Speaker #0Hello and welcome to a very different episode of Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LaGrasso. I'm Lauren LaGrasso and I'm trying new things. I'm a mom. I'm going through matrescence, which is what transition you go through when you're a mother and you come into this new phase of your life. It's like adolescence, but for motherhood. I'm like in this next phase of womanhood in life and I'm just really figuring myself out. And so I thought I'd bring you into it. And by the way, I'm pumping. These are my pump fessions. These are my pump fessions. Just when I thought I said all I have to say. I'm here on the podcast saying more things. So one thing that's really on my mind is feeling just torn between my ambition and feeling like I want to go into a cave and spend my days just relaxing in a plush cave, mind you. Like I want there to be silks and like velvets adorning the wall and furs, of course, faux furs adorning the walls. But when I say I want to go to a cave, it's like there's just part of me that wants to disconnect from all of society and all that society has to offer and just go be with my baby and my husband and my family and friends. Like I want everyone to know they can come visit me in my cave. I will be with my baby and my husband, but they're all invited to my cave. But maybe just like unsubscribing from... all society has to offer because I just think things are so screwed up in this world. But then there's a part of me that really likes what society has to offer and that has these crazy dreams. And that feels more invigorated than ever to achieve them because like, frankly, what do I have to lose? I don't care. And I've been out in LA 15 years. I think it's time for me to start asking for more. So I kind of want to start doing that. It's so weird when I'm not holding a mic in my hands, this feels very fake. And, uh, but it's oh, too real. Oh, too real. So those are two really interesting things. I feel in this weird way, I've never been more ambitious, but in this other way, my business coach just sent me a message. So clearly I am ambitious, but in this other way, I feel like I just want to unsubscribe from everything and escape everything. And I'm wondering if any other mothers out there feel like this. Like you have this child. And you still have all these dreams and even new dreams that have come up since you've had them. But also at the same time, like they're your one and only dream. And I'm like, I know everything is true. And right now I'm in this liminal space of figuring out how do I combine this world? Because for the first time in my life, having my baby, I was completely focused on him. And now I'm trying to combine my baby with my work, which is creative coaching. podcast coaching and consulting, speaking this podcast, showing up on socials, writing music. How do I combine him with that world? Like, how do I split my time? Like, I just don't understand. So far, my life isn't integrated. It very much feels like work's over here, family's over here. And you know, I don't know if you ever heard me talk about work-life balance before, but I... actually think work-life balance is bullshit. Not because I don't think you should have a balanced work life and regular life, but because I feel like isn't work part of life. And right now, because I now am an entrepreneur and I'm making my full living just for my own business, I really need to find a way to make everything cohesive. I don't really want work to be over here and family to be over here. I want. everything to combine perfectly. And that doesn't mean like my baby's on every meeting, but right now it feels very like jagged and separated and nothing's in flow because I'm only 10 weeks postpartum, you know, I'm still figuring it out. And I just went back to work part-time starting last week, but it's very confusing to, to be in this place. And you I'm interested to know other mothers, especially other mothers that own businesses or work in creative careers, how you started combining these things. Did you feel torn in this way? Did you feel confused? Like when I'm in one place, I kind of yearn for the other thing. But when I'm in another place, I yearn for that thing. Like when I'm with my son, there are times when I'm like, Oh God, I just need a break. And then I get the break and, or I go to work and I miss him. And I'm so blessed that I get to work from home, but I can. only imagine the cognitive dissonance that happens for moms that work in an office or work off-site of the home. But then there's also this trouble with working from home where if I hear him cry, I still feel like I want to go tend to him. So it's very confusing. That's kind of the space I'm in. I'm also in this interesting space where I really feel called to right. but I'm scared to and not scared in a way of like, oh, what if I write and people see it? Like, I don't feel that fear. I'm more like, what's going to come out? I kind of feel something powerful and earth shattering to me is going to come out. And I feel like tingly, like excited, but I also feel terrified because I'm like. I feel like I'm about to drop some truth bombs on myself and I can't control what my hands are going to do when I type. And so that's kind of scary because what am I going to say? Like, I've already written the titles to so many of these essays I want to write about my experience coming out of motherhood. But like, have you ever had this experience where you're not scared of how something will be received? You're scared. of what you might reveal to yourself about yourself through creating whatever your art is. It's the strangest thing. And of course, maybe there's some fear like, oh gosh, I hope it's good. I need it to be amazing. But it's not the primary fear. I'd say that one's like 10%. The biggest fear is something's going to happen to me when I write these stories. And I don't know what it is. It could be a great thing, but it could... reveal things that I need to deal with. And maybe truths that I know are juicy truths that I need to release to the world and that people might have big feelings about. I mean, people have big feelings about motherhood, about the most benign things. I'm trying not to post very many pictures of my child, if any. I don't even know if I'll post his face moving forward. I'm trying not to do that for multiple reasons. Obviously, there's AI concerns, there's creeps on the internet, there's people trying to steal identity. And... Most importantly to me, his privacy. I don't want to, I can't get his consent right now. So I don't want to share big details about him, including his sweet face, you know, all the time and his little personality, even though it's amazing. It's the best thing I've ever seen or felt. I don't want to share that because he can't really consent to it right now. But it's so hard because, you know, if you're a parent or even if you have a niece and nephew that you love, their face is like the. best thing in the world. And not being able to share that is like torture because it's just the best thing. So anyway, that is, uh, that that's a, its own dilemma. But, uh, the camera just said something to me. I don't know. I'm using a different camera. Can't you tell it look amazing. Um, also do you like the Dolly Parton? As you probably can't tell, let me do a side profile. for those who are viewing. I'm using, by the way, my pump of choice. I have three pumps, and I regret none of them. But my pump of choice today is the Eufy, E-U-F-Y-S-1 Pro. And word to the wise, if you have insurance, they will replace the parts of these bad boys, depending on your insurance plan. But it's a great savings. I mean, my insurance is $2,800 a month, which is absolutely horrific and untenable in the long run. But For now, you know, we're saving while we're spending with it. It reminds me of when my mom would go to Lancome or Clinique, which if you don't know our makeup brands, you know, that the big retailers like Macy's and Bloomingdale's sell. They have a big counter. My mom would go to these places and she would always be like to my dad, Mike, they have a free gift. But in order to get the gift, you have to spend like $100. It feels like that with insurance. You know, like these parts are expensive. They're like $125, but I'm spending $2,800 on our insurance plan in order to get these $125 parts. And I feel like that's a scam that insurance gets you on. We could go down the road with insurance. We won't go there right now. But it's very much giving Clinique free gift. What else? What else is on my creative mind right now? I've been singing. I've probably never written more music than in the past two, two and a half months. I just write songs for my son a million times a day. And this is interesting. So I put out a thread, you know, thread is Instagram's version of Twitter about how motherhood is a creativity enhancer, not a creativity detractor or creativity reducer. And I got some really interesting responses. Most people were agreeing with me and saying, wow, like it really enhanced my creativity or. even it made me creative. I wasn't feeling like I was creative for motherhood and this brought my creativity out. A few people were like, oh, I've been so creative, but I haven't had time to put anything out. or do anything about it. And then a few people were like, I had writer's block for years while I was pregnant and then having the baby. So here's what I kind of got out of the responses that disagreed with it. Most people had mistaken creativity for productivity. And those are two very different things. In our highly capitalistic society, brutally capitalistic, We are taught to believe that if you are not productive and you are not making money, you are worthless. And creativity actually has nothing to do with that. Creativity doesn't mean being productive and it doesn't mean making money. My definition of creativity is seeing something in your mind's eye and then making it exist out in the world. Making something from nothing. That is it. As parents, as mothers especially, we do that every single day. So every time I make up a song for my son, whether or not anyone else in the entire world ever hears it, I was creative. When you cook for your child, when you do any, like just to be a mom, you have to be creative. When you're telling stories to them, when you're trying to teach them about a hard truth that you're like, oh God, when they say like, what's next? You're going to tell me you're not creative when you're finding the answer for that? So anyway. There's a lot of creativity in motherhood and in parenthood. Also, just every day we are making food from our bodies when we have these young kids, if we're breastfeeding. There's so many different things that make motherhood innately creative. But I found it really interesting. And I feel like part of why people don't think they're creative is not only do they have that very limited definition where it can only be like writing or painting or acting instead of creating something out of nothing, but also. They have misunderstood that creativity means productivity or creativity means output. Hopefully, eventually, if you love your creativity and you want to share it with the world, you do. That's the ultimate goal. But even if all you ever did was be creative within the four walls of your home or room, that is still creativity. Creativity isn't... sharing something with the entire world. Creativity is really just making something from nothing. And I want everybody to start redefining that for themselves, but especially mothers, because I think that's the first step to feeling courageous enough to know, hey, I do have something here that is worth sharing if you want to. But again, if you don't want to, or if you never share it, you were still creative. Even if all you did was write in your diary or paint on an easel and place it in your house somewhere. that still counts as creativity. So if you're like, oh, I haven't been creative in a long while, really look at your life and ask, where am I making something from nothing? Where am I being generative and creating, even if no one else is seeing it or a very limited amount of people are seeing it? Because I think that's step one in rebuilding your creative confidence as a mother or as somebody who has been pushing down your creativity for a long time. I feel so strongly about it, I cough. This podcast is brought to you by water. Oh yeah. The other thing I've been thinking about, a big part of when I speak, I talk about how to unleash your inner creative, right? How to unleash your creativity to the world. A huge part of that is making space to hear your own creative call or the creative call of your higher power if you believe in that. And one of the best mechanisms I have for that or best ways to do it is by calming the noise and having a morning practice. Well, I've gotten a taste of my own medicine recently, or not really, that's not the right saying, but basically I'm having a hard time having my medicine because what is the morning now? There are no mornings. My morning starts when my son wakes up and I can't anticipate that he's only 10 weeks old, although he is, I don't want to tell a lot of parents this, but he's sleeping pretty well. But I never know if he's gonna wake up at five at six at seven. So I guess I could like every day wake up at five just preemptively. But I do think it's very important to get your sleep when you have a young child when and where you can get your sleep. So that's an interesting thing for me. I'm kind of having to rewrite it. And that's why I've never liked being um, what's the word? Rigid. Yes. Rigid. When it comes to my, my rules for unleashing creativity because everybody is in different phases of life and what's possible for everybody in different phases of life is different. So I got, I went from basically meditating every single morning since 2018 to now I meditate when I can mostly like I'm having to find new ways to get a morning practice going. So I, right now what I can do is like I latch my son to breastfeed. And then I play an Abraham Hicks rampage. And so whatever stage of life you're in, especially if you're a new parent, but like if you're going through anything massive, there are ways to integrate best practices to unleash creativity in your life, but you might have to be a little crafty and you definitely need to not be rigid with yourself. Because if I was looking at successes, only meditating in the morning by myself, I would have failed every single day for the last 10 weeks. But since I've been giving myself grace and also knowing that It's going to have to look different in this era, but it's not going to be forever. That has been really helpful. Speaking of that, and I think this is just a hack for life, but certainly for parenthood, remembering that nothing is forever. The good is not forever and the bad is not forever. So really enjoy the good and know you can survive the bad because eventually or hard, let's say hard because like most things aren't bad and I don't like describing it that way, but the hard, like there's plenty of hard when you have a newborn or an early. early child also known as an infant but the the good like the beautiful parts like the first time he smiles at you or when they first roll over whatever that's not going to last forever you're not going to have them like close to you forever and also the really difficult parts where they're crying because their tummy hurts and you don't know what to do to help them or you know any any really at all for me is like had to do with like medical things and i don't know how to help him He hasn't had anything big medical, but lots of small stuff. And just realizing like that is not going to last forever. And also you can survive it. And for me in this season, oh, my pumps just stopped. I hope I got some good stuff here. I might take them out. Maybe I'll wait till the end of the video. I don't know how I feel about that. Showing my milk. A lot of people show their milk on camera. I'm like, I know there's a whole movement, which is very good and important. that like breastfeeding is natural and normal. Nobody should be offended by it. And I agree with that, but I just in myself right now feel, whoops, I just hit the microphone really hard. I just feel a little weird in myself right now. It's got nothing to do with anyone else. I think it's cool when people show their milk. I'm like, go off queen. You did that. You made that. I don't know. I'll have to see how I feel. Anywho, uh, what was I talking about? Oh yeah. The good doesn't last forever and the bad doesn't last forever. So just remember that wherever you are in your life right now. And then this really important part that is so easy to forget. I don't know why it's so easy to forget, but having gratitude for all the things you do have. Like I think about that all the time. Like if we stopped being able to walk tomorrow, if you have the ability to walk, you stop being able to walk tomorrow, or if you have the ability to see you stopped having your sight tomorrow, every prayer. would be about getting that back. Yet here we are sitting with that right now, most of us, and not even feeling thankful for it. So whatever your blessings are, no matter how big or small they are, really taking stock of your gratitude for those things and feeling into them. Because if you didn't have it, or if there was a threat of losing it, you would be making every prayer, every effort to go toward getting that thing back, right? So that's something I've really tried to do in this moment is have a profound gratitude practice and to remember that things are hard and I don't want to bypass any of the difficulty, but that luckily because I'm blessed, most of the hard things can and will pass. Yeah, there's a lot of figuring out, like even figuring out what is my business model long-term. I have so much that I want to do and have to do, but also giving myself grace that I'm still pretty fresh to this world. I feel like I was just birthed myself. I've said it many times, but the day my son was born was the best day of my life, not just because I met him, but because I met myself in a deeper, truer way. And so I'm seeing who that girl is, woman. excuse me, woman is, and she is unveiling herself more and more every day. So thank you for tuning in. This is a weird, different one. You're going to have to let me know if you like the format. I'm pretty sure I had myself at a very unflattering angle the whole time. So I'll have to, um, Take a moment for that. But I really appreciate you being here. Thank you for listening to Unleash Your Inner Creative, watching it if you're watching it. This show has been put out spontaneously lately and I've been enjoying it. I feel a pull to come back. Like when I felt this pull to record this conversation, I was like, let's do it. And let's do it differently than we normally do. I'm just trying to trust myself more in this phase of life and trust that. If I do things that feel good, people will follow. So here I am in this different way. Hopefully it sounds okay, but I love you. I appreciate you. If you like the show, please rate us, review, follow, subscribe, tell a friend about the show. That's the best way for podcasts to grow. Follow us on social media at Lauren LaGrasso and at Unleash Your Inner Creative. If you're interested in working with me, you can book a free discovery call at LearnTheGrasso.com slash contact. or email me lauren.lagrasso at gmail.com. I do creative coaching, which helps people bring projects and their most creative self authentically out into the world. So whatever your project is, if it's a business, if it's you want to put more art out there, if you want to do speeches, whatever it is, you can reach out to me and we can talk about that. Also podcast consulting and coaching. I've produced over 30 shows for number one hits, including this podcast right now, Unleash Your Inner Creative, and I can help you put your podcast into the world. So you Email me to set that up. And yeah, also just email me to let me know how you are, what you're thinking, how the content shift is resonating. And I think that's it. I love you. I hear my baby cry. I love you and I believe in you. I'll talk with you soon.
