Insights from the Couch - Mental Health at Midlife

Ep.40: From Stuck to Inspired: The Secret to Unlocking Your Creative Superpower

• Colette Fehr, Laura Bowman • Season 3 • Episode 40

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Let’s get into one of our favorite topics—creativity and life force. Have you ever felt stuck or disconnected from your true self? In this episode, we explore how creativity can be a powerful tool to reconnect with your life force and live your best life. Whether it's through artistic practices, engaging with nature, or simply tuning into your surroundings, we discuss practical ways to awaken your creative energy and feel more alive.

Join us as we share personal anecdotes, practical tips, and insights from influential books that have inspired us, including Rick Rubin’s "The Creative Act: A Way of Being" and Julia Cameron’s "The Artist's Way." Discover how small, intentional practices can help you access your creativity, overcome resistance, and embrace the full spectrum of your life force.

Episode Highlights:
[1:01] - Colette shares how life force impacts her energy and when she feels disconnected. 
[2:05] - Laura defines creativity as engagement with life, not just artistic skill. 
[3:43] - Colette talks about The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin and The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. 
[5:33] - How low-level distractions like social media prevent us from tapping into higher creative energy. 
[8:38] - The power of boredom and stillness in unlocking new ideas and creativity. 
[10:09] - Numbing behaviors like TV, food, and social media, and why we turn to them when disconnected. 
[12:11] - Colette reflects on a “spring break” period of fun and the balance of creative engagement. 
[14:23] - Laura shares how engagement with the world boosts energy and life force. 
[19:15] - The importance of practices like the Artist Date and Morning Pages from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. 
[26:18] - How exercise and movement can open the mind and unlock creative potential. 
[30:19] - Colette and Laura discuss overcoming self-doubt and fear of failure in the creative process. 
[34:52] - Final reflections on life force and how creativity helps you live your best life.

Resources:

🔥Get Clear on What You Want in Your Sex Life: Free Download! 

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Colette Fehr:

Laura, welcome to insights from the couch mental health at midlife. I'm here with Laura, and we're so excited to dig into creativity, unlocking creativity, finding your life force, really getting what you want out of life by being in touch with your creative being this is, like, my favorite topic ever, and

Laura Bowman:

my favorite topic this is really why I'm a therapist.

Colette Fehr:

Could we just talk about this all day, every day? Well, it is,

Laura Bowman:

you know, when I think that the truth is that in therapy, this is what you're always talking about, whether you think you are or you're not. You're always talking about reclaiming life force and getting in touch with life force.

Colette Fehr:

Yeah, and really, creativity and life force are inextricable. They're Siamese twins. Yes,

Laura Bowman:

I love that term, life force. Me too, because you know it when you feel it to me,

Colette Fehr:

life force. Okay? So I feel like I'm someone who's really into and has a big life force. That's just that. Thank you. Thank you. I know when I'm out of alignment, when I'm disconnected from my life force, when I feel a little I don't know, just not even necessarily down. I just want to, like veg. I'm watching too much TV. I'm not writing. I'm always reading. So that doesn't count, but maybe I'm only reading kind of garbage. Yeah, you know, I'm not as active, I'm not in as much in nature, and I it's a huge shift from that to life force. So let's just define for people how we see life force. And then let's dive into what creativity is, how you can access your creativity. And what we really hope listeners will take away from this today, which to me, is that every one of us is creative, and our best life comes from learning how to tune into that.

Laura Bowman:

Yeah, and I think creativity is this weird word that, like throws people sideways. It's not knowing how to paint or knowing how to play a musical instrument. It's not and it's not a fine art, although it can be. It is not that it is this more, this feeling of aliveness and tuned into possibility. It's the ability to access sort of flexible, creative decision making and use leverage imagination for future acts to be more alive in the present. It's this. It's like you said, you know it when you're in it. And for me, it's synonymous with engagement. I agree. I can't separate it from engagement, especially for me as like an introvert, my my version of a dampening life force like you were describing, is that tendency to want to go inward and not and going inward isn't always a bad thing for me, but it can be. It can it can end up in a bad place. You

Colette Fehr:

can get locked in, in there, maybe, yeah, if I want to retreat from people, like call an ambulance, something, something's really, really fucking wrong at that point. Okay, okay, I remember that, yes, but I agree with you on engagement, and I want to talk about that. I want to mention two things that I'm going to refer back to. And I know you had a book too. First of all, I've been reading this. What is it? The creative act, a way of being by Rick Rubin, oh, yes, and I flipping love it. So I want to mention something about this, and then I definitely want us to talk a little bit about The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, which is a classic, and something I think everyone should read and do, and I'm now doing because I've done The Artist's Way. It's a book and a program that you follow to get back in touch with your creativity. I've done it several times over the last few decades, but I'm now reading this one by Julia Cameron that's more recent. Write for life, and she is just a genius, and she really helped me get back to my own source of creativity that I had lost for a while. Let's just maybe define a couple of these principles that I think are foundational to what we're talking about. When you mention engagement, you know what I love about the creative act, a way of being, and I think other authors write about as well, is this idea that, number one, we're all creative by being alive. As you said, it's not about being a master painter or a brilliant writer or a musician. It may be that too. It is about a way of moving through the world where you're paying a. Attention to detail. And as Rick Rubin says, the ideas are out there in the universe as energy. So when you tap into your life force, you're opening to ideas, and they will find their way into you at the right time in the right place, if you're willing to be open and attuned. And then you can give birth. You can be the vessel that gives birth to an idea. So is that similar to what you're talking about with engagement? Yes,

Laura Bowman:

and also it's really super practical. And I love because the book that I was reading kind of, I've wanted to read it for a while, but when we were going to talk about this. It's like, I want to read this quickly. Is a book by Phil Stutz called coming alive. He's all about using tools, but he's talking about life force and that and accessing life force. And of course, just like the way you know, Brene Brown talks about vulnerability. She says, When I start asking people about connection, they tell me about all their examples of disconnection and in like, in the same way that book is talking about all the things that begin to disrupt our connection to life force, like what like stepping out of life. One of the things that he says, and I so relate to this, and I think everybody listening will, is that when we begin to indulge our very low level inclinations, like to scroll social media or to scroll online shop or to eat, just any impulse that take drags you into like wicking away stress, that it's bringing you into low frequency,

Colette Fehr:

guilty as charged, unfortunately,

Laura Bowman:

right? I mean, and we fantasize about the time we're going to be allowed to do the thing we really want to do to sort of release stress. But he says, in not facing deprivation, in constantly wicking that feeling away, we never get to face deprivation and then go to the higher level, and that that's when that boredom, the stillness, the fear, can be transmitted. He's always using the word transmute, because it's about taking this low level energy and it becoming a higher force.

Colette Fehr:

So it is. And actually, these books I'm reading talk about the same thing. So this is huge. So he's talking about the necessity to when we have those moments where we want to gravitate toward activity that really just pollutes and distracts us from stress, we're attempting to decompress, but that what we're doing really is missing an opportunity to sit with maybe a little bit of discomfort, some stillness with ourselves, some genuine boredom, which boredom is actually really important. Even though I fucking hate being bored, it's really important because in those moments, that's when something comes alive within you, and you connect to something and an idea pops up. So we have to be willing to go there and access in order to be that portal for creative ideas. Yeah,

Laura Bowman:

and we're unwittingly, you know, staying in this low frequency when your whole life is a series of little indulgences, and you're never allowing yourself to be in stillness and to go inside, because that's where the higher level comes from,

Colette Fehr:

and that's where you access your life force. And so just to zoom out for a minute, the whole point of being creative, as we're talking about it, not becoming a brilliant artist, necessarily, although, if you can good for you, but being connected to your life force. This is about being alive and living your best life, living a life where you wake up and you're like, I can't wait to see what this day brings. What I'm going to discover, what little detail you know, one little petal that's dying on my orchid, which all of my orchids just die. I'm I have a black thumb. Yeah, that's another show Colette killing plants. So, but that one little thing, if I'm attuned and I'm alive and I'm not scrolling, my mother effing social media shit that I feel like a slave to half the time, then I'm noticing what's happening with that orchid. I'm connected to the universe, to nature, and to ideas that may pop up at any time. And if we're constantly doing the low level stuff, we're missing out on the possibility of any of that emerging right

Laura Bowman:

100% and and I can completely relate to that. And then I'm becoming more aware of those times that I'm just trying to check out and soothe myself, but I'm not helping myself at all, drinking,

Colette Fehr:

TV, social media, food. Food. Let's see. What else do I do?

Laura Bowman:

I don't do it, but a lot of people like sex, porn, all of these behaviors.

Colette Fehr:

You don't have sex online.

Laura Bowman:

You know what I mean, using it in a way of like, you know, I've gotta, you know, reward myself.

Colette Fehr:

I'm not loving right? I'm not numbing myself with porn, but I'm definitely numbing myself with others

Laura Bowman:

more like chocolate chips. Like I'll just like, take a lap around the kitchen and be like,

Colette Fehr:

Oh my god, really quickly, there was the funniest meme Steve showed me back to doom scrolling, where this guy online said, Where, I forget exactly how it went. But like when you go to Walmart to shop and you decide you're not buying any snacks because you want to live a healthy life, and then at 9am you're ransacking the kitchen, hating your life choices, feeling like you can't make it. I'm like, Oh, my God, that's

Laura Bowman:

us. That is, yeah, that's the human condition. Anything

Colette Fehr:

that gives a little bit of, you know, low level drip of dopamine to just get you through. And I think what we're saying is we laugh about this, is that we all do it to a degree, you know, unless you're Buddha, you're you're you're probably engaged in some degree of self soothing. That might not be your highest level version, but let's not let that overrun life, and let's kind of tune into what else could be possible if we sit with ourselves

Laura Bowman:

definitely. And I just remember times that we've talked especially in times I remember periods where you were really striving for certain things, and you say, I have no enjoyment left in life. Yeah, like, you're like, I'm not coping with drinking, I'm not coping with cigarettes, I'm not coping with like, anything, like, I've taken all my coping strategies, but you also moved forward like a motherfucker. I did. You're right dead, and it was because sometimes when you strip yourself of all these, like, low level dopamine trips, that's when you can come alive, which seems scary to people, but it's true.

Colette Fehr:

Okay, that's a really good point. So since I turned in the first draft of my book, I've been out on a little bit of, like, spring break. And it's funny ever I mean, even though I'm still working my ass off, I've been having fun again. I've been drinking a little alcohol again. I've been socializing a lot more than I have for a long time. And it's so funny because so many people are like, Oh my God, you're fun again, right? Which is such a mixed message. First of all, it's like, fuck you. I'm always fun.

Unknown:

I've always been fun. Yes, like,

Colette Fehr:

I don't need those things, but I did. I think what people noticed is exactly what you're saying. For a long time, I cut out all of those maladaptive coping mechanisms. You know, I wasn't drinking, I haven't smoked cigarettes in more than a decade, but I used to be a massive smoker. That was probably my chief coping mechanism I really got rid of, like, eating bad food. I had lost a bunch of weight, all of which I've gained back, and I was just living like such a clean life and exercising and walking. And while I might not have been fun in this societal way of like, Yay, here's Colette, the life of the party, I was really feeling very alive and very connected. And I think a lot did come from that period. I started writing my book, I started acting, I did improv, right? All these things. Now I'm working on TV show ideas. So there's a lot that has come from that place. And actually I really want to get back to that way of living. It's my best self.

Laura Bowman:

Yeah, not saying that a monastic like, way of life is way but like, let's not go crazy something. There's something to be gained by dampening some of those low level desires. Yes, and just back to engagement. And I love what what Phil stud says about engagement, and I've just noticed this too. I have to be super vigilant. Because as a person who wants to trend inward, I have to be very vigilant about keeping myself engaged in the world. And he calls it the paradox of engagement, which is that you do not get energy unless you're putting energy out into the world, unless you're engaging with the world.

Colette Fehr:

This is where introversion and extroversion can be. So just a part of it, because I am on such an extreme side of extroversion, and I do think a lot of opportunity comes to me because of the way I naturally enjoy engaging with the world, like we were in Delray Beach for Fourth of July, and it is filled with New Yorkers, which was like a wet dream for me. We met so many people because I talked to everyone, and one day in the pool, I'm chatting with one person who's from Westchester, which is where I grew up in New York, and then another person in the pool is like, oh. I'm from Westchester, and then someone else was like, I'm from Westchester. We all ended up talking. There were like eight people from different towns in Westchester in the pool. It felt so connected. It was so amazing. So my whole point of this is that between nature and the engagement you're describing, I started to and having some headspace where I wasn't on social media all day and I wasn't working and busy, Task, Task, Task, I felt like ideas started to come to me, and I could feel my creativity coming alive again, because sometimes productivity can be the enemy of creativity.

Laura Bowman:

Yes, no, I love what you're describing. You know, I get a lot of watching you be in a room because we are so different and not my tendency has always been to come late, leave early, not talk to too many people. Like, oh, you know, like, I'm always like, protecting my energy and kind of like, Oh, this feels weird. I gotta go. And so leaning like, watching you come early, leave late, like I'm like, Okay, there's a lot of you know, if you can relate more to me, you know, I would say, show up and stay, yeah, challenge yourself to show up and stay and engage. Yeah. And I agree. We'll get so much more out of it because all of that connectivity, and when you have all of those people talking, it just leads to ideas. It leads to opportunity, and life force begins to build. And

Colette Fehr:

it does. It leads to ideas and opportunities, and at the least, it leads to genuine connection in unexpected places with strangers that makes you feel alive and connected to the world.

Laura Bowman:

But let's also talk about this other piece, because I'm thinking of these things that limit creativity, and it's that fear of making mistakes, of looking stupid, you have to just accept that life is filled with failure and and set back and accept that is part of the creative process. If you think you're going to go in and do something perfectly, you're never going to live a connected, creative life. You're

Colette Fehr:

not going to put yourself out there. Because I think many people can get behind the idea of, yeah, we learn from failure. We don't have to be perfect. It sounds pithy, it sounds right. It's on social media every freaking minute, but the moment when you don't feel ready, when you don't feel quite good enough, and you're not sure of yourself, and you put it out there anyway, you query an agent, you start a conversation, you ask someone to lunch because they you think they'd be a good connection, and you fear they might say no, all of those little moments of courage are absolutely necessary, and

Laura Bowman:

just getting the reps in, and then if you if it doesn't work out, getting back up and doing it again, and that's easier said than done, but if you can get in the mindset of that, that's where life really comes alive,

Colette Fehr:

absolutely. And I think let's so let's talk about, like, some tactical things that you can do, because we're talking about building a habit of living in an open state, right, being open to the energy of the universe, the energy of other people, redefining creativity as life force, as being your most alive, connected self. And I love this quote from Rick Rubin's book, the creative act a way of being, where he says, it's just like a nice way of putting it right. It's in the small rituals, where we're taking a walk in nature, where being still with ourselves with no distractions, where going to look at pick if you can't get to a museum, you know, go to a hotel nearby and just walk around and notice the artwork, notice the people, right? And that what we do. And this is his quote, is, we build the musculature of our psyche to more attunement in the world, and we have to train that. That has to become a

Laura Bowman:

habit. Yeah, and this reminds me explicitly, of like Julia Cameron's exercise of the artist's date. You know, this is one of her central tools in The Artist's Way, which is that you take yourself on a date. It couldn't be anywhere, right? A park, you know, a cafe, a thrift store, an antique shop, anything where you're looking with a new, renewed eye. You're focused on the central world. You're paying attention to detail, and that it's this kind of new way of seeing that becomes a habit for seeing the world at large.

Colette Fehr:

Okay, so I did, and I know we've talked about The Artist's Way before, but I did two years of the artist's date every week. Tell me about some of your artist date well. Um, okay, so I decided to join the Polish museum. I don't know if I'm saying that even right, yet, even though I'm a member, it's right down the street. He's this brilliant artist who was a prolific sculptor, and he moved to Winter Park Florida in his later years with his wife, and after he died, she took this house they had on the lake and turned it into a museum, and they have an exhibition. You've probably been there, but they have an exhibition

Laura Bowman:

not been there. So we think we need to go. Let's go together. Let's

Colette Fehr:

go together. The membership, yeah, it is such a there's something that happens to me at that place. And what's crazy about you saying you haven't been is that I hadn't been either, and I'm going on 28 years of living here, and I'm always bitching and moaning that, like, oh, I live in Central Florida cultural wasteland. There's no culture, and I'm not in New York City anymore. And then I've got these resources that I'm just driving by every day and not going to so I discovered it. It's down the road they have. His sculptures are winding through the outdoor garden on the lake. Now it can be a little hot, but there are places you can sit. I would go there every Thursday afternoon and spend an hour. And there's a statue of a woman there called unfettered. And love that Ah, me too. And it's just that statue feels like my spirit animal. And I just felt like I resonated with that. And I would sit in a little bench and just write by hand, stream of consciousness, which I also want to talk about, that other Julia Cameron practice that I did morning pages. And I went other places too. I mean, I went to Rollins, I went to the Tiffany museum. I walked through the genius groves, which, for people who don't live in this area, it's a development, but, well, it's Windsong, but there's peacocks everywhere, and lake views, and it just feels very restorative. But I really made the Polish museum my primary thing. And just kind of committed to that time of being in nature and surrounded by art and letting myself write and breathe and like not do anything else,

Laura Bowman:

I love that. And you know, the other thing I love about that is, when I got married, I got this little plaque in a gift basket that I thought was so cool. It just said, grow where you are planted. And I and this is an example of that. It's like, access. You can sit around bitching about how, like, you know, we're in Central Florida and we're in a cultural wasteland, but you're right. Like, we have so much here. There's so much stuff and and are you taking advantage of it. It's like show up in your own life, wherever you are,

Colette Fehr:

yes, and little things, you know, if you don't have a Polish ek museum, you have something. It can just be being out in nature. There's always something. It's the choice to spend some time communing with that, something, those small acts. And what I want to really say to people is these two practices from Julia Cameron's book that I think are the most key so and if you haven't read her book, read it. I don't care what you do, even if you don't think you have a creative bone in your body, everyone does her first book, The Artist's Way, which came out in the 90s, it's still so brilliant. I mean, I've done it three or four times. I get something new every time. But the two practices are one, what you just described The Artist's Way. I mean, the artist's date, where you do something, it can be small, just for yourself, in nature, or with art, something creative. And the second one is what she calls morning pages. Now, there are many other practices, but these are the two that are the most salient for me. And I do the morning pages every day now, and it's funny, I don't ever want to do it, but basically what it is is you take where's my little notepad? Today I wrote eight pages.

Laura Bowman:

Oh my goodness, yeah,

Colette Fehr:

but it's all crazy ass stream of consciousness, yeah, thoughts and bing, bing, squirrel and whatever, and that's the point of it. So you just get a legal pad, or you can get a notebook or whatever. But she says, every day, begin the day with just filling three pages on a legal pad. You're not writing to be evaluated. You're not writing to make sense. You're just letting your thoughts come out. You could write, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, for a whole page if you want to. You can write, I have nothing to say. You can say, I hate the morning fucking pages. The idea is that you get your wheels going and you take pressure off of yourself, so it's anti procrastinatory, and it also just starts to unlock your life, force, your creative energy and your mind,

Laura Bowman:

yeah, yeah. And she says, like, it's great if you're resistant to it, like, well better if you're resistant to it. And because. Is so much. It's just the habit and the practice of getting going. And

Colette Fehr:

do you know what's crazy? I'm resistant to it every day, like my little my part that, you know well, that I call fuck it girl, who's my hedonistic part. She doesn't want to do anything disciplined. She's my part that really does want life. It's like the ID, right? Like Freudians, Id, Ego, super ego, the part of you that wants to be on permanent spring break, she that part of me doesn't want to do morning pages, she doesn't want to go to work, she doesn't want to exercise. She wants to live in like San Tropez, with an endless thing on the drum all day. Yes, and just an endless supply of tattinger Champagne and like not a care in the world. So obviously that's not real life. But you know, even though I have to kind of talk to that part and soothe her, that we can't just be a pure hedonist once I get going writing it really, it feels so good. It's so helpful. And it's not something that's only for people who want to be a writer. It's a way of connecting to yourself and getting in touch with your creative life force. Yeah,

Laura Bowman:

and I, and I don't think that these are the only practices, obviously, these are the ones in her book, but they're more and I can tell you, just as somebody who runs like getting out and moving in the morning and running, I will go out with a question or a theme or something that I'm working through, and about three miles in my brain just opens up and I have, I have a whole new way of feeling my way through that problem or seeing it, and creativity just comes rushing in.

Colette Fehr:

I'm so glad you said that. I couldn't agree more. You're much more of a runner than I am, especially at this point, but I have been, you know, I live in a community that has a three mile walk around a big lake, as you well know, Laura and I will go out there and like, kind of run walk. And that is how, every time I was coming up with stuff in my book, I would go do that loop and just let myself think and have headspace and ideas would come. Stories would come. I would like voice dictate. I totally agree with you. And when you get your heart rate up and you get into movement, you're right, your mind, your body, you're open, that vessel is porous.

Laura Bowman:

And these are practices like the more you do them, the more you become convinced by their power, and the more you employ them in your life. And again, it's that paradox of engagement. You got to prime the pump. You got to get out there and engage with people, engage with life, engage with practices that help you come alive. And that piece, you have, that hedonistic piece, but a lot of people in in Phil stetz's book, he calls it that part x, which is always sort of pushing against you in some way. It's trying to dampen you. It's trying to, like, convince you you don't need to. It's trying to slow you down. And we all have that, and it's the endless work of beating that back to live the life worth living. That's

Colette Fehr:

it. That's it. This is about and this whole episode is about living the life worth living, not being on your deathbed and saying, Wow, I got so much out of all those hours of scrolling. I'm so glad I spent my life that way. Right? Like, yeah, oh, God, Oh, that is so depressing. So being connected to your life force is the way you live your best life. And I think we're suggesting to people, you don't have to do all of these practices find what works for you. Maybe it's an artist date, where you commit to a walk a week in a new neighborhood, or, you know, you go to a museum once a week by yourself. Maybe it's exercising regularly, without music, without distraction, just really letting yourself be in the experience. Maybe you get up and you start writing every day, stream of consciousness to unlock creativity, get out there and engage with people, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, because you're going to talk to somebody who's going to spark an idea. You're going to connect with somebody and that's going to bring an ember alive inside of you, even when you least expect it, and you never know what ideas you come up with, whether you're an entrepreneur who ends up on Shark Tank, or you start painting and you think you suck, and suddenly you find out you love it, and maybe you're better than than you thought you were. You know, I mean, I had a stage of life. I don't know how I got to this point exactly. I said some of this to you, where I just was so disconnected from all of this and in such a productivity grind that I thought I can't. Believe I ever thought I was creative. I'm not creative at all. Oh my gosh. And then I said to you, do you remember? I said, you know, actually, I'm not a good writer. And, like, my whole life, that was like a lie. I don't know why people have said I'm a good writer, and my parents keep saying you should write I'm not a good writer. Like, there's no

Laura Bowman:

point. You don't remember that, did I let that fly you? You

Colette Fehr:

just validated me where you were, like, really, like, I mean, I don't remember what restaurant we were in. I was like, yeah, what's the chance of life was this? Well, it was maybe four or five years ago when I was really grinding it out in my practice, and my dad kept saying, When are you going to write your book? And my mom would say, why aren't you writing anymore interesting? I was like, Guys, back off. I'm not even a good writer. Like that was just like a crazy phase that had no legs. Did

Laura Bowman:

it feel like wrapped up in like frivolity? No, it's like you were indulging something that wasn't

Colette Fehr:

real. No, it felt like I wasn't good enough, and I deluded myself into thinking I could be something that I couldn't be, and that I had foolishly pursued that when I had no real talent.

Laura Bowman:

Oh, wow, yeah, my gosh. It's amazing how we stand in our own way, right?

Colette Fehr:

And you know, this is I'm not sitting here saying, oh my god, I'm so talented, and blah, blah, blah, that's not the point. The point is that it doesn't matter whether I'm talented. If I want to write, then I deserve to write and I should write, and it doesn't matter if I'm great. I mean, I just want to say one thing about this, since we're on creativity, and maybe I already said this, but when I was in the fourth grade, this is how these like shut down moments can really affect us. There was a poetry contest at my school, and I went to this tiny, all girls Catholic school. No one will probably remember this, but me. Actually, it was fifth grade, and I came up with this poem. I don't remember what it said, but it was about ice skating, okay, which I'm not very good at, but I romanticized and wanted to be good at. And I made, I wrote the poem. I thought the poem was really good. And then I made. I put it on this paper, and I surrounded the paper with aluminum foil, and that was just to be the ice. And I drew in colored pencils all these little skaters on the border, and I was so proud of it, and I thought it was so creative and good, and I was sure I was gonna win. Well, I didn't win, and I got honorable mention, which really felt like a big fuck you. The message I got from honorable mention was like, wow, we see you've made effort, but like, your work sucks, yeah. And it really shut me down. It really affected me very, very deeply. And I think there have been other moments like that throughout my life where I had this very bifurcated, rigid idea that if you're good at something, you're always good, you always win. You're always the best. And if you're not always winning and the best, then you're not good at it, and you should put your toys away and go home.

Laura Bowman:

Yeah, my mom, and this is shout out to my mother. Really talented actress. Grew up like, kind of like a child prodigy. She's really good, and she was really good through high school, and they tried to have her go to New York to do commercials, and she probably could have gone to Broadway, really. That's how good she was, wow. And that's another story for another day, of how that part of her has kind of gone away, and I'm always trying to get it to come alive again. But we had a discussion where she talked about she'd said something like, Laura, well, you know, would you if you got a part in a play, like, what would you do with that? I said, Well, I would probably learn how to do that part, and I would I would be able to connect the emotion of that part, and somehow I would practice enough to deliver that part. And she just scoffed and said, like, you either have it or you don't. And I said to her at one point in the conversation, I said, you need to not ever say that ever again to anybody, especially yourself. This idea that we are fixed beings, that ability is fixed, right? Destroys more people. It doesn't get people out of the starting gate. You have no idea what you're capable of, and that's why what we're talking about, connecting to life, force and creativity is so essential. You just have no idea if you show up, if you stay, if you engage with your own failure and your own limitations, if you build resilience, you just don't know where your capabilities go. Can go, right? I mean,

Colette Fehr:

and even if they don't go anywhere, that's official success. You're going to do something you love that brings you joy. It's going to lead to something. And I mean, look at I went from if I don't get a contract, I don't get a contract, it's okay. I'm going to put this book into the world one way or the other. And it's not about, I need to be a famous, published author. It's about, I want to help people. People, and I want to do what I feel called to do in this world and that this book, even though it's been a lot of ups and downs, I have felt very connected to my life force and suffered through many, you know, peaks and valleys of vulnerability. But it's worth it. So I think, yeah, like everybody, discover something about yourself, whatever it is that you don't know what could be possible.

Laura Bowman:

You just have no idea if you show up, if you stay, if you engage with your own failure and your own limitations, if you build resilience, you just don't know where your capabilities go, can go right?

Colette Fehr:

I mean, and even if they don't go anywhere, that's official success. You're going to do something you love that brings you joy. It's going to lead to something. It is a combination of taking risks, believing in yourself, not being attached to any one fixed outcome, like I was like, if I don't get a contract, I don't get a contract, it's okay. I'm gonna put this book into the world one way or the other. And it's not about, I need to be a famous, published author. It's about I want to help people, and I want to do what I feel called to do in this world. And that this book, even though it's been a lot of ups and downs, I have felt very connected to my life force and suffered through many, you know, peaks and valleys of vulnerability. But it's worth it. So I think, yeah, everybody discover something about yourself, whatever it is that you don't know what could be possible. So let's just, like, recap quickly, and then wrap up, you know, the books again, the creative act, a way of being by Rick Rubin, Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. And then mention the book you are reading, Laura,

Laura Bowman:

we'll link to it, but it's coming alive, and I love it. I'm just read it. I'm going to reread it. And he has a bunch of tools in there that help you get through these stuck points, these crises of confidence and like low level indulgence, all these he's got some great tools to actually get out of stuck places. Can

Colette Fehr:

we maybe do a little download for people with some of those tools and link to his book. Yeah. I

Laura Bowman:

mean, I don't know how proprietary his tools are, but we will. We'll definitely do a whole book list for Okay, audience, let's

Colette Fehr:

put this topic. Yeah, let's put something together with some takeaways. Check out our website, insights from the couch.org, and resources. And we're going to give you links to these books and maybe a couple things to think about and get started based on this episode. And also please reach out to us with your comments and questions. Email us at info, at insights from the couch.org. Is that the email? Okay? Yeah, yeah. I get thrown off by all these techie terms, but please let us know. You can also contact us on social media, Instagram insights, at insights from the couch, or at Colette Jane fair, and let us know what you think, what you want us to talk about, questions you have that you'd like to answer. We really want to hear from you and be as helpful to you as possible,

Laura Bowman:

definitely. And I just to put it, you know, an end cap on this. This is everything. This is the whole reason we're here. Original Detra Horizonte, exactly. And I think that if you don't know what to do in life, or you don't know where you're going, this is the area to work on. Is coming alive. Because when you come alive, and we talked about this in our first episode of purpose, it ripples out to everybody in your life, when you are, when you're connected in your life, in your own life, you're powerful and you're helpful to those around you. And it can't be faked. It has to kind of come it kind of radiates out. And if you want to change relationships, you want to change where you are in your career. It starts with you being connected to life force.

Colette Fehr:

Yes, your power, your possibility. I love it. I'm I feel inspired just from the conversation we're having. I think it's really good. All right, so check out insights from the couch.org. For more on this topic, and we will see you next time. Thanks for tuning in. You.