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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 84: From Surviving to Thriving with Melinda Rothouse & Charlotte Gullick
In this episode of our Creative Spark series, we reflect on how embracing creativity, community, and a bit of levity can help us move from surviving to thriving, especially in difficult times. Sometimes we think of creativity as a luxury, but what if it’s actually a necessity for getting through life and keeping our spirits up? Maybe it’s as simple as a quick reframe. 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 ask you to reflect on whether you’ve made yourself a little smaller lately, and if so, what’s one thing you can do to reclaim your joy? It could be singing in the car, or dancing in the shower, or wearing a colorful scarf, or underwear, or some crazy socks. Sometimes the little things, the silly things, can make a big difference.
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 49: Creativity in Challenging Times, Episode 67: Moving Through the World with a Creative Eye, and Episode 82: Healing the Creative Wound.
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, including a monthly creativity coaching group, 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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Melinda: Creativity and community are absolutely vital in challenging times. 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: Hi, 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 synceate.org. Our book, now available in both print and audiobook format, 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. Our monthly creativity coaching group has begun. 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 what future topics you'd like us to cover.
Welcome to the Syncreate Podcast. So, today we want to talk about how important community is. And we've covered this in various topics, but - I mean, in various episodes or quickies - but what we want to talk about right now is, how do we maintain faith in our creativity when the world feels fraught? There's a lot of change happening right now, and people might be saying, “I should step away from my creative projects. I need to focus elsewhere.”
And we wanted to make sure that you're coming into 2025 with an idea of thriving and not just surviving. And for us, one of the ways that we want to live into that is making sure that we make time for our creativity, rather than kind of honing our self down, or getting kind of anemic. And “I'm just going to hang on and get through.” How can we open up a little bit so that we're bringing a fuller self to the community? And how do we make sure that fear does not overtake our creative process?
Melinda: Yes. And I'm thinking about creativity as a self-care practice. I think sometimes we have this idea of, creativity is a luxury, or I don't have time for that, you know? But many of us have some kind of morning routine where we get up and have some coffee, maybe do journaling or meditation before we start the day. Why not have a daily creative practice as part of that? Whether it's Artist’s Way style morning pages, or drawing. I've talked in the past about just drawing a little mandala every day. All you have to do is draw a circle on a piece of paper and fill it in however you want.
You know, there's all kinds of small, quick creative practices we can do. And we've talked about the benefits, like the mental and physical, physiological health benefits of creative practice. So, how can we kind of reframe creativity not as a luxury, but as a necessity for thriving?
Charlotte: I think that's exactly it. It's not - creativity is not a luxury. It is a necessity for self-care, for community. It shapes the self that we bring to others. And, I mean, the last week I've had a series of difficult things happen. You know, some work uncertainty, the car won't start. It’s been negative zero here.
Melinda: Negative zero? (Laughter) That sounds cold.
Charlotte: Very cold. And our bathtub pipe froze. And then this thing, and then that thing. And I was like, you know what? It would be really easy to give in to this and kind of despair, or like, “Oh, everything’s just crap and it's going to stay crap”. Like, it's almost seductive. And, “Hold on. Hold on, Charlotte. What we need to do is be bigger in this, in this moment.”
And bigger has so many different iterations or incarnations or what that can look like. For me, being bigger means staying grounded in gratitude and making sure that I'm not shrinking myself in the world. That I'm still going to show up whole, and not overly invested in this thing and that thing that happened. So, Dreux and I went to breakfast last week, and the waiter was dancing. He came over like, “How are you doing this morning?”
And I was like, “I notice that you're dancing.” He's like, “I used to dance all the time and I stopped, and I’m going to bring it back in.” And so, he danced a little bit more and then took our orders. And then every time he came by, he did a little twirl or flare, move. And, at the end, I was like, “Just keep dancing.”
And I said to him, “Let’s make sure that we thrive and not just survive.” And he’s like, “That means so much to me.” I think it's reminding each other too, that there are small ways that we can be expressive, even when we're very afraid.
Melinda: Absolutely. Yeah. So it's like, how can we find joy in small ways? And our Pro Tip from the episode that's out right now, again with Marcus McQuirter from Austin Community College. I was like, what's the Pro Tip? He goes, “Sing in the car”. And I was like, “Yes!” I mean, anyone can do it. There is no bar to entry. No one's going to hear you. Just rock out in your car. Right?
Charlotte: We had a friend's son who lives in New York City, come and stay with us for a couple of days. He just needed to get out of the city, and he was going hiking. And we have a lot of musical instruments around. And he's like, “Hey, do you guys sing?” And, we're both like, “No.” And he's like, “Let’s sing.”
And so we sang with him. And you know, then I got more into it. But it was so cool that he was like, “Let’s have joy in this moment. Let's be big in how we're expressing ourselves, rather than that shrink.” So, I think it's vitally important that we say ‘yes’ to small ideas. Some things might be on hold right now. Like, you might be writing a novel and you're not sure if it's going to have traction in the world. But that doesn't mean you should stop being creative.
Melinda: Right. And one thing is to like - you know, there's a big reframe here, right? Because things can feel kind of dark right now. Like, over this past weekend, for example. It was a long weekend, and there's a lot of changes happening in our country. And, you know, I was just feeling kind of down and kind of heavy, and it was cold again. Those big storms came through. And I was actually talking to my therapist about it. And he was like, “Are you lonely?” And I was like, “No, I'm not lonely.” I like my solitude. And he's like, “Are you afraid of future loneliness?”
I was like, “No.” It’s just - but I had come back from Mexico. I'd been leading a retreat. I'd been around a bunch of people, and then it was like all of a sudden it was just quiet and cold and dark, and I was by myself. And there's just a little bit of a transition that happens. But then one night before I was getting ready to go to bed, I was like (as the kids say these days), “Am I just sitting here rotting in my bed?” You know?
And then I was like, “No. I'm gestating.” I'm preparing. Like in the winter, we hunker down and everything goes underground and the trees lose their leaves. And they're not dead. They're gestating. They’re just waiting for to re-emerge in the springtime. So that was a really helpful kind of reframe for me.
Charlotte: So, my kid took a languages of origin class, and one of the things that they asked in that class is they not call them dead language or extinct languages, but dormant.
Melinda: Love that.
Charlotte: Really important. Like language revitalization projects. Again, just to reframe that.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So what's our Pro Tip for today?
Charlotte: Our Pro Tip is to ask yourself, have you made yourself a little smaller lately, or less expressive? And, if you have, we get it. We understand. Sometimes, it may not feel safe to be fully expressive, or you may not have the energy for it because there feels like a lot of change and uncertainty. And what we are suggesting is that, what’s one small thing that you can do to reclaim your joy?
Is it to sing in the car? Is it to dance when you get out of the shower a little bit? Is it that scarf that feels a little bit bold and resplendent. What is something that you could do? And maybe you're one of those folks like, “Oh, that doesn't feel great.” But maybe a bold underwear and you know you've got that. And that brings you joy.
Melinda: Or the socks. (Laughter) The crazy socks. Right?
Charlotte: Crazy socks. What we encourage you is to pay attention to ways that you might be shrinking yourself, and pay attention to ways that you might expand when it feels safe. Because the world needs us to be bright and expressive in our joy.
Melinda: Yes. The world needs our creativity.
Charlotte: Find us and connect with us on YouTube and social media under @syncreate, and we're now on Patreon as well. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Melinda: We're recording today from 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.
