Hurry Slowly

Artwork by Duong Nguyen.

A look at how the ideas that we inherit very young can limit or expand the way that we relate to ourselves and our creativity.

Hurry Slowly host Jocelyn K. Glei explores how ideas shape our attitude toward everything — how we think with and through the ideas we hold, and how that affects the way we see ourselves, the way we relate to others, and — especially — how we approach our creativity.

A deep dive into how we create, relate to, and maintain our digital selves/personas/brands — and can we ever truly leave them behind? Or reinvent them? Or start anew?

My conversation partner in this investigation is Cody Cook-Parrot, a dancer and a writer who was formerly known as Marlee Grace. Their work focuses on the self, devotion, ritual, creativity, and art making. Among their myriad activities, they publish a wonderful Substack newsletter called Monday Monday, host a podcast about creativity called Common Shapes, and teach online courses about quilt-making and book writing, among other things. They have also published two books, including Getting to Center, Pathways for Finding Yourself Within the Great Unknown, as well as How to Not Always Be Working.

Questions we explore in this conversation:

The myths that drive our creativity, how they create suffering, and how we can ignite our creative fire by embracing the power of the collective.

Hurry Slowly host Jocelyn K. Glei explores the closely intertwined myths of individualism and the lone creative genius and how they encourage us to ignore a powerful source of creative inspiration and momentum — the collective.

What does it mean to create spaciousness? Through our creative rhythms, through our travels, through the expression of our voices?

I talk with writer and teacher Sebene Selassie, the author of You Belong and the excellent Substack newsletter Ancestors to Elements, about cultivating self-reliance through solo travel, the power of acknowledging what you’ve accomplished, finding your authentic voice, and why we so often gravitate towards the negative rather than “going towards the love.”

Need fire for your creative ideas? KILN is a creative incubator & a community where half-baked ideas become real. Launching in April of 2024. Registration opens in mid-March. Learn more about KILN here.

The people, ideas, and media mentioned in this episode:

• Amelia Hruby and Mary Grace Allerdice

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Artwork by Guong Nguyn and Geelia Nguyn.

Exploring the tension between “the urgency of productivity” and the rhythms of “creative necessity.”

Jocelyn contemplates how we can navigate the tension between an external world that is deeply attached to urgency and the “values of technology” and our internal world, where we yearn to create, to play, to rest, and to explore — without a deadline.

Artwork by Rita Quattrocchi.

On the awkwardness of wintering while everyone else is awakening.

Jocelyn reflects on being out of sync with the collective energy of reinvention at the beginning of each new year. She talks about being in the “awkward soup of transformation” and contemplates the discomfort of inflection points, the rhythms of creativity, letting go of heaviness, and the frustration of finding yourself still hanging out in the waiting room.

What does it mean to be satisfiable? And how do you recognize when you have “enough”?

These questions are central not just to our own well-being but to attaining a more just and equitable society. For this conversation, I sit down with writer, facilitator, and activist adrienne maree brown, who recently published the excellent book Pleasure Activism.

We take an in-depth look at how we might define pleasure for ourselves, the wisdom that we can access when we really drop into our bodies, and what it means to figure out how to be satisfiable — to recognize that you have enough.

Key takeaways from this conversation:

Save $60 on RESET, a cosmic tune-up for your workday. RESET is a course created by Hurry Slowly host Jocelyn K. Glei that shows you how to move from a speed-obsessed way of working to a heart-centered way of working. It will teach you how to let go of “productivity shame,” tap into the natural rhythms of your energy and attention, and get into your creative flow. Save $60 on registration through January 15th.

Get Jocelyn’s brainwaves in your inbox. If you like Hurry Slowly, you’ll love this twice-monthly email highlighting new ideas about creativity, consciousness, and healing.  Sign up at hurryslowly.co/newsletter.

“I’ll ask people, ‘When was the last time you were satisfied? Can you imagine being satisfied? What are the things that satisfy you in a given day? How do you know that you have done enough in a given day? Do you understand that you don’t have to produce anything to deserve satisfaction?’”

“We’re all so often showing up and giving each other the bare minimum of presence and then surprised that we can’t feel each other, that we don’t actually feel the depth of connection that we’re longing for.”

“There’s something about being in right relationship to change that acknowledges that not all change is meant to be driven, some of it is meant to be experienced in other ways.”

The references and ideas that we mention in this epi:

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Artwork by James Fenner.

How to flip the script on healing and wellness culture by noticing how you already embody all that you yearn for.

Jocelyn reflects on the intersection of capitalism, productivity culture, and the wellness industry and how they each try to lure us into focusing on what we lack, what we are not, what we have yet to accomplish. She offers an alternative perspective: That healing can only occur right here in this moment and that if we accept ourselves as we are, we can see how we already embody so much of what we yearn for.

A conversation about how to get our bodies (and our brains) onboard with manifesting a new reality.

In this episode, I take a deep dive into the mechanics of healing with Dina Schapiro. Dina has been a therapist for over 20 years; she’s also a professor, and formerly the director of the graduate arts therapy program, at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. These days, in addition to teaching, she works with clients to offer spiritual guidance and help them integrate plant medicine experiences.

Ideas we explore in this episode:

Are you ready to move into deeper self-expression? Jocelyn’s brand-new, 4-week course “Finding Your Voice: A sacred practice space for honoring self-expression” is now open for registration. Save $30 on early-bird bookings through December 15th. Learn more and register here.

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A brief reflection on the voice and how our desire to avoid uncertainty — to know the outcome before we even begin the process — can block the free-flow of self-expression.