This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:10] Susan Blackwell: When I bump into something that inspires me, I jump in my spark file.

[0:18] Laura Camien: Spark file to be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[0:23] Susan Blackwell: I pump it in my spark style.

[0:23] Laura Camien: Spark.

[0:26] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my spark slip.

[0:32] Laura Camien: Let's open up the spark file.

[0:37] Laura Camien: Welcome to the Sparks File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone.

[0:44] Susan Blackwell: I'm Laura Camien and I'm Susan Blackwell, and we are creativity coaches who help people fear less, create more, and bring their creative visions to life.

[0:54] Laura Camien: If you are an OG member of the Sparks File community, well, welcome back, Sparkler.

[1:00] Susan Blackwell: If you're joining us for the first time, welcome, friend.

[1:03] Laura Camien: Know that just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

[1:09] Susan Blackwell: But hold the phone. You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a Sparks File?

[1:10] Laura Camien: Hey, a Sparks File is a place where you consistently collect all your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:20] Susan Blackwell: 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.

[1:24] Laura Camien: If you're not careful, your campfire of creativity can flicker out.

[1:27] Susan Blackwell: But do not despair. We're collecting kindling in the form of fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark creativity and pique curiosity.

[1:37] Laura Camien: To light a fire under our collective asses to make things like this podcast.

[1:43] Susan Blackwell: Or a healthy relationship with that overly vocal voice in your head.

[1:50] Laura Camien: Every episode, we're gonna reach into our spark files and exchange some sparks.

[1:54] Susan Blackwell: And from time to time, we're gonna talk to some folks who spark us too.

[1:57] Laura Camien: You know what that means, everybody. We have more sparks than we can possibly use in this lifetime.

[2:02] Susan Blackwell: So if something lights you up, we encourage you, please take that thing and make something out of it.

[2:08] Laura Camien: Without further ado, let's open up the spark files.

[2:12] Susan Blackwell: Ooh, I'm a lady.

[2:14] Laura Camien: Hello.

[2:15] Susan Blackwell: You're a very gilded age.

[2:18] Laura Camien: My precious jewels.

[2:20] Susan Blackwell: Um Laura Camien.

[2:22] Laura Camien: Hi.

[2:23] Susan Blackwell: Hi, Suze. I can't stop thinking about the spark that you did about Wordle.

[2:29] Laura Camien: Really?

[2:30] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh. Tell me more. Will you refresh my memory about the what do we make of it takeaways that you presented were?

[2:39] Laura Camien: Sure. I sure can. Hit me with those takeaways.

[2:43] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I can tell you that. I think what we make of it, um, we make things we love.

[2:50] Laura Camien: Make things we're make things you love.

[2:53] Susan Blackwell: Yep. Know that you cannot make everyone happy. Start by making you happy.

[3:00] Laura Camien: And know that if you have any amount of success, you will also have criticism.

[3:06] Susan Blackwell: Period. Full stop. It's gonna happen, and you will survive it.

[3:12] Laura Camien: So here's my um, here's my what do we make of it. That came to me after the fact. We have to have a safe word, Laura Camien, and the safe word is gonna be Wordle.

[3:23] Susan Blackwell: And that is like if we get a piece of criticism, if we made something that we were really proud of and we loved, and then somebody was like, I hate it.

[3:33] Laura Camien: Someone pooped on it.

[3:34] Susan Blackwell: Yes. And then we just say Wordle.

[3:39] Laura Camien: And just to remind ourselves that we made something that we loved, and it is inevitable. If you're gonna make something, somebody's not gonna like it.

[3:49] Susan Blackwell: Wordle.

[3:50] Laura Camien: Wordle. They wordled it. I don't know. I I don't know if it's powerful enough to keep me from getting sucked into the rejection sensitive dysphoria swirl, but it can't hurt.

[4:02] Susan Blackwell: A little disruptor, a little hashtag Wordle.

[4:05] Laura Camien: A little disruptor.

[4:06] Susan Blackwell: It's the price of admission.

[4:09] Laura Camien: It really is. If you want anyone to see your work, it's the price of admission.

[4:13] Susan Blackwell: Wordle. It's gonna get wordled.

[4:15] Laura Camien: It's gonna get wordled. It's gonna be hugely popular. And then there's gonna be a contingent of people who are like, I don't like you liking that.

[4:23] Susan Blackwell: And also just like nothing is for everybody. Nothing is for everyone. I think there's that part of me, that people pleasing part of me that's still just like the name but everybody to like everything I make.

[4:35] Laura Camien: I mean, I think those days, if they ever were here, they were certainly pre-internet, and they probably weren't here.

[4:44] Susan Blackwell: It was just that like those voices maybe you didn't get heard, they certainly didn't get amplified.

[4:50] Laura Camien: So you might have had universal good reviews, and that's that end of story. And now it's just everyone is a reviewer, it will not be universal.

[5:00] Susan Blackwell: Either way, Wordle, Wordle girl, girl, Wordle.

[5:06] Laura Camien: I love that spark. Anyway, we're not here to talk about old sparks, we're here to talk about new sparks.

[5:12] Susan Blackwell: I got a new one, Suze.

[5:14] Laura Camien: A freshie, a freshy, I love a freshie.

[5:16] Susan Blackwell: It's kind of fresh, but it's been bouncing around in my head for a while. This is one of those sparks that I've been thinking about writing, but then when I sit down to write, I can't think of an entry point.

[5:28] Laura Camien: Like I don't know where to begin.

[5:29] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. So I sit and I look at a blank page until I become distracted by something else. I move on.

[5:35] Laura Camien: Yes.

[5:37] Susan Blackwell: So I'm taking my own advice and writing the opening paragraph about writing the opening paragraph rather than writing the opening paragraph, if you know what I mean.

[5:46] Laura Camien: It's very meta, it's very title of show.

[5:49] Susan Blackwell: I love it.

[5:49] Laura Camien: Oh, it's very much. And it's that writing technique we talk about with all of our clients. It's like, well, if you're looking at a blank page, just start writing about what you think you might be writing about, and then you'll get into it.

[5:59] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Even as I'm reading this to you now, I still haven't written my opening paragraph.

[6:05] Laura Camien: But we've already started.

[6:07] Susan Blackwell: So here we go. Ah.

[6:10] Laura Camien: So there we go. We're in.

[6:11] Susan Blackwell: We're in it.

[6:12] Laura Camien: We're in it. So you know me, Suze, and you've known me for a long time. And you know that I have written plays where the voice in our head plays a very central character.

[6:24] Susan Blackwell: It's a topic that I've been fascinated with my whole life. I think it's because speaking for myself, I know I've had a very active inner voice ever since I can remember you the same, I imagine.

[6:37] Laura Camien: Oh my gosh. I wonder what age you were, and I wonder what age I was when we actually could cognate that thought.

[6:45] Susan Blackwell: We could observe it and say, I am not my thoughts. I am not that thought. That's just a little thought that's being kicked up by that little cluster of cells in my left hemisphere of my brain.

[6:55] Laura Camien: It is so interesting that you said that because I think at some point in the spark we're gonna dig into that a little bit.

[7:01] Susan Blackwell: I think. If I don't, then circle back.

[7:03] Laura Camien: Okay.

[7:03] Susan Blackwell: I'm happy to say that my inner voice doesn't control me as much as it once did. This voice isn't as loud as it used to be. Like it doesn't interrupt my life as much as it once did.

[7:16] Laura Camien: But I'm still quite fascinated with the role that it plays in our day-to-day existence and how it affects our quality of life and sometimes our creativity as well.

[7:26] Susan Blackwell: I've gone through difficult times in my life. You could call some of them traumas. And I've had months, if not years, of trying to quiet the voice in my head.

[7:36] Laura Camien: I've been guilty of leaning on my sister for hours on end processing what happened.

[7:42] Susan Blackwell: And she would just be with me as my mind like spun around like a washing cycle, and I tried desperately to find a way to disrupt the thoughts.

[7:51] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[7:52] Susan Blackwell: Of course, I can see now that I was processing trauma. I can recognize it now and see it in others when they're stuck in a thought spinning around in their mind and they can't see the way out.

[8:02] Laura Camien: You and I, when working with clients, will often say this is an inside job because it is so rare that someone else can help you stop that spin.

[8:12] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. So of course, when I heard about the book Chatter, The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It by Ethan Kross.

[8:23] Laura Camien: Ah.

[8:24] Susan Blackwell: You know, I was gonna dig into that.

[8:26] Laura Camien: So, first of all, Ethan Kross, the author. Wow.

[8:29] Susan Blackwell: Cross is a neuroscientist and one of the world's leading experts on controlling the conscious mind.

[8:38] Laura Camien: Suze, you sometimes talk about what you call thought work.

[8:41] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[8:41] Laura Camien: Well, Cross has dedicated his entire life to thought work.

[8:46] Susan Blackwell: I'm so fucking into this spark. It's so amazing.

[8:50] Laura Camien: He's a professor at University of Michigan's psychology department and its Ross School of Business.

[8:56] Susan Blackwell: At the university, he founded the Emotion and Self Control Laboratory.

[9:03] Laura Camien: Jeez Louise. I mean, I read that. I'm gonna read it again.

[9:06] Susan Blackwell: Emotion and Self Control Laboratory.

[9:08] Laura Camien: I saw that and I was like, what? Stop right there. What even is that? I need to know more.

[9:19] Susan Blackwell: So in his book, he says the lab he founded and the lab he directs does research on the silent conversations people have with themselves, which powerfully influence how we live our lives.

[9:32] Laura Camien: He has spent his entire professional career researching these conversations, what they are, why we have them, how they can be harnessed to make people happier, healthier, and more productive.

[9:43] Susan Blackwell: He goes on to explain that they use tools from psychology and other disciplines, fields as diverse as medicine, philosophy, biology, and computer science to answer questions like why are some people able to benefit from focusing inward to understand their feelings while other people crumble when they engage in the exact same behavior?

[10:04] Laura Camien: How can people reason wisely when under toxic stress?

[10:09] Susan Blackwell: Are there right and wrong ways to talk to yourself?

[10:13] Laura Camien: How can we communicate with people we care about without stoking their negative thoughts and emotions or increasing our own?

[10:21] Susan Blackwell: Do the countless voices of others we encounter on social media affect the voices in our mind?

[10:27] Laura Camien: Ooh, they're working on all of these questions all of the time.

[10:32] Susan Blackwell: And much of what they've learned has gone into this book.

[10:36] Laura Camien: Wow. I'm in awe of this entire project.

[10:38] Susan Blackwell: I mean, that he has essentially created a place for the study of the voices in our heads specifically.

[10:44] Laura Camien: Yes.

[10:45] Susan Blackwell: Okay. So Cross explains that he grew up in a household where his dad encouraged him all the time to quote, go inside himself, or just go inside or ask yourself the question.

[10:58] Laura Camien: And really what he was learning to do, right?

[11:01] Susan Blackwell: Yes. Learning to self-reflect.

[11:03] Laura Camien: Yes. Or the idea of introspection. I call it thinking about your thoughts.

[11:08] Susan Blackwell: So he had all of these codes, these different things go inside himself, go inside, think about your thoughts, whatever you want to call it. It's introspection.

[11:17] Laura Camien: Do you remember, Suze, the first person or the first time you were encouraged to think about your thoughts?

[11:25] Susan Blackwell: I don't know.

[11:27] Laura Camien: So I thought about this. The earliest that I can remember was associated with being in trouble. We were sent to our rooms and told to think about what we'd done, reflect on it essentially, and then we'd have to come out, say what we had done, why it was wrong, and apologize for it.

[11:47] Susan Blackwell: And I think that was my earliest recollection of self-reflection.

[11:51] Laura Camien: Huh. But I also wonder like, wow, it seems poignant to me that it was always associated with what I had done wrong.

[12:00] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[12:00] Laura Camien: This is what you do when you've done something wrong. You self-reflect.

[12:04] Susan Blackwell: Not like that self-reflection in any other way or any other time could be useful.

[12:09] Laura Camien: It's not the place you go to find the answer you need, it's the place you go to think about what you've done wrong.

[12:14] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[12:14] Laura Camien: Yeah. So I don't know. I wonder if that's why my voice in my head got really good at assessing what I had done wrong.

[12:22] Susan Blackwell: Oh, yeah. Right? Sure. I had to train it over the years to sort of widen its scope. But in its most basic sense, Cross says introspection simply means actively paying attention to one's own thoughts and feelings. The ability to do this is what allows us to imagine, remember, reflect, and then use those reveries to problem solve, innovate, and create. Hooray for creativity.

[12:55] Laura Camien: Yes. So many scientists, including Cross, believe that the ability for introspection is the evolutionary advance that distinguishes humans from other species. Cross's dad really believed that going inside would be of benefit and would lead to wise decisions and ultimately a more fulfilling life. And that theory made perfect sense. However, as Cross and his team have discovered, there is a growing body of evidence that while introspection and self-reflection can be wonderful and beneficial to learning, growing, imagining, and creating, it can also be the wrong thing at the wrong time and result in some really negative outcomes.

[13:43] Susan Blackwell: Tell me more. Suze, here's what he means. According to Cross, a new body of research has demonstrated that when we experience distress, engaging in introspection often does significantly more harm than good. It can undermine our performance at work. It can interfere with our ability to make good decisions and negatively influence our relationships. Using the mind to engage with our thoughts and feelings in the wrong way can lead professional athletes to lose the skills they've spent a lifetime perfecting. It can cause otherwise rational, caring people to make less logical and even less moral decisions. It can lead friends to flee from you in both real world and social media world. It can even contribute to us aging faster, both in how we look on the outside and how our DNA is configured internally. In short, our thoughts too often don't save us from our thoughts. Instead, they can give rise to something insidious.

[14:52] Laura Camien: And that insidious thing is chatter. Cross describes chatter as the cyclical negative thoughts and emotions that turn our singular capacity for introspection into a curse rather than a blessing. What he means essentially, this is that spin cycle. When a negative thought gets put on repeat and you cannot disrupt that pattern, it becomes chatter.

[15:20] Susan Blackwell: I see you nodding your head. Have you ever had this, Suze?

[15:23] Laura Camien: Well, I've heard another name for it, which is ants, automatic negative thoughts.

[15:30] Susan Blackwell: Interesting. So I maybe it's similar to this chatter you're maybe it's similar to this chatter you speak of.

[15:37] Laura Camien: It might be. It could be related. I think that it becomes chatter when it gets put on repeat.

[15:45] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. When it becomes a cycle and people are stuck in the cycle of that, reprocessing and reprocessing and reprocessing the negative thing that was said or done or felt.

[15:58] Laura Camien: Oh my god, Laura. I do. I get pulled into this space. I do. From time to time I get pulled into this space, and it is a not a fun place to be.

[16:08] Susan Blackwell: It's not a fun place to be. And we've all been there, and we have also been on the receiving end of that. You know what I mean? We have been with people who are stuck in it.

[16:18] Laura Camien: Yes.

[16:19] Susan Blackwell: And we ourselves have been stuck in it.

[16:20] Laura Camien: Yes.

[16:21] Susan Blackwell: So it turns out humanity has grappled with this inner voice throughout time. As Cross points out in his book, early Christian mystics were thoroughly annoyed by the voice in their head, always intruding on their silent contemplation. Some even considered these voices demonic. Around the same time in the East, Chinese Buddhists theorized about the turbulent mental weather that could cloud one's emotional landscape. They called it diluted thought. And yet many of these very same ancient cultures believe that their inner voice was also a source of wisdom, a belief that undergirds several millennia-old practices like silent prayer and meditation.

[17:07] Laura Camien: The fact that multiple spiritual traditions have both feared our inner voice and noted its value speaks to the ambivalent attitudes to our internal conversations that still persist today.

[17:19] Susan Blackwell: So I was fascinated by that because I've often talked to my therapist about learning to discern when my inner voice is intuition. It's giving me the answer that I need. And when is my inner voice fear or just repeating negative chatter?

[17:36] Laura Camien: Fear v intuition.

[17:37] Susan Blackwell: Right. Always tricky. Discerning the difference is key to help us discern. First, we need to understand what is the purpose of our inner voice in the best case scenario.

[17:50] Laura Camien: When our inner voice is functioning appropriately, what's it doing?

[17:54] Susan Blackwell: The key takeaway here is that our inner voice evolved over time to help us evaluate our past and prepare for our future.

[18:02] Laura Camien: Yes.

[18:03] Susan Blackwell: That's part of what it does. So it's doing this in a variety of ways. It's multitasking for us. Here's some of the things that it does. First of all, it provides support with working memory. Like when you go to the store and you're repeating to yourself, okay, we need eggs, we need coffee, we need clementines, eggs, coffee, clementines, eggs, coffee, clementines. This is your working memory. We need that, and that helps us remember things throughout the day.

[18:33] Laura Camien: We also need the inner voice for storytelling, specifically the creation of stories in our head that make sense of the world and shape our identity.

[18:42] Susan Blackwell: We use it for self-control. And this is deep. I'm not going to get into all of it here, so please pick up this book if this interests you at all. But in a nutshell, to the best of my ability, I'll try to capture this. The inner voice assists us with self-control in a number of ways, but to understand it, we have to go back to when we are toddlers. Our verbal development is evolving at the same time as our emotional development. And one of the ways we learn how to control ourselves, literally, is to talk ourselves through it.

[19:14] Laura Camien: If you've ever seen a toddler talking to themselves or coaching themselves through something, this is exactly what they're doing. They're using their inner voice to learn how to navigate the world.

[19:24] Susan Blackwell: Yes. I don't know if I've talked about my niece Bailey on this podcast very often, but I love her. Hi Bailey. Hi, Boo. And I'll tell you a quick story about her now. She's 18 now. We've been thick as thieves her whole entire life. I love this human being so much. Well, when Bailey was three, she was really scared of Santa Claus. And it just so happened that my stepmom loved Santa Claus and she had a collection of Santa's, like everywhere, everywhere. Santa's.

[19:54] Laura Camien: Oh wow.

[19:55] Susan Blackwell: So over the holidays, we would all gather there, and she couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a Santa. She's getting a Santa. So this one year, I was sitting in the living room, and I hear little three-year-old Bailey. She doesn't know I'm there, but I see her and I hear her. She's slowly approaching this big stuffed Santa Claus in the corner. She was talking to herself, she was coaching herself, and she was saying, It's okay. It's okay. It won't hurt me. Santa's okay. I can do it. And she's slowly approaching the Santa, just repeating, it's okay.

[20:36] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[20:37] Susan Blackwell: Until she finally touches it. And then after a minute, she slowly moves closer and closer until she puts her arms around it and hugs it. I get so moved just thinking about this. Like that moment, it was so beautiful to watch, just like literally watching her verbal development and her verbal stream, I guess, including these very positive coaching ideas of like, it's okay. I can do it. It's okay. It was super powerful. And her inner voice coached her all the way through it. She was learning to manage her emotions as well as her physical self-control.

[21:19] Laura Camien: But we also learn other things from our environment growing up and we internalize them. So the examples that Cross gives us are maybe your dad always repeatedly told you never to use violence to resolve a conflict. Maybe your mom repeatedly told you to never give up after a disappointment. Over time, we repeat these things to ourselves. They become part of that verbal stream that your inner voice uses.

[21:48] Susan Blackwell: So sometimes if you've ever been in therapy and you say something, and a therapist might ask, whose voice is that?

[21:54] Laura Camien: You, I feel like you've written whole plays about this.

[21:58] Susan Blackwell: Some things about this. Yeah. So those two examples I just gave were pretty positive, but you might have also repeatedly been told that you're too big for your britches, that you shouldn't stand out so much, that you're always late, that you can't keep your room clean, and on and on. And that too becomes part of our verbal stream.

[22:20] Laura Camien: So then as adults, our inner voice is evaluating and regulating at all times, how we're doing against that goal we said we wanted.

[22:30] Susan Blackwell: Don't forget about our purpose and our larger mission and how we're going to get there. It's playing out scenarios and which one might be the one that could get us closer to our goal. It's helping us decide which action to take. In short, that's several ways that our inner voice impacts our self-regulation.

[22:49] Laura Camien: I just want to make sure I'm keeping up with you and I'm understanding correctly.

[22:53] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. That there are certain times where our brain is developing, and at the same time, the things that are being said to us and the things that we are saying verbally out loud to ourselves are starting to form this inner voice.

[23:10] Laura Camien: They're starting to form this inner voice.

[23:11] Susan Blackwell: Okay, okay.

[23:12] Laura Camien: Yeah, 100%.

[23:14] Susan Blackwell: It consists of all those things. You can change it, you know, but those are in internalized and ingrained at a certain point.

[23:23] Laura Camien: Okay.

[23:23] Susan Blackwell: You will be happy to know there's a whole section on Jill Bolty Taylor and her experiences, particularly what she has said about how glorious it felt to be without the inner critic.

[23:35] Laura Camien: Yes, yes, Jill Bolt Taylor.

[23:38] Susan Blackwell: Yes. And we now know that she is a devout believer as she describes it, that paying attention to our self-talk is vitally important to our mental health. This is all to say again that the inner voice has a very important function to play in our brain and in our bodies, and it can be a real gift to us, helping us function in the world, helping us achieve goals and more.

[24:18] Laura Camien: So then the book shares in detail the many ways that if we allow our inner voice to turn into chatter, it can get in the way of our functioning in the world. Think of it this way our brain's executive function runs a little bit like a computer.

[24:35] Susan Blackwell: It focuses on what's relevant, it directs our attention to the task we're trying to accomplish, whether that's writing a play or cooking a meal, and our brain will work to tune out the distractions so that we can focus.

[24:50] Laura Camien: But when there is too much noise, too much data, because we are ruminating and stuck in a negative thought cycle, we literally sap the neuron we need for our executive functions.

[25:02] Susan Blackwell: Like we literally tire it out.

[25:04] Laura Camien: It can't do it all.

[25:07] Susan Blackwell: An example of that might be if you've ever tried to read a book right after you've had an argument with a friend or your partner, you know you're not absorbing a single sentence of that book.

[25:18] Laura Camien: Right.

[25:18] Susan Blackwell: You keep reading that sentence over and over again.

[25:21] Laura Camien: It's not happening.

[25:22] Susan Blackwell: And that is because maybe you're still ruminating on the that's right.

[25:22] Laura Camien: That's right.

[25:27] Susan Blackwell: That neuron that we need for executive function is like I'm busy right now spinning on all this other stuff.

[25:35] Laura Camien: The higher the stakes, the more stressful situations, the more likely chatter will get in the way.

[25:42] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[25:43] Laura Camien: Chatter is also detrimental to social relationships.

[25:46] Susan Blackwell: And ooh, I've really felt this.

[25:48] Laura Camien: I just want to say, I'd like to confess from the top, I have been guilty of this in years past, and I've been on the receiving end of this.

[25:58] Susan Blackwell: When our brain is stuck in a negative thought loop, and there's a ton of chatter going on, we are often driven, and I mean driven, to talk to someone about it.

[26:09] Laura Camien: It's like we have a compulsion to get it out, sometimes called venting.

[26:15] Susan Blackwell: But sadly, when we're stuck in chatter, we're not able to self-regulate, and we often don't know when to stop talking, or we can't stop talking, and we end up pushing away even the most sympathetic friends.

[26:29] Laura Camien: This one was one of the hardest things to consider in the moment.

[26:33] Susan Blackwell: Please trust me when I say again, wow, I apologize to anyone I pushed away in the past.

[26:39] Laura Camien: I mean, I can think of several times in my life, and it was particularly in crisis and in trauma.

[26:44] Susan Blackwell: I think I've trained myself more now.

[26:47] Laura Camien: Now I will almost force myself not to talk about it.

[26:50] Susan Blackwell: Go to sleep if I can.

[26:52] Laura Camien: Things always look different in the morning.

[26:55] Susan Blackwell: Hey, guess what?

[26:56] Laura Camien: That's part of my verbal stream that I learned growing up.

[26:58] Susan Blackwell: Things always look different in the morning.

[27:00] Laura Camien: That seems good.

[27:01] Susan Blackwell: That's a good one.

[27:02] Laura Camien: That's a keeper.

[27:03] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[27:04] Laura Camien: That's a keeper.

[27:04] Susan Blackwell: But this is what we mean when we say this is an inside job.

[27:09] Laura Camien: Getting a hold of your chatter before it pushes you to take an action that you'll regret taking, or before it causes you to push away people you love, this is the assignment.

[27:21] Susan Blackwell: So one more thing: chronic chatter can also have a negative effect on our overall health.

[27:28] Laura Camien: In 2007, the author of the book, Ethan Kross, and his team did an MRI study that found that physical and emotional pain are triggered in the same parts of the brain.

[27:42] Susan Blackwell: Emotional pain causes the body stress just like physical pain.

[27:47] Laura Camien: And stress, as we know, when it becomes chronic, can lead to cardiovascular disease and cancer and more.

[27:53] Susan Blackwell: So to me, it kind of sucks to say how horrible chatter can be for you, but you also need to keep it to yourself.

[27:59] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[28:00] Susan Blackwell: Feels really cruel, doesn't it?

[28:02] Laura Camien: But the good news is the answers and the help we need really are within us if we look inside.

[28:10] Susan Blackwell: I want to get into some of the answers, but I also want to acknowledge at the top here.

[28:14] Laura Camien: The book did not write about neurodiversity.

[28:17] Susan Blackwell: It's referring to your new a neurotypical brain.

[28:20] Laura Camien: So I want to just say it's not so easy to say we all have these tools because we may not have all these tools.

[28:26] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, and that thing that you just said, Laura, about like the tools or the answers that we need may already be in there.

[28:34] Laura Camien: I feel like also it depends on how extreme some of this stuff.

[28:39] Susan Blackwell: I feel like it might be so extreme that you need professional help to access those tools.

[28:46] Laura Camien: 100%.

[28:47] Susan Blackwell: You might need professional help.

[28:49] Laura Camien: And you also might need medication.

[28:51] Susan Blackwell: I've had a doctor say to me, like, this medication does not mean you have to stay on it the rest of your life, but it could just disrupt the cycle, disrupt that loop that you're stuck in.

[29:03] Laura Camien: Totally.

[29:03] Susan Blackwell: I feel like this is also a really super duper time to say again that Laura and I are not therapists and this podcast is not therapy.

[29:12] Laura Camien: But I've also had that experience where it's just like the gravitational pull of the chatter is so ferocious that it was only with the help of some outside help that I was able to find some extraction from it.

[29:24] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[29:25] Laura Camien: 100% some professional help.

[29:27] Susan Blackwell: That is a perfectly appropriate place to bring all of your chatter.

[29:33] Laura Camien: Yes.

[29:35] Susan Blackwell: Um, but I'm gonna get into some scenarios that could help, just so you know.

[29:40] Laura Camien: Yes.

[29:41] Susan Blackwell: Again, as you say, we are not therapists, we are just two people trying to figure this out.

[29:47] Laura Camien: But here's what we know.

[29:49] Susan Blackwell: One of the tools, one of the greatest tools that we can use that is accessible to us when we choose to use it, is called distancing.

[29:59] Laura Camien: Because one thing that chatter does is narrow our focus.

[30:03] Susan Blackwell: It zooms into the negative thing that we're experiencing as the problem, and it stops us from seeing anything else, literally.

[30:13] Laura Camien: It's why we have the phrase, you can't see the forest for the trees.

[30:17] Susan Blackwell: You're so focused, you can't see any of the solutions to the problem.

[30:23] Laura Camien: If they're offered up by other people, you cannot see how they could possibly work.

[30:28] Susan Blackwell: So one of the key ways to combat the chatter is to zoom out to create distance, and you can do this in your mind.

[30:36] Laura Camien: There's different scenarios you can use.

[30:38] Susan Blackwell: Some of them I like more than others, but later, like Cross tells us, this is like a buffet.

[30:44] Laura Camien: Choose the things that like work for you.

[30:47] Susan Blackwell: One of the exercises he talks about is thinking of the difference in these scenarios.

[30:53] Laura Camien: First, imagine that your partner is cheating on you with someone else.

[30:58] Susan Blackwell: You might feel rage, betrayal, pain, any number of emotions.

[31:03] Laura Camien: But then imagine if your best friend is telling you that her partner is cheating on her.

[31:08] Susan Blackwell: You might feel more compassion.

[31:10] Laura Camien: You might want to help her problem solve, think about therapy, don't throw the whole baby out with the bathwater.

[31:16] Susan Blackwell: Like you might actually be capable of thinking of a more holistic response to it.

[31:22] Laura Camien: The point is, you might have more capacity for problem solving because you have a little distance from it.

[31:28] Susan Blackwell: Of course, of course.

[31:29] Laura Camien: So that's what he's talking about when we talk about distance.

[31:33] Susan Blackwell: Another example is a study they conducted with U.S. citizens.

[31:35] Laura Camien: They were asked to imagine themselves living in another country when an election takes place here.

[31:42] Susan Blackwell: Imagine the opponent won.

[31:45] Laura Camien: Participants showed a greater desire to work with the opposing political party.

[31:50] Susan Blackwell: Again, because they had some distance.

[31:52] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[31:53] Susan Blackwell: So one type of distancing is fly on the wall.

[31:56] Laura Camien: In this exercise, you imagine one of the negative memories in your mind that's spinning on.

[32:01] Susan Blackwell: And now you picture that event as if it was happening to someone else, and you're just an observer in the room.

[32:08] Laura Camien: In various studies, participants who use this technique experience lower stress levels and more clarity about their problem.

[32:15] Susan Blackwell: Another is called temporal distancing.

[32:19] Laura Camien: This involves thinking about a problem, like a deadline at work that you're chattering over, some kind of stress that is spinning out inside of you.

[32:29] Susan Blackwell: Think about yourself 10 years from now and imagine what this particular deadline is going to mean to you then.

[32:35] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[32:36] Susan Blackwell: Most likely not much at all.

[32:39] Laura Camien: You might also consider the past.

[32:42] Susan Blackwell: People create distance by considering their ancestors and what their ancestors endured, and that creates distance from this particular problem, putting in perspective in a much bigger picture.

[32:54] Laura Camien: Absolutely.

[32:55] Susan Blackwell: Right?

[32:55] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[32:56] Susan Blackwell: Another way to create distance is journaling, putting it all down on paper.

[33:01] Laura Camien: You create a story on paper and you create distance between you and the character of you that you've put on the page.

[33:08] Susan Blackwell: And then there is nature.

[33:10] Laura Camien: Good lord, we just continue to learn about the benefits of being in nature.

[33:14] Susan Blackwell: And this book is no exception.

[33:16] Laura Camien: There's a whole chapter dedicated to it.

[33:19] Susan Blackwell: And Cross describes the many benefits that nature can help to create distance from our chatter.

[33:24] Laura Camien: When we're in nature, our attention is often gently drawn away from ourselves.

[33:30] Susan Blackwell: Maybe by the way a breeze tickles our skin, or a bug bite makes our arm itch, or the way a sunset reminds us how vast the world is and how small our issues are in comparison.

[33:43] Laura Camien: It's as if nature was by design luring us away from that chatter.

[33:48] Susan Blackwell: The bottom line is zooming out or creating distance can rein in the fight or flight feeling.

[33:55] Laura Camien: It can dampen the emotional activity in the brain, and it can lead to less hostility and aggression.

[34:01] Susan Blackwell: One of the other main suggestions in the book is to remember that sharing the chatter with others is not always the most helpful thing to do, as tempting as it is.

[34:12] Laura Camien: Again, as I said, this one is painful to me because I think, well, shit, when a person needs it most, you're telling them they should not reach out.

[34:23] Susan Blackwell: I'll circle back to that in a second.

[34:25] Laura Camien: Cross spends a good deal of time explaining what happens in our brain when we go over and over and over the details venting with another person.

[34:34] Susan Blackwell: It's called co-rumination.

[34:37] Laura Camien: And the truth is strong bonds and strong friendships can form between people when you are co-ruminating about something.

[34:45] Susan Blackwell: Think about bitching about someone in the office or complaining about a neighbor, etc.

[34:51] Laura Camien: But if that is all we do when we vent, we are not moving toward a solution.

[34:59] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[34:59] Laura Camien: And there, Cross just described my early 30s.

[35:02] Susan Blackwell: I was just thinking, and there Cross just described my last week.

[35:06] Laura Camien: Oh no, that is not true.

[35:10] Susan Blackwell: I had a thought about this as I was writing this.

[35:13] Laura Camien: One way that I think I've found distance and reached out for help is by naming what is happening.

[35:20] Susan Blackwell: I realized when I'm spinning on something, I don't think the answer is you have to keep that to yourself.

[35:26] Laura Camien: But I think that I have found, and I think you do it too, a way to create the distance and reach out for help.

[35:35] Susan Blackwell: For example, I'll say to you, I'm dealing with some voices in my head today that are trying to bring me down.

[35:41] Laura Camien: Yes.

[35:42] Susan Blackwell: Or something like that.

[35:43] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[35:44] Susan Blackwell: And I am telling you about what's happening in my head, but I am not going over and over and over again, reliving or giving energy or validating those voices.

[35:55] Laura Camien: Well, by saying that, you're creating a bit of a space.

[35:59] Susan Blackwell: It's sort of what he's saying about whether it's fly on the wall or that sort of a little bit of a space a longer lands of disruption.

[36:06] Laura Camien: Yes.

[36:07] Susan Blackwell: I wrote down uh my version of that lately has been I'm thinking the thought that's I'm thinking the thought that I'm overwhelmed.

[36:07] Laura Camien: That's right.

[36:07] Susan Blackwell: I'm thinking the thought that I don't know how I'm going to get all of this done.

[36:21] Laura Camien: So instead of just saying to you, Laura, I don't know how I'm gonna get all of this done, and us co-ruminating about how much we have to get done.

[36:29] Susan Blackwell: I feel like both of us are trying to habituate something different, which is yeah has a little bit of a disruption and a little bit of a remove to it.

[36:37] Laura Camien: It has that distance, it's disruption and distance, and also not keeping it so much inside that makes it feel like this is my problem that must be kept to myself.

[36:49] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[36:50] Laura Camien: I can say to you, I got this going on today.

[36:54] Susan Blackwell: Um, and you can say it to me.

[36:57] Laura Camien: And that is enough.

[36:58] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[36:59] Laura Camien: So I offer that up both as a way to ask for help when you need it and as a way of distancing yourself from the thoughts when they come up. If you're on the receiving end of someone who is dealing with chatter and wants to vent, there are some ways that you can be compassionate and avoid co-rumination.

[37:18] Susan Blackwell: Ah.

[37:21] Laura Camien: The key is number one, first acknowledge the feelings.

[37:26] Susan Blackwell: That must be hard.

[37:28] Laura Camien: You must be feeling bad.

[37:31] Susan Blackwell: I'm sorry that happened to you.

[37:34] Laura Camien: Acknowledge those feelings. And then, if you're able, try to gently help the person distance from those thoughts. If you can gently broaden the perspective, inch them a little bit further from the chatter itself, it would be so helpful. But the first part, the empathy for their feelings is the essential part.

[37:54] Susan Blackwell: We've all been there.

[37:55] Laura Camien: If you jump right into problem solving or broadening their perspective, you're likely met with like a wall of like, that won't work.

[38:03] Susan Blackwell: That's not possible.

[38:06] Laura Camien: Here's five more reasons why that can't be the answer. And I've been, again, guilty on both sides. Guilty of like jumping right to solving someone's problem before acknowledging their feeling, and just having a moment to just acknowledge that must feel difficult.

[38:26] Susan Blackwell: That must feel challenging.

[38:28] Laura Camien: That must be frustrating, whatever the case may be. This approach was actually codified by the New York police hostage negotiation team decades ago.

[38:38] Susan Blackwell: Whoa.

[38:39] Laura Camien: Decades ago. According to Chip Massey, crisis negotiator, empathy is the quickest way to de-escalate an emotional situation.

[38:48] Susan Blackwell: This got me thinking too, it's not in the book, but random thoughts by me.

[38:54] Laura Camien: Um what if random musings by Laura Gullen? What if we can remember to have empathy for ourselves when we're in the midst of chatter? If empathy is the quickest way to de-escalate an emotional situation, what if we're able to recognize I'm spinning out on this? What if I can have empathy for myself in that moment? I think it's worth a try.

[39:22] Susan Blackwell: Maybe some empathy for ourselves could de-escalate the emotional situation. And finally, Cross also gives a good amount of space in the book to the idea of the placebo, something that in theory we know isn't actual medicine. It shouldn't work, but our belief in it makes it work. And he uses ritual as an example of a placebo to help control chatter.

[39:46] Laura Camien: He calls ritual the ancient chatter fighting tool. The example he uses when we lose someone we love, there are and have been throughout time various rituals of grief that give us like a sense of control and purpose when going through a very dark time or a time of loss.

[40:06] Susan Blackwell: All those like religious rituals, in a way, it's like it busies the person, it busies their mind.

[40:14] Laura Camien: I don't want to just use uh death, but any number of like life moments, there are rituals.

[40:21] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[40:22] Laura Camien: I don't know. It just made me think about rituals uh in a in another way. I'm trying to think of how, or can maybe you can tell me the chatter, like specifically the chatter. Say I'm chattering on about like an old familiar chatter that chatters in my mind, just like a day-to-day type garden variety type chatter.

[40:40] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[40:41] Laura Camien: How will I use ritual? I think this is more to me, bigger. It's more of a it's bigger. But that doesn't mean I mean you have a ritual of like meditation.

[40:51] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, but your ritual might include lighting a candle and turning out the lights or spraying some lavender spray, whatever it may be. You may have small rituals that indicate to your body it's time to relax now, it's time to have grace now.

[41:11] Laura Camien: Cut that shit out now.

[41:11] Susan Blackwell: It's time to cut that shit out because we don't have time for it, Suze.

[41:16] Laura Camien: I too, I guess I already have one in place, which is every evening around this time. It's happening right now as we record this. When I step out of my office into the living room, the whole room is lit up with candles on timers.

[41:34] Susan Blackwell: Yes, Suze.

[41:36] Laura Camien: So I walk out and my body goes, Oh, it's evening time. It's my version of a glass of wine.

[41:42] Susan Blackwell: Because I don't drink.

[41:43] Laura Camien: Yes.

[41:45] Susan Blackwell: Susie, yes.

[41:46] Laura Camien: All right. That's a perfect example. Ease your chattering mind.

[41:50] Susan Blackwell: It's time to calm down.

[41:51] Laura Camien: Use your chattering mind.

[41:53] Susan Blackwell: Nice.

[41:53] Laura Camien: I like that. So Cross believes that again there will be a very unique combination of tools that will help each person. We're not all the same, but you can find some things that work for you, some things that don't, and that's okay.

[42:10] Susan Blackwell: But I was I was intrigued by this entire uh entire concept and really thinking about like the appreciation for the inner voice and all the good things it does for us, and just trying to when it gets stuck, like it's on it's like a record that it's got a little dent in it.

[42:32] Laura Camien: It's like repeat, repeat, repeat. How can we step back and help it move forward and get back on track with all of the good things that it typically helps us with?

[42:45] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[42:46] Laura Camien: This is sparking my brain into a spark to push.

[42:50] Susan Blackwell: Oh, I'm so glad.

[42:52] Laura Camien: Well, let's let's talk about what do we make of it.

[42:55] Susan Blackwell: Well, you want to go?

[42:57] Laura Camien: I mean, I have a few, mostly awareness, awareness, awareness.

[43:02] Susan Blackwell: I can't say enough about awareness.

[43:04] Laura Camien: For any of these techniques to work, you must first be able to realize you are in a spiral of chatter.

[43:10] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[43:11] Laura Camien: What's happening right now is chatter.

[43:13] Susan Blackwell: This, these aren't true thoughts, these aren't facts about me.

[43:18] Laura Camien: This is a negative thought loop stuck on replay.

[43:22] Susan Blackwell: That's it.

[43:23] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[43:24] Susan Blackwell: I think I am getting I feel like I am getting better at that.

[43:27] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[43:28] Susan Blackwell: Recognizing it and catching it.

[43:30] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[43:30] Susan Blackwell: Sometimes not always able to slip it out of the gear right away.

[43:34] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[43:35] Susan Blackwell: You know what I'm trying to get to the bottom of?

[43:37] Laura Camien: What?

[43:37] Susan Blackwell: What I observe this thing in myself.

[43:40] Laura Camien: Hi, is this TMI listeners?

[43:42] Susan Blackwell: You be the judge.

[43:43] Laura Camien: We'll see. I observe this thing in myself that for some reason I go through these periods in my life where there's something about when I take a shower in the morning, like I work out, then I take a shower.

[43:55] Susan Blackwell: I don't know why, but it will kick up some of this repetitive negative thinking.

[44:01] Laura Camien: And Susan, I'm thinking it could be as simple as there's something in my field of vision.

[44:07] Susan Blackwell: I haven't identified what it is, but I notice when I'm getting ready in the morning, for some reason, those old ruminations and those old chatters and those old like re-litigating things and things like that come to me in that period in the bathroom.

[44:26] Laura Camien: And I haven't figured out why.

[44:29] Susan Blackwell: That is so maybe we need to remodel the bathroom.

[44:32] Laura Camien: I think remodel the bathroom, first of all. It happens almost when it's when it's happening, when that's kicked up and it doesn't always happen.

[44:40] Susan Blackwell: Right now, I feel like I'm sort of not there.

[44:43] Laura Camien: But uh, there are times when I'm just like every day, like clockwork in the bathroom, this repetitive negative thinking happens.

[44:52] Susan Blackwell: That is so interesting.

[44:54] Laura Camien: I'm I'm searching my brain for anything I might have read in the book that like talks about a cause of it, which I think is interesting. He doesn't explain like why this happens, just that it does happen.

[45:06] Susan Blackwell: What I observe in myself though is my eyes throughout, as we all do as we move through our day, my eyes or my ears will pick something up, and the connective tissue of thoughts will lead me down neural tributaries.

[45:19] Laura Camien: Oh yeah.

[45:19] Susan Blackwell: And for some reason, there's something, there's something I gotta keep a close eye on it.

[45:24] Laura Camien: I don't know what it is.

[45:25] Susan Blackwell: Suze, but I think this is so normal.

[45:28] Laura Camien: And I for me, it could be I'm in the kitchen, I am getting something out of a cabinet, my eye catches on the jar of peanut butter.

[45:37] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[45:38] Laura Camien: Right. I go about my business, I do my thing. Then I'm sitting down and I'm like, I don't feel good, and I don't feel good about myself.

[45:45] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[45:45] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[45:45] Laura Camien: Why am I not feeling good about myself?

[45:49] Laura Camien: Let me trace back my thoughts.

[45:50] Susan Blackwell: What did I just do?

[45:52] Laura Camien: Well, I just did this and then I came in here and then I went back and then I looked in the.

[45:56] Susan Blackwell: Oh, when I looked in the cabinet, I saw that peanut butter jar.

[46:01] Laura Camien: I remembered the fight that my brother and I got into in junior high when he threw a jar of peanut butter at me.

[46:07] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[46:08] Laura Camien: And I still feel in the pit of my stomach bad about that fight that we had.

[46:14] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[46:14] Laura Camien: And so I have to trace back to some little thing, like you said, a neural pathway.

[46:19] Susan Blackwell: It went flying back to the past.

[46:21] Laura Camien: That's right.

[46:21] Susan Blackwell: And they zip so quickly.

[46:24] Laura Camien: Just so quickly.

[46:25] Susan Blackwell: And just dear gentle, sweet sparklers.

[46:29] Laura Camien: Laura's talking about her play, Electra Speaks, which really does.

[46:33] Susan Blackwell: Which also starred Susan Blackwell.

[46:35] Laura Camien: What?

[46:39] Susan Blackwell: Not that one.

[46:40] Laura Camien: Up on the boards.

[46:42] Susan Blackwell: She's Scottish too.

[46:44] Laura Camien: But yes, it is things that are that small and just tangents upon tangents.

[46:50] Susan Blackwell: That reminds me of that very excellent episode of the West Wing where Josh Lyman is triggered by the sound of the there's something about the Christmas carolers that are singing in the in the um lobby.

[47:02] Laura Camien: That that's the ends up, spoiler alert, if you haven't watched that episode from 20 years ago.

[47:07] Susan Blackwell: Fuck you.

[47:08] Laura Camien: But that's the trigger that brings up this trauma.

[47:11] Susan Blackwell: You've had plenty of time in the West Wing.

[47:14] Laura Camien: But yes, it is, it is that quick and that slippery.

[47:18] Susan Blackwell: And I'd like to figure out what it is.

[47:20] Laura Camien: Well, I do think it is a worthy, because I think I I learned to do this from a therapist. I think it is a worthy assignment to trace back to like, wait a minute, what was it?

[47:31] Susan Blackwell: Is it the perfume I put on that reminds me of that girl from middle school?

[47:35] Laura Camien: Yes.

[47:36] Susan Blackwell: What is it?

[47:37] Laura Camien: And trace it back to that and then maintain that distance.

[47:41] Susan Blackwell: There's something so interesting to me about Marveling at like, wow, wow, our brain is amazing.

[47:48] Laura Camien: It went flying back to age 14 in a split second.

[47:54] Susan Blackwell: It retrieved that out of the files.

[47:56] Laura Camien: Yes.

[48:01] Susan Blackwell: A few more things that come to mind on this topic.

[48:05] Laura Camien: That example that you gave when your brain was developing and you were sent to your room to think about what you had done wrong.

[48:12] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[48:13] Laura Camien: And then to come out and present your thesis on what you had done wrong.

[48:18] Susan Blackwell: Here's what's wrong with me.

[48:21] Laura Camien: That whole thing, I was I like this practice, which I think that you and I cultivate, frankly.

[48:26] Susan Blackwell: I feel like we were doing it today.

[48:28] Laura Camien: Oh, yeah.

[48:28] Susan Blackwell: Um, taking a pause and sort of thinking about what you slash I slash we have done well.

[48:34] Laura Camien: Yes, Suze, because my example is like to me, evidence of how incomplete my learning was around this.

[48:44] Susan Blackwell: It was associated with well, am I able to point out everything that's wrong with me?

[48:49] Laura Camien: I most certainly am.

[48:50] Susan Blackwell: I could list it before you could even like think about it.

[48:54] Laura Camien: I could tell you everything that's wrong with me.

[48:56] Susan Blackwell: But I was not given the counterpoint to it, which is also within yourself, are the answers that you need.

[49:04] Laura Camien: Is the the intuition.

[49:06] Susan Blackwell: It can guide you to your best possible self as well.

[49:12] Susan Blackwell: And I wasn't really given any of that. That took so much more time to develop, because I had at that point such a close relationship with this chatter in my head being associated with negative. But I like that practice. No, I just want to say I like what you're saying of like, what do we do well? Our one of our clients, Sarah, has mentioned, you know, like making a list of what she did accomplish during the day instead of what she should accomplish today. And it's has a similar feel to me. That's like, oh my gosh, let's create a neural pathway that goes directly from here to thoughts of what I've done well, thoughts of how great I'm doing, and reinforce that pathway instead.

[49:58] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[49:59] Susan Blackwell: Other things, other thoughts that came up while you were sharing this beautiful spark is I probably have talked about this on the podcast before, or maybe I haven't. I don't fucking remember you guys. One of the best explanations of fear versus intuition, meaning when am I experiencing intuition and when am I experiencing fear? Like if you're trying to assess if you want to take a creative risk or not, how to parse it. And one of the best explanations I've heard of this is a tool that I received from Marie Forlio, which is when you're considering a potential creative risk you're going to take, and you have a sense of expansiveness, like even a sense of physical expansiveness that is like intuition.

And when you have a sense of contraction around something, or even when you're sort of like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that thing I've been asked to do. Like if you have a sense of contraction, that's what I've sort of started paying attention to now.

[51:03] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[51:04] Susan Blackwell: Does something give me a sense of expansiveness, or does it give me a sense of contraction? And if it's expansive, I move towards it. And if it's contraction, I get the fuck away from it. Does that make sense?

[51:13] Laura Camien: I love it. It makes such perfect sense.

[51:16] Susan Blackwell: That's the thing I thought of. Here's some other weird shit I thought of while you were talking. Okay, what? That story that you told about Bailey being afraid of the Santa Clauses and coaching herself. That is a beautiful story. And I also thought one what have we make of it could be a horror screenplay where the child like slowly coaches themselves to be like, it's okay. It's not gonna hurt me. It's just a doll. It's not gonna hurt me. And then she gets close enough to touch it and then embrace it. And then we see its eyes pop open and it has her in its clutches. That is the first scene before credits roll on some crazy haunted Santa doll horror movie. I feel like it might be a Chucky movie, but it's the Christmas version.

[52:04] Laura Camien: Chucky saves Christmas.

[52:06] Susan Blackwell: Yes, Laura. We need this to come out December 15th.

[52:11] Laura Camien: Thanksgiving Day in theaters.

[52:14] Susan Blackwell: Oh no. Absolutely, which reminded me of your friend Eric Stone Street did a beautiful, like little capsule guest appearance on American Horror Story. Did you see that?

[52:25] Laura Camien: Oh, I haven't seen that. Did he really?

[52:27] Susan Blackwell: It was too scary for Susan, and I've never forgotten it. But it was the first season of American Horror Story. So if you haven't seen it, fuck you.

[52:34] Laura Camien: Oh my God, I have not seen it. It's that stuff is too scary for me.

[52:39] Susan Blackwell: He has all of these phobias, and he's going to this therapist to work out his phobias. He has a phobia that seems irrational. And it turns out Bailey was right. And Eric Stone Street was right. That Santa is haunted. And then I think I've said this before, but that idea of historically distancing yourself, like thinking about like 10 years from now, when I'm thinking about all the rumination around this problem. Cast yourself 10 years forward or even think about your ancestors. And I think I told you that story about how I was going through this like breakup and trying to make this tough decision about breaking up. And I went and I stood at this graveyard, and I was like, a hundred years from now, when I'm under the ground, like it doesn't matter.

Like just it matters to me so much today. It doesn't matter. And I'm just like on fire with it. But but it really, like in the grand scheme of things in our house, Wes would say, it don't make a damn bit of difference. And I don't know what that what character that is or where it comes from that disrupts your rumination and co-rumination. God, it makes me laugh all the time. It don't make a damn bit of difference. And always it's like, you know what? You're right.

[53:57] Laura Camien: You know, I feel like I love this spark, Laura, because I feel like it um if we can get our minds right, if we can get our thoughts right, it is I don't know how what percentage of the battle it is, but it seems like a really big percentage of the battle.

[54:12] Susan Blackwell: It's a huge percentage, it's such a huge percentage of it because it's really that idea of like it's us against us, it's me against me, and it's really just like I don't want to be in a battle with myself. I actually do not want to be in battle. I want to be in harmony with myself.

[54:31] Laura Camien: Yeah, and going back to the point that you made about neurodivergence. We were having this conversation today in um one of our Sparkbile groups, and one of our group participants was talking about how they had stumbled onto this discovery where because different people's brains work differently, we're talking about creative goals. Because different people's brains work differently, it your brain may need to do something that seems strange to others, like you may need to play a video game before you engage with the creative work that's going to advance you towards your creative goal. And I just feel like there's something about that that speaks to this.

[55:15] Susan Blackwell: I'll jump in because I think that it all has to do with knowing your own brain, know thyself.

[55:21] Laura Camien: Yes, it comes to that. Then you make empowered choices of like, okay, what's best for my brain right now is to do this and then do that. Perfectly viable choices and maybe different from what I would choose for my brain, but having that awareness, having that understanding of how our brains best work and how we can support them in the work that they do, I think is essential.

[55:46] Susan Blackwell: I don't think we were taught to really give this much thought to our own brains.

[55:51] Laura Camien: No, I've I feel like this is something again, back to your earlier question about when were you first aware of this ticker tape, yeah, running through your mind. Uh, I don't know, five years ago. I feel like it was super recent. I mean, I think I think I had college professors who attempted to instill it, you know, but it takes so much time, I think, to get it unless you're actively deciding, I want to learn this.

[56:21] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[56:22] Laura Camien: Um, but most of us, I don't know, that's that's a generalization, but many of us don't know that it's something that needs to be learned or can be learned. And it takes a long time, therapy and other ways to like sort of realize we have more agency over what is happening in our minds and what is happening in our bodies than we are taught to believe.

[56:46] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[56:47] Laura Camien: And I think that means like having also the empathy and the kindness for yourself and the voice in your head. I mean, I'll just say this. You've talked about this before, this idea of like in regard to our creativity, the stories we tell ourselves to keep ourselves from telling our stories. And you and I talk about this concept and how easy it is for people to get very attached to that story.

[57:11] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[57:11] Laura Camien: I can't create because I have to pack everyone's lunch in the morning and I don't have time before I leave for work. I can't create because I didn't go to a proper school to teach me to create. Take all of the reasons, mix them into like a cookie batter, and just be like, these are all the reasons why I can't create. And I'm very attached to these stories. I don't want to relinquish them. And it doesn't feel like I have any power to relinquish them, but we do we have more say over that. We can, it's like our if our fist is gripping that reason why we can't create so tightly. We actually can pry our little fingers off of it. We can loosen our grip.

[58:16] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, fist of rumination. I appreciate this very much, Laura Camien. I feel like the work continues, the good work continues. I will leave you with this one little quote, then probably I may be saying Eckhart Toll.

[58:33] Laura Camien: Toll.

[58:33] Susan Blackwell: I've heard it pronounced Eckhart Tole. I've heard it pronounced Eckhart Toll. That always reminds me of Toll House Cookies. His name always reminds me. Eckhart Tollhouse Cookies.

[58:42] Laura Camien: Eckhart Toll House Cookies.

[58:44] Susan Blackwell: said, what a liberation to realize that the voice in my head is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.

[58:58] Laura Camien: That's right. People, we are not that voice in our head. That voice in our head is trying to help us. Sometimes it gets off track. We can help it get back on track.

[59:10] Susan Blackwell: Ah, Laura. I love this so much, and I'm so thankful for this beautiful spark that you made for us and for all the people.

[59:23] Laura Camien: I did, I did. I did like it.

[59:27] Susan Blackwell: And I think that's it. I think that's it.

[59:30] Laura Camien: Oh, so good.

[59:31] Susan Blackwell: This episode of The Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape people. And as always, we hope this put another bunch of sparks in your file. Hey, 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, email us at thesparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com. Hey, we'll even take your feedback. But you know the price of admission. First, you have to share a creative risk that you've taken recently.

[1:00:01] Laura Camien: You can follow us on social at The Sparkfile and be sure to subscribe, rate, and five star review this podcast. It really does help other listeners to find us.

[1:00:12] Susan Blackwell: Hey, if you like this podcast, we hope you'll share it with people that you love. And if you didn't like it, I want you to go into your room and I want you to think about why you didn't like it. And then I want you to come back out here.

[1:00:23] Laura Camien: I don't want you to tell me.

[1:00:25] Susan Blackwell: Oh dear.

[1:00:26] Laura Camien: Oh Lord.

[1:00:28] Susan Blackwell: So shitty.

[1:00:29] Laura Camien: So shitty.

[1:00:31] Susan Blackwell: If something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, please know that we are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It is your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame.

[1:00:47] Laura Camien: You know you gotta take it and make it.

[1:00:51] Susan Blackwell: Oh, heavy.

[1:00:53] Laura Camien: My precious jewels.

[1:00:56] Susan Blackwell: When I bope it to 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. Sparkile. I jump into my spark files. Spark file. Let's open up the spark files.