Being Different Together

#21 - Intentionality, Part 6: There’s More Than Two Ways to Skin a Cat

• Nyssa Hanger • Episode 21

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0:00 | 45:10

In this episode of Being Different Together, Kelly and Nyssa continue their intentionality mini-series with two Murray Landsman sayings: “Doing it does it” and “There’s more than two ways to skin a cat.” 

They unpack how taking imperfect action creates clarity, how to move through overthinking and perfectionism, and why there’s never just one “right” way to build a life, business, or relationship. 

If you struggle with procrastination, fear of doing it wrong, or waiting to feel ready before you start, this conversation offers practical, compassionate guidance for showing up more intentionally and creatively in your everyday life.

Main Topics Covered:

  • How “Doing it does it” can break you out of overthinking and get you into real-life momentum
  • The surprising link between intentionality and how you actually show up in your relationships, work, and daily life
  • Why clarity comes from engagement, not thought—and what that means for dating, business, and big life changes
  • How perfectionism disguises itself as “planning” and “strategy” (and keeps you safely stuck)
  • The coaching question Nyssa uses to unlock action: “What’s the smallest viable step?”
  • What Murray meant by “There’s more than two ways to skin a cat”—and how it challenges rigid social rules
  • The connection between creativity, anti‑perfectionism, and emotional regulation (including Virginia Satir’s “10 solutions” idea)
  • Why chronic stress and fight‑or‑flight shut down creativity—and how to find more options when you feel boxed in
  • Real-life examples: podcasting with barking dogs, tired brains, and takeout dinners… and choosing to do it anyway

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Nyssa Hanger: www.nyssahanger.com | IG: @nyssahanger

Kelly Brady: www.kellybrady.me | IG: @drkellybrady

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to Being Different Together, the podcast for people who want to make the world a better place, but no, they can't do it alone.

SPEAKER_02

I'm Dr. Kelly Brady, acupuncturist, psychotherapist, and certified dialogue therapist.

SPEAKER_03

And I'm Nissa Hanger, massage therapist, aromatherapist, coach, and real dialogue specialist.

SPEAKER_02

Together we'll explore how conversations can improve relationships, make work more joyful, and spark healing for ourselves and our communities.

SPEAKER_03

And listen, we don't shy away from the hard conversations. In fact, we welcome them. This isn't about being right.

SPEAKER_02

It's about being different together.

SPEAKER_03

I'm Nissa. I'm Kelly. And we are being different together. And here we are back to the next slide.

SPEAKER_02

That's where the jukebox karma went this morning. That's where the jukebox karma.

SPEAKER_01

We're gonna talk about intentionality today. We are so gay. Sit and hear yay. We are intentional gay today.

SPEAKER_03

That was almost it. We we got it on record. We could work on that.

SPEAKER_02

We could work on it.

SPEAKER_03

Um well welcome back. Uh I hope that you have been listening along to our intentionality series.

SPEAKER_02

If you if you were wondering, that song was entirely improvised in that moment. Oh, yeah, she did it. I'm sure you're very shocked that I hadn't been working on it for months. Because the quality. So here's the thing about the first slogan today. First slogan today is doing it does it. Doing it does it. Intentionality slogans from 1979 via the oral tradition of Dr. Murray Landsman, our memory, your mom's memory, and your memory. That's kind of where we are with this topic, right? Sure. Alright. So today's today's slogan is doing it does it.

SPEAKER_03

I want to just say before we get into that, if you are just tuning in and you have not listened to the other episodes in the intentionality series, I highly recommend that you go back, at least listen to the first episode, because that gives you the whole origin story of what we're talking about today.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. I just synopsized it. Is that a verb? It is now. I just made it a verb. Yes. I think it's fun to do that. Um yeah, so we've been talking about intentionality, and one of the things I like to ask you each time we start this series, because I think your idea of it is evolving, is you know, what's your what's your working idea about intentionality now? Now that we've been working with it, it's been it's been like a month, right?

SPEAKER_03

At least. This is I think last week was part five, so it's been more than a month. Yeah, yeah. Where are you at with your uh I mean I think I've settled into this idea that it's about how I want to show up? Intentionality is about how I want to show up in my life for myself, for other people, for the people in my life. What about you?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think that's I think that's uh that's in that's an al that's aligned with where I am with it. I think too that there's something about um not being on autopilot. And there are so many reasons I think that as a human being I am on autopilot. I mean having an unconscious mind is one and that that's the primary driver of my my thoughts, feelings, and my behaviors. This is these old, old patterns that I've been uh building on really over the course of the course of my life, right? Sure. And some of which I was born with, I suppose. And um but this the idea of being able to make a choice between consciousness and what we're doing now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Um it makes me think about um, I mean, you're the psychologist, so but there's a little bit of it when people say that.

SPEAKER_02

Well, you're the psychologist. It's normally like at a moment in a session when I've said something that really annoys somebody. Oh, you're asking. And then a question they want to know. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03

And they say, well, you're the um, I do know that there is some talk about the default mode network. Does that ring a bell?

SPEAKER_02

Oh boy. I don't know that I've had enough coffee to go to the default mode network.

SPEAKER_03

Well, my understanding of it does ring a bell is that it um puts us on autopilot. It's part of one of the things that puts us on autopilot. And it's great because um, like I didn't really have to think about how to make the coffee this morning. I just kind of did it. Actually, while I was making the coffee, I was able to think about what we're gonna talk about in this podcast. And so I think that that is engaging that default mode. I I always have a hard time saying it. Default mode, default mode network. Right.

SPEAKER_02

So the default mode network is a neurological um, it's a network of interacting brain regions, and it becomes more more active when you're not focused on an external task, actually. So what you're describing in terms of focusing on making the coffee, um, like if you're making the coffee is involved in one one part of the neural network. Now, now I'm gonna say the annoying thing. I'm not a neurologist. I'm not. All right. But the way you described, I do feel compelled to chime in because the way you describe the default mode network is um uh a little adjacent to what it actually is. Sure.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I mean I don't I don't know. It's just one of those things that floats around especially in my studies of young yan psychology.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh. Right. And that's that's because it in simple terms, it's the brain's like self-referential mode. Uh so it means it activates during daydreaming, ruminating, um, autobiographical thinking, uh imagining the future. Like it it defaults when you're just like if you're just like sitting at the kitchen table and you just drift into a reverie. Oh, okay. You know how people do that? Um, so it's as it's associated with the sense of self, with the sense of me. So my understanding of the default mode network is that it's also like I tend to it's tied to the to the ego sense, like to this is who Nissa is. This is your ego continuity, your sense of your own personal story, the way that you can in your own mind travel back and forth in time and relate to yourself, right? It's like self-re-referential. Um and so, you know, it and involve the interesting thing about it, I think, I think, is that it involves multiple areas of the brain. And I don't want to get into all that stuff. That's not really my lane.

SPEAKER_03

So it's not really involved in being on autopilot?

SPEAKER_02

Not exactly the way you described it. What you described is adjacent to that. You're really eat you know, I can't describe to you neurologically uh what you're asking me to describe because I'm not a neurologist. So if you want me to go look it up, I can. But I I want to just, you know, say that the default mode network is not exactly what you described. It's and now we're in an area where I'm just talking about shit I don't know anything about, which is pretty uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_03

So we can just let that go.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So what is intentionality for you?

SPEAKER_02

Um Yeah. It's how I want to show up. And it is this idea of of becoming more awake, of being more conscious. Right? That it's that I'm not just acting out of habit pattern or um it's about how I want to show up.

SPEAKER_03

So breaking out of the habit patterns.

SPEAKER_02

And I guess, you know, they're not only my habit patterns, but I think a lot of what I personally have worked to wake up from are some of the cultural cultural training that I received around behaving. Like in other words, how I think I'm supposed to be. How I was trained to be. Um you know, like our first slogan today is doing it does it, right? And um I mean, I I think that that really is well, what do you think? Why don't you start it off?

SPEAKER_03

With doing it does it? Yeah. Um, I mean, I can't think about that without thinking about I don't know what the exact quote is, but isn't there a a quote from Star Wars where Yoda says do is not try or try Star Wars fans will be appalled that that I I don't actually know what the quote is, but do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Yoda says do or do not do.

SPEAKER_02

There is no try.

SPEAKER_03

There we go. That's what it is. He says, do or do not. There is no try. And I had another friend that would say, you know, when I would say, Well, I'm trying, she would say, trying is not doing it. However, if you're doing it when you're trying, then doing it does it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I mean, so here's a good example of this. You know, I was talking to a a a a client recently who um had been married and divorced and then gone through some life changes, part of which was discovering that they wanted to change their relationship with drugs and alcohol, you know, entered a sobriety path. Um and so had been, you know, living singly, unpartnered, uncoupled, unpartnered for a while. And um a couple years, more more than a couple years. And wanted to get back into relationship but didn't know how to do it. Wanted to start dating again, but didn't know how to do it. So was stuck in ideas about needing to have a strategy, needing to have a plan, you know, like when these conditions were right, you know, what the the person would put all of these things in front of themselves. Oh, well, I need to lose not 10 pounds, but I need to lose 40 pounds. Um, you know, I need to uh remodel the bathroom before I have anybody over, or I need to, you know, whatever whatever were the things that would stand in the middle. Like, is that making sense, Nis? It's like that, you know, those those kinds of like the can there was this whole thing around the around the conditions needing to be right. And um one of the conversation one of the conversations that we had around this just recently was I brought up the slogan, it's been on my mind. Intentionality is but the slogans have been on my mind because we've been talking about them. I've been writing some about them, and they've been there for me. And you know, when I looked when I looked at her and said, well, you know, if you want to date, doing it does it. Like the way to date is to date.

SPEAKER_03

Right. Yeah. It's to just go out there and and date. You do the thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You do the thing.

SPEAKER_03

It does remind me of um one of my mentors says that clarity comes from engagement, not thought. And what that does for me is yeah, break break down the walls of the the planning, the thinking about the thing. You know, and that you're not you're not really gonna get clarity on on what's working and what isn't until you actually engage with what it is that you're doing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_03

And I see this a lot of time with my coaching clients, especially my business coaching clients, and I do it myself and try not to, but yeah, the idea of this continuing to just think about the thing, and it I can just figure it out in my head, but you the things in our head don't always match what can happen in material reality.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, doing it doesn't it's like anti-overthinking, right? It's anti like I'm gonna sit in this, I'm gonna have to have this fantasy about the the you know, the strategy, the hack, the thing that I can do. Um, and that needs and that's gonna need to be uh, you know, all those ducks have to be in a row. But you know, it's like if you if you get a hundred ducks in a row, there's always the hundred and first duck. There's there's always something that is not gonna exactly go the way that your your plan planned it.

SPEAKER_03

Dude, a hundred ducks in a row? I mean, my ducks are always wandering. They're always wandering. They gotta be sleeping or something for me to get them all in a row.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_03

So yeah, so there will always be Okay. We had a little bit of an interruption there, and um the dog is now in his box, and we will not be having more interruptions. Please God.

SPEAKER_02

Well, doing it does it. We had to put the dog in the crate. So, you know, I mean, it's like we talked about it a little bit and then we just had to do it. So we we did it and we're back.

SPEAKER_03

We are living, we are living this saying uh right now.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I mean, we could actually take a minute and just talk about that. So if we brought it into what we're doing right now, just in in terms of the podcast, let's just go with it. So it it it's like we have a limited amount of time every week to do the pod, right? We do. You you have a busy life, you have a full-time practice, you're taking you're helping with all the things.

SPEAKER_03

We don't have a you know, by the time the week comes by, we do not have an open schedule because we've got appointments and meetings.

SPEAKER_02

We have an hour and a half scheduled, you know, on a certain morning every week, and we um we're pretty consistent about recording because we want to stay on task. You and I are both dopamine hunters in terms of like that. Like we like the goal, we like the consistency, we like to check the box, we like to get the thing done, we're we're doing the pod, we're not gonna skip a week, we're doing it. Yeah, um, and Poppy was just like freaking out this morning, and the cat was driving him crazy. And you know, we don't have a posh recording studio somewhere off site where we're recording that doesn't have a cat and a dog chasing each other around. And um, I don't like to put the dog in the crate, period. I mean, I'll do it when we're not here because he's still kind of has a tendency to chew up all my Buddhas. Yesterday last night he chewed up a pair of my sunglasses. So, you know, I mean he he's he's still popping. He still needs a little bit of the no-no stick, you know what I mean? Like he's he just still does stuff that's um, you know, I I put it in the category of stupid shit, but anyway, he still does stuff. He was out today, and he and Jack were going, you know, Jack loves to egg him on and make him bark, and they love to do it when we're sitting at the kitchen table. As I understand it because it they think we're just having fun. He has no opportunity to record a podcast. Totally. He has no idea. No, he's not like, oh, moms are trying to record a podcast. I'm just gonna lay, I'm just gonna lay here and chew my bone like a good boy. No. He doesn't he doesn't know how to do that. So we had a moment of having to discuss do we stop doing the pod? Da da da da. And then we go, and we're doing a day. And here we are. Let's just motor on. You know, let's just motor on. And I I mean, I appreciate that about about us. I appreciate it about you, and I appreciate it about our relationship, honestly. It's like one of those places where um, you know, that could have been in a lot of case it uh that could have been an argument.

SPEAKER_03

Sure. Definitely.

SPEAKER_02

That could have been an argument. Yeah. And um we just decided to stay focused on the thing and and get her done.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and not worrying about it being perfect.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I mean that this this slogan is really anti-perfectionism, and it it is um it's just d it's just directly an encouragement to to act.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, to act.

SPEAKER_02

There's a slogan um in the 12 step rooms. I don't know if you've ever heard it, and it goes like this. It the slogan is move a muscle, change a thought. And basically what it means is you can't think yourself into right acting. You often have to act yourself into right thinking. Oh and so it's it's a good jumping off place, I think, for this slogan in that um like as I said that to you, what do you what does it make you think about? And you can't, you know, move a muscle change of thought. You can't actually when you said that first. You can't think yourself into right acting, but you can act yourself into right thinking.

SPEAKER_03

The move a muscle change of thought before you said that second part. Yeah. That you can't you can change your thinking by changing your acting. The move a muscle change of thought.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's like you can if you do the action, you'll change the thinking. People often think they need to have the right attitude before they start. I need to be positive about this. You know, before in other words, like if someone's struggling with depression, they're like, well, I need to feel good about going to therapy before I go to therapy. No.

SPEAKER_04

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so go ahead. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03

Um well, before you you clarified it, really the thing that I thought about was move a muscle, change a thought, the power of moving your body to help you feel better. Yeah. You know, it's like if you're in a bad mood, go for a walk. Which isn't, I don't think quite what the rest of that was saying, but I do think that they're related because um, yeah, I guess I guess embodiment, you know, we want to embody absolutely what it is that we're wanting to think and feel.

SPEAKER_00

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that's one of my goals. Is to embody what you want to think in my body. I mean, that's part of my intentionality, is to be more in my body. I mean, specifically, like I do want to live more in my body, and I the and there and there also is this balance like thinking is it's great, but it's also overrated. I mean, we we talk about it like thinking, you know, it's like thinking is a what's the saying about it? Thinking is a wonderful servant, but it's a terrible master.

SPEAKER_04

You ever heard that?

SPEAKER_03

That makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_02

Um, you know, there's also this idea in Buddhism, um, which is that you you know, like Buddhism is looked at as a raft that gets you from one place to the next. It gets you from one shore to the next, right? It gets you to the beyond, like it says in the in the heart sutra, beyond, beyond, truly beyond, awake, right? Which is what gate, gate, para, gate, parasam, gate, bodhisvaha means at the end of the for those of you who are Buddhist geeks like me. It means beyond, beyond, truly beyond. Like you go to the beyond. So you you use the vehicle, the great vehicle, right? You use the vehicle and you get to the other side, and then when you get to the other side, you let the vehicle go. You don't, you're not like, I'm gonna take this boat and bring it with me onto the next shore. And I right I you move beyond it. So thinking is a it's a great servant, but it's a it's a terrible master. There it there does come a place where we just gotta do.

SPEAKER_03

Totally. I mean, the amount of times that I have seen a solopreneur with I mean, I'm gonna use the term business plan, but they're not writing like business plan proper, but the ideas that they have for their business. Yeah. Even if it's not even on paper. Um, and how many times I've heard them talk about what it is that they want to do. And I'll be like, all right, well, let's get that first client. Right, right. Let's get that first client and see if it works. Right. Instead of build out this entire thing without knowing if it's gonna work or not. So yeah, I think that we get really stuck in that. And it's because of the perfectionism and the wanting it to be perfect before it, you know, goes out. And um, especially if it's something that we um feel really passionate about, I think it's it's hard because we want it, we want what we do to represent, you know, our passion and all of our ideas. But you know, Rome wasn't built in a day, like one one brick at a time.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it's this idea, like that I and I think it's ubiquitous and it's really seductive, and that's that like the clarity comes first. Well, I'll do that when I know what I want to. I I'll be once I'm clear about it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, no, clarity comes from engagement, not thought. It does, it comes from action. Interact with the actual world. Yeah. To know. Do you think laws of physics are created by people just thinking about them? I think they test them.

SPEAKER_02

You think they test them?

SPEAKER_03

That's how they become laws. I mean, not a physicist, but you know, in science, like you have your hypothesis. Right. That's the thinking part. The hypothesis, that's the thinking part. Yeah, and then you gotta test it. Exactly. Yeah, you gotta test it. Then you gotta get from data. Yeah. And guess what? That changes the hypothesis. And the hypothesis is probably based on some data, but anyways, I digress. So, yeah, doing it does it. I mean, what, you know, listener, what in your life have you been thinking about doing but not doing? And how can you one of the things that I talk about with my coaching clients is the Smallest viable action. What's the smallest viable action that you can take to start to do the thing? You know, like your client that wanted to date. Right. You know? Get on an app. Sure. Go find out. Find out if there is speed dating in your you know, like just what is the smallest thing that you can do to start to move towards that? Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Well, and it segues really nicely, like, into the next saying. And I and the next saying was one that when he when Murray said it in class, I was confused by it because it's a saying that's based on another saying. So his iteration of this saying is there's more than two ways to skin a cat.

SPEAKER_03

There's more than two ways to skin a cat.

SPEAKER_02

Which is based on the the older saying, right? What do they call those sayings? Idioms? Well, I think when we looked it up yesterday, it was called a proverb. A proverb. Okay. And the older But yeah, it's a saying. It's a saying. And the older one was there's more than one way to skin a cat.

SPEAKER_03

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

SPEAKER_02

And then Murray says, No, there's more than two. Uh-huh. And then he looks down over his glasses and giggles and smiles and winks his eye. Totally. You know? So if there's more than one, then there's more than two. If there's more than two, there might be more than three. Totally.

SPEAKER_03

There are many ways. It's, you know, even in the saying, there's more than two ways to skin a cat. I think what it means is there are many ways to to skin a cat. And so there are two different there and we now have three different ways of saying the same saying. Which is what the saying is saying.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it's funny, right? Because like human beings love like to take they love to take like a coping strategy and turn it into like a religion, right? It's it's like there's more than there's more than two ways to skin a cat, but there are some people that are like, when I get up in the morning, I have to get in a cold plunge. The cold plunge people. Like, you know what I mean? Or when I get up in the morning, I have to do I mean, you know, it's like they they want to take this stuff and turn it into this, like, do you know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_03

Well, I want I'm I'm a I I want to paraphrase maybe because I'm not not sure if I'm quite understanding. So are you saying that that when it comes to health advice, people can be pretty rigid?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_02

I think that's what I'm saying. And I mean, I think the idea of there's more than two ways to skin a cat. What what what what I think he was talking about in that moment and when he developed that saying was in the 70s. And so the in the 70s, people were really pretty anti-establishment, anti-authority. They were looking at the institutions, they were looking at religion, they were looking at what was the status quo and saying, you know what? No. In fact, in America, we don't want separate counters in the South for where black and white people can drink coffee. There's more than one way to do that. Like, this is the way it had been done in this country up until this time, and there's another way to do it. And there's more than one way to do it. Uh, you know, in the 70s, like, you know, there's more than one way to do it, meant maybe non-monogamy. Meant maybe sex uh not for the purposes of making babies because birth control is invented. Maybe there's more than one way two ways to skin a cat means it's okay to be queer. Like there's a societal part to I think what he was talking about, you know, because of the time that it came out of. Or there's more than two ways to skin a cat. It's okay for a woman to become a doctor.

SPEAKER_03

Right. So it's like breaking it's a uh I I think what I'm understanding is for you it's about breaking um maybe social boundaries, yeah, and allowing, you know, maybe more freedom um and diversity. Which, you know, this is still a theme we're working on in this world.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I mean for sure. I mean, we we've we've referenced a loke before on on the pod, you know, the uh non-binary activist, poet, comedian, um, and and one of the things a loke is one of the things being that uh activist, comedian, poet more than two ways. Yeah, definitely. One of the things that that they say is um the reason that that they as a the way that they present is so gender non-conforming becomes such a flash point, yeah, is because they are embodying something that uh that most people have a secret wish to embody. The freedom to be able to to do things in in a way that might not be along with the establishment, in a way that's not harming anyone, of course. I mean, I don't and it's I don't this could easily collapse into moral relativism and making everything okay or nihilism, nothing matters, and like that's not what we're saying. That well, it's not what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it does not directly harm someone else. I I do think that the people that are offended by it may actually interpret that as harm. Um, but I think that that's a separate conversation, probably. Um Well, sure.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, I can't say what would harm somebody. I mean, somebody might interpret it as harming.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I mean, even just people are like gay marriage, you know, allowing two people to be married, you know, two people of the same sex to be married is you know potentially harming my kids because it's teaching them that they can do that. I mean, I'm not like gonna represent that view very well because I have a very different view, right? Seeing as I am in a same-sex marriage.

SPEAKER_02

Um, but I do remember hearing that in the I would respect their right to have a heterosexual anonymous relationship, and I don't have a problem with it. I mean, I do find it a bit offensive, but I'm I mean, I would I would hate to teach that to my kids. I mean, you know, my greatest disappointment is that my daughter's heterosexual. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. But that's the whole thinking. Like when you think of it like that, it's funny, right? Because it's like there are there's more than two ways to skin a cat. I mean, I could totally flip that that narrative and say it in the other direction, then it's clear how absurd it really is. Sure. Right? Um so uh you know, more than one way, more than two ways. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Well, also it's uh going back to this doing it does it thing, it's like okay, okay. Here's the connection between the two of them for me. Right. And then I do gotta share there's one other thing about this saying I do want to sh share before we wrap up. Um is it the part about how they used to put cats in a bag? Oh boy.

SPEAKER_02

Um and so being a cat was not a real it me I I think it really meant getting rid of cats you didn't want. Yeah, no, I just yeah. And there's more than there's more than one way to do it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah um the the way that doing it does it, so if we get stuck in our thoughts about how to do a thing, and I don't know about you, but I'm thinking about how to do it right, how to do it most effective, how to do it the best. And it seems like that would be just one way, the right way, yeah the best way, right? And then I'll get stuck in that overthinking around it. Yeah. But if there's more than two ways to skin a cat, then there's no one best way. Correct.

SPEAKER_02

And as we've said in previous episodes, anything worth doing is worth doing badly.

SPEAKER_03

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02

Which is another way that these these sayings, you know, kind of get to the crux of anti-perfectionism.

SPEAKER_03

I'm like, yeah, just freaking do the thing. So I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02

What is the relationship between anti-perfectionism and creativity?

SPEAKER_03

Um What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02

Like I'm sitting here thinking about anti-perfectionism, creativity, the full.

SPEAKER_03

Well, you need anti-perfectionism to be creative. That's what I mean. I think I I need to let I mean, listen. If you're listening to this and you're on my email list, you know that I send out a week uh email pretty much every week. And I will tell you, every time I sit down, I mean I told Kelly this week, I was like, I wrote a B minus email.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I got it. I thought it was really good.

SPEAKER_03

And then she doesn't really get it.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, maybe because it had a picture of Poppy in it. Oh language. Oh, what the hell? Oh no, I can't.

SPEAKER_03

I click the explicit button. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02

The picture that you put in your newsletter of Poppy was so freaking cute. I'm just racked with guilt right now that he's in his crate.

SPEAKER_03

If you are not on my email list, you can click the link in the show notes and get that. You will get all sorts of cute things. But my point is that this is a weekly exercise where I write, and it comes up with the podcast too. Like it's a weekly thing, task that I do where I write, and pretty much every time I go, I gotta be like, okay, this does not have to be perfect. You're not writing the constitution, you know, you're not writing a grant that's going to give you income for the next year. Like the this is your weekend. It's low stakes. It's low stakes. Um, and so I need that that idea of being anti, that it doesn't have to be perfect, to allow myself to be creative. And it's like, and there's a whole process that happens for me where it's like I gotta warm up, I gotta be like I gotta write some shit I ain't gonna use, and then I get to the shit that I will use, you know, but I had to write all that other stuff and let it not be perfect and messy and bad even before I could get to the good stuff. So that's what I think the relationship between anti-perfectionism and creativity. It creativity requires, demands anti-perfectionism.

SPEAKER_02

It does, and I think creativity is what is um the is fundamental to human growth and change. Yeah. So if we're talking because you're creating something, you're creating change in your own life. I mean, you could talk about creativity like doing fine art, you you know, you you know, in terms of producing, that's with I think that that's the most traditional way of like usually when I talk to folks about creativity, they think, okay, you're gonna write, you're gonna get up in the morning and write a newsletter, you're gonna make a poem, you're gonna play your guitar, you're gonna whatever these fine art things are. To me, creativity is more about the generative nature of what it is to be a human because we're we are made in the image of a creator. Something created us, and we are yeah, we are and we're literally doing it all day long.

SPEAKER_03

Right. I mean, like whether you think they're creative or not all the time. Like, do you figure out what to eat for dinner?

SPEAKER_02

You're making something.

SPEAKER_03

You know, especially if it's like, okay, what can I make from what I got in the kitchen?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, which I think is my favorite use of Chat GPT. I I mean, one of my favorite uses of chat is to say these are the ingredients that I have helped me make something delicious, and then it gives me some inspiration for, you know, I kind of knew where I was where I was going. You know, I've made some pretty pretty yummy new things lately.

SPEAKER_03

But I just wanna I just want the people to know that you totally can do that and do do that. I said do do that. Um without Chat GPT too. Oh yeah, you can. Although that meal you made the other night with chat was pretty good.

SPEAKER_02

It was fire.

SPEAKER_03

But yeah, I think um But yeah, how am I gonna get, you know, the road's blocked. How am I gonna get from here to here? Right. And I mean, this is a uh well, yeah. The one thing I want to say about this saying, I have been waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting to get to this saying. Let us have it. It is the one, I mean, I don't know if it's gonna be as interesting to anybody else, but it is the one that I always think of when I look at our little frame poster thing of these sayings. And I just have this vivid memory of learning to read. Read, because remember, if you go back to episode number one, you know that I read these sayings pretty much all the time as soon as I learned to read. And then I had to know. I always had to know what everyone meant. And I say to my mom, okay, I'm reading. I'm like, okay, there's more than two ways to skin a cat. Now I grew up with cats, okay? So I knew what a cat was. So I'm like, skin a cat? Yeah. And my mom, I think, was like, well, my what's in my memory, which I think we've discussed memories, whatever, like who knows if it actually happened like this. But she probably gave me a little bit of information about what skinning a cat literally meant. Yeah. And then I'm like, ew. And she goes, Well, actually, it's also, you know, what is skinning the cat? I just remember her going, skinning the cat. It's like that move you do on the monkey bars where you're holding onto the monkey bars and you pull your feet up and then you flip backwards. Yeah. And I looked it up. It actually is a gymnastics move, okay? Okay. And I had learned how to do it. It's called skin the cat. Okay. And I remember it it was like a Zen co on for me as a little kid because I was trying to figure out any other way that you could skin a cat doing how any other way that you could do that specific gymnastics move. And I don't think I ever figured out how to do it another way, but I knew that there was more than two ways. Yeah. It was like a mind puzzle.

SPEAKER_02

Totally. Yeah. So I really wanted to know how to jump, like to swing really high. Yeah. With my roller skates on, and then fly off the swing at the highest point and land on the roller skates and continue to go. Oh my god. This was my con. This is my greatest.

SPEAKER_03

Listen, one of one of Kelly's last remaining toys from childhood is here on our shelf, and it's Daredevil Debbie. Daredevil Debbie.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, she was my favorite. She and Evil Kneebel. There's more than two ways to break your arm. I had little I had these little motorcycle evil Kinevil, Daredevil Debbie, little motorcycle. You like revved them up and let them go, STP stuff, whatever. They were super cool. Yeah. I you know what I was thinking about when I was listening to you was more than one way to skin a cat. And I was thinking about creativity and change, and then I was sort of I was in my default mode network. I was in a bit of a reverie, uh-huh, which is self-referential, but that's the default mode network. Back to it anyway. So I was kind of just thinking back on my experience, right? And my mind was wandering and going around in there and uh exploring. And I found myself remembering listening to Virginia Satir, and one of the things that she said that really struck me was that when people are in fight mode, they're not creative, and that families particularly get stuck. Like their rule systems will get very rigid. You know, like this is the way we do things in this family.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And sometimes the rules are spoken, sometimes they're unspoken, but pretty much everybody in the family knows what the rules are. And when there's a lot of um conflict in a home, even if there's a great deal of chaos, the the rules will be pretty rigidly in in enforced. And and in those spaces where there is a lot of conflict, there's not a lot of creativity. And you you know, you can really see that. That like when conflict goes down, creativity goes up. And what do I mean by creativity? It's like people have the ability to think through what they want to do next in a novel or unique way that you know could could offer a different solution. Right? So we can we can be still enough within ourselves to be able to have the presence of mind to to make a different decision. So, you know, she talked about, you know, people don't like to think about philosophy. They can't think about philosophy when the bombs are dropping. Right. You know, you're the at that in those moments the human we're really thinking about survival. But then what happens in mod in modernity in modern life is that the the chronic stresses of modern life start to affect us in a way that we start to experience existential threat as a result. Like I had kind of a hard day at work.

SPEAKER_03

On the re on the regular.

SPEAKER_02

On the regular. Like I had just a kind of a regular hard day at work yesterday. Yeah. Some difficult things happened. Yeah. And I was, you know, pretty I would say I was pretty well wrecked by the time he even came. Uh-huh. And those things started to feel existentially threatening to me. Yeah. Which they weren't. They were just difficult conversations. Right. They were difficult conversations.

SPEAKER_03

So do you think what added to um tipping it into existential threat? What do you think helped tipped it into existential threat?

SPEAKER_02

I think it was an emotional, I think it was just a burden of how much how much emotional data I was personally required to hold capacity for. So it was just it was just a good thing. I had a day yesterday. Yeah, it had reached a catch. Yeah. I do a lot of code switching in my life. Like sometimes I'm doing psychotherapy, sometimes I'm doing acupuncture, sometimes I'm doing it. I'm doing this podcast, I'm doing my own creative work. I'm chief of staff at the center. I'm answering emails. I'm also a daughter, and um, you know, like mom had had a procedure done that day, so that was on my mind. Um, I had heard from my kid that, you know, it was like, yep, da-da-da-da's going up, Mother's Day's coming up, or just it's just life is lifing. It's not, I mean, what I'm describing, I don't think is any different than the way I mean, listeners who are listening, I imagine that was a pretty normal life in the in an American's a bear pretty normal day in an American's life, juggling all kinds of stuff. And by the time the the evening came, I did not have the creativity to cook dinner. And so there's more than two ways to skin a cat. I ordered Greek food. It was uh it was really delicious. For sure. Yeah, I mean, I I really had I been in a more rigid mindset, and I've done this to myself, I could have been exhausted and say, no, I have to make dinner because I have to have a healthy dinner.

SPEAKER_03

Because of that rigid because of that rule.

SPEAKER_02

Like, oh no, I have to have this amount of vegetables and I have to have this amount of lean protein and bop but and you know, look, all those things are great. I mean, in terms of nutrition, I'm I'm solidly like in the I put it in the like 85, 15, 90, 10 thing, you know, mostly we're trying to eat well. Well, like we talk about the times we order heroes, you know.

SPEAKER_03

You know, yeah, totally. And yeah, that's sort of the thing is do we have the coin do we have the the decision coins?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so it's like that.

SPEAKER_03

And I think when we're stressed, it uses up those decision coins or it uses up those things. The other thing that I think happens is when we get in that the when our sympathetic nervous system is engaged, or in that fight or flight, I mean uh my understanding is that blood flow stops going to the prefrontal cortex. That's exactly it. Which is the part of our brain that's like the part of our brain that makes us humans, like gives us higher higher level thinking. And so yeah, it just gets so much harder. And so then when you've had that all day long, right, like from what you described, and also what I know is you just had a string of stressful things where you really had to show up. Yeah. And there's only so much showing up that we can do.

SPEAKER_02

Well, you know, when I was learning from Virginia, it was the mid eighties, and we didn't use terms like regulated.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

We didn't, you know, we didn't use we didn't use that term. She used she did use a term to describe that experience though. And it was the same.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

She she'd used the term centered. And what she would say is that if you can't think of she would say ten. If you can't think of ten different solutions to any problem, you're what she is, what she would say is you're not centered.

SPEAKER_03

I love this. What if I mean I'm not sure? You're not centered. I'm in a good moment right now where I can just say, wow, that sounds like a fun exercise.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, ten. She was like ten. Yeah. And and knowing that some of them were are going to be completely outlandish. Some of the ideas that you come up with are going to be probably the Greek food, based on the way that my belly feels this morning, was not the best idea. Right. Uh, but man, it was it was good.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, it's delicious. Yeah, but I enjoy eating it for lunch.

SPEAKER_02

I did really sit there looking at Uber Eats. Like, should I order from the fresh kitchen instead?

SPEAKER_03

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I should have. Hey, there's more than two ways. There's more than two ways. There's more than two ways. And doing it does it. You m you place the order, week out the dinner. Yeah. It's all good.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I I so I think that learning from Virginia, okay. If I I because I I don't know, until that was really revolutionary for me. That I needed to be centered. Mm-hmm. I that's good decisions. Yeah, and that and that being centered is kind of an intentionality. It's like I I and of course I'm not always going to be centered because that's the nature of being a human. Yeah, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_03

It's just anything.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Well, some it's like traditional Chinese medicine. We talk more about harmony than we do about balance. And it's like, okay, I'm too warm, I take my sweatshirt off, then I'm a little too cold, so I put it back on. That's it's just this is the nature of what it is to be in harmony, right? So it's not it's not a it's it's not fixed. It's not fixed. The idea of being centered. It flows, it flows. It's not entirely fixed. Yeah. Um, so don't get addicted to being centered either. Because if there's more than if there's more than two ways to skin a cat, what that means is you know, making a creative decision sometimes under under duress might be the best decision.

SPEAKER_03

You might it also works. It also works. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Sometimes I'm totally flipped out, and in that moment, because I'm so flipped out, there's a there's clarity that will come to me. Sure. And I can see something because of the pressure of being flipped out. Yeah. I my own experience is I make better decisions when I'm not flipped out, but there have been times when I'm flipped out and I've made a really good one. Sure. Because the the flipped out is a sp can be a space of clarity too, sometimes. I don't know. Well, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, for me, like getting upset will um give me a compass to my values. Yeah. So yeah. Well, okay there. I think that um we've given you all something to um think about. So please go home and skin your cats. But do it different ways.

SPEAKER_02

Um skinning the cat, it could be a euphemism.

SPEAKER_03

Hey, and um, all my uh friends and clients that are listening, I am loving hearing what you think. About this series, and especially when you come to me and you say back to me the sayings that we've been discussing makes my freaking day. And if you are listening to this through the glory of the internet, um please make sure you subscribe wherever you're listening. Um that really helps give us a little signal boost, and of course, leave us a rating and review. Um, even if you've been listening for a while and you haven't done it yet, you can totally still do it.

SPEAKER_02

And um once we get through this, I was just thinking as I was in reverie listening to you. Um, I I would love if uh if listeners, if you have any slogans and any intentionality slogans that you use or that you know, I would love it if you would share those with us. That would be fun. Totally. That would be super fun to explore those as well. Love a slogan.

SPEAKER_03

I'm having the I'm having a great time doing this series. Awesome. Well, we'll see you all next time.