135. Unleashing Creative Brilliance: A Conversation with Lane Gardner

[00:00:00] Well, thanks, Lane, for joining us today. I'm so excited for people to hear about your book, Lifeline, Recovering Your Mental Wellness Through Uncovering Your Creative Brilliance. I just so enjoyed reading it. It was like talking to a girlfriend. So I think this will be a great

[00:00:27] episode for our listeners and you can do want to take a moment to introduce yourself and tell them a little bit about why you wrote the book and a little bit more about the book would be great.

[00:00:37] Absolutely. And thank you Yolanda for having me. I'm so grateful to join you. Yeah, so my name is Lane Gardner. I am an author, a speaker, a singer-songwriter, arts educator, nonprofit founder, and I know that sounds like a lot of different things but it's actually

[00:00:56] all serves the same purpose which is that the work that I do is about helping people to uncover what I like to call as their original superpower which is creative expression. And that's not meant to tell people to become artists or become artistic. It's really meant to

[00:01:14] help folks realize that each of us has this deep inner well of resources, assets, gifts, talents within us and we're able to access that through creative expression to be able to

[00:01:29] get down in there and see what we have inside of us that maybe we don't even know that's there, that can help us live fuller lives, richer lives, more aligned lives. And with that,

[00:01:41] it can impact our mental health and help us improve our daily mental health and also help us work through some of the long-term harder difficult things in our life. It can bring healing,

[00:01:54] it can bring relief and ease. And that's ultimately what the book is about. I like to call it part memoir, part toolkit and I sort of take the reader through some of my story which if I'm being

[00:02:11] honest I did not want to tell. We never do. Yes and it's interesting to me that I've been doing this work for over 30 years and part of what I do is helping people to share their stories

[00:02:29] through a creative avenue for healing, for being able to transform difficult things into something beautiful. And that's the point of it but I was only willing to take that so far for myself.

[00:02:45] I wanted to be able to share my stories in the creative ways that I did but I didn't want to touch my early past with a 10-foot pole. And part of that is because it's extremely traumatic. I had a

[00:02:59] very difficult early life partially raised in a fundamentalist religious cult which I'm sure any of your listeners can imagine some of the devastation and impact that that has on a young

[00:03:13] person. But it wasn't until actually two well year and a half ago now I just got my son up and running. I got him out the door he was on his way to college and you know as a parent right that's

[00:03:30] a very exhausting thing getting your kid out of the door. I know and I said to myself I'm going to give myself just a little bit of time to celebrate, to grieve, to just be in that space. And

[00:03:47] you know it wasn't but two weeks later a colleague of mine who I was doing podcast with said to me you have to tell your story. You know you have to write a book. I'm connecting you with my

[00:03:59] publisher and I'm not taking no for an answer. And I had this huge reaction I was like no way I am not doing this. But what I came to realize and also with the support of my husband

[00:04:12] he was like hold on let's take a minute and think about this. I realized that it was one of those moments where life steps in and says this is the thing that you need to do. And so I set to it

[00:04:27] and I you know I kind of went through this process taking my own medicine using the creative process to unearth and to transform my experiences into not only a way to help myself but also as an

[00:04:43] offering to other people to start to understand how you can use your own creative expression as a way to help yourself and to heal yourself and to feel better over the course of your life.

[00:04:55] So music was your way right to have that healing happen. What house have you seen? You know healing music or the creative process being used to heal? Yeah I mean the honest to goodness truth is that it can be anything. It can be anything

[00:05:15] that is allowing each of us to express ourselves in a way that maybe we don't do on a daily basis right. It could be movement expressive movement it could be journaling it could be decorating a cake it could be rearranging your furniture right anything that sort of

[00:05:40] puts you in this space where you are allowing yourself to flow with this sort of inner experience and you're putting yourself into something and the benefits of that are just incredible incredible you can really help to you know re-regulate your emotional state

[00:06:05] you can help to sort of touch into parts of yourself that give you an expanded view of what you're capable of or hey I didn't know I could do that and you know the benefits are just endless.

[00:06:17] Yeah so one of the things you did in addition to writing the book was to start kind of a non-profit right and you've been able to take that concept into traumatic situations. Do you

[00:06:31] want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah yeah so the nonprofit is called Thread and the essence of it is to be able to serve communities that have common thread right which is a shared experience and oftentimes a difficult experience

[00:06:53] and so several years ago I was asked to step into a healing through the arts initiative at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida and I'm sure you remember the horrific mass shooting that happened there in 2018 and you know this ended up being

[00:07:13] a real turning point for me where I was able to see the power of collective creativity, collaborative creativity especially in a trauma-based situation have an enormous impact and so when I arrived we were working with a group of students and they were all still clearly

[00:07:34] in a post-traumatic state they were really unable to speak much they were sort of very ghost-like and kind of unable to connect and so you know the process that I take groups through is sort of start to unfreeze those emotions through musical games and group drumming

[00:07:53] and what happens is that there's a safety in that they're able to sort of release feelings with these musical elements and then from there it becomes you know a bit of a lyrical brainstorming a bit of using those musical components and we create an original collaborative

[00:08:11] song from that and I will tell you that we were only there for four days and we were working in one of the classrooms in the school itself so you can imagine the gravity of that experience and ultimately the triumph of that experience by creating something so powerful

[00:08:31] in that space and reclaiming that space but what I witnessed was this this transformation of sort of being unable to express and connect to you know by the time we were show sharing that sort of

[00:08:47] rough cut of the song that we recorded with them in that classroom the students were like fountains of expression they were so joyful they were holding each other's hands and they were hugging each other and there were tears of joy because they had finally had this experience

[00:09:09] of being able to release something that had been stuck within them in a safe way I mean it you know that's the beautiful thing about creative expression is it provides a container

[00:09:21] for emotions right whether it be through a musical form or through a dance form or through a writing form that's power of creative expression and so I think what I learned from that what my aha moment

[00:09:35] was from that was you know we often think of creativity something we do for ourselves that you know and a lot of times we like to do it in private because we don't want people to see

[00:09:46] you know what we're doing but that collaborative collective experience had the ability to bring each of those students in on an individual level because they were contributing their thread if you will of their experience to a collective project and then that was the weaving together

[00:10:08] of those threads which created even more transformation because there was this power in the collective and you know not only was it impacting and healing them but it when when the other students

[00:10:25] were able to hear that they felt seen and heard and witnessed for their experience and so there was this ripple effect of collective healing and support that was possible and then the final part of it is

[00:10:40] that it's a now it's a tangible reminder talisman it's a touchstone if they're having a moment that's difficult or they're feeling re-triggered they can go to that song and have it serve as

[00:10:57] a reminder of their strength and their resilience and their grit and their courage and their healing journey which will be for the rest of their lives right because it's not something that ends right

[00:11:09] they're always going to be on that and and that's the power both of individual and collective healing is it can have this you know it can impact somebody individually yeah it impact a group in

[00:11:25] such a profound way yeah I definitely felt well and I'll have the song in the show notes for people to link to and to hear it it was hard not to cry through it it was just so moving yeah we are moved

[00:11:43] so much by group song and us all joining together for a moment um it just connects us and unites us I think in our humanity when we share the the beauty of song and music so thank you so

[00:12:00] much for doing that I mean that's just amazing that you were able to help help those kids heal yeah it's so needed so one of the things you mentioned in the book is about jailbreaking

[00:12:14] and referring to yourself as notorious jailbreaker can you tell our listeners a little bit about that because they might relate yeah I I I definitely think we can all relate to this

[00:12:27] you know my story is obviously extreme in terms of my upbringing but I think because I felt so unsafe growing up I developed a survival mechanism as I grew older which was to always sort of

[00:12:44] jailbreak out of a difficult situation or out of something that wasn't right for me whether it be a relationship or a job or whatever and you know in some ways that's very good right I'm not

[00:12:57] saying I'm not encouraging anyone to to not move out of a situation that's not bad for you but I mean by this notorious jailbreaking is that it became a survival mechanism or habit that would

[00:13:11] take me away from the scenario that I was in what I wasn't looking within at all to see what my contribution was or what my experience was in that moment right whether I was you know

[00:13:26] contributing to it or whether I was you know I don't know if you can relate to this but sometimes you feel like you kind of live out the same scenario over and over again in different ways

[00:13:36] throughout your life and so I was jailbreaking out but I wasn't looking within I was always thinking that out there that there was something else out there that was going to be better for me if I just got out of this scenario it was going to be better

[00:13:51] and so over the course of many years of you know doing my own therapy and sort of self-discovery I realized that what I should and needed to start doing was to start jailbreaking in and that sounds

[00:14:06] sort of like I don't know odd right this idea like how do you jailbreak in but I think a lot of us can relate to the fact that as we go through life

[00:14:15] and we get piled on with difficult experiences we tend to build protectors we tend to build some kind of structures to keep the hard stuff from truly hurting us right but what happens when

[00:14:30] we build those walls or those protectors is we lose access to the deep parts within us that we really need that are full of these tools and treasures and inner wisdom and and our you know

[00:14:46] our inner knowing right and so we you know you lose access to that if you're putting up these walls so you know in the book I talk about you know these different scenarios through which I was being a

[00:14:59] notorious jailbreaker out but at some point I had to realize you know the phrase that says all roads lead to Rome right and it was all roads lead to home which is me that no matter how many ways I tried

[00:15:13] to extricate myself from these scenarios I was always still there I was always still my problems and my issues were still there and you know the the saying is what's saying you know life is

[00:15:26] an inside job right and so yes I'm not saying don't deal with what's out there but when we can jailbreak in in a slow and steady and baby steppy kind of way we can come back and

[00:15:42] touch with ourselves we can find out things that we need to know about why we're where we are or how to move forward in a in a truly growthful expansive way and so that jailbreaking then

[00:15:58] becomes this process of inner discovery and removing those barriers that keep us from our true essence so I love that because I think that true essence a lot of that is getting at some playfulness and some underlying creativity which we've maybe stuffed down and said you know

[00:16:23] nope I'm not a painter or no I can't learn to play the guitar or whatever it is but I think what you offer us is a way to look at things just for fun right and maybe we make play so much work

[00:16:45] that is not fun anymore right and so what you're what you're talking about a little bit too in the book is just do it for fun yeah yeah I think you know as adults we we start to lose permission

[00:17:04] for that creativity that creative to inhabit that spark of fun and curiosity and exploration and discovery but I would guarantee that most of us would say well that's what kids do we encourage our kids to be so creative because we know they're learning about themselves they're discovering what

[00:17:25] they're capable of they're they're seeing what is in their imagination which is who they truly are right what it's helping them to discover themselves and their world and we want that for them and

[00:17:36] we encourage them to do any kind of creative thing because we see that process in play somewhere along the line we don't do that as adults and maybe society says oh you know you have to be

[00:17:47] responsible no and you know you have these things you have to do and you don't have time for play or play a grow up grow up you know I love what you said about this play and work and I'd kind of

[00:17:59] like to flip the lens on that for a minute what if what if the play and the just for fun ness of any of these activities that were drawn to that put us in this space of freedom and

[00:18:13] flow and all of that what if that was the work of human development self discovery right if you think about when you're in a situation you know and it's harder I think as adults we're kind of covered over

[00:18:30] a lot more than kids are but when you're in a just for fun state you're not using your sort of what I like to call like your top level mind right you're not regulating yourself you're not

[00:18:42] judging yourself you're just in this expressive state and what happens when we get below that mind that that kind of stuck habitual way of thinking is we can access the stuff that's down within us

[00:19:00] that is full of new ideas fresh ideas innovative problem solving you know more elements of our self that are truly us right all that stuff is in there and so what if we could start to think about

[00:19:18] using play and using the just for fun and using the you know creative expression and whatever form that is as the work of knowing ourselves and developing ourselves and growing ourselves into

[00:19:35] bigger and better and more aligned versions of ourselves and we would take play a lot more seriously if we believed that right yeah I think what you offer us too is sometimes we get so impatient in the

[00:19:50] beginner stage of something that we're taking on and trying to learn or you know get into and into and we quit because it that beginner stage is requires patience and it involves tenacity and

[00:20:08] other attributes that maybe we don't have it hand right then and there but I think what you're asking us to do is just express ourselves just express and and one of the things I loved about

[00:20:21] your book is that after each chapter you give us these ways of learning that and working with it and I still got to work with some of that though because you talked about singing and I'm like oh

[00:20:35] god yeah I'm a little tone deaf and I and I love to sing with songs but singing my own song by myself would be the ultimate expression for me to try so listeners you know like let's all pick

[00:20:51] something that maybe feels very uncomfortable but that we're just gonna say okay I'm just gonna express myself I'm gonna dance without worrying about judgment you know like and just not look at everything as something to have to begin and learn and advance and this whole aspect of of

[00:21:14] how we can go about it yeah I love that I think one of the cool things about what you're sharing is it sort of reminds me of this notion that you know we are often struck by these things of like oh

[00:21:32] I'm not good at that or I'm stupid I feel stupid when I'm doing that all right you know I'm terrible at that you know we have this inner critic you know which really sort of holds us

[00:21:43] back but one of the things I'd like to mention about when you were saying about the singing like I love the singing but I you know I don't like to do it by myself I always encourage people

[00:21:55] to not focus on what you are doing but what you are feeling right and so that's the process of creating this muscle of using creative expression as a tool is you know if we could you know and I

[00:22:15] talk about this in the book I give strategies for sort of working with that critic and that part of us that sell the steps in that tells us we're terrible at this is like you want to cultivate the fact

[00:22:25] that if you're singing using your voice well that voice is a sensation in your body it's not how it sounds but the cessation of using your air and your those vibrations that are in your body

[00:22:41] actually feels good right and those vibrations are actually having an impact on your nervous system believe it or not their frequencies that are going on they're calming and regulating your nervous system but focus on the feeling of that experience and you know it's easier said than

[00:22:57] done but if you can take the judgment out of it and say oh actually I'm feeling I'm actually feeling really good with the way this flow is or the way I'm dancing in the kitchen this feels

[00:23:07] really good in my body when you can direct your attention to the feeling and the flow that's where you're able to sort of access more and more of that because you're like I want more of that

[00:23:19] good feeling I want more of those good vibes right I'm gonna try it because I think that's an awesome way to look at it instead of listening to the inner critic and we've done some episodes on that

[00:23:35] and one of the things I wonder maybe you have a thought about this is do you think our younger generations our Gen Z years and our millennials have a a leg up in this area like are they

[00:23:51] more likely to express themselves creatively like I see it in my daughters and they're like all over trying different stuff but I'm wondering if you what your thoughts are about that yes I think that's true um you know on one level they're a little closer to childhood

[00:24:11] than we are which you know haven't maybe lost all of the components of freedom and flow that we have you know and I've worked in schools and youth centers for many many many years and

[00:24:23] I think one of the beautiful things about young people is they are um you know perhaps in some ways a little more courageous right they they are seeing what's going on in the world out here

[00:24:36] which is with incredible gravity and and you know sadly they're they're very aware of all of these sort of crazy elements of our world socially politically environmentally you name it right

[00:24:51] and so I think that that that leg up in in my opinion could also stem from like what I'm seeing out there is not resonating with me right I don't want that that makes me unhappy so

[00:25:07] what if I was focusing on what I'm about and by developing that part of myself maybe I can bring some change to the world that I want to see that I want to bring you know and I often talk about

[00:25:22] this actually the tagline or the one of the phrases that I use with the nonprofit is you know changing the world one person at a time from the inside out right and so I think our younger

[00:25:35] generation you know my son is turning 20 and next month and so I have these conversations with him and you know I think that he genuinely feels like he can be at change by being more authentic

[00:25:54] by being more you know expressive with his truth and his you know I don't know what the right word is but almost like innate wisdom of what he sees going on in the world and what he wants to

[00:26:13] bring change to and I love that with the younger generation you know that there is an element of wanting to change wanting to make a difference but bringing more of themselves to the world

[00:26:27] and that resonates so much with me because I do believe that I do believe that we have the ability to impact humanity by going within yeah and creating more strength and more authenticity and more alignment within ourselves which can have a concentric circle ripple effect

[00:26:52] because that inspires others to do the same for themselves and that's the power of using your own creativity in your own toolbox to make change on the outside as well. Oh we definitely need that creativity right now right that problem solving the

[00:27:14] different aspects that we can go about solving some of these big big problems we have so anyway it makes me feel very hopeful yeah we know we've covered a lot of the aspects we had

[00:27:26] that we wanted to on our outline I'm going through the list like oh we talked about flow we talked about the inner critic is there anything that you would like to add that we haven't covered

[00:27:40] that you would like to leave our listeners with yeah I think I'd like to dive just a little bit more back into this notion of flow just a touch you know we we are often aware of these sort of

[00:27:59] knee jerk reactions that we can have to life whether you know and they are often defined as these sort of like four categories of traumatic responses and we know them as fight flight freeze

[00:28:14] and there's a fourth one which is called fawn which I didn't even know about which is sort of you know kind of trying to make peace you know by compromising yourself in situation

[00:28:25] so you're fawning to the situation but this idea flow was something that came to me as sort of a potential fifth response to a difficult experience and what's different about flow is that it's not an instinctual sort of you know human civilization kind of

[00:28:47] response that we have had what that animals and human beings have had over the course of humankind but when we think about being able to use flow what it does is it we practice it it's like a muscle right we said okay I'm starting to get triggered I'm

[00:29:04] having a panic attack I'm getting dysregulated I'm feeling anxious we can start to practice this idea of flow which is choosing to do an activity it can be anything that gets us out of that place in our mind something repetitive something expressive that allows us to discharge that

[00:29:30] difficult moment that that that emotional experience of dysregulation right so for example it could be going out and taking a walk but in addition to taking a walk maybe you're you know clapping your hands in a repetitive way right you're using your expression to create something repetitive

[00:29:52] that takes you out of that stuck space and allows you to release those experiences those feelings right so when I talk about this idea of flow this is what I mean with the lifeline this idea of the

[00:30:06] lifeline in real time you know we often think of creative expression as sort of this oh this is an auxiliary sweet thing that you know could be helpful in our lives if we feel drawn to it

[00:30:21] but I try to make a case for creative expression can actually be the lifeline in these moments when you need help re-regulating yourself in a moment and that kind of developing of that mindset and

[00:30:39] that practice of putting yourself in a flow situation becomes one of your greatest sources of self-trust and self-reliance and self-confidence right and I could just say I'm sure that you have listeners who have similar experiences to me where sometimes I get really throughout the

[00:31:07] course of a day I can get like almost like paralyzed by a feeling or a you know an emotion right and then that tends to kind of keep me stuck right and it kind of ruins my quality of life in that moment

[00:31:24] right and so I want the readers to know that it's not just creativity for fun it can actually be this lifeline moment when you're accessing part of what you have within you to help you

[00:31:41] re-regulate and to help you feel better and with that comes this increasing self-confidence and self discovery and knowing that you can navigate the ups and downs of the day you can feel safer within your life because you have this 24 seven tool available to you when you need it

[00:32:05] and so I think that would be sort of for me sort of the final piece that I'd just like to leave everyone with is that each of us has everything we need already inside of us to navigate the ups

[00:32:20] and downs of life and to live our best life and the answers aren't out there they're not somebody else doesn't know what's right for you because they're not you you know each of us has the

[00:32:35] perfect combination of gifts and skills and talents and inner resources that nobody else has right that's our gift to ourselves is that we have these elements within us already I'm feeling so touched right now I'm just like I got tears coming

[00:32:53] keep going girlfriend because it sounds so good also our gift to the world right it's our gift to the world when we have access to all that's within us and I refer to this in the

[00:33:07] book as this is our brilliance this is our brilliance what makes us us is our brilliance and being able to unearth that and recover and uncover and discover that is going to make our lives so beautiful and so meaningful and so aligned but you also never know

[00:33:33] who might need the brilliance that you have within you so you're you're able to exude that into the world and make an impact in the world simply by being you and that is the simplicity

[00:33:48] and the power and the beauty of what each of us has within us that no one can take away because it's you oh my goodness you know I don't think I've ever been quite as touched by

[00:34:07] I guess that we've had on like you so I thank you for for reaching all of us and doing your book and doing your work and speaking with such power and authority about this that

[00:34:26] really we need you and we need your brilliance so thank you so much for joining us today my pleasure it's been such a joy having this conversation with you feel such a beautiful flow as we say right exactly all right so before I get so moved

[00:34:51] to ask you this how can our listeners find you follow you learn about your nonprofit or and also your amazing book yeah well let's start with the book um lifeline uncovering sorry let me get it straight recovering your mental wellness through uncovering

[00:35:11] your creative brilliance you can buy it on amazon it's both in paperback and kindle version you can find me just simply at my name which is my website lane gardener.com there's all kinds of resources there I do individual coaching you know there's there's there's so much information

[00:35:32] there about the work that I do and how to work with me and and also you know some of the free tool kits and stuff that I'm offering that you can kind of get started right away see what it's

[00:35:42] all about um you can find my nonprofit which is the name of it is thread but the actual web address is thread connects c o n n e c t s dot org um and you'll be able to see both the

[00:35:59] parkland song and some of the other amazing work that we've been able to do with with other communities and then you can just find me on you know linkedin um instagram facebook you know just type

[00:36:13] in my name you'll find me and um you know I would just love love love if this resonates with you connect with me right it's not about being alone in our situations it's about the power of connecting

[00:36:28] so you know you can you can email me through my website I'd love to connect with you I'd love to hear your story I'd love to know what's going on and sort of you know build a conversation

[00:36:40] around what we have inside us what we need for our mental health and um you know I think we can we can sort of reach a lot of people in numbers absolutely thank you again I love you take care