Change Your Perspective

It can be as simple as sitting on the floor...

Remember when you used to watch TV and do homework lying on your stomach, propped up on your elbows? Remember how solid the ground felt? How long your body felt? How big the room from that angle?

Did you ever lie on your bed, head pointed toward the foot, legs up against the wall? 

How many different ways did you used to look at the world? 

And when did it become only proper to sit in a chair, and see the whole of you life from one point of view?

Come check out the Hot Mess series on TikTok, and watch as I lose my mind - and find it again - writing, producing, and acting in a show!

#CreatingIsHealing🦋

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, my friends.
Um, I feel like I've forgottenhow to do this podcast.
I've been away for longer than Iplanned to.
Um, I'm starting to feel better,very, very slowly afraid to jinx
it.
Um, and it's just taken me awhile and I, the past two weeks
I had this really wickedinsomnia where I just was up all

(00:23):
night and then had a really hardtime getting up and functioning
during the day and it threw mefor a loop.
So, um, making my way throughthat and starting to really come
out of the, whew, the one longflare up.
That was January and Februaryfor me this year.
And, uh, it's now mid-March.
So, you know,, it's onlyone quarter of the year gone to

(00:46):
being sick and on the couch.
Um, I wanted to talk to you guystoday about the power of
changing your perspective.
And I mean that actuallyphysically, I obviously am a
huge fan of travel.
Um, I'm taking this gap year, ifyou haven't been listening,
where I left my long-termapartment in Brooklyn last fall,

(01:11):
September 1st, not knowing whereI wanna live next.
I've lived in Brooklyn for 15years.
I've loved Brooklyn with all myheart.
It is still one of my favoriteplaces.
Just not quite the place I feltlike I could build a community,
um, anymore.
And I really wanted a place thatwas creative and vibrant and
artistic, but was a little bitslower paced.

(01:31):
And where you could just go to afriend's place and hang on their
couch on a Sunday and not haveto make an event out of going to
the theater or dinner.
Um, and not have all yourfriends be so overscheduled
between their day jobs and theircreative careers that, you know,
you could only see them everytwo months, which is one of the
downfalls of living in such anexciting city.
And so I bought a secondhandcar, gave away all my furniture,

(01:55):
packed some of things up intostorage and hit the road.
And, um, I've always been a fanof travel.
I'm very lucky that I grew upwith parents who are total
vagabonds and they took ustraveling a lot as kids.
And I've always felt it expandsyour horizons.
There's something incredibleabout going to a different
country or different state, ourdifferent city, and seeing how

(02:18):
people live.
Like even the road signs inQuebec City, oh my goodness, the
road signs.
I could never figure out whichway was a one way and which way
I was about to turn the wrongway.
Um, the way that, you know, whenyou go to Europe, people eat
dinner much later, the Spaniardshave a siesta in the afternoon.

(02:38):
People tend to linger overdinners in Spain and Italy and
France.
There's a different, there's adifferent way people dress.
There's a different way peoplebuilt subways and, and, um,
public transportation.
There's a different way thatpeople go to work or close on
Sundays or close on Sundays andMondays or close

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Early compared to Elise, New York City compared to
a lot of, you know, uh, statesin the, in, um, cities in the us
I, I've always just found to meso eye-opening to realize that
not everyone lives the way thatI know.
Not everyone lives, um, in thestandard that I'm used to.

(03:19):
And what I love about that andwhat I've really been
discovering in this gap year isthis idea that they're all just
made up rules and we inherit alot of them, right?
The way that road signs are, theway that cars are now built to
fit into the way that the trackstraffic system has evolved.
So it's um, it's a give andtake, right?

(03:40):
The things that you then use arealso built for these systems
that have been created.
So they reinforce each other.
Um, but someone invented howroads and how stop signs.
And I mean, have you been toEurope?
Do you know how many of thoseroundabouts there are?
Like we barely have them here inthe states,, and I find
them so puzzling and sostressful, but that's very
normal to them.
They find that a much bettersystem than having a stop sign.

(04:03):
Um, so there's just these reallyfascinating different ways that
people solve for the problems ofhow to live together.
And, and I love that.
I absolutely love that.
And what I realized though alsois that you don't even have to
go that far for a change inperspective.
I was in an Airbnb inGreenville, South Carolina.

(04:27):
I've now learned there's aGreenville in North Carolina and
one in South Carolina.
And you always have to specifycuz everyone will ask, at least
in this area.
So in Greenville, SouthCarolina, which I loved, it was
so gorgeous and so laid back,their public libraries have
incredible programming, um,really good arts area.
And I was in this beautifulAirbnb.

(04:47):
I was just so well decorated.
It, it was, ugh, like just thecolors.
And this is another thing I'vebeen discovering is how other
people decorate their homes andwhat I can steal from them.
The place I'm in now has anoverabundance, if that's even
possible, of plants.
There are three plants in everyroom and a huge garden out back.
And I just feel so restoredhanging out indoors in this

(05:09):
place.
And so I've always killed prettymuch accidentally every plant
I've ever owned.
And one of my new goals is totake some gardening lessons so
that when I do eventually settledown, I can buy plants and keep
them alive.
So it's great to steal thethings that you realize really
work for you anyways in thisbeautiful, beautiful place with
big windows, lots of sunlightand trees all around outside.

(05:30):
The one missing thing was itdidn't have a desk or a chair.
It was really built forweekenders to come.
And I was, I think their firstkind of couple of week long time
stay and there was a bed andthen there were high stool
kitchen stools, I guess, uh, in,in this, you know, kitchen area.

(05:51):
Um, and so me being me, I likerejiggered everything.
And I grabbed one of the highstools and put it in front of
the window.
Cause I, I love a desk thatlooks out over a view,
especially fits into nature.
And that worked somewhat, but itwas kind of uncomfortable and it
was really high up and I didn'thave a ton of space.
I was, you know, making it work.
And I'm really trying not towork in bed as much, um, because
it's terrible for my back andit's also just not energizing.

(06:15):
And so I was running outtaplaces to work.
I'd kind of taken over thepatio, which was beautiful, but
then it got cold.
Anyway, I realized that they hadthis beautiful carpet really
lush and soft underneath and allaround the bed.
And I don't know why, this isshocking to me cuz I did this
all the time as a kid, but Irealized I really wanted to just
lie on my stomach and work onthe floor.

(06:39):
And I remember like lying infront of the TV doing schoolwork
on my stomach.
I remember I was a ballet dancerfor many, many years and we used
to always sit with our legs, youknow, um, doing a, um, a
stretch.
We were always stretching, wewere always on the floor
stretching while we did anythingelse.
We were never conventionallysitting in any kind of chair.
And, and I, so I lay down on mystomach and I realized that

(07:04):
there is something visceralabout changing the parts of your
body that are in contact withthe earth.
And I had this, I, I don't evenknow what it was.
It just, it was very safe.
It was very grounding.
It also brought me back to kindof that childhood idea of like
sleepovers and study dates.
Um, and I just, you know, it'salso like your pelvis is on the

(07:28):
floor and your stomach is on thefloor.
It's, it wakes up a wholedifferent part of nerve endings.
And I really loved it and itreally made me just feel
different.
It altered my state.
It's not that it was earthshattering or revolutionary, but
I was thinking a lot about how,you know, we don't have to

(07:50):
travel far.
We don't always have that optionto go far or travel.
It might not be in the budget.
We might have kids, we mighthave families.
Um, we might have covidlockdowns.
And, and yet it's so incrediblyimportant, right?
One of the hardest things aboutbeing a human is repetition.
If you have the same thing overand over and over again, um, you
actually can just get reallylocked into that and it can be

(08:10):
really hard to see outside ofit.
And I think one of the absolutegifts that artists bring to our
world is a different point ofview on anything.
That's what an artist does.
You know, we're all living thishuman experience and everyone is
living through it differently.
And maybe an artist will take apaint brush and some colors and,

(08:31):
and explain some piece of itthat way.
And maybe someone will, um,grapple with some words to try
to explain some sensation orfeelings they're having.
Or, you know, you're gonna spendtime in a script trying to
figure out why that person hadthat point of view and how they
would express that, right?
That's, that's the joy.
And that's also how wecommunicate across art.
And so the very idea of gettingout of the way that you sit

(08:53):
every day and how much, youknow, the brain is so connected
to the body and creativity is soconnected to the body.
So if you're sitting in adifferent way, if you're curled
up in a different way, you'rewriting in a different way,
you're accessing things in adifferent way.
And it made me remember how Iused to lie on my back with my
head at the foot of the bed so Icould look at my headboard,

(09:14):
right?
And what a difference even thatpoint of view was.
Or I've been sitting on thefloor more lately just sitting
with my bed, my head, hmm, myback sitting with my back
against the bed.
There's a really great windowhere that looks out, um, and
doesn't have anywhere in frontof it except really in front of
the bed.
And, and I love that.
And I'm like curled up and myfeet are propped against the

(09:36):
wall.
And you know, I'm, I've alwaysbeen this kind of dancer who
sits in weird, um, lotuspositions and cross legs.
I'm, I'm never sitting properlyin a chair.
I'm always like folded into achair.
I've always preferred that Itend to sit, um, cross-legged a
lot, pretty much everywhere.
And, and so the idea of puttingup your knees and then putting
your laptop on it, you know,it's, it's not meant to be
comfortable, it's just meant tobe about a different physical

(09:59):
space.
How do you see the world whenyou sit below the sky below the
buildings around you?
Not on a chair, not on a bed,not so comfortable.
It's a little bit cold or it's alittle bit, the texture of the
wood is different, right?
And it's not to say that thoseare necessarily where I go and
write or they lead to whole newideas, but just an invitation as

(10:20):
an all things to experiment.
And esp especially, orspecifically if you're stuck
with something, I would say takethat notebook, take that piece
of art.
Or even just take yourself insome music and go find a corner
you haven't sat in before.
Go sit under a dining room tableor outside on some, I don't even
know what's outside anymore.
Uh, depending on where you liveand what there is, right?

(10:42):
But I think this idea of beingreally creative about the places
that we can occupy and evenpeople watching from a different
place.
One of the best things about NewYork City is the people watching
just so many people going andeveryone's so busy they aren't
even noticing you.
So it's fantastic and it's sucha fantastic mix of tourists.
So people who come from verydifferent cultures and locals

(11:05):
who have a very differentattitude to the tourists and to
themselves.
Um, I do it here too, but lessso.
But here are my favorite thingsto be in a car cuz you can drive
everywhere.
And that sense of motion is alsoreally good.
And, and seeing different, um,vistas pass you by I find
incredibly.
It just helps my brain settle,helps my brain wake up.
And so this idea of, you know,can you sit in a different park

(11:28):
bench at the park or can youstand under a maple tree and
look out?
Um, I used to lie in the park inCentral Park under this stunning
tree and just look up into thesky through its leaves.
And it was one of my favoritedaydreaming places on a Sunday
afternoon.
So this week's invitation is tochange your perspective, whether

(11:49):
that's big or small.
Pay attention to how your body

Speaker 3 (11:53):
Responds to new spaces.
Pay attention to how your mindthinks differently.
New spaces, how you relate toyourself, to the world, to other
people.
Are you more frustrated?
Are you more open?
Are you more curious?
Are you more childlike andplayful?
All of these things can sparkcuriosity in a project or can
help you define a character orcan help you go down a new

(12:13):
rabbit hole of something you'retrying to express or wanna
express.
So I'm definitely gonna keepexploring.
One of the really fun challengesis every time I end up in a new
Airbnb, the, uh, construction isthe wrong word, the layout of
the room is different.
The things that are available,whether there's a desk or not
are always different.
And I also currently betweenseasons, so like I've way more

(12:37):
ledge than I wanna have.
Cause I cannot figure out thetemperature here.
So I keep going between warmclothes and cold clothes, but
figuring out what to pull out acar and what to keep in the car.
Um, so the configuration isconstantly changing.
And I think that I have thatbuilt in this idea of, certainly
I have it built in every threeweeks.
So far I've been traveling to adifferent bed, a different city,
a different group of people.

(12:58):
Um, so I'm getting that.
But I also think even withinthat microcosm, I'm just finding
ways to hang out with my owncreativity and hang out with
spaces as they are and getcurious about what it is to live
in the world in a different, ina different way.
All right.
That's it for me, my friends.
I'm so happy to be back.

(13:19):
I hope you are all well andcreating to your heart's desire
be well.