The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane

Episode 88 Why Creativity is a Vital Component for Healthy Living

• Fiona Kane • Season 1 • Episode 88

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Can creativity enhance our well-being and mental health? In this episode, I welcome Tina Summers, a passionate artist from the picturesque Port Stephens (north of Sydney), who shares her powerful journey of overcoming doubts and insecurities about her artistic ability. We discuss imposter syndrome and perfectionism, providing insights into embracing artistic identity through a creative process that balances joy and self-expression.

My conversation with Tina doesn't stop at personal growth; it extends into the broader impact of creativity on society. We explore how engaging in art, music, and communal creative activities can reduce stress and create a sense of belonging.

Creativity isn't just for the artistically inclined; it's a vital element of life that can be nurtured through simple, everyday practices. Tune in for a heartfelt discussion on how creativity is not only a joyful pursuit but a crucial component of emotional well-being, personal growth and achievements (personal and in society).


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Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay



Fiona Kane:

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast with Fiona Kane. I'm your host and I have a guest here today, and her name is Tina Summers. Hi, tina, hi. Would you tell us a little bit more about who you are? What's your background?

Tina Summers:

Absolutely. I'm Tina Summers. I'm an artist. I work in oils primarily, and I have an art business that started in March this year. Let's see, I'm a wife and a mum of two teenagers, two teenage boys, and really enjoying actually this time of life, which is never thought. I'd say that about teenagers.

Fiona Kane:

Well, they have their good times and their bad times, but it goes very fast. I don't have children, but everyone I know who has children says it goes very fast. So you go from one minute thinking oh my God, when's this going to be over, next minute saying, oh my God, they're gone you know, so you do everything in life. I think it's to try to make sure that you have a bit of gratitude for it while it's there, even if it's tough, because the one thing that's for sure in life is change.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah 100%, and you don't have to say exactly where you are. It's up to you, but I'm in Sydney and you're north of here I'm in Port Stephens, okay. So that's for anyone, because we have people from all around the world. That's kind of north coast in New South Wales, so north of Sydney, yeah, it's about two hours north, two and a half hours north of Sydney.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, lovely, beautiful area on the water. So it's a lovely, lovely place in the world. It's very lovely and, of course, as I usually do, I always forget to say what our topic is going to be, but generally, today we're going to be talking, if you didn't guess, by who the artist is, the fact that the guest is an artist. We're talking about why creativity is important for health, and so I might start with just saying how did you get started as an artist?

Tina Summers:

Well, I think, like most people, my first experiences with art were as kids, you know, as in preschool, and I have a very vivid memory of a preschool moment where I remember being in the zone and absolutely whipping out painting after painting, and the preschool teacher was, you know, quite happy with everything that was going on. And I got to like, okay, what am I going to do next? And so I've, you know, got new butcher's, everything that was going on. And I got to like, okay, what am I going to do next? And so I, you know, got new butcher's paper. Everything was great. What colour am I going to choose? Pink, because that was my favourite colour at the time. And I put a pink stripe down the left side of the easel and I'm like, oh, this little voice inside me said it's finished. Now all the artists probably hear and go yeah, I completely understand, everyone else will be going. What do you mean?

Tina Summers:

it's finished yeah, like me but I just knew that the painting was finished. It didn't need anything else. There was nothing else that needed. It was. It was done at the pink stripe. Well, the preschool teacher, like most people, was saying well, you've got all this paper still to work on. You know, why don't you put something else here? And she kept coming up with all these ideas of things I could add to the painting and I was very adamant no, as three odds are no, the painting's finished their favorite word, isn't it?

Tina Summers:

so we I ended up having this big argument with my preschool teacher about the painting and eventually she kind of got frustrated and she just said well, maybe you can't paint anymore today, but what I heard was maybe you're not allowed to paint yes and and I don't remember painting any time after that at preschool, and I think my mum said one time I used to paint a lot and then all of a sudden the painting stopped.

Tina Summers:

So that was my experience. When I was in year one, a bit of the self-taught came in. I joined a new school and sitting around the table and we're all doing a drawing activity. We loved Rainbow Bright. I'm now showing my age. Rainbow Bright was a big favourite of ours. She was a cartoon character that was on TV.

Fiona Kane:

I don't even know who that was actually. Maybe that's after my time or before. I don't know who that is.

Tina Summers:

I don't really know.

Fiona Kane:

I'm not much of an art person, so maybe I'm just not.

Tina Summers:

It was just a TV show. It was on and all of us girls loved watching it. She had rainbow striped leggings. So you know, know, I think that was one of the appeals that you know, she was very colorful and we were all trying to draw this character and, like most of us, you know, at that age, it's all stick figures and there was one girl at the table who was doing like two lines for arms and two lines for each leg so she could actually put the rainbow stockings on and she was colouring them in, and so you end up with this and I think it's a very natural and unfortunate part of human experience is comparison started and looking at her work and looking at my work and and this first idea of I'm not good at drawing came into my head.

Tina Summers:

And then fast forward into high school. I did. I still enjoyed doing art. So I chose art as my elective and I still had it as a core subject in Year 8. And it's probably I don't know if anyone's ever managed this before, but I managed to get an A and a D for the same subject in the same semester and a D for the same subject in the same semester, and the reason I got a D was because I was so hung up on this one particular assignment that we had to do and I couldn't move past. It was a portrait of some kind we were doing and I couldn't move past the shape of the mouth. It wasn't right. I wasn't happy with it and instead of the teacher really helping me work through that, she just looked at me and said you'll never be an artist because you're too much of a perfectionist. And I mean that could have been her own baggage that came out, you know and it's just unfortunate.

Tina Summers:

Sometimes the things that we say, we don't quite realise how they land.

Fiona Kane:

Liz Gilbert talks about this and you probably know her book. Uh, what's it called? What's her book called about? Art? And, uh, elizabeth Gilbert she talks about I think she calls them art scars or something like that. What's her book? Big magic? Yes, yeah, big magic, I think it is, and she talks about how we get damaged along the way by people say certain things, or whatever, and we take them on as gospel or we assume that it means something. It's not what they were saying, but we take it on as something else or whatever.

Tina Summers:

That's right, and in my case it was even me, like in year one, I was the one that was causing the damage. So you know, there's no judgment over this, it's just an unfortunate part of life. But this was my story, this was my history and my relationship with art all the way through.

Fiona Kane:

That is still my story. Oh, I'm sorry, that's still my story. I think I had a lot of people around me who were good at art and I just wasn't and I didn't get it. But also I was because of without going into all the details because I I had a lot of stuff in my life that related more to kind of survival and more to practical things or whatever. I just sort of thought the art was a waste of time as well. I kind of needed, I needed practical skills.

Fiona Kane:

I wanted to you grow up, get out of the house, get a job, whatever, and be independent, and of course my whole thoughts were about that. Art just didn't factor in there. But also I wasn't very good at it and I got laughed at for not being very good at it as well. So I just try to avoid art as much as possible. And if I go to a workshop or something now and they get out the crayons, I kind of go oh, I get really uncomfortable when the crayons come out, where I know other people kind of just get excited and they just jump right into it. I'm like, oh, they're going to make me do this.

Tina Summers:

Yeah, it really brings up a lot of emotions for people. As an artist, I've been there too, you know. Like this was my journey as well. Like I didn't have art classes from when I was a young child, like I grew up believing I wasn't good at art. I grew up believing this is not something that I can do, it's not my skill set. I had words spoken of me like you're never going to be an artist, and these are things that you know. So there was a part of my brain, like my deep subconscious, that really shut the door to any of those things. And then it became about and it's almost like it's funny you say it's survival, because then it almost becomes like a self-protective mode.

Fiona Kane:

Yes.

Tina Summers:

To not put yourself in those situations. Yeah, yeah it is. You're going to have to draw, you know, or you're going to have to do something, or you know it brings up all those uncomfortable feelings because you're trying to protect yourself from the awfulness of those emotions again.

Fiona Kane:

Yes, yeah.

Tina Summers:

So I grew up thinking I wasn't good at art and then, out of the blue, in my 30s, I got this strange desire to start drawing.

Tina Summers:

And it was just like this niggling thought. And then it was persistent, and then it was more persistent and I'm like fine, I'll just like get a sketchbook and like a pencil. And in my head I'm like we'll put this to rest, like that I'll prove that I'm not good, I'm not an artist. I'm always like just to shut up this insistence. Right, I'll do it. And so I sat down one time and I just tried to draw something and at the end of it I went actually that's not bad, you know, and just having it actually looked like it was supposed to look, like it wasn't Monet, wasn't, you know, rembrandt. It wasn't by any means some fantastic piece of artwork, but it was recognizable and I think what I saw in that was potential, you know, and I saw something that I could work with. And and it's really interesting because from that time now it's just well, I do the things. And I remember when I was 15, so it must have been just after that high school teacher had told me, it must have been not too long after that, and I was at my dad's cricket game watching him play and I saw a seagull sitting on a post standing on a post and the seagull was standing on one leg, which is not uncommon for birds. And I remember my attention being fixed on this seagull and I looked at it and I thought, huh, it's only got one leg. And as it flew off I realised it actually really did only have one leg. It sort of went a bit over my head as it went and I went oh, it didn't have another leg. And I just blurted out this that seagull only had one leg. And I didn't know. But there were a couple standing behind me and one of them asked if I was an artist and I laughed myself silly at them because I'm not an artist, right. And then they said to me oh no, it's really easy. All you do is you draw or paint what you see.

Tina Summers:

So when I'm in my 30s and I'm trying to build these skills, these words come back to me just draw or paint what you see. And so I did this exercise and I thought, well, I'd really like to draw faces. I really feel drawn to faces. I'd really like to draw them, but I have no idea how to do it. So I'm like, well, if I'm supposed to just draw what I see, then I can get a photo of one of my kids and blow it up really big.

Tina Summers:

And rather than try and do the whole face, I thought, well, I'll just focus on the small part. What's a small thing that I can do? So I thought don't know idea how to draw an ear, I'll try to draw an ear. So I I zoom up really big, so the ears like this big. It's quite large, it's probably about five centimeters large for those that are listening and I just draw what I see.

Tina Summers:

And what happened was the biggest epic battle between my left hemisphere of my brain that tells me I know how to draw an ear. It looks like a C, because that's the symbol of an ear when we first learned to draw and then my right hemisphere of my brain saying that's not what it looks like. And so I had this big struggle between my left and my right hemisphere and I kept shutting down my left hemisphere of my brain and kept just drawing what I saw, and it involved a lot of erasing out. But at the end of it I went oh my gosh, that is a really realistic looking ear, and I had no training and I had no classes. I'd done nothing except follow that instruction, just draw what you see. And it's really true, it's simple. The idea of drawing, the idea of art itself, is really simple. It can be difficult to execute, as that epic battle in my head showed. It can be very difficult, but at the out the idea of it's actually really simple yeah and so I just started following what I call follow the joy.

Tina Summers:

So these are things that started to make my soul sing. I'm starting to think, oh, this actually really feeds me and makes me feel good on a whole different level. I hadn't anticipated. And so I started doing things to follow the joy and I was working with, I tried different paints and I experimented with different things, and the things that lit up my soul inside they're the things that I went. That's what I'm supposed to be doing. I know it kind of helped me get through the big clutter of the art world right, because it's so big and there are so many different creative expressions so it sounds like you're saying you kind of listen to intuition, listening to your gut, and kind of just going where the energy was.

Fiona Kane:

Is that sort of another way of saying it? Oh, 100%, you just said yeah.

Tina Summers:

Yeah, 100% To me. I call it follow the joy because those are the things that bring me joy, Like I literally feel joy inside when I do those things.

Fiona Kane:

And when you're doing art, when you're painting or drawing or whatever it is, do you've said you you feel the joy, but do you also feel, does that help you reduce things like stress and anxiety? Because you're in the moment? Because I know a lot of people, I know my sister for a while was making earrings and she said that and and she has, um, she has some anxiety issues and she said that when she was making the earrings that it was really good for her anxiety because it actually just kept her really present and in the moment. So does that, the sort of art that you're doing, does that have the same effect for you?

Tina Summers:

100, like the rest of the world disappears. It wasn't always that way. I've had to work through so many things like imposter syndrome. Who am I? I haven't got an art degree, I haven't gone to a fine art school, like. There's a lot of stuff that comes up once you start, I think you know following your true life's purpose and all of these things. I think a lot of negativity comes up from within even. It's not even necessarily from other people. Sometimes it's from within yourself, like that imposter syndrome, self-doubt. I had a fear of failure, I had a fear of success. Well, that's really funny, isn't it? Because not only do you not want to try, but you really don't want to get good at it.

Fiona Kane:

Yes, yeah, there's so many fears that we have and so much of it like, some of it is programmed by society and by other people, whatever, but a lot of it we put on ourselves as well, so much self-talk that we create, and we create so many rules about what we can't do or can do, or what we're allowed to do or what we're capable of, and all of that, and we do. We go through life with this narrative, like my narrative about not being good at art. You know that's right, and I'm aware that it's a narrative. It's accurate, but it doesn't mean. Doesn't mean I could never be, I suppose.

Tina Summers:

But I've just got that narrative in my head and it's very strong one that I've had for my whole life, or as long as I can remember anyway, well, it's funny you say programming and all of those things from childhood, because that's actually the thing that actually released me from all of the things that were holding me back.

Tina Summers:

So, remember, I talked to you about, you know, being a three-year-old and being told I wasn't allowed to paint. Yes, I've just gone through some, um, neuro-linguistic programming therapies and that has dealt with all those things. So now my subconscious believes and acknowledges that I am allowed to paint. Yes, and I had this breakthrough about three weeks ago and I have not been able to stop painting since then, which is which is why my nails are now, because I've had this incredible freedom, you know. Now my subconscious tells me, instead of, I'm not allowed to paint, it's, I'm allowed to paint and I am an artist, absolutely. And I am an artist and I pursue excellence. And the reason why I talk about excellence is because perfectionism kind of implies there's one right way to do something and all the other ways are wrong.

Fiona Kane:

Yes.

Tina Summers:

Whereas excellence shows that there's lots of different ways to get the best. It's not one way. There are different, many ways.

Fiona Kane:

Yes, and when we work at I don't know if you're familiar with Brene Brown's work, but I couldn't quote her a lot when we do things based on perfectionism, when we're being perfectionist about things, what we're trying to do is avoid shame, blame and judgment.

Fiona Kane:

So perfectionism when we're being perfectionist about things, what we're trying to do is avoid shame, blame and judgment. So perfectionism is associated with with trying to mitigate your risk and or trying to make sure that you don't get kicked out of the tribe or or shunned or laughed at or whatever it is. So when you do something from the place of perfectionism, that what the driver, the underneath driver, is a much more kind of negative driver. That's kind of about your self-worth and it's just a lot of connotations associated with that. That's really kind of negative energy and really kind of anxious energy, whereas when you do something from a perspective of just healthy striving, just trying to do well because you want to do well, because you enjoy it, and that's a, that's a very different energy. So uh, so that's a difference, like from um, um, you know that sort of definition. That's what you were describing there in. On what you were saying, yeah, absolutely.

Tina Summers:

And you've got this um, um, new energy. Now, like, my energy is completely new. It's like it's, it's pure and it doesn't have all that negativity attached to it. So when I paint now, I'm actually painting it and I laugh because I describe it as I'm painting with the confidence of a three-year-old. Like I haven't painted with this level of confidence since I was three. You know I'm putting paint on the canvas and there's no doubt, there's no fear, there's no anxiety of getting it wrong.

Fiona Kane:

It's just if it's not okay, if it's not where I want it to look like, that's okay. I can still fix it like there's there's no thing to like.

Tina Summers:

What's the worst thing that can happen?

Fiona Kane:

yes, it's all these stories that we tell ourselves you know, no one's gonna die because you did a bad painting or because you made a mistake. You know what I mean. Like what's the worst thing that happened. And then when you look at art and we look at modern art these days, uh, I'm putting on my judgmental, uh face here, but when you put, look at some modern art, it's just, I think, some of us revolting anyway. But you know, art is in the eye of the beholder. Art is very subjective.

Fiona Kane:

So you know, is there such thing as the wrong art? No, it's just like you know, some other people may or may not like it. It's as simple as that.

Tina Summers:

Yeah, and it's okay to have a preference. I was talking with someone last night, at a dinner actually, and they were talking how they were told by an artist that because they didn't like the work, that they didn't understand it, and I was very quick to say you actually are allowed to have that opinion. You're allowed to not like something Whether you understand it or not. You're allowed to not like something, you know, whether you understand it or not. You're allowed to look at something and go. I like that. I don't like that because it's. There's not a piece of artwork that speaks to every single person in the world.

Fiona Kane:

No, no, that's right, but also, but you know, if we want to be snobs and we want to be, you know, very superior to everybody, then of course we understand it. And you just don't. You know, you're ignorant, you're not as evolved as me. That's that snobbery stuff that you see in the article. Yeah, I don't understand it. Yeah, it's a toilet, whatever. It is terrible me, I must be really not evolved. All right, yeah, whatever, and you do well, good on you you're amazing.

Tina Summers:

Best things about being um, about creativity itself, is that there's two parts to it. So there's the the first part, which is the creation process, and that's where the artist, the author, whatever the creativity is, you know, the musician they put the energy and they put the effort into creating the thing that's being created, the artwork, whatever that looks like, whatever that is. But that's only actually half the story, because when the audience comes to it, they actually bring their context to the painting, to the novel, to the concert. You know like they bring their story to it and to me that's the most beautiful part of it is. Art is not designed just to be art. Art is designed to be enjoyed, appreciated, thought about, you know, disliked even.

Fiona Kane:

You know like that's actually part of even you know like, yeah, a lot of musicians story yeah, a lot of musicians say that.

Fiona Kane:

I think was it dave grohl who sort of said that you know when, that when people ask the meaning of songs and things, he I think he's the one that said that ultimately the meaning of the song is whatever it means to you. So, like he describes, and a lot of a lot of musicians I know have sort of said that when they write a song and record a song and put it out into the universe, it's like they've birthed that song. Now, what that song becomes, there are no control over that. So it might have a certain meaning for them, but for someone else it's their breakup song. For someone else it's their inspirational song. For someone else they hate it. For someone else they think it's their breakup song. For someone else it's their inspirational song. For someone else they hate it. For someone else they think it's whatever.

Fiona Kane:

But that it becomes and people relate the lyrics or the mood or whatever to whatever's going on for them, based on who they are and their experience. Whatever, and nobody's wrong, they're just just how they. It's just what the art is for them. So you know, you're right. I think that's the thing about art is it is. It's very subjective, and we do. You know, once an artist births a piece of work, whatever it is, uh, then the world will do what it wants with it, ultimately, and not necessarily wrong, it's just their own thing, yeah I think it.

Tina Summers:

it stops being ours. It was like that musician you were talking about it stops being ours and it becomes the world's. Yes, in a sense, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's kind of my journey, I think, as an artist is this tumultuous journey of like most people, I can't do that, that's not my thing to actually realizing this is something I am really love to do, and learning how to get good at to the point now that you've actually turned it into a business yes, yes, and while I'm still building and growing my skills, I'm teaching beginners and I'm you know um helping my.

Tina Summers:

My biggest passion is helping people get back in touch with their creativity yeah, I just love that yeah, yeah because, yeah, like I was talking before about the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of the brain, you know, when I tell people that I'm an artist, quite often I'll get you know I'm not creative. Then my one little side question is have you had brain surgery? And I ask that seriously as well, because some people have had brain surgery and you never know what's going on with someone.

Fiona Kane:

I actually do have brain damage, but I can't say that it's from that. This predates the brain damage.

Tina Summers:

So you still have a right hemisphere of your brain. You still have the capacity to be creative and. I think that's what a lot of people have forgotten that they've, they have the capacity to be creative so why is creativity so important then?

Tina Summers:

well, it's so important because creativity helps us express part of our mental, emotional, even our soul. I think I would go on to say Like it's a really big part of who we are and it's just an expression of that. And when we do those things, it does things like lower our cortisol levels. So when we're stressed, it's actually one of the things that can reduce stress, like exercise, like meditation, like all these other forms. Like being creative is actually a way to reduce your stress.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, because, like we said before, you're being present uh, but also you might be sort of getting joy from, like, as you were, describing uh or just releasing something. So you might be uh, birthing out, releasing out some emotional thing or something, or or drawing something or or writing lyrics about whatever it is. You're doing, uh, about something in your life. So you might be sort of somewhat processing maybe something in your life through the art as well.

Tina Summers:

Yeah, and I think there seems to be this bit of an obstacle. For people, it's almost like, well, I'm not at this particular level, so therefore I can't do it. Yes, like me in year one, like you know, comparing myself to that other girl that had more skills than I did, you know, and disqualifying myself because I wasn't at her skill level, and that's completely wrong. Like so, I mean, art is an expression. I mean, we talked earlier about the. It's only half the story when we create it. But you know what? You also have permission for it to be the only story. You don't have to share that with anybody.

Fiona Kane:

No.

Tina Summers:

You know you don't have to. I mean, I'm one of these people that once I find something, I love to share it, I love to tell people about it, and so for me, it's actually a natural part of who I am to share what I create.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, I'm the same with music. I don't create the music, boy oh boy do. All my friends and anyone who follows me on Facebook. They know what music I'm into at the time, because I just go on and on and on.

Tina Summers:

That's great, I love that. I love that because it's really interesting, because we were talking before about, you know, the creator versus the observer, for want of a better word you know, and so there's actively participating in the creation process, yes, but then there's also that and I don't like to use the word passively observing, because I don't yeah, I don't, like you know, active versus passive, but passive I don't know if is really the right word to describe when you're participating as an observer yeah, I don't think it's passive.

Fiona Kane:

I think there's an action associated with that yeah because that's what?

Fiona Kane:

even who is it that now? Who is the philosopher? Or someone said something about how art is changed by the observer. Who said that? It's some famous, I don't know, I can't remember who it was but there's actually kind of a I don't know if it's something in philosophy or something, but there's a saying along the lines of literally, by looking, once you observe it, you've changed it. So I don't think I actually don't think it's passive and I know for me, from a music point of view, it's not passive for me or like. I feel like there's certain songs that I might not have had anything to do with their creation I have had nothing to do with their creation but they feel like they're embedded in my soul and they feel like they were written for me and they speak for me and they feel like part of my DNA.

Fiona Kane:

Oh my gosh yes, and that's how music feels for me, right? And so that's so completely not passive for me. That's why I get so excitable about it, and people hear about it constantly and they're oh, shut up, fiona, stop telling me about that. But that's how music is for me, and so, whether I've been part of the creation or not, I get very attached to it and it really embeds in my DNA.

Tina Summers:

Well, you make it your own, don't you? Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, absolutely yeah, and and so you end up with this beautiful space of someone who's actively creating something, but then someone who's actively, let's say, participating as an observer yeah, yeah but both things will actually reduce your cortisol levels. Yeah, so you don't have to be the one that's doing the active creating yeah process. You can be the one who listens. You can be the one. I mean. How many people have had a stressful day and they've put music on?

Tina Summers:

yeah maybe you turned it up really loud in the car on the way home yeah and it's in, it's done its magic to bring their cortisol levels down and brought them to a beautiful space so that when they walk into the door they're more able to, you know, cope with the pressures of home life.

Fiona Kane:

Then, yeah, yeah, and look how many people have used, you know, alanis Morissette's album as their breakup music or whatever. Or going to concerts, and you know you go to a concert and you know there's something about like all of the people there are there for the same reason and everyone's, you know, largely the same reason, and there's a joy and there's a you feel like part of something bigger than you when you're at a concert. So there's so many different layers of you know, you feel like you're part of community and just that couple of hours or whatever it is, in that stadium or in that concert hall, there you feel, and just that that couple of hours or whatever it is in that stadium or in that concert hall, uh, there's a special, something special happens, a special transfer of energy happens in that place. Yeah, so there is, uh, and the only art that I can say from a like a painting kind of point of view, because I'm not like, I like, I like art and stuff, but I just don't know that much about it and I and I don't, I'm not one of those people that goes to a, you know, like an art gallery and spends sort of you know, 20 minutes in front of one painting and I'm like kind of just, oh, I saw this and then go to the next one.

Fiona Kane:

But the one piece of art that did kind of really I felt like a real shift when I was looking at it is the now it's just dropped in my head Starry Starry Night, yes, van Gogh. Uh, the, now it's just dropped on my head. Uh, starry starry night, yes, bingo. I saw that down at, uh, at the museum, in not museum art gallery in canberra, the national gallery, quite a few years ago now, and first of all it's huge, it was really. But secondly, I just kind of was just looking at and I was just so drawn into it and so mesmerized by it.

Fiona Kane:

And then I also had this like dear Fred aha moment, because that's when I realized that starry starry night, the song, that Vincent the song, was about. I was like this, like um bit a piece of the puzzle just clicked in and my brain connected all of the things. So then I understood this song that I'd always loved. He was referring to this painter and this painting and it kind of all clicked in together. So I kind of had the Der Fred moment. But I also just had this. I knew I was in the presence of a beautiful artwork and I felt really just drawn into it. So I get why, like, that's my experience of that kind of art and I haven't had a lot of art experience in that way, but I understand the idea of it.

Tina Summers:

Yeah, absolutely One of the other ways that creativity can be important. So it helps us be in the moment and helps us um express ourselves in a way that you know perhaps, we find difficult with just words yes um, it can be a safe place to um process like um.

Tina Summers:

I do journaling, not every day, but certainly more frequently most days, I would say, even though I'm a bit stretched, actually. But I do journal frequently and one of the reasons I love that is because it helps me understand my thoughts, it helps me get clarity on situations, it helps me even do like an internal examination if I'm up with a difficult situation. Okay well, is there anything that I've done in this situation? You know that could have been done better? Or you know how am I going to handle this? You know what's my responsibility, what's their responsibility? And just having a safe place, I mean, I don't share my journal with everybody that's, that's my journal, you know that's. That's a place where I I express all these things and I express gratitude for all the beautiful things I have in my world. You know my family, you know being able to create, starting an art business. You know these are all things I'm incredibly grateful for. So, um, and we know the the benefits that gratitude has on us, you know, on our mental health, on our emotional health.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, I think it rewires your brain, gratitude, really, and there is a lot of. If you look at the data, there is a lot of data for what gratitude does for us. But it simply just kind of changes your perspective, doesn't it? Because that's the difference between it's what you see, right. So if everywhere you go, you look for a reason that the it's what you see, right, so if everywhere you go, you look for a reason that the world's against you and everybody hates you and everything's bad and all the rest of it, you will find evidence for that everywhere you go. But if, everywhere you go, you look for evidence that there's beauty and there's good things and there's good people and the world's supporting you and the universe is supporting you, or God or whatever it is your belief system, you will find a lot of evidence of that.

Fiona Kane:

So you know, that's why people can have the same experience. You know you've been at a restaurant with someone and you walk away and they're kind of, oh, terrible service, this and that, and you're kind of you were kind of thinking, oh, that was really nice, I really enjoyed that and the food was really good, or whatever, or whatever. And this person sort of has a whole different you know opinion to it and it's the same experience, but they saw it in a completely different way. And not only that, but you also see, with people like that, them rewriting the story of what happened and turn it into bigger than Ben-Hur, bigger and better, Bigger than Ben-Hur. That shows my age. Most people probably don't even know it. It's like a four-hour movie or something made in the 90s there.

Tina Summers:

Four-hour movie or something made in the 90s.

Fiona Kane:

I remember all these sayings that were like my grandmother's sayings. She was born in 1927 and died quite a few years ago now, so it's funny. But I say these sayings like, oh my God, how old am I? But you see, these people trying to convince themselves of the story and then also trying to convince the people around them of the story. We all had a bad time, didn't we? And it was terrible story. And then also trying to convince the people around them of the story. We all had a bad time, didn't we? And it was terrible and what? And you know, that's gratitude sort of teaches you to look for the good stuff and uh, and it kind of can rewire that and take you out of that. Constantly looking for the negative and constantly finding negative everywhere. Is that your experience of it?

Tina Summers:

absolutely, absolutely. And you know, like that rewiring it happens over the course of our life yeah, you know, like all these experiences, all these things that you know, whether self-inflicted or inflicted by others, you know good or bad, they shape us, yes, and and they, they rewire us and fortunately we have tools that can help us undo some of the rewiring that's been um unhelpful like, like the unhelpful relationship I had around art yes you know, like that was very those rewirings were really unhelpful and during the session I could literally feel my brain being rewired and my conscious mind is thinking this can't be possible.

Tina Summers:

Yes, yes, yes. But then I had such rapid eye movement. I knew that I couldn't control that, even if I wanted to at that speed, and I could literally feel my brain being rewired in the moment, so that was a great shift for you. Yeah, it was a very, very great shift, and I think we all start in this beautiful place of being naturally creative.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, yeah.

Tina Summers:

And George Land. There's a really interesting study done back in 1968. There was a research scientist called George Land and his partner that was his fellow researcher was Beth Jarman, and they were approached by NASA to create this creativity test. Yes, and the reason why they wanted this creativity test to be created was because they were trying to get to the moon, but they had these massive problems that they couldn't fix, and so they realised they needed the creative problem solving. They needed to have the most creative people on the problem. So they got them to design this creativity test to find the creative geniuses in their organisation, and they did that, and we all know, in 1969 they made it to the moon, which is brilliant.

Tina Summers:

But then George Land and Bertha left there with this study going okay, what can we do with this creativity test? Yes, so the Hards started posing some questions. Well, at what point do people become creative? Was their initial question. As George explains and he says you know? So this is simple for four and five-year-olds to do. Let's give it to four and five-year-olds. So they did, and they were absolutely astounded. We aren't quite as much, but they were absolutely astounded. We aren't quite as much, but they were absolutely astounded that 98% of four and five-year-olds are considered creative geniuses according to NASA standards.

Fiona Kane:

Wow.

Fiona Kane:

Ninety-eight percent of four and five-year-olds, it shows you how much programming goes into us when we go from that, because we're so innocent and so kind of, and I think that children are. I personally think that small children are very connected to like, whether it's a spirit world or whatever, but I think they're just connected. They're just connected into the energy, whatever it is, uh, life force, energy, universe, whatever but also they're, they're fearless and they, they, they're not sort of thinking, oh, I, I shouldn't do this or that. They don't have all that crap and all those beliefs, no, no, no. And so it shows you that it's those little, and we do it for protective reasons. But those little stories and those little narratives and those programs and things that we build up around us, there's a big wall of protection that actually kind of hold us, imprison us, really, don't they?

Tina Summers:

They really do. They really do so. George Land even said that uncreative behaviour and thinking is learned.

Fiona Kane:

Yes, yeah.

Tina Summers:

Yeah, because they decided to turn this study into a longitudinal study. So they took the four and five-year-olds, came back to them five years later. They're now 10. And the 10-year-olds? Um, they gave them the exact same test. They gave them as four and five year olds, and this time only 30 percent were considered creative geniuses. Yes, and you think in five years they'd have gone from 98 to 30 percent, and that's almost a 70 percent drop yeah like it's just heartbreaking to hear you know that.

Tina Summers:

And then, when they were 15, they did the study again and it reduced down to 12. Yeah, and by that point the teachers were so disheartened by the results of the tests that they asked them not to continue yeah and so they took this study then to the adult population and they think they did over 280,000 adults.

Tina Summers:

They gave them this creativity test and only 2% are considered creative geniuses according to NASA's studies. 2%. It literally flips from when you are four and five. Only 2% of four and five-year-olds were not considered creative geniuses. And when I say creative geniuses, that 2% of four and five-year-olds were not considered creative geniuses. And when I say creative geniuses, that doesn't mean they weren't creative.

Fiona Kane:

They just weren't at the genius level, yeah yeah, and there's two things there, like one is like what we were just talking about all of those stories and narratives and programming and all the rest of it and the other side of it also would just be the burdens of adulthood. That adulting is hard and you know we're worrying about how we're going to pay the bills and how we're going to feed the kids and how we're going to do the thing and the thing going on at work and all the things. And because we've got this, if you've got a to-do list, you know 3,700 miles and you've got under financial pressure and you know you're responsible for your family and you've got all these things going on in your mind. I I think it would be very hard to shift into a creative mind when you're feeling that way yeah, actually stress is the number one enemy and killer of creativity yeah, yeah so you've got, on one hand, that creativity reduces stress yeah but then, on the other hand, if you're already stressed, trying to be creative is impossible.

Tina Summers:

Yeah, yes, it's hard to just so you end up in this catch-22, you go how on earth can I, how can I be creative, how can I reduce my stress? Because this is not working and I kind of touched on it a little bit before when I talked about putting the music up really loud in your car because you can still benefit Like the way around. This Catch-22 is actually to become a participating observer.

Fiona Kane:

Yes.

Tina Summers:

To be the one actually observing the art. You don't need to be creating it to reduce your stress levels.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah.

Tina Summers:

So be the participator first.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah.

Tina Summers:

Be the one that's observing and appreciating the art and find what you enjoy looking at or listening to or, you know, reading, whatever the form of creativity is. Just participate in that as an observer, as the intended audience, and that will reduce your stress levels, and then you can find that, when it's time to be creative, you then have the capacity, because you already have it. You have the capacity to do it. There's this little hack that I get people to do. It's really fun.

Tina Summers:

So I get people to write their name with their dominant hand that they normally write with, as they would normally write it, and it's not a problem for most people, because our language is stored in our left hemisphere of our brain. And then I tell people okay, now I want you to hold your pen like a wand. This can be an orchestral wand, it can be a Harry Potter wand, fairy, godmother, whatever you choose, but it's a wand and you have to write your name holding your pen like a wand, and the left hemisphere of the brain has a little hissy fit because oh my gosh that's a bit tricky.

Fiona Kane:

How do you hold a wand? It's like you're holding a pen, like that yes yeah, and then you're writing just visually for anyone who's listening at home so we're just holding on, like to the end of the pen, uh, holding on to the opposite end of the uh tip of the pen like a wand, and holding the pen holding on to the opposite end of the tip of the pen like a wand, and holding the pen up in the air, sort of thing, which is how you think of it.

Tina Summers:

And so then you try to write your name on a piece of paper, just as you did with your dominant hand, and you'll find that you can write your name.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah.

Tina Summers:

It's a little clunkier. It doesn't look the same as your normal handwriting, but you did it. Yeah, and the clunkier it doesn't look the same as your normal handwriting, but you did it.

Tina Summers:

Yeah, and the reason you could do it is because when the left hemisphere had a little hiccup and went I don't know how to do that, the right hemisphere of the brain came in and said I know how to do that, don't you worry ah, okay, so you're connecting both sides there so you're actually circumventing your left hemisphere to go straight to your right hemisphere it's actually one of the reasons why a lot of artists hold their paintbrush like that, in that wand fashion okay because when you hold it like you do a pen, it actually engages the critical thinking side of your brain. It engages all the thoughts around oh, this isn't good enough. Why did you do that?

Fiona Kane:

If you want to get rid of all those thoughts, hold your pen like a wand. Hold your pen like a wand. It'll take a while to write things down.

Tina Summers:

It's really helpful if you can verbalise and then record yourself while holding your pen like a wand.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, yeah, and that's how I've started just started little bits and pieces of putting together a book, which is don't get excited anyone because it's a long, long way away. But I've just started by doing verbally because I just have trouble writing it down. But, yeah, if you're holding the pen like a wand because you're not going to write your opus that way, but if you're doing that and then you say verbally sort of, uh, getting the information down, that would be really useful way of, yeah, clearing that, um, yeah and the right hemisphere is where creativity comes from.

Tina Summers:

The right hemisphere of the brain is where that um outside the box brilliance comes from and it's also where um things like problem solving. So if you have a problem and you're really having trouble, try brainstorming with a friend and hold your pen like a wand while you're doing it While you're doing it.

Fiona Kane:

okay, yeah, and that's actually the other thing about creativity that's really important is that the way I see creativity besides all of the beautiful things paintings and music and all the things uh, that sort of art, sort of stuff creativity is also really important in so. So for me, I'm a really big, passionate believer in free speech, and the reason I believe in it is we can't have really good thoughts or have creative problem solving if we can't talk.

Fiona Kane:

so we actually have to be able to say and even if we're having a conversation, you and I, and we say the wrong thing 10 times before we get to the right thing, I feel like you've got to have permission to get it wrong 10 times or a hundred times or whatever to get it right.

Fiona Kane:

And you know, you see in populations, where they've, you know where they've got, you know communism or socialism or whatever, and people aren't allowed to have free thinking or free thought or free conversation.

Fiona Kane:

The creativity and the problem solving goes down, because to solve a problem you actually have to be creative, and to be creative you have to be willing to be wrong or make a mistake or whatever.

Fiona Kane:

And so I think that as a society, we have to understand that, that this isn't just about paintings, it's about problem solving. So, whether it be problem solving in science and medicine, or whether it be problem solving in like the sort of stuff that elon musk is doing, and like rock catching rocket things that come back, I don't know what it is, but the rocket thing that came back and it caught it with an arm, whatever, whatever that is, I mean that's phenomenal. Whatever you know to problem solving, for that you have to actually be willing to, uh, to get it wrong, and so you're actually just the same as you do with painting a picture, discussion and talking and having kind of debates or whatever. It has to be okay to get it wrong and to keep going with the conversation and keep going with the debate or whatever until you kind of nut it out and you get it right.

Tina Summers:

That's another way that creativity is really, really important for for humankind really absolutely, and you've just described my creative process for problem solving that I run through with with clients, so you know I show them. First you've got to identify the problem, yeah, and actually have a good look, because maybe you are part of the problem, you know actually identify what the problem really is and then when you're brainstorming that's not when you're judging the ideas- yeah, yeah.

Tina Summers:

When you're coming up with solutions. That's not the time you're actually figuring out what's a good one and what's not, and you've usually got to go through all the really obvious things before your brain can actually start spitting out the left thinking or the you know, the right brain hemisphere, stuff. All the all the outside the box brilliant ideas, yeah. So if you shut it down right at, the beginning is that you're wrong.

Fiona Kane:

You're wrong, you can't, you're not allowed to. You cancel whatever if you do that, then you don't get to continue it and actually come up with the solution you do?

Tina Summers:

yeah, you have, but you have to go through all that process and then, once you've exhausted all the potential possibility and possible solutions, that's then the time to go. Well, and our left brain is important, it's super important. We need our left and our right brain working together, you know, because the left brain then looks at the ideas and it says, okay, that one's not going to work because of these reasons, this one's not going to work for that. But that's a really great idea and I can't actually think of a reason why that wouldn't work, and I would never have thought of that if I'd just been focused on the ordinary stuff. So you know you can go yes, that's going to work.

Fiona Kane:

You have the space to create and that requires letting it be wrong first. It does to create, and that requires letting it be wrong first. It does, it does. I'm knowing it probably will be wrong first and that might be wrong many times over, and that's okay, I'll tell you a secret.

Tina Summers:

One of my favorite things about painting in layers is that I can always do another layer well, you know that.

Fiona Kane:

That's what why wd-40 is called wd-40. Apparently it took them 40 times to get the formula right, or something.

Tina Summers:

So you know, it's pretty good to only have to do 40 versions.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, I think what is Thomas Edison he's saying? There's something like thousands of times, or whatever you know.

Tina Summers:

He found out a thousand ways how not to create how not to do it.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So look, I'm looking at the time and thinking, oh, we could talk forever, but what are some simple things that people could do to become more creative?

Tina Summers:

Yeah sure. So we've talked, we've covered some of this stuff already, but I'll just reiterate anyway. So high stress levels are the enemy of creativity. So come into it, not trying to be creative yourself, but come into it as a participant, come into it as an observer, come into it, you know, enjoying it or thinking about it or even just liking it, because you're still actually engaging with it, even if you don't particularly like it. And then there's the follow, the joy. So once you are in that space excuse me, once you are in that space where your stress levels are low enough and you have space, and I think another point that I wanted to make was making time and space to be creative, because another enemy of creativity is hurry and busy, and unfortunately, so many of us are hurried and busy, and you know I'm just as bad as everybody else at the hurried and busy.

Fiona Kane:

Yes.

Tina Summers:

But I have to intentionally give myself time. Today is a painting day. Today I'm doing this, today, you know, and actually creating space in my time to do the things and creativity is limitless.

Tina Summers:

Like I think, so many people limit art. We've talked a little bit well, actually quite a lot about, um, creativity being more than just visual art, because it is, it's. It's a way of thinking, it's a way of problem solving, it's a way of interacting with the world, you know, and it has many different mediums and many different expressions and so many opportunities to engage in it. And I like to tell people that I'm okay at spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are like. I have a very basic level of spreadsheets. I can do the sum function and I can do a couple of other functions you can do better than me.

Tina Summers:

Parts of a spreadsheet right for what you need it for. I'm like I can total up that column and I can total up that column, All these things, I can do those things, but there are some people out there who can create and I use the word create intentionally, who create amazing spreadsheets with the most complex formulas and ways of presenting information, and that still requires creativity, because creativity itself just means creating something out of nothing yes so creativity can still be something logical yes it just means creating it and expressing something in a way.

Fiona Kane:

So I've created a podcast or two.

Tina Summers:

I'm a creative, this is a creative process. I bet you love doing this.

Fiona Kane:

I do love doing this and it's something I have created.

Tina Summers:

So there you go, and there's joy in doing it too, isn't it? And each episode you get to create again. And it's a novelty as well, because each time you speak to someone different, the conversation's different.

Fiona Kane:

Yes, yeah, yeah, it always goes in places that you're not expecting, and it's great. And even if you're talking about the same topic, it can be quite different talking to different people.

Tina Summers:

Absolutely, absolutely. So when I say start putting time aside, like that doesn't mean, oh, suddenly I'm going to go to an art workshop or I'm going to go to this big event. You know, start small, start small. When I was trying to get back into a sketching habit, I got this little book that's called like Five Minute Sketches or something like that, and it was something for me to do at the end of my day, while I was sitting watching TV. I just grabbed a sketchbook, grabbed a pencil and then started to draw these five-minute sketches. And it wasn't me coming up with the ideas, even, because this is how fried my brain is. At the end of the day, there's not much originality going on at you know nine o'clock at night for me. There's not much originality going on at you know nine o'clock at night for me. So I'm following someone's step-by-step instructions on how to draw it.

Tina Summers:

I'm an artist. I could probably do that if I want to, when I'm not half asleep.

Fiona Kane:

Well, you could even get a coloring book, couldn't you? There's plenty of adult coloring books now, so you could even get an adult coloring book and just get in the habit of sort of doing some colouring in while you just have a bit of spare time or or while you're watching the telly or while you're doing waiting for something or whatever it is. But uh, you can just sort of like sneak in little moments where you're doing something. It's a bit that's creative or a bit more fun, or yeah, yeah.

Tina Summers:

I know of people that have written entire books in like five and ten and fifteen minute segments. Yes, just when they've had a moment, they're on their phone and they just write out a book.

Fiona Kane:

I'm like I don't know if I could do that a friend of mine did it when he was in the school run, so he'd drop off the kids at school and then, when he was on his way back home or to work or wherever he was going, he would just just record just in those times, and he created a whole book that way.

Tina Summers:

Yeah, there is time. There is time in this space and I think, if we can remove those barriers that we have for accessing that creativity, and if one of those things is, well, I have to share it with the world, well, actually, you don't, you don't have to share it with the world. This could be just for you and that's perfectly okay, and I think these are the simple things people can do.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, definitely, and I know that we have already talked about creativity being good for your health. Is there anything in particular that you think that we missed, that we need to add to that in regards to creativity and health?

Tina Summers:

I think we've covered everything.

Fiona Kane:

I think we have.

Tina Summers:

Yeah, I was thinking about, because I've already talked about my journaling. I've already talked about, you know, we talked about gratitude. I love music too. I, you know, know, I feel like there's maybe a song in me one day. It might not be for the world, and that's okay but that's okay.

Fiona Kane:

It doesn't have to be for the world, like you just said exactly, exactly.

Tina Summers:

There's um, there's untapped and um. But I have, I have written poetry in the past and again that has certainly not been for the world's consumption and I actually mean that because that's so deeply personal to me. You know, that's one of the ways that I really get to express how I'm feeling, where my head space is, yeah, and so you know, that's a more personal, creative thing for me to share with the world. But again, it's getting it out there, getting it through, although I do have to say so when I wrote a memoir. So my husband went through PTSD as a part of his military service. He was affected by trauma and came home with PTSD which, as you can imagine, completely changed our world. And as we got through that, he got help that he needed. It helped me through one of the lowest times in my life. Community was so important.

Fiona Kane:

Yes.

Tina Summers:

And then coming through the end of it. We realised so many people feel like PTSD is an end-of-the-road sort of journey. But it doesn't have to be. You know, he's come through that. He's on the other side of that now and we want to share that hope with people. So I wrote our story as a memoir and it was actually incredibly difficult to write because it took me back to those moments and it took me back to those things and for some people that would be really therapeutic. And I have heard a lot of people say, oh, was it really cathartic? I'm like, actually it wasn't cathartic for me.

Tina Summers:

Yeah, for some people it's sort of like almost re-traumatizing it just brought it all back up again that I then had to deal with again yeah and, and so it took a very long time to write, because I needed the time and the space and the healing in between. Really, yes to to go. No, that's not our life anymore this this is where we are now, you know.

Tina Summers:

So um so creativity it also depends on the purpose yeah and the purpose of that was to share our story with others, and it was a painful process for me to create it, but I'm so proud of um the end result, because you know we've heard from countless people how much it's opened their eyes to. You know wounds that people can't see yes, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Fiona Kane:

Well, thank you so much for his service. Uh, I appreciate that and I think the service is. Often it's a full family thing too, as you've just sort of alluded to. Uh, and what is that book called, if people want to find that book?

Tina Summers:

Yeah, it's called Through the Valley One Family's Journey Through PTSD. It's written as a fictional retelling of true life events, so it doesn't read like a journal, it reads like a story. Yeah, it's just our story. The people are real, like a story.

Fiona Kane:

Yeah, it's just our story. The people are real. Yes, yeah, Well, thank you so much for today. I think we could go on for hours, because obviously we both really enjoy talking about this. However, I think it is time to go. Where can people reach you if they want to find you?

Tina Summers:

Yeah, absolutely. I am on Instagram, on Facebook as Tina Summers Art Studio or Tina Summers Author Artist. I'm in both of those places, in those different aspects.

Fiona Kane:

And at Summers, like the season, like the season, it's U-M-E-R-S.

Tina Summers:

U-M-E-R-S. Yes, and just normal Tina, like Tina Turner or Tina Arenas I used to get when I was a kid.

Fiona Kane:

Yes, Well, thank you so much, Tina. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thanks so much for coming on today.

Tina Summers:

Me too. Thank you so much, it's been lovely.

Fiona Kane:

And thank you for everyone who's listening or watching. We try here at the Wellness Connection. It's all about having real conversations about things that matter, so I really appreciate you listening and you tuning in Now. Please like, subscribe and share and rate the podcast as well. I really appreciate all of your support to get this really useful information out there. I talk to such interesting people and get such useful information, so please make sure you're sharing it so that more people can learn about some of these great topics. And thank you everyone, and I will talk to you all again next week. Thanks, bye.

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