This week on Honestly, Dear Listener, we’re talking about this American life—not the podcast—what it means to be an American (and ALL the things that come with it) AND make art. When we feel so bogged down by paying bills and managing households and businesses and remembering to schedule dentist appointments, etc., our creativity often takes the back burner or doesn’t get done altogether. When we’re overwhelmed, making things can feel like just another bullet point on a To Do list.

What if our art was something that nurtured us, giving us energy instead of draining us?

References:

• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, book by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, book by Yuval Noah Harari
• The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, book by Julia Cameron

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
0:59 - Emily’s 40th birthday!
7:20 - Age as a self-fulfilling prophecy
9:00 - Carrie’s CO trip/RESET
12:49 - This American life - how can we do it all?
16:28 - Parenting
26:15 - But seriously. How do we have time for art when there’s so much we have to do?
30:49 - Taking care for our bodies
32:48 - Where does art fit in?
38:32 - Art as our safe place
44:38 - Art as a friend
47:00 - The Artist’s Way the CLASS is coming soon!

Hosts: Emily Hatch and Carrie Schaeffer
Instagram: @honestlydearlistener
Youtube: youtube.com/@honestlydearlistener

This week on Honestly, Dear Listener, we’re talking about passion versus paycheck—and which one makes us a “real artist.” Join us as we question the glorification of “original” art, the discomfort of financial dependence on one's art, and the ultimate pursuit of joy and self-expression in creativity. Whether we’re working on our own art, teaching, or helping someone else on theirs, we believe nothing in creativity is wasted and every step—no matter how frustrating—matters.

References:

• “40: How Do You Know You’ve ‘Made It?’ 07.05.24” - Honestly, Dear Listener podcast episode

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
0:32 - The dream of making a living doing art
1:47 - Our histories of making money helping with other people’s art
6:46 - The car analogy
11:12 - THE question
15:21 - Financial pressure on our art
23:33 - When commercial success sucks/are we living the dream now (before commercial success)?
28:05 - Doing the thing for joy and delight
32:40 - It’s bigger than binary thinking
35:22 - Making things is hard for everyone!

Hosts: Emily Hatch and Carrie Schaeffer
Instagram: @honestlydearlistener
Youtube: youtube.com/@honestlydearlistener

This week on Honestly, Dear Listener, we’re talking about AGEING. Let’s face it: We live in a culture obsessed with youth and beauty (and conflating the two). For so many of us, the message is, “If you’re over 40, you might as well get used to the slow, slippery slide into obscurity.” Well, we won’t go quietly into that night and neither should you, Dear Listener. We have the choice to reprogram our brains—to flip our stories to make creating in every decade better than the last.

References:

• Girls5Eva - TV Show on Peacock
• “The Rite of Legacy” - art by Kinsey Aleksi
• We Can Do Hard Things - podcast by Glennon Doyle

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
0:34 - When did looking good feel effortless?
3:06 - Aesthetic range
7:11 - Our beauty backgrounds
9:21 - How we look is the least interesting part about me
10:17 - Attraction and sex
20:08 - Drop the game, make the art
22:53 - Female archetypes
25:51 - Insecurity and culture
26:22 - You can’t be old
27:02 - Reprogramming ourselves
31:50 - Fear of aged women
38:39 - We can choose the stories we tell ourselves
41:16 - “I want to be more curious about where my face is headed.”
42:49 - Our bodies are tools to make art, not the art itself

Hosts: Emily Hatch and Carrie Schaeffer
Instagram: @honestlydearlistener
Youtube: youtube.com/@honestlydearlistener

This week on Honestly, Dear Listener, we’re delving into the universal topic of burnout. We’ll explore the cyclical and seasonal nature of life and the relentless pressure to stay productive in our capitalistic society. We’ll discuss strategies like creating flexible schedules for those UN-ideal days and how listening to the wisdom of our bodies can be the very thing that leads us out of burnout.

We’ll also talk about how finding bugs is kind of like grooming oneself and how Emily is a friend of insects everywhere.

References:

• Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle - book by Emily Nagoski, PhD and Amelia Nagoski, DMA
• Carrie’s Substack: Follow her!
• “How to Write Consistently on a Daily Basis (Without Burning Out)” - Substack post by Lea Bardot of Write. Grow. Monetize.

TIMECODES
0:00 - Intro
0:30 - Carrie eats bugs
3:19 - Emily is friends with bugs
10:05 - Let’s talk about burnout
11:04 - Emily’s relationship with burnout
12:16 - Carrie’s burnout life
14:52 - Cycles in nature
15:19 - Pushing ourselves
20:02 - Too high expectations for ourselves
21:57 - Ignoring our bodies
30:11 - Creating our Ideal Schedule Menu
35:50 - Trusting the wisdom of our bodies
40:24 - We almost always have more options than we think - CHOICE!
41:50 - Burnout when you work full time for someone else

Hosts: Emily Hatch and Carrie Schaeffer
Instagram: @honestlydearlistener
Youtube: youtube.com/@honestlydearlistener

Hosts: Emily Hatch and Carrie Schaeffer
Instagram: @honestlydearlistener
Youtube: youtube.com/@honestlydearlistener

This week on Honestly, Dear Listener, we take a deep dive into the artist’s superpower: sensitivity. We discuss our personal struggles with criticism and the delicate balance of caring about others’ opinions while protecting our creative spirit. We also talk about how our sensitivity is like a knob that we can turn up and down depending on the situation and that, by strengthening that muscle, we give ourselves many more options than we originally thought we had.

We also discuss the New York City subway system and how it’s both confusing and charming.

Resources:

• The Best of Me - book by David Sedaris
• Signs of a Psychopath - television show on MAX (formerly HBO)
• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear - book by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Highly Sensitive Person - book by Dr. Elaine Aron
  • Are You Highly Sensitive Self test

TIMECODES

0:00 Intro
0:33 No Period Club
3:00 Train story
10:57 We need to be around people
12:34 Everybody’s a baby
15:48 Sensitivity
18:27 Sensitivity and patriarchy
21:12 How sensitivity is great
26:52 Empathy/Treasure hunt
31:15 Turning down our sensitivity knob
47:10 Guarding/protecting our sensitivity
49:47 The mountain Carrie’s willing to die on

Hosts: Emily Hatch and Carrie Schaeffer
Instagram: @honestlydearlistener
Youtube: youtube.com/@honestlydearlistener

This week on Honestly, Dear Listener, we’re talking about self-promotion and why it’s so easy to promote others, but it’s so hard when it comes to ourselves. We wade into the all-too-loaded worded “bragging”<—what is it and how can we transcend the word to get to what we really mean underneath: the desire to share our creation babies with the world.

We also discuss what Carrie is up to now that she’s 40 years-old including her commitment to writing every day. Finally, we reflect on the word “goulash.”

References:

• Carrie’s Substack // Follow Carrie’s Writing Here —> carrieschaeffer.substack.com
• “Licking Ourselves Up Off the Floor” - an original poem by Carrie Schaeffer
• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, book by Elizabeth Gilbert

TIMECODES
0:00 - Introduction
0:39 - Internet Woes
4:13 - Carrie is 40
7:15 - Looking back on decades
9:46 - Carrie’s poem - “Licking Ourselves Up Off the Floor”
13:57 - We’re back
15:03 - Putting ourselves out there
20:50 - Bragging
26:23 - Christianity and Humility
40:50 - Competitive Bragging vs. Joyful Sharing
52:17 - What do we do?
55:24 - What is goulash?

Hosts: Emily Hatch and Carrie Schaeffer
Instagram: @honestlydearlistener
Youtube: youtube.com/@honestlydearlistener

This week, we have a treat, but first, a little history:

I (Carrie) first started the Honestly, Dear Listener podcast all the way back in 2014—things were a little different back then. The show ran for two seasons, each episode was shorter (about 15-20 minutes in length), and it was more produced and way more edited than the longer form conversations Emily and I have today on the podcast. The focus was much the same as it is today—I would interview artists on what it’s like being a creative, and we talked a lot about mindset and process. I did the show for 2014 and again in 2016, and then I had two little boys, life sped up to mach crazy, and I took a big fat break.

Then, fast forward literally a decade, and Emily and I were having these weekly conversations on Zoom about the exact same stuff you hear us talk about on the podcast today, and she casually mentioned that she was thinking it would be cool to start a podcast, and I was like—well, I already have one, and it’s all set up and ready to go if you want to be my co-host! She said yes, and we together, we launched the 2023 reboot - also known as Season 3 of the Honestly, Dear Listener podcast.

So today, we’re re-airing episode 2 from of Season 1 (first aired 4.18.14) where I’m interviewing my very first guest I ever had on the podcast which is none other than the current co-host of Honestly Dear Listener—Emily Hatch!

We hope you enjoy, Dear Listener!

We all have at least one boulder in our lives.
The people who are where we wish we could be.
And these boulders seem to sit right in the middle of our path, blocking our way to success.

This week, we interview soul singer and long-time friend (see picture below!) Miss Emily about insecurity, fear, and transforming the people who intimidate us into people who inspire us.

Music:

• "Sneaky Snitch" & "Fun in a Bottle" by Kevin McLeod
• "Lady Marmalade" by Bob Crewe & Kenny Nolan
  Performed by Miss Emily, Steve Williams, John Schultz, Fernie Garcia, & Bill Moody
• "Sweet Sunlight" by Miss Emily
• "Holiness" by Scott Carl Underwood

Hosts: Emily Hatch and Carrie Schaeffer
Instagram: @honestlydearlistener
Youtube: youtube.com/@honestlydearlistener