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 90: Creative Spark Series - Creativity, Meaning, and Psychological Growth with Melinda Rothouse & Charlotte Gullick
,In this episode of our Creative Spark series, Melinda shares insights from her new article in the academic journal Possibility Studies and Society on how we can use our creativity to make meaning of our experiences, particularly the difficult and challenging ones, in service of psychological growth. 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 reflect on your life journey up to this point–the highs and the lows; the good, the bad, and the ugly–through journaling, collaging, or any other medium that calls to you, and reflect on the lessons learned. This is how we make meaning, and how we can grow from our life experiences.
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 47: Creativity and Meaning Making, Episode 82: Healing the Creative Wound, Episode 84: From Surviving to Thriving, and Episode 88: Practicing Courage with Our Creativity.
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. 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, 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 media - 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, 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, including our monthly Creativity Coaching group. 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.
Melinda: Welcome back everyone to our podcast quickies, as we call them. Our Creative Spark episodes. And in this episode today, I wanted to share a little bit about this article that I've been working on for a very long time, which is connected to a course that I teach at Saybrook University on Creativity, Individuation and Depth Psychology (d-e-p-t-h).
So, the depths of psychology - kind of Jungian psychology. And I've been teaching this class for several years now and it sort of inspired an article, which, as you know, Charlotte has been a very long journey for me. I've been working on it for about a year and a half. Like, really diligently, and I've gone through many, many revisions. We were talking in our last Creative Spark episode about this journey of putting ourselves out there.
I've submitted it a couple times for publication and, you know, the first time they wanted me to make so many changes to it that I just didn't feel comfortable. So, I thought I would just keep shopping it around. And then, I submitted it to, most recently, the Journal of Possibility Studies and went through peer review, got some good feedback and some scathing feedback that was kind of intense.
And so for the past, I don't know, like 3 or 4 months, I've been working on revising it more and finally finished it, and submitted it and it was accepted.
Charlotte: Yay!
Melinda: So, it should be published any time now. And it is about kind of the role of creativity and meaning in psychological development across the lifetimes. So, how do we use our creativity to make meaning of our experiences in service of psychological growth and development? And we sometimes talk about individuation as the journey to wholeness. And so, you know, creativity is - I see it really as an end unto itself. You know, often we think about creative products or things we see out there in the world.
But creativity is also extremely useful, just as a personal process of making sense of our lives and our experiences, particularly difficult experiences. Whether that's through journaling or art making or music or, you know, it doesn't - no one ever has to see it. But, you know, the whole field of like, art therapy and expressive arts is based on this idea that we can process things through artistic and creative means that maybe we can't necessarily do in other ways. Right?
Charlotte: It's the - can I say that another way?
Melinda: Yeah.
Charlotte: You just said it. So it's like, creativity is one of the pathways that we have towards wholeness?
Melinda: Yes.
Charlotte: And meaning making?
Melinda: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know - and the idea here is that - I just did another episode with Lama Dorje (the Tibetan lama that I went to India with last year), and Carolina, his assistant and translator. And, you know, we were talking about the Dharma and how we have to start with ourselves. But ultimately, it's about being of benefit to other people. And this was also kind of the gist of the article.
Our creativity can help expand and deepen our connection to ourselves, and then in turn, to others because, you know, the more we've been through in our lives - difficult experiences, just the more life we live - the more that we're able to empathize with others and potentially be of benefit to them. And so, the idea here is that taking time to self-reflect through whatever means we might have available. The more that we reflect on our experiences and maybe channel them towards something creative, the more we help ourselves and the more capacity we may have to then be of benefit to others.
Charlotte: Is it like - I'm thinking of another way of reframing it - it’s like, the ways that we explore our knowing through our creative mediums brings us more depth to the way that we know ourselves, and that self that we bring to others?
Melinda: Absolutely. And I'm just thinking about, like, I'm sure you experienced this as a writer in your students. You know, sometimes when we start writing our story, like we did in our coaching group the other day, we experimented with the prompt, which was to write a five line memoir (laughter), and then to do it all over again in a totally different way. But it's like, you know, sometimes it requires reflecting on our experiences or writing our stories or sharing our stories in some other way, in order to actually be able to understand and make sense of what's happened to us in our lives.
Charlotte: And it's, I don't think the right word is metabolize, but somehow while you're talking about like, sitting with, and then what is the creative way that that can be moved or expressed? And if I - you know, I didn't read the whole article, but I will and it's amazing. (Laughter) But to think about like, that it is (if I understand), are you talking about like, over our lifetimes, it’s a whole meaning making journey. It's not just one moment, but it’s a companion?
Melinda: Yes. And the way I see it - and I think this is really important - you know, I think in our culture, we have this idea that we kind of start out as children and we become young adults. And then at some point, we like, peak and then it's all kind of downhill from there. And, you know, in whereas in more traditional cultures, there's so much respect for elders because of the experiences they've had. And it's not like you're over the hill, you know - you have nothing left to offer. It's like, the elders are the backbone of the community because they have so much wisdom to share.
And I think from this particular point of view, you know, our evolution just continues. It doesn't just like - we get there and then we're done. Right? And so, I think it also gives a sense of meaning to maybe, you know, as we're progressing throughout our lives, rather than this idea that once we get to middle age that's kind of it or whatever. It’s like, no, this process keeps growing and unfolding, and we can keep creating and deepening our relationship to ourselves and to each other as long as we're on this planet.
Charlotte: That's fabulous.
Melinda: Yeah.
Charlotte: Is it - should we move into Pro Tip or is that too soon?
Melinda: Yeah. No. It's good. So, yeah. So, the Pro Tip is to find a way essentially to reflect and make meaning of your experience, your kind of life journey up to this point. This is an exercise that I have my students do in the class. And one way of going about that is to create a collage or a vision board of your life journey so far. Including the good, the bad and the ugly. The highlights and the lowlights. Because it's all - and this is another piece of this idea - is that it's all fuel for the fire, you know?
And sometimes we grow and learn the most from our difficult and painful experiences, more so than just when things are great. Right? And so, finding a way to depict that visually, or maybe it's digitally. Right? It's a kind of a way to kind of reflect on where we've been and what we've learned, and what wisdom we've gained. And then, where do we want to continue to evolve?
Charlotte: With depth.
Melinda: With depth. Yes. (Laughter) Find and connect with us on YouTube and social media under @syncreate. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review. And again, we'd love to hear from you. So, if you have feedback on any of our episodes, you've tried out the Pro Tips, you have thoughts on potential guests or topics, please drop us a line.
Charlotte: We're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin, with Charlotte (me!) 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.
