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September 10, 2024 22 mins

Yikes ya’ll, sorry to say it but being out of control is just such a vital part of being more creative. It’s laying yourself at the feet of the MUSE, jugular exposed, giving up your Best Ideas to instead be ravaged by the strange unknowable force that is your true Creative Work.

Buckle up and get cozy, we are getting freaking COMFORTABLE WITH UNCERTAINTY, and we’re doing it through the lens of creative practice. We explore the different and distinct flavors of uncertainty, and how to deal with each of them. We are flying our freak flags high in the name of improvisation, going with the doggone flowsky and unclenching our buttholes and tight gripped fists so that we can actually create something real and honest with our lives yippeeee so fun let’s go!

Solo episode. A love letter to your weird little inner child artist. ilysm.

<3

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Big thanks to Ben Coleman for composing our theme music, and Gavin Bernard for vocals

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.

(00:44):
Hello, beautiful listeners. Welcome back to the show.
You, my friend, are up in the Witch Sweat radio portal with me,
your host, Melissa Ward.
So excited to be here with you today. Okay, I have a little drip,
little hot take, little tiny dose of some witchy, sweaty medicine for you on this day.

(01:11):
This popped in this very morning on my morning walk.
I'm getting ready to teach a workshop later this evening.
And this is my mode. This is my vibe. This is the way that I plan things.
It's like, I'm like, oh, right. Let me get the sun on my face,
the sweat under my armpits, the heart rate elevated, let me move through the world.

(01:35):
And that is typically how I plan things.
I plan like literally anything, mostly things in my business and in my creative work.
It's where the ideas just like feel so juicy and plump and lubricated.
So anyways, that is what I

(01:57):
was doing when this piece piece of
information came to me this morning the class
that I was planning and getting ready to to teach
this evening is all about using
our hands and being up in our creative practice
whatever that medium is for this particular class

(02:17):
it's um quilting and an
improvisational sewing and patchwork but how
whatever your creative practice is how you can use that as a balm b-a-l-m balm
for uncertainty how you can use creative practice as a training ground for getting

(02:41):
better at not knowing what the fuck is going on,
which I don't know if you're like me, but like the feeling of not knowing what's going on.
Well, actually I'll say that I feel a lot looser about it these days because of these practices.
But if you're like the majority of the population, it's not a great feeling.

(03:03):
It's not a great feeling.
It's not comfortable to be in a state of.
Of like not knowing what's going on, an uncertain state.
So I want to just drop in some little gemstones, some little trinkets from like

(03:23):
how I'm thinking about this body of work and how I am sharing these tools and practices.
So the first thing I want to say is I want to clarify what how I am thinking
of uncertainty, this like big goblin of uncertainty. Right.
And so I'm seeing it. I'm sure there are other ways as well,

(03:46):
but I'm seeing it for now kind of like parsed out into these two camps or like two characters.
There's two characters of uncertainty. There's this one character that's like
the version of uncertainty that is delivering unexpected circumstances to your life,

(04:09):
to your lap, to your doorstep.
Of like plop what the heck
is this I didn't expect this maybe I don't
even want this and now I have to like
deal with this shit that I didn't see
coming or maybe you did see coming and it just was like still different than
what you were expecting and that we don't inside of that experience of uncertainty

(04:33):
we don't even like often get the chance to slow down enough to consider
if these new uncertain circumstances
are like an interesting option an
interesting friction because our nervous
systems are so primed to like just be sort of shocked and like recoil just on

(05:01):
principle of it feeling activating by the fact that it's not what we expected, right?
So that's one version, one flavor of uncertainty.
And then there's this other version that's like maybe kind of an opposite experience

(05:21):
where it's just the void.
It's just like foggy abyss where you don't know what to do next.
You don't know what decision to make. Maybe there's too many decisions and so
there's just like this cacophony of noise and possibility that creates this

(05:42):
kind of foggy uncertainty.
Or there's just this abyss of nothingness and you're like, what do I do? What should I be doing?
How should I proceed?
What am I even doing with my life? What am I even doing with my life?
What am I even doing? Right?
And there's just this kind of overwhelming feeling of no clarity, no clarity.

(06:11):
And so I enjoy the experience of creating this map or this distinction between
these different flavors of uncertainty.
And as I said, there's probably more.
Gosh, my heart rate feels like so high talking about this subject.
I'm like both really amped and pumped and also like getting nervous.

(06:40):
Uh yeah so,
you already know this but what is fundamentally underneath both of these flavors
both of these characters of uncertainty,
is not being in control, not feeling in control of the plan,

(07:04):
of the way, of the route, of the end game.
And we hate this. We hate this. We hate this.
So this is where, for me, creative practice comes in as this training ground.
Because as I understand it, being creative, being connected to this like universal,

(07:28):
delicious stream of intelligence that is flowing through you,
that is asking you to be a channel and a conduit of inspiration,
being creative in this way is in essence to be out of control.
That's just like the whole deal. That's the whole gig with having this authentic

(07:53):
orientation to divine inspiration.
Except the difference is, is like that actually feels good. It actually feels
really delicious and satisfying and like, oh,
peak life experience to be in that kind of surrender practice and to truly not

(08:18):
know what's going to happen next.
And I say this because like you can be, I want to make this distinction,
you can be creative and be like, I have a plan. I have an art plan and I'm going
to execute it and it's going to go like this, right?
You can kind of enter into the making space with a sort of, that sounds a little

(08:41):
pejorative and maybe it is just for the sake of the point I'm trying to make,
but like the plan can kind of feel like you're white knuckling the steering
wheel of like you are going to exert your ideas over the creative making process.
And maybe that works for some people or maybe it, you know, even with that approach,

(09:04):
there's still a million things that kind of go sideways and end you up in a
really different realm.
So in general, the
way I'm thinking of this is like going into the
making process with a willingness to not have the end in mind and to be in this

(09:27):
state of just like receiving breadcrumbs like one at a time where you don't
get to see the horizon line.
You don't get to see the peak of the mountaintop.
You just see the most near and
the most proximate little grain of excitement
and like what has

(09:50):
some juice inside of the
making process for you and you just are like following those
little Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs right when we're in like creative making
zone that the stakes feel low we're able to like run on faith with just following

(10:11):
the next interesting choice,
the next interesting impulse,
aka playing, right?
Where it doesn't feel so like loaded to make this go right or go well.

(10:33):
And so the proposal here is that, like, yes,
having these spaces where we allow ourselves to be lost in the flow of making
and up in our creative practice literally builds the musculature so that we can,
like, turn to the material of our lives where things feel higher stakes.

(10:56):
And we can like be willing, be willing to have that same posture of faith,
that same posture of like, if I just follow the nearest breadcrumb of where
I feel excitement, where I feel juice, where I feel some aliveness and some
ease and some like, it's almost like flirty.

(11:16):
It's the same essence of like flirty energy, like a good consensual flirt sesh.
It's that same kind of like like little doggy
panting heart a flutter curious like bouncing right and so we can bring that

(11:38):
into our creative life the other piece of this the other reason that or let me say this
like what we're talking about hello i'm like just babbling on but like this
is all can be be condensed into like the singular word of surrender, right?
Which we love to make a little like Instagram meme about.

(12:02):
But like this, what I'm describing is the actual mechanism underneath.
Creative practice being a surrender practice, which is therefore a balm of uncertainty.
Uncertainty that's that's how it it it ushers us into to being more like it inoculates us,

(12:27):
when shit goes sideways is because we've been like practicing this looser faith-based,
uh i'll put some air quotes around that because
that phrase might be kind of triggering to people but like running on the faith
of like if i just follow the next tiny grain in front of me it will lead to

(12:49):
something interesting or it won't but it will at least be like vital research right.
And so the the last sort of piece of this is that I guess what feels very capital

(13:09):
t truth for me is it's a very animist perspective but.
I think a big part of why we're sort of asked,
like we're required to surrender our best ideas and our best plans and our best
strategies when we go into the making space is because it is my firm belief that our projects,

(13:41):
our visions, our dreams, our little harebrained impulses.
These are beings that come to us. They have a consciousness all of their own.
I'm certainly not the first person to say this. Again, it's just a very animist
way to approach art and life.
They have an agenda. They have a whole life form packaged into them,

(14:08):
packaged into the little impulse of the idea.
And they want to come through you, through your specific architecture,
your specific essence and experiences.
And they want to both be influenced by your essence and they want to influence you.
And they want to roll on out of you in the way that they will.

(14:30):
They cannot be strong-armed or they can, but then it just, we all feel that that feels terrible.
We all know that feeling when you just like try to force something and it feels
like stilted and crunchy and like desiccated, right?
Left to their own devices, they flow out of you the way that they want to.

(14:53):
And so in order to do that, we have to just maintain this incredibly loose,
agenda-less posture when we are up in the creative practice, whether it's drawing,
writing, writing marketing copy.
It doesn't even have to be like I'm writing a chat book of poems,

(15:17):
which I hope you do, but like how you're cooking a meal, how you're getting
dressed in the morning, how you are expressing yourself in literally any way,
Probably should have said that at the beginning. I'm like thinking of creative
practice pretty broadly, right?
But I am also thinking about when you roll up to the painting studio and like

(15:38):
whip out a fresh raw virginal canvas, right?
So we can be thinking of creative making in this kind of traditional art forms sense.
And we are also like obliterating and breaking apart the concept of what creative
practice and creative making actually looks like, right?

(16:01):
But regardless of the form, regardless of the output,
whatever this whatever it is that you're up to and creating it wants to have
its way with you and so it and it wants to move through you in the way that
it wants to and so we just like,

(16:26):
we just keep going limp we just keep softening the body so like loosening the
grip loosening the locked knees, unlatching the jaw,
unclenching the butthole, right?
We just soften, soften, soften and make, and I mean that like literally and

(16:47):
also metaphorically with how we are approaching what it is that we are making.
And we don't run screaming in horror Or when our best efforts to strong arm
the project in a certain direction,
when those efforts.

(17:09):
You know, because it's still a tendency.
We are acculturated in the ways that we are in the West, which is all about
exerting control over your environment.
Um and so when
we when we get kind of like off track and up in
those um approaches which
i certainly do and have um it's

(17:33):
just a practice of like coming back to this willingness to not know this willingness
to be uncertain of the outcome and not be fully bewildered by that.
And to trust that there is some inherent logic rolling through whatever your

(17:57):
project, whatever your idea, whatever your creative endeavor is,
and that it will lead the way.
It will run the show and you can just like be along for the ride.
Okay yeah so that's the vibe that's what we're thinking about um hope it's cute

(18:23):
hope it helps you hope it supports you and whatever it is that you're doing and to trust that like,
I just I this is the last thing I'll say I have
so many clients in my um creative revival sessions The place where we really
sort of like dig into what the specific frictions and the specific stagnations

(18:48):
that come up for people when they think about being more creative and being more expressive.
And I so often find that it's like a lot a lot of my people are like I just,
don't make time for the the doodling and the diddling and the just like noodling

(19:14):
around with whatever it is whether it's drawing writing collaging making art
making music music, because,
and this is the refrain, what's the point?
What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point?
What's the point? What's the point? What's the point? What's the point?
What's the point? What's the point? We do not let ourselves have unstructured

(19:37):
doodle and noodle time because we're like, well, what's the fucking point?
I'm not showing this in a gallery. I'm not selling this art.
I'm not like, you know, freaking generally, it's always about selling.
If I'm not selling it or marketing it or like showing it somewhere, then there's no point.

(19:59):
Girl, there's a point. Boy, there's a point. Y'all, there's a point.
And there's so many points. There's so many points. There's so many points.
There's so much medicine inside of letting yourself doodle and noodle.
But for the sake of brevity and for the sake of today,
I'm just going to say that the doodle and noodle time that we think is kind

(20:22):
of like fruitless and pointless and like wasting time when you have so many
other more important things you could be doing,
I'm here to say, I'm here to write a ginormous permission slip to the people
of the the world and say that your open-ended,
unstructured noodle doodle time,

(20:46):
which I hope by the time you've heard me say that five times,
you know I mean that however you interpret that, not just literally doodling, right?
But the unstructured play time.
Literally is building the internal musculature to be able to handle not knowing

(21:14):
what's going to happen next.
And I just can't think of a better use of our time.
In 2024 not knowing what's going to happen next at like a fever pitch,
and it feeling volatile and precarious af i'm just like girl what are the practices

(21:39):
we need all of the practices we can get to help inoculate us,
in the realm of not knowing what's going to happen next.
Okay, so go doodle, go noodle. I love you so much. Bye.
Okay, hey, yes, also, if you would like to book your very own creative revival session,

(22:01):
a one-on-one little meet cute with me to discuss what's keeping you from being more creative.
The books are open September, October. Let's talk. Okay. Love you. Bye.
Music.
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