hello hello welcome to the transcription of BALBOA PARK #19! here you can read the transcription of this episode AND see the Graphic Journal pages I talk about in this episode.
the transcription is generated by substack and it’s a bit silly without “,” or “.” but I left it as it is. if it’s weird let me know and the next time I will rewrite it!
enjoy:
how are you today i'm for on my side i am very very very overwhelmed and busy because i am so much into paperwork for my STRANGELAND charity as i was talking about last time but
I'm preparing a trip to Paris I'm going to Paris in like 10 days something like this I'm going to do a guest tattoo
and I'm also going there for AIDES.
It's a charity that fight against the HIV, the hepatitis and all the blood and sexual transmissible disease and they
I mostly work with the population that are exposed to this kind of disease and so they started with men having sexual relationships with other men but then during the years their target changed and
they also work with people in prison and also migrants and sex workers and they also work with trans the trans community and there is the place I do I I welcome I don't know to say the
trans people support group but I'm going to Paris to get a little bit more trained around the other aspect of this this charity so that I can I want to involve a little bit more into this this charity it's not at all art and drawing related but
especially in the moment and period of time in which I feel overwhelmed and I feel like low and I feel I don′t feel very good and I feel stressed and taking this time of getting out of my brain and say to myself okay maybe
so I can spend the next, I don't know, hours trying to do something else, something not for me and it's very difficult because the more I'm overwhelmed and the more it's difficult to try to do things that feels good in some way or at least doing things that get me, that distract me from this state of feeling pity for myself
for example today I was like in silly and not so silly practical things economical things and and I was like I know that if I only step one foot outside of my house outside of my home and I go to the gym for example
I know for a fact that after a gym session I will feel better, I will feel good but I couldn't manage to do this I was in some kind of executive paralysis you know I have so many things to do
that actually I can't choose one to start off so I just stay frozen in the middle of all the things I know I have to do.
Volunteering in this charity or volunteering for the group
the thing is even though sometimes I'm like oh f**k tonight is the support group I wanted to stay in because Monday is my free day and I wanted just to stay in my pajamas and watch Netflix or I don't know but instead I have to go there because it it's once a month on the Monday it's already this time of the month I have to go
because it's always it's I don't know maybe there are people that are always oh yes let's go let's do this and let's do other things but for me it's always always very difficult to do different things that I'm doing go to a different state but once I go there I spend these two hours in which I'm not in my brain and in which I'm at service
and I can't remember where I read this but the fastest way of getting out of feeling pity for ourselves or getting out of being overwhelmed is do one action to be at service for somebody else.
and especially when you don′t feel good, when you suffer with depression or anxiety or ADHD or I don′t know.
For me, for example, it′s like I′m living in this state of I′m the one who needs help, I feel anxious, I feel depressed and everything.
but when i do something to be at service it actually switch off my brain and make my my mood change and it feels very good anyway i'm talking talking talking but today monday what day is today monday
February 26th I couldn't manage to be a lot of service and not even going to the gym I had a pretty productive morning but then I have an appointment with my bank because I have a problem with my bank account anyway problem I wouldn't not have of course if I was a rich but I'm not so I'm making trying to make
all things stays in their place and so my partner went out for a workshop they give and I was like in my bed
and I said okay I should record the podcast and then I started like scrolling for one hour on Instagram and I usually I use this app called OPAL I use the free version I'm not paid today to say this but it's a
an app that switch off my social medias but today it is my my free day it's my day off and i was like okay i'm this i'm blocking opal just for the day so i spent one hour scrolling like silly video dance video animal video anyway
and then I said okay no podcast for today and of course in the moment I said to myself no podcast for today I wanted to go record the podcast so here I am recording and I was still in this not very creative week which is very frustrating but
I kicked myself in the butt and I said okay do what you f*****g preach go back to the graphic journal practice and so
something i found very helpful those days and that this is what i wanted to share with you is that so what i do for a living is drawing the majority is tattooing and then i have illustration works and then i am selling my prints
so all this is drawing and then I have graphic novel drawing and then I teach graphic journal so it's about writing but mostly drawing and so for a long time my way of enjoying my art practice was and in some way it sort of is still is drawing
but in those days I feel overwhelmed I feel that I can't connect with my creativity because in some way I want to stay in this in this uncomfortable feeling because I want to have pity for myself or also because maybe it's just like ADHD that
since I'm doing a lot of paper works for my work and for STRANGELAND sometimes I have things that I have to do like paper works that doesn't resolve the moment I finish because I have to wait for the bank or the state to send me confirmation and feedbacks and this can take days
in those moments while I'm waiting for the feedback those days.
My mind can't relax and I can't help to stay in this hyper focus of OK, I did the paperwork and now I'm waiting for the response and until the day the response doesn't arrive
I don’t have the space to start my creativity moment, my drawing, my painting, those things that I know that make me feel alive and happy and joyful.
So these past two weeks I find out that sometimes I feel the pressure of having this graphic journal
waiting for me looking at me and mocking me and telling me you are not creative you are not doing any graphic journal pages so maybe you are an impostor because you want to teach people how to have a graphic journal practice and you don't even have one those days you can't even
to practice what you tell people to do and so I was like oh my oh my oh my and so the guilt and the fear and the shame all is mixed up and it's a mess what doing those days when you feel the pressure of like I should be doing something but I can't what do you do I don't know what do you do but what did what I what I did was like
I trick myself I don't know how to say it in English I mock myself I'm not sure about the term but I trick myself maybe this is the term I trick myself into approaching a moment to my graphic journal but I don't start my first page in days by a drawing
what I do it's I start with something that has nothing to do with what I usually do and for some people maybe can be just start writing or for people who like to write and have a block in writing maybe can be start drawing your self portrait for example this is something we do in the Graphic Journal class but for me the self portrait is something I do and so it's
my brain recognized this practice as you want to trick me into feel good I don't want to do this so what I do is I start a collage
yes I do a collage I always keep all sort of cards and things and stuff and so I have a small drawer in which I put all my scrap papers all my things and so I
I start cutting and this is like just start flip through the page of magazine or like also free magazine from the supermarket or like random things I start to flip and I start to notice the words and the shapes and the colors that I like and I start cutting and maybe I spent half an hour cutting
and it’s very very calming on me it’s very soothing because there is no creativity I’m just like fishing for image and words
I cut I cut and then when I feel like okay I have enough material then I pick all these materials and I start gluing on the paper I don't think before what I want to do maybe I have some shapes that while I was cutting them I saw something like oh maybe this can be
the centerpiece or maybe those elements can be a cool frame but I don't think about it before gluing them the element I don't put the element on the page and then I decide where things go and move things around and then start gluing I just start and I don't care about the result
and this for me it's very nice because since i i can't turn this collage into work i'm not drawing something just for the pleasure and then i say i think oh maybe this can become a painting or maybe this can become a tattoo flash that i can propose to people and i can sell to people this is just collage so i start gluing and then i
just to play with what I see and I realized that maybe I already talked about collage I don‡t remember but
anyway i'm doing this maybe in the past three weeks or something like this every time i want to start my graphic journaling practice and i can't manage to start i know i realized that when i do one collage maybe i take one hour once i did a collage i have opened the gate and i feel safe enough and i realized that
this moment in which I'm seated maybe it's like after dinner maybe I'm with my family we are watching a movie or you if you don't have time during the day to take one whole hour of course to just make a collage who has this spare time one hour is a way too much time to in those times but of course if you take time to watch a TV show
in bed or with your time I guess that you you can try to while you are watching this maybe you can start your graphic journaling practice anyway when I finish my collage feel safe I feel okay I have my barrier my mind shut the f**k up and I am connected with this magical
with the energy, the creative energy that make me feel so good and make me feel supported and make me feel centered and make me feel joyful and then when I'm in this place I can also start then drawing and sometimes I draw more than one page in one night
and even though sometimes the things I draw can be things that you read them and you're like oh they are very sad or you sound depressed or anxious or angry I don't know but
doesn't matter what you put on the paper you can be creating or writing the most sad story but still being in the place of being so joyful because you are connected to your soul aka your creative energy so this is all for today thank you so much for bearing with me in this
observing the creative process journey in this podcast I'm not sure if people other than my partner is listening to it but never mind you will be listening wherever it's the moment the practice of recording it feels good anyway if you are listening
and you actually enjoyed what you just listened maybe you can consider to give five stars on whatever platform you are listening or maybe you can come and subscribe to my newsletter on Substack because it's there that my podcast has been made and so when you subscribe you receive each new in your inbox.
and if you want to practice the graphic journal what you can do you can follow my Instagram and I have an Instagram specific for the graphic journal which is instagram.com/momeskine it's like mom and moleskine
the journal and then you can also come on patreon which is patreon.com/graphicjournalclub and there is the place where I give classes and we gather on zoom and it's very cool I enjoy this moment very much for all other infos you can go on NicozBalboastudio.com
and there you have all you need all the links to everywhere I'm talking about thank you so much love you bye bye
Show notes
Groupe de parole Trans https://strangelandqueer.wixsite.com/groupe-trans-lr
Subscribe to my newsletter to receive even the podcast in your inbox:
AIDES
https://www.aides.org/
OPAL
https://www.opal.so/
Strangeland https://www.strangeland.fr/
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nicozbalboa.substack.com
