Episode 96: Healing is a Creative Process with Deb Driscoll Founder of Big Life Magic
Podcast
Episode 96: Healing is a Creative Process with Deb Driscoll Founder of Big Life Magic
“Creativity, magic, and healing are all best friends.” —Deb Driscoll
In this week’s episode we dive into how creativity is impacted by place, movement, and magic. I’m joined by Deb Driscoll, an author, spiritual teacher, and energy guide. Her playful approach to the creative process is magnetic!
In this episode, Deb shares how she began writing a memoir. She chats about the necessity of moving ideas up and out by listening to the body, and how healing is an important ingredient in the creative process.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform while you cook, clean, or create.
What’s in This Episode:
Deb tells us about how her creative process is a playground, a world she has created for herself by fine tuning what does and does not nourish her creativity over the years.
After relocating from New York City to the island of Tobago, she was able to bring her first memoir into existence. By the sea she could think, she finally had quiet and nature she could immerse herself in. Also, a place to move the ideas within her muscles up and out onto the page.
Deb expresses the desire for more time to work on creative projects, like writing her next book, while honoring the never ending to-do list of being a business owner.
Deb highlights the importance of quieting the noise, installing spiritual scaffolding as a way to open the creativity channels, and how stepping away from the work is a necessary step in the editing process.
Deb believes that healing is a creative process and we are all creating our realities everyday. Subscribe to her newsletter and enjoy her free 5 day Attune Activation here.
Topics Covered:
Alchemizing earthbound experiences, challenges, and big life loss including: The first man she loved, her father, and son Sage
Navigating the frustration of not having more time for bigger creative projects
Returning to the role of student in a memoir writing class as a way to immerse herself in community and creativity
Relocating from New York City and changing environments as a form of nourishing her creativity
Prioritizing movement as a way to listen to the body rather than getting mind locked
Giving your intuition permission to work in the background as a form of editing
Reconnecting to childlike joy and experiencing delight within the creative process
Celebrating the relationship between magic, healing, and creativity
I am excited to hear your thoughts! Let’s continue the conversation on IG. Tag me @chefcarlacontreras and @biglifemagic
Eat Well,
xo Chef Carla
PS: Are you craving community this season? Dreaming of starting your own Substack? Join us on November 21st for Getting Started & Build Your Community On Substack 101!
Disclaimer: Always seek the counsel of a qualified medical practitioner or other healthcare provider for an individual consultation before making any significant changes to your health, lifestyle, or to answer questions about specific medical conditions. This podcast is for entertainment and information purposes only.
SHARE THE PODCAST
Wherever you are listening, please rate, review + subscribe to Nourishing Creativity. Send the podcast to your friends, post in your stories on Instagram & tag me @chefcarlacontreras
About Deb Driscoll
Debra supports women to claim their magic through energetic alignment and intuitive mastery.
Debra has practiced and taught spiritual development and healing practices for over twenty-five years. Using intuitive guidance, spiritual practice, and integrative energy tools, Debra supports women to tap into their magic so they can heal, transform, and expand. Debra invites women to BE HER, the woman who is active in seeking and building her big life and saying YES to the magic within.
The heart of BIG LIFE MAGIC is the virtual community, The Big Life Magic Makers. Inside the community, Debra teaches mastery classes, as well as offers community events that support you to align with what magic means to you.
In her 1:1 intuitive guidance work, Debra supports people on a loss to magic journey so they can alchemize their grief, losses, and life experiences. She also offers Elite Energy Alignment for women who identify as living their big life, and seeking energetic support to align and maintain the work they create in the world.
Debra works globally with women. She lives with her husband on the island of Tobago where they are building their own BIG LIFE MAGIC.
Debra is the author of A Series of Surrender ~ A Memoir of Grief and Host of the YOU ARE THE MAGIC Podcast.
Find + Work With Deb:
Full Transcript:
Carla Contreras (00:01):
Welcome to Nourishing Creativity. The cycle of the last few years has left you and me feeling mentally, physically, emotionally, and creatively drained, nourish your very full life through interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs about how they create and move through their creative blocks. If you don't know me, I'm Chef Carla Contreras, a food stylist and content strategist. You can find me, chef Carla Contreras, across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. Deb, welcome to the podcast. I am so grateful to have you here to connect with you and to share your work. Can you share with us who you are and how you serve the world?
Deb Driscoll (00:54):
Yes, please. Thank you. What a delight to be invited into a conversation where the focus point is creativity. I feel like that's one of my focus points, so I'm like, oh, I'm here for this party. Let's hit the dance floor for everybody listening. Welcome to my world for the next 20 or so minutes. I live in the world where big life magic is possible, which means no matter what your experience is, no matter what has happened or what you're hoping will happen, I believe you can be a channel for what it is that you want to bring forward in the world. And this doesn't come from a sugar on top place. This comes from my work in more than 25 years in spiritual practice, both as a student and as a teacher, and as a healer, also an applied theater practitioner, also a global citizen who's lived and worked around the world, plus also someone who's had a lot of big life loss. So I have had to walk the path of my big life loss towards my big life magic. And I believe it's possible for all of us, and I actually believe that that's why we're here. I think we are here to explore, create and alchemize what this earthbound life is giving us.
Carla Contreras (02:07):
Amazing. I'm like relishing in everything that you've said. I would love to chat about food before we get into the podcast because I am a trained chef. What was your last meal or drink?
Deb Driscoll (02:20):
So a couple of nights ago, my husband and I, we were tired, and so we opted for the pizza and there was a couple of pieces left. One was mine, one was his, and then this morning I said to him, so what are you going to do about that slice of pizza? His was still in the fridge. So he said, oh look, you just give it to the dog. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, that's still good. And he said, oh, you want it? And I said, yeah, I do. So I added extra roasted vegetables, extra cheese, a little bit of roasted garlic, put that in the air fryer, and I had the most delicious vegetarian add extra. It was never my slice anyway, but I got it slice of pizza for my breakfast and it was fricking delicious.
Carla Contreras (03:05):
This sounds delicious and beautiful all at the same time. And I bet it was so crispy from being in the air fryer.
Deb Driscoll (03:13):
I mean, pizza is one of those things. It's like pizza and curry. There's certain foods where it's like, how does that get better the next day? There's something about the next day that makes the flavors kind of develop or something. The pizza the next day is one of my favorite things.
Carla Contreras (03:31):
Amazing. This is a question that I've been looking forward to asking you. How do you define creativity?
Deb Driscoll (03:41):
I'm just taking a breath so I can actually find where do I want to begin? For me, creativity is like a kaleidoscope. There's so many different places that we could go, but in terms of a definition, I believe that we are spiritual beings having an earthbound experience, but I want to put the focus on the earthbound experience. We're in our human experience right now, so how do we make sense of this spiritual side of ourselves? And that's where, for me, the magic comes in. So my definition of magic is magic is the intentional direction of energy. I also believe that's creativity. We are intending to direct our energy in a particular way, and our whole lives are a co-creation between higher I am me and earth bound me. Between the universe and what's happening down here, earth realm, I think we are creating every day. You'll hear it in the magic realm, in the people who are talking about manifestation is that our world is a co-creation, like your thoughts create your reality, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I also believe that we just are innately creative and it's how we direct our intentions, what we want to bring into the world. I think it's also how we expand. It's how we bring about what we want to experience. So for me, creativity is it's primal.
Carla Contreras (05:12):
I'm curious here about your current relationship with creativity. How are you flowing with creativity right now in this moment?
Deb Driscoll (05:23):
In this moment? There are some creative projects that I wish I had more time for. My favorite form of creativity is writing. I love writing. And the other way I love to create is with either my private clients or the community of women that I work with. In the big life magic world, I create what I call magic activations or magic journeys, and I love writing them. I'm all about storytelling and narrative. And there's a book in me that I haven't had enough time to sit down and focus on channeling. There's an Oracle card deck that I have wanted to create now for a couple of years, and I feel frustrated because I want to just be in full immersion of creativity. But then at the same time, I'm a business owner and there's a lot going on. So there's, in terms of my creativity, I feel really privileged because my work means I am creating all the time.
(06:22)
An example would be next Tuesday from the day we're recording now is the full moon eclipse. So part of my creativity is designing what's going to happen at that four moon circle when the women arrive. That's a whole 60 minutes of a journey, and so I get to create that. So I'm creating constantly in my work, but I have to admit, I do have a frustrated twitch in my creativity because there's bigger projects that are wanting to come through and I just keep saying to myself, when I just finished this in my business, then I can move to that. And what I'm now realizing is you finished something in your business and the next thing's going to come on the list. The business just keeps growing. And so my desire just talking to you now, if I was really honest about it, my desire would be that I actually choose creativity to be higher on my list and find those times when I can block off the time and have a whole week where all I'm doing is writing. To me. That's delicious.
Carla Contreras (07:24):
And this comes from your journey as a storyteller. You had a business that you did that work, and you've also written a book previously. So there's this writing that is infused within your work, within your journey. And what did it look like? I'm curious of writing your book. What was the process? Because I'm going to say, how did you nourish your creativity during that time? And also what is it like to look, and I feel like you've answered this, nourishing your creativity right now. So
Deb Driscoll (08:02):
When I was writing my book, a series of surrenders, a memoir of grief, there were a few chapters to the writing of the book. So for everyone listening, a series of surrenders is my story. Through three deaths, the very first man I ever fell in love with my father and my son, and it's over 20 years. So it's a long narrative, deep dive into broken hearts and how we heal. And the first thing I did that actually nurtured my creativity and was really dynamic, I was living in New York City at the time. I went to a 10 week memoir writing class, and I went back to being the student and it was so fun and it also gave me some structure and some students to hang out with and share time with. And so I didn't just dive into writing the book. The book had been brewing in me for about five years before I actually wrote it.
(09:02)
And then it got to 2018 and I was like, this is the year I write the book. I can feel it. It's already coming out of my fingertips. And so the first thing I did is I nurtured myself as the creative. I was like, what do I need? I was like, I want to be hanging out with other writers. I want to be inspired. I want to learn some things about memoir that I don't know. And so I started there, and then interestingly after that I found that my creativity wasn't supported in New York City. The city was too loud. And memoir work is around bringing those memories out of the muscle and onto the page. And not only was New York City too loud, it also wasn't nourishing the creativity. I would be on the weekends writing in my bedroom in Brooklyn, and on the Monday night and into the Tuesday, I could feel those memories stuck on the walls of my bedroom.
(09:56)
I was like, this is not working. By the April of that year, followed literally by a dream that I had, I came to the island of Tobago where I now live, which is a different story, but I came to the island of Tobago for three weeks on my own with the intention of writing and nourishing my creativity. And I came to an island where I could sit by the sea because I wanted to soak in the water and walk the beach at the beginning and the end of my working day, my writing working day. And so that's what I did. I came here in April. I actually came back to Tobago in 2018. That was the first trip. I ended up coming back to Tobago another four times in 2018. And by the end of the year, the book was written.
Carla Contreras (10:46):
This is beautiful. I can see the whole story unfold.
Deb Driscoll (10:51):
Yeah, it was like writing my book was exquisite. There was a little bit of me that was a little bit fearful of bringing memories back up and out. And also it's a big creative project, so you get a lot of big fear, worry, doubt that comes with the excitement and the creative play. But when I was actually in it, when I deep dived into being in this long form narrative, I was like, oh, I have found my playground. And what works for me in creativity when I'm working in that way is I go deep dive. So for the three weeks that I was here, I didn't do anything else other than write the book and also fall in love with my now husband. But again, that's a different story. That's why I ended up coming back. Yes, I wanted to see my now husband. I had a crush on him, but also because I found being by the seaside, being connected to nature and having my only job being in this creative process is what supported me to write the book, which is why I feel that frustration now, Carla. It's like I want to book number two is waiting. It's like right there at the door saying, I'm waiting. You're going to come and play. And it feels like I do need to find these bigger spaces of time to just really be with the narrative.
Carla Contreras (12:13):
I'm excited to see what you create. Me too. Can we talk about creative blocks? Because this is part of the process, the blocks. It is. And you talked about New York City, and I can even see those words on the wall, and you move through them literally by moving. I'm curious about your own process, but I'm also curious because you teach other women to follow their intuition, to find their magic.
Deb Driscoll (12:47):
Yeah.
(12:48)
I'll talk about my process first and then I'll expand it out lots of different ways I work with women. But for my process, there were two key things that really supported me. And again, I'm talking about the book, but this has now become something that is constant in my creative process. I never sit to write first. I always move first. So if I know I'm going to be writing for the day, or even if it's like I may not be writing my next Substack article and love letter, it may not be the new book that I'm writing. It may be okay, the women are coming together for a full moon eclipse circle. If I'm going to write that circle or whatever I'm riding, I always begin with moving my body. For me, I live on the island of Tobago. That looks like I walk on the beach with my feet in the sand and also just letting myself float in the Caribbean sea.
(13:45)
And I allow myself to open up to what my body and my heart wants to explore and create that day. So I don't get locked in my head. I just let it be. I let it come up and out and out, up and out. I'm the woman who's got a lot of voice notes into the phone at the beach. I always go to the beach with a journal and at least two pens just in case one of them runs out. I sit on the sand and write a lot, but I don't do that. First. I allow my body to move first. If I'm not here or I don't have access to the beach for this day, or I'm in another part of the world, I'll literally roll around on a yoga mat because I believe we want to move it out through the muscle. Let the body talk.
(14:30)
Let the opening of the heart, let the inspiration that is in your mind drip down. So that's the first thing that I do, which really supports me in by the time I actually sit at the computer or sit to write in my notebook, it's already flowing. There's no block. But the second thing that I do is if I do find that the flow becomes a block, I then move again. Or if I know the moving again isn't going to do it or I get an impulse, if my intuition is saying, that's enough now that's enough. We don't need to force it or push it. What I do when I close a piece of work that I know I will be continuing is I say to my spirit, tribe, over to you, your time for editing. And I literally just let it go. I give permission for my intuition, for my spirit tribe, for the divine universe, whatever words you want to use to be working with this creation in motion.
(15:28)
So I might then be doing the dishes later that day and I'll go, oh, that's what the story's missing. Or maybe I won't get any messages and next time I go to sit down, there is a new direction in the article that I'm writing, but I'm going to say the trick for want of a better word. The trick is you've got to really let it go and give it to the divine or your intuition or higher power. Again, whatever words you want to use, I find that they're the best editor. I've come back to some pieces, Carla, where I'm just like whole paragraphs and suddenly like, delete, delete, delete. That's where I was like trying to convince someone of something or telling the same story twice just in case someone missed it or these things that we do in our creative process, which aren't necessary for the final gift that we're going to give the world. And often for me, the editing is not in the first sitting. It's after walking away and returning.
Carla Contreras (16:23):
Beautiful. And how does this translate to the women you work with?
Deb Driscoll (16:29):
I invite all women and the women I work with to embrace what's happening in their world through creative process. Because for me, creativity, magic and healing are all best friends. They work really well together because again, magic is the intentional direction of energy, and healing is a creative process. Healing wants to move. Our emotions want to move. Emotions are emotion, energy in motion. So what I do with a lot of the work I do, particularly the one-on-one work is I support people in creating spiritual scaffolding. And the scaffolding literally be what is holding this up. While we are either renovating or rebuilding something that's broken, there may be a crack or we may be adding a whole new flaw, whatever the case may be. But the spiritual scaffolding is the creative processes. It's the journaling and the journaling prompts. It's the moving, it's body activations.
(17:33)
It's working with the moon, it's working with affirmations. So many I could go on and on, but that's where for me, the healing or the transformative processes that I support women to be in the creation of for themselves. That's where creativity absolutely comes in. Say in a moon circle, whether it's a new moon or a full moon circle, sometimes there's a clear directive come with paper and pens because we're going to be drawing because sometimes we don't need it in. Let's have a discussion about that. Sometimes we want to inspire something through spirit and then let ourselves draw it. What colors do we want to use? So there's a lot of writing, drawing, dancing, moving. All of that is wrapped into my work. And often I won't say let's go now into creative process. I don't often do that. I think some people do have this, I'm creative or I'm not. I don't believe that. So I'm just going to move forward with adding the creativity. And you know what I find often, particularly if I'm doing things like the drawing, this is one of the great openers, is people reconnect to a joy they haven't connected to in a while because they get to a certain point where I'm a grownup now and I'm not supposed to be drawing with colors. Oh, I don't think so. And it's this delight. Women find this delight again in that I'm allowed. Yeah, you can create every single day of your life.
Carla Contreras (19:04):
This is incredible. I am so grateful for you sharing. Deb, can you share with us how we can find you, how we can work with you, how we can support you?
Deb Driscoll (19:15):
Thank you. Yes. I would love to connect to the magic within anybody listening, and there's a couple of key ways that you can do that. If you go to big life magic.com, you're going to see the whole multiverse there. Whether that's working with me, following me on Substack, tuning into the podcast, becoming curious about the big life magic makers, the virtual community. That's where it's all found big life magic.com. But I also want to share a gift that I have for the world. It's called Attune. It's a five day intuition activation because for me, I have a commitment to inviting as many people across the world as possible to reconnect and trust and play with their intuition. So I've created a tune and it's an audio activation. So for five days, you've got me in your ear saying, let's play this way. Now with the idea that over the five days, you will develop your trust and your listening in your intuition so that you can go on outside and play and co-create with divine you and the universe. So I will make sure those links are given to you. Carla, you have them, please, everybody tune up.
Carla Contreras (20:39):
Thanks so much for tuning in to Nourishing Creativity. You can find me Chef Carla Contreras across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. While you have your phone out, please leave a review on iTunes or Spotify. This is how others find this show. I really appreciate your support sending you and yours so much love.