121: The Artist's Oath Series: No. 2, Sara McMahon

This week on the podcast, Merideth chats with Sara McMahon. Sara is a classically trained actress with tendencies to fly by the seat of her pants.  She is an improv instructor and performer who teaches others how to enhance listening skills, playfulness, empathy, connectedness, and liberation from fear of failure.  She performs and teaches at Unexpected Productions in Seattle and is an emerging papercut artist.

Sara shares her Artist Oath and reminds us to love the scene we’re in.

You can view her work on Instagram @saramacpapercuts and her website: www.saradelighted.com

Register for the Artist’s Oath Workshop to write your own.

Podcast Transcripts

120: The Artist's Oath Series, No. 1

This week on the podcast, we begin a new series featuring the topic of one of our most downloaded episodes from Season 2: The Artist’s Oath.

What is your relationship like with your creative impulse? How do you feel when you show up to the blinking cursor, the studio, and the rehearsal? Have you ever wondered if it’s possible to change the patterns in your mindset, the inner chatter, the lens through which you see your creative self and your work?

Join us this March to explore how crafting your Artist’s Oath can bring more joy to your creative life and hear from listeners from the Artists for Joy community.

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119: Listen to this when you need courage

Self-Coaching Questions:

1. Name your "why." What do you most dream of doing? What do you want your life to be like? How can your greatest gifts meet one of the world's greatest needs? 

2. What is your current creative routine like now? Are you able to find a rhythm of consistent small acts of creative devotion? What obstacles are getting in the way of you practicing your art form with joyful consistency, so you can feel that net of safety under you as you leap?

3. What do you believe to be true about the nature of creative work? If the metaphor of comparing it to a game isn’t helpful for you, what metaphor is? If you return to those questions around your "why," do you believe that reaching your goals and living your dreams is possible? If you don’t believe that today, what roadblocks stand in your way? 

Musician with original or public domain music? Email merideth@luminaarts.org

118: Courage

How do we cultivate more courage? Why is it an essential attribute for the artist? How do we become more assertive and brave in the face of hard things? Merideth shares one of the moments of her career as an oboist that required some significant courage, plus inspiring results of a listener poll. Listen to learn three concrete ways to be more creatively courageous.

Emily A. Pastor IG

Emily A. Pastor Website 

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116: Shame-resilience

This week on the podcast, the final installment of the words-of-the-year series. Merideth explores how shame affects artists specifically and lays out the four steps to becoming shame-resilient according to Brené Brown’s research. 

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Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart 

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115: Listen to this when you feel blocked

Self-coaching questions to work with your resistance:

  1. When you look at the distance between who you are today and your dreams or goals, what would it take to get you where you want to go? What stands in your way? Write down a few goals and the resistance that shows up when you take steps in that direction.

  2. Take one or two of the obstacles you are experiencing as resistance, lift them up, and look under them with curiosity. What feelings, fears, or resentments do you find there?

  3. How are you benefiting from staying blocked? (That question is inspired by Julia Cameron). How are your blocks serving you? How does the resistance benefit you?

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114: Resonance & Resistance

This week on the podcast, the second of our three-part words of the year series: resonance & resistance. Merideth explores an exciting reason why resonance is a word of the year, plus she’ll offer some concrete takeaways for how to find your voice and get unstuck. 

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113: Listen to this when you need to slow down

This week: a musical meditation BONUS, featuring music of Debussy and Brahms, played by Marnie Laird of Brooklyn Classical. 

Self-Coaching Questions: 

  1. What is the current balance between your push to succeed and climb the ladder, with rest, recalibration, and restorative solitude? What needs to shift for you to feel more harmony, peace, and deep creative joy?

  2. What do you want those who see, hear, or experience your work to feel or know? Do you feel or know those things yourself?

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112: Harmony vs. Hustle

Any other artists out there tired of thinking/talking/obsessing about marketing? This week, Merideth shares the first of a three-part series based on her words of the year. The first word—anti-hustle—calls her to a simpler, quieter, more harmonious way of life. She also answers a question about morning pages, all to the beautiful music of Debussy, Beethoven, and Brahms performed by Marnie Laird of Brooklyn Classical. 

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111: Your word(s) of the year

This week on the podcast, Merideth leads you through the process to find your own word(s) of the year. Grab your journal and earbuds and explore the prompts paired with meditative music to craft an intentional, creative year with joy.

Reflecting back: Browse the photos of your phone from the last year. What do you wish there had been more of? Regardless of whether you had word(s) of the year, what would you say your word of the year might have been, based on how you lived and what you did?

Looking forward:

  1. Answer this question with stream-of-consciousness writing– “This year, regardless of my circumstances, I want to feel….“ Write as many words as you can about how you want to show up in the year ahead.

  2. Now go back through those words you wrote and circle the ones that resonate most. Look especially for verbs or action words. Take the list of circled words and make a fresh list.

  3. Lastly, sit with this longer list of words for a few days. Talk to a loved one about it. What activities, deadlines, trips, events are coming up in the next year and which of these words will help you show up as you most want to, regardless of the outcomes or circumstances? Try to narrow the list down to the few that matter most. Share your word(s) with me on IG so I can cheer you on.

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110: Listen to this when you need joy

This week on the podcast Merideth offers a musical meditation for when you need joy. Listen for the coaching prompts and use your journal to explore each one.

Pick a work of art (perhaps one that is not in your usual art form) and as you listen, consider the three G’s of finding joy:

  1. Gratitude: What are you most grateful for? What is most precious and important to you right now?

  2. Grief: Right next to your gratitude, you might find feelings of disappointment, pain, loss…in one hand hold the gratitude and in the other grief.  What needs to be grieved?

  3. Goodness: What goodness do you believe to be true? Regardless of your faith background or religious affiliation, preach the truths you believe to yourself. Whatever is good, whatever is noble, whatever is TRUE, remind yourself of all of that now.

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109: All I want for Christmas in joy (and a book deal)

This week in our annual holiday episode, Merideth discusses the waiting and wanting stage of the creative life, how she's managing the hurry-up-and-wait phenomenon of trying to get traditionally published, and all she's learning this advent. Plus, listen for tips for managing those holiday questions from well-meaning loved ones we all dread. 

Sarah Brooks Christmas piano

Melinda DeRocker Christmas album

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108: Listen to this when you feel burnt out

In this week's bonus self-coaching episode, consider the following as you listen: 

1. What are your expectations for your work, your family, your creative life? Take a few moments and write down what you expect of others and yourself. Where and to whom do you need to communicate those expectations?

2. What boundaries need to be set? Write a few statements that begin with "I" to claim your space and directly name what you need.

3. Where in your schedule can you fit in some rest? Set a boundary and keep the appointment with yourself.

Today's music features Andrys Basten performing Amy Beach, Roxana Pavel Goldstein playing Dvorak, and Merideth Hite Estevez and Sookkyung Cho playing Schubert.

107: Burnout

This week on the podcast, a frequently requested topic: burnout. What is it? How do you keep it from happening? And how do you bounce back? Merideth shares a story of the biggest burn out moment in her career, plus 3 tools or frameworks to consider for reducing or recovering from burnout, with a fun twist.

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