THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Adina Allen: So very Old Testament Genesis about creativity and God. It says that the world was tohu, usually translated as chaos and void. So before God began to create, the world was chaos and void. And then God began to create from there. All of those elements are symbols for us. There is darkness. There is death. There’s chaos and void. This sort of like murky, unknown. And when we use that as the raw material for our creative process, we’re able to bring forth new worlds in the same way God does in the Torah, as opposed to trying to push away anything like that.
Speaker2: It’s The Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place podcast, an art World insider podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host. Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: Hey there. This is Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place. You are listening to episode number 384. Today’s guest is a national media contributor, popular speaker, and award winning educator who believes that creativity is the best tool we have for exploring, adapting, and bringing forth new ways to thrive in our ever changing world. As co-founder and Creative Director of Jewish Studio Project, she has worked with thousands of organizational and communal leaders, educators and clergy across the country to access and activate their inherent creativity. Her writing can be found in scholarly as well as mainstream publications, and she is the author of The Place of All Possibility Cultivating Creativity Through ancient Jewish wisdom. Please welcome to the Inspiration Place, Adina Allen. Well, hello, Adina, and welcome to the show.
Adina Allen: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I’m glad to be here.
Miriam Schulman: All right. So the reason I invited you is because I love how you bridge Jewish wisdom and the creative process. And so that’s where we’re going to center our conversation today. How making art can be a form of spiritual practice. Sound good?
Adina Allen: Amazing.
Miriam Schulman: All right, so first of all, starting with very Old Testament Genesis about creativity and we’ll use the G word God awesome.
Adina Allen: And invite all listeners to replace the G word God. As I say in the book, with any word that works for you. Because I know that word, just to say from the outset, has laden with so many things that we might not feel connected to or that resonate for us.
Miriam Schulman: And can I just say that even the writers of the Torah didn’t really initially intend anyway.
Adina Allen: Totally. And one of the things I love about the Torah, the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition is that there’s like hundreds of names for God. And I believe part of the work of engaging creative process as a spiritual practice is for each of us to be able to bring down and into the world the name meaning like the attributes of God, of the divine, of the creative source that are most needed in our world right now. And so even in Torah, we see countless names for God and each of the ancestors calling on specific names that they needed at specific times, and just thinking of each of us as vessels through which the new iterations of the divine name that are needed in our world today can be brought forth. So I believe that’s something open to all of us, regardless of background or tradition or, you know, belief. And so I just wanted to start by saying that. But I’ve gotten really excited about Genesis, even just like the opening couple lines of the Hebrew Bible as this incredible template for creativity for us. So maybe I could just share a couple of things from that.
Miriam Schulman: And yes.
Adina Allen: Great.
Miriam Schulman: Yes, please. Okay.
Adina Allen: And I’ll say Torah. That’s what Jewish tradition we call it. You could call it the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, whatever name you have for it. But it begins with and I’ll say the Hebrew, and then I’ll translate it. Bereshit bara elohim, so often translated as in the beginning God created. So first of all, just to say, to double click on the first verb of the Torah is create. God’s first act is to create, is to be the creative force. And a few verses later we’re told that human beings are made B’Tselem, Elohim in the divine image, and that’s used to prove all kinds of things about the worth and importance of each and every human life. And another thing I think it means, though, is that if God is creator, creative force, the creative source, and we’re made in that image, then each and every one of us are endowed with creativity simply by being human. It’s not something we have to earn. It’s not something we need to get a degree in. It’s imbued in us simply by being human beings. And I would say being in touch with our creativity is a powerful way that we access God, the divine creative source, again, whatever word we want to call that.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, I just want to pause you here because so many people think there’s some sort of art fairy that, like, makes some people talented and some not. And can you say a few things about that?
Adina Allen: Totally. And I’ll say, I feel very blessed. I got to grow up, I say, with an art studio as the biggest room in my suburban house growing up.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, like like my children did like like my children don’t. I wrote Artpreneur because I wanted every creative person to stop waiting for permission and start seeing their creativity as sacred. And if you’ve been enjoying this conversation, you’re going to love the audible version of Artpreneur. And by the way, it’s not just me reading. We’ve included clips from my podcast guests. All those voices you’ve enjoyed hearing on this show, guests like Amy Porterfield, Jennifer Kim, Michael Sheen, Jeffrey Shore, and more. And they’re each sharing their wisdom right inside the chapters, but in their own voice. Think of it as the difference between a single storyteller and a full immersive experience, like moving from reading scripture to hearing it sung out loud. And the best news is for the month of November, you can find it on sale. Go to SchulmanArt.com/audible. That’s SchulmanArt.com/audible. And now let’s get back to the show.
Adina Allen: It was really the space for. My mom isn’t Pat Allen. She’s a world leader in the field of art therapy, and I grew up with art making being offered to me just as a way that we get in touch with ourselves, that we work out challenging things in our life, that we get messy and find out what’s going on in our inner world. And so I feel really grateful to have had that. And I, I don’t think that’s something that most people get to have as a child. And so it wasn’t about like, can you make this accurate representation of this figure? Or and to say for sure, there’s like such a need for fine art skills and to be honed in a particular art form and art in the public sphere changes the way we think and feel and see things. And to engage with art materials doesn’t require a specific talent or degree. And I think so often the only way, maybe after preschool, that we’re really invited or allowed to do that is once we’re told we have like artistic aptitude. And I can’t tell you, I work with, as you read in my bio, thousands of adults around the country every year. And I ask people who was told by their third grade art teacher or whoever that they were not creative. The whole room raises their hand. My sister’s the creative one. My stuff was never hung on the wall. I was told to mouth the words in the back of choir because I don’t have a good voice. So just to name like what? Exactly what you’re saying. There’s so much creative trauma. And I think that that serves to cut us off from a deep source of power within each of us.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, a lot of people give me pushback when, when when I wrote my book Artpreneur, I said that talent really doesn’t have a lot to do with your success. And people really pushed back on it, especially when I was going on my book tour and being interviewed by Non-creatives, like, well, but I’m not creative or like, how can you say that? It’s like you got to separate skills from creativity and there’s a difference.
Adina Allen: Totally. And to say, like, there are creative skills too, that we can all access and hone, which I’m sure you know, this is a part of your work as well. Like we think a lot about, I use the phrase like taking it off the page. So if we’re working on a particular art in the studio, maybe painting, it’s like we’re painting and it’s about the painting, but it’s also about how do we take the skills of going up against a blank canvas, getting to a point, as anybody who’s ever worked with any kind of art has gotten to of like, I hate this, this sucks. And then you keep going and watch it transform, right? Staying with it, noticing what’s arising, working through that frustration, all of those things. Right. Those are things for me that come up in my work life and my parenting life and my with my in my partnership with my husband. Right. So they’re all skills, creative skills that we can develop that apply to everything. Not just making art, but making art as a way to develop those skills.
Miriam Schulman: One thing I’ve heard you be interviewed on, and I assume it’s in your book as well, is that whole idea that your mother taught you about? Did you make art about this yet? Yacht. And I think that’s an important concept for both artists and non-artists. But artists who are listening, who maybe they associate their art with just this is what they do. This is their profession. This is who they are versus using it themselves as a form of therapy, for lack of a better word, or processing their emotions.
Adina Allen: Totally. Yeah. I can just say, you know, just to use that phrase, growing up, I would come to my mom, I read about it in the book when I was like, you know, pre-teen and what should I do about this friend? Or this thing that feels like an existential, you know, issue and so upset and so beside myself. And she’d just say, well, have you made art about it yet? And as I always say, it was super frustrating. It was really annoying. I did not appreciate that question at the time, although eventually I think I would go into the studio, especially because my mom would be in there making art, not trying to get me to do a project with her, not instructing me just in there tending to her own creative fire, which then drew me towards that room and wanting to do that myself. And now that’s become the tagline of Jewish Studio Project. Have you made art about it yet? As a question for all of us, and I think we can see in a society with so much divisiveness, polarization, fear, anger, all of these things that aren’t making us really there as this powerful resource to move beyond or underneath or around the intellectual, rational mind and discover things that are exist within us that we can’t yet put words to, that we don’t yet know are there. And so I think, you know, we know about multimodal learning and all these things. We’re talking about more in society. But it’s really, like you said, for all of us, whether we consider ourselves an artist or not.
Miriam Schulman: I would love to know if you agree with this or not. I think in some ways it may be harder for people who do have a professional art form to do this as a form of therapy, because you’re too tied to the selling of it, or the kind of art you produce as an artist. And how to break free from I’m making art that needs to be monetized or sold, or part of my repertoire, part of my collection versus art I make just for me, because this is something I need to do for myself. Can you talk about that?
Adina Allen: Yeah, totally. We have so many working artists who are part of Jewish Studio Project, who I think have discovered it as being meaningful for exactly that reason, that it makes sense that you have to hone a particular form, you’re recognized for a particular thing, and you continue to reproduce that because that’s what people know you as, and that’s what sells. And like that makes sense. That’s not any shade on anyone for that. But to give ourselves as artists space where we can really just be free, play, explore, let other new ideas come to the surface, even if they’re not going to go in a museum or go in our shop or go on our website. And I would say yet right there, the seeds of maybe the next creative flowering that wants to come. And I think, you know, my art form is sermons like Jewish writing about Torah. And I have the things right about creativity or other things that I’ve like said a lot that still have meaning for me, but they’re the things people want to hear that I talk about. But when I do this Jewish studio process of text learning, art making, writing, and just letting new ideas come to the fore, I get to discover like, what else is there? Which then keeps me more alive to the work.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, I want to move our conversation back a little bit more towards the connection with ancient Jewish wisdom, because I think we went off beautifully, went off into a lot of different tangents, so we don’t consider our discussion on Genesis yet complete, I’m assuming. Right. Okay. Say more.
Adina Allen: I would love to go back to that.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, great.
Adina Allen: Okay. So we started with the first verb of Torah being create. And God is creative force. And us all, every human being being created in that image, being endowed with, we say we are all created creative. I think even just these opening lines have more to offer us. It says that the world was tohu. It’s this interesting pair of Hebrew words, which usually are translated as chaos and void. So before God began to create, the world was chaos and void. And often the interpretations are probably how most people have heard it, as there was nothing. And then God created in the world came into being. But what I actually think is more powerful is to read what the text actually says, which is there was chaos and void, darkness and this like depth of water. And then God began to create from there. And so I think all of those elements are symbols for us that exist in our own personal lives and in our collective life as a people. There is darkness, there is death, there’s chaos and void. This sort of like murky, unknown. And when we use that as the raw material for our creative process, we’re able to bring forth new worlds in the same way God does in the Torah, as opposed to trying to excise wall off, push away anything like that.
Adina Allen: So I really think all of those psychological, spiritual feelings are a resource for us. And I think the Torah gives us a template for how to interact with that. And I want to say one other thing, which is if the first verb is barra, which is to create, the second verb is mirror, which is that God flutters or hovers over those materials. And I want to lift that up to say, first of all, the only other place where that word is used in Torah is about a mother bird fluttering or hovering over her young. And so there’s something very, like, tender to me and, and sweet about it. And it, to me gives us an invitation for how we can be around our materials, that there’s a stage of just fluttering, hovering, coming into contact with, coming into energetic relationship with what’s there materially like physically but also materially like within ourselves, as we start to listen for what wants to arise, as opposed to, I think, traditional interpretations of these verses which say God came, God had a plan. God executed it step by step, imposing God’s will on these inert materials. And I think it’s much more of a dynamic co-creative process, and I love that that read is also there in the text.
Miriam Schulman: That’s beautiful. Yeah, there’s a lot of metaphor and story about how things didn’t quite go as God planned, so there is room to embrace that imperfection in even the divine creation. Okay, how do we define creativity as part of our spiritual DNA, rather than just like a fun hobby that we have?
Adina Allen: Yeah, I think that is such a disservice that’s been done to this word and to art as like I remember when we used to when we first started the organization ten years ago, and we work only with adults. And part of that was because we would set up materials, we’d have the workshop and adults would walk in and say like, oh, this must be the room to drop my kid off for Hebrew school. Like, this isn’t the room for me. Like there’s glitter, there’s color, there’s whatever. And just how sad that is. It’s creativity is the most powerful resource that we have, I think, for interacting with the world, for changing the world, for figuring out what’s going on inside ourselves. And I think to reduce it to something light, something, you know, fun. It can be fun. But as any of us know who you know, tap into our creativity on a regular basis or make art. It’s hard. It’s arduous, it’s deep, it’s profound, it’s transformative, and it shapes us into the people that we are. And so, yeah, I really am part of my life’s work, which it sounds like yours too, is like reclaiming that word and reclaiming what’s been lost as it’s been downgraded to something like, and I will say, I think there’s misogyny in that as well. Creativity in that way is often thought of like a woman thing or like a craft thing, a girls thing. And I think that all takes away from what’s truly the power of it for all of us.
Miriam Schulman: And I would argue that creativity is the number one skill you need for business. For business, even if you do not have what you consider a creative business, especially right now in the world. In the era of AI where people are having trouble adapting what creativity is, what Darwin said was not the survival of the fittest, but was the species that was most able to adapt would survive. In other words, be creative. So the businesses that are continue to thrive, 2026 and beyond are the ones who understand. Yes, the world’s changing. It’s always been changing, and it’s using that creativity to evolve in a changing world.
Adina Allen: 100% and I would say, I mean, at least from my vantage point, the way it’s also a spiritual practice, which is what we were talking about at the start, that it’s not just like, how do I adapt? And yes, keep making money, be successful, all those things. But like, how do I both tap into what is happening in the world and what’s happening within me, and where the nexus point between those two things are? Because I think that’s how a business is most successful. When we get to stay alive to the core thing that lights us up, right? And we get to bring our unique gifts to something that the world uniquely needs, and that continues to shift and change. And staying alive in a week to that is the creative process.
Miriam Schulman: If you’ve been looking to turn your creativity into a sustainable business while keeping the soul of the reason that you became an artist in the first place, you’re going to love the Artpreneur experience on audible because it’s not just a book, it’s an immersive, creative journey. In between my stories and strategies, you’ll actually hear the voices of my podcast. Guests think thought leaders like Jennifer Kim, Amy Porterfield, Michael Shane, and Jeffrey Shore. They’re each sharing their insights in their own words. It’s kind of like the difference between listening to Jim Dale or Stephen Fry read Harry Potter or stepping right into Hogwarts itself. The audible version of Artpreneur is on sale all throughout November, so go grab it at SchulmanArt.com/audible and let your next creative awakening begin. That’s SchulmanArt.com/audible. And now let’s get back to the show. Now let’s talk about holy creativity. We go through the Torah. A lot of people see it as just a book of laws and morality. So tell me how it’s it’s also a spiritual practice.
Adina Allen: Oh my gosh. Yes. And I feel, you know, just as I got to grow up in a studio, I feel grateful I got to go to rabbinical school for six years and really dive into this. And another part of my life’s mission is just making this way of relating to Torah as a creative project more available to more people, because it’s not that interesting to have something that just tells you right what to do and what the laws are. It’s like, okay, that can offer something. But like the reason I think Torah has continued to be so alive and dynamic all these years for so many people. We call it in Jewish tradition, Etz Hayim, a tree of life, a living, breathing tree. And the only way that that tree stays alive is through new input and nutrients coming into it, which I believe is all of our creative engagement with it. And I love that Jewish tradition, for those who don’t know, is a tradition that holds many different interpretations of a particular verse or even word alongside one another. So there’s a new incredible website called Sefaria that has a compendium of all traditional Jewish texts, and you can literally double click on a word and see, you know, ten different commentators across different centuries and what they’ve said about that word. And I believe that all of us, honestly, whether we’re Jewish or not, are invited into that ongoing project of creative interpretation and reinterpretation. And that’s how those words both stay alive and continue to imbue meaning into our lives. And I think that’s the biggest service that we can give to this text, is to continue to add our interpretations of how it speaks to us today. So yeah.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. So with that in mind, who would you look to as creative archetypes in the Torah? Is that a curveball question?
Adina Allen: Tell me what you like characters who are like creative.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah.
Adina Allen: Oh my gosh, so many.
Miriam Schulman: Let’s pick one.
Adina Allen: I mean, first of all, God like as a character, we talked.
Miriam Schulman: Let’s talk about the humans in the in the.
Adina Allen: Okay. But let me just say one thing about God and one which is.
Miriam Schulman: This on God, we can talk about God as much as you want.
Adina Allen: Just to say, I know we said, oh, there’s so many names. But just for listeners who don’t know, I just want to lift up two of the most important names. One is Udhav Abhay, which is for unpronounceable letters that are basically like the breath of life going in and out. And the other name, which is how God self-identifies to To Moses in the famous episode of The Burning Bush, when Moses is about to go free the people from Egypt and Moses says, who should I tell them is sending me? And God says, tell them Asher Ehyeh is sending you to them. And so that means, tell them I will be. That which I will be is sending you to them. That’s how God self-identifies as the process of becoming, as a creative process itself. And so I just want to I think that is incredible that God is not, you know, identifying there as solid rock soldier or whatever, something sturdy and solid. It’s like I am the process of change and becoming. And that is actually what’s going to take you out of this narrow, restricted place into this open, expansive place. So that’s one I think about Abraham, who God commands to go forth, leave this place, for you are your father’s house the land that you know where you were brought up and like, go into the unknown and know that you will be shown and discover what you’re meant to see as you go on that journey, but you’re not going to get to see it beforehand. So I think that’s a great invitation for us. I think about Jacob, who wrestles with the angel and who is transformed and whose name transforms from Jacob into Israel, one who literally struggles with God and is changed by that encounter in the night. So I think almost every character has a is a creative archetype for us. I’ll just add one more. Since I haven’t said any women.
Miriam Schulman: I’ve got to say, can we add a matriarch?
Adina Allen: So many. And I didn’t prepare this. But thinking about Hannah, who is longing for a child and prays to God like muttering under her breath, just like praying. Even when her husband’s like, aren’t you just fine with me? I’m here like, aren’t I enough for you? And the priests think she’s drunk, but Hannah nurtures her own spiritual creative process in connecting with God, and that’s what allows her life and her story to transform and shift. So I think all of those and literally every character, but just start with those.
Miriam Schulman: And this is I’m just going to share a very personal story. It’s kind of more for my listeners, but it’s also for you too. So my grandmother Hannah was named Hannah, and she passed away about a week before that. When we read that story in the Torah. And that’s when I. And then a few weeks later, I learned I was pregnant, and my grandmother always wanted a boy for for me, because my father, her son, passed away tragically when I was very young, when I was five and he was 30. And so not that pregnancy, but I was I had my daughter and I remember calling my grandmother and saying, it’s a girl. And she’s so wanted a boy so badly that she was like, who is this? Like, she would not believe that I was having a girl. So longer story shortened. So I became pregnant right after she passed away. And yes, I had a boy and we named him Seth Hannon. Hannon after Hannah. And, you know, while he lived in the US, he always went by Seth. But now that he lives in Israel, he goes by Hanan. So that that is my own little personal story that I wanted to share. And our meal, when I told him this story, he said, well, when somebody dies, they send an angel or a messenger to heaven. And it was like her wish. Like the story of Hannah in the Torah, who was wishing for a son. So that is my son.
Adina Allen: That is amazing. Well, I’m so glad I named Hannah. And then we got to bring him. Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: So that was just like a little, little personal story I’ve never shared before. Oh, you know what? I want to talk about the building of the tabernacle. Because that is so filled with detailed craftsmanship. Is there something that we can chat about that in terms of the importance of creativity?
Adina Allen: Yeah, a few things. So this was like the central place where God’s presence was going to be accessed, Obsessed, right? A yes, so many skilled artisans brought their crafts there so that. But everyone contributed to its construction. It was a full communal endeavor, and the text says everyone whose hearts were so willing. And so I think all of us can tap into the place within us, right? Where is our willing heart, and what can we bring and offer from that place, and that the world needs that, whatever it is.
Miriam Schulman: Um.
Adina Allen: And I just, I love that the Mishkan gives us that that beautiful phrase.
Miriam Schulman: That’s so beautiful.
Adina Allen: And I would say that it also leads to like this abundance mindset. Right at the end of that, Moses is like, okay, like enough, like we have enough stuff. Like everyone’s willing hearts brought so much that in a world that teaches us to live in such scarcity, actually, when we tap into our willing hearts and our loving hearts and what’s there, there is abundance and enough for all.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so this question now is more geared to people who do identify with the Judeo-Christian tradition, but I know there’s many people who feel intimidated by Bible stories or Torah stories. And how can creativity help make these ancient stories feel more personal and alive?
Adina Allen: Yeah, I guess I would just say the invitation to say, like the way you’ve been taught these stories, or the way dominant culture gives us these stories isn’t the only form of these stories. And that’s something, again, I feel really blessed to have gotten to go to rabbinical school and learn how to dissect Hebrew and take apart these stories, and feel empowered to add my voice. But part of my mission is to really open that charge and invitation up to everybody. Yes, there’s a version of God that is like dominant and commanding and domineering and things we might not really connect with. But there’s also other stories and other versions of God as this like co-creative, playful, exploratory. And so part of what I do in my book is try to lift up those aspects of God and tell those stories. And I would say whether I say this at the beginning of the book, but whether we quote unquote, believe in these stories or not, right. Is this how the world came to be? Is this scientifically true? Whatever they are, the stories that form so much of the foundation of our life, certainly here in America. Right. Like Adam and Eve, how women are treated or perceived, the work week based on, you know, the cycle of creation and Shabbat. Like, there’s so many things in our justice system, etc., that I think we would be well served to bring our attention to them and lift up the interpretations that feel most alive and resonant. And so that’s part of a Jewish studio project, what we’re trying to give people the skills and invitation and encouragement to do. Okay.
Miriam Schulman: All right. So this episode is dropping the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. So with gratitude in mind, there is one prayer that or it’s actually at the beginning of most prayers. This is Adonai, which translates blessed are you are our Lord, our God. That’s how we interpret. We translate it. And growing up, I always thought that we were blessing God. And now, more recently, I’ve learned that’s not actually what it means. And from the faces that you’re making, I assume you know where I’m going with this. And I’d rather you say it than me.
Adina Allen: I really.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, okay. All right. So what? And just so people know, and also, you know, I’m not. I didn’t make this up. I learned this from Rabbi David Aaron. So it’s basically when we’re saying, blessed are you. We’re not saying Bless God. God doesn’t need to be blessed. We’re saying God is abundant. And we’re recognizing the abundance of God, which God being one. All of us are God and how everything is abundant. So interpreting that differently kind of shifted my perspective. And then also within I think it’s the Amidah, the prayer that we say God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, and then also the matriarchs. What we are saying there is that everybody has a personal relationship to what we call God. Like how we started this whole podcast off with. So you can add whatever you want to that conversation.
Adina Allen: Yeah. That’s so beautiful. I think we get into this trap of this duality of like, there’s God and there’s us, and why did God let this happen? Right? I don’t think that’s a necessarily a fruitful question. I don’t believe in like a puppeteering god that’s making this happen or making that happen. I think it’s exactly as you were just so beautifully articulating it, like we each are imbued. There’s like this larger collective consciousness, energy spirit. And part of it is in each of us and it goes back to that greater, you know, spirit when we die. And so each of us are an embodiment of that. And I want to tie that into what we were just talking to about Torah and interpretation. There’s a beautiful text that says, at the moment of revelation when God appeared at Sinai, God appeared as a picture visible from all angles, and we each gazed upon it and it gazed back on each of us. So first of all, I love that it has this like art element in it, but also to say, right, just to stay with that image for a moment, each of us gazed upon it. So we each have our particular vantage point, every single person. And that vantage point is true, and it is powerful and it is needed. And it’s only one vantage point of right. We need every vantage point around that whole image to get the full picture. And so I think that lifts up both how each of us are needed and how we all need each other.
Miriam Schulman: So beautiful. And any last words about gratefulness that we can close this podcast with seeing that we are in the time of Thanksgiving here in the US.
Adina Allen: Yeah, I’ll say a couple things I was thinking about. One is often gratitude feels like this thing that we’re like, we’re commanded to feel. Sometimes I feel like resentful, right? It’s like, be grateful. Just be grateful. It’s not that hard. Be grateful. And then your life will change and you’ll be happy. And you’re not saying this. I’m just. I think that’s a message in society often, like, gratitude is hard and life is hard. I’m sure many listeners are going through very difficult things. We all always are in our lives. Yes. And so maybe just going back to an invitation around creative process of letting you know, I say the page can hold it all, but whatever medium you feel comfortable or able or invited to work in to really let it hold whatever emotions you’re experiencing. And I think once we allow those to be fully expressed and felt, gratitude comes naturally and fills us. We feel reconnected to ourselves. There’s not something blocking that energetic flow anymore. So I think rather than just cultivate gratitude, I think it’s like tend to the real emotions that are there, befriend them, give them space, and then they, you know, eventually will transform to gratitude and love and all the things we want to feel. So that’s one thing. And just to say, I think that feels even more heightened around the holidays, which I think sort of start intensely with Thanksgiving and go all the way through. Right. We feel lost more during the holidays, distance from family, sometimes all those things. So just acknowledging that and inviting people to make space for that. And the other thing I think a lot about is like hosting at this time, a lot of us are hosting and being hosted and thinking about as generous and gregarious and welcoming as we are to host, to think about, like ourselves as hosting emotions and hosting feelings and being that opening and welcoming to our own self and our own emotions.
Miriam Schulman: Beautiful. All right, so if you like what Adina had to say today, you must check out her book, The Place of All Possibility Cultivating Creativity through Ancient Jewish Wisdom. We’ll make sure we’ve linked the book for you in our show notes. Adina, do you have any last words for our audience today before we call this complete.
Adina Allen: I would just say this was a lovely conversation and we do a free monthly program. If anyone ever wants to join online and just practice this form of art making that I’ve been talking about, we would love to have you and just so lovely to talk to you today.
Miriam Schulman: We will link to that in the show notes as well. This is episode number 384. All right. Thank you so much, my friend, for joining me here today. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Until then, stay inspired. Bye for now.
Speaker2: Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook, at Facebook.com/SchulmanArt, on Instagram at @SchulmanArt and of course on SchulmanArt.com.
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