feel so empty?

Why do I feel so unfulfilled? This doesn’t make any sense. Why? Because I was living my life based on my layers and those roles and that programming. It wasn’t my true self. My true self was there, hiding somewhere, somewhere down there, really hiding and really dormant because I hadn’t given her any space because we are the creators of our life, whether we like it or not. The difference is who we are creating this life from. Are we creating our lives from our true self and from our power and from our vision and being aligned with our values?

Or are we creating our life based on someone else’s expectations or all those layers and all those roles? And that’s exactly what I was doing. I was creating my life. I was the creator of my life back then as well. Isn’t that suddenly something changed. I was the creator of my life. It’s just that I was creating something that wasn’t aligned with my true self, and that was a source of so much, unfulfillment, and emptiness.

Oli: Wow. Thank you for sharing that, because it’s a really great example of just a very common story. Like, in the human experience…so many people, they end up giving into this programming and been prompted by it, into making choices that are not their choices, like we said. And the end result is always the same.

The end result of living like that is what you’ve just shared with us, which is the kind of existential void that people feel where things look okay on the surface, like they’ve got success, so to speak, in the form of, like, a nice job and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But they feel completely empty inside, and they’ve just got this restless feeling, this itch that they don’t know how to scratch, which is the void, ultimately.

And this void only comes around for one reason, and it’s a disconnection from the truth. And, eventually, what I’ve seen with people, if they’ve been in this place of the void for too long, they kind of snap and they realize, right, I need to change something. I need to wake up. I need to start integrating who I really am, ultimately, so that I can put myself on the path I was supposed to be on. And, step away from all these layers and all these roles and things that I’ve been playing, rather than actually being really connected to my being and who I am.

And so, in your case, what did you do to kind of step away from that void and to start filling it with your realness or your essence or however we want to say it, how did you start to step away from the void into something more real?

Verónica: Yeah. So for me, what triggered it was that, I moved to London, for work with a wonderful. And I’m going to know, based on, the definition of, successful that I had back then, which wasn’t mind which wasn’t mind. Sorry. So it was wonderful. I was making a lot of money, very comfortable. Everyone was very lovely. And I felt so unfulfilled and so empty. And I thought, what’s wrong with me?

So it all was triggered because I felt that I really needed a career change, right? So I thought, okay, so this is clearly not for me. I need a career change. And by starting to explore a career change, I started to ask myself very simple questions, like, but what do I want to do with my time? What am I really good at? What do I enjoy?

And just asking myself those simple questions. I started to discover that I had been living my life not based on my realness or my essence, but on someone else’s expectations. And the answers that came from these questions, from just a self-discovery process, really shocked me, because I was like, “Oh, my God, I’m someone at work, but I am not this person. Like, the true me is not this person.”

And so eventually what happened is that I thought that something, like coaching or some form of therapy, it would be a good career, for me, because I thought, well, normally people come to me for advice, so maybe this is something I can explore. So back then, I studied a master’s degree in counselling. And that, kind of put me on a path of self-discovery and healing. And that’s where the magic started to happen.

When instead of looking outside and thinking, okay, how am I going to make my family happy? How am I going to impress my friends? How am I going to impress everyone? How am I going to fulfil this ego and this role, this mask that I have created about the successful corporate world? Veronica, how can I move from that, to how can I be happy?

Right when I started to look inside, I started to unravel so many layers. Because when I started, doing that, during my master’s degree in counselling, I had to do a lot of therapy myself. And that opened a Pandora’s box.

That literally opened a Pandora’s box and then I realized, how I had been living my life, subject to so much conditioning and programming and not based on what I really wanted to do and what made me happy, not others happy, but me, happy. So, from there, I started to, of course, deep dive into, a lot of personal healing. A lot of things that I needed to heal from my parents divorce, from when I was a kid. I realized how much this conditioning and this programming had been holding me back.

And although I’m grateful for everything I learned, and to be honest, it gave me stability, gave me independence. So I’m grateful for that. But I realized it’s when I started to look within that I realized how much I had been holding myself back before I was blind, before I was completely blind. And that was like bringing light to a lot of shadow parts of me. And that took me on a journey of deeper and deeper, layers of healing, and then going more into the energy healing work.

And thank God I decided to start that path because I feel like I’m a completely different person now if I compare myself now and ten years ago, twelve years ago, when I started this healing journey, you would meet me back then and now, and you would say, that’s your twin sister, but that can’t be you. It’s a different person. Yeah. And that was all about living old stuff, living, like shedding all those layers like a snake sheds the skin. It was about shedding all those layers and letting my true me come out to the surface. So, yeah, that’s two different people. That’s two people, two different Veronicas.

Oli: Yeah. Most of the layers that hold us back are things that are ultimately attached to our identity. And so it makes total sense because this journey that you’ve been on is what I would describe as been the journey from fragmentation to wholeness. So when we’re living according to all this social programming and the underlying shame and stuff like that that causes to keep believing in it, we’re basically split from who we really are, as we keep saying.

And the only way we can uphold that illusion is by constantly adding things to the call of the void, so to speak. So we add our career, we might add some unreal relationships. We add things that we’re chasing, like more money or, addictions and distractions. Whatever it is, all of these things just become layers that we identify with.

So we can keep buying into all those illusions. And then one day something happens, if we’re lucky, where we kind of wake up. We’re like, hang on, there must be more to life than this. And then we go on this journey that you’ve been on, where we’re returning to wholeness. But how did you find that journey itself?

Because the way you’ve described it is like, okay, twelve years ago, whatever you said, sorry, you kind of woke up and you put yourself on this healing journey. And it’s been kind of organic, and it’s just unfolded very naturally. And it’s led to this place where you now are, where you stepped into your power and the real version of who you, are. But was it painful?

Because one thing I found is when people start to strip away these layers of identity and their attachment to the void, even though they don’t want to be feeling the void, they do two things:

The first thing is that they unleash all kinds of pain that they’ve been avoiding in the short term. Because when we become split from ourselves in the way that we’re talking about, there’s a lot of underlying shame and guilt and trauma, like I was saying, that makes us believe in the social conditioning. And so when we start facing that stuff, then initially it can be quite painful because we’re going to have to face that.

But also there’s going to be all kinds of emotional stuff that we’ve been running away from. Like, the reason we choose the void in the social programming is because we’re not ready to face certain emotions.

So, like you said, there was some stuff about your, parents’ divorce and all this kind of thing. You’ve probably been running away from that your whole life, which is why you were running towards the success, as we called it. When you get rid of, the unicorn of success, all that pain starts to re-emerge. So you can release it and actually move m further into wholeness. But then there’s another level as well, where we have to let go of our beliefs.

That can be painful, because those beliefs are, ah, like an interpretation, basically, of life that we’ve created as a kind of substitute for the truth again, so we can avoid, releasing the pain, so to speak, but also integrating the shadow stuff. So I guess the question is, was it painful and difficult? I’m assuming it might have been at times. But how did you ride through that and get to where you are now, which is this kind of foundation of power on the other side of it.

Verónica: It was challenging. That’s the word I’m going to use to describe it. Painful. Yeah, sometimes it’s not always pleasant, right? Let’s say that self-discovery, healing is not a journey. It’s not a bit of roses, right? It’s not a path of, birds and unicorns. It’s challenging.

But the thing is that, it can be painful. For example, when I realized that I have been sabotaging all my relationships, based on, because of my decisions or my interpretation, what I experienced, through my parents’ divorce. Yeah, it was a bit painful. It was like, oh, my God, I have been doing this to myself. I am responsible. So you need to take responsibility, right. That can be scary, it can be scary.

It can be painful to realize, “Oh, my God, so it was me all this time, it was not the other person, it was me sabotaging myself.”

Okay, that’s not pleasant. But at the same time, it came with a big relief. And I know that a lot of people are not willing to do this work because they think it’s going to be really painful, because they think that, they’re not going to be able to contain it, or that maybe once they get in touch with their emotions, they’re not going to be able to control them or it’s going to be too overwhelming.

But the reality is that if you do this, especially if you do it with the guidance of someone, who can help you move, through this, it doesn’t need to be that painful. Yeah, there’s going to be moments of, oh my God, I have been doing this to myself. Or, yeah, when you allow the anger, the sadness, the fear that you have been repressing, like you said, because you look the other side. Right?

Because we run away from this because it’s painful, right. But once you let it process it, that’s the thing, that it’s not painful anymore. You go through that transition and then it comes with such a big sense of relief. Or for me at least, that’s how I experienced it. So the painful was minimal compared to the sense of relief and liberation that I have experienced and that I keep experiencing every time I go through a deeper, layer of healing.

Right. So I would really like to encourage anyone who’s listening to this podcast and is a bit reluctant to start that inner work because they’re scared about how that might unfold. it’s so worth it. It’s so worth it. And yeah, sometimes sitting with that anger or sitting with that sadness or with that, fear. Yeah, it’s not going to be fun. Let’s say it’s not going to be fun, but it’s going to be so liberating. So liberating.

So I think it’s really worth it. And the way I navigated it is, allowing myself time to explore, and I have worked with many therapists, or healers. And even today, sometimes when I feel stuck, I will always go and work with someone who can help me move, through that process.

Doing it on your own, that is painful. That is painful because you don’t know how to move through it, you don’t know what to do with your emotions when they come up. You don’t know what to do next. You might feel that. Okay, right, so now I’ve let all this behind, but now, ah, who am I without these layers and without this programming? That can be very scary. Right, so doing it on your own can be a bit tricky.

So for me, I’m very grateful that I always found I guess the support I needed, at the time. And that’s what actually made me become a coach and a healer myself because I thought, oh wow, this is such a gift that you can give to others. What these people have helped me do and where I am now, that’s why I want to help others do. That’s what I want to do for a living. So it’s a journey that for me still continues. Because I don’t claim to be completely free from all programming, all limiting beliefs, all conditioning. No way.

 Ah, still continues but I think once you start, you just can’t go back. Once you’ve taken the blue pill, right, it’s over. You can’t go back to the old ways of living, you can’t go back to the hiding, you can’t go back to the layers. No, it’s all forward. Right?

Once you start, it’s all forward. So yeah, very grateful for that journey. It has been challenges, sorry, challenging at times. of course. but I would encourage everyone to really take the leap and do the inner work because it’s so rewarding. And it’s the only way, in my opinion, is the only way. Like really being aligned with your true self, with your purpose, with your essence, and living your life from that place of freedom and authenticity. It’s the only way to happiness, it’s the only way to fulfilment. The rest is a patch.

Oli: Wow, you just raised so many amazing, and interesting points. I’m trying to rein myself in, otherwise I’m going to be running at you for the next 6 hours or so.

There’s two things I guess that are ah, really important and helpful based on what you just said. One thing is this idea of it being challenging or even painful in the worst cases sometimes. The way that I look at it now is if you face this stuff  – like i.e. you face the truth after spending some time away from it, because you become disconnected for yourself, because all things if you face the truth, it is going to be uncomfortable and challenging in the short term whilst you get to the other side of some of these mental blocks and things like that.

But if you don’t face it, you continue to stay on the path of resistance to the truth and distortion of the truth. So you can keep fuelling the void, the existential void of living in this disconnected way. That’s going to be even more challenging in the long term. And so there’s something there around how there’s going to be discomfort either way.

But it’s basically about weighing it up and knowing that, okay, if you at least face the truth, you will get to this point where you’re in touch with your power. And, that is something that’s never going to happen if you keep avoiding it. So that’s really important. But then there’s another thing you said about how eventually you reach this kind of point of no return.

So you start facing things and you’re removing these layers, and it’s almost like you get to the point where you can’t go back because you’ve done some of the work and you see how all this stuff works. And when you get to that point, you just kind of have to trust the process, that is unfolding and that is calling you back to this deeper relationship with yourself and life.

One thing that I’ve really found in my own life and with my clients now is that when you get to that point, it’s actually, almost as though there’s no longer a battle because we all have this natural drive towards wholeness. I think wholeness and realness are ultimately the same thing. And we’re constantly being called back to wholeness because wholeness is just the natural state of things. And all of these layers that we keep talking about and all this social conditioning are just fragments that, are pulling us in the opposite direction.

Eventually, though, when we get to this point that you’re talking about, we can kind of let go of all those layers. And it’s almost like the battle is going to fight itself – because we have this natural drive towards wholeness. The unconscious is trying to become conscious.

And if we just let go and go with it because we’re no longer afraid, that’s when we can actually just trust the process. And a lot of things kind of fall into place by themselves because this process is always happening anyway. It’s just our resistance to it that causes it to not happen in the way that it’s supposed to.

So I guess my question for you is, is that how you’ve experienced it? So once we get over the fear, we can just trust? And it does happen very organically. And also, how does the process that you walk people through in your own coaching practice of raising clarity, helping people heal and then finding their treasure. How does that feed into this process that we’ve now tapped into, which is it is kind of organic if you just trust and let go.

Verónica: Yeah, I totally agree with what you said. When you remain in the path of, the condition in the programming, the ignoring your true self, that is real pain. That is real pain. The healing is discomfort. It’s a challenge. It can be painful. But when you push through, there’s light at the other side of the tunnel, right?

But the other path is all pain. Like, it only goes downwards. It only gets more and more and more painful. The more you repress it, the more painful, it becomes. And yeah, like you describe, it’s an inner conflict, right? And I’m sure, your listeners might be familiar with the idea of inner child work or shadow work or different parts, of ourselves.

In psychology, they talk about dissociation. Shamans, call it soul, retrieval. So it’s the idea of having different parts of ourselves, that are in conflict. And when we are in a path of, not being our authentic selves, we carry different parts of ourselves, so we can carry a part that has been wounded.

The part that needs to be perfect, the part that believes that, you’re not good enough, the part that is terrified of relationships, the part that is not confident enough to start a business. We have all these different parts, of ourselves. And there is a battle because consciously we have desires. And you might want to have a loving, healthy, fulfilling relationship. You might want to start your own business. You might want to quit your job for a year and travel the world.

We have all these aspirations and desires, but then there are all those parts of ourselves that haven’t been healed, that we haven’t integrated, that are fighting in the opposite direction. And that’s so exhausting. That’s really, really exhausting. That is painful, right? When we have this inner conflict within us.

And that’s what happens when we don’t look inside and when we don’t do the inner work and then we continue in the path of, oh, I would love to start my own business, but I suppose it’s better to stay here in this office job that I really hate. Yeah, I would love to get married and have kids, but I guess it’s better to just keep sleeping with random people every night because, I don’t want to face my fear of commitment. It’s that conflict and conflict is painful, it’s tiring.

So that will be kind of another way to describe it. And in terms of the process, I use, with the people I work with. so I work in kind of three stages. So the first step would be to get clarity because, it’s like driving a car. If you don’t know the direction, if you don’t know where you’re going, you can be driving in circles if you’re not clear around your values, your true desire. So it’s about listening to the heart.

I work with my clients on really helping them create the vision, of the life they truly want to live. Not the ones that others expect them to live, not the one that they were told, the things they were told to do, the life they truly want to live. And then once we have that vision, it’s like, right, okay, so I’m sitting in the car now. I know where I want to get to. This is my holiday destination. This is my vision, this is where I want to get to. But, the accelerator is not working. I don’t have enough petrol. I only have three wheels instead of four. So what’s stopping me? Right?

What’s stopping me? What’s holding me back, from getting there? And that would be, I use a lot of different, healing techniques. but the idea is always about. Right, okay, what is the belief that is holding you back? What part of yourself doesn’t support, what beliefs or what parts of yourself don’t support that vision are not fully on board with that vision?

And if anyone is listening to this, and if you just close your eyes for a second and you visualize the life you truly want to live, your vision, your true desires, your goal, your ideal life. And sometimes you start to feel in the body. You can visualize it, but sometimes you start to feel in the body. Oh, there was a resist. Oh, a part of my body tensed up. Oh, there’s a resistance right there. Or a voice kicks in. You have to be kidding.

That ain’t never happened for you. You’re not good enough for that. That doesn’t happen for people like you. So, I always take them to the root, or to identify the resistance. And I always take them to the root of when they made that decision. Right, okay, so this voice that is coming up for you, that you’re not good enough, that type of life doesn’t happen for people like you. that, fear in the solar plexus or in the stomach. Right.

Okay, so let’s track it. Let’s trace it back to where it started. When did you make the decision that that type of life doesn’t happen for you. When did you make the decision that you’re not good enough to start your business? When did you make the decision that you don’t deserve a healthy, loving relationship? And then when we get to the root of it, then we can heal it. And then I help the, And I help the person, talk, to those parts of themselves so they can rewrite the story.

And I say rewrite the story and not the past or the events, because it’s not about what happened. It’s not about our previous experiences. It’s the story that lives within us that counts. That’s what’s creating our reality. Not the events, not what happened, the story that lives within us, the narrative we tell ourselves, that’s what’s creating our reality. So what I help them do, and for me, healing is about that.

It’s about identifying the resistance, the blocks, the old beliefs, the programming, going to the root of it and rewriting that story and help and integrating those parts of ourselves. Right? And then when we start integrating those wounded parts of us or disempowered parts of ourselves that didn’t believe in themselves, that were keeping us small, then we make space for what I call the inner treasures.

And same as we give space to those parts of ourselves that carry the wounds, the unpleasant emotions, the old stories, the limiting beliefs, we also have to give space to the parts of ourselves, that carry all the inner wisdom that we have, all our inner. The talents, the gifts we came here to share with the world, the skills, the positive traits, the inner power, the inner wisdom, the confidence, the caring, loving nature we have, and we are all different, and we all have different, things to share, different skills.

So it’s also about helping people become in touch with that. Because sometimes we can get too. Or focus too much on the, healing, letting go, which is totally necessary. But it’s like when you have a garden that is full of weeds. Yeah, you first have to clear the weeds because otherwise nothing’s going to grow. But also you have to plant some seeds and water them if you want to grow fruits or veggies or a tree or a flower.

Otherwise, yeah, you’re going to have a very beautiful patch of green grass, but nothing’s going to grow. So it’s also about nurturing, those inner treasures and those positive trays and those parts of ourselves that have everything we need to create that vision to help us make that vision our, reality.

Oli: That’s an amazing process. So clarity, healing, and then finding and I guess utilizing the treasure. Do you think when it comes to the healing stage and stepping into kind of using our treasures or sharing our treasures of the world, it can be quite disruptive because one thing I’ve found, and you’ve kind of talked about yourself, actually, like, at the start of this journey of going through the process of figuring out what’s going on inside of us and then bringing the real stuff to the surface.

We’re a different version of ourselves to who we, are when we end up the process and we see the treasure that we’ve been hiding from ourselves. So in your case, for example, you said twelve years ago, you were kind of a totally different person when you uncover the real version of yourself.

And I think we can say healing is ultimately just weeding out all the unreal stuff so we can see what is real. It can be a disruptive thing at first canon, because we realize the life we’ve built for ourselves on the surface of the void is not real. And so we kind of have to dismantle it and kind of just start replacing it with something else that’s more real. How do you help people deal with that disruption? I guess.

Verónica: Yeah, well, it is a process and I always tell people, and that’s why, for example, in my work, I, always work with programs and not with one off sessions, because I believe this is a process. And sometimes people expect just magic to happen in one session, especially, no one say, oh, I just need to go to this healer, I just need to go to this person and do some kind of magic, and suddenly my life is going to change overnight and I’m like, well, maybe those expectations are too high and that’s not exactly how it works.

Yeah, you can have a healing session that might bring a lot of realizations, a, bit clearing and you feel very different, but ultimately it is a process. And if you have been telling yourself all your life that you’re not good enough, that you can’t do this, that you don’t deserve love, that you don’t deserve success, and you start leaving, that behind and all the other parts of yourself that you have been keeping dormant all this time, or that you have been buried all this time, will need a bit of time and will need a bit of love to come to the surface.

So this doesn’t happen overnight. And at the beginning there is a bit of a conflict. There is the autopilot that you have been identifying and clearing and yeah, it’s shedding, it’s going. But there’s still kind of like an autopilot that still ticks in that, oh, you’re not good enough. I am good enough. And then it becomes like this, I don’t want to say battle, but yeah, it’s kind of like a battle.

It’s like Imagine a part of yourself has been very loud for many, many years, and they’ve had the microphone, and then you’re like, no thank you, but you’re not going to have this microphone anymore because this is not me, this is not who I am. So you don’t have the microphone anymore and then you pass it along to the other part of yourself, to who you truly are, right? To those inner treasures, to that grace, to that essence, to that realness, right?

But the other part might still want the microphone now. And then there’s a bit of a battle in there until finally it becomes your state of being. And for example, I do a lot of work, around. So the way I do this, inner work in my sessions, I use a lot of visualization and a lot of healing in that way on integrating these parts of ourselves.

And I always tell, my clients when we do this, sometimes I even do a recording for them – you really need to imprint it and this is a process and this might take time. And I tell them to do it every day and to really connect with those parts of themselves every day on a daily basis. Until then, it can become a natural. It becomes just who you are, who you always were.

But there needs to be a bit of time and a bit of adjusting until that becomes your new normal and just who you are. It is a process. So people need to be aware that it can take, a bit of time until that becomes just your natural new state of being. Because you’ve been doing on autopilot for 20, 30, 80 years of your life. it can’t change in 2 hours after, whatever, you know what I mean?

Oli: I love how real you’ve been about it because there’s so much bullshit out there, really, like on the Internet, where people think you can just click your heels together and return home from Oz and all your problems are going to be solved.

But the way that life works is it is about the process moving from one state to another and that autopilot that people are struggling with, that ego, m it’s a habit. This is what people don’t understand. Like, our ways of thinking and identifying are habitual and like any other habit, like giving up smoking or whatever else it is it’s going to take time to train yourself into the new way of being.

And so you do need some consistency ultimately until you can let go of all the old pounds and step into just been real and the power and the flow and all the amazing things that come with it. So, Veronica, this conversation has gone so quick.

Verónica: I know.

Oli: I can’t believe we’ve been talking for 40 minutes. I can tell that you practice what you preach because there’s so much power in the energy that you brought to this conversation. I really mean that. Like, your energy has lifted me up. I feel like I’ve had about 6000 cups of coffee.

Verónica: Thank you.

Oli: If you could sum up everything we’ve talked about if that is even possible how would you do it? What are your final words of wisdom? And can you let people know where they can find you online as well or offline? Just basically where can people get in touch with you to learn more about you and your work?

Verónica: Of course. Yeah. So I guess if I could summarize it is that we are the creators of our life whether we like it or not. Now, what we need to decide is from where or from whom we are creating this life. From our past from our conditioning from other people’s expectations or are we creating our life from our true self and from the vision we want to ourselves and from, our empower self. And it doesn’t matter where you are right now because I know that sometimes people think, oh, but I’ve been through so much trauma. And, you have everything you need within you to start creating. To reclaim your power and start creating your life.

All you need is within you. It’s all about leaving the conditioning, the programming, the old stuff behind and letting and awakening your inner wisdom, your inner power, your confidence, that’s all within you. You have the power to create your life. It lies within you. So I guess if I could share one final message, is of empowerment.

To let people know that we or everyone here listening has the power to create their lives. Now, with great power comes great responsibility. That is also true. And then you have to do the inner work. But I find it so empowering because. Okay, so then I don’t depend anymore on changing my husband, on changing my mother, on changing the world. No, I can change myself and I can create my reality.

So, yeah. So don’t let anyone tell you that, you’re just a victim or subject to whatever life throws at you because that’s not true. We are powerful beings. We are really powerful beings. So, yeah, those will be my final words. And, yeah, for anyone who wants to know more about my work and about what I do, my website is veronicah.com, and I have a free seven day course.

It’s called ‘Stepping to Your Power with Confidence and Joy’. And you can sign up for that in my website. I will share a link, with you all, if you want to share it in the show notes – and that’s a seven day, course, one lesson every day. And it will help you, create your vision, get clarity on your vision, identify the resistance so the process I had described, and then unlocking your inner treasure so you can confidently create the life you truly want to live. And I also run a free online community called Reclaim, and this one I co-host with my husband, who’s a nutritional therapist. So together, we kind of COVID all the areas of, helping people to reclaim their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. And that’s also free to join. We run webinars, every month, so I would definitely, share a link, of that. You will find my contact details

in my website.

So if you have any questions about what we’ve discussed in this podcast, I always welcome your questions or your insights. So feel free to reach out if anyone, wants just to say hi. I’m always happy to hear from you guys.

Oli: Boom. Well, I will absolutely share all those links in the show notes. Veronica, thank you so much for this. I appreciate everything that you’ve shared and your energy. It’s been a good one, so thank you again. And boom. Lett’s keep, the power and the responsibility.

Verónica: Indeed, indeed, indeed. Thank you so much.


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Rock, Roll & the REALNESS of Entertainment (Creative Status: Episode 72: James Sebastian)

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.

Embark on a journey through the music scene with James Sebastian.

Join us for an exploration of the human condition, social conditioning, and the pursuit of wholeness through the lens of James’s creative journey.

Unveiling the Artist-Audience Relationship: Delve into philosophical discussions surrounding the artist-audience relationship as James shares his perspectives on the importance of emotional expression and audience engagement in the creative process.

Discover how authenticity and persistence in music can transcend the starving artist myth and lead to real relationships.

Embracing the Creative Process: Explore the nuances of the creative process as James reflects on his journey as a musician.

From navigating the challenges of social conditioning to embracing the wholeness of his artistic identity, James shares his experiences and insights with candor and authenticity.

Elevating Authentic Performance: Join me (Oli Anderson) and James Sebastian for an episode that celebrates the power of authentic performance and the transformative potential of music.

Tune in as we challenge conventional notions of talent and success, paving the way for a deeper understanding of the artist’s role in the creative landscape.

Creative Status: Where Music Meets Authenticity

This episode is your invitation to dive deep into the creative process, challenge societal norms, and embrace the wholeness of your own artistic or creative identity.

Tune in and discover the transformative power of authentic performance and audience engagement on the road to creative fulfillment.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

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Show Transcript: Rock, Roll & the Realness of Entertainment

Creative status is a podcast about using the creative journey for growing real

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status. This is a podcast about using the creative journey as a vehicle for growing more real, ultimate. What we talk about on the podcast is the human condition and how we’re all on a journey from being fragmented and divided within ourselves because of social conditioning and emotional stuff, to a place of wholeness, which means connection to ourselves, connection to others, and connection to life itself.

Today’s episode is an interview with a musician, James Sebastian, basically a rock star in the making. We talk about music in general, the music scene, how we can build community around the art that we do, build, the relationship between artists and the people that consume it, and all kinds of amazing, wonderful, philosophical things that emerge from exploring those ideas.

So, James, thank you so much for your time. Everybody else, hope you get some value out of this episode. If you do, please leave a review or share it with somebody, or just open your window and scream creative Status, out onto the rooftops or something like that. Either way, here’s the interview. Thanks a bunch. Boom.

Interview

Oli: Oh, hi there, James. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of creative Status. You’re a very musical.

James Sebastian: Hello!

Oli: Hello. You’re a very musical individual, and we’re going to talk about some of the lessons that you’ve learned as an artist and how you kind of have a creative process that allows you to purge your emotions and all this kind of stuff.

Before we get into it, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about and what you want to get out of this conversation.

James: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Oli.

My name’s James Sebastian. I’m a musician currently in London, sort of churning away, as a lot of musicians do, trying to make something of it – and I feel like I’ve learned a fair bit. I’m only 22, but I’ve been doing music for years and years now. And going through the industry, getting to London, you kind of learn a fair bit, and I think it would be very cool to sort of discuss that today.

Oli: I agree with you. What would you say, just to get this, rolling, are, some of the main lessons that you have learned, like, in this short journey that you’ve been on, maybe a long journey.

Sorry, I totally got distracted because something popped up on my computer… Let me just keep it super simple. What are some of the main lessons that you have learned, you would say, that have kind of shaped the man you are becoming, if that’s not too dramatic a way of phrasing the question?

James: No, I love the drama. Let’s soak in the drama.

Oli: Yeah.

James: So what are some of the lessons, main lessons? I think the biggest one so far is just persistence is the big thing. I think so many people with immense talent don’t think they can do it, and they give up early. They go for a year, and then they don’t see the progress that they want to, and then they just think, this will never work.

But if you look, at the track records of so many artists, so many successes in history, it’s always persistence and just years and years of slogging away. Obviously, in the age of TikTok and Instagram, you can technically make it overnight. They always say no one ever makes it overnight, but the best way to success is just to keep on going.

Oli: What does keep you going, though? There’s the myth of the starving artist. So sometimes we think, okay, because I’m not as successful as one of you right now, but I am a starving artist and I’m struggling and I’m going through the motions and everything. It is going to work out one day. How do you keep pushing through that? You must be getting some evidence from life that you are on the right track. Or is it really just…

James: Absolutely, yeah.

Oli: Like, what is it that keeps you going?

James: I think it’s a mixture of things. Obviously, mainly musicians get into it for the joy of making music and performing music. So even if you didn’t see any success, just writing a song can be so fulfilling, and playing a gig can be so fulfilling, and it doesn’t have to be world changing.

But I, think often just standing and looking back to where you’ve come from is a big thing for continuing onwards, because so much of the time, we get kind of lost in the moment and what we’re working on in the moment, and you sort of forget the progress you’ve made over the last five years.

You forget all of that, because in the moment, something’s not working. And the thing to always remember is you’ve come so far in five years that the next five years, if you keep going the way you have done for the previous few, then you’re going to be twice as far as you are now.

Oli: Yeah, I think that’s really important when we’re in the thick of it, whether it’s just the thick of life itself or the thick of the creative process, we can’t see the forest where the trees come in.

James: This is so true.

Oli: Yeah. Every so often we do need to stop and just reflect and see how we have grown, how we have changed. Why do you think so many people do give up? Is it just a practical thing, like they’re not making enough money or something like that, or they’re not getting the attention that they thought they were going to receive? What’s the main barrier?

James: Like with everything, it’s a mix of things. But I think it is the fact that the speed at which, success can be seen. Like, when we’re successful and we look back at it, it seems like it was so quick. But the process and the journey can often feel very slow when you’re on it.

And I think especially in this day, where attention spans are incredibly low and everyone wants sort of immediate sort of fulfilment of things, and everyone often has access to immediate fulfilment of things, then the fact that something may take three years, four years, five years to even see a sign of progression can be really disheartening, and people will think, well, why waste my time on something like that?

Oli: There’s a kind of, misconception that people have, I think, and you’ve kind of alluded to it, where people, they perceive life as just the events. So, like, one day they’re going to have the event of an album coming out or the event of going viral or the event of something, but they never really look at the underlying process.

And I think if you’re not engaged in that process, then obviously you’re not going to be able to be persistent, because the only thing you can persist in is all of those little actions, all those little habits that are going to carry you from where you currently are to where you want to be?

And do you find that part of you getting the results that you want with the music stuff that you’re doing is actually just dealing with that, like the cause and effect almost, rather than, yeah, you know, a lot, a lot of musicians, a lot of artists, when they set an outer lease, they’re very romantic about it, and they focus on all of the performance of it and the expression of it and all these things that are important. But actually, that’s kind of just the tip of the iceberg, and it’s all this underlying work, actually, that is going to make the biggest difference. Do you know?

James: Yeah, absolutely.

People often romanticise music careers, but there’s also hard work involved

I think you brought something up really fantastic there, which was like the romanticisation of a music career or any sort of creative thing. People think, I’m going to play my first gig, and then on that first gig there’ll be a record label executive, and then they’ll sign me, and then two weeks later, I’m hitting number one. And the thing is, it can be a very romantic in terms of both ways, I suppose, but it can be very sort of, wow, I’m, up on stage. I’m playing to all these people. It’s amazing.

But I think you’re right. The thing that people often forget is that there’s such a slog also involved. It’s not just being up on stage, covered in glitter, dancing around. It’s also spending hours each day emailing venues that maybe won’t reply, emailing things, editing things, writing the songs, practicing, and all of that can often go sort of hidden from the public.

All the public will see is someone playing a show or someone releasing a song, and they’ll think, “God, that’s a pretty, cushy life. That seems quite fun” – and it is fun, and it’s very fulfilling, but it is also hard work. And that’s what people, I think, often get turned off by how much of a commitment it is. Like, you really need to want it.

Oli: Yeah. Let’s pick this romanticism apart a little bit. Because I think initially, a lot of people, when they’re attracted to artistic or creative projects, it is because of that romance. They think finally they’re going to get an opportunity to be seen by the world, or to express something in the world, or to stand up and be real in the world, whatever it is.

And because the only way you can actually get results in anything, whether it’s art or creativity or business or whatever, the only way you can get results is by working with reality itself, which is what we’re basically talking about, like cause and effect, and putting the work in and exertion of effort and all that kind of stuff. Then a lot of people, they end up finding that the project is eventually going to ask them to question themselves, which the original romance was an attempt to escape from. Do you know what I mean?

We romanticize things because it’s a way of kind of compensating for, our feelings of shame or whatever it is that’s going on inside us, or some inner emotional thing, ultimately. And, the work itself is something that can help us to process that stuff. But it seems like a lot of people get turned off by that because of the way it asks them to confront themselves. I don’t know if I’ve been too, harsh or critical, but have you seen that or have you experienced?

James: Yeah, no, I would absolutely agree. I think the best artists are very in touch with their emotions, very honest with themselves. They know how they feel, and they know that to create some of the best work is to channel that.

Obviously, that’s not always the case, because there are some fantastic artists who are very good at creating stories, and that’s a separate talent altogether. But for artists, for any artist, they’ve got to be in touch with their emotions.

They got to understand, themselves. And often the art can come from going through that journey of understanding. They don’t need to come fully formed. They can kind of, progress and develop and evolve. for example, David Bowie, a famous sort of chameleonic artist, and a lot of that was probably him working through whatever he was going through in his life at the time. And it’s reflecting that in the work he puts out.

But I think in terms of anything emotional, it can be scary. It can be scary to dive in and then to bear it to everyone, not just to deal with it yourself and go through it and look at it and see it for what it is, but to, then share it with a whole crowd of strangers and hope that they respect it, understand it, enjoy it. That can be a tough food.

A lot of performance can mask a lot of emotions.

Oli: I suppose what I was getting at as well, though, is do you think a lot of the romanticism that we’ve kind of talked about is an attempt not to confront our emotions, but to hide from them? It’s almost like it’s an escape to some degree. And in a way, that kind of romance, it attracts people to artistic, or creative projects, but actually it also kills and blocks the creative drives that are going to allow them to make something that’s actually real in the way that you’re talking about.

James: Yeah, that is very true. That is very true. And I think a lot of performance can sort of. This is a slight tangent, but it’s sort of in the same ballpark in that a lot of performance, ah. And ways that people perform can mask a lot of emotions and a lot of real personality, because on stage, an artist might become more of a tool for the song, more of a dispensing machine than the actual emotion.

So, an example that comes to mind is Freddie Mercury, who on stage, very brash, very confident, very sort of charged off stage, a very shy, introverted person. And one could argue that when he’s on stage, his whole reason to be on that stage is to communicate the songs to the audience. M he’s not being himself as a person. He’s not being emotionally truthful. He might feel really awful on the day. But when he’s on that stage, he has to show the audience those songs, and he has to make them connect with the audience.

Oli: Yeah. This is opening up that whole kind of worms around the artist versus the person, so to speak, in a way, what you just said is really important, and it’s really true. I remember when we had a pre-chat out before the podcast. That’s ultimately what we’re talking about, right?

James: Absolutely.

Oli: If you write a song, and, it’s an expression of some emotional stuff that you’re going through, it’s allowing you to face those emotions and to deal with them and go through the process of catharsis and all that kind of thing, then by the time you share that song with the world, you may no longer be feeling those kind of emotions.

But because that song basically encapsulates those emotions, then when it goes out into the world, then it’s going to trigger those kind of emotions in other people, or it’s going to trigger other things and allow them to think whatever it is that they need to think and feel whatever is they need to think based on their stuff, because we all interpret art through our own egos and identities and everything anyway.

But then if an artist ends up on stage exactly like you said, they may not be feeling that song, but they want to keep it going for the connection with the audience. In a way, when it gets to that point, it’s almost like the song or the piece of art has a life of its own. The artist’s job is not to be themselves on the stage in that particular case, but to express something that they once felt, but not by feeling it, but almost just by poking the fires to keep it going a little bit – if that makes sense. And if that is true in many cases, then what does that tell us about the artist versus the product that they create versus the, person themselves?

James: Yeah. Well, for me, I think in that situation, the person, not the person, the artist, becomes a brand. So if they’re on a tour, if they’re on this year long tour, a gig every night, they are representing the brand, which, whatever their artist’s name is. So they might be Elton John. He is Elton John when he’s on that stage.

And every night he has to deliver what the brand is. The thing is, you don’t see Balenciaga being sad one night and then happy. The consistency, it’s a timelessness, and that is what they’re selling. They’re selling. This is a song when it was released, and it is the same song throughout history, and no matter when it’s performed, it will be that song.

Oli: Wow Yeah. In a way, it’s a brand promise. Like a brand in many ways. It’s just a bunch of promises. And one of them is exactly what you said about being consistent, delivering an experience and a set of values and all that kind of stuff. So, what you just said is actually kind of genius because the brand, it brings it all together, like the art, the person and the artist as they show up on stage.

So when it comes to you then and your stuff, what is your brand? I guess. How did you decide what it was going to be all about? How is it an expression of maybe a higher version of you or something like that, I suppose. What are you trying to do with your brand in that kind of context?

James: I think my brand is basically, it’s communicating everything that I enjoy in music. The sort of aesthetic and the style is very 70s, very sort of classic rock, classic music, iconic, sort of front frontmen and frontwomen, that kind of vibe. But I think the music is just…Whatever excites me. Just energetic and fun and sort of – I like a timelessness with things like how you can listen to some fantastic songs from the. They still stand up.

I love that kind of element where a song doesn’t have to be sort of steeped in the era in which it’s created. It can kind of just last.

Oli: I think that is so important, that timelessness. Normally on this podcast, I get very philosophical and I always just end up saying the same thing, which is that the human, experience is a journey from a state of fragmentation, where we kind of split and divided in ourselves, and we have to move towards wholeness, basically, where we’re more connected to who we really are, more connected to other people and more connected to life.

I think the way that we do that is by tapping into the timeless or, universal sides of just the human experience. And if we can do that, we realize that the universal and timeless stuff is the same for every single one of us.

But our journey, absolutely, our journey into it is particular and specific. And I think that the best art, the best creative projects show us what that timelessness is, but they bring us into it through the unique experience of the artist, ultimately. And it shows us absolutely how our experience relates to that.

And so what you’re tapping into is exactly that, right? Like, you’ve got the timelessness of, I guess, energy and just the human experience and all that kind of thing. But you’re bringing people into it with the things that you specifically like, based on the things that you’ve experienced in your life and all that kind of thing. But it’s all about bringing people back to that connection, I guess, to themselves and to wholeness.

Success as an artist is always dependent on an audience.

So I guess the question I want to ask is what promises are you making for your audience in that kind of a context? So we said the brand is a bunch of promises. You’re bringing people together, around a specific, timeless sort of energy, let’s say. Yeah, there are certain promises that you’re making to them by doing that. If I’m not making this too, intellectualized.

James: No, absolutely. Yeah. I think, well, there’s something that I say at, the start of every live gig I do, and it’s after the first few songs, I’m talking to the audience for the first time. I say for the next half hour, 45 minutes, however long the set is, our job on this stage is to entertain you. I want you all to leave completely entertained. I want you to go away thinking, that was a fantastic show. And I think that kind of embodies the brand.

Promise not to be vague on it, but just entertainment. And anything I put out, music or Instagram reels or TikToks or any form of content, I’m always just thinking, I want people to laugh at this, enjoy the music, or think, that’s a great picture, great. Know any form of the James Sebastian brand that they experience. I want them to go away and think, “You know what? I want to see more of that.” And it’s a promise of kind of, if they enjoy it, then they will get more of that and kind of crafting this brand based on people’s enjoyment of it.

Oli: Yeah, in a way, it doesn’t have to be that complicated, does it? Like, if you just promise, right, every show you come to, every piece of content I put out there is going to entertain you, it’s going to add value, then that is enough for you to build a real connection with your audience.

James: Precisely, yeah. Because when I’m m on stage, I’m throwing myself about, I’m sweating, I take my shirt off, I’ve got glitter on, and I’m like, if all of this is ticking the boxes for people that come and they come back, then I’m going to do that every single time and I’ll do even more if it brings more people. And it’s just that commitment to saying, look, I’m here to perform, and you guys tell me, not tell me, but you guys indicate which things you prefer. And we’re going to hone this into the absolute perfect watching experience, listening experience, the whole shebang.

Oli: It is a two way relationship, isn’t it? Like you’re performing for yourself in a way. I’m assuming when you’re on stage, we’ll get into it. Maybe when you’re on stage, you’re expressing a more real version of yourself, or you’re expressing sides of yourself that you can always experience, but also the audience is kind of giving you feedback about whether or not you should keep following that thread, I guess, if that makes sense. Yeah, the feedback is like you said, if people keep coming back, then you’ve found that sweet spot almost. It’s like there’s a calibration that’s constantly taking place. Something.

James: Yeah, definitely. Because, all artists, any artist, no matter how popular, big or small, the audience, you are accountable to your audience. And success as an artist is always dependent on an audience. Obviously, you need people to, if we’re talking music, you need people to listen to your songs. If you’re an actor, you want people to come and watch your things. And it’s all that kind of.

You have to be sort of in sync with your fans and the people that enjoy what you do, and you have to appreciate them and reach out to them and say, are you liking what’s coming out? Are you not liking it? what kind of things are you wanting to hear? And obviously, like with anything in life, you can’t please everyone. If you tried to please everyone, you would get nothing done.

Yeah, but the beauty of talking to a fan base and an audience that knows you is they know you. And it’s kind of self-explanatory because they know you and they know what you put out. And if you deviate from that too far and if you go a bit strange or a bit wild or you have a breakdown or something, they’re there to kind of pull you back and say, don’t worry, we know we’re connected with you in this. We listen to the songs that you’ve put out. We know who you are, we’ve seen you perform, we know who you are. And it doesn’t matter that you’ve gone and done a strange spoken word album or something like that, come back here. And it’s a collaborative thing. At the end of the day, with an audience.

Oli: It’s actually amazing what you just said. It’s a collaboration about shaping and moulding you into being the best version of yourself in a strange.

James: Absolutely, yeah.

Oli: They connect with you initially around either the entertainment value that you’re putting out on stage or something that they connect to in your songs. That sets the tone of the relationship in relation to the brand promises and all that stuff we were talking about. And if you deviate too far from that, they’re basically going to call you back to yourself.

Because in a way, let’s say hypothetically, right, you have a depressive episode or something, something goes wrong in life and you end up creating like a spoken word album, like you said. And it’s the most maudlin, depressing thing you can imagine. You’re feeling sorry for yourself, whereas the audience know that is not who you really are.

James: Exactly.

Oli: Yeah. The feedback you would get, it’s almost going to be like a wakeup call to bring you back to yourself. And so that two way relationship is about them leading you, but also you leading them to some extent.

Like initially you’re setting the tone of the whole thing, the whole community, but they’re protecting it. They’re protecting the boundaries of it, basically by the collective feedback that they give you. That’s really powerful. But is there like a fine line?

How do you maintain that relationship whilst maintaining your own integrity and also not pandering to the audience too much? What I mean is some artists, I assume if that is the dynamic, could end up becoming like people pleasers – they could become a people pleaser, in relation to their audience. And so eventually, the audience might lose respect for them or something because they’re pandering too much.

There’s a sweet spot, I guess, where you’re still going in your own direction, you are leading the way and, you’re taking them with you. But at the same time they’re giving you feedback about whether that’s the direction they want to move in.

James: Something like that, for sure, because it’s not a fine art, obviously. There are, numerous albums which are released and critically panned at the time. And then 2030 years later, people look at them and go, actually, this is a fantastic body of work.

But I think they are often more. It’s because it’s sort of ahead of their time. That’s the thing with, with works like that is fans will appreciate it, but when they reach a certain point, and I think. I think the thing. The thing with a fan base and pandering to it is so much of the time, I think people would just appreciate good work, good art, and the thing that comes to mind is, Bob Dylan, who went through a bit of a bit of sort of dry creative spell in the late sixties to early seventies.

And the music, it didn’t sound like he was sort of committed to it. It sounded like he wasn’t really in the songs. They were sort of half hearted, half written songs, and there wasn’t much excitement in the recording. Then he recorded, an album called blood on the tracks. And it was a very much.

You could tell he was passionate about the songs. He had spent a long time recording them. He was in the studio doing it for months and months and months. And it was like, for the press, they weren’t a big fan of it, but the audience themselves loved it. And I think it’s so sort of indicative that if you put in a good performance, the audience is going to see that at some point or another, they’re going to go, you know what? That’s something. As opposed to a half-hearted album, which will probably never be praised at the same degree because there’s not anything in there that’s going to be seen eventually.

Oli: There was another incident with Bob Dylan, right, where he went electric or something like that that’s relevant as well.

James: Absolutely. I think it was the Newport Folk Festival of 1965, where he’d released four acoustic albums. He was the voice of a generation, this whole acoustic thing. And then suddenly he’s playing electric guitar, he’s got a backing band, and, one of the audience members, I think they famously shouted Judas from the crowd. And it was like, “Wow, he’s been turned on.”

And I think the problem with that was that the audience hadn’t heard the stuff. And it was almost a reaction to the brand completely changing. If you think about Bob Dylan, you do think folk singer, voice of a generation kind of thing. And then to suddenly have that ripped from under the audience’s feet, it’s a shock reaction.  

Over the years, they settled for it and it became part of him and he became a much more varied artist. But I think at the time, when you’ve built a crowd and an audience and a fan base from a specific brand, and then it’s such a sort of, such a twist, such an out of left field, they’re going to feel slightly somewhere between betrayed and just shocked.

Oli: Yeah, I think it goes back to the promise thing. Like, in a way, people, they expect certain things from brands, blah, blah, blah, but also the brands that we love and that we consistently use over the course of our lives. Our identities are invested in them as well.

You know, if we think we’re like a, hippie or whatever, listening to acoustic music and chilling out, and then suddenly Bob Dylan wheels out the electric guitar, then it’s not just the music that we’re concerned about. It’s our identity as a whole and our resistance to, I suppose, letting go of what we thought we had. And I suppose that, brings on this question of who owns the art, if that makes sense.

Once you’ve created something and it’s out there, it’s no longer just yours, is it? Like it ends up becoming this communal thing, and even the original meaning of it can become distorted or lost completely. Because absolutely, this identity problem, like everyone’s identifying with things, I think, in terms of who owns the art, it is whoever listens to it.

James: And that’s the difficulty as an artist. It’s sort of the flip side of the coin. So obviously, the artist is completely indebted to the audience and is completely accountable to them. But on the other hand, the audience has to respect that the artist is a creator. And you don’t want to shoehorn a creator, into a sort of safe space.

You never want them to be in their comfort zone because that’s when they make boring music. And if we take the Bob Dylan example, he’s done four albums of acoustic stuff and he’s thinking, am I going to do four more? Know, is this the dead horse I’m going to flog for the rest of my career?

But instead, he turns electric, creates a brand new sort of section of the Bob Dylan brand. And it’s the audience’s responsibility. Like, we said, it’s a two way thing. It’s the audience’s responsibility to almost give him the benefit of the doubt and say, “Okay, we’re invested in you as a brand, as a creator, and we’re going to let you try this new thing. We’re going to listen to it. If we enjoy it, then it becomes part of the thing. If we don’t, then we’re going to let you know we’re not going to enjoy it. And then, you’re going to have to go back to the drawing board.”

It’s kind of like the approval of the audience is a necessary thing for an artist, but they also need to feel, they need to be flexible in their understanding of how an artist works.

Oli: Yeah, there’s an element of trust. Like the audience has to trust that the artist is going to take them where they really need to go, even if they can’t see it. There’s always an aspirational element to the community that builds around an audience, around an artist, your audience that you’ve built, for example. They probably share a lot of similar aspirations. Let’s make it simple.

They might all share certain values, for example, that they want to do something with. Entertainment is an obvious one, creativity is an obvious one, etc. etc. Your job as the leader of that community that’s built around you is to take those values in a direction that’s going to serve everybody. And the audience really has to trust you to be able to do that.

And obviously, if they keep coming back like you’re saying, that’s the feedback, that the direction you’re going in is the right direction for them. And I suppose eventually that is going to probably involve that your sound might have to change, or you might have to go from acoustic to electric or whatever it is. Because if an artist does stagnate, like you’re saying, then there’s no longer a community because the community is going to lose direction. And so it is for sure something there about, ah, direction.

James: Absolutely. I mean, something that just came to mind while we were talking about that was, the sort of similarity. When you said like leader, the leadership of a section of a community, it kind of reminded me of, a sort of political thing where in a representative democracy, like we got in the UK, we elect politicians to represent us for a certain amount of time.

Four years, five, know, obviously they are trying to appeal to us, and if they appeal to us, then we support them. But then in supporting them, we have to say, okay, you have four years, five years to do what you can, okay? And we’re giving you that flexibility.

It’s almost a very similar thing with the artists in the audience in terms of you win an audience’s support in inverted commas, you get elected and then they’ve given you that time in office in government to be the leader, to run the community, run the country. However, whatever analogy fits, and then you will be re-elected if they like what you’ve done.

Oli: It really is that simple. It’s a great analogy. How would you say you might be leading your community in the terms we’ve been using? Have you got a direction that you see yourself taking people in? it might not be a conscious thing, but if you actually step back and break it down, is that actually what’s going on?

James: I think so. And I think it’s, it’s not necessarily a sort of big direction. I think it just boils down to that entertainment and that enjoyment. And personally, I love interacting with audiences. After shows, I’ll always go around and talk to as many people as possible on social media. I’ll always message new followers and sort of welcome them, and have a chat with them and see what music they like and see what connections we all have.

And I think it just breeds a much stronger community. and in terms of how that leads into the direction that we’re taking, I think as long as I’m enjoying doing it and they’re enjoying whatever it is I do, because I never want to nail myself down to something and say, this is the specific genre that I’m going to do. It’s more of an open freedom to say, I’m going to create music that I enjoy. As long as you guys also enjoy it. Then we’ve kind of got a fantastic thing going on here..

Oli: Yeah, if we take it to, a slightly deeper level than just the entertainment thing, which is, go for it, super valuable in itself. But if we look at it in terms of just basic human needs, what are you providing for people? Because it seems like obviously we’re all human and we’re talking about the universal and the specific and all that timeless energy that people crave, really.

Is it just about a sense of belonging or it’s a sense of being seen by other people or something like that? There is something deeply human going on, even though we kind of say, no, it’s just entertainment or whatever, it’s bigger than just that.

James: Absolutely. I think in terms of what I want to be to people, what I want to represent, to, people that come and join, I want to just be that person, that brand, that symbol that’s always there for people, especially on an outreach sort of level, so they might enjoy the music, but I want people to feel comfortable dropping me a message and just saying, just talking, about whatever they want to talk about.

I’ve got a few sort of friends on social media who developed from the music. You know, they. I met them through them following and saying, “I like this song”. And now they’re. Now they’re close friends, and that’s… I love that element of it. And I think as much as possible, I would just want to be on such a connected level with any fans so that no one ever felt alone. I think that would be wonderful to just be a, consistent person, consistent individual in everyone’s life.

Oli: So that is the direction, I guess, just bringing people together, in that real way, I suppose. Also, do you think there’s an element where, because you’re the leader of this community, in the language you keep using, there are going to be people in that audience. They’re kind of looking up to you on that stage covered in glitter and going a bit crazy or whatever and they want to be like that.

And in a way, you’re giving them permission, in a sense, to kind of absolutely free themselves a little bit as well. I think a lot of the time when people, they feel like they don’t belong and all that kind of stuff, it’s because they are holding back. And so they need somebody who’s got the balls, I guess, to just get out there, because if they can see somebody else doing it, they can see themselves doing for sure something like that.

James: That is so true, because I think I would love to inspire as many people as possible with my performances, with the music, because I am a confident person and that’s developed over the years.

Obviously, being on stage a lot and talking to tons of different people every night, you sort of know how to talk to large groups of people and how to be yourself in front of large groups of people and be eccentric and flamboyant and not be worried about what people think of you. And, it’d be so wonderful if even just one person sort of saw a show, went away and thought, “You know what? I’m going to wear what I want and not worry about what people think. I’m going to walk down the street with glitter on my cheeks and not worry about what people think.”

I think that’d be such a beautiful thing to have brought about for someone because the confidence is so fun for me, and it’s so fun to do that and to sort of introduce the ability to have that fun for someone else as well would be so cool..

Oli: Yeah, you’re modeling how to do that. It’s actually amazing.

James: Yeah.

Oli: That’s all most people want. I find they just want to stop caring about things that they know don’t matter, stop holding themselves back, stop hesitating with mental blocks and bullshit, basically.

So interesting. So we’ve covered a lot of stuff. I’m going to put the onus on you now to try and sum this all up. I don’t know if you’ve got any final words of wisdom based on everything we just discussed.

James: Words of wisdom.

Oli: No pressure. Can you let people know where they can find you as well, please?

James: Absolutely. Well, I’ll start with that. Just to get that out of the way. James Sebastian on Spotify. at James Seb music, all lowercase on Instagram and, TikTok and Twitter and Facebook. I’m literally everywhere. I’ve got so much music coming out, new stuff, gigs everywhere across the UK. So please do come and follow.

And in terms of words of wisdom, I think the most important thing in terms of music, audience, artist, all of what we’ve discussed is just, understanding yourself and the connection you have to music. And you don’t have to have it figured out. You don’t have to be there yet. That’s not what’s important. It’s feeling able to go to a show and connect with something and not be afraid to feel a song, not be afraid to see what an artist is doing and think, I love what they’re doing. I’m going to go and push for that as well, because that’s what they’re trying to entertain you. That’s all that they’re trying to do. And if they can inspire you as well, then that’s another cherry on top of the cake.

Oli: That’s awesome, James. Thank you so much.

James: Thank you so much, Oli.


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Digging Deeper into Burnout (Creative Status: Episode 71: Hiba Khaled)

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 as we delve into the complexities of burnout with the insightful Hiba Khaled, co-founder of Embers.

With a background as a physician in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and a Master’s degree in Medical Education from Harvard Medical School, Hiba brings a wealth of knowledge and personal experience to the conversation.

In this episode, titled “Digging Deeper into Burnout,” Hiba guides us through an exploration of what burnout truly signifies and how understanding it can lead to personal growth and authenticity.

Meet Hiba Khaled: Discover the journey of Hiba Khaled, a curriculum designer, leadership coach, and burnout specialist. Drawing from her own experience of recovering from burnout, Hiba is passionate about empowering clients in demanding careers to recover and thrive in both their work and lives.

Unveiling Burnout: Hiba sheds light on the multifaceted nature of burnout and its underlying causes. Explore how burnout serves as a symptom of deeper issues, and how understanding it can be a catalyst for personal growth and transformation.

Recovery and Empowerment: Learn from Hiba’s expertise as she shares practical strategies for recovering from burnout and building resilience.

Embracing Wellness: Discover the holistic approach to wellness advocated by Hiba, who finds solace in surfing, tea, and literature. Explore how embracing activities that nourish the mind, body, and soul can be instrumental in combating burnout and fostering authenticity.

Creative Status: Where Understanding Ignites Transformation

Tune in as we uncover the underlying causes of burnout and explore practical strategies for recovery and empowerment.

This episode is your guide to understanding burnout and embracing wellness as a pathway to REALNESS and fulfillment in both work and life.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

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Digging Deeper into Burnout (Show Transcript)

This podcast is about using your creativity to improve your life

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status, this podcast about using your creativity to improve your life by diving into the darkest parts of yourself, the lightest parts of yourself to some extent, so that you can make the unconscious conscious and integrate whatever it is that you may have been hiding from yourself behind false identities, false beliefs, false loyalties, all those kind of false things that we identify with and attach to that can hold us back from real life.

Every episode of the show, I like to interview somebody who has something new or interesting or deep to say about the human condition so that we can understand it more. Because at the end of the day: real always works. And if you can have a better understanding of reality and the human condition and what it means to be human, then you can improve your relationship with your own humanity and get better results from it.

Today’s interview is with Hiba Khaled. She is an expert, on burnout. She’s a coach that helps people to figure out why they’re feeling burned out in the first place, what the burnout is a symptom of. Maybe it’s a symptom, for example, of some deeper, disconnection from themselves. Maybe they’re pushing too hard because they’ve got some beliefs that they think are, going to save them or whatever it is. We get into all of that.

Hiba has some amazing analogies that she uses to help you understand and simplify the concepts. And hopefully by the end of this, you’ll be less likely to get burned out because you understand the mechanics of it. You’ll keep flowing, you’ll keep growing, and you’ll live the life that you want to live.

So, Hiba, thank you so much for this conversation. Everybody else, hope you get some value from this and that it helps you with your own goals and your own growth. To realness. Here we go. Thanks a bunch. Boom.

Interview

Oli: Oh, hi there, Heba – thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status.

We’re going to be talking about burnout, which is your area of expertise. before we get into it, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people how you ended up working in this area in the first place, and also maybe sharing what you want to get out of this conversation that we’re about to have?

Hiba Khaled: Sure. Thank you so much for having me. So I’m Hiba Khaled. I am a former physician in the NHS. I used to be an anesthesiologist or anesthetist in the UK, and now, through my own personal experience of burnout I am now helping individuals and organizations recover from and prevent burnout.

That’s the short Cliff Notes version of the introduction. yeah, I’m super excited to talk to you and, maybe explore how burnout is just a symptom of a much deeper, of much deeper issues and much deeper consciousness, I guess, in some ways.

Oli: Wow. I’m, happy that you say that, because I like exploring these deeper issues. Before we get into it, what is your definition of burnout?

Burnout is defined as chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed

It seems like a lot of people these days are talking about how burned out they are. Like, all over the place, everyone’s burned out. What exactly do they mean normally when they say that, if that’s not too simple of a question.

Hiba: Yeah. So the WHO (World Health Organisation) has its own definition of burnout as an occupational phenomenon. So it’s defined as, resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. And they define it using three dimensions: feelings,  energy, depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job. So disengagement, feeling, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy.

So that’s the official, definition of burnout. But burnout itself manifests in many different ways. So there’s obviously the physical manifestations of feeling, exhausted, not sleeping well, kind, of reduced quality of sleep or having trouble falling asleep – it’s really a spectrum, where it starts and kind of like where you could end up. And it could encompass anything from anxiety. If it’s really severe, it can lead to depression, and then it could also just be, like, feeling irritable.

Cynicism is actually one of the biggest predictors of, burnout, which I was kind of surprised to see. But then it kind of makes sense that when we’re not feeling engaged or when we’re feeling exhausted, we can tend to be more cynical than normal. So that’s kind of one of the earliest predictors of burnout in a lot of the research.

Oli: Right. I better be careful, then, because I’m quite a cynical person. I don’t want to end up burning up. That’s interesting in itself, because it seems to me like, actually, people are a lot more cynical these days, just in general, about the state of the modern workplace, which is where a lot of your work, I’m assuming it’s focused, but also just the state of the world in general. It seems like cynicism is on the rise.

And I suppose there’s a question there about sometimes, is cynicism justified? If that makes sense, like depending on what’s going on externally or is it always just one of these things where our mindset ultimately is going to affect the levels of stress that we’re feeling and all that kind of thing? It seems almost like if cynicism is built into the definition, then it’s kind of externalizing…Sorry, it’s internalizing everything and it’s putting responsibility on person, if that makes sense.

Hiba: No, I want to address that question in a second. I just want to make a comment about, what you said. I’m cynical. What you were just saying about yourself being cynical. I lived in the UK for twelve years and I noticed the cynicism is part of the culture in the UK and I wondered about that for a while because when I first moved there, I was very joyful and kind of positive and upbeat. And then by the time I left, twelve years later, I was like, I think it’s the weather.

Oli: Yeah, I think the weather contributes to it. We can blame the class system as well, to some extent. Also though, I think we just think it’s cool to be cynical if we’re too idealistic and trying to bring, I don’t know, love and peace and all those kind of things to the human race. That is kind of frowned upon in the UK for some reason.

But I think in the heart of every cynic is just an idealist that’s been disappointed. So maybe it’s that like the UK is just very disappointing because of the weather and then everything else kind of, stems from that. Something like that.

Hiba: Yeah, that could be it. So to answer your question about, cynicism, like putting the responsibility on the individual rather than some of the external factors, I think it’s both. Obviously, the way we approach kind of burnout is not, we cannot control.The external factors around us. There’s no way we can control what’s happening outside of us. But the thing that we can control, that we have control over, is our reaction to the stress around us.

Oli: Yes.

Hiba: So for example, in this moment in time as we’re, we’re, we’re living in a moment in time where climate change is super real and the effects of climate change are extremely relevant and we see it every day. I’m here in New York. There’s a tiny bit of snow, but it’s like February. It can be a lot snowier than that and a lot cooler temperatures. So we can see and sense the effects of these very serious issues.

There’s currently like a war in the Middle east, there’s, really people in, parts of Africa and Asia are going through, displacement. And there’s always something happening around the world that’s going to cause us to feel like despair, a sense of despair, and feel like, a little bit hopeless about the state of the world. And I think those things we can definitely question and definitely challenge. And it’s not necessarily our responsibility.

Well, it is like we all have individual responsibility to all of these things happening around the world. But it’s not, for example, each of our individual responsibility that the war broke out in, the Middle East. But we all have, obviously, a connection to that, event, wherever we are in the world, because it is like a human thing that’s happening but we can control our reaction to our external circumstances.

And that’s really, where the individual responsibility comes in. And how do we build capacity within ourselves to withhold the pressures outside of us and to stay grounded in and to, be able to have the capacity to see, more options available to us instead of when we are feeling burnt out. We tend to have very low capacity to see a wider perspective. We tend to be really binary in the way we see things. Like it’s usually this or that, and it’s usually at the extremes of the spectrum. So whether it’s like the fight or fret flight response, because we don’t have enough capacity to process or, see more, if that makes sense. So then we tend to lose our sense of curiosity, our sense of empathy, and then our decision making tends to be affected, too. So that’s why it’s really important to build the capacity within ourselves, because we can’t control everything happening outside of us.

Oli: I totally agree with you. And even though I was kind of joking about being a cynic, I think we can train ourselves to stay grounded in that sense of self or realness that you were talking about, where we’re not just reacting to everything that happens and filtering it through our identity, but we’re staying grounded in the truth, ultimately.

And the truth is that all those cognitive distortions that we keep experiencing when we are reacting to all this stuff going on in the world, like black and white thinking or catastrophizing and all that stuff, all those things, if we keep, filtering everything through our identity and our attachment to the cynical things that we perceive in the world, they’re holding us back from the flow of life, ultimately.

And I think if we hold ourselves back from the flow of life in that way, that’s when we end up becoming burned out, because I think burning ourselves out is when we cling to some conceptual idea or ideas about ourselves, the world, and reality. And by clinging to those ideas, we end up creating more stress than is actually necessary. I think some stress is good in life because it keeps us growing. If we can find the sweet spot and we’re not making ourselves panic, but if we filter all of our stress through the ego and then create more stress for ourselves, then we just end up making the problem way worse.

And I think there’s something there when it comes to burnout, which is exactly what you said. It’s about our reactions to life, ultimately, and how it’s causing us to cling to those kind of unreal ideas, or maybe even an unreal relationship with life, if that makes sense.

Holding on to certain identities can contribute to burnout.

So if it does make sense, maybe it’s a good time to bring in, the deeper problems that you talked about of, consciousness and all that kind of thing. It seems like burnout, ultimately, is the symptoms we get when we’re not accepting life actually something like that, or we’re not being as present as maybe we could be?

Hiba: Yeah, I think, burnout can happen basically without our awareness of it happening. I think sometimes it just kind of creeps in on us, and we just get to a point where, things just don’t feel right. We feel a lot of tension and then maybe start to feel a little bit more anxious about where we are in life. And at least that’s what I see with a lot of my clients is like, anxiety is actually a pretty prevalent symptom that I see, or this feeling of disconnect, of, like, this is where I want to be, but this is where I am.

And I don’t know if it’s possible. I’m sick of feeling tired or I’m sick of feeling undervalued. and those are things I also experienced in my own experience of burnout. I think I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. And, I felt a little disconnect between, wow, when I thought about becoming a doctor and when I was in medical school, I had a different vision of, what it looked like versus what I’m experiencing in this moment. And I was just kind of told to kind of hold on and wait for it to get better.

It will get better eventually, and I’m sure it would, but it just felt like a long time to kind of stay in the suffering or stay in the feeling of, like, okay, I must feel bad for x amount of years, and then it’ll eventually get better. It just felt like I was like, is that the way to live life? I don’t know if this is what I want to wait, to feel excited again or wait to feel rested again, or wait to feel joyful again. I was just like, I think I want that sooner than in a few years’ time.

And, I think what you said earlier about kind of us holding on to certain identities and, loyalties to certain ideas or beliefs can contribute to burnout, for sure. I think for me, this is a lot of the work we do with embers is, really trying to, once we help you feel grounded. So our first step of our coaching program on the one on one is to kind of centre you and make you feel grounded in your wellbeing and in your health.

Really, the foundation of everything is health. So how do we ensure that you’re feeling healthy? Because health is really the real wealth. And we reconnect you with the things that make you feel good within yourself or make you feel deterred and grounded. And after we kind of build that foundation, then we start going through the process of. I don’t want to call it destabilizing you, but it’s almost like challenging you to really think about the identities, loyalties and hungers for validation, belonging, significance, that really, reinforce or protect you from burnout.

And through that discovery process of all of those things, we can then usually conserve, like, 90% to 95% of everything because it served you in your life and it continues to serve you. But then there’s the five to 10% of those identities, loyalties and hungers that are reinforcing your burnout. And those are the ones then we work through to renegotiate and really let go of or reinvent, because, yeah, they’re no longer serving us. And that process of letting go and of releasing some of those things can be quite a challenging one for most people.

Oli: That’s really interesting. So the way that I like to think about all this stuff is when people are disconnected, from themselves because of underlying shame and guilt and trauma and emotional stuff, they end up creating this false identity that they take out into the world. And that leads to the kind of feeling of the void, like an existential kind of itch that they don’t quite know how to scratch, that just follows them through life.

And it’s exactly what you said: It’s because their expectations haven’t been met and they don’t have the energy that they feel they’re going to have. And there’s just something missing. And we try and fill that void with things in the world. Like we try and fill it with our career or with a partner or whatever it is. The things that we try and fill it with, they can be good things if we have a healthy relationship with them, but if we put them on a pedestal and treat them as been the most important thing, then it just creates more friction and it can lead to more burnout.

And so it’s really interesting that your coaching program starts with just that reconnection, because actually, that’s why I think the void exists. We become disconnected. And so the first step is always to reconnect. When we do reconnect, we get this feeling of realness. We put ourselves back in the flow of life that I was talking about earlier: we’re moving with the natural drive that we all have towards wholeness or actualization or individuation, or whatever you want to call it. And we start to feel a, deeper connection to ourselves, but also to life itself. And we can see in that state that some of the things, like you said, that we’re trying to fill the void with are actually completely unreal, or we have an unhealthy relationship with them.

And exactly like you said as well, it may only be a small percentage of the things that we’ve got in our lives that we’ve tried to fill the void with, but the impact that they’re having in terms of our energy and our general feeling of cynicism or wherever else as we go throughout the day is massive.

So that five to 10% of things that you’ve noticed, people kind of struggling with that, are causing a lot of these problems. Are there any patterns? Like, what kind of things normally would you say? Is it that they’ve kind of added to their lives to fill the void, which is actually making it worse?

Hiba: I just want to touch on something you just said and then I’ll answer your question. I think what you said about people putting on false identities to go out into the world, I think that has a purpose, right? Like, that has a function and a purpose. I think most people are like, it’s human nature to want to feel like we belong to a group of people, right?

Like, this sense of belonging and this hunger for belonging is really real and necessary. We’re social creatures, and I think many of us in our lives, we go through life, seeking that sense of belonging, whether it’s through our careers or our social circles or communities, our, families, right? And that can make us kind of compromise some of ourselves in order to fit in with a group, which is like, again, just a survival thing in some ways, because we need that to feel like we belong to someone or to something. and that can cause us then hide parts of ourselves in a way that makes us feel disconnected from ourselves.

To get back to your original question of what are the five to 10% of things that I see patterns in? And I think that’s one of them, is this disconnect from who we are. I feel like I had dreams. This is often what I hear. Like, I had dreams to be this and that, and now I’m just doing this. And another thing that becomes, prevalent through these stories that we tell ourselves is it’s not possible for me to be beyond this point or that point.

I don’t feel this feeling of imposter syndrome, of like, yeah, I had one client who, when she came to me, was being encouraged to go for a promotion, and she was hesitant because she felt like she wasn’t ready. And within four sessions of working together now she’s just like, I’m going to get this promotion, and this is the next promotion I want to work on in the next year and a half. That’s what I feel like I want to do.

So what we were able to do, or what she was able to do, because really, I was just facilitating the process, is, build this level of trust within herself again. And that was one of her biggest goals, is, how do I create trust within myself to not take everyone’s advice or expectations and make it my guiding star or my North Star?

How do I reconnect with myself in order to gain confidence and trust that I’m making good decisions for myself? And she was able to do that, and it was incredibly inspiring to witness. so that’s another thing. It’s just like this feeling of disconnection from self, this feeling of not being good enough, or this impostor syndrome of like, this is kind of like, I’m going to settle for these things because this is as far as I can go in life.

Or another pattern, like I mentioned earlier, is just this increased sense of anxiety where it just feels like. But I think it’s just a symptom of this disconnect and this desire to reconnect with ourselves. And I think a lot of the things we do in life are, whether it’s like, the jobs we do or the people we meet or the friendships we have or the relationships we have, it’s just we are on this everlasting journey of learning more about ourselves through other people and through experiences that we have.

So all of it is just kind of like we seek these things, whether through relationships, experiences, or work, to really just learn more about ourselves and reconnect with who we are at our core. So I think that’s just kind of like one of the things that.

Oli: Yeah, totally. I think that is the main issue. I would say if people are getting really burned out, they’re getting really stressed, then they’ve lost balance somehow. And the only way we can lose balance in many ways is because we’re chasing things that are not aligned with who we really are or, what we’re all about. And that always comes down to that fundamental disconnection.

I would go so far as to say that that is the only problem, really, in most people’s lives. Anything else is a symptom of that. So it can still be a problem, but it’s not the main problem. And it’s really a journey for everybody of returning to themselves in the way that you’re talking about so that they can trust themselves and to believe in themselves to go and get the things that they actually want, because they’re not being held back by self-limiting beliefs caused by shame and the false identity and all that kind of stuff that puts a limit on people and it caused them to hesitate and hold back. But also, once, they’ve learned to trust themselves, they can learn to trust life as well.

I think that’s the next level. First, we trust ourselves, which means that we can just do our best. We can take all the actions that are within our, remit of control, but then eventually we’ll realize that we can’t control life 100%. So we have to let go a little bit and trust life. And I think a lot of the time when people are getting burned out, it’s because they need to recalibrate those two relationships with themselves at the level of trust, with life as well.

So, for example, if we don’t trust life and we think it’s all up to us – that’s when we can become really neurotic. And we just end up trying to force everything by ourselves. Like, we think that we’re basically omniscient and omnipotent. We know everything, how everything’s going to work out. We have full power over our lives, and we’re just kind of like attacking life constantly, like a pneumatic drill, trying to get it to change, but actually we can’t.

There’s a big element of living a real life that is about letting go and surrendering. And if you’re too attached to those false identities and those false loyalties and all of the things that we’ve built on top of the void to try and fill it, like an unhealthy relationship with our career or whatever it is that we think is going to give us that feeling of peace, then we end, up kind of burning ourselves out. That’s what I think.

And so it’s all about friction and too much tension and too much stress. And if we can understand those basic building blocks and mechanics of how that works, then we can let go of a lot of stuff, basically. I think that’s the solution. So if that is aligned with your experience, what kind of things do we need to start letting go of in order to still get results, but to avoid burning out?

Hiba: I think this need for control that you’re describing, like forcing things or trying to foster trust with life, I think it’s a lot harder to do for a lot of people when they’re feeling, stressed. Because when we feel stressed, we feel like we’re out of control, have control over things. So we then try to overcompensate and try to, try to regain control and then try to really try grasp at forcing things a certain way or controlling what we can.

Because when we feel stressed or burnt out, things are feeling so out of control. And so again, it’s like a very natural response to. I’m not saying it’s like a healthy response, but it’s a very natural response to the stress people feel because none of us like to feel like we’re out of control or a lot of us really struggle with navigating uncertainty and nothing really is that certain in life. I think we tend to think that there’s more certainty in life and we can get more certainty in life than we actually have. I think that’s like, a false illusion, but for an illusion, I guess, to, how we view life. so, what was your original question? How do we let go of?

Oli: Yeah, well, what do we need to let go of? And, well, you’ve kind of started answering it actually with the illusion thing. So one thing we need to let go of, definitely is the illusions.

Our natural reactions to life are to avoid uncertainty and to try and control things and all that kind of stuff. But like you’ve kind of suggested that is an illusion. Because actually the nature of life the nature of reality is that we can’t control everything. There’s more uncertainty than certainty. And if we try and treat life as we’d like it to be rather than how it is, that’s when we end up reacting instead of responding, like you were saying at the start of the conversation.

And so letting go of our illusions, I would say, is one thing that we need to train ourselves to do, and obviously it is hard, which is why you have to train ourselves to do it. But yeah, the question was, what kind of things like that do we need to let go of so we can start living in this way you’re talking about and still get results, but not burn ourselves out by forcing everything.

Hiba: I like what you said about developing trust with life because I think that’s an important component of it. Letting go of the need to always be right, letting go of the need to always feel like I need to be the one who controls this or make this happen to me. It’s really like, I don’t believe personally, necessarily, that we should do nothing and allow the life to happen to us.

Yeah, I think it’s more like, how can I be clear about what it is, what my purpose is, how can I be clear about the direction I want my life to be? What are the things that bring me joy? Because really, joy is the antidote to burnout – so what are the things that bring me joy?

What is it that I want for myself in my life, and how do I want to be of service in this life? And I think that’s our job, to be clear on that. And then really, I think without clarity, it’s hard for us to, have direction once we’re clear. I think we need to let go of the need of. I think the what and the why of why we do anything in life should be our main objective on gaining clarity on the how. I think the how becomes a lot easier to figure out once you’re clear on the what and why and the how. I think that’s when we need to really be flexible on, how things happen and how things kind of unfold for us.

I was an anesthesiologist or anesthetist, sorry, in the UK. I’m, now living in the US. but in my experience, I picked that specialty because I had a lot of control. I picked that specialty because I knew that every medicine I gave, every drug I gave had a reaction that was predictable and more or less predictable. Obviously, you get the once off, allergic reaction and that’s like, unpredictable.

But even still, I can predict that that isn’t a, ah, possibility, and I know what to do if that happens. The fact I had control in my, for any physiological parameter that went off, I had a drug to counter it, or I had a drug that would make something happen in a predictable way. I like the fact that my patients were asleep for general anesthetics during surgery, and I had control over their breathing.

Like, I put them on a ventilator and control the settings where I was, like, delivering a certain amount of oxygen and controlling how much pressure, each breath gave them. So in that sense, I had a real need for control, and that’s part of the reason I chose the specialty. I felt like I had a great sense of control, and then realizing kind of like, I’m just using that as an example for how much I wanted control in my life, and to the point where my specialty decision was affected, becoming an emergency medicine doctor, was not an option for me, because I didn’t like the chaos of emergency medicine.

You couldn’t really predict exactly what was coming in. And it’s also funny, because when things were unpredictable at work, that’s when I felt the most in tune and the most alive, in terms of an emergency came in, and I had to be the anesthetist to sort it out. It was, like, the most exciting part of my work. It was also nice to have 95% of the job be boring and predictable in that sense, because a boring day is a good day for patients, right?

Like, nothing bad happens. You don’t have anything to discuss, or notable to discuss. But in terms of those emergencies that came in, it just made me really sharpen my focus in a lot of ways, because it made me then just kind of think in a different way and show up in a different way.

So it’s like, if I were to use that analogy of when I didn’t have full control over the situation or when things were unpredictable, that’s when actually work got a little bit more interesting. And I think, in general, from my life experience in the last 38 years, the times where I had the most fun and the most fulfilment and the most joy were times when I was more relaxed and at ease and kind of like, let go of the grips of controlling everything, because life surprised me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. And, yeah, I think the process of learning how to let go is one of the most important things we could learn as human beings.

Oli: Wow, that analogy is really powerful because it shows, in a way, that we’re built for the chaos. It’s all about balance, really what we’re talking about. I guess we don’t want so much chaos that it just destroys everything that we know and care about. But we need a little bit of uncertainty so we can kind of bring our own need for order to it and kind of ride with reality instead of against it.

And I think what you said about, we have to take some action. Like, we can’t just leave everything to the universe and be so open minded that, our brains fall out, because that is a lack of balance as well. It’s finding the sweet spot between the order and the chaos, which sounds very pretentious, but basically, if we do nothing, then we’re going to end up stressing ourselves out because life is going to keep moving around us, and then eventually we’re going to have to catch up. But if we do too much, then we’re going to end up forcing life in the way that we’ve been talking about.

And all of the constructs that we’ve been forcing life through are eventually going to get shattered, and we’re going to end up in the same place as if we do nothing, which is hitting rock bottom to some extent, and having to get back into that natural rhythm and rebuild. And so we as human beings, feel most alive where, when we’ve got some control, even if it’s just knowing where we want to end up, like our ultimate vision for our lives.

But we kind of let go, like you were saying, of the how that’s going to happen. And we just kind of navigate reality day by day and keep moulding it in alignment with that vision that we’ve got for ourselves. And if we can do that, then we’re not going to be passive because we’re still moving forward, but we’re not going to be so forceful with the action that we do take that we end up stressing ourselves out and burning ourselves out because we’re trying to act on our identity instead of acting on becoming whatever it is that we’re trying to become, if that makes sense. And so is it fair to say, ultimately, that burnout is a sign that we’ve lost balance in one way or the other? Something like that?

Hiba: Yeah, I guess you could simplify it in that way. and, yeah, I think what you were saying about, having kind of a balance between order and chaos is kind of reminded me of a concept we teach in adaptive leadership. So, adaptive leadership is a course I took when I was a grad student at Harvard and then a course I helped teach and continue to use the concepts and frameworks of adaptive leadership in my work now. But one of the things we talk about often in adaptive leadership is this, zone of productive disequilibrium.

Oli: Wow.

Hiba: So in any given system, there can be heat at any level. So if you imagine like a thermometer or something, if the system is too cool, then people are bored and they’re disengaged and they’re not really participating or m engaging in whatever the issue is, whatever the issue that you’re trying to work.

If there’s not enough heat in the system, people are disengaged and bored. But we need to get them up to a zone of productive disequilibrium, where there’s enough heat in the system that it makes people uncomfortable to want to solve the issue, but not too much heat, where it also is overwhelmingly, it’s like the fight or flight response, like the exit.

Oli: Wow.

Hiba: So it’s like a very narrow, zone, I guess. And it’s like, how do you build capacity within this zone to keep as many people as possible there to work? The important issues that you’re trying to work, and I think we can look at that within systems, whether it’s like an organization or, a family or whatever kind of system you want to look at and the players and stakeholders within a system and solve whatever issue needs to be solved.

Or you can look at it from your own personal system, like your n of one. on the micro scale of, like, how can I, If the goal is like personal growth, how can I make myself uncomfortable enough to want to make the change but not too easy, that it’s too comfortable and I’m never going to move from this space or too hot, that I’m going to feel so overly activated that I’m going to just want to exit. It’s figuring out where that zone is and how to stay there.

Oli: Yeah, I think that’s the sweet spot. If we find that zone, then our relationship with life is real in the way that you’re talking about. Like, when there’s an emergency – in a & e or wherever it was, sorry – then, you feel more alive. Like, we feel alive in that sweet spot. And we’re actually built for that sweet spot, I think.

And so if we detach from our purpose, so we become too passive and we get bored and we start to stagnate, that gives us a sign that we need to start heating things up a bit. If we’re burning out so much that we’re panicking and stressed and we just can’t take life anymore, then that’s a sign, in a way, that we need to cool down, to use the analogy that you use. And, if we can do that, then that’s when we’re not going to be held back by identity and all the stuff we were talking about.

We’re going to be flowing and growing and we’re going to keep learning rather than filtering everything through what we think we already know, which, if it’s burning us out or it’s causing us to stagnate, is kind of misaligned with life in some way. So that’s awesome. I love how you shared that.

If you were going to sum up this whole conversation, if that’s even possible, what would you say? Have you got any final words of wisdom? And, also, can you let people know where they can find you and learn, more about the embers projects and all that kind of stuff?

Hiba: Yeah, sure. How can I summarize this? Yeah, I guess, the first step to realizing, the first step to anything, the first step to any sort of change, is going to be the hardest one. The first thing that needs to happen is really having an awareness of like, “Okay, something is not quite right, I need to make a change in my life, or I don’t want to continue living my life in this way, or whatever it is”, whatever the realization is, that’s really the first step.

And then taking action on that step is probably the hardest thing to do, because often we feel, okay, we know something’s not feeling quite right. But what do I do about it? I don’t even know how that can also be a source of overwhelm. And so I think one of the important things I’ve learned, especially in the last few months, because I am directly affected by everything happening in the Middle East, I’m Palestinian.

Realising, that, you don’t have to do things alone. Realising that you really can lean on support systems to help you navigate moments of uncertainty, moments of discomfort, and that you can actually do this in community with people. And then I think especially, what I notice from high achieving people is we really struggle to ask for help because we want to, evolve, and we are the one people look to for help. So how dare we ask for help? And if I were to give maybe one, wisdom is like, it’s okay to ask for help. And I know we hear this often, but really.

Think about when someone comes to you asking you for help. Most of us receive that with a lot of gratitude and appreciation. That, wow, how wonderful that someone trusts me enough to want me to help them. Think about the gratitude and the good feelings that you get when you ask for help. And, give yourself permission to give that good feeling back to someone else to allow them to help you in the way you like helping others.

So that would be kind of like, the way I would say is, no matter how accomplished you are, no matter how good you are at managing your own pain, allow others to hold you through it, too. And, it’s okay. And it’s recommended that you don’t navigate it on your own. Just really identify your support system, get professional help if you need it. And yeah, there’s no shame in wanting and living the life of your dreams. And it is possible, and it’s possible to do it within a community or within the right support systems. So that would be kind of like what I’ll leave people with.

Oli: Yeah, I love that. And it’s so true because it goes back to what we said about control. If we’re too extreme with that, forcing life through our own terms, we think it’s all up to us and we think we’re separate from everybody else. And just asking for help when we need it connects us to our humanity. Because at the end of the day, we’re tribal creatures and we do need each other. So that’s really important. So thank you. Where can people find you? What’s your website and stuff like that?

Hiba: Yeah, so you can find me on emberscc.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn, and I’ll share the link with you, Oli. So you can put it in the show notes or wherever you put it. And then you can also find me on Instagram at I am hibakhaled and I just launched a blog today. so you can also now found me on Substack, and it’s called “Feel it to Heal.

Oli: Really?

Hiba:Yeah, really excited about my new blog, and I’ll be sharing kind of my own personal healing journey on there on a weekly basis. So please subscribe and, yeah, let me know what you think.

Oli: Yeah. Awesome. Well, I’ll share all that stuff in the show notes, but Hiba, thank you so much for this. It’s been a good one. And, I just really appreciate your time and energy and insight and everything. So thanks a bunch.

Hiba: Thank you, Oli. Thank you. Have a great day.


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