July 22, 2025 • 13 mins
Welcome to DAY TWO of our new 30-day project where we make something with our hands every day to improve mental health during difficult times. We all realize that creativity heals...it's time to put that knowledge into action.
I'm going to publish an episode to follow along with several days of each week (I'll take breaks on Fridays and weekends in order to give you time to catch up as needed). These episodes will exist here, marked with the days numbered, in order for you to follow along at any speed that you like. Miss a day? Doesn't matter. Just pick up right where you left off and keep making things. These episodes will give us all some accountability, but if you need more, pair up with a partner. It really does help!
Join our creative community by making something today, whether it's for five minutes or several hours—your brain will thank you. Let's do this thing together and turn all of this sh*t into something more beautiful!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I think everything in life is art what you do, how
you dress, the way you lovesomeone and how you talk, your
smile and your personality, whatyou believe in and all your
dreams, the way you drink yourtea, how you decorate your home
or your party, your grocery list, the food you make, how your
(00:26):
writing looks and the way youfeel Life is art by Helena
Bonham Carter.
I decided to choose this quotefor today's episode, which is
day two of our brand new project, because I found myself only
wanting to clean and I thought,oh man, I got to do a project I
(00:48):
can't let go on day two.
But then I started thinkingthis actually is.
This is part of the project.
Cleaning is a really goodexample of stimulating the
effort-driven reward circuit inyour brain.
Your hands are moving, yourbody's moving, you're thinking
about what to keep, what to putaway, where to put it, and then,
(01:13):
when you're done, you have thissense of accomplishment and
satisfaction.
So I think this was a perfectexample and another way to let
anyone know that's listening,that pretty much everything in
life can be art.
Everybody living and breathingis an artist in their own right,
and it's funny I had completelyforgotten that when I did the
(01:36):
episode that focused on theeffort-driven reward circuit in
your brain.
I don't even know how long agoactually, I have no idea what
episode that was in, I just knowI spoke about it.
When I did that, I mentionedMarie Kondo and the whole
cleaning sensation that she gotout into the world about tidying
.
So I decided to look it up andI realized that I think I called
(02:00):
her Marie Kondo when I did theepisode, but anyway, I called
her Marie Kondo when I did theepisode, but anyway, so it's
Marie Kondo.
I started reading about hermethod and I was like, oh my God
, this is more than justcleaning and I totally get why
it became such a sensation.
So basically, her method iscoined as KonMari method and
(02:24):
it's about choosing your itemsthat you have in your house,
choosing only what sparks joyand keeping that.
So you're not choosing what todiscard, but rather choosing to
keep only the items that speakto your heart.
Konmari method encouragestidying by category, not by
location, so you don't go to onebedroom and start tidying.
(02:47):
You begin with clothes, thenyou move on to books, papers,
kimono which are miscellaneousitems and finally sentimental
items.
Keep only those things thatspeak to the heart and discard
those items that no longer sparkjoy.
Thank them for their service.
Then let them go.
(03:07):
So what I was doing today wasnot exactly this.
It was actual cleaning andunpacking and laundry.
But now, now that I've read thisand reminded myself of what I
once spoke about, I really wantto do this.
So I don't know, just food forthought.
Don't be too critical on whatyou choose for your projects.
(03:28):
Just keep your mind open andlet it come to you.
So I am recording theseepisodes in a block of I'm
thinking seven or eight or nineepisodes before I release them,
because I want to get ahead ofthe game, just in case I fall
behind for a day or two.
I don't want to leave anybodyhanging and not finish this out.
(03:51):
So right now I'm recordingthese, I'm doing the projects,
but I'm not releasing them, andI'm trying to come up with a
working title right now.
Right now, I'm thinking that Iwant this project to be let's
turn this shit into somethingbeautiful instead of the alchemy
(04:13):
or whatever, which is basicallywhat alchemy is, is turning
shit into something beautiful.
I'm thinking that because itjust feels so right.
If you've been listening overthe last five years, you've
noticed that I do not curse onthis podcast and I have cursed
today and I cursed yesterday andit's funny, I've always wanted
(04:39):
to mention it but it's just notcome up.
The reason why I never cursedon it was because my daughter
does not like it when I curseand so I might stop cursing now,
but I've just really needed to.
I've been dealing with a lot ofpent up anger and frustration
at what's happening in the worldand the word shit has just
(05:02):
really felt good coming out.
But that is why I don't curseon this, because the podcast is
for my daughter.
She doesn't like it when Icurse.
I do curse in life, guys, I'mnot a not cursor.
Oh, she's walking in right now.
I'm talking about the fact thatI don't.
(05:24):
I'm talking about the fact thatI don't curse.
Yeah, I heard through the doorHello Hi, oh, my gosh.
Okay, I'm back.
So working title.
So far, maybe just the titlefor today.
How do we turn this shit intosomething beautiful?
(05:46):
How do we alchemize the anger,the pain, the rage that we're
feeling into something beautiful?
How do we take that anger, thatpain, that rage and transmute
it?
Baby steps, small daily actions, sticking to this project,
(06:09):
writing, reading, making thingswith your hands, connecting with
true, true people that lightyou up, just to be in the room
with them true, true people thatlight you up, just to be in the
room with them.
I told you I'd be revealinglittle bits day by day I think
(06:30):
that a really good thing toreveal about what I've been
working on with myself and mylife in these past five years.
It has a lot to do with who Iwas surrounding myself with.
I will be turning 50 in lessthan five months and I have
spent years examining myself andexamining the relationships
that I have allowed in my life.
(06:53):
Everybody talks about themidlife crisis, but not everyone
talks about the midlifeawakening.
What starts out as a crisis canbecome this life-changing
awakening where one day you wakeup and you say I am fucking
done with this.
(07:14):
I've got one life.
My energy is like a bag ofprecious diamonds.
If I walk in the door afterspending time with you and I
have to think about all the waysthat I could have possibly
offended you just by beingmyself or pissed you off just by
being myself, you are out.
(07:37):
If I have any feelingwhatsoever that when I walk out
of the room, you are going tospeak against me or tear me down
.
You are out.
For over 45 years I allowedshitty relationships to remain
in my life.
I allowed unsupportive peopleto remain in my life.
(08:00):
I was not taught to cut thatout.
As my daughter has been growingup through her tween years and
she's getting ready to enterinto middle school, I've been
reliving all of the pastfriendships that I made as I
watch her go through her ups andher downs and I realize how
(08:20):
little guidance I had in thistype of thing when I was growing
up and how much I allowed.
That was not okay.
As I started going throughthese relationships in my head
and sifting through the memoriesof elementary school, middle
school, high school and beyond,I realized how little I knew
(08:46):
about true friendship and theway it was supposed to be.
Raising my daughter throughthese years and seeing how I was
going to transmute this byguiding her in the right
direction has also coincidedwith some extremely large
wake-up calls in my own lifewith friendship the kind that if
(09:07):
I told you the things that havebeen done to me in the last
couple of years, you would notbelieve me Betrayal in the most
heart-crushing, heart-breakingsituation that I could ever put
into words, and that's all I cansay, unfortunately.
(09:28):
But I can tell you I learnedwhat they mean when they say
some things will break yourheart, but they'll also fix your
vision, and so this explainspartly where I've been all this
time working on myself, tryingto take anger and pain and work
through it.
(09:48):
Enough to come to a space likethis and be able to speak about
what I've been working on in acalm way, speaking from the scar
instead of the wound, althoughI will say it is a pretty fresh
scar.
I haven't quite been myself forseveral years, especially in
(10:10):
social situations.
I've been really guarded.
I've had walls up.
I've been doing a lot of workon boundaries and when you're
working on boundaries it's hardto let people in.
It's really hard.
But as I've been healing, Ifind myself really seeing the
people that stand out, that justmake me feel good, that I think
(10:34):
you know what I can be myselfwhen I'm with this person.
They're not going to judge me,they're not going to talk about
me when I walk out of the room.
It just feels good to be aroundthem.
It's no longer about what Iwon't allow, what I'm pushing
out, what I'm putting the wallsup for the boundaries.
(10:55):
It's more about spotting thegood ones and saying, yeah, I
like that.
I'm going to slowly open up andlet you in.
I've got to make sure becauseI've been burned real hard but
slowly those walls start to comedown and you start to just see
who's allowed in.
The really sad thing, though,is when you've spotted someone
(11:19):
that you know would be great,but they're not very selective
about who they spend their timewith, and you have to go.
Well, shoot, it's not going towork unless I can get you alone
somehow, and that's just how itis.
Because I'm not going to do it,I will not surround myself with
people who don't make me feellike I can be myself, and that's
(11:42):
the thing it's like.
You don't have to light me up.
I said that earlier.
I just have to feel like I canbe me and you can be you, and
we're being real and genuinetogether.
I could go on about this forhours, but the last point that
I'm going to make here the partthat I love so much about all of
(12:02):
this interior work I'm doingduring midlife.
I love being by myself so muchthat it better be damn good if
I'm going to give that up tohang out with you Also.
I love hanging out with myhusband, my family, so much.
It better be damn good ifyou're going to pull me away
from that, and if it's not, I'mnot doing it again.
(12:24):
I'm out.
Save your energy for those thatyou never need to perform for.
Hopefully I haven't digressedtoo much to throw you off of the
path of committing to thisproject today, but I'm going to
leave you with this last quotewhen people fall in love with
someone's flowers, but not theirroots, they don't know what to
(12:45):
do when autumn comes.
Your relationships need to bebuilt on deep alignment of
values, character and morals,not just love of appearance,
hobbies and status.
If you haven't already workedon day two of your project, get
to it.
It could be anything at all,doing something with your hands,
(13:06):
create something, makesomething, clean something, grow
something, cook something,whatever you want.
And may you find someone whofalls in love with your roots
and not just your flowers, andalso stay curious.
I think everything in life is art what you do, how
you dress, the way you lovesomeone and how you talk, your
smile and your personality, whatyou believe in and all your
dreams, the way you drink yourtea, how you decorate your home
or your party, your grocery list, the food you make, how your
(00:26):
writing looks and the way youfeel Life is art by Helena
Bonham Carter.
I decided to choose this quotefor today's episode, which is
day two of our brand new project, because I found myself only
wanting to clean and I thought,oh man, I got to do a project I
(00:48):
can't let go on day two.
But then I started thinkingthis actually is.
This is part of the project.
Cleaning is a really goodexample of stimulating the
effort-driven reward circuit inyour brain.
Your hands are moving, yourbody's moving, you're thinking
about what to keep, what to putaway, where to put it, and then,
(01:13):
when you're done, you have thissense of accomplishment and
satisfaction.
So I think this was a perfectexample and another way to let
anyone know that's listening,that pretty much everything in
life can be art.
Everybody living and breathingis an artist in their own right,
and it's funny I had completelyforgotten that when I did the
(01:36):
episode that focused on theeffort-driven reward circuit in
your brain.
I don't even know how long agoactually, I have no idea what
episode that was in, I just knowI spoke about it.
When I did that, I mentionedMarie Kondo and the whole
cleaning sensation that she gotout into the world about tidying
.
So I decided to look it up andI realized that I think I called
(02:00):
her Marie Kondo when I did theepisode, but anyway, I called
her Marie Kondo when I did theepisode, but anyway, so it's
Marie Kondo.
I started reading about hermethod and I was like, oh my God
, this is more than justcleaning and I totally get why
it became such a sensation.
So basically, her method iscoined as KonMari method and
(02:24):
it's about choosing your itemsthat you have in your house,
choosing only what sparks joyand keeping that.
So you're not choosing what todiscard, but rather choosing to
keep only the items that speakto your heart.
Konmari method encouragestidying by category, not by
location, so you don't go to onebedroom and start tidying.
(02:47):
You begin with clothes, thenyou move on to books, papers,
kimono which are miscellaneousitems and finally sentimental
items.
Keep only those things thatspeak to the heart and discard
those items that no longer sparkjoy.
Thank them for their service.
Then let them go.
(03:07):
So what I was doing today wasnot exactly this.
It was actual cleaning andunpacking and laundry.
But now, now that I've read thisand reminded myself of what I
once spoke about, I really wantto do this.
So I don't know, just food forthought.
Don't be too critical on whatyou choose for your projects.
(03:28):
Just keep your mind open andlet it come to you.
So I am recording theseepisodes in a block of I'm
thinking seven or eight or nineepisodes before I release them,
because I want to get ahead ofthe game, just in case I fall
behind for a day or two.
I don't want to leave anybodyhanging and not finish this out.
(03:51):
So right now I'm recordingthese, I'm doing the projects,
but I'm not releasing them, andI'm trying to come up with a
working title right now.
Right now, I'm thinking that Iwant this project to be let's
turn this shit into somethingbeautiful instead of the alchemy
(04:13):
or whatever, which is basicallywhat alchemy is, is turning
shit into something beautiful.
I'm thinking that because itjust feels so right.
If you've been listening overthe last five years, you've
noticed that I do not curse onthis podcast and I have cursed
today and I cursed yesterday andit's funny, I've always wanted
(04:39):
to mention it but it's just notcome up.
The reason why I never cursedon it was because my daughter
does not like it when I curseand so I might stop cursing now,
but I've just really needed to.
I've been dealing with a lot ofpent up anger and frustration
at what's happening in the worldand the word shit has just
(05:02):
really felt good coming out.
But that is why I don't curseon this, because the podcast is
for my daughter.
She doesn't like it when Icurse.
I do curse in life, guys, I'mnot a not cursor.
Oh, she's walking in right now.
I'm talking about the fact thatI don't.
(05:24):
I'm talking about the fact thatI don't curse.
Yeah, I heard through the doorHello Hi, oh, my gosh.
Okay, I'm back.
So working title.
So far, maybe just the titlefor today.
How do we turn this shit intosomething beautiful?
(05:46):
How do we alchemize the anger,the pain, the rage that we're
feeling into something beautiful?
How do we take that anger, thatpain, that rage and transmute
it?
Baby steps, small daily actions, sticking to this project,
(06:09):
writing, reading, making thingswith your hands, connecting with
true, true people that lightyou up, just to be in the room
with them true, true people thatlight you up, just to be in the
room with them.
I told you I'd be revealinglittle bits day by day I think
(06:30):
that a really good thing toreveal about what I've been
working on with myself and mylife in these past five years.
It has a lot to do with who Iwas surrounding myself with.
I will be turning 50 in lessthan five months and I have
spent years examining myself andexamining the relationships
that I have allowed in my life.
(06:53):
Everybody talks about themidlife crisis, but not everyone
talks about the midlifeawakening.
What starts out as a crisis canbecome this life-changing
awakening where one day you wakeup and you say I am fucking
done with this.
(07:14):
I've got one life.
My energy is like a bag ofprecious diamonds.
If I walk in the door afterspending time with you and I
have to think about all the waysthat I could have possibly
offended you just by beingmyself or pissed you off just by
being myself, you are out.
(07:37):
If I have any feelingwhatsoever that when I walk out
of the room, you are going tospeak against me or tear me down
.
You are out.
For over 45 years I allowedshitty relationships to remain
in my life.
I allowed unsupportive peopleto remain in my life.
(08:00):
I was not taught to cut thatout.
As my daughter has been growingup through her tween years and
she's getting ready to enterinto middle school, I've been
reliving all of the pastfriendships that I made as I
watch her go through her ups andher downs and I realize how
(08:20):
little guidance I had in thistype of thing when I was growing
up and how much I allowed.
That was not okay.
As I started going throughthese relationships in my head
and sifting through the memoriesof elementary school, middle
school, high school and beyond,I realized how little I knew
(08:46):
about true friendship and theway it was supposed to be.
Raising my daughter throughthese years and seeing how I was
going to transmute this byguiding her in the right
direction has also coincidedwith some extremely large
wake-up calls in my own lifewith friendship the kind that if
(09:07):
I told you the things that havebeen done to me in the last
couple of years, you would notbelieve me Betrayal in the most
heart-crushing, heart-breakingsituation that I could ever put
into words, and that's all I cansay, unfortunately.
(09:28):
But I can tell you I learnedwhat they mean when they say
some things will break yourheart, but they'll also fix your
vision, and so this explainspartly where I've been all this
time working on myself, tryingto take anger and pain and work
through it.
(09:48):
Enough to come to a space likethis and be able to speak about
what I've been working on in acalm way, speaking from the scar
instead of the wound, althoughI will say it is a pretty fresh
scar.
I haven't quite been myself forseveral years, especially in
(10:10):
social situations.
I've been really guarded.
I've had walls up.
I've been doing a lot of workon boundaries and when you're
working on boundaries it's hardto let people in.
It's really hard.
But as I've been healing, Ifind myself really seeing the
people that stand out, that justmake me feel good, that I think
(10:34):
you know what I can be myselfwhen I'm with this person.
They're not going to judge me,they're not going to talk about
me when I walk out of the room.
It just feels good to be aroundthem.
It's no longer about what Iwon't allow, what I'm pushing
out, what I'm putting the wallsup for the boundaries.
(10:55):
It's more about spotting thegood ones and saying, yeah, I
like that.
I'm going to slowly open up andlet you in.
I've got to make sure becauseI've been burned real hard but
slowly those walls start to comedown and you start to just see
who's allowed in.
The really sad thing, though,is when you've spotted someone
(11:19):
that you know would be great,but they're not very selective
about who they spend their timewith, and you have to go.
Well, shoot, it's not going towork unless I can get you alone
somehow, and that's just how itis.
Because I'm not going to do it,I will not surround myself with
people who don't make me feellike I can be myself, and that's
(11:42):
the thing it's like.
You don't have to light me up.
I said that earlier.
I just have to feel like I canbe me and you can be you, and
we're being real and genuinetogether.
I could go on about this forhours, but the last point that
I'm going to make here the partthat I love so much about all of
(12:02):
this interior work I'm doingduring midlife.
I love being by myself so muchthat it better be damn good if
I'm going to give that up tohang out with you Also.
I love hanging out with myhusband, my family, so much.
It better be damn good ifyou're going to pull me away
from that, and if it's not, I'mnot doing it again.
(12:24):
I'm out.
Save your energy for those thatyou never need to perform for.
Hopefully I haven't digressedtoo much to throw you off of the
path of committing to thisproject today, but I'm going to
leave you with this last quotewhen people fall in love with
someone's flowers, but not theirroots, they don't know what to
(12:45):
do when autumn comes.
Your relationships need to bebuilt on deep alignment of
values, character and morals,not just love of appearance,
hobbies and status.
If you haven't already workedon day two of your project, get
to it.
It could be anything at all,doing something with your hands,
(13:06):
create something, makesomething, clean something, grow
something, cook something,whatever you want.
And may you find someone whofalls in love with your roots
and not just your flowers, andalso stay curious.
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