Summer Rewind: How to Protect Your Writing Time, Energy, and Creative Worth with Carolyn Fallert

Lisa Cooper Ellison [0:00]
Well, hello, Carolyn, welcome to the Writing Your Resilience podcast. I am so happy to have you on today.

Carolyn Fallert [0:05]
I am thrilled to be here.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [0:07]
Well, what’s exciting is you and I have worked together for, gosh, how long has it been? A year and a half? Almost two years?

Carolyn Fallert [0:14]
Yeah, almost two years. I think—Oh my gosh. Time goes by so fast when you’re having fun.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [0:17]
Yes, and I always have fun working with you, so I’m really excited to introduce people to you and to talk through your questions about the writing process. Before we get to your question, what would you like us to know about you and your writing?

Carolyn Fallert [0:34]
Well, for all the listeners, I want people to know that I did not start my career in writing. I have a background in applied mathematics and in business management. I worked as a management consultant for several years, helped manage an international recruiting firm, and burned out in my old job. I had always loved writing for fun and very falsely kind of dismissed it as indulgent and like a side hobby. During COVID, I had left a job and was kind of in limbo between things and decided that I was going to give writing a go in a more serious and dedicated way. It’s been four and a half, almost five years, of a really dedicated practice in creative writing.

 I have to say, I am so much more connected with myself, so much more grounded in who I am, really being rooted in a creative writing practice and shifting careers. My parents think that I’m crazy. The big shift, I think, surprised a lot of people, but where I am now in this creative writing journey… you know, I was working on a first project with Lisa for a couple years, and I got really stuck. One of the best pieces of advice that Lisa gave me was that when I was feeling stuck on that first project, to pick up something new. So now, I’m working on a book about my personal journey learning the practice of self-defense as someone who has experience with assault. What’s interesting is that it started as a book about the practice of physical self-defense, but it’s going much deeper into this place of practicing more of a metaphysical self-defense. So, what does it look like to defend space, to be the most authentic versions of ourselves? And I’m learning so much just from writing the book. We’ll see where it leads me in terms of whether it ends up being out in the world and published for people to read. My hope is that whatever learning, revelations, and healing I get for myself will one day be accessible to readers.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [2:46]
Well, I have no doubt that it will. And I think one of the greatest joys for me is I remember when we first started working together, you already had some amazing writing chops. I love that you have this math background. I’m going to start sending all my math problems to you! You have this eclectic background, but you already had these strong foundational skills, though there was a lot of doubt. What I love about looking at you today is seeing the light in your eyes. There is a joy that I didn’t see when we first started working together, and it’s just like my heart is singing.

Carolyn Fallert [3:25]
Absolutely, I feel that. I remember the first conversation we had. I was spinning with this first book draft that I was working on and describing the process to you—writing, redoing my outline, writing, redoing my outline, kind of like going in a spiral. You described it so perfectly, where you were like, “Carolyn, it sounds like you are in the middle of the ocean, swimming in circles.” And you, as a coach, invited me to come in and point me toward land, help me start swimming toward the direction of the shore. It was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment because I was exhausted from swimming in circles on the writing process. From the moment we started working together, you helped me access that inner intuition of finding that compass—like, which direction I should be headed, to get to land and invite more ease and joy into the writing process itself. And yeah, it’s just been a joy working together.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [4:30]
And what I love about the full circle of that metaphor is that, yeah, I could see the exhaustion in your eyes. You were working so hard, swimming in the middle of that ocean. Now, you have this wonderful Instagram, and you had a recent post where you were just swimming so well—doing these laps so powerfully, so strongly. I love that. Because I used to be a really strong swimmer when I was younger, and now I don’t have this kind of, like, kicky leg that kicks out to the side. I am not as strong a swimmer. But I loved seeing that because I feel like it’s this incredible metaphor. You were in the ocean, I pointed you towards the shore, you got on the shore, you rested, you got the skills you needed, figured it out, and now you are swimming so well on your own. And that’s beautiful.

Carolyn Fallert [5:19]
Yes, I love that. There is so much power in being in the water. It’s amazing. Like, we talk a lot about the psychological experience of writing memoir and how so much of being able to process things as we’re writing about them is not just a cognitive practice but also a physical practice. I know this from a lot of the yoga practice that I do, even in self-defense practice. One of my favorite things to do after writing is to go for a swim. I think part of it is that bilateral movement in the water, especially with a freestyle stroke. My body and my mind simultaneously move through things that I’ve written about and let it really move through my body and let it go. I love that.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [6:01]
This is the perfect segue to talk about your question. So, you came in with a question. Can you tell us what that is?

Carolyn Fallert [6:08]
Yeah. So, being steeped in the practice of self-defense, one of my questions for you as a writer and a creative is how you think about protecting both time and energy for your writing and your creative practice? And then, not just the time and energy for your writing, but also how you protect its worth.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [6:30]
Yeah, that is an amazing question or set of questions, and there’s a way that I would have answered this, I don’t know, maybe even a year ago, that’s different than how I would answer it now. I think I can talk about the basics. Actually, Lilly Dancyger, on the day we are recording this, her episode airs. She talked about having a calendar and blocking it off, and she actually colors the day out in pink to say, like, “No, no, no, no, no, you cannot schedule anything else.” I think, you know, scheduling things, making things sacred, making sure that you have time doing it first thing in the morning, if that works for you—the earlier, the better—is helpful because then you set the tone for your day. So, those are all great strategies, and I do try to use them as much as I can. But life gets in the way, right? Sometimes I go through busy seasons, and I don’t have time to write. So, what do you do when you’re in those seasons? How do you come back from it? I think routines are fantastic, and I’ve lived by routines throughout my whole life, but sometimes the routines aren’t enough. Like, what if I have a dentist appointment in the morning? Do you know how hard it is to reschedule a dentist appointment?

Carolyn Fallert [7:46]
My dentist is scheduling a year out now.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [7:48]
Yeah! So, sometimes things are going to come up in your day, or you may find that the problem isn’t your process. The problem is that you are trying to work against your nature. That’s one of the things that I’m beginning to really think about for myself. So, we’re going to talk about the nature piece, and then we’re going to talk about the value piece.

One of the things I’ve been studying is human design. In a few weeks, I’m going to have someone who is a specialist in human design come on. But I’ll give you the bare-bones basics, as I understand it right now. Your human design is basically a report that gives you a sense of who you are. It’s based on astrology, the I Ching, Kabbalah, numerology—it’s based on all these different systems, quantum physics, all this stuff. And what it does is give you a sense of how you operate in the world—where your energy comes from, how you use your energy, what the obstacles are that get in your way. Sometimes, people will encounter concepts like enneagrams, which is another system or way of thinking about personality and your makeup, and people will wonder, “Is there legitimacy to this?” So, I’m going to say something. I was at the Psychotherapy Networkers Conference last weekend. I don’t know a lot about enneagrams, other than they are patterns of personality, right? And that’s all I can tell you about it. But someone wrote to me once and said, “That is not based in science, and this is crap.” And, you know, people have their own opinions. So, thank you very much for your opinion. But I wondered, “Okay, is this legitimate?” So, I was in a session with Dan Siegel, who’s one of the foremost researchers on attachment theory. He has done so much scientific research based solely on the scientific method, and he came up with this entire system for how to think about attachment theory and how your temperament and attachment wounds come together to create personality.

He came up with nine different patterns that largely match the Enneagram. When I was in this talk with this high-falutin scientist, and he started talking about it, I realized it also matches what I know about human design, which was fantastic. It was amazing to have this scientist validate things that I knew intuitively were right.

We all have different ways that we operate in the world, and I’m just going to talk specifically about myself. For me, I’m a generator. About 33% of people are generators. We are people who have almost unlimited energy. We are the makers and the creators of the world, right? That’s what we do. I’m also an Aries, so I have a lot of fire, and I can have a lot of like, “Come on, go do it,” right? That’s part of my nature. So, when people say, “How do you do all this stuff, Lisa? Where does your energy come from?” It comes from inside. I really do have that. It’s not made up. The thing is that generators—the way we’re supposed to think about our opportunities in the world—is to wait for things to come to us and then really connect with your yes and no internally. We’re not necessarily supposed to go out and find new opportunities. We let the opportunities come to us, and we pay attention to where they are in the world, and then we think about that yes and no. And this is related to how we think about our writing.

I have tons of energy, but there are certain parts of my makeup that don’t work quite as well. I have so much will that I could share it with other people, and I would have will left over, but my motivation can be a little shaky. And it’s not that I’m not a motivated person. You work with me; you know that I’m a motivated person. But channeling my motivation in a direction can sometimes be a challenge, and that’s because I need other people. I need to feed off their energy. So, when I think about my writing time, yes, I write alone, but sometimes it’s easy for me to give that away because my motivation requires me to be in connection with other people. What I’ve found is like this Aikido style of self-defense, right? Aikido is like working with the energy, pulling the energy in, and using that against the person. It’s to say, “Okay, I know this is how I am. How can I be in writing groups where we are doing generative work?”—which is one of the things you’re doing—but how can I do that where I’m not the leader? I don’t always have to be the leader. I have other people that I do this with, and I am drafting off their energy, and it feeds everyone, right? It’s this wonderful way of using my sensitivities and knowing about my motivation to figure out what works best for me, and it may be vastly different for you. So, yeah, really understanding that makeup is helpful. I’m going to be quiet here for a second to see what you have to say.

Carolyn Fallert [13:01]
Yeah, I mean, there’s such an abundance of wisdom in that, and it’s really, really powerful. So, I’ve completed a yoga teacher training, and two of the requirements in this training were to do an astrology reading and also a new numerology reading. And before having done either of them, I would have been like, “Oh, this woo-woo stuff. I don’t believe in it at all. Where is the scientific evidence? Or like, I need my math proof?” I honestly would not have done it if it wasn’t required as part of getting the certification. In both the conversation with the astrologist and the numerologist, I was blown away by their ability to pinpoint really accurate dimensions of my personality. For astrology, numerology, if it’s human design, whatever framework you want to use, I think whether people believe in them, from a scientific perspective, there’s a lot of power in having someone kind of put a mirror up to you.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [13:47]
Yes, absolutely.

Carolyn Fallert [13:49]
And to be able to look at that reflection and say, “Does that resonate? Does it not?” Exactly, and are there elements here that seem surprising to me that I never thought of before? I think both the astrology reading and the numerology did that for me. And part of the dimension of it was really validating in that, in both readings, they kind of mirrored back to me that a lot of the way that I work is I’m incredibly humanitarian—like, I care deeply about people and about society and about community and wanting to be generous and giving and supportive. And for me to show up to any of that work, I am a deeply introverted person. So, I must refill my well of energy with a lot of solitude, yes, and a lot of self-reflection. And so, what’s interesting hearing you talk about human design, it resonates so much, kind of thinking about even my writing process. To be able to sit down and write, I have to just start with a well of energy and a well of creative inspiration. And the way that you get to that, I think, is different for every single person. And part of what I’ve been learning about myself over the past four years is how do I start to cultivate that energy for myself? Because the way I cultivate it for me is different from the way that you would cultivate it for you, which is different from the next person. I’m thinking about some of the connections to self-defense and all of this. And, you know, one of the primary practices of self-defense is being able to listen to your inner intuition and your inner wisdom. I think Glennon Doyle talks about it as inner wisdom. When I can tap into that inner wisdom and knowledge, that’s the source that tells me what I need to be able to refill my energy to then return to the page, or to have things to give to the page. So, everything that you’re talking about resonates really deeply. I love that.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [15:59]
I love that, and I love that you said that, you know, it’s different for everyone. And really understanding what that is for you and tapping into that intuition is helpful. And the fact that you need to fill your cup first—I think, true for everyone. How you fill your cup is going to be different. But in order to be able to write, you have to have your nervous system set to a dial or a channel, I’ll say, that is both relaxed and awake, like a sense of awakeness and openness to possibilities and to what’s around you, and enough relaxation that your amygdala, which is where you get your motivation from, is not focusing on danger—that fight or flight. So, everyone is going to figure out what that is for them. But I think understanding your makeup, and how you work and how you do things is how you implement some of these strategies. Like, okay, if you know all these things, then you can put the time in your schedule, and you’re going to feel confident that it’s going to work because you understand your needs. And then you can use the Pomodoro method, which is to work for a certain amount of time, take a break. You can do all the different things that help people with productivity because you understand who you are, and you’ve tapped into that. So having spaces where you are quiet—whether that’s quiet with others or quiet with self—is important. And that’s about the process, right? How do we protect our time by understanding what we need, not just implementing strategies? And then there’s that more psychological piece of, how do we value this enough to supersede some of our conditioning? I was in a class where I was asked this question: if you got a million dollars, what would you do with it? And I want you to just think about, like, I’m handing you a check for a million dollars. Tell me the first ideas that come to your mind.

Carolyn Fallert [17:56]
I mean, the instinct is to want to share it off the bat—to give it away. Like, I could list dozens of organizations that are doing incredible and valuable work in the world right now, resisting some of the chaos that’s happening in our country. So, my instinct is to want to give it to those organizations and empower them to use it in the way that they want me to.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [18:22]
That was my first inclination, too. I was like, “Oh, I’ll start a foundation. Oh, I’ll do this. I’ll give it to this group, that group.” There was no thought of, like, “Oh, I’ll go on a vacation, or I will, you know, do these other things.” And I think we have our nature, and then we have conditioning. And as women, we have the conditioning that we are supposed to nurture others, and we also have hormones that kind of support that. And so, some of that nurturing is like divorcing yourself from your own experience—taking care of others over self—and then we can have our histories, right? And then that’s about the internal messages that we have. So, it’s a multi-layered thing that can happen. So, I think one of the things you need to do is understand: what are the stories that you are telling yourself? What are the stories that the world is telling you that influence what you value and what you see as your value? Because I work with so many women, in particular, who feel like writing is trivial, or it’s the thing I have to push off to the side because I need to be making money, and I need to be doing X, Y, and Z for my family or for my spouse or whomever, right? I need to be seen as productive, and this work that makes me feel alive, makes me feel whole, is not necessarily, quote-unquote, productive. And I’m going to call bullshit on that right now. That’s not true. If you feel alive, you’re going to be more productive, and you’re actually going to be a better human being to everyone.

Carolyn Fallert [19:59]
Hearing you talk about this is making me think about a book that I picked up just a couple of weeks ago. It was recently published. The title is We Need Your Art by Amie McNee. I believe I’m saying her name correctly. She has an incredible presence on Instagram. A lot of her videos and posts on Instagram are just like exactly what I need to hear as an artist. But what’s amazing is the first two or three chapters of this book are all about how our society values art and creativity relative to work that makes money and that is in the structure of capitalism. She talks a lot about how the value in countries is measured by GDP, and the value of art is not in those numerical measures in the same way. She talks about the value of art on so many different dimensions. She actually references a lot of scientific research that talks about how both creating art and consuming art can rewire the way our brains work, and even, like, on a cellular level, help with recovering from PTSD or more chronic illness situations. She talks about the value of art in terms of building really cohesive communities and bringing people together. Yeah, there’s a lot there, but hearing you talk was recalling this book for me, and as I’ve been reading it, it’s made me realize how many internalized messages I have about art, either being valuable or not, or important or not. In some situations, I can pinpoint a specific person in my life who has said something about the artistic work that I’m doing, and how that, you know, small thing they said just once, kind of like implants in my brain and then plays on repeat a little bit. And how so much of the process of reclaiming the value of whether it’s, whatever type of artwork, and in this context, specifically the value of our writing, to be able to do that, I have to comb through, identify those messages that I’ve internalized and really intentionally let them go.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [22:19]
Yes, that’s the Aikido of protecting your art, right? You have to understand what they are, sit with them for a minute, and then, yeah, work with them to let them go. Because the reality is, they’re false, but we can take on other people’s things. And what I would say is that if you are a writer—and that’s for all of you listeners—it’s likely that you are a sensitive person. Sensitivity is an amazing gift. It is an enormous gift. And I don’t want to use the word liability, okay? I don’t want to use that. It is a precious gift that must be protected, because the world’s energy and messages can just glom onto you and make you forget your own truth. And so, I think, yeah, the more you can clear yourself of that, the more you’re going to be able to protect it, because you’re going to be really clear. And I think if you aren’t clear yet, you’re like, “Well, how do I know what this means? Why should I be doing this?” Figure out your why, right? What is your why? And I’ll say that my why—why do I write? I write because when I write, I feel alive. I feel fully alive. I feel fully aligned with who I am. And it does not matter if it’s for other people or if it’s for myself, I feel fully aligned. And when I feel fully aligned, I am a better person. That is my number one why. And then, of course, each project idea will have a why, but that’s the kind of thing you want to have for yourself. And I know I’m putting you on the spot here, but do you have a sense of what your why is?

Carolyn Fallert [23:51]
Oh, that’s such a fantastic question. When it’s interesting, I think if you had asked me this a couple of years ago—again, kind of like, “Oh, if I gave you a million dollars, what would you do with it?”—my initial answer to that question would be that, you know, I write to connect with other people. I write to give to other people, or to share something with other people. And I think what I’ve realized more and more over the past couple of years is that there’s some social conditioning in that, in terms of like, “Oh, if I’m going to create, it has to be for someone else.” Right? And something that I’ve realized is that actually the most powerful and rewarding creative work that I’ve done is the creative work that I do for myself first. When I say that I do it for myself, I do it because it energizes me. It makes me almost feel like giddy with excitement while I’m working on it. It feels playful, like I’m returning to the little Carolyn version of myself and getting to play on the page. That is like really the first answer to the why, because at the end of the day, you know, I—you can create with all these humanitarian intentions, but that like intrinsic motivation of the way that writing makes me feel is what’s actually going to bring me back to the page every day.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [25:14]
Yes, and when you offer that to yourself, you are ultimately able to give it to others. And so, it is the gift that keeps on giving. And you know what? This conversation could be going on forever, because there are so many gifts in it, right? We could be the gift that keeps on giving. I like to keep these relatively short, so we are going to wrap up. And so, I’m going to end with one final question. You are doing so many incredible things in the world. You have such a wonderful way of thinking about self-defense and helping us reframe how we see self-defense. What are the best ways for people to connect with you and learn more about what you’re up to?

Carolyn Fallert [25:53]
I appreciate you asking. So, the two best ways to connect with me right now are first through my Substack. The URL for my Substack is https://yourpowers.substack.com, and on that Substack, I offer really concrete self-defense practices for physical self-defense, but also a lot of posts that are talking about more of this metaphysical aspect—how do we protect time, space, energy to be the best version of ourselves? And then the other place that you can follow me is on Instagram, and that’s at my name. So that’s Carolyn Fallert, C-A-R-O-L-Y-N, F-A-L-L-E-R-T. And there, I share similar content—some physical self-defense practices, but also reflections on that topic, kind of more broadly in life.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [26:49]
All of that will be in the show notes, and I hope that all of you sign up for Carolyn’s Substack and follow her on Instagram, because she’s doing so many fun, interesting, and playful things online. Thank you so much for being with all of us today, Carolyn. It has been an absolute joy, and I just can’t thank you enough.

Carolyn Fallert [27:10]
It’s been an honor. Thank you so much, Lisa.