Back in Black

I'm back after a four-year hiatus! This is a short update on where I've been and how it's impacted my creative work.

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Speaker 1 0:00

Hi, and welcome to season two of How to Be Creative. This is your host, Kat O'Leary, and I am back after a roughly four year hiatus from this podcast. Um, for this episode, I'm just gonna do a quick little update. I actually didn't script anything, so hopefully it's not too meandering , um, or pointless. Um, but just wanted to kind of catch up on, you know, where I've been, where we've been as a society globally , um, over the past four years. Uh, I won't go into everything. I think most of you remember what we all collectively went through. Um, but just wanted to talk about a few things and I guess how they have affected , um, my creative life. So I think actually this story for me begins prior to the pandemic in the first week of January, 2020 , um, when my cousin Matt Dore , um, died quite suddenly , um, and unexpectedly , uh, he had had seizures his entire life. Um , I'm not gonna go into too much detail here, but I , I just don't like the idea of anyone filling in the blanks with, you know , um, a false interpretation of his death. Um , but ultimately , um, he ended up having a , a seizure and passing away. Um , Matt was someone who was very important to me. He was a huge cheerleader of mine, which , um, you know, as someone who maybe hasn't always felt supported by all members of my family in my creative endeavors , um, Matt was certainly someone who always showed up for me. And , um, he was an artist in his own right. He was a musician and a writer , um, and just someone who was, you know, very, very special to me and, and who I still think about every day . Um, and so that was kind of the frame of mind that I was in when we all entered the Pandemic in March of 2020 here in the us . Uh, and so I can definitely say I do not recommend , um, heading into a global pandemic when you're already grieving a pretty terrible loss. Um, but I, you know, you don't get to choose. Um, and so I think that combined with the Pandemic really kind of stalled out my creative endeavors for quite a while, including this podcast. Um, so didn't really do much writing. Um, I'm sure that some of you who are listening to this have never listened to a podcast of mine before, don't know who I am, et cetera. So , um, you know, just to give some context for who I was pre pandemic , um, I was , uh, you know, kind of ramping things up creatively. So I had launched this podcast in the second half of 2019. Um , had interviewed a bunch of people. Um , I'm actually gonna shift away from that format, which I'll talk about a little bit later on this episode,

Speaker 2 2:59

I guess. Um, had done some solo episodes , um, in addition to that, had a Hallmark Christmas movie podcast with my best friend Nicole, which I still have. Um , we just haven't been as good about keeping up with it. Um, I had done a Hallmark , uh, movie podcast , um, mini series for Valentine's Day, which is my favorite holiday. So doing a lot of podcasting. Um, I used to write novels I shouldn't say used to. I, I'm still, you know, trying to , um, pick that back up, but I actually was doing it before the pandemic and , um, the pandemic really made it hard for me to kind of sit down and do any kind of saint sustained creative work. Um, yeah. Uh, so that's kind of where, where I've been over the past few years. Um, and I think only recently have I kind of been moving towards some form of creative recovery. One thing I've been doing very intentionally to help that along has been , um, that I am almost to week nine of the Artist's Way, which is a 12 week program from Julia Cameron. It's a book. Um, it's been around a long time. I think it's at either the 25th or 30th anniversary , um, by now. But , um, it's described as a spiritual path to higher creativity. It's basically , um, you know, a course in discovering and recovering your creative self is another , uh, term that I'm definitely reading off the cover of the edition that I have, which is the 10th anniversary edition. So I've had this book in my possessions , um, among my possessions since probably 2006. Um, and I, I first learned about it through Kimberly Wilson , um, who is this amazing creative , um, entrepreneur, multi-passionate, who I followed for years and years and years, who's now also become a friend of mine. Um, so sidebar that Kimberly's was the first podcast that I ever listened to. Um, it is called Tranquility du Jour . I actually was a guest on it a couple of years ago. Um, but I would say, you know, this is just one of the many, many tools around creativity , um, that I've learned about from Kimberly . I can't even tell you how many times in the past I've started this process of going through the artist's way. Um, this time I feel pretty confident that I'm actually going to complete it. Um , I begin week nine , um, on Sunday. I'm recording this on a Friday. Um , I think I can make it through, you know, the four more weeks than I have. Um , and , uh, simultaneously I'm just feeling more inspired by the world around me. Um, I think a big thing that's happening in the world right now, and apologies if you can hear the sirens , um, outside my window , um,

Speaker 3 5:56

Here in Brooklyn, but , um, I have recently become very aware , um, of how many things I have to be grateful for , um, in a way that I, I think was kind of , um, you know, unreachable or untouchable for me in the past. So , um, gratitude for me has always been easily accessible from an intellectual standpoint. Obviously I know that I am very blessed. Um , you know , a lot of things in life have been easier for me than they are for a lot of other people, and I absolutely recognize that. Um, at the same time, it's only recently I think that I, I've kind of felt that viscerally in my body, and a lot of it has been just witnessing from far away , um, everything that's going on in the Middle East with the genocide in Palestine, and just really , um, kind of feeling in my bones in a , in a way that I haven't previously been able to access. Um, just this awareness of how lucky I am that, you know, truly by accident of birth, I was born into, you know, a safe country, city , um, family, et cetera . And I think this kind of awareness , um, has gotten me to a place where I feel really strongly like it's my responsibility to do something with all of the privileges that I've been given , um, you know, more so than I've felt in the past. Um, and , um, you know, I think there's been a part of me that has felt like I need to be doing more in terms of protesting or educating myself , um, around conflicts that are happening around the world. And it , it's not just Palestine that's going on right now. Um, there's also, you know, terrible, a terrible situation in Haiti and one in Sudan. And , um, I think, you know, previously it's been really easy to shame myself around not feeling like I'm doing enough to educate myself, to educate others, to use my voice. Um, and you know, while I, I do believe it's important to stay informed, I do believe that it is important for me to use my voice and make it clear, you know, which side of history I'm on. I also think that that's not the best use of my gifts necessarily, and that a way that I can, within the scope of what I'm actually skilled at, contribute meaningfully to the world and , and try to make the world a better place, is to try to inspire people to lead

Speaker 4 8:55

Lives that feel more fulfilling and authentic to them. Um, and so I think that's kind of where I'm at. Um, and what I'm trying to do more of , um, while, you know, kind of trying to walk the line of just understanding , um, you know, how dark things are right now and, and how terrible they feel for a lot of people. And , um, I guess what I'm saying is that I feel a heightened sense of responsibility to use the gifts that I do have in whatever small way I can. So I'm going to make an awkward transition here , um, back to talking about this podcast specifically and how I envision the format changing slightly for this very delayed second season. Um, so the first thing is that I am no longer, at least for the time being going to be conducting interviews , um, I find that , um, you know, there are just significantly more work for me to edit than these , uh, episodes where I'm kind of by myself right now. I'm actually sitting on my bed cross-legged with my cat on my lap , um, which is probably not the right , um, you know, posture for speaking into a microphone, but , um, my voice coaches can take that up with me later. Um, so it's a big undertaking to edit those episodes that do involve an interview, but also , um, they just don't perform as well. It feels like people are not quite as interested in them , um, which is sort of surprising to me 'cause I've had a few guests on who are definitely better known than I am. I would've expected those names to pick up , um, you know, more , uh, listeners than me alone. Um, but that's not proving to be the case. So I think the , um, uh, horrible business term, the juice wasn't worth the squeeze, but that's where we are. So for the time being, I'm going to test out purely doing episodes that are me alone. Um, and we'll see how that goes. Um, I think also I am in a place right now where , um, yes, this is a podcast about creativity, but I am more aware now, I think even then I was a few years ago, that there is a lot of underlying work that needs to be done before you can get to a place where , um, you're able to really let your creative talents shine. And so I think there's a chance here that in this season I will veer off into some directions that may not be directly about creativity, but ultimately tie in with the goal of doing your best creative work and living a creative life. I think that's where I'm gonna end this episode. Um, but uh , if you have any questions or suggestions or feedback, you can always reach me at cat KAT at how to be creative.org. And I will see you for episode two.