The Eyed Entity Podcast
Based on a one year long project called "The Eyed Entity Project", the experience of identity in the face of profound grief and loss brought forth questions: who am I when I am not who I was in relationship before? What is most important? How do we uncover our preferences? How do we follow them? How impactful are others in each chapter of our own individual identity? This process emerged in the face of grief and the role of identity in that experience, but evolved into what matters most in life.
Join your host, Kimberly, an LMFT and creative in the exploration of themes around mental health, grief, relationship, creativity and the arts, how we find community, self-empowerment, and related psychological and sociological topics in coming episodes.
The Eyed Entity Podcast
Episode 3: Creativity and Impasse
This episode delves into the often complex relationship between creativity and impasse, illustrating how moments of feeling stuck can actually serve as fertile ground for inspiration and growth. Marie Broadway shares insights on the importance of embracing the transformative process of creativity, emphasizing that impasse is not a barrier but a crucial stage that can lead to deeper understanding and connection to oneself.
• Discussion of Developmental Transformations as a creative coaching tool
• Defining creativity and its connection to multiple aspects of life
• Exploration of the neuroscience behind creative processes
• The significance of novelty versus repetition in creative practices
• In-depth look at the concept of impasse and its relation to creativity
• How empathy plays a role in navigating creative challenges
• The impact of personal history on one’s creative journey
• Insights into incorporating rest as a tool for creativity
• The importance of space and environment in the creative process
• Final reflections on making peace with creative blocks and embracing the journey.
The Thank you. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so Hi everybody, Welcome to the Identity Podcast.
Speaker 2:I am joined today by a wonderful human being, Marie Broadway. Hi Marie.
Speaker 1:Hello, I'm happy to be here. Hi, everyone, yay.
Speaker 2:If it's all right with you, I'm going to read a little bit of your bio with it and then and then you can and then. So people know who is this human that is sitting with Kimberlase. Ok, I do this now. Ever since Marie was young, marie had an active imagination. Ever since Marie was young, marie had an active imagination.
Speaker 2:Marie spent a lot of time as a kid playing, pretend, making art and scribbling stories into notebooks. Marie therapy. More of those pieces fell into place Through play. Marie was able to see the creative process externalized. It became necessary for Marie to confront difficult patterns in order to relate to them in new ways, tool that helps Marie recognize and integrate past experiences so that Marie can develop an honest and compassionate relationship with themselves and with their creative goals, and now helps others to develop that relationship to themselves and their creative goals. Marie is a certified practitioner in the drama therapy modality of developmental transformations modality of developmental transformations, which Marie has practiced since 2016, using the imaginative play practice in their work as an artist, a writer and a creative coach, marie is does that feel like? That's like how you're entering into this space of who you are right now in this world?
Speaker 1:yeah, I guess it does that I well, I guess I can just add to it, which is just to say I'm I'm an artist and a writer and I have been both of those things for a very long time and in the past I guess 10 years now I have been also very involved in the drama therapy community and using dbt specifically, which I am thinking that maybe people know a little bit about, since I don't know if you talk about it, probably not, but okay, well, it's. It's how me, that's how Kim and I know each other, so we know each other. Uh, through DBT training and, yeah, basically using this like emergent play process to explore inner themes and stories. And and now I use that in creativity coaching with folks working on all sorts of things related to creative process yes, yeah, so developmental transformations is a practice that it started as a therapeutic process but it has evolved a lot.
Speaker 2:The fact that you use it in creative coaching, it's also used in social change work, it's used as performance, it's used as gosh I'm. I don't a lot of different ways. If you could sum up what I guess we should start with, what is developmental transformations? Because people are like, so like. If you could sum it up in like a few words to you what is DBT?
Speaker 1:Well, I use it as a tool. I think it's such a powerful it's really just play. So it's like, if you can think back to like as being a kid and playing, it's sort of a structured, structured play space for. For I mean I use it with adults, so you can use it with kids too, I think.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I'm not really here to talk about DBT specifically, but I think you relay a little bit of the foundation of some of the things we're talking about I mean.
Speaker 1:Dbt is like an emergent embodied play structure, for so it's called. It's like a drama therapy modality. It uses tunes into the body. It follows different impulses of what you want your body to do, without knowing really what it means. Yet you make that into shapes, it turns into stories, and almost always, in my experience, those stories reflect something of your history or patterns that you've been grappling with for a very long time. So they can be very related to your past, and they can also be very related to your dreams and your future and what you are thinking about and how you integrate all of those things. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I co-sign on that. I always like to ask folks who practice DVT to describe it from their perspective, because it's always a little bit different. It's always just like colored, with the human that's talking struggle. So I'm always like, well, you know, it's um, uh, it's, it's a uh drama therapy and uh, improvisational and relational, and we're in our bodies and we listen to them and uh.
Speaker 1:I like we're in our bodies and we listen to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah so the fact that you use uh dbt in creative work. So, yeah, this podcast is really centralized, centralizing around the topic of creativity and and the whole creative process, um, because you are a creative coach.
Speaker 1:So talk to us a little bit about what is creativity to you yeah, so, um, I was actually just thinking about this right before I came on. I was like, how do I, am I going to have to define creativity? But then I went to my website and I was like, oh, I defined it here, great.
Speaker 2:Past me wins.
Speaker 1:Thanks, past Marie. So I actually do have a line on there that I still really love, which is that I think creativity is anything we do in active engagement with our imagination. Yeah, so that's my line and I'm sticking to it. I love it, I love it, but, yeah, broadly, I think it connects to so many things and you know, it could be work related. It could be not work related. I think I personally have the experience of creativity being connected to a lot of personal projects and, like art and writing, fiction, writing, storytelling. I think therapy is a creative process, you know this, like practice of making sense of your life and integrating different stories. And, you know, restorying, yeah, and I also work with new. You know I've worked a lot with new parents. Parenting, I think, is such a creative process.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh yes.
Speaker 1:Becoming a parent is a creative process, so there's a lot of like, overlaps, I think, and like oh, spiritual integration is such a creative process also. These are just things that I feel drawn to and have like worked with people on so it so it's like so many. It can touch so many different parts of our lives.
Speaker 2:Marie and I we had a meeting to talk about like, okay, well, what do we want to talk about? But then like, how are both of us coming into the conversation? And so I shared with Marie like, oh, I have a fascination with neuroscience and I've never gone to the depths of understanding neuroscience of creativity. So I was like, is it cool if I bring in like some of that piece, those pieces? And gratefully, marie was like, yeah, yes, so I'm going to weave in some things about the neuroscience of creativity, at least from like the like, when the folks are like doing the studies right. I found it interesting the more I read about the neuroscience of creativity, creativity. There's certain parts of like studies around creativity. They can't like replicate because the creative process is so individual and you, the creative process is so individual to the human creating, uh that they can't replicate it wow, yeah, that's amazing right, I love that.
Speaker 1:That makes total sense to me, because I think everyone has their own really specific creative process and how they get into it and what they make when they're in it, and it's yeah, so that checks out yeah, that's then we're saying that it's hard.
Speaker 2:It's hard for them to make like a a do a study on some replicating a specific type of creativity or something like that, or if there's like a component of creativity that they're wanting to, like research, some of them are able to be repeated because of the process it tends to be the same, and then other pieces of the process they're like oh, how would we do that?
Speaker 2:So, like, how, like the research defines creativity and I want to ask you what your thoughts on this are. It says what is creativity? It involves generating an idea that is new in some way, and it's primarily defining. That is the primary defining attribute to creativity. For it is to be considered creative, it must be novel, new, original, unique, unusual, rare, infrequent, but also relevant, fit for circumstances and appropriate. So it's like this venn diagram of what is original and what is appropriate and creative's like right smack dab in the middle and I was like I could.
Speaker 1:I could fuck with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's really interesting, that that's a cool. I haven't heard that definition before and that's a cool one to kind of chew on, because I was like I the novel part. I was like, oh yeah, I guess it is kind of novel because that's what gets us excited. It's like, oh, we're like doing something in slight because, oh, and also it's actually.
Speaker 1:I feel like you need to say this when you're saying talking about novel, because I think sometimes, like collectively, we're like novel is something totally new. It's it's like something I've never done before. It doesn't you know, even it's not even familiar in any way. But actually and this is something we know through dbt but, um, I actually think it's so important to define novel as just slight, it could be just slightly new, like it could be something that's totally familiar, but you're doing it in a slightly different way. Or or just noticing, like the novelty. Because I think that that that muscle, like to build that muscle of like understanding that there's novelty even in a day to day monotony is, is hugely helpful to the creative process, because to create so many types of things that actually requires a monotonous repetition, like it requires repetition also. So I think to just say that creativity is something novel, is actually missing a whole other piece, which is that it actually also requires repetition, but that there's novelty in that. It's like we need both, you know.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I love that you said that, because it's the repeating elements that create the structures of like. Okay, this is what we're kind of playing with yeah, what we're working with, but it's those non-repeating elements that like sneak. Yeah, like back when marie and I were in training, I think I don't know there was a point where I realized like, oh, I love non-repeating elements I love them and I just couldn't define why.
Speaker 2:and I remember our trainer, renee, being like that might be something to think about, kim, because you know so many patterns and like pattern recognition of what meaning does that have for you? And I was like, I don't know, I was, that might be something to think about, kim, because you know so many patterns and like pattern recognition.
Speaker 1:Of what meaning does that?
Speaker 2:have for you and I was like I don't know, I was like in the dark, I was like whatever. But like now I look back at it, there's lots of psychological reasons, but also, you know, avoidance, but also in the fact that, like that's also where a lot of creative spark lives, like in the non-repeating element.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. It's what gets you excited? You're like, oh, more of this. Or like, what is this, If it's new? You're like, what is this? Let me explore it a little bit more. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's the what is this that gets my heart beating a little faster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I also love actually, just to go back to that definition, you were reading the something about the relevance.
Speaker 1:That also made me think, of course, because you can also define relevance in any way. But, like, when we're like talking about the creative things we want to do with our lives, they often are deeply personally relevant to us in some way. Right, like it's like oh, I, you know, I've always loved like food and and like I've always like food's been always really important to me. Or like I have an experience of like not not like you know, not being nourished in the way that I needed to, and then someone goes off and like it becomes a chef, or like it's like you know that that becomes deeply relevant to their story and that, but that's it's creative in that sense too, because they're like filling a need that they you know that they didn't have met, or like, yeah, I think that that happens a lot in like this kind of work, where it's like how is the thing that you're pursuing creatively relevant to your life and relevant to your story?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I, you know I didn't, I didn't think about it through that lens before you said that, but now I'm like, oh my gosh. Yes, because I was thinking about, like, what do they mean by relevant? Because truthfully I was like, oh, so like, if it's like in pop culture terms, like if it's not relevant, people don't like consume it, they don't care, and so then it just sits on a shelf and nobody gives a crap.
Speaker 2:but in like, in terms of the creative process, it has to be relevant to the creator or else you're not going to have the energy to exude or the mental capacity to even unpack it, because it's not interesting, right?
Speaker 1:right, right, exactly, it's not interesting enough or it's not relevant enough to them, or they just wouldn't have even thought of it, maybe because it's not relevant to them. Yeah, I think it's actually that's cool to think about how you're thinking about creativity. Are you thinking about it from the position of a consumer, or are you thinking about it from the position of an employer? Because that also came to mind.
Speaker 1:When you're talking about relevant versus a novel, it's sort of like oh yeah, how do we capitalize on on creativity? Because that is a whole thing, that's like a whole oh yeah. World out there is like how do you make your employees more creative? Or how do you, how do you use creativity to, you know, be the most productive in in the workforce and the you know and I don't mean like totally, you know this, this, that because it's like, of course, we're all in this, in this world, and even if you're an artist, you're also kind of trying to figure out, you know how, how to create things that people want and like, and so you're always sort of I think maybe all of us are always thinking about it from all ends. But it is interesting to think about the difference between it as a consumer versus on the creator side. And yeah, absolutely. So many different pieces here.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah I guess to say like so I was while you're talking. I'm like, oh, my god, yes, and because I remember learning about uh like how this has been, like how studies have helped workplaces and how they've used this information to make sure it keeps workers intrinsic motivation up. So what's the environment? What's the like? Yeah, the components of the work environment that keep workers, uh, intrinsically motivated enough to have a higher uh, you know what's the word like productivity level. And so I was like, oh, so it's like the next productivity level. And so I was like, oh, so it's like. The next thing I had in my notes was that creative ideas do not need to be a positive, life affirming or good for mankind. They can also be applied to the opposite and have terrible consequences for mankind and for the planet.
Speaker 2:Yay, thanks, thanks, creativity yay thanks, thanks creativity yeah so like, oh man, so the fact that you're sharing, like you know, the relevance and working with, like parents and the creative process or like so, just to name that, like how we're really playing with creativity as a concept. Most folks hear that word and assume we're talking about musicians, we're talking about writers, we're talking about, you know, those in artistic fields. But they don't realize that, like, most people write it off and say like, oh, no, no, no, no, I'm not a creative person that's for so-and-so or so-and-so plays the piano or so-and-so whatever. That's not me. But what you're saying is the type of work you do is not only with folks like that, it's with folks in many different circumstances. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Speaker 1:yeah, um, I mean, I so, actually, as we're talking about this like big picture, sort of like, uh, ways that creativity is used for like mankind, with whether it's benefits, beneficial or not um, I was thinking, oh yeah, there's a prep. Like I have a very deep preference to work with like individuals. Um, in this like much more personal way, um, because I think, um, I think that, yeah, it's like, whether it's like we think about creativity being like, about like artists, like professional artists or musicians. It's like I think, in some ways, I'm like well, in my mind, if somebody's doing that professionally, they've already got some grasp of their creative process. That's really working for them in some way. Um, and I think that I I love working with people who don't necessarily identify that way, as like an artist or as a writer or anything, whatever. The medium is Right, because it could be so many different things. Because I think that creativity is like Something that we all have and I think it's something that we can get easily cut off from if we're, if we we're not like thinking about it, making space for it, just in that there's not a lot of maybe permission or acknowledgement that like creativity exists in all these other realms as well.
Speaker 1:Like, if you're in the creative, you know work. If you're doing creative work, then, um, you might you already probably know this and like have are surrounded by people who value creative process and are working towards that. But, like, if you're not and you're, you know like, um, you know just working your job and like, but you've always kind of like dreamed about writing a novel. Or if you've always kind of dreamed about, like, making art and you used to do that, but you didn't, you don't anymore, you like kind of like let that fall by the wayside. Like I love the experience of kind of reinvigorating that in people, because I it's, it's something that is still there, it's still in you and it's still, you know, want space.
Speaker 1:I think I was actually thinking this before we got on Kim, because I was like I was writing down how I feel so strongly that creative process is also a transformational process, and so there is like a lot that can come up around that Like, when you're creating something, you're also transforming yourself in some way and that can, of course, bring up this like resistance or lots of different feelings. Like you know, it's so common to kind of put something off, like to be like, oh yeah, I'll write my book someday or whatever. You know, that's like such a common thing. I think it is Like I feel like talking to people they're like I'm not a writer, but like, oh yeah, I do have this dream that I'll write a novel someday. It's like so. It's so wild to me, like I'm like that's amazing.
Speaker 1:So you are actually a writer, you know, or you are, you do, you? You have this in you. It doesn't. You know, it's not for just like specific people, but it does require that you give space to it, and I think that can be. That can be something that is hard to do, especially alone, especially if you don't have the support. It's like support systems for it, like support systems for it. Yeah, there's all sorts of reasons, but I just think it's so cool to actually find the ways in which, like, anyone can like make a little more space for their creativity and like see what that grows into, because actually, that it's a it's an ongoing process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know and I think if we're looking at artists and people who are doing that professionally, I mean, first of all, not everyone who's like a professional artist is not feeling stuck Right. People can get like feel like they need to mix it up in any sort of way, so, but usually those are those folks like have been doing something like this for a long time. So you have to start where you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to start where you are. Yeah, and I think that's like I think that's the hardest part in any creative process, no matter who you are, whether you're well versed in creative creative processes or you're not is like, can I actually check in with where I am right now for real? Because, yeah, we have a narrative in our head that, like, this is how I do it. Like, yeah, this is how I do it, this is how this last experience went and that's all I know, to be true, about like, what I know I can do. I want to expand that in some way, so I'm just going to keep doing that and wait for that like non repeating element to show up. And that's where the jumping off point is.
Speaker 2:But, like, even in that process there's all sorts of like. I mean, I can't help but think about you know, like you said, like you're giving up part of yourself to this transfer, transformative process of creativity, of whatever you're trying to express. You're giving up part of yourself and in some way shape or form that's. That's a fear inducing experience. That's a brief, laden experience, because I was this person before, but transformation means I'm not going to be that person anymore. And am I okay with that, because that means I'm also giving this part of myself to the other, like what, whoever is going to experience this with me, or if it's like a piece of art, like someone's going to take it in, and then that means part of me lives in that. Now am I cool with that, like it's, there's so much in it. Oh, that made me go do you have?
Speaker 1:I'm so curious. I don't know if you don't have to talk about this, if you don't want to, but I'm so curious like if you have something in particular for you that comes up like do you have a medium that you work with? Is there some like, or where do you like where you experience this in yourself?
Speaker 2:are you? Are you creating? I can talk about myself happening right now.
Speaker 1:It's just where I want to go, but I was like I don't know if that's something that's like.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna do on this podcast, but yeah, I mean this is dbt in a nutshell, or like follow the impulse and if I'm like, then you're like okay, that's where we go yep, or it's like oh yeah, there's energy there. I mean like, okay, we'll go there. Okay, so my creative processes tend to fall in. I mean, um, I think historically, like when I'm going back to like childhood stuff, it's, it's music.
Speaker 1:Oh cool.
Speaker 2:Music and dance Cause. Dance was the first creative thing that I ever. I was like three when I started dance classes and my mom like threw me in dance classes. I was in like seven dance classes a week and so, like, dance was the first way I learned like how to express, but through the body.
Speaker 2:what really, what I really loved about dance was the music that you got to move your body to amazing and so I was like, okay, well, I want to move my body to music that makes like, makes sense to my body. And then I remember telling my mom, like I'm gonna be a rock star. And she's like, well, you should start music lessons. Then so like, so that's how. And I think I think I went up to my choir teacher and said I'd like to join the choir but I was in the band. So like, I was in the band and you weren't supposed to do both, and I was like, no, I'm gonna do both, I'm gonna do I'm gonna sing and I'm gonna play an instrument. Like that's how this is gonna go.
Speaker 2:So I think, like, because those were my initial like, like childhood places and I have found like through like my own work in the last few years, the older I get, the more I need the processes I need I had as a child, and so it's music and and dance. But music, this dance, was really about the music a lot, and dance was the expression of how the music made me feel, so like Music. And now, as I've gotten older, writing. So it's all three of those like smushed together.
Speaker 1:Do you still make music now?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 2:Cut to one of Kim's songs. I don't know what I'm gonna say, but I will tell you there's like it's blurred, but there's a drum set right there.
Speaker 1:Oh amazing, there's two guitars back there. You are a rock star. When you just shared that story, kim, I was like, oh my god, I can totally see that, just like little Kim being like mommy, I'm gonna be a rock Kim. I was like, oh my God, I can totally see that Just like little Kim being like mommy, I'm going to be a rock star. And I'm like, dude, you are. Of course, that makes so much sense for you. Tracks, tracks.
Speaker 2:I mean truthfully, I wanted to be.
Speaker 1:I can really see it.
Speaker 2:I wanted to be somebody like Cyndi Lauper, like everybody, like I liked Madonna too. But Cyndi Lauper was like, well, I wanted to be Madonna too, I just wanted to be like that. And then, like I started seeing like the eras of like how pop music changed, and I was like, oh no, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to. But anyway, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So there's still room for all of it. You know, everyone's doing everything, Everyone's doing it all. You know Right, so okay.
Speaker 2:I wanted to ask you the same reverse. Oh, no, go ahead. You answer.
Speaker 1:Well, I was actually thinking about when I asked you that question. I was thinking about fiction writing, cause I've studied fiction writing in undergrad. It will always have a place in my heart I'm still a fiction writer and I actually lead a fiction writing in undergrad. It will always have a place in my heart. I'm still a fiction writer and I actually lead fiction writing groups now, using this like using drama therapy to help people get generating and like kind of like finding their blocks and like working around them, working through them. So I love this combination of things and I was thinking when I was asking you about that.
Speaker 1:I was thinking, like about how, in my writing process, I just like consistently have been amazed by and frustrated by the fact that every time I I almost every time I sit down to write, I feel dread. Yes, it's like always there. It's just always there, and it's something that I think is fascinating because I'm like oh, this is why you know people. And I should also preface this with saying, like it's when I'm really working on projects that are important to me. It's when I'm working on things that I know I want to have out in the world. It's things that I, it's stories that I know like sort of very deeply in my imagination. When I sit down to free write, if I'm like in a free writing, you know group, it's a different thing. I'm just like word vomit, like that was pretty. I can read this to somebody. But you know, and then not to discount that, cause sometimes really real things come out of those things too, and that's how we do it. But when you sit down and you know you're going to work towards something, it's, it's there's dread, there's like, there's fear, there's avoidance, there's frustration. There's so many different things that come up that make it feel like almost impossible to do it, and I think that's why for so long I I resented the the.
Speaker 1:There's a kind of classic like writing advice that people will like, that writers will give to other writers, which is like, if you, if you want to write, you need to write every day. And I for so long, like, have resented that piece of advice because I have felt like, how am I supposed to do this every day? Like, are you freaking, kidding me? Like torture, you know? And, second of all, I need some help from someone if I'm going to be sitting with these feelings every day. So you know, this is why I'm doing this work now is because I've sort of piecemealed my own support together through my own therapy process. Doing just just doing regular talk. Therapy has been so helpful to my creative process. Doing dbt training therapy was so helpful to my creative process and I feel like, you know, I'm now in this position where I can give other people the support that I have really needed in the past.
Speaker 1:Ah, and still need, you know, and still need and still have. So, relevance, relevance, yep, relevance, oh, look at that oh, my god.
Speaker 2:Um, okay, I had a. I had a question that hold on. I'm looking through my notes, please hold. Actually, that's where I mean what you're kind of talking about, because you're like the feelings come up yes, yeah, that I'm gonna go into empaths.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, but like I also don't want to like lose our our discussion on creativity, and that's where my brain just got kind of like stuck, which is hilarious, because it was like about empaths that gave me an empath, so it's like it's like shame begets shame, impasse begets impasse we're shame spiraling right now.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what's happening. Oh, fart, wait, what happened? Did something happen to make that happen? Or was it just like a like trying to connect different pieces? You're so good, um, I love, I'm doing it, we're doing it right now, that's what's important. It's like oh, what's happening in the transition? Right Like we. It's like juicy stuff usually.
Speaker 2:That is a perfect segue to talking. I will, like I'm going to the notes, can sit there because we're we are here, friend, yeah, yeah, okay. So the concept of impasse in the creative process. So Marie has written a paper on impasse. So in order for us to graduate from our developmental training institute, we have to write a final paper. We have to do a whole bunch of other stuff too, but for some reason that paper is a behemoth. It's a behememoth. And so a friend of ours recommended that I read, uh, marie's paper on impasse, because I had been at my own place of like creative block. And so I reached out to marie and said, like marie, I heard you wrote your final paper and that it's on impasse. May I read it? And gratefully, marie said yes, and I read it and was like, oh my God. And so like, can you talk to us about? So? I guess I should say no, I'm not gonna say anything. How do you define impasse and what is its purpose in the creative process?
Speaker 1:Oh God, can you define it? I want to hear your, your. I want to hear your version of it first okay I look at.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting because now I have, like the neuroscience of creativity language stuck in my head, totally yeah which is different than the dvt understanding of impasse well, you know what?
Speaker 1:okay, let's maybe even what just happened right like in, because you'll probably hear it in this podcast too, which is oh for sure, I'm like oh, I like getting meta with it, because I think then it's like even more, there's more energy around it, because it's like, look, we all just experience this thing, so we can just point to the thing we just experienced. Yes, um like so in in play and drama therapy, when you're doing a session, um, when, you're in the middle of a play and then you're doing something really exciting or something really engaging.
Speaker 1:then something happens and then like the energy drops, yeah, and this happens in conversations all the time. So we just so we know we probably had a few actually at this point where it's just like we're talking, we're like trying to get in the flow, we're trying to get in the uh kind of like jam together, yeah, and like sometimes you're in the flow and then sometimes you're not and you're still moving, but then sometimes also the energy drops or you're kind of like, okay, wait, what was I thinking, what was I just about to say? Or something you said made me think something. Um, and there's like a pause. It makes like things kind of like slow down or stop altogether in some way.
Speaker 1:And I mean I just actually the more I do with creative process and the, and especially since writing that paper, that was like such a huge thing to work through in myself, because I was talking also about my own creative, my own experience in training, therapy and the things that I was kind of working through in that, and impasse was a big part of it, and for so long I had all a lot of shame around this experience of impasse, and I think that's actually quite common, because I think when something's flowing and then something stops, there can be like a tendency to be like wait, did I do that? Or like what happened, like this is a problem, right To see it as like something went wrong.
Speaker 1:Or like why couldn't we keep a good thing going? You?
Speaker 1:know, forever, yes, and now I like thinking about it actually as like a in conversation kind of thing is is makes it a little bit easier for me. Kind of thing is is makes it a little bit easier for me, um, because I love talking to people and it's like, oh yeah, of course, like there are moments where this like drop happens, but, um, often I think in those moments there's like a return to the inside of us or somewhere else, like our mind goes somewhere else and we're like trying to make sense of something. And this happens like in like any kind of creative flow too, where you're doing something and it's really working and then all of a sudden, you hit like a snag and it's like wait, ah, like, and so many different feelings can come up. You can be like I'm done. You can be like okay, great, that's the end of it, you know. Or like you could be like I'm so frustrated. Or you know, have like a lot of shame. Come in and be like, ah, I didn't do this right. Um, you know there can be grief about it. Yep, um, because you're you lost something, you know, in losing that flow.
Speaker 1:So I am fascinated by this because I think, because I have experienced a lot of it and I have always held a lot of attention around it, and and also I think it's this I think it's a natural part of this kind of process that we are all engaged in all the time, but I think also, culturally, we don't make a lot of space for it as having any value. And I think it has so much value. I think it's. I think it's like a, a gold mine basically, of like what's happening here and how can we like look at this differently? And I think, like you know, we live in a culture that's so like go, go, go forward all the time, but actually, if we like kind of notice the like places where there's like an energy dip or like there's like a pause or like wait, we have to go backwards. We have to like find something that we forgot there's. There's so much more richness, I think, to the process of, yeah, just living and creating and everything that we do.
Speaker 2:You know, yes, yeah, oh, my God, you've said so much that makes every synapse in my brain fire. Like I think about the, like, the reasons for impasse, but I also think about like how, like your question of like, how do I define it? I think, historically, because of DBT training, I my go-to answer was it's the drop in energy, it's losing interest in something. But I didn't really actually ask myself, like losing interest, like what does that mean to me? And then assigning a value to it. Like if I'm leading a group and there's an impasse within the group and I was the leader, I would assign a value of like you said, like I've done something wrong, as, yeah, and therefore the group didn't know where to go next, and so that's on me. I should have given them more scaffolding, I fucked up, crap. Okay, let's go back to the beginning and rebuild it again.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't until I read your paper that I was like wait, the value of rest, the value of giving yourself permission to be like wait this, because like there's a beautiful article written about impasse that came long before us, about death as impasse or impasse as death, and so it was like the death of something before the new thing was reborn, and so that's kind of how I envisioned impasse to be.
Speaker 2:But then, when you like, and that's in terms of DBT, but I would also like own the value of it, like, okay, well, I did bad, yeah, we did the bad death thing, the bad death. Now I have to re like, reinvigorate you with life and something you know like, and oftentimes like in a, a group, like if that's our association to what like an impasse is, then the imagery that comes up in the play is then like okay, zombies are now we're playing with zombies or we're playing with a different, like version 2.0, because that's what we're all kind of like, stuck with what we think impasses right, right right but when I read your paper and you were like, no, what if impasse is actually a part of the process, not the end of one in the beginning of another?
Speaker 2:but it is one huge thing and I have to honor it with the same reverence I do as every other step in that process. Yeah, to then say like okay, then that would mean just as important as that beginning for a DVT group, a sound movement that starts our like language of what the group is. Then I have to honor the language of the silence too, because it's serving a purpose, because what will be emerging from that will be more congruent with where that human is in that moment and where they want to go. But they have like, I think, like for me.
Speaker 2:I'm a highly sensitive person, which means my depth of processing it is deep and that my processing was so deep that sometimes I am a slow motion mover, especially in groups. And it doesn't have to be a DVT group. It could be like a group chat, it could be a group out on it for a night on the town and everybody's in conversation. They have already. Because it's a group, people are like firing off and I'm like that thing you just talked about like 10 minutes ago, is blowing my mind.
Speaker 1:I'm still thinking about it. Can we have like a little sidebar and talk?
Speaker 2:about it for an hour. Yes, because, like, I want like the nitty gritty, like, okay, you said this word and what does that mean to you and how does it feel in your body? And, oh my God, like, but like. What does it mean to you? Because that is the emergence of like. How do I find you and how do I build the bridge to you? Because I'm going to bring to that conversation what I define that as and like. That's why I think I start the podcast off with like, tell me who you are and let's define what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Because, like, I don't know what creativity means to Marie today. I might've known what it meant to you a month ago, but you're a different human than you were a month ago, and so am I. So, like, because of you know circumstances that we're all every day going through in our lives. So, like you're still consistently Marie and you're not Marie that from before, you're new Marie, like, same. So like I want to know. And so I think, when it comes to impasse, sometimes it's that like I am moving at a different pace and you're not, and we don't know how to find each other, and it takes a minute Sometimes it's like whatever you said brought up a feeling for me and I have a different relationship to that feeling. Like, or okay, like, let's take grief. Yes, exactly Right.
Speaker 2:So like talking to somebody about grief, and early on in my grief process, those first couple years, any time somebody mentioned anything about loss, I was like we're in it, dude, oh my God. And then I'd immediately leave mentally for a second, think about my mom, think about my friends that died, and I'd be like and have to try to like walk my way back to the present moment. Now it's we're coming up on five years since my mom has died. I can sit with my. I've done enough work on my grief to work with other people in their grief. I won't completely go away.
Speaker 2:But if I'm in a creative process and somebody's like, okay or whatever it is, yeah, a creative process, and it's like grief enters the picture, enters the chat, or loss enters the chat, I'm gonna check out for a second, I'm gonna dissociate, and that is the impasse. And and the others like where did you go? And that happens in relationships, I think, where people are like yo, I was talking to you, are you even listening to me? Yeah, and then they get upset because they feel unheard and you're like I just totally you said the thing that makes me go to the place or whatever it is yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:No, I love that Kim wow yeah, thanks for bringing that in, because that actually is so powerful and so relevant to what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Because I was actually just thinking about when you were talking about the groups, like doing a group and having this experience of like, this kind of like death process, of like, oh, we were doing a thing and now we're not.
Speaker 1:Now and although, like, if you're a leader, you're like assigning this like thing, of like I did something wrong, but something about the experience of that drop, I was also thinking about how that can happen with ruptures, like it could happen, like for so many different reasons and at any kind of time.
Speaker 1:But when you're talking about grief, I was thinking, yeah, there's so much about we don't know. Actually there's, there's like a not knowing and that the empath sort of puts us in touch with, because if you're engaged in a process or engaged in play or a conversation with someone, you kind of know where you are in your and you're like jamming and like figuring out where each other are and there's like feedback and you're you're adjusting as you go, um, but there's something about like an impasse that really puts, I think puts us in touch with like, oh, we don't know what comes next ever, and we don't even know what's happening inside the other person you know, and they might not even know what's happening inside themselves. Yep, so there's like unknowing, there's like not not knowing, and how you relate to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And grief. I mean, yeah, what a powerful topic, right Like death and having lost people that we love. There is so much not knowing in that much.
Speaker 2:Well, every day is like a wait. I don't know how to do this without the person, or I don't know how to do that without the person.
Speaker 1:Like every day, it's like a new discovery yeah for a while, for the first years, yeah, like you're, like you're, kind of you also have your, you, this experience of being very intimately engaged in your own empaths process.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like because this is a podcast about identity, it's kind of like in your experiences and like how you've like navigated your life. How does empathasse and creativity because they're very different concepts impasse as a part of creativity, but, like, how do they show up for you in your experiences and who you are?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, it's so funny. I feel like we, when we were talking about getting ready for this podcast too and for this episode, and we were talking about empaths, and you were like, well, you're like an expert on empaths, right? Like, oh God, am I? I mean, we've already discussed that We'm not an, we're not experts.
Speaker 1:But there is like this thing where something that has been part of your experience, uh, for so long, you know, will sort of follow you and like I have that with, with impasse I actually didn't even have the language. I will say, like the word impasse is kind of new to me. I mean new in that I think I wasn't familiar with it really until we I started dbt training because there was an, a word for it in the process, yeah, but I had experienced impasse forever, you know, um and yeah, and my first thought so, yeah, there's this very mixed relationship that I have with this thing that I've been building a relationship to over time and have all these like struggle experiences with you know, and actually also very, quite painful experiences with quite painful experiences with, and so there it's like even now, like I'm like, yeah, I guess it is part of my identity. I mean, I don't know if identity that's like a strong word, it's strong. Yeah, it's definitely part of my experience. Yeah, it's definitely been part of my experience and continues to be, though I do think my relationship to it now has is much better and different than it used to be.
Speaker 1:And the thing I was going to say was, I sort of talked about this before but, um, I mean, even when I started dbt training, when I experienced impasse in the play, that actually was one of the first first experiences I ever had of being in the play space, which, again, I'll just like reiterate that I think I see this like play process as being so parallel to so many other processes and part of what I love so much about it and love using it with people with creative process.
Speaker 1:So this is, like you know, not just just to to talk about dvt, but like as like a metaphor for other life processes that I've had too. Yeah, which is that my when I my first experiences of dvt. But I think what's so cool about dvt is like it's embodied, so you're really like you're really in it really quickly, right, you're like I'm in my body, other people are in their bodies and like we're doing something, but it's not clear really what it is, or it becomes clear over time. It's like the storytelling process and the first ever experience I had of playing I was in a group and it when I very quickly became sort of immobilized in my body because I was so overwhelmed with all the activity that was going on and I didn't know what to do or where I was, and I like sort of checked out and like ended up in a corner, like I'm like crouching on the floor, sort of hiding from the rest of the group, like being like I don't know if I'm part of this. This is crazy you know, um and uh.
Speaker 1:I just like it's. It sticks in my memory because I had so much uh like confusion, shame like curiosity yes like fascination with this thing that was happening that I couldn't understand and didn't know why or what it was, but I was like, okay, this is making me feel a lot of things. I'm gonna. I'm gonna probably pursue this. Such a funny response to something that was so weird.
Speaker 2:You know that was my response too.
Speaker 1:And then you know, and then I like went on to study DVT and for the next few years and it was like, so I think, like I yeah, that's like one thing I can point to where I was like, oh, I, I.
Speaker 1:It became very clear in that moment to me and I can think about this for so many other things too where it's like the thing that's hard, the thing that I can't quite figure out, but I really want to figure out, that's where they're, all the energy is.
Speaker 1:And maybe in that moment, because I'm fighting or like really trying to figure it out, and I can't quite untie the pieces that are all like knotted together and there's different threads, but like I don't know what's separate from each other. It's not flowing necessarily, but there's so much there that has so much potential to get like pieced out and unlocked and unraveled. And then you can see like this whole picture that's like actually about all these other things, and so it's sort of like I don't know what to compare it to, like I was trying to find another kind of, but maybe that's just it. It's like this like angle, it's a knot and that's where that like we talk about this in play, but we follow. Sometimes we follow where the energy is, and that doesn't mean where you like or what you. It doesn't just mean what is giving you pleasure, what feels like it's flowing right.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it means what's like oh, this is complicated this has a lot of stuff in there, but it's all tied together and we don't quite know how to make sense of it yet yes, I think that energy yeah, it's the energy and that it's like. It's like where is there like yeah, I don't even want to call it a block necessarily, it just feel like like a knot of things if yeah there's a lot of things tied up together.
Speaker 2:I mean honestly, that makes me think about like then where impasse happens, because I think about in play therapy, when I'm working with a kid, like if a kid is playing with something and they're like in it and all of a sudden they like, forget it. They don't say forget it, they just up and yeah, yeah, yeah, like. As a, as a play therapist, we're meant to notice, like, what was the kid doing right before that happened and what were they playing with? Like, yeah, like, like, thematically speaking, because that likely has a tie to like, did we get too close, yeah, to the material that they're actually like? Because, like so much of like in this work that we're talking about the creative process and play for children, there's like a through line there and we're playing in the world of metaphor, we're playing in the world of imagery, we're playing in the world of analogy, but like we're still playing with what's at the core of that, like we might be still in a metaphor, but the metaphor is only the like layer on top of what, the experience, the feeling, the memory, the whatever is. And it, like our nervous systems don't know the difference between lived yes, I'm living this right now in reality or I'm playing in this imaginal way, the nervous system just knows I'm doing the thing, so it's still gonna have the benefits of like you know, whatever it is. But like, if we think about the role of impasse, then, like the thing that the like that's an impasse in a play therapy session, is the kid going like I'm gonna go play with the bricks now. It's like you know, there's like cardboard brick, that, and it's like, oh, okay, so we're using something very tangible and like building something to create, like bring down the anxiety.
Speaker 2:Because, like the ambiguity of playing in a imaginal way with these characters was so thematically close to what your lived experience is. We got too close. Now we need to contain, we need to structure, we need to whatever. But like again, like metaphor, like that's in a child's play therapy session, we're doing this all the time in conversation. Like if we hit an impasse, it's like, oh, did we? We got, we got close to a feeling or an experience that maybe the two of us don't want to wrestle with right now because it's whatever, um, or like I haven't done my work on it, you have, and so like we don't know how to negotiate that and so we just go, yeah, and then, like somebody says, oh, how about the weather? Huh, it's been snowing a lot lately yes, exactly yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:As you were talking about that, I was thinking about how fiction writing does the same thing, because it's you know, fiction writing is like you can. You're making a world, it could be anything.
Speaker 1:So it's all it's all metaphor in a lot of ways for whatever you're thinking about living, experiencing. But I was just thinking about how there also can be this feeling of like oh, like you know that's avoidance. Or like if you're like, oh, hit this thing, like I gotta go over here now, like how we can kind of say, well, and then now that's not the right thing to do. But actually I think maybe the goal isn't even necessarily and I don't I'm not saying this is what you were saying, but I was making me think about how I've thought about it in the past and I was thinking the goal might not even to be, might not even be to stay with the hard thing all the time, but to but to know the, the process right, because we can. We can be like we'll hit a sensitive point in the conversation and be like, okay, actually the weather and not, and we can do that and not even realize that we're doing it.
Speaker 1:But I think what's so juicy is like if you can do it and then and you can switch to the weather and then, but know that that's what you're doing and know that that's what you have as, like a, as a out. You know, and that could also show up in your creative process, whatever you're doing, to just know like, oh yeah, when I hit this thing, I do this other thing and that's part of my, and then maybe I actually need some space to look at it from over here and not be right next to it, but to be like, yeah, the weather, speaking of the weather, you know what that reminds me of this other thing? You know, it's like kind of like be giving yourself the right distance, or like allowing yourself to play with that too. Like with the, yes, with the.
Speaker 2:Coping with the, with all the patterns that exist in you, yes can I introduce a concept to you and then get your thoughts about it? Okay, yes, I would love that. So, um, I've gone down the pathway of the neuroscience of creativity and and in one of the resources that I'm utilizing, they mentioned there's like you know how they love to have these, like, like, catch things so you learn and remember things. They said there's four P's of the creative process, or for creativity, rather, but the thing I should also point out that I hadn't really put a lot of thought about. I say creativity in my world, and I'm often thinking about artistically, and then also like what is the creativity of how I live my days? Like how do I choose? Like what I'm wearing, or what's my morning ritual, or all of those things, but then also like am I like how do I create a playlist I want to listen to? Like, or whatever, like I think about it in lots of ways, but the indicators of being able to recognize an instance of creativity in the like, research of creativity. I found this like I don't know why I didn't think about it in this terms.
Speaker 2:They said there's like the problem solving, science, logic, creativity, so they're studying like problem solving, and like how we utilize, like essentially non-repeating elements and what factors need to be there for somebody to create something new that will be helpful for people. Then there's the artistic domains, which is the way I always viewed. Creativity was like, you know, the arts of art, music, dance, literature, fashion, all of those things, theater but it's really the sum of all of it. That is like all of creativity and I was like, oh yeah, because we're using the science, the logic, the problem solving of creativity when we're trying to create, we just don't like lean into it yeah, we are problem solving yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know if we talk about that very much though in when we talk about, like, artistic creativity, but it is problem solving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, there's so much discernment in that process too of like, what am I choosing? Like, what am I trying to say? How do I wish to say it? Yeah, and when I do create something and I look at it then I'm like, well, does this exactly say what I want to say, how I want to say it, or do I want to change it in some way, shape or form? But that's all it's like. There's like the process, and then there's these little processes like little.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But okay, so I was reading about the four P's of creativity. So there's process, the creative process, the product, the person and the place. So when it comes to the person, they say the definition is the person generating the creative idea or acts. So that would include their personality, their intellect, their temperament, their physique, their traits, their habits, their attitudes, their self-concept, their value systems, their defense mechanisms and their behavior.
Speaker 2:That's a lot more than a P. That's a lot more. Well, that's all within person. Yeah, and I was like but wouldn't you also consider culture? Wouldn't you also consider like so much more?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, so I'm going through these because there's a a part that I was like oh, marie, and I gotta talk about this. Um, product is obviously like when an idea becomes embodied into like the tangible form of what someone's trying to express. That's the product. Now, here's the one that I was like oh, so the the so process, product, person place, this is place. But they, they did like a diagonal place, slash press, and I was like what's, what's that mean? So, really, it's five p's. They lied um pressures, the fact. Oh, that's why I was like we got to talk about this?
Speaker 1:Oh, I like it. Why do I like it so much? This is why you do what you do. That's so annoying.
Speaker 2:It's annoying at all, and if it is, we are the most annoying mofos on the planet. This is like where I'm interested. That's why we're sitting here talking about it, like it's so interesting to me. Um, yeah, so the factors that are present in an individual's place, situation or environment that influence their capacity to be creative. So like, interestingly, there's research on all of the. Well, I didn't go. I'll go through the fourth one and then I'll tell you the other piece.
Speaker 2:Fourth stage is process, which is what we've been talking a lot about today. It's the study of, like you know, the what underlies creative thought, the motivation, perception, the thinking, the learning and the communicating, what we're doing to create, um, and involves the intricacies of the creative mind. The process approach readily aligns itself to the neuroscientific perspective, so it's easy to study it because you're like looking at the different parts of the brain. All of these have like all four or five rather, but really four areas have significant research. This is when I was talking about how do you get empirical research and creativity. Some of these have likeories of research that are well established. Empirical research is there. Can you guess which one doesn't have as much empirical research?
Speaker 1:is it pressure?
Speaker 1:yes wow, that's actually fascinating though, because I feel like it would be so possible to study and right, so obvious, what like when people talk about this all the time. Wow, I'm really curious. That's so interesting. I wasn't sure if I was gonna be right when I asked, when I guessed that 100, because I also have heard so much about I mean, I was just thinking when you were saying pressures, I was thinking about oh yeah, there's this whole thing, this whole thing about ideal, the ideal pressure. Right, you can have too much pressure. You can also have too little pressure. Yes, I think it's counterintuitive sometimes, yes, um, but yeah, the there's people talk about this, uh-huh uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Well, because, like, what you're alluding to is like the, the idea of flow, which which then kind of like leads us to like optimal performance. So that's true in like performing arts, mental health, like to have that, like you got to be a little anxious, like a little bit, in order to like do the thing, but you also can't like pass the threshold or you're not going to be able to remember, like what chord you're playing, yes, yes. And then you're checked out and then you're noticing the person in front of you like singing lyrics that you're like wait, there's lyrics to the song like you're just gone. How do you help your folks identify like what they need in order to access different parts of themselves and their creativity?
Speaker 1:yeah, um, well, the. I don't know if this is where we want to go, but I feel like the thing that's coming to mind, which I think is relevant for a lot of people, it's just like the amount of stress in your everyday life and how it hampers or motivates you to do something new or do something creative, and I think there's like there such a balance between is also there's the pressures, but then there's also the structures that you have to implement these things like if you're, you know, I don't know what's it, what's a good example? Well, I actually I'll just get you to use myself, because I was in. I think this is what I was just thinking about my different experiences I've had, just as I've gone on my own career trajectory. It was making me think about when I was working.
Speaker 1:So, shortly after I left CIS, when I was in DBT training, I was working also as a counselor in the Alameda foster care system and working with kids zero to 21 who had been removed from their home or was changing placement in the foster care system, and it was a super like high stress, I would say like trauma filled environment.
Speaker 1:It was also an amazing workplace filled with really incredible caring people and I learned so much doing that work. And also I remember sort of I was there for two and a half to three years and over the course of that period I remember, like towards the end of it, feeling like, wow, I just don't have the same space in my life anymore for my own creative stuff, like I used to paint, I used to write a lot and then, like when I started that job, I was so on all the time, like my nervous system was just like so on all the time when I was working that I would home and you know, also work weird shifts and stuff like that were like up until midnight or, you know, I would work swing shifts, so also getting weird, weird sleep. And I was just thinking about that because I was thinking like, no matter who you are, no matter what your job looks like, you can be in a position where you're giving so much of yourself to something that is also not leaving space for other things, or um.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I think that I think about that is related to this, like pressure yeah um, pressure conversation and um, and I also think about, like I don't know, like parents, like like moms who are like giving so much of themselves to their kids and also working, and um, just that it can be really hard to actually carve out time and space for letting yourself be creative when there's all this other stuff that you have to do. You know, and I think that's that can be true for anyone we can all get stuck in that trap, Like I don't have children and I can get stuck in this, like kind of like oh well, instead of sitting down to write, I'm going to go do the laundry or whatever. You know, yeah, but so I don't know, I'm kind of. I'm kind of I don't know if I'm still on topic, but it's like there's these. There's like I'm thinking about structures and pressure as being sort of like together, but they are set like these separate pieces of it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's so much in what you're saying in different ways throughout our whole conversation today that I'm hearing like the importance of giving ourself permission for space. Like space, yes, huge yeah, it does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and part of that is is eliminating pressures if you, if you feel over pressured in some way.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's sort of like yeah, like, what kind of space is it? Is it actual time or is it like energetic space? Because both, both are true. There's like psychic space.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:There's yeah Time. There's physical space, right, if you don't have a place to go to do something.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think about writing a final dvt paper maybe. Um, like like right before we recorded this, I was speaking with chris and she was like write your paper. And I was like write your paper.
Speaker 1:And I was like gotta go record a podcast, Bye. Be over here talking about creativity.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:But like hold on.
Speaker 2:I need to laugh about that because that is really funny. I think it's funny and fun but like the part that I've been stuck on writing in my paper where I've been like I was in flow, like when I finally got to the place, because the topic is about grief and also deconstructing developmental transformation concepts in my lived life, in the experience of grief. But I couldn't start writing that paper because I was too under distanced. I was too absorbed in it. I was too in it for the first two years of my grief experience. And then I said like, well, now I've got energy, I want to get up and I want to go out and do things and I'll write about that. And so I found writing about that early part initially very difficult, but then, once I got into it, I was able to do it. Writing about the second part, when I went out and did, it was like hey, this isn't that bad, keep going. Part. When I went out and did, it was like, hey, this isn't that bad, Keep going. When I got to the part that was the hard, like how am I like digesting this and what does this mean and what am I trying to tell you about? Like what I'm learning about myself and others in the world. Impasse, so under distance, because what I had learned was such a brand new concept to me, I did not have structures in place to be able to articulate it first of all for myself, let alone for someone else, about what it is. So I think about the, the, the role of like under distanced over distance, like of like under distanced over distance, like if I'm too over distance, there's not going to be any connectivity to what I'm saying. It's going to sound like jargon, it's going to sound like bullshit and I don't want that. But if it's, that's if it's over distance, if it's under distanced, I'm going to be a heaping pile of which.
Speaker 2:I think when I was in DVbt training initially, like when you described, like your first group that you were in that I had a very similar experience. I was like I'm not used to people relating to me in this way and I want it so badly and I'm so drawn to it and it terrifies the hell out of me and so I am shutting down internally and I do not know how to relate to you. But I knew I wanted to go back. I knew I wanted to like, find my way there.
Speaker 2:But like that process of trying to figure out like what is happening for me so that I can find you is, was not only present in the dbt experience but in this like creative process of writing for me as well. I mean, there's so many parallels because I think like we could talk about dbt yes, this is this like most people won't know what it is and we talk like kind of tangent not tangentially and ambiguous, ambiguously, and they'll be like I still don't get what it is and I'm kind of like it doesn't matter because it's literally like shows up in everything else in our lives, but like especially the creative process and writing.
Speaker 1:Well, what you're talking about reminds me of like this I feel it sounds like what you're saying is like that these patterns that come up in relationship. You can tell me if this is what you're saying or not? This is something I think about a lot, so I think it's connected where these patterns that come up in relationship, where you want to be seen but you also are scared of that. The same thing can happen when you're writing just by yourself about anything, but especially about something that is about you, that you are working through, because you it like it is a relationship.
Speaker 1:I think it feels true to me that when you're creating something, you're you're actually relating to yourself and you're also relating to something else. I mean, I don't, I, I feel like there's this other, that, this other piece that's sort of like mystery and the world and your psyche and everything that's unconscious in you and all this. There's a lot that's outside of us. There's, it's a lot. There's a lot that's bigger than us, and I think you're relating to that. Even if you're alone, you're relating and you're creating something. You're relating to the energy of the day, you're relating to your feelings, you're relating to yeah, so that all of that is happening and so the same kind of patterns can come out, because it's also relational.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's, yeah, yes, intra personal versus interpersonal. Yeah, yeah, I, since since we we've been in training together, I've gone totally down the union path. So, like the it makes me think of like the collective unconscious, of like creating our own, we have our own experience, but then we're also tied to this larger humanity experience that like we're kind of tapping into in so many different ways. Um, but it's also so ambiguous, because it's like what do you mean? The collective unconscious?
Speaker 1:but it's like what you're saying do you feel like, yeah, when you're, I mean it, you can also detour us if you don't want to go here. But I'm curious about like this like paper writing thing. It's like do you have a specific? It's like a specific. Well, it's like a certain part that makes it feel like and you're like okay, no, I don't want to. It's it makes me think of when I sit down to write and I feel dread Like is that a similar? Are you having a similar feeling or experience?
Speaker 2:around it, yes, and like cause, cause, because I'm that slow processor I have to figure it out. Like wait, what are the important parts for me? Totally, yeah. But then it's like well, it's kind of like counterintuitive because like, well, if you write about it, you're going to find the important.
Speaker 1:Right, right, I know.
Speaker 2:And you're like. You're like, maybe I don't want to know.
Speaker 1:Maybe I don't want to want to know what's important yeah, totally. Or you feel like you have to know already. Right, to sit down and write. I think that's actually. That actually is so. I feel like I bet so many people can relate to what you just said. It's like I feel like I have to know what is going to come out of me before I sit down to do the thing. Yeah, right, this is a block that happens in play all the time, because people are like wait, you want me to move my body without knowing what I'm doing? Are you kidding? Kidding me? It actually is like people have this response where they're like no, no.
Speaker 1:Like no, thank you, actually, I'm gone. That's stupid. Or like you want me to draw something without knowing how what it's gonna look like no. Like you don't want to see that People have this response where they're like no. Like you don't want to see that you know people have this response. They're like no, you don't want it. That's gonna be, that's gonna be fugly you know you will be harmed by ugliness.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah, but yes. But then you are cutting yourself off also from the experience of surprising yourself or of or of confirming your worst nightmare and realizing that it's actually not that bad. Nobody was really harmed by your stick figure drawing. It was maybe even kind of cute.
Speaker 2:It's got a little like smiley face, like yeah yeah, oh, my god, um, okay, so one other concept I wanted to run by you and get your thoughts on because it felt very like creative process-y and then I want to talk. We'll bring our conversation to a close, okay, so there's. Are you familiar with Graham Wallace? Okay, some dude he's named Graham came up with like a four stage of creative process thing and it made me think when I read it it it made me think of you and I was like stole from marie. Okay, first stage is the preparation super conscious, we're trying to figure out what do we want to do, like, like, whether it's a problem or a creative act. Second stage is incubation unconscious process. Engagement with the problem is at hand, but we don't take any effort and it's directed towards any, any effort, directed towards the problem, because we need a period of rest oh, my god, that's so good, oh, that's so good right yes good Right yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I was like, oh, that just confirms, like Marie, stamp of approval.
Speaker 1:Because, like you're so, like the period of rest is like the second stage, because you love that, I love that it's early on, because we cause, I think, sometimes I think of it as being later down the line, when it's like, oh, and then I got stuck and then I gave up, or I didn't want to do it, you know, but it's actually like, yeah, what if you gave it? What if you, what if you gave it its own? Yeah, I love it Second. I love it Second. I love that it's great.
Speaker 2:It made me think of like when we've had previous conversations and you talked to me about your final paper writing and you were like I had to like walk away from it.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Like I had my job that I went to. It wasn't the job that you just spoke about, it was a different one, very different energy, and you just put yourself in that environment for a while and as you continued on, you gave yourself again more space energetically, psychically, whatever, to then create what you ended up creating. And I was like this is Marie. I got really excited when I read it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. That's so fun, kim. No, it's so real. I actually was talking about it is making me think, oh, actually, yeah, because sometimes actually, if I were to track it I mean I'm not saying there's not necessarily this like map that fits all Right right but.
Speaker 1:I do think sometimes impasse happens right after I realize that I need to do something new and I've in the past thought, oh man, am I really just giving up because it's too hard to think about doing something new? And I've in the past thought, oh man, am I really just giving up because it's too hard to think about doing something new. But the truth is that sometimes I need time to consider this new thing before I act on it or do anything with it, or have the act on it or do anything with it, or have the juice to give it time and space. And so, yeah, that makes sense that I like that as a second step.
Speaker 1:I love it that you could intentionally give yourself too, that you could actually be like I'm going to have an idea and instead of going to work on that immediately, I'm gonna now not like sort of subconsciously think about it for two weeks, yeah, or a month, or however long it takes.
Speaker 2:You know, you get to decide it makes me think of, like the folks let's say they're, um, an artist and they're like a painter, and they're trying to create a specific type of of painting and it's just not going the way they want. Like they're coached whether painting or it could be any other direction. But some folks are coached to be like, okay, drop the painting for now and go do some music. Go make some music. How's the music gonna inform your painting? Or vice versa, being the artist or the musician, that's like okay, well, I, I can't write, I can't finish the song, I can't figure out what the bridge is, and it's like, okay, well, why don't you go paint for a while? Or go write a fictional short story?
Speaker 1:yeah, totally yes. Yeah, do something else while you're percolating on this other thing. I love that. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:The other two stages, illumination. So it's marked by the solution consciously emerging, fully, formed in one's mind as a sudden flash of insight. So I think about the role of insight.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, yes, oh, struck by lightning. Yeah, it's like, does that Jump out's about a bed?
Speaker 2:yeah, it doesn't always look like that, but there is this like deeper, like, oh, things feel like they're starting to like form, I'm starting to be able to like I don't know, this is my movement, for it, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I like it yeah, um, I like it. I mean, how often, when you're working with people, do you experience?
Speaker 1:people having that like flat lightning bolt of.
Speaker 1:I do, I do have it and I do. And I was just gonna say, actually I think it's so cool because we're like what we're talking about is helping me also just remember the things that I feel like I've been learning about how the way you treat impasse or relate to that stage can do everything for what comes next. Yeah, right, so like if you literally think about because we were just talking about how there's like a germination, what was it called? What was the stage called that you were the incubation, incubation, okay, so like it's like an egg.
Speaker 1:I think about the metaphor of a seed a lot that was in my paper. Yeah, it's underground, you can't see it and you don't know what's going on down there. But I could be frustrated, so frustrated with that fact that I like then rip up the earth right and like destroy everything or I'd never come back to it. I don't, I don't, I like abandon it. You know there's so many different ways I could relate to it.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking of ways that I used to relate to this experience. It's like, okay, seed in the ground, all destructive, like I, I don't, I don't want anything to do with it. But there's another way to relate to it, which is to say, seed in the ground. Okay, like, let, this is part of this thing and I want this thing to grow. I'm gonna keep watering it. I have to have faith that something's happening, even if I don't see the tangible results of it. And then, when it does sprout because it will, I think it will. I think, if you give that the space, the time and space for something, it might not look the way you thought it would. Right, there's a lot to be said for things not going according to how we planned them.
Speaker 1:But, then that's the inspiration, it inspiration. It's like, oh, it's fully formed. There's like it might not, it's not fully grown yet you have to do a lot of work to keep like doing it. But like it's a thing, it's a, it's a tangible thing. You know, yeah, and if I, if I left, if I didn't come back to it, I wouldn't see it. If I had like destroyed it, it might not happen. So there's like how you relate to the incubation stage feels like it. It um, kind of lays the groundwork for what comes after.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean just that last part of what you're saying too. It makes me think like, depending on which choice you make, what you end up telling yourself about your capacity and your capabilities and what you believe the creative process to be around that thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah that it. Those are three very different trajectories. Yeah, tear it up and like destroy it right you're. I would imagine there's probably a shame spiral. I shouldn't yeah, we should and shouldn't show up. Yes, we shouldn't run it. Oh god, now I've really fucked it up. I don't know what to do now. Now I have to start all over again. Oh god, I don't have the energy anymore. Right, right, right, like that self-defeating, self-limiting yes stuff.
Speaker 1:Yes, if you walk away, okay, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, no, sorry, I was just gonna chime in because I was thinking you made me think of another, a whole other alternative, which is like to be like to you during that incubation phase. You're like your negative self-talk comes in right and you're like I'm not doing this right, this is not good, it's not working.
Speaker 1:Um, and in that process, if the seed then comes out of the ground, you might just, you might uh downplay it also you might be like oh, this thing happened, but like whatever, whatever you know, but then it's like that's your inspiration, you keep going with that, like that's the thing you wanted, but it's like so, um, it's so crushed by this other thing. Right, that happens.
Speaker 2:I think people do that a lot in their lives when they're like I wish for this thing, I wish for this thing, I wish for this thing and they get so caught up in the trajectory of the wish, like the process of wishing, that they don't actually realize that, like, whatever they wished for actually manifested and I don't mean in like with hippie to be manifest, I mean like it happens but they're so focused on the trajectory of what the future could look like they're now already on another dream.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:I mean like yeah, so so they don't, they can't take in that they like, oh, no, like, but you wished so hard for that in here it's arrived and, like you said, it might not look exactly as you thought, right, but most of the time it doesn't.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:But can you sit with what this is Like? This is Mm-hmm. You did this Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, it's a big deal.
Speaker 2:But no, okay, we're going to look at the far the distance. Got it, got it, got it. But like, okay, we're going to look at the far the distance, got it, got it, got it.
Speaker 1:But like, yeah, but okay, yes. So I guess I just was going to say that does that does happen. I do see clients having that experience and I think it's like, and also, and also, that experience of being so far future oriented is also so relatable, like I, you know, to get stuck there to feel like you have to problem solve out here in order to do the thing right here is like, but so to you know, I think we need, we need help. We need help sometimes, like containing that or having a process or structure to explore that and someone else to like help us stay on track with what the thing is.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, um, yeah, yeah yeah, the other piece is like if you get up and walk away, you might tell yourself I wasn't capable.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh, Exactly, yeah, totally. I think that happens all the time. It's like oh, I walked to it, I used to do that too. I mean, I, I I'm saying this like I've worked through all of this, I'm still in process with all of this. I was like oh shit my head.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh shit, it's really, it's you know, it's an ongoing practice, um, but it's good, because I think it's good to remind ourselves of these things. It's like, oh yeah, if I walk away, then I walked away and I might have a story about what happened, but I, you know, we need to give ourselves the chance to to have these successes and and see what comes out of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that last four, the last stage of the four stage creative process from Wallace. So the last stage is verification. So that's involving the conscious deliberation and working out the details of whatever the solution is or the creative like product will be oh cool. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But man, when I got to that the incubation I was like I gotta talk to marie about the incubation uh-huh yeah I mean we could go down a whole nother pathway of like the how like rest is, like the, the definition of rest, and we're not definition but the value of rest, and how it's devalued like um. But as far as the creative process goes, how, how do you work with folks around like leaning in and then leaning out, like what does that look like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it happens very naturally. I because I I mean DVT. I think this is why I use DVT as such a tool in my work, but just the way I work in general and what I really love to do with people is to have like an emergent process. So sometimes people are surprised by that. They're like oh, I thought we were going to come in here and like, get this, this and this done and like you know, and then be out on my way, and it's sort of like well, that's I. Actually we can do that and and we could, you know, make goals to check off our list to do. And I think what can be really interesting is to hold those goals in mind and see where we are right now with them.
Speaker 1:And often I will. I will say almost every time. I can't think of a time that this hasn't happened but we'll address what is coming up in the moment and figure something out about how that's connected to these other things and something about that. I just had to say this is a mystery to me still, but it's so and like it's so engaging and so exciting to me, so I keep doing it with people. It's like what's so exciting is like that giving that space and making room for us to explore and then making those connections can like basically unlock all this energy to then make someone feel like like I've had people tell me like wow, after our session, I just like went and did all the things I needed to do because I was so energized by everything we had talked about and like I, you know, I just had all these different ideas like it's what we were talking about, this inspiration that happens. So they were just like I had all these ideas that were related to all this stuff and then, like you know, I didn't stop writing for an hour or whatever you know.
Speaker 1:So I can't remember now your original question, but Me neither, because I'm fascinated by this. It's, that's how, that's how. Yeah, I can't remember exactly what you was. That's how. Yeah, I can't remember exactly what you was. You asked something about how, how I work, and that's like emerge with this emergent process of what's coming up right now, because I actually think it's so practical. It seems maybe on the outside from our like logistical brains that it's not the practical thing to do, but in my experience it is usually the most practical thing for me to do, but in my experience it is usually the most practical thing for me to do, because we're so embedded in the patterns of our lives, so like in so many different ways, in so many different layers, that it's going to show most people want to avoid the present moment.
Speaker 2:And so you're literally saying like you want to work on all these things. They're here, they're, they're here in the room with us.
Speaker 1:yes, exactly they're here right now. Like what do you want to talk to them right now?
Speaker 2:right, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and I think that is the hardest. I find that the hardest sell to someone who's not familiar with this kind of stuff. You're like it seems like we're just going way left field and trying this like rando thing, but you're actually saying no, like I took everything that you said and also I want to pull in, like can I find you? There you are. Oh, look, all those things that you said, they're kind of like they're here, but like we have to find it together and it's not going to again.
Speaker 1:It's not going to look how you think it's going to look. Yeah, it might surprise you. There might be things I think there's like there might be pieces that you forgot about or didn't realize were connected or didn't realize you were having this feeling about this thing that's impacting the way that you've been working on it. You know, love this, yeah.
Speaker 2:What have we not talked about? About creativity that you want to make sure we talk about today?
Speaker 1:No, I think we talked about a lot of things that are really that I like, I don't know that I have one, I don't have an agenda. I really I appreciate all the things that we have talked about.
Speaker 2:I love it If people want to talk to you about creativity or impasse or the type of work that you do, or they want to work with you. Where can they find?
Speaker 1:you. They can find me through my website, which is mariecbroadwaycom.
Speaker 2:Booyah Marie. Thank you for coming on the Identity Podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Kim, Thanks for having me. This was so fun to jam with you on all this stuff. I'm like, oh, just like every time. We're just like opening doors looking to see what's in there. We're so curious. We're like curious little.
Speaker 2:I don't know this movement, curious little creatures. Every time I get to talk to you, you just make my brain go All right everybody, Thanks so much for tuning in Well, I'll see you next time, Thank you, Thank you.