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You didn’t lose your creative spark. You were taught to leave it behind.
Follow Your Curiosity is a podcast about creativity, curiosity, and what helps us remain fully human in a world that would often prefer us productive, predictable, and disconnected from ourselves.
I’m creativity expert Nancy Norbeck. I created the Restorative Creativity Framework™ and am the creator and host of Follow Your Curiosity.
Every other week, I have in-depth, unscripted conversations with creative people from all walks of life. We talk about how they found their way into their work, what shaped them, the detours they never expected, and what they’ve learned about living a creative life.
On alternating weeks, I share Reports from the Creative Closet: solo episodes about perfectionism, people-pleasing, creative disconnection, curiosity, agency, and what can happen when you stop trying to do adulthood correctly and start listening to yourself again. Some explore the ideas behind the Restorative Creativity Framework™, including its six interconnected areas of practice: Humanity, Integrity, Play, Reconnection, Presence, and Community.
You don’t need to be an artist, and you don’t need another project to complete perfectly. You only need a little curiosity about what might make you feel more like yourself.
Start wherever your curiosity takes you.
Episodes
23 hours ago
23 hours ago
24 min
Have you ever sat down to read a book, watch a show, or make something you really wanted to make, only to find that 83 other things are competing for your attention?
Welcome to Reports from the Creative Closet! In this dispatch, I explore Presence, the fourth area of practice in my Restorative Creativity Framework™. Between our phones, our responsibilities, and the feeling that we have to squeeze something productive into every spare minute, how often do we actually notice the world around us?
From sunlight through a pine tree to the scent of lavender in New Zealand, I'm exploring what happens when we pay attention—and how creativity can help bring us back to ourselves. We'll also look at alternatives to traditional meditation and some extraordinary words from pianist and educator Karl Paulnack about the power of art to sustain us through difficult times.
In this episode, I discuss:
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The Things We Stop Noticing: What might we discover if we stopped trying to fill every moment and paid attention to what's around us?
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Presence Without Perfect Concentration: How can photography, coloring, and other creative activities help us be present, even when traditional meditation is difficult?
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Art, Presence, and Being Human: What can Karl Paulnack's words about art and survival teach us about creativity's power to sustain us?
Chapters:
0:00 - Why is it so hard to pay attention?
3:47 - What happens when we start noticing?
8:59 - Seeing the world through a camera
12:50 - Meditation, coloring, and finding your own way
16:11 - Karl Paulnack and the power of art
20:40 - What sustains us when the world is difficult
I'm Nancy Norbeck, your Messy Muse Mentor and creator of the Restorative Creativity Framework™. 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:
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Read Karl Paulnack's extraordinary address about the power of art and music.
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Have a question for the Curiosity Clinic? Submit it here.
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Grab your free printable Daily Credit Report and Bingo Card here.
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Send your inner critic to summer camp for an hour: Join the Creativity Circle here.
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Catch up on earlier Reports from the Creative Closet here.
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