35 - Being Quenched by the Aesthetic Moment

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"Being Quenched by the Aesthetic Moment"

I open this episode by sharing a voice note I received from a listener — a thank you that genuinely moved me — and I use it to explore why art matters: not for mass adoption, but for its ability to create direct, wordless connection between human beings. Art as truth. Art as the thing that drops everything else.

The central theme is being quenched by the aesthetic moment — that state of total absorption in creative work where time shifts, attention becomes prayer (I cite Simone Weil), and nothing else exists. I talk about the difference between chasing outcomes and surrendering to the aesthetic experience itself, and why the deepest creative work only comes when we stop trying to control the result.

I share a reel by Boyd Bishonga, a painter and metal sculptor from Africa, whose studio footage moved me — particularly his trust in the self-evident nature of his work, his refusal to explain it, and his understanding that art comes from a pre-verbal, non-rational place. I talk about how over-rationalising creative work can actually damage it.

I speak honestly about depression — not as something to be ashamed of, but as an inflammation marker, a signal that something essential is going unmet. For me, that thing has always been creating. I trace this through my family history of mental health struggles, my own near-edges, and the decade I spent trying to find peace through spiritual practice before realising my art was always the answer.

I talk about my son at jujitsu — exhausted after double classes and a full school day, finding something extra when asked to be accountable — as a metaphor for growth feeling uncomfortable. Discomfort at the edge isn't a trauma response. It's what growth feels like.

On creative discipline: you don't need to be full-time. It can be the kitchen table when the kids are asleep. What matters is making the pilgrimage to that sacred space regularly, protecting it, not explaining it to people riddled with fear and logic, and understanding that inspiration follows movement — not the other way around.

I talk about living at the threshold between the seen and unseen as the essence of being an artist, and how the twilight language of mystics and the language of artists are the same thing. I reference Polly Wales as an example of what happens when you trust an innovation that has no precedent — years of risk, financial pain, and courage that eventually becomes the thing everyone else copies.

I close with this: pursuing your art is not selfish. It is regenerative medicine — for you and for everyone who comes into contact with you. Your desire to create is the invisible world showing you where the medicine of your life is.

"Our job is to stay in the creative engine, in the fire of our lives, forging talismans day by day."

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello, welcome back to the Embody Vessel Podcast. I'm feeling so much pleasure around the podcast at the moment, and it's really working for me doing these smaller episodes because the energy doesn't build up as much and I can say things as they as they manifest as they kind of as the inspiration really fills up in me and it's like a longer Instagram reel or something like that. If you follow me on Instagram, and I hope that you do at Lauren Lewis Cold Jewellery, then you'll know that I have the propensity to launch off into long verbose explorations of thought, inspiration, and reflection. And whilst I love that, it's also really lovely to have that in a podcast form. There's a podcast that I have been listening to that's all about sports psychology and sports, I guess the principles of what makes people excellent in sports, which what I love about that is it's so not abstracted. It's such a level playing field, it's not about inheriting accessibility, it's not about inheriting money or um being in an environment where you can just launch something and you know all the right people. It's such a level playing field. You don't get to be the the fat the the son or daughter of a sports person and instantly be a good sports person. You have to put in the reps, and that really is what art is. That really is what the artistic process is, and that's what I love about the parallels is that it's it's not about talent, it's not about abilities, it's about how we nurture our voice day in, day out, and put those reps in. So I really love that. Um, I think the podcast is called the Mental Toughness Podcast or something like that, you know, really really doody, but you know, I have a strong masculine side and I love all that stuff. So I just a minute I'm gonna share a really moving audio clip from someone who found me on Instagram who's the most incredible metal artist, and we spoke and I said, could I have your permission to share this voice clip? And she said, Absolutely. So here's the voice clip.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Hello Lauren. Um I've been following you for some time now on my personal account, and I recently discovered that you have a podcast. So I listened to your last episode, I think, uh, where you talk about uh this uh filling need for inspiration or more about the dark spaces that uh one can be in, and I it felt like a warm very very warm hug for me, and I just want to say thank you for having this space for others to connect and feel. I've been feeling something like that for two years and a half, it's been a lot, and it's the first time for me. Um I'm 24 years old, I'm figuring out the way that I want to do things, what do I need? Um and that's a lot of brain, that's a lot of of stress, worrying, fear, and I think it's getting so much through my bones uh that I lost uh I feel like I lost all my spark. I feel um look back at time where I was studying jewelry and how inspired I was, how spiritually uh connected I was with everything, so lighthearted, so sensible, so tender, so strong. Um and and now I just um I'm feeling insecure in so many ways of my life that I'm starting to doubt if if all the things that I felt before are true because there's been a long time since I felt them. Um but anyway, I just want to thank you deeply for for speaking about this. Um because as I said, I've been following you for some time now, and I always enjoy so much that um well knowing that there's a person like you existing, you know. I uh uh I have this phrase uh that I uh say that uh oh this um this person comes from the same son as me or um brother's son or sister's son. Um like uh um sorry my English um it's my second language I I learned in school and speaking as as good as I can. Um but yeah I don't know I felt very connected uh with you and and thank you for putting this out.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Isn't that so moving? Now the reason I wanted to share this voice clip was because when we speak about something that is really in our hearts and when we speak in an unfiltered way about that thing that moves us, and that could be through our actual voice, it could be aesthetically, it could be when we paint that thing that is just desperate to get out of us, when we make that thing, when we write that song, when we create the environment that has no name, but we just need to do it. We need to curate an ext an experience where people can walk into, and we don't know, am I a performance artist? Am I a am I a this? All of those definitions can just melt away. When we do that, when we create the thing that is just thumping inside of our rib cage, it's desperate to get out, it speaks to people and it speaks to the heart of people, and that is so important because essentially art is about connection. Yes, it's deeply enjoyable to be in the creative moment. Yes, it feels so good to do the thing that we just really want to do that's outside of logic. But really, if those talismans that we create, and they are talismanic because they contain so much potency, they contain communication beyond beyond words, beyond beyond category, it speaks directly to something shimmering and vital. But this isn't about mass market adoption, this is about that ability, the way that things connect to the hearts of other beings, and that connective pulse, that pulse of connection really is what it means to be human. It's so deeply human. And whether we're sharing something that's an artistic offering or whether we're speaking the truth, we connect to someone. Like I drop everything when someone tells the truth. It could be that you're scared, it could be that you're excited, it doesn't matter what it is. Truth totally grounds us into the moment and it it invites our presence. And that I would say, in my loftier moments, I would say that that's what art is it's truth, but not some kind of ultimate truth, it's the truth of your experience in a moment that you're giving 300% to, or even 101%, but you're not holding back in any way. And when we create without holding back, it can't not connect to people. Who it connects to is outside of our control, and that's why it was so beautiful when I receive messages like this. It just keeps me going. Do you where do you arrive? You don't arrive anywhere, but you're connected along the way, and being an artist can be such a lonely experience when we're when we're not expressing our deepest yearnings, when we're not expressing, you know, what's really inside of us, something that needs to come out outside of words, when we're not expressing that, it feels really lonely. And part of the reason it feels lonely is because we're lonely with ourselves, we're lonely from our art. We're lonely, what's the phrase? We're lonely because we miss our art and our art misses us. So that voice clip was really a thank you to the woman who sent it, and I've already thanked you, you know who you are if you're listening, but also an an invitation for you to have the courage. You know, I've said so many times this podcast is just for the people it's for. You know, it is I don't even have a jingle or a tagline in it. I just I have to say these things that are so important to me. And if there's a corner of your life that you feel like that with, do it. Create, express with all of your heart, don't hold anything back. There are times in life we have to hold back, but there are also times where there are times not to hold back, and I would say most times don't hold back, you know, or find an appropriate environment where you can go and fully express the extent of that energy. Because there are environments where you can do that, and art is the most socially acceptable place where we we're actually allowed to do that. We're allowed to bring the underworld to everyday experience, we're allowed to bring ecstasy to everyday experience, and you don't need to stay up for three days sweating and vomiting in a retreat setting. You are actually allowed on a Monday afternoon to fully express the entirety of your heart and your longing and everything. We're allowed to do that, and it will connect to people, and that's the magic and the regenerative quality of art. So that's why I shared that. So I want to talk today about being quenched by the aesthetic moment. And I recently shared the work of this amazing, I think he's Namibian, he might be Zambian, but he's exhibiting a lot in South Africa. My cousin's actually really involved in the art scene in South Africa. She runs gallery in Cape Town, and there's just so much talent from all over Africa that's now coming into the contemporary art scene, and a lot of that is from the internet, and I fucking love that for everyone. I love that so much for then not to be such a Eurocentric, high art, fucking gatekeeping world on these incredible artists all around the world who now, because of their phones, can share their work without having had to gone to St. Martin's College or without having to study in the best fashion school in New York. All of those things are amazing, but talent is not only found in those places, talent is found in slums, talent is found in, you know, in high streets around the country that don't have access to you know to the big city and to all the names and contacts that exist there, and I love that. And so, in that way, the internet has become a level, a level playing field, and I really love that. We're not going to go into the ethics of the online and the algorithm and all the rest of it, but so this artist whose name is Boyd Boschonga. I highly recommend you look at his work. His work is just really speaks to me, really, really speaks to me. But this is not an analysis of his work. He's a painter and metal sculptor. This is not an analysis of that or kind of even a commentary on that. There was a two-minute reel, and in this reel, it just moved me so much. And the reel was him speaking in his studio, and there was like, you know, kind of behind the scenes footage of him painting, and it was done really beautifully and really artfully. But in this reel, he was talking about the fact that he grew up in a family that wasn't artistic, and much of what he had the urge to do, his parents didn't understand, his mum didn't understand. I mean, also, this is a massively assuming line to take, but you know, she was probably thinking you need to make money in life, you need to do us proud. This is a kind of sense of you need to do something practical, and so many parents fear that for their children for very good reason. No, for very good reasons. So many artists don't make it, and so many artists can't find a way to sell their work or to monetize their inner world or you know, all the rest of it. So he grew up really feeling kind of confused because he had these intense visions in his inner world and and the world, his immediate, direct, domestic environment, didn't see him in that. And it was just so beautiful. He was talking about the self-evident nature of the work. He was saying, you know, I hope people see my work, but if they don't, maybe they will later. I'm not going to explain my work. My work comes from a place deep inside of me, and it's influenced by his culture and where he where he actually exists in the tangible, but but at that essential level, art comes from a pre-verbal, post-verbal, non-verbal place. The analysis happens later on, which is why it can be very difficult when we feel like we have to explain what we do, which I think is really problematic. I think it's really problematic. I think it's important to have to explain what we do when there is a body of work in a more abstracted, cohesive, explanatory way. But the actual works, one of them side by side, another one, it's very difficult to explain what that is because it's a deep aesthetic urge that moves through us, and it's very difficult to rationalise that. When we rationalise that, we can actually damage the work because these glistening things that come in from the left, from the right, from all areas they come in outside of logic, and so our job as artists is to keep that channel open, and sometimes that feels really natural and really easy, and other times it feels really difficult, and there's a lot of work involved in keeping the channel open to inspiration or to being able to filter through the competing voices that might be trying to that that are taking our attention. But it really moved me, and I've been speaking to a lot of people, friends I've got on Instagram, um, either friends who I've met in the real world at some point, or just people you know, the ones, the those DMs who you always light up when you see them, and it feels like such a soul connection. And I've been speaking to artists who just say that they feel like it's really difficult to get in their creative flow at the moment, that there's so many distractions around. And obviously, they're artists, so they're creating work. You could say everything they do is creative compared to somebody who works in finance and would love to hasn't even started like painting yet or hasn't even picked up an instrument. Yeah, they're in their work, but within that, there's constantly the hygiene required to decontaminate the inner world from the from the needs of safety and security, so that the real vibrancy of the work can come through. And one of the things that I've always found really, really helpful, and I I struggle with it, it's a practice, which is why we never arrive at like this is a done thing, it's a practice, is focusing on the aesthetic connection to my work rather than what the end result is going to be like. So, my job when I go into a kind of deep dive into a certain thing I want to bring out is it's so hard because I can see the completion, I can see I want to control it, it needs to be a collection, I want to paint this, I want to do that, this is what it needs to be like. But that's really my mind trying to stay safe by controlling the outcome. But what my heart desperately craves is just to be in that in the depths of the aesthetic moment where time slows down and intensity completely explodes into my entire experience. You know that place, right? You're in that zone, you're in that flow. The challenge is high, you can't drop the ball, you can't be distracted, and our attention in that place is just so like we're paying such attention. And Simone Wheel said that uh said that attention is the purest form of prayer. Attention, our undiluted attention is prayer, and that's what prayer is, and that's why language used to describe aesthetic experience in terms of the arts and spiritual language are so similar, they're the same thing, and that's why the sages talk in the same way that the artists talk, which is why many artistic people are attracted to the spiritual paths of the world because they understand this twilight language. The Buddhist lineage I was involved in for years used to talk about tantric language as twilight language, and I love that. So it's language where you can quite see what's going on, it's poetic language, and it's not descriptive language, it's inferred, it's rich in it's rich in metaphor, it's rich in texture, it's rich in itself in aesthetic experience. It invites you in to this kind of liminal space. And this is one of the reasons why you know spirituality and the work of the mystical poets is always gonna connect to the artist, even if the artist themselves never meditates, because they're spending hours if you're practicing your instrument, if you're practicing your craft, if you're deep in practice and flow, your attention is completely pervading your experience, which is a spiritual experience of meditation. You can't drop that, and it's a non-ordinary state of consciousness. When I say you can't drop it, I mean you know when you drop it. It takes effort to sustain that, but it's also somehow self-sustaining, it kind of holds us. So this twilight language, this sense of connection and crossing over between the spiritual paths and creativity is something that for me, for many many years, I didn't trust the art. I've said this so many times, I didn't trust that the artistic experience was enough to make me a true human being. So I practiced within spirituality where I had to follow all these rules and I had to do all these practices to like be a be a human being, to like be worthy. And it took me over a decade to understand that my art is how I do that. I was born with this need to create, and I couldn't rationalise that away, I couldn't practice that away no matter how much meditation I did, no matter how many retreats I did. I always had this burning desire to create, and I thought that if I practiced enough Buddhism or if I practiced enough this, that somehow I'd be peaceful. But my peace was always there when I was creating, so it's kind of a wild safari when you think about it. So I only say that in case, yeah, I you know I speak from my own experience, it doesn't mean we can't do both, it doesn't mean both can't be absolutely incredible. But for me, it was really coming home to trust what I always have been, and I see these similarities in the artistic practice, just like in the religious practice, it's all about softening the conceptual mind, softening the intellect so that we can we can find ourselves in a pool of experience that is way, way vaster, and this is where synchronicities happen. This is where we have messages and signs, you know. Messages and signs can't come in where we're when we're like so trying to be safe all the time and so rational. The messages and signs come when we're courageous, and courage being courageous by definition means I have this weird thing that's kind of like brewing inside of me, and there's no one else who's done it, or the path is uncertain, but I just need to do it, and I'm gonna commit to it with all of my heart. That doesn't mean we can do it full time, that doesn't mean we can even have a studio to do it, it might be just the kitchen table when the kids are asleep, or it might be Saturday morning if you work full-time, getting up early and making that ritual space for your practice and keeping containment around it, not telling everyone about it, you know, having a sense of secrecy and um sacredness around it. Not that you can't tell anyone, but make sure, make sure you're telling people who have deeply, who are deeply steeped in soul. Do not, you know, like Jesus said, don't cast your pearls before swine. Do not tell people things who are riddled with fear and logic, because bless them on their way, but they're not going to be the ones who we need to tell people, who we need to tell our deepest, you know, you need to tell people who are further along the path, who have so normalized the uncertainty of the creative process, but they're carried by courage and love and potency and the desire to create and express. Those are the people who you need to tell, you know, not the person who's like, Oh, I'm really sensible. And it was like, Yeah, like you can love them, but don't tell the people, you know. And it's really hard because to come back to this sense of feeling alone, we naturally desire community, we naturally desire people who we can really talk about the intensity of the creative process. And honestly, I didn't have this until I started being that, and when I started being that and putting my work out into the world, and then talking about it on social media, talking. About it in my list, my email list, my email family, talking about it in all the places where I'm fortunate enough to have people listening to me and I'm listening to them, and we have a conversation, and I talk about these things. You've got to be brave enough to say, you know, without this, I feel really depressed. And there's so much stigma around being depressed. But when you realize that depression is just the symptom of being undertapped in your aliveness, you stop seeing depression as something you need to be ashamed of, and you see it as a really important, it's like if you have your inflammation markers measured, it's not you don't need to be ashamed that your inflammatory markers are high, it's just a sign that something in your routines or your lifestyle needs to change. It's the same with depression. I I'm constantly skating this edge between, I mean, it's been a very long time since I've actually been like in the waters with it, but I used to battle with depression so much, and you can be so functional and doing everything, but I was like always thinking about food, always thinking of always thinking about something that wasn't in the moment, and it was only when always trying to be better. I was always thinking like if I do this, I might not be like this, and all of this, and it was such an erosion of my creativity, and it was only when I honoured who I am, and that I'm gonna be depressed unless I create, unless I express, unless I create my art, otherwise I'm gonna be depressed, and it's so much easier and simpler when you acknowledge who you are. I remember saying to my son's jujitsu coach a couple of weeks ago how it's tricky because we're out the house for many hours a day at the moment, me and my son, and we leave for school at 7:30 in the morning because we're kind of in between moving from one place to another place that's about an hour away. And so I've got the new studio in the new place, but our home is still about an hour away. So in the week we're leaving the house at half seven in the morning, and then if we go to jujitsu after school via a little time in the park kicking the ball around, then we sometimes don't get back until between six and seven, depending on the the classes he does. And I remember, and it's really hard for my son sometimes, like he's knackered and he's pushing through, and he's an absolute legend. And I'm so proud of him for his work ethic in these days because I can feel how tired he is, and it's that fine line, isn't it, between not pushing too much, but also not letting them stay in their comfort zone, you know, as a parent. Like it's not it's not always about being comfortable, kid. You know, I think so many people as adults struggle because the moment they get out of their comfort zone, they think they're having a trauma response, and it's like, no, babe, this is what growth feels like. Like, and again, sports is such an amazing way that illustrates that. Because imagine if you were training for something and you were like, Oh, I just I just feel like you're pushing my boundaries a little bit too much. I don't really want to do that another rep. And the coach was like, Well, how are you gonna get stronger? And you're like, Yeah, but I just feel like this reminds me of something, you know. So, trauma-informed is really important when we're trying to understand why we have our default coping mechanisms in life, but in the moment, growth is gonna feel traumatic, it just is, it's gonna hurt. Um I'm so like intense, I know. I wish I wasn't, but I am, and you love me for it. So I remember saying to my coach, you know, he did two classes back to back, and he really because the second one is the teens class, and his friend is in it, and he was knackered, and he's like looking sad, and I can see he's he's barely even able to like submit, you know, kind of dominate his opponent that he would normally his body's just like oh and I can feel this. And he comes up to me with a really sad face, he's like, Mum, I'm really tired, and I said, Okay, well tell tell your coach and we can go. And he didn't want to tell the coach because he wanted me to tell the coach, and I said, No, we can definitely go, but you need to tell your coach, and so because of that extra level of accountability, he found the the energy to go on for the last 20 minutes. But I remember saying this to his coach, I said, you know, when he does these two classes, it is really intense for him after a full day of school and learning and having it's a lot, you know, 12-hour day for a 10-year-old with not much downtime apart from the car. It's a lot. And I said, But when we drive back after these double jiu-jitsu days, he is it's the weirdest thing that happens. Like, he's such a gentleman. He'll say to me, he'll literally be in the car and he'll say, Mum, when we get back, would it be okay if you help me with this? And then I'll say yeah, and he'll say, Thank you. It's like the weirdest thing, it's not that he's rude normally, but he's noticeably more polite and noticeably kinder. And I said this to his coach, I said, He's such a gentleman after he's been working so hard. And the coach said, I'm exactly the same. If I don't train, I'm a monster. And so when you know that, and then when I train, I'm a gentleman. When you know that about yourself, whatever it is, right? What are the mechanisms that make you depressed, that make you anxious? Some of it, we are living in challenging times, and our attention is being, you know, it's really hard to stay focused, and there's lots of uncertainty, but but uncertainty is the human condition, uncertainty on planet Earth. I mean, look up the Neanderthal site, look at the look up Neanderthal archaeology and see the the conditions that a lot of them died in. You know, they were eaten by things, they were fighting, they had head injuries. I mean, there are so many ways that human beings used to die. Um, and you can find that from archaeo remains, archaeobiology, and archaeoanthropology. You can find all that. So anxiety and uncertainty are a default of goddamn being here. So, within that, what triggers yours? But for me, the biggest one has always been depression. Yeah, anxiety for sure, but I just get sweat on and like throw some weights around, and that tends to deal with that. Um, and taking action and all the obvious things that you get from any like bro podcast. But for me, depression was a really big one because I come from a lineage of people with very acute mental health stuff. Schizophrenia, my uncle had bless his soul. I you know, had to be hospitalized, never really lived on his own, died at 70, having never had a relationship and seriously um unwell. And he was an absolute survivor, but he lived a life of really being in the dark. And some of his poems, he used to write poems, and I read them and I just cry. I mean, it is they are so moving, and they talk about how he was at the park once with his mum and dad, and he was watching everyone live their lives and having and just being so carefree, and he wondered what it was like to feel so carefree because he felt like he had so much darkness in him, and this poem was so erudite, and it was so it so articulated this feeling of having been his whole life on the outside of something that everyone else was doing, and the loneliness in that, you know, because mental health is really lonely when you're when you're so seriously in need and unwell that you're you end up being under section under the Mental Health Act, it's different to struggling but maintaining your life and having children and all of those things that require us to look after other people, which is essentially really good for us. Um and then, yeah, so schizophrenia, bipolarity, a lot of manic tendencies. So I came in with all of that as a potentiality, like it's it it was waiting to happen, and you know, the anger and the rage, and I've experienced such intense things in my body and with my emotions that I can really understand how people end up in mental health institutions because I've I've skated close to the edge with that, but for whatever reason I have been able to find a way to not go down that road. For me, it has been I have to create and I have to express, and for years I thought this was so selfish. And so, what did I do? I didn't do it. Oh, if I study yoga and Buddhism and art therapy, I can help people. Yeah, but if you're not happy, you're not helping people. You it you can only help people rise to the level that you're at. Like, if someone's gonna pay you for coaching or mentorship, you can only help them if you're in a vibration of the thing you're teaching and the thing you're helping them with. And like, there are so many people who are therapists, but they're not they're not happy, they're not living good lives, but they've they understand therapy and they you know, so it's like I knew that I didn't want to be one of those therapists, and if I was gonna be a therapist, I wanted to be a therapist who was really alive and who held the torch for other women to know that it's possible to be a woman who is not who the struggle of mental health hasn't made me go internalized and hate myself because that's the default for women is we we hurt and hit and hate ourselves, whereas men tend to express outwards and hurt and hate other people, of course, definitely not a a law or a rule, but for me it was like I hated who I was, I felt shit about who I was. I was like, yeah, and so it was in turning that energy around and expressing all of this energy. I've been born with a lot of energy. I have access to vast currents of energy more than most people I've ever met. I could try and be chill and and calm down and go on holiday and do what people are supposed to do on holiday, but I'd be bored and depressed and anxious. And you don't want to be with me if I'm like that, and I don't want my son to be raised by a woman who's bored, depressed, anxious, and suppressed and having to self-medicate. So, what do I do? I have to respect and honour who I am. I don't believe we get to choose who we are. There is a lot of choice involved in life artistry. Yes, I don't believe we choose what we come in with or who we are. If you're someone with a lot of energy and a lot of anger and a lot of frustration and a lot of rage and a lot of desire, you have high potency and therefore you have high responsibility to know who you are, which involves going into the underworld of your experience many, many times and not being scared of your own dark, because being scared of our own dark amplifies the dark. When we're not scared of our own dark, we can go into it because we know we'll come out of it. And normally, what happens in the dark, you come out with jewels, it's just how it is. I don't know why it works like that, but it does. You come out with gold when you're not scared of the dark. I talk about all this because so often I speak to people and they're going through a hard time, and I can just feel in them they're ashamed that they feel so much darkness in their soul. I'm like, there is darkness here. Do you understand? There is darkness here, there is pain here. You don't need to be ashamed that you're tapped into that, but you're also tapped into so much light and to so much artistic energy. There's no one who has struggled with depression and mental health and spiritual health and all the rest of it. There's no one who's struggled with that and hasn't got gifts. But the price absolutely is the courage to really be who we are. There are no two ways about that. I was talking to my dear friend Emily about this recently, who is definitely autistic and absolutely exhausted by so many of the things that she has to do in day-to-day life. And I have said to her for years and years and years, she's like a shaman essentially. I mean, this woman is such a potent amplifier, she just has to sit in meditation with a plant, and she likes here's the wisdom of the plant, let alone smoke it or drink it. But I've said to her for years, you will be exhausted when you are not doing your soul's purpose. And as soon as you fully amplify what you're here to do, the world will start singing to you. But you're in a neurotypical culture, and you're trying, although she's not, she's very in her life now, and she's like, she's just amazing. But that is amplified the more and more she honours who she is and what she is, and the more she does that, the more energy she has. So she thinks she's sometimes depleted by day-to-day life, but it's not, it's just that she hasn't fully centred what she does yet and allowed all of her amazing obsession and sensitivity and like you know, neurodivergent um nectar to really like be in that, and that's the thing. There are some people who can do things for other people and do things that the culture suspects of them, but I would argue most of us, modernity and constantly being in the head and the logical brain and just logic and reason is pretty depleting, but there are gonna be some of us more on the artistic spectrum, get it, instead of autistic spectrum. There are gonna be some of us who, if we don't deeply honour that we have these things that need to be quenched within us and we need to express, and we need to start developing a voice in something that we don't know how it's gonna go, and we make friends with uncertainty and we have the courage to walk the path, not as a full-time thing. I always say this because it's so easy to think success comes from being full-time in something, it doesn't. I'm full-time in jewellery right now, and I can tell you you can go months without being in your creative engine. Months. And when I was working full-time as a waitress and studying yoga, I was very in my creative engine. I was creating all the time towards the end of my yoga teacher training. I no one knew about it really. I would just give my friends shit all the time. I was just making all the time. I didn't have an Instagram following, no one really knew. I didn't even call myself an artist. So it's not about whether or not the outside world sees us and you even identify as an artist, but it's like daily, are you are we making pilgrimages to that sacred space of the unknown? Because all an artist is is someone who trusts the unknown, maybe not even more, but as much as they trust the known, or the unseen as much as they trust the seen, and that they live at the threshold between the worlds of the seen and the unseen, the bridge, and that in its essence, that's what being an entrepreneur is, that's what being a scientific innovator is. You know, that's why the word artist can be tricky because there are souls out there who are making innovation in medicine and they're not bought and paid for, and they deeply care, and they're so creative in the sense that they are spotting patterns and following internal hunches, and they're in all industries. But again, let's focus on this thing of the aesthetic, the creative, the artistic. Because for me, what happens when I'm holding wax to make jewelry or I'm holding a paintbrush, which I'm so desperate to do? Oh my god. I think that's why I can speak about it with such intensity at the moment because I'm so longing to paint, and it has been so long, and I just keep seeing amazing paint in the on the internet, and I'm like, oh, I know what that feels like. I need it so much. There's like a longing in there, but it's a longing I'm not gonna put up with for long because I have to paint. I just need to find a way to carve out some space for that. So it's about being deeply quenched by the aesthetic moment, and that's what that reel from this artist Boyd Bishonga has shown me, and that is also why this amazing woman felt compelled to leave me a voice note on Instagram when she started listening to my podcast. It is because when we ourselves deeply inhabit the aesthetic moment first, we are quenched by that. It is an itch that nothing else can scratch. No, no negroni, no cigarette, no spliff, no Netflix, no numbing or covering up or distraction or temporary dopamine is gonna fix that thing that really feeds us. Like, fuck dopamine. This is about soulpamine. This is like something that we don't have a word for. Like when we're in that space and we can just really absorb the creative nutrition from that place of being so deeply quenched, you know, you're dancing like nobody's watching, you're creating the thing that you just don't care whether it sells or not. That thing first feeds us, and then it feeds others. And this is why art is regenerative, because you you can create something and it can be the smallest thing, it can be the biggest thing, you can extend it to just beautiful aesthetic gestures of goodwill, you know, having flowers in your house, leaving a guest having a guest and making the guest room so beautiful just because, you know, putting flowers on the bed, putting something unexpected, like putting a kinky poem in the bed for them so that when they get in the bed they laugh, you know. It could be anything. It's like this this following the nudges of going beyond what's required in a moment and really giving something that just says, I'm alive and you are too. Isn't this wild? We're actually here and I didn't have to do this, but I am, and I did. And so that's how first it quenches us, and then it quenches others. And sometimes the quenching happens simultaneously of us and others, and that's really amazing when that happens. But for the art that requires solitary, um solitary confinement, for the art that requires our solitude, and like for me, I can't create when there are other people around. I whatever, it just is the way. I really need like a closed door, I need solitude, and even if it's 20 minutes, I will feel so replenished by that, and then it can touch others, so it's regenerative in that way. But it really is hard at this time to find the time to do that work that we know is really gonna feed us, and know that know that you're not broken or or like you're not missing something because you're finding it hard, but it is on us to develop the discipline to block out all the noise and notifications. I mean, I have people ringing me during the working day. I'm like, I'm not gonna. We haven't scheduled a call, and I'm sorry if that sounds like I said it to a friend the other day who's just been traveling a lot in Spain and just living a really different pace of life with her family. She was like, Yeah, everyone in England is just so kind of they have to protect their energy, and and and I, you know, that's not a great thing long term to not be able to pick up a spontaneous phone call. But if you look at that in the context of we're all feeling depleted because so many things are coming at us 24-7 or the waking hours, or the waking hours that were on our phone, within that, we really need to develop the discipline so that we have time for what deeply nourishes us. And then when you've got the time, you need to have the energy, right? So you could have the time, but then you're like, Oh, I feel so flat and uninspired. Then you start working. Inspiration follows movement, you know. Inspiration follows movement, progress follows mistakes. You have to make mistakes, you have to make them often, and then a voice emerges. This is no different from you know, a basketball player wanting to get really good and being in the gym at four in the morning, like they're not, oh, I won, I won last night, I won last year, so I'm just done. No, they're every day putting those reps in. And another sports thing that I love is you're only as strong as your weakest training day. And so the training here isn't about the result, the training is about having the discipline and the sharpness of mind and of character to know that good work requires a lot of effort, and really effort here is of the heart and of the vulnerability of not being ironic and not being sarcastic towards our work. Um, so that might manifest as saying something like, Oh yeah, but you know, it's just the little thing I did. Taking our work really seriously, but weirdly, when we take it seriously, it also becomes quite playful. By serious here, I mean actually doing it. Actually doing it. Imagine if you only got to keep what you actually create. Imagine if you only got to keep what is actually here in the world. Nothing that exists in our imaginative world has legs, it can't stand on its own. It needs to be birthed through our hands, or if you haven't got hands through the body in some way, or through maybe you like um. Oh my god, forgotten his name. You know, people who are paraplegic and they're paralysed or something, but they still manage to like write a book or to write poetry with some machinery, and it's just amazing. So that poem can live on and it can move people after they're not here. So let yourself be quenched by the aesthetic moment and remember, this is not how it looks on the outside. Someone might look at you and think, you know, what's the problem? I don't know why you're complaining. You're you you're selling your art or you're whatever, you've you've got an Instagram full of people who love your art. But if we don't feel connected to the vital felt sense of the pulse of aliveness in our work, we don't feel true. That's how it is for me. If I don't feel like I'm on the kind of the vibrant edge of my work, and it and being on the edge requires that there's not certainty. You know, if you're on the edge, it's gonna feel unsafe. That doesn't mean it's a trauma response, that means you're on the edge. I was speaking to the same dear friend Emily the other day, and I'm speaking about this now because her her response made me think, Oh shit, maybe it is important to speak about it. I just thought that was obvious what I just said. So we were having this beautiful conversation in the car. She was on the phone, I was driving, and she just had a big thing happen. She was kind of really we were we were sort of debriefing it. There's quite a lot going on in her life in different kinds of friendship networks and things like that. And um she said, I just feel like I'm always like about to get into trouble. And I said, Babe, same. Like I feel like I've always done something wrong, like I'm always about to be told off. Like sometimes I literally have auditory hallucinations of like someone coming over and being, Lauren, Lauren, you know, in that voice, like what have you done? Where have you parked? You're not supposed to do that. And I said, The thing is, is I don't let any of that stop me. I just recognise it's there and it's some karmic thing, or it's just, I don't know, having ADHD and often getting things wrong, or often like getting parking tickets or whatever. And I said, the diff it's not whether or not that voice is there, it's whether you let it stop you, and it's also a symptom of knowing you're pushing an edge. Like if you were to play it totally safe with all of your work and all of your expressions, then of course no one's ever gonna tell you off. But the moment you do something that's innovative and you're like, I'm gonna blend my love for erotic poetry with chocolate, and I'm gonna make edible erotic poetry that people have to eat and film themselves eating, and you're like, fuck, that's a bit edgy. What if my parents see it? And as soon as you start to push an edge that comes from your innate interest in what you were born being interested in, which is given to you by this life, it's a gift. Your interests aren't some kind of mistake, they're not like, oh yeah, I know we we fed you with this like absolute adoration of antique German textiles, but like whatever. I mean, that was just a mistake. No, there's a reason you can like read dense scholarly books about antique German textiles, and you're just so interested, and you don't need to know why that is. You've been given that, that's your gift. Recognize that, honor that, you know. Maybe you become like the world's most famous person on maybe you've got a YouTube channel that's talking about antique German textiles. Like, I'd watch you, I'd watch anyone who's interested in something because what we watch is passion, not the content. What we watch is the passion and the attention and the determination and the frequency of attention is what makes us pay attention. So that so know that. If you have this voice in you that's like, fuck what if I get told off, know that that is part of being an artist, it's part of being a creator, it's part of being on some kind of leading edge. Maybe you don't know if you're allowed to do a certain thing. Think of Polly Wales, the jewellery designer, one of the most famous jewelry designers in the world. Cast not set jewellery. Like, if she'd have looked around the industry and gone, but what is everyone else doing? Oh, they're having stones set in the gold after, like, oh, I should just do that. No, she spent years and so much money and courage developing this method that now other people copy. I've used it, thanks, Polly. I mean, she's not actually the person who invented it, but she's definitely the person who brought it to the mass, mass world. She took so many risks. Financially, it it must have been horrendous to develop that because so many things, so many stones crack in the casting process. So, like, if you're on the leading edge of something and you don't need to be Polly Wales, but if you're on the edge of something in your own experience and you're doing something that there's no other thing like that in the world, or it's certainly not industry standard, then know that you're gonna feel uncomfortable sometimes. I have this constantly on Instagram. I'm like, why am I? I mean, again, I don't listen to it, but like, am I a jewelry person selling my work and sharing my work? Or am I like a coach talking about creativity and trying to inspire other people to create? And it's like that's not for me to work out. These are just two things that have always been the thread in my life. I have to create, I absolutely have to create, but also equal to that, not just tangential, but equal to that. I love more than anything else, more than anything else. Hearing people talk about their own creative experience, the challenges, the joys, the satisfaction. I love talking to other artists with skin in the game, not theoretical artists, not aspiring artists, people with skin in the game who are taking risks, sharing their work, trying to get better, trying to hone their voice. You know, not offended when people don't like it, but just like they understand the cost of that is that people won't like it. At best, it won't be people's cup of tea. At worst, people won't like it. Oh, that really made me suddenly fancy a cup of tea. So, yes, know that you're gonna feel like that, and know that the discomfort means that you're doing something that's authentic because it can't be compared to other people. And if it's authentic, people will love it, and the right people will love it, and the people who gather around you will end up feeling like a community, like truly like a tribe. And you'll look around and you'll go, How is it that I get to work alongside these people? Like, I'm just so inspired, even though I'm giving all the time, I'm getting so much all the time as well. This is how deeply responding to our desire to be in the throes of the aesthetic moment is regenerative medicine. You are not selfish for wanting and needing to pursue your art, you are simply being shown that desire to pursue your art is your inner world, is the invisible world showing you where the medicine of your life is. You need to have the courage to listen. It is the least selfish thing you can do. Your whole aura will change. Everyone who makes contact with you will be blessed because you are in the creative engine of your life, and that as an artist is what we're here to be. The results will take care of themselves. Our job is to stay in the creative engine, in the fire of our lives, forging talismans day by day by day. I love you so much. Share this episode with any kindred spirits, any artists that you feel would, you know, maybe have been feeling distracted or need reminding about why it's so important for us to be in our creative power and our creative engine and how you know sometimes our medicine is as simple as that. Have you made anything recently? Have you created? Have you sung? Have you danced? Share this with anyone who you feel would need to hear it, and I look forward so much to hearing from you and to speaking in the next episode. I absolutely said this was going to be a short one and it's 45 minutes, but there we go. Buy one, get two. I love you. Ciao for nap.