The Sacred Art of Creative Healing with Scott James

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Scott James shares his journey from writing poems out of desperation to creating over 10,000 typewriter poems on demand, revealing how creativity became his path to healing and presence. Through his practice of instant poetry, Scott discovered how to transform resistance into flow, establish energetic boundaries, and create meaningful connections with strangers through art.

• Started writing poetry during a personal crisis after moving to Austin and settling into marriage
• Set a goal to write 1,000 poems in a year, which evolved from a task into a healing practice
• Discovered the power of co-creation by asking others for poem ideas rather than working in isolation
• Brought his 1947 Smith Corona typewriter to events and began writing poems on demand for strangers
• Developed specific creative rituals and "energetic hygiene" practices to prepare for poetry sessions
• Found that writing poems for others created a flow state that felt like connecting to something beyond himself
• Learned to "leapfrog resistance" by using his ego and pride as motivational tools
• Established the typewriter as a "creative campfire" where both poet and recipient contribute
• Witnessed profound emotional responses from people receiving personalized poems
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Show Guest:

Scott James is an acclaimed typewriter poet and the VP of Author Strategies at Pioneering Collective, a thought leadership accelerator based in New York City. As a poet, has written over 10,000 poems on-demand, published two best selling books, and had his work featured widely by tastemakers like Magnolia and Tim Ferriss. As an author strategist, he has helped hundreds of authors publish their own books, with many of them becoming best sellers and driving millions of dollars in new business. He loves the work of helping people get their ideas onto the page and out into the world. He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, daughter, and their goofy pug.

You can connect with Scott here:

https://www.instagram.com/scottandrewjames

https://scottandrewjames.com/

https://www.pioneeringcollective.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Couch Time with Kat
• 1:27 Scott's Journey to Creating Art
• 4:59 The 1,000 Poems Challenge
• 9:40 Typewriter Poetry and Public Creation
• 17:13 Energy Boundaries and Creative Containers
• 26:09 Creative Partnership and Book Development
• 35:17 Creative Rituals for Wellbeing
• 57:43 The Role of Art in Healing
• 1:01:10 Making Creativity Accessible and Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Couch Time with Cat, your safe place for real conversation and a gentle check-in. Kwvh presents Couch Time with Cat. Hi, I'm Cat, trauma therapist, coach, tedx speaker, best-selling author and your host here on Couch Time with Cat. I've spent over a decade walking alongside people through the real, raw and sacred work of becoming whole again. Through the real, raw and sacred work of becoming whole again. Catch Time with Cat.

Speaker 1: 0:26

Mental Wellness with a Friendly Voice is where we have conversations that are equal parts science and soul. This is where we get honest about anxiety, grief, burnout, relationships and the brave everyday work of healing. You don't have to have it all figured out to belong here. Whether you're tuning in right from here in the Hill Country or listening across the world, I want you to feel seen, supported and reminded that you're not alone. So find your cozy spot, take a deep breath and let's talk about what it means to be human together. There is something sacred about the creative act, about putting pen to paper, paint to canvas or truth into form.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Today, I'm joined by Scott Andrew James, poet, guide and longtime creative partner. You might know him as the man behind 10,000 typewriter poems or the author strategist who's helped hundreds of voices make it to the page. Scott is someone who understands that creativity isn't just output it's a form of healing. Scott James is an acclaimed typewriter, poet and the VP of author strategies at Pioneering Collective, a thought leadership accelerator based in New York City. As a poet, he has written over 10,000 poems on demand and had his work featured widely by tastemakers like Magnolia and Tim Ferriss. He has helped hundreds of authors publish their own books, with many of them becoming bestsellers and driving millions of dollars in new business. He loves the work of helping people get their ideas onto the page and out into the world. Get their ideas onto the page and out into the world. He lives in Austin, texas, with his wife, daughter and their goofy pug, hi.

Speaker 2: 2:10

Scott. Hello Cat, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1: 2:15

I'm honored by the introduction, oh my God, thank you so much for being here. I'm just so excited. I'm like I'm kind of giddy, it's kind of. It's kind of silly and fun. But you and I have known each other. Listener Scott and I have known each other going on 10 years.

Speaker 2: 2:32

Gotta be 10 years.

Speaker 1: 2:33

Oh my God, that's a lot of professional growth and personal growth for each of us. Not that those are two different things, honestly.

Speaker 2: 2:40

A lot of growth and a lot of change. It's very cool to be here and to see you on this. You know everything that you've accomplished in the last 10 years and built. Thank you, and to be part of this show.

Speaker 1: 2:53

Thank you, thank you, drew you to creating art in the first place.

Speaker 2: 2:59

I have two answers, okay. The first is when I was a little kid, I made art before I realized what it was, which I think is how a lot of people are. I was telling stories at sleepovers when I was, you know, 8, 9, 10 years old which is uncommon, especially for a little boy and I was writing poems for my grade school girlfriends. I was writing plays for the neighborhood kids. So I was doing all of that before I was really aware that it wasn't common. So that's my first answer. And then, like many people, I stepped away from art. I wasn't creative in the sense of making art, and you mentioned the 10,000 poems in the intro. So, around the age of 35, I started making art, again out of desperation and deep despair.

Speaker 1: 3:56

It sounds like you needed some healing and it just kind of drew you like it called you. It just kind of drew you like it called you.

Speaker 2: 4:04

It did. I had just moved to Austin, I was married for about two or three years and I was going through a major sort of shift A lot of who am I, what am I doing? And we had moved from a place where I had lived for many years to a place that I didn't know at all. Part of being here was a redefinition. I was married, I was working in an office for the first time and I was doing a lot of things that prior to that hadn't been part of my day to day. I had been an outdoor guide and I had moved around a lot for almost 15 years.

Speaker 2: 4:41

It was a lot of different things for me and when I sat still as you know very well I'm sure I got married and I sat still for the first time and I had a whole bunch of unresolved things that I had to deal with.

Speaker 2: 4:53

I forget exactly what it was, but I think it was this guy named Chris Guilbeault. But I somehow got kind of the smart goal formula stuck in my head and I was like it's got to be measurable and it's got to be, you know, and for whatever reason that worked for me and I said I am going to write and give away 1000 poems in a year, and that was kind of like my guideline. And so I gave myself this goal, you know around Christmas or January of a year, and I set about it and I didn't intend for it to be healing, I just intended for it to be a lifeline. The first thing that I tried to do was just make them up. So there was kind of three stages to this becoming a healing practice, art as healing. The first stage was I just tried to write them like I can do like very I would say, like rushing, like a formula line in a football game.

Speaker 2: 5:50

What's?

Speaker 2: 5:50

that like a formula like a formula, but just aggressive. I was like I could do. I'm gonna write. Like what? When I tell people I wrote a thousand poems in a year, the first thing they say is the not everyone, but most people will do the math in their head and they'll say, oh, that's like three a day, which is how I thought about it initially and I thought, well, I got to write three poems every day, let's go. And then, because I'm competitive, so I thought, well, I should write 10. I'm going to get ahead, you know what, if I want to go on vacation or whatever. That that's how I thought about it, like it was a task.

Speaker 1: 6:27

Yes, that's a great word task.

Speaker 2: 6:30

And so I did that. And when I got to about the first like 75, 80, I ran out of ideas and I was like I'm just writing the same poem. It's kind of like when you start a new exercise routine. I thought this sucks. I like this thing, and so my first instinct was to well, I asked my wife, but she didn't really have suggestions for how to proceed. But what I ended up doing is asking her. So I called people I trusted, trusted my wife, my brother, my best friend, who is also a poet, and and what ended up happening is that they would give me ideas.

Speaker 2: 7:15

And so it was more like me saying I don't know, like I was talking about how hard it was a writer's block or I'm. I'm unhappy with this, but I want to keep going. It seems to help. What do you think I should write about? If you were me, what would you write about? So it was really just a natural flow of like for any project. But what happened is then I would be on the phone with them and I would write the poem and then read it to them, because, of course, it was just natural Like oh well, I'll write it and I'll read it to you and I found that that act was so easy.

Speaker 2: 7:49

Easy feels like a trivial way to say it, but it worked, it flowed. There was some harmony. How about the word ease, the root word? There was a harmony and it just gave me a sense of ease because for me, the act of writing the poem like opening the channel, I would call it yes, it's very relaxing and very it feels like home. But coming up with the idea turned out to be it's not that it was a problem, because I did it 80 times in a row, but it was past that so, coming up with more ideas, and it blew my mind at how much I loved it. So that was the second stage.

Speaker 1: 8:30

Listener, as Scott is talking, my face is tingling and I am gonna cry, and here's why because he is telling his story. I'm talking about you like you're not here, but okay, let me talk about you like you're here Go for it. You're telling your story and I can hear and see a creative template.

Speaker 2: 8:53

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:53

And it's about for me at least. Usually it's about bringing other people or ideas or energy in, because creation is expansive and so it sounds like you got to the end of your ideas and something inside you knew oh, I have to include other people in this process.

Speaker 2: 9:16

Yes, and it was another version of desperation, and so this is another part of the story that comes in right around here. So I got myself invited to a backyard, and so this is another part of the story that comes in right around here. So I got myself invited to a backyard creative party. It was called the Feast of Fools, based on the fool tarot card.

Speaker 2: 9:40

That doesn't really come into play, except that in retrospect it's a great name. So I showed up and I decided to take my typewriter. So I have always traveled, when I was the outdoor guide, I would take this old 1947 Smith Corona typewriter and it had been given to me by my grandmother and he was a storyteller but he wasn't like a poet necessarily, and so it's this great old, you know mid-century typewriter that has a case, so it's like an original laptop, and so I would carry that around and I would write poems at sometimes I would. Well, I didn't really write poems, I wrote letters, I would like typing them.

Speaker 2: 10:22

And also when I was this guide guide, we didn't have cell phones and also I was frequently in places where there was nowhere to communicate or no way, like there weren't phone lines because I was camping just all the time, and so this typewriter for me was a bit of a way to I like, like the aesthetic, and then I thought this is pretty cool, it's fun to send people a typed up letter. So I sort of combined that old practice of just writing letters, or I would make little zines and leave them behind with people, because that's more meaningful. What's a zine? A zine is? It's like a abbreviation of magazine. Oh, a zine is like an abbreviation of magazine but it's basically a DIY magazine.

Speaker 2: 11:10

So the way that I made them, the way that a lot of people made them, they're big in high school or, let's say, in the circles in art, kid poet, kid circles so you can just type them, Xerox them and then you fold them in half. So the same way you would make like a book or a book mock-up, and then you can and they're just done. You know, it's like DIY publishing, low cost, and then you can hand them out, you can sell them and then if you go to, you know, to independent bookstores or college bookstores, you can make them very artfully handcrafted and just like anything else. They can be extremely exquisite and one of a kind. But that's what I would do is I'd make these little zines and I would pass them out to the people, either the people I took on trips or the people I worked with, and so that was a practice I had in the past, but I never did it, it was always just from me. It's basically self-publishing, but I would only write, you know, 10 or 20 poems at a time.

Speaker 1: 12:15

You say 10 or 20, like it's.

Speaker 2: 12:19

Yeah, well, that was the part.

Speaker 1: 12:22

Yeah, I, it was just the average Joe doesn't write one, so 10 or 20 feels Whoa.

Speaker 2: 12:31

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good reminder.

Speaker 1: 12:34

As you were going through this process, maybe did you start understanding what you were really feeling. As you said, like you started being creative, your wife said hey, why don't you go back to poetry?

Speaker 2: 12:49

It gave me. Purpose is what it did, and it reminded me what it's like to have purpose. And so what happened? The way that I, after I did all of those poems I was in I was still had only done like 120, 150, something like that. And so I did. The backyard party took my typewriter and I wrote poems on demand for people at the party which they loved, and I thought this is great, I could just do it in the moment. And for me it also matched my goal because I was like I banged out like 20 poems.

Speaker 1: 13:22

You're still on the way to 1,000.

Speaker 2: 13:25

That's right At that point, and so the next day I walked down to like the food truck near my house and I just sat there, and then, while people were waiting for their food, I would write them a poem.

Speaker 1: 13:35

That takes a lot of guts.

Speaker 2: 13:37

Yeah, I mean, and so on and so forth. So I did that for a couple months, just all spring. So I did that for a couple months, just all spring, you know, I'd South by, I did some parties at South by, and then I started getting people asking, inviting me to do their wedding, and I would do, you know, 30, 40 at a time, and so what ended up happening is that I didn't have to write a poem every day and I would almost go into these like fugue states where you're, you know, major flow state, and I would write poems for just hours, almost nonstop. People wouldn't line up, so I'd have a line of people. That gave me, you know, it reminded me or maybe it introduced me to the idea that you know, that this was a skill that I had, or a talent, or just a gift, and so it gave me a sense of like self-worth that was outside of work, it was creative, and then also it gave me a sense of purpose, because I made it over the hump, you know.

Speaker 2: 14:47

So I was 300, 400 pounds and I was like, all right, I can do this, and then things formed around it and the healing part, the stillness that you're talking about, is. I would very much lose myself in it. Every time it happened, the ease in my shoulders. I would always just relax into what felt like, and still feels like a connection with just the universe, with divine energy, with God just outside of myself, and I became the channel or the vessel for things to be created.

Speaker 2: 15:30

And I think the most healing part of it it's not so much what it made me realize about myself, as much as it just got me out of my head, yes, and connected. So I wasn't really thinking, yeah, I was connected and I was in my heart space and I was in. It's similar to now I have a daughter and it's like when I'm with my family, you know, I'm not like worried about like how does my hair look or something I'm just like with my family. And so I had that sense of it was me, it was the energy, it was. My typewriter became this crucible of like me and this person are going to create something new that isn't really. It's not by me, I'm not the author and it's also not like neither one of us could have written this poem on our own. I need their idea and they need me to type. And so the typewriter became this like campfire, it became this thing.

Speaker 1: 16:27

Yes, yes, you throw a log. I throw a log on the fire.

Speaker 2: 16:31

Like let's see what we can generate together. Exactly so. For me that was very healing because my problem, my challenge, the thing that I get, the way that I get in my own way, is I isolate, I ruminate, those are my things. So this allowed me to be in a creative space and kind of leapfrog resistance or leapfrog my normal anxiety.

Speaker 1: 17:00

Oh, my God.

Speaker 2: 17:01

Let's talk about resistance. Yeah. So all that, that's the healing part. There were a lot of realizations and epiphanies, but actually just that act and realizing like, oh okay, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:17

Can we talk about resistance for a moment? Yeah, you introduced me to, oh my God, one of my favorite books.

Speaker 2: 17:26

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:27

The War of Art?

Speaker 2: 17:29

Yes, Not the Art of War.

Speaker 1: 17:31

Not the Art of War, the War of Art. And the premise of this book is that we all have well, I don't know about we all, but for sure I have a creative need. I need to fulfill this, or else it metastasizes inside of me. Before you, I did not consider myself an artist. I literally would say I'm not an artist. And one time you and I sat at my dining room table I probably had a one-year-old at the time. Every time I go to you, I am just outside of my. I am unreasonable. I'm an unreasonably goal-oriented person when I call you and so, listener, we'll tell you a little bit more about that, but in a moment.

Speaker 1: 18:26

But I told Scott I'm not an artist and he was like what are you talking about? Like you wrote a book. That's not numbers, you know. And that was the very first time I gave myself even the permission. I thought it was kind of audacious to think of myself as an artist, because I thought of artists as paint and paint brushes or sketches and I thought that's where artistry lives. The rest is, I don't know. I hadn't given it a name. If my creativity doesn't have somewhere to go, it starts to, like I said earlier, metastasize and all that energy goes to my head and my head starts ruminating and it really it starts kind of like wheels spitting in mud. I'm creating problems for myself where there were no problems, and so this is a very common experience for a lot of artists. Will you talk about the resistance, or did you face any resistance within yourself as you were on this journey to write a thousand poems in a year?

Speaker 2: 19:41

I did at the beginning, like I'm talking about here. I think the resistance was when I ran out of ideas. I was terrified of going to that food truck or sitting down with a typewriter in a room full of tech people who are drinking. All of my demons, you know all of my like self-judgment of you know they're going to laugh at you or this is stupid, it's not going to work. So all of that came up and the reason I say I leapfrogged it. So the resistance did happen, but it's almost like I laid a series of traps for myself. That's not quite the right word, but Obstacles, yeah. What's the opposite? It's bait, it's like I baited.

Speaker 2: 20:37

Oh, bait Nice, Because it's almost like I took some of my insecurities and played them against each other, because I was very anxious and it's very hard to start up a first conversation, but at the same time I have just an ironclad sense of integrity and loyalty. So if I say to you I'm going to do something, I'll definitely follow through, unless, you know, like anyone, occasionally there's, you know, a health crisis or something. But I'm going to do it, and it would be deeply embarrassing to not follow through. And then, at the same time, I have pride, I have an ego, and so when people would come to me, when people would say, hey, can you come write poems here? This is really cool what you're doing, can you come write poems over here? I would say, of course, you know.

Speaker 1: 21:27

Yeah, say yes and figure it out later.

Speaker 2: 21:29

That's right. And so often what would happen is then later I would be like, oh God, I wish I didn't say yeah, and but then so I would have that debate in my head. So that was the version of resistance that I learned. The muscle that I learned throughout that year was like I would always commit to doing it, partly out of pride and partly after I did it a few times then I realized, oh no, this is good for me, like I feel it's. It's like medicine. I got the serotonin or whatever you know, like my. I felt so much better and my wife started to say I felt so much better. And my wife started to say you're so much better I don't know if she said that exact word, but you're so much happier, you're so much more yourself.

Speaker 2: 22:12

For like three days after you come home from an event, and it was essentially like taking my medicine. And so I started to realize like, oh, that's the leapfrog, I just say yes, if I can jump over that. And what happened is it became like a flywheel. So I would be at an event and I would get invited to one or two or five more at the event. So once I got past the first month or so. Then I just, and it's continued, I still have people calling me and so I don't actually have to put myself out there anymore, in the same way Like I don't have to leapfrog it. It's like that first six weeks. So the resistance that I felt was I overcame it by almost like using my ego or pride.

Speaker 1: 23:00

Yeah, yeah, I think ego and pride has to do with it. I've always loved movements in different forms and I really like to show off in a lot of ways, and so I don't just want a Monday Wednesday yoga class, I need to do the hardest. Monday Wednesday yoga class that ever was Nice. And so a few months ago I discovered um, discovered endurance running, so ultra running, and I had already ran a marathon so I couldn't sign up for a marathon. My ego said you need to do longer. So I signed up for an ultra. A trail ultra was humbled beyond, took three weeks to lick my wounds and signed up for another one. And also my ego in play said you've already done 50K, needs to be longer. So now it's 52K, nice, and the act of running is my medicine Any movement.

Speaker 1: 24:07

But I really enjoy vigorous, challenging movement. It's like I'm a labrador and I need to take myself for a run and after all that energy has expended, I'm able to be really present with the people that I love. If I have extra energy at 9 pm night, it's not good for me and I've just really leaned into that truth and accepted that. So I know that signing up for races every six months, that is my ego and I'm just okay with it. I'm like that's fine. That's just that's fine. My ego is in charge when I sign up for the race, but you know who's in charge when I'm running on a Monday, wednesday, friday in my garage by myself. That's my higher self, because I'm doing it with the intention of being present with the people that I love. So I just kind of I take my medicine and I just enjoy the good that it brings me and I've just kind of leaned into that truth about myself and accepted it.

Speaker 2: 25:08

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:08

And I have no problem saying I really enjoy being special, I really enjoy showing off, I really like just part of me needs that. But you know what, if I feed that part of me, I get to then be really present with my clients, present with you right now, present with my kids and my husband. And so I think just the older I get, the more I'm okay with holding those tensions.

Speaker 2: 25:38

I love that. You know, I just had an epiphany while you were talking oh, tell, tell, yeah. Well, I think one. I guess it's a two-part. So there's this artist named musical artist, named East Forest, and he makes ambient music and he has this one song that I believe is called it's either the grandmother's sphere, like the atmosphere, but grandmother, grandmother's sphere but grandfather's sphere, and it's just about being in that energy. I think it's grandmother's sphere and in the song. Now I'm not positive if it's that song, but there's a voiceover that he does where he talks about I didn't transcend my ego.

Speaker 2: 26:32

We became partners, yes, and that line has always bothered me. Oh, really, it always made me angry, like I liked him as an artist, but anytime I heard that I was like that's ridiculous, which is funny now to say it's just something I thought. But as you were talking and as we're talking about this, I realized because, like before you started talking about that, I said I don't really understand it. But that is now I get it because you're right, it is everything you said is such a. It just resonates so much as true and that, so yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:17

I feel like it's not about dissolving or removing the ego completely, but now I see okay, yeah, so I suppose I dealt with my resistance by becoming a partner with my ego, rather than doing. Hello, ego Hi Hello.

Speaker 1: 27:41

You've served us well. Sometimes a little too much, yeah, but in dose of.

Speaker 2: 27:47

That's very uncomfortable to talk about ego. This is uncomfortable right now. I like it, thank you.

Speaker 1: 27:53

Thanks for jumping into it. So, the artist, I'm witnessing you currently and you're witnessing me, and this is a deep moment. This isn't just, you know, coffee chat. We're not talking about Real Housewives here of Beverly Hills or anything. You know, we're really into it. Yeah, have you ever? Well, I'm sure, but can you tell me about writing poems for somebody on demand? Yeah, you give it to them. You have opened your creativity up. Your heart opens to them. You hand them this poem. I know because I have been on the side of. One time I showed up at a party listener and Scott was there and I was like Scott, hello, hi, how do you what? I was so confused, I was so confused and he wrote me a poem and I still have it and I think it's beautiful. I have many of Scott's art in my home, but that's one and I remember thinking oh, how did he see that?

Speaker 1: 29:06

so what's it like to hold space for somebody else's emotion, who often you don't know them, but you give them this gift and then they, it brings up something in them. What's it like to see that?

Speaker 2: 29:22

it's very humbling, I when I so I one another thing that happened that is healing. It touches on healing but it's really sort of I think of healing as getting back to baseline. But that might not be true with. Oh, I wrote these poems to sort of get out of depression, and I did, and then I started to push myself and go, you know, new things, growth, like we're talking about signing up the poetic version. You know, after I did the first thousand poems or the first couple hundred, then I was growing because it was real and it was the ultra marathon, you know, and I had to lick my wounds for three weeks, a couple of times too, or I hurt myself and hurt my brain Overextended, overextended, yeah or it impacted other parts of my life, but the thing that was so it taught me about boundaries and it taught me about energetic boundaries and containers and how to live in that moment that you're talking about, when I show up and I sit across from someone.

Speaker 2: 30:40

Now, I'm not trained or anything. I was an English major in college and I work in books and I work in art, but I don't have any sort of formal training interacting with people. I've been a facilitator, outdoor guide, things like that. So I've picked up things along the way, but it's not a formal education, it's what I've put together. That I realized very, very early on is that some people are just going to vomit on like they're going. You know they're going like they need it so much. They're never listened to. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:20

They don't listen to themselves, and so they're just going to dump on me and then other people you know, and so on and so forth, on me, and then other people you know, and it's so on and so forth, and there's a different, almost archetypes of how people will unload.

Speaker 1: 31:36

There's like poor energy etiquette out there poor, yeah, very much so.

Speaker 2: 31:43

And poor, the other version of poor oh, yes, yes, I didn not hearing them Like what? Very frequently. What do you mean? Like they would give me a poem. They would talk. Like they would just, let's say, two people sit down, husband and wife or two girlfriends, and one of them's getting a poem and as they talk about it, I start typing and then they would just start talking about this experience. Oh, he's doing this and I thought he would be like this, or I thought it would you know.

Speaker 1: 32:36

Wow, is that bizarre.

Speaker 2: 32:40

Yeah, so that was bizarre. And when you bring up the energetic part, like that's, I don't know if it's the shadow side, but it's kind of the darker version of the awe feeling, because I had to get used to that and just fill in the blank of every possible conversation. I also had people very, very frequently, you know, like if I wrote 50 poems in a night, this would happen 10 times. They would tell me a word and then I would start typing the poem and they would just continue talking to me like we're talking now.

Speaker 1: 33:11

As if you could do both at the same time.

Speaker 2: 33:15

Yeah, but I think that it just didn't register for them what was going on, which is fine, and I'm not going to correct them, or I chose not to correct them.

Speaker 1: 33:25

Like they're getting a manicure.

Speaker 2: 33:27

That's how it was, like that, like it's just happening. So I learned a lot of those tools and so I would show up and be very I think now I've learned that this is very common for, like a musician or you know anyone, I'd be interested to hear if you have practices yourself. But I had. So I developed and then I would develop it for the couple hours leading up to it and then eventually it rippled out into my life to almost a 24 to 48 hour routine where, if I knew I was going, I would eat a certain way Hygiene is the word I would practice different sleep hygiene leading into it.

Speaker 2: 34:08

And then I would practice like there's certain music I wouldn't listen to on the way to a poetry event. There's certain shows I wouldn't watch because I knew I was going to open my mind, my psyche, and I was going to allow other people to come in to mix and I had to walk the line of like you know, there's like mine in the middle, middle. And then there's the part that I'm sharing, that is the pass-through part, and then there's the part where that's not mine at all.

Speaker 1: 34:38

There's so much discernment in your routine.

Speaker 2: 34:41

And that was the most healing thing, because what happened is, once I started doing this a lot, and now it's been 12 years that became just how I was, and so eventually I quit drinking. I changed all my relationships, and so that was the most healing part was realizing like, oh, and at this point I don't even need to do the poetry, At this point I just arrive. The practices and the hygiene and the discernment have become just how I. It's who the aspects of myself that needed to come out and play.

Speaker 1: 35:12

It sounds like.

Speaker 2: 35:13

They needed the poetry to get there. Yes, yes yes, but I don't need it anymore.

Speaker 1: 35:18

I have similar practices. I do many different things, including get off social media. No wine, better sleep. So there are just, yes, those allow me. I know that those allow me to pull from places inside myself that I do not have access to if I'm cloudy for any reason and actually yesterday I had a really cloudy day and I told Anthony, my husband don't let me cut my bangs, don't let me. Yes, right, yes, don't let me make any decisions. And not that it's his responsibility, it's. It was more just like a me sharing out loud.

Speaker 1: 36:09

I know I'm kind of on thin ice energetically right now, so I need to drive more slowly, I need to eat more vegetables. I hadn't been sleeping well. We got a puppy, so I've had I'm just like on week three of oh, six hours sleep, waking up at three in the morning and I thought, no, no, no, no, no. I cannot be going out on limbs right now. I need to kind of secure my own energy before I go out on the limb. So last night I got seven hours sleep and I feel like an amazing person today.

Speaker 2: 36:45

But yes, you're a superwoman.

Speaker 1: 36:47

Yeah, I'm like, let's do it. So, yes, energetic hygiene something. Yeah, I'm like, let's do it. So, yes, energetic hygiene.

Speaker 2: 36:52

Don't let me cut my bangs. That would be a good name for a poem, that would be a good name for anything like that. But that part is that's a really good example of that.

Speaker 1: 37:07

And then the flip side of that like like okay, now I'm ready to cut my bangs yes, now I know that I want to and it's coming from a different place inside of me.

Speaker 2: 37:16

Yes, instead of exasperated discernment yes, that's the right word discern, but that that was the healing. I think of all of this, but I love that, and and being able to understand that about myself was the gift of the practice, the art.

Speaker 1: 37:36

When you take, when we take really good care of ourselves, we're more trustworthy for the people around us Big time people around us. And listener Scott has excellent boundaries. I complimented him. I'm not even sure if he remembers, but I said I just really appreciate that you have excellent boundaries, Like it makes me feel really safe and really good, because when somebody takes care of themselves, I don't have to do mental gymnastics for that and in my mind you're a man who takes good care of himself. So I can just assume Scott's got that covered. I don't have to do any extra work. He's going to take good care of himself, he's going to let me know what he needs and I don't have to second guess anything.

Speaker 2: 38:29

Just to go back to your original question as long as I do that, I learned that if I do that, I'm able to be there and no matter literally no matter what happens. And I've seen everything. I've seen violence, I've seen people get in fights, people break down At a poem, at a poem, fall in love with me. Oh yeah, at the table Really. Oh yeah, wow. And it's wild because it that's what I mean is people come up to the table and they you know, I invite them, like you, give me a word, and then I might say why do you pick that word? And for some people it really just opens them.

Speaker 1: 39:06

Wow, you know it elicits that much. They're at a wedding.

Speaker 2: 39:11

Oh my opens them. Wow, it elicits that much, oh my God, that much emotion. Yeah, husband and wife, they sit down. It's amazing what kind of conversations happen between a husband and wife or a boyfriend and girlfriend, or any partners or parents and their children, if they are trying to pick a word together.

Speaker 1: 39:29

Oh no, that sounds like therapy.

Speaker 2: 39:32

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 39:33

I'm going to put my cards on your poem table, you should.

Speaker 2: 39:37

So you're going to get whatever is, you know, just under the surface.

Speaker 1: 39:43

Yes, yes, yes, whatever is going to boil over.

Speaker 2: 39:46

At that tape as this poem is being created, and so, yeah, I mean I don't want to exaggerate, it's not violence like people are getting in paint the poem and I still do it sometimes and you know it's approaching, it's tangential to art therapy, in the sense that people might have not used watercolor, let's say, for 20 years, and now they're a drink and a half in at their friend's wedding and however they feel about themselves is that's what we're talking about. Wow, and that's common. That is the practice, that is instant poetry.

Speaker 1: 40:39

Wow, that must be so powerful to witness.

Speaker 2: 40:43

Yeah, and so I would watch in. So I have my hygiene in place, I have my container and I know how much I'm going to engage with that person, and I'm going to do it freely and without hesitation, because I know the edges.

Speaker 1: 41:03

Right, you're giving of yourself as much as you want to give, but not more.

Speaker 2: 41:07

Yeah, we're both. That's the campfire. Both put our log. I know what my log is. I brought my log. Then when it's done, you know I'm going to continue with the campfire thing. So the campfire and then you can't control what the fire looks like, and sometimes it's just really magical, and sometimes the Milky Way is out, and sometimes you know like Jupiter and Venus are in the predawn sky, like right now. And so when you sit down, like that's what's happening. And so I got to engage with just the world reality on this whole level, where for several hours I was just in awe, like I'm almost going to cry thinking about it, because when I sit down to do it, that's what's happening for me.

Speaker 1: 41:55

Wow, you create your own little micro world.

Speaker 2: 42:00

Oh yeah, and it's just creative. And the poems are coming up and I don't own them, I don't plan them. You know, some people think I memorize. I have like 10 templates in my head. Or you know, some people are shocked that I invent them on the spot and they think I'm like typing up a poem. Some people bring me a poem and they say I want TS Eliot or I want Mary Oliver, and they want me to just copy it off their iPhone or something. Oh wow, but that's not what's happening. It's all in the ether.

Speaker 1: 42:35

Yeah, but it is A creative act is the unknown. So maybe one day the campfire is beautiful and maybe one day it burns everything down Like it's not. That's right, like it's not. And it's part of creativity. And being creative together is watching the unfolding. I mean, you can, you can try to mold it, but ultimately it's going to unfold in a way that you may not, which brings me to my next part. So, listener, I want to tell you a little bit about what it's like to work with Scott.

Speaker 1: 43:12

I met Scott in I really don't know, I'm going to guess in 2017, but I'm not really sure, maybe 2016, but I published my first book in 2017. And God sent me Scott through a mom blogger, alisa Hi, alisa, thank you so much. And I was having trouble publishing and she said why don't you call my colleague Scott James? And so I called Scott and he started helping me and he helped me. I had already written the book and it was in some legal holdup, and so Scott helped me through the time when I was getting my book back and he helped me publish the first. He helped me title it also. It was so fun to do the title exercise. I love that title, so that was a really interesting experience because I had already written it, it had already been edited, but it was on pause because of some legal things with the publisher, and so he helped me bring it to life in a way that I was really proud of, because it had been held up and the juju around it sucked because I was angry because somebody had taken my work, and Scott helped me bring it into the world in a way that I was, that I'm still so proud of, and we did it at my dining room table, and every time I told him I'm going to do this, he was like okay, like not sure, cause he had just met me and he was. He didn't know that I was aggressively setting goals, but that was my MO back then. Right, yeah, or still, or always. It was so fun, it was so, so fun.

Speaker 1: 45:20

And then, a few years later, he helped me create a TEDx talk called Choose Joy or Die. And so what happens is I come to Scott with this really raw idea and with this energy that is just like pokey I'm thinking of, like a geode, like my energy. When I get to Scott, I'm like here, here's what I've got and I have something to share, but I don't exactly know how to share it or how to refine it. And so Scott helped me create a TEDx talk, a beautiful TEDx talk. It was awesome.

Speaker 1: 46:04

And then, a few years later, I said I've got a book and I don't know what to do with it. And it was just a gentle return, was halfway, I had written a lot, but it didn't have any form, and I was just desperate to give it form. And so what Scott did was he asked me thousands of questions like just, like whittling, like a blog, just, or let's go back to the geode, like chiseling the geode. And so what working with Scott looks like is weekly meetings, lots of homework, lots of exploration in between, like read this book, figure this out, read this, figure this out. How do you feel about this? It looks like lots of what is it killing your babies? What is that term? Killing your babies? Oh, yeah, I've killed lots of babies.

Speaker 2: 47:04

Lots of.

Speaker 1: 47:05

The second book, a Gentle Return, is a book of essays, and there were many essays in there that were going to be in there but that were slaughtered because they just didn't fit the end product, which I completely appreciate. So when I go to Scott, when I write a book, I write it for myself. First, the actual writing. I take pen to paper and I write it for my own heart, and by the time I call Scott, that's like okay, now this is going to be for public consumption. So then it's art for the public. That's how I see it anyway, and so you can thank Scott for making me, helping me make beautiful art. That's what lands on your coffee tables or in your bookshelves or in your ears if you're listening to the audiobook. Scott's the, not the chiseler, that can't be right. You're Michelangelo with the David. I don't know I'm not the David, but let's have a metaphor that works.

Speaker 2: 48:14

I'm going to try to extend the campfire.

Speaker 1: 48:17

Please, because those metaphors were just not working.

Speaker 2: 48:22

I called myself a publishing guide for many years, intentionally guide rather than coach, Because I, you know, actually similar to your pin flag concept, with courage to become. I often think you know, we all know what we're trying to do here. We're trying to write a book, but we don't Like that's very tangible. We're trying to write a book, but we don't. That's very tangible. But what is it about? What's important? What stays inside of it? What are you trying to say? Who are you trying to say it to?

Speaker 2: 49:04

I think that's where the guide part comes in. So that's how I think of myself. The chiseler, yes, but to me it's more like you know, like hurting the cats of our brains and saying like this is you know? Is that, do you want to go that? Like you said, how does it feel?

Speaker 2: 49:24

And I ask those questions a lot, Like how do you feel about cutting this essay? Or how do you feel about using the word gentle, how do you feel about the heroine's journey? And those kinds of questions are very it's not common for an editor. So I'm specifically not an editor when I think about books, because I think an editor is more like a chiseler in the sense of okay, you gave me this form and I'm going to shape it based on some objective criteria, not to insult any editors. Every editor has their process and a lot of it is is deep, but any editors. Every editor has their process and a lot of it is is deep, but I I love the journey metaphor, you know, and I was an outdoor guide yes, I think it's just how I interact with the world.

Speaker 2: 50:23

And, uh, and, before that I was a teacher.

Speaker 2: 50:26

I was an english teacher and so you know, like inherent, like what do teachers do? You know? It's not a tabula rasa process where I'm just beaming knowledge in your head. I was the kind of teacher and I think good teachers are where they're trying to get you to sort of figure out what you think. And so I have that, plus the guiding, which is literally like I would always let people go the wrong way, not forever, but we could try that, and maybe wrong way is the wrong way to say it. I'd let them go. You know, road less traveled If I knew like, well, we're trying to get across this lake and most people land over here, but you want to try to land over there? Let's see what happens.

Speaker 2: 51:11

Let's see what happens Sometimes they'll be like, no, let's try the other way again, and so right, and sometimes you go back, but then you know, and it's different to take the original road, when you just had a two-hour excursion over here and you had a snack and you maybe found a snake or something, and then you come back and you have that story, and so that story comes with you and you walk down the path differently than if someone just tells you you have to go on this path, because then the story you're taking with you down that path is like I'm not allowed over there, it's prescribed and it's not your book. That's right, that's right, and you didn't figure it out. And so I try to walk that balance. So I like that's what I would say guide, and that's what guides do. So here we go.

Speaker 1: 52:01

Well, you're very good at it. You do the campfire every night, so Well, you're good at it and I I'm just you're great at it and I'm just so grateful to have met you almost 10 years ago and grateful to be a creative partner with you from time to time yeah, it's.

Speaker 2: 52:25

Uh, it's been incredibly rewarding to work with you and to see your books and your TED Talk come to life and yeah, it's helping. And I guess the other piece is that there's a million little details that are very archaic and about the physical act of making a book or a you know 50,000 word document, which are very cumbersome and if they get in your way, if you haven't done them before. That's true, those things I know, so you can remove the friction that doesn't help people and just Keep the friction that does.

Speaker 1: 53:07

That's right, exactly. And just keep the friction that does that's right, exactly, scott. Are there any creative rituals that support your well-being? So let's say you go out and you're about to do Poetry on Demand for 40 people.

Speaker 2: 53:23

I'm going to be doing that tomorrow morning.

Speaker 1: 53:24

Oh, excellent. Is there something you're doing today or that you've done in the last few days? Oh, excellent, is there something you're doing today or that you've done in the last few days? We know you keep your container of energy clean and you're discerning in that way. Is there something?

Speaker 2: 53:40

else that kind of keeps those juices flowing. For you, the two big ones, I mean, I really have found that just my whatever workout routine or meditation routine that I have, you know everybody ebbs and flows. So I just make sure that whatever I'm doing presently, I, if I'm gonna go do a creative session, I make sure that I'm, I'm on it, you know, for the couple days leading up to it, because if and I and I drink enough water and I eat regularly and I get good sleep. So those things are table stakes at this point. But one thing I do is about 48, 72 hours before an event. I always take a moment and it's a prayer, it's a type of prayer, but I will just pause and I almost never plan it and it's not, there's no words. I just pause and I sort of I envision a space deep inside of me opening up for the people that are going to come to my table.

Speaker 1: 54:51

That's so generous.

Speaker 2: 54:53

Yeah, and I because it's a nod to my original resistance, which is, I know, like I can say for sure, tonight I'm going to think I don't want to get up and go do this tomorrow, and then I'll go. I'll probably think that tomorrow morning, until I get there, like I'll be angry at the you know, irrationally angry at the people who invited me there, like why are you in my way? Or like if you know, if there's any kind of You're like, I just want a taco.

Speaker 2: 55:34

That's right. Why can't I go get a taco right now? It's your fault, I'll have all those thoughts and that's fine. I don't, you know, they're just in the wind going through my psyche, but I, so that's a big one for me is to open up that space deep inside. And what I always think the same thing, which is I envision myself, I imagine myself there and I say I'm going to have fun, and I smile, and so, like I just remind myself 48 hours out that I am going to love it. So it becomes a reminder and predictive. You know, it's just keep the chain going.

Speaker 1: 56:17

That's beautiful.

Speaker 2: 56:19

Like. This is how I'm going to feel an hour in.

Speaker 1: 56:20

Yes, I heard a surfer on the Rich Roll podcast. His name is John John Florence. I feel weird calling him John John. I don't know if that's a nickname or his real name. Yeah right, sounds casual. John John Florence. I feel weird calling him John John. I don't know if that's a nickname or his real name. But he said, before he does a big event, he meditates and he asks himself how he wants to feel during the event. He doesn't focus on winning or what skills he wants to show, rather, he wants to show Rather.

Speaker 1: 56:54

The meditation is on how he wants to feel, and that is what shows up for him then in the event, and then the result is a byproduct of that. But he's not chasing the feeling, but he's calling in the feeling.

Speaker 2: 57:05

Yep, that sounds very familiar, thanks.

Speaker 1: 57:09

Jon Jon.

Speaker 2: 57:10

Yeah. And then the other ritual I really like and this one's very short is anytime I encounter resistance, I like to say let's see what happens, let's see what happens if, and then I can. Then I that's like my verbal way of saying I can do whatever I want now.

Speaker 1: 57:32

Then your back is not in a corner. Yeah, you've still got a little out, yeah, and you're like this is my choice. Thank you very much. And so it gives you a little space not to feel so bossed around. That's right. That's right. What role do you think artists play in collective healing?

Speaker 2: 57:54

I think that art, I do very much think of art as healing, art as a healing practice. So I guess I, what role does it play? I view it as almost the responsibility, at least the opportunity for each individual to make something. So I discovered this word. So I don't think of it as like, oh, someone's going to make art, like protest art or not to single out protests, but uh, and I'm not against it, but it just, it seems to me performative, or it it becomes something else.

Speaker 2: 58:36

Like I personally, I'm not very connected to the idea of art as like everybody goes to look at the Mona Lisa or everybody goes, you know, there's like a big iconic thing, a picture of someone that doesn't work, that doesn't do it for me. That's not my interaction with art. For me, the interaction with art is the creative part. That is how I feel about my poems. So the collective healing, I think, is the stillness that comes from the act of creating. In Greek there's this word, poiesis, and you know translations are tough, but my favorite translation that I've found I don't know Greek is to create something where there was nothing before.

Speaker 1: 59:20

I came home and my daughter had been at the house for a while but she said look, mom, I made this and she had lit a candle and made art with the wax from the candle and I thought, okay, that's good. Yeah, she was still enough, creative enough. She looked around, said let me do something. And the dishes weren't done, which, you know, made me like tense up my shoulders. But the real beauty in that is that she was still enough observant enough, open enough to look at a candle and make some art out of it and I thought that's good, that's a win.

Speaker 2: 1:00:20

It's a huge win and she felt safe enough and had the autonomy within your house to do that.

Speaker 1: 1:00:27

Yes, pat on the back for me, pat on the back for me and her dad house. Yeah To do that.

Speaker 2: 1:00:30

Yes, pat on the back for me, pat on the back for me and her dad, right yeah, to feel safe enough to create art, and to make art with an uncommon medium, and ignore the dishes.

Speaker 1: 1:00:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:00:42

And then tell you about it when you got home.

Speaker 1: 1:00:44

Yeah, she'll love that. She'll be like check it out, mom. She actually has a quote from Chapel Rhone on her wall, on her vision board, Okay, and Chapel Rhone said something akin to what you said, which is I want to make beauty and leave beauty where there was none.

Speaker 2: 1:01:03

Nice yes.

Speaker 1: 1:01:05

Yeah, so you guys are all on the same vibe. Good, how can creativity be accessible for people who don't consider themselves artists?

Speaker 2: 1:01:16

Well, I really like stealing Like. Austin Kleon has a great book called Steal Like an Artist. But what I mean by that is, you know, I think for a lot of people the challenge is coming up with an idea, or you're judging your idea, and you'll hear a lot of people like, oh, I can't write, I don't think of myself as a writer, I don't think of myself as a painter, but probably there's something that you read or listened to or painted, or someone else painted, like there's a picture that you think could be better, and so that is a good place to start and I use that a lot. Sometimes I'll go to my favorite poem, like Mary Oliver I love, and so I'll just steal a lead, the first two lines of one of her poems, and then I'll rewrite the rest of it. That'll get my juices going.

Speaker 2: 1:02:06

But you can do that with anything. You can just open a newspaper or go at the grocery store, just take the first two lines, the first two words of the description of the Ritz crackers and just tell a story based on that. So that's good, it's very accessible, I think. Just take something that you see and try to make it better, and that's fun. Add your spin.

Speaker 2: 1:02:30

And then my favorite trick that I learned in improv in improv, as I'm sure you know, the idea is if someone comes up with an idea, you don't say no, no, I'm not going to do that, I'm going to do this thing. Instead, you always say yes and and so you add to it. So that's a very fun way that makes things accessible. But the jump and justify is my favorite, so I use it in poetry a lot where, uh, if you say, oh, okay, I, I'm gonna make a painting, and you just jump, so you do the first thing that comes to mind and then the rest of your task is to justify why that was the perfect thing to do first. I love that because it's my daughter's seven and we had this book for her when she was maybe three or four. It's called Beautiful Oops, the whole book. It's a children's book and everything is just like there's a torn page or a paint splotch that they turn into a chicken or something.

Speaker 1: 1:03:25

Whether you write, draw, dance or simply pause to notice beauty, your creativity matters. It doesn't have to be seen to be sacred. This week, let yourself make something, not for the world, but for your heart. Scott, if our listeners want to connect with you, where can they find you?

Speaker 2: 1:03:46

Find me online scottandrewjamescom or scottandrewjames on Instagram.

Speaker 1: 1:03:52

You've been listening to Couch Time with Cat on KWVH 94.3, recorded right here in the heart of Wimberley Valley. If this episode moved, you share it with someone who might need it and, as always, take good care of yourself and keep creating from the inside out. See you next time.