The Link Between Mindfulness and Artistic Expression with Marni Freedman
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Hello, welcome to the Mindfulness Exercises podcast. My name is Sean Fargo, and today I'm honored to share a really thought-provoking conversation that I had recently on the intersection of mindfulness and creativity. This conversation was with a really inspiring guest named Marnie Friedman, who is a writing coach, editor, playwright, and

She's kind of functioned as a therapist for artists with over 25 years of experience helping people to bring their stories to life. She also runs the San Diego Writers Festival where she curates world-class programming for writers. She's interviewed some of the biggest names in the writing world. Her deep understanding of the creative process is

both with its magic and its struggles, makes her a great person to explore today's topic. She's a really delightful person. Creativity is often thought of as an act of inspiration delivered to us. But what if we can create the right conditions for creativity to arise?

In this episode, we dive into how mindfulness helps artists, writers, and creatives to move beyond any sense of fear, self-doubt, or resistance, or self-judgment, to help open the door to more authentic expression and flow.

So whether you're a writer, an artist, a musician, or someone who simply wants to unlock deeper creativity in your life, this episode will give you fresh perspectives on mindfulness as a gateway to

to your own creative flow. Thanks so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Sure, yeah. It's a pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah. So yeah, I'm writing this book on creativity and, well, the intersection between mindfulness and creativity. And I'm loving the course, by the way. Oh, great. I do have a technical question, but I'll save that for later.

But no, it's really, it's life changing for sure. Like I did it once and then I'm like, wait a second, I got to back up and slow down. And the slowing down really changed everything. Really powerful questions that you're posing. So yeah, I'm writing this book on the intersection between mindfulness and creativity and

And mostly what I've discovered is that creativity really has to do with like what I've been calling like having a fertile soil or a culture, a healthy culture. Like you can't necessarily predict when someone will have the aha idea, but you can make the soil fertile enough for ideas to be possible. For me, most,

mindfulness has been part of what's made that soil fertile. So that's just a little bit about my approach and where I'm thinking, but I'm open to anything you have to say about creativity and mindfulness.

Sure. Yeah, I'd be happy to share. Is this for primarily like writers in terms of creativity? Or do you mean, like a certain avatar? I would say all artists. So I'm the therapist for artists.

So I work with musicians and composers and dancers and a lot of writers too. You know, just doing the course when you slow down, the power of the questions and the power of the teachings...

has more potency. So many of us get caught up in moving quickly. You know, oftentimes we're rewarded for moving quickly in getting things done and figuring things out and

maintaining connections with family and friends and neighbors and acquaintances. The pace of our world has increased so much and continues to increase with new cycles,

AI, social media, a lot of us forget how to slow down or carve out space. Not space for Netflix or YouTube or the next thing we want to achieve or binge on, but space in its truer sense of a lack of content or a lack of

Goal, do you think we fear? Not having that content or that goal it can be terrifying because if there's nothing to grab on to or control There's no process

There's no thing that we're certain is going to create some level of drama or laugh or numbness. What is it inside of me that I will need to face? If there's an increasing amount

amount of space of external stimuli, then what internally is going to arise? In our fast-paced world, most of us,

including myself at times, forget to tend to our inner world. And we often end up suppressing important emotions and realizations. And so if we decrease the amount of momentum and external stimuli, then I might be forced to face what I've been actively trying to

avoid whether consciously or unconsciously. For many of us, it's terrifying. Now, with mindfulness, one of the key components is that we're not out to judge anything. That whatever we feel, whatever we face is not about being good or bad, right or wrong, but rather a natural unfolding of experience and

energy. And if we can summon the courage, a little bit of curiosity, we can be with increasing intensities of

And so we may very well be valid in our terror. And so the invitation is not to try to be mindful of everything all at once. Ah, interesting. But rather go on baby steps. So if I could open a little bit to what I'm scared of, how might that work?

feel or what aspect of it could I tend to just even for a little bit? Or if I'm not even sure what I'm scared of, if I had to guess one or two things, what might they be? This touches on the fact that most of us,

as human beings living in the 21st century, carry trauma of many kinds. We want to be as gentle with ourselves as we can, and we can find safety in space

before opening to what is scary. And what I mean by that is that we can curl up in our blankie, favorite blankie, pour ourselves a cup of tea, maybe say, okay, I'm going to just take two minutes of sensing into a safe place in the body where I can maybe practice noticing what my inhales and exhales feel like in the belly or finding safety in

Another part of the body like our hands, maybe our back, maybe our feet, somewhere in the body that feels safe to sense into with gentle awareness of how it actually feels in those places in the body. Not trying to feel a certain way, there's no agenda here, not trying to feel good or happy or calm, but rather just sensing into how do the feet feel now?

How does the breath in the belly feel now? Now, maybe it feels pleasant, maybe it feels a little unpleasant. Staying with it and sensing into the actual sensations as they unfold. Then maybe we can congratulate ourselves, talk to ourselves as if we are talking with a really good friend who made this step. Good job. That was great. Very cool.

I'm really happy for you that you're on this journey of exploring how to be present in this moment, this gentle awareness. So we can start by sensing into safe sensations in the body and keep practicing that. Maybe sensing into certain emotions that feel mildly pleasant, noticing how those feel. So we can

Maybe think of something that made us smile the other day and relive that memory. And then, okay, how does that feel now in the body as I think of that? Oh yeah, there's a little bit of lightness in the head. Maybe a little bit of like my lips kind of curve upwards a little bit with a slight smile. My heart feels a little bit moist and open.

my breathing relaxes and becomes deeper. It's easier for me to feel my connection of the body on the ground. And then maybe we can play with sensing a mildly unpleasant sensation. Think, oh, you know,

Someone kind of looked at me funny the other day and it's not a big deal, but it just made me feel a little weird. So we can relive that. Now, how does that feel? Oh, my heart feels a little heavier. I'm breathing is a little bit more shallow. I could feel my face tighten up a little bit. Now I'm kind of getting into my head and I don't feel quite as balanced physically. Doesn't mean it's wrong or bad. Just kind of what's showing up. It's okay to feel what we feel.

but can we stay with what we feel? I'm just kind of sensing into how that feels with this gentle awareness, not trying to make it right, not trying to figure it out, not trying to blame or shame them or ourselves, just staying with the physical sensations of

how this feels now. And we might find that as we continue this gentle awareness of the body, as we sense into a mildly unpleasant memory, that we start to feel a little bit more balanced over time. And this gentle awareness is healing. We might say, oh, you know what? Kind of sensing into like momentum of like empathy now. All right,

I wonder what they were going through. You know what? I was kind of going through kind of weird that morning, and I wonder if that kind of rubbed them the wrong way. I just might be a little more curious. The name of the game is this gentle awareness. So we might be scared, and oftentimes that

Fear is very valid. And after we get the hang of practicing presence after a while, we start to more quickly turn towards the thing that we think is the obstacle. Can I ask you this in a context? So I teach memoir.

And sometimes people will come in and they'll say, I want to talk about everything but what's behind the golden door. And then what's the whole story? It's what's behind the golden door. And when they're ready, is that kind of what you're talking about? Like, is it similar to that facing what's behind the golden door? Sounds like it. So are you saying that practicing presence gently and being, you know, I liked what you said about, you know, communicating.

This is great that you're doing this, just like the gentle praising of that can help us to slowly turn towards that what's behind the golden door, like the thing that's terrifying us. Correct. And to turn towards the fear itself.

and its raw nature. And so maybe in this metaphor, it's the door itself. So a lot of us will say, but I'm afraid of X. I'm afraid of acknowledging or accepting or thinking of X. I'm afraid of addressing it. I'm shunning that out of my life or whatever. But what can be so...

paradigm shifting is the invitation to sense into the fear itself.

Like I'm afraid of thinking of X. Like I am afraid. So that's phrased in a sort of like an existential identification with fear. Like I am afraid of X, Y, or Z. Mindfulness is okay. There is fear in your experience. You are not fear. It's not who you are.

But there is fear. Where is that? For a lot of people, it may be in the heart. Where in the body is the fear? Huge knot all around my chest. My heart is 200 degrees Fahrenheit. There's a two-inch thick

layer of leather around it I feel it here interesting yeah it may be in our gut maybe here I had it like on my left shoulder for a few years and then like masseuse like actually it was a rolfer was like really needing that part and I just every time they would touch it I would cry like uncontrollably it was just like oh my goodness

And I don't know, something from my childhood, I guess.

But anyway, for all of us, it's maybe somewhere different and it might feel very different. But can we be with the fear itself? And we can toggle the amount of thinking we do about the thing that we're afraid of, meaning we can increase or decrease the amount of energy or the amount of awareness we put on what we're afraid of to then kind of increase or decrease the amount of felt awareness

emotion we feel in the body. Like I think about it a little bit, maybe I feel it a little bit. Think about it more, I feel it more. It's not always that simple and it's not always a direct correlation, but

Oftentimes there's a general correlation. Can I practice being with the fear, not identifying with the fear as I am afraid, but rather, yeah, there's a little bit of fear here, or there's a lot of fear here. Can I practice inching closer to it? So maybe I start in the belly and then kind of move up to the heart where the fear is more present. Or I can start somewhere safe in the body and then kind of inch towards where the fear is.

And then we can toggle back to the sort of thought-based story, the golden door. You can open it one inch. That's what I ask people to do. Oh, really? Yeah. I can open. Yeah. So we can open it like an inch, come back to the body. How does that feel? Can it bring gentle awareness to it? So it's not good or bad, not right or wrong. What does it feel like?

in a very gentle, tender way, going in baby steps. And we can zoom out into the whole body or our aura or the world. We can zoom in to like one millimeter diameter of like a part of the body and then zoom out and zoom in.

move around our physical experience and keep toggling back to the story, back to the body, back to the story, back to the body. There's physical sensations of fear. But as I learn how to meet that fear with gentleness, and I remember to breathe, I remember it's not who I am. It's just a part of this experience that comes up when I

think of something sometimes that fear takes less and less hold over us. We learn how to execute agency. We have choice in how we relate to it. We realize we can relate to it in a present, gentle way. Before, I would have reacted and judged it, judge that,

judged me, ran the other way, resist it. A lot of us will exaggerate it or suppress it or numb it. So those are all reactions. But with a gentle awareness of the sensations itself, we realize we're able to choose our response. We're able to realize that it doesn't

have as much hold over us as it used to, and that we can choose how to relate to it over time with practice, and maybe even see the beauty of it, which is kind of what you're doing with your clients. It's like, oh, this is in some ways a blessing. Once we crack open the golden door, if they're willing to go there, what we find is

I've noticed is the sacred ground. And then we can walk on the sacred ground and that's where the truth and the juice of the, everything, you know, is. So you're putting together something. I mean, I almost feel like crying because you're putting together a piece for me that's been missing, which is the, the toggling, the how to help people. All I,

could say before was risk 5% more, open the door 5% more. But this is richer and more tangible what you're saying. Yeah, like what does 5% more mean? Yeah. Like to different people, it might mean something very different. And also, how do I get there? How do I... This is what you're saying is an actual practice.

Yeah. And there's more of them too. What's your favorites? In terms of this topic? Yeah. Like, or I don't know, you know, you seem to be a really beautiful writer and I want to later ask you about your process, but yeah. What, what, what do you gravitate towards or what do you teach people about? I mean, over the years it's, it's changed for a variety of reasons. I mean, for a long time it was like,

like courage, encouraging courage. I think like a lot of what mindfulness teachers do is really just encouraging courage to slow down. And that alone is powerful. And then, you know, feeling, sensing, you know, and over time you'll, we'll discover that,

There's many, many layers. We might get bored after we slow down for 10 seconds. Yeah, I get it. It's a room. There's nothing going on. They're like, okay, well, let's have this gentle awareness of

Either your boredom or layers of energy in the room or what can you continue sensing into? I mean, there's one of the things about meditation practice is that once we really

learn the process of mindfulness, of being present, we learn that we never have to be bored again. 'Cause there's always something to notice. 'Cause everything is always changing externally, internally. There's layers and layers and layers and layers. We can go deeper and deeper and deeper

into who or what we are, our interconnection with everyone and everything goes deeper and deeper into what many people call spirituality or the magic of this mysterious unfolding imbued with what I perceive as benevolence, kindness. So anyway, so there's many layers to experience. We often need courage to continue with each layer.

Yeah. And it's not like you crack open the first layer with courage and then it's free flowing for the rest of your life. It's like, is it endless or is there like a Tootsie Roll pop inside? I don't know. I'm tempted to say both. Okay. Like in Buddhism, they talk about in terms of having two wings of a bird.

It's a wing of wisdom and a wing of compassion. Vedanta, it's like there's everything and nothing. This path is full of paradox and a lot of masters who are far wiser and more loving than I am often talk about it as a weaving between the two or a blending of the two so that it's everything and nothing

love and wisdom, absolute and relative. This is all really important and I love my family. What's going on deeply? And there's a bigger picture.

So, um, will you talk a little bit about if you have a creative process? Like this morning, I'd like happened to start listening to, um, Rick Rubin's book, the creative act. Yeah. And it just resonates. So, so much right now, like over the last couple of weeks only, I'm like been playing with becoming more full of myself. What does that mean?

That might actually be the book I create because it's kind of a catchy title that means the exact opposite of what most people think it means. Yes, it's great. I love it. It's not about ego or self-centeredness, but rather filling me up, my body and my space with my essence. Yeah.

And not allowing myself to be like dented by or constricted by, you know, what I'm afraid of. Or other people. Or the problems I've had as a kid. Or, yeah, other people. I tend to be like very empathic and sensitive, which means it's all the more important for me to really limit myself.

the amount of doing and consumption that I do, but rather like feeling into this experience, feeling fully embodied. Like the mind,

encapsulates our whole sensory apparatus. The mind and the brain are not fully synonymous. Mindfulness is not brainfulness. It encapsulates our whole sensory apparatus. So if I want to be truly mindful, I'm aware of my full presence. So it's been a lot of fun to...

Because like my energy tends to be quite, like when I go into a fear-based pattern, I condense a lot of energy into my body. And so by expanding up the energy, becoming like full of myself, I feel much lighter, present, balanced. So I've been playing with that. And it's also helped me

To feel into my voice, which I've had so many coaches and teachers say, they all kind of say the same thing with me, which is. What do they say? Like your path in this life is to give voice to what you believe, you know, what you're learning, your experience.

So by doing this practice of becoming more full of myself, I say that like somewhat sarcastically, there's sort of this like sense of,

freedom that I can give voice to it with less fear, self-consciousness, agenda. It's just kind of more of like a raw. I have a question about that. So I've noticed this, especially with women, there's not always like the permission to go into the fullness space.

of oneself and to there's like this sense of who am i to even put that focus on myself or i don't know self-doubt somehow creeps in just wondering if you could say something about that yeah what we're saying has some level of heart to it you know and it's if it's meant to kind of i

either help others or to illustrate what's going on for ourselves in case it might be helpful for them. Who am I?

not to help others. Or another way of saying it is like, if someone wanted to judge me for giving voice to something that is intended to hopefully be of help to someone else, then who is that person to stop me from helping others?

Others. If someone wants to get in my way of trying to help another person, it's more like, who are they to stop me or to want me to...

withholds like something from helping others. Like if I have even just a tiny piece of medicine and I know a lot of other people are struggling and I know not everyone's gonna want the medicine, not everyone needs this medicine, but maybe a couple do. Who is anyone to stop me from sharing this little piece of medicine that might be helpful for a couple people? Like to me, that's wrong. I don't know.

Just so I don't get it wrong, could you explain a little bit more what you mean about the fullness of yourself? If you're allowing it, what does that mean? What does it look like? Like one way to think of it is like your childlike energy. Did you go by Marnie as a kid? And you think of yourself like as Marnie? Yeah.

Then that like Marnie, like what is the Marnie essence? Like can you share a few adjectives about like who Marnie really is? Like when you're free or like happy or like when you were a kid, like. Kind of fearless, kind of playful, really silly, kind of outrageous, pushing boundaries. Yeah.

Okay, so that's all encapsulated by Marnie. Okay, and so like that energy, when you were talking about that, like fill your fill up your space with that. And when I say space, I mean, like your body, but also like a little bit of space around you too.

So that's you. Fill up your space. And you can close your eyes and feel all those things. Feel that energy of when you were talking about Marnie. And spread that energy throughout your body and the space around you. Breathe it in, breathe it out. And really feel it all around you and in you. It's becoming full of energy.

you know and so sometimes we get inundated with fears and desires and all these things and like sense into like where do those places live what happens to the energy does our energy go out six feet that way 100 feet that way and kind of dart around i was limiting it

So you could just keep going. The Marnie energy? No, I think it's good to kind of keep it kind of close by. Oh, okay. But it might be an indicator that maybe one of your patterns is that you send your energy out. A lot of people do that. And my sense is knowing your little bit of personality is that you might do that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a pattern. So notice when you're sending your energy out.

What's that about? Can you same fear of, of slowing down and looking at what's behind the golden door, but yeah, like, can you keep the Marnie energy like in, in your body or like fill yourself with the Marnie with Marnie in your body and like the space around you. So that's kind of there. Anything else that you would want to say to creatives about mindfulness?

Because I've been feeling lately it's really an investment in so much. Like the rewards are huge.

But we're in such a hustle culture. And I want to, with the book, I really want to talk about the gifts that keep growing. Like I just feel like there's more and more the more I do this work. To me, it kind of comes down to like just a fun way of being. Yeah. There's like creativity of like producing a thing. And then there's like creativity of being creative.

Like in how, yeah. Like how I fold the laundry today or like, how do I relate to that person or, you know, how I cook that thing or even like how I walk to the, you know, coffee shop. Like maybe it's a different way or a different route. Maybe you wear something different. Maybe I walk like,

like a giraffe i don't know but like it's kind of a fun way of being and it's just like a funness to it then unlocks more creativity because i'm feeling fun and um yeah like the flow that you're talking about most people in the west are we live in our heads

And it's really easy to think about like perfecting the thing or doing it right or following someone else's process and all that can be useful. But like, can I feel creative like in my body? You know, maybe I do yoga and like in advance of my creative work, or maybe I do some breathing exercises or do something silly or like laugh at my jokes or whatever. But like,

It's kind of a fun beingness or a creative beingness. And to me, I just love fun. It doesn't have to be fun for everybody. It's a way of being that then unlocks more. I want to sneak in one last question that it would mess me up if I didn't ask you this. When you're being creative,

let's say you're writing, do you feel like you're communicating with a creative source or a field or like Eckhart Tolle calls it the great river? Do you feel like you're connecting with that or what does it feel like to you? If I'm leading a meditation or leading a retreat in which we're deepening our presence, oftentimes,

Yes, sometimes it's more about connecting with all like connect with different energies. I don't know how to describe like, I've noticed that I gravitate towards groups of men. And it might be because I didn't have brothers and there may be a golden door here, but there's

this connection I have with like small groups of men that often unlocks, um, something very creative. Do you ever feel like you're channeling or is it like talking to a higher self? Um, I get out of my own way. Like I don't really, what you out of your own way to do what? Like flow. I don't know. Like it could be through a word or a look or an act. Um,

could be like doing something behind the scenes that are it's in support of someone like someone else but it's like I have a little bit of like coyote in me of like

like doing something that's a little bit like surprising, but with kind of like a finger pointing to the unnameable. I don't know. I like the, I love the Dottie Ching, but the Don Quixote is my favorite book. I just love the juxtaposition of like silly, like,

that a lot of people might say is just like some people might judge as being dumb. I don't know. But really like when you really pay attention to it, like there's something way deeper there. And I just love that juxtaposition. Like my favorite comedian is Norm Macdonald. A lot of people think that he's kind of a dumb comedian, but like when you really open the layers, there's like a hundred layers and you realize like,

He was always the smartest guy in the room pretending to be the dumbest. Yeah. And I'm not saying I'm always, I'm the smartest person in the room, but like, I love being silly, but like with an element of like care or wisdom or, um,

I don't know. I know I get it. I'm, I'm totally with you. And, and I really encourage you to write the book whenever it's, you know, in your time. Cause I was an agent for a while. So there's part of that part of my brain too. That's like, that's a great idea. And I just want to thank you so much for spending this time with me. It was life changing for me. So seriously, well, I'm going to take some nuggets that I'll bring to others. Cool. Yeah. Hopefully it's helpful. Um,

And thank you for helping writers and artists and creatives and helping them heal along the way. And if you want to reconnect at some point, the door is open. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Of course. Yeah. Thank you again. All right. Thank you. Great to meet you. Yeah. Feel yourself with Marnie. I will. Thanks, Marnie.

As we reflect on this conversation, one thing becomes clear. Mindfulness and creativity are deeply intertwined. The more we cultivate presence and the more we create space for inspiration to arise helps us to unlock the energies within. Mindfulness helps us to meet both inspiration and also resistance

with a sense of gentle awareness so that we can allow creativity to be unlocked and to help us to create from a place of clarity, curiosity, and courage. If today's discussion resonated with you, I invite you to continue deepening your mindfulness practice, whether through creativity, self-inquiry, classic meditation,

or simply by being present in the moments of your life. Thank you for joining me in this exploration on mindfulness and creativity with our wonderful guest, Marnie Friedman. If you'd like to share mindfulness with others, I encourage you to check out our mindfulness meditation teacher certification at mindfulnessexercises.com/certify. Until next time, stay present,

Stay grounded and continue showing up with authenticity and compassion. Thank you for listening.