WEBVTT
00:00:01.346 --> 00:00:02.375
Hello there, it's T.
00:00:02.375 --> 00:00:07.270
Thorn Coyle here with another episode of Magic, Creativity, and Life.
00:00:07.450 --> 00:00:09.461
This will be a short episode today.
00:00:09.461 --> 00:00:13.057
It's a solo show because I've just been pondering some things.
00:00:13.057 --> 00:00:21.146
But first, in some personal updates, I am still working on Bookish Baddies, which is book six of the Pride Street.
00:00:21.146 --> 00:00:23.528
Cozy corgi paranormal mysteries.
00:00:23.528 --> 00:00:27.062
Still having fun with that and I am still setting up.
00:00:27.181 --> 00:00:34.475
my Kickstarter for the upcoming Evolutionary Witchcraft and Stars of Power campaign.
00:00:34.475 --> 00:00:43.478
I'm working with a specialty printer on some fabulous deluxe editions of Evolutionary Witchcraft, the 20th anniversary revised edition.
00:00:43.598 --> 00:00:50.460
So that's going to be really cool and I hope to have a proof copy to show off before the campaign launches.
00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:55.832
Other than that, just going for walks, taking care of business, doing all that sort of thing.
00:00:56.631 --> 00:00:58.912
So let's dive in.
00:00:58.912 --> 00:01:07.111
What I've been thinking about lately is mental health and creativity and spiritual practice during these times.
00:01:07.811 --> 00:01:20.944
I've been talking with a lot of creative friends, writers, musicians, artists, dancers, and just folks who are generally creative, know, bakers, people like that, and everyone's struggling.
00:01:21.478 --> 00:01:30.632
And I'm sure those of you who don't feel you're creative, even though I would probably argue that you are in some form or fashion, I bet you're probably struggling too.
00:01:31.010 --> 00:01:46.819
I think anyone who isn't struggling right now with mental and emotional health, maybe those people aren't paying very close attention or perhaps they enjoy the way things are going in the world right now and are reaping rewards from that.
00:01:47.444 --> 00:01:50.343
Those are not the people I tend to hang out with.
00:01:51.164 --> 00:01:57.284
As a matter of fact, I, in recent years have distanced myself more and more from those people.
00:01:57.284 --> 00:02:00.623
I used to try to be in dialogue with them.
00:02:00.623 --> 00:02:06.063
Discovered that really we were having conversations on completely different planes.
00:02:06.323 --> 00:02:16.304
It would have taken 30 years of re-education to even open the door to a fruitful conversation.
00:02:16.593 --> 00:02:43.611
So I finally backed away from that work and decided to focus on working with like-minded people or people who were in need or people that I don't even necessarily agree with on everything, but who aren't combatively bigoted or aren't combatively racist or misogynist or anti-immigrant or homophobic or transphobic.
00:02:43.838 --> 00:02:50.082
people who still have some room for growth, room to change our thinking, right?
00:02:50.082 --> 00:02:53.764
Just like I still have to educate myself and change my thinking.
00:02:53.764 --> 00:03:00.360
It's one thing I learned in going over the revised edition for Evolutionary Witchcraft.
00:03:00.360 --> 00:03:06.508
You know, I wrote that over 20 years ago now, and I went through it page by page.
00:03:06.632 --> 00:03:13.578
And in doing so, I realized the ways in which I've changed over 20 years, which is as it should be.
00:03:13.578 --> 00:03:14.568
I should change.
00:03:14.568 --> 00:03:18.192
My view of the world has shifted and expanded.
00:03:18.192 --> 00:03:22.068
The way I think about some things has shifted and expanded.
00:03:22.068 --> 00:03:26.689
I have been educated by people younger than myself, which has been really helpful.
00:03:26.689 --> 00:03:29.967
You know, I know our culture tends to not respect.
00:03:29.967 --> 00:03:35.300
elders, that is true, but elders also tend to not respect youth.
00:03:35.300 --> 00:03:40.425
And I try to learn from the entire spectrum of age.
00:03:40.425 --> 00:03:44.866
I try to learn from different cultures, people from different backgrounds, right?
00:03:44.907 --> 00:03:52.813
So it was great to see the ways in which I have shifted that feel healthy and nurturing to me.
00:03:52.813 --> 00:04:01.070
I felt similarly in writing Stars of Power because I've been working with those tools, the Pentacles, for 40 years.
00:04:01.070 --> 00:04:07.080
And I had thought at one point, you know, I'm not working them diligently the way I used to.
00:04:07.080 --> 00:04:09.584
Do I have something to say about these tools?
00:04:09.584 --> 00:04:18.309
And in writing that book, I went, my gosh, I've integrated that work so deeply that it has changed me.
00:04:18.850 --> 00:04:30.367
And therefore my relationship with that work feels really rich now in ways that it didn't back when I was still learning the tools and working them all the time.
00:04:30.968 --> 00:04:34.129
So perspective has been great for me.
00:04:34.129 --> 00:05:02.983
And when times feel acute, when things feel like they're crumbling so rapidly, we can't even keep up, which I was telling to, a digital nomad friend of mine who lives all over the world is originally from France and said to me just today, I hope my comment about this social media platform wasn't offensive.
00:05:02.983 --> 00:05:05.684
I had no idea how bad things were.
00:05:05.684 --> 00:05:08.444
And I said, I can't expect you to know.
00:05:08.584 --> 00:05:12.596
Things are changing at a rapid clip right now.
00:05:13.081 --> 00:05:16.973
things are changing far more rapidly than we expected.
00:05:16.973 --> 00:05:20.814
Things that I expected to take six months to shake out took one month.
00:05:20.814 --> 00:05:24.755
Things that should have taken three years are taking six months or less.
00:05:24.755 --> 00:05:31.098
Everything is on an accelerationist path right now, or at least that's how it feels to me.
00:05:31.098 --> 00:05:39.502
That's how it feels to my psychic body, my emotional body, and my physical body as well, right?
00:05:40.322 --> 00:05:44.680
So looping that back to creativity.
00:05:45.560 --> 00:05:50.583
There are people who say we need creativity now more than ever.
00:05:50.583 --> 00:05:51.372
I say that.
00:05:51.372 --> 00:05:55.845
That is one of my catchphrases that I use over and over again.
00:05:56.024 --> 00:05:57.904
And I believe it's true.
00:05:58.466 --> 00:06:01.666
We need creativity because we need hope.
00:06:01.927 --> 00:06:10.891
We need creativity because we need a vision of the world that is kinder, more beautiful, and more just.
00:06:11.540 --> 00:06:15.682
We need a vision of the world that is post-scarcity.
00:06:16.043 --> 00:06:20.487
We need a vision of the world not run by greed and fear and anger.
00:06:20.487 --> 00:06:31.877
And so we do need creativity, but that doesn't mean it's easy to create when times feel oppressive and hard.
00:06:32.077 --> 00:06:39.733
And yet people from oppressed communities have always found ways to create because they had to.
00:06:40.495 --> 00:06:42.557
The oppression was ongoing.
00:06:42.596 --> 00:06:47.521
It wasn't a spike like many of us are feeling right now, right?
00:06:48.247 --> 00:06:50.358
It was just a fact of life.
00:06:50.999 --> 00:07:02.461
So you raised your children, you planted your garden, you baked your bread, you painted your painting, you wrote your poem, you danced with your friends, you made music.
00:07:02.461 --> 00:07:04.982
And I've written about this in the past too.
00:07:05.202 --> 00:07:17.281
How creativity in itself becomes a rebellion, the more oppressive life gets, the more outside forces want to keep people down.
00:07:17.281 --> 00:07:29.173
You know, Rai music in Algeria is one prime example in the 1980s when there were, authoritarian crackdowns and people would still get together, play music and dance.
00:07:29.173 --> 00:07:40.242
And the music was all about celebration and having a good time, which was counter to what the regime at that time wanted for people, right?
00:07:40.242 --> 00:07:43.927
So art has always been form of rebellion.
00:07:43.927 --> 00:07:56.336
I think also of Victor Jara, one of the martyrs in Chile who was, tortured and killed when the CIA helped overthrow the government in Chile in the 70s.
00:07:56.336 --> 00:07:59.637
And he never stopped singing.
00:08:00.137 --> 00:08:03.939
He never stopped writing songs for the people until the very end.
00:08:03.939 --> 00:08:13.521
Some of my favorite artists I was just privileged to see dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, his exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum.
00:08:13.521 --> 00:08:15.314
And his work is so powerful.
00:08:15.314 --> 00:08:20.286
I've been trying to write about it and I'm still wrestling with this essay.
00:08:20.648 --> 00:08:33.340
His creation is so heart-filled and it's so filled with rage and presence and his love for ordinary people, his love for children, for workers.
00:08:33.975 --> 00:08:40.640
And, you know, he, his life has been really hard because of it, but he hasn't given up.
00:08:40.780 --> 00:08:47.076
He never has given up, even when he was under house arrest, even when he was in actual prison.
00:08:47.076 --> 00:08:49.937
And that all gives me hope.
00:08:50.798 --> 00:08:56.301
Now, I go through phases where I think, am I strong enough?
00:08:57.001 --> 00:08:58.863
Am I resilient enough?
00:08:59.302 --> 00:09:00.864
And some days I'm not.
00:09:01.114 --> 00:09:03.423
Some days the answer is I'm tired.
00:09:03.985 --> 00:09:09.777
Some days the answer is I don't have the capacity to deal with that today.
00:09:09.777 --> 00:09:12.256
And what do I do on those days?
00:09:12.477 --> 00:09:21.441
I often escape into art or I escape into beauty in some form, usually in the natural world, just walking through the city, right?
00:09:21.441 --> 00:09:27.618
Noticing the birds and the insects and the flowers and the trees, noticing the change of the seasons.
00:09:27.759 --> 00:09:31.288
All of that reconnects me to the creative impulse as well.
00:09:32.195 --> 00:09:40.899
So For our mental health right now, doing what we can, A, to help each other, that's important.
00:09:40.899 --> 00:09:44.260
I always am helped by being able to do something, right?
00:09:44.260 --> 00:09:53.124
So I can give my books to this fundraiser that's gonna support World Central Kitchen and Gaza Soup Kitchen.
00:09:53.124 --> 00:09:58.937
I can make a new t-shirt that the profits are going to go to Nerds for Literacy.
00:09:58.937 --> 00:10:01.926
I can help people in my local community.
00:10:01.946 --> 00:10:05.774
who are fighting oppression or feeding people, right?
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That helps my mental health.
00:10:07.932 --> 00:10:15.587
Committing to my physical body well-being also helps my mental and emotional health, right?
00:10:15.587 --> 00:10:22.833
Making sure I go for a walk every day, doing some resistance training, even if it's not very much, helps me, right?
00:10:22.833 --> 00:10:45.360
And part of what helps me is not just the exercise, because of course exercise helps our mental and emotional health, but it's also helpful to say, Damn it, I am determined to be as strong and healthy as I can be, even when I don't have a lot of energy right now to exercise.
00:10:45.481 --> 00:10:48.022
I am not doing huge workouts.
00:10:48.283 --> 00:10:49.693
I'm doing bits and pieces.
00:10:49.693 --> 00:10:53.054
And that's enough to keep me going, right?
00:10:53.475 --> 00:10:55.635
And it's the same with creativity.
00:10:56.309 --> 00:11:03.211
I am determined to continue to create, no matter how difficult.
00:11:03.211 --> 00:11:05.418
conditions feel or become.
00:11:05.418 --> 00:11:07.210
What does this look like for me?
00:11:07.591 --> 00:11:13.128
Right now I'm writing every day, along with running my business, designing books, all of that sort of thing.
00:11:13.128 --> 00:11:23.067
And I'm not actually having trouble creating overall, except I've had insomnia lately.
00:11:23.067 --> 00:11:26.288
Insomnia makes my brain tired.
00:11:26.509 --> 00:11:30.111
When my brain is tired, it's hard for me to do generative work.
00:11:31.063 --> 00:11:34.705
So some days my writing sessions are very short.
00:11:34.745 --> 00:11:35.946
They're brief.
00:11:36.225 --> 00:11:39.647
I'm not writing thousands of words at a time.
00:11:39.807 --> 00:11:42.048
There are days when I can get in the flow.
00:11:42.148 --> 00:11:44.649
I can hit my preferred word count.
00:11:44.769 --> 00:11:50.784
There are other days where I show up and I write and I say, that's good enough.
00:11:50.784 --> 00:11:53.191
because my creativity is important.
00:11:53.191 --> 00:11:56.960
I am not letting anyone take that away from me.
00:11:56.960 --> 00:11:59.692
So how's your mental and emotional health?
00:12:00.373 --> 00:12:02.595
How's your spiritual practice right now?
00:12:02.595 --> 00:12:03.975
That's the other thing.
00:12:04.035 --> 00:12:05.998
I'm doing spiritual practice every day.
00:12:05.998 --> 00:12:10.360
I'm saying prayers, I'm lighting candles, I'm meditating.
00:12:10.360 --> 00:12:12.623
Am I meditating for 40 minutes at a time?
00:12:12.623 --> 00:12:13.173
No.
00:12:13.173 --> 00:12:17.197
My brain is a little too scattered, but I'm centering.
00:12:17.356 --> 00:12:18.658
I'm breathing.
00:12:18.999 --> 00:12:22.111
I'm building in quiet time every morning and every evening.
00:12:22.111 --> 00:12:28.299
Some days, I have more energy and attention for it, some days less, that's okay.
00:12:28.299 --> 00:12:32.447
So I'm both recommitting and giving myself grace.
00:12:32.889 --> 00:12:35.004
And that also feels important right now.
00:12:35.004 --> 00:12:45.475
So what are you doing for your spiritual health, your physical health, your mental and emotional health, and your creativity?
00:12:46.196 --> 00:12:50.120
How are you refilling the well, as Julia Cameron would say?
00:12:50.120 --> 00:13:00.211
I'm wondering also if having one of my colleagues on to talk about mental health in these times would be of use or interest to you.
00:13:00.211 --> 00:13:10.030
So if that is of interest, please let me know, send me a comment or comment on YouTube or on my blog anywhere and let me know.
00:13:10.030 --> 00:13:13.370
And I think that's all I have to say on the topic today.
00:13:13.370 --> 00:13:15.225
So let's take a breath together.
00:13:15.225 --> 00:13:16.698
and let your attention drop.
00:13:16.698 --> 00:13:23.644
on your exhalation and find your center, that place between your navel and your pelvis.
00:13:23.644 --> 00:13:26.379
And just breathe into that for a moment.
00:13:29.902 --> 00:13:35.115
And remember one good thing about being alive today.
00:13:41.197 --> 00:13:43.178
And as always, thanks for joining me.
00:13:43.818 --> 00:13:46.379
This is Magic, Creativity, and Life.
00:13:46.600 --> 00:13:51.982
And I give a special thanks to my Patreon supporters who make this podcast possible.
00:13:52.563 --> 00:13:54.403
Have a magical, creative day.
00:00:01.346 --> 00:00:02.375
Hello there, it's T.
00:00:02.375 --> 00:00:07.270
Thorn Coyle here with another episode of Magic, Creativity, and Life.
00:00:07.450 --> 00:00:09.461
This will be a short episode today.
00:00:09.461 --> 00:00:13.057
It's a solo show because I've just been pondering some things.
00:00:13.057 --> 00:00:21.146
But first, in some personal updates, I am still working on Bookish Baddies, which is book six of the Pride Street.
00:00:21.146 --> 00:00:23.528
Cozy corgi paranormal mysteries.
00:00:23.528 --> 00:00:27.062
Still having fun with that and I am still setting up.
00:00:27.181 --> 00:00:34.475
my Kickstarter for the upcoming Evolutionary Witchcraft and Stars of Power campaign.
00:00:34.475 --> 00:00:43.478
I'm working with a specialty printer on some fabulous deluxe editions of Evolutionary Witchcraft, the 20th anniversary revised edition.
00:00:43.598 --> 00:00:50.460
So that's going to be really cool and I hope to have a proof copy to show off before the campaign launches.
00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:55.832
Other than that, just going for walks, taking care of business, doing all that sort of thing.
00:00:56.631 --> 00:00:58.912
So let's dive in.
00:00:58.912 --> 00:01:07.111
What I've been thinking about lately is mental health and creativity and spiritual practice during these times.
00:01:07.811 --> 00:01:20.944
I've been talking with a lot of creative friends, writers, musicians, artists, dancers, and just folks who are generally creative, know, bakers, people like that, and everyone's struggling.
00:01:21.478 --> 00:01:30.632
And I'm sure those of you who don't feel you're creative, even though I would probably argue that you are in some form or fashion, I bet you're probably struggling too.
00:01:31.010 --> 00:01:46.819
I think anyone who isn't struggling right now with mental and emotional health, maybe those people aren't paying very close attention or perhaps they enjoy the way things are going in the world right now and are reaping rewards from that.
00:01:47.444 --> 00:01:50.343
Those are not the people I tend to hang out with.
00:01:51.164 --> 00:01:57.284
As a matter of fact, I, in recent years have distanced myself more and more from those people.
00:01:57.284 --> 00:02:00.623
I used to try to be in dialogue with them.
00:02:00.623 --> 00:02:06.063
Discovered that really we were having conversations on completely different planes.
00:02:06.323 --> 00:02:16.304
It would have taken 30 years of re-education to even open the door to a fruitful conversation.
00:02:16.593 --> 00:02:43.611
So I finally backed away from that work and decided to focus on working with like-minded people or people who were in need or people that I don't even necessarily agree with on everything, but who aren't combatively bigoted or aren't combatively racist or misogynist or anti-immigrant or homophobic or transphobic.
00:02:43.838 --> 00:02:50.082
people who still have some room for growth, room to change our thinking, right?
00:02:50.082 --> 00:02:53.764
Just like I still have to educate myself and change my thinking.
00:02:53.764 --> 00:03:00.360
It's one thing I learned in going over the revised edition for Evolutionary Witchcraft.
00:03:00.360 --> 00:03:06.508
You know, I wrote that over 20 years ago now, and I went through it page by page.
00:03:06.632 --> 00:03:13.578
And in doing so, I realized the ways in which I've changed over 20 years, which is as it should be.
00:03:13.578 --> 00:03:14.568
I should change.
00:03:14.568 --> 00:03:18.192
My view of the world has shifted and expanded.
00:03:18.192 --> 00:03:22.068
The way I think about some things has shifted and expanded.
00:03:22.068 --> 00:03:26.689
I have been educated by people younger than myself, which has been really helpful.
00:03:26.689 --> 00:03:29.967
You know, I know our culture tends to not respect.
00:03:29.967 --> 00:03:35.300
elders, that is true, but elders also tend to not respect youth.
00:03:35.300 --> 00:03:40.425
And I try to learn from the entire spectrum of age.
00:03:40.425 --> 00:03:44.866
I try to learn from different cultures, people from different backgrounds, right?
00:03:44.907 --> 00:03:52.813
So it was great to see the ways in which I have shifted that feel healthy and nurturing to me.
00:03:52.813 --> 00:04:01.070
I felt similarly in writing Stars of Power because I've been working with those tools, the Pentacles, for 40 years.
00:04:01.070 --> 00:04:07.080
And I had thought at one point, you know, I'm not working them diligently the way I used to.
00:04:07.080 --> 00:04:09.584
Do I have something to say about these tools?
00:04:09.584 --> 00:04:18.309
And in writing that book, I went, my gosh, I've integrated that work so deeply that it has changed me.
00:04:18.850 --> 00:04:30.367
And therefore my relationship with that work feels really rich now in ways that it didn't back when I was still learning the tools and working them all the time.
00:04:30.968 --> 00:04:34.129
So perspective has been great for me.
00:04:34.129 --> 00:05:02.983
And when times feel acute, when things feel like they're crumbling so rapidly, we can't even keep up, which I was telling to, a digital nomad friend of mine who lives all over the world is originally from France and said to me just today, I hope my comment about this social media platform wasn't offensive.
00:05:02.983 --> 00:05:05.684
I had no idea how bad things were.
00:05:05.684 --> 00:05:08.444
And I said, I can't expect you to know.
00:05:08.584 --> 00:05:12.596
Things are changing at a rapid clip right now.
00:05:13.081 --> 00:05:16.973
things are changing far more rapidly than we expected.
00:05:16.973 --> 00:05:20.814
Things that I expected to take six months to shake out took one month.
00:05:20.814 --> 00:05:24.755
Things that should have taken three years are taking six months or less.
00:05:24.755 --> 00:05:31.098
Everything is on an accelerationist path right now, or at least that's how it feels to me.
00:05:31.098 --> 00:05:39.502
That's how it feels to my psychic body, my emotional body, and my physical body as well, right?
00:05:40.322 --> 00:05:44.680
So looping that back to creativity.
00:05:45.560 --> 00:05:50.583
There are people who say we need creativity now more than ever.
00:05:50.583 --> 00:05:51.372
I say that.
00:05:51.372 --> 00:05:55.845
That is one of my catchphrases that I use over and over again.
00:05:56.024 --> 00:05:57.904
And I believe it's true.
00:05:58.466 --> 00:06:01.666
We need creativity because we need hope.
00:06:01.927 --> 00:06:10.891
We need creativity because we need a vision of the world that is kinder, more beautiful, and more just.
00:06:11.540 --> 00:06:15.682
We need a vision of the world that is post-scarcity.
00:06:16.043 --> 00:06:20.487
We need a vision of the world not run by greed and fear and anger.
00:06:20.487 --> 00:06:31.877
And so we do need creativity, but that doesn't mean it's easy to create when times feel oppressive and hard.
00:06:32.077 --> 00:06:39.733
And yet people from oppressed communities have always found ways to create because they had to.
00:06:40.495 --> 00:06:42.557
The oppression was ongoing.
00:06:42.596 --> 00:06:47.521
It wasn't a spike like many of us are feeling right now, right?
00:06:48.247 --> 00:06:50.358
It was just a fact of life.
00:06:50.999 --> 00:07:02.461
So you raised your children, you planted your garden, you baked your bread, you painted your painting, you wrote your poem, you danced with your friends, you made music.
00:07:02.461 --> 00:07:04.982
And I've written about this in the past too.
00:07:05.202 --> 00:07:17.281
How creativity in itself becomes a rebellion, the more oppressive life gets, the more outside forces want to keep people down.
00:07:17.281 --> 00:07:29.173
You know, Rai music in Algeria is one prime example in the 1980s when there were, authoritarian crackdowns and people would still get together, play music and dance.
00:07:29.173 --> 00:07:40.242
And the music was all about celebration and having a good time, which was counter to what the regime at that time wanted for people, right?
00:07:40.242 --> 00:07:43.927
So art has always been form of rebellion.
00:07:43.927 --> 00:07:56.336
I think also of Victor Jara, one of the martyrs in Chile who was, tortured and killed when the CIA helped overthrow the government in Chile in the 70s.
00:07:56.336 --> 00:07:59.637
And he never stopped singing.
00:08:00.137 --> 00:08:03.939
He never stopped writing songs for the people until the very end.
00:08:03.939 --> 00:08:13.521
Some of my favorite artists I was just privileged to see dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, his exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum.
00:08:13.521 --> 00:08:15.314
And his work is so powerful.
00:08:15.314 --> 00:08:20.286
I've been trying to write about it and I'm still wrestling with this essay.
00:08:20.648 --> 00:08:33.340
His creation is so heart-filled and it's so filled with rage and presence and his love for ordinary people, his love for children, for workers.
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And, you know, he, his life has been really hard because of it, but he hasn't given up.
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He never has given up, even when he was under house arrest, even when he was in actual prison.
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And that all gives me hope.
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Now, I go through phases where I think, am I strong enough?
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Am I resilient enough?
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And some days I'm not.
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Some days the answer is I'm tired.
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Some days the answer is I don't have the capacity to deal with that today.
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And what do I do on those days?
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I often escape into art or I escape into beauty in some form, usually in the natural world, just walking through the city, right?
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Noticing the birds and the insects and the flowers and the trees, noticing the change of the seasons.
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All of that reconnects me to the creative impulse as well.
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So For our mental health right now, doing what we can, A, to help each other, that's important.
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I always am helped by being able to do something, right?
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So I can give my books to this fundraiser that's gonna support World Central Kitchen and Gaza Soup Kitchen.
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I can make a new t-shirt that the profits are going to go to Nerds for Literacy.
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I can help people in my local community.
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who are fighting oppression or feeding people, right?
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That helps my mental health.
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Committing to my physical body well-being also helps my mental and emotional health, right?
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Making sure I go for a walk every day, doing some resistance training, even if it's not very much, helps me, right?
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And part of what helps me is not just the exercise, because of course exercise helps our mental and emotional health, but it's also helpful to say, Damn it, I am determined to be as strong and healthy as I can be, even when I don't have a lot of energy right now to exercise.
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I am not doing huge workouts.
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I'm doing bits and pieces.
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And that's enough to keep me going, right?
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And it's the same with creativity.
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I am determined to continue to create, no matter how difficult.
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conditions feel or become.
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What does this look like for me?
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Right now I'm writing every day, along with running my business, designing books, all of that sort of thing.
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And I'm not actually having trouble creating overall, except I've had insomnia lately.
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Insomnia makes my brain tired.
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When my brain is tired, it's hard for me to do generative work.
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So some days my writing sessions are very short.
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They're brief.
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I'm not writing thousands of words at a time.
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There are days when I can get in the flow.
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I can hit my preferred word count.
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There are other days where I show up and I write and I say, that's good enough.
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because my creativity is important.
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I am not letting anyone take that away from me.
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So how's your mental and emotional health?
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How's your spiritual practice right now?
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That's the other thing.
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I'm doing spiritual practice every day.
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I'm saying prayers, I'm lighting candles, I'm meditating.
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Am I meditating for 40 minutes at a time?
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No.
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My brain is a little too scattered, but I'm centering.
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I'm breathing.
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I'm building in quiet time every morning and every evening.
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Some days, I have more energy and attention for it, some days less, that's okay.
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So I'm both recommitting and giving myself grace.
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And that also feels important right now.
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So what are you doing for your spiritual health, your physical health, your mental and emotional health, and your creativity?
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How are you refilling the well, as Julia Cameron would say?
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I'm wondering also if having one of my colleagues on to talk about mental health in these times would be of use or interest to you.
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So if that is of interest, please let me know, send me a comment or comment on YouTube or on my blog anywhere and let me know.
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And I think that's all I have to say on the topic today.
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So let's take a breath together.
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and let your attention drop.
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on your exhalation and find your center, that place between your navel and your pelvis.
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And just breathe into that for a moment.
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And remember one good thing about being alive today.
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And as always, thanks for joining me.
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This is Magic, Creativity, and Life.
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And I give a special thanks to my Patreon supporters who make this podcast possible.
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Have a magical, creative day.
