For the Love of Creatives: Unlocking the Power of Community
Imagine a space where your creative spark is truly seen, a community where people get you. That’s what Maddox and Dwight bring each week on For the Love of Creatives. As your hosts and “connections and community guys,” they dive into conversations that bridge the gap from solo journeys to powerful collaborations, transforming “me” into “we.”
In each episode, explore a variety of engaging formats, from insightful dialogues between Maddox and Dwight to conversations with everyday creatives who’ve overcome challenges to reach new heights. You’ll meet fellow artists, innovators, and heart-centered creators sharing their stories, and together, we’ll discover what it means to create, collaborate, and co-elevate.
Tune in, share, and join us each week as we celebrate the magic of community-driven creativity.
For the Love of Creatives: Unlocking the Power of Community
#017: Mental Health & Creativity: One Artist's Journey With Rich Wright
Rich Wright's powerful journey from darkness to hope will resonate with anyone who has struggled with mental health while pursuing artistic passions. After surviving a suicide attempt and twelve weeks of intensive treatment, Rich realized traditional psychiatry couldn't provide the answers he needed, sparking his quest for alternative healing that transformed his life.
Rich shares his career transitions—from fashion design for Bacardi International to jewelry making to his role as an "artist lifestyle coach"—emphasizing how creativity and spirituality became pillars of his recovery. He believes creativity isn't just an activity but a spiritual practice that channels source energy and makes the world more beautiful.
The conversation explores flow states, where creation happens effortlessly by quieting the analytical mind and letting heart-centered awareness guide the process. Rich's revolutionary perspective—"the heart is the true brain"—highlights the interplay between heart and mind.
Rich also shares a vulnerable story about a psychic medium channeling his late grandfather—a Southern Baptist minister—validating his spiritual journey beyond traditional frameworks. His eight years with an intuitive healer have brought more healing than decades of conventional therapy.
For creatives battling mental health challenges, Rich’s message is clear: "You are not alone." He understands the physical and mental drain of depression and how it can block creative flow. His parting wisdom—"be kind to your mind"—reminds us that even our toughest mental patterns began as protective mechanisms worthy of compassion.
Ready to transform your relationship with creativity and mental health? Connect with Rich's work to discover how heart-centered awareness can unlock your artistic potential and lead to profound healing.
Rich's Profile
The Artist Recovery
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For the Love of Creatives Community
So it's continuing to pull and surround and provide source and protection and nourishment, all of those types of things. So when something slips out of that community, the community becomes stronger and amplifies to be able to take care of what was just lost. And I think that in today's society, if we can get to that and get back to that type of a thought process about community and being strong together as community, then that in and of itself can help build something even more beautiful today.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another edition of For the Love of Creatives podcast. I am your host, Dwight, and I'm joined by our host, Maddox, and today the Connection and Community guys are joined by our featured guest, Rich Wright.
Speaker 1:Hey Rich, Thanks for having me. I appreciate it All. Right Appreciate your interest.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, we're so glad that you could join us. I learned a little bit about all of the things that you've done done and it seems like you've been on quite a journey. Even uh from childhood, you know, you've been engaged in creative activities from uh from drawing design, uh working with uh world known music acts and uh doing all kinds of things. Um, could you tell our listeners just a little bit about who you are and what you're about?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a artist and a designer and I've just recently shifted gears into what I've coined becoming an artist lifestyle coach and focusing on mental health within the creative community.
Speaker 1:Because myself I've dealt with mental health struggles since I was a kid and that is about halfway through my life.
Speaker 1:I attempted suicide, ended up in the hospital for six weeks, did six weeks outpatient after that and then, you know, went back into trying to find a job, trying to be creative, all of those different things and over the course of my entire career as a creative course of my entire career as a creative, even just starting out when I was a kid being creative, I've had to kind of navigate that and at this point in time in life I feel like I need to shift from focusing on trying to be the artist or trying to be the designer and succeed at that and shift into bringing my perspective and how I've dealt with mental health into the creative community.
Speaker 1:And let them know you are not alone. I understand that feeling. I understand what the brain does during those times. I understand how physically draining that is, how at times that blocks the creative flow. I understand what it's like to stand on the edge of life and death and step off. So I want all creatives, artists, all creatives to know you are not alone. There is somebody that completely understands the full spectrum of what it's like to be a creative and deal with mental health struggles.
Speaker 3:I think there's a big need for that. Rich, I think you're onto something, and I personally have not seen anybody else out there. I haven't searched it, but I haven't seen a lot of that present.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not. Well, we don't have that in society in general. We don't we shy away from that issue, correct, Correct, general. We don't we shy away from that issue, correct, correct. And there's many studies that are going on, even more prevalent lately, in terms of a shift between whether or not the brain is the true brain or whether the heart is the true brain, and from what I've experienced, my belief is that potentially, the heart is the true brain.
Speaker 1:The regular brain is just the one that helps us navigate, and if we could potentially shift into working with both in unison the heart and the mind then things might smooth out a little more. And that's part of what I want to bring into the discussion as well, because a lot of the years of me going to psychiatrists and psychologists working with even University of Michigan Depression Center and being told by them that we cannot help you, and so just imagine what that might feel like if you're literally going to one of the top universities in the country who's studying depression on a longitudinal basis with many patients and they say we can't help you. That's the most confusing thing that you might could ever experience. And so, with that, one of the things that's always been instinctive for me is to continuously search, search for alternatives, search for something that could help me heal, and through that I've been able to transition into alternative healing modalities. And you know, later on in the conversation we can circle back to that and I can expound on that a bit more.
Speaker 1:But that, in a nutshell, is kind of who I am. Like you mentioned, dwight, I've had quite an extensive career, not just in one field or industry. I've kind of broadened it and jumped into fashion, I've jumped into jewelry design, tried to be just a graphic designer, tried to be a fine artist and I've done all those things. They just haven't been sustainable up to this point with being in each one, although during the time periods of being in those fields I was able to do quite a few things that might look fantastic on a resume, but unless they're sustainable, it's just another resume.
Speaker 2:Sure, I'm curious if, in your searching, you came across the work of the HeartMath Institute.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, absolutely. I've looked at that quite a few times. One of the things for me with that and again, as I'm speaking these things, I want everybody to be clear and understand that I'm giving this from my perspective, so it may work for you, it may not work for you, and I want that to be clear as well, but from my experience, I have looked at the heart math. I have a heart math device. The block that I have in my mind is part of the breath work that goes into play with that, and so that's something that I have to continue to work on, and eventually I believe I will get there to where I'm able to stay focused with the breath long enough to integrate it.
Speaker 3:But as of yet.
Speaker 1:I'm still learning, aren't we all?
Speaker 3:And what would we do if we weren't? Oh my God. You know, yeah, we were exposed to HeartMath about a year ago and I bought the device, and life has been so full this year that it's in a drawer, still in the box. I never got it out and played with it or even found out exactly what it's about someday. But you said something a minute ago that I kind of want to backtrack to for just a second. You were talking about science telling you they just didn't have an answer for you. I kind of have always felt like when science comes to the end of its rope and doesn't have anything else to offer, that, for me, has been where the slack has been taken up through spirituality.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, science is about the things that we can see and we can. We can quantify it and we can qualify it and all those other things that we can measure it.
Speaker 1:And spirit is the unseen, the things that we can't see and can't prove. Yet for many of us we know truly important. And I say that because for most of my life I would say from second grade, so six, seven years on, so six, seven years on has been rooted in fundamental Baptist religion. Up until seven, my parents weren't really into it that much, but I had a grandfather on my mom's side and all of my, all of my family's, from east tennessee, um, so if there's a note or hint of any accent there, it's just because I've been around that for many years, um, but my mother's father was a southern baptist minister. So I've had to be ingrained in that for most of my life. And then into some of the college experience that I had, and the thing that I felt through that was that I was never getting the full truth out of it. It always felt like, okay, you're being told this, but this is only a part of it. That was my sense, my feeling, my intuition, that was my internal, uh, guide, saying wait, there's, it's not expanded enough, it's not, um, expressed enough, it's, they're just giving you part, giving you a part. So, with that structure, if you can imagine having being told. You know, you have to respect your elders, you have to listen to your elders, because they're the ones who are the guides that are going to direct you in life. But yet my own intuition, my own internal guide, was telling me, telling me this is not the way, this is not it, this is not it um. And so, with that um, later on in life I had an experience where a friend of mine who's a psychic um happened to start channeling um a message to me and, ironically, that message was coming from my grandfather who had passed, who was the Southern Baptist minister. Now, if you could catch the irony of that right, which I think is the point of it all, was the fact that he was coming through and he was letting me know because she had no idea of any of this information whatsoever. And I didn't know it because it was based on an experience him and I had when I was a kid, working out baling hay, and then we were hot and sweaty after the fact and went to town and, you know, just hung out, cooled off, and so the message that he was bringing through he was describing this experience that we had together and it was in such detail, all the way down to the label of what we got to quench that thirst within us. And what's unique about that was that was only a regional product. At that point in time, it wasn't anything that we had here in Michigan. So he expressed that.
Speaker 1:And then he also came through and said to me you already know everything you need to know and you need to just trust yourself, because everything that you've thought and believed up to this point is real, and it's even more so. Allow yourself the grace to step into that. And then, within that same reading, another friend that I know and knew and I say knew because she had passed on and she was actually murdered in a horrific way she came through and she said you are a good man and thank you for being that in my presence. So, from that point on, that's where I started my journey of looking at spirituality, alternative healing methods and different things of that aspect, which allowed me to start to open up, allowed my intuition to become more in tune, more intact, allowed my empathy to start to expand even more so.
Speaker 1:But those are the things where I believe what you're trying to get across, maddox, is the fact that science is not just the only thing. If the spirituality is not brought into the picture, then you don't have a full spectrum understanding of any of it. I agree Fully, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think our answers are going to be found in the merging of science and spirituality. I don't think it's an either, or I think it's an, and Absolutely. You know it's like the science is like the brain. The science is like the brain, you know, it's very concrete, and spirituality is more like the heart. It's ethereal and fluid. I believe in all that stuff. You know I don't talk about it very much, but I say the term loosely because people get a little weird when you start talking about channeling. But every ounce of my creativity is channeled, every ounce of it. It just comes through and you know, for me, I know exactly where it's coming from, right? Yes, you know, I know it is coming from source. It's coming from Right. Yes, you know, I know it is coming from source. It's coming from higher power, god, whatever word you got for it. Yeah, I'm very much a deeply spiritual person, of a big believer, and I don't consider myself religious at all.
Speaker 3:I was opposite story in that my parents were churchgoers when I was a small child and there was something that came about in our lives. My dad opened a business when I was 11 years old. We moved to a new city and he opened a business and the business was something that he had to work at seven days a week, so couldn't go to church, and so we stopped going to church and I look back on that with immense gratitude, immense gratitude. It never Now later in life, I attended a church for a period of time, for about 10 years, but it was very spirit-based, very spirit-based, but for the most part I have that journey has been more of a solo journey. I get my community needs met in different ways other than church.
Speaker 1:A little bit of that, because it was a part of my story. But within the Bible it says where two or more are gathered, I'm there with you. Yes, so you don't have to be inside a building to be in church.
Speaker 1:You don't have to be under an umbrella of Baptist, methodist, presbyterian, pentecostal, any of the above. You don't have to be under those umbrellas to be spiritual or to be in church, as long as you are speaking about it in a sense. That's what it is. What we're doing right here, in a sense, is church it is. We brought up the topic of spirituality and we are communing, correct?
Speaker 3:exactly, and there are two, two or more of us, you're exactly, you're right, amen yeah, yeah, um, I I've always believed that God is not in a building spirit. God divine, whatever label, it's in me, it's in my heart. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I don't have to go anywhere to connect, it's just right here. Yeah, tell me how you feel about what I'm about to say, rich. I fully believe that our spiritual nature, whether we're aware of it or not, is a big part of creation, oh, 100% plus agreed.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think everything is spiritual, but there are people that are not consciously part of that and then there are people that are consciously part of that. I personally believe that that has. It's just like community. Community enhances whatever it is that you're doing. Yes, If you're working on mental health, if you're working on staying sober or drug addiction, or you're working on overcoming abuse, it doesn't matter what it is. Community speeds that process up, gives us things that we wouldn't have had if we were going solo. The same is true for creativity.
Speaker 1:Absolutely 100% plus, agreed on that. I believe that, again, that's part of what I'm trying to bring to the forefront as well within communities the fact that if creatives and artists can get to a place of healing, if they're struggling, the amount of light that will expound out of their work will change the world. Because when we're creating and we slip into that flow state, that state of being where all perception of space and time dissipates and creatives will understand this, what I'm saying, because I'm sure that they've probably experienced it at some point in time you slip into a state where you're just fully in creation and that, essentially, is tied just to source energy, source energy of creation, tied to the Creator Himself. So if it's understood, or can be understood, that every time you put a pencil to a paper, you strike a string on a guitar, hit a key on a piano, dab your brush into a color of paint, that in and of itself is a spiritual practice, because you're making the world more beautiful by what you are creating.
Speaker 3:I would like to add to the list. Come up with a great idea, exactly, to add to the list. Come up with a great idea. Exactly, you know it, it, um, which that in of itself can also make the world more beautiful, not necessarily visually, right, right, but there's, there's nothing that's really exempt from what you just said, correct?
Speaker 1:correct and and that, in and of itself, right there, that key phrase and sentence was what allowed me the confidence, without even knowing any of the technical aspects of it, allowed me to just jump right into fashion when I quit college because I couldn't afford to continue and I was failing every other class except for my art classes. But I jumped right into fashion and started designing, only for the and just for the simple fact that I knew I could draw what I wanted to see as a finished product. And that's what I did. I went out and I found a seamstress who I could work with, who could look at my visual drawings and then take those and turn them into 3D product. The other thing that she did for me was she taught me how to measure, how to take measurements on a human form and then translate those back into the garment that I was designing. So I didn't need the school to tell me that, I just had somebody who was experienced and already doing the work. That allowed me to expand within that field. And then I went on to do design work for Bacardi International. I was designing promotional outfits for all of their events, ended up being asked to design all of the promotional outfits for the 2001 Kentucky Derby. So that was that element that comes into play. I was asked by Absolute Vodka to be a part of their Absolute Vodka Co-Cheer Fashion Shows as a local artist when they came to Metro Detroit. When they came to Metro Detroit, not knowing or having any formal training in fashion design, that's what I was doing at that point in time.
Speaker 1:And then fast forward to 2010,. I dove headfirst into the jewelry industry, had no clue about jewelry other than I knew I could draw it, about jewelry other than I knew I could draw it. And if I could draw it, I've already seen other stuff that's on the market and it had to start from a drawing and an idea and a concept to get to that point. So if I can draw it in the way I want to see it in 3D, then I can take that paper, that piece of paper, I can go to a wax carver, I can go to a CAD designer or I can just go straight to the manufacturing company and say, look, this is my idea, this is where I'm going to create. And then they started working with me and helping me understand. Okay, this is the process of how we take this from your drawing to the finished product.
Speaker 1:Now, again, it was a learning curve and a lot of people that go to school for jewelry design or go to gemology school to understand stones and different things like that how they're cut, clarity and value of those yeah, I jumped the line, so to speak. But I don't look at it as jumping the line. I just look at it as understanding myself and what I knew and could comprehend and visually create versus what I wanted to try and learn. That was going to take up a bunch of time and take longer for me to get to where I wanted to be. So one of the key elements of that was having to learn. Everything is measured in millimeters in the jewelry industry, so it's not thinking of it as inches or centimeters or anything. It's all millimeters. So I had to start translating everything that I was drawing into millimeter perspectives and then from that it just took off and I was able to develop my own designer line of jewelry market that across the Midwest Within the first year by 2011, 2012, first quarter, we were in nine different stores throughout the Midwest with the product and then from then on it was just a matter of consistently creating and putting stuff into the marketplace.
Speaker 1:And then you know, you fast forward up to 2019, the pandemic starting to hit 2020 hits full on and the market's going up on the price of gold and silver, and it was.
Speaker 1:I had to look at it very strongly and be like this is not going to be sustainable over the next couple of years. So I went ahead and I just closed that down Now. That's not to say, at some certain point in time, that I can revive that and bring that back into the storyline, maybe what I'm doing with the artist, lifestyle coaching and have that as something that helps individuals individuals because when I started getting towards the end of the trajectory of it in terms of just a timeline, I was starting to look at it more from a chemical point of view, which played into the spirituality as well, my growth in the spiritual spirituality of my healing. I started looking at metals as ways of alchemically changing the energy and the vibration of the piece so that it could potentially be more amplified and beneficial to the person that it was going to. So if, at some point in time, I can bring that back in and fully integrate that alchemical experience into those pieces and share those in that way, who knows what could happen.
Speaker 2:I think it's interesting that you would term it that way because, as I look at the various transitions you've made in your life, you have gone through your own personal alchemy. Yes, you've transformed many times yes, absolutely, right, absolutely yes, your ability to pivot is impressive and inspiring.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you for that. You said something that I want to pull tease out a little bit more. You talked about the flow state, and I think most of us, as creatives, are certainly aware of that language, that terminology. I know I am. What is it that enables you? What is it that you do? Or space do you put yourself in? That enables you to? I mean, it would be an internal and an external thing to really put yourself in that flow energy.
Speaker 1:Really put yourself in that flow energy. So for me it may be a little bit different, and I say that just for the simple fact that I was given my gifts. My ability to create was gifted because I started so early drawing creating. I told a story the other day, related it to just Legos. Whereas when I was young we didn't have a whole lot of money, so I didn't get fantastic Christmas presents every year, I just got whatever my parents could afford. Fantastic Christmas presents every year, I just got whatever my parents could afford and I had a few Legos. But I wasn't getting full on box sets of what kids can get today, but the little bit of Legos that I got I would continuously build something out, and then the next day I would go back to it and tear it all apart and then build something else. And so for me, that creativity is always there. It never goes away. I don't, I don't ever have to try and find it.
Speaker 1:Um, to be inspired, I look at. Look to other things to be inspired, I look at. Look to other things to be inspired. I look to music, I look to fashion. Um, I look to? Um museums. I study other people's work, other people's arts. I follow many music artists and creatives um and social media, so I'm always looking at what they're doing and usually that's generating the ideas that come to me, which you'd mentioned earlier. Just an idea, bringing that to the world. But when I'm creating and it's something that I'm truly vibing with, it's a concept that I really want to dive into. A concept that I really want to dive into and I start working with it, coming up with sketches, coming up with color to play into it, or if I'm designing a product line or different things like that. For me, what happens is when I feel that energy of this is really starting to click and I'm enjoying it and I'm feeling into it energetically, because you can create something and be partly connected to it and partly disconnected to it, partly connected to it and partly disconnected to it. That disconnected component is you thinking about every single step that you're taking in that creative process.
Speaker 1:When you're in a flow state, or in that state of when you're really tuning into the energy of creation, really tuning into the energy of creation, the mind starts to fade in terms of the chatter that it's bringing up, saying you know, no, don't do it that way, no, don't do it this way. No, it's not perfect enough yet. You got to keep working on that area. When you're in that flow state, you're starting allowing the energy to keep moving, that flow state, you're starting allowing to the energy to keep moving, that gut noise dissipates and it goes away and you slip into kind of a portal for lack of a better word at this point. You slip into this portal where it's just you, the energy and the flow of creation, and that is when you can expand. That's when it starts to expand. It grows into multiple ideas and multiple things.
Speaker 1:Or, if you're staying in one singular piece that you're working on, that piece ultimately becomes something that you didn't even think it was when you first started. It becomes more than what you originally thought, what your brain was telling you you wanted it to be. It goes beyond that and becomes something completely different, which I believe those are the types of things that speak to people the most. Those are the things that touch people's lives, touch people's hearts, touch people's emotions. Those are the true connections, and that, in and of itself, starts to create a community without being necessarily a community, because whoever picks that piece up or buys that piece or is gifted that piece, the connection of line of energy, is still coming from you and you may not know who it's going to, but that line of energy is still intact. And that played into a little bit of what you spoke on earlier, maddox of things being connected all around us.
Speaker 3:You know, what you're saying has certainly played out in our experience. We ever could have possibly even conceived, when we started, just having little gatherings at our house to create more social life and to build our circle of friends. We never that was all we were doing. We thought, and the universe had a different plan and a different idea. Okay, um, I think that what you're describing plays into all kinds yes, definitely all kinds of creativity.
Speaker 3:I know, for me, the ideas just flow so easily. I don't ever have to. There's just rarely, ever, ever, a block, yeah, and it's not. But I think that oftentimes that I'm not finishing my sentences because I think faster than I can talk. Sometimes I think the when we get tripped up oftentimes is we try to force the idea. We want this idea, right, we want this idea. You know, correct, I want an idea. I'm sitting in front of the paper and I want to write a novel. I want the idea for my novel, and I don't know that it really works that way. You know, I always say you know, regardless of what you call it, god doesn't always give us what we want. Sometimes God gives us what we need Exactly, and so I just get in a quiet space.
Speaker 3:Now does the creative stuff and all the ideas come through anywhere? Any place? Yes, yes, anywhere. But the places where they show up the most are during meditation, when I'm walking out in nature, when I'm in the shower. But they come, you know, and it can come from overhearing some conversation at the next table in a restaurant. I'll just hear something that will just I'll just go, oh my God. Don't even know what they were talking about, but I just heard just enough that it sparked something, and something comes through. It could come from the words on a billboard going down the freeway, or the words of a song.
Speaker 2:We're always surrounded by it. It's just a matter of being open, and when you're in those states where you're not so easily, so readily distracted or pushed to the next thing, then you are a little more receptive, and so you can pick up on those things that may have been, and so you can pick up on those things that may have been stewing for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, dwight. That is the beauty of it, and if we're able to be able to get that message to as many creatives as possible, that just be open. Yeah, rather than trying to think it out.
Speaker 3:Don't. Don't squeeze it down and think that you've got to know what it has to look like this. Give me an idea, but it has to look like this. No, just give me the frigging idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And it just comes through. I get way more than I could ever act on Same. I get insane ideas and they're all written down somewhere or recorded somewhere and sometimes I come back to them and they start to work on them and take action on them. I'm reading a book right now and this will segue into something we briefly spoke about before we hit the record button.
Speaker 3:I'm reading a book right now where the author says, and I really I was like, yes, I get it that the ideas, that intuition and the ideas is feminine energy, but the part of us that takes action on those ideas is masculine energy, Right, Right. And people have a tendency, he says in the book, and I agree, people have a tendency to want to either pick one or the other. It's an either. Or I'm going to work in feminine energy, or I'm going to work in masculine energy. And and there's this whole, no, we don't want, you know, peanut butter in our gel, in our, our jelly, or peanut chocolate in our peanut butter, whatever. And you know, once again, there's where your creative blocks come, your, your, that the energy and that intuition and those ideas and all of that definitely come through in different forms. It's masculine or feminine.
Speaker 1:And you got to be open to both. Exactly, exactly, and if you look at it from that perspective and, for those who are not understanding the spiritual elements of what you just said, if you look at it from a scientific standpoint, the feminine is the part that holds the creation from its inception. The feminine holds the incepted concept, the idea. The child holds that for nine months, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer, but the feminine is what carries that and allows that to grow within and then eventually it comes out right. So the feminine for what? What you're saying and where I believe you're trying to get the idea across, um about the, the two to hold the creation in place and then, once it's matured to a certain point, it's allowed to come out and then, from there on, it grows even more.
Speaker 3:When. That's when you know the masculine comes in, that's when dad gets involved. I mean, dad was involved back there, certainly at some point, of course. But just the family unit itself is very symbolic of the creative process, whether it's creating a baby or creating anything. Whether it's creating a baby or creating anything, that that play of mom and dad, feminine, masculine.
Speaker 2:Never thought of it like that.
Speaker 3:Never thought of it like that, but all of a sudden I'm like connecting the dots and going oh wow, it's all around us if we just open our eyes. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:And go ahead, dwight, go ahead. I think it's funny how we can get so caught up on how we label things and, yes, when we, when we, when we call it feminine and masculine, and it's easy to relate to because they're opposites, but it also brings up a whole host of different baggage that comes along with it. I I've seen a different approach, pointing to science, where, if you were to just shift the labels just a little bit and look at different attributes, I love the work of Vanessa Van Edwards where, instead of masculine, she's focused on elements of competence versus elements of warmth. Yeah, and to be, to be effective, you have to master both and know how to dial them up and down and know how to be receptive to them when you encounter them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. That's beautiful, it's really beautiful, because that is very much true. One of the other things that I look at as well is within society. The familial structure has deteriorated to an extent and I feel at this time community is more important, as ever was because of the familial component that may not really ever met fully.
Speaker 3:I just got this intuitive hit that in current society I won't speak to past Sure Community has the power to be more valuable than family.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. I'll give you another correlation to that is always about taking care of one another, taking care of those that are in need, taking care of the whole structure and at any point in time, if there's a loss, if there's a loss of a warrior, if there's a loss of a mother, if there's a loss of a sister, a loss of a brother, the tribal community steps in to help fill that gap. So it's continuing to pull and surround and provide source and protection and nourishment, all of those types of things. So when something slips out of that community, the community becomes stronger and amplifies to be able to take care of what was just lost. And I think that in today's society, if we can get to that and get back to that type of a thought process about community and being strong together as community, then that in and of itself can help build something even more beautiful today.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, I'm thinking about my own situation. I love my family, but they're scattered all over the country, yeah, and I don't see them often, right, and they don't really know me and I don't really know them. I love them, but my community knows me way better than my family Right me way better than my family Right, and, honestly, I feel like I can't speak factually. I feel like my community believes in me on a greater level than my family does Not my family at all. They're lovely people, but I rarely see or speak to them and they don't know me.
Speaker 1:Right and that is true and I can relate to that in a sense because, like I mentioned, my family's all in East Tennessee. The only two people here in Michigan are myself. The only two people here in Michigan are myself and my mother. At this point my dad has passed but I grew up kind of being separated from the family because we were all here in Michigan and my dad brought my mom up here in the 60s just for the simple fact that work was more readily available here.
Speaker 1:He was a mechanic for most of my lifetime so he came up here to work on cars and they were in abundance so he was able to work and make money to provide. He didn't make a whole lot but he made enough for us to be able to be sustained. But I didn't get to grow up with my cousins. I didn't get to grow up being around my aunts and uncles and my grandparents and all that kind of stuff on a regular basis. So I absolutely understand that they don't know who you are, because mine don't fully know who I am as well. They don't even know.
Speaker 3:They know who they think I am. I mean, they think they know who I am, correct.
Speaker 1:Correct, and they don't even know what my healing journey has been about at all. So even that element, they don't fully know what's going on or know what's happening or know who I am today. They remember what I was when I was 10, right and running around in the yard. They remember that. They know what that was, who I was then. They don't know who I am now, though. They have a conceptual idea because of social media and different things like that. They have a conceptual idea because they can go to a website and see different things, but we're not in constant contact. We don't have communication is on daily basis or any of that type of stuff. It's even at this point. It's even farther and far between that. I have that connection and communication just because of life circumstances. So, you know, the community thing becomes important for people from that element and that side and that aspect, because a lot of times the community gets to know you more and who you are within the present tense, the present moment.
Speaker 3:I think the concept of community is very misunderstood and we actually are going to do an episode on that. Dwight and I are just going to riff on what community is and what community isn't. Now, you know, is our definition of that the gospel? No, probably not. You know, it's our definition, the way we want to operate, but the concept of community, I would say there's a lot of people that really don't really know what community is. A lot of things that we refer to as community are not community. It.
Speaker 2:they're groups, right right, yeah, exactly two different words two completely different words and two completely different energies yeah, yeah, totally well um, we are reaching a point where we need to start to draw things to a close. Um, I'd like to uh, pose to you some rapid fire questions. If you're willing to give some rapid fire answers, absolutely, I'll do my best, okay? Um, okay, you've mentioned that you've done such a variety of things. You've had to pivot so many times. What's one creative pursuit that you haven't taken on yet that you'd like to try?
Speaker 1:yet that you'd like to try. That's a hard one. I don't know if I'm going to get rapid on that. I think what I'm stepping into being an artist, lifestyle coach, I think that's. I haven't tried that, I haven't done that.
Speaker 3:Now in a sense Good answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in a sense I've. I've done that a little bit with clients over the years, but I haven't really stepped into that and embody that. So I think that's that's the creative that I want to step into and do next.
Speaker 2:That's, that's sounds like the next alchemical change.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, you know Rich. I just want to tell you, buddy, I believe in you. Yeah, Thank you. Same here. I appreciate hearing you talk and all your experiences and the way you've navigated all that. If I were experiencing some mental health issues, I would have no problem reaching out and saying, hey, you're the man.
Speaker 1:And please do. If you ever are in that state, please do. I'm fully open to that, fully fully. I believe I have to be completely open and honest about my experiences in order for it to help somebody else, so I'm willing to step into that full on Well, and you have an energy.
Speaker 3:I can feel the warmth, I can feel the compassion're. You're bringing all the ingredients to what you're doing and just I just want to acknowledge that. Thank you, yeah same.
Speaker 2:Um. Next rapid fire question. Uh, you, you have taken your own path and trying to navigate life and not necessarily followed what's safe or what's prescribed. What advice would you give to some young creative that's struggling?
Speaker 1:Number one you're not alone in your struggle. I've experienced it over and over and over. I would advise them to potentially listen to their heart, listen to their gut, maybe consider what they're being told, but don't take it on fully. Allow yourself to be experimental, because in doing so, you might find the thing that completely switches your trajectory. Be open, be curious and don't be afraid to fail. I've failed many, many times Bankruptcies, businesses, all of it. At this point, I don't give a shit. I just start over, I'll reinvent. I love it.
Speaker 3:Resilience yeah.
Speaker 2:Love it. And final rapid fire question what is the greatest gift that you can look back on your life on and appreciate?
Speaker 1:I would say my grandfather coming through that psychic medium giving me that message from the other side. Because literally that changed my mindset, my experience of what the world looked like at that point in time. I will tap in one more along with that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, in 2016, I started working with an intuitive healer. Um, her name is marilyn edwards. She's in saint augustine, florida. I've worked with her long distance, uh, the entire time that we've known each other, and it's been eight years. Now. She is another person who's completely changed my trajectory. I've grown exponentially in my healing journey over the eight years of working with her. Then I have 25 plus years of psychotherapy, cognitive therapy, working in traditional medicine. Those are the two things that I'm absolutely grateful for. Beyond words. That has changed my life.
Speaker 3:Rich, please share that information with us so we can put her in the show notes. That's a beautiful resource and she got plugged verbally, so let's let's plug her with a link so people can find her if they're interested website, richwrightunlimited or the artistrecoverycom.
Speaker 1:I have links from there as well, directly to her and any other of the resources that I have on that page Awesome.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with our listeners that we covered in this session?
Speaker 1:I would like to say that be kind to your mind. That's one of my taglines that I'm trying to integrate. But be kind to your mind because the mind is set up to protect you. At particular points in time throughout your life, you've experienced something that has hurt your spirit, your soul, uh, and created, uh, a crack in it, so to speak. Um, it's not always the right thing, but it's a mechanism that is there for future protection, going forward, and the key to being able to resolve that is shifting down into your heart space. If you can start listening to your heart, then you can have compassion for what your mind has done. So be kind to the mind and shift into your heart space, because that's when you're gonna be able to start healing and you're gonna be able to the mind and shift into your heart space, because that's when you're going to be able to start healing and you're going to be able to let your mind know Thank you for protecting me for up to this point in my life, but I've got it. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3:I love that too. Wow, Rich, this has been an amazing conversation. I feel like I know you.
Speaker 1:Same. I appreciate you guys, I appreciate you having me on, I appreciate you being open to just reaching out in the first place. And as I'm saying this, I'm loaded up with chills because I know, I know that there's a connection here that potentially can blossom um.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I'm thinking collaboration in the future. Yeah,