From Rock Bottom To Responsibility + Resiliency with Resiliency with James McKenna (Part 2)

Ever felt the fire dim and wondered how to light it again—without the crutches that leave you empty? We sit down with James, a candid artist whose story moves from the raw edges of a failed marriage to the grounded practice of building from the bottom. He describes the “dream state” of deep creative flow, not as a chemical high, but as a sober, meditative presence where time softens and attention sharpens. From there, he shares a simple tool that changes everything: a four-bucket method for sorting pain into what can’t be changed, what might be changed, the hard traits that must be managed, and what was never yours to carry.

The conversation blends real-world scars with practical steps. James reframes fault as responsibility, shifting the frame from past-tense blame to future-focused design. That shift invites empathy: you’re not responsible for others’ choices, but you are responsible for the situations you create. We talk about flow and meditation as repeatable doors back to yourself, how honest feedback fuels art and trust, and why specific reactions beat empty praise. Along the way, James offers a grounded take on selling creative work, facing the parts of ourselves that resist change, and using limits as scaffolding for growth.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Quest For Spark

SPEAKER_00 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, Natalie Davis and Pamela Katz.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

If I could get a doctor to sign off on it, yeah, sure, this is fine. I'd be doing six shots every morning. I mean, to live in that world, or maybe two shots and keep it rolling, you know, like when you go out, you're out with friends and you like you hit that buzz, you know, you don't want to drink more. You just want to kind of stay in the zone and have fun. Maybe I'll take four shots and then two every four hours.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

I think this is technically what they call self-medicating right here in this moment. We're just watching it happen, right? Self-medicating. Four shots followed by two shots every two hours until you get to that dream state. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Have you been able to get into that state again since that moment?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

No, I haven't been doing much work. So I haven't had a chance to live in it. And the dream world when I'm working, everything isn't grayed out. It's the hyper focus. The thing was, in that particular moment, I was out among people. So all the stuff is going on all around me. And it's not my ears aren't buzzing. It's like there's no other physical thing going on. I just I just watched for a while and I said, I'm in the dream world. It's like, wow, you know, I get to be here. And it took a it took about a couple hours for that to wear off. That was quite an experience. And I've never been a drug taker. I don't, you know, I've I just never have done any drugs at all. I don't don't do uh marijuana, nothing. Um I've I do have drunk very various times. But that that's not the same thing at all. Drinking is not the same thing at all. This was magic. It was truly magical. But don't tell anyone.

Meditation As A Gateway To Calm

SPEAKER_02 2:19

I don't know, it's just between your secret safe right here. We're good. We're gonna keep it. I love it. Well, the way that you describe it, James, it's kind of like being in that flow state or this meditative state. Like, you know, just depending on what modality or however you land there. I know that writers get into that flow state where it just happens, right? Like there's no turning it on or off, and they're not doing anything. They just happen to be in that state and the words continue to flow out. Yeah. Same in like if you're meditating and you get into that meditative state where if you once you've experienced it, and I think that's the addiction with meditation, yeah, which is I don't know if that's healthy or not, is that once you get into that true meditative state, that you know the magic of that place, and you think, I've got to get back into that meditative state again, or in that flow state, or in the magical world, right? Like whatever that may be. Not induced by any substances. Like you said, it truly is just this magical focus, that flow.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

I have actually done that. I've I've been uh in meditating. I the thing that I do is I go beneath the surface, literally beneath the surface of the sea, and just I go down and down and down, and there are various levels where there are various things. And I get down there, and honestly, I could stay there a long, long time. Really? It's just calm. It's it's calm, it's very it's quiet. There's you know, there's nothing going on. And I have my eyes closed, and so it's black, it's dark, and there's nothing going on. And I guess I I don't know if somebody comes to meet me or what, but I feel very safe. You know, you don't always feel that way. So that's that's kind of a thing. But uh yeah, that that may be uh come up, what do they call them? A gateway trunk. Exactly. Yes, meditation.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

It's right after six shots of espresso.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Right. Exactly. You know, the meditation is not enough of a high.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

We're gonna go, we're gonna go for the real deal.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Well, yeah, 100%. Either you're in or you're not. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

You know, a funny thing about the the dream state, yeah, being in the dream world, is that I have no awareness of time, but if I need to know what time it is, I do. Even if it's been hours and hours, I'll be like, it's gotta be 4 30. And I'll look at my phone and it's 4 25. Wow. This is after six, seven, eight hours of being, you know, hyper focused. Some somewhere back in my brain, you know, somebody else is keeping track. It's autopilot. You know, I mean, that if I didn't have that, I wouldn't have you wouldn't get out of that space.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Yeah, absolutely. You forget to eat and function and do all of the other things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

There's gotta be somebody, somebody not necessarily cracking the whip, but like knocking on the door.

Art, Audience Reactions, And Selling Work

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Tapping, yeah. Yeah, let's let's remember. Yeah, I love that. I love that. So you said right now you're trying to get rid of some of the inventory that you have. Talk to us a little bit about your uh the outlets that you have. Are it online? Are you typically doing shows?

Building From The Bottom: A New Frame

The Four Buckets Of Pain

Responsibility Over Blame After Divorce

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I'm doing it online. I have to tell you, Natalie, it doesn't bear a lot of talking about because I haven't been successful yet. But the work that I'm showing, it's the work that I I told you that uh the young man had that response to it. And honestly, I go, I would go, like I could go to Chamber of Commerce meetings, you know, meet and greet, you know, hello, I'm that kind of thing. And I show people, and almost universally, people's eyes get wide, and they're like, you know, and they they get quiet a moment. Not like that young man. I mean, he he had a different response. That was a that was a different response. But uh they're certainly in the same zone, in the same zone. So yeah, I'm I'm trying to move merch. I'm definitely trying to move merch. The way I do it, there's uh it's kind of a two-step. The things that we haven't really talked about, the kind of the ways I've learned to uh bring myself up from the bottom. Do you want to talk about it? Yeah, I would love to hear that. Yes, okay, okay. All right, all right. So there's uh basically one thing, and that is seeing the bottom as a foundation, not a launching pad or anything like that. It's just a foundation. Because in the beginning it's a negative foundation. Wow, I'm not gonna do this, I'm not gonna do that. But as you start to step up, it is the base on which you build, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to do. And honestly, if you didn't have that bottom, you wouldn't be able to build the top. So that's a real fundamental thing that works for me. And the other thing is something I call the sorting game. And I know I it sounds like pop psych, and I'm not gonna put it out there as like everybody needs to do this, but it's what works for me. And uh, what happens is that I divide the pain into four different categories. And the first category is the real pain, that is what I can't change. You know, what did I do this time? What what's wrong? What happened to me? That's that's the things I cannot change, is the first bucket. The second one is things that maybe I can change. I I go to people, I am so sorry, I messed up. Or go and say, you know, I was really mad about what you did. Can we talk this through? What just whatever. Things that might be able to change. So there's there's that. Then the next one is really kind of the the saddest long term. The things about me that I can't change that are problems. So like with me, I I was saying I tend to be selfish, you know, I just have this selfish streak in me, and I gotta watch watch it because I I will. I'll be the one to take the last three brownies. It's just um there, I have to watch it. And the other is I get irritable, and I think I might have mentioned that too. I just I remember a couple of days ago, I somebody somebody had done something small that I felt like was a little, you know, a little odd. And so, but I sent this snippy email, and then like a half hour later, I'm like, I did it again. You know, here I am again. Like all I want to do is not do that. I'm paying, I cannot be paying more attention to not doing that. And yet, there it is. So that is the four that's the third category. And the fourth category is a little happier, and that is uh the things that I didn't do. You stopped yourself from doing. Not my fault, you know, not my fault. I might have been there, I might have been on the periphery, but somebody else was driving. So that that feels good. And that leads into kind of another another technique I use, which is to take on more. And I found, especially in this really downtime after my second marriage, that that ended very, very badly. And I'll take I'll take full credit for that. That was really bad. But when I was down at the bottom then, I took all of it on me. There was good reason for that, because toward the end, it was me. It was things I did. I never, it wasn't drinking, it wasn't the you know, womanizing, it wasn't there was all the classic things, it wasn't that. It was just not being present and you know going out and living, living a happy, fun life. And you know, my wife said home, it's home, you know, there's nothing for her. And yeah, it just kind of deteriorated from there. So sitting there thinking about boy, you know, what have I done? I took it all on, you know, the whole everything, the whole marriage, it's all my fault. It's all my fault. And then I realized it's not fault, it's responsibility. You know, I was responsible for this, I was responsible for that, and I didn't do it. And knowing that I'm responsible, that's a powerful thing because if I was responsible for that and I could have done it differently, then I'm responsible in the future and I can do it differently, and I can have better outcomes. So that's a really positive thing to come out of about that. So I recommend as one guy who has experience, you know, maybe, maybe accept a little more than you think is truly in your court. Because what could happen is if you don't, well, you'll be finding that out later, and that's that's really bad. You're to find out, oh no, I did that too. You don't want that. It's it's I think easier, not easier, it's it's hard, it's very painful, but it's better in the end to take on more and to then be able to pitch it at the end, you know, just like spit that out. Here's all the other pain, it is what it is, but I can spit this out. It's not my thing, did not do that.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

I think we're really good naturally, just as humans, we're really good at like saying that's not my situation, or I didn't really contribute or attribute to that piece. And and so, James, when you say like looking a little bit deeper to understand, like, well, maybe I did have something to do with fill in the blank, like taking that moment to just pause and taking ownership of it, responsibility for it as well.

Empathy, Choices, And Complex Accountability

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Very much. And it is ownership, responsibility. When you see it that way, I mean, it's not, I'm not saying take on blame. It's like, okay, I did that wrong, I did that wrong, I did that wrong. And it naturally goes to that. I mean, even I have been saying it, you know. But what it is is responsibility. What am I responsible for? What was I responsible for that I didn't do? I mean, what what was I responsible for that I did badly? Yeah, then it's like then it's a whole new game. Like blame and fault are all about the past. They're all about what went wrong. And responsibility is forward-looking. It's like, okay, I can I can take a model here and it may be a negative model, but I can put that into the future and I can use that. That's responsibility. That's a much better way of looking at things.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

You have to have a higher level of empathy as well to be in that space, right? Because it's not about you, just you. Like you truly have to think about the situation, the other people, all of that.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot about, especially in this relationship, was leaving someone bad choices. If I do things that put someone else in a bad situation and the choices they have are not good, and then they do something, you know, that really hurts me or something bad. Well, that's not all their fault because, you know, I kind of set them up for failure. So that's something you gotta look for as well. You gotta look for ways that you're responsible. You're not responsible for somebody else's behavior, but you're responsible for the situations you create. It gets complex really fast. So, you know, maybe that can be distracting. I don't know. I don't know. I don't have it all mapped out, but I just tried to come through with just some basic ideas that work for me. And if they can work for somebody else, some something useful, that would be great. That would be great. But I'm not, I'm not Dr. Somebody, I'm not anything, I'm I haven't written three books.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

You've created artwork that obviously speaks to people. So that's like writing a book, that's like doing anything, it's sharing your gifts with other people, and obviously it resonates.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

I feel very good about that. I'm not writing it down. You know, I'm not I'm not saying it's do it in a different way.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

To me, writing a book is artwork in a different way.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

And people can find that it's feel as an expertise or they can feel it as whatever they feel it is, as long as they tell me what they're feeling. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

That does tell me what you feel in your artwork.

Honest Feedback And Real Connection With Art

SPEAKER_03 14:17

Don't say that. Don't say that what it is about it. Yeah, we don't, we're never saying that again.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, and I know I'm probably insulting a lot of people and people who are. I mean, I myself I was this person. I'm sure I've done that. You want to connect in some way, you want to leave somebody with a something positive. And that's all you can think of. But it's real easy. You pick out whatever you what's the thing you like most. Say that one. I like that one the most. And here's why. This and this and this. Thank you for making that. I'm glad you made that. Have a good day. It's totally different. We're gonna have a better day.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

You I I was gonna say you're gonna have a deeper connection with that artist, right? Like that's so that's huge, right? Yeah. You get to share a little bit about what they've brought out in you, and they get to see a little bit of you as well. Like it and yeah, that's such a great connection to have.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Yeah, it really is. I mean, if if art fairs were that way, if everybody if there was some a sign at the front and you can't exactly art fair. There it is. You know, we need that instead of people just you know milling around like sheep.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah. I'm a sheep too. I'm a sheep.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

I would pick up that book. I do because I'm always doing can I can I touch it? Can I not touch it? I just want to be expressive about it. That's what I need to do.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah, you gotta express, you gotta express. Here's what I'm feeling, and it's related to what you did, and I hope that's valuable to you. I do like your work. I can't afford it. I I tell people uh one is that I have no space on my walls, and this is true. I have no space on my walls. Just be kind and say something positive. Say something useful. That's it. Something useful, it's not positive, but it's like, you know, I want to like your work, but I have this difficulty with it. Even that, even that would be something. It's like, you know, I just your colors are really dull, and I that doesn't feel good to me. But it's just me. So I'm sorry that I just don't respond that well to your work, or or but this one right here. I love the shape of this one, I love the it's something you can interact, you can engage, and that's that's what makes the day for artists.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

Well, it makes it more genuine because you think about how surface level conversations are with people. I love how you're dressed, or I you know, it's also surface instead of making it that deeper connection, speaking to the crux of the artwork or the crux of the person and how it made you feel when you look at it.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

And maybe, you know, I mean, this is this is pop psychology. People don't want to feel. And maybe that there's a little bit of truth in that. Because if you went from stall to stall and had feelings in every stall, by the end you'd be exhausted. You'd be exhausted.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

I think people are more about numbing, you know, numbing themselves.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Maybe, maybe you just need to pick one or two and do that. People be people, be what you are. People, we'll continue people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yep.

Using The Four Buckets In Practice

SPEAKER_02 17:20

James, you gave us the four bucket formula or practice. So when do you use that? And and how frequently are you using that when you use those four buckets?

SPEAKER_01 17:30

It's a it's a retrospective thing. It's what I found that uh that I do. And can you use it by like writing on a piece of paper and writing things down? I actually tried this last week because I thought, you know, if I'm gonna tell people about this, I better do it. And it did shed some light on things. I mean, I I didn't get to the part where this is not my fault. Because like I did that, yeah. That's my fault. This is over, that's over. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

100% me. Yeah, I admit that.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

I'm gonna do that again. This one, I'm gonna do that again. I know. So that was that was pretty much I didn't get to step four, is like, I'm done. I can't, I can't take anymore. Yeah. So yeah, it's not it's not a practice where you set up columns or anything like that. And like I said, it's not, I'm not Dr. Phil. I'm not telling you how to do it. That's just kind of how I find that I do it. And if you're finding you're stuck, that might be a way to think about it. Because there are four, they're very real buckets. What you can change, what you can't change, what you may be able to change, what there is about you that you just is not gonna go away, and what is not your fault. I mean, everything falls into one of those buckets.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

I think those are good. That's a great way, and people can do it however, whether it's just introspective, it's writing it down, it's journaling, what whatever it might be. So I think I think those are really really valuable for anybody that's gone through something.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

I think it's especially like if you're looking at stressful or hard situations or scenarios that you found yourself in, or even relationships that might have been strained, as you mentioned, like that was one that you did as a reflection with your ex-wife, and and that relationship. I think from relational or situational, you can absolutely use that for bucket practice. I think percent.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

Because I think it yeah, it allows you to learn something from the event so that it's not this pattern that keeps necessarily showing up.

Naming The Inner Critic And Self-Awareness

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah, yeah. That is the goal. What I find the older I get, the more things are in category three. That's the painful awareness. That's like I was telling you, you know, I'm irritable. I'm not gonna be irritable. Today, I'm gonna be positive. And then it's like, huh, you know, that moment. I already did. It's 9 30. I've already done it. You know, yes.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Is it the internal voice that tells you that? The internal voice is like, yeah, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

It's because it's it's it's typically a come around. Though sometimes people have to have to say tell me. But I know I'm at an age where people don't tell you. I'm at that age.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

They don't tell, I don't know. She's just who she is. It has to be the little voice.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Yes. I was gonna say on this show, we've named that little evil voice, that voice the Dr. Evil Pork Joss. Dr. Dr. Evil Pork Just. Um, and so we we try to we you can address it or her or them.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

We've named that voice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Yes, we name it. We've given an identity.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Maybe it's maybe it's the Dr. Evil Pork Shop that's making it happen in the first place. He works, he doesn't, he doesn't say anything.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Exactly. And then waits, and then just giggles with a little shit grin at the end of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Exactly, exactly. Gotcha. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Yes, exactly. Exactly. That's a good point. We might have to go down that road one day to figure that out.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Might have to.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, because I I I don't know, I don't know if I want to characterize the the voices in my head as Dr. Dr. Pork. Dr. Evil Pork Chop.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

It was the name of a cat at the vet when my daughter was taking her dog to get to the vet, and a woman came in with their cat, and the cat's name was Dr. Evil Pork Chop. And I was like, I feel like we need to use that name. That is a great idea.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

So yeah. Hey James, just to be clear, I don't I don't give a name to all of the places in my head. That just that one. Just I want to be clear.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Yeah, it's good to sort out which of the that's a that's a rabbit hole I don't want to go down. That's a whole other episode. I was gonna say that's not a problem, but it is not a problem I have. Yeah, but if I listen carefully, I can I can get some wisdom, you know, coming down, coming down the line. I try to do that. I try to pay attention to that one. Okay, I went down that rabbit hole, didn't I?

Where To Find James’s Work

SPEAKER_02 21:41

That's good. That's I'm glad that you did. Well, I know that you told us that you're um definitely sharing your artwork and it's available for purchase. Can you let our listeners know where they can find you more about learn more about you and your artwork?

Parting Wisdom: Listen To Your Heart

SPEAKER_01 21:57

They can find me. I have it written here on a piece of paper because I knew you were gonna ask. It's a tinyurl.com forward slash scraps to sculpture. Spelled out scraps word to sculpture. So it's tinyurl.com forward slash scraps to sculpture. What wisdom I have, you won't get it by using that because it is a little booklet that it doesn't correspond exactly to things I've been telling you, but it's essentially the process of getting from the bottom up to somewhere that's not the bottom. I love it. I love it. This has been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

It has been amazing. It has been amazing.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

I can't believe we had any fun at all. I was thinking this was a good one.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Okay, well, Natalie and I very rarely don't have fun.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

I I know that you had a little bit of reservation as you hopped on. You were like, I don't know where we're going.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Truly, both of you, Pam and Natalie, I just I thought, and I I was listening to all your podcasts, and like these women, they like they they're they're so positive and they like to laugh. And the people, people that come in, they have all these positive things to say. And I'm like, I saw I said right up front, I'm not positive. You know, it's not gonna be a success story. And you guys, I tell you what, you know, you made my day.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Oh my gosh. And I'm gonna let you know, James, you absolutely wholeheartedly have a success story. So thank you for sharing it with us. Thank you for sharing it with our listeners. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Do you have any final words that you'd like to leave our listeners with? Advice, insight?

SPEAKER_01 23:32

One of the thing I didn't get to talk about was if I could be the older, wiser person to talk to my my child self. I had several things I want to say, but I just want to say one of them, and that is listen to your heart. Oh, I love that. Not follow your dreams, not anything like that, but listen to your heart, because it it's not gonna be far from wrong. Most likely it's not gonna be far from wrong. Beautiful. That's beautiful. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

I think so as well. Listen to your heart.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Thank you, thank you, thank you, James. Again, I want to thank you for sharing your story and the vulnerability and bringing all of that forward for us and for our listeners. We are very grateful for you and to you for that. We will make sure that we drop the link in the show notes as well so our listeners and viewers, I guess I should say, can head on over and find that and support you. And again, you're welcome to come back. If if you decide to go down a different path and knock out those 14 books that you reference to that you're gonna write, come back and talk to us about it. We'd love to hear about it.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Every writer has a novel in a bot in a drawer somewhere. And I do have that novel, so maybe I should tap that out or or not write, I not not publish it. I'll just tell you about it. We can spend an hour. That would be amazing, James. Just follow follow your heart. Follow your heart. All right, that's all I got.

Show Wrap And Calls To Action

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Oh my gosh. Thank you, James, for our listeners. We will make sure that we put James's contact information in the show notes for you. And if you want to learn more about what's happening in the world of Reignite Resilience, head on over to ReigniteResilience.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. And if you haven't checked us out on YouTube, head on over to YouTube so that you can actually see our smiling faces and experience some of this laughter and joy that we experience on every episode. Until next time, we will see you all soon.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas to fuel the flames of passion. Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes, and of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.