The Spark File with Susan Blackwell and Laura Camien

Go All The Way There

• Season 5 • Episode 13

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Like many artists, we deeply empathize with the world around us. It can be hard to manage all the tough feelings that come up. A lot is happening in the world—a lot to laugh about, cry about, shout about, and rage about. Sorrow can bring joy, anger can bring calm, and it can all feel impossible to face. And, like it or not, we believe there is one path forward: To get through it all, we’ve got to go all the way there.

This week’s episode of The Spark File podcast examines our long-held belief that moving through big feelings requires mindful action. Join us as we discuss ways to process the hard stuff, following the real-world examples of everyone from curious toddlers to award-winning songwriters. We’ll explore methods for proper care and feeding of your feelings to help you get unstuck and move forward.

The hard truth is that the tough stuff will keep coming. Fear, anger, joy, and the creativity cycle move through us regardless of the world’s events. So, in tenuous moments like these, the best care a creative community can offer—for ourselves and each other—is a developed practice of going all the way there. You can listen to the Spark File podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and directly on our website.

Doors are open for our transformational 6 month program, BLAZE. Our next cohort begins February 6. Get all the information you need HERE


The Spark File Podcast Transcript
Season 5, Episode 13: Go All The Way There

Susan Blackwell: :
Welcome to The Spark File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart, creative people don't go it alone.

Laura Camien:
Hey, I'm Laura Camien.

Susan Blackwell: :
And I'm Susan Blackwell, and we are creativity coaches who help people clarify and accomplish their creative goals.

Laura Camien:
Hey, you should know that just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

Susan Blackwell:
But hold up, you might be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file?

Laura Camien:
A spark file is a place where you consistently collect all of your inspirations and fascinations. Every episode, we're going to reach into our spark files and exchange some sparks, and from time to time, we're going to talk to some folks who spark us too.

Susan Blackwell: :
And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take some of those sparks of inspiration and make something of your own. So, without further ado, let's open up the Spark File. You know what I just remembered, Laura Camien?

Laura Camien:
What did you just remember?

Susan Blackwell: :
 We have a podcast

Laura Camien:
What gave it away, the intro?

Susan Blackwell: :
Laura, that is crazy. We have a podcast. We're in our fifth season of this podcast.

Laura Camien:
For five years we've had this podcast, ad I'm really proud of us. I just weirdly went back through today and I saw an email that we sent before season five launched and I was like, oh yeah, we spelled it out for everybody. We did not intend for that long gap between season 4 and 5…. Like, oh yeah, we spelled it out for everybody. We did not intend for that long gap between season four and season five. Oopsie poopsies, oopsie poopsies. But we, we named all of the things. Here's what happened. You know, we took on a bigger load than we could handle, frankly, and we needed to, you know, play some other things out before we could get back to this. And we named a couple other factors, but then the. The big one was we had so many improvements we wanted to make. That list in our mind grew so big that we kind of got paralysis. You know, it's like we need to add it to YouTube, we should make the…we should make the episode shorter, we should do video, we need to fix our, our um, our um website page, like. Just all of those things became a an enormous beast in our minds but we did and we had to slay that beast, and we did, and we're here with season five—

Susan Blackwell: :
With a  great team of people.

Laura Camien:
That's right, and we we named them in that email as well, and I'm so glad we did we're them in that email as well and I'm so glad we did. We're like we have Kori, we have James, we have Tim, we have Juliet and we have a new friend named AI. What, yes, to help with those transcripts. Yeah, we got, we got a whole team.

Susan Blackwell: :
Yeah, it's great. I'm happy that we're doing it, and I'm amazed that I've been doing anything consistently, except for that little break for this long. Good for us, good for us. I'm proud of us. Yeah, yeah, do you have a spark for me today?

Laura Camien: 
I've got a spark for you, Suze. I've got a spark for you and I'm having a self-consciousness and a little bit of fear that I just want to name at the top. I'm going to talk about some, like, big things and I want to make sure that I'm not taking any of these things lightly and I don't mean to be trite about them, and near the end I will talk about, like, the more extreme versions of these things and and um, all right.

Susan Blackwell:
Okay so.

Laura Camien: 
I just want to say that, um, I'm not taking this lightly, but I have been thinking about it a lot. Okay, um, we've been talking to a lot of our clients recently about the really big feelings that we've all been having, you know, alternating between rage and anger, betrayal, sometimes the paralyzing feelings of, like, sadness or numbness or anxiety, denial, like we've people are experiencing a lot of feelings in this moment and in these conversations we have offered up a lot of thoughts and a lot of ideas, and some of them we've even talked about on the podcast. But one of the things that I've been saying, which I really believe in, but I do think needs more context than what I've given it so far, and that is my suggestion that we go all the way there.

Susan Blackwell: :
Yeah.

Laura Camien:
And you've heard me say that—Go all the way there. Whatever the emotion is, and what I mean by that is to feel the full extent of the feeling and let it move all the way through you.

Susan Blackwell:
To be present to it.

Laura Camien: 
To be present to it. And you know we've talked about this long ago on the podcast. Emotions, as long as they stay in motion, can't harm you. They are clouds rolling by. If we let them simply flow all the way through us and out the other side, we're fine. But if they lodge somewhere within us, or if we trap them, put them in a little room in our mind and close that door because we're afraid of them or because they're too big, they actually can hurt us, and that can be in a variety of ways. But one if we never, if we don't let them move through us, we never really move on from them because we haven't allowed ourselves to feel them and process them. And number two, if they stick around long enough, they can potentially cause disease. And so I've been reflecting on these conversations and there's something that I think I've failed to say, so I just want to dig into it a little more deeply today.

Susan Blackwell:
Awesome.

Laura Camien:
So when I say go all the way there, I think that there can be a fear that this means give into the feeling completely, and there may be a worry that that would mean like, oh no, if I give into this sadness, it will send me into depression and I'll never get out of bed again. Or if I indulge this anger, I actually will kick someone in the face, and that's not what I mean. That's not what we're going for here.

Susan Blackwell: 
That's not your version of going all the way there, kicking someone right in the face.

Laura Camien: 
It's not, it's not. But indulging the anger in a healthy way is definitely part of going all the way there.

Susan Blackwell:
Yeah.

Laura Camien:
So I'm suggesting, go all the way there, meaning feel all those feelings, make conscious decisions to let them move through you, and I want to offer some ways to do this. First, I will remind you that I'm not a therapist. Okay, and if you're getting your therapy advice from this podcast…well, I think you could do worse.

Susan Blackwell: 
But I just want to say…you could call a therapist?

Laura Camien:
Yes, yes, but I'm just a highly sensitive, empathetic human being who has learned how to cope with really big feelings, and so I'm going to share a little process that I use to go all the way there and let a feeling move all the way through me. So, first of all, I identify the feeling. So identify the feeling that's happening in your body, name it, accept it, and here's where it gets weird and it's going to get weirder. But it starts here. Talk to it if you like. Simon and Garfunkel did it: “Hello Darkness, My Old Friend”, or The Chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, who sang “Hello, Mr. Heartache, I've been expecting you. Come in and wear your welcome out the way you always do.” It might feel silly, but it's really powerful to recognize the emotion and speak right to it. We're so accustomed and trained to like fight it off, ignore it, deny it entry, all of the above. And we've all heard that saying what we resist persists. That's what this is all about. If you resist that emotion, it's just hanging in there and it's going to keep knocking. So this tactic is like saying hey, I see that you're here, I'm willing to listen to what you have to say, and then you'll be on your way. Okay, it's like facing a hard conversation that we don't want to have, but this one is with ourselves, so breathe into it and say, okay, here we go.

Susan Blackwell: 
I have observed you. You have recounted to me. Laura, like Laura is not just saying here's something handy, here's a life hack I've heard about you will, you will call it out and recount it where you're like. I'm like how are you, how was your evening? And you'll be like, “Yeah, I noticed…” I think, around the stress of the recent Illume showcase, uh-huh, where you were like, yeah, I noticed, noticed that I was starting to feel a certain way and I said, “Oh, I know you, I recognize you! Like you're not fucking around. You actually do this.

Laura Camien: 
I really do it. And when I tell you like I am a highly sensitive person who was, in my younger years, criticized for all of my feelings, the suppression of my feelings was very important in terms of getting by in our household. So decades of, first of all, not being able to identify my own feelings because I had been so removed from them, and the training of putting a smile on my face and it, everything is fine and we're happy and we're positive. And I do, I really do identify myself as a very positive person, and I still feel that way, even though I allow well, like now, I allow all the other, you know rainbow of feelings to course through me. All right, so, number one: We're going to identify it and maybe even talk to it.

Susan Blackwell:
Sure.

Laura Camien: 
Okay, Number two: If you can, we're going to clear some time in our schedule to make space for the emotion. I know it's not always possible, but if you can, and that might be like I'm going to stay in bed another hour and, just you know, feel this way or, um, today I'm not going to go anywhere, I'm going to let myself feel this way. But the important thing here is, when you clear some time in your schedule to make space for the emotion, release all guilt about doing it. So you're not going to double down on guilt of like….I canceled my plans with my friends.

Susan Blackwell:
And I feel shitty about it!

Laura Camien: 
Now I feel shitty about something else. So we release all guilt, we make some space. If you're able to give yourself some time to feel these feelings, you will be all the better for it. It's not always possible. Those are the times we have to “Suck it up, Buttercup,” and stay focused like we have a meeting or we have to fulfill an obligation. That's fine, but it is especially helpful to know that tonight I've cleared my schedule to simply feel sad if I need to. Just give it some room, and that might mean I will allow myself to get a slow start to my day for the whole next week, or I'm canceling social plans in the evening this week. I'm just making space and not giving myself guilt about it. Number three: I like to warn the people around me. Truly, like if I have to be with other people for meetings or otherwise I might say today's a day that I would have sequestered myself if I could. No one needs to be around this and I want to recognize that..

Susan Blackwell: 
Confirmed.

Laura Camien: 
You have received warnings where I'm just like I'm recognizing it. If I'd had a choice about this, I would have kept myself to myself today and not shared this with anyone. But here we are, and we're moving forward. Or if it's just me and Wes, I might give him a warning, like… I'm really sad today. I'm going to let myself be sad. I just want you to know it isn't anything to do with you and you don't need to fix anything. I just need to be sad and I might say I'm going to treat myself with extra care today. That's it. It's very specifically about not punishing others for the feeling that you're having. It's not their fault. You're just feeling a feeling that's all. You're not pointing it at them, and you're not asking them to fix it, which leads to number four: If you've ever spent time with a toddler, it is so easy to watch the emotions flow through this little being crying and screaming, one moment laughing, the next sleeping, crying again. There isn't any, “I shouldn't be feeling this way.” They don't have a concept of that until they are taught that they shouldn't be feeling this way, and they need to suppress it. So I will connect with that little toddler in me and just see what it needs. Literally ask yourself…do we need to cry? Okay, we'll get some music that makes us cry. Susan made us some great—

Susan Blackwell:
Mm, we've got a playlist. Thesparkfile.com/playlist.

Laura Camien:
I need to cry, playlist Um, or go to movies or stories that make me cry and and just truly cry. Open up the floodgates. Let it rip.  A little more complex. Do we need to punch someone? Okay, how can we move that energy without really punching someone? We can go to the gym, hit a punching bag in the literal sense, or we can scream into our pillow. We can go for a run, a walk, anything that exerts a walk, anything that exerts physical energy. So again, I'm saying go all the way there. And that doesn't mean stop living your life…

Susan Blackwell:
And kick someone in the face… oh, oh, no.

Laura Camien: 
Yeah, oh yeah, stop living your life, stop living your life and go all the way like under the covers, never to be seen again.

Susan Blackwell:
Yeah.

Laura Camien: 
No, you're still. You're going all the way there and you're allowing yourself to let that emotion move.

Susan Blackwell:
Yes, I've heard somebody say…just don't rent an apartment there.

Laura Camien:
That's right.

Susan Blackwell:
You don't have to like set up house in…

Laura Camien:
Correct. You know you're not going to move there. Yeah, yeah, but you're just visiting.

Laura Camien: 
What I think of is like this is my house and that emotion is visiting? Yeah, they're not moving in. Yeah, um. So we've named them, declared them, owned them, we've given fair warning to anyone who needs it. If we're able to make dedicated time for them, great, we're giving them room and then we're going to dive head on into the feeling. So, like I said, we're doing this while living our lives. How do we do that while we were sad or angry or anxious? And here is where I admit it gets weird…weirder. In my system, having warned anyone that needs warning, I then go about my life 100% in the feeling, meaning I'm not spending any energy trying to mask or hide or change the feeling. I'm going all the way there and I often narrate in my head as I go, so it might sound like this: “I'm so angry, I'm going to the store to get groceries. I'm going to get good, nutritious food, but I'm angry about it.” Or, “I'm sad, and I'm brushing my teeth, but I'm going to be sad about it. Look at that, looking in the mirror. I'm a sad person brushing her teeth. That's what that looks like.” I'm despondent and I'm going for a walk. This is what it looks like for a despondent person to go for a walk. This is it. Here it is. I'm doing it and sometimes, when the feeling that I'm feeling is small enough, meaning like…I'm not talking about life, or enormous loss.

Susan Blackwell:
Yeah, yeah...

Laura Camien: 
Right, just saying these things like I'm sad, I'm so sad, I'm brushing my teeth in a very sad, sad way, it is enough to make me start to laugh.

Susan Blackwell:
Yeah.

Laura Camien:
It feels so pitiful, and I start to giggle, and it helps me move through it faster. I just, sometimes I'm like great, move through it faster… I just sometimes I'm like…great, having truly recognized it and said it's fine that you're here and I will very quickly forget that that is the emotion that I was having. Yeah, sometimes I've planned to be sad for a whole day, start to finish, I've changed my schedule, given it room, got under the covers prepared to watch sad movies all day, being so completely all the way in and sometimes like it can just be like an hour later, like I'm up. Either I've started to find it all really comical, or I've gotten bored with feeling sad, and I'm done with it. It’s done.

Susan Blackwell:
Mhmm.

Laura Camien:
So, again, I know that some of the big feelings that we're feeling right now, especially fear and anxiety about the future, I don't expect that a few giggles are going to shake those off. I actually expect that those are going to keep coming at us in waves, right, I don't want to take those lightly, but we'll talk more about that in just a minute. Before I do that, step five, you know how, I said, I often narrate my emotional release. Step five is…Give it a voice.

Susan Blackwell: 
Give it a voice, so you talk to it and then it talks back to you it can.

Laura Camien:
Yeah, it can talk, and by that I mean, is it French Sometimes? But what I mean by give it a voice is give it a creative outlet. Now I journal and I write, and so let it like get it out on the page I've written scenes and plays that have come directly from painful experiences.

Susan Blackwell:
Yes, typing and crying.

Laura Camien:
Typing and crying, or, more accurately, from the way in which my emotion interpreted that experience. That's fine. It has a voice. Let it out the songs, write it into a song. Bake it into a cake. Write it into a song, bake it into a cake, whatever you need, and please, for the love of God, let it be messy, like, a hot mess. However, that emotion wants to express itself. I just had the image of like making mud pies when I was younger. You know, and yes, sometimes you make a tidy, clean little mud pie and sometimes, like, you throw that mud around. So let things be messy if they need to be. There's the writing from Ehime Ora, which we often share. “You got to resurrect the deep pain within you and give it a place to live. That's not within your body. Let it live in art, let it live in writing, let it live in music, let it be devoured by building brighter connections. Your body is not a coffin for pain to be buried in. Put it somewhere else.”

Susan Blackwell: 
Yes, I love that passage so much and have gone to Ehime Ora..I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly to that website.

Laura Camien:
We believe in this wholeheartedly. Put it somewhere else. So that's what I mean by give it a voice. Put it somewhere else, let it move up and out of you. And we were having this great conversation with our clients and I think it was Su Ciampa  who brought up this idea. You know, we're often told not to create from a wound, and I think it's really interesting. I have a different take on that. I think we should create from a wound whenever we can. It will help us heal. What I would refrain from doing is sharing our work from that place. This is not the place where we share work from that place. This is not the place where we share. This is where we let it come up and out. We put it all down, we write it, paint it, sing it, collage it, embroider it, whatever you choose to do. We put it down messy, and when we get to the other side of it, we edit, we refine, we shape it into the work of art that it was meant to be, and if it arrives at that place, then we share it with the world.

Susan Blackwell:
So what Su is referring to is this Glennon Doyle, and I'm going to get this quote wrong, but we want to write from scars, not from wounds. But I love that. I was privy to the conversation you were having with Su about that and I was like we might want to write or create from scars, but the wound stage is a great place to take good notes if you have the wherewithal.

Laura Camien:
Yeah, that's what I mean by give it a voice, like, let that you know… from my, let's say, messy, messy, messy writing that's coming straight from an ugly emotion, perhaps, maybe there's pages of it, one sentence, maybe all that is needed in a play, in a scene, in a play like where you got to the very heart of it, and you know how you're sometimes when you're watching a play, there's one sentence that catches everybody's breath because you just can't believe those words were said out loud. That's probably somewhere in the writings that come straight from the voice of your emotion. And if you don't write from that, you don't get to that place. But again, those wouldn't I would never, my God, somewhere in my will, by the way, you, my sister or Wes will be responsible for getting rid of, like my morning pages and these pages of just like writing, that is just like…ew, yuck! That doesn't like represent all of me. It's just one emotion that's passing through me in that moment. So, yeah, I think there's good stuff in there, but it's more important, I think, to use it as a vehicle to let the emotion move through you, and worry later about whether it's a work of art that was meant to be shared with the world. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Do you know what I mean?

Susan Blackwell:
Yeah.

Laura Camien:
Because I noticed that we also, as creatives and artists, when we want to get to work which a lot of us do right now,  we'll put this pressure on us to quickly be able to get back to creating, and it better be something good and meaningful and important and helpful. I'm like, wow, we're in the midst of a lot of big feelings, and that's a lot of pressure to put on ourselves, when, really, what if we just let these feelings move through us first. So I want to circle back to what about the big, big feelings we're into now. These feelings are legit and I do believe in going all the way there you can. I think this practice allows the feelings to move through you. But all of this should be done with a deadline. I think that would be step six: Put a deadline on indulging the feelings. One week, two weeks at most. At that point you have to say all right now. At most, at that point you have to say all right now, I let you come and stay, I fed you, I cared for you, but you can't move in here, you can't stay forever. Like the poem that we often share by Ijeoma Umabinyo, “You must let the pain visit. You must allow it to teach you. You must not allow it to overstay. This is the key. And listen, this is where we get to, like, heartbreak, loss, grief, not all of that can be healed on a deadline. I don't think that's realistic. Yeah, those feelings will come to visit and they will come time and time again. Like we have whole podcasts on grief, and I do not believe grief is something that you feel and then can check it off like great, I grieved, I'm done. But if you imagine them as short visits from familiar friends who stay over for a night or two here or there, or maybe you just grab a coffee with them, they're going to remain in your life and at that point it becomes about simply allowing the feelings when they visit. And now I’m moving on. Now, with the moral distress that many of us are feeling and are likely to feel through the next administration, for example, it becomes about regulating our nervous system and using the tools we have to not allow every article we read or every social post we come across to activate the full force of our anger, or our sadness, or our dread. We know that chaos leads to exhaustion and burnout. We'll lean into our meditation, our EFT tapping, going for walks, being in nature. So all of that has its own plan associated with it. But the cool thing is knowing that we can feel our emotions. We can do all these things, even if we're mad about it.

Susan Blackwell:
Well, I think it's going to be really useful for the next…oh, foreseeable future.

Laura Camien:
Yeah, I mean, I think I know and I don't want to make any promises to your listeners, but I think I might do a spark about our nervous system, the vagus nerve, all that stuff because we will have to have a plan. But I do think for this, this works for me, to just try to let it, again, just let these emotions visit, move through, and say goodbye. Like it's not, like I don't think I'll ever see you again. But how quickly can we get past this?

Susan Blackwell:
You know, Laura, as you're sharing this, I'm thinking about the episode that we did recently. It was my spark about comfort, catharsis and change, and how, in that Rebecca Solnit quote, she talks about how, it's time to gather up, gather up your tools, get ready…. And I think tools like this are one of the things that we need to be gathering right now, and really not just like, not passively, but really practicing it, Because if we do, I think that it could have a very positive impact on our nervous systems and sustain us through this time in an actual, real, workable, usable way. And if we don't, the alternative...I just feel like, you know, when somebody becomes a president and then their hair turns white over the four years, I just feel like, um…

Laura Camien:
All of our hair is going to turn white.

Susan Blackwell:
Well, we just need all of our tools and we actually need to practice them. We do.

Laura Camien: 
And, and it starts with, and I'm in this practice now…as soon as I feel like something not right, I will ask myself like what can I do? Okay, I could tap, I could go for a walk. You know? Like what tools do I have in my arsenal right now? What amount of time do I have? What's available to me in this moment?

Susan Blackwell:
Yeah. I appreciate this so much and, um, you're… I've watched you in practice. You're really good at this. I could take a page out of your book or take a shot of whatever you're having, Uh, cause I can't always remember it when I'm up in the, when I'm up in my feels.

Laura Camien: 
I know, I know, but it is to me… I'm like it makes me laugh so much sometimes because, like, I will see myself like in the midst of a montage, you know, a Bridget Jones's Diary or something, and that is why I'm like, oh, we can skip to. I'm, you know, like, I've, it has moved through, it's fine, it's had its time and um, I've, it has moved through, it's fine, it's had its time and um. But I feel, conversely, if I don't make space for it, if I don't acknowledge it and part of that is, you know, eft tapping does that as well which is like…you want to go straight to the emotion and give it um, not try to ignore it, not try to say, um, I feel a little bit bad, but it's okay, yeah.

Susan Blackwell:
Just go–

Laura Camien:
You want to go all the way in there, I feel, you know, pissed. Go all the way there and give it a voice, listen to it, feed it, care for it, and then send it on its way.

Susan Blackwell:
Thank you for this spark, Laura Camien.

Laura Camien:
My pleasure Go all the way there. Go all the way there.

Susan Blackwell:
Friends, print it on a t-shirt. There's our new merch. Hey, I like that.

Laura Camien: 
Not a bad idea.

Susan Blackwell:
All right, that's it. This episode of the Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape and Mohican people and, as always, we hope it put another bunch of sparks in your file. Hey, listen, if there's a spark that you'd like us to explore or if you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to accomplish your creative goals, you can email getcreative@thesparkfile.com, or you can always reach us through our website, thesparkfile.com.

Laura Camien:  Hey, we'll even happily take your feedback, but you know the price of admission. First you've got to share a creative risk that you have taken recently.

Susan Blackwell: 
You can follow us on social @ thesparkfile and be sure to subscribe, rate and five-star review this podcast. It really helps other listeners to find us. Also, if you like this podcast, we hope you'll share it with people that you love. We always love to see that. If you didn't like it, go all the way there.

Laura Camien:
Go all the way there with your feelings. Go all the way there. Give it a voice.

Susan Blackwell:
Listen to it, but don't email us. Go all the way there in your own space.

Laura Camien: 
On the other hand, if something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, we're writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame.

Susan Blackwell:
You know, you gotta take it… and Make it!

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