Category Archives: Shadow

031: Your Shadow & Mine

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“When you are operating from the acceptance of your whole self, YOU get to choose your path and actions freely, because there is nothing behind you from which you are running.” ~Andrea Klunder, on liberation from the Shadow

What are all the things about yourself that you would NEVER share on social media?

Ever since editing my interview with artist Sara Zalek in Episode 030, this topic of the Shadow Self has been nagging at me because it comes up a LOT in the type of work I do and I always THINK I want to explore it but…

 

This Shadow is also deeply complicit with impostor syndrome to stop me from working on creating new content or developing marketing strategies or recording episodes.

 

For example, these days, I tell myself I’m going to work on my forthcoming Podcast Envy training program and course in the evening and then I walk through the door and feel sleepy, my head is cloudy and all I can think about is dinner, a bath and snuggling up next to my kitty to CONSUME content (rather than create.) And I end stuffing down my own shadowy self watching a newly engrossing glossy TV series about OTHER peoples’/characters’ shadow sides on Netflix or HBO… (Big Little Lies anyone?)

 

And then I feel like a failure.

 

The thing I love most and also the hardest thing about entrepreneurship and sustaining creative ventures like this podcast is that you cannot do it (and keep doing it) without at some point having to really take a hard look at yourself, delve deeply into this shadow, understand it, learn to work with it and then… grow.

 

I remember lamenting to one of my best friends on the phone after a particularly difficult season of rejections and failures both of personal and professional nature… “God, haven’t I grown enough yet?! I’m sick of it. When do I just get to coast?”

 

So what is this Shadow of which I speak? Listen to Episode 031 and find out!

 

 

“It brought up ALL the insecurities, frustration, self-doubt and anxiety over every moment I have ever felt invisible in my life.” ~Andrea Klunder

Meditation questions to ask yourself

  1. What am I most afraid of right now?
  2. What have I been putting off doing and why?
  3. What would I never want other people to know about me?
  4. What would I never want to share on social media?
  5. What have I been criticizing OTHER people for doing or not doing?
  6. What are the qualities that I admire in other people?

Recommended Books in this Episode

The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson
The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford

Get them as audio books on Audible!

Resources, Links & more!

This episode was mixed by Edwin R. Ruiz of Mondo Machine.
The Creative Impostor theme music was created by JoVia Armstrong.

I’d love to hear from you!

If you’re listening in iTunes, PLEASE leave a review. It’s how iTunes decides which shows people find when they are searching for specific topics like this one.

Interested in Private Meditation or Podcast Coaching? Schedule a “tea break” with me and we’ll connect for 20min to create a vision & strategy.

 

 

030: Invoke the spark of transformation, Sara Zalek of Butoh Chicago

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“Whenever there’s a dare in my life, I say, “Oh yeah? You’re going to dare me? Then I’m going to show you that I can do it!” ~Sara Zalek, on creating the first Post-Butoh Festival in Chicago (after being told it could never work)

We are in a moment…

I discovered Sara Zalek’s work through my Edwin Ruiz (my audio engineer and founder of Mondo Machine) when he was producing video for Butoh Chicago and again during a multi-media experience of Expanded Cinema when he was collaborating with Full Spectrum Features.

Sara’s performance that night was the highlight of the evening. Edgy, uncomfortable, mysterious, beautiful –– she integrated a dance between rigid and fluid, slow and manic body movement along with a colorful analog video experiment projected behind her and electronic and acoustic music accompanying her highly improvisational experience that somehow was both coherent and evocative.

This was a collaborative piece called Still Life with Hanna Brock and Sara Goodman and, in fact, a lot of Sara’s work is collaborative and “in the moment,” exploring the life journey, full of ups and downs and dark and light.

She seeks to challenge or provoke her audience with the question: Are you going to embrace your whole self? Are you going to have memories and associations while watching this performance that have this potential for transforming your way of being and thinking in the world?

We can be anything at any time through our creative thought process. ~Sara Zalek

In this episode, you’ll learn about:

  • How Butoh dance practice exposes and celebrates our shadow side and challenges us to reveal our whole selves
  • Collaboration & improvisation as part of Sara’s process
  • The role of the arts in education and the importance of being a lifelong learner
  • How Sara didn’t believe she could be an artist when she was young

I didn’t believe that I could be an artist because to me artists existed in museums and they were dead. And they were these big epic things that I was obviously never going to be. ~Sara Zalek

  • Going back to get an MFA in Art in her 30s after studying business & marketing
  • Impostor syndrome & feeling like she would never perform again each time a performance didn’t go exactly right.
  • The role of failure in her art

No performance for me is ever the final finished work — it’s always just the process of my discovery. ~Sara Zalek

  • The role of risk in art and offering the gift of risk-taking with a positive outcome to your audience
  • How working in a business environment gave her a level of professionalism that many artists never get to experience
  • Creating Butoh Chicago and the Post-Butoh Festival
  • The web of income streams Sara generates to support her art and how she integrates it all into her daily practice
  • Business consulting for artists
  • Regional Dance Development Project through New England Foundation for the Arts and Chicago Dancemakers Lab Artist Award

An artist can never get too comfortable. If you’re too comfortable than you’re probably not pushing anymore and really then are you making art or are you just reproducing something that makes you comfortable? ~Sara Zalek

  • Embracing the shadow self and overcoming impostor syndrome by recognizing that self-doubt is a passing feeling — it’s “just me unsure in the world” — connect with the positive, remind yourself what IS working and just keep challenging yourself

To make work feel like it’s moving in a direction that’s forward, it has to be cultivated a little bit every day. ~Sara Zalek

  • How Sara discovered Butoh in the first place
  • Why Butoh is relevant right here and now and what emotional work it can bring up for you as an audience member or as a participant
  • The April 2017 Post-Butoh Fetival: Battles SS3 featuring:Mari Osanai (Aomori, Japan) is an independent dancer, choreographer, Noguchi Taiso teacher. She is based in Aomori, Japan. Her workshop focuses on Noguchi Taiso combined with the influences of her early training in Tai Chi, western dance methods, and traditional folk dance. Watch a bit about her here.Ken Mai (Helsinki, Finland) has been teaching, directing, and collaborating with acclaimed dancers, actors, musicians, sculptors and visual artists all over the world. His background includes Butoh with Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata, German expressionist dance styles, Noguchi gymnastics, martial arts, singing, zen, and philosophy of yoga sutras.Paul Michael Henry (Glasgow, Scotland) is a Butoh performer and organizer behind UNFIX, a Glasgow-based festival of live performance, dance, film, installation, workshop and debate that wants to unravel the knots in how we’re living.

Connect with Sara…

We are in a moment… How are we going to deal with all that battling? How are we going to still come together over some things rather than fight it out and have the winner and have the loser and all that rift and division? How are we going to change it? First we have to expose it and then talk about it… until we can really get beyond the idea that we can keep conflicting and keep inserting our opinions over listening to others. When are going to start really listening to each other? I feel Butoh creates  that kind of space and environment for all of those things to take place.

Resources, Links & more!

Sara Zalek

Artist At Large

I am an artist and social entrepreneur. Seeking great collaborators for community arts projects, performances, and events. I am specifically interested in bringing people together around transforming ecology and culture through art making. There is nothing I like better than making something really beautiful happen with a group of passionate people.

I am a performance artist, specifically interested in Butoh. I have been practicing and studying with many master level Butoh artists for over 12 years, now teaching and curating events to broaden the visibility of Butoh in Chicago, and to build more bridges internationally through Butoh Chicago: www.butohchicago.com

I am a marketing consultant and personal business trainer for artists. I strategically plan with my clients their business– via goal setting, website development, brands, logos, social media, promotional materials, etc. I have been working in this field for over 15 years.

Sponsored Partners

This episode is sponsored by Betsy Bash, a social media agency who can help make you the talk of the town (in a good way!)

betsy-bash-logo-copyCEO Lauren Ramsey is generously offering FREE 30min strategy consultations (for a limited time) for listeners of The Creative Impostor Podcast.

Book your call with Lauren here!

 

This episode was mixed by Edwin R. Ruiz of Mondo Machine.
The Creative Impostor theme music was created by JoVia Armstrong.

I’d love to hear from you!

If you’re listening in iTunes, PLEASE leave a review. It’s how iTunes decides which shows people find when they are searching for specific topics like this one.

 

 

028: Heal your heart, Lysa Black

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“I believe the role of an empath is that of a healer, a bringer of truth. someone that has reclaimed their own truth and can create space for other people to be able to more deeply connect with their own truth as well.” ~Lysa Black

Emotions are communication from our own soul.

I met Lysa through the Singularity Circle, a mastermind of creative feminine entrepreneurs facilitated by Isabelle Rizo from episode 026.

When I first received Lysa’s 2nd book Divine Purpose, I was thinking okay… here comes the “woo woo,” but it’s actually so grounded in her personal experience AND the experiences of clients with whom she has worked over the years.

And then when we did our interview, we had so many technical difficulties with Skype connections and internet and microphones and delays, well, I wasn’t sure what we were going to end up with AND it took me a long while to edit the interview. It turns out the timing was perfect. I re-listened post-U.S. presidential election, during which I had a disturbing and unusually intense emotional response (which you’ll hear about in the episode) and what Lysa shares helped me to figure out what the heck was going on with me!

In this episode, you’ll learn about:

  • How to know whether you are an empath or highly sensitive person and what to do with that
  • Repeating patterns and habits that stem from past trauma and how they show up in our present lives
  • Heart healing to move beyond those traumas and habits
  • Lysa’s own struggles with disordered eating, anxiety, attracting romantic relationships, and impostor syndrome
  • Using our shadow side as a guide, a friend to point us in the right direction
  • The difference between ego and intuition
  • Lysa’s path to stepping into her own power and path as a healer and author of two wonderful books

Connect with Lysa…

Facebook * Twitter * YouTube * Website

Resources, Links & more!

Lysa Black

Heart Healer & Author, Highly Sensitive Empath.

Lysa broke down at 23 as anxiety induced binge eating forced her to leave her job. Unresolved pain from the past flooded her awareness, leaving Lysa unable to deal with her own emotional volatility and high level of sensitivity. Lysa’s heart ache was her initiation into self healing, as she opened to her intuition she was guided to heal her anxiety, binge eating and pattern of break-ups to find deep self-trust & self-love.

Lysa is devoted to serving the highly sensitive, deeply feeling intuitives and empaths who are seeking experienced guidance to support, soften and speed their self healing journey.

With an undergraduate degree in world politics, Lysa has been devoted to global peace from an early age. She completed her Life Coaching Certification in 2008 and for 8 years she has coached and guided women to create in reality what their hearts long. Lysa’s first self-published book “Heart Healing: 13 principles of emotional self healing” debuted at #4 in its category on kindle amazon. This book marked a monumental shift in her work as she came out of the ‘gifted’ closet to utilise her high sensitivity, intuitive knowing and empathic awareness to discern wounding and offering personally calibrated strategies for healing shifts. Lysa has an innate gift to re-unite others with their truth. Healing miracles always manifest for Lysa’s clients to confirm their healing within.

In 2016, Lysa released her second self-published book: “Divine Purpose: 13 principles of ascension” debuted at #1 in its category on kindle and amazon. In this book Lysa uses the chakra system to illustrate the power of emotional healing through inspiring real life client stories. Lysa lives on an orchard in the rich lays of northern New Zealand with her loving husband and two beautiful children.

Sponsored Partners

This episode is sponsored by Betsy Bash, a social media agency who can help make you the talk of the town (in a good way!)

betsy-bash-logo-copyCEO Lauren Ramsey is generously offering FREE 30min strategy consultations (for a limited time) for listeners of The Creative Impostor Podcast.

Book your call with Lauren here!

 

This episode was mixed by Edwin R. Ruiz of Mondo Machine.
The Creative Impostor theme music was created by JoVia Armstrong.

I’d love to hear from you!

If you’re listening in iTunes, PLEASE leave a review. It’s how iTunes decides which shows people find when they are searching for specific topics like this one.