Differently
Simple, yet powerful ideas for building a life, differently. Hosted by Carla Reeves, creator of The Differently Coaching Experience, this podcast offers thought-provoking conversations and practical insights for anyone looking to get out of survival mode and build a life that is truly your own. From the highs and lows of love and relationships, to the challenges and opportunities of work and career, Differently will challenge you to to rethink what’s possible.
Differently
Let it Out in Your Journal with Katie Dalebout
Have you ever felt like your creative soul is crying out for space to breathe, but you can't quite hear what it's saying? This conversation with Katie Dalebout, author of "Let It Out: A Journey Through Journaling," might just be the permission slip you need to start listening.
Katie's journey with journaling began during her recovery from an eating disorder when she intuitively reached for a colorful journal instead of another self-help book. What followed was a profound discovery—journaling provided a sanctuary where she could be completely honest about both her deepest fears and loftiest dreams without judgment. "It was the first time I was able to take all the masks off," Katie shares, "to just see who I was and get to know myself."
The beauty of journaling lies in its versatility and healing power. Katie distinguishes between "maintenance journaling" (daily check-ins) and "SOS journaling" (emergency processing during life's challenges), comparing the practice to cleaning out a closet—things get messier before they get better. This metaphor perfectly captures why timing matters with journaling, as we sometimes need adequate space and energy to handle whatever emerges during the process.
For creative souls, journaling serves as an essential tool for capturing ideas, making decisions, and maintaining creative momentum. Katie references Elizabeth Gilbert's powerful insight that "unused creativity is not benign," suggesting that neglecting our creative impulses leads to resentment and disconnection. "If I've touched a creative project daily," Katie notes, "I'm more pleasant to be around, more present, and more supportive of others."
Whether you're a seasoned journaler, skeptical about the practice, or simply curious, this conversation offers fresh perspective on what putting pen to paper can truly do for your creative wellbeing. Ready to crack open your perspective on journaling and discover the wisdom already waiting within you? Grab your favorite pen—your future self will thank you.
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Thank you for listening!
I'm Carla Reeves, and this is Differently. Whether you feel stuck in survival, navigating a change or seeking more for your life, may this podcast be your weekly nudge to take a risk to build a life that is uniquely bold, authentic and in alignment with your deepest values. What if you worried less about the bumps in the road and instead got equipped for the journey? Get ready to rethink what's possible. This episode is especially for my deep thinkers, big feelers and creative souls. If you've been listening for a while, you know journaling has changed my life. Today's conversation was so much fun for me.
Speaker 1:I sat down with Katie Dale about. She's the author of let it out, which is a field guide for finding emotional well-being through writing. She's a fellow creative. She leads creative workshops, has a podcast or two of her own and more. Regardless of whether you love journaling, hate it or want to start it, I invite you to let this conversation rain on you and stir your thinking about what journaling truly is. I promise this conversation is going to crack open your perspective on what putting pen to paper can really do for your creative soul.
Speaker 1:Grab a seat and get ready for a conversation about life, journaling, creativity and navigating the ups downs and in-betweens of this beautiful life. Hey, differently listener, I'm so glad that you're back for another episode, and I don't know about you, but I've been feeling like there is a lot of change in the air and I feel like some of the ways in which we approach life and move through life are changing at a more rapid pace than maybe we've been used to, and I think it's more important now than ever to have tools in our pocket that help us to navigate and move through life. And today I have Katie Dale about with me and I'm so excited. We've been trying to connect for a while and everything finally aligned, so welcome, katie, to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I think we first started booking this in the fall and we both had to switch it a couple times and then now for people listening, and then now for people listening. It's March of the next year and we both were so committed to. I feel like when that happens with rescheduling, sometimes things evaporate.
Speaker 2:but you texted me and you were like I feel like we're meant to connect, so thanks for and I felt the same way and I just I really today's like the perfect day to be doing this. I have the energy and it's you know I'm stoked to be talking to you. So sometimes I feel like if you put that out there with someone that you know that it's going to happen and it won't evaporate. Waiting for the right time is useful.
Speaker 1:I think that's so true and I think it is the perfect time. So it's super exciting for me to talk to, like a fellow journaler, a fellow writer, somebody who loves that practice as much as I do, I believe. So I would love to hear just where did that start for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so funny. I'm usually on the other side of this with my podcast, which I'm stoked that you're going to come on too, because I'm it's like painful for me to not be asking you the same question, because I so want to. I want to know the same thing, but I have to, I have to to wait until you come on my show. But I and I and I'm sure we we share this, but I'm I'm sure we share this. But I'm curious what it was like for you. But for me it was. I didn't grow up journaling and I didn't keep a diary or anything like that. I wasn't particularly didn year of college where I was actually in treatment for an eating disorder, practices that I had no idea existed into essentially meditation and personal growth, and I was both doing yoga and teaching yoga as my job all through college, and so those things were seeping in little by little. But it really wasn't until I was in that container of treatment that I really doubled down on those new ways of thinking that came into my life. And I'm from the Midwest, I grew up in a small town in Michigan and like the only therapy that I, I didn't really understand what it was. I think I saw it on TV but it wasn't something that we spoke about. It wasn't something that I even was really aware of what it was or any sort of contemplation practice and being in those things. You know, I used to say I was so grateful for being in treatment at that time because it got me into therapy so young. But then now I'm moving here, I live in LA now and so many of my friends like that was old compared to like they started therapy, you know, when they were kids and I've been doing it ever since I was. I I've reframed that a little bit, but I was really in that container and reading every single self-help book and really getting into spirituality and finding these things really useful but also really making it my identity. I was also very into wellness the work that I still do in the podcast that I host and at the time it was a blog. It started out very wellness focused and wellness in the sense of, you know, green juice and chia seeds and yoga, and now I've broadened that out because around that time, when I was so into wellness and self-help and personal growth, it became my identity and it became my differentiator. It became a rebellion. You know, where I grew up, that there wasn't even like a health food store, like it, was so interesting. It differentiated me in a way. I think I liked if I can look back on it now, if I can look back on it now, and anyway.
Speaker 2:So one day I was having a tough time, you know, because I had graduated college and trying to figure out what was next.
Speaker 2:I wanted to keep doing this blog that I was doing.
Speaker 2:I wanted to keep teaching yoga, but I also wanted to have money and live on my own and move away, which I grew up in a college town and I went to school at the university where I grew up, so I'd never left home for college and I really it was an unsettling moment to be not only home, living with my mom, but also in this space where I needed a lot of care and attention and I felt very confined, I think, and when, at this time, when I felt like I and my peers were moving to cities and getting their first jobs and having all these experiences that were fun and effervescent and I was, you know, on this different path completely but going all in and I'm such an extremist, so I really went all in on the self-help stuff and a little bit off the deep end with it, I think, because it became kind of isolating.
Speaker 2:So anyway, all of that to say, there was this moment where I had this gift card after graduation to a bookstore and I went straight to the self-help department as I normally would, and I'm like looking at all these books and I'm like wondering which one will give me the answers to feel the freedom that I wanted and all my hopes and dreams come true, you know.
Speaker 1:And I wandered Just that. Yeah, just no big deal.
Speaker 2:I wandered right on out of that section into the stationary section instead, and I bought this colorful journal and I nobody told me to do that, and it wasn't something that, in therapy, was suggested to me, it wasn't something that I'd even like read about. It was a real intuitive like wow. I feel like the answer is maybe inside me and not in any of these bozos on the shelf you know.
Speaker 2:So I I took this journal and I would sit outside. It was summer and I would sit outside on a little blanket and I just would write in it. And one of the jobs that I had for it at that during this time was I essentially I got paid to like be able to be on my computer. Because I worked at a studio that rented video equipment to students, because I studied broadcast journalism, I wanted to be a TV news reporter but I was like too weak and I was too like I was recovering, so I couldn't really go do that job that I had studied and I also couldn't like I couldn't do much. So anyway, but I had a lot of time to like sit on the computer or write in my journal and I used it all.
Speaker 2:And I I was able in the journal to be for the first time actually honest, actually authentic and real that I was having. That I wouldn't want to admit to anybody else because I didn't want to scare them. And then I was also able to admit these really lofty, ambitious dreams and hopes and goals for myself. That I also didn't want to say out loud because then I'd be responsible for attempting to achieve them or people would laugh at me and I wrote it all out and it made things feel real. It helped me sort through all the and I wrote it all out and it made things feel real.
Speaker 2:It helped me sort through all the thoughts I was having in my brain. It helped me to be able to actually meditate more and be able to, like sit with my uncomfortable feelings because I like wrote the thoughts down and could sort through them and decide which ones are true and which ones I wanted to handle in a different way them and decide which ones are true and which ones I wanted to handle in a different way. And so, anyway, this is a very long answer, but essentially I started it back then and then I continued and I learned about Julia Cameron's Morning Pages and the Artist's Way and I did many, many practices of that and it just became my tool for everything. And I don't know if you've seen my Big Fat Greek Wedding, the Wendex analogy, like it was my Wendex and I suggested it to friends and, yeah, it changed my life and I still do it now.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I love all that so much. I love that you said it's the tool for everything, like I'm going to start saying that because I totally feel that way too it is. It's a creative playground, it's a. It's so many things, so there's so many places I want to go. But the first question I have is that where the name of your Let it Out podcast came from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well, the name of the podcast was just taken from the name of my book, that's right, you have a book called that too, right. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the book is called.
Speaker 2:Let it Out, a Journey Through Journaling, a journey through journaling, but in 20,. So I was very into self-help, as I was saying, and I kept recommending journaling to people. So I was working with people one-on-one through teaching yoga and through just mentoring people at that time and I, anytime a friend would come to me with like any, like a relationship issue or like a body image thing, I would always go back to like have you like journaled on about that?
Speaker 2:And it was almost sort of embarrassing, like you know, and I would give them prompts. So I would say, like, why don't you write, to your intuition, a letter about this or ask this question? And I realized that if you ask a good question, you can probably get a good answer if you give yourself enough time and space. And so I was giving out these prompts and it was working for other people who weren't me. And anyway, very, very long story short, I ended up getting a book deal with Hay House. Short.
Speaker 2:I ended up getting a book deal with Hay House, which is this publisher that I loved and I was a big mentor of mine wrote the foreword. Her name's Gabby Bernstein. She's written a bunch of books now and at the time I think she'd only written two and yeah, that was about 2014. And so I wrote this book and I was working a full time job alongside of writing the book, and I was working a full-time job alongside of writing the book and I think I'd already yeah, I think I'd already started the podcast. Yeah, I had, because it started in 2013.
Speaker 2:So I had done it for about a year and I got this book deal and, yeah, let it out Like, let the thoughts out of your mind so you can sort through them and decide which ones to listen to, which ones are holding you back. And it came from, actually, my mom when I was sick, and I wonder if you've ever said this to your boys but whenever I had like a cold or even if I was like throwing up, she would always be like let it out, you got to get it out, you got to get it out, to feel better, and so I think it's kind of true with the thoughts in your mind and so that's where it came from.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, the podcast had a different name actually to start, and then my publisher was like you should put everything under that name, and I'm happy I did, because it feels like it does. Even now. I've evolved so much more, but I feel like that name can be pretty malleable to cover it all.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. So, like you were going through your treatment in this healing process and journaling like, do you attribute a lot of your healing to the journaling process? I'm assuming that you do, but was that a huge part of your recovery?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and like recovery is so ongoing for me even with that. It's something that you know. I don't know really what my game plan was there. I was so young thinking that I would get to a point where I would just like feel great about my size and body and eating and food and vanity, and I don't think I ever thought that, maybe. But I've definitely had periods of it being challenging and more challenging and less challenging, and so it was helpful back then because I was able to just unpack. I finally had this tool that allowed me to I guess I already said this but like be real, like to be honest and I think I was just wearing masks all the time to fit in or to chameleon to what people wanted, to have some acceptance and belonging, and I think so many of us do that and, and it was the first time I was able to like take all of that off, to just like see who I was and get to know myself.
Speaker 1:And it it.
Speaker 2:You know what it helped me? It helped the thing that it really did. That is the part that changed my life, that I even, like I didn't even realize until I started talking. It gave me self-awareness, and that's continued, because I often, you know and I think lots of writers say this but I don't know what I'm feeling or thinking unless I'm writing, unless I'm journaling, like I often will just feel off or bad and disconnected, and until I start to sit down and start processing things on my own, I don't know why and I don't know where things come from and I don't know how to make it better.
Speaker 2:But if I just give myself some time, I can usually figure it all out. I can kind of know where it comes from, I can process it and the beautiful thing about and Julia Cameron, I think, talks about this with morning pages when you write, she suggests three full pages and I don't do that practice exactly, but anymore, or like that fully consistently, I do a different thing, but I do find that when I have a significant amount of time or like a certain amount of pages, even if I don't want to be doing that amount but I've committed to it, our brains tend to and I wonder if this has been your experience self-soothe as they go down the page. So I've noticed that, you know, I might start off saying you know, everything is horrible, this is so bad, but no matter what, by the end I'm solution oriented it starts to sound like, yes, it's bad, but here's how it could be better, and that has been tremendously helpful through all of the iterations of eating disorders and just all sorts of things that have happened since that time in my life, you know, 12 years ago, and I think now I'm aging, you know, and I think I'm. That's something that is interesting because with the body image stuff, where I was like when I was a kid, when I was having such trouble with feeling okay in my own skin, I aging just like, like wasn't even something I thought about because it felt, you know, I could kind of couldn't really conceptualize it Like I guess if I really thought about it, I probably would have been like you're probably not going to be great at that, since you weren't so great at like, you know, the body stuff when you were younger.
Speaker 2:But now, you know I'm, I'm nearly 35. And when I turned 30, I was just kind of like oh, I'm like basically still in my twenties and then it goes quick where suddenly I'm, you know, not not only feeling the, the like physicality of it and just like starting to notice things, but also just the where I'm at in my life, where my friends are at in our lives, our parents getting older, like it's really confronting, you know, like because when you see the gray hairs or the wrinkles or whatever it's beyond vanity, it's like well, we're like plummeting towards death you know, and so.
Speaker 2:I think contemplating all of that in a journaling sort of way has been useful too, and so it's just kind of like the practice is stagnant, but the problems stay the same, and so I'm just so happy that I have that framework to return to.
Speaker 1:Well, I love that you answered the question when I asked about your recovery. That it's, you know, that it's. It's not like a destination, right, it's like an ongoing thing. And I feel like I've had, I've noticed, like I've picked up old journals, which I don't do all that often, but I've gone back and looked and I'm like, oh my gosh, like I'm struggling with this, I'm struggling with confidence 10 years ago, like what's wrong with me, you know? But what I've realized over the years is that usually those core things like they don't necessarily go away, they just evolve and like look a little bit different.
Speaker 1:But I probably will be navigating that always on some little level, you know, and I think that that's such a beautiful response, and I I've had clients who are journaling, who are frustrated because they're like, why am I not making progress on this thing? And I'm reflecting back to them like you have made progress on this thing. This topic or subject may still come up and it may always be the place For me. Navigating, being bold and being brave and courageous in my business has always been a thing that I am like pushing the edge on, you know, and so I think I don't know if you feel this way, but I feel like that's true for all of us, that we may have certain things that we're. We will always be navigating in some way and that's sort of like our. It's like where we get refined, you know.
Speaker 2:Completely, yeah, completely. I totally agree that there are just a few things. It's like well, that's my, that's my work this time around and it's it is. It's frustrating, I think, being someone who journals, because it it's in our the mirror is put up to be aware of it. You know, I think the biggest thing that journaling helps with is self-awareness, and so you're. Sometimes it's like ignorance is bliss because you don't have to put the mirror in your face to what needs to change or what could change. It's just when you but it's better to when you know better, you can do better, but sometimes you don't do better, but then you're aware that you didn't do better you know.
Speaker 2:So it's like you said looking at those old journals and being like, oh man, but yeah, I think it's part of it. I completely agree.
Speaker 1:So you also mentioned self-soothe and I think that that's something that you know if someone's listening who maybe hasn't really gotten all the way in. Like you said, double down on journaling. Journaling is such a tool for self-reflection and like seeing yourself, understanding your mind and your thoughts and your relationship to those thoughts, and I feel like now more than ever, we need to build this muscle of self, being able to self soothe. And for me to, like you said, journaling like you can just kind of know something's off and for me to that's like my indicator, like I just need to go right for like five or 10 minutes and I'll figure out what is really bugging me. So I would love for you cause I also had somebody ask this question recently about journaling so like once you're, once you get it, you get it Like I had the pay, the experience, like you did, of that, experiencing your real self, where, like I felt like this girl danced across the page of my journal one day when I first started and I'm like I want to know her.
Speaker 1:She's real. And like I too had had so much pretending and putting on and trying to be what I thought I was supposed to be and like all the things right. But when I saw her, like that's what kept me going, like I want to know her. And once I got to know her more in my journal, she started to spill out into my everyday life. You know, and I would love to know for you, like for someone who hasn't had that moment yet. Know for you, like for someone who hasn't had that moment yet, like what was it that kept you writing before you got hooked? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it does. I mean, I think, to be honest, I, similarly to you, I think it happened pretty quickly Like I think, pretty quickly I was just like, oh, this makes me feel better. I don't really know why I wouldn't have been able to articulate back then certainly self-awareness, or being what I now know as being a verbal processor, using it for decision making. Like I wouldn't have known why but, pretty soon after doing it.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to do it more so.
Speaker 2:But I think I can still answer the question in my own way, which is that often once I once I did start like said I didn't want to stop, I found it useful. However, still now, often I and this is a question I've gotten from people about it as well I won't want to do it, and now I know why. Usually it's I. I need to do it, but I don't want to do it because it, like I was saying before, you know, journaling puts the mirror up to your face to see what's going on and to see your part in it and to have to confront things and face them. And when I want to live in delusion about something, the last thing I want to do is put the time in a journal. Or if I just really know that something is painful and I know I'm going to get more information on that and have to feel the feeling of that, I often will avoid it, and so I think that's fine. I think that's part of it. I used to think I advised myself and other people differently of like just do it consistently and push yourself, and I don't really believe that anymore. I think you know, as us connecting, I believe in timing of things and of course you know that that's too, too, not taking that to an extreme. Sometimes you do have to force yourself and sit down and just knock it out, but I think ultimately I will do that Like when I have the time and space and the container and like support to do that. I'll do it because often I what I'm doing is it is self-protection and not not journaling, sometimes where, if I know it's going to be pretty emotional and it's just sort of like how we don't want to like go into an emotion. You know, when you're in like the back of a taxi cab in New York and you're like on your way somewhere, you know, sometimes I'm like I it's kind of like cleaning my closet, like doing a really deep journaling session where I'm like, all right, I'm going to like sit here for a while and sort this out. Sometimes you can do, like you said, that little spurt, and I totally know what that's like and I, I, I like that too. But sometimes if I'm really going to like, like for I think a good example is like when a relationship ends or when you're in a relationship and it's like something's not quite right and you really need to like kind of look at your part and look at their part and really sort that out, like that's not part of the mate.
Speaker 2:I in the book I make a distinction between maintenance journaling and what I call SOS journaling, and so maintenance is kind of the checking in the daily habit of it all that you might not even get that deep with and it might turn into like a to-do list still helpful.
Speaker 2:But the SOS journaling is like when you turn to it and when you feel like you're pregnant with something you need to process, like when you really need to let out some emotion and sort through, and that's something like much like you know, having a therapy session, like sometimes if I have a chance to talk to my therapist at like 1 pm and I'm like trying to work, I'm probably not going to like open up completely and like process a painful experience in my life. I'm probably just going to like keep it pretty surface because I have like a meeting after you know and I can't be crying, and so it's the same thing with journaling that sometimes I know I just I just will avoid doing it until I know I have the. I'm going to be resourced and supported and have time and space to handle whatever comes up, because I was starting to say before it's kind of like cleaning out your closet, because it gets worse before it gets better.
Speaker 2:Everything is going to come out and the guts of your closet are all over your bed, so you're not going to do that like right before you're hosting a party, because it's going to be messy, so it's kind of like that, that's a great way to describe that.
Speaker 1:Like I clean my closet regularly, like I kind of enjoy cleaning my closet and it's that's so, like I take everything out and then organize it and put it back, and that's exactly what I do in a journal. I kind of pour out my head and heart and then kind of look at it all and try to make some sense of it and delete some stuff that I don't want to hang on to and maybe add some things. Yeah, it's such a great analogy or metaphor, whichever that is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that that makes so much sense and, like you said, even though you enjoy it, it doesn't change the fact that it takes time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it can be uncomfortable when you're like looking at all the mess and you're like, oh, I'm kind of tired now I don't really want to deal with this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to have the energy for it and there might be twists that you're not expecting, like you put on a sentimental item and you notice that it doesn't fit, or you notice that it's something that's or whatever you know. I think sometimes, like I feel that way even with work or on my phone, where it's like text, where I won't even open text in the middle of the day and do it all at one time because I don't know what's in there, like it's a portal, like it could be something like the best news ever or it could be like something horrible, and I sometimes I'm just like I got to focus on what's in front of me and then when I have some time, I'll go there and not have to hold on to it while I'm trying to focus elsewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I love that you um Well, and I love that you described journaling in a way I was going to go back to, but I think I lost it, oh sorry. That's okay. Okay, so I want to kind of also talk about creativity. How do the two tie together for you, or do they?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. Yeah, I think they definitely certainly do. The biggest thing is that I often they tie together in the sense of capturing ideas. You know, I think ideas kind of come from wherever and whenever and sometimes I feel like I'm like ducking and like you know, and sometimes you miss them and sometimes you can swing at them and hit them right away and oftentimes I think for me I'll get an idea and I'll have to hold on to it until I have much like the closet thing, like until I have the time and space to make it or share it or put energy into it.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:So it's about capturing ideas, organizing them and then returning to them.
Speaker 2:That's one way.
Speaker 2:So you know, I constantly like write things in my phone and then, in terms of creatively, I think, often an idea or when I'm stuck writing about it and writing about creative solutions, like there are so many ways to end an essay, there are so many ways to approach a painting or anything like that, and so I think it's really helpful in all decision making, and creativity often is decision making, it's finding creative solutions to problems, and I, as I've said, don't know what I'm thinking unless I'm writing.
Speaker 2:Can't make a decision to save my life without writing about it or talking to several friends about it, not necessarily to get their thoughts and opinion and feedback, but to figure out what I think about something. And so journaling is very helpful in that, and it's also quite helpful in relationships, I think, because I don't have to put that pressure on other people to kind of give me the answer, especially with creative options. I can get as far as I can on my own and then go to other people with more specifics, and I think that's useful for getting advice from others.
Speaker 1:You just said something that made me think about. You said, you know, like I can't make a decision without writing first, and that just made me think about so for myself. Right, like we both talked about having like a lot of armor or masks or protection. Right, Like I spent half my life trying to be who I thought I was supposed to be, and I feel like the second half has been like knocking all that down and coming back to who I am and live in the practice of living free, right, free right.
Speaker 1:But I wonder if, because journaling, to me too, has been so helpful to like find my own answers, find my own, you know, like you said, to be able to make a decision, like what do I actually feel? Because I have spent so much of my life looking over there, thinking that somebody else knew better, or trying to get what I already believe to be true confirmed by somebody else. And I wonder if it's that trait, whether it's a lack of confidence or whatever it is, that allows journaling to be so helpful, because you can get quiet and quiet, all of that external stuff to really listen in and find. Like you said earlier, the answers are inside and that's my whole mission is to teach people like get quiet and go inside, because you have access to even far more than yourself, right, like so much divine wisdom there. But I just wanted to highlight that.
Speaker 2:I think that's so true.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that's what people can get out of meditation too.
Speaker 2:I think anything that and I do, and I going on a really long walk, journaling, meditating are kind of my three things that I have to do all the time or I'm like not quite right, you know, and I think the through line in all of them are time alone, space, like calming your nervous system, slowing down and, I think, in a time where there's always a message that could be sent or there's always a screen that could be looked at and you could be entertained or you could, you know, whatever and then also to speak to your audience.
Speaker 2:In particular, I think, when you work for yourself, what I've found is that there's always homework that could be done, there's always another thing I could do. You just have to decide to stop at the end of the day and carry it over tomorrow, because there's always more that could be done. And so I think in that sort of lifestyle, those things that slow you down allow you to hear what is going, what's actually happening, where we're often just moving too fast to to be able to hear that in our intuition.
Speaker 1:Essentially, it's so powerful. So, going back to kind of the creativity piece I am, saw something you wrote that said like we're at our best when we're wrestling with a project or like gathering inspiration for an idea, and I just like that, just like sunk into my heart, like I'm like, oh, that is so true for me, it is so true for me, like, even if I don't have something going on, I'm creating a problem to solve, right, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:It's better if you're. If you're, the problem you're creating is one that's productive.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. So tell us about your creative classes or your creative clinic and some of the things that you're working on right now, that you're excited about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I wrote that because lack of information ultimately, but they're really fulfilling because they're very creative. Like you don't have all the information, so you're in your head writing a story of what you want it to be or what it could be, or the potential you know and so, if you can, I think that everyone's crush self is their best self meaning, like the, the optimism and the excitement and the kind of euphoria that can come with that ultimately. You know, in that instance, sometimes that can be crushing, you know when it ends or when you like see more of it. But I think if you can apply that logic to always having something to like you read, like be wrestling with, or always be in pursuit or always be looking forward to something or having a bit of anticipation, you know, and I find that I have to cultivate that often and and we can you know whether it's like multiple things at the same time, of working on, you know, a house project, or working on a piece of writing or or painting, or you know finding creative solution to whatever problem, I think getting yourself into that state where you're, there's a there has to be a little bit of optimism, there has to be a little bit of confidence that it's possible. You know, sometimes I feel like it's it's delusion, you know helpful, you know a helpful delusion of like this could exist. Even if it, you have no reason to believe that, based on past experiences, you know you have to have that. Or else I think, honestly, I think we die, like I.
Speaker 2:I heard this story once about how this person was the, the guy who delivered the queen her red box, I think it is, or black, yeah, I think it's a red box with like the cards of like what she does for the day. And he asked her before she died, he was like, when are you going to retire? Like, when are you going to stop doing this? And she was like, oh, I can't actually, because when I stop doing this I'm going to die for sure, because we need and I saw that with my grandparents, like as soon as they didn't have like a purpose or a direction at all, like they just went, you know, and I I don't know that much about anything, but about, you know, that topic really. But I guess I just see it in myself. I get very depressed, I get very anxious about relationships and, like you said, I spend myself a yarn on something not only unimportant but counterproductive.
Speaker 2:If I'm not in pursuit of something creatively and I think that yeah, I think that we can if we can get ourselves into that place more often, we are more pleasant to be, or I'll speak for myself I'm more pleasant to be around if I've like touched a creative project daily, even if it's not much, even if I've just made, because it gives you some momentum, you know, it gives you some for me. If I like have an idea of something I want to write and I just like jot down some notes about it, or I like make some edits on something, or I get an idea and I end up doing the whole thing and sharing it in one day, or like whatever it is. As long as I'm taking like a few steps in the direction of some of my creative projects, I can go to dinner with someone that night and like be really present there and be a supportive friend and I'm not is only consuming. And I think social media is a good example of this, where, if I go on social media and I and I and I want to say too it's a privilege to be able to work on art, right, like it's a privilege to be able to work on anything creative on a house project, on a piece of writing, whatever it is. You know, I, my mom, has worked a job for 45 years and, you know, always says like I don't have a creative bone in my body and like I don't have time for ART. I have a J-O-B, you know, and that is true, like it is such a privilege and I now, you know, work like a million jobs and I get frustrated when I don't have time to put as much time as I want to into a project. However, I'm not as resentful to the jobs I have to do to fund my creativity or I'm not resentful to spending time with other people and helping them if I move something forward, move the needle forward.
Speaker 2:And what I was going to say about social media is that, like when I get onto Instagram when I haven't had the capacity or the energy or the time to put into my projects, and then I'm on there and I see one friend's published a piece in a magazine and another friend has done an art show and another friend, you know, I'm I'm trying to conjure happiness for them, but there's a little part of me that's like must be nice. They can do their thing. I had to work all day, you know, and so I. However, when I, when I'm also sharing my thing, that I wrote and I'm completing some things and I'm getting some projects over the net and I'm feeling creatively fulfilled, when I see my friends posting the magazine and posting the, the painting and the video, I'm like I'm like, oh my God, that's incredible. I'm so happy, I like that's great.
Speaker 2:So I don't, I want to be the latter always. So it's my responsibility to be creative every day and touch those projects. So I don't become resentful and bitter and if I look at it that way, it's, it carries some weight. You know, I heard Elizabeth Gilbert say once um, in a conversation with Brene Brown. They were saying unused creativity is not benign. So basically, if you look at it like that, it's actually you know all of this. You know it's kind of dramatic the way I'm saying it, like if you're not creative you'll die, but like kind of you know if you're not creative you'll be resentful, but like kind of you know, if you're not creative.
Speaker 2:You'll be resentful, but like, kind of you know. So I think having that weight behind it helps people to actually do it. And that's what I do, you know. To answer your question, my workshops and in my what I call the creative clinic, where I work with people one-on-one, which is something I've done for a decade, and the way it started was helping people, you know, with journaling and with self-awareness and with sorting through some of these thoughts in their brain and helping to reorient themselves to what's useful for them. But with the creative clinic and focusing on creative practice and living a creative life. Where that came from is that I had and it still exists.
Speaker 2:I have a workshop that helps people start podcasts. It's called um, the podcast kit, and I would do these live calls for that and in these calls people could ask whatever they wanted about the modules and it was an eight module course that helps everything from, you know, coming up with a concept and interviewing and the technology of it and monetizing it, all of it. And I thought people would be asking questions on those topics, like, you know, my microphone or whatever, whatever. And everybody's question in these coaching calls was some version of can I make my thing. Like am I? What is my friend from high school going to think when I put the podcast out? Or how can you know? And I was just giving permission slip after permission.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say permission, right.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so I was like all right, I think that this is beyond podcasting, you know, and so I was working with people one-on-one in that, with the creative clinic and in the pandemic in 2020, I started this. It was called Creative Underdogs and I renamed it to be called In Process, but basically it's people in process, people getting everyone to stay in that state of wrestling with something, and so we would all like do co-working together, and I had guests come in and essentially it was keeping each other inspired and accountable and and keeping that momentum up, cause it's very easy to continue a creative practice. It's not that hard, but it's. For me, it's incredibly challenging to begin or return to one. And it's the same thing with like, if you haven't answered emails or texts in in months, to like go in there, it's like oh God, uh. But if you just like do a little bit every day, it's like not that big of a deal, and so that's what, what, that, what I help people do in those areas.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful, oh my gosh. Well, I want to touch on a couple things before we start to wind down and wrap up. But you talked about responsibility and you didn't say self-discipline. But I think a lot of what we're talking about, you know, I heard someone say this, or like it dawned on me that like true, I've never liked like self-care. I feel like it's been taken into so many things that I'm like, ooh, like I want to get away from that. But true, self-care is self-discipline. And like doing those things that we know we need to do in order to show up the way that we're committed to showing up.
Speaker 1:And and then this piece about like living a creative life and and maybe maybe you're listening and thinking that you're not a creative, and, um, I used to think that too, kind of like your mom said, like I don't have a creative bone in my body, like I used to feel that way. And what I know now is also back to what you said is it's like the air I breathe. I don't know how I ever thought that I wasn't creative. I think because I thought it needed to look like painting or, you know, art in that sort of fashion.
Speaker 1:But I love to be creative and like how I live my life, and we have so many moments in our day as we're just moving through it to to be creative and to influence and have agency over, you know, parts of our life and it's been the most beautiful thing in my life and so, as we're talking about you know, having tools to move through life, I feel like you've just so beautifully and vulnerably like articulated so many things that I know the listener has been touched by something in this conversation. So tell us how can people find out more about what you're doing? Your podcast just two podcasts so make sure you tell them about that and anything else that you're excited about.
Speaker 2:Thanks. Well, yeah, you know I host a show called Let it Out where I interview people, and I've been doing it since 2013. So there's a pretty robust archive and I love it. I get to speak to people like you, carla, and I get to meet so many people through through doing that over the years, I'm starting to forget, like some people that I've interviewed, it's, it's nuts. And so, yeah, I I, that is, new episodes every week.
Speaker 2:And then I I co-hosted a second show with my friend, serena Wolf, about anxiety. It's called Spiraling and we haven't done a season in a while, but we'll probably bring it back at some point with the archives there. We call it a humorous mental health show, so that's really fun to co-host. And then, yeah, I work with people one-on-one with creative consulting. So, if anyone, I have two spots open right now. So if anybody wants to learn more about that, the link will probably be in the show notes and I will probably run creative underdog slash in process again at some point. I don't know if I'll win or if I probably I hope to, but I'm not really sure when that's going to be.
Speaker 2:But in the meantime, I have my book is called Let it Out. It's been a couple of years since it I guess it'll be almost 10 years since it came out, but it's still available and that's 55 journaling prompts and my a lot of what we talked about today. So that is of interest to people. But I also have something called that's a bit more current, of an offering related to the content in the book. It's called the right kit. So I have these different kits on my website that, if you go to let it out, kitscom, the right kit is journaling prompts and it's a lot of the similar content from the book but updated, and there's also an interview with a writer in there.
Speaker 2:It's not only just writing for emotional wellness journaling essentially but also writing to be shared. So I talk about that bit a bit and I have some other journaling kits. One of them is called I have about breakups actually. So there's a two part writing for emotional wellness and, yeah, I call it the breakups kit. So there's the soothe kit and the solve kit.
Speaker 2:The soothe kit is for, like, when you're fresh out of a breakup and you just need to kind of soothe yourself, and then the solve kit is when you can actually go into the journal and mine it for the relationship for gems of self-awareness and and move forward. So, yeah, that's kind of I think that's kind of everything. I made a couple of zines um recently. So if you and I have a sub stack, that's kind of the main place I've been putting my energy and what I'm most excited about, I think, right now is writing on there so and anyone can can read those for free. But if you do become a paid subscriber, I'll send you the zines that I've made recently, um in the mail.
Speaker 1:I'm so inspired by all that you're doing. I'm definitely going to take a closer look at that, and I encourage you to look at all the things, um, that Katie's doing too. And one last question for you, Katie what does differently mean to you?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's such a good question. What's coming to me right now is honesty, like a self honesty, I think being the same is is easy, it's autopilot, it's being influenced. But I think being different requires much of what we spoke about today self-awareness, time, space, confidence and often self-discipline and to both figure out what it is and to embody it. And so, yeah, I think differently means going against the grain, which often takes a push of self-discipline and understanding what direction you is different from what you've been doing or what other people are doing.
Speaker 1:That's so beautiful. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. Thank you. I loved every minute and I can't wait for more. Likewise, have an awesome day everyone.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thanks for listening, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to this episode of differently. It's been an honor to share this conversation with you. You know, one of the keys to living fully is to take action when you're inspired to do so. I hope you found that spark of inspiration today and would you help us spread the word. Did someone you know come to mind while you were listening? If this episode could impact someone you know, please share it and pass it along. New episodes drop weekly, so tap that subscribe button and join us next time as we continue to challenge the status quo and get equipped to live life differently.