How to reclaim your creative life with Eve Rodsky (Part 2)

0:02 A listener production. This is Crappita Happy, and I am your host, Cas Doune. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher and of course, author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. A couple of months ago, I had the wonderful Eve Rodsky as my guest on the podcast, and we talked about her first book, fair Play, which was all about helping couples divvy up their domestic responsibilities more fairly. Eve is a Harvard trained organizational management consultant and she's developed a really clever system to help women stop taking on an unfair share of the mental and physical load. I promise you guys there would be a part two with Eve, and after lots of difficulties with scheduling, I finally have her back on the show and today we are talking about her second book, which is called Find your Unicorn Space Reclaim your Creative Life in a Too Busy World. This book is all about Eve's passionate belief that once women have carved out more time for themselves, they must use some of that time for self expression and creativity. I could not be more on board with this idea. Eve calls this time unicorn space because it is just as magical and mythical, and in this ie opening chat, she explains exactly what kinds of things we can do in our own personal unicorn

1:35 space and how this leads to a more connected and creative life. I know you're going to love it. Here's my chat with Eve. Eve. Welcome back to the Crappit to Happy podcast. So good to have you here again. Well, we had a lot of fun last time casts I'm glad to be back for part two. Eve. Last time we talked about fair play and fair play life. It was such a great conversation, so relevant to listeners of the Crappy a Happy show and I got lots of really amazing feedback about that episode. And if anybody hasn't listened yet, please do go back and listen to my first conversation with Eve about how we can more fairly share the load in our relationships. Really great advice.

2:16 But Eve, once we have achieved that, once we have changed our approach to how we manage our household and the division of labor in our household, then we are able to create what you call unicorn space. And I love this concept. Can you please for my listeners, explain what is unicorn space? Well? Cas, how often do we get uninterrupted attention and space for things that we love as women? Never? It's magical, it's mythical, but like a mythical equaine, it doesn't freaking exist until we reclaim it. And the beauty of a unicorn space is that. The most important thing I want to explain is that a creative life redefined as unicorn space cast is actually a really connected life.

3:07 It helps us with this shadow pandemic that so many women have reported to me, which is that even in midst being locked down with their families, they feel really isolated and alone and lonely. And that's the beauty of occupying a unicorn space. This is not a one off spin class in a dark room or being even by yourself with paints. It's a life of curiosity, connection and completion. And that's really why I wanted to write this book, because I felt like, especially coming out of a pandemic where our time was chopped up. Women were interrupted every three minutes and forty two seconds, according to. One Time You study.

3:47 I wanted women to believe that they have a permission to be unavailable from their roles and reclaim uninterrupted attention for things that they love. Permission to be unavailable. That in itself sounds magical and mystical. Most of my audience are women, working women, a lot of mothers and for them, and I have worked a lot over the last few years in these communities of women. This permission to be unavailable. Why is that so challenging for women? Because it is. Such a great question. It's the same way that fair play in and of itself, the idea of a structured decision making tool to help you make decisions so that your house is a chaotic like that should be a no brainer. Like we're in a no excuse zone cast, right, we should always have systems to make decisions. That's not a no brainer because of how women have been conditioned to think about our time, the same way that creative living is not a no brainer for women because of the same way we've been conditioned about how to use our time. So, actually, why this is a sequel is because we pick up on where we left off and crappy the happy one, which is this idea that we are not trained to be unavailable.

5:02 We're actually trained to believe that time is our most valuable currency. We know that, but we're actually trained to give it away for free to everybody else. So true, and that benefits everybody except for women themselves. Availability having your phone near your desk, picking up of the school calls, being there, if your child needs something, being there, if your partner needs something, Hey, do you have a second to go over this presentation with me? A lot of women, we have been conditioned to be available to everybody but ourselves. And that's why just jumping into the creative program casts can only be written by white man.

5:49 If you're a woman writing, you know that you have work. To do to get women to live a creative life. And part of the first part of the book, find your Unicorn Space. The first hundred pages are an unlearned of why we do deserve that permission to be unavailable. Why guilt and shame are the two emotions that are most likely to make us change our decision making for the worse. Why we are not trained to ask for what we need. Those things are really really important. We cannot dismiss them, and they are part of a larger system for why again, women end up with about half as much leisure time as men on average. You make a point if that when we talk about this unicorn space and this time that we can be unavailable, that it is not going to a spin class. It is not even necessarily catching up with a girlfriend for a coffee. It is not just this me time that we hear all about. You talk about it very specifically being about creative self expression. Can you please explain for the listeners that distinction, because I think most people listening and the people that I talk to, you know, they think if they get half an hour out on their own to go have a coffee with a girlfriend or to go to a feitness class, that should be grateful for that. Why is it important that this be creative space?

7:08 Such a great distinction. Thank you for bringing that up. Unicorn space is not a spin class. It is not a drink with a friend, even though those are baseline important that should be the bottom of your mauslows hierarchy. We're talking about something different here. We're talking about mental and physical health and the beauty of what I found in the research for Unicorn Space and fair Play is that mental and physical health daily flourishing. Actually, this is a great study that comes out of New Zealand. Daily flourishing is associated with creative pursuits, creativity and why. And I don't just mean a paintbrush cass. I mean what I just said before, I mean a broader definition of creativity.

7:51 And instead of actually just keeping to define what curiosity, connection and completion is, what I'll substitute in is the feeling. So, after interviewing seven hundred. And fifty people in seventeen countries, the common feeling when people were living a Unicorn Space life or it had a Unicorn Space experience a cycle of that curiosity, connection and completion was I can't believe I just did that. That was the most common phrase, instead of you know, every day overwhelmed and boredom, which were the two top words that we talked about in fair Play, which is like I can't believe I had to freaking do that. This is I can't believe I just did that.

8:31 So, whether it's. Uploading the podcast cast, you know, and saying I can't believe I just did that again. You know another episode in the books where I was curious, I connected with somebody and I completed this, I edited it, I got it up. This is a unicorn space, or I'm going to put that in your that words in your mouth, because I know it is. Because I hear you interviewing other women. I feel you in that flow state, in that unicorn space. But in general, we need more of that. So even this one woman who was so busy, she said to me, I didn't believe in unicorn space, but I took your homework assignment. And the homework assignment that asked her to do for me was one day in the next seven days. I asked her, I want the most important thing you do that day to be outside your roles as a parent and our partner and our professional.

9:22 So she said. She responded to me and said, I jumped into the Atlantic Ocean. I joined a polar bear class. There was ten women of us. We jumped into four degrees in the Atlantic Ocean. And I can't believe I just did that. And so I said, there you go again. There is that phrase. So that's what I give to your listeners. I gift you. A practice of I can't believe I just did that moment. I was just flaking back through the book again this morning before we got on this conversation, and this phrase that jumped out off the page was have you lost sight of you underneath your to do list? And I think most people, most women would answer one hundred percent yes to that. So is this pursuit of finding the unicorn space really about reconnecting back to who you are beneath all of those roles?

10:18 Absolutely, And that's why, again, why this is different than self care or commodified wellness. While you're not going to get this from a manicure, what we're talking about here is the stakes are really high. The stakes are really high when you lose your identity. When you're erased, we become gray versions of ourselves. We have women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety disorders. We start using words like mimmy juice, or in the nineteen fifties and sixties, people were prescribed medicine for hysteria just to get through their day. We end up coping in hetonic ways, hedonistic ways, casts and so this gets a little bit into the science of it, which is, as women the easiest way to cope, or at least from the research, the easiest quickest way to cope would be happiness without meaning experiences.

11:19 So what do I mean by that? Alcohol, escapism, binge watching, being with your kids, but actually doom scrolling you know, Twitter, Instagram. That's the easiest because you can sort of convince yourself you're still present. But it's nothing. It doesn't do anything, it's not nutritious, it doesn't do anything for our mental and physical health. That happiness without meaning, whereas meaning without happiness is associated with caregiving and a lot of times that I know that in my life. You know, I'd rather be in a root canal chair. That's what the studies show. People would rather be in a root canal chair than be with their toddlers. And I feel that existentially it's fine, it's great, but I don't feel happy, especially when my kid roundhouse kicks me in the eye and I'm trying to keep my shit together. So, women, we often end up in happiness without meaning experiences. We could end up in meaning without happiness experiences. What I'm asking for you is to understand that the umbrella for the hard because this is not about being happy all the time. This is having experiences in your week where happiness and meaning collide, and then what happens is they become your umbrella in the weather. So, for example, back to that Roundhouse kick that actually happened to me, where I remember writing a chapter of this book. I was having this great morning and then Anna Roundhouse kicked me in the eye ended up with a giant black eye, and I remember thinking to myself, you know what, this feels terrible in the moment, but it is I feel like I have a little bit of armor because the writing practice this morning is

12:50 making me be able to tolerate the kick to the eye with a little bit more grace and humor and generosity. Yeah, exactly. And I love that because that's exactly the same message that I talk about in You Always. I love it, Yes, you Always do, my crappy. A happy book. It's not just happiness and it's not just meaning. They have to there has to be this intersection of joy and meaning. And I want to just say, your version of happiness is what I'm talking about, right, get just like floating happy all the time. You know, as one woman said, I'm not here at a gratitude journal myself to death. It's really understanding the nuance the new ones that this is. It's a practice, and that's why I love your philosophy cast.

13:33 Thank you. My latest kind of mission. I'm running this program at the moment I might have told you about it last time. I've called it Beyond Confidence. And it's a group of women that I take through this program because I was really tapping into this women has just so plagued by self doubt and self criticism and second guessing and which leads them into perfectionism and burnout and overwhelm. And exactly the first half of the program is also all of this unlearning that you talk about as well, like unraveling all of this conditioning. And we just had a Zoom call the other day and I had been talking about schemers and how our early experiences kind of can shape us, you know, blah blah coah beliefs that we develop. And one of the schemers I talked about was this unrelenting standards and how sometimes it can develop out of a childhood where your children's natural need for creative self expression and play, spontaneous play, when that is stifled, they can grow up with this unrelenting standards schema, and this whole organic conversation started with this group of women about how they don't know how to have fun, and they were saying, this is what I grew up with. It was like everything had to be structured and organized. But the result being that as adults, they literally have no concept of doing something for themselves that brings them that sense of joy and meaning, and that as soon as they do something that is purely for their own not a spin class, a.

15:07 Not a self care kind of trying not to try to shrink themselves to be skinnier or. Be better in some way, you know, to improve, that they can't do it. That they immediately try to turn it into some projet deeck that they have to master, that they have to be the best at. It's actually kind of devastating when you think about it, that we have been conditioned and that then we perpetuate this, and we know how important play is for our children and how important it is and healthy it is for their brain development and their social skills and all of the rest of it. But somehow, as adults and particularly as women, we trivialize this. One thousand percent and actually it's been fun to back to the word fun, to collect data that shows something really interesting about how people are metabolizing unicorn Space. So when men talk to me about your icorn space, and we've now seen this because the book has been launched for about three months, they are much more likely cass and this will be cool to ask your women because unicorn Space actually starts with an anecdote about my cousin who was starting She went on a date with a guy that she thought she really liked, and then she ended up not ever seeing him again because he asked her the question what do you do for fun? And she's like, well, that person obviously has no idea what it's like to raise two kids as a single parent, and so he's gone. And I was like, what's so wrong with that question? But I understand her points. I understand her point. He didn't have a lot of attachments in his life, he didn't have kids, and so she

16:37 hated that question so much that she didn't see him again. But what was interesting about how I see unicorn space in the world now sort of my unis in the wild, is that men inherently are much more likely to verbify their life. This is what I've seen now in three months, and women were more likely to nounify their life. So what do I mean by that? Women will say to me, well, I want to sign up for that marathon, but I'm not a runner, whereas men will say to me, I'm excited to run. So what happens when I've been seeing Unicorn space in the world. Cast back to your point about where is the fun?

17:20 It really really impacts the final see of Unicorn space. There's curiosity, connection and completion. I thought when I got more reactions to the book that most people would be stuck in the first sea of I don't know what I'm even curious about anymore, and there is a passion gap. If we lose our curiosity for ten years in our roles as parents, partners, and professionals, it is harder to start again. However, there was. Equally a huge amount of people telling me they were having problems with the last c completion because they were saying to me, well, what does completion mean? Eve? I played drums just four times failure, and I said, no called You held drums six in your hand, You called up a teacher in the pandemic, You sat down in their studio. You played the drums for four times.

18:11 That is a Unicorn Space cycle. You were curious, I wonder what it's like to play drums. You connected with a teacher and you completed a lesson, and so that's not very easy for women to hear. Well, if I'm not going to become an excellent drummer, what was the point? What's the point? Exactly? What's the point? And so it was making me really sad because whereas men were saying I played drums instead of I'm a drummer, whereas women were saying, I'm not a drummer. So what I'm saying is that. I want people to verbify their life the way men were in the past three months in my study, as opposed to the way women automatically go to the noun R. I need to I'm not a runner, I'm not an artist.

18:55 I'm not a chef. I'm not a baker. Can't you be a person who beaks? Can you be a person who runs? Can you be a person who rates? That's how I help people deal with the completion aspect of Unicorn Space. I hope that you're enjoying this conversation and realizing the benefits of positivity in your own life. If you are enjoying the show, please be sure to like and subscribe so that you get notified when you aps drop and head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review. I know you talk about completion is not perfection, and you also say like, completion is not Now tell me if I'm getting this right.

19:47 Completion is not done? Is that what you mean by that that you don't. Have to get to the end goal active pursuits. That's what we see the mental and physical health. So we know, and you know, I'm sure totally you may have heard not ucas, but your audience may have heard. You know how people who win gold medals they become really out to sea after because they have now what attitude. One man I interviewed for Unicorn Space he found the Titanic, and I remember talking to him and saying, well, did that happen to you the same way it happens to gold medalists. Like and now what? Like I can never ever top that and so my life is over? And he said no, he said, for me, I got that thing out of the way, so it just allowed me to experiment and play the rest of my life because I know I'll never top that.

20:42 So imagine we were. Able to live like that to say, yes, I may have been the best CEO or executive, whatever it is. I did that. So now the rest of my life I have permission to play. I can be a person who plays drums. I could be a person who does pottery, as opposed to again, well, I'm not going to even start trying because I'm never going to be a potter, or I'm never going to be a linguist. I'm somebody who speaks some Spanish. It's a reframing of how we look at completion. But as you said in your class to a lot of the women you're working with, because we've been conditioned, women are not allowed to be loud and wrong. We have to be quite an excellent if we're going to use our voice, and since we're taught that, if we're not excellent, we don't really speak up. And so then that's where all the self doubt comes in. We know that from you.

21:31 Men being if they have sixty percents of the qualifications of a job description, they'll apply. Women usually have to have ninety to ninety five percent. So we see it in the workplace, but I also see it in Unicorn space, where if you're not fully conditioned, if you're not fully ready, I'm not going to sign up for the marathon. Yeah, that is so true. I want to go back to curiosity. So curiosity connection completion of these three stages. And as you said, which is so true, when you have spent a long time disconnected from your curiosity, it can there is a gap. It can be really hard to find that. Again, how do you suggest people start? Well, how do you suggest that people? Because there are I mean, I speak to them, these women that have no idea what might be interesting or fun for them?

22:25 Can we play a game that would be a fun way to Can we do an exercise to leave people with casts that they can I think it'd be really fun. Let's play a game. Okay, I'm scared. No, No, it's really gonna be it's gonna be super fun. So this is I call this think outside the box. I want your listeners to play with us. And it's a great intro to Unicorn Space because once they uh, they pick their card, they can read the book to see how they can Then you know, ticket to. The next level. But this is a really fun way to start, so pass what I'm gonna do and already acknowledging that you have. This is a unicorn space. This podcast is a unicorn space.

23:06 Like I said, I got to listen to you and see how you share with the world in such a beautiful way. So let's just say that it's already one. So don't pick that card. Don't don't pick start a podcast. Right right, don't go, don't pick performing because we know that's one, but I want another one. I'm gonna give you. Fifty choices, so don't don't pick one. Don't blurt one out until you hear them all. Okay. That way we give your listeners a chance to also hear all fifty. Cool, and then we're going to walk through two questions that someone can ask themselves if they're. Stuck think outside the box. A way to ignite your curiosity, which is that first sea we just talked about.

23:47 I've got a note pad, so I can jump down the ones. Okay, and then listeners follow along with us. So here we go. Here's fifty choices. You're gonna wait till the end. And then you're gonna give me just one. Spiritual wellness that's yoga, retreats, racing, cars and boats and horses, etc. Circus, theater and production, snow sports, sports with balls, triathlon, running, memories and archiving, sports with wheels, martial arts or combat sports, rhetoric, dance, animals performing. That's the podcast, Travel and culture, outdoors, water sports, storytelling, arts and crafts, stitching and needles, music, metallurgy. That's like jewelry making, woodworking, photography, gardening, slash farming, florals, pottery, beauty, arrows and axes, building in diy, cooking, baking, coating, slash engine, games like puzzles, escape rooms, video games, language and anthropology, health and wellness, event planning, fashion writing, teaching, math and sciences, research and learning, design, restoration and renovation, finding, collecting, foraging,

25:22 other worldly pursuits like tarot and astrology or genealogy and lineage. And I have to God, only. Pick one one, just one for right now, just for the exercise. Okaess for right now. I choose photography. Oooh good one. Okay tell me why. I am a person who really loves photography and what I do is I buy cameras? Ooh, okay, tell me about that. And then I don't really I never know how to use them, Eve, I don't know what the I don't understand what an F stopper an I always are a one that's our. Metaphor for today, camera's not using them. I love it.

26:04 It's so good. Can I tell you though, that I picked up because I have just enrolled. I just found a short cause in a couple of weeks time, and I have registered myself for an introduction to photography. And this came about from that conversation about fun that we had in my group. So I had a bit of a head start with this exercise. I thought, I have to go and do this just for my creative self expression. I need to work out. I love this, but I'm stuck with not knowing. Okay, so that's question one. I love it, love it. You had a head so you had you had the question, and we just said why. Now this is the harder question, and this is the number two, which I want your listeners to do when they pick their card. I want to hear from you. Now, what values and or feelings photography brings up for you?

26:51 Ooh, values or feelings? Either one feelings. It's a feeling of I guess it is a feeling of. Self expression, of connection of yeah, it's a bit of almost like just I don't know if this is is beauty the value beauty? Just capturing that? What do you like to what do you capture? Tell me what you like to capture? Are you still lifes? Are you people like? What is? What is I typically like to capture people? And I was struggling to find a cause about portrait photography because they all sort of go out and take photos of the scenery and the beach and the landscape, which is lovely, But I would really love to learn portrait photography capturing people and people's expressions.

27:44 Oh my god. Okay, so that's beautiful. So what you can do with that is you can take three values. And what's so powerful about understanding the values behind what you're doing cast is you're more likely to do it. So I'm going to give you back. You said self expression, you said connection, you said beauty. So those three values, I would say every single week you should ask yourself did I have an ability to have self expression in my life? Did I have an ability to have true connection in my life?

28:26 Did I have an ability to have true beauty in my life and those self expression, connection and beauty through photography is really powerful because you can also get those in other areas of your life. You know, you could get it again through the podcast, you could get it through maybe picking a flower. So in the times where you can't do photography, you can also use those values to still bring little micro you know, moments of unicorn space into your life. But those are the things I would say, focus on self expression, connection and beauty. That's why you're going to do your photography, and then it just it becomes sort of a guiding light. I like to take the cards and go two levels deeper why and then the values and feelings it brings you because when you know those things, it becomes easier to put into a regular practice in your life.

29:19 That was a really great exercise. Thank you, even Gin as you were talking, because my other second on my list was renovation. I'm in the process of planning renovations in this house that we just moved into, and I thought, if I really thought about it, probably self expression and connection and beauty is all wrapped up in that house. Renovation is I just got chilled. So that's really cool. It's sort of like, you know, you picked two things based on these underlying values, and so I would say the good news is like if you're worried because photography isn't on the front burner one month, but you're actually doing. Your renovation that long. Remember you have those three values all back on and they both actually will serve that purpose, which is pretty remarkable that it overlaps that closely. I don't usually see exactly overlap, but I one hundred percent restoration and renovation are self expression connection.

30:13 Yeah for sure, Yes, yes, Oh that's amazing. And if so, that was a great exercise, and yes, please everybody go rewind, listen to the list, make it and do the exercise with us. Yes, and you can always share with me on DMS. We want to know what your card is. Yes, And if one other thing you mentioned in the book as well, the unicorn space, the importance of sharing your creative pursuit with others, can you just talk a little bit about why that is so important to share? Well, thank you for drying that out, because a lot of times in interviews everyone always misses the second see the connection part. They sort of are more like, how do we start in curiosity? And then all the perfection and completion stuff. But that second CE is so so important in two ways. One because we know that Cass, if you have a photography partner and accountability partner, so you become accountable to me. So I say, Cass on social how you, how is the photography going? You share your photos with me, You're sixty five percent more likely to do it if you have a success partner, someone who's out there with you to also taking portraits of people doesn't have to be someone you're talking to or in your space. As introverts, a lot of this is just someone who's there with you. Success partners increase your percentage of doing something by over ninety percent. So the connection piece is part of it is accountability, but also it's actually a really important see because why you share

31:46 yourself with the world becomes another great way to return to those values. So self expression, connection, and beauty. I would say if it was renovation, I'd say for you, Cass, part of the way you're going to share that renovation with the world, as I'm sure you're to have salons in your house, You're going to have people over, You're going to commune people there. That is important. It makes a renovation even more meaningful if you no one got to see what you did or your art or what you're doing. And then what's the point, right, So many people said to me, well, what's the point, because the point is that we are meaning seeking species and part of the meaning is that connection to other human beings. Back to that value that you just said for your photography, and so what I'll say to you for your photography is that it may be that sharing is on social It could be it could be that maybe your portraits, the portrait you take, your sharing is just with your group, or you say to yourself, I want to take all of your pictures and show you and you're most confident, or maybe I want to take your pictures and show you when you think you're not beautiful with no makeup, or and I want to show you how beautiful you are.

32:53 What I don't know, I'm just making things up. But the point is that sharing is so important because I think what happened now as people believe when I say sharing that I mean that they have to be some influencer on Instagram, And I don't mean that at all. I mean just sharing with your local community, your family. Stephanie of Who I Love from Colorado. She started to make gluten free pies because she wanted to share with her Celiac community. She said, I love pies so much, and our pies suck. They're disgusting, and I really want for people who have Celiac disease to be able to eat something delicious.

33:35 It ended up being she has a huge She does have a huge social following. Is her instagram is called pie Lady Books because she now bakes book covers into her books. And it's leveled up. As you know, we talked about nobody wants to die in level one, but it doesn't. It never starts that way. It doesn't start that way. You can have a big goal, for sure, but a lot of it starts with these small steps that will signal seriousness. Like just even signing up for that class, the photography class is a big deal. I'm writing that down at small steps signal seriousness. That is a great quote. It only has to start with small steps. It's those little commitments, right, It's just that making that little micro commitment, taking some action.

34:16 It really is. It's a huge, huge thing to sign up Gas. I'm glad you did it. I'm excited, yeah, yeah. And I'm excited to see what comes of it. Eve, thank you so much again for all of the work that you do, for making time and your very busy schedule to come back and share with our crappy to happy listeners. It's been a joy and connecting with you in this creative way. So thank you again. I feel the same way. I'm excited to see your photography. I'm learning to make chocolates, so maybe I can send them over the seat for you. Right now, I am excited. I won't consider it necessarily speaking, I'm trying to figure out if that's a card of itself chocolate me chocolate.

35:01 Yes, that's amazing. And before you go, I'm going to ask on behalf of our producer, Beth, does karaoke count as creative self expression? Absolutely? It's performing. Beth and I were talking about our shared love of karaoke just before we came. Absolutely, and then share it together, curiosity, connection, completion, go buck wild with it. I love it so much. Both of Eve's books, which are called fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space, are available now in all Good bookstores or you can listen on audible. Thank you so much for listening and as always I look forward to catching you on the next episode of Crappy Tore. Happy listener,