The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Welcome to Syncreate, where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. Our goal is to demystify the creative process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative.
Creativity. It’s a word we throw around all the time, but what does it really mean? On the Syncreate Podcast, we share stories of the creative journey. We talk to changemakers, visionaries and everyday creatives working in a wide array of fields and disciplines. Our goal is to explore creativity in all its facets, and to gain a better understanding of the creative process – from imagination to innovation and everything in between.
The Syncreate Podcast is hosted by Melinda Rothouse, PhD. She helps individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life through coaching, consulting, workshops, retreats, and now, this podcast. She's written two books on creativity, including Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities (winner of a Silver Nautilus Award for Creativity and Innovation), with Charlotte Gullick. She's also a musician (singer-songwriter and bass player) and photographer based in Austin, Texas.
The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Episode 49: Creative Spark Series - Creativity in Challenging Times with Melinda Rothouse & Charlotte Gullick
In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, Charlotte and Melinda discuss the importance of exercising our creativity in challenging times, not only for personal fulfillment and joy, but also to build community and be of benefit to the world. This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, includes insights and prompts from our book, Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities.
For our Creativity Pro-Tip, we encourage you to inventory your joy, and think about how creativity can contribute to your general happiness. Then, take intentional time in your schedule for a creative practice.
Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.
If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process, you might also like our conversations in Episode 31: The Power of Collaboration, Episode 37: Giving Back to the Community, and Episode 47: Meaning Making.
At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you’re not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. You can find more information on our website, syncreate.org, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate, and we’re now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review!
Episode-specific hyperlinks:
Charlotte Gullick’s Website
Folk Singer Ronnie Gilbert
Show / permanent hyperlinks:
Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to create. Our goal is to demystify the process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. We talk with visionaries and changemakers and everyday creatives working in a wide range of fields and mediums, from the arts to science, technology and business.
We aim to illuminate the creative process from imagination to innovation and everything in between. I'm Melinda Rothouse and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life.
Charlotte: I'm Charlotte Gullick and I'm a writer, educator and writing coach. We are the co-authors of a book on the creative process, also called Syncreate. At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture and you're not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org.
Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world.
Melinda: Wonderful.
Charlotte: Thank you, everyone, for being with us today. We are joyfully gathered in the spirit of creativity to discuss some ideas and hopefully empower our listeners to come to the creative process with more specific and precise tools as to create and to bring joy. And another thing that's really important to us is emphasizing the power of collaboration and community in the creative process so that we always feel sustained and together.
Melinda: Beautiful.
Charlotte: Today, we're going to talk about creativity and challenging times. And we might feel like…How would I want to say this…So needed right now.
Melinda: Yes.
Charlotte: How do we continue with our creative work when it feels like maybe the world is a little bit on fire in a variety of ways? And so that's what we want to talk about today.
Melinda: Yes. It's so important. Like I know, you know, so many people that just feel scared about the state of the world or, you know, a little paralyzed in their process or can I even do anything that makes a difference? And we're here to say, yes, you can.
Charlotte: And it does make a difference. I think one of the, so for me, one of the things that's really interesting about the creative process is the element of faith that is needed and faith that I can do this thing that l've never done before, faith that I'll find other people who'll say yes to my ideas, and faith that it matters. And I think we want to really help folks ground their creative process and that it matters on so many levels, whether you engage in your creativity or not.
Melinda: Yes.
Charlotte: Once I was the director of a writing conference and we had an advisory board. And Ronnie Gilbert, and she was one of the weavers, so part of the soundtrack to some of the civil rights movement, part of the soundtrack. And she said, “Always remember Charlotte, that you can move towards social justice with joy.”
Melinda: Yes. Yes. And when we were kind of talking about leading up to this episode, also the quote from Ruth Ginsburg, “Speak your mind even if your voice shakes.” Right.
Charlotte: And I think that there might be some voice shaking right now.
Melinda: Yes.
Charlotte: I think in addition to faith, there's also this element of being denied the very things that sustain us. And I kind of feel like if we don't pursue our creativity in challenging time, it's almost like they win, whoever they are… the folks who want to keep us disempowered from expressing our lived truths and our lived experiences. And when we don't create, in a way, it allows them to broaden their own voice and deepen their impact. So keeping that light inside of us alive is really key, I think, to surviving and thriving ìn a way that may not seem like we're thriving.
Melinda: Yeah, yeah. And on that note, creativity is important just for its own sake. It can bring joy, it can bring levity and fun, you know, that playfulness rather than always being in a state of rage or despair. So it's important to kind of keep that balance, right? And you just shared with me this amazing quote about the power of creativity. Will you share that with us?
Charlotte: And I don't know where it comes from, but I just saw it. “In 45 minutes of creative activity significantly lessens stress in the body, regardless of artistic experience or talent.” So l'd need to do a little more research to find out where that came from. But to your point, Melinda, that this is, it's good for us to be creative.
Melinda: Yes, and so many of us, you know, maybe when we were kids, we had these vivid imaginations and we would play and draw and paint and do all these things without any sense of judgment of like, is this good or bad? It's just, you do it. And I think the older we get and the more we get kind of settled in our lives and our professions and whatever it might be, the less we allow ourselves that time for play and creativity.
Charlotte: And I think it's part of the... like restoration work that many of us need to do and that, as you said, creativity for creativity's sake, and what it means on a somatic embodied level to just be with ourselves drawing, painting, dancing, singing, whatever the medium might be that we are connecting to ourselves in a really profound way. And so for some people that manifests in a very, like a lot of seriousness, for other people it's joyful. But that connection to ourself and letting ourselves be in a state of play is radical.
Melinda: Yes, it is radical in some sense, in this world where we're taught we have to be constantly productive, right? And I love that you're talking about connection because it also connects us to other people, right? That sense of creativity that we're not alone, we can collaborate with others. Even if we're not necessarily collaborating on a specific project, we can get together with others and create together, right? There's all kind of meetup groups or activity groups around creativity that we can also kind of use as a way to connect and build community.
Charlotte: That makes me think about like the radical ways that people used quilting to organize and plan how to protect a person who was in a bad relationship, how to share information, how to escape slavery, like the creative connections were also places of incredible activism. And so maybe it's like when we are created by ourselves, we're keeping our activism alive.
Melinda: Yes.
Charlotte: And then when we come to other people, it gets to, how's that word, exponentially grow.
Melinda: Yes, I love that. I love that. Yeah. So what's our Creativity Pro Tip for today?
Charlotte: We are encouraging folks to inventory your joy. So, you know, take a few minutes to either walk and talk into your phone or reflect or write down or like, am I allowing myself to have joy and could creativity be a part of that practice? You know, to laugh, even when it feels like the world is crumbling, it's an important element of mental health. So we encourage folks take a little inventory of where you are letting yourself have some breathing room, some restoration, some opportunities to express yourself just so that you connect with yourself.
Melinda: Yeah, and I think that's so important even to maybe build it into our schedule, right? I was presenting at a little conference this weekend. There was another speaker talking about calendar triage, which I thought was such a great concept. It's like, where can we find little spaces even in our busy, busy schedules to block out time for things like mindfulness or creativity or a simply doing nothing, which is a hard one for me.
I know I kind of have this underlying feeling like, if I'm not working on something, I feel this sense of unease. And I can unplug when I go away. I think that's part of the reason I love to travel. It's like when l'm away, I have a much easier time, but when I'm at home in my normal environment, I always feel like I should be doing something. So, really taking that intentional time for creativity, so important
Charlotte: Find and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate, and we're now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show please subscribe and leave us a review.
Melinda: And we're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin with Charlotte joining in from the Hudson Valley. The podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us and see you next time.
