by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
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)
—————————–
Episode Links:
Phoebe on Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alightent/
Phoebe on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/synaesthetic__/
Creative Status Links:
The Creative Performance Transformation Lab: olianderson.co.uk/creativeperformance
Follow me on Instagram: instagram.com/olijanderson
My YouTube channel: youtube.com/olianderson
Get my books on Amazon: amazon.com/author/oli
7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock for Realness and Life Purpose: olianderson.co.uk/systemshock
Free one hour creative workshop to take your creative brand or project to the next level: olianderson.co.uk/creativeworkshop
Free 90-Day Journal Challenge: olianderson.co.uk/journal
The Law of Attraction for Realness (mini-course): olianderson.co.uk/lawofattraction
———–
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.
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.
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.
This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical ‘Revolutions’ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
It has monthly, weekly, and daily (morning and evening) check-ins, tools and reflections to keep you in the zone and keep you flowing with zest and momentum.
If you want to get unstuck and grow REAL then check it out.
Download EGO/SHADOW/TRUST - a free guide to transformation that will walk you through the vital stages of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action with practical strategies to implement right away.
Join the 7-Day Bare Ass Minimum (BAM) Challenge and start to implement foundational health habits and a powerful life vision only a week from now.
