I'm really excited to share this conversation that I had with Andrea Klunder of CreativeImpostor.com
Andrea is a super-diverse creative; a teacher, an actor, a podcaster, a yogi... the list goes on! Andrea is a meditation facilitator for startup companies and creative individuals, founder of Peace and Play Yoga and the producer and host of the Creative Imposter podcast, a show that is all about how to get out of your head and take bold action in your life and work despite that little voice in your head that says who do you think you are, you can't do that.
I sat down with Andrea to discuss creativity and what is known as the imposter syndrome.
Here are some of my favorite clips of this conversation:
"Whether or not it's a diagnosable syndrome per se, it is an experience that I think most or all of us as creatives experience at some point in time. It can show up as self-doubt. It can show up as comparing yourself to other people. It can show up in all of these different ways and all of these manifestations threaten to hold us back from fully aligning with our creative vision and doing our work."
"When you hear that voice chime in, that little voice of resistance, the little voice of self-doubt that thinks maybe you're not really good enough to be doing this thing... When that little voice chimes in, it's actually an opportunity to know that you are on the right track because you're breaking new ground."
"I think sometimes people in our creative community know what you're capable of even more than you do or I know that's certainly true for me sometimes. I'll have someone say but you're so talented at XYZ. Why would you even doubt that you could pull this off? And you're like oh, am I? Well, thank you because sometimes people can see your greatness and see your value and see what you bring to the table even better than you can."
"And if you really look at it, a lot of times what's going on there is that either there's some anxiety around this idea of creating or this desire to do this thing. There could be some anxiety around it. There could be some feelings of not deserving the time to be creative."
"So, this is something that I've been exploring in terms of teaching meditation and mindfulness as well, is the more that you can make something a habit, the more likely it is to be there when you need to call on it or when you want to call on it."
"One thing that I noticed about myself is that when I would be playing a character or embodying a role or doing something pretend or fake, I would feel totally confident. But the second I needed to be me and do let's say public speaking or give a speech or something like that, my palms would get sweaty, I would get so nervous, my stomach would hurt, everything."
"And so podcasting has sort of become this forum where I get to try new ideas and share this expertise that I've accumulated in 37 years of life on this planet and in trying new things and taking risks that sometimes crash and burn and sometimes are successful and then being able to get that feedback back from people I know and sometimes even from complete strangers."
"I have certain podcasts that I listen to in the morning when I need to wake up and be energized and feel motivated and then I have certain podcasts that I fall asleep to because they just like help relax me so much. So, in a way listening to podcasts is not only a way to get new ideas and get information and learn things, it's sort of like a meditative practice for me in a way."
I hope you enjoy the conversation!