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My friend Ana, a poet, had always felt like the black sheep in her family. The third child of 5, all of her 4 other siblings had surpassed the very high bar that their late surgeon father had set forth for them. Two were doctors themselves, 1 was a litigator, and the other was a high earning investment banker. When Ana’s mother became ill, because her siblings were all so quote busy with their careers, Ana was tasked with sitting in hospitals and rehab facilities, she had taken on a caregiver role with reluctance. She wasn’t sure she could do it, she was not often the most calming, healing presence, she feared. She brought her notebook and her computer to work on her manuscript as time allowed, and as her mother was able, they would have long conversations about poetry and writing and art and music. One day, Ana’s mother grabbed her hand and said: you were always my tender one. You see all the poems we are offered in this world, and getting them on paper, must be hard work, but you, of all my children, were born for it.
This podcast is for Ana
It’s for anyone else who might need a reminder they were born for it
It’s for artists looking for a good dose of soul minimalism
This show is for anyone looking to debunk that “tortured artist” stereotype, for those who want to believe that the creative life can bring us deep satisfaction, healing, and even joy. I’m so glad you’re here.
I’m Merideth Hite Estevez, and this is Artists for joy the podcast
SHORT MUSIC BREAK
each week I will share stories of artists seeking joy… We’ll explore how so many travelers along this the artist’s way have left us bread crumbs—wisdom and inspiration that can help us stay joyful on the journey.
This week, the first of a 3 week series on the words I chose to live by this year. I am taking a week to explain why I chose each word and share whatever wisdom i am learning as the year starts off. And today, the word is Anti-hustle. I will tell you what I am doing to quiet the constant hustle culture messaging I get about my creative work, answer a listener question about morning pages, and I’ll give you something to consider this week. But first, here’s some more music.
My email account serves as the perfect metaphor for the battle I am fighting inside my own mind right now. Let me explain. Open your own email and go to the promotions folder and each one of those subject lines, they read like errant thoughts I can’t control. Anyone else? Things I think I need, questions I am asking myself. Noise about who I want to be as an artist, female, mother. I feel unsettled and squirmy and discontent, not to mention a little uninspired and distracted. And then I am tasked with writing my own marketing emails to you, my dear listener. Selling you on offerings I am making that I truly believe in, enjoy sharing with you. And writing the manuscript for my first book (no, I haven’t signed the book contract yet, thanks for asking…lol). Any fellow creatives out there as tired of talking and thinking about marketing as I am? I don’t know about you but I feel this call towards, what one of my fellow writers calls soul minimalism. I can easily unsubscribe to emails, but what about my thoughts, my life?
Coming off the busyness and sugar high of the holidays, the pressure to just get the thing for the person even if it isn’t quite right because you’ve run out of time. Or feelings of constant not enoughness that come with every sales pitch and the general push towards being entrepreneurial, not bad things, necessary, exciting things…but what they don’t do is help me feel sustainably creative, inspired, joyful.
For someone like me, someone addicted to a certain kind of success, juilliard and yale degrees, scholarships and awards, public accolades that remind EVERYONE how great I am, BLECH, someone who tends to make an idol out of that, it is so easy to let the siren call of entrepreneurship and commercial success lure me away from my truest creative self. And don’t get me wrong, making money off your art, being savvy at business, that actually can mean the difference between stopping or keeping going, being able to feed your family, pay your bills, and feel secure, those things affect your mental health, no doubt. But my first word of the year is anti-hustle, because there is something in that life that has not been feeding me. I have this deep desire to take a large black trash bag and toss the hustle thoughts out, to clear the way, to find quiet to hear a still small voice calling me back to who I was made to be. Reminding me of a worthiness that is not connected to my performance or size or potential for a 7 figure business. I believe that creativity, artistry can bring joy when we don’t ask so much of it all the time, when we aren’t hustling it into or out of anything, when we quietly, not so glamourously perhaps, show up for the work day after day. I don’t have a notebook to sell you, because you don’t need one to change. And knowing you, I bet you already have 10 that are a quarter of the way filled.
Someone wrote to me recently, it wasn’t the first email I’d ever gotten like this by the way, and she said “I really enjoy your podcast for what it isn’t about.” I was like, “Ok, tell me more!” and She said “every art podcast I tend to find is about entrepreneurship or being successful as an artist. Of course I have a lot to learn, but sometimes I just want to be quiet and think about what is going on in my head in relation to my art.” At first I felt a little worried, because I too feel this pull for some reason to be helpful useful in a way that is concrete and clear, the shiny listen to this podcast and turn your business into a success. But i have learned to love these messages because it means I have found my people. So here’s a reminder: being an artist, and look I know you may not call yourself that yet, but being an artist is not a title you get to earn by earning money or recognition. It is a way of life. It is a title that when you claim, it can help lead the way through the hard things, through the anger, through the druggery. Being an artist means what Ana’s mother said, Catching all the poems that the world offers us and getting them down on paper.
And listen I get while people might not want that job. It can feel vulnerable, tiring. Ana worried for decades about being the quote unquote “least successful” kid in her family, but sitting with her mother in the hospital, talking about the power of the written word, she couldn’t imagine her mother discussing her brother’s medical practice or her sister’s investment portfolios. Creativity connects to a deep inner tenderness in each of us, and when we get high on the hustle, we can become numb to the quiet power of it. And when Ana told me that story, I couldn’t help but think, being a poet, or doing anything creative, it doesn’t have to be your full time gig or your whole identity as a person, and honestly wouldn’t you want your doctor or lawyer or banker to value beauty, to understand the devotion it takes to play an instrument or create an oil painting? When we are obsessed with monetizing our creative endeavors, we can miss out on the truth that being an artist is a way of life–a joyful, simple, gentle practice that can change everything.
And so anti-hustle. As I run away from a hustle mindset, which one am I stepping into? As a musician, I think I’ll call it harmony. Understanding the reality that I am running a business, and harmonizing that thought with my business is based on something delicate and childlike and pure, that is my creativity—like Ana’s mother said, “seeing all the poems that we’re offered in this world, and getting them down on paper, is hard work.” Not the kind of hard work that requires a gimmick or an ad budget. It requires tenderness, rest, peace. Madeiline L’Engel calls it “feeding the lake”, when we create from a deep sense of connection to something larger than ourselves, we contribute to a pool of meaning that ripples beyond what we imagine or understand.
So, harmony over hustle. And so my friends, as you seek out harmony in your creative and/or professional life instead of hustle, remember to yield when needed, to pause the market speak and find places where you can connect to your real voice, regardless of how well it will sell. To unsubscribe for goodness sake. And if you find yourself identifying more with Ana’s quote unquote successful siblings, having denied yourself the title artist because you believed that and grownup jobs were mutually exclusive, then remember: being an artist requires nothing of you but openness, showing up. It isn’t too late to let that harmonize with whatever other things you spend your time doing. Being an artist is a way of approaching your life, not just something that goes on an email signature.
I would take what Ana’s mother said a step further, it wasn’t just Ana that was born for getting down all the poems the world offers. I believe we are all born for it, it is an offering we get to choose to accept each and every day. The bass note has already sounded. We all are called to harmonize, not just to hustle.
I’ll be right back.
Today’s listener question is one I received on a post on instagram. They ask: here's the thing: I truly believe in Morning Pages, but my mind races ahead and the pen is too slow. In fact, I was a medical transcriptionist (dental hygienist before that) and I type over 100 wpm. That is NOT to brag, but I've felt so "shamed" for not writing long-hand, that I gave it up. I prefer typing. WHAT do YOU think of my typing Morning Pages? I'd love to hear! All best and wonderment to you, Ann
Thank you for that question! I actually get so many questions about morning pages protocols. And while I hear that Julia cameron is pretty strict when it comes to the practice of writing 3 pages of long hand stream of consciousness writing first thing upon waking, I however believe that there are many ways to self-reflect and they all have the potent power to help you find clarity, peace, and creative inspiration. So here’s my answer—type them out! The pen slowing you down is actually part of the draw I think for some people, because it does require you to think slowly and methodically as you write. But if that is going to be mean you doing them vs not doing them, then by all means type. I would perhaps set a timer because if you are such a fast typer it might not take you long to fill through whole pages of your stream of consciousness. I think it takes most of us 20 minutes or so to write the 3 pages longhand, of course it depends on the size of your notebook and how big your handwriting is if the notebook isn’t ruled, etc etc etc. Here’s a good opportunity to harmonize instead of hustle. Make this work for you. The purpose is to witness your thoughts without censoring or judging them. If that is best done through voice memos to yourself, do that. If it’s typing, do that. Here i am giving you permission, whatever self-reflection practice works for you, whatever is going to keep you coming back for more, do that.
Hope that helps. If you have a question for me I would love to hear from you. We also have a voicemail you can call and leave your question in your own voice which we will play on the show! That number 302-415-3407. You can find that and the link for submitting via email in the show notes.
Now for today’s coda
Quick harmony lesson with your favorite music nerd. Put really simply, we have melody which is the sing-able part of a piece of music, and then we have harmony, which comes from the Greek word Harmonia which means “to join things up.” So harmony is added to a melody to join it with more than one note. When more than one note is played at once it is called a chord. And so harmonization of a melody, uses chords, which involve often 3 or more notes sounding in harmony together. But, and here’s the incredible thing, in order for the notes to sound in tune with one another, some of the notes must shift ever so slightly. In a C Major chord for example, that means a chord made up of the bass note C with an E and G…when the chord is in tune, the third (the E) must be ever so slightly low in pitch to sound in tune with the C and G. So, if you had a tuner and played an E in tune alone, and then an E in harmony in a C major chord, they would sound different. In other words, the whole of harmony is different then the pure sum of its parts. Notes are required to shift if they want to sound in tune in harmony.
So my question for you today is this…
In order to find harmony in your own creative life, what are you willing to shift? Or how about this question: what’s the bass note to which all other notes in your life are harmonizing? Maybe you have set up your whole life around a job or hustle you don’t even enjoy right now. Maybe you somehow started to believe that the outward signs of success the world puts forth dictate how you feel when you wake up in the morning. Finding harmony over hustle doesn’t mean you aren’t working to be successful in traditional and nontraditional ways, it just means you get to choose the balance. If we keep believing the lie that we can be all things to all people, denying the ways our unhealthy work life balance or toxic self talk are affecting us, sustainable creative joy evades us. A renewed, simplistic return to your artistic practice in its purest form could be just what you need to join things up. Not to make money, not to share with your audience (although you may share eventually), but to simple get down the poems that the world offers. To be creative for the simple joy of it. It’s not a flashy, marketable offering perhaps, but I happen to know it's a reverberation you’ll feel across your whole life.
That’s it for today’s episode of artists for joy. It was created, written, and produced by me, Merideth Hite Estevez. Artists for Joy llc helps creatives live their best life through one to one coaching, workshops, classes, and more. If you want to read more visit our website artists for joy dot org
Today’s music featured marnie laird on piano performing some of my favorite harmony writers—debussy, brahms, mozart, and beethoven. Listen to marnie in her group @brooklyn classical. Our theme song is by angela sheik.
This podcast is free for your listening pleasure but if you wanna support the show and the work of artists for joy you can click the link in the show notes and it’ll take you to buymeacoffee.com! We are up to 82 ratings on apple podcasts and the latest from this listener who said “wow this podcast oozes calm, warmness, and rest…that makes you feel inspired. After listening to this, i just feel so refreshed. I want tounqind and actually allow myself to be creative without feeling guilty! Highly recommend!” Thank you so much for that. Many people wrote in and left reviews for my birthday and I won’t read them all here but thank you so so much for that. If you haven’t left one yet, I will put the link in the show notes for you to do so, it helps us move up the apple podcast charts and find people who need artistic creative encouragement so thank you for your help.
I have a couple of really exciting things coming to you in 2023 one is another edition of our enneagram workshop, this time we are discussing how not all creative people are enneagram 4’s and how the personality archetyping system that is the enneagram can help you create with more joy. If you dont know what the enneagram is or you want to read more about the workshop in general, that link is there in the show notes. It’s being offered at an early bird price until january 1, so don’t sleep on it friends!
We also have another artist’s way creative cluster starting in february. We just wrapped up our most recent group this week and it was just so powerful. We have renamed the breakout rooms as break through rooms lol and had a blast so read more about that and register in link the show notes. That begins february 7.
Next week I will be offer you some coaching questions to help you find harmony over hustle, so make sure you subscribe wherever you listen so you won’t miss an episode. Until next friday, take good care.
This week’s sounds of joy is a little clip from our christmas celebrations at the Estevez house. I bought my daughter a uno deck and while she did let me explain the rules for a total of 30 seconds, she insisted on playing the game her way. Here’s a clip of that not pictured is me laughing hysterically at the confidence with which she enforced her made up rules. Enjoy.