17. Unlocking Your Flow with The Artist's Way: Moving Beyond Blocks to Embrace Creativity

Hey there, come hang out with me on this episode as we tackle the tricky topic of creative blocks. We'll dig into what puts a damper on our artistic mojo and how to gently coax it back into action. Picture it as a heart-to-heart chat with your creative spirit – a chance to unknot the tangles in your creativity hose and let those ideas flow freely once more.

You know, sometimes it's all about embracing the resistance and summoning the courage to ride the waves of creativity that flow beneath our everyday routines. Personally, diving into "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron has been a game-changer for me, and I'm super excited to share how simple practices like journaling and artist dates can reignite your creative flame. Let's also ponder how constraints – like time and resources – can actually kickstart our most ingenious ideas. Ever wondered if those tight deadlines or pushing past comfort zones could work in your favour? Well, let's flip that perspective together.

As we wrap up, take a sec to check out those self-imposed barriers that might be holding your creativity back. Remember, it's not about clocking in hours, but about cherishing the moments that really light up your creative spark. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just dipping your toes into the creative pool, I'm extending a warm invitation to push those boundaries. Let's make this episode the spark that ignites your creative dreams into reality – with a burst of inspiration and a big ol' dose of possibility.

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Transcript

Unblocking Your Inner Artist

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is Soul Therapy. I'm Jen Hully, your host, creativity coach, and photographer, obsessed with empowering others to build creatively fulfilling lives. Today on the podcast, we're talking about what is a creative block and what it actually means to be a blocked artist. We're going to look at whether this means something needs to be removed or stretched or nurtured and how we can start to develop habits and beliefs and hobbies, even that support and nurture our inner artist. And before we do that, I want us to just take a minute and be like, okay, what actually is a creative block? Because it's a word that gets thrown around all the time. There's it's in the title of books, it's in posts that are inspirational on social media, it's in books like The Artist Way, which you know has become a creative Bible for many people who are creative. And we like to put labels on things, right? We're we're little computer machines, us humans, and labels help us understand things, but sometimes we can be a little too specific. Like the label that we put on something can constrain our idea of it. And my friend and I were talking about this last week, what it actually means if there's a block in our life or a block that needs to be removed. And I use this term a lot when I talk about my creative coaching. I say we look at your blocks and we look at how we can remove these blocks in your life so that you can step forward and be able to start confidently taking action and grow and expand and experience and create the things that you feel called to do. And I think sometimes it's possible that we oversimplify or we over-specify this vision of a block and we look at it as something that has to be removed. But I'll argue that sometimes a block is it's a need. It might be something that needs to be filled or needs to be stretched or nurtured or just loved and supportive. You know, there are things in our life that need to be unblocked. If we think of ourselves as a like a garden hose, okay, and we think of like the water that runs through the garden hose to be universal flow, energy, creativity, love, just that whole life force that has you excited and energized to be here on earth and be existing and look forward to things. And it it leaves you feeling very fulfilled when you, you know, harness it and work with it. And so, if we're a garden hose, if we go with that image, a block doesn't necessarily mean like we need to turn the water on. It can be, it can be something so big and be like, well, the water's blocked because the hose isn't actually even turned on at the wall. That can be one thing that can be happening, or maybe the hose is blocked because like there's a stone in there and we need to take the stone out of the hose. But I think that sometimes it's just something that's like pinching the hose of universal flow, it's like stopping it. And like I said, it can be something that needs to be removed, or it might be something that needs to be nurtured or played with. Like, if you think about if a hose, a garden hose has like little holes in it, the block that is stopping the water from flowing through the holes doesn't need to be removed. The holes don't need to be removed, they need to be cared for and nurtured, they need to be patched so that the hose can be filled up and actually like move the water through its system. And so when we think of blocks and we think of ourselves as this like vessel for free-flowing energy moving through the world, through us and through the world, what does it mean if we are a blocked artist? And this comes up, like I said, on the internet, it comes up in social media. There's books that are named about it, about blocks taking blocks on blocking this. Um, I have one called like the war of art, which is all about being a blocked artist. Julia Cameron's book, The Artist Way, is built around this idea of unblocking your blocked artist. And so the intention for this episode is to have a conversation that really defines what blocks are, what it means to be a blocked artist, and to do this so that we can critically but kindly reflect and review on our own experiences so that we can identify the things that need to be loosened up, nurtured, fed, released, or removed from our life. And we do so in order to get that water flowing through the garden hose. Because when water is going through the hose, so many things can happen. It can be used to water some seeds that then turn into a garden, that then come into fruition to be giant vegetables that become a meal, that bring your family and friends together. Things are better when flow is moving. It doesn't necessarily mean that by turning on flow, amazing things happen right away, but it begins that cycle of growth, transformation, and creation. And that is the natural order of everything. Everything in the universe on earth has this natural order of expanding, growing, creation. So before we dive in, let's just take a minute. I'm gonna remind you one-to-one creativity coaching. I've got spots available. You can hit me up with an email at contact at Jennifer Hully. This whole process of creativity coaching is about working with your blocks, working with your habits, your beliefs, the logistics in your life, so that we can start to massage them, stretch them out, change their shape, and figure out what needs to be nurtured in your life so that we can gently coax out your inner artist. Because everything we create is art. Okay? The words that we speak, or the things that we write in somebody's birthday card, you know, the meals that we prepare for our family and friends, the photos we take, the doodles we write in our kids' lunchbox, even the content that we make to put on social media, it is all art. And it is art because it is an extension of ourselves, our experiences, and how we see the world. And you know, you're probably being like, yeah, cool, writing, food, got it, got it. Social media, what? Like, social media is not art, it's marketing, it's strategy, it's you know, we go very into masculine energy with social media, and full disclosure, this is a battle I fight every day. Being like, gotta go on to the strategy side of my brain. It does, it's part of it, but I really believe that we find ourselves so burnt out from social media. Again, speaking from experience, when I get burnt out and I'm like, fuck everybody, I'm taking a break. It's because the act of creating for that space has become so far removed from our actual natural energy of creativity and art. Alright, so we've set our intention. You know what's coming next. We're gonna do a daily card reading or a reading for this, like a single card reading for this episode. And I went to my little my little Zenden, my little space with my crystals and my card deck. And I don't know that I've used this deck on the podcast yet. I've been talking about it on social media a bit because I am fucking obsessed with it. It is called The Sacred Creators Oracle. It's a 67 card deck and guidebook for your creator soul. And it's by Chris Ann, who created the desk, the deck, the muse that I use a lot. I just I love her stuff. It's beautiful. The way she talks about things is very refreshing. And so I repeated the intention out. I said, This is what I want to talk about. I want to have this conversation for you know, X, Y, Z. What card do we need to further the conversation? And out popped card number 30, the sacred flow of yes, and it's orange, and it's got a little goldfish, or like some sort of fish. I don't know, I'm calling it a goldfish, doodle in the middle. And orange, orange, orange, orange. That is sacral chakra energy, and that is the energy of creativity, passion, desire, pleasure, creation. So, so perfect. We're gonna read from the book. And when I pulled this card, I was like, I love you, universe, because I was I know what the card's about, and it is just so perfect for where we're gonna go today. You don't know where we're going, but I know because I've got some notes, and so this is a perfect way to ease into that conversation. So the essential messages and meanings behind the sacred flow of yes are movement, ease, things falling into place effortlessly, positive validation and support, the universe is looking after you. The messages of self-care in this card are trying to force something that isn't working, not noticing all the signs that point the other way, seeing no as a problem instead of an opportunity, and that is a big one because we're definitely diving into that, seeing no as a problem and not an opportunity, and a need to up-level a skill in order to get what you want. Have you ever noticed how happy, optimistic people have all the luck? And how the haves keep winning at bingo while the have nots just keep encountering barrier after unfortunate barrier on their path. Like a stream of helpful energy, the sacred flow of yes is being where you're meant to be. When you're on the right wave, you are on it. You are so completely enveloped in your right vibe that it practically whooshes everything you need right into your lap. It brings a whole lot of easy flow. Yes to a new contract, yes to a better price, yes to a dinner date. It's time to act like water and flow around any problems you may be experiencing. You may be forcing your way upstream right now and stubbornly pushing into a dam that's meant to guide you towards a more prosperous path. Since I know that you're not a salmon, there's no need to be swimming into the headwaters right now. Instead, flow around the gates of not yet by finding the path of least resistance. The sacred flow of yes is like a river, so remember that rocks are only put in your way as markers, meant to nudge you towards your simplest solution, not as challenges meant to be dominated or controlled. And we're going to talk today about these rocks. Rocks and blocks. That's what we're talking about is things that are put in our path that look like a no or look like limits and reasons why we can't do something, but how they're actually there to nudge us towards something better, and you will find that the process of learning to swim around them is actually what fuels your creativity. So there's a couple self-reflection questions here. We'll read a few and then we'll just I'll add in my two cents, right? Is there something you are being stubborn about? What are you forcing instead of going around? What new skills could you acquire to help you level up and get above those barriers? Are you seeing challenges in life as failures? When really they are just lessons and guideposts. This is a big one. I'm gonna repeat it again. Are you seeing challenges in life as failures or blocks or dead ends when really they are just lessons and guideposts? The universe has a big sacred flow of yes for you. If you could let go of one thing that would make life easier, what would it be? And that is what we're gonna talk about today. What is the one thing we can let go of that's going to make life easier for us? And when I say easier, I don't mean it's easy all the time. I mean easier in that flow is easing back into your life. And so I am on my third run of the artist way. I think I mentioned it briefly in the uh introduction of this episode. And if you aren't familiar with the book, it is a really, really good book to have. I have recommended it to I think three people in the last week and a half, maybe two weeks. And when something like that happens, I keep coming up against a certain topic or a resource when I'm talking to people. I'm like, okay, this is something that needs to go out so that other people can hear it. And yeah, I'm on my third run of this book in the last three years. What happens is I don't go through the book sequentially. I've never been really good at that. I mean, I do go, but then I get to like week three, and I'm like, oh fuck, I gotta go back to week one because something happens. And the first, you know, two times that I went through it, I got like a little bit, and then I had to go back, and then I got a little bit further, then I had to go back. And now I'm like the furthest I've ever been. I've I'm almost finished the book. And I say finished in air quotes because it's it's a life process. If you're familiar with the book, it's about habits and mindsets and beliefs and nurturing your inner child and nurturing your inner artist so that you feel safe enough to come out and play. And when I say play, yes, I mean like maybe painting or making things, but coming out and playing means engaging with life and the opportunities that life has for you in a way that feels really heart-led, fills you up with energy, and just makes you feel good. Like it fills you up on a soul level. And now, the first time I went through this book, I was so blocked, okay? Like, so so blocked as an artist that I couldn't even access the wisdom in the book. I like found myself in a place where I was like, my problems are far too complex to be solved and fixed by like just writing a daily journal and taking myself out for an artist date once a week. I was like, this is ridiculous. And I was like, this is too simple. Like, it's an older book, and I was like, she doesn't know what's going on now. Like, this book is like over 30 years old, blah blah blah. Things are different. Blocks, blocks on blocks, there, right? Like adding in excuses as to why this isn't gonna help. Uh, and the second time I went through it, maybe a year later, it produced some rage and some frustration and uh regret, and but a lot of overwhelm. And so I went back, you know, was going backwards and forwards, and I kind of hovered in like the first five, six weeks of the program because that was where I was at. I say program, I mean just sort of like the calendar, like it's it's split up over 12 weeks. So, in the sequencing of the chapters, I stayed within like the first half of it. And now the third time I'm through it, it still does produce some anger, and and that is okay, that is good. Like, you should be angry when you go through this book because you'll see things as like how you've been standing in your way, or like how you failed to love and take care of yourself in really small ways that have contributed to kind of where you are, um, and that can produce regret, but this third time it's really produced this fire to like move on and move forward and be like, enough is enough. And if you're not familiar with the book, and even if you are, I'll just explain like the basics of it. Um, I would love to do like an in-depth episode, maybe about like week sorry, month one, and look at like weeks one through four. So if you're interested in doing like a little audio-based book club on this, let me know. Um, you can shoot me a DM or an email or however you connect with me. Uh, because it's something I'm considering is having um deep dives on the different weeks, so that if you're working through the book, you have some audio to support you as you move through it. But basically, there's some, you know, there's like general gists of the book. She's all about artist pages, which in a nutshell is uh free-flow writing first thing in the morning. It's a brain dump. It's getting up and journaling, three pages. She always says three pages of long hand. And I'm always like, what is long hand versus shorthand? I know it's like back when there was like handwriting and like it means writing, okay? But like in a nutshell, artist pages are writing. And it means write three pages. Does that mean three and back? Does that like front and back? Does that mean three, you know, can I type it? Whatever. There's so many questions I have for it about that, and like the artist pages actually were my biggest hurdle getting into this. I had so many excuses why I couldn't do it. Um, but that's the first part. Artist pages every day, you wake up first thing, and that I was like, I can't do that. I'm a single mom, my kids up so early. Like, how I'll be getting up at four in the morning. Uh, like secret side note, I'm doing them now, and I'll I'll tell you later how I've made it work for me because I've learned to work with the limit instead of having it stop me. Artist pages, artist dates, that's like a once-a-week thing where you take yourself out and you do something. Doesn't have to be making art. Doesn't mean like I'm gonna sit down and paint. Your artist date is basically, I would call them like an inner child date. What does your your inner kid want to do? What do they love to do? Do they want to go skating? Do you want to go to a cafe and get a really amazing piece of cake? Do you want to go to the pet store and like play with the cats? Do you want to walk through a bookstore? I love walking through like paper stores that sell like all sorts of like fancy ass stationery. That comes up a lot in um in the book, not the stationery, the artist dates. So artist pages daily, artist dates weekly. There's a lot of affirmations. Uh, and the affirmations tie into a lot of God speak. And depending where you are in your belief system, and I assume if you're listening to this, you have a bit of a belief in the universe and powers and forces that we don't know about. But she talks about God-loving artists and God wanting to support your dreams. And you know, if you're someone who's put off by religion or like organized religion or just the term God, that can be like, ugh, like I'm not doing this. Um, but she talks about it in the book. She says, you know, if this offends you, look, think of God as G.O.D., meaning good orderly direction, meaning just like the natural flow of life and when things just sort of click and go seamlessly. So that comes up a lot. Like, I think it's the tagline on the book is a spiritual path to creativity or like a higher path to creativity, because she does talk a lot about the magic of the universe and synchronicity and things like that. Um, and for some people it can be a block, but I think if you are willing to just be open-minded and make it mean what it means for you, then there's so much to be learned from this. And the last part um that really makes up the crux of the book is like you're doing the pages every day, you're doing the dates weekly, there's affirmations, there's a lot of talk about God and the universe, and then there's a direct weekly task. And most of these tasks have are writing based. And my first run, I was like, this isn't gonna help me. I'm a photographer. What's writing gonna do with, you know, I don't like it's not gonna solve my problem again. Um, but I've learned to make it work for me. Sometimes I run, sometimes I translate, or you know, twist and shape the directives that she's giving to be more in line with my self-expression. And this time I've also just done it. I've been like, whatever, she wants me to write, I'll write. And it's working. It really, really works. So if we remove this block of like, you can't possibly help me, or like, what do you know about me? I don't know what kind of block we would call that. Arrogance, ignorance, self-defense, like unnecessary self-defense. If we can remove that and just like lean into what it is and just try it, there is so much to be learned from this book. And she starts it off by talking about what a blocked artist is. And, you know, it's similar to what I was saying, where like you're not in that universal flow of like creation and doing things that you want to be doing. Doesn't mean like you're not working in your, you know, favorite career or a career that has to do with art, possibly. Doesn't necessarily mean you have to be working in an arts-based career to be blocked, unblocked. I mean, um, she talks about people who are blocked artists and what it looks like in different ways. And she does talk about shadow careers, which was is a really interesting um or shadow artist, she talks about, and them having shadow careers and like shadow relationships. And so people who are blocked artists may date artists or you know, pursue relationships with people who are living and doing the things that they want to do, or they might like take on careers that put them really close to what they want to be doing, but not quite doing it. So, like maybe being a curator in a gallery when you actually want to be like making the stuff that goes in the gallery gallery, or like teaching arts and crafts lessons, you know, to like in a community group, but you actually want to be making the arts and crafts yourself. I don't think there's anything wrong with like teaching arts and crafts in the community if that feeds your inner artist, but if it creates a block in that it feeds your it doesn't feed, but it like feels like you're feeding your need. So if it can trick your mind into thinking that you're feeding your need for artistic expression, but it actually isn't, then it is a block and it's kind of a sneaky block. But um this is what I mean, like blocks are so nuanced and complex, and they require a lot of self-reflection and looking at like what your goals are, what your life looks like, and this is why when we when you work with me through creativity coaching, the first thing we do is like a really big deep dive and getting an assessment and like a lay of the land, like what do things look like right now, so that we can identify what is a block and what isn't. And you know, in the artist way, she believes your your inner artist is your inner child. It's a kid, it's scared, it needs nurturing and support, it's afraid to do things because it doesn't want to die, it wants to be accepted and loved. And every week she works through a different theme about different types of blocks. One is about, you know, not feeling safe, one is about not feeling um heard, there's one about time, how we use time as a block, or how we use distraction. There's so so much in it. Um, so I Really recommend picking up the book if you want to work through stuff like that, or reaching out to me and we can do it up in a way that is super personalized for you. But let's talk about blocks, okay? Let's go into this because this is what I want to talk about this week. I gave you a little blurb about the artist way. If you want to learn about what your inner artist looks like or what your blocks might look like, but blocks essentially, right? They are excuses that we make. I don't have time, I'm too old, I'm a single mom. That comes up to me like I'm a single mom. I don't I can't do this. I have to be here doing XYZ. They can be habits that we have, like even habits of how we use our time and how we structure our day that used to work for us but aren't working anymore. And it's also patterns that we accept and patterns that we instigate, things that we just do as a way to protect ourselves from fear, failure, and challenging emotions. Like we do these excuses, these habits, and these patterns to protect our inner child, our inner artist, from being told that we're stupid, being told that we're not good enough, being laughed at, being rejected and sad and alone. But it's really good at using logic. And it's really good at using logic and reason and facts to like show you why it's not actually blocking you, it's protecting you. But the argument that I'll make is that maybe it's protecting you, but it's also keeping you small and it's keeping you safe in a way that is not fulfilling. It's keeping you like small is the only way I can express it as a really contracted version of yourself. And it tells you you can't possibly do that thing you want to do because look, look, you you do all these things. Your kid needs to go to soccer, you've got these bills to pay, you're so tired, you're looking like whatever, right? It just brings up things that you you can't argue with. You're like, you're right, I am tired, you're right, I do have to go to this. I I can't possibly carve out time for myself and nurture my creativity or investigate who I am today and what I want to be and what I want to make. But the thing is that creativity actually thrives in limitations. And we use these limitations, these rocks in the flow. You know, if we go back to the card that we were reading at the beginning, we look at this as being like, oh, there's a rock in front of me, gotta stop, can't do it. And really, it's like we just need to kind of divert our attention, divert our energy, divert our strategy, just change it a little bit so we can move around it and get to the next thing. But we're really good at being like, oh, I gotta stop, can't do it, whatever. Right? And we just we logic, I was gonna say logicify, but that's not a word. We we logically reinforce that belief that it's the right thing to do. But creativity actually thrives when there's limits. This is what's crazy is like it's so hard to be creative when you have everything available. You have all the time in the world, you have all the resources you need, you're still not gonna take action, you're still gonna sit there and you're not gonna make or create because there's too much available. And our brain is just like, I can't even make a decision. I don't know what to focus on, I don't know what to do, so I'm not gonna do anything. And so believing that when we're limitless, and that when there's no limitations or constraints or logistics that need to be worked around, believing that when those cease to exist is when we'll start being creative is really not true. And it's it's bullshit, right? It's bullshit that we tell ourselves so that we can like indulge in this fantasy of like what could be, who we could be, what life would be like if everything was perfect. But really, what is creativity? Creativity is this ability to connect dots, to think divergently, to come up with new ways of thinking, being, acting, doing. And we are pushed into a place where we have to connect dots that have never been connected. We have to try things that we have never tried. We have to come up with novel ways of making, doing, being when we have a limit. Because when we come up against that barrier, it's like, mm-mm, not this way, which way are you gonna go now? It's not mm-mm, not this way, sit down, never do anything again. It's okay, here's your limit, what are you gonna do? And your brain immediately gets kickstarted into creative thinking, into problem solving, into like, okay, how can I work with this? How can I work around it? Because when we narrow our focus, when we remove certain paths, and we say, okay, you can't go down a hundred different pathways, you've got these two options. We're able to broaden our awareness of what's available to us, what we want, what ideas we have. Time, time, time, time is one of these things that comes up so often. If we think about limits that get put in our day, every day, that we often go, nah, I can't, don't have time, can't do it. But really, time is one of those limitations that if you get cozy with it and you get comfortable and friendly with time, you can use that limitation to ignite the creative problem solving and the strategy and expression that's in you. You kind of have to trick your brain into doing things. Now, time is definitely something that we use as a block. And it's so, I guarantee you, if you ask yourself right now why you're not doing something that you want to do, I guarantee you, whatever like response you have, it has to do with not having time. I would say 90% of them go back to time. And it's because if we go back to that like creative blocks, use logic and reason to prove that it's right so that you don't take action. You can't argue that time is limited because it is finite. There's so many things that are we have in abundance and we have like unlimited potential with time, is not one of them. Okay? In our existence right now, we have 24 hours. Let's not go down the wormhole of like time and space not existing and multiple realities happening at once because that's too much for this podcast right now. But if we're looking at our day-to-day human existence, we got 24 hours a day, we got seven days a week, we got so many years in our lifespan before we're gonna be dead, and that's it. So we have this framework that we have to work within. And like I said, it's so easy to be like, I don't have time, I can't do that. Look, you're doing this and this, you're so tired. Blah blah blah. You can't argue with that. You can't be like, oh no, I actually have 60 hours in my day. You may have literally 45 minutes to yourself every single day, and maybe that's taken up with your lunch break. Like maybe that's when you're eating during your job. It's one of those things that it's the first thing to shut us down. You know, and she says in the book, The Artist Way that very often a creative block manifests itself as an addiction to fantasy. Rather than working or living, now we spin our wheels and we indulge and daydream of what we could have, what we would have, what we should have. And, you know, that is, in my words, doing mental acrobatics to compensate for the lack of soul and heart-aligned action that we have. We fixate and we obsess about, oh, if I had gone to school, or if I hadn't gone to do this, or if I just had more money, or if my parents had stayed together, or if I went to that art camp, or if I blah blah blah, you know, I could have written that. Oh, like, and it comes up in in ways of um like jealousy or judgment, you know, when somebody you see someone doing something and you're like, oh, that's crap, I could have done that. My kid could do that, you know, or like that is the exact same thing that I've been thinking about. I didn't act, that was my play, I wrote it down, or I had that idea for that project business, whatever. Though, and then like going down the rabbit hole of like why it didn't happen, why it happens for them, it doesn't happen for you, or like indulging of, oh man, if I just moved to Italy and was living there, all these doors would open to me, I'd be able to take better pictures. This is one I do a lot, let's be honest. I tell myself if I didn't live in the suburbs, my artistic expression would be better, more have richer depth, more meaning, and all the doors that would open into my life and the possibilities I would have would like increase tenfold. And I'm like, well, you can't live in Italy because you have a son and he's in school and you have a dog, and what about your house? And right, and it's like creative blocks, that little Grimm being like, let me go for her heart, let me go for the thing that she really wants, and let me use logic and reasons and facts to back it up because we want her to stay what she's doing, hear what she's doing. And we also want to like beat down her sense of possibility so that she just gives up and is like, Well, I'm not gonna do anything. And we all get into this loop, every single one of us. I challenge you to find an artist that doesn't deal with blocks at some point. It is just, it's not a like a thing of shame, and it's not something we should feel bad or guilty about, and it doesn't mean we're a shitty artist, and it doesn't mean we're never gonna be an artist. It just means you're an artist. Like, if you are creatively blocked, congratulations, you're an artist. That's what it means to be an artist. And when you are committing to a creative life, you're committing to constantly working with that and constantly dedicating time, space, energy, resources to nurturing your relationship with yourself. So time. Time is finite, right? How do we choose to invest it? When we really look at how we spend the time in our life, like where do our hours go? Sit down and write every single day where you've been. Look where your time's going, look for the time that you have available, and then see what excuse you're giving yourself to create a block to not do it. And like I said, maybe you get 45 minutes to yourself a day, and that is it, and it's your lunch break. Well, what are you doing on your lunch break? Are you using that time to maybe go for a walk so that you can recharge, replenish, and fill your brain with really inspiring visuals? Or do you have a little sketchbook? Like maybe you go to your car. One of the things that I started doing when I was a teacher, and this sounds like sad and lonely, but it's not, trust me. When I was a teacher at this school, it was one of the schools I was at, and I just I didn't really have a lot of friends there. I didn't really like the people, to be honest. I had one friend there, they're still my friend, um, but we're friends outside of the school. And so when lunch came, it was like, I don't want to sit around and talk to these people. And so I started sitting and eating lunch in my car, and I was like, this is my 45 minutes to myself. It was a really high needs um teaching. It was in the middle, like when the pandemic, we just went back. I was working with students who were medically fragile, was like literally in a hazmat suit, and so this was my my little like den of peace that I could create in my in my car. And I would go and sit in the sun in my car, and sometimes I would read, sometimes I would doodle, and I would just take that little tiny snippet of whatever I had available to nurture my creativity in whatever way, shape, or form needed to take space or needed to take shape at that point. Um, and Julia, to go back to my gal Julia Cameron, she talks about how sometimes we don't take action on things because we get really overwhelmed with this idea of like the thing we create needs to be massive, right? We don't engage in art because we we want to create this huge massive painting. I want to create this huge massive painting. What is sitting in my car doodling gonna do? You know, like that's not gonna get me towards what I want to be doing. Why would I bother? You know, or like why would I take a cooking class if I'm not gonna launch, this is a big one, if it's like if I'm not gonna launch a business where I'm cooking for people, blah blah blah, if I'm not gonna make money off doing it, why why wouldn't I do it? Or like why would I do it? And it's this obsession with the product and forgetting that creativity is a process, it's a relationship, it's the accumulation of micro steps and micro actions over and over again that move you along the way. It's not extractive. Creativity is not like I put this in, I get this out. It's not a vending machine, we're not vending machines. The universe is not a vending machine. We don't just put things in and then receive things, it's more of a dance, right? And a relationship and, like I said, cumulative effects of little things that are seemingly unimportant. And so when we look at the thing of time by telling ourselves, I don't have time to do this, like, is that really, really true? Is that true? And so piggyback off that idea, I think it's important to remember that our limitations change. So the limit time is always gonna be a limitation, but how the limitation of time expresses expresses itself in your day-to-day is gonna shape shift. And I'll give an example of my own life. Like, I am a solo parent to a little boy, time is definitely a limit, okay? And my limits, they've always been shifting, right? If I look at what my time limit was like when he was an infant, and he was, you know, we were in that like shitty sleep thing where they sleep a lot but also don't sleep, and you're running on empty and you're doing this, and then there's puke and you're doing laundry. My limitations in terms of how much time and what my time looked like is very different now that I that he's in school full-time, that I work from home. I still have time limitations, like thinking like, oh, I work from home, I have all this time. I don't because I have clients that I have to work with. I have things that need to be done in the house that I can't necessarily do when he's home or are harder for me to do after he's gone to bed because I'm tired. But so the time limit, like I said, is always there, but the way that it shows up in my life and the shape that it takes is different. And I think we often get stuck in a certain expression of our limits. So, like something that I realized within the last year was that I was almost living on autopilot in terms of what I believed was possible because the reality that I had in my head about what my limitations looked like were based on old limitations of what it was like when he was an infant or when he was one. And being like, okay, now he's four and a half, he's gonna be five, he's in school, you're not working at a school anymore, you're working here, you've got this, yes, this is what has to happen in your day. You've got these clients that you didn't have before, and really changing up how I engage with my day. But it took that conscious awareness to realize, oh, hey Jen, it's 2024, it's not 2020 or 2019, like things are different. And we don't do this consciously, like we don't do it on purpose, be like, oh, I'm just gonna continue to live in the past. But our brains, like I said, we're computers, we like streamlining things. We don't like to stop and smell the roses because that takes time and energy. We like to just keep going so we can be efficient, and it takes a really intentional practice of self-reflection in terms of like who you are, what you want, what's important to you, what's a yes, what's a no, what's on the table, what's off the table. And doing this continually and always changing the way you interact with your own life to reflect who you are and where you are in your life at this point. And so, yeah, I was like, holy shit, like I was like, I my limits are very different. My time limitations are different. Let's look at how I'm structuring my time a little bit better. And the time limitation thing, or like believing that it was a block, was a really big part for me in avoiding the artist date part, okay, of the book, The Artist Way. I can't possibly carve out you know, two hours a week or an afternoon a week or a morning to just like fuck off and go play. I got this and this and this and this to do. And I would always avoid the artist date part, or I would like do it, but I would like make the artist date semi-productive. Like, I have to get a birthday gift for so-and-so, so that'll I'll go shopping at a like a bookstore that I love and I'll look for some books, but I'll also do this. And it took me a really long time to lean into just playing with the idea of an artist date and letting it be what it is, and not allowing myself to believe that it's gonna be detrimental to my existence and it's not gonna cause harm, it's not gonna make me, it's not gonna put me in danger or take something from me. And I'll tell you what happened. Once I got into the habit of artist dates, I like became obsessed. I was like, I want, I want every day to be a fucking artist date. Like the first time I'd be like, is this over yet? We've got an hour, can I go home? Like, I got shit to do. And then I found myself like after two hours, eventually being like, that wasn't enough time, I'm not done, I want more, and then putting another one in. And then I had a whole day, which was like an artist date, where I just kind of like fucked off and did random things. And it's scary and terrifying. And there was part of me that was like, What are you doing? Like, what are you doing? Get back, like you just bought why'd you just buy a giant lemon tree? Like, why do we have a jungle in the kitchen right now? This isn't, you shouldn't be doing that. Don't waste your money, don't waste your time. Right. Um, but the more that I leaned into this, you know, embracing of the artist date, the more that my soul craved it and was like, Oh, we're not letting go of this. And it makes me think of like, you know, diet culture. And if you're like, what where is she going? Stay with me. Um, diet culture is like built around this idea of deprivation, and you're constantly in a cycle of deprivation, and then you can't have a piece of chocolate because when you have a piece of chocolate, you eat the whole bar, you know? And when you look at intuitive eating, which is like a practice that I've been using for years, it of just feeding yourself and having what you want and need because you won't have that knee-jerk reaction. Like if there's a cake and you're like, I actually don't feel like it. And people don't believe that this happens. They're like, oh, if I had, if I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I would eat it all the time. It's like, you wouldn't actually. You would when you're in that addictive cycle of deprivation and then overindulging. And I think that is kind of what was happening with the artist date. Was like, I had been in so much like deprivation of play and taking care of that part of myself that once it happened, I was like obsessed. I was like, I want more, more, more, more, because I think it's not coming back. And so we've been in this process of over the last while, probably the last year, of like building self-trust that, like, hey, these are always gonna happen, like, we're gonna always take care of this part of ourself, we're always going to um have this available to us so that this you know, like desire to like hoard the artist eats kind of quiet down. So I just wanted to share that because I thought that was an interesting experience. That once I was like, okay, whatever, I'll get rid of my fear of time and start having fun and doing things. It was like I craved it, but almost to the point that like it was such um a polar opposite of where I was, right? And then, and I think that's a natural part of finding balance and equilibrium. We have to swing, like the pendulum goes from one end to the other end before you finally like get into the middle, right? And so we shouldn't be afraid of that. We shouldn't be afraid of when those things happen. It's part of actually like, okay, we're growing and we're settling. And so if you find yourself indulging in any kind of behaviors that are nurturing your artist, and you find yourself swinging to that side, it just means that you're touching and connecting to a part of yourself that has been neglected for a really long time. And I would say, like, give yourself a pat on the back because now you have the opportunity to forge and nurture that relationship with yourself so that it can be part of your whole self. So, um, limits though, let's go back to limits. We talked about time being a limitation, and I said that limitations actually have us in a space where we have to be more creative. If you have the limit with time, you gotta think creatively and be like, well, how am I gonna put this in my day? How am I gonna make time for myself to do X, Y, and Z? And as a photographer, one of the things that I practice and you know preach to other people to practice is to use limitations to help ignite creativity in our work. And the reason for this, I go into depth on this on my YouTube channel. So I started a YouTube channel a while ago, but I've been kind of just playing with it and figuring out what I was gonna do with it. And I've got to a point now where I'm like, okay, I know what I'm gonna be kind of focusing on, which is why the podcast has been on a little break for the last two weeks, because I needed to figure out the YouTube part, but I talk about this on a my newest YouTube video about how to take black and white photos at home. But we talk about why putting the limitation of shooting only in black and white forces your brain to see everything differently. And I don't mean like editing in black and white, I mean like actually turning your camera into black and white and looking through the viewfinder so what you see is in black and white, because it switches something in your brain that's like, okay, what I normally expect is kind of removed, the color, and how am I gonna work with it? And so um when we put limits on our creating, 15 minutes a day, you put a time limit if you want, 15 minutes a day every morning, or before I go to bed, that could be your limit. Or as a photographer, I'm gonna shoot in black and white today, that's it. Uh, if you're a painter and you say, you know what, I'm gonna use these three colors, what can I create? Or I'm gonna go for a walk and I have to come home and doodle something. That I saw. When we put these boundaries around creativity, it makes it easier for our brain to be like, I can do this, I know where to start, and to just sort of springboard into action. And I think with creative blocks, the key is whatever it is that kind of just nudges you to take the first step. Because once you take the first step, the next will come, and the next and the next, and it just sort of unfolds as a natural cycle. The hardest thing is that first step. And I think it's because part of us knows that once we take that first step, like I said, it's gonna unfold to the next and the next and the next. And we don't want that. Our egoic mind wants us to stay where we are and stay safe. So it does a lot of its energy and effort to stopping you from taking that first step because to them, like I say them, I mean like your egoic mind, your survivalist mind, that first step is the most dangerous because it opens the doors to places, peoples, and things that we don't quite know yet. So if you can give yourself some boundaries with your work, a time boundary, a material boundary, um, a prompt or something, you're making that taking of the first step easier. And then everything else that flows after it is just magic, right? It's part of the universal magic that is creativity. So I'd love to share that video with you. I think it's like nine minutes. It's on YouTube. I talk about my process of going for a walk in my hometown this week and gave myself the challenge of only shooting through black and white. And that was a constraint, but also there was another constraint of like literally I had an hour before it was gonna rain, and I mean like chuck it down, ugly rain. And it's the middle of winter, and stuff is like ugly right now. So a lot of the things that I'm inspired by were not there. I was in the suburbs, not inspired by the suburbs. It's winter, not inspired by winter. The weather is shitty. That doesn't make me want to be outside, but it really pushed me to see things differently, and so I share that story. I share some more uh conversations and ideas around limitations in photography and how we can use that, and I uh share a photo that my grandma took in black and white and talk about why actually black and white is magical. And so, as you head into the next week, why not put some limits on yourself and see what you can create and see where it takes you? What did it teach me with photography? Was that you know what, there's actually interesting stuff in my current surroundings, even though I like to convince myself that it's boring and blah, and completely devoid of creative expression and inspiration. So have a moment, sit with yourself, like I said, think what's a limit, what's the easiest limit you can put on yourself, or what's a limit that already exists that you can learn to work with? And go out and see what you can do in the next week if you work with it. And if you want to look at your life in depth, the limitations, the constraints, the logistics, your dreams, your blocks, and the areas of your soul, spirit, mind, body that need to be tended to, please reach out to book a time to chat with me. They are free, of course, these chit chats, and we can talk about what building a program of support for you and creativity coaching might look like. And if you liked this episode and if you're enjoying the episodes that I'm creating, please, please, please share it with friends, post it on social media. You can leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. Every little micro action of digital love is firstly really appreciated, but also so helpful in growing the podcast and getting the platforms that it's hosted on to cooperate and to show it to other people who are gonna benefit from it. I hope you have an amazing week. I will talk to you soon, and until then, go out there and kick some creative ass.