91. The Savoir Faire Episode

"To make an idea become a reality is a process that fascinates me. Otherwise it just stays an idea." Delphine Arnold 

This is an episode devoted to inspiring you to take action and to have Savoir Faire.

Savoir faire gives us an important advantage in knowing what to do. Savoir faire is a French term first appeared in the 1700s, and it means knowing how to do. And it's the ability to speak or act in a way that's appropriate in any given situation. And by appropriate, I mean appropriate to our values, to what's important, to what gets us closer to what we desire. It also includes the ability to trust that you will know what to do. There's something a little funny about trying to know what to do at all times, because we don't. We simply don't. And I want to encourage you to know as much as you can, and then trust yourself that you will have the right action, the right decision, the right words when you need them 

Transcript

 To make an idea become a reality is a process that fascinates me. Otherwise it just stays an idea. This quote from Delphine Arnold invites us to consider how we can make our desires into reality. 

Welcome to the Modern Creative Woman podcast, and this is for women like you who want to elevate their creativity and start applying creative thinking in their everyday life. I'm your hostess and creativity expert, Dr. Amy Backos. 

There are conversations and creative insights. I'll provide simple science backed tricks and proven creative practices that will help take the mystery out of the creative process so that you can start each day feeling empowered, creative, and ready to take on whatever comes your way. Let's get started. Happy Valentine's Day, my friends! I have a wonderful Valentine's gift for you made with love. There is a special edition of the Modern Creative Woman podcast dropping on February 14th, and it is filled with affirmations to help you live your life in a way that is aligned with your values so that you can be the woman you really want to be. The affirmations are powerful. It uses the “I am” statement. I hope you love it and happy Valentines! 

This month is all about savoir faire and if you're inside the Modern Creative Woman membership, you know what I'm talking about. Savoir faire gives us an important advantage in knowing what to do. Savoir faire is a French term first appeared in the 1700s, and it means knowing how to do. And it's the ability to speak or act in a way that's appropriate in any given situation. And by appropriate, I mean appropriate to our values, to what's important, to what gets us closer to what we desire. It also includes the ability to trust that you will know what to do. There's something a little funny about trying to know what to do at all times, because we don't. We simply don't. And I want to encourage you to know as much as you can, and then trust yourself that you will have the right action, the right decision, the right words when you need them. Now savoir faire. It has some synonyms that I think are really beautiful. Tact. Poise. Thoughtfulness. It also includes words like grace, gracefulness, sensitivity, manliness and respect, dexterity and civility. These are words that I want you to aspire towards. When you're thinking about what will I do? How am I going to contribute? How will I make my voice heard in what's going on in the world? And we all know what's happening in the world. And I'm here to talk about solutions that move us forward, that allow you to feel good about what you're doing, what you're saying, and feel empowered so that you can be an example to the children in your life, the other women in your life, and feel really proud of your choices, even if it feels like you don't have the savoir faire. Knowing what to do comes directly from knowledge and the trust that you can figure it out. It also includes a willingness to experiment and a willingness to fail. Now we're simply unable to suddenly know what to do in all circumstances. We have to learn, observe, experiment, have some success. Have some failure. It doesn't just plop into our head automatically to know how to participate or take action. It requires experimentation, and it requires community more than anything else. We need women's communities. I hear so many women comment that they simply don't know what to do. They're not sure how to participate. And so they stay a little bit frozen instead of taking action. And I think it is often a natural response to freeze up for a bit, especially if you've experienced traumas that, um, caused you to freeze up. And the idea, though, is to move through that experience of not knowing what to do and of freezing and taking a little bit of action. And it can be whatever moves you forward. Spending time with your community, writing your representatives, speaking up in some way towards kindness and compassion. There's many, many private actions that you can take as well, considering where you want to put your money, etc. however, there is a wrong choice which is to freeze up and do nothing. And there's always something that we can do. We can always spread kindness and love and move towards the community in a way that shows our compassion. Remaining silent is incredibly unhelpful. There's a quote from Audre Lorde that I really love. She says, when we speak, we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak. Silence will not protect you. It will not make you less afraid. Freezing up will not give you a feeling of bravery either. I want to encourage you to take action regardless of your level of uncertainty. And another example is many white women I know have told me they're afraid to say anything about race because they don't want to get it wrong. They're afraid to call out others. And again, I want to encourage you that that silence does not protect you. It does not make you feel better. And in fact, it can leave you feeling far, far worse when you could have spoken and didn't. So if it feels safe for you in an environment of your friends to challenge. That's a great place to start. If you're looking for ways to have this dialogue. There's an incredible book called Mindful of Race, and I think that's a very powerful way to start. The author is Ruth King, and she uses mindfulness as a way to understand our own discomfort around topics of equality and race and justice. And that approach very much aligns with how I do this work through acceptance and commitment, and the idea of mindfulness and making contact with the present moment plays a huge part in becoming the woman we want to be. And it also becomes essential when we think about how we can speak up and move towards justice and equality in society. Let me give you some more examples about how mindfulness can truly lead us forward in settling ourselves and being able to make a contribution at whatever area we feel called to give our support, our money and our energy. Jon Kabat-Zinn is one of the prominent researchers on mindfulness, and he says mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening without judgment. The idea that we can experience ourselves and be aware of what's happening internally and externally and not judge ourselves for it, not judge others for it, is so powerful, and it's from that place that we can move with great compassion and incredible amounts of hope. So being aware of what's happening to us on the outside is about places, circumstances, things, people, and all of the things that move outside of us. It also relates to the things that are inside us, and that's our thoughts, our feelings and our bodily sensations. And listen, worry is a category of thought, and memory is also a category of thought. And you end up being able to kind of tolerate whatever's happening inside your mind or outside of you, from a place of acceptance and kindness. What that looks like in practice is when we become aware of judging ourselves, we take a step back and we just notice that that becomes part of the context outside of us or inside of us. Oh, I'm judging myself. I'm aware of some thoughts that are unkind to myself. I'm aware of thoughts related to fear or uncertainty. So that definition, again, mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening without judgment. It often relates to. Wishing things were different and responding to that wish instead of what's in front of us. I wish things were different, and yet I need to respond to what's actually happening. We need to tap into what we wish things were or could be, or hopefully will be again soon, and get right back out of that and respond to what's happening in the moment with intention and purpose. When I think about the savoir faire of mindfulness, mindfulness meditation just has the goal of making contact with the present moment. You can do it right now by taking a deep breath in. You can notice the sound of my voice. You can look out the window and see what's in front of you. Making contact with the present moment is all that's required for you to be able to respond clearly to what's happening. Instead of responding to emotions, emotional overwhelm, uncomfortable thoughts, worries and memories. And mindfulness is quite different from guided imagery or like a directed meditation. It's just being in the moment. The good news is there's no side effects to mindfulness meditation. It can make you feel uncomfortable in that you get in touch with whatever you're feeling or you're thinking or whatever the situation is in front of you. And sometimes that's incredibly uncomfortable for many, many people right now. They're living in a state of uncertainty, of fear. That's a reality on the outside, on the inside. When you make full contact with the present moment and respond to what's happening, respond with empathy towards your thoughts, towards your feelings. Respond with accurate looking to what's happening outside of you. That gives us a little bit of the savoir faire to know what we want to do. Once we see what we want, then we can respond to what it is that needs to change. Meditation and mindfulness is not some kind of hocus pocus. Researchers have been looking at this topic for decades and decades and decades. Certainly meditation is not new. Mindfulness is not new. It's been around for centuries. In the research, it has a significant amount of scientific data to support its use. And I did a quick scan through the worldwide database I use for research. Meditation pulled up over 46,000 peer reviewed journal articles, um peer reviewed um general writing conference proceedings. And then I plugged in mindfulness research over 57,000 studies, and there were 1223 peer reviewed articles in 2024 alone. It is traditional medicine to meditate and use mindfulness. It is also scientifically based and there's piles of evidence. So either way that you want to look at it. It's going to give you a sense of ease when things are very stressful. When I was in school, we were taught to look for what was missing, what was missing in a study that perhaps compromised its validity. What was missing in a report? To make sure that everything was covered, we had to really explore what's not happening. So I thought I would have a look and see if there were adverse consequences to meditation or mindfulness. I found a meta analysis, and a meta analysis uses perhaps a decade or many decades worth of research, and they rerun the statistics on it to understand the overall trends in research. And this particular study that came out in 2020 by Ferris et al. Started with 6742 articles on meditation, and they narrowed it down to 83 and then decided to run the statistics on that. And that was over 6700 participants. And what they found in those 83 studies was that 55% of them included reports of at least one type of an adverse event, And on average, about 8% of people felt some kind of adverse event when they were meditating. What does that mean? A feeling of anxiety, perhaps a feeling of sadness or depression. Some unusual thoughts came to their mind, and also some gastrointestinal awareness. They felt their stomach churning, perhaps. These adverse events are completely unlike other treatments. And these, you know, other treatments might be a medication trial where people become very sick or even die. The quote unquote side effect of meditation is being aware of your thoughts and your feelings. Now, I looked for similar studies around mindfulness to show potentially any adverse events from a mindfulness study. What I found that was very interesting in the literature is there's not really adverse events in mindfulness if you're practicing mindfulness. The goal is to become aware of thoughts and feelings, bodily sensations. And remember that includes a category of thought like a worry or another category of thought, which is a memory. And many psychological theories and research protocols use mindfulness as part of the practice to help people overcome their mental health disorders and to feel better in general. And so people going to treatment are undergoing a psychological intervention that includes mindfulness, and they're going to experience distress in a safe environment. And that's really the goal is to know that they can tolerate being with themselves, experiencing their internal self, and know that they can handle it, that an internal experience is not dangerous. The goal of mindfulness is not to get rid of thoughts and feelings and bodily sensations. The goal is not to feel better either, which is a little paradoxical that it's used in psychological treatments. The fact of the matter is, most people feel better after mindfulness, and it might feel a little uncomfortable in the beginning or unfamiliar. However, people do feel better when they're engaged in present moment awareness. There's piles of research. The goal of mindfulness is not to change anything at all. What a relief. We don't have to be better, quote unquote. We don't have to be different. We just have to be in the moment and we can feel better. Nothing has to change on the outside. So the goal of mindfulness is to be aware of your thoughts, your feelings, your bodily sensation. The goal is to just be present. It's to learn to experience yourself and the context of your life. All the things that are inside you and all the things that are outside you. They're not you. The goal is to make contact with yourself and to have some savoir faire about those thoughts and feelings, and how your body feels in the moment. I got a question from a woman and you can drop me a question in the show notes. You can DM me. I would love to be able to answer your questions. She asked me in a very sweet way, giving giving a compliment in the process. An interesting question so far, she says. It's amazing to see you create something unique and meaningful. The modern creative woman, and to build something from the ground up, she said. I would love to know what brought you to that idea. This is a question that I wanted to answer in the context of this episode, because the idea of creating something unique and meaningful is completely available and possible for you as well. You absolutely can create something out of your mind, and the idea that everything just is as it is is simply not true. We talk about acceptance, which is about accepting what is, but not just staying with it. We talk about accepting and dealing with what's in front of us. And what I wanted to do was put something in front of me that would allow me to use my training as an art therapist to bring women together, to have a women's community, to focus on empowerment and to teach. What I've been so lucky to learn through my clients and my mentors around things like social justice, empowerment, and equality. Every therapist I know thinks about these issues and helping their clients navigate very complicated systems and deal with oppression on a daily basis. The Modern Creative Woman was my brainchild as a way to have a solution focused empowerment program. So you hear me talk about the things that will bring you ease and success, and you don't hear me so often talk about the problems you already know. Whatever your problems are, and you already know whatever the problems are in society. I'm here to inspire you to picture what it is that you want, and figure out a way to move towards that. So I'm a little unsure if this woman was asking me. Kind of like a business question how did I create all of this? There's certainly like strategies that one can follow for starting, um, like a private practice for clinicians who want to start a private practice. And that's where I began with the Art Therapy Center of San Francisco. And putting that together made me feel so proud about what I could offer to my community. And part of my work includes volunteer work. I do quite a bit of free things. Get the newsletter. You get the podcast. There's a lot of value that I'm offering. I do presentations at the VA. I'm doing one for a women's group next month. Giving others the chance to experience creativity is what brings me so much joy, and I'm really grateful that I can think about economics and allow space in my schedule and time and commitment towards those things. The Modern Creative Woman program was designed to really enhance the value that I was already giving at the free level. And so the modern creative woman is $97 for the month, and it includes three live classes, a workbook, you get a membership page with all the archives, and I think it's ridiculously low price and people have a chance to gain incredible insights. But they're doing the work at home and they're able to feel safe, comfortable, take their time to make their art, do their journaling, and it really is the best of what I can offer. And putting together 30 years worth of work and presenting it and packaging it in a way that I think is very easy to understand as well as pretty fun. It's very creative. So the idea of a more just world, more equality for women is what really brought me to this idea of the modern, creative woman. I want to encourage you to figure out what it is that's most important to you, and figure out how you can make a contribution to yourself, to your community, where you're able to let your values lead you and direct you. And you can create a community of other people who are moving in that same direction. And now, more than ever, we need women's communities for sure. I want to remind you to hop back in to the podcast. On Friday, I have a very special Valentine's gift for you, so be sure and check that out. 

Have a wonderful rest of your week! 

Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It's absolutely free and it comes out once a month. And I know you can get a lot out of the podcast and the digital magazine. Yet when you're ready to take it to the next level, I want you to know you have options inside the membership. And if you're interested in a private consultation, please feel free to book a call with me. Even if you just have some questions, go ahead and book a call. My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram. Do come find me in the Modern Creative Woman on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest at Doctor Amy Bakos. If you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Woman podcast, I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can be an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month. All those links are in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. The link is in the show notes and you can find it at domain.com. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.