The Prolific Hub Podcast
The Prolific Hub Podcast is a digital archive of all things life, personal development, spirituality & creativity.
The Prolific Hub Podcast
Ep. 52 | Timeless Wisdom for Modern Creatives: A Conversation with Vanessa Aldrich
Vanessa Aldrich, a multifaceted opera singer, writer and corporate professional, graces this episode with her remarkable insights on artistic passion and creative expression. Drawing from her deep well of knowledge in ancient texts, mythology, and esoteric traditions, Vanessa shares how these timeless teachings have been her guiding light through personal grief and burnout. By tapping into these enduring sources, she reveals the secrets to maintaining a lifelong creative practice that remains vibrant and fulfilling.
Our also discussion delves into the transformative power of shadow work and the importance of embracing all facets of our personalities, the intricate relationship between spirituality and creativity, the significance of collaboration in sustaining creativity and making discerning choices to foster a nurturing creative environment. Tune in to uncover how embracing your full self and timeless wisdom can profoundly enrich your creative and spiritual life.
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More from Vanessa:
- IG: @sopranovanessa
- TikTok: @VanessaDomsLife
- Websites:
- www.anotefromself.com (creativity work)
- www.vanessaaldrich.com (singing/writing)
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Friend, welcome back to the show. I'm so excited and so honored today to be joined by Vanessa Aldrich, who is an opera singer, corporate girly and a creative powerhouse. I love Vanessa's TikTok. I came across her work and was so inspired by it. I reached out and asked her to be on the show to talk a little bit more. Inspired by it, I reached out and asked her to be on the show to talk a little bit more and she said yes, and I'm so honored that she's here to talk all things creativity, artistry, shadow work and so much more. If you are a creative, if you are an artist, if you are someone who is passionate about creativity, spirituality, a number of different things of that nature, this is the episode for you. Without further ado, let's jump into the conversation. Everyone, welcome back to the Prolific Hub podcast. I'm your host, Aliyah Cheyenne, and I'm so excited and honored today to be joined by Vanessa Aldrich. Hi, Vanessa, Hi how are you?
Vanessa Aldrich:Thank you for having me.
Aliya Cheyanne:I'm doing good, I'm so happy you're here. Thank you for being here.
Vanessa Aldrich:Yes, it's my pleasure, so excited.
Aliya Cheyanne:So you may have seen Vanessa's work on TikTok. I know I definitely have. I'm so inspired by the way she speaks about creativity, the way she speaks about spirituality and creativity combined, so I was so excited to reach out and have a conversation with her and have her on the show as a guest. So I'm so happy that you're here, vanessa. I'm going to kick it over to you to have an introduction of who you are. I always like to ask folks a little bit more about who you are, how you want to be known in the world today, so I'll kick it over to you to introduce yourself.
Vanessa Aldrich:Thank you, I appreciate that. Yes, so my name is Vanessa and I am an opera singer and a writer. I'm living in New York, brooklyn specifically. I also have a day job. I'm a corporate girly, as they say. I work in finance, venture capital, so very busy, also very new to the world, but it is true that I'm a content creator on top of it, which I kind of see as an extension of my writing endeavors, and on that space, I focus on being a survey, providing a survey of art, culture, world, religion, philosophy, all sorts of unexpected wisdom about the creative process, specifically in relation to approaching your art like a grown-up, which is to say, how to stay engaged, committed, energized with your creativity, for your creativity, by your creativity, for a lifetime. I pull from sources that I feel like are not as often frequented in order to kind of help us all through that journey no-transcript.
Aliya Cheyanne:What a beautiful introduction. Thank you so much for sharing that with me, with the audience. I'm so intrigued by all of that and we're going to talk about everything. But one thing I wanted to sort of start with. So you and I had like a preliminary conversation and it's come up again even in your introduction reference to teachings and sacred texts that kind of lead the artist's way, like just how to be creative and how to not burn out from that creativity, and I would love to hear a little bit more about that. What are some of the texts that you've leaned on, even in your own creative work and some of the texts that you sort of guide others to into as well?
Vanessa Aldrich:For me, it started maybe since childhood. I've always been interested in ancient civilization and history and all of that sort of foundational family members my immediate family Very suddenly, you know, one has to continue and one needs to know how to process at a young age I was 20 years old how to process insurmountable grief, or seemingly insurmountable grief. And you know, the world that's immediately available to us is Instagram, and as I was kind of searching for healing and modalities and advice about how to carry on with that, with that, you know, kind of now on my plate, I found that and I always say this, but I found that the world of Instagram, truism and quotes and blurbs and kind of surface level modalities was not enough to kind of carry my spirit forward and that forced me to go deeper and by deeper I mean older, and so that sent me kind of in earnest into some of the world's most durable sources for wisdom, be it mythology or, certainly you know, comparative religious texts or esoterica, mysticism, philosophy, whatever. I found that within the durability of these sources, how old they were, there was so much information that got to the core of what I was experiencing and also wisdom about how to carry on, and for me, that was that kind of crystallized what my focus would be, and there was just infinite material there. And so, for me, if it's durable, if, for example, where I'm searching and surveying spiritual sources from traditions that were kind of written down, you know, wisdom that was written down thousands and thousands of years ago, separated by time, and various cultures were saying the same thing, and there's all these through lines, all these patterns, all these agreements about what is most important and necessary for the human soul. That was really important to me. If someone 5,000 years ago was saying something about grief, about fear, about shame, about happiness, that felt significant to me, that the fact that it would resonate thousands and thousands of years ago allowed me to latch onto it, and I think that there's something to that. There is obviously things that change in our landscapes as society. The things that we are dealing with in 2024 are very different than what they were dealing with in 2000 BC India, but there are things that are the same and that similarity is very powerful, very stabilizing. Just even hearing that someone could write it down thousands of years ago and it would still register did so much just for my grief alone. But, to answer your question.
Vanessa Aldrich:After that background, a lot of the work that I refer to is in ancient myth and also the study of of the ancient myth. There are thousands of stories that all sort of follow the same pattern of how the soul struggles and what are the lessons that every human must face before they can matriculate on to the next sort of lily pad, if you will, in their spiritual unfolding. The fact, again, that there's that similarity, that every myth follows the same pattern, and it is a story about what happens for all of us. I think there's a lot of wisdom in myth. Also. I say this a lot about the spiritual texts. Be it, you know, I was raised Christian. I always wanted to be Catholic but my family was Protestant, so I'm really familiar in those traditions. But I've since learned, you know, about the Tao, about Hindu tradition, about Buddhism and so on, about indigenous wisdom, and I always say this but in 5,000 years of written spiritual texts, every single one of these traditions, separated by time, separated by an ocean, whatever, they all refer to their God as the creator. And so if God is the creator, what am I? If God is creative, if God is the creator, and I'm creative, rather, what does that say One about my own creativity, and two, more importantly for me, as a researcher, as a student, what does that say about those texts? And so I began to reread these texts. Of course the Bible, but the other mystic texts, within sort of larger Christian Catholic mysticism, or the Tao Te Ching, or the Upanishad, the, the perspective of being creative blew my mind. I would say that if anyone were to go back and reread any Bible verse, any quote, the Lawrence Prayer, any of the Yoga Sutras, any passage, any chapter from the Tao Te Ching, etc.
Vanessa Aldrich:From the Interior Castle, from the Inner Chapters, any of these texts, I have the belief that in 5,000 years of documented spiritual texts, you know all of these traditions, separated by time, oceans, culture, everything, if all of them, on their own time and in their own way, have come to articulate that God is the creator. If God is the creator, then what am I? If God is the creator, then what am I? If God is the creator and I'm creative, what does that say? One, my own creativity. Perhaps that it is divine, perhaps that my creativity itself is my umbilical cord to the essential, most energy of the entire cosmos, the essential most energy of the entire cosmos. Two, and more specifically for my own use and my own process and my own difficulties in life, if I were to go back to one of these texts.
Vanessa Aldrich:I was raised in the Christian tradition to have a slightly different relationship to the one that I was raised in, but you could do anything if you wanted to read the bible, if you wanted to read the upanishad, the bhagavat gita, the yoga sutras, the taurajing, the inner chapters, the interior castle, the dark night of the soul, any of these foundational texts.
Vanessa Aldrich:Rereading them specifically with your creativity in mind, the wisdom that you would find would blow your mind. I really believe that, rather than it being some sort of you know, wisdom about how to get into heaven, how to forgive yourself after you were, I don't know after you had a gay chapter in college or after you stole something when you were a kid it's not about that, I mean it is. But if you were to reread it with the idea, with the thesis, that in the beginning God created that creativity is the most essential energy of the universe and it is also the purpose of the human life, rereading these books, these sources that are meant to guide us in our spiritual path, reading these books, these sources that are meant to guide us in our spiritual path. My thesis is that reread them again with the idea that they're supposed to also guide us in our creative path and spiritual path.
Aliya Cheyanne:I wanted to say yes, yes, I think that's so profound.
Aliya Cheyanne:You even have this ability to speak about something as heavy as grief so poetically, and I think that's such a beautiful skill.
Aliya Cheyanne:But I love this idea of this through line that even in any of these texts I mean some of them having been 5,000 years ago to now there's still a through line of the human spirit and what it takes to be creative, what it takes to suffer and overcome that suffering. So I think that's just so profound. There are a couple of pieces in that that I would love to talk about a little bit more. So I think on the side, grief, like in a simpler way, I've heard it described as the final act of love or a reminder that love existed, and I think that's really beautiful. But we've also talked about how grief is a natural part of artistry and creativity and how sometimes going deeper, as you've described for yourself, is a way to really touch the core of creativity, get to the center of it. So I would love to talk a little bit more about how artists, how the creatives, can really go a little bit deeper, even in grief, to create and what that might look like.
Vanessa Aldrich:Yeah, I love this question how to go deeper as an artist, and my beliefs again just in my own experience and in this survey not as a scholar, because I'm not, but just as a student, someone who needs wisdom is that the soul wishes to make use of our life, and our soul wishes to make use of our life on behalf of our creativity. Creativity no matter what. No, I don't care who you are. Here's the objective. That is why we're here To add context, color, dimension to consciousness, but human consciousness. What does my life teach me? And I certainly believe that we all go through a season needing to get to the meaning. You know, if something bad happens, if something dark happens, if something confusing happens, you go through it. It's challenging, it's difficult, but then we have the responsibility to look at it again second time and ask ourselves what is this trying to teach me? What is this trying to show me about life? You know, what I have encountered is. I think this question comes up a lot when people ask me how do I figure out what my talent is? How do I figure out what my purpose is? What am I supposed to do with my creativity? I know I'm creative, but what am I supposed to do with it? I don't know exactly. What is this? What are the specifics of my gift? Yes, and say that we must. All artists are tasked with mining for meaning in our lived experience, and I think what needs to happen first is a release of shame. I think that our culture in the West really conditions us to carry shame about the difficulty, difficulty that there is this unspoken process, there is this, this influx of media, the way that we even pursue and just consume healing modalities these days is about something happened to you, go over there and deal with it and then come back when you're, like the rest of us and I think think a lot of people feel that way Certainly felt like there was something wrong with me or wrong with my life, or something delayed or stuck for having experienced grief or any of the things that happened before it, which were, frankly, much more difficult than the grief. Having the courage to release the shame that there's something bad about you, for experiencing difficulty, so that you can then be reanimated and pursue the project of figuring out what is this profound difficulty trying to teach me, what am I supposed to learn and when? I kind of figured out that, for example. Then it becomes easier to start approaching the question what are the specifics about my creativity? How do I go deeper, as you say? How do I ask myself more meaningful, more adult, more sophisticated questions about my creativity? And you begin to approach these questions not from the perspective of shame fear but from the perspective of love. Fear but from the perspective of love. So in my case, you know all this, the book of Job, level, grief, and I know I'm referencing the Bible a lot, but you know I'm not here to convert or anything. It's totally fine, thank you.
Vanessa Aldrich:The perhaps the first 25 years of my life was really profoundly devastating. It could be a bogey and as I'm wading through that all by myself and I don't really have a lot of peers who have experienced that kind of stuff, I didn't then, from the perspective of shame, from the perspective of fear, my story is why did this happen to me? I can't believe this happened to me. It's not fair that this happened to me and in a lot of ways that is true and it is a big question. Why am I suddenly without any immediate family members? Why is there no adult on earth that is concerned with how Vanessa is doing today. That's tough. From the perspective of love, that same question becomes. I'm so glad this happened to me Because now I understand intimately the experience, the universal experience of grief.
Vanessa Aldrich:Death is inevitable, yes, right, and as is disappointment, heartbreak. Heartbreak is something that people struggle with so much they think there's something wrong with them Ending up in a situation, ship, or being heartbroken for a really long time or whatever they feel. Shame from the heartbreak alone is enough. Then there's this other layer where you feel bad for having experienced something, but it's inevitable. And from the perspective of love, with that interrogation, looking at your life in this heroic way, in this spiritual way, heroic as a reference to Looking at my life from love in this way now I see that my gift is that I can help people understand inevitability Like I. I get it.
Vanessa Aldrich:Is it easy? Are there tears? Of course, but my point is that if you align yourself with the things that all these books are saying love, this concept of grace that you always have it, that there's nothing wrong with you, that you're not broken, etc. You understand what your gift is. And I feel that way. I feel that there's a depth that I can, that has been excavated within me, yes, which which, at the end of you know, there is that clawing, that excavation process which is painful, but then what you realize you have is an empty cup that will be poured into. Yes, so that's how I'd answer that. And then I also like to talk about overcoming shame. Is shadow work, which I talk a lot about on my page? Yes, that's another thing that helps how to really get through the shame, other than waiting for life to do it for you. You can be mindful. I think that's something that's been pivotal in my creative process too, not just a spiritual process, not just something that I can report to my therapist.
Aliya Cheyanne:I did it.
Vanessa Aldrich:It means me finding more stuff to get on the page. Shadow work is a tremendous tool.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes, yes, and I I would love to explore that a little bit more, just because you've mentioned so many things that relate to that grief, shame, feelings of why me or unworthiness in some instances as it pertains to heartbreak, like so many of these things. And I've talked about shadow work a little bit in the past on the podcast and why it's so important. I've also expressed that it's the theme we constantly hear about online, but at the core of it, it is really important to fully integrate all aspects of yourself, to be a fully realized human being. It's important work. So I would love to just hear some of your additional thoughts around shadow work and how a creative or an artist really going deeper into that space can really impact their creative and artistic work profoundly, and why it's so important.
Vanessa Aldrich:Yeah, thank you for that question, because I agree with you that shadow work is so important and, again, I work with people one-on-one. I have this shadow work process that I'm very proud of. It's shadow work specifically for the creative process.
Vanessa Aldrich:And then, when I work with people one-on-one, I always say I'm not interested in how you communicate with your partner, how you manage your finances. I'm here to give you tools for your creative process and nothing else. If there's overlap, so be it. But using these tools again, like if I'm reading these texts, it's not so that I can brag about it to my priest. It's, it's just going to help me and I selfishly, like, ravenously, go to it as a sort of cheat code. And these spiritual texts talk about shadow work as well, in terms of this spiritual unfolding, how to get through it. And again, if we take the spiritual process as something that is synonymous with the creative process, we are meant to really go to war, to the best of our ability, with shame.
Vanessa Aldrich:Shame is the mechanism, that is the fundamental mechanism when people talk about shadow work. Your shadow is any version of yourself that is unknown to you. It's locked away, you don't have access to it, you can't see it. It's far away in your subconscious. You're unaware of it. The mechanism that supports that kind of separation is shame. Shame is this policing agent or something that you learned, or several things that you learned that were not beneficial for you to keep in your conscious personality. So if it's something like anger or jealousy or something tailor-made like that, someone taught you, you learned that it was safe, beneficial for you to banish that characteristic into your subconscious, and shame is the mechanism that keeps it there so much so that if you come near it in your daily life, some co-worker that demonstrates this.
Vanessa Aldrich:There's some aspect of your creativity that demands this of you, but because it's locked away, shame won't even let you come near it. And we know that creativity is about putting more and more of yourself onto the page, onto the canvas more deeper, more sophisticated, more honesty every damn day, which is why it's so hard. How do I do this? Certainly that's what I believe. It's not simply about becoming more and more talented, more and more impressive. As the older you get, it's so hard. How do I do this? Certainly that's what I believe. It's not simply about becoming more and more talented, more and more impressive as the older you get. It's about being more honest.
Vanessa Aldrich:Using shadow work to mine, for the parts of yourself that are locked away is a powerful tool, you know, looking at having the courage to hold a safe container around shame. So, which is to say I'm not going to say if I have an anger management issue. I'll use a real example, something that I've had to work through vanity. Vanity and something that feels like narcissism, something that feels like the bimbo, just always taking selfies, center of attention, kind of a girl. I had a lot of shame about that growing up and I didn't want to. It was wrong to me. Shame turned that personality into a type of morality. That being that kind of girl was wrong, that the way to really get ahead is to be intelligent. And certainly growing up where I did, in a part of the world that was very racist, things like beauty, the spotlight were not allowed for black women, yellow black girls. Nobody wanted a little black girl to feel beautiful. That's not how you get attention from your teachers, from your colleagues. You have to be smart.
Vanessa Aldrich:And certainly that was true of my grandfather who raised me, etc. My parents who raised me, my mother excuse me, single mom. You know my grandpa was born in 1931. South Carolina, youngest of 13. He needed to be smart, impressively smart, and so that's what I was learning. That was good.
Vanessa Aldrich:So you have to shame about that. But when you hold a safe space where you kind of you, don't go into this project to attack vanity perhaps in my case with more shame, saying get rid of the shame. No, the shame is what's telling you that it's bad. What you need to do is and that's what shadow work is is leaning in and saying gosh, it's okay that you have this, it's neutral, neutralizing the energy, so that you can lean in and discover that part of you, in the same way that you've discovered any of the other things that are conscious, perhaps my intelligence. I know the lateral limits of intelligence and what that gets me, when to use it, when not to use it, how to be responsible for it, how it gets a little out of, out of whack. You need to do the same for something that you've been ashamed of, learn it, take responsibility for it and then, once you release the shame, suddenly me an aspiring opera singer.
Vanessa Aldrich:I need to be in the spotlight. I always tell people this. I don't think people know this opera is the only format that I know of where people buy season tickets to boo. Wow, you are sitting there. I mean, it's a huge auditorium, 50 pieces of orchestra played by virtuosic musicians who've practiced eight hours a day since they were five years old, singing serious material On a stage spotlight. And I'm not singing with a microphone and I'm singing in a foreign language, heavy subjects.
Vanessa Aldrich:I can't do that if I'm afraid, if I have shame about the spotlight. My artistry needs me in that space and I was not doing the shadow work, one intentionally, two, sometimes the shadow just confronts you. Then you have to deal with it. But what I discovered again, because I wasn't doing it on behalf of my creativity, I was just trying to get through some triggers, yeah. Then when I do that work, I discover suddenly this vanity is part of me. Yes, and now I'm grounded in the spotlight in a way that I've never been, because since I've been doing this when I was very small, I've always struggled with terrible stage fright. It's that stage fright as a lot of people think it's. There's something wrong with them that they're not good enough, and that's what starts going in your mind I'm nervous, so I must not be good enough for this stuff. No, or perhaps there's just a shame that is policing you from being present with the obligation and demands of your own art.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, your full expression.
Vanessa Aldrich:Exactly you get it.
Vanessa Aldrich:Yeah, full expression, exactly. I love that, yeah, and you wouldn't know that you were missing it because you can't see it, because it's in your subconscious. But now suddenly you have, a part of my creative animal Is bubbling up. I am in the spotlight, I am hanging out, I am making eye contact With my audience, demanding their attention. Yes, and that voice that says that's bad Is gone, which makes me a better servant Of my art. And I think, think that that is applicable to as many things.
Vanessa Aldrich:Maybe there's shame that you have about how you were raised. Maybe you were raised poor. Maybe you were raised in a modest, you know second generation family who was taught not to want the big thing and what there's. There's infinite iterations of this. I think people would be shocked to learn how, just without effort and that's my favorite part of shadow work is that the integration of the shadow happens in seconds, in seconds. That's how wise we are, that's how intelligent all of this is. What takes forever is resistance. You face it, take a deep breath through that feeling. When someone calls you like 10-15 years ago someone would have called me vain, I would have started a fight with them, or something I would have written some sort of essay about how I'm. I wouldn't have been able to handle it. Take a breath, ask yourself maybe that is true of me and maybe it's okay. Hmm, and then quit.
Aliya Cheyanne:Oh, my goodness.
Vanessa Aldrich:More of yourself.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah.
Vanessa Aldrich:You know what I mean? Yeah, you said you talked about this on your podcast.
Aliya Cheyanne:Is this yeah, not as beautifully and poetically as you did, but just this idea that and I use the example of anger too or sacred, or ages. I like to call it yes, yeah, like just just understanding that all of these are aspects of us. And how can we use these things that we push to the back of our minds, that we hide in our subconscious, that we like to ignore, that we like to keep buried? How do we pull that into our being and use it as fuel for our work, use it as fuel for showing up as our full selves in life? I just love the way that you brought that answer full circle and how you were taught that vanity is something wrong or something to be hidden, but how you use it so masterfully in your work as an opera singer, because your opera singing work, it demands it, it requires it, demands it, it requires it, and without it, how could you fully be present in that role?
Aliya Cheyanne:I think that's so profound. I love the way that you described being a servant to your art. I think I got chills when you said that, because that's so important and I think there are so many aspects of ourselves that people love to just hide and bury and keep shut away and that they deny and they don't want the world to see. And I'm a firm advocate that those are things that ultimately can only serve you and your larger purpose if you learn to harness them and fully integrate them. So I just think that's so profound, I got chills, I love what you said because it's I mean again.
Vanessa Aldrich:I started by saying this that if god is the creator this is my question almost every day. If god is the creator, what? Yes, yeah, which it is? Yeah, it excites the process.
Vanessa Aldrich:I think a lot of people hear this stuff doing the work, or perhaps they stuff it's and it reminds them of therapy. It reminds them of doing the work, or reminds them of something that's a little bit too difficult to understand or a little bit too far away. Rather, maybe they know they need to do it, like, you know you need to go to therapy, you know you need to quit smoking, whatever it is, yeah, it's not. So what, I don't really care. But if I remind myself every day that I'm creative, that's my foundation, which allows me to say that, ok, I'm creative and god is the creator, that might mean that I'm okay, there's nothing wrong with me, that there's nothing that can permeate my self-concept, that is so bad because that is the threshold and it's it, it's, it's written, it's been written by other people for thousands of years. Oh, there's some context here I'm supporting. So if I can say, all right, no matter what it is, no matter what I find I'm, if I am, the human iteration of the creator.
Vanessa Aldrich:Yeah, let me just see, let me just go in there yeah let me be excited, yeah, to discover more, and I I will say, just back to the opera example of just make it come home. I think, at least that's how it hit home for me. I was in a studio environment with my teacher, in front of a bunch of my peers in a rehearsal space, and classical music is known for being. There's no HR in classical music. It is rigorous, it is more like a martial art than anything. It is more like a martial art than anything. It is brutal. The educate the this, how intense the feedback is. I was singing in a workshop scenario and my teacher stopped me and he was like I'm just so disappointed and I'm like that's how, that's how it goes. All teachers kind of speak like that, so you're like okay, what are to say? But something was kicking up and and it was. I started to feel it, yeah, which to me and my understanding of things, that means something needs to be.
Vanessa Aldrich:Yeah, yeah, yeah, something real. It's not just you know some, some teachers wasting my time, just which happens. Now there's something for me, and whatever he's about to say, even though it's uncomfortable yeah, he was saying I'm very disappointed as you, and I started to get emotional, which is a sign of that the shadow is confronting itself. That's when you're confronting your shame. It's deep, it's devastating.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes, uh, yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I went through that like a couple days ago.
Vanessa Aldrich:Yeah, I'll probably get one in 15 minutes, no. So my teacher's like I'm very disappointed in you and I'm like gosh okay, let's hear it, you know. And he's like gosh, you know, you're just, it's just not. You know, you're just doing all this stuff and it's just, I can't believe you haven't made the progress yet, something like that. I just started to get so emotional and I was advanced enough in my own process to say I'm going to be vulnerable, I'm going to speak up, I'm going to bring all of me and say something. Either that means that he's going to realize that he's wrong if I speak authentically, and then we'll forge the new path from that understanding, or I'm going to realize that I'm wrong.
Vanessa Aldrich:So I said you know, to my teacher I was like you know, it just really hurts my feelings that you would be disappointed in me because of X, y and Z. You know how hard I've worked, you know what I've been through, and for you to say that I can't believe you didn't get it, no, it just makes me feel like you are discrediting all the work that I've already done. And he said Vanessa, that's your problem. That's your problem. You're sitting there on stage as an opera singer, wanting people to know how hard you're working. And that's what was wrong with my singing technically that I the singing was labored, it my body was getting tired. It's not efficient singing. I was working too hard. Yeah, because that was my value system. I was trying to show, as my teacher, you're so busy trying to show us how smart you are, but singing is about having a beautiful voice. You're a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice. Sing that way, which collapsed all of this shadow stuff that we're talking about right in my face.
Vanessa Aldrich:Yeah, and I didn't even and to get really specific, about opera, there's all these different genres, there's all these different styles within opera and all of them, about which one you're going to sing the best, is entirely physiologic. Whatever anatomy you have, that's where your, that's where your throat goes. You sing that genre. Yeah, right, and the, the style that I am best at is called bel canto, which literally means beautiful voice, beautiful singing.
Vanessa Aldrich:That's in my body, yeah, and I had shame about it, and so now when I sing, I'm not perfect at it, but now the energetic, the thing that just flies, and I'm getting goosebumps, the thing that flies out of me is this communication about myself, which is to say, rather than squirming on stage, being nervous and be like, okay, I prepared really hard, I studied all the history and I did all this stuff and I'm really smart and I did, it's frantic energy that registers as stage fright. Audiences don't like that. Yeah, now, when I sing, I try to. The thing that I communicate is that I am a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice, yes, and I have something to sing. Yeah, beautifully, yeah, that'll take care, without me even having to try. Takes care of stage fright, which is, I think, what is meant in all these texts that we can't even conceive of how supported we are yeah, my goodness, you know what I mean.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, that makes it really salient grace, the work, and that's another thing they call it the work.
Vanessa Aldrich:We think it's discipline, doing the work. We think it's like, oh, I gotta be disciplined. It's the grace, it's a uh, look, I just gotta it makes it. And the people say like, oh, yeah, like you know, it's like podcast bros, those motivation videos. Yeah, like, after some time, the discipline, no, it really is grace. Grace, yeah, that's where the mind, the thoughts, the shame cannot, it cannot be there. It can be there in your relationship, be there on all these other things. Yeah, when you're really locked in in the way that you're supposed to, all you're doing is floating or, if not, being carried. Yeah, the only way you're doing is following instructions. And what's more stupid than that?
Aliya Cheyanne:My goodness, I love that so much, even down to the simplicity of the genre that you're in and really embodying that in a moment where you are being confronted with the overperforming or the validation from the audience, like just, you know, just soaking into yeah, that's so good this is what I mean that the shadow quite literally just sharing it because it's an example, yeah, of the process, but also my own.
Vanessa Aldrich:I had shadow, literally. If somebody were to call me beautiful I'm sure a lot of people know this If somebody were to call me beautiful, beautiful, I would have swarmed, I wouldn't have related or I would have wanted to follow up. No, I'm smart. I went to uc, burke, I was a triple major, went to grads, all these things, yeah, but if I went and did my shadow work, I literally there's a parallel to what my gift is. Yes, no, there's no, it's not. You don't even have to search for the parallel. It is is a line. That, again, that's why I say do shadow work and that's what my, that's what my a lot of my work is when I do one-on-one stuff. A lot of my TikTok stuff is about that, because I just think it's a goldmine.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, it is, and it's so profound. Something else that you brought up, that you brought up multiple times, that we keep coming back to, is this idea of gift and this idea of divinity and creativity, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about that, because we talked about that before. I think the way that you expressed it, which I thought was so profound then, was you know, creativity is a way for the universe to expand itself, or something along those lines. You said something like that and I thought that was so profound. And I've had a guest on the show in the past, lavon Briggs, who describes herself as a co-creator with the creator.
Aliya Cheyanne:So many women that I trust that inspire me when it comes to creative work see that parallel. They see no separation between spirit, divinity, creation and God, and I have always felt strongly about that, even in my own personal life. I've only felt like more recently I hear more people expressing that in a way that's not sacrilegious, like I don't know if that's the right word, but I've. I felt like in previous spaces or places to say something like that is almost kind of like taboo or looked down upon, and now I'm in a space where I'm hearing that more and it's it's more accepted, I would want to say, in some spaces, not over space. But I would love to talk to you a little bit more about that, because I also feel strongly that spirituality, creativity, divinity are deeply aligned.
Aliya Cheyanne:I like to go back to the saying. I don't know exactly where I got it from, but it's something along the lines of you know, if God is the ocean and I'm a drop of the ocean, what am I? If God is the ocean and I'm a drop of the ocean, what am I? And I want to talk to you a little bit more about how we can express our divinity through our work because we all have that and how we can really channel that divinity through our gifts. I love the way that you spoke about your sort of progression with really tuning into one of your many gifts. And for someone else who might be trying to figure that out, might not recognize the divinity within themselves or how that relates to their creativity I know that's a big question, but I would love to talk to you a little bit more about how we learn to channel that energy better, I guess. How do we learn?
Vanessa Aldrich:to channel. Yes, and I would say my approach certainly. Again, I'll say it a lot, only because I say it to myself and I think it's important. We say words like divine. We think that we're suddenly going to start speaking mystical language, that we're going to start sounding like priests or mystics or healers, or that we're going to start speaking mystical language, that we're going to start sounding like priests or mystics or healers, or that we're going to be sounding religious and what we do. How do I channel the divine? Does that mean that you have to start repackaging the bible in your writing in order for it to be divine? No, I think that I.
Vanessa Aldrich:I talk, I just did a kind of a month of workshops on mythology. Like I said, I referenced that before. Yeah, and the hero is myth. The protagonist of every myth is the hero. Yet the hero is someone who has mastered the art of approaching the obstacles on their path and their story. If you take Luke Skywalker, it's my favorite Luke Skywalker is an example of someone who has mastered learning how to see the obstacles in their path. The encounter with dorf vader, for example, as an essential tension point, growth point, teacher, difficulty, seeing difficulty as an ally may say that an ally in force, seeing the difficulty in your life as an ally.
Vanessa Aldrich:In May I say that An ally in force, seeing the difficulty in your life as an ally in your unfolding. In the unfolding, the objective is to become not only Skywalker from Tatooine, ordinary man. The hero has mastered the art. It is a metaphor for all of us about what the journey, what is required for the journey, which is the surrender to difficulty as an ally, to go from being an ordinary man to an eternal man. And so, to answer your question about how to put the divine into your work, one of the biggest lessons from this for me has come from the writing side of my process.
Vanessa Aldrich:Channeling the divine is about essentially creating a work in which God, the intelligence of the universe, however you want to define it, that God is accessible to other people, because without accessibility we cannot. We don't have the brains to comprehend everything we barely can comprehend. We certainly can't comprehend how big the ocean is, let alone, let alone how intelligent. Yeah, yes, we don't really understand the divine.
Vanessa Aldrich:If you do the work to understand in the heroic way, like I said, what about your life is eternal, which is to say, what about your life has happened. That relates not only to that, is not about you, but is about other people. Like what did this event teach me? Not only about life, but about other people. What are we all going through? James Baldwin says that is when you make your first breakthrough, because it's not only about you. What happened to you doesn't matter. What matters is that if you can communicate what happened to everybody else, allowing your artwork art, your work to be a cathedral in which other people experience the sacred, which is to say, there is not some lesson about how to convert to christianity. All I mean is that you get there, you experience god.
Vanessa Aldrich:God is accessible, which means that, if you are audience member, as all audience members are carry some terrible secret with them into the auditorium, into the museum, and you open a book. You got a brand new novel, a brand new book of poetry, and you're reading it because someone recommended it to you. But deep down, there's something inside of you that needs to be understood. Yeah, deep down. Even you could be watching Fast and Furious 10, but you're hoping for 10 seconds where somebody says something.
Vanessa Aldrich:Yeah, that moves you, yeah, and it's not something that you can tell a partner. It's not in your notes app, it's not your therapist doesn't know it, your Google search doesn't know it, it's just you. And you go to art to be understood in that way, art to be understood in that way. So, if we can get out of our own way a little, to answer your question how to channel the divine, yeah, begin a journey of asking yourself what has happened to you. What does it mean? Travel the distance away from your own feelings about what happened to you.
Vanessa Aldrich:Kroll, who's one of my favorite poets, william Safford, says we're all on hands and knees on an unmarked trail to where other, where other people have forgotten something. No matter how tired we are or how lowly we arrive, we must find something forgotten by everyone alive. Crawl to find meaning about other people in your own life, with whatever process. Put that into the work. And again, it doesn't have to be. And now we convert to Christianity. That's not the divine, it's I want someone to feel seen. You know what I mean. And so there's this blend of what happened to you and you having mastered your talent, which is the five, something that happens, exists in the five senses voice, painting, sensory. It's visible, it's human. You blend those two things and only in that combination do other human beings know that they're not alone. You know what I mean, be it some beautiful, devastating poem about grief, or be it the beauty of a water lily like monet, that's beautiful, yeah.
Vanessa Aldrich:I love that.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, I don't know if that answers your question, but that is how I answer the question. No, I mean, that's good stuff. I think that's so thoughtful in terms of what I was trying to ask, because I know it was a big question, but I love this idea of just going in the hidden room inside of yourself, like recognizing what's going on there and finding ways to express that so that others might meet you there too. Finding commonality being seen, yeah, relate to it, like I, I, I love that. I think that's really good and yeah, find a different way.
Vanessa Aldrich:There's this anecdote that I've heard in some of my education, where you know, talking about these old traditions, where these you know, in a more traditional society, you know, the women would gather. I'm messing up some of the story but just for simplicity's sake, you know, women would gather and when they would gather, in this particular ceremony, any woman who had gone through something difficult would be allowed to say it and they would tell her story and everyone who would listen would have undivided attention and if she was crying they would cry. There is a witness. What happened to you? Tell us and you can tell that story. Oh, no, you have undivided attention.
Vanessa Aldrich:The ceremony doesn't end until you're done telling the story. Yeah, you can do that three times and the fourth time if you feel compelled to get up, you must tell the story differently. Hmm, mm-hmm. From your old story, which again is what happens in every single myth the hero, luke Skywalker, dorothy, when she's in black and white in Kansas, neo in the Matrix. There's a fight to get past the vice grip of their foundational story, which is really probably your parents story. It's not your story.
Aliya Cheyanne:And that's the.
Vanessa Aldrich:James Baldwin, that is your first breakthrough. Yeah, who you actually are. I was just to say your first articulation of who we all are, yeah my goodness, this is so good.
Aliya Cheyanne:I feel like I could listen to you and talk to you forever, but I know we have to be mindful of time. So yeah, yeah.
Vanessa Aldrich:So, yeah, I could talk forever as part of being an opera singer. That's something I had to wrestle with my shadow journey. I always sound my own voice, hey.
Aliya Cheyanne:I love the sound of it too. It's great Like I'm. I'm soaking it all in. I feel like I'm a sponge right now. This is so good, but do want to be mindful of time. So there are a couple of other just like last questions that I really wanted to jump into with you.
Aliya Cheyanne:Sure, I know, when we kind of spoke a little bit, we talked a lot and you mentioned it a little bit earlier in this conversation. You know, there's just so much stuff in our face we're forced to consume. Like everything is commodified and yes, but I also think on the other side of that that, like as a creative and as an artist, there's an extent to which you do want people to consume your artistry and your work. So I would love to know some of your thoughts around balance in this space. In a society where we are pushed to consume, where there's so much to be commodified, how does the artist make way for their creative work, for their artistry, and how they essentially want people to consume that in a way too? Like how, how do we balance that?
Vanessa Aldrich:question is how to balance, like the part of putting yourself out there that perhaps feels scary but also feels gross. Yeah and yeah, in a way yeah, how to balance that and how to do it anyway, how to get over the fear, like okay, like in touch with the divine, am I somehow polluting it by slapping a price tag? On it Making their Black Friday a sale so that people buy it yeah.
Aliya Cheyanne:And you know what's funny?
Vanessa Aldrich:Pollution is the word I wanted to use, a second ago, but I was like, let me not use that, but hey, I should have no, because that's how people feel Say yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? No, it's. I mean. Of course we all feel that way. I have a couple. I don't know if I can answer it quickly. I can't answer anything quickly, but I'll do my best.
Aliya Cheyanne:No.
Vanessa Aldrich:I do. I do have an answer, and one, and we reiterated this a lot, so hopefully by now it's clear. But again, who you are in the material world, the obligations that we have in the material world paying the rent, showing up to work on time, graduating high school, graduating college that is not our soul. Perhaps they're similar, perhaps the soul is dancing and tickling, animating these things, but that's who I am. And if we really want to lean in these things that have caused grief in us the fact that the rent is always due and it's so expensive, the fact that I can't go to the hospital without having to pay somebody $10,000,- et cetera and so forth.
Vanessa Aldrich:The fact that I dropped out of graduate school, my graduate degree in voice. I dropped out and I still owe $30,000. That's not my I mean, some of that is my responsibility, but the fact that that system exists and the fact that that system is oppressive, it's not my fault and it's not my responsibility. So, step one, release yourself from this habit which we are taught, that that oppressive, exploitive system is our nature. That's what we're taught that to put something on the marketplace and to consume. We are taught that it is human nature for that to be corrupted. It's human nature.
Vanessa Aldrich:So you have to deal with how difficult it is, it's not true. We have to do the work of disentangling their exploitive process, which keeps us in some sort of prison, at least in certain metrics from our ethics. That's not my morality, those aren't my ethics. In a really crude example, 400 years ago it was illegal and immoral for a black person to let alone be free but to learn how to read. So what would it have been wrong for me to learn how to read? That oppressive system is not morality. Let's really get a grip on them aggressively, in a mighty fashion. Let's be honest then. Let's contextualize it even further. You putting $35 on one of your little watercolors is not the same as being some multi-billionaire who conspires with law, international law and international apparatuses of every variety in order to maintain this wildly oppressive, exploitive system, robbing value from millions and billions of workers. That's not the same thing. And again, they're telling you that it is the same thing, because they're telling you that that billionaire process is human nature. You are trying to stay alive.
Vanessa Aldrich:Now back to what we're saying about the purpose of it. Yeah, even your divine inspiration, you did the work of telling, figuring out new language for your story, about what happened to you and what it all means. After that divine inspiration season where you're like oh my god, I'm so grateful I got it and you got it out. You have work to do. You have to get it out. How else are people going to see it? You have to find it. That is the responsibility. It has to find somebody else. Now, if they find it and they don't like it, that's also part of it, because if you did your part and somebody doesn't like it, that's also the experience that was meant to happen. No-transcript by charging twenty dollars an hour for whatever it is that you do yeah yes, people are also thirsty to consume the right thing.
Vanessa Aldrich:We are being. We are being, yeah, we are. We are fed things that are, we are told are going to help us.
Vanessa Aldrich:And then we go through a season of consuming the things that we're told are good for us, all this content on whatever, be it online or be it, all the stuff that is fed to us. It's just like McDonald's. Yeah, we are fed stuff that we are told is art. Someone who is interested in fashion gets a subscription to a popular fashion magazine, and what you find is news about Hailey Bieber's birth. You don't get news about fashion, yeah, and then maybe you're excited. You buy it. Your do. You partner spent the money, so you tend to have received what you want, but then, in the middle of the night or somewhere further along the line, after years, you realize that you just ate mcdonald's. Yeah, people want. People want real stuff, yes, yeah, so give it to them.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, my gosh, that's so good. People are thirsty for realness, like they're thirsty. Yeah, they're starving. Yeah, yeah, that's so good, that's what's wrong with all of us?
Vanessa Aldrich:Yeah, don't you think that like it's just we're like we're trying going through the motions and someone says buy this and do this. Now, everyone, we're watching this on TV now. It's like the Olympics and that should hold you over for the next three weeks, and certainly some sort of professional football season is starting after that, and then that'll hold you over and that we're just being held over. Yeah, yes, interrupt the process yes, announce that your finger paintings are on display at the local museum. Yes, for $10.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, that's good, I love that. Thank you for that answer. That's so good, that's so good. Okay, so I would love to ask you you talk a lot about how to ensure that the artist and the creative doesn't burn out, doesn't give up in the fight, and you've talked a little bit about that already. One thing you brought up super briefly in just the experience of grief is also heartbreak, and I had let you know previously that one of the things that drew me into your work is your interpretation of creative collaborators and how maybe in some instances, maybe a partnership that we thought was romantic really should have just been a creative collaboration. It doesn't apply to everybody, but it might apply to some people. So I would love to know, kind of blending those two together. How can creative collaborators or how can creative collaboration help to ensure that the creative or the artist doesn't burn out? How can one kind of help the process of the other?
Vanessa Aldrich:yeah, I love this question.
Vanessa Aldrich:Let me, um, get my thoughts together. Your question is how, how can? The question is about burnout, staying in the fight, right, okay? So again it goes back to who are you? I'm creative and god told me I am, so that's it. Yes, that's it.
Vanessa Aldrich:What comes with that is realizing, once you get on the same page with that, that you start to take yourself seriously. You're not whatever version of the stuff that you're hearing online about yourself. You're not, certainly not who your shame is. I'm created. And so then, if you say that, that means that there's a whole universe of depth inside of you that needs attention, there's a whole, there's all these layers inside of you that are sad and upset. They need watering, they're thirsty. You're creative and you haven't been watering your creativity in some time. If you take that part of you seriously in the way that I think we are asked to with our life, then you start to see like, okay, I'm having this longing, I need to be seen, I want to be held. I want to be held, I want someone to believe in my. I want to grow, I want to build, as people say. I want someone to come along and believe in me and support me, and I think these are feelings that come in large part from our creativity. It comes from the desire to be in love and romantic partnership and friends and community, but our creativity needs that.
Vanessa Aldrich:You can't do this alone. Yes, you need someone to be like man. I get you, I love what you said and I want to help. Yeah, man, I believe in you. Let's do something together. Yeah, you need that. You need that for a lifetime. Your art cannot grow, develop. You certainly can't do this stuff alone, because it's hard. You need a friend. You need a creative friend where the thing that you have in common is not tacos, not shopping, but creativity. Yes, and having, I think it's found it.
Vanessa Aldrich:To answer your question, I think it's again like I've said the whole time if there's a foundation of you need to take your art so seriously that it governs your choices, it's how? Again, how do you? I know that you're telling me that I have such and such attachment style and I have such and such thing to be shamed about. I'm not going to go there. Yeah, you need that threshold.
Vanessa Aldrich:In the same way, you need to say okay, what am I craving? What is next? What is my art demanding man. I really want to write this essay, but I don't have some of it, so I need to find some help If you deny yourself of that. Said another way, if you squander creative energy either by not using it because you can't get out of your own way, or if you squander creative energy, which is the same as sexual energy, inside of a space where there's chemistry oh my God, the chemistry is delicious. Yes, oh, you and that person. It is Whoa. And so you're like man, let's make a partnership out of this, let's make a romantic partnership out of this, but maybe that was something for your creativity.
Vanessa Aldrich:If you want to stay in this art stuff for a lifetime, you have to put your art stuff first in a way that you have never done, in a way that you did not need to when you were a child. When you're a child, all you had to do is be talented and go to school and do what your teacher said. Wait for your teacher to give you permission. Now you have to do all of that stuff. That's my point, and so, if you want to stay in art for a lifetime, one take this so seriously that your art is making your choices for you. What am I going to eat today? I need this so I can create later. Yeah, who am I going to be friends with? What are my boundaries? What am I going to read? What parties am I going to go to? Who am I going to sleep with? I'm not saying you need to be celibate. None, lord knows, you know anything about me. That is. That's not what I preach. Yeah, sensuality in the body and sexuality are huge for creativity, at least for me.
Vanessa Aldrich:I'm not saying yourself away from all of that. I'm saying develop the discernment and the more discernment you have if you develop. Develop discernment on your creativity, not just what society tells you to do, tells you to do like, oh, it's bad to do this. No, as a creative person, you need to be irreverent, completely In your art. That's what it's for Mm-hmm. Yeah, develop some discernment in that. I can give you an example In my own life there was years back.
Vanessa Aldrich:There was this collaborator that I had in opera. He's a pianist. Mm-hmm. Beautiful man, yeah, one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen.
Vanessa Aldrich:Gorgeous Gentleman, does all of the right things for me in every way and could've, I could've. You know what I mean. I really could've. But I just also the chemistry. I was just like I just, you know, I also saw everyone, all of the other girls, guys, tripping all over each other and I was like I'm going to be the one. I'm going to choose my creativity. Yeah, right now, because my bot is fine, I can find another guy, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I'm going to put my creativity first and I'm also going to put his creativity first. I'm going to go out of my way to acknowledge some aspect of him. And then what happened was that all of that chemistry that was mutual went into the art and it was one of the best performances I've ever had. It was delicious for the audience in the way that we see like what is it on Scandal? Olivia Pope. And what's his name? Fitz? Yes, whatever his name, fitz, whatever the country, we met on stage and let me tell you what the audience loved it.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes, yes, you know what I mean. Revelled in it, yeah.
Vanessa Aldrich:And now it's a friend and we'll have that as a memory and that's the foundation and he'll always be there for me. He's always going to text me back, yeah, and that's all you want. Yeah, someone to text back. But again it goes back to what I said creativity is more of a lifeline than we think you want. You want that text back, you want to be seen, held, you want to build with somebody. Maybe your creativity is the lifeline to that, because creativity is godliness and God gives us what we need.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, that's so good. That's so good, and I also think some of what you're saying in that too is something else you've expressed around. You know, there's a lot of push in creativity now to like go back to our childlike state, but we need to be operating from the place of an adult. And you've said that, like, what decisions am I making To honor my creativity? I'm going to eat this thing Because it's going to help me be creative. Later I'm going to do Making adult decisions around our creativity. So I think that's so beautiful.
Vanessa Aldrich:It's a joy, because that's what I admired when I was a little girl, looking at interviews of Toni Morrison. They were I'm not saying abandon your inner child, not for a second, I could follow their business.
Vanessa Aldrich:But there is something again. All of these spiritualists draw attention to the first half of your spiritual life and the second half. All of them do that. That's the meaning of being born again, early gate, the great eye of the needle. There's a separation. When we're children, we're being guided. There's infatuation with other people who are better than us, our teachers are giving us permission before we learn the next lesson, etc. In this second half of your creative life and your spiritual life, you must decide yes, because you're writing something Again. You are etching something into the eternal memory. Yes, you've got to. You can't wait.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, that's so good. That's what I mean by being a grown-up. Yeah, I love that. That's so good. I think just kind of in summary this has been just so good and so profound. I feel like there are so many lessons and tidbits here for creatives and artists to take away from this conversation. So thank you for showing up so vulnerably and transparently and beautifully.
Vanessa Aldrich:You asked the best questions.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes, thank you. Like this, this was just so good. I think something else I've seen in your work recently is just like this villain era challenge, and I think it goes back to what you were saying before around just the villain's purpose not even just the villain, but even the shadow's purpose to push us into our full self, just everything. Anytime I see any of your work, I'm just like it just pushes me to a new level, a new perspective, and I think that's so impactful. So, thank you, can you let folks know where to find you online, where to support your work? Thank you.
Vanessa Aldrich:Yes, if you're interested in my singing, the soprano version of me, you can go to my, my website there, vanessa aldrich con. And if you're interested in this exploration of creativity, that's what the lion's share of my tiktok is and I, vanessa, is life, is my handle, or, like the actual ad, is Vanessa Dom's life, yeah. Or or all of my resources, where my services, the one-on-one stuff, the workshops we have a great community of workshop and reading groups and stuff like that. A note from self comms the name of that website, the self being your high self, the eternal self that you're listening to always.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, I love that. You're listening to always. I love that. Thank you so much and.
Vanessa Aldrich:I will make sure to link all of those things in the show notes below, so people can find you.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, this was so great. I loved our conversation. Thank you, you're the best. Thank you, An incredible conversation with Vanessa Aldrich. Vanessa, thank you so much for taking some time to be on the show, so deeply intrigued by your mind. Thank you for showing up and sharing all of this brilliant wisdom on the show today. It was so meaningful to me and I know it'll be so meaningful for all of the listeners tuning in. I hope you found this episode inspiring, informative, transformative. I hope that you were able to take something away from it. If you loved this episode, just consider sharing it with a friend or two or more. The five-star rating and a positive written review. The text to the show the text the show is in the show notes below, or a voice note. Let me know what you think. I so appreciate you taking the time to tune into this episode. Friend, I will catch you on the next one. Until soon.
