Creative Portland

Kaitlin: [00:00:00] Hey there. Do you think of yourself as a creative person? If you found yourself here and you're curious, you are. This is Creative Portland, the podcast made for you by the all volunteer team who organized the Creative Mornings Speaker Series in Portland, Oregon. I'm your host, Kaitlin, and I'm really glad you're here.

Each episode. We are going to share a talk from one of the most generous, inspiring, and creative people in the city. You'll hear from people doing things you probably already think of as creative. People who paint, write books, illustrate comics, style photo shoots, make music, even sing opera. There are others who run companies, or bake, a few who've broken world records, [00:01:00] some who organize festivals, even a rodeo.

They interrogate sorrow, they create joy, they play. I'm confident you'll take away something different from every person on this show. Each of these talks was originally recorded in front of a live audience. So sometimes they mention things that are on a screen, but those are pretty minor.

You're about to hear a talk from Chelsea Bieker and Kimberly King Parsons, which was recorded with a live audience at Blue Dot Portland in July 2024. Chelsea is the author of the novels Madwoman and Godshot, and story collection Heartbroke. Kimberly is the author of novel We Were the Universe, and story collection Blacklight.

They are both talented authors. And supportive friends, and together they run the fountain, an online resource for writers. You can find more of their work linked in the show notes and [00:02:00] at chelseabieker.com and kimberlykingparsons.com.

Chelsea Bieker: Thank you. Okay, we're gonna be talking about trust today, what it means to us. How to cultivate and sustain trust in yourself and your creative work. The more we considered the word trust, we realized it is the bedrock of our creative practice. And without it, not only are we maybe making decisions from a place of fear, which never feels great, but it also affects the work itself on both micro and macro levels.

Everything ultimately comes back to the question, do you trust your own instincts when you're making art? And what might it look like to enhance the trust you have in yourself and your vision?

Kimberly King Parsons: So today we're going to be sharing some really actionable steps that, things that you can do to deepen your trust in yourself, your practice, and your creative vision.

And Chelsea and I are writers, but this applies to any creative practice at all. Um, so these are methods that Chelsea and I have watched our students, clients, and colleagues use [00:03:00] to achieve amazing results. , We share the fundamental belief that artists true work exists within them, fully formed already.

There's nothing outside of you that will tell you how to do your best creative work. You already know exactly what you should be doing. It's just a matter of trusting that inner vision. So we believe that the way to reach this place of trust and reassurance is to cultivate self intimacy and grow your self worth so you can freely access your creativity.

So yeah, I'm Kimberly King Parsons, and I'm the author of the story collection, Blacklight, , and my debut novel, We Were the Universe, came out in May. , I was born in Lubbock, in a small town in the Texas panhandle. , I didn't grow up in a house with a lot of books, but once I learned to read, it was like the world cracked open.

One of my favorite memories is actually hiding in a clothes hamper with a flashlight reading horribly age inappropriate books. And almost as soon as I learned to read books, I knew I wanted to write them. So my parents had grown up poor in even tinier [00:04:00] farm towns, and I'd watch my mom and dad pull themselves out of poverty by working reliable jobs that they could do without a lot of education.

And so they sacrificed a lot to give me a better life, and they weren't exactly thrilled when I told them I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. They were like, go into hospitality, go into real estate, go into anything else. But, , I didn't have examples of writers or even really readers as a kid. I don't ever remember seeing anyone read for pleasure.

Ever.

Um, but still I had this weird, stubborn sense of purpose. , and I knew that if I committed to that work, that it would lead me to the right place.

Chelsea Bieker: My name is Chelsea Bieker, and I'm the author of the novel Godshot, like Caitlin already told you, the story collection Heartbroke, and my newest novel Madwoman, which is up there, , coming out September 3rd.

I'm originally from Fresno, California, in Waikiki, , and I had a rather harrowing childhood. We won't get into that today. That's for a private session, if you will. , I was [00:05:00] ultimately raised by my grandparents, and books were a source of constant companionship and comfort. And living in my imagination was much better than the real world.

In my imagination, I could make anything happen, and through writing, I could make sense of my experiences. In high school, my English teacher suggested I work on the school paper, writing book reviews. This was life changing because I not only learned to write on a deadline and publish work I was actually interested in, I learned that I might have something to offer the world.

I went on to study journalism in college, and I believe this early taught, this early start taught me some important lessons to be a fiction writer. One, always be curious about the world around you and ask good questions, and two, it taught me I didn't need to wait for inspiration to strike. I could meet any deadline at any time.

And I didn't have to have the perfect conditions. Ultimately for me, writing fiction has been a lifeline. I trust the act of art making because it has never once let me down if I've shown up [00:06:00] for it.

Kimberly King Parsons: So Chelsea and I met in 2017 at the Tin House Writer's Workshop. Maybe you've heard of it. Um, Tin House was a real professional and personal turning point for each of us.

And afterwards, we kept seeing each other at local readings and events. , and by the time we sold our first books, we'd become really good friends and champions of each other's work. So in 2022, we started a deeper and more constant conversation around art making, which is to say that we started sending each other kind of unhinged voice memos every single day, um, talking about literally every single thing that was motivating us, inspiring, bothering us about our, um, work in both writing and in teaching.

Chelsea Bieker: We started asking ourselves how we could better serve our clients and students as more and more. It was becoming clear that just talking about craft wasn't getting at the heart of why these writers were blocked, . creatively or why they just couldn't finish that novel they'd been writing for 10 years. Or they felt a deep sense of anxiety about rejection, revision, and [00:07:00] ultimately their own intuition. They were looking for answers outside themselves and slowly quieting their inner voices about their own work.

Kimberly King Parsons: So when Chelsea and I started these deeper conversations about how we produced our own work, , seemingly in spite of circumstance, we both have two small kids.

, we both have other jobs, but we were like, How is it that we're able to produce these, these works? And in fact, often every time, every time I finish the book, I'm like, how did, how did I even do it? Um, because there's just no time for it and there's no space. But we were making the art that we wanted to make despite those circumstances.

And so it seemed that while it was difficult to trust outward things, like the state of publishing or how work was going to be received, , or what a future reader might think, it wasn't hard for us to actually make the work. We didn't have problem trusting our own vision.

Chelsea Bieker: What we started to notice was a pattern that we both used.

And while we go about things from different angles, we are often working with the same set of principles, a similar way of approaching not only craft, but the cultivation of a creative project itself.

Kimberly King Parsons: [00:08:00] So we started making classes together and we taught our first one. In January of 2023, with the aim of helping students identify the deeper reasons that they weren't making it to the page as often as they'd like, or why their fear of failure or success was prohibiting them from achieving a flow state in their work.

Chelsea Bieker: We started calling this work personality work between us because it felt clear that the greatest work most of us need to do in order to create is work on ourselves. And we realized there were two things we had in common for how we got out of our own way day after day. One, getting into the subconscious state on a regular basis.

Kimberly King Parsons: And two, using play as a means to get around the sensor mind and get words on the page. So when those two things are paired together, we're able to have productive, uninhibited, and unshakable trust in our own visions. So, , just to sort of quickly define, when we're talking about trust from a creative standpoint, what do we mean?

, we think of trust as firm belief in the reliability, truth, or [00:09:00] strength of someone or something. And in our case today, that means reliability in your own creative work and in yourself. So if you have a firm belief in the reliability of your own instincts, you can't lose. Energy that's devoted to doubt and fear can then be shifted toward your art making.

Chelsea Bieker: But for most of us, we aren't scared about the act of creation itself. Creating comes naturally to each of us. Our fears are usually about the outcome of our creative projects. And outcome sits in opposition to trust. Usually when we're not in trust, we're living in outcome. Existing out in the future in a space of criticism and judgment.

Kimberly King Parsons: So you're trying to do your work, but you're everywhere except the place that you need to be, which is that sacred space of you doing the work you need to do. Outcome is a place that's beyond our control, and it's a place that lacks energy, and it can be a place of fixation. The definition of anxiety is living in some unknown future, and so we want to tamp that down.

So the question becomes, what might you put over outcome? We can't control the [00:10:00] outcome, but what can you put on top of it? So where can you return when you find yourself concerned with things you can't control, like public opinion, reviews, sales, awards, et cetera? When we consciously identify what's more important to us than outcome, we can exist in that much more generative space of trust.

Chelsea Bieker: So consider all of these words and what they have in common. From what I see, they all hold deep meaning, they feel generative, and they're based in connection rather than separation. In and of themselves, they are worthy goals, and all of them feel conducive to creative practice. Most of all, they exist in the present moment.

Kimberly King Parsons: So, Chelsea and I were delighted, but not exactly surprised, to find that we share the same word, and that word is connection. So, we put connection over outcome. And for me, connection means finding acceptance and love for being exactly who I am. For many years, I sublimated my identity to avoid trouble, to stay safe, and to not hurt or confuse my very conservative family [00:11:00] and friends.

I was afraid that if people knew the real me, that I was queer, that I wasn't religious, that I was endlessly curious about psychedelics and deeply weird films, art, and music, that they would cut me out of their lives. It wasn't until college, really graduate school, that I was finally able to share those parts of me, and I was so afraid, but as soon as I stopped hiding, not only did the people who really mattered to me Come and support me, but it drew all sorts of new people to me, and I found that my authenticity was like a magnet, really bringing the people out to appreciate not just me, but also the work that I was doing as well.

Chelsea Bieker: For me, connection means sharing honestly and exploring things like the effects of generational trauma, mother loss and motherhood, and the long reaching ramifications of domestic violence. Connecting with readers over these themes is the gift that art offers me. So if I frame not only my art making, but also every action I take surrounding it with the desire for connection at the forefront, I know I can [00:12:00] never go wrong.

I know that with this desire first, I'm acting from a place of hope rather than fear, bravery instead of shame, and in this way, my work will find who it is meant for. The outcome takes care of itself.

Kimberly King Parsons: And so having this word in mind, the word connection, , even written somewhere where you can see it every day realigns you back to your purpose and puts you in that creative mode and reminds you of your bigger why.

Why are you doing this work in the first place? So, , we're going to invite you to consider what your word might be in a sort of casual way now, but we're going to circle back to this idea at the end.

Chelsea Bieker: When I consider what gets in the way of trust, one of the biggest things is that often we are running programming in our subconscious minds about who we are, what we're worth, and what we're capable of.

We pick up ideas about ourselves and the world in childhood, and then carry these into adulthood. For a long time, I was carrying stories that weren't even mine. Our lives now may look much different than our childhoods, but still, if not actively tended to, we can [00:13:00] remain operating under these old ideas without even knowing it.

Making decisions from that place every day. Once I learned this, I was able to see these negative old programs for what they were. Outdated, rooted in the past, and placed there by people with their own hurts, insecurities, and baggage. They had little to do with the artist and person I want to be. The one that I was.

These stories are so well worn that often we don't question them. But I encourage us all to question these things. Usually under most of these stories is a deeper story looming. Nearly always it has to do with enoughness. Not good enough, not smart enough, not something enough.

The one I notice to come up most often in classes and with clients is the writing is hard refrain, which can be applied to any creative genre. And yes, maintaining any sort of deep creative practice takes an incredible amount of dedication, tenacity, verve, fearlessness, bravery, discipline, so much discipline, steady stamina, ability to bounce [00:14:00] back from rejection, more rejection, and a little more rejection yet.

And the craft of any art form can take years and years to hone. Yes. But something happens when we label something as hard in the brain. Hard is, in most ways, a negatively charged word. If something is hard, then maybe it's also something to avoid doing. Perhaps even it would be easier to spend a lot of time talking about how hard something is versus actually doing it.

The problem with this is that we start to program this as a truth in our brains. Writing is hard. Life is hard. It's hard to get published. It's hard to find artistic community. Hard, hard, hard. And pretty soon, I do think this line of thinking brings us into a low vibrational space where creativity is sadly hard to come by.

Our brain hears us saying writing is hard, and over time, well, it believes it. And when it settles into a belief, we are also then making very unconsciously decisions from that place. The decisions we make [00:15:00] day to day from that negatively charged place wind up being our lives. Our creative practices may very well feel hard some days, but if we want to move through difficulty faster, return from fear back to trust, we want to rewrite these stories we're telling ourselves.

What aren't you asking for or applying for or creating because you think it's too hard? Who aren't you reaching out to? Where aren't you showing up because you think you're not worthy? A lot of the noise around art making that I see is reinforcing the idea that creating is hard and all we need is one more trick.

Have you tried setting a timer? Have you tried paying 100 bucks a month to log into Zoom and create at the same time as 10 other people? Have you tried just taking one more class on X, Y, and Z that will surely unblock you? We all know. Outward, outward, outward. And, of course, have you talked enough about how hard this whole gig is until your face is blue and you feel sick?

How is that [00:16:00] working? Is that bringing you closer to your project or further away? When I look back to my earliest attempts at writing, I can see that alongside learning my craft, there was something else simultaneously happening that allowed me to push forward. And that thing was doing the internal work of building my self worth.

Self worth is almost always , at the crux of our practice. If we have low self worth, if we do not believe we are intrinsically worthy of the experiences and things we desire, , then we are going to be constantly making decisions from that place. You may not be walking around thinking self hating thoughts all day, but when you really ask yourself in your deepest quiet, do I think I deserve the things I desire?

Do I deserve to make art? Do I deserve to have the life of my dreams? What comes up? I would wholeheartedly advise that there is not a craft class in the world that will teach you how to break free from self defeating narratives. That the only work I think that can move something is the affirmation deep work of identifying [00:17:00] that these things are in fact just stories that likely stem from some painful experience in childhood or adolescence, not facts, and that they, like anything else, can be rewritten and healed.

Spend the next few days really listening to both the thoughts you're having about yourself and also what you're telling people about yourself. Really ask if these stories are true, and if not, where did they come from? What messages did you receive as a child that told you to play small or else you'll get hurt or that being an artist or creative is too hard?

Where did you get the message that you aren't enough? When we can identify that and actively heal that by telling ourselves an updated story, we can move into a much more generative place of trust. But how exactly do we do this? It's one thing to talk about it and maybe a lot of us have been to enough therapy sessions to know our stuff inside and out, but maybe we still feel blocked.

We still aren't in trust. [00:18:00] It's not only about how you offer your gift to the world. It's how do you allow yourself to believe the world needs it? When I first learned many years ago now about neuroplasticity, I remember weeping with relief. I was in my early 20s and had already begun the aforementioned personality work on myself after getting sober at 20.

I was doing this really hard, honest work so that I wouldn't keep repeating the same patterns that came before me. I was still carrying a story that no matter what I did, how much I healed, I would struggle my way through life. That things might be better, but I'd always be full of anxiety, self doubt, and the very, very deep belief that no matter what I did, it would never be quite good enough.

My nervous system was stuck on high alert, and I thought I would just have to live like this. This was my lot in life. But when I learned that our brains are plastic, that certain neural networks have the capacity to reorganize themselves based on stimuli, that things are not locked in, I felt a surge of hope.[00:19:00]

New synapses can form and older, unused synapses grow weaker or eventually die. With effort, we can create new neural highways and reinforce new positive belief systems that create very tangible change. This made immediate sense to me. I had already noticed that the most powerful healings and revelations were coming to me at the beginning of my therapy sessions when my therapist would guide me in a short five minute meditation.

The affirmative images provoked during those times were powerful enough to stay with me to this day. They were powerful enough for me to move the needle with not only my nervous system regulation, but to start to heal myself in the ways I needed most. And it was happening in this place where my parasympathetic nervous system was turned on.

I was out of fight or flight and I was visualizing healing images and scenarios, all using my brain. I soon realized this wasn't something I needed to wait until my next session to do. I could do this simple technique on my own, whenever I wanted. [00:20:00] This is useful to me as an artist because my main goal is to keep my channel clear and open on a daily basis.

Kim and I call this being open for business, which essentially means being unburdened by self critical thoughts so that inspiration can always find me. Just to break down in simple terms exactly what I mean here, I will illustrate an exercise that if we were in class together or working one on one, I'd have you write out, but for the sake of today, I'll just outline it and hope you might try it on your own later.

I first identify whatever current beliefs I'm operating under based on the inner dialogue going on in my brain, anything reoccurring, or simply anything that feels bad. I'd also consider how I'm talking about myself to others. You can even ask a trusted friend about this if you aren't aware. And then I examine these findings against the story I want to be true.

Then, using affirmations or the new story I want to reinforce, I'd make a script for myself to record into my phone. [00:21:00] I'd record it, and then I'd listen to it once a day, even twice, for 30 days in a row. These are 5 10 minute recordings, nothing really in the span of a day. Two things are happening when we do this for ourselves.

1. You will quickly be confronted with exactly where you are blocked when you try to utter these self loving phrases out loud. In fact, some people find they immediately start crying or find it hard to get the words out. Harder still, if you do this in front of the mirror, looking into your own eyes. And two, you will, with time through doing this, begin to achieve a self intimacy that is based in trust.

You will have a stronger relationship with yourself, so much so that when something comes along that tests your worth or stands to get in the way of the time you've carved out for your creative work, these new reinforced neural pathways will take over and it becomes much easier to act from that updated story.

And the old one feels just that, old and useless. Doing repetitive practices that heal at this [00:22:00] meditative subconscious level is how I might explain the fact that when I was a young child, I was physically not capable of speaking in front of an audience. And young adult, actually. , yet today I'm here in front of you feeling pretty calm, really grateful, and mostly regulated.

Shyness was something I'd adopted in childhood to keep myself safe. But it was never who I was. It turned out I didn't have to accept this story. But I did have to actively rewrite it. You might feel silly saying things like, I am worthy of love and respect, or I am intelligent and valued, or I am more than enough, out loud and to a phone.

But what's even more silly than that is allowing your inner voice to be governed by something that is holding you back. Sometimes it's the simplest tools that can get us into the flow of trust the fastest. We all have everything we need to do this and perfection is not needed.

Kimberly King Parsons: I just want to add that I was really skeptical of [00:23:00] this idea of doing these sort of, um, affirmations because I grew up in a house where people considered yoga satanic, um, and, uh, therapy damaging and so I, I had a long ways to go before I got comfortable doing this type of stuff.

But I just think about athletes who are constantly, visualizing things and affirming things to themselves. And for me, , I, there's nothing I'd rather not do than listen to my own voice in a recording. So I don't do that part of it, but I do sort of say it in my brain, just sort of like, it's going to be great.

Today's going to be a great writing day. Things are good. , and I find that just repeating those things really helps me quite a bit. So it took me a while to get there. And you're from California and I'm from Texas, so I feel like there was a disconnect. , but now meditation and visualization, I use them every single day that I'm writing and it's made a really big difference.

It's also a really good way to put up a buffer between all of the normal, busy life stuff and sort of enter into that zone of creative freedom, so. [00:24:00]

Chelsea Bieker: Yeah, and you listen to visualizations that are with other people's voices. Yeah, it's the voice part. I can't do it. I can't do it. Just try it. I'll try it.

Don't knock until you try it, alright? , through this daily practice, I'm able to enter my flow state more quickly, and I do not experience writer's block. I don't even feel superstitious telling you that. That's how much I trust it. In this way, I think we can take back any agency over our art making we might have given away or not claimed for ourselves and act from a place of alignment more often.

To me, intention plus repetition equals trust. In this way, we show up for ourselves, honor our own desires and instincts, and the work meets us in that space.

Kimberly King Parsons: So Chelsea's really beautifully talked about how we can develop more trust in ourselves. But what does this look like in your daily practice?

How can you learn to trust your gut at the desk, on stage, in front of a canvas, behind a camera, et cetera? So, , desire is the [00:25:00] engine, , and I'll tell you now I'll tell you a little story about the four years I spent writing a book that I hated. This was a novel about an elephant trainer. At turn of the century, Coney Island, and this is an odd choice because a few things to note about me.

I have no connection to Coney Island. , I have no real interest in history on the whole. , and I know people might have feelings about this, but I don't even particularly like elephants. So, if you know me even a little bit, you would just be like, why are you writing a book about this? And the reason why is because I got it into my head that this sounded like a book that might sell.

, and, and if you were writing a book about elephant trainers and turn of the century Coney Island, I have a lot of notes I can give you also, but, , it might be the book for you, but it was not the right book for me. , it was also just a completely flawed logic because I was like, people will buy this.

But I would never buy that book. Like I want to buy books about people who are alive right now. Gross people [00:26:00] doing gross things in motel rooms, creepy little kids, like women making really bad decisions. Like those are the kinds of books that I want to read. , and I had a stack of stories like weird, dark stories that were doing just that.

But I had convinced myself that nobody would want them, and I was worried about the marketplace when I should have been worried about desire and about writing the book that I wanted to read. So, also, it's ridiculous because let's keep in mind how long it takes to write, sell, , edit, and publish a book.

So while you're over here writing your vampire book, you know, , the whole world has moved on to Dragon Writers or whatever, um, or S& M. I guess S& M is evergreen. But, you know, they've moved on to the next book. thing. Um, and so it's impossible for you to predict what what's going to be popular at that time anyway.

So the best thing that you can do is pay close attention to your obsessions and preoccupations and then make work in service of those things, even if they seem odd or contrary to the current trends or like they have no [00:27:00] command in the marketplace. So when you do the work that truly moves you, your truest fans will be drawn to you.

And ideally the subject matter chooses you, not the other way around. So sitting down in front of this elephant book every day, I felt really awful. I was annoyed and worse. I was bored, which is the last thing that you want to be when you're doing your creative work. , and eventually. I just had to trust my gut and put it down, and almost instantly I felt this huge sense of relief, and not long after that I got back to work on my weird little story collection, and almost instantly it sold and became the thing that really started my career.

And I, for so long I'd been living in outcome when I should have been living in desire, and I had told myself no without giving somebody else a chance to tell me yes. Um, okay. This is a, only water is for everyone. So, Not every writer does this, and your mileage may vary, but I like to read all of my reviews, even [00:28:00] really bad Goodreads and Amazon reviews.

People keep telling me not to do this, but I keep doing it because the truth is I found that the negative reviews are often super helpful, not because they have good ideas or feedback. They don't, but because they tell you exactly what you're doing right. Um, and so I have just. Pulled a few quotes from some of my favorite negative reviews about my work that I'd like to share with you today.

So, um, Sex Obsessed, Lusty Moms, Voyeuristic, Disgusting Unforgettable Characters. That one's so confusing to me, because I'm like, I, I, I would put it on the cover of the book. That sounds like a compliment. Right? Chaotic Women Everywhere. Love it. Love it. Um, goes on and on about motherhood. Um, full of bodily fluids, that's a favorite.

Bisexuality and [00:29:00] psychedelics, not my cup of tea. It turns out that that's precisely my cup of tea, so. Too dark, a foul mouthed narrator who won't shut up about herself. And the best for last, weirdos behaving badly. So,

so often artists are stuck when they anticipate some judgy future reader consumer if you're doing different types of art, but the thing is, you're never going to be able to please those people and you don't even want to because things get sticky when artists start sublimating what they love in favor for what they suspect the marketplace loves.

We get into trouble when we try to bend the work to suit everyone. The very thing that turns one person off will be the precise thing that lights somebody else up. I think you have a story about this, Chelsea.

Chelsea Bieker: I

do.

Yeah, from one of my first MFA workshops many years ago, um, I remember feedback I got a [00:30:00] lot was that I was piling on tragedy.

And it seemed that my the general consensus of the workshop group was that I needed to pick like one tragedy and just go with that. And I was like, well, that's not true to life, is it? I mean, it wasn't true to my life. Often there were many tragedies happening all at once. And I think we all know That feeling.

Um, and I wanted to be, and it wasn't that I doubted that maybe something was going on in the manuscript that needed work and needed to be fixed. But the idea that I would change that fundamental thing about my work felt immediately wrong to me. And I'm so glad I listened to that little voice and didn't.

Pick only one tragedy when 10 would do, , but the, the question became, how do I do it? Well, how do I grow as a writer to meet that drive in me, um, to meet my own desire. And that was the work of the craft. That was the work of [00:31:00] trusting myself. If I had gone in that other direction and stopped piling on tragedy, then I wouldn't have been true to myself as an artist.

. I wanted to figure out how to do it all and do it. Well,

Kimberly King Parsons: sometimes more is more and it's in a great way. So we choose our fans with every aesthetic choice that we make. And when we stop making choices because we want to please everyone, we stop trusting our instincts out of fear and our work becomes uninteresting and flat.

Only water is for everyone. Colorless, flavorless, boring. But if you lean into what really moves you, your people, the right people, um, We'll sense that exuberance and they will be drawn to you. So you really like let the haters show you where to lean in harder. , and do the work only you can do. So a sense of scarcity or competition is something that stops artists in their tracks.

Sometimes it's tempting to fixate on the accolades of someone else or how far along someone else is in their career, , or [00:32:00] the money or respect or fame that somebody else has. But when you're doing the work that truly lights you up, which is the work that only you can do, you don't ever have to worry about competition or comparison.

Nobody else sounds like you. Paints like you, dances like you, nobody has the precise combination of style and perspective that you have. Nobody will consistently make the same aesthetic choices you do, and nobody's desires are identical to yours. I can't do what Chelsea does, and Chelsea can't do what I do, and it's great.

Um, and This one is a favorite. If it's not a hell yes, it's a no. Um, so a little clarification before I get into this one. There are plenty of things I do every day that are not hell yeses. I was like doing the dishes, wiping a kid's butt. Like, yes, there's lots of things that are not hell yeses, but when we're talking about the artistic space of work, this is the one time when we get to call all the shots.

And so this concept is directly related to desire as well. And it's equally important, and it's about protecting your [00:33:00] time and energy. So this is something Chelsea and I say to each other all the time whenever there's some opportunity. We're like, well, is it a hell yes? And if it's not a hell yes, then it's probably a no.

, Aesthetically, this means giving yourself permission to skip the parts of the work that you don't want to do. I once had a client who was struggling to include a courtroom scene in her book. I don't know why. She, she thought that for this book, it was about a crime. She thought for this to be a serious crime book, it needed to have a sort of courtroom section.

, But, she didn't know anything -- she'd never been to a trial. She didn't understand how it would work. And so she just sat there day after day, stuck trying to write the scene and not writing it. And eventually I convinced her to like skip that scene and maybe go back to it later. Just show the guy. In jail, show him in prison.

Um, and then, you know, you can go back later. And of course, as you probably already know, she didn't need that scene anyway. Um, if you, if it seems boring or uninteresting for you to write a scene, imagine how that would feel for a person to try to read that scene. Right. , and so this is a writing example, but I'm sure there's [00:34:00] some sort of like.

courtroom analog and other fields, creative fields as well that you can think of and apply in this way. So the hell yes test really means making space and time for what you love and cutting out all the bullshit that you can. So we can feel a hell yes in our body. We feel a hell yes on the page or in front of a canvas or on the phone when we get invited to an event like this one.

Definitely a hell yes. , and when we honor those feelings, the hell yes muscle grows and the nose are quicker to spot. And, um, we begin to make decisions from a place of trust and everything else flows from there. So this is yet another example of outcome taking care of itself. And this brings us back to outcome.

Chelsea Bieker: So we want you to think now about these words again, and your own words. whatever is coming up for you, what will you place over outcome? , we really like to have this or I do, I don't know, do you have it written out somewhere? I like to see it throughout the day because it's very, [00:35:00] it's a nice little cue to go right back to that core kind of why, and to get you more in that creative flow versus out in all those other spaces we can get trapped in.

Kimberly King Parsons: So yeah, you don't have to do it this second. Maybe you already know what it is, but you know, there are all these little bursts of dopamine that we get every day from like receiving validation from the outside or whatever. But the thing that is really lasting about the work, the thing that stays with you when you think about what is your purpose, why are you doing this in the first place?

And so your homework is to sort of sleep on it and think about it and then maybe write that word somewhere where you can see it every day when you're working.

Chelsea Bieker: It also works with the hell yes test because right, like something like this. goes back to connection. We get to connect with all of you and that feeds our purpose.

, okay. And we would love to just briefly tell you a little bit about something that we've been working on together that we're really excited about. And It's a creative platform online where you can access [00:36:00] courses that we've created, um, all in the hopes to get you into that creative flow state more often to hone your creative practice and really feel supported, um, online.

And

Kimberly King Parsons: we're, we're about to launch. So if you go to this website, it just has a place for you to put an email address so you can sign up, , to get more information. But yeah, it's going to be a platform of visualization. So I can't hear my own affirmations in my own voice, but I can hear them in Chelsea's voice.

, and so that's been working for me. , but we're gonna have a bunch of these recorded things that you can access at any time that are, um, going to help you cultivate your own practice.

Chelsea Bieker: Yeah, that are really specific to art making. , there's a lot of, of that out there, but not as much that's super specific to creative work.

So we really felt the need to create it ourselves. Well, thank you so much. And we're so grateful that you chose to spend this morning with us and we have, Oh yeah, you put it up. , please continue to connect with [00:37:00] us. We'd love to hear from you and we hope to chat and see you in the future. Thank you.

Kaitlin: This podcast is produced by the all volunteer crew who bring you creative mornings events in Portland, Oregon. You can reach us at Mornings Portland at gmail. com and watch the videos of all the talks that are featured on this podcast, plus others at creative mornings. com forward slash PDX. Thank you to the Regional Arts and Culture Council, whose 2024 grant funding helped us launch this podcast.

Thank you also to our sustaining partner Wacom, who make each of these original events possible and to Kova Coffee, who caffeinate everyone who attends. Thank you to Johnny and Simon of Weird Wonderful for their audio production and podcast wizardry and to Laura Nickelhoff for managing production. And just [00:38:00] a huge hug to each person who's been part of the Creative Mornings Portland volunteer team over the years.

Thank you to Anthe, Brogan, Shemisa, Charlie, Chelsea, Christopher, Crystal, Elizabeth. Hannah, Yvonne, Joan, Julia, Kavir, Laura M, Maura N, Leah, Lucy, Sarah, Sumit, Tyler, and Vinny.