#114 - No Script, No Filter

We trade perfection for a real-time chat about how our brains and bodies shape creative work, from travel calm to the need for negative space away from screens. Along the way we unpack neurodivergence, boundaries, and why coaching can be the container that helps you hear yourself think. 

• letting go of perfectionism and choosing honesty over polish 
• finding calm through slower inputs and solo travel time 
• Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act and taking notes without screens 
• creating negative space through walks journalling and reading 
• bullet journalling and commonplace-style note taking for learning 
• weight loss support tools and how ADHD affects body signals 
• intuitive eating curiosity and stepping away from diet culture 
• discovering aphantasia and rethinking how imagination works 
• masking boundaries and communicating needs with friends 
• coaching as a safe container for thinking feeling and change 

Please reach out to me I love to hear from you Please reach out and let me know what you thought 

Transcript

Welcome Back And Letting Go Of Perfect

0:01

Hi and welcome or welcome back to Pattern Shifts Welcome to this podcast that I have been doing for a while now and today I was actually recording earlier an episode about filtering ideas and I don't know today I feel I feel a little bit fuzzy and I thought I might this might not have been my best episode And then I got to thinking I have said goodbye to perfectionism but also at this moment I don't know if I can really decide whether or not I think that episode that recording is good enough So I decided to just have a chat with you instead And for those of you who are new to this podcast or fairly new I thought it would be nice to just have a chat and talk to you about yeah who I am and what I do and what this podcast is for and why and just basically general chatting but it's completely and utterly unprepared so there's no way of knowing where this is going which is basically like having a chat with me at any normal time of day I have just returned from a weekend in Frankfurt I think mm five years ago maybe even a little bit more I was in this course for creative businesses It's that's just how the world turns isn't it I am now doing what this person was offering at the time as a as a group course situation What I do now is more of a one-on-one type coaching thing While I also did make a course and I'm still using the course within my coaching in in multiple ways But it's very interesting that five years ago I was in this course for people that wanted to start a creative business I have had my business for way longer than that but I just love learning and there's always something new to learn And I was listening to this podcast and ended up taking the course and meeting some wonderful people there We worked in small groups and there were five people in my group and we ended up staying in touch And us and normally usually we get together once a year and this year we went to Frankfurt for the second time which is not specifically a go-to destination if you're not in the business world I think But because it is right in the middle of where most of us live it's just the most democratic location for us to go to This time I drove by car and that was different because usually I take a train I really take a lot of time figuring out how I can move from A to B in a way that feels like it's honoring my energy and the world And so I've done a bunch of train travels to Germany and Switzerland and it ended up taking me nine to ten hours and I would be exhausted by the end of it mostly because the connections wouldn't work or they would be delayed and I would feel super stressed if I would be able to get to the next connection And I was just not using the idea of being in a train and being able to quietly sit and read and knit and I don't know do some bullet journaling but in actual life that hardly ever worked out that way So this time I thought I'll take the car and we drive We have an electric family car and I took our family car And I really loved it because It was a long drive I think from door to door it ended up being I think it also was about nine hours it's because I needed the I needed the charging time so there's some of that There was some traffic issues but most of the time it went really smoothly and I was by myself and there were no other Like there was no other input than just taking care of driving safely And that was a very nice experience I have to say Not in the least because I was listening to Rick Rubin's book Let me find the title for you The Creative Act A Way of Being Amazing book Loved it Loved it so much I don't know from what year this book is Is it If it's old or new Can I get the information from my Oh it's 2023 so not I mean yeah it's it's fairly new I loved it I loved it so much I finished the whole book halfway going back and oh I don't know What can I say about it I I'm not the type w-who I don't like giving reviews of things because my experience is not your experience and actually that's also in the book art creativity craft it talks about those different things and aspects and how who is an artist who's not an artist I don't know I I I I I wanna use the word adore I adored the book There was so much recognition of myself like and how I experience creativity and making art learning about art and crafts and the the overlap or the difference between Amazing So if you haven't read it and if you're in any way and you probably are if you're listening to the po this podcast interested in anything about creativity or art go and find Rick Rubin's The Creative Act A Way of Being Amazing so yeah that's what I did in the car I am very crafty and creative and so what I did was I listened to the book and I used my m lapel microphone that I sometimes use for recording video or recording a podcast while I'm not at home and I actually recorded my notes on the book Cause lately I've been thinking a lot a lot again about needing to be away from screen and needing to open up some space for my brain to relax first of all but also Being able to create and be creative I cannot do that why I while I keep my brain occupied all the time by either listening to podcasts you should listen to this one by the way or watching videos or whatever I I need my brain to have space to breathe to make connections and you do that in the negative space in between creating so I've been This the irony of this whole thing is that I've been listening to things and watching videos on the topic but first I needed to get some information in order for me to then put it in this machine that is my brain and body and turn it into some sort of fermented product that comes out that works for me So I have thought a lot about this negative space and how I can create it Sometimes it's quite easy It's like taking the dog for a walk and not Well not bringing the phone is al this is so hard isn't it How did people use to do that They would just get lost and they would just be abduct-abducted by aliens and no one would know but I'm not gonna let that happen If I'm a-abducted by aliens I'm gonna send people a message as I'm zoomed up so I need my phone But not taking it out of my pocket also very hard cause I have a photographer's mind If I see something beautiful I want to capture it and if I walk the dog I tend to do that in a park which is park/forest and I always see something beautiful because nature is beautiful And ugh yeah So I always need to take pictures and I really train myself to take picture put the ph put the phone away again That's one thing that I try to do as I'm walking the dog When I'm at home it's much harder I do have my bullet journal practice so when I sit down to journal I usually don't have my phone But that's the great thing about bullet journaling is also that it doesn't take much time So yeah I basically am done with that quite fast I want to read more the reading that I do now is done before I go to sleep and I s I probably get to three pages or something and then I'm like Ugh gotta sleep And so I read nonfict fiction before I sleep because if I read nonfiction my brain turns on a a different paying attention level It wants to remember the the practical stuff and it's not as much like that when I read fiction So But that's not the kind of reading I that's not enough for me And I've been listening to Cal Newport and he was talking about five different ways to to get your thinking brain going or something I don't know exactly what it's called anymore and one of the things he said was read at least twenty-five pages a day and I connected that to the practice of a commonplace boo-book a notebook where you write things down that like quotes or things that interest you And I thought Well I already have my bullet journal which is that but I don't have a bullet journal on me all the time and that's not what the practice needs anyway But when I study I do want to take notes So for example I'm learning about intuitive eating at the moment I have lost thirty kilograms of weight by doing a mixture of training at the gym three times a week I have a dietician I watch my I watch what goes in and but like not in a very restrictive way It's more aimed towards building muscles and M-muscles sounds like seafood Muscles Muscles What's the difference How do you say that differently Muscles and mus mu I don't know but you know what I mean and so there's a dietician I have a physiotherapist that's also my trainer just to prevent any difficulties because if I'm Every time I have done sports and trained before because I was overweight it would eventually turn into an issue with my body and then I wouldn't move anymore and that was like a circular thing So I found someone or a space a place where they do a mixture of physiotherapy and training And I work with him but I also train by myself and we set goals Most of the goals that we set are not measurable They're more like intentions which which really connects to the way I live my life and and my again my bullet journal practice but Ooh ooh what was I saying Yeah so and and then also the combination with medication And I know this is this is a difficult thing to talk about because there's so many opinions about that For me just shortly cause I could I could do a full episode on this but this podcast is about creative life and work and not so much about losing or gaining weight for that matter But what I u how I see it is that for example I have asthma and I have a medication that helps me breathe I have a medication now that helps the disease I have which is obesity which is now in the Netherlands at least s accepted as a as a Is a disease a good word I guess it's a chronic disease That's how I've experienced it in my life and there's now medicine that helps my body tell me helps me with my interoception which is tricky because I have ADHD and people with ADHD often have less of an ability to feel whether they feel like s-signals from their body telling them something like you have had enough you're full or you need to go to the toilet or usually that that works but there's there's this different like There's like a veil over it and it's not as clear And with this medication I it helps me to tell me when I have had enough which makes a huge difference Of course in the beginning it made me so nauseous that that ac-accounted for the the loss of weight from in the beginning but it doesn't I don't feel that nauseous anymore so it's been it's been hard work and it's been amazing and I have lost a lot of weight And I don't remember why that came up which is typical And also I don't take any ADHD medication because I have a an a heart arrhythmia issue but this other medication also kind of helps with It's it's complicated And anyway let me find the reason why I started talking about the weight loss Again this is so annoying Also because I'm also going through perimenopause so I don't know if it's the ADHD that makes me not remember what I was talking about or the brain fog that comes with perimenopause or which also is the case that c-becomes worse When you when you are in perimenopause your ADHD symptoms become exaggerated Like so I remember my husband saying It feels like ever since you got diagnosed it feels like you are more ADHD and that is because of two things I think accepting going through the process of accepting and understanding why you are the way you are also comes with kind of like a a a f not a free pass but I started to be more myself because now I knew that I was not being a weirdo or I don't know strange I have ADHD so it makes sense that I do these things differently and I process things differently And um see this is why this is why a script or not a script but at least talking points are really helpful for me Okay so going back Um sometimes I don't know why I don't know and it's it's a struggle But um I always get there in the end Usually I take notes and I have tools to help me like my bullet journal but not if I don't have talking points in front of me while I try to do a podcast I was talking about the book about Rick Rubin being in the car being comfortable more comfortable than in the train being less bombarded with like impulses So at the end of the trip I felt much more calm and relaxed than I did when I traveled by train I think there was another part in there but I think I was talking about craft Oh my gosh Well you're getting the real me That is uh for certain This is what I sound like if I don't have a script Um so meeting these women every year is amazing because throughout those five years we have been all been on this discovery of ourselves and who we are and it's so interesting cause one of them has a podcast and it's called Gifted Unleashed She has a podcast about 2E people and gifted people So 2E means twice exceptional so that means you you can be gifted and also have ADHD or also be on the spectrum being autistic or any other learning difficulties or other things and all of us have discovered things about ourselves and are still discovering things about ourselves and it it seems like in Dutch soort zoek soort Like we we kind of automatically gravitate towards each other in a way So there's now some of us who know they have ADHD or basically all gifted in one way or another if you wanna know more about that go ahead and listen to Nadia's podcast because giftedness is not always what people think and recently this week something really weird happened I found out that I have something that is called aphantasia which means that I don't get a really clear image in my head when people describe things So if you would ask me Picture a field with a horse in it and a sun going down most people I think would see that quite clearly into s very some people into very much detail and then gradually it goes down into like nothing at all People that It's it's a scale So it's not a spectrum but a scale it goes from super super detailed to like the hairs on the on the back of the horse to blackness and nothing and I'm somewhere in the middle So I can imagine things but they're fleeting They I don't see details I cannot hold onto them So they're there and then they're gone I In my mind I have more of a knowing more of a feeling than a seeing and this is something I found out two days ago and I've been so astounded by it I had no idea that that was a thing I did n I did know that I thought differently from most people but I thought that was more about ADHD or something else and also being very creative and an artist in many ways I am now thinking I'm missing out I'm missing out on this People are watching a movie in their brain continuously and that is so weird to me and then there was this thing that was con cause of course I went into a rabbit hole and there was this thing connected to it and people were talking about your inner dialogue whether or not you have an inner dialogue And then for a second I thought I I don't have an inner dialogue either turns out I do It's just it's different So this is very I mean I think I This is kind of becoming the topic of this podcast episode So when I allow my brain space to think and to breathe and to kind of like I I'm having this See There I go I'm having this image of a brain pulsating I'm not literally having that image but I'm saying it like that So I have I guess I do have a bit of an image It's such a weird thing now that I know this I am so weirdly focused on it Anyway so giving your brain space to allow for thinking is something we need to do more if you're on your phone a lot because what happened is I'm dealing with this thing that is now information to me I'm deciding okay I'm gonna walk the dog for an hour in the in the park in the forest and I'm gonna not have my phone I'm gonna wear my what is it My journal that is also a handbag and I'm gonna write down whenever I have a thought if I have any And what I noticed was that my inner dialogue is turned outwards as soon as someone's there Like I will just speak It's just it's just the floodgates It's just gates There's It just comes out And then I talk to the dog So I basically narrate what I'm seeing out loud to the dog unless there's someone in the that I don't know in the vicinity and I do have some sort of social filter system So I would stop then but I also notice that some thoughts are are happening in my head but I'm u I'm basically just telling myself what I'm seeing but it's not continuously It's just the things that that kind of light up like Oh my God look at that pretty beetle or just a random a random sentence but I don't think in a narrative if that makes sense It doesn't make sense to me so it probably won't make sense to you either so I'm investigating this I am being curious about it trying not to panic I'm not panicking It is a weird thing though cause it makes me understand now especially the aphantasia why math was so hard for me Cause I I I cannot see the numbers If I try to see an equation or something in my head it's just it it's just fleeting It just goes So I can't hold onto it and then I panic and I try to do it again I can't so I just have to kind of know and I don't So it's a it's a mixture of Let's say that the aphantasia's not hel has not helped me to understand math in a way that a lot of people probably would I don't think I have dyscalcula Dyscalculi Dyscalculi I'm not dyscalculic I'm not a dyscalc I don't have that but I apparently have a lot of trouble speaking although I get a lot of practice yeah So it's it's been interesting creativity the way you process information all kinds of information and being neurodivergent which is now clearly the ca this it was always clearly the case for a lot of people that know me and it has been for years for me But it it has helped me a lot to get an official diagnose just to I don't know believe it yeah And then meeting with these friends who are also kind of puzzling themselves together and having this space where you can be fully yourself but it can still be tricky Like this idea of masking which is trying to be like everybody else is so that you fit in more so that you're not weird is something that can take a lot of energy and it it it can add to the to becoming burned out and different types of burned out as well But with these people I don't have to mask I can I can be me but I'm also trying to communicate my boundaries a lot more And Sometimes that is really tricky because we were in the city we were shopping it was twenty-six degrees Celsius which is hot For me it's hot It was the first hot day of the year I don't do well with heat let alone it happening out of nowhere I was I had some bags I was uncomfortable We were going into the train station down into the subway and one of my friends was talking to me and I just could not process what she was saying And in that moment I could've I could've kind of lied what I feel like is lying just going Uh-huh Uh-huh Uh-huh but I didn't wanna do that because I wanted to know what she had to say I just couldn't process it at at that time And so I asked her to hold the thought and tell me once we were in sitting down in the train But it was the second time that I did that asked her to do that in a short time and I can see how that is seems like you're not interested while in fact I was the opposite of in of not interested I wanted to hear what she had to say so it's always a a a struggle in guarding your own boundaries and at the same time also having empathy and understanding of the people around you and doing this in a new language in something that you weren't taught to do or you weren't taught to do while knowing how you kind of work and process things So yeah it's it's it's amazing to have people in your life that are understanding and open to the discussion around this which of course we had afterwards And just getting really deep into things rather than staying into the small talk is what I really really enjoy in connecting with people And there's a lot of overlap with that and how I work now because I wouldn't wanna work in a space where I couldn't be myself And as a As a result of that I work with people who are a lot like me even if I don't put myself out there like I'm a neurodivergent coach or something I'm not focused on that right now I'm focused on working with people that are creative and either have a creative business or want to start a creative business and working with who they are as a person what they need and their boundaries and their life as it is to find ways of doing things not so much like you were always taught to do them but what fits in your life right now in terms of the amount of energy that you have your interests your curiosities your intentions your goals things like that So what I do how I live as a person and what I do for work are very very close together When you work with me you get this version I don't talk the whole time because as a coach I'll let you do most of the talking But I will be unfiltered and I will be honest and I will be silly and we'll have a lot of fun most likely But there will also be space to let your emotions come when they're not so joyous There's also space for that although it's not a therapy Coaching is not therapy but it doesn't mean that there's not space for all kinds of feelings and emotions And so as I am going through life learning more about myself I'm also coaching myself in okay my brain is always like occupied I need more space because I feel like I need to think And then I realize opening up that space that wait I don't actually think think Like I don't think I don't think I don't think Do I What happens is I don't have a narration of question response in my head I think through the process of being experiencing listening journaling And it feels like it's kind of more of an osmosis kind of a situation where things just come to me solutions come to me but that sounds so woo-woo That's not purely the case I think the bullet journal practice does a lot of the heavy lifting there and if I have a like a certain question like right now I I want I'm curious about having more space in my brain that's and having less occupied time or less occupied space and how to get there it's a research process what then turns into an experiment and then I journal about it So the the thinking process is not an a narration in my mind It's more of a step-by-step process that ends up where I kind of know what the thing is And perhaps this is what all of you do I'm not sure anymore Uh I mean I know there's not a normal and I know there is there's as many different ways of processing information than there are different people Uh but I also know that um ADHD and giftedness and aphantasia and all these things are real Um they sometimes feel like disabilities and they sometimes feel this is my this is my personal feeling and they sometimes feel like I'm the luckiest person alive to be able to experience all of this joy and inspiration and creativity and I I'm not gonna trade this Um I I loved trading my big body for a smaller body and now having uh very wobbly underarms and other wobbly parts that were a little bit filled out before I don't mind that trade because I feel um there's a new kind of freedom not a new kind of there's actually freedom that comes with that I can do things now that I couldn't do before As a a woman in my midlife in my 50s I need to build muscle power to stay healthy Before I didn't I was healthy and I was overweight and it was both true Um but now that my body's changing with the hormones and everything I need to make different decisions and that's why I decided to take this next step with uh my weight loss journey Oh now I think I remember what I was talking about Yes I do I was talking about learning about intuitive eating cause I need something that is gonna connect to a new way of looking at food I'm learning how to trust my body and listen to my body for what it needs in the ba in the b most basic way possible Like are you hungry Are you thirsty That kind of thing Intuitive eating is more deep into your introspection and I've just started to learn about it But I'm also worried that with an ADHD brain and not really having that ability but now also having the aid of the medicine what does that mean for me And I'm just really curious if if I can embrace this type of looking at what food is to the human completely cut away from diet culture because that's what it's about that feels really healthy to me to look at food as a form of energy that can be joyful but doesn't isn't connected to diet culture so yes that is what I was talking about So I feel like because this is a podcast episode I need to bring it all together in this one big philosophy idea And I think that is if you're on like a journey to know yourself and to take care of yourself in all the best ways that you can with all the tools that are available to you listening to yourself requires space And we fill up that space a lot by being on our phones so much and we need quiet time and I haven't even talked about meditation I wish I had a daily practice I don't yet but I want to and I'm working on it one step at a time And the connection I can make to this podcast is that a coaching session is giving you that space to think it's the container that I provide for you with very comfortable furniture metaphorically and ac-actually also So that you can have this this time that's for you to think and to figure out your the places where you're stuck and I help you with that And this is why coaching is amazing for everyone and especially for you So if you're interested in getting coached around your work as a creative person or just as a person in the world for that matter I am happy to offer that space for you And I hope you enjoyed hearing a little bit more about me and where I am in the world today in terms of where my mind is I think this episode is going to be a lot better than the one I did before but you know maybe tomorrow I'll listen to it and I'll decide that the other one is also good enough and can be that can be moved on to the next week So let me hear your thoughts Please reach out to me I love to hear from you people always think that I ha I get a lot of messages and I really don't because all the people think that I get a lot of messages So please reach out and let me know what you thought If there's anything that you recognized please also do be kind if you have opinions about losing weight the way that I'm doing and they're negative I would ask you to journal about it and not communicate that to me All right Thank you See you next time Hear you next time Bye