Episode 4: From the Basement to The Clouds, How Creativity Helped Me Navigate Divorce

In this episode Dr. Lori talks about one of the darkest moments in her life: divorce.  She always wanted to be married, but the last 7 years of her 23 year marriage Dr. Lori realized she was in an abusive relationship carrying all of the weight.  The only way to survive was to leave, despite a child still at home.   She ended up moving and living in her mother's basement, a metaphor for her life, working a necessary job in a toxic environment, while still supporting her family financially and materially as best she could.  Art classes allowed her a joyful respite and these creative baby steps got her to where she needed to go: a divorce,  eventually standup comedy, and the healing of herself and family.  Dr. Lori went from the basement to the 44th floor over a 10 year period.  With her hard won knowledge and wisdom she wants to shorten the creativity learning curve for other physician creatives.

Transcript

Hey creatively constipated. This is Dr. Lori, your creativity, coach board certified Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Specialist, physician filmmaker, artist, actor. That sounded weird actor. Yeah, actor and filmmaker director here to talk to you more about why you need a creativity coach. In my last episode, I talked to, I talked about how creativity can help you get through grief and loss. 

And I did post a bit about how it might help you through a very traumatic episode like divorce in 2011 on Halloween, October 31st, I actually got divorced, but the seeds of discontent and the dissolution of my marriage had actually started about seven years before that I was in a situation where there was a verbal abuse and gas lighting. And I didn't really understand that. That's what it was until I actually started going to therapy. My therapist listened to my story about what was going on at home about how I was always made to feel like I was selfish.  
    00:01:57    Like I wasn't doing enough for the family, etcetera cetera. And she said, you are being verbally abused. And I was like, what are you talking about? I mean, he wasn't my ex didn't curse at me. He just made me feel like I was always crazy. And she gave me a book and I discovered that that's exactly what was going on. I was at a point, I was at one of the lowest points in my life. Uh, I was driving an hour and a half, one way to work as a fertility Specialist and also GYN surgeon. There were many days when I would get up in the morning and my ex and I would have a argument that would put me in not a good frame of mine and I had to drive. And there were times when I actually felt like, why don't I just drive into the back of this semi?  
    00:02:58    What stopped me is because I had two children that I knew needed me, and I didn't really want to end my life. I just wanted to get out of the situation that I was in. So I ended up, um, doing two things. The first thing was I got a job. The job that I had was ending, and I ended up going on a locums tenants assignment in Hawaii. Um, my daughter went with me. My son was in the 11th grade at a time and he was not going to go. He said he was not going to uproot himself and I can understand that being in high school, but my daughter came and she was in a 10th grade. And unfortunately though Hawaii was absolutely beautiful. It was a very isolating experience. There weren't very many African Americans in Hawaii. Uh, it was really difficult to get to know people.  

    00:03:59    And the job that I had actually sucked, what was wonderful was I had this amazing drive to work where I would, um, go, you know, up into the poly mountains and look over into the valley at this lush landscape that really did remind me of Eden and at lunch, I would go to one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and eat my assai bowl. However, I knew I couldn't stay. So I decided, um, to come back to the mainland with my daughter, but I also knew that I couldn't stay with my ex in, um, our home in Southeastern Georgia and this little small town of 3000 people. And if y'all know me, you know, I'm a city girl, so I didn't fit in.  
Speaker 1    00:04:54    And like I said, um, my ex was an entrepreneur at the time I was holding all the financial balls in the air. It was very difficult. I felt like I was never listened to. I felt like I didn't matter, except for, um, generating income to support our family. And I knew that if I stayed, I wouldn't survive. So I ended up moving back home, got a job, uh, in Cleveland where I'm from. And I ended up moving back home, living with my mother in another small town outside of Cleveland. And I lived in my mother's basement. She had a townhouse and had a semi-finished basement with a, like a rec room and a, um, and a bedroom and a bath mm-hmm <affirmative>. It was the basement. And I felt that that was a metaphor for my life, that it was the basement of my, my life.  

    00:05:57    I would work shift work and I'd work for two weeks. And then I would drive to Georgia, um, to see my daughter who was now a senior in high school. And my son who was now a freshman in college, I missed a lot,  of her, , teenage years, , her senior year in high school. And, uh, rightfully so she was, , upset about that cuz despite the fact that, you know, teenagers don't wanna be around their parents, I think she did need me, but I couldn't be in the environment that I, that I was in, um, with my ex-husband, um, my job wasn't the greatest either. Like I said, I was doing ship shift, work, delivering babies, which yes, that's amazing. Um, but also, um, I was in a, what I would consider a job that wasn't using all of my abilities, what got me through that time.  

    00:07:00    I also started going to counseling in Ohio as well. , my mother is, was a difficult person to live with. Um, she would go and go through my drawers and she would put, um, post-it notes on my wash cloth to make sure that, to inform me that I needed to use, um, makeup remover, um, to remove my mascara. So, and I also was driving about an hour away to where I was working. So it was really kind of an awful time. But what got me through was I did, was able to start taking, um, a class. I started taking a class in what I called data and surrealism at the Cleveland Institute of art. , if you remember or know about Salvador Dolly, he was considered a surrealist. So it was about learning about art history.  but also starting to paint in an abstract way.  

 00:08:07    So  on the basement floor, that cold floor of my mother's basement, I started, uh, doing painting with acrylic paints to the point where I actually started, um, buying particle board from the hardware store. And I would paint on paper and create these and tear the paper up and collage it on the, on the part particle board. And it was actually very therapeutic and it was like, I was almost recreating my life as, as well. I also took an art history class at the Cleveland museum of art on printmaking, which led me to take a printmaking class at, um, at the Cleveland Institute of art. So that started my journey of, uh, using art to heal. And it did, it did help heal me and as well as going to therapy, uh, and knowing my therapist said, you know, what you need to do, I needed to get a divorce.  

    00:09:09    , there wasn't anything,  that I could do, um, to repair my, , marriage. So, so the, so therapy obviously was very helpful.  and when I look back at that time  coaching would also might have been helpful to help me chart my way out of the morass out of the basement. Would've been a coach that could've helped me look at the bigger picture. Um, you know, there were also financial issues. I ended up having to pay back taxes because, um, my ex-husband had gone through a business bankruptcy, but it was tied into all of our finances. I didn't have the best attorney. I ended up paying alimony and also didn't have the best attorney from a financial standpoint. So I ended up owing the IRS a significant amount of money, , that took me several years to pay off. And then I was also in the hole financially and was still not happy.  

    00:10:24    , job wise. However, um, once again, , I was able to start, I also, the creativity came back as well because I started taking care of my health and what I mean by that I was overweight. I was pre-diabetic and I started running, well, let me just say I started walking first. , I had a two cousins who were planning to do a, um, half marathon and I started walking and I started walking, which also helped to clear my head and, um, helped me think about the possibilities of my life. And, um, I ended up doing my first, um, half marathon the year that I, I got divorced and I fell in love with running. So, you know, it was a combination of the creativity, the looking out for my health, the, um, what else can I say? The, the going, looking out for my physical health, as well as my mental health, um, that helped me to get through that, that awful time.  

 00:11:49    I know that if I hadn't let my creativity come out by starting to paint. And then, , after I got divorced, I discovered I was funny, uh, was never really funny during my marriage, but after I got divorced, people started telling me at work that I was funny. Uh, I was, um, dating a man who said, you should do standup comedy. I was like, are you kidding? Uh, and you're not hearing all the funny, I'm not, I'm not funny in the way that, um, I tell jokes, I tell stories. So I was like, really. So I decided to, um, take a, take a workshop at the Cleveland improv and, uh, the instructor, his name was Dave said, wow, you've got really great material, but your delivery. And he wanted to say my delivery sucked, but he was a teacher. So he didn't say that. So I just kept practicing and practicing,  my five minute set.  

    00:12:58    And when it came time to do the showcase, I was the second to the last person. I had my note cards, but, , I killed it. So all of that started to give me more confidence. , it gave me, I also started taking classes and paper making. So I learned how to make paper and use the paper, use the paper that I made and use to way you make paper is you actually boil down, um, the pulp from trees and Mulberry trees, for example. So the paper that I made, I actually incorporated it into the abstract paintings that I was doing. Um, I learned a technique called,i Joomchi, where you could actually make mold paper into, um, a two to three dimensional structure. So all of that creativity, , healed me cuz as I said, there was significant loss, , loss of, of, of my marriage, um, loss of loss of my identity as a wife loss of my identity as a mother to a degree.  

    00:14:15    So there was a lot of loss and you know, I'm glad I can look back on that now. And it, you know, it's obviously was a very painful time, but when I look back at it on it now it made me the person that I am. It made me get out of my comfort zone. It made me become a beginner and try new things. And I I'll tell you, I went from the basement to now. I live on the 44th floor in a wonderful city. Like I live in Chicago, always wanted to live in a big city and I have a view of the lake from every room. So the basement I was in the basement of my life, but now I'm in the clouds and I think I have to credit creativity to that, um, create, I got unblocked. I used, um, my God given talents and skills and ability to think outside the box to create the life that, um, I want and the life that is continuing to evolve and grow and take interesting turn.  
    00:15:30    So if you are creatively constipated, if you're blocked, if you're going through something, um, please contact me. I know that I can help you get through it. You know, also recognize that you, you know, creativity is good for everything in your life. Finances. It's good for, , thinking outside the box, it's good for making you find joy.  it's good for, , relationships. It's good for almost everything, but , I have been there,.  if you wanna shorten that learning curve to getting to the life that you know, that you are meant to live and to also, um, having your creative babies, um, grow and go and go become into fruition, um, contact me, you know, I can help you get unblocked. , I have a process which I'll talk more about direct message me on Instagram or Facebook and let's have a conversation once again. This is Dr. Lori your creativity coach, board certified Ob/Gyn and Reproductive Endocrinologist. Thank you for  listening to The Curating Creativity Ppodcast. Direct message me at Rxpadpoet on Instagram or direct message me at Lori-Linell Hollins on Facebook. I'm also on LinkedIn. Look forward to hearing from you.