Do you struggle to see yourself as creative? Or have you ever wondered where your creativity comes from and how to maximize it? This week, I’m joined by Jacob Nordby, founder of A Writing Room Collective and author of Blessed are the Weird: A Manifesto for Creatives, and The Creative Cure, a powerful guide to reconnecting with your creative self. In this week’s episode, Jacob and I dive deep into the healing power of creativity, trauma, and the inner wisdom we all carry within us. Grab your pen, open your heart, and join us as we discuss how to nurture your creative intuition, how to overcome the obstacles of comparison and fear, and how creativity can be the bridge back to feeling truly alive.
Do you struggle to see yourself as creative? Or have you ever wondered where your creativity comes from and how to maximize it? This week, I’m joined by Jacob Nordby, founder of A Writing Room Collective and author of Blessed are the Weird: A Manifesto for Creatives, and The Creative Cure, a powerful guide to reconnecting with your creative self. In this week’s episode, Jacob and I dive deep into the healing power of creativity, trauma, and the inner wisdom we all carry within us. Grab your pen, open your heart, and join us as we discuss how to nurture your creative intuition, how to overcome the obstacles of comparison and fear, and how creativity can be the bridge back to feeling truly alive.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [0:00]
Well, hello, Jacob, welcome to the podcast. I am delighted to have you on today.
Jacob Nordby [0:05]
I’m so glad to be here. Lisa, thank you for the invitation.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [0:08]
Well, as soon as I read the title of your book, The Creative Cure, I knew that you would be a fantastic guest. And of course, then I found out that you know one of my heroes, Julia Cameron, so that also interested me. And then when I started reading your work, I learned you are of my tribe, which also intrigued me. So, I always like to give people a chance when we begin this conversation, to let us know a little about you. What would you like us to know about your book, your experiences, or how you see creativity?
Jacob Nordby [0:43]
I would love to start there, because I feel like it’s so central to this entire talk: how do I see creativity? Yeah, and that is, Lisa, that I actually wrote The Creative Cure as a follow-up to a book I wrote previously, called Blessed Are the Weird: A Manifesto for Creatives. What I discovered was that many people—more than I expected—raised their hand and said, “Oh yes, I’m one of those folks.” But there were also many others who would come to me with this wistful look in their eyes and say, “I’m just not that creative,” or “I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” That began this real deep search for me, because I’d been writing drafts of The Creative Cure, and I just didn’t feel like I was getting where I wanted to go with it. I began to realize that we, too often in the modern world, define creativity as a product. It’s an expression, so it’s the book or the thing. And I love to move that all the way back to, as Parker Palmer would say, I want to start with the who. Because to me, creativity is our essential life force, energy, and it’s meant to flow through every part of our lives, just like blood does in our veins or sap does in a tree. If it’s not flowing to an area, that area begins to get sick and die. So, I feel like that’s such a crucial thing to start with. I see so many creatives, so many people, who show up to me and feel tortured that their work isn’t going to be good enough, that it won’t come out right—I’m sure you hear this too. And when we can just take a breath and step back from the product of this and remember, this is about remembering ourselves back alive. It’s about bringing ourselves back into connection with who we really are.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [2:23]
I love that—remembering ourselves back to being alive. That’s such a wonderful way to put it, and that is a lot of what I do when I’m working with people. In fact, I was on a panel last night, and one of the things we were talking about was inspiration, or reasons why we write. And so, I work with writers, which is just one form of creativity. There are so many forms, and that’s what I love about your book: you talk about this expansively. But writing just happens to be the modality that I work with. And, you know, the question I get asked a lot is, “Is it good enough?” And, of course, then the follow-up: “Good enough for what or who?” What I always tell people is, if you want to have a sustainable, creative life—whatever that is for you—really look at yourself. How is this going to transform me in some way by just engaging in this? And if you allow that to be the driving force, it doesn’t matter if it meets some outside metric of what you’re “supposed to do.” Your work is always going to be successful because it’s always going to be meaningful to you, right?
Jacob Nordby [3:30]
Yes, Lisa. I love that you work with how we gaslight ourselves, the toxin of comparison, and all those things. I was listening to a program with David Foster Wallace last night, and, you know, he’s one of these writers who is difficult but also admirable because he was willing to break so many rules and have it work. I’m listening to him just riffing, as he does, both in writing and verbally. And I started to compare myself to that—like, “Oh my God, how fluid, how articulate, how outside the lines he is!” And then I just kept needing to remind myself: well, that goes to my deep understanding of transformation, Lisa, which is, in our modern world, most of us tend to find a guru or a model—somebody to look up to. And then, if we can trim our behavior and what we do to follow them, we think we’ll become like them, which is worthy, successful, all these things. But as I see transformation, it is much closer to nature. Every acorn holds in it the code of the oak tree it’s meant to become. It’s not meant to become a pine tree. A caterpillar never transforms to become an eagle; it becomes a butterfly, right? So, to me, that helps us, if we’re willing to do the work and pay attention to it, it helps us remember: I’m not meant to become someone else, like some other writer. I’m meant to become who I am. You know?
Lisa Cooper Ellison [4:50]
I think of that famous quote, and now, as we’re talking, my mind is going blank on the name. But you know the idea of keeping your channel open—that it’s not your business to know if it’s good enough or if it’s received well. It’s just your business to do the work. And I had a client recently who’s at the very end—her book is so good. I mean, I just absolutely love this work, and it’s a joy. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s meeting that metric or not. I care that you are doing it and that you’re becoming your most authentic self, and it is a joy when things are working well. And then there was a slight snag, and I saw the panic in her face like, “Oh my gosh, there’s this thing, and it feels insurmountable, and I can’t do it.” And the advice I gave to her was, I said, “You know, everything is inside you. It’s all there perfectly. All you have to do is get quiet enough to listen.” So, I said, “Go for a walk, put your headphones in, get out your memos app, just push play, and then I want you to just talk to yourself. Invite your highest self in, that wise part of you that knows, and then talk through the answer because it’s there.”
Jacob Nordby [6:05]
I love that so much. And I see how much of your work is trauma informed. I love that. It’s so crucial, I feel, because most people walking around the world are, to some degree, traumatized. And I feel that writers—people who have the desire to write—most of us, are at least highly sensitive, if not deeply empathic. I feel like that’s part of what we show up with that makes us able to feel, see, and express. But also, it makes it likely that we’ll experience some of those traumas more deeply and be affected by them. You know?
Lisa Cooper Ellison [6:35]
That was one of the things I liked about your book: you have this nice trifecta of things that shut us down—rejection, trauma, and socialization. And I was really thinking about how all that shows up in my clients and myself because I’m a creative person, too. And what I find is sometimes it’s easy to access my creativity, and sometimes it’s not, depending on what’s going on out in the world or what’s going on inside me. And so, I think it’s okay for all of us to admit that, yeah, this is just what it’s like. It’s about having those tools to figure out, “Okay, here’s where I am. What do I need to do to get back to that more authentic place, to that more regulated place?” Like, you know, that’s what I do a lot with trauma. People are always asking me, “What does it mean to be a trauma-informed writing coach?” I’m like, I understand what trauma is. I understand how it impacts our creativity, and I know how to help people regulate themselves. Because, like you were saying, so many of us have experienced something traumatic, and then the world we live in is out of sync with who we are, right? Especially just social media—everything we are exposed to keeps us in this jacked-up fight-or-flight state all the time. Our nervous systems are just on edge, even if you’re not dealing with trauma.
Jacob Nordby [7:56]
Yeah. Well, I think one of the definitions of trauma that helped me the most—because I see a lot of people being reluctant to accept the label of “I’m a trauma survivor,” right? Because there’s this whole “capital T” headline trauma, you know? “Well, my story doesn’t belong on CSI or anything like that.” So, this definition helped me so much, which is the simplest definition of trauma: the event has the quality of feeling inescapable. Yeah, right? Many people who work with me will take the ACES assessment, you know, and they’ll go, “Look, I have a zero or a one.” Most people have more than that that they’re aware of. But I’ve seen so many people downplay or diminish what they’ve experienced, and I will share with them what I had to learn for myself, which is: when I look back at events through the mind of an adult that has been conditioned and able to put things in their places, I’m often tempted to say, “Well, that wasn’t a big deal. Everybody experiences that.” But here’s the thing: if that event colored the entire sky of your imagination and experience as a child, for example, it’s not just childhood experiences, but if it did, it doesn’t matter if it hits the ACES assessment—that was traumatic. It likely internalized some kind of message.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [9:07]
Absolutely. And, you know, I talk about how for a lot of people, it’s a very personal thing. What might seem traumatic to one person might be no big deal to someone else, based on prior history, based on just how you’re wired. If your nervous system is sensitive—and most people who are creative have a sensitive nervous system—that sensitivity is what makes us creative, because we experience the world in deep ways. It’s a wonderful gift, but it can also be easily harmed by the world or overwhelmed. And what I often talk about with trauma is that when something is traumatic… I love that you said it was inescapable, because that is absolutely the case. And it’s an experience of too much, right? It overwhelms the system. And because the system is overwhelmed, it goes into that fight, flight, freeze, fawn state to protect itself.
Jacob Nordby [9:59]
Yeah, I love that we’re talking about this now. You’ve touched on an area that has really consumed me. In fact, I wanted more of this to go into The Creative Cure. I’m working on a new book where more of the actual research and neuroscience, and all of that—ventral vagal theory or polyvagal theory—will show up there, because I feel like it’s so important. But in most of my workshops, I show the polyvagal chart and show folks how most of us are up on that arousal curve, up into fight or flight, up into anxiety. And if we pop over into freeze, I have a dear friend who’s an EMDR specialist, and he talks about walking people out of freeze. You can’t just help them drop directly from freeze, which is that true shutdown state, down into that lovely ventral vagal state where we’re open, feeling safe, connected, and all of that. I call that the creative green zone—the ventral vagal state. But he said we can’t walk people through the upper ranges of fight or flight and fawn without them re-experiencing the fear that pushed them into freeze. And he said that’s why it’s such a gentle, delicate process. We have to move back across the line often until they feel safe enough to—often need a guide such as yourself—like, “Here, let me hold your hand so you know it’s safe to feel these things, and there’s a better place to be, and we can get there,” you know?
Lisa Cooper Ellison [11:16]
And I talk with writers a lot about how, when you’re writing and engaging in your story in a creative way—when you’re engaging that memory—you are reliving it at the nervous system level in some way. And so, something that happens when we get really product-driven—like, “I want to hold a book in my hand. I want to get this thing done. I want to have whatever success I’m hoping for”—we push ourselves. And we can only go as fast as the most fearful part of us can go. When we push past that point, we tend to re-traumatize ourselves because trauma generally happens when something happens that we either don’t want or we don’t get what we do want, and we don’t have a choice, right? There’s some sort of force involved. So when you’re forcing yourself to do something that this scared part of you doesn’t want to do, you are likely recreating or reenacting what happened to you. And so, your creativity is more likely to say, “Peace out. I’m done.”
Jacob Nordby [12:24]
I love what you said. I’m not going to say it, but I’d love to hear it again because I feel like it’s worthy. We can only go as fast as the… what was it that you said?
Lisa Cooper Ellison 12:34
The most fearful part of us can go. And being able to cherish that is so important. And one of the things that I do, and this was one of the pieces where I was like, oh, I love how we’re on the same page, and I really want to talk about this, is the idea of intuition, and how you can build… I call it creative intuition, you know. I mean, there’s intuition in all parts of our lives, but really, how do you build that creative intuition so that you give yourself choices and so that you’re directed in a way that enhances your creativity, moves you into a more expansive state, versus putting yourself in situations that close you down?
Jacob Nordby [13:12]
Well, I have a… I have a relatively long story, but I can keep it shorter if you’re interested in hearing how that really began to open up for me.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [13:21]
I would love that.
Jacob Nordby [13:24]
Okay. So at one point, I lost everything, Lisa, by that, I mean, I had built businesses. I was 34, 35. Everyone around me was reflecting, “You’re so successful.” I was waking up terrified every morning at 3 a.m., and it didn’t make sense, you know? I had all the things, and I had a pretty massive spiritual experience in 2007 where I went to what was, I thought, a meditation retreat. It turned out to be a shamanic initiation. And I had never tried any plant medicines or anything, so this was a very big deal. And it really did create that, you know, what they call in recovery, a moment of clarity. I experienced a moment, a few moments, of not being afraid, and of being in contact with the universe in a way that my religious upbringing said was impossible, which meant there was no fear there.
I came down out of that experience knowing everything had to change, but I didn’t have any idea how to do that. So the financial meltdown of 2008 came along and wiped all of that out, and it gave me the opportunity—painful and scary—but it gave me the opportunity to start back over. So I moved my then wife and three little kids to Austin, Texas, from where I live in Boise. And when I was there, I began reading The Artist’s Way. So that was kind of this early thing. I’m looking at my copy of it right now. My dad’s signature is on the back of it. He handed me this book before I left and said, “I feel like you need to read this book. It’ll help you.” He said, “Someday I want it back.” I never got the opportunity to give it back to him because he died a couple of years later, but I feel that in some ways, my ability to work with Julia Cameron and share this work with others has become part of my giving it back to him.
But while I was there, there was this cigar lounge, and there was this guy who was there… such an unlikely divine messenger, you know? He was a squat dude, kind of a womanizer, kind of rough around the edges, but he also knew a lot about psychology. And so, I would sit there, and just pour out my story, and he was so kind to listen. And over and over again, he would ask questions, and I would tell parts of the story. I didn’t understand then how crucial telling the story was to healing, you know. But he… this is where I’m getting to the intuition part, Lisa, he said, “Hey, I just met a young guy who moved here, and he’s really confused. He’s really having a hard time. And he’s like, I know you’ve been through a lot of things, and I feel like you have some wisdom to share. Would you mind writing him a letter, and I’ll pass it along, and maybe he’ll get in contact with you sometime, but I just know you can encourage him.” And so of course, I lit up like, “Oh, I’d love to help.” Before the conversation ended, he let the cat out of the bag, which was he was asking me to write a letter to myself.
And I didn’t dismiss it, though, because I’d learned the trick. I really realized, “Oh, this is likely to help.” So I began writing letters from Jacob, who is my own self that I’m aware of. And I used Austin, my middle name, as the other person. So, I began writing these letters to Austin, and I would just pour out my heart and my pain and confusion and fear and all the things. And then Austin would write back, sometimes the next day. This began to be this correspondence back and forth between these parts of myself, and I began to experience Austin as tremendously wise and so compassionate. There was never any shaming or anything like that, no reproach. It was always very kind and helpful. I’m feeling a little emotional right now, even thinking about that exchange. And over time, the pain that I was expressing began to diminish, and I began to notice the voices started to sound the same. And that was when I began to experience this truth, which was always a concept before, Lisa, that all the wisdom that we really need… And you said this earlier… it’s within. Then all these years later, 15 or so years later, or more now? Well, writing is a daily practice, morning pages, and I’ve adapted it a bit to become more of a conversation. I used Writing Down Your Soul by Janet Conner as part of that process, but it becomes this conversation with inner parts and the universe, and I’m always astonished to discover how clear and practical and compassionate the guidance I get back from these kinds of conversations are. And I do it every day because it’s the lifeline. So, I would say that’s part of how I began to learn to trust that the information, the wisdom I needed, was within. And then, of course, over time, being led into my own trauma work, I began to learn how we cut off our intuition, we cut off our senses, and how we communicate with ourselves and listen to ourselves because of traumatic experiences and conditioning.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [17:54]
First, thank you for sharing that story. Second, I’m sorry about your dad, so I just want to honor that. And I love that you have that book with his signature in it, and that that is a part of just your growth journey. And, you know, I write letters to myself as well. I have a whole ceremony that happens at the beginning of the year. I mean, I do it at different times. You’re inspiring me to do it even more. But I always write this from my highest self, and in the beginning, it felt really hokey, you know, like, “What is this?” I mean, I’ve been doing it for a long time, so now it’s not, but what I love that you did is you created this external character that you could talk to, right? So there was Austin, who could write back. And that’s such a practical way to do that. I think it’s in Seeking Wisdom by Julia Cameron; she talks about doing this kind of work in morning pages, but that you are really talking to your higher power or your higher source. She just uses different language, but the idea of an Austin, you know, we all need one, and that’s just such a great way to do it, because the wisdom is there, but we have to find ways to get access to it. And I love that you’re doing that in morning pages. And I’m constantly exploring with people, “How else can you find that in your life?” and be willing to see the signs for where you’re supposed to go and listen to that internal wisdom, which often is so somatic.
Jacob Nordby [19:20]
The somatic part, I feel like, is something we’re so uncomfortable with in our culture. You know, we tend to be very left-brain-oriented and intellect-heavy, and we are not listening to our interoception most of the time.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [19:33]
Yeah, we don’t. And I think if you have traumatic experiences… and I’ll just speak from my own experience. You know, I’ve talked about this in the past, and I’m, I think I’m changing the way that I talk about it, talking with one of my recent guests, Natalie Buster, about the I Am, right?
When you say, “I am,” you are really defining and claiming something, and that is really important to do, but you want to watch how you’re using your language, so that you’re not necessarily claiming things that may not serve you long term, right? And so, I have a diagnosis of complex PTSD, and it’s been helpful to understand what that is and how I can care for myself, right? So, it’s useful as a diagnosis, but saying “I am a trauma survivor” connects me so much to the trauma, which is just a piece of who I am, right? And it’s also a piece that’s in recovery, and I’ve been in trauma recovery for a long time. So, I am a person recovering from complex PTSD, and that is the truth.
But what happened when I was young, because I had parents who also had complex PTSD, intergenerational trauma… this stuff happens. They could not allow me to have my preferences or to have my experience because they were so dysregulated, so my dysregulation, whatever that was—whether I was anxious or afraid or angry or just even if I wanted something that was counter to what they wanted—they couldn’t allow it. It just was not possible for them. So, they would tell me my experience was not real. You know, “You’re making this up.” “You’re overdramatizing.” “You’re selfish.” “Why would you want that?” All those things. And when that happens to people—and I’ll say, when it happened to me—it made me distrust my preferences, my understanding of my own experience, and it shut down my intuition for a really long time. And I think part of my recovery process has been recovering that piece of myself.
Jacob Nordby [21:40]
How did you do that? I’m sure it’s many ways, but what are some of the ways you’ve been able to recover that piece?
Lisa Cooper Ellison [21:46]
Such a good question. Yeah, I think mindfulness was one piece of the puzzle. You know, I talk about that just simply as being aware of the present moment without judgment—like, how am I feeling, being in my body. So, a lot of somatic work. Because another thing that can happen when you’re a trauma survivor is you live from the neck up or not even in the body at all. And so really being able to say, okay, when am I tired? When am I feeling fear in my body, or stress, or anything else, that has been really helpful. 12-step recovery and using it as a framework to understand higher power and how that works in my own life has also been helpful. And energy work. And I mean, the list could go on, but I think the more I have been able to understand what’s going on in my body and what my preferences are, the more I’ve been able to connect with just what is my yes and my no. And I’ll tell you about something I’m doing right now, just very quickly, is Human Design. I got my Human Design report, and I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but it has been so helpful, because I am a very sacral person, right? Your sacral chakra is your second chakra. It is all about creativity and intuition, and that is where my yes and no exist. So all day long, I’m like, What’s my yes and no? How can I connect with that part of my body and just using it as this gentle, recurring practice? And that has been really helpful. So, I’m curious to know what’s worked for you.
Jacob Nordby [23:24]
Well, before I answer that, I’m curious, what’s your main type in human design?
Lisa Cooper Ellison [23:30]
I am a generator.
Jacob Nordby [23:32]
I am too, with a sacral authority. So I feel like that segues really well into the question. The answer you talked about feeling cut off from even knowing what you would prefer or what your will was, yes or no. I experienced a lot of that too as a child, as the oldest of six, and I got the message very early. I don’t think it was ever explicit, but I definitely picked up on it. My needs don’t matter. It’s important we take care of these others, and, you know, very authoritarian experience of being parented. And so, yeah, I was constantly being told to ignore what I wanted, what I knew to be true, what felt right, all those things. And so, I think there’s a long process of even beginning to reconnect with what is true there.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [24:15]
Well, how have you reconnected with your intuition and understanding that part of yourself?
Jacob Nordby [24:23]
Yeah, very much in line with what we’ve been talking about, even making space to ask the question of, how do I feel right now? What do I need right now? Those two things, how do I feel right now? And be honest about it, I found myself often masking, even to myself, even in the safety of my own journal pages. I would mask, you know, I would try to present a shinier, more okay image than I was feeling. And I began to realize the foolishness of that. It’s like, this is the safest place to say what you really feel, what you really need. And so, I began to do that, and using some of the methods you’ve talked about, using “I” statements, rather than pushing it out here, but also learning how to create a bit of separation between the identification with what I was feeling. I am feeling this way. I am not angry right now. I’m feeling anger. It’s an experience. It’s like the weather. Then I can be curious about it. Because, you know, psychologists will tell us that remaining consistent with our own identity is one of the most powerful forces in the human psyche, and so the more that I claim a thing as my own, unconsciously, most of the time, I’m this, I’m that, it becomes part of the identity, and it becomes very difficult to move away from those behaviors that have created that experience.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [25:38]
We must be careful what we identify with. And I would love it if you would share that journaling exercise that you have, because I think, you know, most of the people who are listening are writers. They are connecting with their creativity through that, and, I think through their intuition, through writing. I think that can be such a profound way to use whatever that vehicle is that already feels comfortable to access this. So, tell us about this exercise.
Jacob Nordby [26:07]
I have a free program that your folks are free to take that I’ll mention later, but basically, it’s a very simple set of three questions. Number one is, how do I feel right now? And I’ll come back to that in a moment. What do I need right now? And then the third one is, what would I love to create? But if I’m going through a lot of difficulty or emotional turmoil or something, often, I’ll need to ask it differently, because, you know, putting something way out there on the horizon of “I would love to create this” can feel irrelevant at the moment. So I’ll often ask in the middle of something like that, how would I love to feel right now? Yeah.
And so, if you go back to the first question, we’ve been talking about this, Lisa, but asking that question, how do I feel right now? And letting that come out honestly, you know, I’m feeling tired. I didn’t get enough sleep last night. I’m feeling afraid about this interview I’m having later today. Whatever it might be, it sends a signal to our inner self, to our inner creative self, and it says, I matter. I’m paying attention. I’m listening to you, you know? And the second question is the same, what do I need right now? I’ve been surprised at how practical those answers often are. Oh, I need to pee. I need to take a nap. Oh, I’m feeling thirsty, right? And it’s so, it’s surprising when you ask like, how do we take these steps back? How do we heal that connection to our inner, creative selves and our intuition? It’s simpler and more practical often than we think it is. It’s like if we can invite ourselves back into our body, back, as you said earlier, back into this present moment. Look where our feet are planted on the ground, tell ourselves the truth of what’s right now, and then ask the question, what do I… which tiny step do I need to take in the direction of what I would love? Then it feels okay. It feels less overwhelming. It feels possible.
Whereas if we’re just sitting down, let’s use in the writing world, like, I’m sitting here sweating over writing a bestseller. It’s like, well, that’s way out there in the future, and may not ever happen in the way that my mind has it painted. Maybe I don’t even care about it happening in that way. So the more that we can come back into ourselves, I feel like every time we do this with whatever it is, whether it’s taking a walk, as you mentioned earlier, and listening to ourselves in that way, many, many ways of doing this, sitting meditation, you know, all these things. Every time we do something like that, Lisa, I feel that we repair the connection to our inner creative selves that often gets filled with static and with pain and with all the things that keep us from listening.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [28:31]
Yes, giving yourself what you need is so essential. And we talk about in the therapy world that you may have heard this term, the corrective emotional experience, which usually happens with another person, where they mirror, or they give you this thing that you didn’t have in the past. But I think we can do this in these very small, simple ways, by when we have a need or an urge, we offer it to ourselves, like, oh yeah, I need to pee. I’m going to get up and go to the bathroom. Or I’m thirsty, I’m going to get a drink. Just that simple piece of telling your body, telling your creative self, I am listening. Those simple things allow you to connect with the things that may feel more ethereal. Where I am with my intuition is that I will get these nudges. Usually, it happens in my gut, you know, my lower gut, near my sacral chakra, which is interesting. And I’ll have, like, a burning, a heat, or a tension that will say, do this thing. And sometimes it’s subtle, and sometimes it’s urgent. The more I can just pay attention and go, oh, it’s there, and then I do it, I find the easier my life is, and the more creative I am. And some of the publications I’ve had that I’m most proud of—these essays—have come from, like, this internal, like, “Write this, do this thing.” I listen, and then it’s like, Oh, yeah. Yeah, it goes very smoothly. Whereas other things, I’m like, oh, let me think about it from up here and figure out the thing. And sometimes that works out, and you know, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s a different process.
Jacob Nordby [30:12]
Agreed. We often make the mistake of creating a mental concept of what we think a creative person is and then try to get into that bubble out here somewhere, and often it has little to do with reality. And what I’ve learned about our creative energy, if we go back to this, is the spark of life. If your listeners want to put their hand over their heart right now and just wait until they can feel their heart beating, it’s the spark, right? It’s that electricity that keeps our heart speeding. It makes galaxies spin, so therefore, it’s primal. It’s primitive, it’s sensual. It’s connected to the earth. It’s connected to actual life. It’s not as ethereal as we often make it. I have a dear friend who’s a neuropsychologist, and when I was writing this book, he and I were having conversations about left brain, right brain, and all that. And I got excited. I said, well, Chris, it sounds like what you’re saying is almost like we’ve told a bodybuilder to only develop the muscles on the left side of their bodies, and to totally disregard the right side. Don’t even look at that. This is the only thing that’s important. And then, after 20 or 30 years of doing that, or more, that person discovers they can barely walk down the street. They’re not functional. And his face lit up. He’s like, Oh my God, yes, exactly. That’s exactly what we’ve done. So, it’s not a matter of disregarding the left brain or the way that we process information and make meaning of it. It’s simply a matter of going, we have cut ourselves off from a tremendous wellspring of originality and intuition and perception and experience and so many of the things that I’m sure that you work with people in ways that sometimes feel uncomfortable, and I do too, and I try to make that as gentle and as safe as possible, but it’s also like, imagine you’ve been sitting on your foot for the last 40 years, and then you stand up, you’re probably going to fall down. It’s going to feel awkward. You’re going to feel dumb. It might be even painful. So let’s just go slowly and gently, but let’s begin to bring circulation back to these other parts.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [32:10]
That’s such a great metaphor. Also, as a person who has practiced Buddhism for a very long time and done a lot of sitting meditation where my foot has gone to sleep, it feels very apt.
Jacob Nordby [32:24]
Well, and it’s funny, because we can so easily understand that with that kind of an image. You know, yes, of course, we’ve all sat somewhere and then stood up and almost fallen over, or the foot was tingly and awkward. We felt dumb. What we forget is, as we begin to restore the connection to our inner creative selves—and this, I feel, is important, Lisa—is for everyone to remember your inner creative self has always been there. And by the way, it can’t be damaged, it can’t be diminished. It’s always there. What can happen, and what does happen, is we create this persona so that we can navigate the world. That’s known as our ego, and that becomes who we think we are. And often, that connection between who we really are and who we think we are—who we’ve been using to survive and cope—that connection can get really, really frayed, and there can be almost no signal coming between. So, everything we’re talking about today is really about healing that connection, because the inner creative self, that inner genius that Plato talks about, it’s alive and well in every single person who’s listening to this.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [33:26]
The whole goal is to just reconnect and re-enliven it, not bring it to life, but re-enliven it. Because, yeah, it is already there, and you just have to reconnect with it. Well, you mentioned just a few minutes ago, Jacob, that you have a program that people might be interested in. Can you tell us a little about that?
Jacob Nordby [33:48]
Yes, I kind of let the cat out of the bag with those three questions. That is essentially what it is, but they can go to creativeselfjournal.com, and that will allow them to look at what the program is all about. There’s an e-book— I think it’s 14 pages long—and I did an audio version of it. I also did a three or four-minute instructional video just to help people understand why this process, why we’re doing this. And then I also offer a guided visualization to really help people just begin to reactivate their imagination in creating a scene that feels peaceful and calming, bringing them down into that green zone. So, I love giving this away. When I first wrote it years ago, it was because I was participating in a program, and I didn’t think it was—speaking of gaslighting our own creativity, Lisa—I didn’t think it was worth anything. It came out very quickly. It felt so basic. And then when I put it out there, at first hundreds and then thousands, and over time, just so many people have experienced it. I’ve had therapists, I don’t know, write me and say, “This is helping clients who have never been willing to journal actually try it.” So, it’s one of those experiences I’ve had of creating something valuable that I didn’t think was probably worth much. So, it makes my heart happy to know that I can share it with people.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [34:58]
Well, I can say, Jacob, from reading your book, meeting with you today, and just looking at all the things that you do online, your work is very valuable. I really appreciate the chance to have spent time with you. And I know that other people are going to be interested in it; it’s going to speak to them. So, if people want to connect with you, you’ve already given us one link—are there any other links? If someone wants to connect with you on social media, or any other way? What are the best ways for people to connect with you?
Jacob Nordby [35:32]
They could probably visit jacobnordby.com; it’s probably a good, simple way to do it. They’ll find a lot of this stuff there and links to social media. I decided probably five or six years ago not to try to build the biggest social media accounts. So, people who show up to my stuff are going to just get what I like to share that day, not because I’m necessarily trying to grow an audience to the maximum size. So, I love people who hang out with me there, because it’s like you chose to be here because you are interested in some of the same things I am.
Lisa Cooper Ellison [36:04]
I love that. And, you know, I think that we can spend so much time trying to become—I don’t know, a social media celebrity, influencer—come up with the next word you want to. That it can actually really take away from our lives, because so much of it is an illusion, and it just creates these unhealthy dopamine hits that actually take away from your creativity and your joy. That could be a whole other conversation we could have. So, I might have you back another time to talk about that, because there are so many things we could talk about. But I do want to let people know, if they want to connect with you on social media, all your links are in the show notes, so it should be very easy for people to connect, and I hope that they do. I look forward to staying in touch with you because, you know, you’re one of my heroes and you do such great work in the world. So, thank you so much, Jacob, for being on the show.
Jacob Nordby [36:56]
Oh, what a pleasure. It’s really been great to speak with you today.
Do you struggle to see yourself as creative? Or have you ever wondered where your creativity comes from, and how to maximize it? This week, I’m joined by Jacob Nordby, founder of A Writing Room Collective and author of Blessed are the Weird: A Manifesto for Creatives, and The Creative Cure, a powerful guide to reconnecting with your creative self. In this week’s episode, Jacob and I dive deep into the healing power of creativity, trauma, and the inner wisdom we all carry within us. Grab your pen, open your heart, and join us as we discuss how to nurture your creative intuition, overcome the obstacles of comparison and fear, and how creativity can be the bridge back to feeling truly alive.
