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Episode 225: Amalia Andrade Dances with Her Fears
134 Plays4 years ago
"When you are being controlled by a fear, then you are not being yourself," says Amalia Andrade, @amaliaandrade_ on Twitter.
Amalia is the author and illustrator behind What You Think About When You Bite Your Nails: A Fear and Anxiety Workbook (Penguin Life, 2020).
Subscribe to the podcast wherever you download them and keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod.
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Transcript
Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey, CnEvers, I'm Brendan O'Mara Hehe, and this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, a show where I talk to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. Welcome to it. What if I told you there was a way you could quell your fears and your anxieties? Would you believe me? Fear feeds on fear. And if you don't stop it, if you don't understand it, if you don't have the tools,
00:00:29
Speaker
You can be totally and absolutely swallowed by
Meet Amalia Andrade and Her Work
00:00:33
Speaker
it. So that's our guest today. That's Amalia Andrade. She is the author and illustrator of Things You Think About When You Bite Your Nails, a fear and anxiety handbook. It is published by Penguin Life. When you are being controlled by a fear, then you're not being yourself.
00:00:59
Speaker
And oh, doesn't that riff feel good? Sure does. So Amalia Andrade is here to talk about her new book. And we'll get to that in a moment because I want to make sure you're subscribed to this podcast, the show where I talk to, as I said, the aforementioned badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. Wherever you get your podcasts, it's like everywhere.
00:01:27
Speaker
Punch it in. Even my own name pulls it up, I think. We're making it. You can keep the conversation going, of course, on social media at cnfpod. Link up to the show. James Hetfield headbanging gift for digital fist bumps or skull with horns. That's how we roll here. Head over to BrendanOMera.com.
Podcast Engagement and Community Building
00:01:47
Speaker
Hey, hey, for show notes and
00:01:50
Speaker
to see the show notes for this show and a million other ones. So at least a million, give or take.
00:01:59
Speaker
There you can sign up for the monthly reading recommendation newsletter. It goes up to 11 now. Maybe that's what I'll name it, the 11. I don't think so. But here is something really cool that's worth trying. If you're subscribed to the newsletter, you know of course you're entered into book raffles, but you knew that. I might just slip in a little Zoom link, okay, for a CNF and happy hour on the first of the month.
00:02:27
Speaker
get a drink, hang out with, at the very least, just me. I mean, it'd be pretty sad for me to just be sitting in a CNF and zoom happy hour just by myself alone at the bar.
00:02:44
Speaker
Elbows on the bar, head hanging low, doodling on a bar napkin. You don't want that to happen, but maybe a few other CNF-ers will come too and we can talk about our work. Well, your work. You don't want to hear anything about me. We'll talk about your work or anything that's on your mind. It's only for, I think, it's like 40 minutes or something. It's the longest you can be there on a free thing of a thing.
00:03:08
Speaker
It promises to be super weird, but you know that because this show isn't your grandmother's writing podcast, right?
Amalia's Artistic Style and Inspirations
00:03:17
Speaker
Okay, Amalia's style of drawing is so fun, so whimsical, so quirky. If you love the work of Brian Ray, who did the great book Death Wins a Goldfish, you'll love Amalia's work.
00:03:32
Speaker
We talk about where her fears come from, dealing with anxiety and fear, the great Iverglass quote about taste and the creative gap, growing with her audience, developing with her audience, and making sure your dreams are bigger than your fears. She's at Amalia Andrade underscore on Twitter, and I think you're gonna love her. So here we go.
Childhood in Colombia and Impact of Violence
00:04:04
Speaker
Um, I was this really sensitive kid. I was, um, full of fears. Um, every time I look back into my childhood, I always ask my mother like, mom, didn't you see all the signs of the anxiety in there? And of course my mom, mom's factor where we see, you know, being other types of mom than
00:04:24
Speaker
I don't know, my friends or my colleagues or whatever. She's a wonderful mom, but she was busy keeping me safe because also Columbia was hectic at the time. I don't think she was very worried about the kind of fears I had. She was more worried that, for example,
00:04:45
Speaker
there were bomb threats every day in Cali. I am from Cali, Colombia, which was a city heavily attacked by drug cartels. So it was crazy. But yeah, in, in the middle of all that, I think I was a very sensible, creative, just happy little kid.
00:05:09
Speaker
Part of growing up, and especially with the drug cartels around, there were like, kind of here where you might get a tornado siren or something, there were some sort of alarms, right? If there was some sort of an imminent attack or whatever, was that true? Yeah, not in the city, but at school. So you were in the middle of class, and then the alarm would go off.
00:05:36
Speaker
and that would usually mean that there was a bump threat or that my school in Colombia we do the whole we do from preschool to high school in one same school. So my school was located slightly outside the city
00:05:57
Speaker
just to have more green and to have better facilities for the kids. Since we spent 14 years in one place, they have many, many students. So either the alarm was because there was a bomb threat or because the gorilla was nearby. So when the gorilla was nearby, it was very scary because if they kidnapped you, you were already outside the metropolitan perimeter.
00:06:27
Speaker
So it was, it was very hard for you for, for a rescue to happen. So it was crazy. And these would go maybe, I don't know. I remember when times were really heavy, it was probably two times a week, and then probably once a month. I was lucky enough that this was all happening when I was a kid. So I think there was like a special look at it. I wasn't as worried.
00:06:55
Speaker
as maybe an adult can be, there was still like some, I don't know, like, I was marvel, but what was happening, I didn't really understand, like, I thought like, okay, this is a threat, but I didn't really understand how big it was. But it was crazy, I mean, every Wednesday, our schools, we have freedom of cold,
00:07:22
Speaker
But since so many parents were being kidnapped, we held religious services to pray for them to be released and for them to be okay. It was crazy growing up like this. Yeah, well, I wonder where a lot of that fear and anxiety comes from then, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think every Colombian out there has a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety. But it's also made us very resilient.
00:07:51
Speaker
very, very resilient people because we've been through really tough stuff. And I say this, I'm not proud, like nobody, no country should grow up like this or suffer this kind of collective traumas, but it has given us other stuff as well, you know, and for example, I talked to my friends in America,
00:08:16
Speaker
right now, you guys are going through tough times. And I always say, look, I am not saying that what you guys are going is like certainly very anxious times for everybody. But I always tell them like, keep going. And also, I have found that at least
00:08:39
Speaker
crazy and heavy times, there's also a lot of creativity and you have to hang out to that, you know? Yeah.
Art as a Tool for Emotional Resilience
00:08:48
Speaker
And in what way would you say, you know, art, drawing and writing contributed to your personal resiliency?
00:08:57
Speaker
Wow, drawing especially. You know what happens with drawing, and I think it's very powerful. I was a world leader, what I would be doing is sending everybody home to draw, is that, I don't know if you knew this, but we are born knowing how to draw.
00:09:17
Speaker
I don't know if you have kids or if you know any little child. When you have a toddler, when a baby already is able to grab like a crayon, you don't have to tell them what to do with it. He instinctively knows that is for drawing. And we are equipped for that. The same we are, for example, equipped for music.
00:09:42
Speaker
When you put music to a baby, he dances. You don't have to explain to him or her, oh, this is music. You're supposed to dance to it. No, it happens. It's in you. And that is really, really powerful. And when we're kids, some kids like to draw more than others. But what happens is that it connects you to something very powerful within you because you learn to draw before you learn to talk.
00:10:12
Speaker
That means that drawing is pre-verbal. And there's a lot of power because we human beings, we think within language. So we need language to understand ourselves and to understand what is going on in the world. But also if we draw, we could access and we are able to access many of our feelings that are not verbal yet.
00:10:37
Speaker
So, you know, that's the power. That's the power of drawing. And I think writing is a great place to let go of emotions or to find yourself or to make sense of the world. So definitely drawing and writing has been a place for me to make sense of all these craziness I grew up with or of the world right now, of my feelings. So I recommend it to everybody. It's really powerful.
00:11:06
Speaker
Yeah. For me personally, it's just, it's definitely a stress reliever to, to doodle and to draw. And, you know, I usually have like a notepad of some kind near me when I'm writing or, you know, working. And I'll just pivot and I'll go to the side and just kind of draw, draw something stupid. And it's just always this ongoing thing because it's just, it really just makes me happy. And it's a good stress reliever, I imagine. For me and I bet for other people.
00:11:34
Speaker
Not for everybody, actually. I love that you just said that. You know how back then we were in the phone or sometimes we're in the phone and we're doodling and we feel like that is just relieving what you just said. It is these stressful activities. So that's exactly how it works. It releases dopamine into the brain.
00:12:01
Speaker
And how did you arrive at your style of drawing and illustrating? That's a great question. I went to, I studied literary studies. So I am familiar with, I was very familiar with writing. I've been writing on my life. I've taken creative writing courses.
00:12:27
Speaker
But at what point in my life I just stopped drawing. I think we live in a world where we tell people that drawing is for kids, unless you're very, very talented. If you're very talented, you can't keep doing it. But if you're not, that's just something you used to do as a kid. And I think that's really messed up thing to do. And so one day I was like,
00:12:57
Speaker
actually in the middle of a breakup, a really ugly breakup. And I was, you know, that kind of breakup that makes you reconsider your whole life. Like, Oh my God, who am I? Who do I want to be? Like, where did I lost myself in this relationship? Um, and I was, I had like just sort of found a beef on me. I was like, why did I ever stop drawing? It made me so happy.
00:13:25
Speaker
So I just started drawing and drawing and drawing again. And I actually think, and this is not me humble bragging, I actually think I'm not really good at it because I have no professional formation at illustrating other than I love it and I keep doing, and I've just kept doing it and doing it again and again and again. And what I've come to understand is that drawing has helped me be a better writer.
00:13:55
Speaker
In the sense that when you're in front of a white page and you're about to drop For example, I always think about self-portraits. It's your face You know it very very well, you know, you you've grown up looking at it at the mirror You look at it at the mirror every day, but then when you get to the paper and you think okay I'm gonna draw myself and
00:14:20
Speaker
It's not that easy because you sometimes don't have the technical abilities to construct or to reconstruct yourself or do what you have in your mind in the paper. And then you have to be resourceful or you quit. You have two options. You deal with frustration or you stop drawing at all. And I think that has been a huge lesson for me with everything, with fear, with anxiety,
00:14:50
Speaker
with my professional life, with my career aspirations. Either
Dealing with Creative Pressure and Perseverance
00:14:54
Speaker
I quit or I keep going at it. I think that's my style. If you ask me to describe it a little bit more, it's kind of childish, I guess.
00:15:07
Speaker
It's a lot like doodling, but it's the only way I have and I try to do my best. Oh, I love it. Yeah, I love it. It's really playful and whimsical and I think deceptively simple.
00:15:25
Speaker
I think if you tried to do it that way without, you know, just physically copying it, it would be kind of hard to do. But at the same time, it's just really, it's pared down and really just fun to look at. And it reminds me a lot of Brian Ray too. I don't know if you're familiar with him. I could see a little similarity. You just made my day. I think he's amazing. So thank you.
00:15:52
Speaker
Of course yeah his book death death winds of goldfish is Hilarious and it's just have you read that book? No, you just made my day, thank you
00:16:08
Speaker
Of course. Earlier you alluded to frustrations and everything, or dealing with those where you quit. Of course, you didn't quit. You powered through the repetition and getting to the point where you are today. What were some growing pains that you experienced in your journey as an illustrator and a writer?
00:16:35
Speaker
Well, I'm still struggling with those. Yeah, aren't we all? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, I think self-doubt is probably the word. I know it's very cliche, but every time, you know, I don't remember. I think it's Mary Carr who says this brilliant, brilliant line. And she says, the last book never writes the next one.
00:17:06
Speaker
And that is just, to me, that is such a powerful phrase because it hides so much truth. You know, people believe that because you've had published one book that it's going to be easy peasy to write the next. Even yourself, sometimes you're like, oh, I did this so I know how to do this. And then you're there writing and it's like, oh, no, no, this is a whole new thing. I have no idea.
00:17:34
Speaker
And it's, I feel, I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like a baby every time I'm writing a new book. I mean, it's, there's a part that is fun and it's very, you've grown, you learn new stuff. You feel confident about other stuff. You feel energized about starting a new project.
00:17:56
Speaker
But then there are other stuff where you're like, oh my God, I have no idea what I'm going to do next. For me, I think that the growing pain that is the worst is that I feel this horrible, horrible pressure of I need to top myself. I need to be better than the book before. Way better. So I think that I am putting in myself a lot of stress and weight and
00:18:25
Speaker
Yeah, basically that and it's hard. Yeah, that could be very paralyzing in a way too to put that kind of pressure on yourself to do better than the previous work. And in some cases, I imagine if you put that kind of pressure on yourself, it might be hard to get to that blank page and hard to start filling it up with stuff, filling it up with
00:18:50
Speaker
you know, shitty drawings and shitty words just to get it to keep going. So in that sense, do you deal with that?
Bridging the Creative Gap
00:18:58
Speaker
And how do you how do you deal with getting over that maybe creative paralysis to proceed and get the next work done? You know, I think I have come to understand that everybody has their own process, especially for me is my first book
00:19:17
Speaker
was an instant bestseller in Latin America. So that has been a blessing, but it's also has, it's brought up difficulties. I think my learning curve is now available for everybody to see.
00:19:41
Speaker
You know, so I am not that I am not like this seasoned writer who who published her first book already very wise. No. And I kind of like it that way. My books reflect that I am young, I am learning. And that I hope that you see this learning curve with me. So for me, it's been understanding that, that I'm going to grow
00:20:10
Speaker
in the eyes, I'm going to grow with my audience. And that has helped me stop the paralysis sometimes, or most of the times. I'm like, I'm going to do what really rings my heart. I'm going to do whatever book sparks like this creative force in me, because I do think we feel creative forces when we're in a book project.
00:20:39
Speaker
Um, and I'm just gonna follow my heart. It sounds really, really cliche, but you have to do it because otherwise if you let yourself, um, be paralyzed because of these thoughts, then you're just never going to do anything else. I, I really love Philip Glass. No way. Is it? I read Glass. Philip Glass is another guy. Yeah. Yeah. Philip Glass is the penis, but I think they're, um, they're related actually. I think they're cousins.
00:21:08
Speaker
No way. Really? I just found out. Yeah. That's crazy. Thank you for teaching me so much stuff today. Yeah. So Ira Glass has this amazing, I think maybe he said it on radio of course, but they turned it into a video and he says, you started writing and you started doing creative work because you have good taste, but you know that your work
00:21:37
Speaker
is not there yet. So for example, I can look at, for example, I don't know, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. When, have you read him? Oh yeah, yeah. I love his work. He's just, he's brilliant. I know. He's so brilliant, right? So I recently just read 100 Years of Solitude again. I tried to write that, to, sorry, read that book at least once a year.
00:22:04
Speaker
Every time I close that book, it's like, oh my God, it's perfect. Like, I wouldn't like every comma, every word, every, everything in that book is just perfect. It makes sense. It's wonderful. And I, well, I'm a Colombian, of course, I look up to him and I'm like, you know, I know he's amazing and I know I'm not there yet. So I have two options. I quit.
00:22:34
Speaker
Or I keep doing work and doing work and doing work and doing work. And only by doing a lot of work, I'm going to close the gap between that good taste and where I am creatively today. So basically that's what I do to get out of paralysis.
00:22:54
Speaker
that's brilliant and I have to admit I'm so I'm so jealous of you because you can you can read Marquez in in Spanish because you know of course I can only read the translation in English and I and it's beautiful in the translation I can't imagine what it's like to read it in the native tongue
00:23:15
Speaker
That translation is actually a really, really good translation show. So you are not very far apart from what it is in Spanish, but yeah, he's a delight. He's a delight. He's just a genius, genius guy. I love him. Yeah. Oh, that's great.
00:23:31
Speaker
And yeah, that Ira Glass quote that you pulled up, that is, it's something I read over and over again. I know the video you're talking about, too, where they kind of animate it, and it's just, it's so brilliant to try to, you know, your taste is what's killer, and you know, you gotta develop those skills, and then slowly that gap begins to close.
00:23:50
Speaker
I really just I just love that image and you have to you know that can that gap can be you know we want to believe or we hope it's like oh maybe it'll be a month or a year but sometimes it can really be 10 years it can be 15 it can be an entire lifetime but you just have to really get comfortable knowing that you just got to keep leaning into it right yeah I think it's actually the idea that it's gonna take a lifetime and
00:24:16
Speaker
It actually makes me feel better because I'm like, oh wait, so I'm like, I don't know, maybe when I'm 60, I'll write like something really amazing. So I really have a lot of time. And it makes me feel good. But yeah, that video, everybody who's doing creative work, and especially every writer,
00:24:37
Speaker
should just live by those words. I mean, I remember the moment I saw that video and it was like, this is more genius. And the video is so beautiful and well produced, right? It's amazing.
00:24:51
Speaker
it gives you confidence that even these people that you admire and you have that they're like major league they are the the best of the best and when you when you hear them just talk honestly that even even those people that are so skilled that it it's work for them and that they were never they weren't just as brilliant as they are now like they were at one point this little guppy in a pond and then they had to
00:25:17
Speaker
They had to grow up and develop and through rigor and hard work and tenacity that's when you know they are the master of what they do and it gives it's got to give you confidence to know that if you're just if you have some vision and you're willing to do the work that maybe you won't be as good as them but you will be pretty damn good if you just kind of if you focus and lean into it and just apply a lot of hard work.
00:25:41
Speaker
Yeah, totally. Actually, Garcia Marquez, he was part of a generation and a group of writers from the Atlantic in Colombia from a city called Cartagena. That is really beautiful. Everybody should go visit Cartagena. This is the most amazing place on earth. And actually, within his friends, he was considered the least talented.
00:26:10
Speaker
And there were really geniuses in this in this group. And they used to mock him like, Oh, yeah, you're not that talented. And, you know, you're what you're writing is kind of cliche. And he was like, Yeah, whatever, I'm gonna write every day and every night. And he did. And that's how he got better, I think, or not better. I'm not gonna say that about Garcia Marcus. But
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah, he's, he was very persistent, very, very persistent. And I think we have this idea that people, and especially in creative fields, that there's like the figure of the genius. And I think those figures do exist. Like, I don't know, I think of Susan Sontak. She was a genius. I mean, that girl, she was born with a really high IQ. And she was just, you know,
00:27:03
Speaker
Very, very brilliant. Have you ever read her diaries? I have not, I haven't. I've read a lot of her essays, but not her diaries. Oh my God, her diaries are crazy. It's like this girl writing amazing stuff when she was like 16. I was listening to Britney Spears when I was 16. Anyway, there's the figure of the genius.
00:27:33
Speaker
But there's also, you know, persistence and perseverance. And that is very important for me, because I think sometimes we look, we look up to the geniuses, and we look up to them to, to, you know, make ourselves feel kind of bad, like, Oh, my God, no, I have, I, like, it's so clear to me, I wasn't born a genius. And I think
00:28:01
Speaker
like success or doing good stuff, it's about persistence, so yes. Yeah, it's like one of your illustrations in your latest book where you just have it, my dreams are bigger than my fears, and it's one of those things where if you keep that in mind, you know, whether it's, you know, Marques being told that he was cliche, but he's just persistent in writing in the face,
00:28:29
Speaker
that criticism it's one of those one of those things where you just like alright you've got this vision and you just got to sit down and do the work so I imagine like that really resonates with you that you're you know having that in your head my dreams are bigger than my fears yeah that is huge for me also and it takes me back to my childhood like when everything was very scary I used to dream really big I used to remember being in my room and
00:28:59
Speaker
I'm saying, okay, I live in this world or I live in this city and this country that is very scary, but I wanna be a big writer. I wanna go big. Actually, because I had the luck to go to a bilingual school, I used to read a lot in English. I used to have these penguin classics that were sent to me for homework
00:29:30
Speaker
And I used to love the little penguin and I was like, one day I'm going to be published there. And this sounds really cliche. I'm really corny. But I think that dreams, when you believe that your dreams are bigger than your fear, it's like a lifeline. It helps you. It guides you. It gives you purpose. So yeah, I do believe that dreams have superpowers.
00:30:00
Speaker
And so you were at a bilingual school and you were reading some English as well. So who were some writers that really stuck with you and inspired you? Oh, I remember when I was in elementary school, probably the biggest part of my literary, I don't know, inspirations were books,
00:30:30
Speaker
that are, I think, canonical to high school teaching in the United States. So to me, it was books like, I don't know, maybe, please tell me if you recognize some of these titles, but I Run Away From Freedom was one. Well, J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, the first book I remember going like, oh my God, was Little Women, of course.
00:30:59
Speaker
I was like, wait, you can be a writer like Joe? That was, I was like, Oh my God, that's what I want to be. That was very, very, um, formational for me. But after that, Sylvia Plath, the bell jar was absolutely amazing. Um, so writers like Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf were people I looked up to very much growing up.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah, in your book, too, you cite a great quote from Jose Saramago, and he's such a brilliant writer, too. His book, Death with Interruptions, is one of my all-time favorites. I don't know if you've read that one. Yeah, of course. It's amazing. Yeah, and the quote you cite from Blindness, which I haven't read yet. Oh, no, you have to go buy that book now, Brandon.
00:31:56
Speaker
No, no, no go buy that book. It's gonna be it's it's so amazing you're gonna rub it
00:32:03
Speaker
Yeah, I'm writing that down right now in my journal here. I'm like, as soon as we're done, I'm like, yeah, I'm just gonna go pick that up. But you write, you know, or you cite that, you know, fear can cause blindness, instead the girl with dark glasses, and you know, it goes on a little bit. And when you came across that quote, given that your own experience with fear and anxiety, you know, what did that do to you? That must have just resonated so deeply with you.
Understanding and Managing Anxiety
00:32:30
Speaker
Yes, I mean,
00:32:32
Speaker
Fear and anxiety are so powerful tools and also are so powerful, you know, just feelings.
00:32:42
Speaker
Have you experienced serious anxiety in your life? I've had some panic attacks in the past, and I definitely have what I would call more or less kind of a low-level dread every time I wake up in the morning, just thinking that nothing is possible.
00:33:05
Speaker
you know, thinking that success is for other people and that it's just kind of like, why even bother? And then just having that kind of that stress that comes with, you know, trying to take a leap and do something creative and take some agency over life. You know, sometimes I feel a bit paralyzed by that, you know, most mornings.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, I feel you so much. I feel that way too. But my anxiety is like that and it's also very much worse. I have generalized anxiety disorder and I have panic disorder and specific phobia disorder. So sometimes it's really hard and I think fear and anxiety
00:33:55
Speaker
do make you blind. You can't see anything. When you're in the middle of a panic attack, it's very hard to get yourself out of there. When you're consumed by fear, it's very, very hard to see other stuff. It's like you've been, to me, it's like the feeling of being swallowed by like a monster or something like that. So what I've learned is that it's really important
00:34:23
Speaker
for everybody to understand fear and to understand anxiety because I think we know how like we are pretty familiar with them in our bodies or in our minds.
00:34:36
Speaker
But it's crazy how we have no idea how it works, like how this fear works. Like, yeah, there's a snake. I feared the snake because I am afraid that it's gonna, you know, kill me. So I run. That is very easy to understand. But then for example, fear of commitment. That is not as easy to understand. Or fear of failure. That is not as easy to understand.
00:35:04
Speaker
Or just, for example, fear of your whole country going down the tube. That is something that is very hard to grasp. And if you, like, fear feeds on fear. And if you don't stop it, if you don't understand it, if you don't have the tools, you can be totally and absolutely swallowed by it. And I think that is a really hard way to live. And I think many of us are living that way.
00:35:34
Speaker
And I think we do not deserve to live in fear anymore. But I also think that since fear is so powerful, it's being used against us. And I think we need to understand fear today more than ever. So we don't let others govern us with fear.
00:35:59
Speaker
Like one thing is how you govern yourself in the face of fear of anxiety. And I want to give people that tool. And that's why I wrote this book. But I also want people to be prepared and to not let others use fear against them.
00:36:19
Speaker
What would you identify as something that's maybe number one key to understanding fear? And then maybe what are some tools that you identified that are integral to dealing with fear and anxiety? So maybe someone can take that first step. So the first thing is that fear is very exaggerated.
00:36:45
Speaker
It's very dramatic. It's very over the top. So unless you're in the middle of, I don't know, a very bad wildfire, you need to check and see if the feeling of fear is actually, it corresponds with the threat. What happens, Brandon, I think is that
00:37:10
Speaker
Brendan, sorry, is that we are at a point in life where biologically our bodies have not evolved as fast as our technologies. And what is starting to happen is that we, well, because of the gap between
00:37:39
Speaker
our evolution in our bodies and the evolution of technologies and also because we live in a society that is constantly telling us that we need to be comfortable and that we need to seek happiness and that we need to seek joy and that those are the things that are most wanted to. We feel very bad when fear is in our bodies
00:38:07
Speaker
We don't know, we do not want to be uncomfortable. We freak out. And you know, fear feels very bad. It feels bad in your body. It's an uncomfortable feeling. Your hands get sweaty. Your heart gets crazy. You don't really know what to do. You're like, oh my God, you want to flee, which is your basic instinct. And it's good to be there, that it's there because
00:38:37
Speaker
Fear is not bad. Actually, fear is good. Fear saves you. But we've been taught that is not a good feeling. And to me, that is crazy that we live in a world where there are good and bad feelings that is just bananas. There are just feelings. They're all part of you. They're all they're all great. So I think
00:38:58
Speaker
One thing that I would tell people is the first thing is to check the correspondence if the fear is really as big or is it really that big of a threat as it is presenting itself. And number two, I know this is hard, but try to feel comfortable within the uncomfortable. It's okay to feel fear.
00:39:26
Speaker
Like, it feels kind of bad, but it's okay. You are built to feel fear and, you know, the more you resist it, the bigger it gets. What you resist persists. So I think those two things are key to facing fears and to getting through fear.
00:39:46
Speaker
That's great that what you resist persists. I just wrote that down. That is such a great way of phrasing it and a way to digest it in such a way where you can really... It's a way to approach fear that isn't an overly macho or masculine way.
00:40:06
Speaker
to dive into it you know you gotta conquer your fear you know if you can find a way to uh you know to kind of swim with it to dance with it uh it's a way to to quell it over time and it's uh it doesn't have to be slayed it can definitely be sort of um sort of i don't know lived with until you're able to you know let it let it fly away if you will that that image of dancing with your fear it's so powerful
00:40:36
Speaker
And it is true. That is exactly what you have to do to dance with your fear. And I love that you say that it's important not to put it in these macho and very war-like language. Fight it. Conquer it. Kill it. Fight it. I already said fight it. But yes, dance with it. Make friends with it.
00:41:04
Speaker
understand it, be more compassionate with it. We live in fearful times. So it's okay. But also don't let yourself like, like your fear is not necessarily bigger than you. That's not true.
00:41:24
Speaker
Fear is so powerful, so powerful. I think the most powerful forces on Earth, and this, again, is going to sound very cliche, are love and fear. Because fear has this superpower of making itself or presenting itself so much bigger than it is. And when you look at it in the eyes, you know, it's
00:41:54
Speaker
it immediately reduces its size. So it's like a big magician, like an illusionist. That's it. Fear sometimes is sort of an illusion. So you need to be well equipped to see through the illusion.
Drawing as a Means to Confront Fear
00:42:16
Speaker
And that's what's so great about your book, too, that it incorporates drawing and illustrating. I found that over the course of reading your book and just really sitting with it, that if you're able to just draw out your fears or illustrate it in such a way, it almost
00:42:36
Speaker
It makes it easier to, you know, obviously visualize and to deal with when you can kind of make a caricature of your of your theory. You can almost you can almost make it look silly. It's like, oh, what do I have to be afraid of? Like, if I can draw it like this, it's just a very I don't know. It's it's much easier way to sort of deal with it. And I think you've really do that well with this book. Is it is that something you find to that being able to draw is such a great way to cope with it? Yeah, it's an amazing way to cope with it.
00:43:06
Speaker
especially because fear also feeds from, from silence. You know, there are fears that we're, we want to talk about that, for example, oh, I'm really afraid. For example, I'm afraid of planes. Like I used to travel a lot, but it didn't mean that I wasn't afraid the whole time I was on those things. Like for me, those things were not made by God. Like I'm really afraid.
00:43:32
Speaker
And even though I have all the information that it's easier for me to die from sleeping on a banana than from my flame crushing. But there are fears that you're willing to talk about. And then there are those fears that I always say this example. It's like that thing you fear so much.
00:43:56
Speaker
that you fear just speaking about it because you fear that if you speak about it, then that fear is going to come true. That fear is the fear that you will need to draw and you will not have to draw or need to draw that at the beginning of the book, but definitely at the end, because that is the fear that is holding you a prisoner.
00:44:25
Speaker
I think when you draw that fear, when you take out that power of silence out of fear, it definitely helps you cope with it and it helps you visualize it and it helps you understand it. Because sometimes there are fears that are never going to go away and that is also okay. I fear that my mother is going to die.
00:44:49
Speaker
I'm never gonna say, oh yeah, she's gonna be an old lady and yeah, my mom is gonna die. I think nobody thinks like that. It's always gonna be a scary thing. She's your mother or she's someone who you grew up with or whatever. Or for example, I'm not a parent, but I think it must be very scary to bring a kid into the world and to
00:45:17
Speaker
consider all the bad things that could happen to that kid. And that probably is never gonna go away, but you need to understand it. You need to, I don't like the word control, but you need to be, I don't know, like you need to have a place for it or understand the thought process behind it than just being controlled by it because
00:45:46
Speaker
When you are being controlled by a fear, then you're not being yourself. And I think in this world where there are so many limitations already for you being yourself and so many things that disconnect you from your source of true power, don't let fear be one of them.
00:46:10
Speaker
And one of the parts in the book too, I think it was early, or yeah, very early on in the book you kind of ask, you know, pose a bunch of questions, you know, what things are scary and whatnot. And I like that you, in one of them you say, which is scariest, it was like falling in love or success, failure, growing up, your accountant's face, all of the above, like it's hilarious.
00:46:34
Speaker
But I was really, I was happy that you put that on success. We always hear fear of failure, but I think sometimes it's also the fear that maybe this crazy idea I have might work and then you're on the hook for it. And I think there's, I don't know, I think that's something that's not talked about as much that, you know, we always demonize failure. But, you know, there's also a fear that
00:46:58
Speaker
things could actually work out and then what happens if you're actually living an idealized life? You're kind of out there on the front of it. So I don't know, maybe you can speak to that about the fear of success as something that can hold someone back. Yeah. Actually, a lot of people fear success. The thing is that we don't
00:47:22
Speaker
Like that fear doesn't present to ourselves like that. Like you will never hear somebody say, oh, I'm so afraid of success. No. But it manifests itself in these feelings or through these mechanisms where if you succeed, your life will be so much different. And being successful
00:47:51
Speaker
brings a lot of responsibilities. Being successful changes people's life completely.
Fear of Success and Embracing Dreams
00:48:01
Speaker
Completely. And it brings new responsibilities and it's crazy. We live so, you know, we live so constricted by fears. We live so constricted by limitations.
00:48:16
Speaker
that it is wild to think that those things just go away. One day you get it all, like, boom, you got it. And that scares people a lot. It's like, oh my God, wait, I have that power. I have the power to make my dreams come true. And I think that is very scary because that means that you have the power, that you are powerful in the true meaning.
00:48:46
Speaker
Because powerful is like politicians are not powerful. You are powerful. You just have to wake up every day and do what you want. The difference is that I think we live in a society that measures success in a way that is not really fair sometimes.
00:49:06
Speaker
So you've written this great book about fear and dealing with fear. So what would you say is the great takeaway that you want people to take away from this book when they pick it up? I think I would say that you don't have to be controlled by fear, and you don't have to be controlled by anxiety. And you just need to know that there is more life outside your own fears
00:49:32
Speaker
more than you imagine if that makes sense. Your dreams are bigger than your fears, so hold on to that and don't let fear win over you or control you.
00:49:50
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, Amalia, this was so great to get to talk to you about your wonderful book. So I wish you the best of success with it in a day and a year with less fear every single day, I hope. Thank you so much, Brendan. And I hope to see you conquering the world, too.
00:50:17
Speaker
So that does it, friend. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks to Amalia for the work. Go check her out. Go get her book. It's really fun. And that breaks it down. If nothing else, it's just really fun to look at and find. She's really funny. The book had me just LOL-ing, as the kids say. It's a super cool book. And I hope you pick it up for the nail biter in your life.
00:50:42
Speaker
Don't forget to leave a review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts. We get on a roll sometimes and then they dry up. Let's keep shoveling coal into that fire. If I made something worth sharing, consider linking up to the show on social media and tag me in the show at CNF pod so I can jump in the fire with you and jam. I have no parting shot today. I've got nothing to say other than things are mighty bleak here at CNF pod HQ.
00:51:09
Speaker
And if you can do interviews, say it.