This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:10] Laura Camien: When I bump into something that inspires me, I jump in my spark file. Spark will be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be. I pump it in my spark style. Spark! I jump into my spark style. Let's open up the spark file.

[0:36] Susan Blackwell: Welcome to the Sparks File where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone. I'm Laura Camien.

[0:44] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell, and we are creativity coaches who help people fear less, create more, and bring their creative visions to life. If you're an OG member of the Sparks File community, welcome back, Sparkler. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome, new friend. Welcome, welcome. Welcome. Know that just by listening to this podcast, you're joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives. But you may be asking yourself, ladies, what exactly is a spark file?

[1:07] Laura Camien: A spark file is a place where you consistently collect all your inspirations and fascinations. And if you're like us and you're making stuff all the time, or you want to be making stuff all the time, you know if you're not careful, your campfire of creativity can flicker out. But do not despair. We are collecting kindling in the form of fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark creativity and pique curiosity.

[1:40] Susan Blackwell: To light a fire under our collective asses to make things like this podcast. Or a fresh perspective on the creative ways we keep ourselves from being creative. Oh. Every episode, we're gonna reach into our spark files and exchange some sparks. And from time to time, we're gonna talk to some folks who spark us too. You know what that means? That means we have more sparks than we can possibly use in this lifetime. So if something lights you up, we encourage you to take that thing and make something out of it. So without further ado, let's open up the spark file.

[2:24] Laura Camien: I'm kind of giggly. Hi, Laura Camien.

[2:27] Susan Blackwell: Hi. I love it. It's Saturday, which means that this morning we had the Sparks File Select group, and it was such it's such a good group, but I loved our class today. It was so fun.

[2:39] Laura Camien: Great class today. We talked about some good stuff. Floating on the good vibes of that.

[2:47] Susan Blackwell: You've got the giggles.

[2:48] Laura Camien: I do. I'm sorry. I was like, oh, I looked over and I was like, oh, Suze's saying something serious. I'm just over here weirding out.

[2:59] Susan Blackwell: I love it. Get weird.

[3:02] Laura Camien: No, I just feel good. I feel like I got myself together. I think I always feel better after I have written, after I have made something. There is a sense of satisfaction and peace that I feel, and I sort of feel that way right now.

[3:23] Susan Blackwell: Oh, that's great. That is such a delightful feeling. I think it's like a little poof of adrenaline. It's so good.

[3:30] Laura Camien: It's so good. And I think that is one of the reasons why people are drawn to creativity. And folks that are like, I want to be more creative. I just I haven't made the time for it. Or I think that's one of the reasons they want it is because of the feelings that it engenders within us. I'm glad we get it on the regular. I'm glad we've sort of built a life where we get to feel it regularly.

[3:57] Susan Blackwell: Me too. Even if sometimes I like curse myself for like, oh now, how did I create this deadline for myself and another deadline? But I'm so happy that I did. This is a great example of it because Saturday is sort of a confluence of we have deadlines around delivering curriculum for our class. You know, we like to keep it fresh and we like to keep it spicy. So we are frequently developing the curriculum, and that to me is the closest to writing.

[4:24] Laura Camien: Yeah, and I think writing the sparks too. Running up to it, there's always that sort of twist of pressure, you know, to get it done, to get it done on time.

[4:36] Susan Blackwell: Yes. Yes, yes. All of this, Laura, like it all happens to relate to the spark that I'm gonna share with you today.

[4:43] Laura Camien: Really?

[4:44] Susan Blackwell: Should we bust it wide open?

[4:45] Laura Camien: Yeah. Let's get into it.

[4:47] Susan Blackwell: Okay. I wanted to warm up today just by taking a little trip down memory lane by way of a little nugget of goodness called The Monster at the End of This Book.

[5:00] Laura Camien: Oh my god. Have we talked about this? Have we talked about The Monster at the End of This Book?

[5:05] Susan Blackwell: No. This is really my fa I just I'll just preface it by saying my favorite book from childhood. Seriously. My number one.

[5:15] Laura Camien: Okay.

[5:17] Susan Blackwell: I just thought that book was so inventive, so meta. I think it really is not to be a complete weirdo for because it's a little golden book. It's a little tiny kid's book. And I think it had such a profound influence on my brain. Think about all the like title of show, all the meta things that I am so drawn to making. I love this book. I can't believe you're starting your spark with it.

[5:44] Laura Camien: Auspicious beginnings.

[5:46] Susan Blackwell: Auspicious beginnings. For those of you who may be unfamiliar or need just a little bit of a refresher, The Monster at the End of This Book is a children's book written by Jon Stone, published in 1971, and starring the lovable, furry old Grover from Sesame Street.

[6:04] Laura Camien: So at the very beginning of this book, Grover discovers that there is a monster at the end of the book, and page by page, he attempts to convince us not to turn another page.

[6:17] Susan Blackwell: At first, when we are far away from the end of the book, he starts easy. Just asking us kindly not to turn any more pages. Please just stay where you are. Do not progress any further. Then, if you continue to turn pages, his attempts to stop you grow bigger and more elaborate, including conspiratorial bribes of good things you might get if you stay right where you are.

[6:46] Laura Camien: When that doesn't work, it evolves into threats of terrible things that might happen to you if you do not stop moving forward. Grover gets angry with you for turning a page. Grover pleads desperately with you not to turn the next page. Grover attempts to put physical barriers in front of you so that you cannot turn another page. He builds a brick wall, booby traps, big caution tape like you see at a construction site. All of this is because he is terrified. He is terrified to come face to face with this supposed monster he believes will come for him if and when we get to the end of the book.

[7:27] Susan Blackwell: By the time you are about to turn the last page, if you are brave enough to do so, Grover is in full on hysterics. He has thrown literally everything he has at this and is now in complete meltdown mode. The stakes are literally life and death for him. You simply cannot turn the page.

[8:21] Laura Camien: Silly, silly Grover. There was nothing to be afraid of. It's only you.

[8:27] Susan Blackwell: This is already shaping up to be one of those gold medal, just like champion sparks.

[8:36] Laura Camien: Oh, thank you so much. This is like I think I know where you're headed. And if you're headed where I think you're headed, this is one of the greatest metaphors.

[8:50] Susan Blackwell: Oh MG. This is great. I'm so happy. I'm so happy because this book makes me happy, and we'll get more into this joyful look at this book. But obviously, this book can be looked at as an analogy for fear and anxiety of all kinds. It could be a fear of going deep, of getting to know ourselves, of truly seeing ourselves. But I like to think of this book and the voice of Grover in this book when I think of creative resistance.

[9:24] Laura Camien: Oh, this is so good.

[9:27] Susan Blackwell: That's right. Creative resistance. Think about it. Resistance starts innocently enough. Like you have a project you want to accomplish, your vampires start swirling around with just a simple, sure, we can do that. But why don't we binge watch Game of Thrones or Ted Lasso first?

[9:45] Laura Camien: Bribes.

[9:46] Susan Blackwell: And if that doesn't work, those vampires start in with, like, oh, okay, cool, cool, cool. You can still proceed. Go ahead, make it. But you know who's gonna be mad at you if you do it? I'm just saying threats. And if you continue to forge ahead step by step, these voices of resistance may continue to bring out the big guns and literally say or do anything that will keep you from moving forward. They will weave intricate and elaborate stories about why you can't tell your stories. They'll come up with creative limitations that seem insurmountable. They'll point out evidence of your impending doom and failure everywhere you look. They will devolve into full on temper tantrums if they have to, but the power of resistance can literally throw every single thing in your way to keep you from moving forward in your work if you let it.

[10:28] Laura Camien: If you let it, Suze.

[10:45] Susan Blackwell: The good news, I think, is that it is possible for resistance to become as amusing and entertaining of a sidekick in your life, just like Grover and his children's book. It is possible to marvel at the extraordinary capabilities your brain will employ to keep you safe when it believes danger is around the corner. Which is why, and I'm kind of making up this theory right now, but I think you'll go with me, Suze. But I think the key to understanding resistance begins with understanding creative risk.

[11:20] Laura Camien: Exactly what are we asking ourselves to go through when we ask ourselves to create something of meaning? When we ask ourselves to be emotionally vulnerable, when we feel we are exposing our true selves to the natural elements and we are afraid it might get hurt. As we learned from one of our guest instructors, Anthony Beniziale from Freestyle Love Supreme, creative risk lights up the amygdala in our brain. This is the part of the brain that is trained to keep us alive. It reacts to threats to our well-being with fight, flight, or freeze. Literally, it responds as though we've been confronted with a grizzly bear in the woods or a lion out on the prairie. There is a reason why public speaking is so many people's number one fear. The body's response to it can be the same as a life or death situation.

[12:16] Susan Blackwell: So when our amygdala is triggered, our body's being pumped full of adrenaline and cortisol intended to help us run for our lives, or as Suze likes to say, lift a car off a toddler. We feel all kinds of feelings. And those feelings can make us respond in all kinds of ways. We can have visceral physical response in your body, heart, mind, or spark behaviors in us. Suze, you have such an elegant and beautiful way of describing how we can know when a creative risk is afoot by paying attention to these visceral physical responses. Would you mind elaborating on that just for our listeners?

[12:56] Laura Camien: I feel like you just summed it up so beautifully.

[12:59] Laura Camien: And at the risk of repeating you, I will just say, like for so many people, the way that potential creative risk shows up on the scene for a lot of people, depending on how you're wired neurologically, for a lot of people, it shows up in the body.

[13:15] Laura Camien: So the heart rate can increase, your face can get hot, your hands can get clammy, you can feel like you have to race to the bathroom. Sometimes you can feel like you want to, I get what I call fear callepsy, where I'm just like, I feel so tired. I feel like I could just lay down and take a nap at the height of creative risk, but I think it's because I stop breathing deeply, like my breath gets super shallow, and so I start to like I my brain's not getting enough oxygen.

[13:43] Laura Camien: And as you were saying, it can appear some other ways too. Some people experience it, they would use emotional words to describe it. Some people experience it in their brain. If you can sort of picture your thought waves, which sort of in a normal moment that's not heightened, they are just sort of like little sine waves, just sort of undulating brain waves.

[14:02] Laura Camien: When we get scared, I've heard people describe it as those brain waves get sort of jiggity jaggedy, like a little like a lie detector test, or some people describe it as it almost like flatlines, like their thought patterns just sort of go boo. And some people are moved to behaviors. It could be like, well, I could take this creative risk or do approach this creative thing, or I could go and just binge watch Netflix or drink a bottle of rosé or eat a box of Ant and Mans.

[14:32] Laura Camien: And so for a lot of people, just attuning with that and then deciding to feel the fear and do it anyway, that's the barrier to entry. That's the price of admission to overcoming creative risk and then overcoming resistance and stepping into whatever the thing is, the song you're gonna sing, the song you're gonna write, the watercolor painting you're gonna do, etc.

[14:57] Laura Camien: So when I think about pending creative risk, that's how I sort of think about it. Those are like the potential ways that you might start to feel creative risk show up for you and an awareness of like, oh, wait a second, there's something happening here.

[15:13] Laura Camien: These reactions are literally hardwired into our brain and into our bodies, which means they're not going away. The only option is to learn how to circumvent them, calm the amygdala, soothe it so you can hopefully manage to move forward regardless of these responses.

[15:35] Laura Camien: You don't need to fear feeling them. You can embrace the arrival of these types of responses because you know something exciting is happening. And it's something you said in one of your sparks, Suze, that your body is preparing to do something extraordinary.

[15:49] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, forgot who said that.

[15:50] Laura Camien: Betty Buckley said that to me one time. When I asked her if she ever gets stage fright, does she ever get really nervous before attempting some creative risk? And she said, of course, but I know that it's my body preparing to do something extraordinary.

[16:05] Laura Camien: And I'm also reminded of Lin-Manuel Miranda talking about how he and Utkarsh, like how they are both competing to see who can hit the bathroom last to evacuate their bowels before hitting the stage at Freestyle Love Supreme.

[16:21] Laura Camien: And as TMI as that is, this is what we're talking about. These very seasoned performers who they still have it, they love what they do, but there's still risk associated with it, and their body is telling them so.

[16:33] Laura Camien: And so the truth of the matter is if we stop any time we experience any of the above, any of these things, heart racing, palm sweating, or you know, shitting our pants. If we stop and say, Oh, well, I can't, I can't go on because this is happening to me.

[16:55] Laura Camien: We will not ever create a thing that we're dreaming of creating. So entertaining this fantasy that you will pursue your creative project or your life's purpose once the resistance quiets down is precisely that. It's a fantasy.

[17:11] Laura Camien: I think that we have to accept that resistance is a sign that you're onto something that matters to you. You're onto something that is meaningful to you, and therefore it is lit up.

[17:22] Laura Camien: So one of the preeminent thinkers and writers on resistance is Stephen Pressfield, who wrote The War of Art and many other books. But The War of Art is specifically and entirely about resistance, which he calls the enemy.

[17:39] Laura Camien: He says, resistance seems to come from outside ourselves. We locate it in spouses, jobs, bosses, kids, peripheral opponents, as Pat Riley used to say when he coached the LA Lakers.

[17:53] Susan Blackwell: Resistance is not a peripheral opponent.

[17:56] Laura Camien: Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. Resistance is the enemy within.

[18:06] Susan Blackwell: So can I just clarify?

[18:08] Laura Camien: A peripheral opponent is an opponent outside of us.

[18:08] Susan Blackwell: Outside of us.

[18:13] Laura Camien: That's right. Pressfield is saying, no, no, no. It's not a peripheral outside opponent. It is an opponent, an enemy, he uses that word, living within us.

[18:24] Susan Blackwell: He calls it, yes, the enemy within.

[18:27] Laura Camien: Okay. I've got a side spark on that. There's a song lyric from one of my favorite Elliott Smith songs that goes, the enemy is within, don't confuse me with him.

[18:40] Laura Camien: And that lyric literally pops into my mind anytime I feel myself trying to blame another person or another circumstance for something that I am solely responsible for. You know, like when you tell yourself a story that your partner or your kids are the reason why you're not going to the gym, or your best friend is the reason why you drank more wine than you wanted to.

[19:05] Laura Camien: That song always comes to mind and says to me, the enemy is within, don't confuse them with him. It just calls me out every time. It calls me out on my bullshit if I want if there's a part of me that wants to pretend that I'm not responsible for my own shit.

[19:21] Laura Camien: That's why I like that lyric. It's not anybody but me. So Stephen Pressfield really leads into this analogy of resistance as the enemy. And it works for his book. I mean, the book is called The War of Art.

[19:35] Laura Camien: So let's stick with that analogy and that idea for a minute. Just like Grover in The Monster at the End of This Book, Pressfield expounds upon the tactics that resistance is willing to go to and to use to stop us from moving forward.

[19:49] Laura Camien: He says, resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify, seduce, bully, cajole. Resistance is protein. It will assume any form.

[20:07] Laura Camien: If that's what it takes to deceive you, it will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine millimeter in your face like a stick-up man. Resistance has no conscience. It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double cross you as soon as your back is turned.

[20:25] Laura Camien: If you take resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and full of shit.

[20:34] Susan Blackwell: Wow.

[20:35] Laura Camien: And of course, Stephen Pressfield is not wrong. Resistance is a force that seemingly works against us. And he makes no bones about the dire nature, the life or death stakes we're dealing with.

[20:48] Laura Camien: If we do not conquer resistance, if we let it win, we will never create the things we were put on this earth to create. World of poetry and theater and sculpture and dance and art that lives within us.

[21:05] Laura Camien: But for all that talk of resistance being the enemy, the more I learned, the more I personally am inclined to think of resistance as a friend. If you happen to have a friend who would literally do anything, and I mean anything to keep you from ever feeling hurt or embarrassment or pain or shame.

[21:27] Laura Camien: I talked about in a spark a long time ago, in first the first season, I think I talked about seeing fear as a friend, thanks to the book My Friend Fear by Mira Lee Patel. And I think similarly, like when you acknowledge that resistance is born out of fear, and fear is born out of the desire to protect you, I think it's easier to start to think of it as a friend.

[21:50] Laura Camien: I know that might be an idea that feels really foreign, but I'm gonna ask you, Suze and dear listeners to just consider trying it on for a minute and seeing how it might feel.

[22:01] Laura Camien: Here's a super nerdy, super nerdy confession. Sometimes I think of me and resistance like in a buddy movie, like we're stuck on a road trip together and we really hate each other at first.

[22:19] Laura Camien: We just totally rub each other the wrong way.

[22:21] Susan Blackwell: Midnight Run.

[22:22] Laura Camien: Yes, but pretty quickly, certainly before Act Two, we make the realization that if we're gonna be stuck with each other, we might as well work together to overcome our common challenge or defeat our common enemy.

[22:35] Laura Camien: And then, of course, by the end of Act Three, much to our own chagrin, it turns out we actually kind of love each other a little bit.

[22:43] Susan Blackwell: Oh my god, if we've got to be handcuffed together, we might as well make friends, right?

[22:48] Laura Camien: Oh my gosh. That's me and my resistance. Uh, movie to be launched on, you know, Netflix and in theaters at the same time.

[22:57] Laura Camien: But really, again, because resistance shows up when something really matters to you, you can see it as this friend who is lighting the way, literally pointing out the things to you that mean the most.

[23:09] Laura Camien: So, in my opinion, you can thank it for showing you the way, but then of course, you're gonna move forward anyway. You're going to turn the page anyway.

[23:19] Laura Camien: I think that in either scenario, whether you see it as a friend or an enemy, with awareness, you can begin to see the tactics that resistance attempts to use against you.

[23:28] Laura Camien: And whenever possible, if possible, have a little giggle about it, like watching Grover trying to keep you from turning another page. Sometimes, and you know this, Suze, I will marvel at the things that my little black swirly of negative feelings, my character two, now called Twister, will come up with to try to stop me from growing and expanding in new and glorious ways.

[23:53] Laura Camien: Sometimes I will outright laugh at the absurd things it says. Like if you've ever babysat a toddler and watch them just try to coerce you into giving them one more cookie or a bedtime story.

[24:05] Laura Camien: It starts out sweet, they might use humor, but then it turns into anger and panic. But the whole thing can be quite comedic if you're watching from the outside.

[24:15] Laura Camien: But of course, I'm not always able to laugh at it. Sometimes it gets a good jab in, and I really feel it, or sometimes I'll figure out resistance was the culprit after I spent an evening consuming TV I didn't even enjoy, or a dessert I wasn't even hungry for.

[24:32] Laura Camien: So I thought it might be fun to take a closer look at how resistance might show up in our lives, like the evidence of resistance or the symptoms of resistance.

[24:42] Laura Camien: As I mentioned, all resistance is fear, obviously, but it is sneakier than just showing up as I'm afraid or I'm scared. Stephen Pressfield says, like it's too conniving.

[24:56] Laura Camien: It knows better than to just express itself as fear. So instead, it tries many different tactics. I've taken a shot at categorizing a few symptoms of resistance, but there's a lot of overlap, and I'm sure that many more could be named than what I have here, but I'll name a few.

[25:12] Laura Camien: Number one, procrastination. I mean, come on. Pressfield says procrastination is the most common manifestation of resistance because it is the easiest to rationalize.

[25:23] Laura Camien: We don't tell ourselves, I'm never going to write my symphony. Instead, we say, I'm gonna write my symphony, I'm just gonna start tomorrow. He goes on to say the most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit.

[25:37] Laura Camien: We don't just put off our lives today, we put them off until our deathbed.

[25:46] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[25:46] Susan Blackwell: That one hurts.

[25:47] Laura Camien: It's just too recognizable.

[25:48] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[25:49] Laura Camien: And when you add to it that it can become a habit, our dear client and colleague, Amanda Wheeler, aka Wheels, talks on her podcast, Covering Ground, about how you get really good at the things you practice.

[26:03] Susan Blackwell: And like it or not, every time we practice procrastination, we get better and better at it.

[26:11] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[26:14] Susan Blackwell: This feels, it feels so accurate.

[26:20] Laura Camien: Wheels has such a genius way of articulating it that like flipped it in my mind for me, and I've thought about it so much since hearing her explain it. But there can be so many ways to procrastinate, including but not limited to social media, doom scrolling the news, housework, television, scheduling yourself within an inch of your life with activities, talking to friends, thinking about doing something, but not actually doing something, worrying about things we can't control. Even perfectionism can be procrastination.

[26:54] Susan Blackwell: I'll write my novel once I've got my desk organized and my holiday ornaments categorized.

[27:03] Laura Camien: How dare you, Laura?

[27:05] Susan Blackwell: How dare you?

[27:08] Laura Camien: Which part?

[27:09] Susan Blackwell: Which part, Sue?

[27:11] Laura Camien: Uh, just like the accuracy of the one-two punch of the desk and the holiday ornaments.

[27:17] Susan Blackwell: How very dare you.

[27:20] Laura Camien: I mean, it's not enough that our desk is organized, but you know what's not? The hall closet. There's crap in there that has to get organized. So as we do any of those things with any frequency, they can become deeply entrenched habits. Another form of resistance can be numbing.

[27:41] Susan Blackwell: It's very related to procrastination.

[27:41] Laura Camien: Numbing yourself is doing anything that helps you avoid feeling the feels you need to feel in order to create the work. Anytime we start to feel feelings that make us uncomfortable, those might be in the categories of sadness, loneliness, shame, anticipatory pain, etc. We have a choice. We could investigate them more deeply and use them to fuel our creativity, or we can numb out to try to keep ourselves from going there. Numbing might include self-medication, eating, drinking, drugs, sex addiction, shopping addiction, actually an addiction to anything.

[28:24] Susan Blackwell: As you talk of like check, check, check, check, check, check.

[28:27] Laura Camien: Just kick it. It's really worth, I think, like watching yourself when you begin to feel something, good or bad feelings, discomfort or inspiration, love, pain, shameful memories. What do you do next? Do you turn on the TV as quickly as possible? Do you grab a snack from the fridge? Or do you reach for your journal to write it down? It's something to think about. How is resistance showing up for you? And is it numbing the very things that you need to do your work?

[29:02] Susan Blackwell: I heard something recently that I thought felt true. It felt very simple and it felt very true, which is sort of like, what is your Laura Camille and what is your like love language? What's your go-to positive expression?

[29:16] Laura Camien: I do, I definitely do some gift giving when I like in a relationship.

[29:22] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I buy things. What's your flip? What's your numbing thing?

[29:26] Laura Camien: Consumption, which comes in the form of like entertainment consumption or the buying of things. Or if I, if it's of um, I'm not really a drinker, but I will eat things that I don't need to, I'm not hungry for.

[29:43] Susan Blackwell: Got it. They were positing that, like whatever there's that positive expression of if your love language is gift giving, then sometimes the numbing or the even the procrastination can take the form of buying things, you know.

[30:00] Laura Camien: That relates, that totally relates. I think that checks out. So, next, another way resistance can show up is what I call a category of unnecessary drama. Constantly working up drama and issues in your life that need to be dealt with before you can do your creative work or getting yourself involved in other people's drama is another form of resistance.

[30:22] Susan Blackwell: This is what amazes me. If you think about this, Suze. It is easier to pick a fight with your best friend or start an actual affair with the neighbor than it is to sit down and write a romance novel about feuding best friends who are engaged in extramarital affairs.

[30:40] Laura Camien: Literally, creating chaos in your life is easier than creating a work of art. Creating drama is easier than writing drama. And so resistance engages in starting these little fires that we need to put out. Pressfield refers to this phenomenon as self-dramatization.

[31:01] Susan Blackwell: He says, sometimes entire families participate in unconsciously in a culture of self-dramatization. The kids fuel the tanks, the grown-ups arm the phasers, the whole starship lurks from one spine-tingling episode to another, and the crew knows how to keep it going. If the level of drama drops below a certain threshold, someone jumps in to amp it up. Dad gets drunk, mom gets sick, Janie shows up for church with an Oakland Raiders tattoo. It's more fun than a movie, and it works. Nobody gets a damn thing done.

[31:38] Laura Camien: I thought that was fascinating because I would add that I think certain friend groups can behave this way.

[31:44] Susan Blackwell: Oh, yeah.

[31:45] Laura Camien: It can become an unconscious pattern for the group to stay perpetually holding themselves and each other back. And unnecessary drama can be also be created by the choice of partner or the choice of best friend. Or I'll even say this might be a stretch, but a choice of job. We all need to work, of course, but choosing to work at a job that is constantly full of drama and the next big emergency can be a great way to avoid doing your own project entirely.

[32:16] Susan Blackwell: I mean, who can argue with like I've got to work or I'm gonna be working every night this week? It's hard to convince resistance that looks like that that there's any way to proceed with your own work.

[32:27] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[32:27] Susan Blackwell: Which leads to overworking.

[32:30] Laura Camien: I mentioned in our episode on imposter syndrome. Overworking or focusing on your constant productivity can be a way to avoid doing and being who you truly are. It's a way to seek your value from external sources, which is really just chasing a perpetual dangling carrot. In this category also lives the inability to say no.

[32:52] Susan Blackwell: As a recovering people pleaser, I know how hard it can be to say no when you're conscious that it's going to disappoint someone or make them mad at you. But my therapist was literally like, Laura, you need to just accept that you cannot control how they feel about you. You can only be honest with them about your decision and communicate as clearly as you can. Mostly, she said, you're going to have to sit with and get comfortable with the idea that a person or people are occasionally disappointed by your decision.

[33:25] Laura Camien: That's it. Talk about the feelings that I don't want to feel. Like I want to avoid feeling uh and acknowledging, like, oh, I think I've disappointed someone.

[33:34] Susan Blackwell: Totally.

[33:35] Laura Camien: But it's not gonna kill you. And they're only disappointed because they love you and they want to work with you and they wish you had chosen their project instead of your own project. But that's it. That's totally survivable.

[33:47] Susan Blackwell: On the other hand, saying yes to everything means you stay too busy to do the work that is truly in your heart.

[33:56] Laura Camien: Okay, just one more. I created a category that I called the security of the status quo. I think resistance may try to convince us that there is no possible way to create without blowing up our lives completely. It tries to convince us that friends will be mad, lovers will leave us, jobs will need to be lost and then found again. I think that is a very convincing argument that makes us say, like, you know what, things aren't that bad exactly as they are.

[34:32] Susan Blackwell: Or in this category, I also think of that desire to linger in the space of opportunity and possibility. Possibility is the most wonderful space, I think. And I'd like to live there for a long, long time. But there can be a real fear that once we start moving toward making something real, well, if we don't try, we can't fail. So if you stay living in the possibility of a yes, that means you don't move forward and risk hearing a real no.

[35:04] Laura Camien: That possibility, that one is so interesting. And I know, both as a creator and as a creativity coach, it is so fun to investigate and talk about what the possibilities of something are. We do it on this podcast. What do we make of it? And we could just get to enjoy the very fun exercise of turning over like what is possible, what might be possible.

[35:33] Susan Blackwell: And I, as you were talking, I was just thinking about how frequently you and I will decide on something that we're gonna make, or I'll decide on, for instance, something I'm gonna paint, like the idea of something. And then when you actually get into the thick of it, into the thick of it, it's like I kind of get lost in it, and I'm like, what was the vision for this again? Like sometimes I'm like, wait, can we just return to what we said we were originally aiming to at?

[36:01] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[36:02] Susan Blackwell: It's like being put in a dryer or something, and I'm just sort of like sort of upside down about it. Not necessarily in an unpleasant or a bad way. It's just when you're actually, your hands are actually in the goop, like in the mix, making the thing, you're sort of like, wow, it looked so different when I watched the DIY video on TikTok. And now I'm all up in it, and it's like a whole mess.

[36:26] Laura Camien: But I just want to say for anyone who heard what Laura just said, and you're like, yeah, it is more fun to live in the possibility. There is also a great deal of weird satisfaction that comes from being in the messy middle. Venturing from the safe shore of possibility and out into the waters of actually swimming.

[36:49] Susan Blackwell: I'm yes, I'm a big yes on that.

[36:52] Laura Camien: And it occurs to me that living in possibility can look another way. For example, how many writers out there have been talking to someone who could, in fact, push their project forward? And they have said, send me your script. And you can get a high for a period of time living in the possibility of this person's gonna read my script.

[37:14] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[37:15] Laura Camien: And then never send it. Because the sending it means, oh, that person might write you back and say this was lovely, but no, thank you. If you never send it, you never have to have a hard no. You can live in the possibility of like, well, two years ago, Martin Scorsese said he'd read my screenplay. So that's gonna be exciting when that day comes.

[37:40] Susan Blackwell: Oh wow.

[37:41] Laura Camien: Yeah. I mean, resistance, it's fucking tricky. But those are a few ways that I think of resistance showing up based on my research and my life experience. But what do you think? Are there others? Do you have others that have I missed any big categories, Suze?

[37:59] Susan Blackwell: Mine are so garden variety. Though I have to say, in our defense, we actually do make a lot of stuff. Like we are often in the flow of making things.

[38:10] Laura Camien: True.

[38:10] Susan Blackwell: Largely motivated by the external accountability of deadlines and commitments we make to each other and to our creative community. And the fact that I'll just speak for myself. I am an obliger, and if I make a commitment, I am obliged to keep it. So I know that about myself. And so I do want to say largely, I do get to enjoy a lot of creative flow. But I think about those times when I do experience resistance, as recently as this week, and I go to TikTok. Like I just love seeing what other people and a lot of the stuff I'm looking at, if I'm honest, is DIY.

[38:48] Susan Blackwell: It's a lot of creative stuff. It's a lot of aesthetically beautiful stuff that things are making, whether that is I'm painting a watercolor or I'm doing a dance piece. So it's a little bit like I can sit and rest while I'm also I can make an argument for it. But I can I also know when I've watched the clock TikTok, TikTok on by, and a lot of time has passed. And it's just like it flips over into this sensation, this feeling that I have that is not uplifting, that is not oxytocin, that is like a lethargic sort of hazy film has come over me. And that's where I'm like, oh, we've crossed the line. We've stepped over into this sort of like resistance or procrastination. And sometimes what I'm procrastinating, this goes to a little bit like revenge bedtime procrastination.

I'm procrastinating against my own rest, whether that's meditation or going to sleep at night. And what else? Oh, and then I'm so garden variety, like I procrastinate by looking at things that I might or might not buy one day online, you know, stuff like that.

[39:56] Laura Camien: Here's the tricky, tricky, insidious way that works. It makes sense that your resistance is coming up against you, even when you want to rest or to meditate. These are things that are important to you that matter to you and actually feed into your creativity. Here's the fun thing: play this game with yourself. Does resistance ever come up? Do you find yourself procrastinating, getting on social media? No. Resistance doesn't give a shit. Please, Susan, get on TikTok for another hour. I won't stand in your way. Yeah. Please do that. Yes, yes, yes, to organizing the Christmas ornaments. I will not stop you. That is resistance being like, these things don't matter. There's no risk and there's no threat. There's no creative risk. So start to notice those things that your body and your mind are like, please proceed. And then like, see if you can stop yourself and be like, oh, wait a minute. There's a reason why I'm not feeling any resistance to this.

[41:01] Susan Blackwell: All right, let's talk about like what are we supposed to do? How can we be helpful in this moment? We've identified all of these ways that we resist. What are we to do about it? Well, there is a reason why Nike's just do it slogan has resonated with people all over the globe for the past 25 years. And to that end, I wanted to give you a quick side spark. Do you know the origins of that slogan, Suze? Just do it. Uh, I don't think I do.

[41:28] Laura Camien: Well, guess what? I'm gonna share. As shared in the documentary called Art and Copy by Doug Prey, in 1987, the ad agency, Wheaden and Kennedy, was asked to create a campaign for Nike's first major national TV buy, which included commercials for running, walking, cross-training, basketball, women's fitness. According to an article in Creative Review, Dan Whedon, founder of the agency and the author of the Nike Tagline, said each spot was developed by a different creative team and it was markedly different from the others. And in reviewing the work the night before the client presentation, I felt we needed a tagline to give some unity to the work. One that spoke to the hardest hardcore athletes, as well as those taking up a morning walk.

And so Dan Whedon drew upon a very surprising source for the line. Again, from Creative Review. Dan confesses that the idea for the line was sparked by the last words of a convicted murderer, Gary Gilmore, who said, Let's do it to the firing squad before his execution.

[42:39] Susan Blackwell: Oh. He was asked, Do you have any last words? And he said, Let's do it. OMG. This may not be quite the brand heritage that Nike ideally would have chosen, yet at the same time, such matters were largely irrelevant as no one was convinced that the tagline was even necessary, let alone had any inkling of the impact it would have. Obviously, here we are, 25 years later, and it holds up. I don't mean to be morbid, Suze. And this might be a weird line I'm drawing, but please go with me for a second. It honestly doesn't surprise me that the origins of this line touch back to a life or death circumstance. I've never been on death row, and I apologize if I'm getting this wrong, but I can imagine that the anticipation leading up to the moment could be as agonizing as the moment itself.

And I think that the slogan just do it resonates for us because anyone who has known the pain of holding something in or pushing something down for so long knows that the anticipation of doing it, the avoidance, can be more painful than the actual doing of it.

[43:54] Laura Camien: And I think just do it cuts right through and essentially says, cut the bullshit. There's no other way this is going to happen than to just do it. Save yourself the anguish of procrastination, self-dramatization, avoidance, etc., and just do it. That's truly the number one answer to how to circumvent resistance. Acknowledge its presence and simply start doing it. But in case that's not helpful enough, I do have a few more tangible ideas to help you with resistance. Number one, set a date and time with yourself, preferably daily to start doing the work. Make it a habit, dare I say, a routine. One of my screenwriting teachers, a latte, recommends just setting your timer for 10 minutes per day. Literally just 10. Because most likely the biggest barrier to entry is that first 10 minutes.

[45:10] Susan Blackwell: Oh, like the endorphins kick in. The endorphins and the oxytocin are like seven minutes in. So you know, like anyone who has run any amount of time, that first six minutes is just fucking misery. And you're just like, why? Why? And then all of a sudden you're like, this is amazing. Why don't I do this every day? I could do this twice a day. This feels so good. Similarly, with writing, it's like you've just got to get yourself over that hump of starting. Just start. So train yourself to push through the resistance. Tell yourself it's only going to take 10 minutes. It's just a way of kind of fooling yourself into starting. It's reducing that barrier to entry. Stephen King in his book on writing also emphasizes a daily practice.

And if you can't do it daily, that's okay. Do what you can, but set the date and keep that date with yourself. Build the habit of creating. And remember, we are what we do. So if you want to be creative in any way, you must spend time creating.

[46:15] Laura Camien: Remember what Wheels says. Good habits are just as easy to form as bad habits. Oh, bless wheels. While you're at it, remove distractions. Being away from our phone for any amount of time at this point can be so anxiety-inducing. But see if you can train yourself. Again, start with just 10 minutes a day. Maybe restrict television watching to a certain night or two of the week. You'll quickly realize how much time you actually have if turning on the TV is not an option. There's a real argument to be made that we cannot truly connect with ourselves unless we disconnect from our screens. The constant flow of information and entertainment keep us from hearing the deep down voice, as our client Juliet Gray calls it.

Hi Juliet. Suze, I'm sure you know this because you studied with Linda Berry. But Linda Berry said the phone gives us a lot, but it takes away three key elements of discovery: loneliness, uncertainty, and boredom. Those have always been where creative ideas come from.

[47:28] Susan Blackwell: Oh, that's why I love Linda Barry. I would suggest we disconnect and keep a journal nearby when feelings start to come up for you, as they will pick up the pen instead of picking up your phone. Next up, learn how to say no. I don't mean this like to be facetious or act like it's simple. It takes practice, but you literally need to practice saying no. In the book Keep Going by Austin Cleon, I learned of a few tactics that various artists have used over the years in order to preserve their creative time. The artist, Jasper Johns, would answer invitations with a big custom-made rubber stamp that said regrets. Wow. It's like an oversight one-word regrets and send it back, which seems kind of harsh, admittedly, but perhaps on brand for him. I wonder who owns that stamp now.

[48:21] Laura Camien: I know. Where's that stamp? Amazing. The critic Edmund Wilson had a form response with check boxes. Again, that feels a little bit cold to me, but perhaps kind of sassy, depending on how it's written. E. B. White would write, I must decline for secret reasons. Oh. Which makes me smile and reminds me of it. We don't owe anybody any explanation. Yeah. But understanding that sometimes there are people in our lives that expect more or we and we might not feel good about being super cheeky about it. Here's a few more realistic ideas that might make saying no a bit more palatable. One, have a bit of a template that you use to first thank the person, then decline. And if you feel so inclined, offer a different kind of support you might be up for, one that requires less time on your part. So, no, I cannot read your screenplay. Um, but you know, I'm happy to go for coffee and talk about it.

[49:22] Susan Blackwell: We have shared this idea with a client or two along the way, but another tip is related to identifying your purpose. I think I told you this, Seuss, but like at Blue Man, as you can imagine, as we grew bigger and bigger, we would get requests to like donate, support, partner with, appear at literally like a million places, charity events and birthday parties and NASCAR races and tourism campaigns, et cetera. And in the cities where we had shows, it made sense to do a wide variety of things to support the city and our neighbors, et cetera. All that feels good. But on the corporate level, it didn't make sense to spread our resources far and wide. We simply could not accomplish what we wanted to accomplish creatively, and we couldn't really make an impact that way either. So it took a while, but eventually we got clear on a few things. We can do more good if we clarify those things that are most important to us, which were creativity and education.

[50:18] Laura Camien: And so if a request fit one or both of those categories, we would consider it as it aligned with our mission. But all the others, we had to kindly decline. We have a client who struggled with so many invitations to like please perform at charitable events for free. And this person is like the kindest, most generous human being in the world and would truly love to support all of them. But if she did, she wouldn't be able to support herself financially or support her family or her own creative work if she said yes. So we discussed using a template that basically said, Thank you so much for thinking of me. I'm committed to supporting X number of charity events per year, and I'm already booked till October.

Unfortunately, our timing doesn't align or or what have you. It can be so important to articulate, it isn't you, it's me kind of message. It isn't that I'm turning down your offer, Suze, and not coming to your party or your event. It's that I'm honoring a previous commitment I made to myself and I honor my commitments.

[51:23] Susan Blackwell: We know another friend and colleague who is very, you know, asked a lot, a lot, a lot. Can you do this? Will you appear here? It's in support of this great cause. And they made a decision that it has to be connected to the arts and more specifically the arts and support of young people.

[51:44] Susan Blackwell: Like it has to be about kids in the arts. And if it's not, they're like, I can't do it because I made that commitment to myself. It's so freeing, and you're able to actually have more impact both in the support that you give the group that you choose to give to, and also you're able to do more good with your own creative work in the world as well. So we support you saying no, just so you know.

[52:10] Laura Camien: Learning how to say no and gracefully, you know, remain committed to your creative project. There is obviously so much more we could say about resistance, but my biggest question is how we can make peace with the frenemy in our lives, named resistance, and move forward anyway. Just keep turning the pages.

[52:27] Susan Blackwell: As I approach the ending of my spark and thus the ending of this episode, I'm reminded by Stephen Pressfield that resistance is most powerful at the finish line. The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, resistance knows we're about to beat it. It hits the panic button, it marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it's got. This is the point where Grover loses his shit in the monster at the end of this book.

[53:04] Laura Camien: But if we look to another Grover classic, Super Grover, we are reminded that while our lovable furry old friend Grover may be trying to help us solve our challenges, it turns out we already have all the answers within us after all.

[53:24] Susan Blackwell: To wrap it up today, I thought I would read directly from this is no joke, Suze. Directly from the 1989 Nike ad that I tore out of a magazine and have had in my Sparks file for this many, many years. I am not kidding. Vintage sparks. Vintage directly from our Sparks file, folks. This might give you an indication of how powerful their ad campaign was when it came out and how different this ad copy was from anything else I'd ever seen, any other messages I'd ever received from an advertisement. It's a two-page spread, it's mostly copy. There is a Nike symbol up at the top. That's it. Then it says this.

[54:15] Susan Blackwell: Hard on ourselves and so much easier on others. Did somebody say something once that stuck in our brains and won't go away? Did we mispronounce something in French? Did we trip in front of some guy? Did we make some huge mistake that we've never gotten over? What haunts our fine bodies and our fine hearts and makes our heads spin with an image of ourselves we can't accept. We tell our friends not to be so hard on themselves. We tell our loved ones not to be so hard on themselves, and we tell ourselves we're just not being hard enough.

[54:49] Susan Blackwell: We are harder on ourselves, harder than we would be on anyone else, anyone, complete strangers, big dogs, people we don't even like. And the things we expect are so darn weird. Things our mother once said we should be able to do, or our father wanted us to achieve, or great Aunt Charlotte wanted us to try, and they didn't know that their words would stick like glue to our hearts with a list of expectations wrapped around it. Look, all these requests and all these demands and all these great expectations get old, real old, and only you know when to yell, uncle, because for one moment of your life, you feel like feeling perfect.

[55:37] Susan Blackwell: You feel like dashing into those hills or those open roads or right into the air itself. And that's just what you might do. So ha. You feel like that rusty old image you carry is slipping away right over the edge of a mirror and out of view. You feel like moving, and if you trip, you trip. If you fall, you will get up, and the air feels like it will carry you and push you. And it's like nothing you feared it would be, and of course, everything you expected it would. Just do it. That's my spark.

[56:17] Laura Camien: Laura, what a spark. You started with monster at the end of this book. You ended with Nike, just do it. There was so much deliciousness in between. It was a meal. This topic, this topic of resistance, it's so rich. I love this so much. And it just begs the question, what do we make of it? I think about the while you were talking, I was like, you know what would be a great book for the resistant creative in your life, in addition to Sparkfile Merch, of course, available at Sparkfile.com, is a gift package that includes The Monster at the End of this book and The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield, maybe a Sparkfile journal tied up in a bow.

[57:03] Susan Blackwell: My friend Fear. Oh my gosh. Just a little gift idea, just in time for the holidays. You can throw in a gift certificate to the Sparkfile New Year Creativity kickoff, and that person is gonna be set. This is totally half-baked, and I don't know where I come out on it yet, but it's something on my mind. The way that Stephen Pressfield sort of characterizes resistance as the enemy and not a peripheral opponent, but the enemy within.

[57:50] Laura Camien: Like I had all these things underlined and tagged and page numbers circled and stuff. Like I think it was it was important for me to read in that moment. But as I've evolved both as a human and as a creative, I think for me, it works better for me to when I feel those things coming up, depending on the tactic, but I will usually now acknowledge like, oh, I see that you're here and you are lit up, my friend. What is it? What's going on? What are you afraid of? What are you trying to protect me from?

[58:24] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Oh, you think I'm going to embarrass myself. Okay. Thank you so much for bringing that up. Let me just get this down on paper and let's keep going. So for me, that has proven to be more useful than trying to fight it off because a fight implies I think first I must battle this thing and kill it dead, and then I can proceed on to capture the treasure I've been seeking. I just don't know that that's in my opinion, if we're ever going to slay the dragon completely.

[58:57] Laura Camien: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe more of a my friend fear approach, which is sort of a I see you. Come on, sit on my shoulder. I'm gonna write anyway, but you can sit up there if you want. You're welcome to come.

[59:09] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Something else that I wanted to offer you because I just heard it this week and I've been experimenting this week with it. So I thought I'd say it was it's similar to just do it, but it's this idea of saying, okay, whether it's I'm going to put down my phone and stop procrastinating, or I'm going to get out of bed, or I'm going to start exercising, or I'm going to start writing my spark for the week, or whatever it is, doing a thing where you just go, okay, countdown starts. Three, two, one, and I'm doing it. And you're doing it. Like just it's just sort of like, I'm putting you on notice. Here we go.

[59:45] Laura Camien: And it's sort of it's a sibling to just do it, but it's a three to one countdown. Yeah. That I've been playing with that for you. Three to one, just do it. It kind of works. And there's something in what you were saying about removing distractions. I was listening to Seth Godin speak recently, and he was talking about how people are like, how do you get so much done? And he's like, I don't watch television. He made a decision about these certain things that he's like, uh, not the best use of my time, so I just don't do it.

[1:00:14] Laura Camien: And he made a decision like, he was like, will I be on Twitter? And he really took a conscious approach to calculating what that would mean to his time. And he was like, no, nope. I've done I've run the numbers and it's a not a good use of my time. And I'm going to redirect my creative energies into these other things that he feels like are more substantive. I think that's also fits in the category of learning to say no, because I guarantee you his PR teams and marketing teams are like, please, will you do Twitter? You must be on Twitter. You must do this.

[1:00:46] Susan Blackwell: And so he has had to, I'm sure, face a number of people and say, no, I'm not going to. Not the best choice for me.

[1:00:53] Laura Camien: Yeah. And lastly, I'll just leave you with this. What do we make of it? You know, you and I, if you've listened to this podcast previously, you may have heard the sparks about Jill Bolty Taylor's whole brain living and break into electric boogaloo, more whole brain living, whatever that that episode is called. I was inspired to think about, you know, Jill Bolty Taylor encourages us to name the four quadrants of our brain, the four circuitries of our brain, so that we can recognize when they're running, if they're the right circuitry for the job.

[1:01:25] Susan Blackwell: You and I have talked about a lot about what we name these characters in our brain. And I was inspired by there's a monster at the end of this book that the names of the circuitry of our brain, these four characters could be Muppets. Oscar is character two, because he's a cranky grouch. Character three is sort of like uh like just fun and creative and brave. So long haired, like the long haired. Well, I thought that's Snephilobagus. And I was thinking maybe cephilebagus could be character four, which is just sort of like interconnected. I was thinking maybe Big Bird for character three. And then I thought for character one, super Grover. I haven't worked out the details yet, but I just really like the idea of all four of these characters being represented by Muppets. I think there's really something there.

[1:02:15] Laura Camien: I really think there's something there. Um, when I thought about the book, uh, The Monster at the End of the Book, I was like, I wonder if Grover could be my character two. But only Grover in this book, not Grover in general. But Oscar the Grouch.

[1:02:28] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, yeah. I think there's something there. I mean, Oscar is amazing. Just something to think about. This is a great spark, and I am so thankful to you for sharing it. Holy moly, I guess that's it.

[1:02:42] Laura Camien: That's it. I think that's it.

[1:02:44] Susan Blackwell: This episode of The Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape people. And as always, we hope that it put another bunch of sparks in your file. Listen, if there's a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to bring your creative ideas to life, you can email us at thesparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com. We will even happily take your feedback. But you know the price of admission. First, you have to share a creative risk that you've taken recently.

[1:03:16] Laura Camien: You can follow us on social at the sparkfile and be sure to subscribe, rate, and five star review this podcast. Listen, friends, it really helps other listeners to find us. Also, if you like this podcast, we hope you'll share it with people you love. And if you didn't like it, I don't know why you are so resistant. Because it is awesome. Get on board. If something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, we are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that has been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame.

[1:03:53] Susan Blackwell: You know you gotta take it and make it. Make it like really make it. Like really three, two, one. Do it.

[1:04:07] Laura Camien: When I bump into something that inspires me, I dump it in the spark files. Spark file. Could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be. I'll pump it in the spark files. Sparkfiles. I jump into my spark files. Let's open up the spark files.