This episode of the Juicy Podcast finds us caught in a creative whirlwind, where ideas flow as unpredictably as a river in spring.
Our musings take us through the wild dance of the creative process, highlighting the twists and turns that lead to unexpected discoveries and the importance of making room for the unknown. We navigate the liberating notion that creativity isn't just about what gets shared, but also what gets to play freely in the sandbox of our minds.
We also explore our vision of a world where education cherishes the unique flames of interest in every child, sharing heartfelt stories of individual transformation. And as we tiptoe through the minefield of the modern education system, we dare to dream of spaces where children are celebrated for their authentic selves.
Strap in people, it's quite the ride!
We love hearing from our listeners. You can email us at juicypodcastHQ@gmail.com.
Follow us on Instagram @juicypodcast.
Olivia @olivialaraowen
Lola @lola.fayemi
This episode of the Juicy Podcast finds us caught in a creative whirlwind, where ideas flow as unpredictably as a river in spring.
Our musings take us through the wild dance of the creative process, highlighting the twists and turns that lead to unexpected discoveries and the importance of making room for the unknown. We navigate the liberating notion that creativity isn't just about what gets shared, but also what gets to play freely in the sandbox of our minds.
We also explore our vision of a world where education cherishes the unique flames of interest in every child, sharing heartfelt stories of individual transformation. And as we tiptoe through the minefield of the modern education system, we dare to dream of spaces where children are celebrated for their authentic selves.
Strap in people, it's quite the ride!
We love hearing from our listeners. You can email us at juicypodcastHQ@gmail.com.
Follow us on Instagram @juicypodcast.
Olivia @olivialaraowen
Lola @lola.fayemi
Hello friends, welcome back. It is Live. Here we are hearing up for our next episodes and it's all systems chaos over here. We're in the kind of fits of giggles and you know, creative chaos. And here we are, back in the recording seat and we have a new topic today and we want to explore creativity and the creative process, and our process this morning has been total chaos. A lot of joy and it's taken us a lot to get back in the seat, but here we are. Hello, lela yeah.
Speaker 2:Oi, oi, oh my god. Yeah, like Liv said, everything Liv said, oh my good, I'm a little dramatic today for Nigerian dramatic anti-modes. It's in full effect, nothing's going on. But I'm like oh, oh, oh my god, and um, yeah, I mean there's a part of me that wants to go, apologies for whatever happens today. But actually that's not real, that part's not real, so I'm not going to do that. That part is the crappy suppressed. You know that bit that suppresses women into fucking little tiny little dry arse shapes. No dry arse shapes going on here. People today, just I think I reckon expect some randomness. I'm feeling hella random today. Add some coffee, anyway, I'm just gonna. Adhd is in full effect today, so that's what it is, babe.
Speaker 1:I'm feeling like I've got a big smile on my face. I feel like this is gonna be fun. I feel like I'm up for some fun. Um, joy.
Speaker 2:It's probably perfect actually, for talking about the creative process in all fairness, because my creative process is pretty fucking random and chaotic and out of it comes pure beauty. So maybe that's what's going to happen here today.
Speaker 1:Well, when I was thinking earlier about this you know, sort of in contemplation this morning before we start recording like creativity is just for me, one of life's great joys. It is so, so valuable and I know that it's such a valuable part of my life and I know that it's such a valuable part of our relationship is something that we talk about all the time. I think we inspire each other a lot in this area. You certainly inspire me deeply in this area. So when I think about creativity and the creative process, I think about a life filled with a lot of joy and passion and exploration and expression, like all these things that I absolutely love. So I think it's a cool topic to put on the table, especially when I'm feeling chaotic, you're feeling chaotic, we're kind of all over the place. Lots going on outside of the recording studio today, like what a beautiful thread to pull is like one of our favorite. This is one of our favorite threads.
Speaker 2:It is, and when we initially first started talking about doing the pod, it was one of the topics that we were like obviously we're going to have at least one. It's never going to be one, you know. But conversation on creativity, because there's so much, there's so much about it, right, where do we begin?
Speaker 1:Shall we? I wonder if we could start with. What does it mean to be like? You know, this is the juicy podcast, so like what would it mean for you to be dripping in your creative juice? Maybe that's an intense start, but maybe it's a good start.
Speaker 2:Hmm, I love that, and let's go for intense. We're two intense chicks, babe. No point in trying to hide it now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dripping your creative juice Like well yeah, my creative juice.
Speaker 2:So do you know what's interesting? I feel like I'm dripping in my creative juice right now. So there's definitely a kind of contrast between the oh God. There's definitely a contrast between, like, when I'm actually feeling the most creative tends to not be when I'm feeling the most lucid, actually, right so and the old, the old shitty conditioning will also always jump up, will always jump up the mold and be like I don't know, I don't even know what it says, I can't even hear it anymore, but it's there.
Speaker 2:I can still feel the kind of you know, the light binding of kind of like be more together, be more you know, know where things are, being a little bit more methodical about things, and you know so to be dripping in my creative juices I just love that term, babe. What does that mean to me? It's quite hard to describe. It's a feeling. So okay, this is the way I'm going to answer this question For me, because I think creativity, like everything we have probably said so far on this pod, it's about developing your own relationship with it, with your creativity.
Speaker 2:Your creativity, your creativity, your responsibility. You know it's not anyone else's and it might, and it's going to be different from lots of other people's, right? So you want to just know yours and respect others. Others is others, so others creative processes is what I'm trying to say. You want to know yours and respect other people's creative process. There we go. So for me, my creativity is a bit like being visionary my style. So I'm a visionary that doesn't see shit, right? So people often think when you're visionary, it's like you can see this and see the possibilities and see I can't see shit. I actually can't see anything at all. What? How I'm visionary is I'm good at like, holding the space for the unknown.
Speaker 2:I'm good at letting things come through right. So I have a deep trust around things coming through. So that's how I see creativity. For me it's like creativity is a sort of force that comes through me and, I don't know, I'm a bit of luck. The vessel the channel.
Speaker 2:Everything is creative to me, right, so to be dripping in my own creative juices is basically to be spacious. Space is a big part of my creative process, and emergent, I would also say. My creativity is emergent. It's about what I don't know, like, I don't know either, and that's good. I shouldn't fucking know. As far as I'm concerned, right, I'm constantly surprised, like, yeah, so creativity is, I think, the biggest lie we get told, right, what is about what creativity is? I mean, it's not the biggest lie, because there's so many lies, but about what creativity is right. And so what I mean by that is growing up. I never saw myself as a creative person Because my definition of creativity was very narrow.
Speaker 2:It was like someone who can draw or whatever. Right, these were the creative people the school, at uni, at college, the ones that had the tubes. I don't know if they still do that now, but they always used to wear, like, have tubes that they were on their back and that was their artwork, right, rolled up in the tube thing. Carrying that. Here they are. Here come the creative people, the artsy creative people. I wasn't that, you know. I could do the academic thing and it wasn't valued, right, the arts aren't really valued in the educational setup. It wasn't. And also my partner is creative. He's a traditional creative right, so it's kind of like he's creative.
Speaker 2:I'm not creative and it wasn't until a few years I don't know my twenties or something I used to. I was written a lot, always written a lot. It took me ages to realize that my writing was my creative expression. I never even saw writing as creative. I really didn't. Even though they used to do like really dry little things in English classes, like you'd have parts where they'd call it creative writing. It didn't feel creative to me. It felt dry. I could do it, but it was dry. So for me to be dripping in my creative juices involves a lot of deconditioning away from the idea of what creativity is. My journey, like most of my journey, has been about busting the myths of things. So when I'm dripping in my creative juices I just it's me in my journal and it fucking spills out of me.
Speaker 2:It's usually just before I'm back to come, my period as well. I noticed that I'm the most creative, and I don't know if that's something to do with my brain not working, so well. And then it just creates even more space for the things to come through, the ideas I can map out. You'd, honestly, you'd be surprised at how much I can map out in a really short period of time when I'm in that place and then sometimes I have to spend the rest of the month or the next three months, actually kind of putting legs under things and fleshing things out.
Speaker 2:And one thing I want to say as well about creative, because this was really important to me. This was a game changer for me, and this came from Laz, my partner, because I do write so much. It's ridiculous how much I write everywhere on everything, and I used to live in this. I used to feel really bad, like what am I doing with all this stuff? I've got to use it. I'm not using it. And then one day Laz said to me this really helped me. I mean, you're like two pack and I'm like what you just. You said you might be like two pack or one name of a rappers that you're always in the studio, you're always in the booth and you're always freestyling, creating stuff, and you probably are going to share about 10% of it with other people. That's just how you are. Oh my god, do you know how free in this was?
Speaker 2:you know to come out of the mindset of I have to use everything.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that so much. Thank you for that one. So good. Imagine you and your house just fucking paper everywhere. Basically yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it reminds me of, like you know, the link between creativity and expression and, like, what I'm hearing and what you're saying and it relates deeply inside of me, is like that the best, like creative juices are really flowing when the guards down, when they're, when the rules are out of the window, when we're not in some kind of conditioned box, when things aren't dry. They're actually. There's that freedom for things to flow. You're playing, you're experimenting. There's not particularly like an idea in mind, a goal in mind. It's like you're really following the flow of something that's trying to come through you and you're like allowing that to come, like you're just going to sit there and you're going to write. You're going to write hundreds of things and you might not use any of them, and that's the beauty of the process. The creative process is like being the channel, getting the thing out, not stifling it, not blocking the flow, and I think that like it's so, it's so heartbreaking to me how we've done creativity dirty, like we have just made out that it has to be in the specific medium. It can't be a variety of mediums and it has to be measured and judged and we have to always be sharing it. It has to be for the consumption of other people. It's like when I think about creative juice, I think about a life, a creative life. I think about a life that's like, filled with expression, self-expression in many mediums. I think about writing, moving, dancing, singing, cooking, going grocery shopping, talking on the phone, doing the podcast, like creativity is in everything and there is an opportunity to be creating all the time. And the thing that has been really beautiful in my own journey is to.
Speaker 1:Similarly, I had that same self judgment of sort of ranking myself here, there and everywhere. Oh, definitely not. An artist can't draw for shit, definitely can't paint. But I was always a sporty person. I was always the best at sports, more than I was academic. I was okay, but sports was really where I was thriving physical, but it was very disciplined, it was exercise, it was winning, it was like very linear. You go from A to B, the goal is to win, the goal is to get to the end of the thing, and that dominated my childhood. So there was this absolute deficit of play and creativity. The pendulum was really in this direction of and I know a lot of kids who had sports really dominating their childhood.
Speaker 1:You feel that there's. I remember being so. I'm on the dad. I just want to play. I just want to go and play with my friends. I want to be in the barn with my friends. Can you let me go and play please? I was desperate to be around people, be creating, be making up games and playing and shit like that. As an adult writing has been, I think that's a place where you and I have. I always find your relationship to journaling very inspiring, and writing is one for me where it's like it really helps me connect to my soul. There's another one for me I can hear a piece of music or be around a good teacher or be in a studio with other people where I can feel that they're dripping and they're loving it and I will be filled up to the max. I'm around other people that are dripping and they're expressing themselves creatively and just to me it comes back to enjoyment. Are you enjoying the process or is the process a means to the end?
Speaker 2:That's not creativity, then to me that just doesn't. There has to be joy in the process. I'm quite new as knowing myself as a creative person, and I feel like I'm only really just entering my kind of create tricks era.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I love that word create tricks, which is basically just means she who creates. And what I add on to that definition for myself is she who recognizes that she can fucking create, she who recognizes that she has birthed worlds, people, movements. It's a very she thing, and I love when you said we've done it dirty. We have, and to me creativity is a woman. It's definitely feels very female and so it's like we've done my girl dirty. We have done my girl so dirty for what she is, and yeah, I don't know there's something else here.
Speaker 1:What it reminds me of like. So we've done a day for sure, and I think one of the places we've really done a day is not only if we put her in a box, but we've also we do not respect creative cycles and ribbons of life. Right, like? Creativity needs contrast, it needs, it needs a rest period, it needs postpartum, it needs resoiling, it needs replenishment and we've, you know, we're in awe of the mother that creates life and gives birth, but we do not respect that. She needs multiple years to recover from that process and we've got this kind of obscure yeah, six weeks She'll be back Like the contrast of the creative cycle, like you called it space and emergence, which are loved.
Speaker 1:Like how much space does space need? How much? How much trust and space does emergence need? Right, like you know, true, creative process is not in a rush. It takes what it takes to heal, it takes what it takes to. It takes what it takes to birth something you can't and this is like such a funny ADHD thing of like really not understanding how much time something takes. But I think it's because a mental idea of time is such a different measurement to like an embodied knowing of time and when you're in a process and you're actually trusting the process. You're in for me. I can sort of I can trust that this is taking like months, longer than I thought. But like wow, wow, is this a wise old clock inside me that just knows that like we're on the right here. But then my mind comes in. We've ever had that experience where it's like the fuck are we doing? This is taking way too long. We've got to get this thing out. I had an idea that this would be done by now. Like why isn't it done?
Speaker 2:I think that thought makes things take longer, you know, because sometimes the creative process is quick and sometimes it's slow. Again, it really just comes down to your own process, because I'm talking about mine and mine's very specific to me. You know it's very. Maybe not everyone else does need space. Maybe not everyone else does really do the emergent thing I'm guessing they don't. Maybe the kind of things that I find confining and limiting around my creativity work for other people. I do think you need limits. I do. I'm very much about the balance of the feminine and the masculine. You need some kind of limitation. Some kind of constraint actually creates even more creativity. You need to kind of contain it somehow, but contain it that doesn't stifle the spaciousness.
Speaker 2:And I love what you said about the contrast as well, because I remember and I'll never forget, I was invited to a creative process a few years ago and, like when we were working in the prison system, I had a very creative and innovative role in that system and I loved it and I had the space and the trust. I was backed. So it was like wait, let's just go for it. And very much just did it my way the whole thing and also really got to see the impact of that. There was something very important about that part of my life of seeing like oh, oh, shit man, this shit works, man, this is like the real deal. Look at what it creates, look at all this incredible stuff. I could never even have planned for this. So it gave me full permission to kind of take my hands off the kind of controlling, constraining edge of the creativity. Then, once I'd left and was back doing sort of leadership work and stuff, I was invited to and I was used to hold the creative process as well. So I had I'd invite different people in and we just do it in our own random way and it would work. But then I was invited to a design group and I thought brilliant, like I haven't designed content in a group for ages. This will be fantastic. It was not fantastic, it was awful. It was terribly held. Oh, it was gross In fact it was and I remember just, it took me a while. I was like it was almost like a what the fuck is going on here for me? I've just like what is happening? Like, oh, I'm so disappointed because I was so excited, right, I know that joy that you was explaining and it wasn't there. Not only was it not there, there was no creativity to be found coming out of me, not whatsoever. I was not inspired. There was so much missing. And when I eventually kind of figured out what was going on for myself, what I could see quite clearly was the conditions are not correct for me to be able to do what you've brought me on to do. You've brought me on to do this thing create, be creative. Nothing about this environment inspires creativity. You've got a fearful holder of the process Stifling.
Speaker 2:Now I work a lot with creative people as well, right in different industries in like tech and luxury and entertainment, and I've coached a few phenomenal holders of the process, like phenomenal right, who have found that way of working with creative teams, creating really really well-known, high-value work in the world all the way through to. You know, if it's clothing, it's like all the way through the whole chain into it showing up in the shop somewhere, right, someone who holds that process and can speak to both the creative and the other side of the business. I've seen people do that with such fucking skill and it's just I love it. I think it's absolutely exquisite, cause I do think creative people need to be held. You know, some creative people just need to be creative. They don't want to do anything else, they just want to do the creative. They just need that space. But in order for that creation to then get out to the people that it needs to get out to, there are other people involved and I really that's a big value for me, whatever that is to hold that this process wasn't being held like that at all.
Speaker 2:It was being, everything was being squashed and suppressed and it was disgusting. I felt really offended, actually, I remember feeling like, oh, this is like offensive to me. I did, I did bring it up and I did say and I wasn't the only one having that experience when I spoke up, a lot of people then started to speak up too, and the person stifling all creativity just didn't get it. They didn't get it. They wanted all this explanation and I had to be very clear that like, yeah, I don't think you can get this.
Speaker 2:This is beyond you and I'm not here to waste my energy. You've already had way too much of me, right? I'm not here to waste my energy. My life doesn't depend on you getting it. I'm out, right? I just want you to know. So I don't know. I realized that I actually have a really high value and respect for creativity. I'm realizing as we speak him because it's so beautiful, it's such an incredible thing. I love creative people. I love the Pharrell from Neptune's and Andre 3000's More than your bog standard. I just want to be, like everyone else, rapper. I always love the outliers and I've got the imagination. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it reminds me. I just appreciate you sharing that story. It inspired something in me because I think this what an environment that creates inspiration is super, super key. Like talking about the environments we are in Are they inspiring creativity?
Speaker 1:When I was in my late teens, I retrained as a teacher an early years teacher and I went to. Part of my training was to go and work in an early years center, so it was like kids from the ages of three to five and I was at a time of my life where I I was and I talked about this, maybe on the pod a little bit. That period of my life like 17, 18, I was really really, really hurting and I was really, really closed and shut down and had, like, really lost my sort of. I was coming out of a period where I kind of lost my will to live and this program I'd enrolled on was sort of like my saving grace and I started working in this early years center and I was there like a couple of mornings a week and I was working with these amazing group of older women I'd say they're probably all in their like 50s and 60s and every Thursday we would sit and we'd have this plan of medium and we would go through this list of like every single child and we would talk about the child and like what we'd observed in them, what we'd noticed in them and how we could adapt the environment to like deeper, nurture the needs they had. And over the like months that I was there, I was coming off this period of like I'd really lost trust in adults. I'd really felt so disenchanted by education. I was just like this is it had. I've really blamed the environment I was in that inspired me to. I felt no inspiration. So as I was observing these women, I remember being like, hmm, wow, like I may be older than five years old, but they're onto something here, like they're really seeing these little people as little humans and that if the environment isn't bringing out their expression and their creativity, then we're doing something wrong and we need to change it.
Speaker 1:And there was this little girl who was like, really she was like a wild one she's just calling a wild one in the class and you know she was the one acting up a lot and she wasn't ever sitting down to write. Mostly other children at that age, like three to five, they could sort of write letters and they could do something. And she was like not interested at all. She was always running around making lots of noise. And I remember this one day she came over and was like I've made a bat cave. Like come and see, I've made a bat cave. And so she like took us outside and she had made this like big black cave and she got all these bats and she was like inside of it and we were there, we were like helping her out and we kept following this thread of how much she loved bats. So we kept like being like okay, like we're gonna help her make the bat cave.
Speaker 1:Every time she came to school and then slowly over time she came to us and was like hey, I need you to help me write. And then she was like, well, what do you wanna write? And she was like I wanna write bat cave. And it was the first time that she had ever got pen and put it in her hand. This was like I've been there for six months. At this point I'd never seen her pick up a pencil. And the story like lives inside of me of watching this little girl go from feeling like clearly so lost and scared and fearful of this environment to it like very slowly nurturing the thing inside of her to the point that she actually started to learn something.
Speaker 2:I don't believe I've ever even heard that story. Like outside of the pod, I mean I might have done, I might have just forgotten, but I doubt it. That's beautiful. That's so beautiful that matters so much. As a mother of an autistic teenager, yeah, that shit matters to me like you won't fucking believe. Yeah, it's everything it reminds me of. So my son actually. He's 14 at the moment and he started secondary school. So he did primary school and then started secondary school.
Speaker 2:Secondary school didn't really quite work for him, but the school that we picked was an art school because I knew I didn't know about his autism then, but I knew that I could tell that I'm like he doesn't need a traditional academic setting. This is not a child for like a grammar school or something, or a normal school. I could feel that I was like I saw some normal schools that were so uninspired. It was unbelievable. They ticked the boxes, they had good off-steads, all the things that they're supposed to have, but I was just like, oh my God, I can't send him here. But this school we came across, we loved it because of their focus on the arts and their importance of the arts. It wasn't an add-on and I remember just like there was loads of things so like when we first went to visit the school. So imagine this we'd gone to visit all these schools, as you do at this stage of life, and everyone's. I've got like six-formed kids which are, like I don't know, 16 to 18 year olds the oldest people in the school, and in the UK you can leave school at 16. So some people choose to stay on and do a couple more years at school before they go to uni. If they wanna go to uni, or a teacher would show us around. Right. When we went to this school, we were showed around by is it the year eights? The current year eight? So the current year eights would have been year eight is the second year of secondary school. So the reason why we were being showed around by them and there was no adult around, there was no adult behind the scenes or anything kind of going.
Speaker 2:Say this, say that you could really feel how they've been given a free reign to just show around the parents and the idea being that, because they had just completed their first year of secondary school and now in the second year, who better to show us around the school? Of course, right, I'm like love. This shit matters to me. This is the shit where I'm like, yes, thinking about it, yes, and they did sit all these wonderful stuff at the school. It didn't work out for my son, not because of the school the school I really am a big fan of, actually but school doesn't work for my son. We came to see. So, again, being creative, I have to get very creative about his. I'm not even gonna call it education because that doesn't work for me. It's not real. What is real for us is had to get very creative about preparing my son for adulthood.
Speaker 1:That's what we're doing so.
Speaker 2:We took him out of school because that was clear. Again, following the emergent thread and being focused on him, obviously the choices are easy. Then it's like he needs to come out of this environment. He can't be like this. He needs to be one on one. Actually, we need to buck the neurotypical expectations of things that we've been told are good for kids. It's not good for him, though. So this is not. We're not here to fucking squeeze him into a different shape other than what he's in. It's like. What would it look like if I created what he needed? And I can do that as well, so I'm going to do that If you can, then do it.
Speaker 2:So first thing was we partnered with this incredible education agency to get him a tutor, and, oh my God, he's tutor, big up man like Nathan. When I spoke to Nathan, you know I had to make sure he's the right person. What he said, that tipped me over the edge of the lot, could chip. I'm also good at creating recruitment practices, all this stuff, all the stuff that I'm actually naturally professionally good at. I just applied to my own life, and what was beautiful was when he really when he had me completely was when he said because I said to him why do you work with so many kids with extra needs? What's that about? And he said I've always just really enjoyed it because of what you just described there, liv. Because he said well, because things aren't working for them in the traditional sense, you have to get really creative to find a way to kind of get through to them. And he said I love that. I just really really enjoy that. And he just really lit up and he said I actually think that other kids are missing out. You know, I actually think this is how education should be for everyone. Everyone should have the opportunity to have their education tailored to them. So, if anything, the kids with the extra needs are getting better, more than the other kids, and they can adapt. You know, or it's already for them. That was it for me, because I knew then I'm like we're on the same page here, mate, because we ain't looking at this as a no deficit thing. We're looking at this as a difference, not a deficit. Yeah, mate, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2:My son is capable of some thing that I don't really understand, but there's something there, like big, that I don't understand. So I can't get in the way of that. I can feel it. It'll come out maybe when he's an adult, I don't know. But we will put things in place around him that reinforce him as he is and the relationship he has with his tutor is beautiful and he's really blossoming and thriving in that setting.
Speaker 2:And his teacher has said as well, because I get all these reports all the time now because it's all a whole different ball game and so it's just beautiful. I mean, you pay for it, it's not free, but it's a great. It's worth every penny for what it's doing to my son, his confidence and reinforcing him, as opposed to keep trying to give him information in a way that he can't receive it and just make him internalize that there's something wrong with him for not being able to do. But there's nothing wrong with him at all. What's wrong is a lack of creativity and a lack of imagination in the education sector. That's what's wrong. What's wrong, ooh.
Speaker 1:Oh, it just warms my heart to hear this. It's so, it's healing for me. I think that, yeah, that was such a tough time in my life and I like watching you do it with your son and like has really been. It shows me well, just, you know, like the theme I hear is so deeply as care, like care, care existing with creativity, the story I was telling.
Speaker 1:Like those women, those colleagues of mine, those like sweet, inspiring, devoted older ladies that influenced me, their love and care nurtured me. It nurtured the kids in the environment. They showed me, I think, ultimately, what my life would become, which was like oh, oh, that I wasn't the problem, the environment was the problem and it wasn't nurturing me at all. And if I'd had this kind of love and care, I think I would have been all right, like, and exactly what you're saying. And then it really inspired me to create a life where I would create that for others and that's kind of really what my life's purpose has become. It's like create inspiring learning environments, people to grow and to nurture the like, deepest, creative, most expressed thread, like I really think that's what I'm great at and what I love to do, and when I hear your story. It's like you do this on the personal level as a mom.
Speaker 2:And professionally. Yeah, as I'm listening to you, this is really like this is big, it's biggest, biggest, big, Almost as like if I was listening to this as a podcast listener, I would probably pause now just to just be like, okay, that was huge what she just said. I need to take that in and I need to sit with that. Nurture, Nurture is so important for creativity. I believe that I don't know if this is quite true there's different expressions of it, I suppose. So what I was about to say there was creativity, doesn't. Okay, this is the language I'm going to use. I'm going to make a distinction between resourcefulness and creativity. That's what I'm going to do. So when we are in survival mode, we can be extremely resourceful. Once you experience what creativity actually is, you realise that that resourcefulness is a kind of maybe a lower expression of creativity. Really, it's not the real thing. I've heard that. You know, I understand that a lot of us will feel like you have to be pretty creative when there's not a lot of resources around. I don't think that's great. I just feel like I want to make a clear distinction, like to keep the full value of what creativity is and not to collude with doing my girl dirty Right. Resourcefulness is fantastic and amazing skill. I'm not knocking that at all the difference. They're different. As far as I'm concerned, Expression is Sorry. Creativity is a much higher expression which you can't access when you're in survival. It shuts down the channel, the nurture piece that you just said there are so important, because you need the nurture on so many levels actually to access creativity, Whether it's creating, whether it's nurturing yourself, you know, by taking care of yourself. So for me, nurturing myself and knowing what my creativity requires is like carving out space. You know, carving out chunks of space is a nurturing and loving act to do for myself. It will look different for other people. The issue we have I would this is where my brain just went with our education system is that definitely in the UK. I don't know about around the world. I'm sure something similar is probably happening.
Speaker 2:The people that are in charge of things often haven't been nurtured Right. We have a class system in this country, for instance, that thinks it's socially beneficial for some reason to send children away at a young age when they need you know, to value in going to the right school over the nurturance that those kids need at that age. I'm not talking about. I do know people whose kids go boarding school and the kids have actually requested that when they're a bit older. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the ones that get sent away as a family way. You know, at the age of five or whatever is something ridiculous. You need your mum, you need your dad. Generations of this has gone on as well, so the parents don't actually know how to nurture anyway. These are the people that make decisions for our country.
Speaker 2:The only way to cope with shit like that is to shut some part of you down. You don't develop empathy, so you're going to create. What are you going to create? You can't create anything else, can you? And you're giving being, You're given social power for it, and I think that is, for me, a big part of the issue, which is why, for me, it was really important to take my child out of that system and do that our own way.
Speaker 2:I also speak to a lot of people like you right, and I have done in my whole career who had awful times at school, really awful, awful and that's been relayed during sessions is devastating, and I've also felt that healing when I explained what we're Like. I've really heard that because I had a good time at school and so did my partner. So we didn't really get it for ages. We were like, actually we enjoy school, we had a great time. We didn't realize that we were lucky in the minority. But like when I speak to people and I'm like, oh, this is what I'm doing, oh my gosh, I can really tell how healing it is for people that are like, oh my God, I had the worst time at school. I would have done that for me.
Speaker 1:Hmm, oh, it's just so gorgeous. It's really gorgeous. I think like I feel really blessed in my life that I had that experience At the same time as working in this nurturing environment. I had the most nurturing class teacher where I went to college. I think I've told the story before like this woman, every day for an entire year, would go around the class. We were all teenagers and she would ask every single person how they were doing and it used to piss me off. I'd be sat at the back like this fucking bitch why is she asking how everyone is doing it? I'd be like I'm fine, I like could not grasp. This time she was spending like the first quarter of the lesson checking in with everyone, like just for me. At that time made no sense and I really I didn't trust that engagement for a while. I felt like it was insincere. I didn't trust that she really cares.
Speaker 1:I had a lot of kind of projection onto this lovely woman and she was consistent. She did not give up Big up, lorraine, if I can love you. She did not give up loving and she was just like yep, she was used to this kind of like feral sort of teen. It closed scared Tina, she was used to that. She was just like, yeah, cool, like you're going to like soften at some point and like I'm going to be here, so I'm not going to change, I'm going to keep loving you.
Speaker 1:And I remember the moment of like a year in where I had started to do, I'd finally started to do well. Like it would be this tiny micro shift of all the self doubt and all of this, like I would go to her multiple times a day being like I can't do it, I can't do it, like I can't even write. And she was like, oh good, she just like sent me back to my seat and I feel some love and love on me. Check in the next morning. We so frustrated. And then you know, over time that nurturance started to get in and I started to like allow love to come into my heart and like soften my body, like let go of that, some of that armor. Like she disarmed me in the creation of that environment. And I remember going to her one day Like with my assignment I'd done, I'd done well a, b or something, and I'd been getting like E's and F's and just like I'd finally had this sort of enjoyment, I'd got somewhere and just sat in front of her and she was like, of course, I'd never doubted you for a second. And by the time I left, a year later, it just been an upward trajectory.
Speaker 1:I, two years of that, two years of that kind of environment, plus the work experience environment with these other ladies. I remember just sitting there saying to her like you've given me the gift of a lifetime, this has been a miracle. Like I was in the gutter and I could not. I did not have a perspective like this, like I couldn't see I could. All I could see was I was like I'm staring down the bottom of the barrel. I had no hope, I had no inspiration, I had no connection to expression. It was like also limited and trapped, and it was like this bloom, this like butterfly coming out in this full bloom, and that's what she does, that's who she was and that's. You know, that was the gift of, that was the gift of that experience.
Speaker 1:And it happened again when I went to university. I had the same process, just like ramped up, and then I had one teacher who would sit with me and I would scream and squirm and tell him you know, I'm, I'm useless, self-doubt, I can't do this and he would just say live, you know what. Like your unique being, you exist over here and like, don't try and be like that for you. I'm going to be here and I'm going to nurture it. And like, don't worry about the grades, like don't let that thing in you die. And so I just feel very lucky in hearing your story because then, as my adult life, you know, I have friendships like what we have, and I know that I'm incredibly blessed to have had a guide, a guiding light at each turn.
Speaker 2:Hmm, the power is like, I'm here. I'm here in the power of creativity.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right the impact that true creativity has, because that also could have been tackled from the resourceful perspective, which would have still probably just tried to make you fit. It's still kind of like how can we make her fit this? What? How can we hack our way into making her fit, as opposed to kind of taking off the constraints and like being with you as a person and I'm guessing this teacher could sell, like I think she needs a bit of a boost of confidence or this kind of thing. So I'm just going to affirm her and trust the power of that. I'm just going to affirm in who you are. We would have a different world if this was the way we would.
Speaker 1:We really would like the, the when you were talking earlier about you know this these leaders that have an experience that kind of nurturing and then they're the ones making the decision. It brought me to this place of. I've always had this expression creative response, like when life is happening, when life is life in and you're like fucking up against it or you know, similar to times recently, really Like and what I mean recently is like Lola and I have been going through some big stuff personally, like both of us have been going through massive transition. A thing that's really helped me is to think life is asking me to respond. Can I be in creative response?
Speaker 1:I love this distinction of resourcefulness and creativity, because when I think of creative response, I think that I'm resourceful, but I'm actually I don't know what creates necessarily this state that I'm able to creatively respond. That might mean I'm taking my time, that might be I'm asking for help. That might mean that I'm feeling like I have multiple options available to me, that I have a process I can go to in responding to life. I'm not just in default reaction to everything that's come in my way.
Speaker 2:Okay, yes, that's about the difference between creating and reacting, right Gotcha.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how to create when you're not? You don't just want to respond in the exact same way. You've always responded Like, oh, something's happening. I'm like, could I take a beat With you at the school in, right? Okay, it needs a different kind of response. I think we might need to homeschool our son. Okay, that's a process you have to start creatively responding to and it takes time. It takes time to find the naphens of the world. It takes time to navigate the transition. It takes time to make that decision and create a different outcome to a situation that may have been recurring over and over again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think all of that as well happens within a creative umbrella. Let's call it of knowing that I'm choosing to create a whole new life, a new way of being for myself and my family. It's one that's centered on thriving. That's the kind of bigger creation that's always going on. The bigger arc is actually we want to thrive. It made things easier when it came to the school situation because, I'll be honest, I think, even if he could do school and he was good at it, I don't believe school leads to thriving. I don't believe that. You necessarily. Yeah, it's just not a given for me. That's not their objective. That made it even clearer. It's like oh yeah, no, we want thriving, we want to thrive, we're going for thriving. It helps if you've got that bigger. What are you creating? Biger arc of what are you creating? I'll tell you who I love for creativity. Obviously, I might have mentioned it before, but Rick Rubin. There's two people that come up to my mind right now around creativity. One is actually a friend Nicola Humber. Nicola Humber is the founder of the Unbound Press, which is a publishing company imprint.
Speaker 2:We met back in 2019 on a small retreat together. Now I was known, I was going to write. I'm going to write probably multiple books. From when I was young. That's not a strange thing for me I never knew when it was going to happen. Then when I met her, I remember we met at the airport and she's, oh, I own this non-traditional publishing company. I have a real strong inner knowing. I'm a splenic projector. I think that means anything to anyone. But even before I knew that, I've always just said just kind of no shit. I've got a strong knowing. And when we met and we were in the cabs going to the retreat, I just there was a part of me that whisper. I've known when ah, okay, I think this is how you're going to write your first book.
Speaker 2:So we got to know each other and I remember one time we was in the pool and I said to her oh, I was new, I was known, I'm going to write a book, I just don't know what it's about. And then she said these words that just blew my world open. She said, yeah, that's where people often get it wrong. People often think they need to know what they're writing about. They need to know what book they're writing before they write. Actually, I think you just need to decide to write and the book that wants to be written by you will come through.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, it was like a massive green light because all of a sudden, for the first time in my life now, somebody was talking about a process, a creative process that lit me up inside, a creative process that was right up my street and just got all the juices flowing. Not the process I'd always heard about before, about create an outline, chapter outlines, find an editor. You know all the bits. None of that was inspiring. It was like mm. So yeah, that's her and that was a big thing, and that project is ongoing and teaching me so much about my creativity, so much to learn. And then we've got Rick Rubin, who for me was the first person that had written a book, his book the Creative Act that spoke about creativity in the way that I know creativity to be true, again, very validating.
Speaker 1:Oh, just love that. I love the unbound press, and I've also never really heard of this process. I've never heard a publisher. I don't know too much about this world, but when I think about writing a book, I think about like, okay, you're gonna have to get approached and you're gonna have to know exactly what it is ahead of time. You're gonna have to sell the idea of the book before you write the book.
Speaker 1:But it makes no sense because it's like you have a seed of an idea and you follow that seed is what I believe Right.
Speaker 1:Like I think knowing and this would be a piece of wisdom from Rick that I also feel is true for my experience that you just don't know you are following something and it is different to having a goal Like I am gonna write a book about 10 steps of how to make a million dollars a year.
Speaker 1:I don't know like maybe you're gonna write how to book, right, and then maybe you do have a very clear plan and you have an idea in mind and you're like rigid and able to stick to that and it's like the thing that you need to do, right. That for someone like me and, I assume, someone like you like so uninspiring and probably never gonna be a life's piece of life's work. But this process of like fuck, yes, that is so inspiring and I'm completely lit up by that process. I'm like I know we're all so different and everyone's creative inspiration is gonna come from different places, but I think that's something to look out for. Like when someone presents something to you or someone's living their life in a certain way, we are like that. That is how I would wanna do it. Like thank you for showing me that that's a possible thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, like and that's and for me that's my purpose what you just said there, Like that's why I could all lit up. That's my purpose. My purpose is to put my own and then encourage other people to put their own narratives out into the world, because we need alternatives.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, we need alternatives. We need alternatives, need to be normalized and ideally, eventually not be seen as like alternative to anything, just the whole suite of options, right Of like, oh some people do right.
Speaker 2:Right, some people do things like this, some people do things like that, some people do things like this, some people and be able to have the space. But part of that process is gonna be for us. What would they call us? I mean, they call, I suppose, divergence in the purest sense of the term for all us disruptors. I prefer that Some of us are just disruptive by existing. Do you know what I mean? It's not. We're not talking about necessarily even having to do much, just our presence, merely our presence, shown up as who we are in the world is a disruptive force, right, but we need to be. What are we talking?
Speaker 1:about. Say that again. I just don't know who you're talking about. Don't know anyone like that.
Speaker 2:You know we don't mean to. We're like, fuck's sake, it just drives me me, but it is. It does check people up, you know, and you can only be you. And what cracks me up as well is this I don't know. There's just so many things. I just think this is weird One. How many rags to riches stories do we need to see before we get the message that, okay, people chase this and then they're never satisfied, then they have a kind of breakdown and then they go and chase the real thing? I don't know how many times we have to hear that story before we like do we have to keep being surprised by hearing that story over and over again, or are we just going to start to get the fucking message Right? At least we listened to it. I'm like okay, cool, all right, now turn off that podcast, turn off that film, whatever it's going to go about my conditioned business. You know, like, why? There's something. All of this is stifling creativity.
Speaker 1:Oh, I just love it with you said the suite of options. I was like, oh, my whole heart lit up. Like what I've noticed in this episode is like all of these threads were pulling and how both of us keep in. Like this is my purpose in life, this is what I'm here for, this is what I'm lit up by you really tell us it's like such a central piece of who we are as creative people. It's like this, it's like the bigger life purpose, but I think that's the same for everyone.
Speaker 2:I actually this is a bold thing to say, but I do think this is the same for everyone. I'm hearing it as once we get into this kind of topic, your values, your things, they all show up. Yeah, we all create in different ways, remember, but the good shit is creative, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, this is all. This is relatable. I think it's very relatable, Like. When you were talking about vision, you were like my family vision. My vision for my life is thriving when I think about like really inspiring successful companies in the world, but Apple, for example there was a very, very clear vision. That vision still exists today.
Speaker 1:They never let up from that Like. They did what was needed to be done to honor that vision and that still, even decades on, lives on, and that, I think, is some of the most interesting people that I like to listen to or I know, know the secret of having the vision Like, know that if that is the North Star, which is so much different than like what's your goal for the year, it's like what's the North Star of your life. Then, when you're making these decisions and you're thinking about we've talked a lot about today, about the we're living creative life and we are the architects of designers at, the shepherds of that creative life, we are the creators of our own environment, Like. Something I'm taking away from this episode is like oh, right now I'm in a really creative period of like launching and bringing this new body of work into the world. What does my environment need. What do I need from this environment? To be like lit up and inspired and create it creatively, like rich and dripping every single day for the next three weeks.
Speaker 2:How do I create the conditions for my creativity to thrive? Yeah, it's gorgeous.
Speaker 1:It's so juicy.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's really fundamentally what juice is about Because, remember, juice is about creating from our own juices. So, like for some people, you know, I was going to say some people will listen to this and I thought they probably won't listen to this. But shut up, For some people you might be created from a fucking spreadsheet. Yeah, I actually I'll be honest with you, even if I'm not into something, if somebody's coming at it from like a creative, imaginative angle, I'm all over it. Mate, I'm there. We know ADHD, multiple interests and stuff like that. So we have our little rabbit holes and deep dives that we get into and it's very much for me about how juicy that person is about that topic. I've been watching some stuff lately about boxable homes right, what the fuck? I've watched a few of them. Now my YouTube feed is trying to send me more. We're a bit over it now, but I'm not into that really. Do you even know what boxable home, by the way, is? Do you know they are? Have you seen them?
Speaker 1:I've got no idea.
Speaker 2:Okay, oh God, how are we going to describe it Basically? These really futuristic homes that they've been built. I don't know what the hell they build them out of. They did tell us but you basically can pack up a whole home it's mad, these little homes and deliver them on a trailer and set them up somewhere and they're so high tech, and then you can build homes the stackable homes on top of each other.
Speaker 2:It's to kind of I suppose it's about environmental issues and about the housing crisis and stuff like that. Right, it's way out there. I've been watching that because the people behind it and the way it's been presented to me it's like that's super fucking creative. Whether I agree with it or not, it doesn't matter. That's a creative idea. At least somebody's trying to do something different about these issues. We can't just keep going oh, climate change, oh, this problem, that problem and then keep doing the same things of creating it and expect like, what the fuck? So? And then I think people are scared of creativity and disruption, which is also what's stifles. So we need to just have it like it's. It's everything. You said it already really well on this podcast it is everything, it's baked into everything. You should be suspicious. When it ain't there, you're wrong, something's wrong. When it's not there, that's a signal that something's off or wrong.
Speaker 1:It's supposed to be fucking there just giving everyone a moment to digest that one.
Speaker 2:We need some sound effects. You know, I really do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was like my drop.
Speaker 2:I know I saw that they did a mic drop and I thought I'd be good to have like a sound for the mic drop there. Let me write that down on my list and maybe it will turn into something. Who knows?
Speaker 1:Some good shit babe.
Speaker 2:There's more shit babe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let yourself be. Let the cage be rattled wherever it's rattled.
Speaker 2:We're gonna talk about this some more. It's obvious, we can feel it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Today's been a riff of where we are right now. We're women, we have cycles, we have periods, we are both due on. Yeah, this conversation would be completely different in two weeks time, you know. So it's like we will come back. We can't promise it'll be the next episode, because we don't even know just yet what that will be, because that's not how our creativity rolls. We don't have like okay, liv, I've mapped them out. They've mapped out all the topics for the next six months. Do you notice that every time I go into this, it's a whole different accent and voice?
Speaker 1:You know, my creativity starts like You've been very creative today with your voices. There's been a few accents. You're different. I've noticed this. I've been enjoying it. It's usually me with the weird accent.
Speaker 2:Well, I like accents. But then I get told, didn't I by like Bob and Naena rolls like, yeah, every accent you do just sounds Nigerian. So, even when I do it, they're like still getting Nigerian. So I think they need to get their hearing sorted. But there's so much. We can say more right, and we're not gonna sort of launch off into more stuff. But what are you gonna say there?
Speaker 1:I'm just gonna do my Irish accent for you.
Speaker 2:For no reason, for whatsoever.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've had some compliments. Really, I've had back channel messages about this.
Speaker 2:Prove it. I haven't seen any Prove it.
Speaker 1:They've not been going to you. They've been telling me More how funny it was, not how good the accent was it's not bad.
Speaker 2:It isn't bad at all to be fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've got catchphrase on a good day, but I'm I'm pretty good at accents, yeah. I can't do Nigerian. Arnie, though that was good you started with that, I don't think you're allowed to be fair.
Speaker 2:But yeah, oh, my God, there's just so much I want to say, but hopefully there is like loads to chew on for now. Yeah, that's rich. There will be part two at some point. Yeah, I've got little notes. I was looking at my little notes I'd made earlier when I was thinking things that spark around creativity. There's loads of stuff that I haven't even mentioned.
Speaker 1:I'd be excited to talk about rhythms because, you mentioned, we're both in the downward into winter, where the veil is very thin. At this time there isn't much in the way, there's not much brain in the way, it's a bit of a mushy time up top and so everything is just like okay, this, that, that, that, that, that that I always get very clear on things at this moment because there's not much in the way. I think creative rhythm, creative cycles contrast how we navigate the different creative seasons of life the year. We've kind of touched us already a little bit on the pod, like the benefit of taking a year off, the benefit of having it's like the yin and the yang of a creative life. That it's not always about. When we're saying creativity is everything, we're talking about. The cycle, like the creative cycles are present all the time. It doesn't mean you're constantly doing yes, yeah, so that's what I'd love to talk about in a future app.
Speaker 2:That's such a good. I've wrote it down. I've wrote creative rhythms and cycles because I think that is so important. Yeah, maybe let's see, let's do that, maybe next or whenever, but I'd like to carry on talking about creativity. Actually, it's so bloody important and I do really see myself as a holder. I work with, like I said, I work with a lot of creative people and I hold amazing creative space and the future plan is to do more. To be honest with you is actually to design more specifically, creative holding space, holding I can't bloody speak. What am I trying to say? Do you know what I mean? There's really enough words that people can piece them together.
Speaker 1:So thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that really lights me up. I need some space. I need more space. That one's coming through. Maybe we can talk about some of our creative projects, because I've been writing a book for like four years it'll be this year.
Speaker 2:I haven't been writing on nonstop because, like you just said, there it's not actually. I've been living here a lot. That's the other thing I would say about creativity. Just to name this, is that Nicola was right when she said the book that you just choose and decide and then the book that wants to come through will come through. She was bang bloody on about that. My book has taken me on a right old ride. The last four years have been mega in terms of just transforming of who I am, and maybe that has happened because of the container of the book. The only reason I haven't finished the book is because I'm literally moving all over the gaff and there's been so much I've learned about myself in the last four years that I didn't know before that I foundational to who I am. So it really isn't about.
Speaker 2:Sometimes people say how's the book going or when's the book coming out, and I'm like ugh, very uninspiring questions for me, right, very uninspiring. Like nope, try again do better. Now, I don't say that, but it is just like, as you know, it's one of those things reading from the book of, you know, reading from the book of, just like, oh, this has happened. Let me right, this is what I say. Sorry for your loss. Oh, do you know what I mean? It's like oh, she's writing a book. Ask when the book's been finished, ask what the book's about, ask when it's gonna be finished, ask how the book's going, do you know? Very hard to answer those questions for me, because it's not. It's totally not linear.
Speaker 1:But would a better question be like how are you finding the creative process, or where are you at in the creative process, or what are you enjoying about it? There's something about where you're actually at with it.
Speaker 2:What would you wanna be asked? I know that's what I'm thinking. What would I wanna be asked, I don't know. Just something that stimulates. I don't know what that would be, though, I just know when I hear it, and I think sometimes people don't actually care, they're just trying to make conversation. That's the vibe I get, like you never asked me about my book and I don't mind that at all. I don't think, oh, I was living if I asked about my book. But there's something about that actually, I think, is for me that works. Like, do we have to?
Speaker 1:ask what's interesting is, when I think about the book, I don't think of the book as the book I think about. I guess the book will eventually be, I guess it will eventually be a book. But I think about it like what I've witnessed is you've just been in this massive process and I've been observing it. It's like your life and the process of writing the book is sort of like it's almost like the nap, like you're narrating the life you've been living. So to me it feels like a sort of secondary thing to what's going on in your life. That's the thing that's feeding the book.
Speaker 2:And do you know what stimulates that stimulates. So it's not questions for me. And there was someone else that says something to me one time I can't remember what the words that she used, but she basically said something like but it was a way she said it. She said, oh, something like she just got it. She was like, oh, the book's just not, it's not time to finish it yet, or you're not ready to finish it, something like that, very clean and simple. But I could tell she got it and I was like, oh yeah, you've just named it perfectly. I think I don't need any more questions because I'm in this state of whatever with it being and just I don't know. And that's okay, because that is part of my creative process. Actually, what's useful for me is people that get it, reflecting what they see. I find that quite valuable and useful and reassure them.
Speaker 2:Love that All right, then, milov, shall we wrap this one up for now.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was so lovely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really feel very inspired and I'm leaving with our girl. Can't talk dirty about our girl.
Speaker 2:No, doing our girl dirty. We've done our girl dirty. We need to put some respect on her. We need to put some respect on her name.
Speaker 1:So good yeah. Thanks, babe I fucking dare you.
Speaker 2:But you know what Sorry, I'm going off on my own. Yes, it has been called disrespect, but yeah, let's pick this up. And because there's so much here, I would be interested in also hearing questions and I just said I don't like them but questions about the creative process, your creative process. I love hearing about people's creativity. I just find it so fucking interesting. So share with us your creative stories, how you create, what works for you, what doesn't work for you, any questions you might have, anything like that. I actually find that shit really interesting. I watch a lot of stuff about people's creative process from all different genres. I just find it really fascinating. So we'll see if we can incorporate some of that into the next conversation about creativity. That would be nice, right.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, I have so many little things that I go to. I just had a very creative fill-up weekend where I just watched a bunch of shit that I knew I needed to and read some stuff Like OK, I want to create a creative list of some of the things that people love to be inspired. All right, let's cut this one off. A life of passion awaits. We love you. Thank you for being our dear early adopters for Season 1 of the Juicy Podcast.
Speaker 2:We appreciate you so much this is such a pleasure and a joy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening. Ciao, y'all.