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NEW Minisode: Avoiding the Void and Other Ugly Podcast Updates
2 Plays5 minutes ago
It's just me today! I'm trying out solo minisodes to be able to share what's going on in my own creative journey and be honest about my struggles with my creative practice. Instead of trying to be the expert, which my silly brain has been trying to convince me that's where I'll offer the most value, I'm going to lean in to my natural nature of being a seeker and just share with you what I'm playing around with and where I'm stuck. Right now, where I've been getting stuck is avoiding my bigger creative goals because I'm scared to be a beginner again or to suck as something that I've built up in my head. Sound familiar?
I hope that my journey makes you feel a little less alone when you too are stuck avoiding things and feel like you'll never move the needle.
Be sure to follow me on Substack (@lorealexander) where I'll be migrating my online presence to try to exit the Meta-verse and connect with others in a different way and more deeply with myself. And come hang out with me in person in Tacoma on the second Wednesday of each month at Crafty AF! Let's junk journal together.
Resources
Maria Bowler
Tacoma Night Market
Off the Grid Podcast
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction to The Ugly Podcast
00:00:39
Lore Alexander
Hello, welcome back to the Ugly Podcast. I'm your host, Lore Alexander. i use they, them pronouns, and it's just me today.
00:00:52
Lore Alexander
in my just a regular plain black t-shirt, got my curly hair, my tattoos poking out, my big glasses. I'm just your little androgynous ah curly haired weirdo and it's just me.
00:01:05
Lore Alexander
So ah my voice is a little under the weather today, um but I had the motivation to actually do this. So I'm not going to let this motivation slide away and back into avoidance um as I will I'll get into in a second why I've been been struggling with that lately.
00:01:25
Lore Alexander
So, um hi.
Overcoming Embarrassment in Podcasting
00:01:28
Lore Alexander
I've actually done ah few of these like solo recordings of just me, um but you've never heard them or seen them because I ended up getting a little too embarrassed to publish them.
00:01:41
Lore Alexander
um i a lot of them were just like pep talks for myself, kind of, and then I kind of... you know, got a little embarrassed and didn't want to publish them ah for various reasons.
00:01:52
Lore Alexander
So this time I actually um have a goal and a plan that I'm going to be referencing on what I'm actually here to talk to you about today. going to try a little bit more organization on the ugly podcast for for this one, at least.
Podcast Goals and Creative Journey
00:02:08
Lore Alexander
So, yeah, i I first started making this podcast because I had discovered that I was more creative than I had been giving myself credit for.
00:02:20
Lore Alexander
i had spent the first 30 years of my life thinking that I was not a creative person. um if you are have If you've been listening to this show consistently, you know a lot of my story. um If this is the first episode that you're listening to, hello, Lore like I said.
00:02:36
Lore Alexander
Anyway, so I didn't think I was creative for a very long time. And then once I started making this intentionally ugly art, doing this regularly, I realized like, oh, I'm a lot more creative creative than I had thought.
00:02:48
Lore Alexander
And I think that that's probably true of a lot of people. And I instantly went into a kind of teacher mode and like wanting to take what I had learned about myself and share it with others because that's ah generally just what I like to do. I like to discover things and then I like to tell people about it in case it's helpful for them. That's just kind of part of my personality, part of what I ah have always been like um from the time when I was a Christian and wanted to tell other people about Christianity to when I left Christianity and wanted to help tell other Christians about leaving Christianity.
00:03:24
Lore Alexander
um And now this. So um I started this podcast wanting to share that with you all. um But I had no intention of making it more professional, hence the name The Ugly Podcast. I wanted this to just be a place where it could be bad.
00:03:39
Lore Alexander
Um, but along the way of making this podcast and expanding my business, I started to see myself as needing to be an expert.
Pressure of Creativity
00:03:50
Lore Alexander
Um, and Maria Bowler, uh, who's a, uh, creativity coach, uh, person on the interwebs. she's great. I don't know her personally, but if Maria, you are lovely and I, uh, like a lot of your stuff.
00:04:05
Lore Alexander
but she was, sh- she made a post the other day about, um you know, maybe you're a seeker who thinks they need to be an expert. And that was a slap in the face to me, ah because I think that's precisely what I've been doing. Um, especially because I've been, um wanting to make coaching more of a central focus for my business. I've been wanting to put on more workshops. So automatically my mind is like, well, I have to know,
00:04:31
Lore Alexander
everything and I have to be able to be an expert on this topic of creativity and that's been very stressful and that's been making me not want to do this and it didn't really hit me that that's what was happening until I heard that prompt and I was like oh, yeah, no, that's totally it.
00:04:55
Lore Alexander
But in the lead up to hearing that prompt, um I had been reconsidering what I want to be doing. So what I want to be doing with this podcast going forward is, one, I'm still going to be doing the interviews with amazing creatives.
00:05:10
Lore Alexander
um And I'm also going to be At least this is the intention. Let's see if I follow through. Fingers crossed that I follow through. ah The second point is doing these like mini episodes and sharing with you what I am experiencing, what I am struggling with, and what I'm looking at going forward or maybe some of my successes or whatever. Like I i want this to be kind of a place where I am ah continuing to seek and share
00:05:43
Lore Alexander
what I'm discovering without it being like, I have to have all the answers. Because that's just the pressure that I put on myself. I think, you know, one of the messages from ah growing up ah has always been like, well, as you get older, you get more experience, you become the expert, you know everything, you no longer have to ask any questions. And that's been such a harmful way of thinking for me to get out of. And like, I always catch myself and revert back, but it just, it's just a ah thought pathway that I get stuck in.
00:06:17
Lore Alexander
So I'm trying really hard not to get stuck in that.
Reviving Creative Expression
00:06:21
Lore Alexander
So I wanted to just check in with you now about like where my creative journey is at right now, because a lot of my creativity kind of got pushed back Back ah when I started going full on advertising for my workshops, um once I did the Spaceworks program here in Tacoma, where was really focusing on my business and the creativity coaching aspect of my business.
00:06:50
Lore Alexander
my own creative expression got put on the back burner. um And recently I've been realizing how much I miss it.
00:07:01
Lore Alexander
And so I'm wanting to really return to that. So one of the things that has helped me come back to that has been getting involved in the Tacoma Night Market.
00:07:13
Lore Alexander
ah with Leah who runs it. She's amazing. And she i wanted to i did a community painting at the Tacoma Night Market where I had a canvas and I invited people to come leave their mark, ah express themselves ah using just color and squiggles.
00:07:32
Lore Alexander
And when I did that, I had this thought that I could then offer people my feelings paintings that I have made over the years. i have hundreds of them.
00:07:44
Lore Alexander
And so I thought that'd be a cute thing to kind of exchange. So you put your feeling on the canvas with the rest of your community and I share a feeling painting with you. And Leah loved this idea and loved my little paintings and uh, offered to actually like fully display them on a wall.
00:08:05
Lore Alexander
Uh, just so there's like 50 of them or so sprawled out across this pegboard wall and they look, it looks pretty cool.
Art Market Experience
00:08:15
Lore Alexander
so I've been doing that. I think they've been up for about two months now at the at the night market.
00:08:22
Lore Alexander
I've actually been selling them. ah At first I was like, no, it's just, you know, you can give a ah don't I mean, it's still give a donation, but um now there's like a suggested donation.
00:08:32
Lore Alexander
And people have been paying me for my work, which is really cool. And like by capitalism standards, that's like the the checkmark of like, you're a real artist. Someone paid you for your work, which we know here at the Ugly Podcast that that is not a good measurement for success ah or, you know, and ah not a good measurement for determining whether you are an artist or not.
00:08:55
Lore Alexander
That does not matter. And at the same time, this is the world that we live in. And so it does feel nice to kind of feel recognized ah on that scale as an artist, I guess.
00:09:08
Lore Alexander
um So that's been kind of fun and interesting. And that ah because I've had them up on the wall and people have been taking them, um I've had to make more because like, oh, I'm going to run out of these if people keep taking them at the at the rate that they are.
00:09:26
Lore Alexander
So I've gotten back into my feelings painting routine of doing at least one a day. Well, trying to. Obviously, one a day is still pretty ambitious. ah you know I'm not going to do it every day.
00:09:40
Lore Alexander
Anyway.
Conquering Perfectionism in Art
00:09:42
Lore Alexander
So in getting back into this practice, a lot of my old goals have started showing back up because I'm painting almost daily and remembering how much I love it and remembering that I wanted to try larger scale paintings and remembering that I wanted that. That's why I bought some canvas stretchers and i have a giant roll of canvas sitting here that I wanted to start doing canvas paintings.
00:10:12
Lore Alexander
And I have been hardcore avoiding it with all my might. ah Making up excuses that I have other things going on. Kind of avoiding wanting like going to the store and buying acrylic paint.
00:10:26
Lore Alexander
Just full on avoiding all of it. ah Because that is the the new thing that I'm wanting to do. is like has me back in that perfectionist mindset of well because I've because I've advanced to a certain point with like my watercolors and I feel more competent again like that feeling of oh I'm an expert now I'm not but like I I have more of a grapple like a grasp on what I'm doing so then it's like
00:10:57
Lore Alexander
well, now I don't want to try something new because then I'll be bad at it again. I'm getting stuck in that. and but But coming back to my feelings paintings and getting back into the routine of doing those has really put that pressure and that motivation in the back of my head to like creep a little forward and be like, hey,
00:11:18
Lore Alexander
You want to do this and you know that this is something that you're interested in and that you want to express yourself in this. So I've actually taken steps now to fully start that. I'm starting a intuitive painting class, um which again, you don't have to start classes if you're like...
00:11:39
Lore Alexander
you can just start and do the bad thing, you know, but like sometimes if you just need that kick in the pants to just have somebody else put the materials out for you, do that. So I'm starting that in November.
00:11:52
Lore Alexander
um I will let you know, ah you know, next and on the next mini-sode how that goes. um But it's weekly ah starting in November through like mid-December um of intuitive painting classes, focusing on yeah getting your your art, your whatever.
00:12:12
Lore Alexander
It's basically what I do already, but it's just in a class setting when they have the materials already out for you. I don't have to worry about setting up my canvases. I'm just kind of reducing that barrier that barrier to entry for myself essentially.
00:12:27
Lore Alexander
So, I mean, that's kind of where I
Digital Detox and Redirection
00:12:29
Lore Alexander
am. um And a lot of this too has been coming up with ah how much time I waste on social media and on like the New York Times games on my phone, which, you know, I feel a little bit better about those. ah but And I have made like a rule for myself that I can't have other games on my phone because I will just get fully sucked into them and just waste all my time doing it.
00:12:54
Lore Alexander
If you're somebody who likes games on your phone, this isn't meant to be like a criticism of you. um It's more just like for myself. I know that when I get sucked into those things, doom scrolling, playing games on my phone, I will look up and it, you know, especially this time of year, it will be dark outside. I'll be like, where am I?
00:13:12
Lore Alexander
So I'm really ah trying to pay attention to each time that I reach for my phone. And actually this is, um I started putting my commonplace book, which is just like this little, i mean, kind of phone sized, uh, notebook.
00:13:30
Lore Alexander
I've been putting this on top of my phone. ah and then whenever I go to reach for my phone, I will either put a scribble on, ah in,
00:13:41
Lore Alexander
in the notebook or I will like write down what my brain was wanting to do. So like this page is just like reach, pick at, check, text, um, I Instagram post, you know, it's like each time I go for my phone, um, I will like I will just document what I'm doing. I'm just trying to like pay attention to what my brain is seeking at any given point because it's not always that I want to go to Instagram, which I mean, obviously a lot of the time it is.
00:14:10
Lore Alexander
um But sometimes it's I just want to check my friend's group chat and then somehow I end up on Instagram. You know, it's just like this habit. um And so I'm realizing that I want to pay attention to that and start to change some of those habits and just like care for my dopamine receptors differently.
00:14:29
Lore Alexander
um So that's that's one of the reasons why. ah My goal for the end of this year is to get off of Instagram by January.
00:14:40
Lore Alexander
So i am I've been starting to kind of just put messages out on Instagram being like, hey, if you like me here, ah please make sure you follow me elsewhere. ah Trying not to like...
00:14:52
Lore Alexander
fully be like, hey, but the you know the algorithm knows that you're trying to like get people to go elsewhere and it just squashes your post anyway. So it's kind of discouraging. It's a little scary, but i'm also I've been listening to this podcast called Off the Grid.
Artistic Themes and Personal Growth
00:15:07
Lore Alexander
I'll put details for that in the show notes. And it's been really inspiring me to get more into a different place in the internet where I feel like I can really just express myself and I'm not really worried about an algorithm or getting likes on a post.
00:15:25
Lore Alexander
um I'm more just worried about getting in the habit of sharing what I'm doing, sharing what I'm making, sharing encouragement, sharing lessons that I'm learning, that kind of thing. So that is all going to be living on my new sub stack.
00:15:40
Lore Alexander
Well, it's not a new sub stack. I started the sub stack when I was going through my divorce a couple of years ago. and I put on a couple. There's some like you can still see them. They're still up there. I thought it'd be nice to just leave them there.
00:15:51
Lore Alexander
um Just like some poems and musings and thoughts about my divorce and what I was feeling then. um So those are still there, but now it's there's I'm adding to it and sharing more about what I'm doing now.
00:16:04
Lore Alexander
I'm sharing my intentions for this blog post. I'm sharing more daily notes about ongoing things, and I'm trying to just shout more into the void and stop worrying so much about responses, which is hard for me.
00:16:19
Lore Alexander
ah like and like the and like knowing that someone's listening and someone's like, yes, I like what you're doing because I want to add value to people's lives. ah But also I'm trying to remember that like I'm allowed to exist on the internet and not add value. So I'm really just kind of discovering more of myself. i'm Like I said, I'm getting more into that seeker mindset instead of thinking that I have to be an expert.
00:16:45
Lore Alexander
I am still seeking. I may always be seeking and I want to share that process with other people um who maybe feel like seeking is very hard for them because seeking is hard for me. Like I said, avoidance. I've been stuck in avoidance for months.
00:17:03
Lore Alexander
So I guess I just want to demonstrate more of what it's like to be a seeker who is constantly terrified of seeking and who constantly wants to have all the answers.
00:17:14
Lore Alexander
Because i would love to have some answers to all the things that my brain is constantly trying to have answers for. um Especially and just right now, some of the things that I'm exploring in my own art right now are really just like, what does it mean to be a human right now?
00:17:32
Lore Alexander
why why just just gestures vaguely to myself and says why why are humans the way we are um why are we so afraid of pleasure and love why am i so afraid of pleasure and love
00:17:55
Lore Alexander
I'm exploring a lot a lot of this, and ah especially as we watch just the wave of authoritarianism, that desperate need for control and to control other people, i feel like there's – it's just so –
00:18:14
Lore Alexander
It's exactly what I've been trying to do to myself is police myself and keep myself in a box, keep myself controlled for my whole life. And now that I've broken out of that box and allowed myself to be out of control, to just experience and not shame myself, the responses that I get from my body, from my old mindsets, overwhelmingly mirror fascism.
00:18:46
Lore Alexander
So I'm finding that very interesting. So these are just things that I'm exploring and thinking about.
Listener Engagement and Community Events
00:18:54
Lore Alexander
So like I said, I'm going to call, call this here, call it good. Um, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to be doing these mini sodes maybe once a month, uh, like in between, ah my other interview set episodes.
00:19:13
Lore Alexander
And if anybody is listening, who's like a long time listener, um Thank you. And also, um please be sure to make sure you follow me on Substack.
00:19:28
Lore Alexander
ah That's just Lore Alexander on Substack. You should find me pretty easily. And I'll have it in the show notes, of course. um If this is the first episode you've listened to and you like the things that I'm saying, and you're like, sure, yeah, I'll follow along again.
00:19:42
Lore Alexander
Substack, please. um And I would also just, I would love, i don't know, let me know. i feel like this podcast kind of goes out into the void and it's very rare that I actually hear from people um whether or not like something resonated with them.
00:19:57
Lore Alexander
ah And when I do, it feels really nice. um I'm going to keep yelling into the void. So if you don't, if you're like, no, thank you. I don't want to talk to people, but I like what you're doing. That's totally fine. I appreciate you. I understand your desire to not talk to people.
00:20:13
Lore Alexander
ah But yeah, if you want to just like let me know that you listen and you like what I'm doing or if you have like something that you like a topic that you're currently struggling with that you want to hear me explore or hear me like find somebody to interview about ah about a certain topic, please let me know.
00:20:32
Lore Alexander
um i want I want to keep making this podcast and I want to keep just offering nourishment for your own creative journey while also, you know, nourishing myself.
00:20:46
Lore Alexander
So that's the goal. um If you are also in Tacoma and would like some like in-person, Creativity, creative time.
00:20:56
Lore Alexander
i'm doing monthly junk journaling at Crafty AF on South Tacoma Way. ah It's the second Wednesday of every month. So please check it out.
00:21:08
Lore Alexander
ah Come hang out. And um if you like it, you can get $7 off your future sessions. So ah Yeah, it could could be could be good.
00:21:21
Lore Alexander
Could be good. Could be fun. ah That's all I've got for you. Keep it ugly. Keep making stuff. ah Lean into cringe. Shout into the void. And hang in there.
00:21:36
Lore Alexander
All right. Goodbye.