Different Strokes: How Creativity Helps Us Process Life

We all have different ways of processing life. Some people run, some people travel, some people garden and some of us write.

In this episode of They Call Me T, I explore how creativity became my outlet for navigating heartbreak, uncertainty, growth, and self-discovery. From poetry and journaling to storytelling and screenwriting, we talk about the different ways people heal, process emotions, and reconnect with themselves.

If you've ever wondered whether creativity can be a form of self-care, healing, or personal growth, this episode is for you.

Because sometimes the goal isn't finding the right way, it's finding your way.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Whenever life gets difficult, I create. Not because I'm trying to make art, not because I'm trying to be productive, and certainly not because I'm trying to impress anyone. I create because it's how I survive certain seasons of my life. Sometimes it's a poem, sometimes it's a simple journal entry, sometimes it's a screenplay, and sometimes it's a story that nobody will ever read. But almost every time it's something. I've written through heartbreak, I've written through confusion, I've written through disappointment, I've written through uncertainty. And what I've discovered is that I don't always know what I'm feeling until I see it staring back at me from a page. It's strange, really, actually. It's it's actually quite strange. And sometimes the poem understands me before I understand myself. Sometimes the journal entry says the thing I've been avoiding. Sometimes the screenplay reveals what I'm actually afraid of. And that's what got me thinking about today's episode: Different Strokes. Because creativity is my outlet. It's my refuge. It's one of the ways I process the world. But it may not be yours, and that's okay. Because the truth is, we all have different ways of making it through difficult times, different ways of healing, different ways of coping, and different ways of returning to ourselves. Hello everyone. Welcome back to They Call Me T. I'm your host T, storyteller, poet, creative spirit, and someone who has spent most of her life trying to make sense of the world through words. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you're new here, welcome. If you've been around for a while, welcome back. Thank you. I love and appreciate all of you. And this is a space where storytelling meets self-discovery, where we explore life, growth, creativity, and the lessons hidden inside everyday experiences. Today's episode is Different Strokes. We're talking about something I think is deeply personal, but also incredibly universal. How do we process life? How do we make sense of what we're carrying? And why is it that what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another? So that's what we're going to talk about today. Let's get into it. It's a phrase we've all heard: different strokes for different folks. Most of us say it casually, usually when someone likes something we don't or chooses a path we wouldn't choose. But lately I've been thinking there's a lot more wisdom in that phrase than we give credit for. Because life doesn't hand us a universal instruction manual. I wish it did. I personally would use it, I think. Even though I tend to go off the rails with life sometimes, I think it would be very handy for me. And there isn't one right way to heal or one right way to create. There certainly isn't one right way to move through grief, change, uncertainty, or joy. We're all different. And because we're different, the things that restore us are different too. That's my belief. And I think for everybody, that is, you see it, you can see it firsthand, right? Everyone has different coping mechanisms. And obviously, I'm partial because I think that creativity is a great outlet. I've noticed something. Even though creativity may not be your outlet, everyone has an outlet. Even people who swear they don't. Some people run, some people cook, some people travel. I actually cook, but baking used to be another outlet of mine. And I'm a very good baker. I think I've mentioned that before. Anyways, I digress. Some people fish, some people dance, some people garden, and some people renovate entire rooms. I used to be like that. I'm not quite like that anymore. I I kind of wish I would get into that. I'd I'd love to just be upset and then just start renovating. And some of us write. The outlet isn't the important part. The important part is that it gives us something to put our energy towards when we're carrying something. And creativity found me early in my life long before I understood what it was doing for me. Long before I knew words like processing or healing. I just knew that when something happened, I wanted to write. I wanted to create. Looking back, I realized creativity wasn't a hobby. It was a language. Actually, I was at my mother's house, this was probably a couple of years ago, and I was going back through my report cards for some reason. I guess I wanted to torture myself. And I was reading some of the things the teachers were saying about me. I wish I could meet some of those teachers now. But, anyways, a lot of them were saying that I was not paying attention because I was too busy doing something else. Like them teaching was of no importance or of no interest to me because I was just so busy creating or telling a story or just doing my own thing. And I remember I wrote a story. I think I was in grade three. Actually, yeah, I was in grade three at the time. And we were tasked with writing a story. And I believe it was for Easter because I did write a very Easter-themed story. And I wrote a story about an Easter bunny. And I think we were supposed to just write a very quick story. And I wrote like a short novel, or maybe not a short novel, but a very intense story longer than what we were supposed to write. Anyways, the story was about a bunny rabbit delivering Easter eggs, which was on theme for what we were supposed to write, something to do with Easter. But my Easter bunny had a drinking problem and was drunk and was dropping all the eggs on the way to deliver them to the kids. Okay, so I don't know why I would write a story like that, but the teacher found it comical, but also was like, I think we need to talk to her parents on why she's writing a story like this. I kind of forgot that I wrote that story until I did come across it a few years back. And then I remembered, oh yeah, I wrote a story about a drunken Easter bunny trying to deliver eggs to all of the kids and dropping them on the way. Therefore, he wasn't a very good Easter bunny that day. Anyways, that was my form of creation. I don't know what I was going through at the time, but I wrote this comical piece, probably a little too advanced for a third grader to be writing or know anything about. I digress. It was a great story. My point is, is that I've been creative for a very long time. And one of the strangest things about writing is that it often knows before you do. I mean, just as I have, I'm sure you've looked back at something you wrote and thought, wow, I didn't even realize that's how I felt. I've had that happen many times, more times than I can count. The poem arrives before the understanding, the story arrives before clarity, the words arrive before the explanation. I have actually gone back and read some of my journal entries and thought, wow, I was in such a happy place, or I was really in my manifestation phase, or I was really going through it. Something I can really get a window into my emotions at the time when I read my journal entries. When I read some of my short stories, I have a complete understanding of what I was going through at the time, even if they were years and years ago. And some of those pieces that I created were absolute masterpieces, and I created them in 10 minutes. But it gave me, when I look back, it gives me a window to what I was feeling at the time. That's why I say, you know, the words arrive before the explanation. Some of the most important things I've ever written were never published. I do have some things that were published, but I have some things that nobody has read, nobody's commented on, nobody's applauded them. They existed for one reason. Because I needed them to. And that's enough. There's so many times when people write things or they create pieces, whether you're a painter, a musician, a sculptor, sometimes you create pieces out of pure joy, out of sadness, out of confusion, you know, out of stress. And they're absolute masterpieces, but you're not ready to share them because they stand for what you were feeling at that moment, and maybe you don't want anybody else to see. That's creativity at its peak, at its highest. Like that is the zenith of creative outlet, is to just do what you feel. And I knew somebody who really loved to run. That was his creative outlet. He loved to run. He would often ask if I would want to go for a run with him. And I would decline that because I have no interest in being a marathon runner. Although I do want to run a marathon once to see how well I do. Again, just to rein it in. But that was his outlet. And I admired that, that he could run 5, 10K and he felt so much better afterwards. Again, different strokes. I think social media has created a strange expectation that everything must be shared. Everything must be seen. Everything must become content. That's a big one for me. I have seen people set up their cameras, their phones, however they're doing it, just so they can cry on camera and then post it. I never understand that. Do you need attention that bad? I feel like your grief is for yourself. And however you want to grieve, if you want to sit in your room and cry, or you want to paint and cry, or you want to write and cry, that's something between you and your creative outlet. That's why I feel that social media has really taken some of those pieces away. But some things are sacred because they're private. Some things are powerful because they belong only to you. And that's an important piece to remember. Not everything needs to be shared. Creativity doesn't mean that it's creative, so everybody has to see it. Sometimes those things are very sacred and they're just for you. They're just for you to look at maybe as you create them, like as you're creating them, you can assess what you're doing, or they're for you to lock away and come back to 10 years later and be like, wow, I can't believe I did that. I know exactly what I was feeling. And either feel proud about it, or it brings you sadness, or it still brings you confusion. Whatever it does for you, it can just be for you. It doesn't always have to be something for social media. Sometimes life gives me a feeling I can't explain. Somehow it ends up in a screenplay or a story or a character. The funny thing is, is that I may think I'm writing about someone else, but eventually I realize I'm writing about myself. Like there's no way around it. I recently just did an episode about snakes and toads. I got that out of heartbreak and realizing that I had been lied to and that betrayal was something that really bothered me. So I thought, well, I should do a story about it because I guarantee you, there's so many people that have gone through the same thing. And I've actually gotten a couple of emails about it. So shout out to those people that emailed me and shared their story. There's so many things that are poured out through your creativity. And so sometimes, again, when I'm writing and I come back and I read about it, like I think it's just a character, but it's all about me, or it's about people that I've met or the experiences that I've had, whether they're good, bad, ugly, whatever. When I look at it, I know exactly what it's saying. And sometimes when you read the words that you never want to say out loud, it can be quite jarring. I have a friend who's a painter. She is the softest spoken person you'll ever meet, but her paintings are incredible. You would think that, like the loudest, crassest person painted that, but it's just her. So that's her inner personality coming out through paint. It's absolutely beautiful. I think creatives live two lives, like I was just saying about my friend. The life everyone sees and the life happening quietly inside. The notebook, the ideas, the unfinished projects. I have a plethora of those, I might add. A plethora of unfinished projects. And the thoughts that arrive at 2 a.m. I'm actually going to do an episode about that. And this is where so many people get stuck. They compare their healing to someone else's, their creativity to someone else's, their journey to someone else's. Comparison steals something important. It steals permission. Maybe that's what this episode is really about: permission. Permission to process differently, permission to heal differently, permission to create differently, permission to be yourself. What a crazy world we live in that you need permission to be yourself. I am myself all day, every day. Take it or leave it. Some people can't handle it. Some people love it. I don't know. You let me know in the comments if you love my personality that comes through this mic. But maybe that's what it's about. Permission to really be you, whatever that means. Let me ask you something. What makes you feel most like yourself? Send me a message. Let me know. Not productive, not successful, not impressive. Yourself. What makes you feel most yourself? That's an important question. I think that's a question I've asked myself over the years, especially as I've aged. What makes me feel most myself? I think that's a question that people forget to ask themselves. I think that's a question people don't feel necessary, or they don't even understand that question entirely. I think that a creative outlet, once you step back and look at what you've created, really shows who you are. I am not a painter. I can write, I can decorate, I can bake, I can do all that, but I'm not a painter. I was actually telling another friend that I paint that I'm not a painter, and she said, I don't believe you. So I started painting a picture, and I'm painting this huge canvas for my living room. And I step back and I look at it, and I cannot believe that I created that. It's beautiful. I'm almost finished. It's it's coming. But I think I'm pretty excited to have a finished product, put it in my living room, and have people ask me where I got it. And then I can proudly say, I created that. Because life pulls us away from ourselves sometimes, you know, responsibilities, heartbreak, work, stress, expectations. We need things that bring us back. And that painting that I did really brought me back to have an appreciation for myself and the full scope of my creativity. For me, creativity has always been one of those things: a notebook, a blank page, a new idea, a poem. Maybe your thing isn't writing, maybe it's gardening, maybe it's painting, maybe it's hiking, maybe it's music. Music is also my thing. Maybe it's baking, another thing of mine. That's the point. Different strokes. Can we talk about that for a second? Because I think people stop themselves before they start. I'm not good at it. That's what I was saying to my friend who's a painter and was like, I don't believe you. So what? The point isn't excellence, the point is expression. We've become obsessed with outcomes. What are you making? What are you building? What are you achieving? But not everything needs to become something. Sometimes the process is the purpose. That's what I believe. Let me know what you think. When you look back on your life, you'll probably notice that certain things that helped carry you through difficult seasons.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Maybe it was music, maybe it was faith, maybe it was family, maybe it was art. Pay attention to those things. Because life can be overwhelming.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

It can be so overwhelming. And everyone needs somewhere to go. Not to escape reality, but to reconnect with themselves. Once you find that thing, protect it. Make time for it. Honor it. Stop apologizing for it. I think creativity saved me more times than I can count. I really do. I have had extreme joy and did not know what to do with it. You know, maybe your friends don't want to hear how happy you are over and over again and how something incredibly amazing happened to you and you can't stop talking about it. I'm sure sometimes your friends don't want to listen to you rave on about it for three days straight. So I get to writing or I get to baking or I'll listen to music, but usually it's like it's writing something or it's baking. And I love to do those things. I do more writing these days than I do baking. That's my thing. That's what I like doing. And I don't have to apologize for it. That's why I think creativity has really saved me since I was a child. It's been the like outlet that has just either put things in perspective for me or just helped me navigate things a little bit better, just helped me trudge through the waters. And not because it has solved my problems. I'm not saying that creativity has always solved my problems or that it solved my problems at all. I wouldn't be actually to be honest, let me just go back. I think it has solved some of my problems. Like once I've released, if I've written something that I didn't want to say out loud and I've written it down, it's probably released a little bit of a load off of me. But it has helped me understand. And sometimes understanding is the beginning of healing. And I've been thinking about something lately. What if creativity isn't actually a talent? What if it's a human need? Think about it. If you're a person that loves to garden or loves to build things, there's so many things that humans do that just come natural to them. And so what if it's not actually a talent? What if it's a human need? Think about it. Long before social media, long before podcasts, long before films and books and galleries, people were creating. They were telling stories around fires, singing songs, painting walls, writing letters, keeping journals. I mean, when you think about it, some of the greatest things that we have discovered from ancient times is from people writing things down, stories that have been written on tablets, walls, or hand down. It's crazy. And not because they were trying to become artists, because they were trying to understand their lives. And maybe that's what creativity has always been: a way of making sense of what feels impossible to explain. Maybe creativity isn't reserved for a select few. Maybe it's available to all of us. Maybe. It just shows up differently. For some people, it's a painting. For others, it's a garden. For others, it's a meal they prepare with love. The form doesn't matter. The expression does. One of the things I've noticed is that some of my hardest experiences eventually became my most meaningful stories. Not right away. Definitely not right away. Definitely not right away. But sometimes while you're living through something difficult, all you can see is the pain. But then time passes, perspective arrives, and somehow the experience begins to transform. A heartbreak becomes a podcast episode. A disappointment becomes a poem. Betrayal becomes a screenplay idea. A confusing chapter becomes a lesson. And that's one of the gifts creativity has given me. It doesn't erase difficult experiences, but it helps me do something with them. It helps me turn wounds into wisdom, confusion into clarity, experience into expression. In fact, one of my most recent podcast episodes came directly from Heartbreak, like I was saying. One of the messages that I received was about somebody who was kind of dealing with the same thing and wrote a little story about it. And I had this conversation with this person saying, Oh, that's a great outlet. And if you don't mind, I'd love to read the story if you want to keep it to yourself. I understand that too. But yes, heartbreak can make you create masterpieces. So it was nice to have somebody message me and talk all about that. And what started as a painful experience becomes a conversation. And now it's becoming ideas, stories, possibly even films. That's remarkable when you think about it. It's quite remarkable. The very thing that hurts us can sometimes become the thing that inspires us. And that's a very important thing to remember. Like I was saying before, out of every negative thing, that can be a lesson, but it's also inspiration. Happiness is inspiration. Happiness can also teach us a lesson. Happiness can create amazing things. Some of the best movies are created out of happiness, romance films. Some of the greatest thrillers are created out of heartbreak and betrayal. But they're great films nonetheless. So what is it that you're creating? And I'm sure when you've looked back at it, even though it reminded you of something negative, you still looked back at what you created and were very proud. When you created something that was made out of happiness and joy, you looked back on that and thought, man, what a masterpiece. Different strokes for different folks.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

There might be someone listening right now who used to have a thing. A thing they loved. A thing that lit them up.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

A thing that made them lose track of time. Maybe it was writing. Maybe it was drawing. Maybe it was photography. Maybe it was music. Maybe it was dancing around the living room when nobody was watching. Maybe it was dancing around the living room naked when no one was watching. However, you want to do it. Somewhere along the way, life got busy. Responsibility showed up, bills showed up, work showed up. Other people needed things. And little by little that thing got pushed aside. Not because it stopped mattering, but because everything else felt more urgent. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. How easy it is to abandon the thing that feeds us. I was working on a screenplay a couple of years ago, and life just got so crazy busy that I stopped working on it. And I had another story that I was working on that I'm pitching to a network. And the first time I didn't get anywhere with it, and it's not quite that I gave up, but I just let life take me elsewhere. Well, now I'm working on a TV series. I'm one of the writers for a TV series that's going to be airing. And it made me think I should be working this hard on the stuff that I created. Because I fully enjoyed writing for it. I thought it was great. I'm still writing for it. We're going into production very soon. But it got me thinking, this makes me feel better. It makes me forget certain things. When life gets hard, it makes me delve into the story that I'm creating. But again, I just let life get in the way. And not because I didn't love those things that I was doing, but because we convince ourselves, and I convince myself we'll get back to it later next month, next year, when life settles down, when we have more time, when we're less tired. But what if now is the time? Think about that. What if now is the time? Most of the time, I actually let me not say most of the time. 100% of the time, now is the time. Make the time. If you were doing it and it was making you happy, don't let anything interrupt that. What if that thing you've been missing has been missing you too? Maybe the notebook is waiting. Maybe the guitar is waiting. I know my guitar certainly is waiting for me. I have put that thing down and picked it up so many times. And just the other day I was thinking, I need to give my guitar some attention. Maybe the paintbrush is waiting. Maybe the camera is waiting. Maybe there is a version of you sitting quietly in the corner saying, I'm still here. And maybe today is the day you go back and meet them again. Because sometimes we think we're looking for inspiration when really we're looking for ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

And sometimes the quicker way back is through the very thing we stopped doing. Let that marinate for a minute. Different strokes for different folks.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Maybe it's one of the wisest things we've ever said. I think it might be one of the wisest things I've ever said. And I've said some very wise things, because I'm quite wise, I I like to say, but we're all not meant to move through life the same way. We're not all meant to heal the same way. We're not all meant to create the same way. The goal isn't finding the perfect path. The goal is finding your path. The thing that helps you breathe, the thing that helps you process, the thing that helps you return to yourself.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

For me, it often begins with a blank page, a poem, a journal, a story, a screenplay. Yours might begin somewhere else. And that's okay. Because different strokes are for different folks. Thank you for spending time with me.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

If this resonated with you, please share, like, subscribe, send it to a friend who you think might be going through something, whether they're joyful or they're sad or they're confused. I love to hear from you guys. Please feel free to drop me a line at theycallmeteapod at gmail.com. I love getting messages from you. I love all my listeners from across the world. Absolutely love you guys. I appreciate you all being here. I'm T, and this has been They Call Me T. Until next time, be kind to yourself and don't forget to make space for the things that bring you back home.