A Path to Deep Creativity
On invisible children, lipstick-free mirrors, and why economics books have no poetry
Every once in a while someone comes into your life, shakes you like a gin fizz, and leaves you changed and full of wonder. For me that person was writer, anthologist, and creativity coach Shelly Oria. My blessed sister gifted me some coaching sessions with Shelly and WHOA— this woman is a sorceress. Our work together was like an artistic re-parenting: full of wisdom and tough love and shedding bogus habits to make way for joy. Coaching: not just for gymnasts and pentathletes! Now, whenever I sit at my desk, I use tools Shelly taught me. Shelly trained at the Adler Institute and with Julia Cameron and has been coaching for 15 years. Here we discuss the path to creative vitality. I bring you the luminous Shelly Oria.
Shelly, you’ve worked with so many artists. Do you have an overarching philosophy of creative health? Or is it more a palette of approaches you use?
When people ask, "What's a creativity coach?" I say, "I teach people not to be assholes to themselves." My approach is a fruit salad— it’s Adler, it’s Julia Cameron, it’s from my own experience as a creative person in the world— but the core of it all is about self-kindness.
Regardless of the conundrum we're trying to unpack, it can distill down to, how is the person being harsh to themselves? It's not just about being your own best friend or cheerleader, but about how we can get in our own way with harshness. When we are too critical of ourselves, it can really harm what we're trying to achieve.
How is cheerleading different from self-kindness? That seems like an important distinction.
Self-kindness is the umbrella. Under that, cheerleading is a subsection. It's necessary, but insufficient. Self-kindness is also about acceptance.
The point is that self-kindness is harder to achieve than we realize. I'll always come upon ways in which people are being assholes to themselves. For some, it's hard to admit— it's not how they think of themselves.
Or it's so ingrained, maybe we don't even see how we criticize ourselves.
Right. There is an ethos in most of us: “being hard on myself is how I achieve.” So there's fear that if I'm too kind to myself, I won't do anything. I’ll just watch TV all day.
And I'll be the enemy of the American concept, which is a lazy person.
Right. In the American ethos, lazy is the worst thing you can be. And how do you be that? Be too kind to yourself. So all of that combined is quite something to battle.
Instead, I encourage people to think of the creative part of ourselves as a kid. That inner kid may throw a tantrum and not want to do their homework. If this is your actual kid, you're not likely to say, "Cool. Don't do your homework." But as a good parent, you're also not likely to scream that they're worthless.
If we're imagining ourselves as good parents to our inner creative kids, abuse is probably not effective. Even if it achieves the goal, it will only achieve it very short term. An actual kid will maybe get scared and do it. But will that make them a studious, curious student? No. Same with us.
We can take the inner creative kid by the hand and help them do what's important.
We can take the inner creative kid by the hand and help them do what's important. Let them air their grievances. Ask, "What would help you?" Maybe sandwich it with activities that they want to do. The point is, you work with them.
And to extend the metaphor, the output you get from that kid under conditions of abuse is not great. Being abused and criticized is not how anyone does their best work.
Exactly. And while a parent looms large, nothing looms larger for a human being than our own brains. If you have that inner parent yelling at you, that has such an effect.
Shelly, I didn't even realize this until now, but I bet the work you and I did influenced a writing group I started, which is not about critiquing each other, but about supporting each other as we all try to do something hard. I don’t know if that would occurred to me, otherwise, as an option for how writers could spend time together.
Beautiful. That makes me really happy.
Are there patterns you see in how the absence of self-kindness shows up for people trying to make art?
What's that movie? Everything everywhere all at once? <Laughs.>
People are often using a comparative lens, which is always unkind—comparing yourself to someone else. Especially with work habits. People are so different—what they need and what projects need is so different. You might think, "Oh, that person works five hours every day and I'm only showing up for one pomodoro [25 minute block]." One core way artists are unkind is placing our attention on the lack—what I'm not doing, in work habits, artistic choices, professional achievements, what we've done to date. The act of kindness is always to place your attention on what is.
Rather than what is lacking.
A lot of people believe if they give themselves credit for that, they'll never do more. I've seen the opposite. For some people, showing up for five minutes is what they can do. If you tell yourself that's nothing, next week you indeed won't do it. Why would you, when you have a voice telling you that's worthless? But if you say, "For me, that was really hard, and I showed up for those five minutes," you're more likely to do that again. And maybe week three, four, 15, you're able to double that.
Comparison is something I think many artists struggle with. What do you suggest people do when they notice they’re doing it?
When you're in a comparative state of mind, gently move your attention away from that and say a thing about yourself instead. Bring your mind to a thing that you have done or a choice that you are making in this moment.
It’s good advice!
Another manifestation of this focus on lack is when we have a project—say, a book—at some point you start to see what the book isn't. Everyone goes through this. And every book that has ever been created is not all the other books. It's not trying to be. What burden are you putting on it to be other than what it is? That's also the work of parenting.
When you go to the extreme, it's comical, right— if you're writing a book about economics and you go, "But there are no poems here." It’s not even a book of poetry! We do it all the fucking time.
And critics do it!
Oh, critics do it. Don't even get me started about that whole failing institution.
Why do you think we have this compulsion toward comparison and what's lacking?
I think it all comes from fear. Say someone is writing a book and it's plot-driven. Suddenly they go, "It's not lyrical at all!" What are they saying? "This thing I'm making, it's not good enough." It's a protective mechanism. It's an internal part saying, "Be careful, you'll be judged. So let me judge you first."
Could it be that when we create, we sense that the art is externalizing something about us? What if it sucks? Does that mean that I suck? What if I make something stupid? Does that mean that I'm stupid?
Yes. So much of art is vulnerability. I believe that's really what distinguishes good art from great art—which is language I would never use as a coach, but as an artist, that's what I believe. How much did an artist allow herself to go there, to really be vulnerable? That’s what makes a thing incredible.
When we're trying to make a thing, we're trying to be as vulnerable as we can possibly be in service of this thing. And then we're fucking vulnerable! It's really scary.
And it's acting in opposition to our cultural conditioning, our social and family conditioning, which says, "The stuff that's weird about you, keep that bottled up. Nobody wants to see that shit."
Except art is only that shit, please. In a concentrated way.
Yes! Why is vulnerability so important in art, do you feel?
Because it is such a powerful energy that connects and reflects humans to each other, like nothing else. There's something about it that is more, dare I say, animal, more primal, than all our intellectual explanations of it. It's energy—that pierces through and connects. It’s powerful.
And you can feel it.
Yes. I think that's the feeling we get from art. I'm not saying that's all of what I'm responding to when I'm deeply moved by a work of art. But it's a big part of it, for me.
I was just listening to Brené Brown say that our vulnerability is something we share with people who have earned the right to see that part of us. But if you're making art, there's no pre-vetting! You are opening up to literally anyone.
To the universe, to the world, to whoever picks it up in the whole fucking world.
So maybe that's something else that distinguishes the artist. It's someone who's not waiting for a personal love connection.
It can't be conditional. It's not a controlled environment.
I want to ask you about creativity tools you feel are most useful, for your clients. Which do you love?
Morning pages— shout out to Julia Cameron— is a top tool: three pages you write longhand in the morning. Anything you write about is great. It's not only for writers, sometimes even more important for non-writers.
When people struggle with this tool—they have some inhibition—my guideline is get a shredder. Write it. Shred it. Write it. Shred it. Usually later they stop shredding.
What else?
I'll often use an idea tracking tool—just carrying an idea notebook with you. You overhear something funny or weird. Or it could be a line you read, any thought that's interesting to you phonetically, thematically, whatever. You write it down. When you start training yourself to do that, you end up having more ideas.
If you think about your projects as ideas trying to come into the world through you—are you letting them know the gate is open?
It's important that it's analog versus digital—specifically not your phone because we associate so many stressors with our phones, and what I want is a relationship between you and a space where you go to record an idea quickly.
It's this mysterious thing about the way psyches work—when we start recording, we get more ideas. Or we catch them more.
To use your idea of the "inner kid," maybe— in a spiritual sense—when you write these ideas down, your inner kid feels, "My ideas matter."
I love that. I think that's really true.
And if you don't, your inner kid might think, "I'm not important."
Exactly. If you think about your books or projects as ideas trying to come into the world through you—are you inviting them? Are you letting them know the gate is open?
For people who aren't spiritually inclined, I talk about training your mind. It's just as valid. But the spiritual, energetic perspective you're offering now is quite potent.
It reminds me of a conversation I had with John Cotter. He noticed while writing his memoir that the more he remembered, the more he remembered.
It's quite similar—an openness that we create. We open the gate, we say welcome to something, and then it comes in.
Yes!
And then there's "dialoguing.”
I love this tool! I use it all the time.
Dialoguing is a written conversation between two perspectives that live within us. It acknowledges that we're each a symphony of many voices, many parts. And an invitation for parts we perceive as in tension to talk to each other.
We often have a dominant part we're more comfortable with. I'm thinking of a client who kept saying, "I'm fine with that, it's fine, it's fine." Maybe that strong self is 80% of how we feel on this issue. And there's a smaller part—maybe it's 20%, sometimes it's 3%—we're squishing because it's so small. It doesn't even matter.
And at the same time we're scared of it. If we weren't, why wouldn't we just let it speak? Three percent can get us in trouble if we don't listen to it.
Even the feelings in us we want to squash—everything wants to live.
This has been so powerful for me personally—to access multiple perspectives, in the present moment, and put them in conversation. Why is it so important for that 3% to be heard?
My dear friend Hossannah Asuncion, a wonderful poet, said to me, "Everything wants to live." Even the feelings in us we want to squash—everything wants to live. That 3%, that little self, wants to live. If we don't acknowledge it, it doesn't go away. So it is forced to find its way—often destructive, often unhelpful. Think of a kid being ignored. The smaller they are, the less resourceful they are. The more they are likely to resort to kicking and screaming, tantrums.
Subterfuge! Passive aggression.
Correct. They’re ignored. They're being told they don't matter. They feel unseen because they're not seen. They find their way to be heard, because everything wants to live.
I’m curious what happens to us creatively if we ignore parts of us that want to live, want to be heard. Does it create noise in the creative channel?
That's one manifestation. Then we don't know why we're feeling restless and unable to work. You brought up passive aggression—it could create an unhealthy pattern in one of our relationships, or a day job, that distracts from the work. Those are two examples; we can give a hundred more.
I will also say as artists, the more awareness we have, the better it is for our work. If there's a part of us we are committed to not listening to, we have less awareness.
I also connect it to the vulnerability we talked about—usually if we block that 3%, it's because we're uncomfortable with it. So 97% of me says, "I'm fine with this thing," and 3% says, "I'm not okay with this. It hurts, this is scary." That's the more vulnerable part. What would our project, our creative health, benefit from? Going into that vulnerability, learning to care for ourselves through that.
I'm also thinking about the fact that as artists, the job is to try to understand the human experience. I don't know what art is for if not that. Seeing oneself clearly seems like a very important thing to do, if your job is to understand the human experience!
If you're going to offer it to others, do that work on yourself. If I'm coaching, I'm doing self-work. Maybe that's also a responsibility we have as artists.
Another tool you use is affirmations. They have such a funny reputation—this aura of cheesiness.
I blame how Hollywood represents self-help. New clients are like, "Am I supposed to write them with lipstick on my bathroom mirror?" I'm like, "No, Hollywood!"
What do affirmations do for us?
The work I do is sometimes like trying to hold water in our hands. It's like, "Wait, but what was that amazing insight I had two months ago? Lemme go back to my notes. Fuck. How did I forget that?" And we relearn a thing a different way. That's all beautiful and part of the journey. Affirmations help us grasp things we want to remember. The core is to remind yourself of something you're likely to forget, but you do believe it and want to ground yourself around that belief. It's a practical way to keep the insights with us. So we create a pool of affirmations—a file, a journal, a little shrine. We go to that pool and draw from it.
Also, if we believe in the energy of language to create reality, we write something—knowing it is not yet true—as if it exists. It's like vision work. It's a different form of reminder, a reminder with an arrow toward the future, of something I want and believe that I can achieve.
The feeling that we're doing work now that is truly helpful— that to me is the electricity.
I find they also give me agency over my internal environment. It’s like choosing what I eat. I try to eat healthy food and not Cheetos! And I try to talk to myself in a healthy way, as a healthy input.
A hundred percent. Say there's some persistent negative self-talk. We might pause in session to write an affirmation, summon a kind, gentler part of the self and write an affirmation that's a response to that harshness. Whenever you become aware of that negative self-talk, we release and replace with the affirmation that we already have prepared.
I remember when we were working together, you said that if I set my book project aside for a while, I shouldn’t assume “it knows” what I'm doing. I love this conceptualization. You describe the book as its own energetic entity.
If we believe that the work we are creating is an energetic being, what are the implications for how we relate to it?
Whenever you create something out of nothing, you're being God-like in your aspirations. That's beautiful, and it can get us in trouble in some ways.
There's humility and surrender organically forced by the notion that, yes, I'm making this thing, but this thing is also its own being. To use a parenting metaphor, yes, I have made this person, but also, they're their own person. I can help them along, but they're going have their own traits, their own agency and will. There's humility in that, right?
Same thing here. Once we acknowledge that a being is of us but also separate from us, there's something humbling about that that I think is very good for creative health.
Also, when we acknowledge that our art is a being outside of us, we tend to be more gentle with it.
Just like we're often nicer to other people than we are to ourselves.
No joke. When the work is too intertwined-- when it's within us and is us-- we attack it. When it is externalized in the form of a sensitive, delicate being you care for and are responsible for, our gentleness shows up.
People are so vulnerable with you, Shelly. I imagine you're just having, like, zaps of electricity constantly.
<Laughs.>
Have you had peak coaching moments you can share?
With any newish client, there's often a turning point when you start to really form a connection, and I feel this person trusts me. Then the feeling of, OK, we're doing work now that is truly helpful— that to me is the electricity. That's the moment—for however many clients I've had over 15 years.
That's beautiful. Is there anything you want to say about the politics of this moment?
The first 48 hours after the election, some clients were in shock. Some said, "I don't know if I'm going to creative again." But a shift happened. In the days since, people are saying, "I actually feel more creative now" or "My art is the place I can escape to." People feel like their work matters more, and gives them something they didn't need before. That's giving me a lot of hope.
The End of Bias: A Beginning, my book about how people have reduced bias and become more fair, just, and humane, is now out in paperback.
