Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / The Colorful, Healing Power of Creativity

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The Colorful, Healing Power of Creativity · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

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This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
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and with chronic pain and trauma get into the heart of how to heal.
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I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
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discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones, and
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anybody that is interested in having their voice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
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world that we live in. When I was a little girl, I couldn't
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sleep. And those of you that I've listened to this show know that I've
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been in insomniac forever. I could never self regulate. I couldn't handle life
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as I knew it around me at all. And as a little girl like
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nine ten years old, you don't necessarily know why you're unable to do that.
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I knew that I was filled with energy that I couldn't allocate appropriately.
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You know, I felt out of control all of the time, and it's
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part of why I couldn't sleep, because I was scared all of the time.
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I was scared to go to sleep, and honestly, I was afraid
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to be awake too. It's kind of sad when I say that out loud
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and one of the coping mechanisms that I did to manage this, I don't
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know, for lack of a better term, this darkness inside of me,
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this loneliness that came in at night. In particular, my coping mechanism was
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leveraging the creativity that was within me. So what I did through all the
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hours of the night is my parents gave me the four walls and the ceiling
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that I was in and said, you can do whatever you want to in
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the space. So they gave me paintbrushes, and they gave me magazines that
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I could cut out flowers or pieces of art, and I literally painted and
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designed my living space all day every day as a little girl. To try
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to help figure out what was going on with this unbridled energy that I had.
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I needed to do something with a colorful brush, right, strokes that
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colorful brushes of strokes of this beautifulness in the middle of the evening. And
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my parents would find me moving furniture around, trying to give myself this special
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spot that would make me feel safe, and I never found it. And
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what it ended up doing is itped It developed these like OCD tendencies right,
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which is completely now in my world. Everything is labels facing out and color
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coordinated and alphabetized in all of it, and it takes a lot out of
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me. And I'm still trying to figure out one hundred percent where that comes
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from. But I know that safety is part of it. And when you've
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gone through childhood trauma, teenage trauma, adult trauma, adult adult adult trauma,
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I mean, I don't know how many levels of it that I can
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hit. We developed these mechanisms to cope through us, to cope through the
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things that we've been through, things we think we've gone through, the things
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we think we're going through, and the things we think we're going to go
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through. In the fuel is this worry, this anxiety, and with that
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comes this creative juice. And I have got somebody super juicy for you today.
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So without further ado, I would like to introduce you today to my
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guest, Jenny Color for Grover here. She is good. She's the most
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creative and colorful, sexy guest that we have had to date on this show.
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And I am so excited to have you here. Babe. Welcome to
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the Big Show. Thank you so much. What a beautiful story you just
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told I. It really took me to a place. I went to my
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childhood bedroom and had visions of all the things that I did to try to
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create safety and creativity was a big part of that. So I love it.
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Yeah, And when we're not given those opportunities to express creativity, for
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people like myself and none like Jenny and many others that were are listening,
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and that I know in my life that this colorful part part of us cannot
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be stifled. And I mean and that is just the most amazing thing about
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this. So let's just introduce you. So Jenny is a wellness coach who
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cares deeply about the intersection of craft and health, and that's what we're talking
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about, this colorful, joyful part of our well being. And she has
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clients that she coaches in regards to their physical, mental, social, creative,
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and spiritual chriscerns all through creativity. She's a lifelong writer and she's got
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thirty five years of experience in print, broadcasts and online media and in a
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past life, if you guys have probably seen her, she's been on the
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History Channel of Modern Marvels and you can look it up. So if you
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have like cable TV, who's cable TV anymore. I mean, quite frankly,
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if you are an insomniac unlike myself and others, you have seen her
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for sure on TV. She has lived with multiple chronic illnesses and chronic pain
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since she was a young little lady, since nineteen ninety seven, so that's
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basically the same time as us guys. Anne has devoted much of her life
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to advocate for those like her, and she's got a book as well,
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and we're going to get into that later. So I don't want to talk
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any more about me. I want to talk about you. I'm talking about
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why creativity is such an integral part of our wellness practice. And let's roll
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out the red carpet for you, babe and take it. Oh, thank
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you so much. I love being creative and I've been a creative person since
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I was a little kid. And this is something that if listeners take nothing
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else away today but this, I want them to remember that you're born creative.
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You're born from an active creation, and you are born with innate creativity.
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That is who you are. You are designed to make and do and
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think and connect. When we're little kids, this stuff is like really easy
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to connect to we're in school, they hand us a box of crayons.
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Even when we're in junior high. Well back in the day, they handed
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me a typewriter. I guess I had a Mac. I had an old
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like you know, giant and apple to e and apple to e is what
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I had. I wrote my first novella on that computer. But you know,
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today they probably hand you an iPad or something. But you know,
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when you're a kid, they your teachers, your family, your friends likely
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reinforce that to some degree. And then we become adults and it's all about
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coloring inside the lines, and it's all about keeping like following the rules,
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keeping to somebody else's standards of what is supposed to be. And if you're
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like me and you have pink hair, well, okay, things are changing
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now because it's not as weird to have pink hair. But but if you
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want to be in the corporate world, or if you want to have kind
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of what I call it a straight job, lots of tattoos and nose piercings
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and colorful hair is still kind of, you know, not cool and certain
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environmental taboo. We're getting there, though, We're getting there, which I'm
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happy about. But too. Yeah, as adults were not always encouraged use
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our creative side, and it can kind of wither and die. And I
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am on a mission to make sure that everyone in the world has access to
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this truth that they are creative, that they can tap into that. Whether
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they are like me, I'm a quilter, whether they have a giant bookshelf
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of quilting fabric behind them, or if they just have like five colored pencils
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and a piece of paper. You can be just as creative as me if
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you allow yourself to play and tap into that childlike energy. Yeah. And
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because creativity it is not just to your point. It's not just like I'm
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a quilter or I am a painter or I am a writer. It is
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whatever you want to create that feels creative to you. And that's for me.
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Like my nephew right now, he's living with my sweetie and I right
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now, and he's really interested in his e bike and getting creative on how
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he can start his own little business and how he can help other kids make
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their bikes better. Right, And I wantentrepreneurial, So I'm trying to give
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him a little bit of entrepreneurial spirit, which I know he has in him,
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but he's being creative about that. He's like, hmm, what do
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you think about this? Antlindeel like should I do this? Should we do
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that? What do you think about this? And really asking these creative questions
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to help him with outlet because right now, at his point in life,
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right now, he's going through some stuff, and going through some stuff could
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lead him this way or it could lead him this way, and so we're
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trying to guide him towards this way. Yea more of the creative side of
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it. Even though you wouldn't think about creativity and building motors or building bikes
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or building cars. It's incredibly creative to do the things that you want to
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do that are after market or after whatever's there that's been given to you.
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Yeah, we anytime we can take anything, any mundane thing or any standard
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kind of thing and make it creative. So sometimes when I work with my
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coaching clients, I have them go to their sock drawer and I asked them
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to commit fifteen minutes to playing in their sock drawer. And that means your
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socks by color or texture or pattern, or picking colors of socks and putting
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them in the drawer next to each other, or making a little to me.
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I know, I know, as you said, all of your labels
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all face the same way that you are INTI sostore does not need anybody to
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touch it, So step away, it's perfect. What about the undies drawer,
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because that's always like then continue on next. So yeah, so we
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play like like we may take a sock and make a sock puppet out of
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it and like act out a scenario or there's there's lots of opportunities to get
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weird and silly and playful. And it's funny, like some clients are so
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resistant to it because they're just like, what's the point. Yeah, And
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I'm like, the point is you allow yourself to just tap into this creative
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energy. You're allowing yourself to play. That's the point. The point isn't
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production, which is like so much about well, let me say so,
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a lot of people think about creativity as like making a thing. You have
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to make a thing and have a product. It is your like a painting
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or quilled something has to come out of it that we can display in a
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museum. No, yes, yes, yes, no, that's and that's
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it. That's the thing that we get wrong so often is like we think
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we need a finished product to show off, But the creativity is the process
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or the practice or even like a lifestyle that you move through. So you
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can play with socks and that's very creative, and then you can fold them
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back up and put them in your drawer, but you've given yourself those few
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minutes to get silly. Well, so many people have misconceptions of what that
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actually is, like like, what would be the reasoning behind doing X,
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Y and Z creative lead for them? Like what what are they going to
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gain from that? Because they like they're going to be embarrassed by doing something
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like that, or they're going to feel silly doing that, or there's this
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like ego that comes into play. Yeah, when we're talking about that,
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we're like, leave ego at the door, and ego can mean whatever it
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can mean to whoever it is. Look it up. It is not just
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what you think it is. That's right speaking. Now, we want to
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release people of that because when we let ourselves play, we're tapping into our
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innate energy and that is really getting to the core of who we are.
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And we're also experimenting and that's teaching us that we can be courageous and that
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it's okay to try something and have it not be successful, that it's not
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the end of the world. And we are putting things together in unusual ways,
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which reminds us that we have lots of different kinds of resources at hand
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all around us at any given time. And sometimes when you're creating, like
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if I'm quilting with friends, then we're connecting with people and we're feeling a
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shared sense of purpose or some support or just validation that we're human being worthy
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of someone spending time with us. Like, so those little creative acts,
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even if we don't produce something, can give us so much. We're talking
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empowerment and ideas and courage and per mission, and so it's not just about
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making the thing. It's about tapping into who you are and letting yourself express
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yourself in a bigger way, you know. Yeah, And we're all driven
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to like perform, like you're saying, like, there's always got to be
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this. Well, I did all of this today, and I should have
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a perfect bull made on this kiln that I like did this whole through.
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I used to do a lot of ceramics stuff, so I was immediately when
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you're talking about that. My creative outlet when I was younger was creative creatively
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was in in and building pots and doing all of that, and then painting
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and singing is of course, but you know, when it comes to people
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feeling insecure about trying new things, especially when it comes to a creativity side
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of it, where you've got somebody that's like, I'm a corporate guy and
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I do this anice, and I'm in finance and I got this, but
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I've got all of this mischy gus that I've got to get rid of,
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and I've got all of this boloney going on, and now you're telling me
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that I'm going to like go throw a pot and I'm going to go make
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a quill or I'm going to know, like, what, what the fuck
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lady's talking about here? How can we take that ego that we talked about?
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How can we take that ego and let it sit aside for a while?
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And why is that so beneficial for us? Especially when you're talking with
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people that have come from trauma. Oh yeah, well, as I have,
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and I know that you've had your experiences. I'm sure so many people
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listening have, you know, when someone's feeling really stuck and they're feeling like
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it's not worth it, or they can't see the benefit to taking that creative
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step allowing themselves to play, I ask them what they're afraid of, and
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usually they're afraid of judgment. They're afraid they're going to look stupid, they're
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afraid they're going to look silly. And so when someone's really scared, I
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say, well, why don't we start with just you. You don't have
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to show me what you make, you don't have to show anyone. You
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can journal, you can doodle, you can make that sock puppet out of
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your undies or your sucks, you can do whatever you're able to tap into,
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whatever feels accessible. Let's start with a baby step and you don't have
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to show it to anyone, And often that gets people started. And then
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the next step might be, like if I'm coaching someone the next session,
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I might say, why don't we try making something together, or why don't
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you show me something that you've made or drawn or whatever. And so then
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that's one safe person that they've already built a trust with and they know that
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I'm not going to think they're silly or stupid, and then we can talk
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that through and in the process of making and showing it with me, we
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can have that conversation where we start to identify what it is they're afraid of,
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Like what what's the fear factor there? We need to babystep into that.
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Sometimes we need to start really small and with very low stakes stuff,
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you know, like I didn't become I'm a quilter. I make these giant
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projects. I make very personal projects. They're getting shown publicly. Now.
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I didn't start there. I started with a little, tiny thing that only
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my best friend and my teacher sow. And then I started with something bigger.
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And then I joined a guild, and then I had people telling me
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that my work was worthy and helping me, and then I got courage I
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mean, it took years to get courageous about showing my work. I only
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showed my first quote in the show last year, and I've been quoting for
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ten years. So I am a slow mover. I need to baby step
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into things. So even a person who I you know, is so devoted
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to creativity like me, it took me a while to ease into my work
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like showing it publicly. So I just want to say that out loud for
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anyone who's listening who thinks that, like I just jumped, like can ebold
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into this creativity pool, you know, like I dipped my toe in.
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Well, I always can't embold no matter what I do, and I splash
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everybody and then I have to apologize for it, and then I get back
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out of the pool, and then I'm like, all right, I'm going
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to step a toe in first instead this down. But I already got some
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of the big splash that I learned from quickly. And some of us work
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like that, and sometimes people need to throw some stuff at the wall and
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see what sticks and then back up and refine it. I mean, we
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all have our process. But that's that's a thing that we need to remember
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too, is that we're all going to approach us in different ways and there's
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not a wrong way. Absolutely, yeah, And thank you for stating that,
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because when it comes to this, this is the scariest thing that I've
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ever done, is doing this show, because it was like I have to
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canniball every single moment when I come in here and I'm not sure it's going
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to happen, and I'm not sure, and that that's part of the I
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like getting into trouble. I like a little mischief. I like a little
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unknown, a little mystery, And so I like that about this process for
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me. Yeah, I can prep as much as I want to. I
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mean, I do my little outline about things I want to like kind of
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sort of make sure I talk about. But at the end of the day,
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I kind of like going in fairly blind to a certain extent, because
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I don't want to come in prefabricated to what I'm going to talk about.
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I mean, obviously we've got our ideas of what we've and we talked about
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it and meet and greets and stuff. But this is the scariest cannon ball
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that I've ever done, and I do it every day. Yeah, it's
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something that has I've had to work towards accepting the process for what it is
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for me. Mm hm. And it's not easy because I'm such a perfectionist.
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I was just gonna say, how is perfection playing a role in your
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process? Not it's not. And that's why this is such a scary thing
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for me, because it isn't. As this is what Lindsay's doing and this
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is what I'm gonna do, and this is how I'm going to do it.
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And this is the time that I have had to let go of all
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of that, which was a huge creative challenge for me to do. Oh
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yeah, but it also was the best decision that I made, and it
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was accepting the work that I was doing from a creative personec Because this is
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creativity. It would come we're doing a podcast, this is creative too,
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But I mean, just beca We're not painting, we're painting pictures through our
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words. I mean, we're painting. We're painting experiences to the words that
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we're saying to you guys. And so that's part of the creativity journey that
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I'm on, and it's helping me process pain and trauma as well as release
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it through these episodes, which is the same thing that I'm asking my guests
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to do. So if I'm asking my guests to do it, I can't
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be an asshole and not do it bad. Yeah, definitely real I'd be
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a shitty host. Man. Well, the thing is like you're doing a
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few things that the most successful creatives do, Like, you have parameters,
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so you have an outline, you have technology, we have a schedule,
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you do a meet and greet, so you know who you're getting. You
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do a little bit of research, but you don't overdo it. You have
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parameters, and so a lot of really successful artists set parameters for themselves to
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work within because that creates like a safer container to play in. They feel
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that they've got that structure, like a scaffolding almost that supports them, and
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then they know they can get weird inside of it. So even like Lisa
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Congdon is a beautiful surface design artist that I really love, and she has
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this thing where there are a couple of colors that she just never uses in
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her work. She has a very limited like I've never seen purple in her
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work. She's got parameters. Yeah, she is a super dynamic, colorful
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creator, but she has set these limits for herself and then she can play
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within them. And so some people need that. Some people don't want any
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limits, they don't want any guidelines. They just want to free ball it.
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They don't want any they don't want a color between the lines. They
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know, yeah, that's right. And then some people need a lot of
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structure. So they want to set a certain schedule for themselves, a window
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where they do nothing else, and that's what they do every single day,
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and they're going to create x amount of work and it's going to be excise
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and this color and whatever, and that works for them. And so when
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we think about people who've experienced trauma, creating that sense of safety and that
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structure is really important because when we've lived with trauma, as I have and
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you have and so many people have, we lose control. We're in a
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situation or we're in a life for a period of time where we don't feel
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a sense of agency, where we feel unsafe, where we know that we'll
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be harmed if we don't act or say a certain thing, and so we're
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constantly I'll just speak for myself. When I growing up, I was constantly
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in a state of fear and nothing felt safe. So then as I got
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older, like so much of my life was built around how do I create
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safety? Physical safety, having a security system, emotional safety, and not
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connecting with certain kinds of people, you know, professional safety, working in
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a very safe field. Like all these kinds of structures helped me get a
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little weird inside of them. But I needed that safety, right, So
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some people died that And so podcasting is super creative and the way you do
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it makes sense to me because of your background. And then I've been on
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people's shows where they don't research me, they don't know anything about me except
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for like my job title and what's on my website, and then we just
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dive in and they're like, I got no script, I got no notes.
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Let's just see what happens. I got bump kiss here, lady,
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I got bump kuss. I would never do that. That's like, that
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freaks me out a little, that there's the shit out of me not having
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any kind of structure, Like I like to have blurred lines, you know,
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yes, because I never know where I'm going to go, but at
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least I know I've got somewhere that I can come back to, you know,
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where I've start, Like, Okay, I've got like my baseline,
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Like all right, Lindsay and Mike go, whoa, that was taking a
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little too far, come on back. And that's something that I would deal
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with it, not just in podcast LAMD, but in my business as well.
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I've done it forever in my in my personal life. So it's just
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one of those things when you when you've been through a lot of trauma and
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you've and you have to be a you feel like you have to be a
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certain way or act a certain way, and you have to do all these
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things, and you should probably go to counseling here, and you should probably
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read this, and you should probably do that. Like I don't want I'm
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not everybody right neither. We are all our own person and we are all
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our own colors. And to your friend's point, like she does not like
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purple, Okay, okay, something happened somewhere along the lines and she doesn't
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like purple, so she's not into it, and that can be That's a
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metaphor for so many other things in life that we avoid no matter what it
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represents. And in creativity, you can throw out the stuff that's like I
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know I do it with me with singing at night when nobody's home. Wow,
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I crank up the music and I sing, And it doesn't matter how
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I'm going to express because I know that I need that form of expression.
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And that's something that I think that is incredibly important for what you do.
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So can we talk a little bit before we run out a time, because
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I want to talk about how you work with your clients in regards to this,
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because this is pretty awesome. Talk to us about how you coach your
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babies. Yeah. Sure. So most of my clients come to me and
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they are they have a creative practice and they want to enrich it in a
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certain way, or they want to enrich other parts of their life and they
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want their creativity to be part of that. So here's an example. So
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I had a client who they wanted to eat better, but they didn't just
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want to have a boring plate, and so they found little Japanese lunch boxes
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like a bento box in like multiple colors, and then they challenged themselves to
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make up their bento box every day for lunch and cut their vegetables into fun
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shapes and arrange them and have nice color contrast, like put a little garnish
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in there. Whatever. So it was a cute, beautiful, sweet little
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lunch that they were excited to open every day. And that was how they
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brought their creativity into what for most people is kind of boring moment, like
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you have your saying which you go back to work, right, this client
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made it fun and cute and she challenged herself to think creatively about it.
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So that's when I coach people. What we talk about motivation. First,
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we try to figure out why do you want to do this, what's motivating
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you? Is it coming from within, is it coming from someone else?
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Is it motivated by fear? Or is it a proactive motivation, like are
24:17
you moving toward a big goal? And then we use that to decide how
24:22
are you going to bring creativity into working on this goal? And then sometimes
24:26
people come to me and their creativity has I'm not going to say it's dyed,
24:32
but it's definitely taken a long nap, you know what I mean?
24:34
Nicely said, it's going a long nap, and we want to raise it
24:41
up from the that. We want to get that creativity cooking again. And
24:47
so then we think about again, what are your motivations, why why do
24:52
you need this? Getting in touch with what it's going to do for them
24:53
to have more creative work in their life. Is it going to make you
24:59
feel more excited? Is it going to give you more joy? Will it
25:03
help you connect with others? Will it be something you can connect to your
25:07
spirituality? So we look at those kinds of connections and then we talk about,
25:11
okay, well, what's your first step if you're let's say you're a
25:15
painter, and you're a Christian and you want to get more in touch with
25:21
your spiritual pursuit, maybe that gives you some ideas about the kinds of things
25:26
you want to paint. Or maybe you're like me and you're a quilter and
25:30
you're a Buddhist and you want to get more in touch with your spiritual side.
25:34
Well, then maybe I'm making a quilt or an embroidery piece about a
25:40
Buddhist axiom that's important to me, you know. So we try to find
25:42
those connections because when people are trying something new, it's hard to just say.
25:48
I'd be like if I just turned to you and said, you know
25:51
what would really help your creative practice if you went out and made a piece
25:55
of exquisite jewelry, and you might be like, well, what the hell
25:59
where am I supposed to get my tools and my maids and get some ideas
26:03
and having a bid? We're my bids and you and we may not know
26:07
right. But instead I might say, I might say, Lindsey, when
26:11
you think about when you were a kid, what was your favorite creative thing
26:15
to do? If I were coaching you, I'm not coaching you right now
26:18
because that requires a certain agreement between us. But if I were coaching someone,
26:25
I might ask them what was what did they enjoy in childhood or what
26:27
have they done previous that they really love that we might come back to,
26:32
or what is accessible to them, like is there a place where you can
26:34
take a class, is there a friend that could teach you a technique?
26:38
What's accessible and exciting to you? And then you know, for those of
26:44
us with trauma, I'm very careful because I'm not a psychologist. My job
26:48
is not to therapize anybody, and so when I work with clients who've had
26:52
trauma, I am very intentional about making sure that they are in therapy,
26:56
that they have medical help that I can't give them. But then within that
27:03
structure, we talk about what is safe for you to work on right now,
27:07
what feels attainable or what or if something feels safe, like can we
27:11
walk it to that edge of safety and just like peer over a little bit
27:15
and see if we can nudge it a little farther up, you know,
27:18
But it just depends on the client. It's a really tailored practice based on
27:22
the unique individual's needs. Yeah, because everybody is somebody. I say it
27:27
all the time, on the show. Everybody's getting bored with that line.
27:32
I understand it, but it is legitimately true. Do not think that you
27:36
are the same person that's sitting next to you and you need the same kind
27:38
of care. I don't care if it's Western medicine, Eastern medicine, whatever
27:42
the hell you believe in. You are different than everybody else, and so
27:45
please do not put yourself in the same box as the person that's sitting next
27:48
to you, because like my sweetie and I, we are two completely different
27:52
human beings. Do we agree upon ninety five percent of the things that we
27:56
believe in in our life? Yes? Do we have the same political ideations,
28:00
yes we do. Do we have the same all those things big picture
28:03
check out, But when it comes to things that I want to do for
28:07
my life and self care, way different from it. Yes, I believe
28:12
the same, we feel the same, we enjoy the same things, YadA,
28:15
YadA, YadA YadA. But when it comes to our care for ourselves
28:19
and where we want to go within our lives, they're very, very different.
28:25
And that is that. And he's not a creative, but yet he's
28:29
in broadcast journalism, so he's creative on air. He is so incredibly brilliant
28:34
with his mind, very different from what we're doing here, but that is
28:40
his creative outlet. Even though you wouldn't think doing their news broadcast journalism would
28:45
be creative the way in which she does it, it is because he has
28:48
to because he doesn't want to be like everybody else. He doesn't want to
28:51
get the news in the same way because everybody else is doing it that way.
28:56
So he can work creatively. No matter what you do for a living,
29:00
or if you don't don't have a living, your stay at home mom
29:03
whatever did, or stay at home dad. Quite frankly, we need more
29:04
of a stay at home down you guys. Now you know we all have
29:10
to have our creative outlets, no matter what that looks like. So that's
29:14
something that you're bringing this to. And it's so funny. When I first
29:15
saw you, it was like Quilter right. I rolled my eyes and like,
29:22
Jesus fuck, I can hear her talk to this girl about And instantaneously
29:29
I was like, I love her because it was not just about It's not
29:33
about you being a culture. It's not about that. It's about that,
29:37
it's an element of what you do in your self care that helps you with
29:41
your creative process. Mine is singing, and mine is the show, and
29:44
mine is also in writing. So we all have our stuff. We just
29:47
have to like give it some love. We give a lot of love to
29:51
the shit. Yeah, oh my gosh. Yeah, well that's it.
29:55
That's the thing that a lot of clients come to me and they're like,
29:56
I don't I'm feeling like my creative practice suffering. And I ask them how
30:00
much time are you spending on it? And when people say, well,
30:03
I have, yeah, none, and I'm like, all right, well,
30:06
then we're going to start with fifteen minutes a day. We're gonna or
30:10
what feels good to you. I'll say what feels attainable to you? And
30:14
some people say three hours, and I'm like great, based on you're not
30:18
doing anything. I'm just wondering, what do you think is going to change
30:22
so that you do three hours tomorrow and then we date a little deeper.
30:26
Okay, three minutes when they rein it in, that's right, they start
30:30
with three minutes, and that's okay. That's the thing I have. You
30:33
know, I have clients who very happily can say I'm you know what tomorrow,
30:37
I'm going to do two hours, and they will do it because they
30:40
have that intrinsic motivation. They are driven by that need to feel that flow
30:45
state and get that joy. And I have other clients who say I'm going
30:48
to try to do ten minutes a day this week, and they get half
30:51
the days done, and neither client is better or worse than the other.
30:56
They're each following their process. And some people like me, I'm a slow
31:00
takes me a while to ease into things. Some people like you can ball
31:03
into things. We all move at different paces and there's no good or bad
31:07
about it, you know. But people tend to judge themselves. And we
31:11
live in a time where social media is so prevalent and widely used, and
31:15
it is like a vehicle for comparison, and then we hold ourselves up to
31:21
what everybody else is doing, and then we feel like shit about ourselves.
31:22
And that's man. I'm like, I'm backing away from Instagram lately because I
31:27
can't take the feeling of being less than all the time. I don't I
31:33
don't want to feel that. So that's that's one thing I wanted, is
31:36
not falling the Kardashians. I've been telling this to you for years. Well,
31:41
actually so I unfollowed them last year because I was like, I cannot
31:45
look at the football. I can't with these people. I love watching rich
31:48
people be ridiculous, but there has to be a limit. I'm going to
31:52
keep it to watching Below Deck and Real Housewives, and that's it. I
31:56
don't need it. I'm not even that low lady. I have never watched
32:00
one of those dumb shows ever. I I can't. I can't to those
32:06
of you, I know, to those of you who love them, God
32:07
bless you all right, not are just in my room. I live a
32:13
lot. I love enough live like TV whatever the hell we call it?
32:17
What do we call it? It's streaming? Maybe I don't know. It's
32:22
the reality TV, that's sure, Yeah, because now that's an age old
32:25
term apparently because I can't remember it. Yeah, I live enough reality.
32:30
I don't need any more reality. And I certainly don't want to hear about
32:34
you and your salad dressing. Like I just don't care. Yeah, I
32:38
would much rather hang with people and watch them make things and use their brains
32:44
and their hearts and so like, yeah, that's what I want to do.
32:46
So when we think about quilting, like people listening, they may not
32:50
have any idea what I mean when I say on the quilter. They might
32:52
think that it's all like light blue and mauve, you know, traditional patterns.
32:58
You know from the eight you're in a rocking chair on a on a
33:02
deck in North Carolina. That's right, that's right, But none of those
33:08
are true. Right out of Chicago, chilling quilts with no drinks. There's
33:15
a little I have my water. I'm I've been getting into hop water,
33:21
which is pretty delicious. But yeah, I'm making like super colorful, exuberant.
33:27
I call it hyperscrappy post maximalist. I mean postmodern maximalism. So hyperscrappy
33:34
postmodern maximalism. So here's it's also in the middle of a bunch of trademarking
33:38
for this, because no one's taking it, no one. I'm not even
33:43
worried about it. Don't worry. Well. Hyperscrappy is all about like I
33:52
love to bring in all the different elements. I want every color and every
33:55
texture and every pattern. So a lot of my quilts just everything like thrown
34:00
at them. And I have this like kind of frenetic energy, like visual
34:06
energy. I move slow because I have chronic pain, and so I'm not
34:09
like frenetically moving through my studio, but my clothes have the energy and maximalism.
34:16
Like that's that again, that devotion to like every color, every texture,
34:21
every pattern. Like I want my quilts to kind of be like a
34:25
little bit of an explosion in your brain when you see them, and I
34:29
want them to talk to you. I want you to have feelings about them.
34:31
And then also you can cuddle under them. So it's like you get
34:36
the boast of both worlds. When I think about my great grandma, she
34:38
was going blind in her nineties and she was still crocheting every day, and
34:44
she didn't care what color yarn she had. She just needed contrast so that
34:47
she could see the two different colors of yarn relating, yeah, relating to
34:53
each other. Right, And so her crocheted blankets were bananas. It's like
35:00
they made no sense, but they were also beautiful because she knew that it
35:05
felt good to move her hands in a rhythmic fashion and use her brain,
35:08
even though she was going blind and she was tired. And so the quilts
35:13
that I mean, the crocheted blankets that came out were just off the rails
35:17
but I but I have one, and I love it so much, and
35:21
it came from that beautiful urge to create you know. Yeah, well it's
35:25
awesome, and I expect a beautiful blue and white and mob quilt said to
35:30
me, excellent, I'm gonna puff it. I'm gonna fill it extra puffy
35:35
so that it's like big and fluffy for you. Never, I would never,
35:38
please, don't do that. All right, So, real quick,
35:44
let's talk about your book. We've got Chronic Babe one oh one, how
35:45
to craft an incredible life beyond Illness. Let's talk real quick about that before
35:50
we hit the dusty trail. Yeah, sure, sure. So you know,
35:53
we've talked about the fact that I have chronic illness stuff. I've had
35:55
chronic pain and chronic illness for twenty six years. And after the first few
36:00
years, I started to really figure out what I was doing with a lot
36:05
of help from other people, and I started doing online advocacy as Chronic Babe,
36:09
and it was all about teaching young women how to be babes, no
36:14
matter how sick they were. That's where I was coming from. I was
36:16
in my thirties today. If I were remaking the site, it would not
36:20
be as gendered. But at the time, there were no outlets for women
36:24
to share their voices when it came to having chronic illness, Like there were
36:29
no websites. When I got diagnosed with fibromyalgia, they gave me a trifold
36:31
brochure. That's what I had. I had nothing. So when we think
36:36
about what was available back then, I needed what I wanted to read.
36:39
I needed like a punk rock, weird ass website to talk to me about
36:45
how to live well with pain. I didn't need this trifold brochure with like
36:50
ancient people, people probably in their fifties like I am today. But at
36:53
the time, I was like, who are these old people? These are
36:55
not me? So I made this thing called Chronic Babe, and and through
37:00
that work for sixteen years, I advocated for people like us who live with
37:04
chronic pain and chronic illness. And out of that came this book that's really
37:08
all about helping people learn how to just create the life that's going to feel
37:13
the best to them, even if they're sick. Yeah, and I can
37:16
say that it's possible because I've done it. I every you know, your
37:21
mileage may vary like other people's journeys are not going to be my journey.
37:24
But I did it. I managed to make a life despite having many chronic
37:30
illnesses PTSD, asthma, rainodes, fibromyalgia, IBS, a bunch of stuff
37:37
just basically like word salad of chronic stuff, right, But I figured it
37:44
out. It's not exactly what I thought my life was going to be like,
37:45
but I've made the best life that I could out of what I was
37:50
handed. So for folks who have not figured that out yet, Chronic Babe,
37:53
one on one is my It's like my love letter to people with chronic
37:58
pain and chronic illness and just like really helping them be sexy and vibrant and
38:02
fun and adventurous and creative and loving and connected and all those things even if
38:08
they're sick. You know, today, if I were going to rewrite that
38:13
book, I would definitely write it from a more trauma informed perspective because knowing
38:17
what I know now about how trauma, you know, in a lot of
38:22
ways created a lot of the chronic stuff that I live with. There's lots
38:27
of ways to heal trauma, and it won't ever leave me, but I've
38:30
learned how to live with it and feel better with it, and so I
38:34
think we need more resources that are trauma informed for people with chronic illness and
38:37
chronic pain, because when we neglect to care for some of those other sources
38:45
of struggle, then we're not treating the whole patient. So anyway, that's
38:49
like my little soapbox moment. I just think we need more of that kind
38:52
of work out there. So that's the thing that I'm currently researching myself.
38:57
But yeah, I don't. So many of us with chronic pain chronic illness
39:00
have come from really intense, shitty backgrounds, And it's not that it everything
39:07
is in our head, but there are parts of our chronic illness and chronic
39:12
pain experience that are generated from emotional experiences, and so when we can pay
39:17
attention to that and honor it, we can feel somewhat better and have like
39:23
fewer symptoms sometimes when we're treating the mental side of the chronic pain or chronic
39:30
illness. Again, I just want to emphasize that I'm not saying it's all
39:34
in people's heads, because that's bullshit. That's not how I am. People
39:37
said that to me a lot when I was younger, and I was like,
39:40
well, t all that's of the rest of my body. Yeah,
39:45
I experience the same and so many women did, and pot so many women
39:49
did and they still do today. But it's it's less it's less common.
39:52
But you know, so I and to come back full circle when we think
39:57
about creativity, you know that book that I wrote was a creative act born
40:01
out of suffering. It was I made something out of my suffering. People
40:07
might not think of that as a creative act, but I created something that
40:12
didn't exist to help other people. And it's a tool that helps other people
40:15
use their creativity to create a lifestyle that they previously haven't experienced. So it's
40:22
just another way to remind people that we can use our creativity in so many
40:25
different ways. And some of that if it's for me, if it's to
40:30
help people, then I feel like I have fulfilled my mission. You know
40:35
what I mean? Well, and that's why you're here to help explain and
40:39
teach us more ways that we can hope how we can. Like even when
40:45
I started, like all of these coping mechanisms that I created at such a
40:50
young age to get me through not understanding what my little brain was dealing with
40:54
at such a young age, and having to be an adult so young.
40:59
I'm like in a dole at nine, You're like, WHOA, Okay,
41:01
that's weird. I probably should not be an adult at this young of an
41:05
age. And it has aged me by being this old soul, by being
41:09
this person that I'm like, I'm exhausted. I'm like, I was going
41:13
through stuff that people in their forties should be going through when I was nine,
41:15
Like, this is nuts of stuff. Yeah, And it wasn't until
41:19
I started doing this that and meeting people like yourself that it really not unhinged,
41:23
but it kind of like lifted this veil of I did not know all
41:29
of that stuff was going on. And so here we are and we're doing
41:34
the thing, and we're doing it together, and I am so grateful for
41:37
having met you and you know, and the colorful joy that you've brought into
41:42
my life into our listeners as well. Jenny and I literally could do like
41:45
seventeen episodes further, and we talked about starting our own podcast on our meeting
41:51
and greet because we have so many things that we want to talk about in
41:53
a colorful way. I'm square by square, you know that we can get
41:59
to make them colorful place for us all to live in. But we're both
42:01
here, so you are exclusively invited to share this living creatively and scrappy vip
42:09
pain journey together. Let's get to the heart of how to heal with you
42:14
by my side and by Jenny's side. Thank you so much for being here
42:16
with us today. Jenny, It's been an absolute wonderful, colorful trip.
42:21
Oh thank you. The joy is mine. Thank you for joining me on
42:24
this colorful journey today. I can't wait to see where we're gonna go.
42:30
Welcome to the Pain Game Podcast. Guys. This is what we do here.
42:32
Let's connect and here stories of strength and grit. I am here,
42:37
Jenny is here. We are here to provide a safe place to be vulnerable,
42:40
to be honest, to be colorful, and share your powerfully amazing stories.
42:45
So please follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever you digest your podcast content,
42:51
we will be there. Visit us at the Pain gamepodcast dot com, and
42:54
follow us on all the socials. Thanks for listening, my little VIPs.
42:59
Catch you on the other side. H