May 12, 2026 • 38 mins
Can you make money from your creativity? Of course.
But does capitalism get in the way of your creativity? Also, I will argue, yes.
On today’s episode I take up a conversation that has been going on for centuries: a conversation about the tension between art and commerce.
Or as I will call it: creativity and capitalism.
Except this time I take the conversation beyond how to create a beautiful thing detached from revenue to discuss how to live a life from a place of utter truth and authenticity, which is the ultimate pillar of creativity.
In a world obsessed with the bottom line, this isn’t easy but it’s more important than ever.
Link to Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way HERE!
Send Ally an email: mystory@writeyourstory.com
Host: Ally Fallon // @allyfallon // allisonfallon.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, and welcome to you to write your Story pipecast.
Good job.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Really pick up the pieces of your life, pulled them
back together with the word you write. All the beauty
and peace and the magic that you'll start too fun
when you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it's time to let them out and
write them down and cover what it's all about and write,
(00:30):
Write your story. Write you write your story.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hello and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon. I'm your host, and on today's episode,
I want to tackle a topic that has been around
for centuries, and it's a topic that came to me
in a meditation this past week and that I have
not been able to stop thinking about since this dropped
into my consciousness or into my awareness. I mean, it's
always kind of been circulating in my awareness, but when
(00:59):
I was meditated, I had this experience where an insight
dropped in and I just observed that insight for a
period of time. And I still to this day, in
this moment, as I'm speaking these words, am not really
sure one hundred percent what to make of that insight.
I don't feel like this is a complete argument I'm
not arguing for one side or the other, but I
(01:20):
do want to open this conversation. I want to unpack
it a little bit because I think as creative people,
as artists, as writers. I know many of us who
are listening to this podcast are writers. As a creative
person in the world, whatever your creativity looks like, this
is an extremely important conversation, and especially in these times
(01:41):
that we're living in. So the conversation that I want
to tackle today is this tension that exists between art
and commerce. That was the way that I was originally
introduced to this conversation, the tension between art and commerce.
I can remember having this conversation for the first time
when I was in a college I don't know, probably
English class. I was an English major, some kind of
English or literature class, and we would talk about this
(02:04):
tension that exists between the idea of art and commerce.
The way that I want to talk about this topic
today is I want to use the terms creativity and
capitalism because we live in a society, especially if you're
in the United States, but really anywhere in the West,
we live in a world that is driven by capitalism,
(02:24):
and late stage capitalism is like capitalism on steroids, and
so capitalism is becoming more and more and more powerful
in the world. And I'm not here to say that
capitalism is bad, or that we should move away from
capitalism or any of that. I want to bring a
lot of nuance to this conversation because I actually am,
at my heart a capitalist. I think there's a lot
of problems with late stage capitalism, but I think at
(02:46):
its essence, there is so much to be said for
how much good capitalism can do in the world. And
at the same time, when you live in a world
that is driven by capitalism, it has an impact on
your art, on your creativity. And I'm a firm believer,
like a deep, firm, forever believer, that your creativity is
synonymous with your spirituality, with your soul, with your life purpose,
(03:11):
your life path, with what you came here to do.
You came here with a creative purpose, and I don't
mean an artistic purpose, which is why I want to
shift the language a little bit. I don't mean you
came here with an artistic purpose and your purpose is
to write a book. Maybe you do write a book,
but your creative purpose is more about who you came
here to become and what kind of impact you came
(03:33):
here to have on those around you. That is your creativity,
your life force, energy flowing through you. And if that
energy is at odds with capitalism in any way, we
have to have this conversation because you know, money makes
the world go round, and capitalism is tied up in that,
(03:53):
and it's so important to you know, or necessary. I
suppose I see this as an adult, as a forty
two year women, it's necessary to pay your bills, it's
necessary to you know. Currently I'm looking out the window
where I'm recording this episode, and they're remediating the mold
in my crawl space that was making me so sick.
I went to the er four times in the last
six months. And this is incredibly financially stressful, but thank
(04:17):
god I have access and power within the context of
capitalism to hire a company that's going to come out
and remediate this mold for me. The concept of capitalism
does put power back in an individual's hands to make choices,
and so that's really important. And also and also, your
(04:38):
creativity is your power. With or without capitalism, your creativity
is your power. So I'll share first where this idea
came to me why I even wanted to record this episode.
I was in a meditation. I've started doing The Artist's
Way again, which, by the way, I haven't done this
in several years. I've done Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way
many times in my life, probably close to ten times
(05:01):
in my whole life. For a while, I was doing
it every single year, and for an even longer time,
I was in the habit of doing just the Morning
Pages piece of the program, which is your forty minutes
of stream of consciousness writing in the morning. I was
in the habit of doing that every single morning for
years and years, like at least three years I did
that every single day, and I have fallen out of
(05:23):
that habit having kids and just life kind of has happened,
and I got the idea to pull out The Artist's
Way and start reading it again and start going through
the program. So I'm going through the Artist's Way. I
was doing my Morning Pages one morning, and I'm just
kind of in my writing meditation, and as will sometimes
happen to me when I'm in a meditation, this insight
(05:43):
just drops in out of seemingly out of nowhere, which
is coming from I think if I can put a
definition to it, I don't think we have to, but
coming really from either your subconscious or some collective unconscious
or something. But if you've had this experience, you know,
it's just kind of bizarre. It's like it doesn't come
from you, or at least not who you think of
as you. It just kind of comes in. And the
(06:04):
insight that came in was this feeling of tension between
creativity and capitalism. It was like creativity and capitalism cannot coexist.
And I had to take a minute to just observe
this insight that dropped in from a very neutral perspective,
because sometimes when these insights drop in, it's like, oh,
(06:25):
this is a wisdom for you, Like Ali, I'm speaking
to myself. Hey Ali, pause, this is wisdom for you,
and this is here to teach you. And other times
it's more like, oh, this is a limiting belief that
I have, and I need to take a look at
it and step back from it, and you know, see
if maybe this belief is still serving me. And so
(06:47):
I wasn't sure when this insight first dropped in what
it was. Was this a limiting belief? Was this, you know,
a piece of wisdom, some sort of like insight to
allow me out of a limiting belief. I wasn't totally sure,
but I just spent some time observing it, and to
be honest, I'm still kind of in that space. I
haven't come to a full conclusion about this particular insight,
(07:10):
but it's what I want to unpack on today's episode.
So here's this insight. Creativity and capitalism are in opposition
to one another. They cannot coexist. And before I go
any further, I do want to read a common definition
of capitalism so that we can all be operating off
of the same definition as we have this conversation, because
(07:32):
even though I know what capitalism is, I was having
a hard time defining it in words. And so if
you just go to Google and you google capitalism definition,
this is the AI overview that Google gives me. I'm
going to read this out loud, and this will be
the definition that we operate from as we continue this conversation.
This says capitalism is an economic system based on the
(07:54):
private ownership of the means of production, so like factories, minds,
or businesses and their operation for profit. Key elements include
competitive markets, volunteer exchange, a price mechanism driven by supply
and demand, and capital accumulation. Some core components of capitalism
I'm going to list these. Private property is one core
(08:16):
component of capitalism. Individuals or businesses own capital goods, not
the government. Another core component of capitalism is profit motive.
The primary incentive for producing goods and services is to
earn a profit. This is the part that I'm going
to focus on. This is the part that in my brain,
in my meditation, is in direct opposition to your creativity. Again,
(08:41):
I'm not anti capitalist. I'm not here to say capitalism
is the wrong system, but I do want to talk
about how your creative energy, your life force energy, the
part of you that came here to do something specific,
to learn something specific, to take risks, to really throw
yourself into your life purpose is in contradiction to this
(09:04):
idea of a profit motive. The profit motive says that
the primary incentive for producing goods and services is to
earn a profit. So if your primary incentive for doing
something is to earn a profit, then your primary incentive
for doing something cannot be creative. Those are two different things.
They are in direct contradiction to one another. Another key
(09:27):
component of capitalism is free markets and competition, so prices
and distribution are determined by market competition rather than central planning.
Wage labor is another key component. Most people sell their
labor for a wage. Most of us do that. We
sell our labor for a wage, We make an hourly
wage which is used to purchase goods. And then the
final component is a limited government role. The state's role
(09:48):
is typically to protect property rights, enforce contracts, and maintain
an orderly market. So I don't want to get too
off track here. There are so many pieces of this.
You can see why capitalism is is in so many
ways a very helpful tool to motivate people, to keep
the power in the hands of the individual, to create
(10:12):
incentive for people to wake up every day and go
to work and do their jobs and provide for their families.
So there's so much good that can come out of capitalism.
I'm going to put that aside for just a second
and talk about the tension that exists between capitalism and creativity.
(10:36):
So as I was having this inner dialogue, I got
to thinking about what creativity really requires of us, Like
if we're going to live in a state where creativity
can be flowing. What other elements need to be present
or need to be at play. So I started making
a list of the elements that have to be present
in order for my creativity to flow. And I'm sure
as you think about yourself and your own creativity, you
(10:58):
could add things to this list. But I was thinking
about myself as I was creating this list. I was
also thinking about my kids and what makes them so
effortlessly creative. Like I was picturing my daughter on Saturday morning,
we always go up the road to this place that
has donuts, and we call Saturday Donut Day, and so
we always go up the road and have donuts. And
(11:19):
outside of the donut shop they have a little container
with sidewalk chalk. So every time the weather's nice, the
kids will sit out there and play with sidewach chalk,
we'll eat our donuts, we'll have a cup of coffee,
and that's kind of our Saturday morning tradition. Well, this Saturday,
we were outside. The weather was gorgeous, and so both
of my kids had the sidewalk chalk out, but my
daughter in particular had taken over this huge square of
(11:40):
concrete and decided that this was her mural and she
was going to use the entire space to make this
beautiful chalk photo of I mean photo, this beautiful chalk
drawing of a rainbow and palm trees, and she made
clouds and the sun and just like so cool and
(12:02):
special to watch her dream this whole thing up and
play the whole thing out. And as I was watching her,
I was noticing for her, like what is it that
creates the space for her to be so creative, for
her to effortlessly create something without any hesitation, without any reservation.
(12:22):
And one of the things that I thought about is
that in order to be this creative, you need to
have no agenda. There needs to be nothing that you're
trying to do, nothing specific that you're trying to do.
There needs to be kind of an open endedness to it.
And I'm sure you've had an experience like this where
you maybe you were in school and your teacher assigned
to you this paper that you were supposed to write,
(12:43):
and it was due by a certain day, and you
sit down to try to write the paper and you're
just completely stuck. You just can't think of anything to
write about this particular topic or in this format. The
way that the teacher wants it written, and you can't
seem to get your to get any writing done. Now,
I'm not suggesting that having a deadline is a bad thing.
(13:05):
Many creative people operate under the pressure of deadlines, and
sometimes deadline pressure can actually make you perform better. At
least I know that I'm someone like that who performs
better when I have a deadline and I have a
little bit of pressure behind me. So I'm not saying
that you know a deadline can't be helpful, or that
deadlines aren't often necessary. But I think what I'm getting
(13:27):
at is that there's something about her having no agenda,
no deadline pressure, no one hurrying her, no one telling
her this is what she has to make or this
is what she has to create. There is the boundary,
the structure of knowing we come here every Saturday morning
and this is what we do, and we color with chalk,
So there is some element of structure there. I'm not
(13:48):
saying it's structureless, but there is no agenda. There's no
one telling her this is what you have to color.
It has to look like this. You can only use
these colors, you know, you can only color within these lines.
She gets to make up all the rules herself, and
something about that allows her creativity to flow. I also
notice watching my daughter that she is not focused on
(14:09):
the outcome. She's really not focused on the finished product.
She's really lost in the experience itself. She's really just
kind of enjoying the moment of being out in the sun.
I wish I could show you this video that I
took of her, and maybe I'll post it on social media.
I took this video of her and was watching her
just utterly lost in the moment, sitting in the sun,
(14:30):
playing with the chalk, just playing with the colors, just
doing whatever her heart felt in that moment. There's something
about that letting go of outcomes that allows her to
be creative in a way that she never would be
able to if she had a list of things that
she was supposed to be doing or a specific outcome
that she had to create. I think another thing that
(14:50):
creativity requires of us is a certain detachment from either
praise or criticism. I have noticed this mostly about myself,
that in order to find utter freedom of creativity other
utter freedom of expression, I have to be willing to
let go of the idea that I'm going to get
praise and accolades. I have to be willing to let
go of the idea that I'm going to win some
(15:11):
award or I'm going to get on the New York
Times Bestsellers list. And I also have to be willing
to receive negativity, or receive criticism, or even sometimes receive
silence when I put my piece of work out there
in the world. We have to operate somewhere within that detachment.
We have to be so willing to go all in
(15:31):
on our self expression, all in on our authenticity. Otherwise
we're not really creating. We're generating a product with an
end in mind in order to sell it or in
order to get you on the New York Times list,
and that's not the same thing as creativity. For example,
I read this post this week. I don't have it
(15:52):
right in front of me, and I don't really want
to read it directly anyway, because I don't want to
call out this creator. I read a post from a
small author this week that caught my attention so quickly
because I have been wrestling with this topic and I
think she really gets at exactly what I'm talking about.
She said something to the effect of basically how hard
it is as a smaller author who's really struggling to
(16:15):
get your work out there, to witness celebrity authors get
the phone call that they've made it on the New
York Times List. She's like, I wonder if this is
how poor kids feel when they see rich kids get
their IVY League acceptance letters. And I liked the post.
I saved the post because I thought this is such
an important topic and I really want to unpack this.
There is a big part of me that feels the
(16:37):
frustration that she feels, and has many times in my
life as an artist, I have felt that same kind
of oh, that pit in your stomach, the way you
would feel as a kid if you didn't get invited
to a birthday party. It's like, why why am I
not good enough? Why don't I get included? Why doesn't
my work get featured in X Y or Z space.
(16:58):
So it's extremely huge, and yet at the same time,
there's that higher wisdom coming through for me, that is
the reminder that your attachment to the New York Times
List is preventing you from your most authentic creativity. It's
preventing you from your most authentic expression, from your most
(17:18):
free expression, and the free expression, the authentic creativity, is
what we're so deeply craving that the weird catch twenty
two of this is the more freely you can express yourself,
the more likely your work is to be popular. The
more freely you can express yourself, the more likely you
are to make it on the New York Times list.
But for as long as you're fixated on the outcome
(17:39):
of the New York Times list, the less likely you
are to get there, unless I suppose you're a celebrity,
which is sort of what she's talking about. But it
almost was like, Okay, we're having a conversation in the
English language and you're wanting to talk in Japanese. I
don't know if that analogy makes sense, but it's like,
we could have a conversation about the New York Times,
(18:00):
and we can talk about strategies to get on the
New York Times list. But I feel like what you're
saying is you want to be validated or you want
to be recognized for your own freedom of expression. You
want to be able to fully express yourself and to
be acknowledged for that, and the acknowledgment that you're looking
for may not look like the New York Times list.
That may not be as fulfilling as you think it
(18:22):
will be to deeply express yourself and then get on
the New York Times list. I mean, I don't. I've
never been on the New York Times list. So I
do understand that as a person who is an author
and who cares about literary things like that's the the
holy grail, I understand the desire for it. And also
I think in order to be fully creative, we have
to be willing to let go of that attachment to
(18:44):
praise and that attachment to accolades, and that attachment to awards,
and also the attachment that we have to criticism. I
started saying this before, but I really notice myself when
I'll get in fits of creative energy where I really
want to start saying things on Instagram or posting things
on Instagram, and I can tell that I'm not free
in my creative expression yet, because I will feel utter
(19:06):
panic sometimes at the thought of really saying my truth
on Instagram. I have gotten better and better over time
at speaking my truth here. I really do feel like
I am not censoring myself in this space. And there's
even more to unfold here like yes, yes, there's even
more to unfold here. This is why I do this,
because there's more expression to unfold even in this space.
(19:30):
But I am afraid to express myself on Instagram in
part because, and I've shared this before, the criticism comes
so immediately and so directly and so horribly, like the
criticism that comes on Instagram is just mean, like downright mean,
and I being honest and being vulnerable, I am afraid
(19:50):
of that criticism. And that fear of criticism does stop me.
It does stop my creative expression. It blocks me, and
it's something that I really want to work because I
think I am capable of even more freedom than I
have access so far, if I was willing to let
go of the fear around that criticism and to be fair,
(20:11):
you know, when you think about my daughter, she's five,
she's making her chalk mural. The first thing she does
when she's finished is she goes mom, Dad, look what
I made. And I'm like, Nola, isn't it beautiful? And
there's all these other kids playing around like, I don't know,
I think, even at five, as free as she is,
(20:32):
if another kid said I think it's ugly, I think
it would affect her creativity. I think it would. I
think we're human, We're beings who thrive on connection and community,
and so when we feel a threat to that connection.
If imagine if she was five and she had a parent,
you know, who is critical of her drawing. Like, let's
(20:54):
just say she does a chalk drawing and she's five,
and her parent goes like, ugh, well, you know, I
wouldn't have made the soul. I don't know why you
made the sun blue. If she had a parent who
was like that to her, I think over time, it
really would shut down her creativity. So there is this
balance of like, how do we find that detachment from
praiser criticism when it's so much a part of who
(21:14):
we are as human beings, Which leads me, by the way,
to my final point about creativity. This is the final
thing that I want to say that creativity requires, because
creativity requires what is called flow. The flow state is
that state, the brain state that you are in when
(21:34):
you're utterly relaxed and utterly engaged at the same time.
And the flow state you've probably felt this even if
you wouldn't consider yourself an artistic or creative person I'm
sure you have felt this. Maybe you're into sports, or
maybe you're a golfer, or maybe you go for long walks,
or maybe you love animals or something else like that.
(21:58):
A state of mind where you're in where you're like
utterly engaged and utterly relaxed at the same time. Maybe
you get in this state when you're reading a book,
laying in a hammock and reading a book and you're
just like, you're not asleep, you're awake, you're alert, you're
excited about what you're reading, but you're utterly relaxed, and
it's almost like nothing could get to me here. That
(22:18):
flow state is absolutely required in order to generate any
kind of creativity. I'm the of the belief that that
flow state is what gives you access to the collective unconscious,
to your own unconscious, to the whatever you wherever you
want to say your inspiration comes from, to your muse,
to your guides, to God, to whatever wherever you think
(22:41):
that comes from comes from there in that flow state.
When you are not in that flow state, you do
not have access to it, which means the flow state
is in direct contradiction by the way to your fight
or flight state. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn. So your
protective mechanism, your sur mode, which is a necessary human
(23:03):
protective mechanism. Thank God for our fight or flight mode.
But when you're in fight or flight, you're not in flow.
Flow is the opposite of fight or flight. So when
you are in fight or flight, you cannot create period,
or I should say, whatever you're creating is just more
fight or flight. I'm sure you can probably think of
a time in your life where you are in fight
(23:23):
or flight mode and you are so panicked that you
can't even think straight, and you're in no position to
be making decisions, to be you know, driving a car,
to be doing anything, because you you just can't think
straight when you're in that mode. So so many of
us are in that fight or flight state. And when
(23:44):
you're in that state of mind, you cannot access flow,
you cannot access intuition, you cannot access wisdom, you cannot
access your creativity. And I feel like I'm the prime
example of this. I have been if you're new here,
I have been dealing with a toxic mold issue at
my house. I've been very sick for a couple of years.
(24:05):
It's gotten increasingly worse over time, the sicker I felt.
The more time I spent at home. The more time
I spent at home, the sicker I felt. So it
was this toxic cycle that I was in, and I
didn't realize until I left on a trip and removed
myself from the environment and started feeling better. And then
I went back home and immediately started feeling worse. I
didn't realize that the mold was the culprit. But once
(24:27):
I realized that the mold was the culprit, I was
able to come out of the home next door to
my mother in law's house, where I am slowly, slowly,
slowly healing, and we're now remediating the mold in our
home and hopefully in about a week we'll be able
to go back home. But the reason I bring this
up is to say my body, unbeknownst to me, was
in fight or flight. I was just telling my mother
(24:49):
in law this morning because she was asking me how
I'm feeling. A lot of my physical symptoms are still here,
like I still have tingling and numbness in my hands
and feet. I'm going through a detox protocol, which from
everything I can understand, the detail protocol can make you
feel kind of lucky for a while. So that's just
part of it. I'm still having some of those symptoms.
I'll have, like you know, moments of racing cart or
I'll have a hard time breathing. These symptoms are still present.
(25:13):
But I will tell you one thing that is so wild.
I had no idea while I was living in that
house how much in fight or flight I was. It
feels like my body was screaming at me to get
the heck out of dodge, and I didn't know what
it was saying and wasn't really paying close enough attention
to listen. And so because I was in such a
(25:34):
state of fight or flight without really knowing it, I
was having a very hard time accessing flow. And just
like the toxic cycle I just mentioned where it's like, oh,
the sicker you get, the more you want to stay
at home. The more you stay at home, the sicker
you get, there was another toxic cycle happening where the
more disconnected from myself I became, the more I wanted
to check out and watch Netflix and scroll my phone
(25:56):
and not do my morning pages. And oh god, I'm
just so tired all the time. I guess this is motherhood.
This is what it's like. And I was really fighting
a lot of mental health battles that I don't think
I knew. I don't. I didn't know how severe it
was because I wasn't thinking clearly. And now that I'm
out of the house, one thing that has changed dramatically
(26:17):
is my cognition has improved and my anxiety has lessened.
So now I'm thinking a little bit more clearly. Now
I'm going through the artist's wig and now I'm doing
my morning pages. Now these insights are coming through. Now
I have access to myself again, and it's like, oh
my god, this is what it feels like to be
in your creativity. So creativity is not just about making something.
(26:38):
I think this is where we get confused because we
are so steeped in capitalism. We're like fish and water,
where where you ask a fish like how's the water,
and the fish is like, huh, water, I didn't know
I was in water. I don't know what water is.
We are like that with capitalism, that we're so steeped
in capitalism we don't even know we're in it. Because
this is just how the world works. This is what
(27:00):
you have to do. You have to go to work,
you have to pay your bills. And I'm not saying
you don't have to do those things. And I'm not
even saying capitalism is bad. My point is, creativity is
not about making something. It's not about a finished product.
(27:22):
Creativity is about having access to your innate human, spiritual soul,
whatever you want to call it, to your innate power,
your innate intuition, you're innate wisdom. You're in a life purpose,
life path, life flow. It's about feeling in that flow.
(27:43):
And when you're in that flow, you're in your creativity.
No matter what you're doing. It doesn't matter what you're doing.
You could be doing nothing, you could be sleeping. If
you're in that flow, you're in your creativity. And if
you're in fight or flight, you're not in your flow.
And so to me, these two things tradict one another.
They are at direct odds with one another, they are
(28:03):
in opposition. And I started to think about the question
what is it required to be in flow? Because the
minute we start putting a bunch of requirements on there,
Like I think of Victor Frankel, for example, who wrote
The Man Search for Meaning, or much of the work
that he did in that book was written during a
(28:23):
time when he was in a concentration camp. So you
can't say that someone can't be creative when they're in trauma.
That's not true. And frank you know, like plenty of it.
We could the list could go on forever and ever.
Plenty of people are able to get in flow when
they're in trauma. The external doesn't determine the internal. So
(28:45):
just because we live in a society that says, you know,
your value is what's in your bank account, we live
in a society that says, you know, if it's not
making a profit, it's not really worth it. We live
in a society that cuts the arts programs and the
music program from school because it doesn't fit the budget.
We live in a society that pays teachers forty thousand
dollars a year and pays athletes millions and millions of
(29:07):
dollars a year. So we live in this really weird, weird,
upside down world. But the external does not determine the internal.
And so just because there's trauma in the external doesn't
mean that you can't get into flow in the internal.
And I've been thinking about this a lot, because getting
into that flow state is really the ultimate goal. If
(29:29):
the goal of capitalism is profit, the goal of creativity
is flow. The goal of creativity is flow. And I
watched my daughter create that chalk mural, and I thought,
who cares that this is going to get rinsed away?
She's never going to earn an award for it. This
is not going to get her on the New York
Times list. No other kids are running over and telling
(29:49):
her how amazing she is. I'm telling her how amazing
she is. But that's just because I really do believe
she's amazing. And she's the product of my creativity, right
like she is the x ernel object of my creativity.
Create creative energy, life force energy flows through me, and
because of that, she exists so freaking amazing. And yet
(30:14):
unless you're in flow, that life force energy cannot go
through you. And so the question what is it require
to be in flow? I don't know. I don't know
the answer to that question, yet I want to do
some more thinking about it. I know there are certain
things that get in the way of our flow, for sure,
like an attachment to praise and criticism. For example, I
(30:35):
just watched that post I saw on Instagram by that
small author, and I really felt for her. I felt
so deeply because I know the pain of feeling like
I've put everything, I've put my whole heart into this
and no one's paying attention. No one even cares. You know,
my book is never going to make it on the
New York Times list, And here I am doing dances
on Instagram to try to catch the algorithm's attention so
(30:56):
that I can sellf freaking copy of my book. Trust me,
I know that so deeply. And yet it is trying
to play the game of capitalism to get to your creativity?
Is what is it? A false conclusion? It's you can
never get there. If you think of creativity and capitalism
like a Venn diagram, there is overlap. And I could
(31:19):
name one hundred creators who are deep in their authenticity,
who are utterly free in their self expression, and they're
in their flow, and they're living their creative life, and
they're making millions and millions of dollars. Many of them
are some of them are just making a really good living,
which I mean in this economy, it's like great, I'll
(31:40):
take it, a really good living. Sign me up for
a really good living, you know, So I could name
one hundred people off the top of my head who
fall into that middle category where the ven diagram overlaps.
But if you move toward capitalism, you never get toward creativity.
If you move toward creativity, toward utter self expression, toward
(32:03):
unfettered freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of creativity,
if you move toward that, eventually, I'd like to believe
the money comes. Now Here's my dilemma that I have
with this statement that I'm making is and I'm going
to be nuanced about this too, because in some ways,
(32:25):
here's where my limiting belief comes in. My hold up
is like, gosh, I don't really feel like my life
is evidence of this because as much privilege as I have,
and I do acknowledge my own privilege, as much privilege
as I have, my financial life has been really stressful
for the last couple of years, and in some ways
(32:46):
it continues to get more stressful. You know, I don't
know what's going to happen with the economy. I'm keeping
an open mind about it, and I'm trying to stay positive.
There are plenty of ways, even in a bad economy,
for people to make money, and I'm trying to keep
my head in that space, and yet it feels like
when it rains, it poors. This mold remediation came out
of nowhere. It's something we have to do to get healthy.
I feel really good about making that choice. But when
(33:07):
I make the statement, Okay, go hard after utter freedom
of expression and creativity and live in your flow and
your finances will work out, I'm like, cut is my life?
Does my life reflect that? I don't know if it does,
But then my caveat is this. I think part of
why my life doesn't yet reflect that, and this is
me being one hundred percent vulnerable with you. Part of
(33:29):
why my life doesn't yet reflect that is because I
am not yet in my utter freedom of expression. I
am still holding back. I am not totally in flow,
and I have not been in years. I've not been
doing my morning pages. I've been checking out. I've been
numbing in so many different ways. I'm not being too
hard on myself. I'm not trying to criticize myself. I'm
just saying I have let fear get the best of me.
(33:53):
I've let my agenda get in the way. I have
been utterly attached to outcome. I have needed for the
outcomes to go a certain way in order to feel
some kind of way about my life. I have been
desperate for praise and terrified of criticism. And because of
those things, I think it has kept me in fight
(34:14):
or flight and kept me out of my own flow.
And so this is a conversation that is actively unfolding
in my own life, and as I move more into
my own creative flow, I do believe that the abundance
will continue to open for me. And I say that
with full recognition that like part of the abundances. You know,
I have beat myself up to a pulp because we
(34:38):
have debt, and you know, a lot of it is
business debt. I always like feel like, oh, I feel
so guilty about this. I have to explain to people
it's not credit card debt. I mean, some of it is,
but it's business debt. It's like business lines of credit.
And you know, I feel like I have to explain
myself because I feel defensive. I'm like, oh, I never
thought i'd be in this position. But even that, even
having access think about this, Having access to debt is
(35:02):
a privilege. Having access to debt so that you can
chase a dream is a privilege. So there are ways
to flip this mindset to help you stay out of
fight or flight and to stay in your flow. I
do believe even if you lose everything, And I mean
this seems to be the theme and the thread that
(35:23):
ties my entire career together because my first book, called
Packing Light, was a book about selling everything I owned.
And I told my husband the other day, I said,
if it comes down to that, I will do it again.
I will sell everything we own, even with two kids.
I'll sell the house, I'll sell everything in it. I'll
get the heck out of dodge. We'll travel across the
country like I'm not afraid of that. I've done it before,
and I think it takes that level of non attachment
(35:47):
in order to find your flow and to stay in
your flow, even if you lose everything. What I was
going to say, even if you lose everything, when you
have your creativity, you have everything that matters. When you
have your flow, you have everything that matters. And we
do live in a world that is driven by capitalism.
I don't think capitalism is all bad. I think on
(36:07):
the surface layer of things, from a practical standpoint, capitalism
makes a lot of sense. It makes more sense in
certain ways than any other economic organization system. Capitalism at
its most basic form has a lot of pros, But
when it comes to your purpose here, what you're doing here,
(36:27):
what really matters for you? I think we have to
find a way to detach from this idea that we
have been so indoctrinated with that the only thing that
matters is profit. The only thing that matters is a
return on your investment. What does a return on your
investment look like? What would a return on your investment
in yourself really look like for you? Do you care
at the end of the day that you have millions
(36:49):
of dollars? Or do you care at the end of
the day that you have access to yourself, to your
own inner power? And I think we have to change
the metrics that we're using to measure our success. The
metrics of capitalism say how much profit have you generated?
And the metrics of creativity say how in flow can
you be? How relaxed and engaged at the same time
(37:11):
can you be? Can you be like in my situation,
you know, deep in debt, slowly working the plan to
get yourself back to where you want to be? Can
you be there? And still be in flow because it's
not about getting your situation perfect. It's not about getting
your circumstances perfect. Fight or flight will tell you that, oh,
once you're back in the cash, then you can be
(37:35):
in flow. No, no, no. Flow is about being here now,
being right here, right now. And this is not something
I have mastered at all. In fact, I think this
is a huge I think it's why I had that
insight during that moment of meditation. This is a huge
learning point for me, a huge growth edge for me,
and something that I will continue to lean into and
(37:56):
continue to share with you as it unfolds than usual.
Thank you for listening to me ramble and ramble about creativity.
I hope you found it helpful, and I hope to
see you back here next week on the Write Your
Story Podcast
Hi, and welcome to you to write your Story pipecast.
Good job.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Really pick up the pieces of your life, pulled them
back together with the word you write. All the beauty
and peace and the magic that you'll start too fun
when you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it's time to let them out and
write them down and cover what it's all about and write,
(00:30):
Write your story. Write you write your story.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hello and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon. I'm your host, and on today's episode,
I want to tackle a topic that has been around
for centuries, and it's a topic that came to me
in a meditation this past week and that I have
not been able to stop thinking about since this dropped
into my consciousness or into my awareness. I mean, it's
always kind of been circulating in my awareness, but when
(00:59):
I was meditated, I had this experience where an insight
dropped in and I just observed that insight for a
period of time. And I still to this day, in
this moment, as I'm speaking these words, am not really
sure one hundred percent what to make of that insight.
I don't feel like this is a complete argument I'm
not arguing for one side or the other, but I
(01:20):
do want to open this conversation. I want to unpack
it a little bit because I think as creative people,
as artists, as writers. I know many of us who
are listening to this podcast are writers. As a creative
person in the world, whatever your creativity looks like, this
is an extremely important conversation, and especially in these times
(01:41):
that we're living in. So the conversation that I want
to tackle today is this tension that exists between art
and commerce. That was the way that I was originally
introduced to this conversation, the tension between art and commerce.
I can remember having this conversation for the first time
when I was in a college I don't know, probably
English class. I was an English major, some kind of
English or literature class, and we would talk about this
(02:04):
tension that exists between the idea of art and commerce.
The way that I want to talk about this topic
today is I want to use the terms creativity and
capitalism because we live in a society, especially if you're
in the United States, but really anywhere in the West,
we live in a world that is driven by capitalism,
(02:24):
and late stage capitalism is like capitalism on steroids, and
so capitalism is becoming more and more and more powerful
in the world. And I'm not here to say that
capitalism is bad, or that we should move away from
capitalism or any of that. I want to bring a
lot of nuance to this conversation because I actually am,
at my heart a capitalist. I think there's a lot
of problems with late stage capitalism, but I think at
(02:46):
its essence, there is so much to be said for
how much good capitalism can do in the world. And
at the same time, when you live in a world
that is driven by capitalism, it has an impact on
your art, on your creativity. And I'm a firm believer,
like a deep, firm, forever believer, that your creativity is
synonymous with your spirituality, with your soul, with your life purpose,
(03:11):
your life path, with what you came here to do.
You came here with a creative purpose, and I don't
mean an artistic purpose, which is why I want to
shift the language a little bit. I don't mean you
came here with an artistic purpose and your purpose is
to write a book. Maybe you do write a book,
but your creative purpose is more about who you came
here to become and what kind of impact you came
(03:33):
here to have on those around you. That is your creativity,
your life force, energy flowing through you. And if that
energy is at odds with capitalism in any way, we
have to have this conversation because you know, money makes
the world go round, and capitalism is tied up in that,
(03:53):
and it's so important to you know, or necessary. I
suppose I see this as an adult, as a forty
two year women, it's necessary to pay your bills, it's
necessary to you know. Currently I'm looking out the window
where I'm recording this episode, and they're remediating the mold
in my crawl space that was making me so sick.
I went to the er four times in the last
six months. And this is incredibly financially stressful, but thank
(04:17):
god I have access and power within the context of
capitalism to hire a company that's going to come out
and remediate this mold for me. The concept of capitalism
does put power back in an individual's hands to make choices,
and so that's really important. And also and also, your
(04:38):
creativity is your power. With or without capitalism, your creativity
is your power. So I'll share first where this idea
came to me why I even wanted to record this episode.
I was in a meditation. I've started doing The Artist's
Way again, which, by the way, I haven't done this
in several years. I've done Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way
many times in my life, probably close to ten times
(05:01):
in my whole life. For a while, I was doing
it every single year, and for an even longer time,
I was in the habit of doing just the Morning
Pages piece of the program, which is your forty minutes
of stream of consciousness writing in the morning. I was
in the habit of doing that every single morning for
years and years, like at least three years I did
that every single day, and I have fallen out of
(05:23):
that habit having kids and just life kind of has happened,
and I got the idea to pull out The Artist's
Way and start reading it again and start going through
the program. So I'm going through the Artist's Way. I
was doing my Morning Pages one morning, and I'm just
kind of in my writing meditation, and as will sometimes
happen to me when I'm in a meditation, this insight
(05:43):
just drops in out of seemingly out of nowhere, which
is coming from I think if I can put a
definition to it, I don't think we have to, but
coming really from either your subconscious or some collective unconscious
or something. But if you've had this experience, you know,
it's just kind of bizarre. It's like it doesn't come
from you, or at least not who you think of
as you. It just kind of comes in. And the
(06:04):
insight that came in was this feeling of tension between
creativity and capitalism. It was like creativity and capitalism cannot coexist.
And I had to take a minute to just observe
this insight that dropped in from a very neutral perspective,
because sometimes when these insights drop in, it's like, oh,
(06:25):
this is a wisdom for you, Like Ali, I'm speaking
to myself. Hey Ali, pause, this is wisdom for you,
and this is here to teach you. And other times
it's more like, oh, this is a limiting belief that
I have, and I need to take a look at
it and step back from it, and you know, see
if maybe this belief is still serving me. And so
(06:47):
I wasn't sure when this insight first dropped in what
it was. Was this a limiting belief? Was this, you know,
a piece of wisdom, some sort of like insight to
allow me out of a limiting belief. I wasn't totally sure,
but I just spent some time observing it, and to
be honest, I'm still kind of in that space. I
haven't come to a full conclusion about this particular insight,
(07:10):
but it's what I want to unpack on today's episode.
So here's this insight. Creativity and capitalism are in opposition
to one another. They cannot coexist. And before I go
any further, I do want to read a common definition
of capitalism so that we can all be operating off
of the same definition as we have this conversation, because
(07:32):
even though I know what capitalism is, I was having
a hard time defining it in words. And so if
you just go to Google and you google capitalism definition,
this is the AI overview that Google gives me. I'm
going to read this out loud, and this will be
the definition that we operate from as we continue this conversation.
This says capitalism is an economic system based on the
(07:54):
private ownership of the means of production, so like factories, minds,
or businesses and their operation for profit. Key elements include
competitive markets, volunteer exchange, a price mechanism driven by supply
and demand, and capital accumulation. Some core components of capitalism
I'm going to list these. Private property is one core
(08:16):
component of capitalism. Individuals or businesses own capital goods, not
the government. Another core component of capitalism is profit motive.
The primary incentive for producing goods and services is to
earn a profit. This is the part that I'm going
to focus on. This is the part that in my brain,
in my meditation, is in direct opposition to your creativity. Again,
(08:41):
I'm not anti capitalist. I'm not here to say capitalism
is the wrong system, but I do want to talk
about how your creative energy, your life force energy, the
part of you that came here to do something specific,
to learn something specific, to take risks, to really throw
yourself into your life purpose is in contradiction to this
(09:04):
idea of a profit motive. The profit motive says that
the primary incentive for producing goods and services is to
earn a profit. So if your primary incentive for doing
something is to earn a profit, then your primary incentive
for doing something cannot be creative. Those are two different things.
They are in direct contradiction to one another. Another key
(09:27):
component of capitalism is free markets and competition, so prices
and distribution are determined by market competition rather than central planning.
Wage labor is another key component. Most people sell their
labor for a wage. Most of us do that. We
sell our labor for a wage, We make an hourly
wage which is used to purchase goods. And then the
final component is a limited government role. The state's role
(09:48):
is typically to protect property rights, enforce contracts, and maintain
an orderly market. So I don't want to get too
off track here. There are so many pieces of this.
You can see why capitalism is is in so many
ways a very helpful tool to motivate people, to keep
the power in the hands of the individual, to create
(10:12):
incentive for people to wake up every day and go
to work and do their jobs and provide for their families.
So there's so much good that can come out of capitalism.
I'm going to put that aside for just a second
and talk about the tension that exists between capitalism and creativity.
(10:36):
So as I was having this inner dialogue, I got
to thinking about what creativity really requires of us, Like
if we're going to live in a state where creativity
can be flowing. What other elements need to be present
or need to be at play. So I started making
a list of the elements that have to be present
in order for my creativity to flow. And I'm sure
as you think about yourself and your own creativity, you
(10:58):
could add things to this list. But I was thinking
about myself as I was creating this list. I was
also thinking about my kids and what makes them so
effortlessly creative. Like I was picturing my daughter on Saturday morning,
we always go up the road to this place that
has donuts, and we call Saturday Donut Day, and so
we always go up the road and have donuts. And
(11:19):
outside of the donut shop they have a little container
with sidewalk chalk. So every time the weather's nice, the
kids will sit out there and play with sidewach chalk,
we'll eat our donuts, we'll have a cup of coffee,
and that's kind of our Saturday morning tradition. Well, this Saturday,
we were outside. The weather was gorgeous, and so both
of my kids had the sidewalk chalk out, but my
daughter in particular had taken over this huge square of
(11:40):
concrete and decided that this was her mural and she
was going to use the entire space to make this
beautiful chalk photo of I mean photo, this beautiful chalk
drawing of a rainbow and palm trees, and she made
clouds and the sun and just like so cool and
(12:02):
special to watch her dream this whole thing up and
play the whole thing out. And as I was watching her,
I was noticing for her, like what is it that
creates the space for her to be so creative, for
her to effortlessly create something without any hesitation, without any reservation.
(12:22):
And one of the things that I thought about is
that in order to be this creative, you need to
have no agenda. There needs to be nothing that you're
trying to do, nothing specific that you're trying to do.
There needs to be kind of an open endedness to it.
And I'm sure you've had an experience like this where
you maybe you were in school and your teacher assigned
to you this paper that you were supposed to write,
(12:43):
and it was due by a certain day, and you
sit down to try to write the paper and you're
just completely stuck. You just can't think of anything to
write about this particular topic or in this format. The
way that the teacher wants it written, and you can't
seem to get your to get any writing done. Now,
I'm not suggesting that having a deadline is a bad thing.
(13:05):
Many creative people operate under the pressure of deadlines, and
sometimes deadline pressure can actually make you perform better. At
least I know that I'm someone like that who performs
better when I have a deadline and I have a
little bit of pressure behind me. So I'm not saying
that you know a deadline can't be helpful, or that
deadlines aren't often necessary. But I think what I'm getting
(13:27):
at is that there's something about her having no agenda,
no deadline pressure, no one hurrying her, no one telling
her this is what she has to make or this
is what she has to create. There is the boundary,
the structure of knowing we come here every Saturday morning
and this is what we do, and we color with chalk,
So there is some element of structure there. I'm not
(13:48):
saying it's structureless, but there is no agenda. There's no
one telling her this is what you have to color.
It has to look like this. You can only use
these colors, you know, you can only color within these lines.
She gets to make up all the rules herself, and
something about that allows her creativity to flow. I also
notice watching my daughter that she is not focused on
(14:09):
the outcome. She's really not focused on the finished product.
She's really lost in the experience itself. She's really just
kind of enjoying the moment of being out in the sun.
I wish I could show you this video that I
took of her, and maybe I'll post it on social media.
I took this video of her and was watching her
just utterly lost in the moment, sitting in the sun,
(14:30):
playing with the chalk, just playing with the colors, just
doing whatever her heart felt in that moment. There's something
about that letting go of outcomes that allows her to
be creative in a way that she never would be
able to if she had a list of things that
she was supposed to be doing or a specific outcome
that she had to create. I think another thing that
(14:50):
creativity requires of us is a certain detachment from either
praise or criticism. I have noticed this mostly about myself,
that in order to find utter freedom of creativity other
utter freedom of expression, I have to be willing to
let go of the idea that I'm going to get
praise and accolades. I have to be willing to let
go of the idea that I'm going to win some
(15:11):
award or I'm going to get on the New York
Times Bestsellers list. And I also have to be willing
to receive negativity, or receive criticism, or even sometimes receive
silence when I put my piece of work out there
in the world. We have to operate somewhere within that detachment.
We have to be so willing to go all in
(15:31):
on our self expression, all in on our authenticity. Otherwise
we're not really creating. We're generating a product with an
end in mind in order to sell it or in
order to get you on the New York Times list,
and that's not the same thing as creativity. For example,
I read this post this week. I don't have it
(15:52):
right in front of me, and I don't really want
to read it directly anyway, because I don't want to
call out this creator. I read a post from a
small author this week that caught my attention so quickly
because I have been wrestling with this topic and I
think she really gets at exactly what I'm talking about.
She said something to the effect of basically how hard
it is as a smaller author who's really struggling to
(16:15):
get your work out there, to witness celebrity authors get
the phone call that they've made it on the New
York Times List. She's like, I wonder if this is
how poor kids feel when they see rich kids get
their IVY League acceptance letters. And I liked the post.
I saved the post because I thought this is such
an important topic and I really want to unpack this.
There is a big part of me that feels the
(16:37):
frustration that she feels, and has many times in my
life as an artist, I have felt that same kind
of oh, that pit in your stomach, the way you
would feel as a kid if you didn't get invited
to a birthday party. It's like, why why am I
not good enough? Why don't I get included? Why doesn't
my work get featured in X Y or Z space.
(16:58):
So it's extremely huge, and yet at the same time,
there's that higher wisdom coming through for me, that is
the reminder that your attachment to the New York Times
List is preventing you from your most authentic creativity. It's
preventing you from your most authentic expression, from your most
(17:18):
free expression, and the free expression, the authentic creativity, is
what we're so deeply craving that the weird catch twenty
two of this is the more freely you can express yourself,
the more likely your work is to be popular. The
more freely you can express yourself, the more likely you
are to make it on the New York Times list.
But for as long as you're fixated on the outcome
(17:39):
of the New York Times list, the less likely you
are to get there, unless I suppose you're a celebrity,
which is sort of what she's talking about. But it
almost was like, Okay, we're having a conversation in the
English language and you're wanting to talk in Japanese. I
don't know if that analogy makes sense, but it's like,
we could have a conversation about the New York Times,
(18:00):
and we can talk about strategies to get on the
New York Times list. But I feel like what you're
saying is you want to be validated or you want
to be recognized for your own freedom of expression. You
want to be able to fully express yourself and to
be acknowledged for that, and the acknowledgment that you're looking
for may not look like the New York Times list.
That may not be as fulfilling as you think it
(18:22):
will be to deeply express yourself and then get on
the New York Times list. I mean, I don't. I've
never been on the New York Times list. So I
do understand that as a person who is an author
and who cares about literary things like that's the the
holy grail, I understand the desire for it. And also
I think in order to be fully creative, we have
to be willing to let go of that attachment to
(18:44):
praise and that attachment to accolades, and that attachment to awards,
and also the attachment that we have to criticism. I
started saying this before, but I really notice myself when
I'll get in fits of creative energy where I really
want to start saying things on Instagram or posting things
on Instagram, and I can tell that I'm not free
in my creative expression yet, because I will feel utter
(19:06):
panic sometimes at the thought of really saying my truth
on Instagram. I have gotten better and better over time
at speaking my truth here. I really do feel like
I am not censoring myself in this space. And there's
even more to unfold here like yes, yes, there's even
more to unfold here. This is why I do this,
because there's more expression to unfold even in this space.
(19:30):
But I am afraid to express myself on Instagram in
part because, and I've shared this before, the criticism comes
so immediately and so directly and so horribly, like the
criticism that comes on Instagram is just mean, like downright mean,
and I being honest and being vulnerable, I am afraid
(19:50):
of that criticism. And that fear of criticism does stop me.
It does stop my creative expression. It blocks me, and
it's something that I really want to work because I
think I am capable of even more freedom than I
have access so far, if I was willing to let
go of the fear around that criticism and to be fair,
(20:11):
you know, when you think about my daughter, she's five,
she's making her chalk mural. The first thing she does
when she's finished is she goes mom, Dad, look what
I made. And I'm like, Nola, isn't it beautiful? And
there's all these other kids playing around like, I don't know,
I think, even at five, as free as she is,
(20:32):
if another kid said I think it's ugly, I think
it would affect her creativity. I think it would. I
think we're human, We're beings who thrive on connection and community,
and so when we feel a threat to that connection.
If imagine if she was five and she had a parent,
you know, who is critical of her drawing. Like, let's
(20:54):
just say she does a chalk drawing and she's five,
and her parent goes like, ugh, well, you know, I
wouldn't have made the soul. I don't know why you
made the sun blue. If she had a parent who
was like that to her, I think over time, it
really would shut down her creativity. So there is this
balance of like, how do we find that detachment from
praiser criticism when it's so much a part of who
(21:14):
we are as human beings, Which leads me, by the way,
to my final point about creativity. This is the final
thing that I want to say that creativity requires, because
creativity requires what is called flow. The flow state is
that state, the brain state that you are in when
(21:34):
you're utterly relaxed and utterly engaged at the same time.
And the flow state you've probably felt this even if
you wouldn't consider yourself an artistic or creative person I'm
sure you have felt this. Maybe you're into sports, or
maybe you're a golfer, or maybe you go for long walks,
or maybe you love animals or something else like that.
(21:58):
A state of mind where you're in where you're like
utterly engaged and utterly relaxed at the same time. Maybe
you get in this state when you're reading a book,
laying in a hammock and reading a book and you're
just like, you're not asleep, you're awake, you're alert, you're
excited about what you're reading, but you're utterly relaxed, and
it's almost like nothing could get to me here. That
(22:18):
flow state is absolutely required in order to generate any
kind of creativity. I'm the of the belief that that
flow state is what gives you access to the collective unconscious,
to your own unconscious, to the whatever you wherever you
want to say your inspiration comes from, to your muse,
to your guides, to God, to whatever wherever you think
(22:41):
that comes from comes from there in that flow state.
When you are not in that flow state, you do
not have access to it, which means the flow state
is in direct contradiction by the way to your fight
or flight state. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn. So your
protective mechanism, your sur mode, which is a necessary human
(23:03):
protective mechanism. Thank God for our fight or flight mode.
But when you're in fight or flight, you're not in flow.
Flow is the opposite of fight or flight. So when
you are in fight or flight, you cannot create period,
or I should say, whatever you're creating is just more
fight or flight. I'm sure you can probably think of
a time in your life where you are in fight
(23:23):
or flight mode and you are so panicked that you
can't even think straight, and you're in no position to
be making decisions, to be you know, driving a car,
to be doing anything, because you you just can't think
straight when you're in that mode. So so many of
us are in that fight or flight state. And when
(23:44):
you're in that state of mind, you cannot access flow,
you cannot access intuition, you cannot access wisdom, you cannot
access your creativity. And I feel like I'm the prime
example of this. I have been if you're new here,
I have been dealing with a toxic mold issue at
my house. I've been very sick for a couple of years.
(24:05):
It's gotten increasingly worse over time, the sicker I felt.
The more time I spent at home. The more time
I spent at home, the sicker I felt. So it
was this toxic cycle that I was in, and I
didn't realize until I left on a trip and removed
myself from the environment and started feeling better. And then
I went back home and immediately started feeling worse. I
didn't realize that the mold was the culprit. But once
(24:27):
I realized that the mold was the culprit, I was
able to come out of the home next door to
my mother in law's house, where I am slowly, slowly,
slowly healing, and we're now remediating the mold in our
home and hopefully in about a week we'll be able
to go back home. But the reason I bring this
up is to say my body, unbeknownst to me, was
in fight or flight. I was just telling my mother
(24:49):
in law this morning because she was asking me how
I'm feeling. A lot of my physical symptoms are still here,
like I still have tingling and numbness in my hands
and feet. I'm going through a detox protocol, which from
everything I can understand, the detail protocol can make you
feel kind of lucky for a while. So that's just
part of it. I'm still having some of those symptoms.
I'll have, like you know, moments of racing cart or
I'll have a hard time breathing. These symptoms are still present.
(25:13):
But I will tell you one thing that is so wild.
I had no idea while I was living in that
house how much in fight or flight I was. It
feels like my body was screaming at me to get
the heck out of dodge, and I didn't know what
it was saying and wasn't really paying close enough attention
to listen. And so because I was in such a
(25:34):
state of fight or flight without really knowing it, I
was having a very hard time accessing flow. And just
like the toxic cycle I just mentioned where it's like, oh,
the sicker you get, the more you want to stay
at home. The more you stay at home, the sicker
you get, there was another toxic cycle happening where the
more disconnected from myself I became, the more I wanted
to check out and watch Netflix and scroll my phone
(25:56):
and not do my morning pages. And oh god, I'm
just so tired all the time. I guess this is motherhood.
This is what it's like. And I was really fighting
a lot of mental health battles that I don't think
I knew. I don't. I didn't know how severe it
was because I wasn't thinking clearly. And now that I'm
out of the house, one thing that has changed dramatically
(26:17):
is my cognition has improved and my anxiety has lessened.
So now I'm thinking a little bit more clearly. Now
I'm going through the artist's wig and now I'm doing
my morning pages. Now these insights are coming through. Now
I have access to myself again, and it's like, oh
my god, this is what it feels like to be
in your creativity. So creativity is not just about making something.
(26:38):
I think this is where we get confused because we
are so steeped in capitalism. We're like fish and water,
where where you ask a fish like how's the water,
and the fish is like, huh, water, I didn't know
I was in water. I don't know what water is.
We are like that with capitalism, that we're so steeped
in capitalism we don't even know we're in it. Because
this is just how the world works. This is what
(27:00):
you have to do. You have to go to work,
you have to pay your bills. And I'm not saying
you don't have to do those things. And I'm not
even saying capitalism is bad. My point is, creativity is
not about making something. It's not about a finished product.
(27:22):
Creativity is about having access to your innate human, spiritual soul,
whatever you want to call it, to your innate power,
your innate intuition, you're innate wisdom. You're in a life purpose,
life path, life flow. It's about feeling in that flow.
(27:43):
And when you're in that flow, you're in your creativity.
No matter what you're doing. It doesn't matter what you're doing.
You could be doing nothing, you could be sleeping. If
you're in that flow, you're in your creativity. And if
you're in fight or flight, you're not in your flow.
And so to me, these two things tradict one another.
They are at direct odds with one another, they are
(28:03):
in opposition. And I started to think about the question
what is it required to be in flow? Because the
minute we start putting a bunch of requirements on there,
Like I think of Victor Frankel, for example, who wrote
The Man Search for Meaning, or much of the work
that he did in that book was written during a
(28:23):
time when he was in a concentration camp. So you
can't say that someone can't be creative when they're in trauma.
That's not true. And frank you know, like plenty of it.
We could the list could go on forever and ever.
Plenty of people are able to get in flow when
they're in trauma. The external doesn't determine the internal. So
(28:45):
just because we live in a society that says, you know,
your value is what's in your bank account, we live
in a society that says, you know, if it's not
making a profit, it's not really worth it. We live
in a society that cuts the arts programs and the
music program from school because it doesn't fit the budget.
We live in a society that pays teachers forty thousand
dollars a year and pays athletes millions and millions of
(29:07):
dollars a year. So we live in this really weird, weird,
upside down world. But the external does not determine the internal.
And so just because there's trauma in the external doesn't
mean that you can't get into flow in the internal.
And I've been thinking about this a lot, because getting
into that flow state is really the ultimate goal. If
(29:29):
the goal of capitalism is profit, the goal of creativity
is flow. The goal of creativity is flow. And I
watched my daughter create that chalk mural, and I thought,
who cares that this is going to get rinsed away?
She's never going to earn an award for it. This
is not going to get her on the New York
Times list. No other kids are running over and telling
(29:49):
her how amazing she is. I'm telling her how amazing
she is. But that's just because I really do believe
she's amazing. And she's the product of my creativity, right
like she is the x ernel object of my creativity.
Create creative energy, life force energy flows through me, and
because of that, she exists so freaking amazing. And yet
(30:14):
unless you're in flow, that life force energy cannot go
through you. And so the question what is it require
to be in flow? I don't know. I don't know
the answer to that question, yet I want to do
some more thinking about it. I know there are certain
things that get in the way of our flow, for sure,
like an attachment to praise and criticism. For example, I
(30:35):
just watched that post I saw on Instagram by that
small author, and I really felt for her. I felt
so deeply because I know the pain of feeling like
I've put everything, I've put my whole heart into this
and no one's paying attention. No one even cares. You know,
my book is never going to make it on the
New York Times list, And here I am doing dances
on Instagram to try to catch the algorithm's attention so
(30:56):
that I can sellf freaking copy of my book. Trust me,
I know that so deeply. And yet it is trying
to play the game of capitalism to get to your creativity?
Is what is it? A false conclusion? It's you can
never get there. If you think of creativity and capitalism
like a Venn diagram, there is overlap. And I could
(31:19):
name one hundred creators who are deep in their authenticity,
who are utterly free in their self expression, and they're
in their flow, and they're living their creative life, and
they're making millions and millions of dollars. Many of them
are some of them are just making a really good living,
which I mean in this economy, it's like great, I'll
(31:40):
take it, a really good living. Sign me up for
a really good living, you know, So I could name
one hundred people off the top of my head who
fall into that middle category where the ven diagram overlaps.
But if you move toward capitalism, you never get toward creativity.
If you move toward creativity, toward utter self expression, toward
(32:03):
unfettered freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of creativity,
if you move toward that, eventually, I'd like to believe
the money comes. Now Here's my dilemma that I have
with this statement that I'm making is and I'm going
to be nuanced about this too, because in some ways,
(32:25):
here's where my limiting belief comes in. My hold up
is like, gosh, I don't really feel like my life
is evidence of this because as much privilege as I have,
and I do acknowledge my own privilege, as much privilege
as I have, my financial life has been really stressful
for the last couple of years, and in some ways
(32:46):
it continues to get more stressful. You know, I don't
know what's going to happen with the economy. I'm keeping
an open mind about it, and I'm trying to stay positive.
There are plenty of ways, even in a bad economy,
for people to make money, and I'm trying to keep
my head in that space, and yet it feels like
when it rains, it poors. This mold remediation came out
of nowhere. It's something we have to do to get healthy.
I feel really good about making that choice. But when
(33:07):
I make the statement, Okay, go hard after utter freedom
of expression and creativity and live in your flow and
your finances will work out, I'm like, cut is my life?
Does my life reflect that? I don't know if it does,
But then my caveat is this. I think part of
why my life doesn't yet reflect that, and this is
me being one hundred percent vulnerable with you. Part of
(33:29):
why my life doesn't yet reflect that is because I
am not yet in my utter freedom of expression. I
am still holding back. I am not totally in flow,
and I have not been in years. I've not been
doing my morning pages. I've been checking out. I've been
numbing in so many different ways. I'm not being too
hard on myself. I'm not trying to criticize myself. I'm
just saying I have let fear get the best of me.
(33:53):
I've let my agenda get in the way. I have
been utterly attached to outcome. I have needed for the
outcomes to go a certain way in order to feel
some kind of way about my life. I have been
desperate for praise and terrified of criticism. And because of
those things, I think it has kept me in fight
(34:14):
or flight and kept me out of my own flow.
And so this is a conversation that is actively unfolding
in my own life, and as I move more into
my own creative flow, I do believe that the abundance
will continue to open for me. And I say that
with full recognition that like part of the abundances. You know,
I have beat myself up to a pulp because we
(34:38):
have debt, and you know, a lot of it is
business debt. I always like feel like, oh, I feel
so guilty about this. I have to explain to people
it's not credit card debt. I mean, some of it is,
but it's business debt. It's like business lines of credit.
And you know, I feel like I have to explain
myself because I feel defensive. I'm like, oh, I never
thought i'd be in this position. But even that, even
having access think about this, Having access to debt is
(35:02):
a privilege. Having access to debt so that you can
chase a dream is a privilege. So there are ways
to flip this mindset to help you stay out of
fight or flight and to stay in your flow. I
do believe even if you lose everything, And I mean
this seems to be the theme and the thread that
(35:23):
ties my entire career together because my first book, called
Packing Light, was a book about selling everything I owned.
And I told my husband the other day, I said,
if it comes down to that, I will do it again.
I will sell everything we own, even with two kids.
I'll sell the house, I'll sell everything in it. I'll
get the heck out of dodge. We'll travel across the
country like I'm not afraid of that. I've done it before,
and I think it takes that level of non attachment
(35:47):
in order to find your flow and to stay in
your flow, even if you lose everything. What I was
going to say, even if you lose everything, when you
have your creativity, you have everything that matters. When you
have your flow, you have everything that matters. And we
do live in a world that is driven by capitalism.
I don't think capitalism is all bad. I think on
(36:07):
the surface layer of things, from a practical standpoint, capitalism
makes a lot of sense. It makes more sense in
certain ways than any other economic organization system. Capitalism at
its most basic form has a lot of pros, But
when it comes to your purpose here, what you're doing here,
(36:27):
what really matters for you? I think we have to
find a way to detach from this idea that we
have been so indoctrinated with that the only thing that
matters is profit. The only thing that matters is a
return on your investment. What does a return on your
investment look like? What would a return on your investment
in yourself really look like for you? Do you care
at the end of the day that you have millions
(36:49):
of dollars? Or do you care at the end of
the day that you have access to yourself, to your
own inner power? And I think we have to change
the metrics that we're using to measure our success. The
metrics of capitalism say how much profit have you generated?
And the metrics of creativity say how in flow can
you be? How relaxed and engaged at the same time
(37:11):
can you be? Can you be like in my situation,
you know, deep in debt, slowly working the plan to
get yourself back to where you want to be? Can
you be there? And still be in flow because it's
not about getting your situation perfect. It's not about getting
your circumstances perfect. Fight or flight will tell you that, oh,
once you're back in the cash, then you can be
(37:35):
in flow. No, no, no. Flow is about being here now,
being right here, right now. And this is not something
I have mastered at all. In fact, I think this
is a huge I think it's why I had that
insight during that moment of meditation. This is a huge
learning point for me, a huge growth edge for me,
and something that I will continue to lean into and
(37:56):
continue to share with you as it unfolds than usual.
Thank you for listening to me ramble and ramble about creativity.
I hope you found it helpful, and I hope to
see you back here next week on the Write Your
Story Podcast
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