srimati is one of my heroines and i do not use that word lightly. i look to her often as a model of how to live a courageous, honest, spirit-led life. it was a tremendous honor to have this conversation with her. srimati “has spent decades seeking the divine in all of her life experiences. living from a deep place of devotion, srimati is a living s…

nina lombardo is a woman devoted. it’s in the way she speaks and the way she moves, in what she teaches and what she lives. it’s in her body, her heart and her whole being. “nina is a yogic intimacy teacher and wisdom keeper of the sacred feminine arts. she supports women in embodying their most authentic spiritual and sexual expressions so they ca…

i first met allana pratt over 13 years ago when i interviewed her for a summit i was hosting on pleasure and sensuality. i loved her candor, kindness and deep devotion to her work. allana is an intimacy expert, the podcast host of intimate conversations, and author of six books. she has interviewed whoopi goldberg and alanis morrisette, coached lee…

when i began reading radical wholeness by philip shepherd i cried. these words, this man. how did he put into words what was lining the insides of my soul? how did he know the answers to questions i’d held on to for years? philip teaches embodiment but “unlike the prevailing view of embodiment which involves sitting in the head and ‘listening to yo…

i don’t know how i found rachel rossitto but a handful of words on her website changed the way i understood myself in this world. i had to know more. rachel is a teacher, guide, mystic, and fairy of rose medicine. having devoted the last 16 years of her life to “studying temple arts, earth-based feminine wisdom, eastern spiritual philosophy and pra…

nadia is the author of three new york times bestselling memoirs, pastrix:the cranky, beautiful faith of a sinner and saint; accidental saints: finding god in all the wrong people, and more recently shameless: a sexual reformation. she is an ordained lutheran pastor and the founder of house for all sinners and saints in denver, colorado, a quirky co…

when i think of daje, i think of power. wide-eyed, full-bodied power. the kind of power born of tension and tightness, emergence and transcendence. power that roots in the earth and spreads, like tendrils, through their poetry, song and space holding. daje is “a storyteller, flower essence practitioner, and space-holder for wild-hearted leaders and…

in this episode i share my stories: the stories that make up my song. stories that defy logic, go beyond rational thinking, and yet were the exact experiences i needed to understand my place on this earth and my work in this world. this is my most personal solocast. i hope you enjoy it. you can listen to all past episodes with beautiful, amazing fo…

in some way i am changed by every interview but then there are the ones that uproot my knowing and shift the soil below me. this is one of those interviews. mandy is a poet, peace advocate and public speaker. her list of accolades and accomplishments is long. in brief (but hardly complete), mandy is the author of two collections of poetry, glenn go…

in this episode i talk about the hardest thing when crafting your own life, singing your own song: fear. as elizabeth gilbert says, "creativity is a path for the brave, but it is not a path for the fearless. bravery means doing something scary." i talk about the fear i live with every day the truth of this journey how to let your life speak the ter…

anna is an edge walker. dancing with the wild. beckoning towards the unknown. digging into the unchartered to open eyes, shift sands, and create new. she is as wise as she is brave, as honest as she is strong. anna is a writer, creativity teacher and mother. she is the author of “the creative doer” and the founder of the creative doer community and…

in this episode i explore one of the most powerful questions i know: how do you use your creativity to craft a life that is yours? i talk about moving from domesticated adult to wild animal, going beyond your personal belief system, learning the language of your body, how to use your body as a tracking system to bring you home and specific strategi…

i first met carrie when i interviewed her for the podcast several years ago. her story of pain, loss and rebirth captivated me. her colorful paintings of flowers and women delighted me. her success as an artist intrigued me. then we became friends and i fell in love with her passion for creativity, her devotion to the creative spirit and her wild, …

welcome to my first solocast. in this episode i talk about one of my greatest loves: questions. i share about hearing a voice that changed my life, how to ask big questions, why questions matter and how they bring us freedom. you can join me and artists, writers, makers from around the world every day, monday through friday, for illumine: a free sa…

sometimes we have to go through the darkest nights to live into the lightest days. emma was recovering from two serious health diagnoses when covid hit. within a month she was divorced, had closed her art store, and moved back in with her parents. thus began a spiritual awakening that led to her getting sober, becoming a poet, finding buddhism and …

andrea is a wonder seeker. she looks for it in the easy moments – a kiss, friends gathered together, traveling to other countries. and she looks for it in the hard moments – beset by anxiety, in the midst of divorce, struggling to stay afloat. we talk about this – about turning towards the hard, making space for the all of it, in order to give wond…

meggan is a feminist theologian. she writes about mary magdalene and the divine feminine. one could listen to this conversation and think, initially, that it is about religion, christianity and what it means to be a woman in a male-dominated theology. but it isn’t. it’s about soul work and having the courage to sit still and listen for what’s true.…

asia is a writer, teacher and medicine woman who runs her own online apothecary and offers courses on intuitive plant medicine, business as a spiritual journey and the pussy portal. when asia was a teenager she became ill with a chronic pain condition, vulvodinia. allopathic doctors told her there was no cure. they told her she would be in constant…

in the middle of my conversation with mariana, i broke down crying. i had to stop talking to gather myself, to find words again. it was, in part, in response to mariana’s words. but it was also in response to mariana herself. mariana mae is an artist, visionary, founder of easy to breathe, unearth, and origen raíz, an “organization in alliance with…

jess scheer is a business strategist who supports “indigenous leaders and earth keepers with a powerful vision for the world to bring their message to the masses.” in this conversation, jess speak about many things. about the unshakeable stability of the inner world and our connection to all things. how she began to experience a deep peace while fo…

ashley river brant is a “multi-dimensional artist, writer, teacher and bridge between worlds.” she is a “spiritual alchemist with a vision of bringing more beauty to this planet […] a mystic sharing the teachings of the otherworlds, a channel for Mother Earth.” her work is “about reconnecting you to your creative genius–the whole ecosystem of life …

julia cameron has been changing lives all over the world since the artist’s way first came out in 1992. millions of people write morning pages and take artist dates - two of julia’s most well-known tools for finding your creativity and living out your truth. since then julia has gone on to author more than forty books, plays and works of poetry. sh…

there are so many ways we are taught to make art, to create a business, to live a life. laura horn shows us that the most powerful way to do any of those things is to do them as yourself: to make art that feels good, to build a business in alignment with your strengths and to live in deep acceptance of who you are. after many years of fighting hers…

when I first discovered valarie kaur, I cried. I cried watching her six-minute video that went viral and garnered over 40 million views. I cried reading her book “see no stranger: a memoir & manifesto of revolutionary love,” and I cried in our conversation as she shared her wisdom, heart, passion and love. valarie is a seasoned civil rights activis…

we are born into a world heavy with shoulds, rights and wrongs. growing up in that world we forget that we have the power to change our world. we forget that just because people tell us what we should and shouldn’t do, we can imagine any way to be. and we can always choose our own way forward. elle luna is a designer, painter, writer, and author of…

there are so many ways to be human. so many ways to look at what we have been given. so many ways to respond to a life. I turn to rob bell when I want to be a human filled with possibility, to look at what we have been given with joy, and to respond to life with wonder. rob is a master creator who talks, writes, and teaches you how to say the thing…

in a time when covid physical distances us from one another, politics emotionally separates us, and an economy driven by individual success financially divides us, it can seem almost impossible to create what we most need to truly belong: community. mia birdsong, pathfinder, activist, storyteller and author of “How We Show Up: reclaiming family, fr…

morgan harper nichols offers her art daily to her 1.6+ million instagram followers, via her podcast and her book of poetry and art, “all along you were blooming” and through her many collaborations with companies like coach, adobe, live nation, aerie and more. in this conversation, we talk about going from paycheck to paycheck to a business with em…

listening to david whyte reminds me of something I had long ago forgotten. his words, written and spoken, feel like a homecoming. there is permission within them to lose oneself in the questions and the listening. to simply arrive at what is here, waiting for me. for us. david calls this “the empty space beneath the breath where everything real eme…

in this conversation with self-help pioneer and author of, "why bother: discover the desire for what’s next," jennifer louden talks about claiming your agency and knowing your work matters, how to know when to stop bothering and move on to something else? what to do when you don’t know what your desires are, how to keep choosing yourself over and o…

there are those souls that are both soft and strong, wise and wide open. toko-pa is one of those souls. when toko-pa was just 15 she ran away from a violent, destructive home life and found herself having to navigate “the system.” the next decade was a hard one as she figured out, on her own, how to become an adult in a complicated, often uncaring …

in this episode of the ten-part series, "who we might become," joy researcher, jesh de rox, explains what is joy, why it’s so important to creativity, and how to connect to it how to respond to sadness and pain with a creative spirit the path to greatness and how we let go of what doesn’t serve us anymore in order to make what does you can learn mo…

join joy researcher, jesh de rox, and I for part 2 of our ten-part mini-series “who we might become.” in this episode we explore how to see differently, create your own language and change the culture with your creativity. some things we talk about: the seed of all creativity the three stages of the creative process the gift of enough and not enoug…

jesh de rox, at heart, is an explorer. a man who has spent much of his life asking the big questions; the ones that help make sense of who we are and why we’re here. over the years, traveling the planet, immersing himself in experiences and conversations that test the boundaries of commonly accepted ideology and culture, jesh has become a very succ…

By Daphne Cohn

with the world falling into chaos, it always lightens my heart to find artists and women like elaine. elaine is a rebel of the highest cause: rising up against the worst parts of a capitalist economy to bring about a more sustainable, peaceful life for all. elaine’s studio, inner fields, is founded on the principles of deep ecology and buddhism. in…

laurie wagner is an expert on telling the truth. it’s the way she writes, teaches, and lives. there was a time early on in laurie’s success when the success began taking precedence over the truth. what the market wanted became more important than what her heart wanted. so she quit. she left the public writing world behind – the world of book deals …

this is world-renowned photographer, brooke shaden's, second time on the creativity habit podcast. in this conversation brooke shares how she built an entire career, and life, basing every decision on this one question: will this bring me, and others, maximum fulfillment? and she means EVERY decision. in this conversation we talk about: how to trus…

when things were hard for anna as a child, and they often were, she disappeared into writing and reading. she left behind what was hard for a world that was hers. a world where she had power, voice, and words. a world where she made up the rules and created what she wanted. that world was her salvation. eventually anna turned that world into her li…

when jen was eight her father died. the last words she said to him were “I hate you.” those words would haunt her well into adulthood as she found herself dropping out of NYU as an english major, working as a waitress for 14 years while “pursuing” acting and dead-end relationships, and falling deeper into depression. the day she began taking anti-d…

we all get thrown off course. sometimes it’s the teacher who told us we weren’t any good. or the school that rejected our application. or the job we didn’t get. or the launch where no one bought. it’s different for everyone but everyone has some version of this story. for araki it was when she was 16 and, after having devoted a childhood to making …

painter and writer, lindsay king, is devoted to love: self-love, unconditional love, and spreading love. it's her art, her business, and her purpose. in her own words, my “intention is to create meaningful work that carries the energy of love and healing. Asking to be a clear conduit for messages of love to move into the paint and fibers of the pap…

It’s hard enough to feel worthy and good about oneself just being a human in a big, uncertain world. But for Kaylani, it was even harder. Born to a black father and a Filipino mother, Kaylani never felt like she belonged. She was bullied in school and at home. The messages she received about her worth and inherent goodness were twisted and cruel. A…

Catherine Just started using drugs and alcohol when she was 13. By 18 she was addicted to crystal meth. Then one day, in the throes of addiction, she heard a voice. It said, “There’s more to this life than what you’re living.” Something in Catherine woke up and she got sober. She "checked herself into art school" where she immersed herself in disco…

Lisa Hsieh was a clothing designer before she was a mom. She made clothes that looked good on thin people, slit maxi skirts and crop tops, clothes that were crisp, clean, and sharp —conditioned by the fashion industry that she had worked in for a decade. Then she became a mama and everything changed. It was time to let go of all that had come befor…

Brooke Shaden has clarity. She knows why she’s making. And that why pervades everything. The why is her legacy, her message, her brand. Brooke’s why is to inspire creativity in others. When you have that kind of clarity you don’t worry about changing creative direction or trying out a new medium. You don’t concern yourself with those who rail again…

Jesh de Rox is, at heart, an explorer. He's spent his life asking the big questions: the ones that help make sense of who we are and why we're here. And he's built several very successful businesses in photography, thought leadership, and business coaching, around the same two things: joy and personal growth. Jesh's work has been featured in Vogue,…

Satsuki Shibuya is a painter, poet, and spiritual guide. She is also the first repeat guest on The Creativity Habit Podcast. In this second conversation, we dive into the heart and mind of this spiritual thinker. We talk about love and purpose, flow and discipline, creativity and truth. It’s both profoundly spiritual and very practical. Some things…

Hall Newbegin is a "hippie entrepreneur" who went from making soap out of his basement to running a multi-million dollar business selling sustainably harvested products including perfume, incense, candles, and soap. Hall brought the places he loved to people who cared through products he made. Some things we talk about finding the courage to wander…

Loveis Wise was a junior in college when she got her first art commission with Refinery 29 and a senior when she became the second black women in the history of The New Yorker Magazine to design its cover. Loveis grew up poor and no one in her family thought you could make any money making art but Loveis knew what she wanted and she want for it. To…