August 31, 2025 • 40 mins
Do you ever feel an inherent tension between the pull of your creative passions and the need to pay for groceries?
When you think about developing the more creative parts of your life and yourself, do you get stuck worrying if it's selfish, entitled, or unwise to give into these desires?
Do you feel that your spirit gets deadened or dulled sometimes by the monotony of day to day living?
Do you sometimes settle for following “rules” that you believe will get you stability, security and ultimately a happy life?
How is that going for you?
In today’s episode, I unpack the topic of creativity and joy by asking questions more than providing answers. I challenge you to think critically about what it means to be a creative being, what happens when we abandon our true creative nature, and what becomes possible when we embrace our creative selves fully.
Here’s my previous episode on the rise of AI - Click HERE to listen!
And the episode I mention about thriving in all areas of your life - Click HERE to listen!
Host: Ally Fallon // @allyfallon // allisonfallon.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the words you write. All the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You got the.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Words and said, don't you think it's down to let
them out and write them down on cold It's all
about and write your story. Write, write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and I have a
really great episode planned for you today. I'm excited to
dive into the topic that I have written down to
talk about. But I want to preface this by just
saying that this episode, and maybe all the episodes of
my podcast are like this, but this episode feels, in particular,
(00:50):
like one that I'm approaching with a lot more questions
than answers. What I'm hoping that this episode will do
is to open a dialogue, and this is I feel
like I've shifted into this space as a creator, a
content creator, a writer, a podcaster, a person of influence.
I hate using the word influencer, but yes, someone who
(01:11):
has built a platform for myself and who tries to
use that platform to the best of my abilities. I've
shifted from standing in confidence as an educator, like I
can teach you about the world of publishing. I know
all these things and I'm going to teach you x
y Z two more, standing in the role of the artist,
(01:32):
like asking the question why asking questions at all, inviting dialogue,
inviting conversation, inviting curiosity. And it's funny because it's very
meta to what I want to talk about today on
this episode. That's exactly the topic that I want to
get into. And yet I hesitated before I hit the
record button because I said to myself, well, you don't
(01:54):
really have this figured out yet. You don't even really
know the arc of how the episode is going to go.
You're just literally hitting you record without really knowing what
you're going to say. You don't have any answers down yet.
And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is exactly
what I want to talk about. That is exactly what
I want to explore, because I think that we've gotten
(02:15):
to this place as a culture as a society, especially
with the rise of AI, with social media, with the
access that we have to digital ways of building a business,
building a brand, where our task as human beings is
no longer to be a human being. Our task has
become more of what therapists will call a human doing.
(02:38):
It's like our task is more about productivity, it's more
about efficiency, it's more about getting things done, and even
content creation. This is, I think is a lot of
my resistance around being a figure on Instagram, at least
more recently, is that content creation for me. I didn't
used to call it content creation. When I first started
doing this many many years ago, in the early two thousands,
(02:59):
I wasn't call it content creation. I was calling it writing. Okay,
I wanted to be a writer. I was so excited
and so enamored and so interested in this idea of
exploring my world through words. I didn't know what a
blog was at that time. I didn't know that the
blog was going to take me on a journey to
be a published author. I hoped it would. I had
(03:20):
dreams and aspirations of being on the New York Times
list of you know, completing a work that really resonated
with people, of connecting with others through my artistic talent.
But I didn't know how any of that was going
to unfold. I had no clue, and I didn't go
into it going like I'm going to be an Instagram influencer.
I'm going to build a platform. Nobody was using the
word platform back then, and no one was talking about
(03:43):
being a content creator. So I didn't go into this
thinking like, I want to be a content creator. No.
I went into this thinking, I want to be a writer.
I want to explore my world through words, mostly because
I couldn't not do that because it was so much
a part of who I was that I was doing it.
Whether anyone was paying me or not, I was doing it,
whether I was suffering for it or not. I was
doing it, whether it was helping me or anyone else
(04:03):
or not. I was just doing it because it's so
deeply ingrained into who I am. It's so so much
a part of who I am that I couldn't not
do it. I couldn't stop myself from doing it. So
that's why I was doing it. That was the motivation
behind it. And then fast forward fifteen or twenty years,
and here we are. I guess more than that, because
I started in oh, yeah, about fifteen years. I started
(04:24):
in two thousand and eight is when I started really
doing this work. And here we are in twenty twenty
five and we're called influencers, we're called content creators, We're
called lots of different things. But creating content is not
what I planned to do when I got into this,
and I would argue what I want to argue in
today's episode is that creating content isn't really a creative
(04:46):
act at all. In fact, creating content is an act
of marketing, which can have a creative aspect to it,
but is very different than the pull or the call
that brought me into this work in the first place.
And so maybe if you are sitting there thinking, yeah,
I think I have a creative call in my life too.
I feel that spiritual or inexplicable desire to make something
(05:09):
out of nothing. But I don't know how I would
do that, and I don't really want to be on Instagram,
and I don't really want to build a platform that
doesn't sound that fun to me. But and yet, and yet,
and yet, there's this thing I want to do. There's
this story I want to tell. I want to be
a creative person that pull that tension that your feeling
is so natural and so normal and so human, that
(05:32):
that's what I want to unpack today, that your desire
to make something out of nothing is an innate part
of who you are. It is your birthright as a
human being to want to create something out of nothing.
And for every person that's going to look different. Your
medium is different than my medium. And so maybe writing
(05:53):
isn't even something that's all that interesting to you, although
it probably is because you're here. But maybe writing is
only one way that you want to bring to bear
something that didn't exist before, and maybe you have lots
of other mediums that you'd like to explore. But content
creation isn't really that. I mean, content creation is in
a way, I guess, making something exist that didn't exist before,
(06:13):
but it's also extremely templated. It does and I don't
think touch into the deep desire to be creative that
we experience as human beings. Becoming an influencer doesn't touch
into that, you know, creating community might. Sure, yeah, I
think you can. There's a cross over here, like if
you think of it like a Venn diagram, where one
(06:33):
of the circles that exists is content creation and one
of the circles is creativity. I think there is a
place where they cross, or one circle says, you know,
be an influencer, and one circle says creativity, and it's like, yeah,
there's a place where those two things can cross. And
I think there are a lot of influencers out there,
hopefully myself being one of them, who are creating content
and putting it out in the world, and who are
(06:55):
building platforms, and who are creating communities, and who are
doing it with pure intentions and a good heart, and
who really want to make something meaningful in the world.
But I also think it's quite possible to do those
things and to not really ever touch into what it
means to create as a creator, as a creative being
(07:16):
in the world. I got started thinking about this because
of two different conversations that I had. One was with
a friend of mine who is a dad who is
also a musician, and he and I got into a
conversation about what it feels like to be working in
a creative space post having kids. So we were hanging out.
He's got three kids, I have two kids. We were chatting.
(07:38):
The whole families were hanging out. My husband was there,
his wife was there, all five of our kids were
playing together, and we were just chit chatting about like,
oh my gosh, this wild and crazy life that we're
living with young kids at home, and one of the
things that we really resonated on, a topic that we
resonated on was this feeling like my creative life, my
ability to make money as a creative person has shifted
(07:59):
so dramatically since my children entered this world. And as
we chatted, one of the things we identified is that
a big reason that that has shifted for us is
because of the lack of white space in our lives,
Like we just don't have white space anymore in our lives.
And he and I were kind of joking around about
this idea that for me, a typical day in the
life of Ali, pre kids, pre Matt, you know, living
(08:22):
on my own in an apartment on Main Street in Nashville,
My pre family life was really like, wake up, whatever
time I feel like waking up. Maybe go take a
yoga class, go for a long walk, you know, not
touch my cell phone, not touch my email account until
after lunchtime, get some good hours of writing in, feel inspired,
have a moment, you know, did it a coffee shop alone,
(08:46):
wander around quietly for a long period of time, Like
I'd have like long hours of the day where no
one would talk to me, I wouldn't have any interactions
with anyone. I could just kind of be introspective, go
inside of myself, think things through, have inspiration. And that
is just so far from the reality of my life
at this point that the way that ideas used to
(09:09):
birth from that white space, I just simply don't have
it to access anymore. And I think this is such
an interesting conversation, and we could really go down a
whole long rabbit hole with this. I won't do that,
but a couple of things I do want to say
about this reality is. Number One, it's validating just to
know that this is an experience that other people are having,
(09:30):
that I'm not alone in having this experience. If I
had a creative life or a creative practice before my
children were here, and now that my children are in
the world, that has hindered or halted my creative practice
in some way, it is really validating just to acknowledge
and admit that that is part of my reality. It's
something that I'm experiencing, and to have him acknowledge that
(09:53):
and reflected back to me, it was just like, oh
my gosh, yes, and our spouses were laughing at us
because their professions aren't as qu unquote creative, and they
wouldn't necessarily like tag or label themselves as creative people,
although I believe deeply in my being that we all
are creative people. But my husband works in marketing, his
wife works in the nonprofit world. I mean, they're just
(10:15):
their career paths have been very different than ours and
are maybe a little bit more like buttoned up in
corporate I guess, I don't know if that's the right word,
but a little bit like what you're imagining, like get
dressed up in nice clothes and go to an office
and do your work instead of wandering around aimlessly through
East Nashville until you can dream up a poem. So
just a really different kind of work environment than what
he and I were used to experiencing. And it was
(10:36):
extremely validating to have him look at me and go like, yeah,
it's wild, because I feel this feeling of guilt, like
if I have a nanny or I have a childcare,
I have someone else watching my children so that I
can wander around aimlessly through you know, Shelby Bottoms in
East Nashville. That exchange feels something about it feels deeply wrong,
(10:58):
like I'm like if I were going to a job
where I was punching the clock and making money each
hour that I was at work, I would feel differently
about paying someone to be with my kids. But instead,
you know, I'm the one who's in our family system
right now at this moment in charge of the quote
unquote childcare at home. I'm home during the days with
my kids, and he and his wife have gone in
(11:20):
and out of similar seasons that Matt and I have
where they've traded off, and it's like, when you're the
one who's at home in charge of childcare, something about
it feels really self indulgent or really selfish to say
I'm going to pay thirty bucks an hour, because, by
the way, that's what it costs, bare minimum to have
someone be with my kids so that I can go
wander around aimlessly and have some white space, so that
(11:42):
I can write a poem like is that what we're doing?
Or write a blog post I guess, or write a
sub stack post, or write an email to send. There's
something about it like we in our culture have not celebrated,
have not validated that type of creative practice. We haven't
elevated it, we haven't put it in our value system
(12:02):
in such a way where we go, oh yeah, absolutely,
that's worth it to pay money to have someone come
and watch my kids so that I can do that
other thing, unless it's also making me money, which this
gets is where it gets convoluted. Is that for he
and I, both his music and my writing, they are monetized.
And so how do you put a value judgment on
(12:23):
the wandering aimlessly through the park if that's what inspires
the blog post or the substack post that does pay
my bills? You know, So I digress. But that's one
part of the conversation. Another part of the conversation that
I think is necessary to acknowledge is just that again
the value system and the way that we've set up
our current climate and current culture. Because we don't have
(12:45):
artistic creativity at the top of the value system, there
is an extreme lack of support. Because we don't have
artistic creativity at the top of the value system, there
(13:07):
is an extreme lack of support, an extreme lack of
support for people who would like to touch into or
access this creative part of themselves. And because of that,
you have like a pyramid of privilege, you know, like
and I would be close to the top of this
pyramid in terms of having the privilege to access my
(13:30):
own creativity because I have more support around me than
most other people. I would argue most other people in
our culture have. I have my mother in law living
next door. I have a husband who, for all intents
and purposes, I mean right now in our life, he
is the breadwinner in our family. And he did that.
We made that decision together so that I could take
a step back from my coaching practice and really reevaluate,
(13:51):
like how do I want to show up in the world.
And this part of the conversation has been a big
part of that question. It's like, my coaching practice is
there's a creative element to it, but it's not really
me being a creative person. It's not why I entered
into this work, and so how do we create more
space for that creativity? And part of that of answering
that question, or of asking it in more detail has been, Okay, well,
(14:15):
Matt's going to take over the bread winning for this season,
so that I can have a little bit more space
to stand back and think, like, how do I want
to show up? What kind of influencer do I want
to be in the world. If I'm going to be
a quote unquote influencer, what kind of influence do I
want to have? And I have the unique privilege of
being able to do that. And yet on the other
side of the coin, I want to also acknowledge that
moms of young children have less access to this than
(14:40):
dads do. And even this friend and I were talking
about that, about how no one questions, you know, when
he goes away for ten hours a day or whatever
to go to his office and get his work done.
As long as he's coming home with the paychecks. You know,
no one questions whether or not he's allowed, you know,
air quotes to go do that. But as a mom,
(15:02):
I would absolutely be questioned whether or not I'm allowed
to do that. It's like, oh, the cultural narrative would say, like, oh,
You've got to be more practical than that. You should
probably be home with the kids. Your kids need you.
How selfish of you, how self indulgent of you to
take that time and do that for yourself. Even if
my creative practices are earning me a paycheck, and if
(15:24):
they're not earning me a paycheck, well then all the
more reason to abandon them completely because that's just not wisdom,
that's just not how life works. And this is the
narrative that I really want to challenge in this conversation
and the questions that I want to start asking, because
I think there's a ton of nuance to be had
here and I don't think that there are simple pat
(15:44):
answers to these questions that I'm asking. And I'm also
not trying to paint myself as some kind of a victim.
I'm simply asking the question, like, what level of importance
do we want to put on this idea of creativity?
Do we believe that all people are creative? Do we believe?
I believe with every fiber of my being, I can't
not believe this. That creativity is our divinity, it's our
(16:07):
access to what matters the most about us. It is
our greatest contribution to the world, and that our culture
has so devalued creativity that a it's hard to make
money with your creativity. Most creative people, you know, there's
the reason that there's this whole stereotype about the starving artists,
because most people who are pursuing their creative acts, who
are following their creative pursuits, are struggling financially. You know,
(16:31):
that's a real stereotype for a reason. I'm not saying
that it has to be that way. I'm saying that
the world we live in creates that dynamic. So, you know,
do we really believe in creativity? Do we celebrate creativity?
Do we make space for creativity? Do we value it
highly enough to build the systems and structures around people
that would allow for these creative acts to take place?
(16:56):
Do we have faith in our own creativity? And these
are all questions that I'm just wanting to explore on
today's episode, and questions I'm wanting to ask you and
invite you into this conversation with me. And again, I
have so few answers on this topic. I'm not coming
to this episode with answers, but I am coming with
what I believe are absolutely vital questions to our human existence,
(17:18):
and that are even more vital, becoming even more vital
in this time where we're watching AI on the rise
offering to sort of like take over all these things
that we do in our lives. And I just want
to ask the question, like, is the rise of AI
(17:38):
helping us to build the muscle of creativity? Because I
do think there's a way that that could be possible.
And I've talked about this before, but it's like, if
AI is going to take over, you know, some of
the rote tasks that we don't love doing, like checking
our email inbox or whatever, the things that get in
the way of our creativity anyway, then by all means,
let AI take that over. But my husband and I
(18:00):
last night, we're having this conversation about an AI robot
taking over things like laundry and taking over things like cooking,
and I just have to ask myself the question, like,
if I'm giving up bread baking, and I'm giving up laundry,
and I'm giving up all these things that make me
uniquely human that put me back in touch with my
own embodiment, I really do believe that begins to disconnect
(18:22):
us from our unique creativity. And if I'm disconnecting myself
from creativity for the sake of what, for the sake
of productivity so that I can have a greater output.
And I think this is an absolutely dangerous path to
walk down for human beings. And I have felt I'm
sure you have too, but I have felt what it
(18:44):
feels like to be disconnected from my own creativity. And
in times when I'm disconnected from my own creativity, I
feel depressed, I feel low energy, I feel sick to
my stomach, I feel physical symptoms. I feel run down.
I feel a lack of motivation. I feel scattered, you know,
I feel confused about what to do next. And then
in moments when I'm connected to my creativity, when I
(19:07):
have a strong connection to the sense that I can
make whatever I want to make out of the raw
materials of this life, when I feel deeply connected to that,
I am energized. You know, I'm like filled up. And
it doesn't always mean that I feel good, but I
feel infused with life force in In fact, let me
give you an example, and this I said that there
(19:29):
were two stories that were making me unpack this topic
or inviting me to unpack this topic, and one of
them was that I met with an author the other day.
She has been on my calendar for a long long time.
She's a coaching client who I took on a long
time ago, and we had had to push back her
coaching day by several months, and so it's been lingering
(19:49):
on my calendar, and we were finally able to meet
the other day to outline her book. So we sat
down outline her book and we were talking about her
personal story, and I was telling her about when I
was going through my divorce and everything got up ended
all at once, and the rug was pulled out from
underneath of me, and I was just in this time
of like great crisis and great despair. And I said
(20:09):
to her, sometimes I feel nostalgic for that time. I
know that sounds weird, but the reason that I feel
nostalgic for that time is because the veil was so thin,
the you know, thinking of this veil between heaven and earth,
like the veil was so thin between me and what
really matters, Like everything extraneous was yanked away from me.
(20:31):
Everything I thought I was building, my business, my career,
my you know, all the opportunities related to my career
were yanked out from underneath of me. My marriage was
yanked out from underneath of me, everything that I had
been building in that respect, my friendships. I had only
a couple of friendships that were really close to me
that I knew I could really trust, and I was
leaning on those friends. So everything was so present and prescient.
(20:55):
It was so close, and that time of crisis was
really painful. I remember the pain being so acute, and
yet I was so deeply connected to this sense that
whatever is going to come out of this time, this
dark time, is going to be because I chose to
(21:15):
put my hands to it and to shape it into something,
and I was so connected to that. There was actually
like looking back on it, and I don't know that
I could have had this perspective when I was in it,
but looking back on it, I'm like, actually, that's happiness,
that's joy. That is like that deep connection to the
sense that like I have agency over this life that
(21:36):
gave me access to this life force energy that despite
being really sad and in grief and in despair in
some moments, I was alive. I was so full of life.
And I find myself at times as my life levels
out and as there isn't as much drama, which is
(21:58):
a good thing, but as I move in to a
life that has way less drama in it, I find
myself feeling almost nostalgic for that time because I was
so deeply connected to my own creativity. And so I
was talking to my therapist about this. I was just
telling him about this tension that I feel between wanting
to live a creative life and also just needing to
pay my bills. It's like, I've got two kids. I
(22:18):
would love to have another baby. That's something that I've
been vocal about. It's something I would really love. I
don't know if mother nature will give us another baby,
but if it is possible, that is something I am
inviting in and welcoming with open arms. And the idea
of being a mother to three children is like, yeah,
that's a lot of responsibility, you know, I am in
charge of I'm charged with I have the deep responsibility
(22:43):
of meeting their needs, their physical needs, their emotional needs,
and doing that is not free, and in fact, in
the time that we're living in and in the unique
geography of our life, just costs a lot of money.
I'm not trying to play the victim here. I'm not
saying that not everyone is in this. I'm not arguing that,
you know, like we have this position of privilege where
(23:04):
I feel like we have access to a lot more
than other people do. But I'm just acknowledging that this
is not something that I can just quit my job
and not worry about finances. For the rest of my life.
If I'm in charge of taking care of myself and
my husband, I mean he and I are together in
charge of taking care of ourselves and then also children.
And so I was telling my therapist about this tension
(23:25):
that I've been living in. I've been asking myself this
question about how do I continue to show up as
a creative person because I believe creativity is your birthright.
I believe everybody has a deep connection to the creative,
that the creative like you know. In my upbringing, we
talked about everybody being made in God's image, and to me,
(23:45):
that is synonymous with saying that we are made in
the image of creativity. It's like first thing that God
does in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Scriptures
is breathe into existence something that never existed, and we're
made in that image. We're made in the image of God.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Will.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
In my mind, it's like, yeah, we're made to create.
We're made to make something where there wasn't want something.
And total side note, but I think becoming a mother
is actually such a unique representation of this. It's like
you without any kind of knowledge or expertise of your own,
zero like zero knowledge. It takes zero knowledge or expertise
(24:26):
to birth a child. I mean, it takes so much
other stuff like resilience, will power, strength, ability to face
challenges like physically, emotionally, mentally. It is the most gargantian
effort of all time. But all you have to do
to make a baby, to bring a baby into your womb, theoretically,
is to follow your own pleasure. And I just find
(24:48):
that to be such a wild, wild analogy that you
follow your pleasure, you create this being. I could do nothing,
like as the pregnant mother, pregnancy is the most most
challenging thing I've ever done. And also there's nothing you
can do. You sit back and your body, out of
its own intelligence, creates a central nervous system. Like that
(25:11):
is wild, wild, wild stuff to me, and so to me,
I'm like, yeah, no, it's obvious, Like creativity is in
our nature, and not only is it in our nature,
but it is so deeply needed, Like creativity is the salve,
it's the it's the treatment to every single one of
our ailments, and it is the treatment to oppression, it's
(25:34):
the treatment to injustice, it's the treatment to despair, it's
the treatment to depression. It's the treatment to all of it,
like to wars, to human suffering, to conflicts, like creativity
is the treatment to every single one of our ailments.
It is our birthright, It is our divinity coming through
us in a breath, just like that beautiful poem from
(25:58):
the beginning of Genesis, like God breathe into existence something
where there was once nothing. And I thought about that
so many times while my daughter was in my belly,
just growing without my even doing anything. It's like, yeah,
God breathes, and then here there is life, and life
comes into the world. I got off on a long
(26:27):
tangent there, but essentially I was telling my therapist all
about this. I was telling him how I believe we're
creative beings. I believe we were put here to be creative.
I believe the most important thing that we can do
is to express our creative nature. I believe creativity is
the you know, the solution to every single one of
our problems. And yet I am choosing not to be creative.
I'm choosing not to live in my creativity because I'm like,
(26:49):
I got to figure out a way to you know,
just pay the bills, Like we got to pay the
mortgage we got to pay for groceries which are more
expensive every passing day, like we to get gas in
the car. My kids are school age now or trying
to create this life for them, you know, I want
to give them the things that they need and that
are going to nurture their little spirits. And yeah, all
(27:10):
of that takes cash money, Like, I'm not in any
kind of denial about that. And one of the things
that he said to me that was very memorable to me,
and I wrote it down, was that if you're going
to choose creativity, you might also need to choose simplicity,
which at first I balked at a little bit because
I don't want to buy into the narrative of the
(27:31):
starving artist. I don't think that just because you choose
art means that you also need to choose to opt
out of the finer things in life. I guess, for
lack of a better way to say it, or just
like you don't need to choose to opt out of joy.
In fact, in my view of creativity is that creativity
is our joy. It is there is no separating creativity
(27:53):
from joy, and so if you're opting out of joy,
you're opting out of creativity. If you're opting out of creativity,
you're opting out of joy. And I don't think that
artists should have to live this kind of starving lifestyle
where they don't get to have the things that other
people have. I do not buy into that narrative for
a single second. And yet I do think that there's
(28:13):
an element where if I choose a creative existence, I
am opting out of this concept of the American dream
that has been sold to us, and that is becoming
less and less accessible to the average person, you know,
every single passing day that we're living in. And I
want to get too deep into the weeds of the
politics here, but I believe our democracy democracy is being
(28:37):
strategically dismantled during this time. I believe we're in a
really like I don't believe that we need to live
in fear, but I believe that the things that are
taking place during this time are unpreceentented and should have
our attention. And I believe again that creativity is the
antidote to these things that people, individuals rising up in
(28:58):
their own unique creativity is the only power that we
have to approach these problems with any kind of meaningful action,
that it's all going to be born from a place
of creativity. It's all going to be born from that deep,
deep part of ourselves that can make something out of nothing.
(29:18):
Using our own unique human intelligence. We can create something
out of nothing. And yet in order to opt into creativity,
we have to in some ways opt out of that
American dream. And so I do think that there is
an element of choice here. It's like, which do you
want to choose? Do you want to choose to opt
into the system that says if you follow all the rules,
(29:40):
if you do X, Y and Z, if you take
steps one, two, and three, then you're going to get
this reward, this prize, this house, this white picket fence,
whatever it is. Or do I want to say no,
big middle finger to that. I'm choosing to create my
own reality. I'm choosing to partner together with other human
beings to create something that is deeper, that's truer, that's better,
(30:04):
that's richer, that has more space for more people, that
has more room at the top of the mountain. Like,
I'm not going to play by your rules, where if
I follow all the rules, then I'll get to the
top of the mountain. And then I'll get to experience
some of the you know, the goodness that you get
to experience. No, no, no, no, I'm opting into a
different kind of existence. I'm creating something brand new, using
(30:26):
that unique birthright of my own creativity. So I don't
even really know how all of that plays out. This
is where I feel like my expertise bumps up against
a lot of question marks. It really does feel similar
to the time in my life when the rug was
pulled out from underneath of me and everything was a
knots and I was confused about all of it. I
(30:47):
had no idea how it was going to go. But
I'm in this place of crisis, and by acknowledging the crisis,
it actually brings me so richly into the present moment
that now there are times when I feel nostalgic for
that period of time in my life. As painful as
it was, coming to grips with those painful truths was
(31:08):
actually like, yes, like I am infused with life again.
I am telling myself the truth about what's really going on.
I'm paying attention to the facts of the story that
are unfolding all around me, and I'm also refusing to
buy into the narrative that I have to live with
whatever was handed to me. There are these raw materials,
and I get to choose to make of it whatever
I want to make of this. And so I'm going
(31:29):
to get to work. And that's I think my invitation
to myself and to all of us during this time
is it's like, how can we get to work reimagining
what is available to us, reimagining what we want this
world to look like, the kind of world that we
want to pass on to our children. I'm not saying
that it's going to be easy. I'm not saying that
there won't be any sacrifices involved. And I'm also not
(31:51):
saying that I think you have to suffer for the
common good at all, you know. I think like there's
a lot of that that goes on in faith circles
any and in like, you know, really strong political circles
and stuff. It's just like, Okay, we're going to suffer
for the common good. We're gonna suffering now, but there's
going to be a big payoff later. I think, you know,
I want for myself and for you to be able
(32:13):
to thrive in every single area of your life. And
I don't know how realistic that is for it all
to happen at the same time, and I recorded an
episode about that too, But I'll tell you what I
do believe. I believe that you also have the right
to live your life, to have access to health care,
to go on vacations with your family, to take care
of yourself and your children, to pay your mortgage, you know,
(32:35):
without having to work seven jobs and work overnight and
kill yourself as a person. You know. I believe that
you deserve to make enough money to cover your expenses
and have some extras, to put some away for savings,
to have some for retirement, to really enjoy your life,
to have experiences that matter to you, all of it. Like,
I believe that you deserve that and should have access
(32:56):
to that. And also I acknowledge that we live in
a world that says, well, okay, if you go to
your job for forty hours a week and you work
really hard and you do all the things, well, then
you can have that and you can have a little
paid time off. But if you're gonna, you know, whittle
your time away doing these creative things that don't make
anybody any money, well then then you don't get to
have access to any of that, like, that's yes, I'm sorry,
(33:17):
it's just bs. I believe that you can have both
some of both, and I also believe that in order
to have some of both, that we all have to
put in the work to create the kind of world
where something like that is possible. And so this episode
again is not about presenting answers as much as as
it is about asking the questions and really inviting you
(33:38):
to ask yourself the question, what is creativity for you?
What does creativity look like for you? Do you have
access to your own creativity? Do you feel like you
can create something out of nothing? If you could create
anything out of thin air? Right now, what would it
be that you would create? And even just answering that question,
like what would it be for me? It'd be a baby.
I would really love to have another, maybe, And I
(34:01):
don't have total control to create that out of nothing.
That's it's you know, that is out of my hands,
in in large part out of my hands. I can
do what I can do, just like all of us can,
but in large part out of my hands. And maybe
what you want is also in large part out of
your hands. And so how can you participate in the
creation of what you want while also holding loosely that
(34:23):
you may not get exactly what you want. That is
the beginning, the precipice, the start of really beginning to
work with our own creativity. So here are some questions
that you can ask yourself that I think are really
important to ask. Do I see myself as a creative person?
How do I value creativity in my life? Do I
(34:44):
put creativity at the top of the list or do
I put it at the bottom of the list, something
that I just am lucky to get to do if
everything else gets done and everything else is taken care of.
How does my life reflect the way that I value creativity?
Do I make space for my own creativity? Do I
have white space in my life? I could record a
whole episode on just white space, just that conversation I
(35:05):
had with my friend who's a dad. It's like the why.
It's wild to me how little we value creativity and
how little we value white space, that we feel that
it's selfish or self indulgent for us to make space
to just do nothing. How do I value creativity in
my life? How do I value white space in my life?
What do I want to make, Like, if I could
(35:25):
create something out of nothing, what would I make and
what would I have to give up or let go
of in order to prioritize creativity in my life? And
maybe for you it's something really practical, like you want
to create maybe a little bit more financial freedom, or
you want to create a baby or a business, or
maybe something all together different. You know, one of the
(35:46):
things that my husband and I have been working to
create is this little homeschool co op for our kids,
and that's a whole undertaking and an endeavor all in itself.
We're creating something out of nothing, and it is an
uphill battle. So maybe for you it's something like that,
it's something really tangible, or maybe for you there's a
creative medium like painting, music, art, comedy, improv like something
(36:14):
like that that you're like, I don't even really know. Yoga,
Like going back to yoga for me was definitely a
yes to my creativity. It's like, I don't know what
this is going to do. I don't know if it's
going to make me any money. In fact, it's probably
just going to cost me money at this point, but
it is a yes to my creativity. It is an
absolute yes to creating more space in my life for
(36:35):
what I see as inherently valuable. So maybe it's something
like that. Maybe it's a class you want to take,
a dance class, or an improv class, or a yoga
class or a yoga training or some other kind of training.
Whatever it is, it's probably bubbling up for you right now.
It's probably like in the back of your mind. And
this isn't the first time I'm guessing that this has
(36:56):
come to you. You've probably thought of it a few
times and gone like, oh, I would do that, but
I don't know if I can really justify it, or
you know, how could I really explain that to myself
or to my spouse, or to my parents or whomever.
And I just would really encourage you to take a
risk on your creativity, to choose to value your creativity.
(37:17):
Because here's the other thing about creativity is it is collaborative.
So one person choosing to create something out of nothing
is powerful. Two people choosing to create something out of
nothing is infinitely more powerful. And three people, and five people,
and ten people and one hundred people choosing to create
the same something out of nothing is infinitely infinitely more powerful.
(37:39):
And it works like to the hundreds. You know, I
don't know the exact math behind it, but the concept
of like where two or three are gathered together in
My name, there I am with them. I have you
know this. In many ways abandoned so many of the
beliefs that the theology of my upbringing. But there are
certain things like that that come back to me and
I go like, these truths are everywhere. They just are everywhere.
(38:03):
And that is a truth that I still can hang
my hat on that when two or three people come
together to build something, anything is possible, and the spirit
of God is with them. And the spirit of God
is that same intelligent spirit that knits together a central
nervous system inside of your belly. Without any effort from you.
All you do is take care of yourself, and the
(38:25):
creative work is done for you. It is done in
spite of you. It is done no matter what you do.
All you have to do is feed the vessel. Feed
the vessel, feed the vessel, feed the vessel. Nurture, nurture, nurture,
and something new can grow. And so my question for
you would be, what is that something new that you
would like to see grow in your life, in your space,
(38:46):
in your community, in your neighborhood, in the world, in
our planet, and to spend some time talking about that
with maybe one or two other people this week. I
know it's a big topic and it's also a small time.
It's also you know, just I want to take a
dance class. I don't know. It can be that simple.
It doesn't have to be like I want to change
(39:07):
the world. This does not have to be altruistic. That's
the other thing about creativity is creativity is inherently altruistic.
Like you think you're being self serving, but in your
service of self you are contributing. Think of the analogy
of the pregnancy. All you do is nurture the vessel.
You just nurture, nurture and nurture. You just feed her,
You take care of her. Think of how we treat
(39:30):
pregnant women, Like we absolutely elevate and venerate pregnant women.
We just like take care of them. We carry their stuff.
We don't let them pick up heavy groceries. We are like,
let me take a load off, put your feet up,
let me prep your feet, Like, can I get you
a drink? How are you feeling? Is everything okay? Or
You know, we take great care of pregnant women because
(39:50):
we understand this inherent truth that when you nurture the
vessel that the creativity happens. It's just the work does itself.
What would your life look like if you were willing
to nurture the vessel so that the work could do itself.
I hope you found this inspiring and encouraging, and I
hope it sparks an interesting conversation in your household today
(40:11):
or tonight or this week, and I will see you
back next week on the Rite Your Story podcast
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the words you write. All the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You got the.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Words and said, don't you think it's down to let
them out and write them down on cold It's all
about and write your story. Write, write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast.
I'm Ali Fallon, I'm your host, and I have a
really great episode planned for you today. I'm excited to
dive into the topic that I have written down to
talk about. But I want to preface this by just
saying that this episode, and maybe all the episodes of
my podcast are like this, but this episode feels, in particular,
(00:50):
like one that I'm approaching with a lot more questions
than answers. What I'm hoping that this episode will do
is to open a dialogue, and this is I feel
like I've shifted into this space as a creator, a
content creator, a writer, a podcaster, a person of influence.
I hate using the word influencer, but yes, someone who
(01:11):
has built a platform for myself and who tries to
use that platform to the best of my abilities. I've
shifted from standing in confidence as an educator, like I
can teach you about the world of publishing. I know
all these things and I'm going to teach you x
y Z two more, standing in the role of the artist,
(01:32):
like asking the question why asking questions at all, inviting dialogue,
inviting conversation, inviting curiosity. And it's funny because it's very
meta to what I want to talk about today on
this episode. That's exactly the topic that I want to
get into. And yet I hesitated before I hit the
record button because I said to myself, well, you don't
(01:54):
really have this figured out yet. You don't even really
know the arc of how the episode is going to go.
You're just literally hitting you record without really knowing what
you're going to say. You don't have any answers down yet.
And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is exactly
what I want to talk about. That is exactly what
I want to explore, because I think that we've gotten
(02:15):
to this place as a culture as a society, especially
with the rise of AI, with social media, with the
access that we have to digital ways of building a business,
building a brand, where our task as human beings is
no longer to be a human being. Our task has
become more of what therapists will call a human doing.
(02:38):
It's like our task is more about productivity, it's more
about efficiency, it's more about getting things done, and even
content creation. This is, I think is a lot of
my resistance around being a figure on Instagram, at least
more recently, is that content creation for me. I didn't
used to call it content creation. When I first started
doing this many many years ago, in the early two thousands,
(02:59):
I wasn't call it content creation. I was calling it writing. Okay,
I wanted to be a writer. I was so excited
and so enamored and so interested in this idea of
exploring my world through words. I didn't know what a
blog was at that time. I didn't know that the
blog was going to take me on a journey to
be a published author. I hoped it would. I had
(03:20):
dreams and aspirations of being on the New York Times
list of you know, completing a work that really resonated
with people, of connecting with others through my artistic talent.
But I didn't know how any of that was going
to unfold. I had no clue, and I didn't go
into it going like I'm going to be an Instagram influencer.
I'm going to build a platform. Nobody was using the
word platform back then, and no one was talking about
(03:43):
being a content creator. So I didn't go into this
thinking like, I want to be a content creator. No.
I went into this thinking, I want to be a writer.
I want to explore my world through words, mostly because
I couldn't not do that because it was so much
a part of who I was that I was doing it.
Whether anyone was paying me or not, I was doing it,
whether I was suffering for it or not. I was
doing it, whether it was helping me or anyone else
(04:03):
or not. I was just doing it because it's so
deeply ingrained into who I am. It's so so much
a part of who I am that I couldn't not
do it. I couldn't stop myself from doing it. So
that's why I was doing it. That was the motivation
behind it. And then fast forward fifteen or twenty years,
and here we are. I guess more than that, because
I started in oh, yeah, about fifteen years. I started
(04:24):
in two thousand and eight is when I started really
doing this work. And here we are in twenty twenty
five and we're called influencers, we're called content creators, We're
called lots of different things. But creating content is not
what I planned to do when I got into this,
and I would argue what I want to argue in
today's episode is that creating content isn't really a creative
(04:46):
act at all. In fact, creating content is an act
of marketing, which can have a creative aspect to it,
but is very different than the pull or the call
that brought me into this work in the first place.
And so maybe if you are sitting there thinking, yeah,
I think I have a creative call in my life too.
I feel that spiritual or inexplicable desire to make something
(05:09):
out of nothing. But I don't know how I would
do that, and I don't really want to be on Instagram,
and I don't really want to build a platform that
doesn't sound that fun to me. But and yet, and yet,
and yet, there's this thing I want to do. There's
this story I want to tell. I want to be
a creative person that pull that tension that your feeling
is so natural and so normal and so human, that
(05:32):
that's what I want to unpack today, that your desire
to make something out of nothing is an innate part
of who you are. It is your birthright as a
human being to want to create something out of nothing.
And for every person that's going to look different. Your
medium is different than my medium. And so maybe writing
(05:53):
isn't even something that's all that interesting to you, although
it probably is because you're here. But maybe writing is
only one way that you want to bring to bear
something that didn't exist before, and maybe you have lots
of other mediums that you'd like to explore. But content
creation isn't really that. I mean, content creation is in
a way, I guess, making something exist that didn't exist before,
(06:13):
but it's also extremely templated. It does and I don't
think touch into the deep desire to be creative that
we experience as human beings. Becoming an influencer doesn't touch
into that, you know, creating community might. Sure, yeah, I
think you can. There's a cross over here, like if
you think of it like a Venn diagram, where one
(06:33):
of the circles that exists is content creation and one
of the circles is creativity. I think there is a
place where they cross, or one circle says, you know,
be an influencer, and one circle says creativity, and it's like, yeah,
there's a place where those two things can cross. And
I think there are a lot of influencers out there,
hopefully myself being one of them, who are creating content
and putting it out in the world, and who are
(06:55):
building platforms, and who are creating communities, and who are
doing it with pure intentions and a good heart, and
who really want to make something meaningful in the world.
But I also think it's quite possible to do those
things and to not really ever touch into what it
means to create as a creator, as a creative being
(07:16):
in the world. I got started thinking about this because
of two different conversations that I had. One was with
a friend of mine who is a dad who is
also a musician, and he and I got into a
conversation about what it feels like to be working in
a creative space post having kids. So we were hanging out.
He's got three kids, I have two kids. We were chatting.
(07:38):
The whole families were hanging out. My husband was there,
his wife was there, all five of our kids were
playing together, and we were just chit chatting about like,
oh my gosh, this wild and crazy life that we're
living with young kids at home, and one of the
things that we really resonated on, a topic that we
resonated on was this feeling like my creative life, my
ability to make money as a creative person has shifted
(07:59):
so dramatically since my children entered this world. And as
we chatted, one of the things we identified is that
a big reason that that has shifted for us is
because of the lack of white space in our lives,
Like we just don't have white space anymore in our lives.
And he and I were kind of joking around about
this idea that for me, a typical day in the
life of Ali, pre kids, pre Matt, you know, living
(08:22):
on my own in an apartment on Main Street in Nashville,
My pre family life was really like, wake up, whatever
time I feel like waking up. Maybe go take a
yoga class, go for a long walk, you know, not
touch my cell phone, not touch my email account until
after lunchtime, get some good hours of writing in, feel inspired,
have a moment, you know, did it a coffee shop alone,
(08:46):
wander around quietly for a long period of time, Like
I'd have like long hours of the day where no
one would talk to me, I wouldn't have any interactions
with anyone. I could just kind of be introspective, go
inside of myself, think things through, have inspiration. And that
is just so far from the reality of my life
at this point that the way that ideas used to
(09:09):
birth from that white space, I just simply don't have
it to access anymore. And I think this is such
an interesting conversation, and we could really go down a
whole long rabbit hole with this. I won't do that,
but a couple of things I do want to say
about this reality is. Number One, it's validating just to
know that this is an experience that other people are having,
(09:30):
that I'm not alone in having this experience. If I
had a creative life or a creative practice before my
children were here, and now that my children are in
the world, that has hindered or halted my creative practice
in some way, it is really validating just to acknowledge
and admit that that is part of my reality. It's
something that I'm experiencing, and to have him acknowledge that
(09:53):
and reflected back to me, it was just like, oh
my gosh, yes, and our spouses were laughing at us
because their professions aren't as qu unquote creative, and they
wouldn't necessarily like tag or label themselves as creative people,
although I believe deeply in my being that we all
are creative people. But my husband works in marketing, his
wife works in the nonprofit world. I mean, they're just
(10:15):
their career paths have been very different than ours and
are maybe a little bit more like buttoned up in
corporate I guess, I don't know if that's the right word,
but a little bit like what you're imagining, like get
dressed up in nice clothes and go to an office
and do your work instead of wandering around aimlessly through
East Nashville until you can dream up a poem. So
just a really different kind of work environment than what
he and I were used to experiencing. And it was
(10:36):
extremely validating to have him look at me and go like, yeah,
it's wild, because I feel this feeling of guilt, like
if I have a nanny or I have a childcare,
I have someone else watching my children so that I
can wander around aimlessly through you know, Shelby Bottoms in
East Nashville. That exchange feels something about it feels deeply wrong,
(10:58):
like I'm like if I were going to a job
where I was punching the clock and making money each
hour that I was at work, I would feel differently
about paying someone to be with my kids. But instead,
you know, I'm the one who's in our family system
right now at this moment in charge of the quote
unquote childcare at home. I'm home during the days with
my kids, and he and his wife have gone in
(11:20):
and out of similar seasons that Matt and I have
where they've traded off, and it's like, when you're the
one who's at home in charge of childcare, something about
it feels really self indulgent or really selfish to say
I'm going to pay thirty bucks an hour, because, by
the way, that's what it costs, bare minimum to have
someone be with my kids so that I can go
wander around aimlessly and have some white space, so that
(11:42):
I can write a poem like is that what we're doing?
Or write a blog post I guess, or write a
sub stack post, or write an email to send. There's
something about it like we in our culture have not celebrated,
have not validated that type of creative practice. We haven't
elevated it, we haven't put it in our value system
(12:02):
in such a way where we go, oh yeah, absolutely,
that's worth it to pay money to have someone come
and watch my kids so that I can do that
other thing, unless it's also making me money, which this
gets is where it gets convoluted. Is that for he
and I, both his music and my writing, they are monetized.
And so how do you put a value judgment on
(12:23):
the wandering aimlessly through the park if that's what inspires
the blog post or the substack post that does pay
my bills? You know, So I digress. But that's one
part of the conversation. Another part of the conversation that
I think is necessary to acknowledge is just that again
the value system and the way that we've set up
our current climate and current culture. Because we don't have
(12:45):
artistic creativity at the top of the value system, there
is an extreme lack of support. Because we don't have
artistic creativity at the top of the value system, there
(13:07):
is an extreme lack of support, an extreme lack of
support for people who would like to touch into or
access this creative part of themselves. And because of that,
you have like a pyramid of privilege, you know, like
and I would be close to the top of this
pyramid in terms of having the privilege to access my
(13:30):
own creativity because I have more support around me than
most other people. I would argue most other people in
our culture have. I have my mother in law living
next door. I have a husband who, for all intents
and purposes, I mean right now in our life, he
is the breadwinner in our family. And he did that.
We made that decision together so that I could take
a step back from my coaching practice and really reevaluate,
(13:51):
like how do I want to show up in the world.
And this part of the conversation has been a big
part of that question. It's like, my coaching practice is
there's a creative element to it, but it's not really
me being a creative person. It's not why I entered
into this work, and so how do we create more
space for that creativity? And part of that of answering
that question, or of asking it in more detail has been, Okay, well,
(14:15):
Matt's going to take over the bread winning for this season,
so that I can have a little bit more space
to stand back and think, like, how do I want
to show up? What kind of influencer do I want
to be in the world. If I'm going to be
a quote unquote influencer, what kind of influence do I
want to have? And I have the unique privilege of
being able to do that. And yet on the other
side of the coin, I want to also acknowledge that
moms of young children have less access to this than
(14:40):
dads do. And even this friend and I were talking
about that, about how no one questions, you know, when
he goes away for ten hours a day or whatever
to go to his office and get his work done.
As long as he's coming home with the paychecks. You know,
no one questions whether or not he's allowed, you know,
air quotes to go do that. But as a mom,
(15:02):
I would absolutely be questioned whether or not I'm allowed
to do that. It's like, oh, the cultural narrative would say, like, oh,
You've got to be more practical than that. You should
probably be home with the kids. Your kids need you.
How selfish of you, how self indulgent of you to
take that time and do that for yourself. Even if
my creative practices are earning me a paycheck, and if
(15:24):
they're not earning me a paycheck, well then all the
more reason to abandon them completely because that's just not wisdom,
that's just not how life works. And this is the
narrative that I really want to challenge in this conversation
and the questions that I want to start asking, because
I think there's a ton of nuance to be had
here and I don't think that there are simple pat
(15:44):
answers to these questions that I'm asking. And I'm also
not trying to paint myself as some kind of a victim.
I'm simply asking the question, like, what level of importance
do we want to put on this idea of creativity?
Do we believe that all people are creative? Do we believe?
I believe with every fiber of my being, I can't
not believe this. That creativity is our divinity, it's our
(16:07):
access to what matters the most about us. It is
our greatest contribution to the world, and that our culture
has so devalued creativity that a it's hard to make
money with your creativity. Most creative people, you know, there's
the reason that there's this whole stereotype about the starving artists,
because most people who are pursuing their creative acts, who
are following their creative pursuits, are struggling financially. You know,
(16:31):
that's a real stereotype for a reason. I'm not saying
that it has to be that way. I'm saying that
the world we live in creates that dynamic. So, you know,
do we really believe in creativity? Do we celebrate creativity?
Do we make space for creativity? Do we value it
highly enough to build the systems and structures around people
that would allow for these creative acts to take place?
(16:56):
Do we have faith in our own creativity? And these
are all questions that I'm just wanting to explore on
today's episode, and questions I'm wanting to ask you and
invite you into this conversation with me. And again, I
have so few answers on this topic. I'm not coming
to this episode with answers, but I am coming with
what I believe are absolutely vital questions to our human existence,
(17:18):
and that are even more vital, becoming even more vital
in this time where we're watching AI on the rise
offering to sort of like take over all these things
that we do in our lives. And I just want
to ask the question, like, is the rise of AI
(17:38):
helping us to build the muscle of creativity? Because I
do think there's a way that that could be possible.
And I've talked about this before, but it's like, if
AI is going to take over, you know, some of
the rote tasks that we don't love doing, like checking
our email inbox or whatever, the things that get in
the way of our creativity anyway, then by all means,
let AI take that over. But my husband and I
(18:00):
last night, we're having this conversation about an AI robot
taking over things like laundry and taking over things like cooking,
and I just have to ask myself the question, like,
if I'm giving up bread baking, and I'm giving up laundry,
and I'm giving up all these things that make me
uniquely human that put me back in touch with my
own embodiment, I really do believe that begins to disconnect
(18:22):
us from our unique creativity. And if I'm disconnecting myself
from creativity for the sake of what, for the sake
of productivity so that I can have a greater output.
And I think this is an absolutely dangerous path to
walk down for human beings. And I have felt I'm
sure you have too, but I have felt what it
(18:44):
feels like to be disconnected from my own creativity. And
in times when I'm disconnected from my own creativity, I
feel depressed, I feel low energy, I feel sick to
my stomach, I feel physical symptoms. I feel run down.
I feel a lack of motivation. I feel scattered, you know,
I feel confused about what to do next. And then
in moments when I'm connected to my creativity, when I
(19:07):
have a strong connection to the sense that I can
make whatever I want to make out of the raw
materials of this life, when I feel deeply connected to that,
I am energized. You know, I'm like filled up. And
it doesn't always mean that I feel good, but I
feel infused with life force in In fact, let me
give you an example, and this I said that there
(19:29):
were two stories that were making me unpack this topic
or inviting me to unpack this topic, and one of
them was that I met with an author the other day.
She has been on my calendar for a long long time.
She's a coaching client who I took on a long
time ago, and we had had to push back her
coaching day by several months, and so it's been lingering
(19:49):
on my calendar, and we were finally able to meet
the other day to outline her book. So we sat
down outline her book and we were talking about her
personal story, and I was telling her about when I
was going through my divorce and everything got up ended
all at once, and the rug was pulled out from
underneath of me, and I was just in this time
of like great crisis and great despair. And I said
(20:09):
to her, sometimes I feel nostalgic for that time. I
know that sounds weird, but the reason that I feel
nostalgic for that time is because the veil was so thin,
the you know, thinking of this veil between heaven and earth,
like the veil was so thin between me and what
really matters, Like everything extraneous was yanked away from me.
(20:31):
Everything I thought I was building, my business, my career,
my you know, all the opportunities related to my career
were yanked out from underneath of me. My marriage was
yanked out from underneath of me, everything that I had
been building in that respect, my friendships. I had only
a couple of friendships that were really close to me
that I knew I could really trust, and I was
leaning on those friends. So everything was so present and prescient.
(20:55):
It was so close, and that time of crisis was
really painful. I remember the pain being so acute, and
yet I was so deeply connected to this sense that
whatever is going to come out of this time, this
dark time, is going to be because I chose to
(21:15):
put my hands to it and to shape it into something,
and I was so connected to that. There was actually
like looking back on it, and I don't know that
I could have had this perspective when I was in it,
but looking back on it, I'm like, actually, that's happiness,
that's joy. That is like that deep connection to the
sense that like I have agency over this life that
(21:36):
gave me access to this life force energy that despite
being really sad and in grief and in despair in
some moments, I was alive. I was so full of life.
And I find myself at times as my life levels
out and as there isn't as much drama, which is
(21:58):
a good thing, but as I move in to a
life that has way less drama in it, I find
myself feeling almost nostalgic for that time because I was
so deeply connected to my own creativity. And so I
was talking to my therapist about this. I was just
telling him about this tension that I feel between wanting
to live a creative life and also just needing to
pay my bills. It's like, I've got two kids. I
(22:18):
would love to have another baby. That's something that I've
been vocal about. It's something I would really love. I
don't know if mother nature will give us another baby,
but if it is possible, that is something I am
inviting in and welcoming with open arms. And the idea
of being a mother to three children is like, yeah,
that's a lot of responsibility, you know, I am in
charge of I'm charged with I have the deep responsibility
(22:43):
of meeting their needs, their physical needs, their emotional needs,
and doing that is not free, and in fact, in
the time that we're living in and in the unique
geography of our life, just costs a lot of money.
I'm not trying to play the victim here. I'm not
saying that not everyone is in this. I'm not arguing that,
you know, like we have this position of privilege where
(23:04):
I feel like we have access to a lot more
than other people do. But I'm just acknowledging that this
is not something that I can just quit my job
and not worry about finances. For the rest of my life.
If I'm in charge of taking care of myself and
my husband, I mean he and I are together in
charge of taking care of ourselves and then also children.
And so I was telling my therapist about this tension
(23:25):
that I've been living in. I've been asking myself this
question about how do I continue to show up as
a creative person because I believe creativity is your birthright.
I believe everybody has a deep connection to the creative,
that the creative like you know. In my upbringing, we
talked about everybody being made in God's image, and to me,
(23:45):
that is synonymous with saying that we are made in
the image of creativity. It's like first thing that God
does in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Scriptures
is breathe into existence something that never existed, and we're
made in that image. We're made in the image of God.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Will.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
In my mind, it's like, yeah, we're made to create.
We're made to make something where there wasn't want something.
And total side note, but I think becoming a mother
is actually such a unique representation of this. It's like
you without any kind of knowledge or expertise of your own,
zero like zero knowledge. It takes zero knowledge or expertise
(24:26):
to birth a child. I mean, it takes so much
other stuff like resilience, will power, strength, ability to face
challenges like physically, emotionally, mentally. It is the most gargantian
effort of all time. But all you have to do
to make a baby, to bring a baby into your womb, theoretically,
is to follow your own pleasure. And I just find
(24:48):
that to be such a wild, wild analogy that you
follow your pleasure, you create this being. I could do nothing,
like as the pregnant mother, pregnancy is the most most
challenging thing I've ever done. And also there's nothing you
can do. You sit back and your body, out of
its own intelligence, creates a central nervous system. Like that
(25:11):
is wild, wild, wild stuff to me, and so to me,
I'm like, yeah, no, it's obvious, Like creativity is in
our nature, and not only is it in our nature,
but it is so deeply needed, Like creativity is the salve,
it's the it's the treatment to every single one of
our ailments, and it is the treatment to oppression, it's
(25:34):
the treatment to injustice, it's the treatment to despair, it's
the treatment to depression. It's the treatment to all of it,
like to wars, to human suffering, to conflicts, like creativity
is the treatment to every single one of our ailments.
It is our birthright, It is our divinity coming through
us in a breath, just like that beautiful poem from
(25:58):
the beginning of Genesis, like God breathe into existence something
where there was once nothing. And I thought about that
so many times while my daughter was in my belly,
just growing without my even doing anything. It's like, yeah,
God breathes, and then here there is life, and life
comes into the world. I got off on a long
(26:27):
tangent there, but essentially I was telling my therapist all
about this. I was telling him how I believe we're
creative beings. I believe we were put here to be creative.
I believe the most important thing that we can do
is to express our creative nature. I believe creativity is
the you know, the solution to every single one of
our problems. And yet I am choosing not to be creative.
I'm choosing not to live in my creativity because I'm like,
(26:49):
I got to figure out a way to you know,
just pay the bills, Like we got to pay the
mortgage we got to pay for groceries which are more
expensive every passing day, like we to get gas in
the car. My kids are school age now or trying
to create this life for them, you know, I want
to give them the things that they need and that
are going to nurture their little spirits. And yeah, all
(27:10):
of that takes cash money, Like, I'm not in any
kind of denial about that. And one of the things
that he said to me that was very memorable to me,
and I wrote it down, was that if you're going
to choose creativity, you might also need to choose simplicity,
which at first I balked at a little bit because
I don't want to buy into the narrative of the
(27:31):
starving artist. I don't think that just because you choose
art means that you also need to choose to opt
out of the finer things in life. I guess, for
lack of a better way to say it, or just
like you don't need to choose to opt out of joy.
In fact, in my view of creativity is that creativity
is our joy. It is there is no separating creativity
(27:53):
from joy, and so if you're opting out of joy,
you're opting out of creativity. If you're opting out of creativity,
you're opting out of joy. And I don't think that
artists should have to live this kind of starving lifestyle
where they don't get to have the things that other
people have. I do not buy into that narrative for
a single second. And yet I do think that there's
(28:13):
an element where if I choose a creative existence, I
am opting out of this concept of the American dream
that has been sold to us, and that is becoming
less and less accessible to the average person, you know,
every single passing day that we're living in. And I
want to get too deep into the weeds of the
politics here, but I believe our democracy democracy is being
(28:37):
strategically dismantled during this time. I believe we're in a
really like I don't believe that we need to live
in fear, but I believe that the things that are
taking place during this time are unpreceentented and should have
our attention. And I believe again that creativity is the
antidote to these things that people, individuals rising up in
(28:58):
their own unique creativity is the only power that we
have to approach these problems with any kind of meaningful action,
that it's all going to be born from a place
of creativity. It's all going to be born from that deep,
deep part of ourselves that can make something out of nothing.
(29:18):
Using our own unique human intelligence. We can create something
out of nothing. And yet in order to opt into creativity,
we have to in some ways opt out of that
American dream. And so I do think that there is
an element of choice here. It's like, which do you
want to choose? Do you want to choose to opt
into the system that says if you follow all the rules,
(29:40):
if you do X, Y and Z, if you take
steps one, two, and three, then you're going to get
this reward, this prize, this house, this white picket fence,
whatever it is. Or do I want to say no,
big middle finger to that. I'm choosing to create my
own reality. I'm choosing to partner together with other human
beings to create something that is deeper, that's truer, that's better,
(30:04):
that's richer, that has more space for more people, that
has more room at the top of the mountain. Like,
I'm not going to play by your rules, where if
I follow all the rules, then I'll get to the
top of the mountain. And then I'll get to experience
some of the you know, the goodness that you get
to experience. No, no, no, no, I'm opting into a
different kind of existence. I'm creating something brand new, using
(30:26):
that unique birthright of my own creativity. So I don't
even really know how all of that plays out. This
is where I feel like my expertise bumps up against
a lot of question marks. It really does feel similar
to the time in my life when the rug was
pulled out from underneath of me and everything was a
knots and I was confused about all of it. I
(30:47):
had no idea how it was going to go. But
I'm in this place of crisis, and by acknowledging the crisis,
it actually brings me so richly into the present moment
that now there are times when I feel nostalgic for
that period of time in my life. As painful as
it was, coming to grips with those painful truths was
(31:08):
actually like, yes, like I am infused with life again.
I am telling myself the truth about what's really going on.
I'm paying attention to the facts of the story that
are unfolding all around me, and I'm also refusing to
buy into the narrative that I have to live with
whatever was handed to me. There are these raw materials,
and I get to choose to make of it whatever
I want to make of this. And so I'm going
(31:29):
to get to work. And that's I think my invitation
to myself and to all of us during this time
is it's like, how can we get to work reimagining
what is available to us, reimagining what we want this
world to look like, the kind of world that we
want to pass on to our children. I'm not saying
that it's going to be easy. I'm not saying that
there won't be any sacrifices involved. And I'm also not
(31:51):
saying that I think you have to suffer for the
common good at all, you know. I think like there's
a lot of that that goes on in faith circles
any and in like, you know, really strong political circles
and stuff. It's just like, Okay, we're going to suffer
for the common good. We're gonna suffering now, but there's
going to be a big payoff later. I think, you know,
I want for myself and for you to be able
(32:13):
to thrive in every single area of your life. And
I don't know how realistic that is for it all
to happen at the same time, and I recorded an
episode about that too, But I'll tell you what I
do believe. I believe that you also have the right
to live your life, to have access to health care,
to go on vacations with your family, to take care
of yourself and your children, to pay your mortgage, you know,
(32:35):
without having to work seven jobs and work overnight and
kill yourself as a person. You know. I believe that
you deserve to make enough money to cover your expenses
and have some extras, to put some away for savings,
to have some for retirement, to really enjoy your life,
to have experiences that matter to you, all of it. Like,
I believe that you deserve that and should have access
(32:56):
to that. And also I acknowledge that we live in
a world that says, well, okay, if you go to
your job for forty hours a week and you work
really hard and you do all the things, well, then
you can have that and you can have a little
paid time off. But if you're gonna, you know, whittle
your time away doing these creative things that don't make
anybody any money, well then then you don't get to
have access to any of that, like, that's yes, I'm sorry,
(33:17):
it's just bs. I believe that you can have both
some of both, and I also believe that in order
to have some of both, that we all have to
put in the work to create the kind of world
where something like that is possible. And so this episode
again is not about presenting answers as much as as
it is about asking the questions and really inviting you
(33:38):
to ask yourself the question, what is creativity for you?
What does creativity look like for you? Do you have
access to your own creativity? Do you feel like you
can create something out of nothing? If you could create
anything out of thin air? Right now, what would it
be that you would create? And even just answering that question,
like what would it be for me? It'd be a baby.
I would really love to have another, maybe, And I
(34:01):
don't have total control to create that out of nothing.
That's it's you know, that is out of my hands,
in in large part out of my hands. I can
do what I can do, just like all of us can,
but in large part out of my hands. And maybe
what you want is also in large part out of
your hands. And so how can you participate in the
creation of what you want while also holding loosely that
(34:23):
you may not get exactly what you want. That is
the beginning, the precipice, the start of really beginning to
work with our own creativity. So here are some questions
that you can ask yourself that I think are really
important to ask. Do I see myself as a creative person?
How do I value creativity in my life? Do I
(34:44):
put creativity at the top of the list or do
I put it at the bottom of the list, something
that I just am lucky to get to do if
everything else gets done and everything else is taken care of.
How does my life reflect the way that I value creativity?
Do I make space for my own creativity? Do I
have white space in my life? I could record a
whole episode on just white space, just that conversation I
(35:05):
had with my friend who's a dad. It's like the why.
It's wild to me how little we value creativity and
how little we value white space, that we feel that
it's selfish or self indulgent for us to make space
to just do nothing. How do I value creativity in
my life? How do I value white space in my life?
What do I want to make, Like, if I could
(35:25):
create something out of nothing, what would I make and
what would I have to give up or let go
of in order to prioritize creativity in my life? And
maybe for you it's something really practical, like you want
to create maybe a little bit more financial freedom, or
you want to create a baby or a business, or
maybe something all together different. You know, one of the
(35:46):
things that my husband and I have been working to
create is this little homeschool co op for our kids,
and that's a whole undertaking and an endeavor all in itself.
We're creating something out of nothing, and it is an
uphill battle. So maybe for you it's something like that,
it's something really tangible, or maybe for you there's a
creative medium like painting, music, art, comedy, improv like something
(36:14):
like that that you're like, I don't even really know. Yoga,
Like going back to yoga for me was definitely a
yes to my creativity. It's like, I don't know what
this is going to do. I don't know if it's
going to make me any money. In fact, it's probably
just going to cost me money at this point, but
it is a yes to my creativity. It is an
absolute yes to creating more space in my life for
(36:35):
what I see as inherently valuable. So maybe it's something
like that. Maybe it's a class you want to take,
a dance class, or an improv class, or a yoga
class or a yoga training or some other kind of training.
Whatever it is, it's probably bubbling up for you right now.
It's probably like in the back of your mind. And
this isn't the first time I'm guessing that this has
(36:56):
come to you. You've probably thought of it a few
times and gone like, oh, I would do that, but
I don't know if I can really justify it, or
you know, how could I really explain that to myself
or to my spouse, or to my parents or whomever.
And I just would really encourage you to take a
risk on your creativity, to choose to value your creativity.
(37:17):
Because here's the other thing about creativity is it is collaborative.
So one person choosing to create something out of nothing
is powerful. Two people choosing to create something out of
nothing is infinitely more powerful. And three people, and five people,
and ten people and one hundred people choosing to create
the same something out of nothing is infinitely infinitely more powerful.
(37:39):
And it works like to the hundreds. You know, I
don't know the exact math behind it, but the concept
of like where two or three are gathered together in
My name, there I am with them. I have you
know this. In many ways abandoned so many of the
beliefs that the theology of my upbringing. But there are
certain things like that that come back to me and
I go like, these truths are everywhere. They just are everywhere.
(38:03):
And that is a truth that I still can hang
my hat on that when two or three people come
together to build something, anything is possible, and the spirit
of God is with them. And the spirit of God
is that same intelligent spirit that knits together a central
nervous system inside of your belly. Without any effort from you.
All you do is take care of yourself, and the
(38:25):
creative work is done for you. It is done in
spite of you. It is done no matter what you do.
All you have to do is feed the vessel. Feed
the vessel, feed the vessel, feed the vessel. Nurture, nurture, nurture,
and something new can grow. And so my question for
you would be, what is that something new that you
would like to see grow in your life, in your space,
(38:46):
in your community, in your neighborhood, in the world, in
our planet, and to spend some time talking about that
with maybe one or two other people this week. I
know it's a big topic and it's also a small time.
It's also you know, just I want to take a
dance class. I don't know. It can be that simple.
It doesn't have to be like I want to change
(39:07):
the world. This does not have to be altruistic. That's
the other thing about creativity is creativity is inherently altruistic.
Like you think you're being self serving, but in your
service of self you are contributing. Think of the analogy
of the pregnancy. All you do is nurture the vessel.
You just nurture, nurture and nurture. You just feed her,
You take care of her. Think of how we treat
(39:30):
pregnant women, Like we absolutely elevate and venerate pregnant women.
We just like take care of them. We carry their stuff.
We don't let them pick up heavy groceries. We are like,
let me take a load off, put your feet up,
let me prep your feet, Like, can I get you
a drink? How are you feeling? Is everything okay? Or
You know, we take great care of pregnant women because
(39:50):
we understand this inherent truth that when you nurture the
vessel that the creativity happens. It's just the work does itself.
What would your life look like if you were willing
to nurture the vessel so that the work could do itself.
I hope you found this inspiring and encouraging, and I
hope it sparks an interesting conversation in your household today
(40:11):
or tonight or this week, and I will see you
back next week on the Rite Your Story podcast
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.