Episode 78 Sam
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Permission to be Human, the podcast. I'm your host, Mel Findlater, mother, coach, and curator of Permission to be Human, the company and community. If you're a mom, know a mom. or want to be a mom, and you crave getting out in the world to make a difference, then you're in the right place. This is a space for moms like you to connect with yourself, your purpose, and your big, audacious dreams.
Because when you feel your best, you can better you, your family, and the wider world. Let's do this.
I had so much fun chatting with Sam Sunday, today on the podcast. I'm so excited to share it with you. Sam is so truly authentic to who she is, that she is really an inspiration to the rest of us. We dig into neurodiversity and what it's [00:01:00] like to be. Given these labels to find these things out about yourself later in life, we talk about authenticity and how we can be truly authentic to ourselves. And a really big theme that comes up is around curiosity and its role in our own personal growth, as well as this. Systemic growth and change that is needed. Sam. Has an amazing coaching company called art of undisciplined and go look at her website.
It's truly like it makes me chuckle when I look at it and is really, really inviting. Art of undisciplined.com. And I just want to give you the little example at the top here. But before I do, I just want to give you a big heads up because there's a lot of moms and mothers. Listening in who may be, have some kids around you. This episode is not child-friendly. It has quite a lot of swear words in it, and that is totally fine and [00:02:00] authentic to Sam. And I just want to give you that heads up so that you are not surprised and scrambling to turn it off.
So get in the right space. Be ready to be humored. Okay. So this is what it says on the very top of her website.
It just says I'm Sam, an artist and person with their shit moderately together.
And that just goes to show you that, you know, What the rest of the page is going to be like as well.
In the description that I asked for, for her bio of what her big audacious dream is, here's what she says. I dream about having a big old barn in the countryside on a piece of land teeming with life and biodiversity. And a Creek running down the middle of it. It would have room for my art studio and a bar on the first floor where family, friends, and neighbors could drop in any time.
So we can sit together and let time pass slowly.
What a beautiful dream. [00:03:00] Right. All right. Stick around.
Mel: Hello, Sam. Welcome, welcome. Hey, thank you for having me and thanks for coming. I'm so glad we've managed to get here in the same space at the same time. I know that life is, as all of us women know, I think it can, it can get in the way sometimes, but we were here and I'm so excited to have you and we have pursued for a reason.
I think this is going to be epic.
Sam: Yeah, totally. It's true. This, this episode is so many months in the making. We could
Mel: totally, yeah, definitely. Okay. So I always start with, with who are you? Who's who Sam? Sam is,
Sam: A person in in New York city right now. I'm I'm an artist and coach. I tend to call [00:04:00] myself like a creative coach, but the truth is that, I work with I work with people and like their life's work and that started with by working with artists and writers and now it's it's taken on like a much kind of.
Broader meaning as far as what the field of practice is, but like more narrow meaning as far as what, what are we, what are we moving towards to find, find fulfillment and find integration. Between like life's work and all of the other shit that's happening around us at the same time.
So that is, yeah. What else about Sam? Sam cooks a lot, speaks French, enjoys to travel, is disabled, pretty good at staying hydrated. I don't even know. I think that's it. I think that's most of Sam's. [00:05:00]
Mel: I'm sure there's you know, another hundred things we could probably say, to be honest. That's, that's the wholeness of humans, right?
Sam: Too. It's true. That's true. And yeah, neurodivergent extraordinaire. I forgot very extremely neurodivergent. And and I would say pretty good at it. Pretty good at being bad at being neurotypical.
Mel: So I'm being good at being neurodivergent. I love that. Yeah, totally. And I know that topic has come up.
Firstly, I love that you're, you just put that out there, right? This is, this is who I am. This is part of who I am. And I know, you know, we've chatted a couple of times before this and, and this is the topic that ends up at the forefront. One, because I'm also thinking about it at the moment from, you know, my family's world, but also just, you know, you're so open about that.
And I think that's really, it's really [00:06:00] beautiful.
Sam: Oh, thank you. Yeah. I it's almost a little bit awkward because I rush to tell people. I almost I can't keep it in. I'm, like, you need to know how autistic I am before we get any, any further in this conversation. But I, yeah, it's funny, disclosure is, is a really big thing with us.
with you know, being neurodivergent, like trying to figure out what that looks like, it's so individual to each person. But it's just like the more I like, the more familiar I become with my brain and the more I lean into like my neurodivergent community and I see the fucking fantastic weirdos who are neurodivergent around me and everything.
I just I do get really excited just to kind of like, Put it out there and connect deeper with like, with like other people who are [00:07:00] often really it's like people who don't even fully identify as neurodivergent yet. They're just kind of like, maybe on the cusp or just sort of like, but have that like spark of like curiosity about their brain.
I don't know. I feel like it also explains a lot about me. I don't need to kind of worry about trying to be normal. Too fast.
Mel: Yeah, what is normal anyways, right? I remember being a kid thinking I don't want to be normal. I want to be, like, not normal. Yeah. I didn't know what I meant by that, but it was just, yeah, this concept of stepping out of the box, right?
Sam: Totally. Totally. Yeah, and it looks, I don't know. I think like when we like you watch like TV and movies when you're a kid and you're like, yeah, the weirdo character, like that's the person I want to be and everything like, and there's a lot of magic in that. It's harder than it looks in the movies.
[00:08:00] Sometimes like I, like I, I love stand by all of that romantic shit. I was just about like neurodivergence and stuff, but, I would be lying to if I didn't say that there weren't like many, many days where I was just like, it would just be great if I could just be like 20 percent more normal sauce right now and just, just let just blend in just be like, yeah, uneventful.
Yeah,
Mel: yeah, there's a space for that, right. I was actually having a conversation with my daughter about being seen the other day. And. And how, you know, she was saying like, oh, well, I feel like I can be seen when I want to be, but sometimes I don't want to be. I'm like, yes, you're right. I think we're all there, right?
Sometimes, but, but she was like saying how good she is at being able to step into [00:09:00] that too. It'd be like, I don't want to be seen, so I won't be. I'm like, that's fascinating. She's, she's a, she's an old soul.
Sam: That's
Mel: very,
Sam: that's very cool. Yeah. It's, it's, it's true. Yeah. But like ability to protect your space is something that I feel like we spend so much time as adults trying to perfect.
It sounds like she's just nailed it, huh?
Mel: I do learn from her every day, I have to say. And a couple things are coming up for me as you talk through all this. One is You said this this phrase around being, like, being familiar with your brain and these curiosities around who you are and, you know, I'm, I'm guessing that most of the listeners here are listening because they're curious about who they are as people and as [00:10:00] humans and, you know, You know, where they want to go with that and I guess I'm curious what, I don't, I don't even, I'm not even sure what my question is here.
Just like a noticing that of the beauty of this, who am I as a person, this curiosity around how your individual brain works. I don't know if you have anything to say to that, but I just thought it was really, really interesting.
Sam: Yeah, no, I, this, I mean, this is, this is really a huge thing for me.
It was it was, it, it, it's been pretty life changing tapping into it. And I, and I I've witnessed a lot of other people experience that in a similar way. It's we take for granted that like we. That as things come up for us, like [00:11:00] thoughts, reactions, feelings, tendencies, habits, like all of these things that that's like somehow who we are, like who we are is like the, is like the thing that's reflected back by everything that we do, right?
And it's that's true to a degree, but, but there's also like this, trying to think of how to simplify this real fast. It's there's like this. There's always like this kind of neutral grounded, inner part of us like, a, like a objective observer is sometimes called or like a neutral witness who's like able to sort of see those things without kind of investing in them.
And like, and that's that part that like you were just saying is able to hold all of this curiosity and like, and it's like the moment we become curious [00:12:00] about. The things that we do, we don't. We can just like curiosity is such an incredibly powerful tool for disarming shame and like shame and and guilt and all of those things like they really lock us into a space like it, it, it like, it's like a straight shot into survival mode and just like things get real narrow and shut down right.
And Being able to step back into that place of curiosity and to practice that and to practice curiosity around like how our brain functions and like why we feel drawn to doing certain things, like even. It's this, it's this really magical space of even when we're going through like absolute hell or like when things are like really intense or we can't figure out why we're doing this shit.
We absolutely don't want to be doing still doing it. The stuff that we tend to associate with self sabotage or whatever, like we're able to step back into like curiosity and all of a sudden, even [00:13:00] that, like even that bullshit, like that kind of becomes magic. And it kind of becomes it's, it's, Yeah, just like that way of stepping into it looks almost like you become an anthropologist and you're like observing your own humanity and like this really like raw and open and free way.
And there's just, there's just so much endless power from that position. To then be able to be like, all right, like I am having a total meltdown and I'm screaming at my partner who I love and I'm not even entirely sure why this is happening. I'm about ready to just I don't know, just burn everything down and I can be like, Oh, Isn't that funny?
Maybe this isn't actually one I want to be investing in right now. This is just like a human who's having all of these reactions and [00:14:00] I can just choose to not push myself down that path even further. I can just kind of watch like how it's going and then decide to maybe step out of it.
Be able to see how vulnerable I am. Be able to watch my vulnerability, like kind of like mellow until I'm in a place where I can choose to do something different. And I think it. It's a powerful position like for those reasons for getting us out of shame and it's like a really powerful position also for, being able to take expectations and norms off of ourselves like a lot of times when we feel really stuck in those corners of like having a meltdown, or something or like feeling really caught up in like anger or, or disappointment or [00:15:00] something.
It's, it's. When those things feel really overwhelming it's usually because there's like this, this, this, this norm or expectation we feel like we're not meeting or we're not fitting into and all of the grief around that and like a, that happens so often with neurodivergence that there's this big period of grief.
\ My experience is someone being diagnosed later in life. And a lot of the people. In in my network in my community tend to be people who are diagnosed later in life. I think even for people who are diagnosed young when they come to identifying as neurodivergent as an adult as a neurotype rather than a rather than a disorder.
Sam: There's this huge period of grief that follows where it's I'm not who I thought I was. And like this grief around all [00:16:00] of this time in our life that we spent trying to catch up to some, to something, to some illusion of normalcy that first of all was like just fucking unattainable. Like we were never, we were like, we're just always in catch up trying to get to it.
And then, And then also realizing how much of that isn't even what we want for ourselves, like how much we can, we can buy into because normalcy is safe. It's like the ability to, to blend in with other humans, the ability to avoid rejection and avoid all of these like other painful things.
It's hard. It's hard to be weird. It's hard to, it's hard to go against the grade. It like can be. Even, even and when we think of like ways that we don't rise to like average, but also a lot of times, like in the ways that we're [00:17:00] considered like exceptional for whatever talents or things that we hold, can be really fucking lonely.
So yeah, being able to step into that place of curiosity, being able to be curious about your brain, even while being in your brain, you know, is, it just. It, for me, it's like, it's like the vantage point for then being able to figure out who you want to be.
Mel: There's, there's so much in what you just said, you know, the space of curiosity is, you know, the other word that comes up for me is, is noticing, you know, you're entering a space where you start to notice and actually that's where our wellbeing increases, right?
That's where, cause we're stepping out of like emotional brain for a second and just observing that. emotion happening. And that's, that's a practice. That's a skill, right? And as you're [00:18:00] speaking, you know, I'm, I'm thinking about some work that I'm doing right now with about to start like this courage club with a group of women.
And I was like, Oh, we need to put on a curiosity hat sometimes and be like, Oh, I'm so curious about what I'm feeling right now. Oh, my bum's a little sore from sitting on this log. Like You can notice so many things, right? And I think actually, if I was to give one tip to anybody in life is just start to notice.
Just stop and notice, be curious, and then don't have judgment about it, just be curious about what you notice, right? Yeah. And I love your example of like how you put that into play in your life to, like you say, get out of shame, right? And get into just pure curiosity that our brains want to be curious.
That's what they naturally are. Right. Totally. Totally.
Sam: And, and I love, love the idea of like a, a [00:19:00] curiosity cap and everything because, I mean, it's true. It's like there's once you can, when you can bring a practice of intentionality around it, it like shifts a lot of that power because even like when we're like, when we're like getting really upset or something, you know, or like we're like stuck in, stuck in shame or anger or whatever, and like we.
Don't have that distant we don't immediately have that distance. Like curiosity, like needs to be an attentional step. Even that is like fucking amazing and beautiful. And like evolutionary advantage. It's no, you don't actually, your brain doesn't have to be totally invested in these really intense emotions, but thank God that it is.
Right. Because like, when you actually do need those for your survival, you don't have to think about stepping into it, you know, instead, like you get the option to like, step back out. And yeah. Yeah, I could go on about this stuff like forever.
Mel: I love it. Well, and I love that. And it's really you know, I love that it's, [00:20:00] you know, before we talk and for those listening that, you know, with everybody before we talk, go live, we're like, Hey, well, what's our kind of themes for the session?
Like curiosity is not the one that came up, right? But now I'm like, Oh, curiosity, right? One of my absolute favorite topics and values and. Honestly, the thing that will change the world is if we can all just really tap into that curiosity about everything. Yeah. You know, the whole nature thing that I talk about all the time, start to be curious about nature.
Oh notice the wind on the tree, and why is there that little bump there? You know that, that automatically gets you into a more, Like stable state, your nervous system calms down, you start, you know, and that's what curiosity does.
Sam: Totally, totally. That's amazing
Mel: and so simple, hard to remember to do, but so simple.
Sam: Yeah,
Mel: yeah,
Sam: I love I I love hearing about how rich this [00:21:00] practice is that you're, that you're building. But it's Like literally field practice of going out into nature and being like, how serious can we get? Cause that's, I mean, I've also heard it called like scientific brain or growth oriented mindset or something like, it's this, it's this like desire for input.
And it's true. It's also like coming out of being curious about your brain, right. It's like the, the way most of us are brought up. We have access to curiosity when we are calm when our nervous system is regulated. But the opposite is also true as you're saying that you can do There are things you have access to because your nervous system is calm and regulated.
And then there's things that you can do that typically you would only be able to do when your nervous system is calm and regulated. And so since you're [00:22:00] practicing them then it has the opposite effect. It's a beautiful two way street. So like, so like you're saying just by practicing being out in nature and being curious.
You're teaching your body that it's like in a safe place and like you're creating more of that, more of that regulation and more of that like down regulation and everything. I think that's really neat. What all of this is reminding me of too, is I I have a pet peeve that some of my clients find really funny, which is if someone calls something self sabotage, like I will push back on it.
Because I, Without getting like too heavy into semantics like I don't like it's, it's not something that I buy that I tend to buy into this idea that we dig ourselves over right it's like maybe we're not doing what we want to be doing, but like, but like this, the curiosity mindset and all of that it also [00:23:00] comes from this or.
Something that I find feeds it a lot is this idea that we're so like, no, humans are messy as shit. Right. And then at the same time we're so streamlined for evolutionary, like advantages, like we are made to survive. Like we are everything we do is like for her. the survival of like ourselves or like, or like our genetic code with the, you know, human race, like we're like every, everything we do is about survival.
And so what, even when we're doing these like really self destructive things that we don't understand it's we try and apply logic brain and we're like, well, you know, if you're, If you're drinking too much or if you're doing risk taking around these things or whatever it's like you're, it's self destructive and like it's just like a bad thing to be doing and we shut off [00:24:00] curiosity because the logic brain says that like, fucking with your health so therefore it's all bad, but Even being able to bring curiosity to that stuff, it like, it takes us out of those, out of that tunnel vision.
And it's okay, so what do I really think I'm trying to accomplish with this? Or like, or what is it that this is actually feeding? Or what is it that like, has me being driven to continue to engage in this habit or whatever? And, and there's something about just even when we don't feel like we have control, even when agency feels really far away, like just being able to step into.
into curiosity and find some way to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. It's like a way of re partnering with ourselves and our brains to actually find the healthy solution to the thing that we're trying to change.
Mel: Yeah. Yeah, and it kind of, [00:25:00] I think like we said before, it steps you out of the, the shame and the anger and the, you know, but also like ego, right?
Yeah. It steps us, it kind of like, you're stepping away from it and going, Oh, hey there. Right? That's interesting. And I think it kind of, you know, in the context of what you were just saying, with, with maybe some behaviors that aren't the best for our health Okay. Often we, we do those to numb, to, to stop, like the feeling is too much, so I need to, I need to slow down.
And I, I wonder if the, I'm curious about the practice of curiosity in that moment, whether it actually regulates our body enough that we then do notice, and that we then do start to get curious, right? And we do start to feel. So in some ways, we're not numbing, but we're entering it in a, like a gentler way.
Right? Oh, [00:26:00] I'm serious. Like, why, like, why do I spend the night watching Netflix? Right? But I'm so, so tired. What is it about Netflix that is making me, what is it satisfying for me? Right. Yeah. It's a need that it is satisfying, even if it's also doing X, Y, and Z.
Sam: Well, I think, yeah, yeah. And I think, I think sometimes, you Where, where curiosity can be fun, too.
So, yeah, where curiosity can be kind of hilarious around this stuff, too, is that like, why are you staying up watching Netflix? Super late at night for, for myself and with a number of my clients. Right. So this isn't going to say that this is what everyone is doing, but I have found the vast majority of people, what they're doing is they're forgetting that you actually need energy to go to sleep, like you actually need energy to rest.
And so [00:27:00] it's just it's really. Humans are also hilarious and like how we try and make meaning about like everything, right? So it's so it's like, what am I like? What emotional need is like, is like continuing to watch this Netflix, you know, what is it, what is it feeding? And it's well, maybe it's not that it's feeding something.
Maybe it's that you're actually underfed. And so just actually having the energy to transition out of a thing is just missing. Like sometimes it's funny because we will, we'll, Put more energy into trying to problem solve around something where like it can actually Have will be resistant to a really dull answer to like why we're actually doing a thing.
Without going too far in the direction of like about of talking about addiction and stuff like that because it's also like I know a very It can be a [00:28:00] very I'm trying to come up with a better word but triggering just kind of like it like it's a very vulnerable place for a lot of people but they're like, there is a lot about, there's, there's a lot of neuroscience that suggests that like the way that a lot of like addiction gets started is because we're just like more driven towards the action of like, of doing a thing rather than feeling the results of it.
So Even just like eating like our brain is so much more focused on what something is going to taste like the desire of what the thing is going to taste so that we keep on eating rather than like how sated it feels by like when we're actually eating the thing and like even just that is like this like evolutionary advantage that doesn't fit in with the social norms of how we think we're supposed to be of like what we think logic is supposed to be but like so little.
Of how society understands [00:29:00] the brain as actually is actually based around logic. So I'm like, most of it is just like these emotional cultural expectations of what humans should be or what they should look like. And I'm going on a tangent did want to circle back because you were mentioning, you're mentioning shame and like ego.
And I, I like another thing I go hard on is that I like shame and guilt. I've seen some people make arguments for like where they can be useful in society. And I, I really feel that they are like, it's just what we use to describe, like when we're heading into a survival mode that comes out of a fear of rejection, like humans need other humans.
And we're afraid that we've done something to upset the other humans. We feel these really intense feelings, but like the solution to that is ego [00:30:00] centering. Like when we feel when we're stuck in guilt and we're stuck in shame, we're trying to figure out how to fix ourselves in relation to other people in relation to like whatever community or something we think that we may have scared off.
And so they like the, the amount of time we spend in that space trying to figure out how to fix something. It's true. It's we're all, we're all in like ego rather than just rather than just stepping back out and figuring out what's actually, what actually needs to happen, what repairs actually need to happen.
I don't know if that makes sense.
Mel: I think that does make sense. Yeah. And, like, where my brain goes with it is, like, how do we do that, is to I wonder if there's some tricks, which for me, the what if, [00:31:00] just adding what if at the beginning of a thought makes it a curious question, right? Yeah. Which kind of tricks our brains into thinking that.
So, What if that person is acting like that because something else happened today? Or what if they feel like how I feel? Or what if I was meant to be here exactly in this moment? What if I'm worthy? Right?
Sam: Yeah.
Mel: Yeah. What
Sam: if it's enough for me to forgive myself? What if it's okay for them to not forgive me for this thing that happened?
Yeah. What if it's okay for me to get forgiveness from someone else? that I did and yeah, I love that. Like how, how expansive can, can it, can we let it be? Because once we're, once we're in ego and once we're in shame it's just [00:32:00] there's so, there's so few, we feel like we have so few options and a lot of times where we end up getting stuck.
And this is true for like interpersonal relationships. Like this is true, like with our families and our friends, but also true for like, how we engage. Around like systemic oppression, like I see a lot of white people getting chipped up in anti racism because they like, because like we, we think that we need forgiveness from the person who harmed us.
And so it's not actually about us changing, it's not actually about us doing something differently, we're putting more shit on their plate, like we're trying to tell them how they have to be for us to be absolved. And like And yeah, bringing curiosity and like bringing an expansive space and like really getting playful around, What forgiveness has to happen and how much space and how much time can you give everything like all of a sudden like it just, [00:33:00] there's just so much less pressure, there's just so much room to like, create repairs, create something stronger.
Mel: Yeah, yeah, that's really beautiful. And I love the actually my favorite word and all that you just said on a really like intense topic is forgiveness. being playful with it, right? And that's what curiosity allows us to do. And it's okay to be, to play with serious things, right? Whether that be our ego or shame or, you know trauma or you know, racism or whatever.
It's okay to be, it's with ourselves, obviously there's appropriateness, but there's this playful way of thinking about things that allows us to get into a different space. There's, it, it's prompting, I'm, there's this amazing woman who spoke at the DO lectures that I went to in Wales [00:34:00] earlier in the summer.
That I will be hopefully interviewing on here, who I'm totally forgetting her name right now. But she was talking a lot about playful inquiry and how we can use, how we can use play and art to She was working with the justice system and young people who would have otherwise had to go to jail went to her program instead and they did they went into courtrooms and made playful like things everywhere and challenged the kind of way that judges were thinking about them and is such amazing work.
I think you'd love it actually, so I'll have to pass that on. Yeah, I
Sam: do.
Mel: But, you know, it's just making me think, yeah, that, play and curiosity go together and that's where we want to be. Like, that Totally. Curiosity is how we play as an adult. Yeah. We might not play with the truck right here that my kid, my little kid wants to play with as much.
You know, I will play with it, but it doesn't kind of get the [00:35:00] same juices flowing in me as it does for him. My play is curiosity.
Sam: Yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean, that, that was such a poignant example too. And I am, I, I, I, I try and practice abolitionist teachings and stuff like that. So, like, how do we move away from carceral systems and everything?
So even there's the, there's. In that example has so many layers, right? Cause there's in that example, it's like, how do you, how do you take kids who are like in some sort of pipeline, like society is telling them how they're supposed to be? And offer them play as a way of expanding who they think they get to be like, who they know they possibly could be as they grow, but also like from As like a systemic perspective, like how do we become playful with how we think about accountability and and everything rather than just like punishment and incarceration and and [00:36:00] like, how to how what is the potential for play to create less harm in the world.
Mel: Yeah, such a good question. I would love the answer. All right. It's
Sam: an unending question. I think that's the fun part, right? It's well, like most of these questions that we're asking, it's I think they're, I don't know, there's, they're, they're juicy. They're sexy because there isn't like a, there isn't like an answer or like a single way of doing it.
I, not to harsh up the vibe, but, a story that's coming to my mind that came up recently with a friend and I'll put a little content warning on this because it does touch on, abuse. She's a foster parent and, and we've actually been studying abolition together the last couple of months because it's something that she's been wanting to get into.
And she had a kid stay, a [00:37:00] little girl stay with her for a couple of days. And before she was moved into another home and she was like her she just felt such an attachment to this kid so fast and she was, she was telling me we're studying all of these things and like, and I believe it I, you know, I, I want there to be less prisons.
I don't see how incarceration serves people like I. You know, I it doesn't serve society. Like I I see all of the violence in this. And then I see this kid was put in my house because her father was abusing her. And I think I can't, I have, I feel no softness for this man. Just fuck that person.
There is nowhere in my heart that I could feel like anything except for that. He absolutely there's just no reform, there's no there's no forgiveness for someone like that. [00:38:00] And I was like, I was like, I hear you. Right. And that's really intense. And what if your role in this. Is that you're not supposed to forgive him?
What if your role in this is that you're supposed to be on that kid's side and just like defending her tooth and nail. And what if in this big world that has so many people in it, there's someone else whose job it is to forgive him. And what if there's a whole other community that's waiting to bring him in and hold him accountable on the other side of something different, but not all of us need to be everything to everyone else. And like this, it's so funny because we're like getting towards the end of the time and like something that we did that we were that we had talked about talking about was chosen family. And I think this plays right into that but what [00:39:00] if we were meant to have to, to be like, just so.
Specific, like the, like how specific and authentic we can be in the roles and the ways that we show up for other people, like how limited we can be, like, kind of creates makes it makes those relationships fuller makes that connection richer and so much more powerful because we're not playing the dancing and these ideas of isolation around Nuclear family and who's supposed to be who to each person but like actually getting nourished and nourishing each other in the ways that like, that come the most naturally and make the most sense to us.
And I think in how we, even in this really even like when it comes to like really heavy situations like that. A. There is still room for play. There is still [00:40:00] room for being playful with thinking about, like, how creative and how expansive can we get around, who gets, who gets to be who, yeah, I think maybe there was going to be more to that sentence that was going to wrap it up in a way that was really elegant, but then being neurodivergent, I lost it right at the end.
Mel: I actually think that was a perfect way to end it. Who gets to be who, right? That is the essence of all of that. Who gets to be who to who as well, right?
Sam: Yeah. R and Daddy Roy and the God of small things. There's this line that she keeps on repeating, but I'm probably not going to say verbatim, but the way that it plays in my head verbatim is the rules about who gets to love who and how and how much, is like what all of these characters are kind of navigating.
And so much of my adult life has been about like, [00:41:00] how do you, how do you unlearn all of those roles? And how do you, how do you be and bring in like the people that you need and that you really That it, that it feeds you to be and to have around you. Yeah, I love that.
Mel: I'm so tempted to have another half an hour of conversation right now and I'm going to stop us from doing that.
However, you know, given everything that we've talked about and we've tapped into some, some great spaces of curiosity and Some, some kind of really deep spaces and you know, ones that are like pulling on my heart. You know, given everything we've talked about and everything that we wish we talked about and who our listeners are, which tend to be mothers or people who mother in the world and they have [00:42:00] these, these dreams to go and you know, live their lives the best life for themselves, for their family, for their community.
What would you like to say to them? What's your kind of key tip for them to take away?
Sam: Yeah, this is gonna be a repeat from the stuff we were talking about, but repetition is great. So that's number one. Number two,
everyone's I might be repeating myself. Do it. Repetition is phenomenal for humans. We're so into it. Number two is like, is find that curiosity and find it challenge yourself to find it. Somewhere where you weren't expecting it, some dynamic where something feels hopeless or you feel trapped, or there's just [00:43:00] so much frustration.
That's the one where you need to challenge yourself to have a little bit of curiosity. What if things aren't? What if it isn't a binary? What if it isn't so limited? And just see, see what comes for you from that. And that's my advice, not because it's be a better person, but it's because that's the root of finding gentleness for yourself and getting through those hard spaces.
Mel: Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Amazing. So if our listeners are like, I want to hear more, I want to, I want to what is this creative coaching, creativity coaching and what is, you know, I want to talk more about whatever topic where would they, where would they go to find you? Yeah,
Sam: They should absolutely come to my website, which is warm and welcoming.
It's called Art of Undiscipline, artofundiscipline. [00:44:00] com. It's, I don't know, I went undiscipline instead of indiscipline as part of the undiscipline all about leaning into What, what pulls you rather than like, rather than all of the ways that we push ourselves into who we think we're supposed to be.
And there you'll be able to sign up for my newsletter where I share lots of long rambling thoughts. But also like lots of coaching tidbits. And then from there also you can find out how to work with me one on one because that is absolutely like my favorite thing to do is to, to work with people and help them get somewhere just utterly surprising.
Mel: I love that. Utterly surprising, favorite word in there. And also this concept of, you know, going somewhere that, that pulls you instead of pushing yourself into things. That is, that is a real gem right there, you know, so that people [00:45:00] listening, you know, if you're anything like myself with these big dreams, Which ones are you actually pushing yourself into and which ones are actually pulling you along?
Yeah,
Sam: that's
Mel: such yeah
Sam: And how do you like and like how do you let yourself be be pulled into it? It's like it's like it's it's all play right? We play a lot with the inevitability of like Of like our creative practice, the inevitability of falling into our dreams. It's if we just, the more we like let ourselves go with the thing, like the more we surprise ourselves by how much we're like drawn into awesomeness.
There's this idea that I'm not gonna get us all started on a new thing but there's this idea like when we start when we stop pushing ourselves like we're just gonna sit on the couch for the rest of our lives and like maybe that's what we do for the first week or two because we're probably overworked and really tired like that's just but like you [00:46:00] said it's like that's not how humans Are designed like humans are designed to be curious.
We're designed to be playful. We're designed to like, we want to get out there and do and make and be together, like no matter what. And you need to, yeah, it's, it's tapping into that. It's just, I don't know, pure energy.
Mel: Fantastic. Oh, I love it. I have so many visuals coming into my mind right now.
Pushing giant balls and yeah, versus being pulled by what? I'm not sure what, I'm pulled by something, but yeah. Unicorn.
Sam: Yeah. Glitter. Just like a train of Shiba Inus. Just like anything. Dorkies.
Mel: Yeah, totally, totally. Okay, thank you so much for joining us, Sam. I am so glad that we've done this. This is super fun.
I'm, I'm, I'm really grateful. [00:47:00] Yeah.
You know when you have that dream or that idea and you hold it really tight and you don't really want to share it with anyone until you have it just right? Until you are absolutely assured that it is exactly what you want it to be. But you also know, deep down inside, that it is unlikely to get perfect, it is unlikely to get to exactly where you want it to be, unless you share it with others.
It's when we share it with other people that we get the energy and the momentum. It is when we get feedback. It is when we start to Iterate. We need to get it out of our bodies and into the world in some sort of way, and talking to someone who will cheer you on is exactly the first step.
That is it, folks. This has been Mel Findlater on Permission to Be Human, [00:48:00] the podcast, and I am so glad that you have joined us here today and hope that you have taken away some tidbits that will help you go away, connect with your big audacious dream, and make that massive impact in the world that you are dying to make.
If you liked today's episode, please, please, please like it, share it. Think of one person. Think of one person that you think would also like it and send it on over to them. Let's get this out there and more moms feeling like themselves. Inspired, dreaming big, and out there being them. Please do head on over to find me on Facebook with permission to be human or Instagram or you can even Off me an email and say hello.
Have permission to be human, always, at gmail. com. Say hello and let me know that you listened. What did you like about it? I would love to hear. If [00:49:00] you didn't like it, I don't really want to know. Ha ha, just kidding, you can share that if you want. I would love to know, however, who you are. Let's connect.
Let's find out what you want more of. I want to hear from you and I want to make it what would be useful to you. As always, remember that you have permission to dream big, permission to feel big, and permission to be you. You have complete and full permission to be human.
For real, you do.
