The Monastic Mamas Unblock & Unlock Your Best Creative Life Podcast

Lucy AitkenRead is a writer, facilitator, and certified coach. She's also mum to two children, Ramona, 11, and Juno, 9, and they have all been unschooling for a decade. Three years ago, Lucy poured this experience into a bowl and stirred it together with her work in social policy and activism to bake the DISCO – unschooling course. After facilitating the first two courses, she began to feel like this work was so deep that she needed to be very certain she knew what she was doing as a subterranean guide, so she spent 2020 doing “transformational depths”  training in order to be able to provide the hybrid of intuitive coaching and consulting she is now known for. 

I reached out to Lucy because I have been in a swirl of thought lately about creative unblocking and how excavating our creativity is tied up with our school experiences. In my work helping women unblock their creativity through "The Artist's Way," my "Memoir-In-Progress" Course, and creative spiritual direction/creative companioning, I have heard story after story of how school experiences have hindered creativity. 

Cue Lucy! I asked about her experience of the "school wound of creativity" and how it affects us long-term. But we don’t stop there! Listen in for tangible ways to move through these long-standing wounds to move towards freedom.

And if you want to connect with Lucy's work, head on over to discolearning.com or follow her on Instagram at lucy_aitkenread. 

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Kristy Gordon, the founder of JoyDance LLC, invites others to experience God’s love through movement.  Her story begins in the garage of her childhood home.  She shares, “I spent hours in the garage playing my little boom box and dancing till I was a sweaty mess.  I danced without rules, without expectations.  It was there that I learned dancing connected me to something bigger than myself, healed my soul, and brought me pure joy.”   As an adult, Kristy began pursuing worldly success and external validation.  Even after earning a Ph.D. in sociology and working in academia, she felt a dark emptiness within.  “I couldn’t find that little girl from the garage inside.  God mourned my withered spirit with me.  Fortunately, my story did not end there.  God picked me up and set me on a path to return to that feeling of freedom and joy.  It was during this journey back to wholeness that JoyDance was born.”  Kristy is excited to say YES to God’s call and continue sharing JoyDance with others.

Come listen in to Kristy's journey. Her story back to first loves and wholeness through movement is an invitation for us all to listen to the voice of God in our own story and revisit the spaces that bring us deep connection and joy!

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Let’s talk about the correlation between over-consuming content when you don’t feel well and moving out of illness with your creative health intact.

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I’m at it again with the random thoughts about this creative spiritual journey. Fear is a really crummy motivator and when it becomes a driving force, at least for me, the creative well begins to run dry. So here’s what I’m doing about it. Take a listen.

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Can we have an honest chat? Sometimes creative work as hard. Sometimes I want to give up and I know sometimes you do too. But let’s keep throwing spaghetti at the wall, shall we? Let’s keep believing that no creative act is ever wasted.

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This podcast episode is a little different. Twice a year I run my “Artist’s Way” groups, where we go through the book “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron with a lens of spiritual direction. Before I open each group, I like to give the members of my Unblock & Unlock Your Best Creative Life Facebook group a little taste of what the work is about. This time around, I really wanted to look at the overarching themes of The Artist’s Way, and one of those themes is fear. So what you are going to hear is the Zoom recording of my latest talk: “Is your fear, a friend or a foe?” Grab a piece of paper and a pencil. I give some writing prompts to work through. I hope you enjoy it!

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This episode is sponsored by

· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

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Barbara Baer is an actress, dancer, director, creative & movement teacher. In her work, she seeks to address the human condition with a glimpse of hope. She lives in France & Switzerland with her family. It was through a personal crisis that Barbara realized how important it is to give oneself time to be, to breathe & to take care of our body, mind & soul. That’s when she created the Creative Dreambox: A space for creative selfcare; a creative playground. Her favorite way of creative selfcare is movement & collage-making. Barbara hosts regular creative time-outs in the South of France and in Switzerland. She loves to sing, go for walks with her dog Pinot - a lagotto romagnolo, and create collages in all sizes.

I know you are going to love listening to her share about her journey, her work and the joys of creating space for others to take a (creative) break. 

Here are some of the resources Barbara references in the episode, along with links to connect with her on Instagram and through her website. 

Links:

www.thecreativedreamboxcollective.com

Instagram:

@thecreativedreambox

@barbararahelbaer

www.barbarabaer.fr

Books:

Les exportés“ by Sonia Devillers at Flammarion (in French)

Falling upwards‘ by Richard Rohr

Petit guide de médecine chinoise‘ by Misha Ruth Cohen at Editions chariot d’or

Podcast:

Turning to the mystics by James Finley by the Center of Action & Contemplation

https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/turning-to-the-mystics-with-james-finley/id1494041647

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In this episode, I sit down to talk with Stephanie Rose, Founder of Firefly Scout. Stephanie and I met about a year and a half ago through "The Artist's Way." She is an empath with a beautiful take on creativity and finding what lights you up. I know you'll enjoy this episode as we talk about her journey, why she does the work she does and some beautiful thoughts on creating rhythms and finding evidence for discovering our magic. 

Here's a bit more about Stephanie: 

"Feeling overwhelmed and waking up to the reality that her life wasn’t fulfilling her sense of WHY, Stephanie went on a personal growth journey. As a working mom with two boys, a spouse and all the grown-up commitments that come with it, she started taking moments to put herself first and remember her true self.

Through a lot of intentional exploration, she became aware that she is so much more than ‘just a mom’ and was limiting herself when she let those basic life details define her.

She’s taken the process she went through and packaged it up to share with all of us in the Illumination Kit and created a collection of other easy-to-use tools to inspire us all to keep scouting out all the things that light us up."

You can find all of her amazing resources, including her Illumination Kit at her website: www.fireflyscout.com.

And here are 3 books she mentions in the episode:

Discover Your Dharma by Sahara Rose

Sensitive is the New Strong by Anita Moorjani

It's Not Me, It's You by Mhairi McFarlane

I know you are going to be as inspired by this conversation as I was!

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Kat Renee is an artist working out of her home, most recently located outside Dallas, Texas. With a BA in Art and an MA in Theology, Kat Renee has studied a wide range of subjects, all of which inform her artwork. She began a career as a commercial artist, but in an effort to create more meaningful art, left commercial work to focus on a personal project: a collection of paintings dedicated to the transcription of real-life experiences into visual stories. Using rag dolls as characters in these stories, she depicts each scene with specific detail and careful symbolism. Kat Renee has participated in several group shows in southern California, and is excited at the opportunity to expand to other cities. She views her art as an opportunity to understand 'truths' hidden in human circumstances and universal in human experience. In the words of John Lennon, "My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel." In this episode, Katie and I sit down to talk about ALOT ... from the history of art in the church, to art as prophetic vehicle, the need to create messy middle spaces for artists of faith, why the church would do well to engage with and invite artists into sacred space and the wide breadth of the human experience artists encompass in their work. And SO. MUCH. MORE. This episode was particularly fun for me as Katie and I have been friends for over 15 years and recently reconnected around this idea of artists in the faith space and how art and spirituality are so deeply connected. You can engage with Katie, her work and her beautiful Ragged Doll series at www.katrenee.com or https://www.talesofaraggeddoll.com. You can also find her on Instagram @katreneestudio. I really think you are going to enjoy this conversation. I know it did! 

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I recently spoke with Kathy Belge on her “Solo Women RV” podcast about the art of catching creativity while you travel. You can listen to the episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-art-of-catching-creativity-while-you-travel/id1576631933?i=1000571460987. After talking to Kathy, I realized I wanted to bring some of what I talked about to my own audience. So here’s a micro episode for you! If you like what you hear and want more, go take a listen to Kathy’s podcast.

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