Follow Your Curiosity: You didn’t lose your creative spark. You were taught to leave it behind.

Have you ever looked at your life and realized that while everything is functional on paper, you aren't actually present for it?

Welcome to Reports from the Creative Closet! In this dispatch, I'm sharing one of the biggest reasons we feel so drained: we've built a system that treats human beings like machines, and then we do it to ourselves all over again when we get home.

If you are tired of living on autopilot, running on a hamster wheel, and scrolling your evening away because you have nothing left in the tank, this episode is your invitation to step off the track and choose aliveness instead.

In this episode, I discuss:

• The Hamster Wheel Trap: How selling our time for a paycheck can turn us into appliances on a hamster wheel and make us afraid to express agency.
• How "Shoulds" Contaminate Your Life: What a wild animal can teach us about breaking free from guilt and reclaiming how you actually live.
• The Efficiency Trap: Why fitting 20 pounds of tasks into a 1-pound bag is a great skill in moderation, but a disaster for your energy.
• Metal, Glass, and Real Life: Why screens are a simulacrum of connection and how to get back to real human presence.
• My Restorative Creativity Framework™: Why making messy, pointless things for the sheer joy of it is the fastest path back to feeling human.
• The Liam Neeson Warning: How to use the Daily Credit Report and Bingo Card as reminders of what you've done, without letting your inner critic turn them into productivity weapons.

Chapters:

0:00 - Waking up feeling like a machine

3:26 - The hamster wheel and the carpet track

6:47 - How "shoulds" contaminate your life

9:18 - The efficiency trap: Fitting 20 pounds into a 1-pound bag

13:41 - Creativity as the fastest path back to feeling human

18:00 - The Credit Report, Bingo Cards, and the Liam Neeson rule

I’m Nancy Norbeck, your Messy Muse Mentor. I specialize in using creativity to reconnect people with themselves, so you can make room for things that interest and delight you and feel like you’re actually alive again.

Get Your Takeaways and Join the Community:

• Grab your free printable Daily Credit Report and Bingo Card here.
• Have a question for the Curiosity Clinic? Submit it here. 
• Send your inner critic to summer camp for an hour: Join the Creativity Circle here. 
• Catch up on earlier Reports from the Creative Closet here.

What if you didn't actually lose your childhood imagination, but simply stopped giving yourself permission to use it?

Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity! In this episode, I'm joined by Haitian-born poet, educator, publisher, and cultural curator Enzo Silon Surin. Enzo is the author of American Scapegoat and When My Body Was a Clenched Fist, the founder of Central Square Press, and an instructor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Together, we explore why adults tend to define their creativity away, how modern technology tricks us into consuming other people's lives instead of living our own, and how viewing the world through a "poetic lens" can transform the way we ask questions.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Dentist Chair Epiphany: Why adults do not lose their imagination, and how we confuse adult responsibility with a lack of creative spark.
• Consuming vs. Creating: Why we spend hours watching people on screens when we could be having real-world experiences ourselves.
• The Virtual World Shift: How algorithms and social media comment sections simulate connection while distancing us from reality.
• Tricking the Inner Critic: Why intentionally making "bad art" bypasses perfectionism and opens the door to genuine play.
• The Ultimate Reward: How sharing authentic, imperfect creative work helps others feel seen and understood.

Episode breakdown:

0:00 - Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity

1:41 - Making kites in Haiti and childhood creativity

3:45 - The dentist debate: Do adults really lose their imagination?

13:58 - Consuming vs. creating: Why we watch others on screens

26:03 - Is technology warping our sense of reality?

37:35 - Poetry as a lens to ask deeper questions

45:29 - Writing "bad" art to trick your inner critic

51:03 - The real reward of art: Helping people feel seen

I’m Nancy Norbeck, your Messy Muse Mentor. I help people feel alive again through curiosity and play.

Get Your Takeaways and Join the Community:

• Send your inner critic to summer camp for an hour: Join the Creativity Circle
• Learn more about Enzo Silon Surin and his work in the show notes!

Want more? Here are handy playlists with all my previous interviews with guests in writing.

Check out the full show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join us for the Follow Your Curiosity Creativity Circle.

Please leave a review for this episode—it’s really easy and will only take a minute, and it really helps me reach new listeners. Thanks!

If you enjoyed our conversation, I hope you’ll share it with a friend.

What is the one decision, pitch, or ticket you’ve been putting off because you’re terrified of what might happen—or what might not?

Welcome to Curiosity Clinic: Proceed at Your Own Risk!

When I set up this series, it never occurred to me that anyone would ask a question about my life. But listener Michael sent in a big one: "What's one curiosity you followed that ended up changing the direction of your life?"

Telling this story turned out to be surprisingly hard. After attempts to write it down this summer, and to record it for the Clinic, ended up being a complete disaster, I decided to practice what I preach: I gave myself permission to do it badly, messy and imperfect.

It’s the story of how a curiosity that started in 2012 with actor Sam Neill’s Twitter account eventually led me to spend $1,500 on an event ticket for the chance to meet him—and from there to New Zealand, some unexpected Doctor Who convention encounters, and, eventually, the creation of Follow Your Curiosity. If you stay with me until the end, it might just give you the nudge you need to change your life, too.

This episode is an invitation to look at the risks you’ve been talking yourself out of and the tickets you haven't bought yet.

I’m Nancy Norbeck, your Messy Muse Mentor. I help people feel alive again through curiosity and play.

Episode breakdown:

0:00 — Welcome to the Curiosity Clinic
0:16 — Michael asks a question I wasn’t expecting
5:32 — The $1,500 ticket and a ridiculous chance
8:17 — Why I decided to go alone
18:43 — The trip to New Zealand
25:58 — The shower thought that became a podcast
29:07 — Asking a completely ridiculous question
31:45 — When “no” became easier to hear
39:45 — Buy the ticket. Send the pitch. Don’t wait.

Get Your Clinic Takeaways:

• Grab your free printable Credit Report and Bingo Card here.
• Submit your own question to the Clinic.

Have you ever stood in the middle of a room full of cardboard packing boxes, felt completely paralyzed by the sheer volume of stuff, and realized you needed a way to bypass the dread?

 

Welcome to the very first actual episode of the Curiosity Clinic: Proceed at Your Own Risk! This is a brand-new, low-pressure playground built for perfectionists who want to take a break from performative adulthood and embrace some nonsense and play.

 

First, a quick warning: I have absolutely zero scientific, behavioral, or traffic-safety credentials. I am a master creativity coach taking my very best human guesses at your questions, so please do not go betting anyone or testing these theories out on a busy street!

In this inaugural clinical dispatch, we diagnose two excellent inquiries from our first "patients":

1. Lin wants to know how to make the exhausting, daunting task of packing up, moving, and unpacking an entire house actually fun.
2. Suzanne wants to know why drivers refuse to stop for pedestrians in unmarked crosswalks when they’re headed toward a red light anyway.

For Lin's moving question, we look at how to bypass resistance and make a heavy chore feel lighter using some of my favorite creative coaching tools. For Suzanne's traffic question, I step back from professional coaching to offer my amateur, observational human guess on driver behavior.

 

Get Your Clinic Takeaways:

• Grab your free printable Credit Report and Customizable Bingo Card here.
• Submit your own weird, confusing, or absurd question to the clinic here.

 

I’m Nancy Norbeck, your Messy Muse Mentor. I help people feel alive again through curiosity and play.

Have you ever shared a creative project that you felt really good about, only to have someone else's casual criticism completely crush your joy and send you into a downward spiral?

 

In this week's Report from the Creative Closet, I’m sharing a heartbreaking online post that has been on my mind all week. It’s from a grown man who tried music production, had fun, and loved his first creation—until a friend's feedback convinced him he was terrible, leading him to believe that artists are "cowards and liars" who rely on genetic destiny rather than hard work.

We unpack this painful situation to look at how adult expectations act as a form of creative amputation, slicing us away from our own souls. I share why your creative practice requires you to protect your quiet "Jiminy Cricket" voice from the loudspeakers of external critics, why the Restorative Creativity Framework(TM) is designed to bring those dormant parts of you back to life, and why the Fifth Doctor’s "Brave heart" rule is the ultimate key to giving yourself permission to create badly.

 

I’m Nancy Norbeck, and I’m your Messy Muse Mentor. I help people feel alive again through curiosity and play.

 

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Zombie Effect: Why society's rejection of adult play cuts us off from the external animal form of our souls.
• Jiminy Cricket vs. The Loudspeaker: How to keep external critiques from overriding your personal data and enjoyment.
• The Myth of Genetics: Why assuming creativity is a magical, effortless gift leads directly to despair, and how to embrace the slow process of learning.
• The Toddler's Rage to Master: Why toddlers fall flat on their faces, laugh, and try again, and why adults lose the patience to do the same.
• Mark Cuban's AI Mistake: Why iterating instantly with technology destroys the entire psychological benefit of the creative journey.

Ready to send your inner critic to summer camp for an hour? We get together once a month for a relaxed, co-working-style session where you can work on whatever you want—without any pressure to do it "right." Join the Creativity Circle.

 

Episode breakdown:

 

0:00 Welcome to the Creative Closet

0:07 The heartbreak of suppressed creativity

2:30 Creative Amputation (Are we zombies?)

5:21 When critics kill your joy

10:58 The "genetic" creative myth

12:50 How to fall and laugh like a toddler

19:34 Why Mark Cuban is wrong about AI

21:42 Reconnecting with your aliveness

 

Please note: The original Reddit post isn’t linked because I don’t want to direct traffic toward the person who wrote it or encourage anyone to contact or harass them. Please don’t try to track them down.

Consider this your official invitation to exit performative adulthood for a few minutes and play in the sandbox of the unknown. This brand-new series is a low-pressure space for the weird, confusing, and delightfully trivial questions that pop into your head when you're supposed to be doing something else.

 

Episodes will release here and on YouTube as time and interest allow.

 

What’s your weirdest question? Send it my way and let's tackle it together!

 

Curiosity Clinic is entertainment and conversation, not professional medical, legal, financial, or other professional advice. I reserve the right to decide which questions I answer.

Have you ever faced a moment where your life was brought to a complete halt, and you realized you needed something deeper than distractions to survive?

 

This week, my guest is documentary photographer and artist Nathalie Latham, whose life took a dramatic turn when she was diagnosed with stage-three cancer at age 39. Nathalie joins me to share her extraordinary story of how she used oil pastels and drawings as a literal confirmation of life during eight days of intensive, round-the-clock radiation.

 

We talk about the magic of growing up in a musical family, the power of having just one adult who understands you as a child, and the silent pressure of the "safe" career path. Nathalie also shares why it took fourteen years before she could bear to look at her radiation drawings again, and how she now infuses her mantra practice into drawings of prayers for peace.

 

It's an invitation to stop overthinking your creative expression and start treating your creative practice as a vital act of self-connection.

 

I’m Nancy Norbeck, and I’m your Messy Muse Mentor. I help people feel alive again through curiosity and play.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Power of One Person: Why having just one teacher stand up for your creativity can change the trajectory of your life.
• The Safety Tangent: Why we often choose the responsible path to please our families, and how we eventually find our way back home.
• Art Store Radiation: Why Nathalie packed a box of art supplies for her cancer treatment room and how drawing became her proof of life.
• Befriending the Trauma: The slow, patient process of healing and learning to find wisdom in our most difficult experiences.
• Prayers for Peace: How to combine spiritual practice with your creative practice to create a landscape of inner calm.

Ready to send your inner critic to summer camp for an hour? We get together once a month for a relaxed, co-working-style session where you can work on whatever you want—without any pressure to do it "right." Join the Creativity Circle.

 

Episode breakdown:

 

0:00 Introduction

1:21 Growing up in a musical family

5:12 Finding sanctuary in the art room

11:50 Choosing a "safe" career path

18:14 Following curiosity to filmmaking

21:11 Art supplies in the radiation room

32:40 Facing the trauma of the drawings

40:09 Infusing mantra and peace into art

42:05 How traveling shifts your perspective

 

Want more? Here are handy playlists with all my previous interviews with guests in visual arts.

Check out the full show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join us for the Follow Your Curiosity Creativity Circle.

Please leave a review for this episode—it’s really easy and will only take a minute, and it really helps me reach new listeners. Thanks!

If you enjoyed our conversation, I hope you’ll share it with a friend.

Have you ever looked at your life and realized that while everything is "okay" on paper, you feel like you're speaking a completely different language than everyone around you?

 

In this week's Report from the Creative Closet, we’re looking at what happens when we challenge our idea of what "normal" is. From the culture shock of a Doctor Who convention to growing up in a family that didn't understand the things I loved, we talk about why normal is a matter of perception, not a fixed rule. I discuss why your creative practice thrives when you find people who finally understand you, and how my Restorative Creativity Framework helps you rediscover the real you hidden under the "shoulds" of adulthood.

 

It’s an invitation to stop performing for the sake of being "good enough" and start returning to the creative capacity you were born with.

 

I’m Nancy Norbeck, and I’m your Messy Muse Mentor. I help people feel alive again through curiosity and play.

 

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Relative Normal: Why the definition of "normal" changes depending on where you stand.
• The Power of Recognition: Why being with people who understand your "geeky" interests is a fundamental human need.
• Masking vs. Truth: How to know who you are under the layers of cultural expectations and performance reviews.
• Returning to Self: Why the things we love are the signals that tell us who we really are.

Ready to send your inner critic to summer camp for an hour? We get together once a month for a relaxed, co-working-style session where you can work on whatever you want—without any pressure to do it "right." Join the Creativity Circle.

What if the very thing you're trying to avoid—making a mistake—was actually the signal that it was finally time to rest?

 

In this week's conversation, I'm talking with artist Jackie Haynes. We talk about why the rigid discipline of adulthood often makes us fear the very "rinsing" of our skills that leads to new growth. From her more than seventeen years building an indestructible costume business in Manchester to her "handbrake turn" into a PhD in experimental art, Jackie shares why making mistakes is a fundamental part of the creative medicine we all need.

 

It’s an invitation to stop overthinking your way to a creative solution and start finding the creative oxygen that lets you breathe again.

 

I’m Nancy Norbeck, and I’m your Messy Muse Mentor. I help people feel alive again through curiosity and play.

 

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Mistake Rule: Why Jackie only allowed herself to stop working once she messed up—and how it saved her from burnout.
• The Handbrake Turn: Why closing a successful business to pursue art was an act of self-trust, not failure.
• Merz Pies: How Jackie uses local landscapes and found objects to tell stories through experimental art.
• The Power of Play: Why Jackie’s 800-costume inventory is now a hands-on archive for community research and curiosity.

Ready to send your inner critic to summer camp for an hour? We get together once a month for a relaxed, co-working-style session where you can work on whatever you want—without any pressure to do it "right." We send the shoulds and inner critics off to summer camp where they're kept busy rather than getting in our way. Join the Creativity Circle. 

 

Episode breakdown:

 

0:00 Introduction

1:33 A Creative Kid & The Orange Elephants

4:11 The "Mistake Rule": Working until it breaks

6:40 Starting the Costume Business in Pre-Digital Manchester

11:31 The Yellow Pages Advantage

15:24 Building an Indestructible Inventory

25:54 Digital Revolution vs. Accidental Discovery

33:38 The Handbrake Turn: Closing the Shop for an MA

38:54 What is an Art Practice-Based PhD?

45:41 Merz Pies and the Spirit of Kurt Schwitters

55:09 Making the Examiners Work for It (The Humor Section)

1:03:57 The Costumes as a Community Resource

 

Want more? Here are handy playlists with all my previous interviews with guests in visual arts.

Check out the full show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join us for the Follow Your Curiosity Creativity Circle.

Please leave a review for this episode—it’s really easy and will only take a minute, and it really helps me reach new listeners. Thanks!

If you enjoyed our conversation, I hope you’ll share it with a friend.

Have you ever tried to force yourself into a new habit through sheer willpower, only to end up exhausted and paralyzed a week later?

 

In this week's Report from the Creative Closet, I'm exploring the High Expectations Trap. We talk about the deep-seated cultural belief that change only happens through hard work and discipline—and how that belief actually triggers our internal surveillance system to shut us down. From the "Puritanical Trap" of the American work ethic to the reason we need to stop treating our lives like a performance review, we look at how to rebuild trust through permission and play.

 

It’s an invitation to stop overthinking your way to a "better version" of yourself and start returning to the creative capacity you were born with.

I’m Nancy Norbeck, and I’m your Messy Muse Mentor. I help people feel alive again through curiosity and play.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Discipline Fallacy: Why high pressure is actually the enemy of the pursuit of excellence.
• Internal Surveillance: Why your inner critic needs a vacation to a local summer camp ropes course.
• Restorative CreativityTM: How to trade "Transformation Theater" for a genuine return to yourself.
• The Luke Skywalker Principle: Why the biggest changes always start with tiny, quiet experiments.

Ready to send your inner critic to summer camp for an hour? We get together once a month for a relaxed, co-working-style session where you can work on whatever you want—without any pressure to do it "right." We send the shoulds and inner critics off to summer camp where they're kept busy rather than getting in our way. Join the Creativity Circle.