The Messy Middle: Going Inward & Artward in Creativity & Strategy

In this episode, business owners and makers, Heather and Erin explore the intricate relationship between our internal narratives and the work to make our visions real in the world. They discuss the practice & challenges of moving from imagination to reality, the duality of anchoring and expanding in the creative process, and how fear can serve as a passageway. The dialogue emphasizes the significance of choice, the messy middle of creativity (in the broad sense), and the feeling of fierce responsibility to create meaning in our lives. Through their shared experiences, they highlight the interconnectedness of our “inward & artward” journey of inside reflection AND external creation and connection. The conversation honors an inclusive understanding of creativity and community, with a nudge to continue making what we can imagine as possible.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions shared in this episode belong solely to the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect those of their employer or affiliated organizations.

Host: Heather Gates, MPH, Owner & Strategy Partner, Human-Centered Strategy, LLC
Guest: Erin Hallagan Clare, founder of Story Parlor

Resources

• The Story Parlor
• Battery Park Book Exchange & Champagne Bar 
• The Inward & Artward School of Creativity
• Yoga with Adrienne
• “Daring Greatly” by Brene Brown
• “Beauty” by John O'Donohue, Irish Philosopher – The Approach of Reverence 
• “Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg 
• "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire 
• "Teaching to Transgress" by Bell Hooks
• "The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop" by Felicia Rose Chavez 

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Transcript

Heather
Hello this is Heather Gates and I welcome you to the stand in the and podcast where we have honest conversation about the messy complexity of the human experience, where we get stuck, and how we find forward in the and of it all where many things are true at once. 

This podcast is designed especially for those of us who want to make things more beautiful and better for everyone and sometimes need reminding that we are human too. I’m so glad you’re here. 

Heather 
welcome back to the Stand in And podcast, y'all. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time and so grateful that y'all could be here to join me for it. We're joined today by my colleague and mentor in creativity, Erin Hallagan-Clare. Erin, thank you so much for being here today for conversation and storytelling.

Erin 
my pleasure. I've been looking forward to this for months, I feel like. Uh-huh.

Heather 
Since we met each other, I'm quite sure for the first time and we'll tell that story in a second. Before we do that, I'd love to just invite you to introduce yourself to folks in a way that feels meaningful to you.

Erin 
Sure, so my name is Erin and I'm based in Asheville, North Carolina. I am the founder of a narrative art space here in Asheville called Story Parlor, which really is centered in looking at how narrative and story connects us in our creativity, in our community. And so we offer classes and events that celebrate storytelling through all mediums, but then also kind of the story that we bring as creatives and as community members that contributes to that rich conversation. I also have recently launched two other business ventures. One is the Inward and Artward School of Creativity, which is built on a belief that if we want to make meaningful things in the world, whether that's arts or organizations or change, we have to cultivate a relationship with our inner life.

And then also as of the fall, my partner and I took over ownership of the Battery Park Book Exchange in Champaign Bar, which is this darling little bookshop in the Grove Arcade in downtown Asheville. And so that's been a fun little venture to have and has kept us busy. But I think in general, the work that I do in the community and personally as a creative person and as a mother,

is really kind of sitting at this intersection of where creativity and personal mythology, facilitation, kind of all come together to help people move from imagination into something real.

Heather 
I love that period on that statement, right? Moving from imagination to something real. I've not ever used that language, but I think I would use a similar language to describe what I do, which is a very different actual day job. But I share with you this working with cultivating that in others, right? The courage and the process from imagining to making real, whether, I mean, you said in your introduction even inward and artward, we're talking about whether you're making art or organization or some other kind of change. So I want us to dig in. can't wait. That's why I know this conversation is gonna be so juicy because I think we're coming at it from such different places. And I'm just really curious what the intersection points are around that. wanna do, I think I do wanna talk about our

Erin 
Yeah! Mm-hmm.

Heather 
our crossing paths around the and originally. But before we do that, let me start us with our and stand to honor how we're coming at this today. I don't know if you've listened to the podcast before, but our and stand is this kind of, you know, how are we? I think in your work, you do introduction. That's like one feeling word. So I just invite to and service to sometimes it's more than one thing and it doesn't have to be a feeling word.

It's more an honoring, I think, of you in a human-centered way about how you're showing up today to space. So if you have an and that you're standing in today that you want to share, or I'm happy to go first.

Erin 
Mmm.

Erin 
Ooh, I'm like, I have two floating around in my mind. I guess I'll go with anchoring and expanding.

Heather 
You want to say more about that? Okay.

Erin 
I think just because I feel like I'm in a real season of building. I think that always asks us to find that centeredness, to find that anchoring, so that we can have that courage and that willingness to step out into the unknown, which requires so much expansion, so much vulnerability. So I feel like that little anchoring point is what allows you to kind of hold on and

Heather 
Yeah, sounds like it.

Erin 
and do that work. Which is funny because the other kind of dynamic that I was fiddling around with was this idea of freedom and constraint. And I think there's a parallel there in how they're related, but all comes back to the similar thing of how we create, how we come back to ourselves and continue that loop.

Heather 
you

Heather 
They both resonate with me and in my felt sense are directional, right? This sort of kind of a rooting and an expanding, right? I'm imagining even as you describe it as a tree with like roots and then the branches and the leaves and the beyond. I certainly, gosh, as a business owner, a mom, all of it, find myself in that.

Erin Clare 
Ooh, I love that. Yeah.

Heather 
dance. So I love the reminder of the both and of those. You know, the anchoring to expand. I follow Yoga with Adrienne. I think it's her who talks about root, root to rise. Is that I don't know if that's a yoga word or not, but like this notion of root to rise.

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Erin 
Yeah, did my

I've heard her say that I did one of my yoga trainings through the school that she owns in Austin. So I'm a big fan. Yeah.

Heather 
No kidding. I didn't know that was a thing. I just have followed her for like 10 years on free YouTube videos. That's amazing. Okay.

Erin 
Yeah, But Root to Rise, yeah, I love that.

Heather 
So maybe I can, I'm gonna lean into some of that wisdom for mine. I found myself in particular kind of coming out of the past couple days in the and of fear and trust. I think in particular in the context of what feels like a transition time, I think you know this, everybody on the podcast tired of hearing me talk about it, but I have a kiddo graduating.

from high school and now we know where he's going to college and we're starting to imagine that. I have some decisions to make in the business of this, kind of at some decision point, at some uncertainty point and was really feeling mostly kind of the fear rising and through some, I have a pretty intimate relationship with fear. So in the turning toward, I guess the and of this is newly emerging to me that trust is also there.

And so kind of playing with the tension of holding both fear as a teacher, as an indicator, as a what's real and what's not, and then trust and what does trust mean to me right now. Trust in me, trust in community. Yeah, it's an andy-time.

Erin 
There's... Yeah, there's so much there. There's so much there. I recently went down a rabbit hole with the concept of fear and the word fear and trying to figure out kind of its etymological roots and it's...

Heather 
Your nerdery about creativity is so beautiful to me. I've never met anybody, truly. It is like a scientist of creativity in a way that you know about creativity.

Erin 
my gosh, you are the first person to use the word science with something related to me and I love it.

Heather 
I don't know what else to call it, but your depth of knowledge and intentionality around it is fascinating to me. So carry on.

Erin 
Well, so okay, a couple things. The first is that when you go way back, there are some lineages with the word fear that are rooted in the word fair as like a thoroughfare, as something that you have to go through, a passage. And so, you saying that trust is on the other side of that feels so intrinsically linked to me.

Heather 
Okay.

Heather 
Have chills.

Erin 
Because I think if you then start to bring forth this idea of a thoroughfare or a fairway or a passage into what fear has come to mean for us today, that's the only way through. Because you are, think fear in particular, if you're gonna link it to like neurologically what's happening is rooted to something that's unknown.

And so we have all of these things in our brain that are saying like alert, alert, abort, abort, because we don't have a concept of how to protect ourselves in the passageway. And from a creativity standpoint, it makes so much sense because to imagine something or to have an idea for something and then to actualize it are two very, very different things. And it requires the trust and the courage to embark upon a thoroughfare into the unknown.

You don't know how it's going to materialize. You don't know how it's going to actualize. You don't know how you as a creative person are going to be changed, challenged, impacted in the process. And all of that is in opposition to the status quo, which is a standing still, which is in opposition to a thoroughfare, to a passage. So I find that just so beautiful that those two things are coexisting for you right now. and what could be nurtured in that relationship as like a dynamic. It's really cool.

Heather 
It is cool and I just love the image now I'm sitting with of a passageway. You know, I think about Brene Brown's work and she uses the quote or the story around the arena and talks about the arena and being in the arena. And it is my experience that when I'm in the quote arena is not the scary part because then you're in it and that's to me, it's flow, it's presence.

Heather 
It's that tunnel. I'm not an athlete, but I imagine when you're headed to the arena, you're going through this dark tunnel and then there's the door. So to me, the tunnel is where the scary part is. Because then you're in and it's less, whatever is gonna happen is happening. So it's that unknown and that anticipation. But just fear as a passageway sounds lovelier, I think, we use, lovelier as I say to the writer.

Erin 
Yeah.

Heather 
I'm gonna give you a lot of content today. Yeah, it just is nice. I certainly, yeah, it's my experience that it is always part. And I think in your model, you talk about fear explicitly in the work that you teach. So maybe we, let's get right in it. I think, let me just tee up for context that I think you and I crossed paths initially.

Erin 
Yeah.

Heather
because I had heard about Story Parlor and had recently had my kind of creativity, I'll use quotes, because I think I had a certain idea of what that word means until I have met you and now I think of it differently. But I had my creativity, I will say, reignited and it had me on an exploration for where to cultivate that.

Erin 
Hahaha!

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Heather 
And I don't remember the event, but you all were having a special event of some sort. It was like a couple of days, but I could only go to a, okay, so you were having Parlor Fest again, which I'd never heard of. I'd never been to Story Parlor, didn't know you at the time. But you had a session, I signed up for the whole day, but you had a session on messy metal. And I thought, that is my space.

Erin 
The yeah, our parlor fest, I think. Yeah.

Heather
As you know now, I'm obsessed with the and and the mess in the middle. I'll say to you, I was very nervous as a facilitator and a spaceholder. I'm a very awkward participant. I think there's a reason why I usually am the spaceholder. It gives me different agency. There is such a vulnerability to being in the chair.

Erin 
Mmm.

Heather 
And what an amazing place you have created. As you know, shout out to all of my buddies in the Creative Pal Clubhouse. It really is remarkable. The sense of belong, it makes me tender, like the belonging that you have created there.

Erin 
We miss you.

Erin 
It's a co-created thing, I think, just like this idea of the inward and artward model of none of this exists in a vacuum. All of it is collaborative, accumulative, in relationship, this dynamic of this with-ness that if we allow for it, I think gives us this sense of belonging not just to ourselves but then to each other.

And like what that opens up for us in the realm of possibilities is pretty profound.

Heather 
And it is that deep belief that keeps me doing what I do too, right? The power of connection. You know, and what can, not only what can be born from that space, but just what, I don't know if it's what it reminds us that we already are, it's what is created, the alchemy of it. So,

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Heather 
Yeah, I was there, I guess, just for that one session and I introduced myself to you and probably immediately said, hi, I'm going to invent a podcast about the and and I think you should be on it. And you're like, okay.

Erin 
I do think it was within like five minutes that we made this plan and here we are like some almost a year later I feel like. And look at that isn't that incredible?

Heather 
And I feel like in that moment, Erin, you maybe took me over to a flyer something and said, you pointed the and out to me. And maybe it was in inward and artward. So tell me more about, clearly I like to talk about the and. And you are somebody I've encountered that really sees that too.

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Heather 
I mean, it's integrated in the title of your work, but maybe let's just start, if there's something you wanna say generally about the and in creativity, but let's maybe dive in a little bit more when you use the language of inward and artward.

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Heather 
What are we, what and are we talking about there?

Erin 
So I think it's multi-layered. And it goes a little bit back to kind of the inciting incident with Story Parlor and how that came to be in noticing this inner narrative that kind of existed in the bloodstream of everything that I saw creatives doing. And it's just like, I think it's the Irish philosopher John Donoghue who coined this term, the reference of approach.

Heather
Okay.

Erin 
You know, once you start to notice something and you approach great things, they'll start to approach you and you have this thing that you constantly notice. And all of a sudden I couldn't unsee this idea of story anywhere that I went it was in everything. Meaning that, you know, it's not just, you know, I'm a writer. It's not just the memoir or the poem that's telling a story. or for a painter, the painting, or for a musician, you know, the song. It's their life experience, their life story, which again is so integrated, not just in their individual lived experience, but within this collective, be it conscious or unconscious or subconscious, in how that has led them to not just the reason I'm a writer and not a photographer, but the key inquiries that I'm constantly exploring in my work.

which are things that feel like they're outside of even my jurisdiction. I am drawn to them. And so that is something that I am trying to reconcile when I put pen to page. And that's something that I've seen be reminiscent in creatives of all types or entrepreneurs of all types. This call to do something and to search and find meaning and purpose and understand it in a more nuanced way.

And then it went down another layer and that was in this journey of actualizing a creative piece. I am excruciatingly dealing with my own stories at every turn for better or worse. Meaning, you know, when I go to put pen to page and I see just, you know, a white screen and a cursor blinking at me, I have these immediate reactions that come up.

that are often rooted in some sort of fear because I'm facing the literal unknown of what's going to happen. And a lot of what then occurs is rooted in story, otherwise known as habit. These habits are stories that we perpetuate and we tell ourselves over and over again and then integrate into our mythology. And what I mean by this word, mythology, which

Erin 
I look at from a personal lens is just this constellation of our beliefs and our ideologies and things that have happened to us that ultimately come to shape our worldview. And so, you know, that includes these ways of being that become that can become rote or can kind of exist in on autopilot, which a lot of these habitual ways of being are.

And so you look at a lot of creative blocks that people, or blocks in general, scrap the word creative, perfectionism, self-doubt, self-sabotage, the harsh inner critic, whatever it might be, these are all rooted in a narrative that we are saying to ourself and then accepting as the story of truth. And I think what I love about putting the word story on top of this is that when you kind of strip down

what story looks like in a narrative sense. At the core of it, at all times, is change, is learning something. And so if we can apply that ideology to how we work with our own stories that are helping us move through the world or hindering our movement through the world, then that gives us a sense of autonomy, that gives us a sense of self-efficacy.

that we can change, that we can learn from it, and those two things are possible for us in the journey. And so, you know, reshifting these narratives about what these things are that are maybe getting in the way of these things that are calling to us, and looking at it through the lens of story, is this kind of trilateral approach to what the inward and artward model strives to emulate.

which again at its core is in order for us to go artward, in order for us to have a creative experience, whether that's artistic or otherwise, we need to go in and examine these stories, examine these myths, examine these narratives so that we're bringing a sense of intentionality to them and attentionality to them so that we can reclaim the way that we move through the choices in a way that we have some ownership over them.

Heather 
Mm-hmm.

Erin 
and not the other way around. And so that's one layer of the inward and artward model. think if you were to, and again, you know, I frame that kind of in a trilateral relationship, I think you could even add a fourth to that, which is when I do share my writing with others or when I am the recipient of other people's creative work, again, whether that's artistic or whether that's someone starting a podcast or a business or, you know, engaging in a relationship or whatever it might be.

I am changed. I learned something through that dynamic. And so I think there's this constant undulating wave that's coming back and forth between us in the self and us as we exist and coexist amongst each other. So that kind of wave I think is where the second part of the inward and artward exists, which from a facilitator lens, which is.

what the training is called, where we got to spend time together, this creative facilitator training. It models this idea of praxis through the educational sense. And this is something that I studied extensively through specifically the teachings of bell hooks, Paulo Fiere, more contemporarily, Felicia Rose Chavez, in looking at the way we learn as individuals.

And there's obviously a lot of issues with education as a pillar and as an institution in our society. you know, that can be traced back historically and kind of we can point the finger a lot of things. But when you look at the brain science of how it is that we actually integrate what it is that's coming to us, there's taking something in, reflecting on it, this introspection or what I call the inward. And then there's the application of it.

So in practice, they call it the application of theory. In creative work, it's putting our hands on the paper. It's writing the haiku and taking a stab at it. It's iteration. It's experimentation. It's conversation with others about what we're learning. And then we take that back. So if you almost look at this idea of the infinity sign, we take back everything that we learn and then reintegrate that, right? Then we're introspecting on

Heather 
Yeah, I was just thinking about that.

Erin 
everything that we had applied and then we apply that again and it's just endless. And so to answer your question in this long circuitous way, the and in inward and artward holds all of that, but also it recognizes that we are humans. And to quote Alexander Pope to err is human and the ampersand

in its symbology is like looking at the one behind you now, the one that looks like the infinity sign. It is a broken infinity sign.

Heather 
Yeah.

Heather 
I forgot that you told me this. And my mind is blown. Okay, go ahead.

Erin 
So it allows us to have that ability to then pause. It has that ability to be seasonal and have the seasonality in our lives, in our projects, in our processes, in our creativity, in our integration as creatives, as human beings, as people in relationship to ourselves and to others. And so I love it as a symbol, kind of like this.

Zen approach to how we hold these two things together. And yeah, I think that's where you and I really started to like geek out to like go back to the little meet cute that we had at the Parlor Fest. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Heather 
That light.

Heather 
I like, and this is why we're here because not everybody wants to ponder such things. And when we find each other, we attach. There's so much in what you just said. Trails, think I want to use that description as an anchor point to jump off. The first point for me is

Erin 
you

Heather 
story and your use of the word story, right? I think, you know, first, for most of us, when we think of story, we're like, I'm reading a book or I'm telling a story of what just happened yesterday. But thinking about story is the stories I'm telling myself as such a helpful reminder and for sure, and whenever somebody wants to talk to me about

business, you every now and then people are curious about starting a consulting business or entrepreneurship and how do you get started and what do you need to do? And I'm often, I mean, there's a lot of technical and business operations and things we can talk about. And I'm like, be prepared to be confronted by your biggest challenge, which is yourself and, and your stories. Because when you are in this in particular as a solopreneur,

Erin 
Yeah.

Heather 
That's all you're working with. That team of thoughts in your head is your team. And it is the place of possibility, and it is the place of potential disruption or distraction or destruction even, depending. So just the mindfulness around story when you think of inward and artward. So even that layer.

Erin 
Yeah, well said.

Heather 
And like you said, whether artward is I'm painting, writing, I'm designing a strategy, I'm collaborating in community, it's this what can I imagine and how do I go about making it real? You know, the places, as I think about human-centered strategy and the work that we do, part of what's really important to me about the work that I do, so I not only do collaborative work with teams, I coach leaders.

Because part of my, like, what do I mean by human-centered strategy is remembering that we are always also part of the work. And so often in my industry, the work is like out there. We're gonna go help a team, or we're gonna lead a team, or we're gonna do community. It's an outward action. So whether it's because our story shapes us and the stories we hold shape how...

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Heather
how we show up, how we get in our way. But also the point that you make and I make in human-centered strategy is that we influence, and in my case, our whole ecosystem is human. So in that dynamic, right, where you have all these overlapping infinity loops with each other, it's we influence and are influenced by all of it. And so taking that

Erin 
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather 
I just, there's not, to me, there's no other way to acknowledge that it's just how it works, right? It's how humaning works, is it is this interconnected piece of it. And so the intentionality around, as you said, honoring the going inward. And though, for me, one of the places, so like when I think about then where in this do we sometimes get stuck?

Right, so if we're painting this inward, artward flow, reflection doing model, I don't know, I'd be interested in your take when I think about how do I get stuck in that. I can get stuck on either side of that and. I can get stuck focused on what's happening and I'm not doing the reflection on me. And I can get stuck in myself and not take action. Right?

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Heather 
I can ponder, I can either just be pondering that idea safely forever, right? As I did with this podcast for about six years, safely ponder where I don't have to be in the passageway yet. I just get to be in the lovely pontificating and the dreaminess of what it might be, but never feel the, the squeeze of the making.

Erin 
Yeah.

Erin 
Yes, what a perfect word for that too.

Heather 
So it's a very interesting, like even just having, I keep doing this with my hands, I think even having just that infinity symbol as a tool.

Erin 
Yes.

Heather
is a helpful model. As just a reminder, as a check-in of how am I flowing through this? Like, where am I? know in art and creativity, we talk about flow. I've never thought about it from an inward and artward flow. I think of it more on the artward side. But I love now this idea that's emerging for me around flow that is across that.

Erin 
Absolutely.

Erin 
Yeah.

Heather 
I'll pass you to see what comes up for you when you think about where there is stuckness, kind of where do you see people get stuck in the inward and artward? Because I think sometimes when we talk about the and, often we experience it as like a squeeze or we can feel stuck in between them. And what you're painting for me actually is a very nice like,

Erin 
Yes.

Heather 
not in equilibrium, but it's a nice kind of harmonious flow between the two that feels a lot more generative and easeful. Where does the stuckness come? Where do we get stuck in there and how do you help people out of that?

Erin 
Yeah, it's such a good question and it comes up for everything. You know whether whether it's art or anything else. I think it's when you make the choice to go into the tunnel before you get to the arena and I think that's that's exactly where it exists is when you're shifting and to go back to the And statement I shared in the opening. This idea of anchoring and expansion. I think a lot of that stuckness comes from.

a place where we have to make a choice and make a decision because then that requires the movement from the ideation, the integration, the introspection, which can also look a lot like divergence and just kind of like the floating in the possibility space, which can feel endless into, well, how do we make this possible? Right? And so if you're looking at, you know, an infinity sign or the traditional ampersand, you have that X at the center of it.

right, where we're crossing over and we're taking something with us in that passageway, that thoroughfare. And that is the point where the fear or the resistance or the block or the obstacle likely comes up. Use the word squeeze. I'm sure a word that exists in both of our industries along with divergence is convergence and convergent thought. And that's where that happens, you know, where it's...

You know, how are you taking all of these ingredients that are floating them around and creating a recipe out of them, which requires, you know, maybe sacrificing, you know, an idea that you had or possibilities that you had in order to make possible something else. And it exists on that same trajectory of as soon as you make a choice, which yes, might sacrifice all of these other things, might challenge you to have to actually get into action and do the work, which is

which is embarking upon the unknown and going to raise all of the flags on alert. What you're also doing, and what I also like to remember that I'm doing, remind myself is only then will the possibilities of that choice reveal themselves. And so in order to actualize anything, that iterative approach to choice,

Erin 
and then what's possible within the choice, which goes back to divergence and to inquiry, which then you take back and you go through and through again. I think another place that the and really shows up is in that fear, right? You I think it's often viewed as a barrier to things, certainly within creativity. You know, a lot of these pop psychology books on the creative process tell you how to work against it.

But I have recognized it as a necessary and even generative force. Rather than something to avoid, I feel like if we look at fear and what it's doing, it heightens our awareness, right? It strengthens our resilience. It fuels, it's the fuel for our courage. And so how we engage with it, I think really shapes that evolutionary approach to the work that we're doing.

where it's not just like this byproduct of creativity or whatever the endeavor is, but a necessary ingredient. I think all the other areas of ambiguity in the creative process, the light can only exist with the dark. And so I feel like it's just as essential to use the word human-ing, like to our human-ing as it is vital to the survival of creative work itself.

Heather 
You said something there around fear and how we work with it.

I mean I even so, I told you that my and today was fear and trust. And so I have a tool that I've invented, I guess, that I call the fear suitcase. Where when I feel, because I think instinctually for me, historically it's like away from fear, push away. And now when I feel it, I think of fear.

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Heather 
or maybe even as a part of me coming to me with a fear suitcase that I've been say, okay, let's see what's in it. And so last night I actually like got out, you know, watercolor paper, drew a suitcase and was like, basically a check in to go, what are all the stories that I'm telling myself right now? Like, what is fear telling me right now about where I am?

And so I'm like, draw the suitcase and I'm like, all these things are popping out of it. And then it gives me an opportunity to make the story more conscious. And I can interrogate it differently to go, is that like, that actually might happen. Yep, you might. I'm afraid I'm going to feel grief about this. Yeah, you might. So how do we tend to that? I'm afraid this will happen. Will it really? What else is possible? And it just so it like,

Erin 
Yes.

Heather 
It like branched and branched and branched. And then there are several different sections where I ended up with a trail that just now says trust, trust, trust. And it helped me un literally, not literally, but it helped me unpack fear. So y'all try that on. Let me know if it works for you. But this idea of a fear suitcase lets me get curious. I'm a very visual person. So drawing it, writing it, mapping it.

Erin 
Mmm.

Heather 
helps me think through it. And so what that did not only was like, let me use fear because it did there was some stuff that had energy, like the things that I was afraid there are some things that I'm afraid. And we could talk a whole podcast about risk, but I think of head risk and heart risk differently. You know, the the risk of I didn't try to make the thing real versus the risk of I'm going to look embarrassed or lose some money.

and what regret, like which of those, if there's no risk-free aliveness, which of those do I wanna sit with? So fear can help call me to what matters to me. I'm afraid if I don't do this, I'm not stepping into my integrity or I'm not allowing this thing to be true, or is fear keeping me from something that is off-path? So there's just a lot of richness in there, guess, is what I'm trying to say is when.

in my experience when I really sit with it and unpack it, it allows me to fact check some stuff, right? Some of it is discarded to go, that's not my truth. Like, I don't know where that voice is coming from, but I don't feel that way. It's a really interesting, both fuel to use your language, it helps me with the fuel side, it also helps me with the story side. So back to like, what stories am I telling myself? That,

type of curiosity and that type of exercise has been really helpful for me. So I offer to you all the fear suitcase and unpacking for what it's worth as a tool for all of this.

Erin 
think it's brilliant. It reminds me a little bit of the Simon Sinek approach to just asking why over and over and to get into those layers. And there is so much unpacking that is required to understand that when self-sabotage might come up or the inner critic that might come up, it's hardly ever that top

Heather 
Yeah. Yep.

Erin 
surface thing that's actually occurring. You have to go a few layers underneath. And then I think when we have that information to work with, we can insert the and into all of that, right? Like when we understand, you know, where perfectionism is coming from, we can shift that story and our relationship to it because so much like what you're saying, you brought up the messy middle earlier is energetic. And I think the thing that we're often in the middle of that's getting in our way is our own mind.

And when we can even just reframe a little bit, then we're loosening that energetic stuckness and that chokehold that's preventing us from taking the next small step or doing the next right thing. Like for instance, with perfectionism, you know, like what's the story that we're saying and what's the story that's available to us. And if we are, you know, a recovering

perfectionist or what does Brene Brown say about that? Something to that. An aspiring good enoughist, I think she says. Then what are some of the superpowers that we already have at our disposal? What do we already have that we can work with that's here? Yeah, we're fastidious, we're detail oriented.

Heather 
I definitely use that language, I don't know. Yeah, nice.

Heather 
Yeah, I think of like, what else is true? You know, when I think when I get a message, I'm like, what else? Yeah, what else is true?

Erin 
You know, like we know how to write like a damn good email, like whatever it might be. You know, it's like, let's take that and then loosen the ironclad grasp on like the rest of it and take, you know, what's in existence and see what else we can kind of marry with that rather than just, again, starting with the proverbial blank page in any of it.

Heather 
Yeah.

Heather 
Yeah, I think the and just as a tool, you said, is help. Just to continue to expand the story. There's always more than one story that is possible, right? There's like, here's what's coming up for me about this, but what else is true? If you're up for it, I think I want to go back when you were describing inward and artward, another thing that you were talking about that really stood out to me, Erin, was around choice in the creative process.

Erin 
Yeah, right.

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Heather 
I mean, you know that I've close up had to face this one recently. In my work, I think of you say, divergence and convergence, I use focus and flair. Yeah, on the design side. But it's so often whatever we're doing does, you know, we have lots of different ideas. So in my case, it might be,

Erin 
yeah, we've talked about that. I love those.

Heather 
lots of things we could do as an organization, as a community to try to solve the problem that is in front of us or to step into opportunity. And we likely can't do it all. So prioritization is kind of the language that would come up in my space is how do we prioritize? How do we get back to focus? Because we can't do everything at once. As you were describing that, right, the...

making choice, I want to make sure I heard it. I think you were talking about making a choice or getting to focus is where we have to get so that we can realize the possibility of potential. And I feel like an and we are always holding and I talked about this a lot in the class with a group I know, but the letting go of all the other possibilities.

Right, the side effect of choice often to me is a grief. A letting go of all the things you're not gonna make because you've decided to paint this. The books you're not gonna write now because you're gonna write this. I just, don't know. Yes, please.

Erin 
Well, let me challenge you really quickly, Heather. I absolutely resonate with grief as part of, but what would be the and on the other side of that for you?

Heather 
The other side of grief.

Erin 
Yeah, like in making a choice, the side effects or the fringe benefits or however you want to look at it are grief and...

Heather 
I mean, there's so much that lives alongside of grief. mean, to your point, I mean, there's possibility. think it's it's where growth, it's growth and grief, right? The choice to me though, is always some combination, and I guess is what I'm saying, is just to honor the and of possibility. Because I think sometimes we could think of it as like, we have to make a choice so that we can do possibility. I'm like,

Heather 
And also for the feelers in the back, just want to go, and it feels, I feel simultaneously like thrilled and excited and sad or grief because the choosing is possibility and it also is a letting go. It's a not now. And I struggle with this. I think as somebody who might just have a little bit of fear of regret of the things undone.

that choices can feel very heavy sometimes. Again, I have a trust rock today as a reminder. Yeah, I just want to bring that into it. As you were talking about choice per usual, think grief just rose up in me to be like, don't forget, we're part of it too. So as we're going inward and artward, and that's our session about the and, it's just honoring all that is there with us.

Erin 
I love it. This is love.

Erin 
Yeah, I get.

Erin 
Yes.

Heather 
And, and Q inward, what might need tending and honoring in that process?

Erin 
Absolutely. think a few things are coming up for me. The first is an exercise I often do at the beginning of any multi-week class that I think we did in the facilitator training, which is where you draw a circle or a yin-yang on a page, and on one side you write down all of these things about this journey or this choice that you've made to commit to your endeavor, in these cases, creative classes, creative projects.

Heather 
Mm-hmm.

Erin 
And you write down what you're apprehensive about, what's making you feel anxious, what you're grieving, what you feel like is lingering in kind of a heavier way. On the other side, you write what you're excited about, what you're looking forward to, what you're proud of in yourself and to yourself for having made this choice to pursue this choice. And I like to do that to first kind of get it all down in black and white.

because I think that helps lessen some of the language-ness, like barrier-less energy around something that can feel so expansive and overwhelming, such as grief, such as anxiety, right, when we name it. And, you know, if you were to bring in the suitcase to that, like, and we had more time for an exercise like that, we would then go deeper and deeper and deeper into where that's coming from. But I also like the visual representation in just acknowledging that all of these things

can be true. It's not that we're trying to take the things on the left side of the diagram and get rid of them, but rather honor that they're there, acknowledge that they're there, give them their due, and then remind ourselves that in a choice, we get to make also the choice of where we are spending our energy, which again is where a lot of this conflict comes up, right? Being in the middle of our own energetic mind.

and the ways that it's either holding us back or letting us move forward. And I think when it comes to a creative endeavor of any kind, there's really one question that you can ask in that pursuit of moving forward, which is, is this in service to my creative journey? And if it's not, how can I work with that to move through it? And I'm thinking again of,

the tunnel to the arena, feel like that's such a powerful image that you brought up. In writing down the bones by Natalie Goldberg, who does a whole lot of kind of Zen meditation, has a Zen teacher and everything like that. She talks about this story that her Zen teacher shared with her about one of his students who is making a choice to move to Los Angeles.

Erin 
And it was this big life shift, know, any of us who have made any sort of encounter any fork in the road, like all of that frenetic energy of like, you know, like, yeah. And what, what the student was saying to the teacher was, you know, I'm going to go and if I go, you know, I could always come back if it doesn't work out. Like there's always back home. And like, he found a lot of relief in that.

Heather
Mm-hmm.

Yep. All the questions spirals. Yeah.

Erin 
And the Zen teacher kind of gave him the proverbial bop on the head being like, no, if you do that, you're never going to be fully present in the choice that you're making. You're going to exist in two worlds. And I think that's part of this kind of choice making is how can we make this commitment? And to me, the only way I've ever been able to make my way through any of that is to bring them down into micro commitments.

and to small steps, knowing that even if I see where the arena is, like this light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, my journey there is never going to be linear. It's never going to be the way that I imagined it at the beginning. Somebody's going to come down through the hall of the tunnel, and I might trip, or might need to use whatever it might be. I like the imagery of a forest, too, as well.

Heather 
Yep, yep. That feels more accurate.

Erin 
I can only do, yeah, I think that they should just start putting forests like before you get to the sports arena, just for the sake of this podcast and our metaphor. But I think that you can only ever take what the next right step is while hanging on to the idea of where it is that you're headed. But how you get there is gonna is constantly changing. And so I think the short answer to your question is everything just requires

Heather 
Yeah, exactly.

Erin 
that small step, that sense of trust, that honoring what's there and asking the question, is this in service to my creativity? You know, or like, thought goes, energy flows.

Heather 
you

And I immediately look at that question. I'm is this, so I'm thinking about stuckness. Like, is this in service to my creativity? And what if the answer is, I don't know.

Erin 
What do you think?

Heather 
I don't know. I think you sit with I don't know.

I mean, so, I mean, let me lean into that. So let me try it on for real.

So if I'm in a stuck spot, because for me, you know your question is, is this in service to my creativity? I often think about living a life of authenticity. So I might say, what is the choice most in service to my authenticity?

And then if what comes up for me is I don't know, because it's an interesting thing that I'm even saying that because also I would say so often for me what's true is that I try to figure knowing out in my head and in reality authenticity comes from doing something.

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Heather
So I would say doing something is aligned with my authenticity, so just do something.

Erin 
Yeah, and I think maybe what I would say is like, maybe the choice feels too big. Like, how can it be whittled down to something even smaller? Or identifying sometimes I feel like it's easier to actually identify what's not working or what feels like the wrong choice to help a little move a little bit more into alignment with with what could be.

Heather 
Something else too, I just, now that I'm sitting in real time, sitting with my own thoughts and stories, I think what I just heard myself say was that I said do something and that's aligned with my authenticity, but also like permission to not know. Like it's sit down, have a seat in the forest for a minute and trust that when you need to know, because I do think I can get in a place.

Erin 
Yeah, absolutely.

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Heather 
I don't think it's unique to me where I feel like I'm forcing a decision. I'm just energetically, I'm tired of holding the tension. So I just want to make a decision to make a decision. And then there's some relief on the other side. But I think there is something that happens in that squeeze of not knowing. And so yeah, I don't know how we work with that or what that points us to, but it's almost like, okay, that just means you're in the middle.

Erin 
Yeah.

Heather
Maybe that means I'm at the crossroads in the infinity sign. But maybe just some grace to the, don't know. mean, sometimes we have to make, there are time pressures where we have to make decisions. And sometimes there aren't. So it's just not to get too, I'll probably take us down a rabbit hole, but.

Erin 
Yeah, I wonder.

Erin 
No, I love it. I love it because I think on the other side of I don't know when that's true and when that's what exists and that's the kind of ingredients to play with that metaphor again that we're given is an invitation for experimentation, is an invitation for play, is an invitation to kind of sift through and kind of have this coexistence between the focus and the flair and kind of see what emerges.

in this way that I think emulates anything that we create and bring into the world, which requires constantly revisiting and revising and iterating and seeing how we can kind of shape and chisel till we get to kind of where we want to launch it out into the world, share it with others.

Heather 
I love that and I think what it reminds me too is so often when we're deciding what we wanna make, what we wanna do in our business, a choice feels like, now I'm deciding this is what I'm forever gonna do. Even the language I have found some relief in, not just what am I gonna do, but what am I gonna try? Like, this is so back to what am I committing to? I'm committing to trying this for three months. It does give it a little more playfulness or grace. I think on the strategy side, is, none of us know exactly what's gonna work from a strategy perspective or creativity. We don't really know if we're gonna love being a writer or not till we do it, but how do we try? What do we wanna test? Certainly there are lower and higher risk contexts for

Erin 
Yes.

Heather 
for the trying that takes some consideration. But yeah, how can a yes feel smaller? I guess is part of what you're saying is, is there a way to make it smaller? So yeah, and I don't know, I guess for me just to zoom back out is there's some permission to not know and a curiosity around is there a way to make.

Erin 
Hmm, more accessible.

Heather 
trying more accessible and what that is.

Erin 
And I think there's even a level of in order to know, we have to not know for a good portion of the journey and how do we coexist within that ambiguity.

Heather 
All right, let me slow that down. order to know, will you say it again? In order to know.

Erin 
gosh, in order to know we have to coexist with not knowing, I think.

Heather 
So it's almost like, because I can find myself in a spur of like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. So what I hear you saying is like, great, that's part of getting to knowing.

Erin 
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Heather 
to welcome it as a normal kind of sign of it. Erin, before we kind of start tying a bow on today, I'm curious in your work, you have such a unique role, I think, as a creator yourself, as a spaceholder for people facilitating creativity, as a business owner that has a literal physical place for holding story and creativity.

If there are any other kind of particular and tensions that really rise to the surface as a place where you see us kind of get stuck in our human experience, are there any kind of and tensions to highlight that also you might have a tip for us on how to navigate? Some component perhaps of the messy middle of things, I'm not sure.

Erin 
Hmm

The thing that's coming up, and I'll see if I can weave this into the and in some way, but in regard to the messy middle is. And I think this is this is the thing that we we encounter after kind of the limerence of the beginnings of a project. You know where we feel like we have the energy. We feel like we have the momentum. We feel like have the fortitude because it's it's.

Like so integrated within our energetic space that it's like just get out of my way. I want to actualize this. And then when we start making those choices and we realize, this is going to take some hard work to get through. That's often where you see kind of a lot of projects or ideas putter out. And I think this is where we as human beings start to bring a sense of.

Heather 
Mm-hmm.

Erin 
shame and guilt into our experience that goes along with with our creative endeavors. And so this is this is a big kind of ethos that I like to hold in whatever we do, which is that there's no such thing as having it all. I think there's never going to be a perfect ideal time to create in our lives. There's always going to be worries. There's always going to be doubts, fears, responsibilities, duties.

relationship pressures, I mean work pressures, every manner of life getting in the way. And so I think there's this idea of like, we are always creating in the middle of things. It is always the messy middle, wherever it is we might be with a particular project. And so I think in order to create in the middle of things, we have to hold the intention to create while we're also doing some reality testing. And maybe that's the and.

Heather 
Hmm.

Erin 
and learn how to change our mindset and get a grip on our own thoughts. Again, if you decide that what you're saying does serve your creativity, you're not looking at the truth or the falsity of a thought, rather whether or not the thought is serving you. Because I think there's countless true thoughts that don't serve us to hold onto as we're trying to move something through fruition.

Heather 
Hmm.

Erin 
So yeah, think maybe that's what I would kind of come back to is this sense of reality testing, the sense that we're constantly in the middle of things and to figure out how we can work with our own stories to reframe them in a way for that sense of sustainability, for that sense of generativity.

Heather 
When thinking about my clients right now, just, I mean, what stands out to me the most about what you just said is like we're constantly in the middle of things. In life, in business, in organizations, in creativity, in strategy. I I facilitate a lot of strategic planning and part of the first piece is like, let's just, the process needs to acknowledge that we're not pulling out a clean sheet of paper to imagine.

the brand new things. There's a lot of context and things that exist already around us and all of that reality has to be considered. So it definitely resonates that even if we talk about, sometimes we talk about in isolation, this idea of I'm gonna create, I'm gonna make something. So to just anchor, acknowledge it in the zoomed out messiness of our context where,

A lot of things already exist. Some things are in a different phase of existing that creating is existing in the context of complexity and messiness. How does that, I'm just, I'm trying to think of how does that change how we would approach it for that to be true?

How do we make differently if we honor that we're constantly in the middle of things?

Erin 
The first thing that comes to mind is your phrase of focus and flair. I'm maybe repurposing a little bit for this conversation in this idea of what we focus on expands and how those two things are not isolated from one another, but in a dynamic, integrated, intertwined, constant relationship that's not just in the choice, but in our relationship to the choice.

I think, you know, like a lot of a lot of this like comes back to the way that we are human and the way that we are developing our own sense of who we are. And that requires a combination of awareness. Of purpose and meaning. And then of actions and repetition, you know our time and energy. And I think you need all all of those in order to kind of get into the mindset of.

working in service to what it is that you want to do. I don't know if that answers your question.

Heather
So let's, well, I wanna slow that down. So you said we need three things to work in service to what we wanna do. What are the three things again? Awareness.

Erin 
I would say I would put awareness and compassion as one, which might be like the quality of our experience. I would put purpose and meaning as another, which maybe we could relate to the goal. And then the third would be actions and repetition, right? How we're working with habits. And that I think is like our time and energy.

Awareness meaning actions.

Heather 
And I was gonna ask you where of those in those three.

as we think about being in service to what we care about, where do we get stuck? And I immediately thought of ways that I get stuck in all three of those. So yeah, it's an interesting model.

Erin 
Yeah.

Heather 
And really to me brings it back to inward and artward. So when you awareness, purpose and action, almost to me is when I think about that infinity diagram, inward is the awareness, artward is the action and meaning is why are you even in the dance in the first place?

Erin 
And I think it.

Erin 
Yeah, yeah, I love that.

Heather 
So it's really a nice overlay to the model that you laid out in the beginning. It's like this intention and awareness and the action and that they're always feeding each other back and forth.

Erin 
And then.

Erin 
Yeah, and in through the lens of praxis, the word that they use at that center point is integration, how these two things come into relationship with one another. And all of this is constantly shifting because of how dynamic it is. And I find that incredibly exciting.

Heather 
How does, so when I think of purpose and meaning, how does, what is, not to be meta, but like what does meaning mean in this? When you think of purpose and meaning from the creative side, because I think of purpose a lot. You know, we're often working with folks who are trying to design, create systems that better support human flourishing. Like purpose is such a key driver in

Right, our missions and our visions and our work. What is purpose and how does purpose and meaning show up from a, how do we, how do y'all talk about or how do creatives talk about purpose and meaning or how do you talk about purpose and meaning in a creative context?

Erin 
Yeah, I mean, I feel like the meaning is the more personal or emotional significance that has to do with it. And when you look at it, like meaning from a place of scholarship, separate from creativity, but in general, from like a biological standpoint, why we as humans are driven to meaning, the three ingredients of that, our purpose is kind of a subset of meaning, significance, you know, how we make, and then coherence. you know, it's like how all the...

these things come together to kind of form a whole. But I would say that meaning is more about this like personal emotional relationship that we have from the creative act. You what does it reveal or reflect or contribute to my life, to my role as an artist? And then purpose feels like the intention to me, you know, like maybe even a little bit more goal oriented to what's behind a creative act.

Why am I creating this? I don't know if that helps kind of tease them out. I mean they're kissing cousins for sure.

Heather
What is your, when I think of you as a creative, again, writer and you're creating business, you're doing a lot of creating in a lot of different ways. Is your purpose, when you think about that for you, does it feel like it's the same across your efforts or does it seem to vary by project?

Erin 
I would say the meaning is more consistent than the purpose. Yeah. And, you know, for me, I'm an existentialist. And, you know, all I mean by that is like meaning is what we make of it. And in that sense, we have this fierce responsibility to make something of it. And I kind of take that quite literally in my life.

Heather 
Okay.

Heather 
Yeah.

Erin 
and try and go and make things. But I think what that affords me is to bypass some of the linearity and the...

the language that can get in the way of trying to have a more ephemeral experience to and with the self and with each other. And so then if I'm inserting that into a specific work and I'm looking at the purpose of that work, like a poem, usually that's in pursuit of a big question that I have, like this thematic.

Heather 
Hmm.

Erin 
ghosts that won't stop haunting me. My ghosts are the same ghosts that I've had forever. And they iterate. They're getting quite smart. They're trying to outsmart me and they do a pretty good job of it. But it's just becoming deeper and deeper in relationship with these questions of why are we here and what are we doing and how are we being intentional and meaningful at that time.

Heather 
Yeah. Morph a little. Yeah.

Erin 
which goes by like that. That's it. Yeah, that's it.

Heather 
sorry.

I love the language of fierce response. I think fierce responsibility and in the context of meaning making you say you feel a fierce responsibility to make meaning of life of meaning, just to make meaning to make this meaningful. I connect. don't even fully. It's like my body is connecting with what you said before my brain is caught up with what you said.

Erin 
Yes. Yeah.

Heather
But this fierce, I think I share that. I don't know if I would have thought about it as responsibility, but that resonates with me. A fierce responsibility to make meaning.

Erin 
Right, because then if we're going to throw the ampersand into this, for me, I think one of my big existential fears that propels me forward in almost everything is this concern that this is all just meaningless. And in the existential lens, right, I'm not trying to be nihilistic, but I can teeter on the edge if I'm not careful.

Heather 
Mm.

Heather 
Sure. Yeah.

Erin 
And that's where that sense of responsibility comes in is how am I in relationship to, well, if all of this is meaningless, then I get to choose what's meaningful, right? And that opens up a whole can of worms of how we then come to exist within all of these institutions and expectations and norms and on and on. But I think.

Heather 
Yeah, sure.

Right?

Heather 
It's a liberating way, I don't know if something about that feels really igniting to me though.

Erin
Yeah, yeah, me too. Most of the time. Sometimes it's like paralyzing. Yeah.

Heather 
Or slash I'm terrifying, right? Paralyzing or terrifying back to the heaviness of choices of like, I'm going to make meaning and now my choices are everything. And what if I pick the wrong ones?

Erin 
Yes. Yes.

And what a great way to kind of like put a bow on this is like both of these things are true. Where am I focusing my time and my energy? That's what I have to give in this life. I have my time and my energy. Where am I choosing to put it?

Heather 
Yeah.

Heather 
think that's a great question to leave everybody with. I have my time and my energy. Where am I choosing to put it on this infinity symbol dance we're on inward and artward and integrated in the center connected. Speaking of where you put your time and your energy, where should folks go if they want to learn more about

what you're up to or writing about Story Parlor. We can certainly put the links and all the things in the show notes, but if there's anything before we go that you want to call particular attention to, I want to make sure I give you space to do that.

Erin 
Sure, well folks here in the Western Northern North Carolina region come out to Story Parlor. We're located in West Asheville and our website is www.storyparloravl.com and then you can use that same Story Parlor AVL for our Instagram handle where we're constantly sharing like the most up-to-date things that we have going on. We have classes every night of the week.

And then over the weekend, we have events that celebrate storytelling through all art forms. So there's music, theater, dance, performance, prose, poetry, you name it, often more multidisciplinary nature as well. And then for folks here, but then also beyond the inward and artward school of creativity, kind of takes this ethos and philosophy of Story Parlor and brings it online for...

anyone who wants to explore that relationship with how our inner experience can be worked with, examined, repurposed for creative bounty and however that ends up being manifest. And the website for that is inwardandartward.com. And same for our social media handles for that at inwardandartward.com 

I don't have a personal website or personal social media really, but I think I'm on the internet. And, sassable, people want to get in touch. Yeah. If you really want to find me, you will. huh. I'm probably at Story Parlor if you really want to find me. Just come on by. Yeah.

Heather 
You can find me. You can find me at all of the places. Come buy a book, probably at Store of Parlor, which is just such, again, such a delightful, cozy, right, tiny little intimate space for gathering and that people can share. mean, you all do open mic nights if people want to read. So it's not as if like you have to be

Erin 
Yeah

Heather 
art fancy in some way to be connected.

Erin 
No, we challenged that pretty fervently in that we have a strong belief that we're all creative, we all have a story to tell, and that we're hopefully providing a platform where people feel that sense of welcoming and belonging and courage to do so. And because you brought up the open mic, a big thing that I'm working on with our program manager, Lyon, is really adding to what we call our Sunday sessions.

Heather 
Mm.

Erin 
And so on Sundays at Story Parlor, pretty much at any point during the day, you can just pop in, you don't need to have a reservation. In the mornings, we have kind of like these morning muse type sessions like creativity and coffee or parallel play if you want to just come and work on something, get in community. And then kind of taking into the evening where we have the All Arts Open mic, which is free and open to the public and you just share a five minute work in progress.

We have creativity salons, creativity mixers, lots of different things that all of Sunday is designed to be really accessible and like a great entry point into how we are hopefully kind of creating a community through Story Parlor as a whole. And everything is either free or low cost or pay what you can or donation based as well. So we're keeping the accessibility front of mind for those sessions then too.

But that's all on the website.

Heather 
Love it. Love it. And we'll link to it again. I wish you all the best with what you're making that goes so much beyond making in a way that we traditionally think about making. The craft of creating.

nurturing and supportive space for people to be and belong and connect as they are is such a special kind of creativity.

that I don't think we usually register as creativity. just for others out there facilitating, creating culture within your organizations, like I think we've reserved creativity for painting and writing things. And I've just like, I watch the way that you create and it just is such an expanded way of thinking about making and is so generous that it feels inspiring to me to think about living.

creatively and holding space for each other in a way that feels like a creative process. It just feels expansive in a way that I'm excited to just watch and touch in and be part of. But I think there's just a lot to learn from how you're going about this. So appreciate so much you taking the time to come talk to us today. I look forward to continuing to stay connected in some way.

to Story Parlor and all that y'all are up to over there. To everybody else, thanks for hanging in. I know that we took some journeys here, existential and otherwise, but appreciate through woods and tunnels and ampersands and infinity loops. Just appreciate, I think, at the heart of this podcast, Erin, for me, as we navigate the and is curiosity.

Erin 
Mm-hmm.

Heather 
So I just send big love to the audience today listening in and holding this conversation with curiosity. And I would just an invitation around, yeah, what are you making? Keep making inward and artfully. Erin would challenge us maybe to say it's our fierce responsibility to make things. We're gonna keep trying to make podcast episodes. This is my current creative focus.

which has taken some time to get to focus around. Please subscribe and follow so you can get current episodes and share it with somebody that you think might like it too. And we look forward to seeing y'all next time. Thanks.

Heather
The stand in the and podcast is supported by human-centered strategy where we help leaders and teams build connection and strategy in complexity so that everyone can flourish. To learn more or to work with us please visit us online at human-centeredstrategy.com or message me on LinkedIn.