Latest / The Scene Projects / Healing Through Art: Molly Schenk on Creativity, Trauma, and the Human Spirit

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Healing Through Art: Molly Schenk on Creativity, Trauma, and the Human Spirit · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Well, welcome into a very exciting episode of the scene.
• 0:05
  I am your host, Bubba Starts.
• 0:06
  And with me today is therapist, podcast host, and founder of the Grey Box Collective, Molly
• 0:13
  Skank.
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  Molly, welcome to the show.
• 0:15
  Thanks, Bubba.
• 0:15
  So glad to be here.
• 0:16
  Thank you for having me.
• 0:18
  Well, I found you in a Facebook group.
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  You were looking to be a guest on some podcast.
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  You shared a little bit about what, Gray Box was all about, and I was absolutely enthralled.
• 0:27
  So why don't you go ahead and tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and
• 0:31
  Graybox, and we'll just kinda go from there.
• 0:33
  Sounds good.
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  So, yeah, as you were saying, I am the founder and, creative producer of Graybox Collective.
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  And in a nutshell, we make weird art about tough stuff.
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  And so weird art meaning that is experimental.
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  It's interdisciplinary.
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  The goal is to really push the field forward and try new things.
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  And I think there's something about using that as the vehicle or the vessel for difficult
• 1:02
  conversations that's really helpful.
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  Like, we already go into this work without expectation of what it might look like.
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  So, therefore, I think it allows us to open up and really have conversations that are
• 1:13
  typically not tab like, not conversations we have or might be taboo.
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  And so that's Graybox Collective, and we are coming up on our tenth season, which feels wild
• 1:25
  on so many levels.
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  And so then out of Graybox Collective, and the work that I've done for, oh gosh, eighteen
• 1:35
  years at this point is, really looking at, like, how can we create art around difficult
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  things and difficult art making, and that has led me to really look at the intersection of
• 1:47
  trauma and creativity.
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  And there's a lot about, like, on a neuroscience level that those things, the way
• 1:54
  they interact is just fascinating to me.
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  And so I have trauma informed creative practices, which is a methodology to engage in
• 2:02
  this work and create this work.
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  And there's also the podcast for that as well so that others can also learn about how to
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  engage in difficult art making.
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  Yes.
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  Yeah.
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  I I love it all.
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  I'm sure.
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  I love it all.
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  I'm a songwriter myself, and how I've always processed my trauma was in songwriting.
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  It was writing.
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  It was using music and to describe a feeling.
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  Well, it's hard to describe feelings sometimes.
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  Right?
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  And it's hard to make art too.
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  But Yeah.
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  It seems like when you combine trying to get out those feelings with try with making art,
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  that it actually becomes much easier.
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  Right?
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  Art is how we express ourselves.
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  It's how humans have always expressed themselves.
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  So to do it, I I think so many people put up a barrier.
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  Well, I'm not an artist.
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  Well, no, you are.
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  You're human.
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  Yes.
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  You you create some kind of art.
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  For a lot of people, my father-in-law is a farmer.
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  That's his art.
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  Right?
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  I mean, what he does has an art form to it, and I'm sure it's some form of stress relief for
• 3:02
  him as well.
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  He actually just had a pretty traumatic, leg injury.
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  Broke his leg, you know, fallen off some bales off the trailer.
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  And now that, you know, I worry a little bit about him because going out for us, we would
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  look at walking through a hog barn and having to fix gates and kick pigs around as something
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  completely outside of ourselves that we'd never want to do, and what a terrible job.
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  Well, that's what he's always done.
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  And if that's your art form, that's how you get your stress out.
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  Right?
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  I'm more worried about his mental capacity than the physical capacity in this moment.
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  So I love the weird art.
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  I'm not a great graphic artist.
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  I'm not a wonderful drawer or painter, but I was a welder.
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  So making metal art and different things, not that I did a lot of it, it was always a job,
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  but having that different expression now that will serve me for the rest of my life, even
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  though I'm no longer a welder, right, that we're able to do that.
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  So I just love the mission of what you're doing so much.
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  It's so important.
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  We have a show called Get Better Together where we just talk about it.
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  Right?
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  We get on here
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  and Yeah.
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  We're dishonest with ourselves maybe for the first time.
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  And and I think that's, you know, it's not even that it's taboo, to talk about certain things.
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  It's taboo to share your feelings in this day and age and to not be shunned for it.
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  So I commend you for all of this work that you've done and that you continue to do almost
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  two decades now of helping people process their feelings and and and to let it go.
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  I've found my podcast to be therapeutic because I'm able to get some of these things out of me
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  that have been there for decades.
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  And whether I release them to the world or not, they're out of me.
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  They're on tape.
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  They're in a file somewhere on my computer.
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  Never gonna look for them, but they're out of me.
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  Yes.
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  Well and what so much of what you just said, like, yes to all it.
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  Like, the completing of those stress cycles or completing whatever kinda, like, charge
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  response we have to traumatic experiences, that is so important, and the arts are such a
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  fantastic vehicle for that because it's a place where we can like, especially with
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  interpersonal traumas, it's a place where we can safely engage with each other again and
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  learn how to be in those kinda heightened states, but in a way where we feel comfortable
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  and we're able to be social and engaged.
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  And that's one way that the arts are really powerful, especially when you are creating
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  collaboratively.
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  And the interplay between trauma and creativity is so one part of a trauma a traumatic response
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  can be diminished creativity.
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  And if we engage in creativity, it also helps us move through that trauma.
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  So I think it's fascinating how trauma can take creativity away from us.
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  And if we somehow muddle through and still engage in creative acts, whatever your creative
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  act is, whether it's gardening on the farm, writing songs, that can also bring you back
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  through it.
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  Well, and it's transmuting that energy.
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  Right?
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  Like, this thing happened to you.
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  It doesn't have to define you.
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  It doesn't have to stick with you forever, but very few of us are equipped with the tools to
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  transmute that terrible thing into something that's going to strengthen and empower us.
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  And I've I've put myself in a lot of terrible situations, prison and and, you know, listeners
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  of our show hear me go on about my stuff, but it's been my ability to look at myself with
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  clear eyes, to look at the situations, and then to have an outlet for that.
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  Whether that is talking, not everybody's comfortable talking like I am.
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  It's it's how you get a 20 episodes in six months.
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  Right?
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  You don't get there because you're afraid of talking about your feelings and talking about
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  the things that happened to you.
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  So what a wonderful, wonderful thing that you're doing and how many lives that you've
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  changed because of it.
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  It's just incredible.
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  Thank you.
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  I appreciate it.
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  And, like, speaking of talking, so I was actually nonverbal as a kid.
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  And so to have all these different avenues of expression, I think it's one reason I got into
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  the arts Right.
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  Was needed ways to communicate beyond just the voice.
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  And I worked with a when I was little and I only know this through stories.
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  Like, I do not remember being in speech therapy before I was two years old, but the speech
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  therapist said my were very sophisticated for a kid that wasn't verbal.
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  And so I think there's something in the wiring that I have just naturally that I'm really
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  drawn to, like, multiple modes of expression, and that leads to that experimental
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  interdisciplinary art making, because I do like to tap into multiple multiple screens.
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  Well and it's what brought you to now.
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  Being nonverbal and being getting all of your feelings out in these other ways is what's led
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  you to this.
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  Right?
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  Like, I I without getting overly religious or anything, but, like, God made you like that for
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  a reason, and it gave you this gift of expressing yourself through art and through
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  other means than just talking.
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  Right?
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  And now you're able to turn that into something that you've helped people with for decade you
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  know, almost two decades now, and that you're gonna continue, I hope, for the rest of your
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  life to continue to do.
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  So are there other are there other, you know, kind of companies and things out there that you
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  know of that are doing the same thing that you are with Graybox Collective, or is this a very,
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  you know, just you are out here doing this?
• 8:41
  Yeah.
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  So there's definitely companies out there doing very similar work.
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  What I find that sets Graybox Collective apart is that we are focused on somatics, meaning
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  we're focused on the body, and we're also focused on adults.
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  There's a lot of programs out there doing this work specifically for youth in in The US.
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  And my thing is, like, cool.
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  But at some point, like, the youth grow up and you don't suddenly, like, get a clean slate.
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  Right?
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  Like, we still need those avenues as adults.
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  And when you look at the age, there's like, we hang out as adults a lot longer than we hang
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  out as youth.
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  And so that's something that I think is really important about Graybox is that we offer
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  something that maybe a lot of kids got, a lot of humans got growing up, but then at some
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  point, it fades away.
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  And so it's really important to keep connected to the arts and stay in that state of
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  creativity and play and being able to create art around it, right, in a way that's still
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  really meaningful.
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  I think so often, we can kinda get into this, like, art for art's sake and, like, what's the
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  point of the arts and, you know, the arts aren't always valued.
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  But being able to continue to use those performances or whatever as these artistic
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  vehicles for social change, like, you can really start to shape the world around you a
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  lot more.
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  Well and I think that the societal I think that the societal problem is that we've elevated
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  certain artists, right, rock stars, movie stars, to make it look like it's unattainable,
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  that only only they are able to do art, like, leave art to the professionals.
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  No.
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  Art is how humans express themselves.
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  Yeah.
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  That's why we have art class for two year olds.
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  Right?
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  Like, because they know how to maybe draw or express this feeling that they have with a
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  picture or with a piece of clay better than they can.
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  Like, how do you lose that?
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  You know?
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  Yes.
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  Exactly.
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  I actually, there's an artist in LA who has, was did something commissioned that says
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  artists are the pollinators of culture culture and truth.
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  And, like, yes, whether that is our own culture and our own truth or whether that is something
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  that we are reflecting to the world around us, I think that is a huge a very important thing
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  that we do tend to lose as we grow up, unfortunately.
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  Well, I mean, life beats you down.
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  You get a you go through the system.
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  You go to college.
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  You're in school.
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  You're slammed with homework.
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  You're trying to have a social life.
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  Then you get out.
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  You have a job.
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  You're working sixty hours a week.
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  Like, it's very easy to get beaten into it by what we're seeing in our culture.
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  Now I think we're about to go through a massive cultural shift over the next few years.
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  I mean, it's not just what I see.
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  I don't really watch the news, but, obviously, new president and a lot of things changing, you
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  know, and is in the physical reality, but there is something in the right now that's changing.
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  Right?
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  I mean, I haven't been going out and looking for Molly Skank to to interview.
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  It's been coming to me.
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  Right?
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  It's been drawn into this thing and realizing that we are all of our own vortices.
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  Right?
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  And and when you draw in what, you know, what interests you with the power of the Internet,
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  if you're able to kind of unlock this this thing, then you're gonna build a beautiful life
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  for yourself.
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  And and finding the this is all from God.
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  Right?
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  And I'm not an overly religious person, but I don't have any other word for it that somebody
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  else is gonna understand.
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  Right?
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  Like, I I didn't bring this at all.
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  I'm in this group of 50,000 people.
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  How do I stumble across your post out of all of that?
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  Right.
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  It's been fed to me.
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  So whatever algorithm, right, that brought us together, I am so grateful because what you're
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  doing is even cooler than, I could have even imagined.
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  What what's the future of Graybox Collective?
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  I know you got the podcast and you have your therapy and everything going on like this, but
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  I see Graybox Collective is something that could be worldwide.
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  Right?
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  This could be something that's much greater than just you and a single studio.
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  So what is kind of your vision for the future of the Graybox Collective?
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  Yeah.
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  Well and I'll also talk a little bit about my somatic movement therapy because it does very
• 13:02
  much intertwine.
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  It's very similar work that I'm doing, but some of it's one on one, and some of it's in group
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  settings in in gray box.
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  And so, right, still using the art as that vehicle for transformation.
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  And I like transformation because, like, there's some kind of evolution there.
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  There's, like, a groundswell that comes with it.
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  And so thinking about the future of Graybox Collective is is really starting to train other
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  people more in this work.
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  And so I have a
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  Franchising, essentially, your ideas and your methods and and getting this out here.
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  Yes.
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  That's exactly what I wanted to hear.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  And so, like, right now, we've just rebooted our Patreon page, which is Play in the Gray,
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  and it's an initiative of really understanding how can we, as artists, as entrepreneurs, as
• 13:54
  arts leaders, be existing in these unknown, like, messy gray areas of life.
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  And as you said, like, we're going through a big transition in The US.
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  And, like, I don't know if you follow spirituality and, like, astrology at all.
• 14:08
  Oh, yes.
• 14:08
  Okay.
• 14:09
  Yeah.
• 14:09
  So yeah.
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  I felt that alignment on the January 25.
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  Right?
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  And everything after it has been just accelerating at one of the fastest pace.
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  I I've never experienced anything like this in my life.
• 14:20
  Exactly.
• 14:21
  Exactly.
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  And so we started playing the gray to really share our values in terms of not just how we
• 14:28
  make art, but also how we run our business.
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  And so with that sharing out, like, this is what we've been doing all along, and this is
• 14:36
  something that I think other people are really needing right now is how do we still exist in
• 14:42
  this uncertainty and somehow shape and carve out some some solid ground underneath us.
• 14:51
  And so it's looking at how we stay creative.
• 14:54
  It's looking at trauma informed practices as well.
• 14:57
  It's looking at how we embody this because what you were saying, right, we're so disconnected
• 15:01
  mind and body, and so much of what we're doing in the world, like working sixty hours a week,
• 15:08
  what we're you know, life beating you down, as you were saying, a lot of that is forcing us to
• 15:13
  disconnect from ourselves.
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  And so how can we stay connected to ourselves and bring all of that into how we are running
• 15:19
  our organizations?
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  And I think that's what's really necessary moving forward, and that's what playing the
• 15:25
  gray is hoping to be a catalyst for.
• 15:28
  So that is that's a big push right now, but I also have the mentorship trainings and some
• 15:34
  group coaching to support that work maybe on more of an individual level in some places.
• 15:40
  But, yeah, like, there's definitely ways to plug in and and embody this work.
• 15:44
  Right.
• 15:45
  Well and, like, the the idea of playing with art and the and dealing with your trauma and
• 15:49
  things like that through that is is great, but also you you kinda wanna be in a safe space.
• 15:53
  Right?
• 15:53
  You kinda wanna be with someone who's a professional.
• 15:56
  So you can't just go out and make a a million a million people that can do what you do
• 16:02
  overnight.
• 16:02
  It takes time.
• 16:03
  It takes a community, and it takes people being willing to, to invest in themselves, right, to
• 16:09
  be able to show up and to do some art and to work through their stuff as well.
• 16:14
  Yeah.
• 16:14
  You have to really be okay with, like, meeting yourself and, like, holding that mirror pretty
• 16:19
  damn close with, like, how you're showing up in the world and how you're showing up in
• 16:23
  community.
• 16:25
  They're like, even when you think you've really, like, done the work, whatever the work
• 16:29
  is, right, how are we still, like, kinda excavating, right, digging deeper?
• 16:36
  I call it in, like, healthy downward spiral to really go deep within ourselves.
• 16:41
  And, you know, I've been doing this work for eighteen years, and it still surprises me when
• 16:46
  I'm like, oh, okay.
• 16:47
  We found something new to unpack later.
• 16:50
  So it it's really, I think, important work, but there's something about the familiarity of that
• 16:55
  downward spiral of being able to circle back to things and just get deeper, that really like,
• 17:00
  I'm in it for the long game.
• 17:02
  I think it's sustainable, and just really understanding kind of the rhythm and cycle of
• 17:07
  it all.
• 17:08
  Yeah.
• 17:08
  Well and I think a lot of our a lot of our trauma is like an everlasting gobstopper.
• 17:13
  Right?
• 17:13
  Like, there's just layer upon layer upon layer, and you think you got it eaten, and then you're
• 17:17
  choking on it again.
• 17:19
  And you Yeah.
• 17:19
  Have to clop it back over.
• 17:20
  You're gonna have to dig some more.
• 17:21
  And
• 17:22
  Right?
• 17:22
  Well, when we were doing a piece about grief, I think that was one of the things we kept
• 17:26
  talking about was, like, we think of it as, oh, this trauma or this grief happens, like and
• 17:31
  then, like, you go through your grief cycle, and then it's all done.
• 17:34
  But, no, like, this stuff accumulates.
• 17:36
  It happens over and lapping each other.
• 17:39
  It it would be lovely if we could just, like, take one trauma and work through it, and then,
• 17:43
  like, the next one comes along, but that's not life.
• 17:47
  We have to figure out how to be have been multiple cycles and multiple relationships with
• 17:52
  whatever that is that we have been experiencing simultaneously, hence the messy part of life
• 17:59
  that that we exist in.
• 18:01
  Well and I got a great example for you before I let you go.
• 18:04
  Just a few weeks ago, right, so my my granny's birthday is the January 27.
• 18:09
  So right after we go through this massive cosmic shift, right, we lost her two years ago.
• 18:13
  It was just last week.
• 18:15
  Right?
• 18:15
  So it was or this week of this was granny's birthday and then, you know, her death date,
• 18:20
  where I don't know, weird term, but, the the end of her natural life, right, was later on
• 18:26
  that week.
• 18:27
  And I have a I have a cousin, that has a birthday, I think, the day before she passed
• 18:32
  away.
• 18:32
  She sang her happy birthday and saved her last breath for that.
• 18:36
  Right?
• 18:36
  And I in working last year, I was so busy that I never really dealt with the grief.
• 18:41
  In my way, I when I found out because she had had a cancer, twenty years ago, beat it
• 18:46
  experimental medicine with the chemo, the whole thing.
• 18:49
  And it was always look.
• 18:50
  If it comes back, it's gonna be aggressive, and it's gonna be very right.
• 18:53
  Like, it's gonna be very bad.
• 18:55
  Well, we found out in September of it must have been '22 or '23 that it was back.
• 19:02
  Right?
• 19:03
  And it was moving fast.
• 19:05
  It was already in multiple places.
• 19:06
  Right?
• 19:07
  So the way that I die I kinda grieved her before I ever let her go, before she was ever
• 19:11
  gone.
• 19:12
  You know what?
• 19:12
  I wrote this song called Everlasting talking about how time's everlasting, but time never
• 19:16
  lasts.
• 19:17
  Right?
• 19:18
  Like, it can be both of these things.
• 19:20
  And, when her birthday came around this year, I I wasn't even thinking about it.
• 19:25
  And I read my my aunt made a Facebook post, and it just brought it all up.
• 19:30
  And for me, my outlet was kind of my blog.
• 19:33
  Right?
• 19:34
  My my message to the people who follow me to, you know, the 500 people on our email list, and
• 19:39
  I just I just put it on my website about how much I love my granny, you know, and I and how
• 19:43
  I'm not gonna remember this day as a sad day.
• 19:46
  I'm gonna remember all the love that you had for me and every single good memory, and I just
• 19:50
  let them flow, and I let those words flow.
• 19:53
  And, you know, now I'm able to not just share this once, you know, but I I was able to put it
• 19:59
  on my website where it'll be immortalized forever.
• 20:02
  Right?
• 20:03
  And to send that to my aunts and and my aunt and uncle and my mom and to be like, you know,
• 20:08
  this is this is who she was.
• 20:09
  Right?
• 20:10
  Like, we don't we don't have to just live with the memories.
• 20:12
  We can tell everyone else too.
• 20:14
  And, yeah, it was just a very it was a very powerful day.
• 20:19
  Right?
• 20:20
  And and realizing that in in that year that I had never really cried, right, when she passed
• 20:25
  away, it was like, oh, well, it's done now.
• 20:28
  Right?
• 20:28
  But not thinking that in two years, it was gonna come back around when I was taking a
• 20:33
  little more time for myself when I was in tune.
• 20:36
  You know?
• 20:36
  Yeah.
• 20:37
  Well, I give myself space.
• 20:38
  I got an altar right next to me here in my studio that I pray at every day.
• 20:42
  I'm a lot more in tune with who I am, who I've always been now than in years prior.
• 20:48
  You know, I got wrapped up in that.
• 20:49
  After I got out of prison in 2018, I went to work right away.
• 20:52
  You gotta be a man, and you go to work for your family, and I I headlong into all of that.
• 20:57
  And then, last year quit the welding job in the factory.
• 21:01
  I thought I was gonna be a rock star, Molly.
• 21:03
  I thought, you know, I was on the I was on the, local TV station playing my songs, and I
• 21:09
  thought that's what I was being called to do was to go be that person.
• 21:13
  And in fact, it was this now.
• 21:16
  Right?
• 21:16
  It it it was over the course of the year finding podcasting, realizing not only was I
• 21:21
  good at it, but I I love it.
• 21:23
  I love meeting new people and getting to know you and your story.
• 21:27
  And I say this is how God is healing the whole world.
• 21:30
  Right?
• 21:30
  We are talking.
• 21:31
  God is speaking through us, sharing our stories.
• 21:33
  This is how you actually fix a planet.
• 21:36
  Right?
• 21:36
  It's not by, you know, some crazy initiatives and and pieces of paper signed by another human
• 21:42
  being in a building that we just put a lot of reverence on.
• 21:46
  That doesn't change things.
• 21:47
  Human beings change things.
• 21:49
  And you can't change anything about your outside world until you change stuff about your
• 21:52
  inside world.
• 21:53
  And I think that just with the success that my little podcast has had in the last month and a
• 21:59
  half, right, of the interesting conversations that I've got to have that Mhmm.
• 22:05
  Now I understand.
• 22:06
  Okay.
• 22:07
  This is what this is.
• 22:08
  And people are really getting into the content.
• 22:10
  People want to be healed.
• 22:11
  We don't want you know, I I love Joe Rogan.
• 22:14
  I listen to his podcast all the time, but, you know, I don't need to watch him and his buddies
• 22:17
  beer bonging, you know, and doing bong rips.
• 22:20
  And, like, I don't need to watch that content anymore.
• 22:23
  I think there's people that are interested in a lot deeper content, and not that Joe doesn't
• 22:27
  have some great people on that do get deep.
• 22:29
  It's realizing that, like, that's what people want now.
• 22:32
  They want the deep conversations.
• 22:34
  They want and they wanna know themselves better by getting to know you.
• 22:38
  Yep.
• 22:39
  Totally.
• 22:39
  And what you were just saying, like, that that or how our internal world and our external
• 22:44
  world are reflections of each other.
• 22:46
  Like, that's a lot of the work that I do with clients.
• 22:49
  It's figuring out, like, how are we moving through life and how is that actually shaping
• 22:54
  our external world.
• 22:55
  Right?
• 22:55
  Because we hear it all the time about, oh, I gotta push through this week.
• 22:58
  I gotta pull it together.
• 22:59
  I just you know, I've got a lot on my my mind and my head, my shoulders, all of that.
• 23:04
  That's all gonna be actually physicalized in our bodies.
• 23:07
  Well, it's just survival.
• 23:08
  You're just in survival mode.
• 23:10
  And as someone who's experienced homelessness and experienced living in another country on
• 23:14
  the run from felony warrants in The United States, like, I know what survival feels like.
• 23:19
  Just because I can operate there and I can survive doesn't mean that that's the way I need
• 23:24
  to live my life.
• 23:25
  And I feel like there's so many people out there that are living in survival mode.
• 23:29
  Right?
• 23:29
  If you're paycheck to paycheck, you're in survival mode.
• 23:32
  And most of our country, and I would say most of the planet, is in that all the time.
• 23:38
  And and we're all trying to figure out, like, how do we how do we fix this?
• 23:42
  And you can't there's nothing out there that's going to fix you if you're not willing to go in
• 23:48
  here.
• 23:48
  If you're not willing to go in and go, oh, man.
• 23:50
  Yeah.
• 23:51
  I got some stuff I need to work on and and things to do that.
• 23:54
  And what a great outlet for it to do art.
• 23:56
  Right?
• 23:57
  Whatever that art may be, writing or or podcasting now or it's doing physical art or
• 24:02
  just moving.
• 24:03
  You know, I work out incessantly.
• 24:05
  Right?
• 24:05
  I have to walk two miles a day.
• 24:07
  We have to work out, my wife and I, because that's, you know, that's how we shut the demons
• 24:11
  out.
• 24:12
  That's how we shut the outside world out that tells us that we're not good enough.
• 24:15
  So, Molly, I commend you so much for the work that you've done and all the work that you're
• 24:20
  going to do, and I'm so glad that we got to meet and chat today.
• 24:23
  Can you go ahead and plug, everything that you can, and, we'll get you out of here.
• 24:28
  I'm sure you're a busy lady.
• 24:30
  I appreciate it.
• 24:32
  So probably the easiest way is to go to grayboxcollective.com, and that's gray with an
• 24:37
  e.
• 24:37
  And from there, you can find our Patreon page with play in the gray.
• 24:41
  You can find our podcast, any other anythings.
• 24:43
  You can find out more about trauma informed creative practices as well as more of the work
• 24:47
  that I do.
• 24:49
  So, yes, gray in the Gray Box Collective is probably gonna be the easiest way to get there.
• 24:54
  Excellent.
• 24:54
  Well, Molly Skank, thank you so much for being a part of the scene.
• 24:58
  Well, thank you, Bubba.
• 24:59
  Appreciate it.