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 69: Creative Spark Series - Reflecting on the Year with Melinda Rothouse & Charlotte Gullick
In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, as we approach the new year, we discuss the benefits of taking time to reflect on our creative lives over the last year. It’s helpful to review the events of the year and projects we’ve engaged with, including highlights and accomplishments, as well as how we might want to approach things differently in the coming year. It’s a great way to consider where we’ve been creatively, how far we’ve come, and where we want to go next. Then we can begin to set our creative intentions for the year ahead (which we’ll discuss in Episode 71). This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, also includes insights 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 take some time to reflect on your creative life (and your life more generally) in 2024 and write down your reflections in a notebook or journal.
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 41: Creative Practice, Process, and Product, Episode 59: How Creativity Opens Doors, and Episode 67: Moving Through the World with a Creative Eye.
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, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review! We’d love to hear your feedback as well, so drop us a line at info@syncreate.org.
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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 change makers 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: And I'm Charlotte Gullick. I am a writer, educator, and writing coach. We are the coauthors 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 bring your work to the world.
We're offering a monthly coaching group starting in January 2025, and we'd be delighted for you to join us. We'd also love to hear your feedback on the show. Please drop us a line at info@syncreate.org. We're looking for feedback on how we can improve the show, what's resonating for you, and future topics you'd like us to cover.
Melinda: Alright. Welcome back to the Syncreate podcast. This is another one of our Creative Spark mini episodes. And since we are coming into the new year, we thought it would be helpful to kind of take a moment to take stock and reflect back on the year and what has happened in our creative lives over the last year. And this is a great time here at the end of the year, and just before the beginning of the new year, to really kind of think about, do some journaling.
And, you know, I do this every year as a personal practice, and I just kind of first write down like what happened this year. And it's always amazing to me, like looking back through my journal and going like, wow, that happened and happened.
And I went here and I went there and, you know, all these different projects and, you know, it's kind of amazing once you start to write it all down. And then I kind of start to think about like, well, what was great about this year? What worked well, what did I enjoy? What am I proud of? Are there things that maybe I would do differently next year, or maybe do less of, or even stop doing?
Are there things that I might want to start doing in a different way? Whether that's self-care practices, whether that's creative habits, whatever it might be. And, you know, obviously, the podcast is around creativity, psychology, and spirituality, but I think these yearly reflections can touch into all aspects of our lives, and everything's interconnected anyway. So, you know, reflecting on the year as a whole and then really thinking about our creative lives and, you know, kind of what were the highlights, what were the challenges of the year?
So, this is a practice I've been doing personally for a number of years now, and it's something that I actually quite look forward to at the end of the year as a way to just kind of take stock. So I don't know. Charlotte, how's that for you? Do you do a similar practice?
Charlotte: I think probably with not as much intention. But I like the idea of it, but do I do it? And when I do, and I think it's really important to make a distinction between rumination and reflection. And I think particularly anniversaries at the end of the year, at the beginning of the year, those are times where we, it's natural for us to kind of consider, like you were saying, how far we've come, where we would like to be one year from now.
But there's something about the reflective practice where we ask the intentional questions that gets us into a place I think of empowered creativity rather than a ruminating, like, I didn't do what I wanted to do. It's almost like we get to tell ourselves a different story through the practice of reflection.
Melinda: Yeah, I think that's so important because this is not about beating ourselves up for what we didn't do or whatever that might be. But I think more like an opportunity. Like I have something, you know, every day is a new day, right? We always have a chance to start over, begin again, take a fresh start. Like, if we didn't do it last year, maybe we can do it this year. Or is it actually that important? You know, what do we want to commit ourselves to in the most positive way?
Charlotte: And I also think that the, you know, the show is about the intersection of those three things, creativity, psychology and spirituality. And I think it's, the reflection piece is to ask ourselves, where is our spirituality in our creativity? What's the psychology that's driving my creativity? And I think the reflective practice is so important because it helps us stay in process.
Yeah, we have goals, but it's also are we grounding in our creativity on regular basis so that we feel empowered?
Melinda: Yeah, I love that idea of empowered creativity. Right. Because there's nothing worse than like approaching our creativity like a to do list item or, you know, like an obligation that kind of takes the fun out of it. But like, again, back to our play, plan, produce model, you know, allowing ourselves to play and enjoy the creative process.
Charlotte: So Melinda, what's a highlight, a creative highlight for you for 2024?
Melinda: Yes. Well, I will share. I was just talking to a friend about this. I applied for a residency, an artist residency in Iceland this summer. So I'm going to be doing that for a month, and that'll be, I'm going to dedicate that time. I'll be working on podcast stuff since I always am, but, dedicate that to music, writing music. And I've got a number of new songs I've been working on. And that process will continue. I've been in this like really receptive mode, like I've been receiving ideas, often, I've talked about this before, like when I'm falling asleep or waking up or in the middle of the night.
So I'm just like being, staying open to all those ideas and then just having, like, a month to sit with my music on an island in the middle of a fjord in Iceland.
Charlotte: Oh, like you do! [Laughter]
Melinda: [Laughter] And just, you know, because I think, you know, we've talked about this a lot, too. It's just taking that time for a retreat, taking that time away to just really dig into our creative work, in whatever that's, whatever way that's possible in our lives.
Charlotte: The risks that it took to apply and then to be accepted. It's a really, it's a great thing. And I think sometimes, were you afraid to apply?
Melinda: I was not afraid. I haven't, I know you've done a lot of, like, writing residencies over the years. I have not. I've done more like personal retreats, but not really artist residencies.
But I was in Iceland this past summer on a retreat that some friends were leading. And we went to this island, which is just an absolutely magical place. And that's where I learned, oh, they have an artist residency here, and we were walking around the island. We were seeing like art pieces, art installations that previous residents had made.
Because part of the residency is you give something back to the local community at the end, whether a performance or an art piece or whatever it might be. And so I just was like, wow, this is so cool. And so I knew I wanted to apply, and obviously there's just always a lot going on. And, and I had it on my to do list and it kept dropping to the bottom and dropping to the bottom.
And then just like one day I was like, okay, I need to get this done. Like we're getting closer. We're almost to 2025. Like, and it's kind of a rolling application. So it's not like a set deadline. But, I was like, you know what, I just needed to get this done. And I'm glad I did because it was starting to fill up for the time that I wanted to go. So, I was not afraid, but it was a little bit of procrastination.
Charlotte: Which is very much a part of the creative life too.
Melinda: That is true. That is true. So for our Pro Tip for today, for this episode, we encourage you to journal your reflections on the year in your creative and your wider life.
And I think this was Charlotte's contribution. What dance move or physical gesture might encapsulate your creative life for 2025? So reflecting on the year, looking forward to the year to come. And if you feel so inspired, send us a photo or a video of your gesture or your dance move. We would love to see it.
Charlotte: Find us and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate and we're on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Melinda: We're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin with Charlotte joining us 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.
