The Happier Creative

Season 2: Episode 4

For the best experience I’d recommend listening, but if you prefer to read the automated podcast please see below: this is an automated transcript using Otter so please don’t take the spellings/grammar too seriously!

Welcome to episode 4 of this season of The Happier Creative podcast. I’m your host Ruth Hoskins, thank you so much for tuning in.

The Happier Creative is a podcast that’s part memoir, part a collection of essays on creative life, to help you think about and explore your own creativity and artistry as well as if you’re growing, or thinking of growing a business based around something you love to do.

I’m here to help you explore how you live and work creatively as we navigate lockdown and beyond. I believe that creativity is a tool to help reduce anxiety and help us live and work better, whether we work full-time as a creative or have a creative business or we want to bring more creativity into our lives for a simpler, more joyful life.

In today’s episode I’m looking at the time-old art of radically rebirthing your life and why now is the time. I’ve seen lots of people talk about how to do this, but I’m not going to give you any kind of blueprint today – I don’t believe in blueprints no matter what people say – but I’m going to share how I’ve done this time and time again, post really shitty times and talk about how it’s made me feel.

For me, the scarier life gets the stronger the F**k it moment is!

So, if you’re into baby steps this might not be the podcast episode for you. I’m sharing my experiences of jumping in head first and showing you how have some of the greatest gifts have come to me in this way. Of feeling compelled to take huge leaps of faith even when it feels as scary as hell.

To put it in some context; the world has changed. You know, I know, we all know. And I don’t want to reinvent the wheel on that story, it’s being told to us in a myriad of ways every day. Instead I wanna touch on the aftermath, the future, to help you get a glimpse of possibility. In my first episode of this series you might remember that I talked about how I’d found hope and courage to look ahead to the next chapter, well, today I kinda want to expand on that by looking back at all the times I’ve done it before.

And I know from the many conversations I’m having, people are actively seeking more simplicity, more travel, more flexibility once we can all move again, so radical rebirth feels pertinent and never more important however it might look like for you.

For me, I kinda have cancer to thank – quite honestly – for giving me some of the richest, and most rewarding experiences of my life.

When I look back at it now it’s mad in lots of ways, but at the time, sitting through endless chemotherapy sessions, re-starting life again without my parents, which felt especially sad having being born into an orphanage and with no siblings to share this grief with. 

I can clearly remember the deep-rooted traumatic experience of being with my mum as she died and having to go straight into the chemotherapy ward for my own treatment knowing she’d gone, wondering how far behind her I’d be. 

But this isn’t a sad story, I’m painting the picture so you can imagine my state of mind and it might be something you can relate to right now: sad, traumatised, confused, anxious, unsure, frightened. Whatever you’ve been through these feelings are all entirely natural when we’re living in such a scary time.

For me, I can describe it as looking over the face of a kind of cliff, realising I could properly just lose my shit or I could say FUCK it and take extreme action. Big trauma for me required big action, that’s what my instinct told me. Baby steps wouldn’t be enough. 

Season 2, Episode 3:

For the best experience I’d recommend listening, but if you prefer to read the automated podcast please see below: this is an automated transcript using Otter so please don’t take the spellings/grammar too seriously!

In this episode, I’m sharing:

-My messy experience growing up with ADHD and the impact it had on me

-The Hunter / Farmer Theory and how neuroscience explains this

-All the blessings that brings and how it’s strongly linked to creativity

– The Drummer and The Great Mountain podcast

–Adult ADHD: How to Succeed as  Hunter In a Farmer’s World.

The transcript

Welcome to episode 1 of this season of The Happier Creative podcast. I’m your host Ruth Hoskins, thank you so much for tuning in.

The Happier Creative is a podcast that’s part memoir, part an essay on creative life and part guide to help you upgrade your life through allowing more creativity into it.

I’m here to help you explore how you live and work creatively as we navigate lockdown and beyond. I believe that creativity is a tool to help reduce anxiety and help us live and work better, whether we work full-time as a creative or have a creative business or we want to bring more creativity into our lives for a simpler, more joyful life.

In today’s episode I’m going to share my messy, expansive and well, eye-opening journey with ADHD. Firstly, I’d like to say a MASSIVE thanks to you for listening. I’ve never really talked about this online, being ADHD has so-far been a private exploration, but over the last few years I’ve come to a place of real self-acceptance over it all. Since investing this time in research and reflection and reading all the books, so much has been clearer, my self understanding is deeper and better than ever before, and now, so much fog has cleared, so I wanted to share this as I know so many people working in the creative world or running a creative business will identify with my stories around this.

ADHD is classed as a disorder but the reality is much more complex, multi-layered and linked to the basic ways of humanity. I wanna explore the perks it really has brought into my life as I’ve gone from outsider to be able to show myself some radical self-love.

I can’t go back and offer comfort to the 15 year old me who was struggling to understand the depths of emotions, why conformity was expected, let alone a good thing, or being able to give some explanation for feeling like an outsider. But I can share my story if you’ve ever felt this too you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Back in school – most noticeable in secondary school where it really manifested itself, I found it really hard to pay attention to teachers who had a bland teaching style, but I loved learning with the teachers who were fun and energetic. I remember feeling a deep sense of distrust for the teachers who just weren’t nice people or boring and I learned to rebel. Learning to whistle with my fingers in my mouth to annoy teachers, wrapping my arm in the whole classes watches when I got told not to ask the time, starting trends not aligned with uniform – mis-matched laces was my favourite.

I was made to feel like a wild rebel; when I stood outside the headteachers room yet again for walking out of a class because it was too boring and my impulsion intuitively told me it wasn’t a good setting for my curious and creative brain to learn in. Sitting in a classroom was really hard and not at all natural and I’m still a big believer of this as we’re looking at some alternative ways of secondary schooling for our kids right now.

For me,

Season 2, Episode 2:

For the best experience I’d recommend listening, but if you prefer to read the automated podcast please see below: this is an automated transcript using Otter so please don’t take the spellings/grammar too seriously!

In this episode, I’m sharing:

-Why my memory bank is so important

-What it is that’s make me question my sense of self right now?

-The values + beliefs that help me navigate my life

The transcript

Welcome to episode 2 of The Happier Creative podcast. I’m your host Ruth Hoskins, thank you so much for tuning in.

The Happier Creative is a podcast that’s part memoir, part an essay on creative life and part guide to help you upgrade your life through allowing more creativity into it.

I’m here to help you explore how you live and work creatively as we navigate lockdown and beyond. I believe that creativity is a tool to help reduce anxiety and help us live and work better, whether we work full-time as a creative or have a creative business or we want to bring more creativity into our lives for a simpler, more joyful life.

In today’s episode I’m searching for the answer of self identity. Because, right now, do we even know who we are anymore? It’s something to explore if you’re nodding along thinking about this time we’re living in and trying to navigate our crazy lives together. 

Firstly, I hope you’re safe and well. Dunno how you’re managing this school / work / life juggle. I’m broadcasting this from my new writing space – my bedroom! I’ve set up a desk looking onto the garden, it’s really sunny in the mornings and it’s nice to look out at the grass, trees and flowers. And I just love watching our garden birds. I fully appreciate not everyone has outside space; this is our first proper garden and I’m feeling thankful for the space every day. 

My husband Tony has set up himself on the front drive in our yellow campervan Annie.

So we’re now both set up with spaces we can retreat to once we’ve done the home schooling activities. I’ll share some photos in the show notes if you’re like me and love to know what people’s homes look like! 

As I’m broadcasting this from my bedroom too and hoping the kids won’t come in and distract me. They just seem to have that knack of knowing exactly the worst time don’t they?

I don’t know about you but I’ve felt really reflective, wanting to find the right words to articulate how I’m feeling in the hope it might soothe some of you. I’ve spent a few weeks asking myself, who they hell even am I? 

It started off in my work but really it applies to life. And as I so often do, without my parents alive to help remind me of who I am, I’ve dug into my greatest possession to get some comfort and make sense of everything and that is my memory bank.

The first memory in my bank is this. It’s 1986. I’m 10. I’m soaking up a French food market in a village by the Atlantic Ocean – a real happy place for me; I’m holding my dad’s hand as I take in the exotic rainbow of produce, the foreign, heat-splattered sounds feel exciting to me; the opulent displays of jams, marmalades, honey. Uh. Amazing. 

My dad’s shirt is unbuttoned, his large moobs protruding but he doesn’t care because, well, he’s like that! He stops to smack his lips at almost every stall as we sample as we go, using his (extraordinarily embarrassing) French.

I sit on a crate of prickly pairs and have a splintered bottom. We stop at an Oyster Hut; for 1 franc we buy a dozen oysters with a small glass of white wine to share. I feel so grown up as I sip the wine and let the oysters slide down inside laced with shallots and lemon juice, the omnipresent ocean roaring behind us as the salty molluscs awaken my taste buds.

Season 2, episode 1:

For best results listen, but if you prefer to read the automated podcast please see blow: if so, this is an automated transcript using Otter so please don’t take spellings/grammar too seriously!

In this episode I’m talking about:

-Searching for sunbeams

-Moving past a big creative block by finding hope again

-Feeling guilty because I have a nice life

-Anxiety during this time and how I’ve dealt with it

-The science of hope

-Reimagining our future post lockdown

I refer to an article I wrote: Oxytocin: The Cure For Anxiety + Immunity

I refer to Julia Cameron’s Book. The Artists Way from 1992.

Welcome to Episode One of this season of the happier creative Podcast. I am your host, Ruth Hoskins.

Thank you so much for tuning in. The happier creative is a kind of evolution of first season of my podcast. It’s part memoir, part an essay on creative life and part, I guess a bit of a guide to help you upgrade your life and allow more creativity into it. I’m here to help you explore how you live and work creatively, especially as we’re on this kind of lockdown situation right now and beyond.

I believe that creativity is a tool that can massively help reduce anxiety help us live and work better, whether we work full time as a creative or we have a creative business or we want to just bring more creativity into our lives. And now for those of you who listen to my earlier season of this podcast, it was called the happy creative.

You might I’ve noticed that I’ve tweaked the title a little bit. I’ll come on to why a bit later on. But I’m so happy to be back in your ears in this very revolutionary and strange time. And I want to share stories with you because I believe we have to look to the future, to talk about how we feel and to make sense of everything that’s happening right through to get through it together.

So in this episode, I’m sharing what’s been a pretty short 12 months for me from a creative point of view, personally, and how this weird lockdown experience has actually helped me to go back inside myself feel a bit clearer and what I guess just to find a bit of hope, when I least expected it. So thank you very, very much for joining me. If you like these Audio Stories, I’d be really grateful for any subscribes, reviews or shares. Right now more than ever, we’ve got to spread love more kindness, positivity and share more stories that help us get our feelings out of our head and into the world.

And that’s exactly why I’ve created this season of the podcast. Man, you know life is shitty right now so shitty. I’ve no doubt that we all agree on that front. My heart is breaking for everybody affected and yeah huge love and hugs all around that I mean the world feels dark and gloomy.

It is dark and gloomy right now but you know, we have each other’s backs and talking is good. One of my life mottos that I want to talk about today is should the sun beams.

And it also always makes me think of the quote the line in the twits by Roald Dahl, one of my favourite children’s books. That line; if you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like some beans and you will always look lovely.

And it just floods me with the good energy every time and I think it is is so true.

But to be really open and honest with you, I struggled with a massive creative block over the last 12 months.

I felt fine thinking about my incredible clients businesses and supporting them but when it comes to my own creative life,

In today's episode I'm flipping the marketing script and talking about why I'm all into staying small in my creative business, how we can shine bright and still make an impact on the world in our own small way, and why marketing is such an important skills for business owners to nail, because I believe it's one element of our businesses that should NEVER be outsourced.

This episode is made for you if you're in a 9-5 but have a big creative business dream burning away deep inside you. I'm sharing some nuggets of advice, why the time is right now, not in the future, the formula you need to know, where you start and why you need to skill up on the art of business.

In this episode I'm talking about when you feel misaligned with where your business is going? Maybe you're not attracting the people you want to, or you're failing to grow, or you're earning enough money? Whatever the problem is I'm sharing a three part approach to kill those gremlins and take positive action to move forwards on the path you're on.

In this episode I'm inspired by the first Mothers Meetings I went to this week. I'm talking about that thing all creative business owners get so daunted by, putting ourselves out there online and in real life. I'm going to walk you through my approach to putting your big girl pants on (!), being brave and just being you because meeting like-minded creative women is going to help you build a community that will cheer you on the adventure you go on in your business. I'm so excited to share this episode because I know that only good things come out of reaching out and being more visible to the people you want to connect with.

In this episode I'm diving into my approach for when you have a big business dream or idea but the gap between where you are now and where you REALLY want to be is big and daunting. I'm going to break down the steps to uncovering your big dream, identify what's holding you back, and break down the big picture so that you can start to make a plan and make it all happen. Because when we start from a place of clarity, bridging that gap is much less scary. It's like a mini-coaching episode made with love from me to you.

In this episode I'm talking about one of my favourite subjects - content! I know that so many creative business owners struggle with creating sparkly content that represents their business and connects right into the hearts and minds of their dream clients and customer. So, I'm sharing the exact approach that I use to plan out my content strategy, make it purposeful and also share some of the most important pro writing tips that you can start to use in your business right away! I'm so excited to share this with you and I look forward to you putting it into action in your own business!