0:03

On the creative journey, it's

0:05

easy to get lost, but

0:07

don't worry, you'll lift up.

0:11

Sometimes you just need a

0:13

creative pep talk. Hey

0:22

you're listening to Creative Pep Talk, a

0:24

weekly podcast companion for your creative journey.

0:27

I'm your host Andy J. Pizza. My

0:29

best selling author and illustrator in this show is everything

0:32

I'm learning about building and maintaining

0:34

a thriving creative practice. This

0:41

episode is for you if you want

0:44

to get more personal or deep in

0:46

your creative work, but you don't know

0:48

practically where to start or you struggle

0:50

to take a personal interest in yourself

0:52

and you feel like everyone else is

0:54

more interesting and worthy or you're

0:57

prone to low self-esteem

0:59

at times and sometimes you feel

1:01

like why even bother making anything

1:03

at all. If you

1:05

stick to the end of this episode, I'm

1:07

going to give you a prompt that unlocked

1:09

the most significant creative breakthrough in finding

1:12

my creative voice and

1:14

led to significant personal breakthrough.

1:17

But first we need to talk

1:19

about what was in the way

1:21

of doing this work and how

1:23

to not get around it, but

1:25

embrace it. Quick

1:28

disclaimer here, in this episode we

1:30

briefly touch on topics like drugs,

1:32

drinking and the abuse of prescription

1:34

medications. So it's perhaps not

1:36

an episode to listen to with children.

1:39

I talk about all of this stuff

1:41

in a light way, but obviously I

1:43

don't support making light of medication abuse.

1:46

Also by the end we touch on

1:48

some ideas related to therapy and again as

1:50

I've said in previous episodes of this

1:52

series, if you suspect that you have trauma

1:55

that you need to work through, I

1:57

urge you to use precaution before jumping

1:59

into... deeply personal creative prompts and to

2:01

do so with help from

2:04

a mental health professional when possible

2:06

and necessary. All right, let's go. I

2:24

really needed to rehaul my website. It's

2:26

talking to some web people, looking around,

2:28

and I got intrigued by Squarespace's new

2:31

fluid engine. Partially because it just sounds

2:33

cool, but also, this allows

2:35

you to drag and resize and layer

2:37

up anything you can imagine. I dove

2:39

in, rebuilt my site. It's the most

2:42

me site that I've ever had. I

2:44

just absolutely love it, launched it. Got

2:46

such a great response. Some industry illustration

2:48

and designy peers even reached out and

2:51

was like, hey, who coded this thing,

2:53

man? I'm like, y'all, I did it by

2:55

myself. No coding was Squarespace's new fluid engine. I

2:57

told him, you should go check it out. You're

2:59

gonna be surprised at what you can do. And

3:01

I built this thing before Squarespace reached out to

3:03

sponsor the show. So I was like, boom, easy

3:06

peasy. I was gonna tell you about this new

3:08

site. Anyway, go check it out, anejpizza.com if you

3:10

wanna see what I did with it. If

3:12

you want to try it yourself, make a

3:15

site that's totally you where you can build

3:17

a portfolio, sell content and courses and all

3:19

kinds of other stuff, head to squarespace.com for

3:21

a free trial. And when you're ready to

3:23

launch, save 10% off your first purchase

3:25

of a website or domain with promo

3:27

code peptalk, all one word, all up okay.

3:38

This is episode four in our right

3:40

side out series. Unlike pretty much every

3:43

other episode of this podcast to date,

3:45

it is not self-contained and will be

3:47

a better experience as part of the

3:50

sequence. So if you haven't go

3:52

back to episode 449 for episode one and

3:56

continue from there. Right

3:58

Side Out is a series that explores the day.

4:00

difficult journey of making authentic creative

4:02

work that you love and

4:04

how that pursue is inextricably

4:07

linked to your relationship

4:09

with yourself. Each

4:12

episode I've shared how my art has

4:14

grown in tandem with the growth of

4:16

myself and how both have fed

4:18

off each other. In each

4:20

episode, we've also pulled out a different reflection

4:22

that you can apply to your own creative

4:25

practice. Growing

4:45

up, my whole sense of self was built

4:47

on being just like my mom. My

4:50

aunts, uncles, grandparents, they'd tell me over

4:52

and over, you're just like her. Despite

4:54

her leaving when I was just a

4:57

toddler, I adored her and I completely

4:59

cherished this likeness. But

5:03

as I became a teenager, her

5:05

life began to unravel. It

5:08

seemed she couldn't stick to an appointment, a

5:10

job, or even a family. Then

5:13

things got worse. Drugs,

5:15

abusive boyfriend, devastating

5:18

health complications. That

5:20

line, just like her, started

5:23

to feel like a life sentence.

5:26

I was heartbroken and I vowed

5:28

to become the opposite of her.

5:31

I tried to show up and work

5:33

a normal job, but my wiggly weirdness,

5:35

like my mother's, endured and

5:37

made the forced stillness of traditional

5:39

employment feel like a jail cell.

5:42

Luckily, I discovered the alternative path of

5:45

being a self-employed illustrator and it felt

5:47

like an inner whisper calling me to

5:49

say yes. Despite

5:52

some beginner's luck and some early

5:54

lucky breaks, thanks to an

5:56

adult coloring book that I'd made, my

5:58

illustration career hit a dead end before

6:00

it even really began and I

6:02

got stuck paying my bills and a

6:04

job at the youth shelter slash juvenile

6:07

detention center that was really

6:09

crushing my soul. I

6:13

know super light really fun

6:15

stuff but today the hope

6:18

returns. Let's get into it. So

6:27

these days I feel like keeping on

6:29

top of email is going to be

6:31

the death of me. So

6:33

it feels a tad ironic when I

6:35

tell you that an email feels

6:38

like it saved my life when I was

6:40

at rock bottom. It was

6:42

from a guy named Andrew Nier. Dearest

6:47

Andy, I found your

6:50

work on Flickr and I'm a big

6:52

fan of your coloring book for adults.

6:55

I noticed your website is closed however

6:58

I was wondering if you

7:00

would still be interested in doing

7:02

a large scale installation of your

7:04

coloring book. Sincerely,

7:07

Andrew Nier. P.S.

7:10

I run a gallery in Cincinnati it's called

7:12

Yes. The

7:14

Yes Gallery. Was the

7:16

creative whisper not so subtly calling me

7:19

once more? I was scared

7:21

to try the creative path again but I

7:23

also couldn't stomach saying no so I just

7:26

went for it and was like let's do this. But

7:30

the day before the show I got a

7:32

phone call from Andrew. Hey

7:36

this is Andy sorry Mr. Call leave a

7:38

message and I will get back to you

7:41

as soon as I remember to and I

7:43

will try really hard to

7:45

remember. Hey

7:49

Andy it's Andrew hey I've

7:51

been thinking about the show

7:53

and something summons off just

7:55

give me a call back. Inside

7:57

I was feeling like oh man oh.

8:00

No, why did I open myself up to

8:02

this whole creative thing again? And

8:04

I must have shown it in my voice

8:06

or something because Andrew was like

8:08

no, no, no Everything's still good with the show.

8:11

The problem is if we're gonna have people

8:13

color in this mural Conceptually,

8:15

it just doesn't make sense to use

8:18

regular markers. So if we have a

8:20

giant wall, it needs to also have

8:22

giant markers So I was

8:24

gonna make four of them if you

8:27

think that's enough And

8:29

just let me know I think that should work out fine.

8:32

I'll see you tomorrow I was like

8:34

sounds great and I hung up the phone

8:36

even though secretly it didn't sound

8:38

great Because I knew

8:40

that they would not be

8:42

there tomorrow because giant markers

8:44

don't exist And this

8:47

is one of those ideas that sounds great

8:49

in theory, but is really just impossible to

8:51

pull off The

9:01

Yes gallery was in this up-and-coming

9:04

part of downtown, Cincinnati Where

9:06

Andrew had converted a storefront into

9:09

a big gallery space with hardwood

9:11

floors Exposed brick high

9:13

ceilings and a shop area that

9:16

had these amazing design books and

9:18

screen prints It was an

9:20

absolute treasure trove of creative inspiration

9:24

And of course there were

9:26

also these giant big bright

9:28

white walls When

9:31

I stepped into yes, and

9:33

it's light Brightness,

9:36

I instantly felt this much needed

9:38

reprieve from the dark season that

9:40

I was currently stuck in It

9:43

kind of feels like it was a

9:45

lean to shelter on my

9:47

creative path But it

9:50

was more than present-day relief.

9:52

It was also hope for

9:54

the future When

9:57

I arrived at the gallery Andrew

9:59

was there waiting for me me, but

10:01

so were a handful of those five

10:03

and a half foot giant markers.

10:07

I still don't fully know how he did it.

10:10

I was like, man, this guy's probably

10:13

the same age as me. But this

10:15

is who I want to be when I grow up. We're

10:18

very different in all kinds of

10:20

ways. He's very much order. I'm very

10:22

much chaos. He is a minimalist. I'm

10:24

a maximalist. But we had

10:26

a lot of the same favorite artists

10:29

and interests and we worked really well

10:31

together. And though we were

10:33

different, I couldn't help but feel like he

10:35

was kind of like the more mature, put

10:38

together grown up version

10:40

of me. Honestly, I

10:43

probably would have missed it if

10:45

the universe hadn't given me the

10:47

biggest hint ever. Now, this

10:49

is gonna absolutely blow your mind. It's

10:52

gonna knock your socks off. So if

10:54

you're listening while jogging or washing

10:56

the dishes, you're gonna want to sit

10:58

down, buckle up and hold

11:01

on to something because I'm about

11:03

to unravel reality as you know

11:05

it because it was there the

11:07

whole time. Here's

11:10

the thing. His name

11:12

is Andrew. And

11:14

I don't know if you know this, but Andrew is

11:16

like the grown up, more mature,

11:19

put together version of the

11:21

name and D.

11:25

That's my name. I know.

11:28

I still can't

11:30

believe it. We drew all of those

11:32

walls. The show was a blast. My

11:35

spirits were higher than high. And on

11:37

the drive home, I was so giddy

11:39

with the hope for the future that

11:41

I blew right past my

11:43

exit on the highway for

11:45

like 50 miles. And

11:47

I remember calling my wife and telling her, Hey, I just

11:49

want to let you know I'm gonna be later than I

11:52

thought I was gonna be. I missed my exit. But I

11:55

just wanted to say that I know

11:57

we've been in a super rough.

12:00

tough era, but

12:03

I just have this feeling that it's gonna

12:05

work out. He's just

12:07

not the future me. He's very professional and

12:09

when I get home, I'm getting back to

12:11

work. Get

12:30

back to work I did. You see if

12:32

I thought Andrew was really great and I

12:35

also thought that he was kind of sort

12:37

of like me, that that

12:39

meant that maybe at least that part

12:41

of me wasn't so bad.

12:44

Maybe I could build some creative work with

12:46

that part of myself. How

12:49

would I do this? I didn't know. But

12:52

then I remembered something one of my

12:54

all-time favorite creatives had said. Charles

12:56

Schulz was the creator of the comic

12:58

strip Peanuts. You've probably heard of it.

13:01

I'm a super fan. More

13:04

than almost any other kids

13:06

media, Peanuts really explored the

13:08

full range of human experiences.

13:11

Joy, grief, pride, fear, depression, it

13:13

was all there and I really

13:15

appreciated and needed those examples when

13:18

I was a kid. The

13:21

Christmas special in particular and

13:23

it's sad jazz really

13:26

hit me deep. I

13:29

remember just kind of emo-ing

13:32

out in front of that thing and just

13:34

feeling like, I didn't know what

13:36

that feeling was, but it

13:39

was the feeling of being seen. It

13:41

was the feeling of being validated. I

13:45

was feeling like I was seeing my

13:47

experience out there in the

13:49

world and it really was cathartic. But

13:52

anyway, when Charles Schulz was on 60 Minutes

13:55

back in the day, they got into

13:57

how most people assumed that that comic strip,

14:00

was sort of autobiographical. You

14:03

know, clever interviewers would be

14:05

thinking like, Hey, I figured something

14:07

out here, the name

14:10

of your main character

14:12

is Charlie Brown and

14:14

your name is Charles

14:16

Schultz, huh?

14:19

Like, are

14:21

you really actually just the

14:23

grown up more mature, put

14:25

together version of Charlie Brown?

14:28

Hmm? And

14:31

he was like, no, it's

14:33

not that simple. Like, yes, Charlie

14:36

is a part of him, but it's only

14:38

a part of him. And

14:40

turns out in some ways, Schultz

14:42

had come to see that every

14:45

Peanuts character was in some way

14:47

a different part of

14:49

himself. Lucy is

14:51

his crabbyness. Mine

14:58

was his spiritual side. Charlie Brown.

15:00

I can tell you what Christmas is all about.

15:02

Snoopy, his fantasy. And

15:06

I love this idea and I kind

15:08

of took it as a creative prompt

15:10

to try and get these little parts

15:12

of myself out of me

15:14

and onto the paper so I could

15:16

size them up a little bit, maybe

15:19

even sort of sort out the good

15:21

parts from the bad parts. I

15:25

decided to do a new character every

15:27

weekday for a year with most of

15:29

the characters, externalizing parts of myself. However,

15:40

the further I got

15:42

from yes, the more I felt like

15:44

saying no to this whole

15:46

thing and giving up my

15:49

energy was dwindling. I

15:51

knew that I was going to need more

15:53

juice if I was going to keep going.

15:55

So I started scouring the internet for inspiration

15:58

back at this time. TED talks

16:00

were just starting to blow up and

16:03

Swiss born New York City based designer

16:05

Tina Roth Eisenberg, aka Swiss

16:07

myth, started a platform called

16:09

creative mornings, which was basically

16:11

TED talks for the

16:14

creative community. I dug

16:16

in I jumped

16:18

into it like a creative buffet

16:20

and I got so much from

16:23

this series of talks. One

16:26

talk that really stands out was from

16:28

designer Aaron Draplin. In

16:30

this talk, he really

16:32

embraces and celebrates his

16:35

Midwestern roots. And

16:37

it made me feel like, Hmm, maybe

16:39

this part of me this Midwestern part

16:42

of me isn't so bad.

16:45

So I made a character in my project

16:47

that was proud of his roots. In

16:50

Illustrator Kate Bingham and Bert's talk, she

16:52

spoke about being a kind of shopaholic

16:54

and she had this project where she

16:57

drew every credit card statement until she

16:59

paid off her debt. It's

17:01

exactly what you think it is. It's

17:03

literally think about a credit card

17:05

statement and then trying to draw that verbatim on

17:07

a piece of paper. And she did this big

17:09

show with all of them. And it was

17:12

amazing, and really endearing

17:15

and enjoying someone almost

17:17

celebrate their struggles with

17:20

money made me

17:22

curious about my own issues with

17:24

money and numbers. And

17:26

even thought that

17:28

maybe that part of myself

17:30

wasn't all bad. And

17:33

so I made a character that

17:35

was a ravenous but endearing collector.

17:39

Although every talk was unique, and

17:41

all the artists were really different, and

17:43

they all had a lot of things

17:45

that were super different to me, they

17:48

all showed me a different part of

17:50

myself. And it helped me see myself

17:52

in a completely different way. That

18:08

project started nearly 13 years ago

18:10

to the day, back in April 2011. I

18:17

was so excited when I got started and

18:19

right when I kicked it off, a few

18:21

of the people that had been following along

18:24

in my work started following

18:26

it and were showing enthusiasm and

18:28

kind of cheering me on. But

18:31

then on one particular

18:33

day, about a month or so

18:35

in, I hit a huge milestone.

18:38

Guess how many likes I got on that post? Zero.

18:43

Zero likes. Guess

18:45

nobody liked that part of me. He should have just

18:47

taken that part and pushed it straight down the toilet. Luckily

18:51

I liked that piece

18:54

enough to get up the

18:56

next day and hit

18:58

the real milestone, which

19:00

was continuing to show up

19:02

and make those characters and

19:04

put those parts of me

19:06

onto paper even when

19:08

nobody else seemed interested. And

19:11

this piece became the first

19:14

thing that I know for

19:16

sure that I made just

19:18

for me. For

20:04

years, I must have watched nearly every

20:06

creative morning's talk that they put up.

20:10

Except for one. There

20:12

was one talk that I avoided

20:14

and just thought, you know what? I'm

20:17

okay, I don't need that one. And it

20:19

was a talk by origami artist Joseph

20:22

Wu. Now it wasn't

20:24

that I wasn't interested in origami. I

20:26

was interested in all disciplines. In fact,

20:28

the more unlike the work I was

20:30

doing that the talk was about, the

20:32

better of an outside perspective I could

20:34

get. No, it

20:36

wasn't the origami. The reason I avoided

20:39

this talk was because I couldn't get

20:41

over the title. The

20:43

talk was called ADHD, Depression,

20:47

Origami, and Happiness. The

20:51

part that tripped me up was ADHD. That

20:56

word made me wince. Why?

21:02

Because for most of my life

21:04

I had this sneaking suspicion that

21:07

I might be ADHD. And

21:10

when I say most of my life, I mean most

21:12

of my life. I must have been seven

21:15

years old the first time I considered

21:17

this. I was running around an open

21:20

gym with my buddy Jeremy. Jeremy

21:23

was hilarious. I mean his name was

21:25

Jeremy. You just get the feeling right

21:27

there. He was the

21:29

only kid that could keep up

21:31

with my absurd hyper energy and

21:33

I just thought he

21:36

was awesome. On this

21:38

one occasion though, we were running around

21:40

shouting nonsensical jokes, having a blast and

21:42

he suddenly paused and he was like,

21:44

oh, I got to

21:46

take my medicine. And I was like, oh,

21:49

are you sick? And he's like, no, just

21:51

hyper. And he ran off to

21:53

the office and apparently

21:55

took his medicine. And

21:58

I thought, wait, what? I

22:01

thought being hyper was just awesome. Who

22:03

needs medicine for awesomeness? It didn't make

22:05

any sense, so I just let it

22:07

go. But then the

22:09

subject came back up in high school.

22:12

Last episode, I told you that

22:14

in high school, I had a

22:16

particularly dark season. And

22:18

during that time, I became more and more

22:21

desperate. I started taking more and

22:23

more risks. I was smoking

22:25

a ton of cigarettes, sneaking out,

22:27

drinking, smoking weed. And

22:29

it never got too far past some

22:31

pretty typical teenage stuff, but there were

22:34

a couple of times where

22:36

me and my friends abused prescription

22:38

meds. One of

22:40

those medications that we managed to score from

22:42

a friend of a friend was Adderall. This

22:45

friend was prescribed this for her ADHD.

22:49

Me and my buddy Seth, let's call

22:51

him Seth because that's his name. Not

22:55

really. His name's not Seth. Because I

22:57

don't recommend you do what me and

22:59

Seth did. But me

23:02

and my buddy Seth decided we'd

23:05

separately take Adderall and

23:08

each report back on our

23:10

drug-induced journey the next day.

23:13

In the morning, we compared notes before

23:15

we went to class. Seth

23:17

was like, oh, man, dude, I had the

23:19

craziest night. You're never going to believe what

23:22

happened. And I was like,

23:24

same, dude. And he was like,

23:26

yeah, I didn't even sleep, man.

23:28

I just watched the sunrise physically

23:30

shaking. And

23:32

I was like, dude, something way crazier

23:35

happened to me last night. You're not even going

23:37

to believe it. And he's like, what? I was

23:39

like, I did my

23:42

homework efficiently.

23:45

And Seth looked at me like, OK,

23:47

I guess that's one way to party. And we

23:50

just left it at that. But honestly, I didn't

23:53

really know what to make of it. I

23:55

thought, should I talk to my dad about

23:57

this? I felt like I'd spent. years

24:01

trying to impersonate a normal

24:03

teenager, fighting against myself to

24:05

do all the things I was supposed to

24:07

be doing. And then this

24:09

one evening I just felt capable.

24:14

Was this what everybody else feels like all

24:16

the time? But I

24:18

didn't exactly know how to explain it. Like what was

24:20

I going to say? Hey dad, I've been experimenting with

24:22

lots of drugs and I think I found one that

24:24

works great. I thought it

24:27

was probably just easier to forget about it.

24:30

And mostly I had. All

24:44

right, fast forward back to me

24:46

in my twenties doing my daily

24:48

drawing and the subsequent projects that

24:51

it inspired after that. I

24:53

was rewatching talks that I'd seen

24:55

multiple times and just barely running

24:57

on fumes. I

25:00

got a little bit more desperate

25:02

and I decided I'm going to

25:04

have to just watch this talk.

25:07

I need some more creative inspiration.

25:10

Now I expected to hear

25:12

Joseph Wu tell some part of his

25:14

life story as most of the other

25:16

artists had. But

25:18

what I didn't expect was for

25:21

him to tell my life story.

25:24

I'd quite obviously been avoiding

25:26

not just this talk, but

25:28

a huge part of myself.

25:31

He spoke a lot about how

25:33

hard it feels for people with

25:35

ADHD to do basic everyday stuff.

25:38

And I just felt the floor drop

25:40

beneath me. I hadn't

25:42

wanted to open this trap door and

25:44

now I was falling uncontrollably

25:47

into a doom scroll rabbit hole

25:49

into the internet trying to read

25:51

about how bad this thing really

25:54

was. I read

25:56

more about the kind of things that ADHD

25:58

people find hard and how for

26:00

some, these things are

26:02

nearly impossible. Things like

26:05

self-control or you could

26:08

say walking quietly in the

26:10

halls, being still like

26:12

sitting in that tiny ticket booth

26:15

trying to work at the movie

26:17

theater, managing times,

26:19

dates, money, numbers, being forgetful,

26:21

messy, easily bored, restless. But

26:23

as I read, I started

26:25

to hear another story too.

26:29

Trouble remembering appointments, struggles

26:32

keeping a job, difficulty

26:36

maintaining relationships. Then

26:39

I remembered Joseph Wu had

26:41

started his talk by saying he'd

26:43

just been diagnosed because his son

26:45

got diagnosed. Turns

26:48

out ADHD is

26:50

something you most often get from one

26:52

of your parents. ADHD

26:55

was part of my story but

26:58

it wasn't just my story.

27:01

If I was just like her, it was

27:03

most likely part of her story too.

27:07

I'd spent years trying desperately to

27:09

be the opposite of my mom

27:12

but if this was true, admit

27:14

this isn't something that I could

27:17

run from or choose or not

27:19

choose. Here I was

27:21

looking for a Warp whistle video game

27:23

cheat code to get ahead but

27:26

didn't know that the universe

27:28

had already grabbed the controller

27:30

and pressed up left right

27:32

select ADHD start and set

27:34

the game permanently to hard

27:36

mode from the beginning without

27:38

even asking for my permission

27:40

or giving me a heads

27:42

up. When

27:44

this first happened, I

27:46

was really depressed. If

27:50

this thing was a diagnosable fact,

27:52

like in my blood, in some

27:55

ways it didn't matter what I did,

27:57

I would never be the

27:59

opposite. opposite of her. But

28:01

as I read more, the

28:04

more I saw an option outside

28:06

of this line of thinking start

28:08

to emerge. See, it

28:10

seemed that when these

28:12

ADHD symptoms were channeled

28:14

positively instead of fought

28:16

against, even these parts

28:19

had potential. Late

28:21

for appointments could mean that you

28:23

are a real time maximizer. Struggles

28:26

with traditional employment can mean

28:28

that you could thrive in the

28:31

chaos of entrepreneurship. Struggles

28:33

in maintaining relationships can be channeled

28:35

into a determination to

28:37

keep things fresh in your

28:40

partnerships. I wondered

28:42

if my mom had ever tried this.

28:45

I started having conversations with family members

28:48

about my mom trying to slyly get

28:50

the scoop on her history. Turns

28:53

out that nobody

28:55

had ever mentioned to me that

28:57

she actually had tried to

29:01

get over these parts

29:03

of herself and was always trying

29:05

to and wanting to do better.

29:08

In fact, I found out that

29:10

she hadn't always avoided employment. She

29:13

tried to be a waitress but actually walked

29:15

out on the job not because she didn't

29:17

care, but perhaps because she

29:20

cared too much. She

29:22

was making tons of mistakes and couldn't make change

29:24

on the fly and she got ashamed and just

29:26

couldn't go back. I

29:29

learned for the first time that

29:31

she'd actually tried to be a

29:33

secretary, but again, it exploited her

29:35

weaknesses and completely undermined her strengths.

29:38

I have to imagine that

29:40

it was embarrassing and really

29:43

dis-regulating. I'd

29:46

seen her entertain other options

29:49

through her life. Modeling,

29:51

creativity, the picture book.

29:53

She even had dreams of starting

29:56

her own B&B and it was more than a dream. She

29:58

had created a logo and a business. business plan, she

30:00

had a whole stack of papers for this

30:04

bed and breakfast that she wanted to start. And

30:06

I'm not exactly sure why she didn't

30:08

fight for any of those paths

30:11

that suited her better. But

30:13

I can only imagine that at that point,

30:15

the self doubt, the shame of all the

30:18

things she was bad at and all the

30:20

ways that she had failed already had probably

30:22

gotten into her head and stopped her before

30:24

she even got started. She

30:26

chose to be things she felt like she should

30:29

be over and over and

30:31

over. And

30:33

it was just too hard. And it seemed

30:35

to have just broke her apart

30:37

piece by piece. With

30:39

all this new information and this different

30:42

perspective, I

30:45

thought maybe my mom wasn't a

30:47

huge failure. Everyone else made her out

30:49

to be. Maybe she'd only

30:51

failed at trying to be somebody she

30:53

wasn't. Maybe she only

30:55

really failed at keeping it zipped and keeping

30:58

her butt in the chair. I

31:01

started to imagine what a well supported,

31:04

self aware and unmasked mom might

31:06

have looked like. Maybe

31:09

she would have found balance. Maybe

31:12

she would have stayed. This

31:15

is when I became really aware of the

31:17

mask I was wearing just to survive. This

31:21

mask was also what protected me from being

31:23

like her. I

31:25

spent so much time fighting against

31:27

my nature. What would happen if

31:30

instead I tried to play to

31:32

these weird wiggly ADHD strings? What

31:35

would happen if I quit trying to be the opposite

31:37

of my mom and instead

31:40

try to be more like

31:42

her than she ever let herself be?

31:45

I've been shaking up a

31:48

shadow all my life. I've

31:54

been shaking up a

31:57

shadow all my life.

32:00

I'll grow,

32:03

yes I intend to crawl I'll

32:09

grow, I'll

32:12

grow Oh,

32:33

God! I'm

32:38

so grateful I love

32:40

you Alright!

32:47

Alright! One

32:55

ADHD strength that I've really learned

32:57

to lean into is

33:00

my intense curiosity.

33:03

I will get really obsessed

33:05

with something and some in

33:08

the neurodivergent community will call

33:10

these your current hyper-focuses. I've

33:13

learned to let my hyper-focus lead

33:15

me like a hound dog on

33:17

a leash. I'm still in

33:19

control and I make sure they don't get

33:22

too far ahead of me but ultimately I

33:24

trust them to sniff out something good. As

33:27

I got more curious about going towards

33:30

rather than away from myself, I got

33:32

more interested in who I am and

33:34

what makes me tick. That

33:37

got me into reading about psychology and

33:39

then therapy and as I

33:41

followed this trail I found something

33:44

that completely blew me away. More

33:47

than a decade after my daily

33:49

character drawing project and after years

33:51

of sniffing my way through psychology

33:53

and mental health resources, I couldn't

33:55

believe what I found. It's

33:58

called IFS, which stands for internal

34:00

family systems. You may have

34:02

heard of it and there's a good reason why it

34:05

really seems to work. Lots

34:07

and lots of therapists and psychologists

34:10

have adopted IFS because it's super

34:12

effective in treating things like anxiety

34:14

and depression. The basic

34:17

premise is this. All of

34:19

us are made up of many different

34:21

parts. In one of his

34:23

books, the creator of IFS, Dr. Richard

34:25

Swartz, calls the first exercise,

34:27

mapping the parts. And here's what he

34:30

says you've got to do. List

34:32

out all your traits and doodle each of

34:34

them on a page as

34:37

individual characters. But

34:39

here's the kicker. None of

34:41

these parts are bad. In

34:44

fact, the name of the book where

34:46

he details this process is called No

34:49

Bad Parts. This

34:51

is exactly what I was doing

34:53

with my daily character drawing project

34:55

and it's the same conclusion that

34:57

I got to exploring that part

34:59

of me that was ADHD and

35:02

reached this place of self

35:04

acceptance and self love. The

35:07

more I embraced this lens, the more

35:09

I saw it in the creative work

35:12

of my heroes like Charles Schulz with

35:14

Peanuts and then the Muppets. As

35:17

a proud weirdo, Gonzo from the Muppets

35:19

has always kind of been my favorite.

35:22

So I was pleasantly surprised when

35:24

I recently heard Dave Goles, the

35:26

voice and puppeteer behind Gonzo, detail

35:29

the same inner work with his

35:31

own characters. Goles plays

35:33

many of my favorite quirky

35:36

and vulnerable Muppets including Boober

35:38

the Fraggle, Zoot of the

35:40

Electric Mayhem, and Beauregard. In

35:43

the documentary Muppet Guys Talking, he

35:45

describes how he creates every character

35:48

by taking one of his flaws

35:50

and using the character to find

35:52

out what's lovable about it. For

35:55

example, Gonzo is completely out of

35:57

control but... He

36:01

took his own chaos and created this

36:03

super lovable character in Gonzo and in

36:05

turn it allowed him to see what

36:08

was endearing about this part of himself.

36:11

In response, Jerry Nelson, the puppeteer

36:13

behind characters like Gogo Fraggle and

36:15

the Count from Sesame Street, seemed

36:18

to agree adding that playing these

36:20

characters taught him that he wasn't

36:23

who he thought he was. Folks,

36:26

he knows that he's gotta let

36:28

go, be released, behave,

36:30

release, jeez. But

36:33

it's Boro deep in his soul

36:35

hidden like a devil in his

36:37

form. How pretty! How

36:40

nice! How

36:43

amazing! How amazing! Here's

36:48

the CTA this week. This

36:50

is your creative call to adventure how to

36:52

put some of these ideas to work right

36:54

now. So here's the CTA. Make

36:57

a parts of yourself portrait.

37:00

Make a piece of work about

37:03

yourself that shows the pieces of

37:05

yourself. Whether it's

37:07

one, several or all parts that

37:09

you can conjure up, explore

37:11

it at the same time. If

37:13

you're a visual artist, imagine a

37:16

self-portrait but with closer inspection within

37:18

this piece of work there are

37:20

colors and symbols and textures and

37:22

settings and objects that all represent

37:25

different parts of you. It

37:28

can also be a series of characters in your

37:30

style, a series of

37:32

handmade objects, painted scenes, animals and each

37:34

and every one exploring a different part

37:36

of you if you want to take

37:38

it as more of a series. I've

37:41

tried this again too. The artwork that

37:44

I made for this episode is actually

37:46

my own parts of yourself portrait. If

37:49

you're not a visual artist, it

37:52

could work like making a song where

37:54

you're writing from three different perspectives and

37:56

then at the end you reveal that

37:59

it's all you. Or

38:02

you could write a short story where

38:04

there's a conflict between multiple characters and

38:06

the conflict between all

38:08

those characters as really an inner conflict that

38:10

you have in yourself. Here's

38:13

how I recommend getting started.

38:16

Start by lifting out traits,

38:19

things that you would typically think of

38:21

as good, bad, or indifferent. It doesn't

38:23

really matter. Just start with the statements

38:25

or the words that you associate with

38:27

yourself. You've probably collected them your entire

38:29

life. And you've probably collected mostly the

38:31

bad ones, but you might have some

38:33

of the good ones too sitting around.

38:36

So for me, this looks

38:38

like if I just start

38:40

listing them out, I am

38:42

chaotic, melancholy, silly, easily bored

38:45

and distracted, hyper tired, wounded,

38:47

compassionate, warm, and scattered. Now

38:50

next, go through that list one by

38:52

one and attach a color, a shape,

38:55

a character, a place, or an object

38:57

that symbolizes what those things feel like

38:59

to you. Now it's your

39:01

turn. Let yourself break

39:03

apart a little in this exercise.

39:07

Because in my experience,

39:09

when you do that, some

39:11

new incidents really start to break through. I'm

39:25

a umbrella dying with bent

39:27

up wires and

39:30

tears in the vinyl. I'm

39:39

tired. I'm

39:44

trying. So

39:48

tired. So

39:50

tired. Beware,

40:02

you are the people, you are the people,

40:04

you are the people.

40:19

Next week I'm going to share how

40:21

all these parts came together and

40:24

how this journey eventually led

40:26

to a very healing conversation

40:29

with a major part of myself, my

40:31

mom. Okay.

40:41

What? What? Like I

40:44

said, you can delete anything you don't want in here. So

40:46

if you have... Why

40:50

did you have such a hard time? Going

40:54

up? Yeah. I don't know,

40:58

it was all a lot of things. I

41:30

want to say a huge thanks to

41:32

my friend Andrew Nier for recording some

41:35

bits for this episode, but

41:37

more importantly for being just a

41:39

super good friend on the creative journey and

41:42

for basically saving my creative practice all

41:44

those years ago. When

41:46

we first met, I definitely felt this

41:49

sense of lopsidedness and I was just

41:51

super impressed with what you were doing,

41:53

but I just want

41:55

to note here that he

41:58

never made me feel that way. In

42:00

fact, you always saw what was special

42:02

about what I added to our collaborations

42:04

and I just want to say I

42:07

love you man. Huge

42:09

thanks to my wife Sophie Miller for

42:11

being a co-producer and editor on this

42:13

series. Man, I

42:15

don't want to go super far into

42:17

it but we have just been in the trenches

42:19

working this series out and it's been a ton

42:22

of work. Very emotional but

42:24

also just a total freaking

42:26

blast. Huge thanks to

42:29

Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for audio

42:31

editing and sound design. Thanks

42:33

to Yoni Wolf of the band Y for

42:36

our theme music both for the show and

42:38

the series and

42:40

the most perfect

42:42

beautiful soundtrack for the series which all

42:45

comes from their album A-O-K

42:47

Ohio. If you like what you're hearing go

42:49

listen to that. It's a

42:51

journey in itself and thanks to

42:53

all of you for listening and

42:56

for sending such warm and kind notes

42:58

about the series. Until we're back

43:00

next week, stay Pepta.