Unravel Your Journey Podcast
Welcome to the Unravel Your Journey podcast! We're your hosts: Kati Overmier and Alycia Buenger. And we bring you thoughtful conversations about "unraveling" your soul-self inside everyday life. We'll take a critical look at the "self-development" industry, and explore simple, powerful practices you can actually incorporate into your days. We'll define by example our framework for unraveling to help you envision your soul desires, embody your experience, and enlighten your next steps. Join us right here every week as we question whole-body wellness and explore our daily experience of unraveling who we are and who we choose to be.
Unravel Your Journey Podcast
Sarah Shotts Interview
In this episode, we welcome Sarah Shotts to the podcast to talk about why there’s no one-size-fits-all to creativity (or creative capacity) and the importance of practicing INconsistency.
Key Moments:
- 8:41 - Re-evaluating creative capacity + self-imposed boundaries
- 17:35 - Creative cycles & seasons: Discover Your Creative Ecosystem
- 30:34 - Being intentional about being INconsistent
- 36:40 - Honoring creative intuition (as neurodivergent artists)
- 47:09 - Embracing the “messy middle”
About Sarah:
Sarah Shotts is a multi-disciplinary artist who creates fine art to explore her neurodivergent experience as an autistic mother. She’s also a part-time university instructor of theatre and a homeschooling parent. Sarah has authored and self-published Discover Your Creative Ecosystem. And her latest project is a collaboration of artist/mothers from around the globe!
Dive Deeper:
- Connect with Sarah via her website and Substack newsletter.
- Preorder your copy of Entwined + Ember. This crowd-funded project weaves together stories of creativity and motherhood by women around the globe - and your financial support will help make it happen!
- Read the 5-year origin story of this project (and take a peek inside the books!)
- Order your copy of Discover Your Creative Ecosystem.
- Check out Sarah’s archive of (free) online courses including Self Publishing 101 and Crowdfunding 101.
SUBSCRIBE to the UNRAVEL your journey podcast on Substack. Available for free (or for $5 per month).
Kati Overmier (00:00:13):
Welcome to the Unravel Your Days podcast.
Kati Overmier (00:00:16):
We're your hosts, Kati Overmier and Alycia Buenger.
Alycia Buenger (00:00:19):
And we're here to bring you thoughtful conversations about unraveling your soul
Alycia Buenger (00:00:23):
self inside everyday life.
Alycia Buenger (00:00:26):
We'll take a critical look at the self-development industry and explore simple,
Alycia Buenger (00:00:30):
powerful practices you can actually incorporate into your days.
Kati Overmier (00:00:34):
We'll define by example our framework for unraveling to help you envision your soul desires,
Kati Overmier (00:00:40):
embody your experiences,
Kati Overmier (00:00:42):
and enlighten your next steps.
Alycia Buenger (00:00:45):
Join us right here every week as we question whole body wellness and explore our
Alycia Buenger (00:00:50):
daily experience of unraveling who you are and who you choose to be.
Alycia Buenger (00:00:55):
Thank you so much for being here.
Alycia Buenger (00:00:56):
Let's dive in.
Alycia Buenger (00:01:17):
Welcome to the podcast, Sarah Shotts.
Alycia Buenger (00:01:19):
I'm going to give you a bit of an introduction here, and then we'll dive into more about your story.
Alycia Buenger (00:01:25):
Sarah Shotts is a multidisciplinary artist and author.
Alycia Buenger (00:01:31):
She creates fine art that explores her neurodivergent experience as an autistic mother.
Alycia Buenger (00:01:36):
She's also a home educator, which I'm excited to talk about.
Alycia Buenger (00:01:40):
I'm also a home educator.
Alycia Buenger (00:01:42):
And she's a part-time university instructor in theater, which Kati is thrilled to explore.
Alycia Buenger (00:01:47):
That's her subject of, I would say, favorite subject, Kati,
Alycia Buenger (00:01:51):
yeah?
Kati Overmier (00:01:52):
It's definitely high up there.
Alycia Buenger (00:01:54):
High on the list.
Alycia Buenger (00:01:56):
Sarah recently released her first book, Discover Your Creative Ecosystem, that is coming out.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:03):
I think I get mine next week.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:04):
I'm really excited about it.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:06):
She also publishes a weekly Substack called Down the Rabbit Hole that explores the
Alycia Buenger (00:02:12):
creative process,
Alycia Buenger (00:02:13):
her own creative process,
Alycia Buenger (00:02:14):
as well as,
Alycia Buenger (00:02:16):
in general,
Alycia Buenger (00:02:16):
the creative ecosystem and that process.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:19):
Sarah creates out of her backyard studio in Northwest Arkansas.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:22):
You can find more about her and her work at SarahShotts.com, S-H-O-T-T-S, and on Instagram at SarahDShotts.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:32):
And all of these things that we mention in the introduction,
Alycia Buenger (00:02:36):
in the bio,
Alycia Buenger (00:02:36):
throughout the episode, will be linked in the show notes for easy access.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:42):
Welcome to the podcast, Sarah.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:44):
Thank you for having me.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:45):
I'm excited.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:46):
Me too.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:48):
I have wanted to talk to you for a long time, because I met you through Instagram somehow.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:53):
Honestly, don't know how, but I met you through Instagram, and I followed your work for a while.
Alycia Buenger (00:02:59):
So it's fun to actually have a conversation with you.
Sarah Shotts (00:03:03):
Yes.
Sarah Shotts (00:03:04):
I can't remember how long we've been connected,
Sarah Shotts (00:03:07):
but I know,
Sarah Shotts (00:03:08):
I feel like we've had some good back and forth conversations over email,
Sarah Shotts (00:03:12):
like through newsletter responses and,
Sarah Shotts (00:03:14):
um,
Sarah Shotts (00:03:15):
Yeah, I feel like it was maybe a hashtag.
Alycia Buenger (00:03:18):
It could have been.
Alycia Buenger (00:03:19):
Yeah,
Alycia Buenger (00:03:20):
you do a lot of like, hashtag challenges for other like, artist / mothers,
Alycia Buenger (00:03:24):
other people who do similar work.
Alycia Buenger (00:03:26):
So maybe it was through that.
Alycia Buenger (00:03:27):
I have no idea, but I'm really grateful that we connected somehow, through the ethers.
Alycia Buenger (00:03:35):
Okay.
Alycia Buenger (00:03:35):
So I want to start with kind of an introduction to your creative work,
Alycia Buenger (00:03:42):
professionally as well as personally.
Alycia Buenger (00:03:43):
So anywhere you want to start with that,
Alycia Buenger (00:03:46):
how did you get started with creative work and kind of like, what's been the
Alycia Buenger (00:03:51):
inspiration behind your process?
Sarah Shotts (00:04:03):
Okay, so I feel like that's such a massive question.
Sarah Shotts (00:04:13):
My mom was an artist.
Sarah Shotts (00:04:14):
She would never have called herself that.
Sarah Shotts (00:04:16):
She studied art in school, and then she like, put it to the side to become a mother.
Sarah Shotts (00:04:20):
And so we were always doing craft projects.
Sarah Shotts (00:04:23):
She studied art in school, and then she like, put it to the side to become a mother.
Sarah Shotts (00:04:27):
I was writing books like, [at] five years old, and I was also home educated.
Sarah Shotts (00:04:34):
So we were doing all kinds of like, homeschool unit studies and that all had
Sarah Shotts (00:04:38):
I was writing books like, [at] five years old, and I was also home educated.
Sarah Shotts (00:04:44):
So we were doing all kinds of like, homeschool unit studies and that all had
Sarah Shotts (00:04:48):
creativity woven into it, and Girl Scout camp and all the things.
Sarah Shotts (00:04:49):
And so I studied fine art and theater.
Sarah Shotts (00:04:52):
And in the end, the fine art... I loved like, the process of it.
Sarah Shotts (00:04:57):
But when I went to a four year university at the time, I didn't...
Sarah Shotts (00:05:01):
And in the end, the fine art... I loved like, the process of it.
Sarah Shotts (00:05:03):
But when I went to a four year university at the time, I didn't...
Sarah Shotts (00:05:07):
so I didn't I didn't know this about myself,
Sarah Shotts (00:05:10):
I think we've barely mentioned this in my intro, and I wasn't diagnosed at the time,
Sarah Shotts (00:05:15):
so I didn't I didn't know this about myself,
Sarah Shotts (00:05:21):
And so when I transferred from like, my community college to the art university,
Sarah Shotts (00:05:27):
The fine art department was very competitive and I was, [I] just could care less about that.
Sarah Shotts (00:05:30):
And so when I transferred from like, my community college to the art university,
Sarah Shotts (00:05:32):
Whereas in the theater department, it's very collaborative and they're so happy to have a person!
Sarah Shotts (00:05:39):
And I'm the like [the] stage manager person.
Sarah Shotts (00:05:42):
Whereas in the theater department, it's very collaborative and they're so happy to have a person!
Sarah Shotts (00:05:44):
And I'm the like [the] stage manager person.
Sarah Shotts (00:05:45):
Because everyone wants to be on stage and doing the creative fun stuff.
Sarah Shotts (00:05:49):
And I was doing my creative fun stuff in my art classes and was more than happy to
Sarah Shotts (00:05:53):
support everyone else doing the creative fun stuff in the theater.
Sarah Shotts (00:05:57):
So I, like, right away fit into that.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:00):
And I continued taking enough art classes where I really should have had a double major.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:04):
But because I didn't do the social stuff, they denied me my double major.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:13):
I didn't even get a minor.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:15):
Anyway.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:23):
But at the last minute,
Sarah Shotts (00:06:25):
even though they were classes that I had transferred, and they had accepted,
Sarah Shotts (00:06:29):
when it came to applying for my diploma,
Sarah Shotts (00:06:31):
they then said,
Sarah Shotts (00:06:32):
even though they were classes that I had transferred, and they had accepted,
Sarah Shotts (00:06:32):
well,
Sarah Shotts (00:06:32):
these don't count, because they're too advanced.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:35):
You took things that were too advanced with us.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:37):
So we can't give you an art minor.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:41):
these don't count, because they're too advanced.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:43):
And I'd already applied for an internship.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:45):
I was moving to Maryland to work at a professional theater.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:49):
And I was like, well, I'm, I'm out of here.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:52):
And by the time you're a senior, you're like, I'm not coming back.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:55):
So forget it.
Sarah Shotts (00:06:58):
But since then, I found it's,
Sarah Shotts (00:07:00):
it's kind of tricky if you want to apply for like art jobs and even like, art shows
Sarah Shotts (00:07:06):
and getting really into the art...
Sarah Shotts (00:07:08):
But since then, I found it's,
Sarah Shotts (00:07:10):
it's kind of tricky if you want to apply for like art jobs and even like, art shows
Sarah Shotts (00:07:13):
and getting really into the art...
Sarah Shotts (00:07:14):
the fine art scene is very,
Sarah Shotts (00:07:16):
I definitely don't have that extra layer of privilege,
Sarah Shotts (00:07:19):
even though I have the education of that...
Sarah Shotts (00:07:22):
I don't have the kind of like,
Sarah Shotts (00:07:24):
I didn't get the golden ticket and the secret handshake for how to enter those
Sarah Shotts (00:07:28):
even though I have the education of that...
Sarah Shotts (00:07:30):
which is really interesting because I feel like I have all of this knowledge of [the]
Sarah Shotts (00:07:33):
fine art world,
Sarah Shotts (00:07:34):
but I don't care to get the golden ticket at this point,
Sarah Shotts (00:07:38):
which is really interesting because I feel like I have all of this knowledge of [the]
Sarah Shotts (00:07:39):
Like,
Sarah Shotts (00:07:40):
I've even considered going back for a master's in fine art.
Sarah Shotts (00:07:44):
And then I got a taste of that, and I was like, OK, this is why I left.
Sarah Shotts (00:07:48):
I remember it was... there's a reason I picked theater.
Sarah Shotts (00:07:51):
And so I was kind of so much into theater.
Sarah Shotts (00:07:54):
And then I got a taste of that, and I was like, OK, this is why I left.
Sarah Shotts (00:07:56):
I remember it was... there's a reason I picked theater.
Sarah Shotts (00:07:59):
I've done directing and playwriting.
Sarah Shotts (00:08:03):
And at some point, I kind of like, lost touch with the fine art stuff, because theater consumes your life.
Sarah Shotts (00:08:08):
And you're like in the theater all the time and you barely get to eat and sleep.
Sarah Shotts (00:08:14):
And so I basically lost complete connection with that inner like, artist.
Sarah Shotts (00:08:20):
And at some point, I kind of like, lost touch with the fine art stuff, because theater consumes your life.
Sarah Shotts (00:08:23):
That's kind of where I was around the time I got married.
Sarah Shotts (00:08:25):
And so I basically lost complete connection with that inner like, artist.
Sarah Shotts (00:08:30):
rediscovery of my artist self, and I started kind of doing watercolors and vlogging
Sarah Shotts (00:08:35):
and podcasting and vlogging YouTube like, I kind of came back in through the
Sarah Shotts (00:08:41):
internet creative sphere, and then when David was born, I had so little time that I
Sarah Shotts (00:08:48):
suddenly had absolute clarity on what I wanted to make, and I kind of focused back
Sarah Shotts (00:08:53):
in on those fine art roots and...
Sarah Shotts (00:08:55):
And for like a brief blip of time, I thought I wanted to go into that gatekept world.
Sarah Shotts (00:09:02):
And then I remembered I didn't like the politics of that.
Sarah Shotts (00:09:05):
And I can still make the art I want to make, and I can maybe submit it to a show.
Sarah Shotts (00:09:08):
But if they don't accept me as one of them, and they kind of look down their noses,
Sarah Shotts (00:09:13):
because of certain other things that I do...
Sarah Shotts (00:09:17):
As far as fine art is very much... snooty, as far as what is art and what is craft and what is...
Sarah Shotts (00:09:25):
Like, you shouldn't even do it, because it's beneath you.
Sarah Shotts (00:09:28):
And I just think all creative expression is equal.
Sarah Shotts (00:09:31):
I'm very egalitarian in that way.
Sarah Shotts (00:09:34):
So that's kind of like just a snapshot of, I guess, my creative journey.
Alycia Buenger (00:09:42):
I love that you're talking about this,
Alycia Buenger (00:09:44):
like coming in and out of like, remembering what,
Alycia Buenger (00:09:49):
why you stopped doing something and kind of going in and out of it.
Alycia Buenger (00:09:52):
It reminds me a lot of kind of what we define as unraveling, this kind of like,
Alycia Buenger (00:09:59):
cyclical discovery of yourself.
Alycia Buenger (00:10:02):
You do it over and over again.
Alycia Buenger (00:10:04):
And sometimes you have to keep coming back to the same realizations and...
Alycia Buenger (00:10:11):
Yeah, that seems very relatable.
Alycia Buenger (00:10:15):
Can you talk a little bit more...
Alycia Buenger (00:10:16):
You've mentioned your autism diagnosis,
Alycia Buenger (00:10:19):
but I kind of want to hear from your perspective how your work changed when you
Alycia Buenger (00:10:26):
were diagnosed, and how you kind of maybe thought about your work differently or
Alycia Buenger (00:10:30):
engaged with it differently.
Alycia Buenger (00:10:31):
And then also as a mother, I think that was...
Alycia Buenger (00:10:35):
a really big transition for you from where you were to, you know, now you have a toddler.
Alycia Buenger (00:10:42):
You want to talk about that a little bit?
Sarah Shotts (00:10:44):
So the diagnosis itself, that was about seven years ago at this point.
Sarah Shotts (00:10:50):
I would say that my autism diagnosis had no impact on my creative process... at the time I was given it.
Sarah Shotts (00:11:01):
And that was largely because it's taken me a really long time to
Sarah Shotts (00:11:05):
process that.
Sarah Shotts (00:11:07):
So when I first was diagnosed,
Sarah Shotts (00:11:10):
I changed absolutely nothing about my life or about how I treated myself or my expectations.
Sarah Shotts (00:11:17):
I had knowledge about why things were hard, but I didn't try to make them easier.
Sarah Shotts (00:11:24):
I didn't try to give myself more supports.
Sarah Shotts (00:11:33):
I [got] to that point where I am now, um... where at that point I wasn't a mom yet.
Sarah Shotts (00:11:39):
And so I had all this extra bandwidth.
Sarah Shotts (00:11:41):
I was working from, I was working from home part-time.
Sarah Shotts (00:11:45):
And so I had a lot of extra time and space and privilege and resources and supports
Sarah Shotts (00:11:51):
for myself so that I could really push beyond my capacity.
Sarah Shotts (00:11:56):
And then I had all of this buffer to recharge from that.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:00):
So, like, I remember I went to a blogging conference here.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:05):
It was, it's a small state like, I live in Arkansas.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:09):
So it was a small conference, but it was still a conference.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:11):
I talked to literally every person, because I was doing this Kickstarter project, and
Sarah Shotts (00:12:16):
I was really passionate about it.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:18):
And it was about recording family recipes,
Sarah Shotts (00:12:22):
through video,
Sarah Shotts (00:12:22):
like I was taking cinematic video,
Sarah Shotts (00:12:24):
kind of like wedding photography type stuff,
Sarah Shotts (00:12:27):
but of grandmothers like, teaching their grandkids these recipes.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:31):
And everyone to my face was really supportive of it.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:34):
But when it came time to back the project, so few people followed through.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:39):
And that was like, a really hard thing for me to process.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:42):
So anyway, I went to this weekend, I talked to literally everyone, I was giving out bookmarks.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:48):
And like...
Sarah Shotts (00:12:49):
That was so far beyond my capacity.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:52):
But also like, I made myself do it.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:54):
I was like, shaking.
Sarah Shotts (00:12:56):
I don't, I don't think I knew I was autistic at this time, actually.
Sarah Shotts (00:13:01):
And so I pushed and pushed and I was like, why is this so hard?
Sarah Shotts (00:13:05):
Like, I know I'm introverted, but like this seems really hard and I could barely drive home.
Sarah Shotts (00:13:10):
And when I came home, I just like, slept for a week after that.
Sarah Shotts (00:13:15):
But because my teaching job is online only, like I'm a university instructor, but it's online...
Sarah Shotts (00:13:20):
So I have I had like all that wiggle room to kind of like push, push, push and then recharge.
Sarah Shotts (00:13:27):
And what I found, since becoming a mother is, I don't have the recharge space anymore.
Sarah Shotts (00:13:32):
So I literally cannot push myself that far, because I have to take care of
Sarah Shotts (00:13:37):
another human that relies on me to continue to live.
Sarah Shotts (00:13:41):
And so I cannot behave in the way I used to.
Sarah Shotts (00:13:45):
So before he was around, even once I was diagnosed, I kept doing these things to myself.
Sarah Shotts (00:13:50):
I kept pushing and expecting myself to live up to these neurotypical expectations
Sarah Shotts (00:13:55):
and neurotypical spaces.
Sarah Shotts (00:13:57):
And I just thought it was up to me to like,
Sarah Shotts (00:14:02):
you know,
Sarah Shotts (00:14:02):
do what I could to,
Sarah Shotts (00:14:04):
I mean,
Sarah Shotts (00:14:04):
even down to the clothes that I was wearing,
Sarah Shotts (00:14:07):
I wouldn't be comfortable.
Sarah Shotts (00:14:09):
And so I was like contributing to my own overstimulation
Sarah Shotts (00:14:13):
in a way that was really unhealthy,
Sarah Shotts (00:14:15):
but I couldn't see it at that time, because that's how I'd always been.
Sarah Shotts (00:14:20):
So the diagnosis,
Sarah Shotts (00:14:23):
and this is why I don't necessarily advocate that people need a diagnosis, because
Sarah Shotts (00:14:28):
the diagnosis itself did nothing for me.
Sarah Shotts (00:14:32):
Like I have a piece of paper.
Sarah Shotts (00:14:33):
If someone doesn't believe me, I can show them.
Sarah Shotts (00:14:35):
They never asked to see it.
Sarah Shotts (00:14:38):
You know, I'm an adult.
Sarah Shotts (00:14:39):
Like if I was a kid, you know, in school, sometimes you can show the paper and get extra supports.
Sarah Shotts (00:14:43):
But as an adult, that money and that paper has done nothing for me other than to validate that identity.
Sarah Shotts (00:14:50):
But even once the professional told me I had [autism] or that I was that,
Sarah Shotts (00:14:57):
it took me a long time to kind of internalize it and come to identify that way again.
Sarah Shotts (00:15:04):
and not see it because I'd always seen my autistic traits as my character flaws.
Sarah Shotts (00:15:12):
And I find it really interesting because I've been reading,
Sarah Shotts (00:15:15):
rereading a lot of young adult fiction over the pandemic, because it's like cozy and
Sarah Shotts (00:15:20):
comforting to like, reread the Dragon Riders of Kern and like, the Chronicles of
Sarah Shotts (00:15:26):
Prudane, and like, all of these old stories that I love,
Sarah Shotts (00:15:31):
like Alana and,
Sarah Shotts (00:15:32):
um,
Sarah Shotts (00:15:33):
Tamara Pierce, like Lady Knight, Lady, Lady Knight books.
Sarah Shotts (00:15:38):
And it's interesting when I see these neurodivergent traits portrayed in fiction as
Sarah Shotts (00:15:44):
flaws that then the characters overcome.
Sarah Shotts (00:15:47):
So I'm really interested in writing some fiction that is more neurodiversity-
Sarah Shotts (00:15:53):
affirming in that way,
Sarah Shotts (00:15:55):
because very often it's like,
Sarah Shotts (00:15:56):
okay,
Sarah Shotts (00:15:57):
this character has social anxiety,
Sarah Shotts (00:15:59):
but they just push through it, and then they never experience that again.
Sarah Shotts (00:16:03):
Or this character is really sensitive.
Sarah Shotts (00:16:06):
And so I kind of want to turn that inside out and be like,
Sarah Shotts (00:16:10):
okay,
Sarah Shotts (00:16:11):
what if instead of saying this is a bad thing about a person,
Sarah Shotts (00:16:14):
this is just who you are and learning to accept that is like the growth arc instead
Sarah Shotts (00:16:21):
of overcoming the thing.
Alycia Buenger (00:16:25):
That's so beautiful.
Alycia Buenger (00:16:26):
It makes me want to cry.
Alycia Buenger (00:16:28):
I feel like my girls really are drawn to books where the character doesn't overcome,
Alycia Buenger (00:16:36):
where she works through something that's really challenging and that's just part of
Alycia Buenger (00:16:41):
her life.
Alycia Buenger (00:16:42):
So I wonder how that might impact,
Alycia Buenger (00:16:45):
not just kids who are neurodivergent and diagnosed [with] that,
Alycia Buenger (00:16:48):
but kids who are neurotypical and engage in a world and want to engage in a world
Alycia Buenger (00:16:53):
where
Alycia Buenger (00:16:54):
everyone is welcome and comfortable, you know, I think it really matters for everyone.
Sarah Shotts (00:17:00):
I think there is a big shift in the way we're telling stories.
Sarah Shotts (00:17:03):
Now I'd love to hear some of the books that they're enjoying, because these are definitely,
Sarah Shotts (00:17:08):
you know,
Sarah Shotts (00:17:08):
back the classics, and yeah,
Sarah Shotts (00:17:12):
I love seeing more, all different types of diversity and inclusion in stories.
Sarah Shotts (00:17:18):
Now I think there's a definite positive change there.
Alycia Buenger (00:17:22):
Yeah.
Alycia Buenger (00:17:23):
That would be really fun to write a children's book, for you to write a children's book.
Alycia Buenger (00:17:28):
I'm excited to see if that goes anywhere.
Alycia Buenger (00:17:32):
I am curious, because you have written a book.
Alycia Buenger (00:17:34):
You are an author.
Alycia Buenger (00:17:35):
You are a published author, which is really exciting.
Alycia Buenger (00:17:39):
Some of what you've talked about with your autism diagnosis and within motherhood is this sort of...
Alycia Buenger (00:17:48):
this is from the outside in,
Alycia Buenger (00:17:51):
would say is like a reframe of some of your early childhood experiences or even
Alycia Buenger (00:17:56):
your adult experiences, of kind of shifting the lens a little bit and reframing what
Alycia Buenger (00:18:03):
was going on, where that wasn't a character flaw,
Alycia Buenger (00:18:06):
that was a part of your experience...
Alycia Buenger (00:18:09):
Does that kind of play into the creative ecosystem that you talk about?
Alycia Buenger (00:18:15):
Because it's not like a...
Alycia Buenger (00:18:17):
it's like an embrace of the cycles and seasons and the whole experience and the ins
Alycia Buenger (00:18:24):
and outs and the weeds versus the linear,
Alycia Buenger (00:18:27):
like,
Alycia Buenger (00:18:28):
here's the two spaces you can be in or,
Alycia Buenger (00:18:31):
you know,
Alycia Buenger (00:18:32):
does that play into?
Sarah Shotts (00:18:33):
Very much so.
Sarah Shotts (00:18:34):
So I feel like, I really struggled in the gap between being in academia as a student
Sarah Shotts (00:18:43):
and then trying to navigate the world as a professional.
Sarah Shotts (00:18:47):
Because when you're a student, you have all of these structures and buffers built in.
Sarah Shotts (00:18:52):
I always took the maximum amount of credit hours, but there was a maximum.
Sarah Shotts (00:18:58):
And there were breaks, there were holiday breaks, and there were set class time and then other times.
Sarah Shotts (00:19:05):
And so when I kind of went from being in grad school to having all the time in the world,
Sarah Shotts (00:19:12):
I completely filled it with work.
Sarah Shotts (00:19:16):
So at that time, I was just trying.
Sarah Shotts (00:19:18):
I had a very, very part-time teaching university job, but it was one class.
Sarah Shotts (00:19:25):
So at the time, all I could afford was this tiny little log cabin.
Sarah Shotts (00:19:29):
I lived in a little two-room log cabin for a year before I was married.
Sarah Shotts (00:19:34):
And then I came up here and Nathan is the primary breadwinner here.
Sarah Shotts (00:19:41):
It, in a way, took the pressure off, but also like, I wanted to contribute to the family.
Sarah Shotts (00:19:46):
So I spent those next few years being like, OK, I have these degrees.
Sarah Shotts (00:19:50):
How do I use them?
Sarah Shotts (00:19:51):
And I applied for all kinds of different jobs.
Sarah Shotts (00:19:54):
And I really leaned into the wedding photography, because that was a way I could use
Sarah Shotts (00:19:58):
my creative skills that people were willing to pay.
Sarah Shotts (00:20:01):
And so I...
Sarah Shotts (00:20:03):
I really burnt myself out kind of learning about marketing and learning,
Sarah Shotts (00:20:07):
like that's kind of how I got into blogging was trying to market my wedding
Sarah Shotts (00:20:11):
photography business.
Sarah Shotts (00:20:13):
But it turns out I'm not passionate about weddings.
Sarah Shotts (00:20:15):
So I found myself blogging about day-to-day adventure.
Sarah Shotts (00:20:18):
And then suddenly that wasn't transferred, like weirdly that wasn't transferring into wedding clients.
Sarah Shotts (00:20:25):
And so I basically... that gap between
Sarah Shotts (00:20:30):
grad school and having a kid was me burning myself out with trying so hard to
Sarah Shotts (00:20:38):
pursue like a professional,
Sarah Shotts (00:20:41):
like there was no balance of inspiration and wellbeing.
Sarah Shotts (00:20:45):
It was just like sitting at my computer all day long,
Sarah Shotts (00:20:48):
either learning about a thing or trying to network,
Sarah Shotts (00:20:52):
trying to fix my website,
Sarah Shotts (00:20:54):
every tiny little thing.
Sarah Shotts (00:20:55):
Um,
Sarah Shotts (00:20:58):
Can you remind me what the question was?
Sarah Shotts (00:21:00):
Cause I know I was going somewhere.
Alycia Buenger (00:21:04):
Um, how your experience with autism and neurodivergence....
Sarah Shotts (00:21:09):
Yes.
Sarah Shotts (00:21:11):
So that is how I was experiencing life before I was a mother.
Sarah Shotts (00:21:17):
And then when David was born, I decided I should reread The Artist's Way.
Sarah Shotts (00:21:24):
And, um,
Sarah Shotts (00:21:24):
I love Julia Cameron.
Sarah Shotts (00:21:26):
It was the third time I've read the book.
Sarah Shotts (00:21:27):
Like, I read it in college.
Sarah Shotts (00:21:29):
I read it as a newlywed and I knew I wanted to read it as a new mom, because I saw
Sarah Shotts (00:21:35):
my own mom kind of put all of her personal creative interests to the side.
Sarah Shotts (00:21:39):
And I wanted to be conscious of that as a mother.
Sarah Shotts (00:21:44):
But when I was reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way,
Sarah Shotts (00:21:47):
it was not at all a structure that would support me at that time.
Sarah Shotts (00:21:51):
It was too rigid, and it expected too much, because I was a neurodivergent mother
Sarah Shotts (00:21:58):
with chronic pain and chronic illness that... all of those things I was trying to process.
Sarah Shotts (00:22:05):
And so I was like, okay, I cannot literally...
Sarah Shotts (00:22:08):
journal every day.
Sarah Shotts (00:22:08):
I cannot leave my kid and go out and have an adventure.
Sarah Shotts (00:22:13):
I just need a nap.
Sarah Shotts (00:22:14):
I need to sleep or I need to lay in a hot bath.
Sarah Shotts (00:22:18):
What she's telling me I need is not what I need.
Sarah Shotts (00:22:21):
And that was really new for me, because I'd always looked outside myself at what I should do.
Sarah Shotts (00:22:25):
And I think, this is where I was going with the burnout thing.
Sarah Shotts (00:22:30):
In the creative world, there's a lot of... follow this structure to be a professional.
Sarah Shotts (00:22:37):
You must do exactly these three steps, or you should wake up early and then have
Sarah Shotts (00:22:42):
these routines and have these structures to be a success.
Sarah Shotts (00:22:49):
And so it was a little bit frightening,
Sarah Shotts (00:22:54):
actually,
Sarah Shotts (00:22:54):
to lose the stability of grabbing onto someone else's structure and just riding
Sarah Shotts (00:23:00):
that, because I'm a really good rule follower.
Sarah Shotts (00:23:04):
Like neurodivergent has this spectrum between people who love to break the rules
Sarah Shotts (00:23:08):
and people who love to follow the rules.
Sarah Shotts (00:23:10):
And I've always been the follow the rules person.
Sarah Shotts (00:23:13):
But follow the rules was not healthy for me.
Sarah Shotts (00:23:16):
And so I'm suddenly identifying a lot more with the people who break the rules.
Sarah Shotts (00:23:20):
And actually, they're in a much healthier place sometimes, because they're doing what's right for them.
Sarah Shotts (00:23:25):
So like releasing the idea that Julia Cameron knew more about what I needed to do
Sarah Shotts (00:23:30):
for my creativity than I did
Sarah Shotts (00:23:33):
was like, really big for me.
Sarah Shotts (00:23:36):
And so I was writing this,
Sarah Shotts (00:23:37):
I found myself writing the book I wanted to read, because it didn't exist, about
Sarah Shotts (00:23:41):
creativity and motherhood,
Sarah Shotts (00:23:43):
specifically new motherhood.
Sarah Shotts (00:23:45):
I needed someone to tell me that my art was important and that I could make time
Sarah Shotts (00:23:50):
for it,
Sarah Shotts (00:23:52):
but for that to be in a much more flexible,
Sarah Shotts (00:23:56):
inconsistent manner.
Sarah Shotts (00:24:00):
And so it turns out the first chapter of that book...
Sarah Shotts (00:24:03):
Also,
Sarah Shotts (00:24:04):
as I wrote the book,
Sarah Shotts (00:24:05):
I knew I couldn't tell other moms what they needed to do, because we all needed
Sarah Shotts (00:24:09):
different things.
Sarah Shotts (00:24:10):
This is what... it sounds so simple,
Sarah Shotts (00:24:12):
but honestly was mind boggling for me that we as humans need different things.
Sarah Shotts (00:24:18):
Like it was like an actual discovery for me at that time.
Sarah Shotts (00:24:22):
And so the first chapter of that creative motherhood book was called Discover Your Creative Ecosystem.
Sarah Shotts (00:24:29):
And I broke down creativity into an ecosystem and matched it with like natural metaphors.
Sarah Shotts (00:24:37):
So like sun is physical energy, air.
Sarah Shotts (00:24:43):
And now that I should have wrote that down in my notes.
Sarah Shotts (00:24:49):
I should have pulled it up.
Sarah Shotts (00:24:52):
So like sun is physical energy.
Sarah Shotts (00:24:54):
Water is mental health.
Sarah Shotts (00:24:56):
And then you have like, the decomposers
Sarah Shotts (00:24:59):
and everything that inspires you.
Sarah Shotts (00:25:02):
And so everything has this connection, but it's not like creativity is just when you're making it.
Sarah Shotts (00:25:08):
This was like... part of the realization for me was I need to find my way of doing it.
Sarah Shotts (00:25:13):
And then the other side of the coin was,
Sarah Shotts (00:25:16):
it's not just about drawing,
Sarah Shotts (00:25:18):
like actually sleeping is also tending to my creative ecosystem.
Sarah Shotts (00:25:24):
It may be that what I need is like, I have to tune in and actually listen to myself and to what I need.
Sarah Shotts (00:25:32):
And that is not at all how, how I interacted with creativity before David was born.
Sarah Shotts (00:25:39):
And so that was like a really massive shift that I'm really just kind of digging into.
Alycia Buenger (00:25:47):
I love that you bring this out in, not just your book that's coming out,
Alycia Buenger (00:25:52):
but like on Instagram and in your Substack.
Alycia Buenger (00:25:54):
You bring this out over and over again,
Alycia Buenger (00:25:56):
because I think some of us are aware that like, sleep is important.
Alycia Buenger (00:26:02):
It helps you like, integrate a lot of different things.
Alycia Buenger (00:26:05):
And when we don't make it a conscious...
Alycia Buenger (00:26:08):
shift in our brains, it's still not a priority.
Alycia Buenger (00:26:12):
So it's kind of like that..
Alycia Buenger (00:26:13):
If you're not producing some kind of creative piece,
Alycia Buenger (00:26:17):
then you're not a creator or you're not an artist or you're not doing it the right way.
Alycia Buenger (00:26:22):
And so to talk about it in the way that you do as like, an ecosystem where you need
Alycia Buenger (00:26:26):
to nurture all of these different parts,
Alycia Buenger (00:26:30):
I think it feels really powerful,
Alycia Buenger (00:26:32):
and I'm excited to dive into the book,
Alycia Buenger (00:26:34):
partly because I've also read The Artist's Way, because it was recommended to me.
Alycia Buenger (00:26:40):
My oldest daughter was,
Alycia Buenger (00:26:41):
I don't know,
Alycia Buenger (00:26:42):
two or three,
Alycia Buenger (00:26:43):
and I remember reading it, because I really wanted to get into writing every day again.
Alycia Buenger (00:26:47):
And I hated the book, because it was so rigid.
Alycia Buenger (00:26:52):
There was like, you have to do this every day, and you have to go on an artist date.
Alycia Buenger (00:26:55):
And I was like, I don't have the time, the energy, the money.
Alycia Buenger (00:26:59):
This is impossible.
Alycia Buenger (00:27:00):
And it felt like, if this is the best way or the only way and it's not accessible to me,
Alycia Buenger (00:27:07):
how am I going to get to where I want to be?
Alycia Buenger (00:27:10):
And so I think it's really special to share your experience of like,
Alycia Buenger (00:27:15):
that didn't work for me either,
Alycia Buenger (00:27:16):
but there is a way forward.
Alycia Buenger (00:27:18):
And I can't tell you the way forward,
Alycia Buenger (00:27:20):
but I can show you that there's like, some kind of puzzle you might have to put
Alycia Buenger (00:27:25):
together for yourself.
Alycia Buenger (00:27:27):
And it's like, an art and a science.
Alycia Buenger (00:27:29):
I think there's something really beautiful about that.
Sarah Shotts (00:27:32):
Yeah, I'm really excited to hear that...
Sarah Shotts (00:27:35):
people's experience of reading the book....
Sarah Shotts (00:27:37):
I felt like it could have been...
Sarah Shotts (00:27:40):
I actually ended up,
Sarah Shotts (00:27:43):
you know,
Sarah Shotts (00:27:44):
it was like one chapter of a bigger book was how,
Sarah Shotts (00:27:47):
how it was birthed.
Sarah Shotts (00:27:48):
And I had to keep myself from turning it into like, a thesis, because I could have
Sarah Shotts (00:27:54):
made it so much more complicated than it was.
Sarah Shotts (00:27:57):
Like,
Sarah Shotts (00:27:57):
I think there could be a whole other book where other people shared their specific
Sarah Shotts (00:28:01):
experiences and
Sarah Shotts (00:28:03):
about their creative ecosystems, and we could dig into how they all look different
Sarah Shotts (00:28:07):
and all these different ways that it can be.
Sarah Shotts (00:28:09):
So I had to be really conscious to be like, okay, this is short and simple and sweet.
Sarah Shotts (00:28:14):
And like, maybe that is what I needed as a new mom.
Sarah Shotts (00:28:16):
Like I didn't need it to dig so deeply,
Sarah Shotts (00:28:20):
but I'm really curious to hear back what people,
Sarah Shotts (00:28:22):
what people resonate with and what...
Sarah Shotts (00:28:25):
how their ecosystems look.
Alycia Buenger (00:28:29):
Maybe that's something we could review on the podcast, Kati.
Alycia Buenger (00:28:32):
I'm super pumped.
Alycia Buenger (00:28:34):
By the time this episode goes live,
Alycia Buenger (00:28:36):
November,
Alycia Buenger (00:28:37):
middle of November,
Alycia Buenger (00:28:38):
the book will be out into the world,
Alycia Buenger (00:28:40):
right?
Alycia Buenger (00:28:40):
And available still for purchase.
(00:28:43):
Yeah.
Alycia Buenger (00:28:43):
Yeah.
Alycia Buenger (00:28:44):
So we will link all of that information below.
Alycia Buenger (00:28:46):
And if you haven't yet purchased the book, there is, you have like this gorgeous video on your page.
Alycia Buenger (00:28:52):
It's like sarahshotts.com/books I think, but I'll
Alycia Buenger (00:28:56):
be for sure when I put this in the show notes.
Alycia Buenger (00:28:58):
And you have this like, video of you kind of going through the books.
Alycia Buenger (00:29:02):
You can see the inside of it and [you're] talking about it.
Alycia Buenger (00:29:04):
And yeah, so you can kind of get a sneak peek if you're interested and listening.
Sarah Shotts (00:29:11):
Yes.
Sarah Shotts (00:29:11):
And the workbook, too, because I'm a big journaler.
Sarah Shotts (00:29:13):
And so...
Sarah Shotts (00:29:14):
I almost put like, the workbook prompts in the book itself,
Sarah Shotts (00:29:18):
but I ended up making like, a fully illustrated hardcover workbook where you can
Sarah Shotts (00:29:22):
work through it.
Sarah Shotts (00:29:24):
And it has all of the like... I didn't do the illustrations.
Sarah Shotts (00:29:26):
This is like a big thing for me.
Sarah Shotts (00:29:28):
So like, before David was born, I would have 100% [done the illustrations].
Sarah Shotts (00:29:32):
It would have been all my photographs, all my illustrations.
Sarah Shotts (00:29:35):
But what I've realized is, I don't have to do everything myself.
Sarah Shotts (00:29:38):
Like I can pay another artist, and it can be more of a collaborative thing.
Sarah Shotts (00:29:45):
And so the photographs are not mine, and the illustrations are not mine,
Sarah Shotts (00:29:51):
but they help pull everything together.
Alycia Buenger (00:29:55):
Yeah, I like that.
Alycia Buenger (00:29:57):
I like the collaborative piece of it, too.
Alycia Buenger (00:29:59):
I think that, I assume this might be in your book,
Alycia Buenger (00:30:02):
but you talk a little bit about consistency and inconsistency.
Alycia Buenger (00:30:08):
You have a podcast episode about this exact topic.
Alycia Buenger (00:30:12):
Intentional inconsistency.
Alycia Buenger (00:30:14):
Can you talk a little bit about how that relates to your individual creative ecosystem,
Alycia Buenger (00:30:22):
as well as your kind of experience as a neurodivergent creator and a neurodivergent mom?
Alycia Buenger (00:30:29):
Like how do those things work together?
Sarah Shotts (00:30:34):
Intentional inconsistency was actually like homework that was given to me by a therapist.
Sarah Shotts (00:30:41):
And by the psychologist who diagnosed me with autism.
Sarah Shotts (00:30:47):
So she noticed like, the reason I pursued the diagnosis is, I was suddenly really
Sarah Shotts (00:30:53):
struggling, and I was burned out.
Sarah Shotts (00:30:55):
And she noticed that I was taking on all of these things and I couldn't even see
Sarah Shotts (00:31:00):
the option to be inconsistent.
Sarah Shotts (00:31:03):
Now,
Sarah Shotts (00:31:03):
I know this is not everyone's experience, and it may not be relatable to some people,
Sarah Shotts (00:31:07):
but this is, this is how I came to it.
Sarah Shotts (00:31:10):
So I would join an Instagram photo challenge, and I would literally do it every single day.
Sarah Shotts (00:31:18):
The creator of the challenge wouldn't do it every single day, but I would do it every single day.
Sarah Shotts (00:31:26):
And I would take on all of these like... people would invite me to do certain opportunities and...
Sarah Shotts (00:31:33):
And I wouldn't even see the option of saying like, hey, this isn't a good time.
Sarah Shotts (00:31:37):
Maybe we should do this later.
Sarah Shotts (00:31:39):
Or, you know, I love to do National Novel Writing Month.
Sarah Shotts (00:31:42):
I wouldn't even see the option to not write one day if I needed to,
Sarah Shotts (00:31:46):
like,
Sarah Shotts (00:31:46):
take care of my mental health or something.
Sarah Shotts (00:31:49):
And so for me, I was like so rigidly in this,
Sarah Shotts (00:31:55):
you know compulsive like, rigidity that I couldn't see the possibility that I could
Sarah Shotts (00:32:03):
be inconsistent; it was like inconceivable to me to be inconsistent, and so the
Sarah Shotts (00:32:09):
psychologist was like, okay I want you to practice intentional inconsistency, and I
Sarah Shotts (00:32:16):
relate the word practice to like
Sarah Shotts (00:32:18):
yoga.
Sarah Shotts (00:32:19):
It's like something... it's not something like you practice your handwriting.
Sarah Shotts (00:32:24):
It's like a practice.
Sarah Shotts (00:32:25):
It's your art practice, your writing practice, your yoga practice.
Sarah Shotts (00:32:30):
And so I began a practice of intentional inconsistency.
Sarah Shotts (00:32:35):
And when my son was born,
Sarah Shotts (00:32:36):
it brought it to a whole other level,
Sarah Shotts (00:32:38):
because while I thought being inconsistent was like,
Sarah Shotts (00:32:41):
OK,
Sarah Shotts (00:32:41):
I'm going to miss a day on this Instagram challenge.
Sarah Shotts (00:32:44):
Suddenly it was like everything exploded, and I could barely make it through the day.
Sarah Shotts (00:32:50):
And so my capacity to be so rigidly consistent just evaporated overnight.
Sarah Shotts (00:32:58):
And I was glad I had laid the groundwork on that before he was born.
Sarah Shotts (00:33:03):
So I was a little bit prepared for it.
Sarah Shotts (00:33:07):
But the level at which I could consistently follow through with things was so
Sarah Shotts (00:33:13):
different than what I had experienced before.
Sarah Shotts (00:33:17):
And as we just talked about,
Sarah Shotts (00:33:19):
when I reread The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron,
Sarah Shotts (00:33:21):
and she's like,
Sarah Shotts (00:33:22):
you must read,
Sarah Shotts (00:33:23):
write at this time of day, this many pages every single day, or you are a failure.
Sarah Shotts (00:33:28):
I was like, wait a minute.
Sarah Shotts (00:33:29):
I actually don't agree with that
Sarah Shotts (00:33:31):
Miss Cameron for once.
Sarah Shotts (00:33:34):
Like, I felt like I wanted to stand up for myself and be like, it's not that something's not worth doing!
Sarah Shotts (00:33:40):
If you can't do it every day,
Sarah Shotts (00:33:42):
like we have to take care of,
Sarah Shotts (00:33:45):
you know...
Sarah Shotts (00:33:45):
she also has points in the book where she's talks about taking care of your body
Sarah Shotts (00:33:49):
and taking care of your mental health.
Sarah Shotts (00:33:51):
But yeah,
Sarah Shotts (00:33:52):
she,
Sarah Shotts (00:33:52):
you can see her privilege coming through where she was not pushed beyond her
Sarah Shotts (00:33:57):
capacity to the point where she could have this consistency.
Sarah Shotts (00:34:01):
And I have had that privilege in the past,
Sarah Shotts (00:34:03):
but suddenly,
Sarah Shotts (00:34:05):
and especially [when] I became a mother...
Sarah Shotts (00:34:07):
David wasn't even one year old when COVID hit.
Sarah Shotts (00:34:11):
And so some of our,
Sarah Shotts (00:34:14):
some of the supports that I could have had as far as within the community and our
Sarah Shotts (00:34:18):
family helping,
Sarah Shotts (00:34:19):
like all of that was really dialed back.
Sarah Shotts (00:34:22):
And it was just us.
Sarah Shotts (00:34:24):
And it was really hard.
Sarah Shotts (00:34:25):
And so I kept talking about this intentional inconsistency,
Sarah Shotts (00:34:29):
both as a reminder to myself and also to connect with other people, because I could
Sarah Shotts (00:34:34):
suddenly get it.
Sarah Shotts (00:34:36):
Whereas I was always the person who was like, wait a minute, I set a deadline.
Sarah Shotts (00:34:40):
Why are you not sending me this guest blog post?
Sarah Shotts (00:34:43):
Like, what is what is going on?
Sarah Shotts (00:34:45):
I'm like, oh, they were struggling to get through the day.
Sarah Shotts (00:34:48):
I get it now.
Sarah Shotts (00:34:49):
Like, I have so much more compassionate empathy for
Sarah Shotts (00:34:52):
other people's life experience where I realized before it was just privilege that I
Sarah Shotts (00:34:57):
had this space and time that I could dedicate to things.
Sarah Shotts (00:35:04):
And so that's why I talk about intentional inconsistency,
Sarah Shotts (00:35:07):
meaning that even if you can't do something literally every day,
Sarah Shotts (00:35:10):
it doesn't mean it's not worth doing at all.
Sarah Shotts (00:35:13):
And so I journal, but I don't do it every day.
Sarah Shotts (00:35:16):
I don't do it every week.
Sarah Shotts (00:35:17):
I might go through chunks of time where I do it
Sarah Shotts (00:35:23):
every day or multiple times a day,
Sarah Shotts (00:35:25):
like whenever I need to and I have the capacity for that,
Sarah Shotts (00:35:28):
but also as a multi-passionate,
Sarah Shotts (00:35:30):
I might find that what I need to express is in a different medium.
Sarah Shotts (00:35:34):
And she doesn't have space for that either, Julia Cameron, because she's a writer.
Sarah Shotts (00:35:38):
She's like a capital W writer.
Sarah Shotts (00:35:40):
Well, and she's a filmmaker, but those things kind of like go [hand in hand].
Sarah Shotts (00:35:43):
She's a writer in that realm as well.
Sarah Shotts (00:35:45):
And so I think it's different when you're a multi-passionate that,
Sarah Shotts (00:35:49):
yes,
Sarah Shotts (00:35:49):
writing can be a tool for all kinds of creative people.
Sarah Shotts (00:35:52):
But we also,
Sarah Shotts (00:35:53):
especially if we have limited time and capacity,
Sarah Shotts (00:35:56):
might be wanting to engage with other mediums.
Sarah Shotts (00:36:00):
Like I did a lot of pottery when David was young and someone could watch him for me,
Sarah Shotts (00:36:05):
because it was very therapeutic,
Sarah Shotts (00:36:07):
like physically working the clay.
Sarah Shotts (00:36:10):
And it was much less about me expressing an idea.
Sarah Shotts (00:36:13):
And it was more about the physical act of like disconnecting from my mental script
Sarah Shotts (00:36:19):
and just like being present,
Sarah Shotts (00:36:21):
like almost a mindfulness activity.
Sarah Shotts (00:36:24):
Art can be self-expression and can be mindfulness and it can be all of these different things.
Sarah Shotts (00:36:31):
And no one can tell you what art needs to be for you.
Sarah Shotts (00:36:34):
Only you know that.
Alycia Buenger (00:36:36):
Can you talk about, I don't know if I had written this down or not.
Alycia Buenger (00:36:40):
Can you talk about kind of, the choice to use art in that way where it is like a
Alycia Buenger (00:36:45):
therapeutic practice for you personally?
Alycia Buenger (00:36:47):
And also, you are an artist who makes money with the work that you do,
Alycia Buenger (00:36:51):
or at least some of the work that you do.
Alycia Buenger (00:36:52):
And kind of that... for me,
Alycia Buenger (00:36:54):
it's a very like uncomfortable
Alycia Buenger (00:36:57):
still, push-pull between what I want to keep for myself,
Alycia Buenger (00:37:00):
what I want to make for fun and...
Alycia Buenger (00:37:02):
versus what I'm comfortable [with] and desire to sell.
Alycia Buenger (00:37:06):
Like, is that, is that a game that you, or, um, I don't think game's the right word.
Alycia Buenger (00:37:11):
Is that a thought that you kind of, attention that you explore in your work?
Sarah Shotts (00:37:19):
So what I've realized is that I work best intuitively.
Sarah Shotts (00:37:25):
And if I allow myself to go with that intuition and...
Sarah Shotts (00:37:28):
So this is where, before David was born,
Sarah Shotts (00:37:30):
I would have an idea and I would rigidly pursue it to the like, exclusion of all
Sarah Shotts (00:37:37):
other things,
Sarah Shotts (00:37:37):
including like eating and moving my body and getting out of the computer chair and
Sarah Shotts (00:37:42):
going outside and breathing fresh air.
Sarah Shotts (00:37:50):
But because I thought there was something like...
Sarah Shotts (00:37:53):
this is where it comes back to seeing the autism as like a character failing...
Sarah Shotts (00:37:57):
And this is almost more of an ADHD trait than like shiny object syndrome,
Sarah Shotts (00:38:01):
like where you,
Sarah Shotts (00:38:02):
you want it,
Sarah Shotts (00:38:03):
you're,
Sarah Shotts (00:38:03):
you know,
Sarah Shotts (00:38:06):
you've heard,
Sarah Shotts (00:38:06):
you've heard the critique that it's like,
Sarah Shotts (00:38:08):
oh,
Sarah Shotts (00:38:08):
you can't be starting all these new projects.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:10):
Like you have to stick with one.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:11):
And so I had internalized this to such a point that I was,
Sarah Shotts (00:38:15):
I had,
Sarah Shotts (00:38:16):
I killed my creativity by focusing so much on one project, and...
Sarah Shotts (00:38:22):
that I was no longer inspired.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:23):
I no longer felt creative.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:26):
Before David was born, I just had this epiphany.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:30):
And I wrote a blog post called Embracing My Inner Renaissance Woman.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:34):
Because, as [I was] trying to be a professional creative, I thought I had to pick one thing.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:41):
And so I was trying to be [a] wedding photographer.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:43):
And I couldn't even do it.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:45):
Like you heard me telling the story about trying to do these
Sarah Shotts (00:38:49):
recipe films that had nothing to do with wedding photography.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:52):
I was writing this blog about adventure.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:53):
That was my best effort to niche down.
Sarah Shotts (00:38:56):
And I was still like, fragmented in all these ways that made no sense.
Sarah Shotts (00:39:01):
And so even when I was trying to force myself to do this, I was wildly unsuccessful, because
Sarah Shotts (00:39:08):
I was not making money at it.
Sarah Shotts (00:39:10):
I was losing,
Sarah Shotts (00:39:11):
I was hemorrhaging money, because I was spending all of these investments to be
Sarah Shotts (00:39:16):
professional on a Photoshop membership and on all of this stuff that I thought I
Sarah Shotts (00:39:21):
needed to be professional.
Sarah Shotts (00:39:24):
And I was... but I was losing my life.
Sarah Shotts (00:39:30):
I, because I was burning myself out and I wasn't following my creative passion and intuition and
Sarah Shotts (00:39:37):
people weren't connecting with the work, because I was just sitting in front of the computer all day.
Sarah Shotts (00:39:41):
And so I had this epiphany that I needed to work in different mediums, and I needed
Sarah Shotts (00:39:46):
to allow myself to do that.
Sarah Shotts (00:39:47):
And I started a podcast called Kindle Curiosity.
Sarah Shotts (00:39:51):
And I had a really fun,
Sarah Shotts (00:39:53):
like one season before David was born,
Sarah Shotts (00:39:55):
where I talked to lots of different creative people.
Sarah Shotts (00:39:58):
And I explored this idea of letting myself be...
Sarah Shotts (00:40:02):
If I had an idea, I was going to do the thing.
Sarah Shotts (00:40:04):
I wasn't going to keep pushing down my own ideas for the sake of niching and
Sarah Shotts (00:40:09):
marketing and branding and consistency.
Sarah Shotts (00:40:12):
And ironically,
Sarah Shotts (00:40:13):
since I've started to let myself do that,
Sarah Shotts (00:40:17):
both to work intuitively and to be wildly inconsistent,
Sarah Shotts (00:40:20):
I have actually been much more successful.
Sarah Shotts (00:40:24):
I have had profitable creative projects for the first time ever,
Sarah Shotts (00:40:30):
since I started being inconsistent and intuitive, and so I just, when I feel like I
Sarah Shotts (00:40:38):
want to make pottery, I make pottery; if I finish enough to sell, and I have the
Sarah Shotts (00:40:42):
energy to take photos, I might put it up for a pop-up shop; and I no longer try to
Sarah Shotts (00:40:47):
say, okay this is my business plan for the year, this, these, this is what I'm going to
Sarah Shotts (00:40:52):
release... I just make things when I'm inspired to make them.
Sarah Shotts (00:40:56):
And I photograph them when my back pain isn't flaring up to the point that I can physically take photos.
Sarah Shotts (00:41:04):
And I might tell people about it when I remember.
Sarah Shotts (00:41:07):
And that's the part I think I can improve on is continuing to mention things that
Sarah Shotts (00:41:13):
exist, because that's where my little airy fairy,
Sarah Shotts (00:41:16):
like I talk about it one time, and then I forget to mention it [ever again].
Sarah Shotts (00:41:19):
And I've been very intentional about that with my book, because I really want it.
Sarah Shotts (00:41:24):
to connect with people.
Sarah Shotts (00:41:25):
And I really want it to like, I wrote it for people.
Sarah Shotts (00:41:28):
I didn't, it's kind of different in that way.
Sarah Shotts (00:41:30):
Like I wrote the book for people to read where sometimes I make the pottery just to make the pottery.
Sarah Shotts (00:41:36):
And so selling it is kind of like a bonus.
Sarah Shotts (00:41:39):
Um,
Sarah Shotts (00:41:40):
so with my book,
Sarah Shotts (00:41:41):
I've tried to be very intentional about continuing to mention it and continuing to
Sarah Shotts (00:41:45):
talk about it.
Sarah Shotts (00:41:47):
Um, and I want to hear back from the other side as people start to read it.
Sarah Shotts (00:41:51):
Does that answer your question?
Alycia Buenger (00:41:53):
Yes, I think so.
Alycia Buenger (00:41:55):
And I'm very curious.
Alycia Buenger (00:41:57):
I want to like transport this little bit of the conversation and share it with the marketing world.
Alycia Buenger (00:42:03):
I think so many people that I work with get really lost,
Alycia Buenger (00:42:07):
like following all of those rules,
Alycia Buenger (00:42:09):
the shiny object syndrome.
Alycia Buenger (00:42:10):
If you've heard like any marketers say like, don't follow the shiny objects.
Alycia Buenger (00:42:14):
I think it hinders so many entrepreneurs to the point where they just give up.
Alycia Buenger (00:42:19):
And I think not even just creative entrepreneurs.
Alycia Buenger (00:42:22):
I think people who use their creative souls for business and to make money.
Alycia Buenger (00:42:29):
I think when we start to follow those rigid kind of masculine structures of marketing,
Alycia Buenger (00:42:34):
we lose the kind of spark that keeps us going.
Alycia Buenger (00:42:40):
And then we just give up or we don't make the money we need to make.
Alycia Buenger (00:42:43):
And it's my hope....
Sarah Shotts (00:42:47):
I think particularly for neurodivergent creators and artists,
Sarah Shotts (00:42:52):
like we thrive in this way,
Sarah Shotts (00:42:54):
like our brains do not follow a neurotypical structure.
Sarah Shotts (00:42:57):
And so if we're given a neurotypical marketing plan, it is not going to work.
Sarah Shotts (00:43:01):
And what I found is, the more that I let myself be myself,
Sarah Shotts (00:43:06):
the people that are meant for me find me and connect with me.
Sarah Shotts (00:43:09):
And so like, I don't know, 90% of my people are probably neurodivergent, whether they know it or not.
Sarah Shotts (00:43:17):
And more and more of them are messaging me like, hey, tell me about this thing.
Sarah Shotts (00:43:22):
Can you talk a little bit more about autism or neurodivergence?
Sarah Shotts (00:43:25):
Or I think I might be ADHD, because instead of... it's so great, because instead of
Sarah Shotts (00:43:32):
hiding ourselves,
Sarah Shotts (00:43:34):
if we show who we are,
Sarah Shotts (00:43:35):
then we can find these points of connection with others.
Sarah Shotts (00:43:38):
And that's, I think that has been the real magic in making and creating and sharing in this way
Sarah Shotts (00:43:46):
versus before when I had my head, nose to the grindstone I was like wedding,
Sarah Shotts (00:43:50):
photography, wedding photography, whoops I didn't mean to do that side project,
Sarah Shotts (00:43:54):
wedding photography, wedding photography, oh this isn't even matched together like...
Sarah Shotts (00:43:58):
when I actually talk about the things I'm passionate about, people are connecting,
Sarah Shotts (00:44:02):
people are buying like, my goal with my book was to just break even, because I've
Sarah Shotts (00:44:07):
never even broken even like, I tended to invest all of these things before David was
Sarah Shotts (00:44:13):
born
Sarah Shotts (00:44:14):
I would invest in these projects, and then they wouldn't sell.
Sarah Shotts (00:44:16):
I'm like, okay, well now I have a kid.
Sarah Shotts (00:44:19):
So I'm trying not to waste as much money, because things are tighter.
Sarah Shotts (00:44:22):
And so it's like, okay, if I make this goal to like just break even, I'll be happy.
Sarah Shotts (00:44:27):
And then I exceeded that goal.
Sarah Shotts (00:44:28):
And I'm like,
Sarah Shotts (00:44:28):
I had a profitable creative project that people are actually passionate about and
Sarah Shotts (00:44:33):
want to connect with.
Sarah Shotts (00:44:34):
And it's,
Sarah Shotts (00:44:35):
it's because like, it came from the heart, and I shared it in a way that...
Sarah Shotts (00:44:39):
and I was clear also with like,
Sarah Shotts (00:44:41):
this is why the prices,
Sarah Shotts (00:44:43):
I had a lot of,
Sarah Shotts (00:44:43):
um,
Sarah Shotts (00:44:44):
feedback that people really related [to] or appreciated the way I broke down why the
Sarah Shotts (00:44:49):
price is what the price was on the book.
Sarah Shotts (00:44:53):
And yeah, to make that goal like, to break even, at least I knew where I was going with it.
Alycia Buenger (00:45:01):
Yeah,
Alycia Buenger (00:45:02):
I watched your marketing process,
Alycia Buenger (00:45:04):
you know,
Alycia Buenger (00:45:04):
through mostly...
Alycia Buenger (00:45:06):
I'm on Instagram sometimes,
Alycia Buenger (00:45:07):
sometimes not.
Alycia Buenger (00:45:08):
But you're very... It's not just like... what people call like, authentic marketing
Alycia Buenger (00:45:12):
is not always authentic.
Alycia Buenger (00:45:14):
[But] you really take people behind the scenes of your...
Alycia Buenger (00:45:17):
creative process and your creative ecosystem.
Alycia Buenger (00:45:19):
And I think,
Alycia Buenger (00:45:21):
I don't know that that was like your marketing plan,
Alycia Buenger (00:45:24):
but I think that is one thing that does draw a lot of people to you.
Alycia Buenger (00:45:27):
You're very open about why and how and what you did.
Alycia Buenger (00:45:32):
And yeah, I've learned a lot from watching you do this.
Sarah Shotts (00:45:37):
I feel like that's just letting myself be autistic,
Sarah Shotts (00:45:40):
because there's this idea that I tried to live up to before of what's professional,
Sarah Shotts (00:45:45):
and like what's appropriate to share and what's oversharing.
Sarah Shotts (00:45:48):
And,
Sarah Shotts (00:45:49):
I just thought about like a couple of people that I knew wanted to read my book, and
Sarah Shotts (00:45:52):
I knew they wanted to write books, too.
Sarah Shotts (00:45:54):
And I thought like, Hey, let me just explain this.
Sarah Shotts (00:45:57):
Like, okay, I'm probably over-explaining.
Sarah Shotts (00:45:59):
Like, why [does] this book cost this much?
Sarah Shotts (00:46:01):
Like the, it costs a lot to print books in a small run.
Sarah Shotts (00:46:05):
Like I just, I don't want to make less money on a hardback than I do on the ebook.
Sarah Shotts (00:46:08):
And that's how I chose to price the book.
Sarah Shotts (00:46:10):
And so I just said that in the video and I've had so many people message me
Sarah Shotts (00:46:15):
specifically about like,
Sarah Shotts (00:46:16):
thank you for sharing that because I,
Sarah Shotts (00:46:18):
when you're looking at books that are mass produced and then you're looking at this,
Sarah Shotts (00:46:21):
you're like,
Sarah Shotts (00:46:22):
wow,
Sarah Shotts (00:46:22):
that seems really high.
Sarah Shotts (00:46:23):
And so to counter, counteract that I've also included like the ebook and the audio
Sarah Shotts (00:46:28):
book with the hardcover purchase, because I'm self-publishing.
Sarah Shotts (00:46:32):
So I have like, the freedom to do it in the way that I want to.
Sarah Shotts (00:46:36):
And so, yeah, like I didn't,
Sarah Shotts (00:46:39):
I've tried not to think of the word marketing, because I have so much baggage with
Sarah Shotts (00:46:44):
like what that means,
Sarah Shotts (00:46:45):
but I just tried to think about like,
Sarah Shotts (00:46:47):
how do,
Sarah Shotts (00:46:48):
how do I share this?
Sarah Shotts (00:46:49):
Like thinking about these kinds of people that I know want to read it and kind of
Sarah Shotts (00:46:54):
breaking it down on that,
Sarah Shotts (00:46:55):
like one-to-one level really helped me,
Sarah Shotts (00:46:58):
which I know is also a marketing strategy,
Sarah Shotts (00:47:00):
but there's like,
Sarah Shotts (00:47:02):
there's a lot of other stuff that I just kind of like let go as far as,
Sarah Shotts (00:47:07):
as far as that goes.
Alycia Buenger (00:47:09):
Yeah.
Alycia Buenger (00:47:10):
Well, congratulations on your first like, profitable project.
Alycia Buenger (00:47:14):
I'm really excited about it.
Alycia Buenger (00:47:17):
I have like, one kind of final question.
Alycia Buenger (00:47:19):
And then if Kati,
Alycia Buenger (00:47:20):
you have other questions or if you want to bring something else up,
Alycia Buenger (00:47:23):
we can definitely do that.
Alycia Buenger (00:47:26):
So you and Kati both have talked to me about... maybe it's because you're both neurodivergent.
Alycia Buenger (00:47:32):
I have a good feeling that that's what it is.
Alycia Buenger (00:47:35):
You're kind of like,
Alycia Buenger (00:47:37):
comfortable almost with things being messy and with having these multiple projects at the same time.
Alycia Buenger (00:47:46):
And with that intentional inconsistency that you're talking about,
Alycia Buenger (00:47:49):
that it's kind of messy,
Alycia Buenger (00:47:51):
you know,
Alycia Buenger (00:47:51):
allowing yourself to be inconsistent with something that matters to you.
Alycia Buenger (00:47:55):
And I kind of want to know like, how you engage with what you call the messy middle
Alycia Buenger (00:48:02):
in like all of your titles as a neurodivergent,
Alycia Buenger (00:48:05):
as a mother,
Alycia Buenger (00:48:05):
as a creator,
Alycia Buenger (00:48:06):
as a woman,
Alycia Buenger (00:48:07):
How do you sit inside that messy middle experience of creating?
Sarah Shotts (00:48:17):
So I'm going to start from where I came to that term.
Sarah Shotts (00:48:22):
So I started using the term the messy middle as a permission slip to myself to make an imperfect podcast.
Sarah Shotts (00:48:31):
Because before David was born, when I had Kindle Curiosity, it was like a one-hour podcast.
Sarah Shotts (00:48:36):
I would spend five hours editing.
Sarah Shotts (00:48:39):
I would edit out every um, every pause.
Sarah Shotts (00:48:42):
It was so tightly edited.
Sarah Shotts (00:48:43):
Everyone sounded like they were a professional public speaker.
Sarah Shotts (00:48:47):
We all sounded amazing.
Sarah Shotts (00:48:49):
But it took every moment of my life.
Sarah Shotts (00:48:51):
And now I look back on that as like squandered time when I could have been doing so
Sarah Shotts (00:48:58):
many other things when I didn't have a kid in the house.
Sarah Shotts (00:49:01):
I could have been going on adventures.
Sarah Shotts (00:49:02):
I could have been writing books.
Sarah Shotts (00:49:04):
I could have been doing all this stuff.
Sarah Shotts (00:49:05):
And I was like sitting here trying to make probably two neurodivergent people sound neurotypical,
Sarah Shotts (00:49:12):
like to be honest,
Sarah Shotts (00:49:13):
because the people that I was drawn to interview,
Sarah Shotts (00:49:16):
like we're not the most eloquent people.
Sarah Shotts (00:49:18):
And so trying... but I made us sound great in editing.
Sarah Shotts (00:49:22):
So I had a really hard time.
Sarah Shotts (00:49:25):
I wanted to podcast again after my son was born, but I knew that was completely off the table.
Sarah Shotts (00:49:30):
And he was the kind of baby where like, I had to be holding him like, he was not the
Sarah Shotts (00:49:35):
kind that would sleep in a bouncer or anything like that.
Sarah Shotts (00:49:44):
So to allow myself permission to podcast without editing...
Sarah Shotts (00:49:50):
And so I rebranded my podcast as The Messy Middle.
Sarah Shotts (00:49:54):
And I think that's probably when you connected to it, Alycia.
Sarah Shotts (00:49:58):
And I recorded an episode about intentional inconsistency.
Sarah Shotts (00:50:03):
And the benefit is like, I have been practicing non-edited ramble podcasts for years
Sarah Shotts (00:50:12):
on my Patreon,
Sarah Shotts (00:50:13):
but they were private to my patrons.
Sarah Shotts (00:50:15):
So I have been building up this muscle.
Sarah Shotts (00:50:18):
Like before I started podcasting,
Sarah Shotts (00:50:20):
I probably couldn't have sat here and just run off my mouth to you guys like this.
Sarah Shotts (00:50:25):
Like I have always been a sit back and listen person.
Sarah Shotts (00:50:30):
But podcasting has really been like, an exposure therapy for like social anxiety and
Sarah Shotts (00:50:39):
like, getting my words out of my mouth,
Sarah Shotts (00:50:41):
that kind of thing.
Sarah Shotts (00:50:42):
And so I had been doing this kind of like ramble podcast to my patrons every month for several years.
Sarah Shotts (00:50:49):
And I was like, okay, well, I know I can do that.
Sarah Shotts (00:50:52):
And I could release that on a podcast.
Sarah Shotts (00:50:55):
And so I knew I wanted to come back to podcasting.
Sarah Shotts (00:50:57):
I was like, what if I let myself do that and just let it be messy?
Sarah Shotts (00:51:02):
And because of my perfectionism, I had to go through this whole rebrand to allow that.
Sarah Shotts (00:51:10):
And then I realized, because I was like a sleep deprived COVID mom at the time,
Sarah Shotts (00:51:15):
someone else is using that podcast name.
Sarah Shotts (00:51:18):
So I think after I released like, three or four episodes,
Sarah Shotts (00:51:21):
I had to go back, and I rebranded it as Kindle Curiosity.
Sarah Shotts (00:51:25):
But I kept the spirit of the messy middle.
Sarah Shotts (00:51:28):
And I also talked about it as a hashtag on Instagram, just trying to get other people to share more.
Sarah Shotts (00:51:34):
Like it can apply to more than that, but I came to it through podcasting.
Sarah Shotts (00:51:38):
So it's also just sharing more like the mess of life and the middle of the creative
Sarah Shotts (00:51:44):
process isn't always tidy.
Sarah Shotts (00:51:46):
Like we don't always have skills straight away.
Sarah Shotts (00:51:48):
Right now I'm trying to learn how to illustrate, because
Sarah Shotts (00:51:51):
I've written a first draft of a picture book about autism, but I need illustrations for it.
Sarah Shotts (00:51:59):
And I reached out to a couple of autistic illustrators and they're busy.
Sarah Shotts (00:52:02):
And I'm like, well, I don't want to wait for the perfect time.
Sarah Shotts (00:52:04):
And I don't want to go through the official publishing channels.
Sarah Shotts (00:52:09):
Like I just want to get this out in the world.
Sarah Shotts (00:52:11):
I think it's important.
Sarah Shotts (00:52:12):
And so I'm like, what if I explore like, how I might illustrate it myself?
Sarah Shotts (00:52:17):
So I have like,
Sarah Shotts (00:52:20):
I made, I can't remember the name of it right now,
Sarah Shotts (00:52:22):
but I made a whole separate Instagram feed just for that.
Sarah Shotts (00:52:25):
That's like a mess of just me learning how to draw like expressions and faces... is
Sarah Shotts (00:52:32):
something I've never really had classes in.
Sarah Shotts (00:52:34):
You know, it might not necessarily be the best Instagram idea to have that on my main feed.
Sarah Shotts (00:52:41):
So I just made this side project where I could like post whatever I wanted to.
Sarah Shotts (00:52:45):
And it is OK if it wasn't, you know, no one's going to be...
Sarah Shotts (00:52:49):
great you're not going to be great at something the first time you try, and we need
Sarah Shotts (00:52:52):
more space for that on the internet, and that's kind of I think what connected me to
Sarah Shotts (00:52:56):
Claire [venus] that you had on the podcast recently is, I was posting these messy pictures
Sarah Shotts (00:53:01):
of like my kids toys all over the floor.
Sarah Shotts (00:53:04):
And everyone else is like these perfectly wooden, beautiful toys on shelves, and everything's immaculate.
Sarah Shotts (00:53:10):
And I'm like, there's Duplo blocks all over our living room floor.
Sarah Shotts (00:53:15):
And Claire is like, I love this.
Sarah Shotts (00:53:16):
This is beautiful.
Sarah Shotts (00:53:18):
These moments are the ones we want to remember.
Sarah Shotts (00:53:21):
And so connecting over that is how we came up with the Magic Mundane project where
Sarah Shotts (00:53:26):
we exchange photos and videos of motherhood every day.
Sarah Shotts (00:53:30):
And we're cooking up a way for people to we're going to like match up collaborators
Sarah Shotts (00:53:36):
for that probably in the new year, because we're too close to the holidays right now.
Sarah Shotts (00:53:41):
But that's something that we're cooking up.
Sarah Shotts (00:53:43):
So all of that kind of, that's kind of like my vision of the messy middle is
Sarah Shotts (00:53:48):
allowing things to be messy,
Sarah Shotts (00:53:50):
allowing ourselves to be beginners, and
Sarah Shotts (00:53:53):
allowing things to be imperfect,
Sarah Shotts (00:53:55):
even if in a perfect world,
Sarah Shotts (00:53:57):
that's not how we would prefer to present them.
Sarah Shotts (00:54:01):
And weirdly,
Sarah Shotts (00:54:03):
the less perfect I allow things to be when I release them,
Sarah Shotts (00:54:06):
the more connection I seem to have with other people.
Alycia Buenger (00:54:10):
Yeah.
Alycia Buenger (00:54:12):
I wonder if one of the other things,
Alycia Buenger (00:54:15):
I can't think of it exactly,
Alycia Buenger (00:54:16):
but one of the other things you had said in this conversation about your son made
Alycia Buenger (00:54:22):
me think that
Alycia Buenger (00:54:24):
becoming a mother and having a young child to take care of every day....
Alycia Buenger (00:54:27):
Like that is something that you've talked about being the consistent thing that you do.
Alycia Buenger (00:54:32):
You are consistently a mother to your son.
Alycia Buenger (00:54:35):
I just wonder if like,
Alycia Buenger (00:54:37):
for me at least,
Alycia Buenger (00:54:38):
and maybe for you both as well,
Alycia Buenger (00:54:40):
like having a child or caretaking responsibilities or like connections with other people,
Alycia Buenger (00:54:46):
like that's kind of what anchors us into these mundane moments that are pretty
Alycia Buenger (00:54:53):
messy and imperfect and,
Alycia Buenger (00:54:56):
um,
Alycia Buenger (00:54:57):
engaging with those a little bit more consciously than Instagram really encourages
Alycia Buenger (00:55:01):
us to do.
Alycia Buenger (00:55:02):
Maybe that's where we allow ourselves to be in that messy middle experience.
Sarah Shotts (00:55:11):
Yes.
Sarah Shotts (00:55:11):
The toddler brings the mess to you.
Sarah Shotts (00:55:13):
So you have a choice.
Sarah Shotts (00:55:15):
You can see the beauty of it or you can get really frustrated.
Sarah Shotts (00:55:22):
And both things happen to me, obviously, but it helps if you can see the beauty in it.
Sarah Shotts (00:55:28):
It helps you to like, I can't think of the word, but like deal with it.
Sarah Shotts (00:55:33):
It helps you like process.
Alycia Buenger (00:55:38):
You can embrace and...
Alycia Buenger (00:55:40):
Yeah.
Alycia Buenger (00:55:41):
Do you have other questions, Kati?
Alycia Buenger (00:55:43):
Do you have other thoughts?
Kati Overmier (00:55:45):
I have lots of thoughts, but I don't know
Kati Overmier (00:55:50):
necessarily if they're going to fit with the episode.
Kati Overmier (00:55:55):
Um, I, I just kind of find your journey fascinating and I, I think it's really cool what you're doing.
Kati Overmier (00:56:05):
Um, and that it sounds really familiar to my life experience.
Kati Overmier (00:56:12):
Um, so that's really cool.
Kati Overmier (00:56:14):
I feel like I did have a question, but I forgot it, because there you go.
Kati Overmier (00:56:18):
That's my brain for you.
Kati Overmier (00:56:20):
No, this has been a fun convo.
Alycia Buenger (00:56:23):
One of the things that,
Alycia Buenger (00:56:24):
like Sarah said,
Alycia Buenger (00:56:25):
that reminds me of you and our conversations together is that piece around
Alycia Buenger (00:56:33):
consistent marketing and how you can be intentionally inconsistent with the work
Alycia Buenger (00:56:38):
that we do with Unravel.
Alycia Buenger (00:56:39):
We've been very conscious about allowing it to be kind of messy and allowing...
Alycia Buenger (00:56:44):
us to kind of filter this work through what we need in mind, body, soul together.
Alycia Buenger (00:56:49):
And we're a collaboration.
Alycia Buenger (00:56:51):
So there's like lots of like moving pieces,
Alycia Buenger (00:56:54):
but following all the rules of the online marketing world just doesn't work for us.
Alycia Buenger (00:57:00):
And I think part of that is because you have a neurodivergent experience of creating.
Alycia Buenger (00:57:05):
I think part of it's just that we're both mothers and we require a little bit more flexibility, but
Alycia Buenger (00:57:11):
I think there's a lot to think about with what you've said, Sarah.
Alycia Buenger (00:57:14):
So I'm kind of excited to put this out into the world and have some conversations
Alycia Buenger (00:57:19):
about it with more people.
Kati Overmier (00:57:23):
What Sarah was saying when she was saying that,
Kati Overmier (00:57:24):
actually,
Kati Overmier (00:57:25):
it's funny that you bring that up,
Kati Overmier (00:57:26):
Alycia,
Kati Overmier (00:57:27):
is when we were reading The Element...
Kati Overmier (00:57:33):
There's this one blurb in the, of the million of interviews that this guy did for this...
Kati Overmier (00:57:39):
And it was like this very prolific,
Kati Overmier (00:57:41):
um,
Kati Overmier (00:57:41):
book publisher, and like, his like advice to his,
Kati Overmier (00:57:47):
um,
Kati Overmier (00:57:48):
I guess like he kind of took someone under his wing, was [saying] don't do what everyone else
Kati Overmier (00:57:52):
is doing.
Kati Overmier (00:57:53):
Like, and that's where, where you will get the most success.
Kati Overmier (00:57:58):
Because if you're doing something that no one else is doing, um,
Kati Overmier (00:58:01):
then people tend to take more notice of that.
Kati Overmier (00:58:03):
And so that kind of reminded me of that,
Kati Overmier (00:58:05):
Sarah,
Kati Overmier (00:58:05):
where you're like,
Kati Overmier (00:58:07):
okay,
Kati Overmier (00:58:07):
so this rigid way of thinking is not working for me.
Kati Overmier (00:58:10):
And so therefore I'm going to go and do what I need to do.
Kati Overmier (00:58:14):
And then success found you when you finally allowed yourself to do what everyone else wasn't.
Kati Overmier (00:58:21):
And people have connected more to that.
Kati Overmier (00:58:24):
And so I think that's a really cool and beautiful example.
Sarah Shotts (00:58:30):
Yeah, for sure.
Sarah Shotts (00:58:31):
I love that book, too.
Sarah Shotts (00:58:33):
Thank you, now.
Alycia Buenger (00:58:35):
We just did a review where Kati hated it.
Alycia Buenger (00:58:39):
But Sarah's an academic.
Alycia Buenger (00:58:43):
So there you go.
Kati Overmier (00:58:45):
She is the only audience that I would ever recommend that book to.
Kati Overmier (00:58:53):
Yeah, I have a lot of things to say about that.
Kati Overmier (00:58:56):
And
Kati Overmier (00:58:58):
I still have a lot of things to say about that book.
Kati Overmier (00:59:01):
There you go.
Sarah Shotts (00:59:02):
I haven't read it in a long time.
Sarah Shotts (00:59:04):
It was like before my autism diagnosis.
Sarah Shotts (00:59:06):
But what I liked was that he was saying we all kind of... the ecosystem thing,
Sarah Shotts (00:59:10):
like the theme of the book is that we all have our own thing.
Sarah Shotts (00:59:15):
We can just find it.
Sarah Shotts (00:59:17):
Now, the tone of the book might not resonate with every reader.
Sarah Shotts (00:59:20):
So that sounds like maybe what happened.
Kati Overmier (00:59:23):
My, my biggest problem with the book is like, that was what the book was supposed to be about.
Kati Overmier (00:59:29):
But at the end of the book,
Kati Overmier (00:59:30):
like if I didn't know what I already love to do,
Kati Overmier (00:59:35):
I had no more insight on how to find it.
Kati Overmier (00:59:38):
I was just told your life will be better if you do find it.
Kati Overmier (00:59:42):
Oh, okay, cool.
Kati Overmier (00:59:44):
But what if I don't know how things can, I still don't know.
Sarah Shotts (00:59:50):
So he wrote a sequel, because I think a lot of people had that reaction, called Finding Your Element.
Sarah Shotts (00:59:57):
But I actually enjoyed that book less than the first one, probably because I already know mine.
Sarah Shotts (01:00:05):
I'm going to be honest right now and tell you I was a little bit afraid to come on
Sarah Shotts (01:00:08):
this podcast, because I listened to your review of Glennon Doyle's...
Sarah Shotts (01:00:12):
I can't remember the name.
Sarah Shotts (01:00:14):
Untamed.
Sarah Shotts (01:00:16):
That.
Sarah Shotts (01:00:16):
Untamed.
Sarah Shotts (01:00:16):
And I was like, oh, dear.
Sarah Shotts (01:00:18):
They're so critical.
Sarah Shotts (01:00:22):
Oh, no.
Sarah Shotts (01:00:25):
You should listen to our review about Hunt, Gather, Parent, because we say nothing but praise...
Alycia Buenger (01:00:33):
That's funny because that episode is one of my favorites that we've done, the Glennon Doyle episode.
Alycia Buenger (01:00:38):
We do at the end confirm that we think she's a really valuable speaker in the world.
Sarah Shotts (01:00:43):
I feel like, I mean, I don't know how much older I am than you guys.
Sarah Shotts (01:00:49):
But I think one thing you said was like, maybe there's like a generational difference in experience.
Sarah Shotts (01:00:55):
And I felt like for me, I related more to her generational experience than perhaps yours.
Sarah Shotts (01:01:01):
So, yeah.
Sarah Shotts (01:01:02):
Yeah.
Sarah Shotts (01:01:04):
I haven't felt critiqued today.
Alycia Buenger (01:01:10):
Oh, no, that was never our intention.
Alycia Buenger (01:01:12):
I'm glad you felt uncritiqued.
Sarah Shotts (01:01:18):
So I did think of something like, some connective tissue that I kind of skipped over.
Sarah Shotts (01:01:23):
So I don't know.
Sarah Shotts (01:01:25):
Don't spend too long thinking about where to plug this in,
Sarah Shotts (01:01:28):
but you could just leave it here or you could put it elsewhere if it makes sense.
Sarah Shotts (01:01:33):
So one thing I did want to talk about is that while my diagnosis didn't change
Sarah Shotts (01:01:38):
anything about my creative process,
Sarah Shotts (01:01:41):
realizing that my son was autistic changed everything.
Sarah Shotts (01:01:46):
And not only about how to parent,
Sarah Shotts (01:01:50):
but how to treat myself, because everything was different when I knew that my son
Sarah Shotts (01:01:57):
was also neurodivergent.
Sarah Shotts (01:01:59):
And so everything changed from like,
Sarah Shotts (01:02:02):
I have to make myself conform to these neurotypical standards and like push beyond what I'm able.
Sarah Shotts (01:02:08):
So there was like one level of, I didn't have the capacity to do that anymore.
Sarah Shotts (01:02:12):
But then realizing that he would have these experiences in life,
Sarah Shotts (01:02:17):
his own neurodivergent experiences made me realize that I don't want to model,
Sarah Shotts (01:02:22):
even if I did have the resources to push past my capacity,
Sarah Shotts (01:02:26):
that it's actually possible,
Sarah Shotts (01:02:27):
much more powerful to say, you know, I need these things.
Sarah Shotts (01:02:31):
My brain is different.
Sarah Shotts (01:02:33):
And that is just a neutral fact.
Sarah Shotts (01:02:34):
It's not a flaw.
Sarah Shotts (01:02:35):
It's not anything bad about me.
Sarah Shotts (01:02:38):
And so his diagnosis actually changed a lot more about my creative practice and the
Sarah Shotts (01:02:44):
way that I walk through life and allowing myself to follow these different rabbit
Sarah Shotts (01:02:48):
holes and my intuition and not try to stay tight within these rigid,
Sarah Shotts (01:02:55):
niched expectations,
Sarah Shotts (01:02:57):
that it's amazing what we learn from motherhood that we can't really see when it's just us.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:05):
Yeah.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:07):
That's a really beautiful way to talk about it, I think.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:10):
And it actually reminds me of Glennon's book a little bit, and the way that she
Alycia Buenger (01:03:13):
talks about kind of her devotion to being a feminist when she realized that she
Alycia Buenger (01:03:20):
wasn't kind of embracing that for her son specifically.
Sarah Shotts (01:03:23):
Yeah.
Sarah Shotts (01:03:25):
Yeah, I remember that.
Sarah Shotts (01:03:27):
Yeah, that story.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:30):
Well, thank you so much for coming and being on the podcast.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:34):
And we've been kind of trying to schedule this for a little while, so I'm so glad it worked out today.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:40):
Thank you so much.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:43):
Thanks for having me.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:45):
Of course.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:46):
Anytime.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:46):
We'd love to have you back.
Sarah Shotts (01:03:48):
There's lots more we can talk about.
Sarah Shotts (01:03:50):
We didn't even dig into the home education, and we just skimmed the surface on the neurodivergence.
Sarah Shotts (01:03:55):
So there's lots more.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:57):
Yeah.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:57):
We'll have to do a part two.
Alycia Buenger (01:03:58):
We'll have to try and schedule that.
Kati Overmier (01:04:00):
Yeah.
Kati Overmier (01:04:01):
Yeah.
Kati Overmier (01:04:02):
For sure.
Sarah Shotts (01:04:02):
Yeah.
Sarah Shotts (01:04:02):
And if I ever start having guests, I'll have to have you on my podcast.
Sarah Shotts (01:04:06):
Yes.
Sarah Shotts (01:04:07):
That'd be fun.
Sarah Shotts (01:04:08):
On a little hiatus.
Sarah Shotts (01:04:09):
Because basically when David was in school, he was bringing home something...
Sarah Shotts (01:04:13):
We were sick constantly.
Sarah Shotts (01:04:15):
So I just didn't have the voice to podcast for the last two years.
Sarah Shotts (01:04:20):
So we're kind of like coming back to a space where it might be possible to,
Sarah Shotts (01:04:25):
to pursue that creative outlet again.
Sarah Shotts (01:04:27):
So, yeah.
Alycia Buenger (01:04:29):
Yeah, that would be fun.
Alycia Buenger (01:04:30):
Thank you so much, Sarah.
Alycia Buenger (01:04:32):
And I guess we will see y'all next week.
Kati Overmier (01:04:37):
This will be fun for the end of the podcast, for the bloopers.
Alycia Buenger (01:04:40):
Yeah, shove that at the end.
Alycia Buenger (01:04:42):
That doesn't need to be in here.
Alycia Buenger (01:04:43):
Okay.
Alycia Buenger (01:04:53):
Introductions are so horrible for me, which we've talked about previously.
Alycia Buenger (01:04:56):
This is the second podcast I've introed, so yay me.
Alycia Buenger (01:05:03):
But yeah, you can talk about inconsistencies if you want to.
Alycia Buenger (01:05:06):
Okay.
Sarah Shotts (01:05:09):
Yeah, I'm going to just call it due over on that one.
Kati Overmier (01:05:14):
I feel like we're so similar, Sarah, we should be friends.
Kati Overmier (01:05:17):
We should.
Kati Overmier (01:05:18):
A little bit.
Kati Overmier (01:05:28):
Thank you for listening to the unravel your days podcast for detailed show notes,
Kati Overmier (01:05:33):
visit unravel your days.com forward slash podcast and search by episode number.
Kati Overmier (01:05:40):
You can also find us on Instagram at unravel your days.
Alycia Buenger (01:05:46):
To stay up to date with new episodes and to receive additional resources from us,
Alycia Buenger (01:05:50):
including a presencing toolkit with 10 plus practices to help you embody your
Alycia Buenger (01:05:55):
present experience,
Alycia Buenger (01:05:57):
join our virtual podcast community at unravelyourdays.com forward slash community.
Kati Overmier (01:06:05):
If you have comments or questions about anything you heard today or suggestions for
Kati Overmier (01:06:10):
future episode topics,
Kati Overmier (01:06:12):
join the community for free or
Kati Overmier (01:06:16):
To support our work on this podcast and beyond,
Kati Overmier (01:06:19):
join the community with a monthly contribution and unlock even more resources from us.
Alycia Buenger (01:06:25):
If you loved this episode of the podcast,
Alycia Buenger (01:06:28):
leave us a review wherever you listen or share this episode with a friend.
Alycia Buenger (01:06:33):
That's the best small business support we can ask for.
Alycia Buenger (01:06:36):
Thanks so much for listening.
Alycia Buenger (01:06:37):
We'll see you back here next week.