20: Tuning In To Your Inner Dialogue

Do you hear the voices? The inner voices that chastise or criticize you at every turn? This week on the podcast, Merideth explores how we all might tune in to our unique inner dialogues. Listen to learn how defining the negative voices inside your mind can help quiet their chatter, plus other tips. Lastly, don’t miss the exclusive offer for podcast listeners that goes live soon---listen to learn more!

Download your companion worksheet here

Read more about Graydin here

Take advantage of the special offering for podcast listeners here

19: How to Feel Better

Six months into this pandemic (here in the US, anyway), Merideth checks in and offers one idea about why so many of us may be struggling anew right now. She’ll share her experience with the Abraham Hick’s Emotional Guidance Scale (image below), used as a tool for self-regulation of emotions. This week’s episode features the music of Schubert, Grieg, Elgar, Debussy, Vivaldi, and Salvatore Di Vittorio, performed by Chamber Orchestra of NY. (Don't worry: the phrases “unprecedented times” or “the new normal” will never appear in this podcast! OK... well... almost never...)

Read the article about surge capacity here.

18: The Art of Studying and Teaching with Joy

This week Merideth explores how arts training can burn us out or zap our creativity. She’ll propose some ideas for staying joyful as we study or teach our art form, like naming and claiming your creative impulse, finding your tribe, and more. This episode features music of the most popular composer you’ll hear in any classical music school—J.S. Bach. Don’t forget to download your worksheet here to answer the prompts she mentioned in the show.

Click here if you are in crisis and need support right now.

The Mappiness Project Study

Depression and Creativity Study

Different Types of Mental Health Professionals

17: Bonus Content: The Well, a visualization

This week, in lieu of a full episode, Merideth shares a visualization exercise that explores our thirst for self-acceptance and worthiness. Join her on this guided daydream of sorts to explore the concept of an inner well; a source we all might draw from on the journey. This episode features music of Seth Waldron, Joseph McDade and Angela Sheik. 

Read more about the science behind visualization here.

Read a transcript of the exercise here.

16: Do (Not) Read the Comments

Ever read the comments and then swiftly regret it? Wonder how to manage criticism, the need for recognition, the desire to be applauded, especially in this age of the internet? Merideth shares some personal advice that one of her favorite writers offered on the subject. Plus, an alternative: how we might draw a sense of value and recognition from a different source.

Give clean water to 1 person for $50 via World Vision

Join the Artist’s Way Creative Cluster

15: Self-care

In this episode, Merideth shares some practical tips for taking care of yourself. Interwoven with music of Chopin, Swift/Rose, Piazzolla, and Bach, you’ll hear a special three part “Ode to Taking Good Care” inspired by the email signature of her therapist.

Listen to the playlist here

Enneagram workshop 8/18/20

Register for the next Artist's Way Creative Cluster

14: The Stories We Tell Ourselves

What stories do you tell yourself about your life? This week Merideth explores this concept and how we artists can find courage to change our inner narratives and rewrite the ending. This episode features music of Schubert, Schumann, and Sheik, performed by Andrew Parker, oboe and Alan Huckleberry, piano. 

Brené Brown has all the answers.

Music from the podcast

Enneagram workshop

13: Being a Beginner

This week Merideth explores the joy in being a beginner. Listen if you’re looking for grace, patience, or courage to try something new, change directions, or attempt a do-over. Merideth shares about her attempts to learn German, answers a piece of listener mail from a fellow artist struggling with the pandemic, and more. This episode features music of Haydn, Sheik, Debussy, and Ravel.

Nominate us for the 2020 Podcast Awards.

Join the next Artist’s Way Creative Cluster starting September 1st, 2020 via Zoom.

12: Buried Dreams

Italian Renaissance sculptor, Michelangelo, said, "I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free." This week Merideth explores buried dreams, what our tantrums say about us, and the hope we can find when we have the courage to dig. This week’s podcast features music of Sheik, Schumann, Saint-Saëns, and Ravel. Plus, illustrator Mike Cunningham repurposed Michelangelo's "Atlas Slave" for this week's artwork.

Listen to music from the show here.

Learn more about Michelangelo's process as a subtractive sculptor

Register for the Enneagram workshop here

Register for the next Artist's Way Creative Cluster

Nominate us for the 2020 Podcast Awards

11: Belonging

Where do you belong? This week Merideth dives into this question, reflecting on her own upbringing in small-town South Carolina. She explores how artists might find community and friendship by showing up as themselves and using their artist-eye to love others well.

Music from the podcast

Blake Chamberlain’s Artwork

Join The Artist's Way Creative Cluster

Nominate us for the 2020 Podcast Awards

10: Procrastination

Are you a procrastinator? This week on the podcast Merideth explores the role procrastination can play in an artist’s life. She proposes a few reasons why we may put things off and shares some ideas to help us keep moving.

Read the Procrastination Research Group study that Merideth mentions in this episode.

Your very own playlist.

Nominate us for the 2020 Podcast Awards here! Voting closes July 31st so don’t put this one off ;)

9: Hearing

This week Merideth remembers the most meaningful course she's ever taken, and how it reminds her that even with highly trained ears, we can be unconscious to the sounds of our own lives telling us who we are. With music of Milhaud, Bach, Faure, and Ravel, she dives deep into the topic and the task of "hearing" our lives speak.

Check out the bonus content for this episode on our website here.

Have you been or are you currently creatively blocked? Wanna talk about it? Click here.

8: Body Image

This week Merideth takes on the topic of body image and how hatred for our bodies stops us from finding joy in the artist life. She shares a bit about her personal struggles with self acceptance and offers an idea that helps her find self-compassion on the darkest days.

Check out the gallery of visual art submissions mentioned in the episode here.

Have you been or are you currently creatively blocked? Wanna talk about it? Click here.

7: Creative Block, Part 1—The Third Voice

This week Merideth begins a deep dive into the topic of creative block: sharing stories of artists experiencing it and how the words of James Baldwin spoke to the issue. Plus, she'll explain how a mysterious discovery made by an 18th-century violinist held the key to her unblocking this time.

You can see more photography by Tatiana Daubek here and listen to the chamber group, House of Time, here.

Have you been or are you currently creatively blocked? Wanna talk about it? Click here.

6: The Movement Needs You

There are no words at this moment, and so this episode is different. Merideth passes the mic to others, who voices she is honored to amplify: artists of color. They share their stories of resilience, creativity in times of anger/frustration/fear, and give us all an important call to action for artists right now. 

This episode features…
Shefon Taylor, collage artist and designer
Courtney Porter (mezzo-soprano), IG: Thelightofthesun_
Shawn Okpebholo, composer
Brandi Bey Neal (spoken word poet), Facebook: Brandi.Bey

5: Perseverance

How are you persevering right now? What is all the uncertainty, isolation, and concern of the future doing to your creative impulse, your sense of joy? In this episode of Artists for Joy, Merideth shares stories of artists facing criticism, pandemic panic, and other difficulties… and how Vincent Van Gogh offers some wisdom for how we might choose joy in the face of them. 

Learn more about Delaware Blue Rock

It’s the final week to sign-up for "The Artist's Way” Creative Cluster!

4: The Inner Critic

Madonna, Tom Hanks, Maya Angelou...what do all these artists have in common? They struggle with their inner critic. In this episode, Merideth Hite Estevez shares an approach to managing these voices and cultivating a knack for creating from a place of joy instead of insecurity, fear of failure, or a need for approval.

Madonna, Tom Hanks, Maya Angelou...what do all these artists have in common? They struggle with their inner critic. In this episode, Merideth Hite Estevez shares an approach to managing these voices and cultivating a knack for creating from a place of joy instead of insecurity, fear of failure, or a need for approval.

Madonna Article

Examples of Parallel Fifths in Bach Chorales

Learn more about the caring committee idea here.

3: Identity

Playwright George Bernard Shaw famously said, "Life isn't about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself." A quote that might seem at odds with writer and Trappist monk Thomas Merton's adage: "Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." So which is it?

Playwright George Bernard Shaw famously said, "Life isn't about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself." A quote that might seem at odds with writer and Trappist monk Thomas Merton's adage: "Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." So which is it?

Can the act of creation help you live into or find your identity? Does identifying as an artist have to mean a life of turmoil and hardship? Join us for this week's episode to find out.

This episode includes music of Claude Debussy, J.S. Bach, Georges Bizet, and Angela Sheik, including performances by Jani Parsons (piano), Gabriel Benton (piano), Merideth Hite Estevez (oboe) and the Carolina Youth Symphony.

Read more about the whale study Merideth mentions in the episode here.

There are still a few spots in the new, recently added section--now on Wednesday evenings-- of the Artist's Way Creative Cluster! Learn more and register here.

2: Your Inner (Artist) Child

Pablo Picasso said, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." This week host Merideth Hite Estevez explores how our inner artist child can help us to discover what sparks joy in our work as adults.

Pablo Picasso said, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." This week host Merideth Hite Estevez explores how our inner artist child can help us to discover what sparks joy in our work as adults. She'll offer ways to make the most of quarantine by (re)discovering the art of true play. 

Read more about the 'Harvard Center for the Developing Child" mentioned in the episode here. 

Register for the next Artist's Way Creative Cluster (which starts on May 12 via Zoom) here.

1: Perfectionism

Are you an artist who struggles with perfectionism? In this episode, host Merideth Hite Estevez explores an antidote to that feeling and more ways to find joy in the creative process. This episode features music of Angela Sheik, Darius Milhaud, Claude Debussy, and J.S.

Are you an artist who struggles with perfectionism? In this episode, host Merideth Hite Estevez explores an antidote to that feeling and more ways to find joy in the creative process. This episode features music of Angela Sheik, Darius Milhaud, Claude Debussy, and J.S. Bach with Merideth Hite Estevez, oboe with Jani Parsons on piano and Thea Lobo, mezzo soprano with pianist, Eunmi Ko. Learn more about Thea's project mentioned in the episode here and register for the next Artist's Way Creative Cluster here.