Creativity can be simple and it can look a lot of different ways. It's mostly about tapping into who you are, period.

Michelle Franzoni Thorley is the artist behind Flora Familiar, where she uses various art forms to address family history, antiracism education, and her culture. When you see her beautiful work you'll want to assume a lot about her talents. But, what she wants you to know is that artistic creativity is something she has worked to uncover within herself. Through her simple tips to uncover your creative side, and the guidance of this conversation, you'll begin to see where your creativity lies, because it's not always artistic.

Michelle's upbringing as a Mexican American and daughter of a single mother is what she attributes to being creative in many regards, because although her artwork did start young it did not flourish until she pursued it in her 30's. Now, since pushing aside perfectionism and leaning into the messiness of creativity, Michelle beautifully explores culture, family history, and educates others on antiracism through her art. Her perspective will inspire you to be brave, as she says "bravery is not about the lack of fear, bravery is about fear and doing it anyway."

About a few other things...

If you’re ready to come back home to yourself, to be able to say that you know who you are and what matters to you, take my foundation course, “Finding Me.” It’s OK that you’ve lost parts of yourself along the way; but as you learn to anchor back into who you are and align your life to what matters to you, you’ll find that you have more strength, more fulfilment, and more creativity to bring to your important roles and responsibilities

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TRANSCRIPT

Monica: [00:00:00] Michelle. We are so excited to have you on About Progress. Welcome. 

Michelle: [00:00:04] Hey, thanks. 

Monica: [00:00:05] It's so good to have you here. I've been an admirer of yours for a long time. I've really loved seeing your art and how you are working on that and going to school for it and progressing in it.

But I've also valued seeing your creativity go into so many other incredible ways that inspire me beyond just artistic forms of creativity. So I've asked you on here today because I love that you apply your creativity in so many areas in your life and women who are listening to this show.

I think a lot of them automatically discount themselves from being creative because they can't see beyond this perfect mold of what they think it's supposed to look like. So we're going to help them uncover that. But first, let's hear this from you. How did you uncover your own creativity and the many different ways it could transform and how it could play out.

And did you ever get stuck in that place of thinking that you couldn't  or that you shouldn't? I just want to hear your own creativity story to start. 

Michelle: [00:01:03] First of all, Thank you so much for inviting me to the show. This is exciting. And, and I love, I love fighting perfectionism any form because it's just, it's so harmful.

 And I think creativity has this, the stereotype of perfection and  it's this gift is bestowed on only a select few people. And either you have it or you, or you don't. And I think those stereotypes are totally dumb and I'm not having it.  So I think one of the things I wanted to first say also was like, creativity.

I think we need to start thinking about it, breaking those stereotypes and talking about innovation. And, and ultimately creativity is about progression. It's about progress. Yeah. So I was a kid. I grew up under the poverty level.  I am a daughter of a single mom, and I say that with so much pride in my heart.

 And any, any kids of single moms out there knows what I mean. If, if you're not a, a child of a single mom, you might not know.  How much pride we take in  in holding that title because it means we are resilient. It means we are creative. It means we are resourceful. It means so many wonderful qualities.

So  I attribute a lot of my creativity to growing up under the poverty level and not having access to a lot of things.  I think as a kid, you know, my mom did the best she could to nurture any creativity in me.  But it was really hard because I didn't, I didn't have access to  art classes. I didn't have access to supplies to make art.

 So my creativity was just using what was around me  and, and turning art into that. I will say, I have a distinct memory of  being, I think I was in the fourth grade and I had, I had a lot of learning disabilities and  at that time I'm kind of old, so at that time  they weren't really diagnosing people.

You were just considered dumb or slow or whatever. And so I had this amazing teacher who. Saw  that I, I could draw well.  And she really nurtured that in me. And she would hold up my art in front of the whole class and say, wow, look at Michelle's art, Michelle you're such an artist. And I think that was like one of the first memories I have of someone besides my parents, really  seeing that in me that I, I was creative.

Monica: [00:04:07] It seems like it's, two-fold here. It's both the artistic bent of course, but that it had to be cultivated both within yourself and, not given permission by others, but almost like the insight, this is who you are. It was for it to really be centered in  as part of your identity. And I wanted to get into that as well as though how I see the creativity  just coming out practically, you know, just like getting resourceful, getting innovative things that you had around your home and what you could use and, and, and how to make the most of what you had.

 So let's go to the identity part a little bit though. So as you were able to kind of identify yourself as an artist, as a creative  how did that evolve as you grew up? 

Michelle: [00:04:56] Your viewers can't see me, but I am Mexican American. So I am a person of mixed ancestry. So I have ancestors of all the colors and I'm also very proud of that.

 But growing up, I was one of the only children of color in my school and my community, and also being Mexican there was a lot of stereotypes about what, who Mexicans were .  And then I was the daughter of a single mother. So I had a lot of these really negative stereotypes placed on my head about who I was, what I could accomplish.

 And I think "artist" was one of the first labels that someone else had given me that was positive, that I instinctually felt pride in and wanted   to lean into but a lot of my creativity and my identity  came this pride of me being able to solve problems, being able to do things other people couldn't figure out to do with less.  

Monica: [00:06:03] You talked about how creativity is problem-solving and you know, we talked about you are an artist, obviously you're also a family historian. You're also an educator online and you've been doing this in so many beautiful ways. And I imagine a lot of that involves problem solving and every, every single way that your creativity manifests itself. So let's lean into the problem solving aspect a little bit more 

Michelle: [00:06:31] It's really interesting because. I think a lot of people don't see how all the things that I do are connected. And for for a lot of people, they're probably all separate things in separate categories. But for me  art, creativity, family history, anti-racism work, they're all very intimately connected.  I think one thing that many people with  primarily European ancestry don't realize about family history for people of color is that it is so different.

 Any nation that has been colonized has this unique set of problems into doing family history. And then you add in racism, white supremacy, all those things. And it really makes it so complex and hard. You know, a lot of people of color, we don't have family photographs, we don't have documents, we don't have stories.

We don't have recipes, all those, all the traditional things that you think.  Would fall under family history. We don't have a beautiful circular fan chart hanging on our wall with all of our ancestors smiling down at us. And so one thing about the family history industry right now is it's very exclusive and people don't like to think about it like that, but there's so many times where me or other people of color have been trying to do our family history and we hit this block and the answers we get.

Or just, sorry, wait until the next life or, sorry there's nothing you can do. And I don't take that. Like, I'm not just going to sit here and let you tell me, sorry, you can't be included. I'm going to be creative and make a space for myself and for my ancestry. But I believe with family history  the spiritual aspect of it, that when we heal past wounds, generational traumas. That we can also heal our past ancestry that we can make reparations in the present and that we can make things better for the future generations. 

Monica: [00:08:38] Yeah. Beautiful, Michelle. 

I'm the never heard that described that way, but it makes total sense to me and I wish that was the way it was framed better.

What you were saying about that though, is I had cut you off. You were saying something about how that lends itself to problem solving, I think, or maybe innovation. 

Michelle: [00:08:57] Yeah. So being a, being a person of color, being a woman, if you want to be included in a lot of things, you're going to have to get creative.

You're going to have to innovate, and you're going to have to create things that you've never seen before. And you're going to have to create spaces for yourself and for other people in your life.  And the, the future  women of color that are going to come after you. It's, it's never about me. It's always about we. So that all takes creativity and innovation   to get things to progress.

Right. Right. You know? Yeah. 

Monica: [00:09:33] Well, I am thinking about, it's never about me. It's always about we, that's what you just said. That I think is one of the biggest barriers to creativity. And we were talking about this off the air, right. That people don't even go on to being artistic or creative in whatever way it looks for them because they think it's reflective on them.

Michelle: [00:09:55] And so, yeah. So one of the things we were talking about earlier  Like it is very common. Almost every single child in the world is encouraged to pick up a box of crayons and to draw; doesn't matter what they draw. Doesn't matter if they're in a coloring book or they're free, you know, drawing from them their mind.

And it doesn't matter what their drawings look like. It's just like a celebration of creativity. And then somehow we go from these kids where just art is a way of expression and it's accept widely accepted, no matter what it looks like to where we're adults and how many adults do you know that draw just for fun.

And, and a lot of them that do draw or paint it's they're artists, they're, they, they sell their art, they sell their work and  I found myself wondering what is happening in the in-between. Why as children are we making art and then not making it as adults. And I think it has a lot to do with  perfectionism, unless our art blows people's minds.

And it looks our, our portrait of our grandmother looks just like a photograph then it's not even worth doing. And I think we need to fight that as much as possible because there's so much magic in the in-between. And what if you created art just for yourself? What if you were stressed out and you sat down with a box of glorious, beautiful crayons and pulled out all your favorite colors and just, just drew.

It doesn't even matter what it looks like at the end. It's not for anyone, but you  I think. I think we are, we are cutting ourselves off from  really beautiful parts of our humanity. And  and I think we're also cutting off a really great way. One of the things that's so great about art is what it does to our brains.

And it helps us to process. And for me, you know, we're doing family history for people of color. We have to face colonialism. We have to play face enslavement, poverty, racism. We have to face a lot of really sad, you know, sexual abuse. Really sad things that a lot of Euro-centric people don't have to face.

Maybe they have one or two ancestors that had, you know, how to deal with these things, but for people of color, it's like on every single branch of every, of the whole tree  especially for, you know, our African-American brothers and sisters have to face that a lot  when they do family history. And so  I  had this moment where, you know, I knew the farther I went back.

I knew that that  my, one of my great grandfathers was European and then one of my great-grandmother's was indigenous Mexican. And. Most likely because we know a lot about history, you know, that may or may not have been consensual. I have ancestors  African ancestors that were enslaved.  You know, my, one of my great-grandmother's  was an enslaved woman and  you know, her son on the record is, is mulatto and mulatto means half black, half white.

And so if she's black and he's white, like, was that consensual. She's enslaved. Probably not. And so we have to like face all these things and it's really traumatic. And our brain does not know what to make sense of it. We are the product of the oppressor and the oppressed, the enslavers and the enslaved, the colonizer and the colonized.

Like we are both people like we exist because of, of all those things that have happened and it's complex and it's really hard to process. And one of the things I begin to do is I begin to paint my ancestors and. I, I had a hard time facing and trying to understand my white male ancestors, but what I wanted to do, I had this thought of what if my, you know, my white male ancestor.

What about his mother? Like, what is it going to be like spiritually when this white grandmother meets her, you know, biracial granddaughter for the first time and that relationship, if you remove the man and what he did that relationship between the women, the grandmother, the daughter, the granddaughter, what that would look like.

And I painted that in a painting and I wasn't intending to do this, but the result was just, I was able to process it. My brain had a really hard time trying to figure out how to deal with these things, how to feel about it, what to think about it and just painting that really helped my brain to heal in a way.

And I still don't have all the answers. It's still very complex.  But it's making progress. It's, it's pushing through it and I wouldn't be able to do that without creativity.  And I wouldn't be able to do that if I was holding myself to some  perfect thing because I, I'm not, I don't have in our education.

I am a self-taught artist. I  was in a terrible car accident in my twenties and I have a spinal injury and it's really hard  and painful to paint. After my, after my car accident. And so one day this was like four only four years ago.  I'm a mother of three young kids and I just, I didn't see the art that was reflecting me.

That looked like me, that looked like my family history and my experience. And I kept getting all these ideas like. What if a painting looked like this and they could do this and use this color. And I thought about reaching out to artists and asking them to paint this, but once again, we didn't have a lot of money.

And so I couldn't rely on money to help me along. I had to get creative, I had to problem solve. And so one of the ways since I was a little girl, you know, if you want that, Cute skirt, but can't buy it. Maybe you can make it, or if you want to, you know, do something, maybe you can find some pine cones in the backyard and spray paint them and figure out how to make, because I couldn't go to the craft store and buy things.

 And so  I decided, well, if I want to do that, maybe I could make it myself. So I would stay up late at night, watching YouTube videos after my kids went to sleep. And I taught myself how to paint. I didn't know what I was doing. It, it definitely was not professional or fine art or looked like the photograph, but it was authentic.

And it was, it was me. It was authentic. It was truthful. And  and ultimately a lot of my art, even though I do sell a lot of my art, I make it for me first. And then if it resonates with other people. Cool. If it doesn't then that's that's okay, too. 

Monica: [00:17:35] The threat I can see, you know, interwoven with not only all the things you do  but also your own history, as well as your generational history is, you know, a loss of identity and learning how to make sense of your own to come home to your own, as well as healing, the lost identity of those in the past.

And. I love that creativity can just be that simple. It's just about tapping into who you are, period. And  it can look a lot of different ways. It doesn't have to be artistic. 

Michelle: [00:18:11] Yeah. That's the thing with family history is it has all these stereotypes of what qualifies for family history.

And one of the things I talk a lot about on social media is that family history is a multifaceted Juul. Yeah, sure. Some facets are, you know, beautiful vintage photography and some facets are documents and heirloom recipes, but some, some forms of family history are our therapy, generational healing, self care.

You know, a lot of times our ancestors had never had the opportunity to eat healthy foods. Never had the opportunity to receive help for the depression, the same depression and anxiety that, that I suffer with. I know my ancestors suffered with also, and their only option was to drink alcohol and, and I come from a long line of alcoholics and

I used to be ashamed of that, but I think about them feeling the way that I feel now and not have anyone to talk to any resources, anything to lift the crushing soul crushing  pain of, of depression. The only thing they had to do was alcohol. And, and, and now I am the first one in many generations. I can go see a therapist.

I can do self-care. I can exercise. I can take vitamins. I can do so many things that they never had the opportunity to do. And I also believe that his family history also hairstyles and jewelry and, and dancing, like all those things. Also our family history. And when we brought in what family history is, that's when we start to make it inclusive.

And let everybody in and everybody  have a part of it. And I think what's so important about that is family history is, is authenticity. It is, we are not our ancestors, but a lot of the times that the amount of privilege each social economic privilege we have is because of choices that our ancestors made or choices that were made for them, or lack of choices.

Who we are and where we are today in our lives. There's so much to do with choices. Our ancestors made and knowing their stories and knowing the complexity of their lives. Good and bad. The things that they face really gives us our authenticity and we can only tap into that through creativity  

Monica: [00:20:43] As well as, you know, taking ownership of our choices.

I mean, if we're going to be talking about needing to be  finding a way to be authentic, to be innovative, to problem solve that also goes back to. Agency, you know, being, you know, we have, we have the opportunity now to, to really be able to have more choice. And so it can be just being creative about how you're going to choose to live your life.

And the things are going to do. I want to touch on before we give some pointers for the women who are listening. I do want to touch on the process of creativity because you talked about how there's magic in the, in between and the in between is messy because you learn to be as you'd self-taught yourself to be an artist.

And now you're going through a program as, or what is it called? Is it a training or a program school? What is it that you're doing with Kirk Richards?

Michelle: [00:21:30] I was very fortunate through  social media to find a mentor. And  my mentor, his name is  Kirk Richards. Yeah. And he recently started an artist Academy.

So you can also attend in person, but also people all across the country are doing it online. And it's a way for, for women who think that their time has passed, who they're their opportunity left and there's no. I mean, it's not just for women, but it's for everyone, anyone that wants to come can come, but a lot of us, you know, are older we're mothers and maybe we could have said, Oh, arts for us, like all my opportunity to be an artist, to be a professional artist is gone.

And  you know, I was 34. Yeah, no. When I started creating art again. Oh yeah. And then  and just, I just, he actually opened this Academy just last year. So the fact you could open an Academy in 2020 and still have it running through 2021 is pretty awesome. And  so I, it is an opportunity for me to actually get in education, which.

 You know, I could continue to watch YouTube videos, but it would have been so slow my progress. And I think one thing about art is it's so awesome to have trusted feedback from people you care about. And that's, that's another way you can progress is by willing to take the feedback and say, you're right.

I could do this a little bit better next time. 

Monica: [00:23:07] And you wouldn't have gotten to this level of knowing when you were ready for this next step. Some were more intensive study and mentorship. If you hadn't gone, this is what we do in our community. Michelle, we do something; instead of saying all or nothing like, so someone who's like, I want to get back into art again, instead of them going immediately back to school or joining the Academy or doing nothing because they say it's too late for them.

It's doing something like you did. You know, teaching yourself, getting messy, being imperfect. And now I see you in this intensive training and you're still in that same process. The process is always going to be messy. You're learning how to, to draw human figures right now. And I love seeing your, your work and what you're doing because you're sharing the in-between. You're sharing.

Michelle: [00:23:51] And I, that's another thing that since the beginning of my Instagram, I started it is I show progress shots. Yeah. Because that was something so interesting for me to learn, trying to break down art myself and my brain is I would see a painting it and I would think, how did they do that? And then I would see behind the scenes and I would learn, Oh, it starts looking like this.

Oh my gosh, this middle part, this underpinning part can look absolutely terrible. And, you know, and, and leading up to it. But that's where the magic is, is in the middle, is in the mess because you are not only being brave, you know, because bravery is not about the lack of fear, bravery is about fear and doing it anyway.

And so that's where you flex your bravery muscles. That's where you build up your stamina  of courage and  and also it's, it's where you process and. Where you can speak your truths. I think there's just so much  So much good art does for the world. I could talk forever and ever about this. 

Monica: [00:24:56] I love hearing about it.

I, I love the creative process so much. I love talking to creatives in general, but I firmly believe we are all creative. I really think like you've, we've been talking about all along here. It's innate in us as children. We've lost along the way. And as we learned to pick up our creativity, whether that's artistic or not, we are able to pick up ourselves again and be authentic and, and nothing feels better than that.

Even though life is still hard. And, you know, the mess doesn't go away and you're not suddenly great at whatever you want to work on. There's this inner sense of confidence and strength because you know, better who you are, you know, what the authentic version of you is, and you're paying homage to that.

And in the small ways that you're being creative. So I love to hear about that. And I love that you model the, the messy middle too. Let's let's turn to helping women who are ready to uncover their creative side.  No matter what that looks like, maybe they're going to do family history like you are, or maybe they're going to get into cooking, or maybe they're going to get into art or they're going to solve like the education problem that we have all over.

 So what, what can they do to, if they're at the starter steps? 

Michelle: [00:26:03] I think the greatest examples of creativity is. Is looking back at the history of people of color specifically. Well, let's talk about food, for example. So enslaved people were given the worst scraps of the food, things that normal people, other people didn't want and through their creativity, through I'm sure a messy process and experimentation, they were able to create soul food.

Which is some of the most delicious and soul warming food in the world. And they did that with nothing and all around the world.  Indigenous people, you know, after they were colonized, did not have a lot of resources, a lot of countries all over the world, they take trash and they, they make it into something.

And so I think people have just taking you. Don't always have to have. A large income or so many resources or whatever. It's, it's, it's all about experimenting and having fun. And I think the biggest part of creativity is just leaning into your shameless authenticity. There's there's no shame in mess.

There's no shame in whipping up something disgusting. One day. Because if you keep at it the next day, you might come up with soul food and change the world.  And I think about also like, you know, the steel drum is such a beautiful musical instrument. Enslaved people took oil drums. And made music with them.

And I think sometimes our privilege and our access to money and being able to throw money at something to solve a problem, robs us of our creativity and our innovation and in our growth  in our soul. And so I would say to people, you know, no matter your, your income  your background that maybe.

Limit yourself to how much money you're going to let yourself throw at it and see what you can do with very little, whether that's going into the backyard and finding something,  going to a thrift store and finding something  use your creativity, innovation and problem solving skills  with, without a lot of money. And you know, the older, we get so much easier to, to throw some money at something to make the problem go away. And it does, it does rob us of the most innovative, interesting and lasting kind of creativity. 

Monica: [00:28:36] We also see people, a lot of the language that we're is, is we're surrounded by right now. And, and I don't disagree with it is, is about investing in yourself, you know  which I do see a lot of value in, but I also think that can be a holdup when people are only seeing that as an investment of money. I honestly think that the best ways we can start with investing in ourselves is time. Just time.

And when you do that, then, then you're able to better lean into this mess and grow and find more of the authenticity and identity and, and confidence that can come through that and be ready for the next step and the next step. 

Michelle: [00:29:14] And spending time getting to know yourself and, and working out insecurities and becoming shameless and becoming your most authentic self. It's so freaking scary. Like let's not negate how scary and hard that is. I think through the pandemic where people have been at home and they've been with themselves, they haven't had their coping mechanisms. They haven't been able to go out and distract themselves. You know, there's been a huge uptick in, in  seeing a therapist.

And I think that's so powerful because I think people are facing stuff and they're saying, I'm gonna work it out. I'm gonna work through the fear and I'm going to find out who I am and it's going to be messy, but I'm willing to face it. Whereas in other times in our lives, you know, the pandemic in some ways  was a gift.

In that way, it was terrible. And so, so many of them  and I shouldn't even laugh about that because sometimes you have to like, well, yes, I'm just going to say that. Yeah. But    but in one way it was good because it made us face our face, our authenticity and our fears.

Monica: [00:30:25] It forced us to see" who am I and what really matters to me" because so much of our circumstances.

Changed without our permission, you know? And anyway, so I'm just, I like to hear that it's okay to get messy and explore, but also it's okay to expect to face insecurities. That's part of the process too. 

Michelle: [00:30:47] It's OK to be afraid and it's okay to fail. So much of being creative is, is, is the fear people don't, people don't want to, or they don't think they have, they are creative because they think they're going to fail. And  spoiler alert, you will, you will. But I can't, I wish I knew this quote off the top of my head, but there's a wonderful quote by Theodore, Roosevelt, and earth, a poem.

And he's talking about the person in the ring versus the person in the stands and the the arena. Yeah. And I think about that all the time, because, you know, even if you fail, even if on social media, people say all these terrible things or, or whatever is your biggest fear about being bold and being yourself and doing what feels authentic to you, no matter what it is, you know, Only you are in the arena, getting messy and trying to do stuff like they're all sitting out there and the only person that could ever criticize you or, or tell you something is someone who's right in there within the arena with you trying to help you.

 And I think about that a lot with the relationships that I make and the support that I I have now is I want people that are out there messing with me and who are trying to innovate with me. And that doesn't mean, you know, when it comes to anti-racism work, that doesn't mean we, we know all the answers, but we're trying to push forward for something we're trying to create progress.

 And that, that does require. To get messy and to fail and to be called out on stuff. And then to try again, 

Monica: [00:32:39] I think you just totally put the process of what this looks like right there and that perfect nutshell. So, you know, going back to some of the tips you say, you know, you've just been covering is, you know, don't get stuck on your limited resources.

You don't get innovative, get messy expectancy to face insecurities. It's okay to be afraid. It's okay to fail. Anything else you want them to know? 

Michelle: [00:33:01] Find good support system find, you know, think back to when I, one thing that I'm learning for myself is talk to yourself, how, you know, you would talk to someone.

So you're never gonna, and I think this goes back to a little kid drawing. If a little kid is just enjoying themselves drawing and they make this weird purple giraffe. You wouldn't be like, Ooh, that giraffe, you know, that giraffe is ugly. You'd be like, awesome. What a cool. And so I think just surround your peak, surround yourself with people that no matter how messy or gross that recipe gets or weird, your RA is, or, you know, whatever, you're trying to better yourself, surround yourself with people who are going to be like, you got this.

That's awesome. Keep trying maybe a little too much salt, but you know, like keep like keep going and, and have, have that support system. Because like I said, I think we, we talk about a lot of these things and makes it it's so easy. Just do this. It's so easy do this. And I think we negate the fear and the humiliation and all those other things that come with the resiliency and the bravery, and they're all tied together and we can't, we can't just have all the good stuff without the bad. The good is good because of the bad. 

Monica: [00:34:21] Yes.  And you know, that support system, I'm just thinking back to the arena stuff is to find someone else who's in their own arena.

Who's, you know, putting up the fight who is leaning into the fears and insecurities and the mess, and still trying to make progress. And maybe they're not doing the exact same field you are or medium or whatever it is. But if someone else is in the arena, they can connect with you. 

Michelle: [00:34:44] Yeah. And one other thing I'd like to add is like  there's a term called gaslighting.

I don't know if you're familiar with it. Yeah.  It happens when you say something and someone totally disregard and tries to invalidate. It's like the opposite of validating someone it's just like, no, no, that couldn't be that way or no, that would be too hard. Or you shouldn't try to do that, or you're crazy.

That's not that big of a deal. And I think a lot of times too, when you're trying to be creative, when you're trying to innovate. And you're trying to do something that never has been done before, or no one has ever seen before. You're going to get a lot of gaslighting of people being like, that's crazy.

That's so weird. That's, you know, they're only in their mind, they can only see one way to do things one way to do family history. One way that, that this should be, and yeah. 

Monica: [00:35:40] To garden to decorate your home, like. Well, it's everything. 

Michelle: [00:35:44] Yeah. To dress. There's only one way women should dress.  There's so many things.

And so when you are being creative, have other people in your life that are like, huh? I mean, they don't even have to agree with you or even like what you're doing. I mean, I think I have a lot of friends that they might not even like my art, but they know that it's authentically me and they. They are like, you know what, I don't, I don't, or even with my anti-racism work, they're like, I don't understand what you're saying and I don't understand it, your perspective, but I believe that it is true.

I believe that it is valid. I believe that those things happened to you. They never happened to me. I've never seen them happen, but I believe you. And I, I think when you're trying to be creative and  And do stuff that people have never seen before you might get push back. Like that's crazy, that's weird.

That's ugly. And to have people in your life that even if they might not get it, they're in that arena with you saying, you go, if this feels right to you, you go, you try it and I'm no matter what happens, I'm, I'm supporting you and I'm proud of you. And if you fail, you're still my friend. Like, you know, we'll, we'll keep going.

 And I'm so grateful for those people that I, that I have in my life.  My friends and a few family members that really  have supported me and encouraged me, even when they didn't, they didn't understand me. They still believe me and believe in me. And I want to be that for other people too, as well.

Cause I know how wonderful it feels to have someone like that in your corner. Find those people, find those people and be those people. Yeah. 

Monica: [00:37:32] Love it.  Michelle, we are personal development podcast and community. So I always ask my guests a final question about what they are working on themselves personally, right now, you know, beyond just work or even the things we talked about, what is a way that you're trying to improve yourself right now in a loving way?

Michelle: [00:37:49] Yeah. I am working on my self talk.  I, you know, in my head for so many years  I have, you know, add. So I have a really hard time focusing. And in the past I would just scream at myself in my head, like, come on, focus. You're you're so dumb. Like, why do you always, you know, all those negative things. And in the past couple of years, I have been trying to talk to myself, like I would to my, to my children or to my friends and be like, it's okay.

It's okay. If you need to slow down, it's okay. If you need to take a break and  Listening to positive affirmations, different podcasts. I even have like a, a set of cards that are positive affirmations. And just trying to rewire that  part of my brain where my first initial response to when I'm in trauma or I'm struggling or having a hard time that my first initial response is one of kindness to myself.

 That, that is what I've been focusing on. And I think it does bleed out on to, if I can talk that way to myself, it comes so much more natural to talk that way to other people and not be so judging or harsh or  invalidating to other people's journeys. 

Monica: [00:39:09] That's amazing. Well, I see you living that out in many ways, and I'm really proud of you for, for taking that step and, and working on that.

And I, I, we're going to send people to use, to tell them where they should go if they want to connect with you more, Michelle. 

Michelle: [00:39:23] So I'm my Instagram account is flora familiar on Instagram. And then I have. I'm also on Facebook, but I mostly posted Instagram and then I have a PATRION on which is also Flora Familiar.

 And I love my, my patrons that help support me in my artistic journey and, and getting the supplies and stuff I need to continue to create. So that's pretty much where you'll find me at. 

Monica: [00:39:50] We'll have that all linked for them in the show notes, Michelle, this has been a fabulous conversation. I've enjoyed every minute of it.

Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you for having me.