slow inside

 we are born into a world heavy with shoulds, rights and wrongs. growing up in that world we forget that we have the power to change our world. we forget that just because people tell us what we should and shouldn’t do, we can imagine any way to be. and we can always choose our own way forward.

elle luna is a designer, painter, writer, and author of “the crossroads of should and must” and co-author of “your story is your power” with susie herrick. she facilitates a global art movement, #The100DayProject, and has previously worked as a designer at IDEO and with teams on apps and websites, including Medium, Mailbox, and Uber.

elle is here to remind us that who we are matters and that what we make is ours.

some things we talk about: 

• making real the thing you most long to see in the world
• how to transform your story from broken to beautiful
• the role of imagining and curiosity in creating your life
• the phenomenon of the shadow artist
• how to get to know your "shoulds" so they lead you to your "must" 

you can learn more about other brave and experimental artists here.

and you can follow all things BEYOND and daphne cohn here. 

there are so many ways to be human. so many ways to look at what we have been given. so many ways to respond to a life. I turn to rob bell when I want to be a human filled with possibility, to look at what we have been given with joy, and to respond to life with wonder.

rob is a master creator who talks, writes, and teaches you how to say the thing you’re dying to say and do the thing you’re dying to do. he is a speaker, podcaster and author of ten books including several new york times bestsellers and his most recent, “everything is spiritual.” his podcast – the robcast – was named by iTunes best of 2015. he’s been profiled in The New Yorker, toured with Oprah and in 2011, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

rob is one of my heroes. he takes the hard, he turns towards the pain, and transforms it into a beautiful gift for us all.

some things we talk about: 

• finding your joy
• the most brilliant response to fear. ever.  
• how to use your imagination to create the life you long to live 
• the miracle of the universe
• stepping into the mystery and dancing with the unknown

in a time when covid physical distances us from one another, politics emotionally separates us, and an economy driven by individual success financially divides us, it can seem almost impossible to create what we most need to truly belong: community.

mia birdsong, pathfinder, activist, storyteller and author of “How We Show Up: reclaiming family, friendship and community” has devoted her life to creating and cultivating community not just because it feels good but because we need it. we need it because we are human. because we are interdependent creatures who rely on one another to survive. we need it because it’s through shared wisdom and experience that we can save what is failing and create what we are imagining. and we need it because, as much as creativity is a solo act, it comes from our shared existence.

mia has “a gift for making visible and leveraging the brilliance of everyday people so that our collective gifts reach larger spheres of influence, cultural and political change, and create wellbeing for everyone.”

and in this conversation mia brings her experience as senior fellow of the Economic Security Project, founding co-director of Family Story, vice president of The Family Independence Initiative, speaker at conferences and universities around the country and her Ted talk (viewed over 1.7 million times), to show us how we can use community to chart a new path forward.

some of what we talk about: 

• the american dream, toxic individualism and the power of community
• what we value and why we better change it. now. 
• finding agency in spaciousness (and how to create more spaciousness in a busy life)
• looking to the marginalized for freedom
• and why you only have to do your part

may it inspire you to make your thing and change your world. 

morgan harper nichols offers her art daily to her 1.6+ million instagram followers, via her podcast and her book of poetry and art, “all along you were blooming” and through her many collaborations with companies like coach, adobe, live nation, aerie and more.

in this conversation,  we talk about going from paycheck to paycheck to a business with employees, two books, multiple partnerships and a massive social media following, the role of intuition in her art and life, staying the course and how she keeps herself inspired, dealing with doubt, healing differences and how she defines success at this point in her career.

you can listen to more conversations with brave and experimental artists and makers here

you can follow the host, daphne cohn, on instagram

listening to david whyte reminds me of something I had long ago forgotten. his words, written and spoken, feel like a homecoming. there is permission within them to lose oneself in the questions and the listening. to simply arrive at what is here, waiting for me. for us.

david calls this “the empty space beneath the breath where everything real emerges.”

david is a poet and a philosopher. he is the author of nine books of poetry and four books of prose, including his two most recent books, the bell and the blackbird and consolations: the solace, nourishment and underlying meaning of everyday words.

he is a speaker, teacher and writer. but more than anything, david is a man devoted to the mystery and expression of the soul. a man whose job in life is to “get it” and then to poetically, magically, beautifully, reveal it to us.

some things we talk about: 

• how to break the surface conversation and enter into the one that belongs only to you
• sense of humor as a spiritual discipline
• the role of the body in art and how to come into the traumatized parts from your past
• what it means to be a “real artist”
• being visible and vulnerable in your work and life

learn more about david, BEYOND, and other brave and experimental artists here: https://daphnecohn.com/

 in this conversation with self-help pioneer and author of, "why bother: discover the desire for what’s next," jennifer louden talks about claiming your agency and knowing your work matters, how to know when to stop bothering and move on to something else? what to do when you don’t know what your desires are, how to keep choosing yourself over and over again and how to be vulnerable in your work and then share it with the world.

there are those souls that are both soft and strong, wise and wide open. toko-pa is one of those souls.

when toko-pa was just 15 she ran away from a violent, destructive home life and found herself having to navigate “the system.” the next decade was a hard one as she figured out, on her own, how to become an adult in a complicated, often uncaring world. this was the beginning of her search for belonging.

this search has led her down many creative, beautiful paths and today she is the founder of dreamschool: weaving a living bridge to the otherworld as well as the author of the award-winning book belonging: remembering ourselves home. in toko-pa’s words, “in addition to tending dreams, my work focuses on restoring the feminine, reconciling paradox, elevating grief, and facilitating ritual.”

join us as we explore a pathway home.

some things we talk about: 

• how to start down the path of belonging to yourself and the world
• when she lost sight of her creativity and how she came back to it
• finding your own values and  your own voice
• her own creative process and how she gets to what is true
• when it’s time to commit and when it’s time to let go (and how to tell the difference)
• and cultivating a vision for your life in tune with your longing

you can learn more at daphnecohn.com or follow BEYOND on instagram @daphnecohn

in this episode of the ten-part series, "who we might become," joy researcher, jesh de rox, explains 

• what is joy, why it’s so important to creativity, and how to connect to it
• how to respond to sadness and pain with a creative spirit
• the path to greatness
• and how we let go of what doesn’t serve us anymore in order to make what does

you can learn more about jesh and download the remaining seven episodes of this series over at daphnecohn.com

you can check out "within studio": a community with hands-on art workshops, live q & a's with well known artists, makers, and activists, open studios and monthly check-ins at daphnecohn.com

within studio is currently pay-what-you-can in response to covid-19 and all the financial uncertainty during this time. 

and you can follow the BEYOND podcast over at instagram @daphnecohn

join joy researcher, jesh de rox, and I for part 2 of our ten-part mini-series “who we might become.” in this episode we explore how to see differently, create your own language and change the culture with your creativity. some things we talk about: 

• the seed of all creativity
• the three stages of the creative process
• the gift of enough and not enough
• what it takes to become an artist who will actually produce change in the larger culture
• why joy matters so much
• and how to start breaking the rules and creating something new.

you can learn more about jesh and previous podcast guests over at daphnecohn.com

you can check out the pay-what-you-can "within studio" membership community at withincommunity.com. there are monthly live q & a's with artists and makers, bi-monthly creativity check-ins and weekly open studios. it's a chance to gather, make, love, laugh, play, and make some more. 

and you can follow the BEYOND podcast over at instagram @daphnecohn

jesh de rox, at heart, is an explorer. a man who has spent much of his life asking the big questions; the ones that help make sense of who we are and why we’re here. over the years, traveling the planet, immersing himself in experiences and conversations that test the boundaries of commonly accepted ideology and culture, jesh has become a very successful creative entrepreneur, thought leader, and business coach.

through his journey, jesh learned to shape and grow his businesses based on principles of joy and personal growth. his work has been featured in Vogue, Huffington Post, Elle, and Range Finder, to name a few, and he has an international client list that includes celebrities and world-class performers in many fields.

in this ten-part mini series, "who we might become," we dive deep into ALL things creative: permission and courage, social media and sharing, rejection and criticism, discovery and greatness, and ultimately, who we might become.

these are big topics and we go pretty deep with a lot of them. we visit, and revisit, many of them over the ten episodes (which I will be sharing weekly) so if at first some of it feels too deep or too vast, give it time. let it wash over you and slowly integrate into your being.