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
#022: Dancing with Uncertainty Lead to Authentic Creative Expression with Anna Irvine
Anna Irvine's life trajectory changed forever when her Bulgarian aunt delivered a simple but profound diagnosis during her darkest mental health struggle: "You don't have a community." This revelation sparked a transformative journey from corporate rigidity to becoming one of Dallas's most passionate art advocates and community builders.
Born in Bulgaria during post-communist turmoil, Anna's family sought stability across continents before settling in Texas. Despite securing the "right" education and career in risk management, something was missing. When pandemic isolation triggered severe depression and anxiety, Anna found herself bedridden, hospitalized, and questioning everything. Her recovery began with a radical acceptance of uncertainty and culminated in completely reinventing her life around authentic creative expression.
What makes this conversation extraordinary is Anna's wisdom about letting go of control. She eloquently describes learning to "dance" with life rather than force specific outcomes, comparing mental health recovery to learning flexibility in both thought and action. The freedom she discovered wasn't just about changing careers—it was about shifting from external validation to self-trust and building community connections that feel like "unstoppable balls of energy."
For anyone questioning their path or feeling trapped in expectations, Anna offers liberating perspective: "You can do whatever you want in this life." Her story proves that sometimes our greatest breakdowns precede our most meaningful breakthroughs. She challenges conventional thinking about creative blocks, suggesting that rest—not pushing harder—often unlocks our best ideas and inspirations.
Follow Anna's journey as she builds spaces where artists thrive, connections flourish, and creativity becomes a healing force. Her vulnerability and insights offer a masterclass in authentic living that will inspire you to examine where you might need more community, creativity, or courage in your own life.
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For the Love of Creatives Community
How do you define a creative community?
Speaker 2:A creative community is an unstoppable ball of energy. An unstoppable ball of energy, it needs to be bursting with ideas and you know, collaborations, referrals, like just an absolute overflow of creative ideas. That, to me, defines a very healthy creative community.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to another episode of For the Love of Creatives, I'm your host, Comadics, and I've got my favorite co-host, Dwight, with me today, and today our featured guest is Anna Irvine.
Speaker 2:Anna welcome to the podcast Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to do this, having me, I'm so excited to do this.
Speaker 1:Well, we're really excited to have you. Yeah, you know, I know that, dwight. You met Anna at an event without me, so why don't you tell the listeners how you met her and how we know each other, because I know her through you?
Speaker 3:Okay, sure, Well, and I don't know if we had any interactions before, because I know that we work with the same audience. Maddox and I are trying to build a community for creatives and we're very active in the arts community in Dallas and I know that's kind of your mission as well, and I know that's kind of your mission as well, and so I really got to have some time getting to know you at an event you held at well, at the Tower Club while you were doing what it is that you're certainly building a reputation for, and it was a delightful evening. It was full of surprises and I really enjoyed getting to hear a little bit about your story, about your Bulgarian roots, and seeing that on full display. And I've got to say every time that we've ever been in your presence at one of your events you're a most gracious host and we always have such a wonderful time.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much, Dwight. I remember interacting with you. Actually, I don't remember if it was the first time, but I really made an impression in the Halloween event. Matthew's event yes, you're right.
Speaker 1:Just as you started to say that I realized I did meet you at the same time he did. I just had forgotten that.
Speaker 2:And it was so great because I loved the energy in the room that night and it was a lot of, you know, the creatives and the people that you know we run in the same circles with. And so people were like, hey, have you guys met Dwight? Have you met Dwight and Maddox? Like I was hearing about y'all, and then all of a sudden I was, and then I came face to face. I was like I, you know, figured I need to meet you, and so, um, yeah, I I'm. I think that this particular mission we have, uh, it's a mission where I think multiple people are trying to accomplish the same thing and I think we all need each other and we all need the support from one another. You know, the Dallas creative community, from the outside looking in, can appear fragmented, but there are these strings of people and connections that connect to all of us and we just kind of need to discover them. So that you know, I quite enjoyed that Halloween night when we met.
Speaker 1:Yes, I fully agree with what you just said about the fragment and the strings, and we're all working towards a common goal. I agree completely, you know. It just delights me to hear you say that. You know we bill ourselves as the Connections and Community guys and it's really delightful to hear you say that people had said to you oh, you've got to meet Maddox and Dwight before you actually met us, so we're starting to get maybe a wee bit of a reputation and that's kind of exciting.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I forgot who told me. Someone was like yeah, their events are great, they have a mailing list, like you need to get on this mailing list, and so, oh, and it kills me that I don't remember who said that, but I'm sure it was someone we both know. Yeah, somebody promoting us. I wish you.
Speaker 3:If you remember you, let us know, because we need to reach out to them and say thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm going to throw the mic to you and give you an opportunity to introduce yourself, because I know that I couldn't do it justice, so I'm going to let you toot your own horn.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, thank you. You know. It's funny because, as a curator myself, my entire job is a lot of times to promote others and to talk about other people, so I need to practice talking about myself a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Here you are, you get to practice today.
Speaker 2:So a little bit about me. I was born in Bulgaria and if you know me for longer than five minutes I promise I'll bring it up. I love my country and I love my culture and so I came here when I was around five, five-ish years old, came with my parents. They had sacrificed a lot to bring me here. You know, in Bulgaria the you know communism regime had just fallen and so there was a lot of political and economic turmoil between governments and so, like in any transitional period, they were like, oh we, we need to go somewhere else and find more economic stability. And so they left, we, they brought me to South Africa for a little bit, because that's the visa my father could secure, and then after five years, brought us here and throughout the States I've moved around, so so much my dad's technical skills are in high demand, and so we kind of moved around wherever because we were kind of at the mercy of the company that hired my father.
Speaker 2:So, and then afterwards, you know, we settled kind of here in Dallas, texas, went through most of my education here and, and then I got a degree in risk management and insurance so sexy and exciting and so that that degree was was great. I truly I do appreciate learning about risk management and about insurance. Like I feel like it's a very interesting industry if you start to study it. But I decided that I needed to pay attention to my needs first, and so I completely just dropped everything and said I'm going to start a business, and I absolutely the people around me probably thought I was crazy. They didn't say it outright, but I could definitely see the reactions of people when I told them like hey, mom, dad, you know, husband, I'm quitting and they were like, oh, okay, and what are you going to do?
Speaker 2:And I'm like art, and so they very much you know um, and so they very much, you know they were supportive, they cheered me on, but no one in my immediate circle knew how to help me, and so I decided that I was just going to have a gallery at Tower Club Dallas fell in my lap, and I can get into that a little bit later, but now I'm a gallerist and an art advocate, first and foremost, an artist advocate. I like to empower artists to say the word no and to feel comfortable with saying the word no, even to me, even to me. And the next thing is, I love to connect people, and I'm a community builder. So you know, I transitioned from one area of expertise into something completely different and I felt like I built something with my own hands from the ground up. But I didn't do it alone, because I met some awesome people along the way that have just been here to support me and be so generous in every single aspect.
Speaker 1:So that's a long-winded answer.
Speaker 2:That sounds delightful, so long winded answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds delightful and I love your determination. I'm just going to figure it out. I don't know anybody that knows how to do this, but I'm going to figure it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I feel like in the world we, we underestimate how many people are faking it in day-to-day life. Very successful people, very high level people. A lot of people don't actually know what they're doing, and it's the human condition, it's the way we are as people, and so if you are able to understand that the other people in the room are probably just as insecure as you are, then things get a lot easier to to. You know, push forward and swallow that pill, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. I hope the listeners are really getting that right now. The rest of the people in the room are probably just as insecure as you are. Yeah, so, anna, you just shared you know what age you were 26, when you exercised free will. I'm gonna, you know, go for art, but I want to know where were you? What were you doing? How old were you when you suddenly knew I want to be an artist?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah. So my entire life I've been very creative and I've created art, and in every single stage in my life people were like when I was a kid, they were like you're going to be an artist, right. And then, when I was in corporate, they were like what are you doing here, like you don't belong here. You belong somewhere way cooler. You belong to be like like a famous artist or something. And I'm and I kind of ignored people because I, you know, I was taught to value stability in life, understandably so, and I understand why my parents instilled that in me. They came from extraordinary poverty, and so it's interesting because their mindset had to be one of survival and my mindset, thankfully, never had to be one of survival.
Speaker 2:I'm so, so lucky and privileged that all of my needs throughout my entire childhood were provided for. My entire childhood were provided for, and so that's kind of the next, I guess, step is, after your needs are fulfilled, you then look for emotional fulfillment, and and so I had been, you know, doing what society tells you to do go to college, get a job. And I went to college and I got my job, and then, and then the pandemic hit and all of a sudden, my, my brain went from you know, attacking the things outside of me, such as finish school, finish exams, get a job. All of my anxieties were external and I was like solving all the external problems. Then I got a job, I got married, I settled down. Everything should be fine and dandy right. You would think.
Speaker 3:That's the script.
Speaker 2:That's the script. Well, at that point my brain I like to say that it turned on itself and I got crippling OCD and anxiety and then I freaked out. I didn't know what to do because I had never sought out any sort of mental health support in my life. And I didn't know what to do. I was like paralyzed, and so I went to a psychiatrist and a therapist and I was diagnosed with OCD and anxiety and depression.
Speaker 2:And all of a sudden, you know, I started taking medications and you know, finding the right medications is a really difficult journey for many people and it was not an easy journey for me and I fell into really, really bad mental health times. I, you know, I even had to resign my job for a little bit, for about six months. Um, the whole mental health um struggle was around a year and a half, but for six months I couldn't even work. I was bedridden. I basically didn't have the will to live. I had zero will to do anything. And it really hit me one day, when this was like a few months into being unemployed, voluntarily to get my mental health together, husband walks into the room and asks me a question and I didn't have it in me to answer my, my depression and my suicidal ideation was so severe that I I didn't even have like the energy or the will to even utter a response to him and he goes on out you need to talk to me so that I know if you're alive or not. And that was like, even even in like the haze that got through to me somehow that, like I am, I am, something happened, something went really wrong and I don't know what it is, and something went really wrong and I don't know what it is, and I had kind of been just like going, going, going, going in life. Then I hit a wall and I completely crashed and I felt like a complete shell of myself and a year and a half into this mental health depression situation, I had lost a lot. I lost my job, I lost my mental health, I lost, like, my physical health was deteriorating, like I I had very little except for, you know and this is to me now. I know it's a lot I had a lot, I had people who loved me, but at the time I felt like I'd screwed everything up, that I had nothing left to live for, and I was, you know, and and I was hospitalized on a number of occasions I hospitalized myself to protect myself because I didn't trust me.
Speaker 2:And so I I say this for a very uh, you know tangible reason, which is I want to destigmatize this discussion around mental health. I don't want people to be ashamed to say that they experienced suicidal ideation, that they experienced extreme depression and OCD and anxiety. It happens and it can happen to anybody. It can happen no matter how much you prepared in life and no matter how resilient you think you are. You know went to Bulgaria with my aunt and she looked, took one look at me and she was like I know what's wrong with you. And I was like enlighten me please. And like, cause I've been trying to figure this out for a year and a half, please tell me. She's like you don't have a community.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, she was so wise yeah, and I was like what does community have to do with the fact that my brain is broken? She's like it has everything to do with the fact that your brain is broken wise woman she, she's like that's you have, like because of the um pandemic, you were isolated, you were.
Speaker 2:You had nobody to talk to. There was no coping mechanism and structure around you about everything happening on in the world. You don't have a community. She's like name, name, like 10 people you can call right now and I was like I can't, I really can't. And so you know that that really like set off a light bulb and at that point I was super motivated to get better, like really motivated. I was super motivated to get better, like really motivated.
Speaker 2:And you know, with my psychiatrist, I came back to the States and we worked a solution out with my medications and I got better and better. But it was a lot of like. I had to make decisions, tough decisions, because I knew that the status quo was not working. And so within three months from that meeting, I felt well enough for my psychiatrist to start deprescribing me entirely and and then, within six months, I got my job back. And then, you know, I, within you know, another few months, I was basically like, okay, I, I, I, my brain was back to. You know what it was before? And and then I had this job and I was like, now that I have my life back and I have everything that I wanted back, um am I living authentically? I'm 26 years old. I, you know, I I went through probably like the worst mental health experience that I've, that I've ever seen anybody go through. I up until that point, I had never experienced severe mental health problems with anyone else, so I was like I miraculously came back from this.
Speaker 2:I need to actually do what I want to do in life, and so I decided that I was just going to do it drop everything, because nothing is worse than what I experienced with my mental health struggles. Nothing could possibly top that in a million years. So I'm like, no matter what kind of uncertainty and stress and um insecurity I might face, I've already faced the worst. The worst like there is for myself. And I was like and I made it out alive, which is miraculous, like the fact that I'm alive today is like a miracle in and of itself. And so I was like I need to live a real, authentic life where this doesn't happen again, where I don't feel like, where I don't lose the will to live. I need to create purpose for myself out of out of thin air. I must. I'm responsible for creating it for me.
Speaker 3:Out of thin air I'm responsible for creating it for me. You're telling versions of our story. It's really hard for me to receive this and not be taken back to my own pandemic experience where I was caring for my husband. We'd been together for 20 years years and he had advanced liver disease. We had to deal with that while the entire healthcare system was under stress.
Speaker 3:It was the worst possible time and it drew us closer, but the thing was, we learned to cherish what we had once taken for granted and when everything started opening up, he didn't make it, he. He passed away, just as vaccines were, and I was plunged down into a deep, dark hole of grief. And if it weren't for some people who intervened you know we talk Maddox and I talk about how we were both reading the same book. Well, the author of the two-hour cocktail party gave me the nudge that I needed to focus on something outside of myself and to find that cure that is community to to build it. And and that's eventually how we both met- yeah, yeah, I'm so sorry for your loss.
Speaker 2:That's losing a spouse or a family member can really like alter your brain chemistry and really completely.
Speaker 2:you know, mess with it, and it's I. It takes courage to go to the next day. It takes courage even though, like you don't know what the next day holds. You don't even know if you're going to make it the next day, but it's like you make it one day at a time. There were so many days, I remember I would just like I would even live hour by hour. I would be like I'm just trying to make it to 6pm. If I can make it to 6pm, I can make it then to 7pm. I'll worry about that hour when I get there. And and it's just that's why, like, like, when I see people who are struggling, my first question is you know, do you have community around you? Because the people that were there for you, dwight, like I'm sure you're never going to forget them.
Speaker 3:Oh, never and you'll never forget.
Speaker 2:You know, there were a handful of people that reached out to me, and it was. It was people I never expected. Um, one of them was a childhood best friend that we hadn't talked in forever and she would call me every single day and she'd be like how are you today? And I'm like not good. She's like it's okay. And of all the people in the world you know, I would have thought you know certain, you know whatever bridesmaids or this or that and the other would reach out. But it was. You know whatever bridesmaids or this or that and the other would reach out, but it was. You know, a completely like person who wasn't involved in my day-to-day life but they inserted themselves to make sure I was okay and it's like that's. It's the most random thing ever, but it's so refreshing for me now to think about that person in such a new way that if I had never gone through that struggle, I would have never known that they had that deep, compassionate side to them Sounds like a guardian angel to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, ana, you're very, very right. This is a conversation that we don't have. That needs to be normalized, it needs to be. This conversation needs to happen and you've gone deep, and thank you for that. I just want to honor the vulnerability and the authenticity. You've gone deep. Are you willing to go a little deeper?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You realized that you didn't have community. Based on what your aunt said to you, you started to make changes. You knew you had to create a life that was about you and you let go of a lot of things and you let go of a lot of things. I'm wondering that internal process. You know, we have things that we believe about ourselves. We have things that we believe about the world at large. We have things that we believe about people. Sometimes we have limiting beliefs, sometimes we have limiting beliefs, sometimes we have all kinds of things. What would you say had to shift in you? What did you have to let go of and what did you have to embrace to make that shift from a corporate job and a life that was not around community, that was literally sucking life out of you? What were the internal shifts that had to happen? And please feel free to go into detail.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the overarching theme of all the shifts and I'll go deeper is is, uh, is control. Um, before I had let go of control, life was stressful. Everything was stressful. Um, I would be far too consumed with what one or two or individual people thought about me, what my parents thought, what my friends thought and what people expected of me, or even the expectations I had of myself. I was like you know, I'm going to be in control and I'm going to determine everything, and everything is going to go this exact way. And there's this one particular song that really helped me process my mental health journey. And have you guys heard of the artist Ren?
Speaker 2:I don't think so he's a UK artist and he sings about mental health struggles and he has this song called Hi Ren, where he talks to himself in this and at the very end of the song there's a monologue that is, um, basically like life. Life as he, is an eternal dance between good and evil and there is no real winners or losers in psychological warfare. There are just students and this dance between good and bad stages of your mental health. The more rigid you become, the more you're going to stumble and the more difficult this thing called life becomes. And in fact, paradoxically, as soon as you let go control, the dance becomes easier and you become, you begin to like almost flow with the waves of of life. And once you start to practice your loosening up and not being as rigid, making and this can be in small things in life making big, consequential decisions becomes much easier.
Speaker 2:You know I had already learned how to ebb and flow with my intrusive thoughts. Some days my intrusive thoughts were really really bad, really nasty, and other days that I felt great, um, but I had to let go of any expectation of how the day would go If, if I had really bad thoughts. You know I would need to just let it go. It's okay. You know it could be the most horrific thoughts you've ever. You know I would need to just let it go. It's okay. You know it could be the most horrific thoughts you've ever, you know, thought of. It's okay, it'll pass. Don't harbor them, don't analyze the thoughts, don't obsess over them. They will pass.
Speaker 2:And in that same way, when I learned to ebb and flow and dance with my thoughts almost then you begin to learn to do the dance in line and I realized that me being rigid with the way that my life was supposed to be structured was not working and it was not going to be good for sustainable happiness and longevity. So I had to learn to completely let go control of other people's perceptions of me. They don't matter. People's perceptions of me they don't matter. What matters is if I'm happy every single day of my life. My parents aren't showing up to my job for me's me. So if I am unhappy with where I'm at in life, it is my responsibility and I need to take ownership of doing the things that I can to change my life. We need to be gracious with ourselves and again, it's a dance. So there are many things you can't control and not letting those things bog you down is so, so important in this game.
Speaker 2:Life is very much like a game and if you're obsessed with everything going your way, far more things will not go your way. But if you're able to like, have flexibility in your psyche almost, and say, okay, this thing happened to me, that's okay, I have another idea, we have a plan B, plan C. We'll figure it out as we go. I often approach life almost with no plan. I approach life with like however this day happens, it happens. I have a list of things I want to accomplish. Of course, if I accomplish them, cool. Most likely I won't even accomplish a third of those things. If I'm being honest, most likely I won't even accomplish a third of those things. If I'm being honest, because things show up.
Speaker 2:But it's the way that I was able to transition my mindset from living for others and living for myself was completely surrendering and forfeiting any sort of control of what happens to me and then also taking control of the things that I can immediately impact. That would be able to put me in the next step forward in my journey. So you know, it can be a little confusing because you're trying to think okay, what do I let go control of? You need to let go control of other people's perceptions and you need to gain control of your vision in life, what the value you want to live out. It's more so about like how do you want to see yourself in 10 years? Do you want to be a person with a big community around you and and and you know have a wonderful career that you love? Then you need to take actionable steps every single day, little by little, to build the life you want.
Speaker 1:Ana, I just want to acknowledge and celebrate you and I want you to really accept this. I want you to really let this sink in. I want to to really accept this. I want you to really let this sink in. I want to acknowledge and celebrate you because I am listening to you tell me that you have gotten one of life's lessons at a very early age, I might add, and I can tell you, I've been on the planet for a lot of years and there are people all around us that will live out their life and die without ever getting the lesson that you are describing right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And there's something else. You've talked a lot about the control issues and you know, I think on some level we all have some level of that. I know I do. But I want to call something else out, and not because I don't think you realize it, but I want to make sure that the listener really gets it.
Speaker 1:Because what you're describing, aside from the control issue, is you're describing moving from external validation to internal and self-validation, and it's important to point out that when we need external validation, that's a hole that can never, ever be filled. It doesn't matter how much external validation you get, it will never be enough. And when we're seeking that, it is very elusive. The more you seek it, the less you actually find it. Tell me, if you experienced this when you got to the point where you realized that it was time for you to validate yourself and you begin to actually give yourself that validation, did you find that suddenly everybody around you was giving you the validation that you had sought but couldn't get? Now you don't really need it because you have your own validation, but here it comes in a frigging flood.
Speaker 2:That's so true. I mean, I will say I grew up being a very like. I wanted attention. My whole life as a kid I craved attention. I loved being the center of attention and I loved it when, when people kind of bragged on me. And, like you said, the more you seek that, the less you will find it. And and after my mental health journey, I mean I spent many hours alone with my brain and trust me and believe that is not a fun thing to have to do, but I did it it's a necessary thing though it is a necessary, and when you have hours of being with yourself and nobody else, um, your brain begins to completely restructure.
Speaker 2:And now, like you said, in my day-to-day life, when I do things, the first thought in my mind is never I'll get applause for this. That is like the last thing on my priority list right now is getting accolades and applause for things that I'm doing. But now, after every event, I mean I'm like I get home my feet hurt, my back hurts, you know. I'm getting ready for bed, I'm starving. I asked my husband to take me to Taco Bell to eat a sandwich. And then I'm scrolling through like dozens of messages on Instagram and text messages just like wow, anna, what a great event, wow, what a great curation, what a great vibe, what a great energy. And it's just like the influx of the outpouring of appreciation and love that I almost forget that. That's kind of what the goal was.
Speaker 2:I was so focused on the task and about getting the thing done and then finally, like the, the event happens and community is starting to build and connections are being made, and then someone goes oh good job, anna.
Speaker 2:And I like completely forget that. I'm like I made it happen and I was, I was the consequential piece of putting this together and I almost, like I almost took myself out of the equation mentally, but that's what it took for me to be able to finally get that external validation. But you said, maddox, I don't even necessarily need it anymore. I kind of just I accept it and I appreciate it, but I it's like I I almost love how much that, like I could receive it and it's nice. But I could also not receive it and feel so fulfilled and so happy that I just like I'm bursting with joy, like this euphoria, after every single event, because I'm like, wow, people engaged with the art People really were talking about like they were talking with the artists, they were asking really good questions, and and so it takes at this point it takes other people to point out to me the job that I'm doing, because I don't even like recognize how good of a job I'm doing half the time.
Speaker 1:You know the world treats us as we treat ourselves. You know, when you started to give yourself credit, then the world followed suit. You know, when we beat ourselves up, the world beats us up. Everything in in life is a mirror.
Speaker 2:People are mirrors, the world is mirror, our experiences are mirrors and you're seeing the effect of that yeah, and that's a really good point your life is and this is, of course, there's a lot of nuance with this, but I think we're getting to the point where, as individuals, there is some level of accountability we have to take for where our life is and where how we ended up where we are today. Of course, there are circumstances that are extraneous, that are you know, that can absolutely cause someone's life to get derailed, but in the majority of the circumstances that I see with at least my friends around me and whatever family members is many of life's like the situation you are in. Your life has a lot to do with the passive, even passive decisions you made, the decisions that you maybe didn't think that you were making, but you were making them. Even lack of action is a decision.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, to not decide is to decide. Yes, it is not your dream is a decision. Like I had to delete for months. I had to delete a ton of social media in order to focus and get a business off the ground, with all the legal paperwork, trademarking, everything I. I spent months sacrificing you know events with friends in order to go to more so industry art events. Like not making sacrifices for what you want in the future is also a decision and people need to understand that.
Speaker 1:Yes, in all that you're sharing what you're doing in this process of the story right now. What was the number one motivator? Like the motivator, the carrot that hung out there that kept you going, no matter what carrot that hung out there, that kept you going, no matter what.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm just so happy to have my life back. That's like, now that I have my life back, like people don't realize you can do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. You are an adult. You can do whatever you want in this life. If you want to go be like a chicken farmer, like you can go do. Like if I wanted to get up tomorrow and have a farm of alpacas, I could. I'll figure it out. I'm sure I could figure out how to get a farm of alpacas.
Speaker 2:Like people like oh, I hate my job, I hate this, I hate that. And it's like you have free will and people don't realize that until all of a sudden your life gets stripped away from you, right, and you're like wait, wait, there were so many things I wanted to do, then do them. Then do them. Because I was also like that, like I I was, my brain was broken and I was so, so mentally ill and I I was like I screwed up. I had so many things I wanted to do in this life and I screwed up. I had so many things I wanted to do in this life and I screwed up. And then I got my, my mental strength and clarity back and and I'm like well, all of those things that I wanted to do when I was very ill, let me go ahead and do them now, because it's like, if not now, then like I don't know when that's going to happen. You know, we're not getting any younger.
Speaker 3:If not now, when exactly? Well, I'm sure that you have a great deal of clarity and it sounds like you can appreciate the underlying message and stories like the matrix.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like, once you, once you see what's really there, there you're. You're not as affected by the illusion that everyone is trapped in right it is.
Speaker 2:It's like I feel like so many people are almost in a trance or in like like a uh, hypnotizing, like so I don't know, like sometimes I wish people would just like snap out of it and and realize that the life that they have, they can, they can mold it into what they want. And it's not easy, it's never going to be easy. Nothing good, not nothing. Most good things don't come easily, and it's just the fact of the matter. And the sooner that you accept accountability for your own emotions and happiness in life, the sooner you're going to be able to accomplish the life that you so much want.
Speaker 3:I love that. That's an important lesson.
Speaker 1:You're an excellent storyteller.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Thank you Excellent. You've made our job as hosts super simple. You just like wow, what a story. Thank, you.
Speaker 3:So let's transition to something a little bit more on the sunnier side, hopefully, maddox, it's time for our rapid fire questions.
Speaker 1:It is. I was just fixing to say that myself, so you're just one step ahead of me, just fixing to say that myself, so you're just one step ahead of me. So three rapid fire questions for rapid fire answers. Number one what is your favorite artistic medium?
Speaker 2:If it weren't so toxic, it would be oil paints, but because of the toxic view paints. But because of the toxic view I've transitioned to acrylic and I'm trying to explore myself how to use acrylic in a more oil-like fashion. But also I really appreciate fabrics integrated with canvas art, so I'm going to start exploring that in my own work as well.
Speaker 1:Oh beautiful. I can't wait to see that. Question number two how do you define a creative community?
Speaker 2:A creative community is an unstoppable ball of energy. It needs to be bursting with ideas and collaborations. Referrals like just an absolute overflow of creative ideas. That, to me, defines a very healthy creative community.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, I agree. I love that Final question how do you find inspiration when you're stuck?
Speaker 2:I feel like when people are stuck, a lot of the times they need some rest. Whenever people are stuck, it can probably maybe be from burnout or from just exhaustion, and your brain is it's trying to kind of catch up a little bit with you. So my main advice would actually be to rest a little bit.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that is so powerful.
Speaker 3:People need to hear that.
Speaker 1:And I completely agree with you. You know, I completely agree, because my inspiration does come when I'm most rested In fact I rarely ever experience creative block, but that's because I'm always, you know, taking care of that rest thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the only time I've ever experienced creative block is when I'm so tired and exhausted. Creative block is when I'm so tired and exhausted and then finally, when I'm well rested and fed and comfortable again. That's when my best ideas come.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see that completely. I love it. Ana, this has been an amazing conversation and we can't thank you enough. It's been an honor, a pleasure and, oh my God, what a story. Thank you so much for your vulnerability.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you all for having me. I love how this conversation went and I'm so honored to be able to bring my little nuggets of wisdom, even though I'm only how old am I 27 now? I 27 now, 20, yeah, I'm gonna be 28 this year. Um, I feel, like you know, I've learned a lesson or two and I'm honored to share it with your audience.
Speaker 1:and, um, and yeah, wisdom beyond your, your years absolutely thank you, thank you.