Angels and Your Creativity with Soul Success Mentor Jen Gilchrist

Own your creativity. Episode 41 in the summer, I kept track. I actually read 35 books over the summer months. If I don’t give myself that creative input and inspiration, how could I expect to have anything to, you know, to put back out in the world? I mean, I can’t be eavesdropping in public every day.

You’re listening to The Own Your Creativity podcast with me, your host, Elizabeth Johnston. I’m an author, professor and podcaster, and I help people tell their story. Hello everybody and welcome to the show. I’m really excited to be talking to Anne Douglas today. She sparks conversations that matter about parenting and mental health.

She is a best-selling parenting author. Her most recent book is Parenting Through the Storm and the Weekend Parenting Columnist for CBC Radio. A passionate and inspiring speaker. Anne delivers keynote addresses and leads small group workshops at health, parenting and education conferences across the country.

Welcome to the show, Anne. Oh, I’m happy to be here, Elizabeth. So tell us a little bit more about what you do. I know that you have, I think now the count is 24 books to, to your credit, uh, plus thousands of articles. So what is it that, that you do, and how do you do all of that? Well, um, I, I can’t even tell you for sure if the book count is right because there’ve been a lot of different additions of my book and I never know whether to count if I have to rewrite a significant portion of the book or not.

So anyways, somewhere between 20 and 30 is the number of books that I’ve done, and you’re right, I have. Done a fair number of other things over the years. I’m not doing as much magazine and newspaper work right now as I was for a very long time. I’m mainly just doing my CBC radio thing, some traveling and speaking and uh, I guess promoting one book, revising another and starting work on a third.

So that’ll keep me busy throughout the next year or two, I think. And how did you start with, uh, the CBC radio gig? It was actually just one of those lifelong dreams where I had always wanted to contribute to CBC radio because, I mean, I don’t even know why they give me other channels on my radio dial because anytime somebody moves my, you know, the thing in my car or in my house, it’s like, what is somebody thinking?

Why would we take it off the CBC? So I’ve been like a lifelong CBC radio groupie and it just happened that. I pitched them on the right at the right time. I had done some work through CBC radio syndication for the past few years. You know, they’d have a hot parenting topic come up, and then they’d hire me to do a roundup of like 12 or 13 radio interviews across the country in about a three or four hour stretch, which is a little bit of an endurance marathon, I have to say.

And I guess when I survived that and, uh, they kept inviting me back, I felt emboldened enough. As not the world’s most confident person at times to just say, what the heck? If I really want this, I should send them a proposal and say, I’d really love to do this. As it turns out that very same day they had been thinking to themselves, we really need a weekend parenting columnist.

And you know, if I hadn’t sent out that email on that particular day, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe I wouldn’t have been the person who necessarily came to mind for them. So I’m so happy that for once I just said, if I really want this, I have to go after it. What a great story. I think a lot of people think, you know, second guess themselves and think, oh, well they wouldn’t be interested.

Or, you know, what can I offer or how can I contribute? And, you know, better than what I’ve already heard. And, and I think that there’s a lot of opportunities we miss when we, when we talk to ourselves that way. Exactly. And you know what, it was my kids, my, my, uh, 20 something sons in particular who taught me this because in the past.

I would’ve waited until I had 110% of the qualifications before I ever sent anything to anybody. Whereas I have these wonderfully confident young men in my life, and if they have 10% of the qualifications for a job, they’ll apply and often they get the job. That’s amazing. That’s, I, I love the way that, that people learn from their children.

It’s, uh, yeah. You know, it, it’s definitely not a one way street. No. So what’s your definition of creativity? I probably have a strange definition ’cause I kind of just made this one up myself. But, um, basically to me it’s finding a unique way to give voice to the ideas that flow through you. I mean, we all have unique life experiences, so we all see the world in a slightly different way, and it’s honoring that uniqueness.

And finding a way to express those things in creative ways. I think I just said creativity or being creative is part of creativity, which is terribly profound, but I hope the rest of it at least made some sense. Well, I think your point about honoring, you know, those ideas and that creativity that does flow through us, I think that’s a really important aspect.

Oh, are you there? I am there. I was just thinking about what you said. I was just being quiet for two seconds. Okay. I was hoping that we didn’t lose contact. Great. So, um, can you give an example of how creativity manifests itself in your life? Typically it’s like a flood of ideas. I know I have far more ideas than I will ever have time to pursue them, but you know, like for example, the other week I was out in Vancouver and I was traveling and I was noticing things and.

I’m a shameless eavesdropper when I’m in public spaces. So being on the ferry allowed me to eavesdrop on a whole bunch of people’s lives and get ideas and inspirations that way. So I sort of feel like I’m a human sponge. And what I’ve had to train myself to do over the years is to just jot some of those ideas down in a notebook so that if someday I wake up and I don’t have any more ideas left, I will be able to go back and look at these.

’cause what I used to do was. You know, I have eight exciting ideas in my head today. I will send out eight story proposals based on those. I’ll then get like five or six assignments based on that. Then I’ll be swamped and overloaded and stressed. So I’ve learned to sort of pace myself. And sometimes if I let an idea gel for a little while, it actually develops into something more interesting or profound because, you know, it’s like a tea bag.

You don’t wanna drink the tea within the first 10 seconds. You wanna let it steep a little bit. And was there a moment in your life when you were disconnected from your creativity and what was that like for you? There was a horrible time, and this was probably about eight or nine years ago now, so it’s a little bit in the past, thankfully.

But I went through this brutal depression, this deep, deep clinical depression that lasted for about three years, and when things were at their worst, I found it impossible to write. I mean, I remember at one point my husband asking him, asking me to write out a grocery list. For him so he could go and pick up whatever we needed at the store.

And even just the act of trying to take mental inventory and think about what we needed, that was like too much for me. So that lasted for a long time. I ended up missing some book deadlines, which is not a way to make friends in the publishing industry, I have to tell you. But I just, I was completely flattened and there was no other option.

So that, as you can imagine, led to a bit of an identity crisis because. What do you call yourself if you’re a writer who can’t write? It was a really, really difficult time. And how did you find your way out of that dark time? I found my way out in sort of steps and stages. I, I, first of all realized that I needed to do a better job of taking care of myself because obviously depletion was not.

You know, the path forward to happiness as a writer or as a human. So I gave myself permission to take better care of myself. I stopped working as hard. Um, over time I started to walk. I discovered that after decades of assuming I was. Somebody who hates physical activity that I actually really love to walk and that that’s the best thing I’ve ever found to manage my anxiety.

So it was kind of just making an entire shift and broadening my identity so that I didn’t have all my eggs in the writer basket. Because our industry has been through huge shock waves. I don’t even know how to describe it with, you know, changes in publishing and the fallout from the recession and so on.

So, if. Anybody ever feels like, you know, they’re doing it wrong. It’s not just them. Things have changed so much, but I had to expand my definition of who I was and what I valued in my life, and how I define success beyond just being a writer. To look more at my role as, you know, a mother or community member, you know, a mental health advocate, all kinds of different things.

And I feel so much calmer and more grounded now that my identity isn’t depending on, you know, the, the rollercoaster ride that is being a writer. And what was that moment for you when you realized that, that you had to make a change and that, and that you started making that change? Because I think that for most of us, that there’s this continuum of yuckiness or whatever we’re in.

Yeah. But there’s always, there was always something that galvanizes us into, into that switch, into becoming who we were meant to be. I think I just had to feel horrible enough for a prolonged period of time to realize that I just couldn’t go on this way. Mm. And um, luckily I’ve always been the kind of person who can reach out for support and help.

I’ve never been ashamed of that. So, you know, I reached out to my doctor, I reached out to friends. My husband has been incredible. Always has been. He’s like, you know, the love of my life and was. Massively supportive. I mean, I remember at one point him saying, all I care about is that you take care of yourself.

Don’t worry about anything else. And he picked up a huge load while I was really, really struggling. I mean, I remember him doing the grocery shopping and doing the laundry after working all day at his job. And I was just, you know, not able to cope. And he picked up all that slack, lovingly and willingly.

So, so now we’re celebrating the fact that I’m feeling so good and that, you know, we’re together after all these years and that, you know, for now, the storm clouds have receded and life is pretty amazing. And you are celebrating your 30th anniversary you mentioned. Yes, yes. We just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary a few weeks ago, and I mean, we dated for eight years before that.

So like, he has been with me since, you know, since I was just like a kid. That’s lovely. So this experience that you had of going into depression, is that something that helped you write your, your latest book? Absolutely, and I think the fact that all of my kids have had struggles as well, it really inspired me to want to write a book that would let people know that you can have a mental illness and not have to choose between having a mental illness or a great life.

You can actually have both. And for parents who are dealing with a child who struggle, struggling, I thought it was so important to write a book that told them that the fact that your child is struggling doesn’t make you a bad parent. Just like it doesn’t make your child a bad kid. It’s just what your family is dealing with.

’cause if we can get rid of that shame. Then suddenly we don’t feel separate from others and defective and alone. We actually can realize that a lot of families are dealing with this and we can get through this. There can be much better time ahead for your family than you’d ever imagined is possible when things are really, really bad.

You know, you were saying that you never felt nervous or embarrassed or shy to reach out and ask for help, but I think a lot of people that it’s still, there’s still a stigma around there is asking for help no matter what it is. Nevermind, you know, mental issues. But, you know, a lot of people find it difficult to ask for help.

And one of the classes that I teach at the university is skills, um, uh, self-management skills, and it’s for people who failed outta their program. And, uh, so it, it’s, um, you know, a step back into how to manage your time and study effectively and all that kind of stuff. And, um, a lot of, um, not a lot, but I think a good, a good portion of them, um, have mental issues and, and they find it difficult to ask for help within the university system because we have great.

People that mm-hmm. Are there ready to help, you know, and we have a, uh, excellent student, uh, success center and, and, um, and even though we talk about it openly in the class and just try to normalize it, you know, and, uh, you know, and invite people to partake of, of the resources, it’s really difficult for them to, to do that, you know?

Do you have any advice for, for university students or parents of them who are suffering. I do, and I think it, we have to realize that that whole feeling of silence and shame really starts with self self-stigma. Mm-hmm. Beyond anybody else. Judging you or whatever. So you have to come to terms with it yourself.

I guess I was lucky in some ways in that I grew up with a mother who had a very severe mental illness. She also had bipolar disorder, but she had bipolar one, which is the kind that, um, has a lot of like hallucinations and so on. So she spent large chunks of my childhood in the psychiatric ward. So she really, really struggled.

She felt alone. She felt. You know, defective and, and really there was so much more stigma back in the 1970s and 1980s than there is today. So I have seen so much progress over my lifetime and how people with mental illness see themselves and fit into the community that I felt two things, first of all, that it was now safe to talk about these things and to open up and say, okay, well I’m having a hard time right now and you know, this is what I’m doing to manage it.

And also that you wouldn’t pay the same price. For being open today, as you would’ve a generation ago. I mean, that’s not to say I didn’t have little butterflies. The first time I spoke openly on Twitter. It was on one of the bets talk days a few years back. Right? Yeah. And I, and I, and I remember thinking to myself like, I have had a pretty great life.

I’m a pretty happy person, and so I have a. Responsibility to say to people that I have a mental illness. Because otherwise the only mental health quote unquote role models who are out there are people who you know, maybe are really having a bad time or you know, the horrible crime stories we see. I wanted people to see that you can actually have a mental illness and a pretty great life.

Not a perfect life ’cause there is no such thing, but you can have a pretty good time. So I did that and I have to tell you that you know, that the reaction was. So positive. I mean, I, I think I found my first trollish kind of comments over the weekend when the US edition of my book came out and some people were saying that obviously I was a bad parent and I shouldn’t have been writing that book if all my children had a struggle and somebody else said.

Obviously I had made up all those struggles ’cause I was seeking attention and I just rolled my eyes. It’s like, oh, please. You can see why some people don’t feel safe opening up. Yeah. And seeking support. But I just chose not to engage with the trolls because why would I? Yeah. Life’s too short. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. So what’s the best that advice that you’ve ever received about your creativity in pursuing your dreams? I think the, the big thing was having somebody explain to me that you don’t have to come up with something totally unique that’s never been written. And I often use this example when people ask me about this.

I mean like, was I the first person in the history of the planet to write a pregnancy or parenting book? No. Uh, I’m sure that by the time I wrote mine, there was probably a bookcase full in the local bookstore, but it was. The fact that I had a unique, you know, a unique journey, a unique perspective. That’s what made my book.

And of course, my own unique voice, which we all have. That’s what made my book really stand out in the market. So don’t feel like, oh no, you know, somebody’s just brought out a book on this or it’s too similar to that. Nobody’s written it from your perspective and in your voice. So that was a really big thing.

And I think the other big thing that, that people told me that, um. I was very helpful early on in my career was that. Don’t think of other writers as the enemy or your competition. Think of other writers as your allies and friends. I mean better than your family members. They understand the, you know, the rollercoaster ride that is a career as a writer, and they can help you to make sense of that.

Cryptic rejection or that obnoxious contract and all the other things that go along with this kind of work. So I think just not feeling like you have to be squirreled up alone in your lonely writers’, Garrett. I mean, get out to conferences, meet people form alliances, and then you have the supports you need on those days when you shake your head and think you’re just gonna apply for a job at the local coffee shop.

Yes, that’s true. Can you share one of your personal habits that contributes to your creative success? The big one for me these days is walking. I mean, it sounds so simple, but if I have my brain going at 10,000 miles a minute, or I’m just feeling completely anxious and stressed, and I go for a walk, about 35 minutes into the walk, it’s almost like somebody’s put the brakes on.

I can actually feel this sort of physical release kind of thing, and I start feeling kind of blissful. And so by the time I get back to my desk, things are manageable. That’s the piece of the coping puzzle I was missing for decades and decades. I didn’t know what a difference it could make. And my other thing is reaching out for social support.

The moment something horrible or stupid happens to me and I’m just, you know, you can feel that wrapping up inside. I send an email to a couple of friends or I talk to my husband like that bizarre Facebook thing on the weekend, those messages. And so I reached out to both of my support networks and you know, it was great at that point, ’cause they said.

Don’t even go there. One of my friends just kept typing, don’t feed the trolls, don’t feed, and sending me that in an email message. I had to laugh. It was like, I guess she felt like it might take me a while to learn the lesson, and she needed to repeat it like 10 times. You know, I recently discovered walking as well.

I’ve, I’m, I’m pretty sedentary as, as a writer and teacher, and I’m at the desk a lot. And, uh, and they say, you know, just start with walking. Yeah. That’s a, a good way to do it. And I just. I just dreaded it. I’ve always hated walking, thought it was boring. And you know, it’s only if I have a purpose that I feel like I wanna walk.

I do a lot of walking anyway. Yeah. But it’s with a purpose, like going to the store or going to school or you know, something. But just to walk like, but walk, no. And now, now I’m addicted to podcasts, so it’s like, I think I’ll take another walk around the block so I can find out what happens at the end of that criminal episode because I have to know.

Yeah, so it’s a great excuse to sort of indulge. Just like when I first started using the treadmill during the winter when I first became physically active, I would allow myself to watch like junk tv, right? You know, it’s like if I’m gonna be on the treadmill, which I didn’t really love, then I’ll put this in front of me and I can watch any stupid show I would normally not allow myself to watch.

So. Uh, but you know, now I like you, I’ve actually, I’ve come to really like walking and uh, and, and, but of course I do have to have a mission, which is to walk a certain amount. You know? So that’s my goal, you know, so, so now it’s just not wandering aimlessly, and, and I do actually really enjoy it, so. Um, is there a person who inspires you to be creative?

I would have to say it’s probably whatever author I’m reading at the time. I, I was, you know, preparing for our interview today, so I thought I should figure out what I’ve been reading and I’ve been reading this week a mix of fiction and nonfiction and, and it’s actually been a really great week for reading.

I, I’m on my fourth book and it’s only Wednesday, so now I feel like I’ve just rocked my Good Reads year goal for, you know, for reading new books. But I, I find that if I don’t do a lot of reading and in the summer I kept track, I actually read 35 books over the summer months. If I don’t give myself that creative input and inspiration, how could I expect to have anything to, you know, to put back out in the world?

I mean, I can’t be eavesdropping in public every day, or people will start to think I’m a little bit odd, so I have to, you know, supplement my diarrhea or my diet of eavesdropping by actually ingesting text from time to time too. And do you have a favorite work of art? It can be any kind of art. Um, I think that.

The, the thing that comes to mind when I think about that is a song that really helped me to make the mental shift out of that feeling of doom and darkness when I was really depressed. And every time I hear this song, I get little chills up my spine and, and some people are gonna roll their eyes when they hear this.

They’re gonna go, oh, seriously, that was her song. But it’s Alanis Morris. Song Thank you, which is really about saying thank you to the universe. And there’s one line in that. The one that gives me the chills every single time is the line. The moment I let go of it was the moment I had more than I could handle.

So the moment I let go of my pressure to be successful and my fear of what it meant if I was, you know, destroying my career by being depressed. The moment I just pushed that aside and said, this is beyond my control, then things got better and now I have an amazing life. And do you have a favorite quote that inspires you?

I do, and this also comes from that very dark and difficult time, and this is a quote from Albert Camus, which a lot of people will already know, but I love, and it is in the depths of winter. I finally learned that within me there was an invincible summer. It was going through that, that. Really dark and difficult time that I realized how strong and resilient I am and what I really wanted in my life, what my sense of purpose was and my values and all those things.

So, so I think, you know, there’s a new kind of. Writing that I’m really passionate about. It’s called Restorative Narrative. And it’s all about finding that element of strength and growth and transformation when you’re telling a difficult story. And that has become like a defining theme in my life, including after our house fire.

Oh my goodness. And that’s another story. Yeah, exactly. Well, it’s been wonderful to talk to you. Uh, we’re about to wrap up, but is there anything else that you would like to share with my listeners before we finish? I just think to just realize what a privilege it is to be a writer. I mean, you have the opportunity to change the world with your thoughts and ideas.

And so yes, some days it is the most frustrating occupation known to mankind, but it is also, you know, the greatest gift. It’s, it’s just an amazing way to make a living and to make a life. So all the best to all my fellow writers and, uh, let’s be in touch. And where can they find you online? Oh, I’m living on Twitter these days.

I’m kind of obsessive about Twitter, so I’m just Ann Douglas on Twitter. Um, I don’t spend as much time on Facebook ’cause I find it a bit overwhelming, so Twitter’s probably the best bet. Okay, and the title of your most recent book? The most recent book is Parenting Through the Storm and it’s all about helping a child who’s going through a really hard time and taking good care of yourself as that child’s parent.

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today, Anne. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. You’ve heard it a hundred times before. Just think positive, easier said than done. Right? Tune in next week when I talk to Dr. Paul Jenkins as he illuminates the how and why behind pathological positive thinking.

Until then, own your creativity.