3.17 YOU ARE CREATIVE- Porch Talk is back w/ Morgan Jones Johnston

We’re back on the porch with Morgan Jones Johnston of Rugged and Fancy, and this episode might completely change the way you think about creativity. 

She believes creativity is not reserved for artists. It’s in how you solve problems, process emotions, decorate a room, notice color, parent your kids, or reinvent your life when the version you’ve been living no longer fits.

Morgan shares what it looked like to move through major life pivots and the pressure of figuring yourself out again in your late 30s. Instead of chasing a perfect straight-line version of success, she talks about learning to trust evolution, aligned action, and the tiny “two-degree shifts” that slowly change everything.

On the porch, we talked about:
– why creativity belongs to everyone
– what happens when life forces a reinvention
– the pressure to have a “plan” for your life
– human design and understanding your energy
– nervous system regulation and anxiety
– why small daily actions matter more than giant overhauls
– practical ways to reconnect with yourself creatively
– and how putting your phone down might actually help you hear yourself think again

It’s the kind of conversation that makes you feel less stuck and more human. Morgan brings both honesty and practicality to the idea that maybe you’re not failing… maybe you’re evolving. And honestly? We all needed this one.

If you’ve been craving clarity, self-expression, or permission to pivot a little, this episode is for you. Send it to a friend who’s figuring things out too, and if you wanna come hang out on the porch and share your story, MESSAGE US!

Transcript

Porch Talks Series Kickoff

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Before You Cut Bangs. I'm Laura Quick. I'm a professional storyteller and I'm writing my first book. And I'm Claire Fearman. I'm a therapist, but not your therapist. Full disclaimer: take what you like, leave the rest.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hey y'all, it's Spring, and me and Claire are kicking off a new series called Porch Talks, where we are talking to the baddest women we know. They are powerful in their own right. Anything from Pilates to ringing the bell on Wall Street, going public with a company. Moms of four children and still running multiple businesses, interior design, you name it, we're talking about it on the porch, and it is so fun and so enlightening. And they're all listeners. So maybe you could be on one of our porch talks. We'd love to hear from you. But we're glad you're here. Thanks for tuning in.

Meeting Morgan And Buying The Nude

SPEAKER_02 0:57

I feel like I found you on Instagram. That is correct. At the beginning of the pandemic? Yes. No, I know what it is. We have a mutual friend. Who? Hillary. With the horses. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Okay, so we have a mutual friend with horses. And I started following Morgan on Instagram and got a painting from her in the midst of COVID. We met at my office. Yes. And she pulled out the most massive painting. Um, and well, no, let me back up. I had my eye on this painting. It's a nude. It's stunning. It's the most magical colors, and I'm like, I really want it. It's big. It is massive. And I'm like newly divorced, pandemic, no money. And she gave me a killer deal on this amazing painting. But I was obsessed with it. Like I kept thinking about it. And Morgan helped me get this painting. Um, it helped my kids get really comfortable with boobs and vaginas, and which I think is good. Um, and one more Morganism that I don't even know if you know, but this is so fitting that you have this lipstick on. Years ago, you did this little Instagram. If you don't follow Morgan Rugged and Fancy on Instagram, you should because it's the best. I think you um you did this thing on lipstick. I think this is still pandemic. And I'm like, well, I was very shy about like certain lip colors, and you're like, just buy one that you love and just wear it around your house to get used to it. And I'm like, I am gonna do that. And I did. And so what I love about you is first, I think you're completely yourself all the time, and that gives women permission to be themselves all the time. So that was A, why I wanted you here, but also B the ability to be creative, which I talk about all the time, is so vulnerable. And as a clinician, I use it all the time with clients. Like, even if I'm like, use your non-dominant hand and write what words come to your mind, even that's very vulnerable for people. I don't write well with my non-dominant hand. I don't want you to see it. And so I think you just in your business or as an artist, you I mean, I don't know if you would agree with this, but from my side of the screen, you give people permission to tap into themselves. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

I think that's my great calling in life. That is why I do all the things I do. And it was a long journey arriving at that place myself. Like I don't think I became myself until I became a mom at 29 and was forced to begin the journey of figuring it out.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

That'll do it. Yeah. Babies will do it. Babies will do it. One thing that I love about you, because I've known you for a long time. I think like you are so you're like the embodiment of a creative, but in the in this like really everyday practical way of just you still are getting a bunch of shit done all the time.

Why Everyone Is Born Creative

SPEAKER_01 4:06

But you what tell us a little bit about like what role does creativity or should creativity play in a woman's life?

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Uh well, I want to start with saying what I say to literally everyone. I scream it from the tops of buildings. We are all born creative. We are all innately creative. Like the fact that a bunch of cells come together and there's magic and stuff sprinkled in, and we're like these walking things with consciousness and and we have these lives. Like we are creative, all of us. Even even very literal, kind of analytical people, there is creativity inside them. The way they see something, the way they see a process or distill a thing, or the way you learn or engage with others, like it is just part of this human experience.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

So, what would you say to somebody who says no, but literally, I'm not creative. I'm not saying that because you know I love creative.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Oh, people say that to me all the time. And what would you say to them? Well, I have to remember not to, you know, giggle a little bit. But I I start with scribbling. I tell people just sit and scribble, or like go sit for a minute and put down your phone and like look around you and see what strikes you, or write with your opposite hand, or go play with a kid, or do something that you don't need to do. It's just everywhere. Do you read something that's creativity? Do you engage with art? Do you see art with your eyeballs? That is creative. Do you have a feeling that is creative?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

So it's an expansion of the meaning of like you don't have to put out an apple and a pear and do a perfect still life. Oh. And I love what you said. Go do something you don't usually do.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Yeah, you have to like change your brain pathways. There's like a lot of science coming out around art, creativity, the role it plays in our length longevity, in our fulfillment, in arriving at the end of our lives and feeling like we've lived our life. I think, I think that's the biggest why for me. It is that one day we are going to die. I love reminding people this. One day you're gonna die. We're all gonna die.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

That's why we brought you here today to tell the hard truth. Let's keep a light. One day we're gonna die. Okay, I um this is why you're easy to talk to because I skipped the bio part and just went to your soul.

Building A Life As A Working Artist

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Um like tell us who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Okay, I'm Morgan Jones Johnston. All of my stuff is under my brand called Ragged and Fancy, which has been a long time thing. I have always been a working creative. I have been an entrepreneur for many years. Um, I worked in photography, production, styling. My family background was in textile manufacturing. I got into fashion. My husband, who's a musician, Duquette Johnston, he and I had a shop and clothing brand together for a decade, and then we decided we wanted to do something different. Um I loved and I'm very sad. I did there was a lot of mourning over it. You know, the brand lives on online. It does. It does. Um, but yeah, it was it was an era. And I actually have a lot to say about people thinking that life is a straight line or an upward trajectory, and you have to keep doing the same thing or building upon the same thing. That's like not true. That is a very like capitalist.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Could you uh talk a little bit about um the power of stopping something?

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Like just like ending, like yeah, let me finish saying what I do because I'm only about halfway there.

unknown 7:27

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Give take your time. Um you've got 20 minutes to just talk about what you do.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Um so we had our brand Club Duquet for a decade. That brand continues on, but without the brick and mortar imprint. I have always been an artist, like since a little kid. I went to the Alabama School of Fine Arts, which was incredible. I lived abroad as an artist. I returned to that practice when I had my son at 29, and it grew and grew and grew. And then I turned it into my livelihood. And at the same time, I was traveling and speaking about the intersection of art and commerce and how you create sustainable small business models as working artists. And then I got into human design, which is kind of a woo-woo system of like understanding how your energy is meant to work. And I studied that through the pandemic and then started offering intuitive mentorship that really is about reconnecting people to their um the way their energy is meant to flow and like to tap into that creativity and basically to just like free yourself and be yourself and live your life because we're all gonna die.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

What did you ask me? Okay, uh, well, you just said something I feel like, and it's fine. There's a you know, it's so quiet on my street normally, but I'm telling you, people are getting airlifted. I think we all just need to say a quick prayer. A lot of lawn service going on on Thursday. It is. Um, you said something in that just about the ending of an era. What?

Ending Eras And Choosing A Pivot

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Tell us about like what's something powerful that happens when you choose to end something.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Laura loves a pivot.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

Yes. We're we're like multifaceted beings. We should live or have the ability and freedom to live multifaceted lives. We should allow ourselves that. And I think the idea that you're supposed to pick your course and set your course and stick with it is a lie. It's a lie. Some people do that, and it's it's rare actually to like know what you want to do and set out on that path and do it your whole life. I think that there's profound freedom in knowing what you want. I think that's like the biggest hurdle for so many of us, especially life is like middle-aged women. What do we want? If you reach the freedom of like, I give no fucks anymore. I'm not doing this for somebody else. What do I want? Well, then what if you realize what you want is not what you're doing? Oh shit. Well, just change it. We're all gonna die. Do we have like a counter on the screen that's like she said it the 30 second time? Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

We'll start drinking. Yeah, we actually have to take a sip of hydr hydration though, really, because what I love, I think that that's a really we talked about uh the permission slip that you might write for a woman, and uh you just wrote me one because I do think there is something, not just with me, but even in my core friendships, I'm hearing a lot about like, damn, like I don't know if I'm doing what I want to be doing. I don't know if I even like this moment that I'm going through right now. And I'm always like, yeah, I feel like you wake up sometime in your late 30s and you're like, oh shit, what do I want? Yeah. It's like you you made a lot of choices leading up to your midlife point, whatever that ends up being for us. But I do think there's a waking up that happens where we're like, damn, I haven't asked myself that, maybe ever. Because there just is a lot of life that happens to you.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Yes, yeah.

Aligned Action And Two-Degree Shifts

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Well, and again, this is I think the bigger piece at the base of it is like we don't have to know where we're going. We don't have to know how it's gonna end up. We don't have to know the steps of the plan. We just have to be present to showing up. And then, especially in these times where we're like, of course, all on our devices and our synapses are like really weird and short um attention spans. It's like, okay, well, I don't I don't have to know these things right now. Now I need to do something. So can you take the aligned action? You don't have to know the big picture. Can you choose to do the one thing? What's the one thing you want to do today? What's one thing that will get you closer to what you want your life to feel like? What do I want my life to feel like? What do I want my life to look like to me, not to everybody else? And what is one thing I could do right now that is going to feel good and step me closer to it, into it?

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Well, I've talked about on the podcast before, but what I do with my clients, and it's hard for them to conceptualize, is I call it the two-degree shift. It's these like itty bitty pieces that I shift and I shift and I shift and I grow and I change, and sometimes they're hard and sometimes they're easy or fun. But a lot of times people come into therapy expecting like this massive light bulb to happen after three 50 minute sessions or whatever, and it's not. And so I had a client pretty recently say, and when you say I'm gonna do the work, what is it that you mean? And I was like, Well, this isn't it. Like this 15 minutes is not the work. Like we're gonna talk and cry and process and all that. The work is what you take from this and go live in. But that's exactly what you're describing. It's these itty bitty moments of choice that we have over and over and over again. And if I'm understanding you correctly, it's if I obsess on what's going to happen and try this like linear path, I might not get as much joy and fulfillment right now, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Yes. And also just the freedom that you can experience from saying, I don't have to figure it all out right now. I don't have to know where this is going. I don't know what it's gonna look like in a year. And that's okay. Like give yourself this is, I feel like the um freedom of being embodied is just giving yourself radical permission, growing radical trust in yourself. I'm sorry, growing trust in whatever greater thing I call it the universe, and then nervous system regulation. That is your magic recipe for the life you want.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

I'm gonna roast her just a touch. Can't wait. I love it. We recently recorded an episode on the arbitrary timeline, and you've you know, I'm not gonna roast you in a compliment. You've done a lot of work on this. This woman loves her trajectory in a timeline and will make up numbers of when it's gonna happen. 62 days from now. But does it work for you sometimes? Sometimes, but we had to shift it a little bit, yeah. But I think I love the piece of like sometimes we have to have a deadline. Like she runs a magazine, like if she was like, just let live and let live, like it wouldn't get published. But um, so I think in life we do have to have like the deadline and the timeline, but I love the freedom that you get of like I don't have to know how this happens now. You can have it. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

I was gonna say one of the things I was I appreciated is you walked in my house and you were like, it feels good in here. And what I want to tell you is like, you know, I joke, I don't joke, it's actually very sad. I had a very sad country music song season last year, and my life literally blew up. You know, I went through a divorce and I never thought that was gonna happen. You know, I finally thought I had that figured out, and it it it I didn't. Um, but that hard reset, that unexpected hard reset allowed me to change some really patterns of life happening to me and allowed me to like happen to life. Yes. And and it, and one of the things was making sure that my spaces feel really good, not just for me, but when people walk in that they feel welcome and that like so I and I have a feeling, although I've not been to your house, I have been to Clove Duquet and like obviously was a shopper there and

Human Design And Your Environment

SPEAKER_01 15:13

still am. But tell us about creating spaces when you talk about human design. Like, what is what does our environments do?

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Like okay, so environment actually is an aspect revealed through your human design. So human design is kind of um a woo-woo system based on astrology, eaching, cabala, quantum physics, a bunch of stuff. And it generally I like that you said woo-woo. For those of you who are just like, what the hell? I'm a very magical person. You kind of are though.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

I do. Look at me. She showed up in this outfit, and we're like, Where? She's like, it was gifted to me from a curator at the I was like, Whoa, I just passed out while you're the great.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

To be accurate, it's the great. Um, okay, so human design, you generate what's called your body graph. It's a chart that looks insane. It's got all these shapes and colors and lines, and then numbers and planetary gates and profile lines and arrows. And what I love is that it's essentially your owner operator manual to create the life you want in your correct energy, the way that you were made to operate and co-collaborate with the universe. And inside of it, one of the little bitty things that's revealed is called environment. We all have it. Uh, mine is shores. It's a bunch of kind of arbitrary words, but shores essentially means that I like sitting with um multiple vantage points. I like to be able to look out over the street in the garden. I like to sit in the corner seat and be able to see everyone here. Um, I love portal experiences and transportation through things. And as you were talking, I'm like wondering about your human design. Maybe you're a manifester, which would be your energy type, which would be like someone who is able to know exactly what they want. And then by golly, they are on the trajectory to that unfolding. Girl, every time. I think that's right. That's literally been my whole girlfriends gathering here.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

By the end of this, there's gonna be like 30 women who are all varying degrees of friends already. And it's like, yes, girl. Um, yeah, so your human design, we're all made different. So I I like to say that with all these big statements and things, it may not necessarily be correct for everybody. One person's approach is gonna be very different from someone else's. And I, as a manifesting generator, that is my energy type, I am meant to do a million different things in life. I'm very multi-passionate, multi-hyphenate. That is who I am. It's who I've ended up being. What was great is as I learned human design as a system, it gave radical permission to me to go against what everyone else had told me, which was pick a thing and finish it. Why can't you finish a thing? Why don't you stick in one lane? Well, I'm not made to be that way. So, in that same way, like you have the two degrees. I describe human design as like a bun mamma jelly jar. So it has many facets. And so, what if you're looking through it thinking, this is what's wrong with me? This is what I have to change. I don't like this about myself. It's holding me back. Well, what if you shift it two degrees and look through a different facet and it suddenly has shifted it from being something that's a shortcoming to something that's actually a gift that just needed to be reframed? I could just really sit here all day.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

And I'm like, Yes, pretty.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

I'm like, do it, do the thing to me. I'm dating a therapist and he loves to say, what if we reframe that? And I'm like, oh my God, shut up. But also, well, how what do you think I should how do you think I should reframe it?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

I I want to do this with you, which we'll talk about later. I'll text you.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Do you know your energy type to either of you?

SPEAKER_01 18:59

I do because I do because a generator. I am. Yeah. Manifesting generator. Yeah. When you said empty, this makes sense. When you said that, I remembered. So Zach, the guy that I'm dating, his one of his best friends is a therapist, but she uses human design in therapy. Oh Zeus. Incredible. Yeah. And it's um, and she was like, I just looked this up. I mean, she doesn't use it in every session, but depending on like what someone's goals are, she will use it. And so, yeah, she talked about it.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

I think it's great for manifesting generators because we like to go fast. We're able to skip steps that other people can't. You sometimes need to let people know, like, hey, I'm gonna go really fast, just keep up with me. If you have questions, ask. Um many different eras.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Do it all. You were made for this. I wasn't really writing a book about it. And I'm like, Lord, help.

What To Tell Your 25-Year-Old Self

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Um, if you could go back and talk to your 25-year-old self before your son, before you kind of figured out some things, what would you say to her? Chill the fuck out.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Same.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

And also, like, you don't have to perform, you don't have to prove anything to anybody. Spend more time with yourself. Maybe like start the journey of coming back into your body at 25 versus 30. But you know, everyone's journey is different. I had to go through those things to get there.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Golly. I recently was asked that question and I was like, you are the fucking problem. That's what I was saying to her.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Why are we just we're still so mean to us?

SPEAKER_01 20:41

But I would say that to her because I was like, she really was unhinged and she needed to know. She had tough love.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

She needed to be like too. I'm just like a raging asshole. I really was. Yeah. I was so well. I was just trying to survive. Y'all could have been actually- We would have been a mess. We did not need to be friends.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Exactly. No.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

It wouldn't have worked. I would have been like, I have to get him out of jail again or something. Um, okay. So if you could sprinkle some magic on people listening, what would you invite them to do? Is it it can be in from anything that you've said.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Um, ooh. Allow yourself to like sit down and really honestly get real with yourself. What do I want? What do I want? What do I want in my life? What do I want my life to feel like? And then can you actually like put words to that? Not sit and write it all out and not come up with a plan. Do not come up with a plan.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Just be with it. Just be with it. What do you want your life to feel like? And then could y'all manifest or generate that leaf blower to stop? Because I'm gonna lose my shit on the yard work.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Girl, we are out here and these people have lived here for 50 years and they don't ever leaf blown. Like they will keep this neighborhood looking as, and if you don't, the judgment that I I get for not having like the fact that that broom is leaning. If Terry sees that from across the street, she's gonna be like, Are you still cleaning your porch?

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Anything we haven't asked that you want to say.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Um, I'm I think a real practical thing, I really encourage people to doodle, to draw, to like it it does things to your brain. It switches from left brain to right brain. It turns off a lot of the um distress hormones and can really just open up this like space where magic can unfold, especially in your journey to getting clear on what you want. Um, and then draw with your opposite hand. These are all like very practical things.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

You're just so precious, and I've just loved this. Um specifically, we have male listeners, but it's definitely more female.

Anxiety, The Body, And Regulation

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Um if a woman was like, oh my gosh, what she's saying about kind of like letting go and it gave her a lot of anxiety, how would you soothe that? Is that direct?

SPEAKER_02 23:03

I like that. That's very specific. Um, I think this is where it's really profound and powerful to learn about nervous system regulation. It is a physiological thing. So if you are feeling panic in your body to lay down your body. And I, for real, will lay down in an airport. I will lay down on a sidewalk. I am not afraid to lay my body down. And then to ask, you know, to invite the ground to support. Have you ever seen me lay down in a street?

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Well, I do it in my own the privacy of my backyard, but I appreciate your boldness.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

I mean, airports, people need to be laying their bodies down. Okay, so learn about their bodies, be in their bodies. Yeah, I mean, be in your body.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Reconnect with your breath. Okay, and because you're such a fashionista, which we haven't even gotten to, but we'll have to have you do this again. I know. Do you believe in the the color thing for people, or can people just

Color, Style, And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 24:00

wear what they want?

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Oh my god, okay, so I see color in a way um color good season, color seasons or something. Like I'm a winter. I'm not I don't fucking know. I just figure it out. Which is wild because my art is so colorful. Like my art is is knowable by its use of color. My eyeballs experience color in far more nuance and degrees than typical eyeballs. That's like a thing. Um, but the whole color season thing.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Where would you want?

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Well, you they put the swatches on, they're like flapping them around. I'm like, it's all beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

That's what I wanted to hear. Thank you for doing this so much.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Thank you for having me. This was so fun.

Subscribe, Reviews, And Resources

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Before you cut bangs is hosted by Lara Quick and Claire Fearman and produced by Will Lockmade. Follow along with us everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Please subscribe to the podcast. Find us on Instagram. We're constantly doing polls. We want to know what you think. And I know that you probably know this, but reviewing us and giving us five stars matters more than anything, and we are so grateful to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

We talk so much on the podcast about seeking therapy, getting help, finding resources. I would love to be able to help you with that. My website is up and running and beautiful. It is goodgrowthwithclair.com. So, whether you're in the state of Alabama or not, I want to be able to help direct you to the right resources. Goodgrowth with Claire.com.