June 11, 2024 • 43 mins
Welcome to the vibrant and imaginative world of creativity and healing with this episode of The Pain Game Podcast. Your host, Lyndsay Soprano, opens up about her lifelong battle with insomnia and the darkness that fueled her creative spirit. From transforming her childhood bedroom into a sanctuary of color to managing OCD tendencies as an adult, Lyndsay's journey is a testament to the power of creativity in coping with trauma.
Lyndsay welcomes the incredibly dynamic Jenni Grover, a wellness coach who merges craft and health to help her clients navigate their physical, mental, social, creative, and spiritual concerns. Jenni shares her insights on the importance of creativity in wellness practices and offers practical advice on how to incorporate creative activities into daily life, even for those who may feel creatively stifled.
Join us for a conversation that promises to inspire you to embrace your innate creativity, explore new avenues of self-expression, and find joy in the process of creation. Whether you're a seasoned artist or someone looking to rediscover your creative spark, this episode is a colorful journey you won't want to miss.
Find Jenni Grover Here:
Instagram: @coachjennigrover
Website: Coach Jenni Grover
Facebook: Coach Jenni Grover
LinkedIn: Coach Jenni Grover
Episode Highlights:
(00:00) This podcast focuses on chronic pain and trauma, getting to the heart of healing
(02:15) Lyndsay's childhood struggles with insomnia and creativity as a coping mechanism
(10:30) Introduction to Jenni Grover and her colorful journey
(15:45) The intersection of craft and health in Jenni's coaching practice
(20:20) The importance of play and creativity in wellness
(25:50) Overcoming fears and ego to embrace creativity
(30:15) How trauma influences our need for safety and structure
(35:00) Creative practices tailored to individual needs
(40:10) The role of creativity in processing pain and trauma
(45:20) Jenni's book "Chronic Babe 101" and its impact
(50:30) The importance of a trauma-informed approach to chronic illness
(55:00) Final thoughts on living a colorful, creative life despite chronic pain
Lyndsay welcomes the incredibly dynamic Jenni Grover, a wellness coach who merges craft and health to help her clients navigate their physical, mental, social, creative, and spiritual concerns. Jenni shares her insights on the importance of creativity in wellness practices and offers practical advice on how to incorporate creative activities into daily life, even for those who may feel creatively stifled.
Join us for a conversation that promises to inspire you to embrace your innate creativity, explore new avenues of self-expression, and find joy in the process of creation. Whether you're a seasoned artist or someone looking to rediscover your creative spark, this episode is a colorful journey you won't want to miss.
Find Jenni Grover Here:
Instagram: @coachjennigrover
Website: Coach Jenni Grover
Facebook: Coach Jenni Grover
LinkedIn: Coach Jenni Grover
Episode Highlights:
(00:00) This podcast focuses on chronic pain and trauma, getting to the heart of healing
(02:15) Lyndsay's childhood struggles with insomnia and creativity as a coping mechanism
(10:30) Introduction to Jenni Grover and her colorful journey
(15:45) The intersection of craft and health in Jenni's coaching practice
(20:20) The importance of play and creativity in wellness
(25:50) Overcoming fears and ego to embrace creativity
(30:15) How trauma influences our need for safety and structure
(35:00) Creative practices tailored to individual needs
(40:10) The role of creativity in processing pain and trauma
(45:20) Jenni's book "Chronic Babe 101" and its impact
(50:30) The importance of a trauma-informed approach to chronic illness
(55:00) Final thoughts on living a colorful, creative life despite chronic pain
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
This is Your Pain Game podcast wherewe talk about the game of living in
and with chronic pain and trauma getinto the heart of how to heal.
I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones, and
anybody that is interested in having theirvoice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
(00:27):
world that we live in. WhenI was a little girl, I couldn't
sleep. And those of you thatI've listened to this show know that I've
been in insomniac forever. I couldnever self regulate. I couldn't handle life
(00:49):
as I knew it around me atall. And as a little girl like
nine ten years old, you don'tnecessarily know why you're unable to do that.
I knew that I was filled withenergy that I couldn't allocate appropriately.
You know, I felt out ofcontrol all of the time, and it's
part of why I couldn't sleep,because I was scared all of the time.
(01:11):
I was scared to go to sleep, and honestly, I was afraid
to be awake too. It's kindof sad when I say that out loud
and one of the coping mechanisms thatI did to manage this, I don't
know, for lack of a betterterm, this darkness inside of me,
this loneliness that came in at night. In particular, my coping mechanism was
(01:33):
leveraging the creativity that was within me. So what I did through all the
hours of the night is my parentsgave me the four walls and the ceiling
that I was in and said,you can do whatever you want to in
the space. So they gave mepaintbrushes, and they gave me magazines that
I could cut out flowers or piecesof art, and I literally painted and
designed my living space all day everyday as a little girl. To try
(01:59):
to help figure out what was goingon with this unbridled energy that I had.
I needed to do something with acolorful brush, right, strokes that
colorful brushes of strokes of this beautifulnessin the middle of the evening. And
my parents would find me moving furniturearound, trying to give myself this special
spot that would make me feel safe, and I never found it. And
(02:21):
what it ended up doing is itpedIt developed these like OCD tendencies right,
which is completely now in my world. Everything is labels facing out and color
coordinated and alphabetized in all of it, and it takes a lot out of
me. And I'm still trying tofigure out one hundred percent where that comes
from. But I know that safetyis part of it. And when you've
gone through childhood trauma, teenage trauma, adult trauma, adult adult adult trauma,
(02:45):
I mean, I don't know howmany levels of it that I can
hit. We developed these mechanisms tocope through us, to cope through the
things that we've been through, thingswe think we've gone through, the things
we think we're going through, andthe things we think we're going to go
through. In the fuel is thisworry, this anxiety, and with that
comes this creative juice. And Ihave got somebody super juicy for you today.
(03:10):
So without further ado, I wouldlike to introduce you today to my
guest, Jenny Color for Grover here. She is good. She's the most
creative and colorful, sexy guest thatwe have had to date on this show.
And I am so excited to haveyou here. Babe. Welcome to
the Big Show. Thank you somuch. What a beautiful story you just
(03:34):
told I. It really took meto a place. I went to my
childhood bedroom and had visions of allthe things that I did to try to
create safety and creativity was a bigpart of that. So I love it.
Yeah, And when we're not giventhose opportunities to express creativity, for
people like myself and none like Jennyand many others that were are listening,
(03:57):
and that I know in my lifethat this colorful part part of us cannot
be stifled. And I mean andthat is just the most amazing thing about
this. So let's just introduce you. So Jenny is a wellness coach who
cares deeply about the intersection of craftand health, and that's what we're talking
about, this colorful, joyful partof our well being. And she has
(04:18):
clients that she coaches in regards totheir physical, mental, social, creative,
and spiritual chriscerns all through creativity.She's a lifelong writer and she's got
thirty five years of experience in print, broadcasts and online media and in a
past life, if you guys haveprobably seen her, she's been on the
History Channel of Modern Marvels and youcan look it up. So if you
(04:41):
have like cable TV, who's cableTV anymore. I mean, quite frankly,
if you are an insomniac unlike myselfand others, you have seen her
for sure on TV. She haslived with multiple chronic illnesses and chronic pain
since she was a young little lady, since nineteen ninety seven, so that's
basically the same time as us guys. Anne has devoted much of her life
to advocate for those like her,and she's got a book as well,
(05:04):
and we're going to get into thatlater. So I don't want to talk
any more about me. I wantto talk about you. I'm talking about
why creativity is such an integral partof our wellness practice. And let's roll
out the red carpet for you,babe and take it. Oh, thank
you so much. I love beingcreative and I've been a creative person since
I was a little kid. Andthis is something that if listeners take nothing
(05:27):
else away today but this, Iwant them to remember that you're born creative.
You're born from an active creation,and you are born with innate creativity.
That is who you are. Youare designed to make and do and
think and connect. When we're littlekids, this stuff is like really easy
(05:48):
to connect to we're in school,they hand us a box of crayons.
Even when we're in junior high.Well back in the day, they handed
me a typewriter. I guess Ihad a Mac. I had an old
like you know, giant and appleto e and apple to e is what
I had. I wrote my firstnovella on that computer. But you know,
(06:09):
today they probably hand you an iPador something. But you know,
when you're a kid, they yourteachers, your family, your friends likely
reinforce that to some degree. Andthen we become adults and it's all about
coloring inside the lines, and it'sall about keeping like following the rules,
keeping to somebody else's standards of whatis supposed to be. And if you're
(06:30):
like me and you have pink hair, well, okay, things are changing
now because it's not as weird tohave pink hair. But but if you
want to be in the corporate world, or if you want to have kind
of what I call it a straightjob, lots of tattoos and nose piercings
and colorful hair is still kind of, you know, not cool and certain
environmental taboo. We're getting there,though, We're getting there, which I'm
(06:55):
happy about. But too. Yeah, as adults were not always encouraged use
our creative side, and it cankind of wither and die. And I
am on a mission to make surethat everyone in the world has access to
this truth that they are creative,that they can tap into that. Whether
they are like me, I'm aquilter, whether they have a giant bookshelf
(07:16):
of quilting fabric behind them, orif they just have like five colored pencils
and a piece of paper. Youcan be just as creative as me if
you allow yourself to play and tapinto that childlike energy. Yeah. And
because creativity it is not just toyour point. It's not just like I'm
a quilter or I am a painteror I am a writer. It is
(07:38):
whatever you want to create that feelscreative to you. And that's for me.
Like my nephew right now, he'sliving with my sweetie and I right
now, and he's really interested inhis e bike and getting creative on how
he can start his own little businessand how he can help other kids make
their bikes better. Right, AndI wantentrepreneurial, So I'm trying to give
(08:01):
him a little bit of entrepreneurial spirit, which I know he has in him,
but he's being creative about that.He's like, hmm, what do
you think about this? Antlindeel likeshould I do this? Should we do
that? What do you think aboutthis? And really asking these creative questions
to help him with outlet because rightnow, at his point in life,
right now, he's going through somestuff, and going through some stuff could
lead him this way or it couldlead him this way, and so we're
(08:22):
trying to guide him towards this way. Yea more of the creative side of
it. Even though you wouldn't thinkabout creativity and building motors or building bikes
or building cars. It's incredibly creativeto do the things that you want to
do that are after market or afterwhatever's there that's been given to you.
Yeah, we anytime we can takeanything, any mundane thing or any standard
(08:46):
kind of thing and make it creative. So sometimes when I work with my
coaching clients, I have them goto their sock drawer and I asked them
to commit fifteen minutes to playing intheir sock drawer. And that means your
socks by color or texture or pattern, or picking colors of socks and putting
them in the drawer next to eachother, or making a little to me.
(09:07):
I know, I know, asyou said, all of your labels
all face the same way that youare INTI sostore does not need anybody to
touch it, So step away,it's perfect. What about the undies drawer,
because that's always like then continue onnext. So yeah, so we
play like like we may take asock and make a sock puppet out of
(09:28):
it and like act out a scenarioor there's there's lots of opportunities to get
weird and silly and playful. Andit's funny, like some clients are so
resistant to it because they're just like, what's the point. Yeah, And
I'm like, the point is youallow yourself to just tap into this creative
energy. You're allowing yourself to play. That's the point. The point isn't
(09:52):
production, which is like so muchabout well, let me say so,
a lot of people think about creativityas like making a thing. You have
to make a thing and have aproduct. It is your like a painting
or quilled something has to come outof it that we can display in a
museum. No, yes, yes, yes, no, that's and that's
it. That's the thing that weget wrong so often is like we think
(10:13):
we need a finished product to showoff, But the creativity is the process
or the practice or even like alifestyle that you move through. So you
can play with socks and that's verycreative, and then you can fold them
back up and put them in yourdrawer, but you've given yourself those few
minutes to get silly. Well,so many people have misconceptions of what that
(10:35):
actually is, like like, whatwould be the reasoning behind doing X,
Y and Z creative lead for them? Like what what are they going to
gain from that? Because they likethey're going to be embarrassed by doing something
like that, or they're going tofeel silly doing that, or there's this
like ego that comes into play.Yeah, when we're talking about that,
we're like, leave ego at thedoor, and ego can mean whatever it
can mean to whoever it is.Look it up. It is not just
(10:58):
what you think it is. That'sright speaking. Now, we want to
release people of that because when welet ourselves play, we're tapping into our
innate energy and that is really gettingto the core of who we are.
And we're also experimenting and that's teachingus that we can be courageous and that
(11:18):
it's okay to try something and haveit not be successful, that it's not
the end of the world. Andwe are putting things together in unusual ways,
which reminds us that we have lotsof different kinds of resources at hand
all around us at any given time. And sometimes when you're creating, like
if I'm quilting with friends, thenwe're connecting with people and we're feeling a
(11:39):
shared sense of purpose or some supportor just validation that we're human being worthy
of someone spending time with us.Like, so those little creative acts,
even if we don't produce something,can give us so much. We're talking
empowerment and ideas and courage and permission, and so it's not just about
(12:01):
making the thing. It's about tappinginto who you are and letting yourself express
yourself in a bigger way, youknow. Yeah, And we're all driven
to like perform, like you're saying, like, there's always got to be
this. Well, I did allof this today, and I should have
a perfect bull made on this kilnthat I like did this whole through.
(12:22):
I used to do a lot ofceramics stuff, so I was immediately when
you're talking about that. My creativeoutlet when I was younger was creative creatively
was in in and building pots anddoing all of that, and then painting
and singing is of course, butyou know, when it comes to people
feeling insecure about trying new things,especially when it comes to a creativity side
(12:46):
of it, where you've got somebodythat's like, I'm a corporate guy and
I do this anice, and I'min finance and I got this, but
I've got all of this mischy gusthat I've got to get rid of,
and I've got all of this boloneygoing on, and now you're telling me
that I'm going to like go throwa pot and I'm going to go make
a quill or I'm going to know, like, what, what the fuck
lady's talking about here? How canwe take that ego that we talked about?
(13:09):
How can we take that ego andlet it sit aside for a while?
And why is that so beneficial forus? Especially when you're talking with
people that have come from trauma.Oh yeah, well, as I have,
and I know that you've had yourexperiences. I'm sure so many people
listening have, you know, whensomeone's feeling really stuck and they're feeling like
it's not worth it, or theycan't see the benefit to taking that creative
(13:33):
step allowing themselves to play, Iask them what they're afraid of, and
usually they're afraid of judgment. They'reafraid they're going to look stupid, they're
afraid they're going to look silly.And so when someone's really scared, I
say, well, why don't westart with just you. You don't have
to show me what you make,you don't have to show anyone. You
(13:54):
can journal, you can doodle,you can make that sock puppet out of
your undies or your sucks, youcan do whatever you're able to tap into,
whatever feels accessible. Let's start witha baby step and you don't have
to show it to anyone, Andoften that gets people started. And then
the next step might be, likeif I'm coaching someone the next session,
I might say, why don't wetry making something together, or why don't
(14:16):
you show me something that you've madeor drawn or whatever. And so then
that's one safe person that they've alreadybuilt a trust with and they know that
I'm not going to think they're sillyor stupid, and then we can talk
that through and in the process ofmaking and showing it with me, we
can have that conversation where we startto identify what it is they're afraid of,
(14:37):
Like what what's the fear factor there? We need to babystep into that.
Sometimes we need to start really smalland with very low stakes stuff,
you know, like I didn't becomeI'm a quilter. I make these giant
projects. I make very personal projects. They're getting shown publicly. Now.
I didn't start there. I startedwith a little, tiny thing that only
(14:58):
my best friend and my teacher sow. And then I started with something bigger.
And then I joined a guild,and then I had people telling me
that my work was worthy and helpingme, and then I got courage I
mean, it took years to getcourageous about showing my work. I only
showed my first quote in the showlast year, and I've been quoting for
ten years. So I am aslow mover. I need to baby step
(15:20):
into things. So even a personwho I you know, is so devoted
to creativity like me, it tookme a while to ease into my work
like showing it publicly. So Ijust want to say that out loud for
anyone who's listening who thinks that,like I just jumped, like can ebold
into this creativity pool, you know, like I dipped my toe in.
(15:41):
Well, I always can't embold nomatter what I do, and I splash
everybody and then I have to apologizefor it, and then I get back
out of the pool, and thenI'm like, all right, I'm going
to step a toe in first insteadthis down. But I already got some
of the big splash that I learnedfrom quickly. And some of us work
(16:02):
like that, and sometimes people needto throw some stuff at the wall and
see what sticks and then back upand refine it. I mean, we
all have our process. But that'sthat's a thing that we need to remember
too, is that we're all goingto approach us in different ways and there's
not a wrong way. Absolutely,yeah, And thank you for stating that,
because when it comes to this,this is the scariest thing that I've
ever done, is doing this show, because it was like I have to
(16:26):
canniball every single moment when I comein here and I'm not sure it's going
to happen, and I'm not sure, and that that's part of the I
like getting into trouble. I likea little mischief. I like a little
unknown, a little mystery, Andso I like that about this process for
me. Yeah, I can prepas much as I want to. I
mean, I do my little outlineabout things I want to like kind of
(16:48):
sort of make sure I talk about. But at the end of the day,
I kind of like going in fairlyblind to a certain extent, because
I don't want to come in prefabricatedto what I'm going to talk about.
I mean, obviously we've got ourideas of what we've and we talked about
it and meet and greets and stuff. But this is the scariest cannon ball
that I've ever done, and Ido it every day. Yeah, it's
(17:08):
something that has I've had to worktowards accepting the process for what it is
for me. Mm hm. Andit's not easy because I'm such a perfectionist.
I was just gonna say, howis perfection playing a role in your
process? Not it's not. Andthat's why this is such a scary thing
(17:30):
for me, because it isn't.As this is what Lindsay's doing and this
is what I'm gonna do, andthis is how I'm going to do it.
And this is the time that Ihave had to let go of all
of that, which was a hugecreative challenge for me to do. Oh
yeah, but it also was thebest decision that I made, and it
was accepting the work that I wasdoing from a creative personec Because this is
(17:53):
creativity. It would come we're doinga podcast, this is creative too,
But I mean, just beca We'renot painting, we're painting pictures through our
words. I mean, we're painting. We're painting experiences to the words that
we're saying to you guys. Andso that's part of the creativity journey that
I'm on, and it's helping meprocess pain and trauma as well as release
(18:14):
it through these episodes, which isthe same thing that I'm asking my guests
to do. So if I'm askingmy guests to do it, I can't
be an asshole and not do itbad. Yeah, definitely real I'd be
a shitty host. Man. Well, the thing is like you're doing a
few things that the most successful creativesdo, Like, you have parameters,
so you have an outline, youhave technology, we have a schedule,
(18:34):
you do a meet and greet,so you know who you're getting. You
do a little bit of research,but you don't overdo it. You have
parameters, and so a lot ofreally successful artists set parameters for themselves to
work within because that creates like asafer container to play in. They feel
that they've got that structure, likea scaffolding almost that supports them, and
(18:55):
then they know they can get weirdinside of it. So even like Lisa
Congdon is a beautiful surface design artistthat I really love, and she has
this thing where there are a coupleof colors that she just never uses in
her work. She has a verylimited like I've never seen purple in her
work. She's got parameters. Yeah, she is a super dynamic, colorful
(19:17):
creator, but she has set theselimits for herself and then she can play
within them. And so some peopleneed that. Some people don't want any
limits, they don't want any guidelines. They just want to free ball it.
They don't want any they don't wanta color between the lines. They
know, yeah, that's right.And then some people need a lot of
structure. So they want to seta certain schedule for themselves, a window
(19:41):
where they do nothing else, andthat's what they do every single day,
and they're going to create x amountof work and it's going to be excise
and this color and whatever, andthat works for them. And so when
we think about people who've experienced trauma, creating that sense of safety and that
structure is really important because when we'velived with trauma, as I have and
(20:03):
you have and so many people have, we lose control. We're in a
situation or we're in a life fora period of time where we don't feel
a sense of agency, where wefeel unsafe, where we know that we'll
be harmed if we don't act orsay a certain thing, and so we're
constantly I'll just speak for myself.When I growing up, I was constantly
in a state of fear and nothingfelt safe. So then as I got
(20:30):
older, like so much of mylife was built around how do I create
safety? Physical safety, having asecurity system, emotional safety, and not
connecting with certain kinds of people,you know, professional safety, working in
a very safe field. Like allthese kinds of structures helped me get a
little weird inside of them. ButI needed that safety, right, So
some people died that And so podcastingis super creative and the way you do
(20:53):
it makes sense to me because ofyour background. And then I've been on
people's shows where they don't research me, they don't know anything about me except
for like my job title and what'son my website, and then we just
dive in and they're like, Igot no script, I got no notes.
Let's just see what happens. Igot bump kiss here, lady,
I got bump kuss. I wouldnever do that. That's like, that
(21:15):
freaks me out a little, thatthere's the shit out of me not having
any kind of structure, Like Ilike to have blurred lines, you know,
yes, because I never know whereI'm going to go, but at
least I know I've got somewhere thatI can come back to, you know,
where I've start, Like, Okay, I've got like my baseline,
Like all right, Lindsay and Mikego, whoa, that was taking a
(21:36):
little too far, come on back. And that's something that I would deal
with it, not just in podcastLAMD, but in my business as well.
I've done it forever in my inmy personal life. So it's just
one of those things when you whenyou've been through a lot of trauma and
you've and you have to be ayou feel like you have to be a
certain way or act a certain way, and you have to do all these
things, and you should probably goto counseling here, and you should probably
(21:57):
read this, and you should probablydo that. Like I don't want I'm
not everybody right neither. We areall our own person and we are all
our own colors. And to yourfriend's point, like she does not like
purple, Okay, okay, somethinghappened somewhere along the lines and she doesn't
like purple, so she's not intoit, and that can be That's a
(22:18):
metaphor for so many other things inlife that we avoid no matter what it
represents. And in creativity, youcan throw out the stuff that's like I
know I do it with me withsinging at night when nobody's home. Wow,
I crank up the music and Ising, And it doesn't matter how
I'm going to express because I knowthat I need that form of expression.
(22:41):
And that's something that I think thatis incredibly important for what you do.
So can we talk a little bitbefore we run out a time, because
I want to talk about how youwork with your clients in regards to this,
because this is pretty awesome. Talkto us about how you coach your
babies. Yeah. Sure. Somost of my clients come to me and
they are they have a creative practiceand they want to enrich it in a
(23:02):
certain way, or they want toenrich other parts of their life and they
want their creativity to be part ofthat. So here's an example. So
I had a client who they wantedto eat better, but they didn't just
want to have a boring plate,and so they found little Japanese lunch boxes
(23:23):
like a bento box in like multiplecolors, and then they challenged themselves to
make up their bento box every dayfor lunch and cut their vegetables into fun
shapes and arrange them and have nicecolor contrast, like put a little garnish
in there. Whatever. So itwas a cute, beautiful, sweet little
lunch that they were excited to openevery day. And that was how they
(23:47):
brought their creativity into what for mostpeople is kind of boring moment, like
you have your saying which you goback to work, right, this client
made it fun and cute and shechallenged herself to think creatively about it.
So that's when I coach people.What we talk about motivation. First,
we try to figure out why doyou want to do this, what's motivating
(24:08):
you? Is it coming from within, is it coming from someone else?
Is it motivated by fear? Oris it a proactive motivation, like are
you moving toward a big goal?And then we use that to decide how
are you going to bring creativity intoworking on this goal? And then sometimes
people come to me and their creativityhas I'm not going to say it's dyed,
(24:32):
but it's definitely taken a long nap, you know what I mean?
Nicely said, it's going a longnap, and we want to raise it
up from the that. We wantto get that creativity cooking again. And
so then we think about again,what are your motivations, why why do
you need this? Getting in touchwith what it's going to do for them
(24:53):
to have more creative work in theirlife. Is it going to make you
feel more excited? Is it goingto give you more joy? Will it
help you connect with others? Willit be something you can connect to your
spirituality? So we look at thosekinds of connections and then we talk about,
okay, well, what's your firststep if you're let's say you're a
(25:15):
painter, and you're a Christian andyou want to get more in touch with
your spiritual pursuit, maybe that givesyou some ideas about the kinds of things
you want to paint. Or maybeyou're like me and you're a quilter and
you're a Buddhist and you want toget more in touch with your spiritual side.
Well, then maybe I'm making aquilt or an embroidery piece about a
(25:40):
Buddhist axiom that's important to me,you know. So we try to find
those connections because when people are tryingsomething new, it's hard to just say.
I'd be like if I just turnedto you and said, you know
what would really help your creative practiceif you went out and made a piece
of exquisite jewelry, and you mightbe like, well, what the hell
where am I supposed to get mytools and my maids and get some ideas
(26:03):
and having a bid? We're mybids and you and we may not know
right. But instead I might say, I might say, Lindsey, when
you think about when you were akid, what was your favorite creative thing
to do? If I were coachingyou, I'm not coaching you right now
because that requires a certain agreement betweenus. But if I were coaching someone,
(26:25):
I might ask them what was whatdid they enjoy in childhood or what
have they done previous that they reallylove that we might come back to,
or what is accessible to them,like is there a place where you can
take a class, is there afriend that could teach you a technique?
What's accessible and exciting to you?And then you know, for those of
us with trauma, I'm very carefulbecause I'm not a psychologist. My job
(26:48):
is not to therapize anybody, andso when I work with clients who've had
trauma, I am very intentional aboutmaking sure that they are in therapy,
that they have medical help that Ican't give them. But then within that
structure, we talk about what issafe for you to work on right now,
what feels attainable or what or ifsomething feels safe, like can we
(27:11):
walk it to that edge of safetyand just like peer over a little bit
and see if we can nudge ita little farther up, you know,
But it just depends on the client. It's a really tailored practice based on
the unique individual's needs. Yeah,because everybody is somebody. I say it
all the time, on the show. Everybody's getting bored with that line.
(27:32):
I understand it, but it islegitimately true. Do not think that you
are the same person that's sitting nextto you and you need the same kind
of care. I don't care ifit's Western medicine, Eastern medicine, whatever
the hell you believe in. Youare different than everybody else, and so
please do not put yourself in thesame box as the person that's sitting next
to you, because like my sweetieand I, we are two completely different
human beings. Do we agree uponninety five percent of the things that we
(27:56):
believe in in our life? Yes? Do we have the same political ideations,
yes we do. Do we havethe same all those things big picture
check out, But when it comesto things that I want to do for
my life and self care, waydifferent from it. Yes, I believe
the same, we feel the same, we enjoy the same things, YadA,
YadA, YadA YadA. But whenit comes to our care for ourselves
(28:19):
and where we want to go withinour lives, they're very, very different.
And that is that. And he'snot a creative, but yet he's
in broadcast journalism, so he's creativeon air. He is so incredibly brilliant
with his mind, very different fromwhat we're doing here, but that is
(28:40):
his creative outlet. Even though youwouldn't think doing their news broadcast journalism would
be creative the way in which shedoes it, it is because he has
to because he doesn't want to belike everybody else. He doesn't want to
get the news in the same waybecause everybody else is doing it that way.
So he can work creatively. Nomatter what you do for a living,
(29:00):
or if you don't don't have aliving, your stay at home mom
whatever did, or stay at homedad. Quite frankly, we need more
of a stay at home down youguys. Now you know we all have
to have our creative outlets, nomatter what that looks like. So that's
something that you're bringing this to.And it's so funny. When I first
saw you, it was like Quilterright. I rolled my eyes and like,
(29:22):
Jesus fuck, I can hear hertalk to this girl about And instantaneously
I was like, I love herbecause it was not just about It's not
about you being a culture. It'snot about that. It's about that,
it's an element of what you doin your self care that helps you with
your creative process. Mine is singing, and mine is the show, and
(29:44):
mine is also in writing. Sowe all have our stuff. We just
have to like give it some love. We give a lot of love to
the shit. Yeah, oh mygosh. Yeah, well that's it.
That's the thing that a lot ofclients come to me and they're like,
I don't I'm feeling like my creativepractice suffering. And I ask them how
much time are you spending on it? And when people say, well,
I have, yeah, none,and I'm like, all right, well,
(30:06):
then we're going to start with fifteenminutes a day. We're gonna or
what feels good to you. I'llsay what feels attainable to you? And
some people say three hours, andI'm like great, based on you're not
doing anything. I'm just wondering,what do you think is going to change
so that you do three hours tomorrowand then we date a little deeper.
Okay, three minutes when they reinit in, that's right, they start
(30:30):
with three minutes, and that's okay. That's the thing I have. You
know, I have clients who veryhappily can say I'm you know what tomorrow,
I'm going to do two hours,and they will do it because they
have that intrinsic motivation. They aredriven by that need to feel that flow
state and get that joy. AndI have other clients who say I'm going
to try to do ten minutes aday this week, and they get half
(30:51):
the days done, and neither clientis better or worse than the other.
They're each following their process. Andsome people like me, I'm a slow
takes me a while to ease intothings. Some people like you can ball
into things. We all move atdifferent paces and there's no good or bad
about it, you know. Butpeople tend to judge themselves. And we
(31:11):
live in a time where social mediais so prevalent and widely used, and
it is like a vehicle for comparison, and then we hold ourselves up to
what everybody else is doing, andthen we feel like shit about ourselves.
And that's man. I'm like,I'm backing away from Instagram lately because I
can't take the feeling of being lessthan all the time. I don't I
(31:33):
don't want to feel that. Sothat's that's one thing I wanted, is
not falling the Kardashians. I've beentelling this to you for years. Well,
actually so I unfollowed them last yearbecause I was like, I cannot
look at the football. I can'twith these people. I love watching rich
people be ridiculous, but there hasto be a limit. I'm going to
keep it to watching Below Deck andReal Housewives, and that's it. I
(31:56):
don't need it. I'm not eventhat low lady. I have never watched
one of those dumb shows ever.I I can't. I can't to those
of you, I know, tothose of you who love them, God
bless you all right, not arejust in my room. I live a
lot. I love enough live likeTV whatever the hell we call it?
(32:17):
What do we call it? It'sstreaming? Maybe I don't know. It's
the reality TV, that's sure,Yeah, because now that's an age old
term apparently because I can't remember it. Yeah, I live enough reality.
I don't need any more reality.And I certainly don't want to hear about
you and your salad dressing. LikeI just don't care. Yeah, I
(32:38):
would much rather hang with people andwatch them make things and use their brains
and their hearts and so like,yeah, that's what I want to do.
So when we think about quilting,like people listening, they may not
have any idea what I mean whenI say on the quilter. They might
think that it's all like light blueand mauve, you know, traditional patterns.
(32:58):
You know from the eight you're ina rocking chair on a on a
deck in North Carolina. That's right, that's right, But none of those
are true. Right out of Chicago, chilling quilts with no drinks. There's
a little I have my water.I'm I've been getting into hop water,
(33:21):
which is pretty delicious. But yeah, I'm making like super colorful, exuberant.
I call it hyperscrappy post maximalist.I mean postmodern maximalism. So hyperscrappy
postmodern maximalism. So here's it's alsoin the middle of a bunch of trademarking
for this, because no one's takingit, no one. I'm not even
(33:43):
worried about it. Don't worry.Well. Hyperscrappy is all about like I
love to bring in all the differentelements. I want every color and every
texture and every pattern. So alot of my quilts just everything like thrown
at them. And I have thislike kind of frenetic energy, like visual
(34:06):
energy. I move slow because Ihave chronic pain, and so I'm not
like frenetically moving through my studio,but my clothes have the energy and maximalism.
Like that's that again, that devotionto like every color, every texture,
every pattern. Like I want myquilts to kind of be like a
little bit of an explosion in yourbrain when you see them, and I
(34:29):
want them to talk to you.I want you to have feelings about them.
And then also you can cuddle underthem. So it's like you get
the boast of both worlds. WhenI think about my great grandma, she
was going blind in her nineties andshe was still crocheting every day, and
she didn't care what color yarn shehad. She just needed contrast so that
she could see the two different colorsof yarn relating, yeah, relating to
(34:53):
each other. Right, And soher crocheted blankets were bananas. It's like
they made no sense, but theywere also beautiful because she knew that it
felt good to move her hands ina rhythmic fashion and use her brain,
even though she was going blind andshe was tired. And so the quilts
(35:13):
that I mean, the crocheted blanketsthat came out were just off the rails
but I but I have one,and I love it so much, and
it came from that beautiful urge tocreate you know. Yeah, well it's
awesome, and I expect a beautifulblue and white and mob quilt said to
me, excellent, I'm gonna puffit. I'm gonna fill it extra puffy
(35:35):
so that it's like big and fluffyfor you. Never, I would never,
please, don't do that. Allright, So, real quick,
let's talk about your book. We'vegot Chronic Babe one oh one, how
to craft an incredible life beyond Illness. Let's talk real quick about that before
we hit the dusty trail. Yeah, sure, sure. So you know,
we've talked about the fact that Ihave chronic illness stuff. I've had
chronic pain and chronic illness for twentysix years. And after the first few
(36:00):
years, I started to really figureout what I was doing with a lot
of help from other people, andI started doing online advocacy as Chronic Babe,
and it was all about teaching youngwomen how to be babes, no
matter how sick they were. That'swhere I was coming from. I was
in my thirties today. If Iwere remaking the site, it would not
(36:20):
be as gendered. But at thetime, there were no outlets for women
to share their voices when it cameto having chronic illness, Like there were
no websites. When I got diagnosedwith fibromyalgia, they gave me a trifold
brochure. That's what I had.I had nothing. So when we think
about what was available back then,I needed what I wanted to read.
I needed like a punk rock,weird ass website to talk to me about
(36:45):
how to live well with pain.I didn't need this trifold brochure with like
ancient people, people probably in theirfifties like I am today. But at
the time, I was like,who are these old people? These are
not me? So I made thisthing called Chronic Babe, and and through
that work for sixteen years, Iadvocated for people like us who live with
chronic pain and chronic illness. Andout of that came this book that's really
(37:08):
all about helping people learn how tojust create the life that's going to feel
the best to them, even ifthey're sick. Yeah, and I can
say that it's possible because I've doneit. I every you know, your
mileage may vary like other people's journeysare not going to be my journey.
But I did it. I managedto make a life despite having many chronic
(37:30):
illnesses PTSD, asthma, rainodes,fibromyalgia, IBS, a bunch of stuff
just basically like word salad of chronicstuff, right, But I figured it
out. It's not exactly what Ithought my life was going to be like,
but I've made the best life thatI could out of what I was
(37:50):
handed. So for folks who havenot figured that out yet, Chronic Babe,
one on one is my It's likemy love letter to people with chronic
pain and chronic illness and just likereally helping them be sexy and vibrant and
fun and adventurous and creative and lovingand connected and all those things even if
they're sick. You know, today, if I were going to rewrite that
(38:13):
book, I would definitely write itfrom a more trauma informed perspective because knowing
what I know now about how trauma, you know, in a lot of
ways created a lot of the chronicstuff that I live with. There's lots
of ways to heal trauma, andit won't ever leave me, but I've
learned how to live with it andfeel better with it, and so I
(38:34):
think we need more resources that aretrauma informed for people with chronic illness and
chronic pain, because when we neglectto care for some of those other sources
of struggle, then we're not treatingthe whole patient. So anyway, that's
like my little soapbox moment. Ijust think we need more of that kind
of work out there. So that'sthe thing that I'm currently researching myself.
(38:57):
But yeah, I don't. Somany of us with chronic pain chronic illness
have come from really intense, shittybackgrounds, And it's not that it everything
is in our head, but thereare parts of our chronic illness and chronic
pain experience that are generated from emotionalexperiences, and so when we can pay
attention to that and honor it,we can feel somewhat better and have like
(39:23):
fewer symptoms sometimes when we're treating themental side of the chronic pain or chronic
illness. Again, I just wantto emphasize that I'm not saying it's all
in people's heads, because that's bullshit. That's not how I am. People
said that to me a lot whenI was younger, and I was like,
well, t all that's of therest of my body. Yeah,
(39:45):
I experience the same and so manywomen did, and pot so many women
did and they still do today.But it's it's less it's less common.
But you know, so I andto come back full circle when we think
about creativity, you know that bookthat I wrote was a creative act born
out of suffering. It was Imade something out of my suffering. People
(40:07):
might not think of that as acreative act, but I created something that
didn't exist to help other people.And it's a tool that helps other people
use their creativity to create a lifestylethat they previously haven't experienced. So it's
just another way to remind people thatwe can use our creativity in so many
different ways. And some of thatif it's for me, if it's to
(40:30):
help people, then I feel likeI have fulfilled my mission. You know
what I mean? Well, andthat's why you're here to help explain and
teach us more ways that we canhope how we can. Like even when
I started, like all of thesecoping mechanisms that I created at such a
(40:50):
young age to get me through notunderstanding what my little brain was dealing with
at such a young age, andhaving to be an adult so young.
I'm like in a dole at nine, You're like, WHOA, Okay,
that's weird. I probably should notbe an adult at this young of an
age. And it has aged meby being this old soul, by being
this person that I'm like, I'mexhausted. I'm like, I was going
(41:13):
through stuff that people in their fortiesshould be going through when I was nine,
Like, this is nuts of stuff. Yeah, And it wasn't until
I started doing this that and meetingpeople like yourself that it really not unhinged,
but it kind of like lifted thisveil of I did not know all
of that stuff was going on.And so here we are and we're doing
(41:34):
the thing, and we're doing ittogether, and I am so grateful for
having met you and you know,and the colorful joy that you've brought into
my life into our listeners as well. Jenny and I literally could do like
seventeen episodes further, and we talkedabout starting our own podcast on our meeting
and greet because we have so manythings that we want to talk about in
a colorful way. I'm square bysquare, you know that we can get
(41:59):
to make them colorful place for usall to live in. But we're both
here, so you are exclusively invitedto share this living creatively and scrappy vip
pain journey together. Let's get tothe heart of how to heal with you
by my side and by Jenny's side. Thank you so much for being here
with us today. Jenny, It'sbeen an absolute wonderful, colorful trip.
(42:21):
Oh thank you. The joy ismine. Thank you for joining me on
this colorful journey today. I can'twait to see where we're gonna go.
Welcome to the Pain Game Podcast.Guys. This is what we do here.
Let's connect and here stories of strengthand grit. I am here,
Jenny is here. We are hereto provide a safe place to be vulnerable,
to be honest, to be colorful, and share your powerfully amazing stories.
(42:45):
So please follow the Pain Game Podcastwherever you digest your podcast content,
we will be there. Visit usat the Pain gamepodcast dot com, and
follow us on all the socials.Thanks for listening, my little VIPs.
Catch you on the other side.H
This is Your Pain Game podcast wherewe talk about the game of living in
and with chronic pain and trauma getinto the heart of how to heal.
I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones, and
anybody that is interested in having theirvoice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
(00:27):
world that we live in. WhenI was a little girl, I couldn't
sleep. And those of you thatI've listened to this show know that I've
been in insomniac forever. I couldnever self regulate. I couldn't handle life
(00:49):
as I knew it around me atall. And as a little girl like
nine ten years old, you don'tnecessarily know why you're unable to do that.
I knew that I was filled withenergy that I couldn't allocate appropriately.
You know, I felt out ofcontrol all of the time, and it's
part of why I couldn't sleep,because I was scared all of the time.
(01:11):
I was scared to go to sleep, and honestly, I was afraid
to be awake too. It's kindof sad when I say that out loud
and one of the coping mechanisms thatI did to manage this, I don't
know, for lack of a betterterm, this darkness inside of me,
this loneliness that came in at night. In particular, my coping mechanism was
(01:33):
leveraging the creativity that was within me. So what I did through all the
hours of the night is my parentsgave me the four walls and the ceiling
that I was in and said,you can do whatever you want to in
the space. So they gave mepaintbrushes, and they gave me magazines that
I could cut out flowers or piecesof art, and I literally painted and
designed my living space all day everyday as a little girl. To try
(01:59):
to help figure out what was goingon with this unbridled energy that I had.
I needed to do something with acolorful brush, right, strokes that
colorful brushes of strokes of this beautifulnessin the middle of the evening. And
my parents would find me moving furniturearound, trying to give myself this special
spot that would make me feel safe, and I never found it. And
(02:21):
what it ended up doing is itpedIt developed these like OCD tendencies right,
which is completely now in my world. Everything is labels facing out and color
coordinated and alphabetized in all of it, and it takes a lot out of
me. And I'm still trying tofigure out one hundred percent where that comes
from. But I know that safetyis part of it. And when you've
gone through childhood trauma, teenage trauma, adult trauma, adult adult adult trauma,
(02:45):
I mean, I don't know howmany levels of it that I can
hit. We developed these mechanisms tocope through us, to cope through the
things that we've been through, thingswe think we've gone through, the things
we think we're going through, andthe things we think we're going to go
through. In the fuel is thisworry, this anxiety, and with that
comes this creative juice. And Ihave got somebody super juicy for you today.
(03:10):
So without further ado, I wouldlike to introduce you today to my
guest, Jenny Color for Grover here. She is good. She's the most
creative and colorful, sexy guest thatwe have had to date on this show.
And I am so excited to haveyou here. Babe. Welcome to
the Big Show. Thank you somuch. What a beautiful story you just
(03:34):
told I. It really took meto a place. I went to my
childhood bedroom and had visions of allthe things that I did to try to
create safety and creativity was a bigpart of that. So I love it.
Yeah, And when we're not giventhose opportunities to express creativity, for
people like myself and none like Jennyand many others that were are listening,
(03:57):
and that I know in my lifethat this colorful part part of us cannot
be stifled. And I mean andthat is just the most amazing thing about
this. So let's just introduce you. So Jenny is a wellness coach who
cares deeply about the intersection of craftand health, and that's what we're talking
about, this colorful, joyful partof our well being. And she has
(04:18):
clients that she coaches in regards totheir physical, mental, social, creative,
and spiritual chriscerns all through creativity.She's a lifelong writer and she's got
thirty five years of experience in print, broadcasts and online media and in a
past life, if you guys haveprobably seen her, she's been on the
History Channel of Modern Marvels and youcan look it up. So if you
(04:41):
have like cable TV, who's cableTV anymore. I mean, quite frankly,
if you are an insomniac unlike myselfand others, you have seen her
for sure on TV. She haslived with multiple chronic illnesses and chronic pain
since she was a young little lady, since nineteen ninety seven, so that's
basically the same time as us guys. Anne has devoted much of her life
to advocate for those like her,and she's got a book as well,
(05:04):
and we're going to get into thatlater. So I don't want to talk
any more about me. I wantto talk about you. I'm talking about
why creativity is such an integral partof our wellness practice. And let's roll
out the red carpet for you,babe and take it. Oh, thank
you so much. I love beingcreative and I've been a creative person since
I was a little kid. Andthis is something that if listeners take nothing
(05:27):
else away today but this, Iwant them to remember that you're born creative.
You're born from an active creation,and you are born with innate creativity.
That is who you are. Youare designed to make and do and
think and connect. When we're littlekids, this stuff is like really easy
(05:48):
to connect to we're in school,they hand us a box of crayons.
Even when we're in junior high.Well back in the day, they handed
me a typewriter. I guess Ihad a Mac. I had an old
like you know, giant and appleto e and apple to e is what
I had. I wrote my firstnovella on that computer. But you know,
(06:09):
today they probably hand you an iPador something. But you know,
when you're a kid, they yourteachers, your family, your friends likely
reinforce that to some degree. Andthen we become adults and it's all about
coloring inside the lines, and it'sall about keeping like following the rules,
keeping to somebody else's standards of whatis supposed to be. And if you're
(06:30):
like me and you have pink hair, well, okay, things are changing
now because it's not as weird tohave pink hair. But but if you
want to be in the corporate world, or if you want to have kind
of what I call it a straightjob, lots of tattoos and nose piercings
and colorful hair is still kind of, you know, not cool and certain
environmental taboo. We're getting there,though, We're getting there, which I'm
(06:55):
happy about. But too. Yeah, as adults were not always encouraged use
our creative side, and it cankind of wither and die. And I
am on a mission to make surethat everyone in the world has access to
this truth that they are creative,that they can tap into that. Whether
they are like me, I'm aquilter, whether they have a giant bookshelf
(07:16):
of quilting fabric behind them, orif they just have like five colored pencils
and a piece of paper. Youcan be just as creative as me if
you allow yourself to play and tapinto that childlike energy. Yeah. And
because creativity it is not just toyour point. It's not just like I'm
a quilter or I am a painteror I am a writer. It is
(07:38):
whatever you want to create that feelscreative to you. And that's for me.
Like my nephew right now, he'sliving with my sweetie and I right
now, and he's really interested inhis e bike and getting creative on how
he can start his own little businessand how he can help other kids make
their bikes better. Right, AndI wantentrepreneurial, So I'm trying to give
(08:01):
him a little bit of entrepreneurial spirit, which I know he has in him,
but he's being creative about that.He's like, hmm, what do
you think about this? Antlindeel likeshould I do this? Should we do
that? What do you think aboutthis? And really asking these creative questions
to help him with outlet because rightnow, at his point in life,
right now, he's going through somestuff, and going through some stuff could
lead him this way or it couldlead him this way, and so we're
(08:22):
trying to guide him towards this way. Yea more of the creative side of
it. Even though you wouldn't thinkabout creativity and building motors or building bikes
or building cars. It's incredibly creativeto do the things that you want to
do that are after market or afterwhatever's there that's been given to you.
Yeah, we anytime we can takeanything, any mundane thing or any standard
(08:46):
kind of thing and make it creative. So sometimes when I work with my
coaching clients, I have them goto their sock drawer and I asked them
to commit fifteen minutes to playing intheir sock drawer. And that means your
socks by color or texture or pattern, or picking colors of socks and putting
them in the drawer next to eachother, or making a little to me.
(09:07):
I know, I know, asyou said, all of your labels
all face the same way that youare INTI sostore does not need anybody to
touch it, So step away,it's perfect. What about the undies drawer,
because that's always like then continue onnext. So yeah, so we
play like like we may take asock and make a sock puppet out of
(09:28):
it and like act out a scenarioor there's there's lots of opportunities to get
weird and silly and playful. Andit's funny, like some clients are so
resistant to it because they're just like, what's the point. Yeah, And
I'm like, the point is youallow yourself to just tap into this creative
energy. You're allowing yourself to play. That's the point. The point isn't
(09:52):
production, which is like so muchabout well, let me say so,
a lot of people think about creativityas like making a thing. You have
to make a thing and have aproduct. It is your like a painting
or quilled something has to come outof it that we can display in a
museum. No, yes, yes, yes, no, that's and that's
it. That's the thing that weget wrong so often is like we think
(10:13):
we need a finished product to showoff, But the creativity is the process
or the practice or even like alifestyle that you move through. So you
can play with socks and that's verycreative, and then you can fold them
back up and put them in yourdrawer, but you've given yourself those few
minutes to get silly. Well,so many people have misconceptions of what that
(10:35):
actually is, like like, whatwould be the reasoning behind doing X,
Y and Z creative lead for them? Like what what are they going to
gain from that? Because they likethey're going to be embarrassed by doing something
like that, or they're going tofeel silly doing that, or there's this
like ego that comes into play.Yeah, when we're talking about that,
we're like, leave ego at thedoor, and ego can mean whatever it
can mean to whoever it is.Look it up. It is not just
(10:58):
what you think it is. That'sright speaking. Now, we want to
release people of that because when welet ourselves play, we're tapping into our
innate energy and that is really gettingto the core of who we are.
And we're also experimenting and that's teachingus that we can be courageous and that
(11:18):
it's okay to try something and haveit not be successful, that it's not
the end of the world. Andwe are putting things together in unusual ways,
which reminds us that we have lotsof different kinds of resources at hand
all around us at any given time. And sometimes when you're creating, like
if I'm quilting with friends, thenwe're connecting with people and we're feeling a
(11:39):
shared sense of purpose or some supportor just validation that we're human being worthy
of someone spending time with us.Like, so those little creative acts,
even if we don't produce something,can give us so much. We're talking
empowerment and ideas and courage and permission, and so it's not just about
(12:01):
making the thing. It's about tappinginto who you are and letting yourself express
yourself in a bigger way, youknow. Yeah, And we're all driven
to like perform, like you're saying, like, there's always got to be
this. Well, I did allof this today, and I should have
a perfect bull made on this kilnthat I like did this whole through.
(12:22):
I used to do a lot ofceramics stuff, so I was immediately when
you're talking about that. My creativeoutlet when I was younger was creative creatively
was in in and building pots anddoing all of that, and then painting
and singing is of course, butyou know, when it comes to people
feeling insecure about trying new things,especially when it comes to a creativity side
(12:46):
of it, where you've got somebodythat's like, I'm a corporate guy and
I do this anice, and I'min finance and I got this, but
I've got all of this mischy gusthat I've got to get rid of,
and I've got all of this boloneygoing on, and now you're telling me
that I'm going to like go throwa pot and I'm going to go make
a quill or I'm going to know, like, what, what the fuck
lady's talking about here? How canwe take that ego that we talked about?
(13:09):
How can we take that ego andlet it sit aside for a while?
And why is that so beneficial forus? Especially when you're talking with
people that have come from trauma.Oh yeah, well, as I have,
and I know that you've had yourexperiences. I'm sure so many people
listening have, you know, whensomeone's feeling really stuck and they're feeling like
it's not worth it, or theycan't see the benefit to taking that creative
(13:33):
step allowing themselves to play, Iask them what they're afraid of, and
usually they're afraid of judgment. They'reafraid they're going to look stupid, they're
afraid they're going to look silly.And so when someone's really scared, I
say, well, why don't westart with just you. You don't have
to show me what you make,you don't have to show anyone. You
(13:54):
can journal, you can doodle,you can make that sock puppet out of
your undies or your sucks, youcan do whatever you're able to tap into,
whatever feels accessible. Let's start witha baby step and you don't have
to show it to anyone, Andoften that gets people started. And then
the next step might be, likeif I'm coaching someone the next session,
I might say, why don't wetry making something together, or why don't
(14:16):
you show me something that you've madeor drawn or whatever. And so then
that's one safe person that they've alreadybuilt a trust with and they know that
I'm not going to think they're sillyor stupid, and then we can talk
that through and in the process ofmaking and showing it with me, we
can have that conversation where we startto identify what it is they're afraid of,
(14:37):
Like what what's the fear factor there? We need to babystep into that.
Sometimes we need to start really smalland with very low stakes stuff,
you know, like I didn't becomeI'm a quilter. I make these giant
projects. I make very personal projects. They're getting shown publicly. Now.
I didn't start there. I startedwith a little, tiny thing that only
(14:58):
my best friend and my teacher sow. And then I started with something bigger.
And then I joined a guild,and then I had people telling me
that my work was worthy and helpingme, and then I got courage I
mean, it took years to getcourageous about showing my work. I only
showed my first quote in the showlast year, and I've been quoting for
ten years. So I am aslow mover. I need to baby step
(15:20):
into things. So even a personwho I you know, is so devoted
to creativity like me, it tookme a while to ease into my work
like showing it publicly. So Ijust want to say that out loud for
anyone who's listening who thinks that,like I just jumped, like can ebold
into this creativity pool, you know, like I dipped my toe in.
(15:41):
Well, I always can't embold nomatter what I do, and I splash
everybody and then I have to apologizefor it, and then I get back
out of the pool, and thenI'm like, all right, I'm going
to step a toe in first insteadthis down. But I already got some
of the big splash that I learnedfrom quickly. And some of us work
(16:02):
like that, and sometimes people needto throw some stuff at the wall and
see what sticks and then back upand refine it. I mean, we
all have our process. But that'sthat's a thing that we need to remember
too, is that we're all goingto approach us in different ways and there's
not a wrong way. Absolutely,yeah, And thank you for stating that,
because when it comes to this,this is the scariest thing that I've
ever done, is doing this show, because it was like I have to
(16:26):
canniball every single moment when I comein here and I'm not sure it's going
to happen, and I'm not sure, and that that's part of the I
like getting into trouble. I likea little mischief. I like a little
unknown, a little mystery, Andso I like that about this process for
me. Yeah, I can prepas much as I want to. I
mean, I do my little outlineabout things I want to like kind of
(16:48):
sort of make sure I talk about. But at the end of the day,
I kind of like going in fairlyblind to a certain extent, because
I don't want to come in prefabricatedto what I'm going to talk about.
I mean, obviously we've got ourideas of what we've and we talked about
it and meet and greets and stuff. But this is the scariest cannon ball
that I've ever done, and Ido it every day. Yeah, it's
(17:08):
something that has I've had to worktowards accepting the process for what it is
for me. Mm hm. Andit's not easy because I'm such a perfectionist.
I was just gonna say, howis perfection playing a role in your
process? Not it's not. Andthat's why this is such a scary thing
(17:30):
for me, because it isn't.As this is what Lindsay's doing and this
is what I'm gonna do, andthis is how I'm going to do it.
And this is the time that Ihave had to let go of all
of that, which was a hugecreative challenge for me to do. Oh
yeah, but it also was thebest decision that I made, and it
was accepting the work that I wasdoing from a creative personec Because this is
(17:53):
creativity. It would come we're doinga podcast, this is creative too,
But I mean, just beca We'renot painting, we're painting pictures through our
words. I mean, we're painting. We're painting experiences to the words that
we're saying to you guys. Andso that's part of the creativity journey that
I'm on, and it's helping meprocess pain and trauma as well as release
(18:14):
it through these episodes, which isthe same thing that I'm asking my guests
to do. So if I'm askingmy guests to do it, I can't
be an asshole and not do itbad. Yeah, definitely real I'd be
a shitty host. Man. Well, the thing is like you're doing a
few things that the most successful creativesdo, Like, you have parameters,
so you have an outline, youhave technology, we have a schedule,
(18:34):
you do a meet and greet,so you know who you're getting. You
do a little bit of research,but you don't overdo it. You have
parameters, and so a lot ofreally successful artists set parameters for themselves to
work within because that creates like asafer container to play in. They feel
that they've got that structure, likea scaffolding almost that supports them, and
(18:55):
then they know they can get weirdinside of it. So even like Lisa
Congdon is a beautiful surface design artistthat I really love, and she has
this thing where there are a coupleof colors that she just never uses in
her work. She has a verylimited like I've never seen purple in her
work. She's got parameters. Yeah, she is a super dynamic, colorful
(19:17):
creator, but she has set theselimits for herself and then she can play
within them. And so some peopleneed that. Some people don't want any
limits, they don't want any guidelines. They just want to free ball it.
They don't want any they don't wanta color between the lines. They
know, yeah, that's right.And then some people need a lot of
structure. So they want to seta certain schedule for themselves, a window
(19:41):
where they do nothing else, andthat's what they do every single day,
and they're going to create x amountof work and it's going to be excise
and this color and whatever, andthat works for them. And so when
we think about people who've experienced trauma, creating that sense of safety and that
structure is really important because when we'velived with trauma, as I have and
(20:03):
you have and so many people have, we lose control. We're in a
situation or we're in a life fora period of time where we don't feel
a sense of agency, where wefeel unsafe, where we know that we'll
be harmed if we don't act orsay a certain thing, and so we're
constantly I'll just speak for myself.When I growing up, I was constantly
in a state of fear and nothingfelt safe. So then as I got
(20:30):
older, like so much of mylife was built around how do I create
safety? Physical safety, having asecurity system, emotional safety, and not
connecting with certain kinds of people,you know, professional safety, working in
a very safe field. Like allthese kinds of structures helped me get a
little weird inside of them. ButI needed that safety, right, So
some people died that And so podcastingis super creative and the way you do
(20:53):
it makes sense to me because ofyour background. And then I've been on
people's shows where they don't research me, they don't know anything about me except
for like my job title and what'son my website, and then we just
dive in and they're like, Igot no script, I got no notes.
Let's just see what happens. Igot bump kiss here, lady,
I got bump kuss. I wouldnever do that. That's like, that
(21:15):
freaks me out a little, thatthere's the shit out of me not having
any kind of structure, Like Ilike to have blurred lines, you know,
yes, because I never know whereI'm going to go, but at
least I know I've got somewhere thatI can come back to, you know,
where I've start, Like, Okay, I've got like my baseline,
Like all right, Lindsay and Mikego, whoa, that was taking a
(21:36):
little too far, come on back. And that's something that I would deal
with it, not just in podcastLAMD, but in my business as well.
I've done it forever in my inmy personal life. So it's just
one of those things when you whenyou've been through a lot of trauma and
you've and you have to be ayou feel like you have to be a
certain way or act a certain way, and you have to do all these
things, and you should probably goto counseling here, and you should probably
(21:57):
read this, and you should probablydo that. Like I don't want I'm
not everybody right neither. We areall our own person and we are all
our own colors. And to yourfriend's point, like she does not like
purple, Okay, okay, somethinghappened somewhere along the lines and she doesn't
like purple, so she's not intoit, and that can be That's a
(22:18):
metaphor for so many other things inlife that we avoid no matter what it
represents. And in creativity, youcan throw out the stuff that's like I
know I do it with me withsinging at night when nobody's home. Wow,
I crank up the music and Ising, And it doesn't matter how
I'm going to express because I knowthat I need that form of expression.
(22:41):
And that's something that I think thatis incredibly important for what you do.
So can we talk a little bitbefore we run out a time, because
I want to talk about how youwork with your clients in regards to this,
because this is pretty awesome. Talkto us about how you coach your
babies. Yeah. Sure. Somost of my clients come to me and
they are they have a creative practiceand they want to enrich it in a
(23:02):
certain way, or they want toenrich other parts of their life and they
want their creativity to be part ofthat. So here's an example. So
I had a client who they wantedto eat better, but they didn't just
want to have a boring plate,and so they found little Japanese lunch boxes
(23:23):
like a bento box in like multiplecolors, and then they challenged themselves to
make up their bento box every dayfor lunch and cut their vegetables into fun
shapes and arrange them and have nicecolor contrast, like put a little garnish
in there. Whatever. So itwas a cute, beautiful, sweet little
lunch that they were excited to openevery day. And that was how they
(23:47):
brought their creativity into what for mostpeople is kind of boring moment, like
you have your saying which you goback to work, right, this client
made it fun and cute and shechallenged herself to think creatively about it.
So that's when I coach people.What we talk about motivation. First,
we try to figure out why doyou want to do this, what's motivating
(24:08):
you? Is it coming from within, is it coming from someone else?
Is it motivated by fear? Oris it a proactive motivation, like are
you moving toward a big goal?And then we use that to decide how
are you going to bring creativity intoworking on this goal? And then sometimes
people come to me and their creativityhas I'm not going to say it's dyed,
(24:32):
but it's definitely taken a long nap, you know what I mean?
Nicely said, it's going a longnap, and we want to raise it
up from the that. We wantto get that creativity cooking again. And
so then we think about again,what are your motivations, why why do
you need this? Getting in touchwith what it's going to do for them
(24:53):
to have more creative work in theirlife. Is it going to make you
feel more excited? Is it goingto give you more joy? Will it
help you connect with others? Willit be something you can connect to your
spirituality? So we look at thosekinds of connections and then we talk about,
okay, well, what's your firststep if you're let's say you're a
(25:15):
painter, and you're a Christian andyou want to get more in touch with
your spiritual pursuit, maybe that givesyou some ideas about the kinds of things
you want to paint. Or maybeyou're like me and you're a quilter and
you're a Buddhist and you want toget more in touch with your spiritual side.
Well, then maybe I'm making aquilt or an embroidery piece about a
(25:40):
Buddhist axiom that's important to me,you know. So we try to find
those connections because when people are tryingsomething new, it's hard to just say.
I'd be like if I just turnedto you and said, you know
what would really help your creative practiceif you went out and made a piece
of exquisite jewelry, and you mightbe like, well, what the hell
where am I supposed to get mytools and my maids and get some ideas
(26:03):
and having a bid? We're mybids and you and we may not know
right. But instead I might say, I might say, Lindsey, when
you think about when you were akid, what was your favorite creative thing
to do? If I were coachingyou, I'm not coaching you right now
because that requires a certain agreement betweenus. But if I were coaching someone,
(26:25):
I might ask them what was whatdid they enjoy in childhood or what
have they done previous that they reallylove that we might come back to,
or what is accessible to them,like is there a place where you can
take a class, is there afriend that could teach you a technique?
What's accessible and exciting to you?And then you know, for those of
us with trauma, I'm very carefulbecause I'm not a psychologist. My job
(26:48):
is not to therapize anybody, andso when I work with clients who've had
trauma, I am very intentional aboutmaking sure that they are in therapy,
that they have medical help that Ican't give them. But then within that
structure, we talk about what issafe for you to work on right now,
what feels attainable or what or ifsomething feels safe, like can we
(27:11):
walk it to that edge of safetyand just like peer over a little bit
and see if we can nudge ita little farther up, you know,
But it just depends on the client. It's a really tailored practice based on
the unique individual's needs. Yeah,because everybody is somebody. I say it
all the time, on the show. Everybody's getting bored with that line.
(27:32):
I understand it, but it islegitimately true. Do not think that you
are the same person that's sitting nextto you and you need the same kind
of care. I don't care ifit's Western medicine, Eastern medicine, whatever
the hell you believe in. Youare different than everybody else, and so
please do not put yourself in thesame box as the person that's sitting next
to you, because like my sweetieand I, we are two completely different
human beings. Do we agree uponninety five percent of the things that we
(27:56):
believe in in our life? Yes? Do we have the same political ideations,
yes we do. Do we havethe same all those things big picture
check out, But when it comesto things that I want to do for
my life and self care, waydifferent from it. Yes, I believe
the same, we feel the same, we enjoy the same things, YadA,
YadA, YadA YadA. But whenit comes to our care for ourselves
(28:19):
and where we want to go withinour lives, they're very, very different.
And that is that. And he'snot a creative, but yet he's
in broadcast journalism, so he's creativeon air. He is so incredibly brilliant
with his mind, very different fromwhat we're doing here, but that is
(28:40):
his creative outlet. Even though youwouldn't think doing their news broadcast journalism would
be creative the way in which shedoes it, it is because he has
to because he doesn't want to belike everybody else. He doesn't want to
get the news in the same waybecause everybody else is doing it that way.
So he can work creatively. Nomatter what you do for a living,
(29:00):
or if you don't don't have aliving, your stay at home mom
whatever did, or stay at homedad. Quite frankly, we need more
of a stay at home down youguys. Now you know we all have
to have our creative outlets, nomatter what that looks like. So that's
something that you're bringing this to.And it's so funny. When I first
saw you, it was like Quilterright. I rolled my eyes and like,
(29:22):
Jesus fuck, I can hear hertalk to this girl about And instantaneously
I was like, I love herbecause it was not just about It's not
about you being a culture. It'snot about that. It's about that,
it's an element of what you doin your self care that helps you with
your creative process. Mine is singing, and mine is the show, and
(29:44):
mine is also in writing. Sowe all have our stuff. We just
have to like give it some love. We give a lot of love to
the shit. Yeah, oh mygosh. Yeah, well that's it.
That's the thing that a lot ofclients come to me and they're like,
I don't I'm feeling like my creativepractice suffering. And I ask them how
much time are you spending on it? And when people say, well,
I have, yeah, none,and I'm like, all right, well,
(30:06):
then we're going to start with fifteenminutes a day. We're gonna or
what feels good to you. I'llsay what feels attainable to you? And
some people say three hours, andI'm like great, based on you're not
doing anything. I'm just wondering,what do you think is going to change
so that you do three hours tomorrowand then we date a little deeper.
Okay, three minutes when they reinit in, that's right, they start
(30:30):
with three minutes, and that's okay. That's the thing I have. You
know, I have clients who veryhappily can say I'm you know what tomorrow,
I'm going to do two hours,and they will do it because they
have that intrinsic motivation. They aredriven by that need to feel that flow
state and get that joy. AndI have other clients who say I'm going
to try to do ten minutes aday this week, and they get half
(30:51):
the days done, and neither clientis better or worse than the other.
They're each following their process. Andsome people like me, I'm a slow
takes me a while to ease intothings. Some people like you can ball
into things. We all move atdifferent paces and there's no good or bad
about it, you know. Butpeople tend to judge themselves. And we
(31:11):
live in a time where social mediais so prevalent and widely used, and
it is like a vehicle for comparison, and then we hold ourselves up to
what everybody else is doing, andthen we feel like shit about ourselves.
And that's man. I'm like,I'm backing away from Instagram lately because I
can't take the feeling of being lessthan all the time. I don't I
(31:33):
don't want to feel that. Sothat's that's one thing I wanted, is
not falling the Kardashians. I've beentelling this to you for years. Well,
actually so I unfollowed them last yearbecause I was like, I cannot
look at the football. I can'twith these people. I love watching rich
people be ridiculous, but there hasto be a limit. I'm going to
keep it to watching Below Deck andReal Housewives, and that's it. I
(31:56):
don't need it. I'm not eventhat low lady. I have never watched
one of those dumb shows ever.I I can't. I can't to those
of you, I know, tothose of you who love them, God
bless you all right, not arejust in my room. I live a
lot. I love enough live likeTV whatever the hell we call it?
(32:17):
What do we call it? It'sstreaming? Maybe I don't know. It's
the reality TV, that's sure,Yeah, because now that's an age old
term apparently because I can't remember it. Yeah, I live enough reality.
I don't need any more reality.And I certainly don't want to hear about
you and your salad dressing. LikeI just don't care. Yeah, I
(32:38):
would much rather hang with people andwatch them make things and use their brains
and their hearts and so like,yeah, that's what I want to do.
So when we think about quilting,like people listening, they may not
have any idea what I mean whenI say on the quilter. They might
think that it's all like light blueand mauve, you know, traditional patterns.
(32:58):
You know from the eight you're ina rocking chair on a on a
deck in North Carolina. That's right, that's right, But none of those
are true. Right out of Chicago, chilling quilts with no drinks. There's
a little I have my water.I'm I've been getting into hop water,
(33:21):
which is pretty delicious. But yeah, I'm making like super colorful, exuberant.
I call it hyperscrappy post maximalist.I mean postmodern maximalism. So hyperscrappy
postmodern maximalism. So here's it's alsoin the middle of a bunch of trademarking
for this, because no one's takingit, no one. I'm not even
(33:43):
worried about it. Don't worry.Well. Hyperscrappy is all about like I
love to bring in all the differentelements. I want every color and every
texture and every pattern. So alot of my quilts just everything like thrown
at them. And I have thislike kind of frenetic energy, like visual
(34:06):
energy. I move slow because Ihave chronic pain, and so I'm not
like frenetically moving through my studio,but my clothes have the energy and maximalism.
Like that's that again, that devotionto like every color, every texture,
every pattern. Like I want myquilts to kind of be like a
little bit of an explosion in yourbrain when you see them, and I
(34:29):
want them to talk to you.I want you to have feelings about them.
And then also you can cuddle underthem. So it's like you get
the boast of both worlds. WhenI think about my great grandma, she
was going blind in her nineties andshe was still crocheting every day, and
she didn't care what color yarn shehad. She just needed contrast so that
she could see the two different colorsof yarn relating, yeah, relating to
(34:53):
each other. Right, And soher crocheted blankets were bananas. It's like
they made no sense, but theywere also beautiful because she knew that it
felt good to move her hands ina rhythmic fashion and use her brain,
even though she was going blind andshe was tired. And so the quilts
(35:13):
that I mean, the crocheted blanketsthat came out were just off the rails
but I but I have one,and I love it so much, and
it came from that beautiful urge tocreate you know. Yeah, well it's
awesome, and I expect a beautifulblue and white and mob quilt said to
me, excellent, I'm gonna puffit. I'm gonna fill it extra puffy
(35:35):
so that it's like big and fluffyfor you. Never, I would never,
please, don't do that. Allright, So, real quick,
let's talk about your book. We'vegot Chronic Babe one oh one, how
to craft an incredible life beyond Illness. Let's talk real quick about that before
we hit the dusty trail. Yeah, sure, sure. So you know,
we've talked about the fact that Ihave chronic illness stuff. I've had
chronic pain and chronic illness for twentysix years. And after the first few
(36:00):
years, I started to really figureout what I was doing with a lot
of help from other people, andI started doing online advocacy as Chronic Babe,
and it was all about teaching youngwomen how to be babes, no
matter how sick they were. That'swhere I was coming from. I was
in my thirties today. If Iwere remaking the site, it would not
(36:20):
be as gendered. But at thetime, there were no outlets for women
to share their voices when it cameto having chronic illness, Like there were
no websites. When I got diagnosedwith fibromyalgia, they gave me a trifold
brochure. That's what I had.I had nothing. So when we think
about what was available back then,I needed what I wanted to read.
I needed like a punk rock,weird ass website to talk to me about
(36:45):
how to live well with pain.I didn't need this trifold brochure with like
ancient people, people probably in theirfifties like I am today. But at
the time, I was like,who are these old people? These are
not me? So I made thisthing called Chronic Babe, and and through
that work for sixteen years, Iadvocated for people like us who live with
chronic pain and chronic illness. Andout of that came this book that's really
(37:08):
all about helping people learn how tojust create the life that's going to feel
the best to them, even ifthey're sick. Yeah, and I can
say that it's possible because I've doneit. I every you know, your
mileage may vary like other people's journeysare not going to be my journey.
But I did it. I managedto make a life despite having many chronic
(37:30):
illnesses PTSD, asthma, rainodes,fibromyalgia, IBS, a bunch of stuff
just basically like word salad of chronicstuff, right, But I figured it
out. It's not exactly what Ithought my life was going to be like,
but I've made the best life thatI could out of what I was
(37:50):
handed. So for folks who havenot figured that out yet, Chronic Babe,
one on one is my It's likemy love letter to people with chronic
pain and chronic illness and just likereally helping them be sexy and vibrant and
fun and adventurous and creative and lovingand connected and all those things even if
they're sick. You know, today, if I were going to rewrite that
(38:13):
book, I would definitely write itfrom a more trauma informed perspective because knowing
what I know now about how trauma, you know, in a lot of
ways created a lot of the chronicstuff that I live with. There's lots
of ways to heal trauma, andit won't ever leave me, but I've
learned how to live with it andfeel better with it, and so I
(38:34):
think we need more resources that aretrauma informed for people with chronic illness and
chronic pain, because when we neglectto care for some of those other sources
of struggle, then we're not treatingthe whole patient. So anyway, that's
like my little soapbox moment. Ijust think we need more of that kind
of work out there. So that'sthe thing that I'm currently researching myself.
(38:57):
But yeah, I don't. Somany of us with chronic pain chronic illness
have come from really intense, shittybackgrounds, And it's not that it everything
is in our head, but thereare parts of our chronic illness and chronic
pain experience that are generated from emotionalexperiences, and so when we can pay
attention to that and honor it,we can feel somewhat better and have like
(39:23):
fewer symptoms sometimes when we're treating themental side of the chronic pain or chronic
illness. Again, I just wantto emphasize that I'm not saying it's all
in people's heads, because that's bullshit. That's not how I am. People
said that to me a lot whenI was younger, and I was like,
well, t all that's of therest of my body. Yeah,
(39:45):
I experience the same and so manywomen did, and pot so many women
did and they still do today.But it's it's less it's less common.
But you know, so I andto come back full circle when we think
about creativity, you know that bookthat I wrote was a creative act born
out of suffering. It was Imade something out of my suffering. People
(40:07):
might not think of that as acreative act, but I created something that
didn't exist to help other people.And it's a tool that helps other people
use their creativity to create a lifestylethat they previously haven't experienced. So it's
just another way to remind people thatwe can use our creativity in so many
different ways. And some of thatif it's for me, if it's to
(40:30):
help people, then I feel likeI have fulfilled my mission. You know
what I mean? Well, andthat's why you're here to help explain and
teach us more ways that we canhope how we can. Like even when
I started, like all of thesecoping mechanisms that I created at such a
(40:50):
young age to get me through notunderstanding what my little brain was dealing with
at such a young age, andhaving to be an adult so young.
I'm like in a dole at nine, You're like, WHOA, Okay,
that's weird. I probably should notbe an adult at this young of an
age. And it has aged meby being this old soul, by being
this person that I'm like, I'mexhausted. I'm like, I was going
(41:13):
through stuff that people in their fortiesshould be going through when I was nine,
Like, this is nuts of stuff. Yeah, And it wasn't until
I started doing this that and meetingpeople like yourself that it really not unhinged,
but it kind of like lifted thisveil of I did not know all
of that stuff was going on.And so here we are and we're doing
(41:34):
the thing, and we're doing ittogether, and I am so grateful for
having met you and you know,and the colorful joy that you've brought into
my life into our listeners as well. Jenny and I literally could do like
seventeen episodes further, and we talkedabout starting our own podcast on our meeting
and greet because we have so manythings that we want to talk about in
a colorful way. I'm square bysquare, you know that we can get
(41:59):
to make them colorful place for usall to live in. But we're both
here, so you are exclusively invitedto share this living creatively and scrappy vip
pain journey together. Let's get tothe heart of how to heal with you
by my side and by Jenny's side. Thank you so much for being here
with us today. Jenny, It'sbeen an absolute wonderful, colorful trip.
(42:21):
Oh thank you. The joy ismine. Thank you for joining me on
this colorful journey today. I can'twait to see where we're gonna go.
Welcome to the Pain Game Podcast.Guys. This is what we do here.
Let's connect and here stories of strengthand grit. I am here,
Jenny is here. We are hereto provide a safe place to be vulnerable,
to be honest, to be colorful, and share your powerfully amazing stories.
(42:45):
So please follow the Pain Game Podcastwherever you digest your podcast content,
we will be there. Visit usat the Pain gamepodcast dot com, and
follow us on all the socials.Thanks for listening, my little VIPs.
Catch you on the other side.H
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