Speaker 1: Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
Speaker 1: activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
Speaker 1: And I'm Doctor add In the rut Car, a physician
Speaker 1: and medical correspondent with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience,
Speaker 1: mental health, and burnout. We're here to peel back to
Speaker 1: layers around why it's so easy for society to guard
Speaker 1: men's time as if it's diamonds, and to treat women's
Speaker 1: time as if it's infinite like sands. And whether you
Speaker 1: are partnered with or without children, or in a career
Speaker 1: where you want more boundaries, this is the place for
Speaker 1: you for all family structures. We're here to take a
Speaker 1: time out to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim
Speaker 1: our time. Good afternoon, add high E. Great to see
Speaker 1: you as always. I know I really enjoy our our
Speaker 1: own little unicorn space that we've carved out for each other.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to tell you a story today about
Speaker 1: a journey, a Unicorn space journey. But that journey is
Speaker 1: going to take us through three things. It's going to
Speaker 1: take us through curiosity, connection, and completion. So why those
Speaker 1: three things? Why those three c's. Well, for me, it
Speaker 1: started with curiosity, my own curiosity with understanding our obsession
Speaker 1: with happiness. So when I was researching for fair Play,
Speaker 1: so many women were saying to me, I don't feel happy.
Speaker 1: I have everything that society told me I wanted. I
Speaker 1: have the two point five kids, the nice apartments or
Speaker 1: a house. I have house plans that don't die. I
Speaker 1: have a nice partner. I have a good job, and
Speaker 1: all these things things that I've been searching for the
Speaker 1: path that was set out for me. I ticked every
Speaker 1: single one of those boxes. And yet I still feel unfulfilled.
Speaker 1: I still feel unhappy. And so I got really interested
Speaker 1: in this idea of happiness. What is it? One woman
Speaker 1: said to me, Eve, I'm gratitude journaling myself to death,
Speaker 1: and so I said, oh, yeah, there has been a lot.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of books on happiness the past
Speaker 1: ten years. We've spent a lot of time and happiness podcast,
Speaker 1: happiness books, happiness journals, and so I sat in a
Speaker 1: few of them. I sat in some happiness labs. I
Speaker 1: read many positive psychology articles. I spoke to many experts,
Speaker 1: and here's what I came to happiness and the pursuit
Speaker 1: of happiness is going to make you more sad m
Speaker 1: This is when I start to understand from the research.
Speaker 1: What I understand is that off and happiness and meaning correlate,
Speaker 1: and for a lot of my life maybe it did,
Speaker 1: especially when I was on that extrinsic path. And then
Speaker 1: there are times where happiness and meaning don't go together.
Speaker 1: Happiness without meaning, we know what that is. It's actually
Speaker 1: been a lot of my coping mechanisms during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: That's my emotional eating, doom scrolling, binge, watching TV, things
Speaker 1: that ultimately feel empty when they're done, but in the moment,
Speaker 1: I think, okay, that that feels good. And then I
Speaker 1: found out that there is meaning without happiness, and it's
Speaker 1: sometimes correlated with caregiving, and that's how I often feel
Speaker 1: too that existentially taking care of my kids, I feel meaning.
Speaker 1: But as a study show, people would rather be in
Speaker 1: a freaking root canal than hanging out with their toddler,
Speaker 1: and by people, I mean me. So happiness without meaning,
Speaker 1: meaning without happiness is where I think a lot of
Speaker 1: us have been stuck, especially in the past two to
Speaker 1: three years. And here's the good part when happiness and
Speaker 1: meaning intersect, where those two come together, that's a sweet spot.
Speaker 1: And so the idea of mental health as being a
Speaker 1: place where we want to be happy is a misnomer.
Speaker 1: As my colleague Lisa de Moore says, real mental health
Speaker 1: is having the appropriate emotion at the appropriate time and
Speaker 1: the ability and strength to weather it. Those experiences of
Speaker 1: happiness and meaning, where those collide like fireworks, is what
Speaker 1: we want people to have because those experiences become our umbrellas.
Speaker 1: And so I'm really excited because we can't tell you
Speaker 1: what it is for you. I wish we could. But
Speaker 1: what we can do is help you discover it, find it,
Speaker 1: reclaim it, get curious about it. And the first step
Speaker 1: starts with curiosity. What's so beautiful about what you say
Speaker 1: is it is true that meaning and happiness are two
Speaker 1: separate things and separate entities even in the brain. There
Speaker 1: are two ways that we register happiness. The first is
Speaker 1: hedonic happiness, like you were saying, binging on Netflix, buying
Speaker 1: a fancy car, buying that designer bag, all of the
Speaker 1: things that we do for that instant in the moment rush,
Speaker 1: and that fades quickly and leaves a vacuum and avoid
Speaker 1: and us wanting more so we do more of those
Speaker 1: coping behaviors, So it's this negative feedback loop. The other
Speaker 1: type of happiness, which we don't talk about because it's
Speaker 1: not sexy and not flashy, is you demonic happiness. What
Speaker 1: it means is the happiness that is filled with meaning
Speaker 1: and purpose. And if you want to think about those
Speaker 1: two a little bit differently, one is the thrill kind
Speaker 1: of happiness and the other is that deep contentment type
Speaker 1: of happiness. And scientifically, the way our brains and even
Speaker 1: our bodies process those two types of happiness are very different.
Speaker 1: So what's most interesting to me is that with hedonic happiness,
Speaker 1: you don't get those same deep brain or cellular benefits
Speaker 1: as you do with you diamonic happiness. With you diamonic happiness,
Speaker 1: it impacts our immune system and our cells in our body.
Speaker 1: So even at the deeply cellular level, our bodies know
Speaker 1: the difference, and unfortunately, in our modern society, we are
Speaker 1: always chasing that hedonic happiness because it's easy to see
Speaker 1: and shout out to Professor Laurie Santos. She teaches the
Speaker 1: most popular class at Yale, and she also has a
Speaker 1: wonderful podcast on happiness. But even Professor Laurie Santos, who
Speaker 1: is the ultimate expert and happiness, was able to say
Speaker 1: to me and give me a quote for my book,
Speaker 1: that happiness as the end goal is really a fool's errand.
Speaker 1: And so I believe you adity right that you demonic happiness.
Speaker 1: Is that cellular happiness. And it's harder because it's an investment,
Speaker 1: it's a journey. It doesn't hit us the same way
Speaker 1: that maybe, like you said, going online and getting a
Speaker 1: box in the mail from internet shopping does, But it's
Speaker 1: worth it. Here's a great news. We can all access
Speaker 1: the three cs of this creative life that brings these
Speaker 1: meaning and happiness experiences. We can access our curiosity. And
Speaker 1: by curiosity, we don't mean, as my friend said, well
Speaker 1: I scroll my friends Venmo transactions that makes me curious. No,
Speaker 1: not that type of curiosity. Connected curiosity, values based curiosity,
Speaker 1: an active pursuit that you love so much, that you
Speaker 1: wondered about, that you learn so much about that you
Speaker 1: want to share with the world. So that's the connection
Speaker 1: piece curiosity, and then this connection to the external and
Speaker 1: then the third see which is my favorite see but
Speaker 1: it's often really hard, especially for women, completion, because we've
Speaker 1: been taught that to complete anything adity, we have to
Speaker 1: be profoundly excellent as women, God forbid, were loud and wrong. Though.
Speaker 1: Perfection and completion are two different things, but often they're conflated.
Speaker 1: And so we're going to take you on a journey
Speaker 1: through curiosity, connection and completion. But today we're starting with
Speaker 1: one of our favorite guests, Justina Blakeney, who is a
Speaker 1: bastion of not only beauty and wonder, but she is
Speaker 1: a person who can connect us back to our curiosity
Speaker 1: and I'm so excited to learn from her today. Today's
Speaker 1: guest is Justina Blakeney. Justina, who has become an amazing
Speaker 1: friend of mine, is an incredible artist and designer. She's
Speaker 1: known for her love of bright colors, old patterns, her
Speaker 1: beautiful use of nature. We're so excited to have her
Speaker 1: with us. Welcome Justina. Thank you so much, Justina, you
Speaker 1: are really leading the way in terms of creativity. I
Speaker 1: wanted to first start off our conversation if you could
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about your journey. This beautiful
Speaker 1: finished product of Jungalow. It wasn't an overnight success, and
Speaker 1: so how did you get to where you are now?
Speaker 1: Who you want? Some stories? Stories? Gosh, It's been such
Speaker 1: a long and windy path to where I am now,
Speaker 1: and I'm still on the path. Junglo started as a blog,
Speaker 1: which really was just that. It really was a way
Speaker 1: to follow my curiosity and to record and share my
Speaker 1: curiosity with the world and create a conversation around things
Speaker 1: that I loved, things that I loved doing, things that
Speaker 1: lit me up, and really really very free form. It
Speaker 1: started just as a way to chronicle my creative adventures,
Speaker 1: and that really could have meant and it still means
Speaker 1: so many different things. I didn't really know what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do, or what I wanted to be in
Speaker 1: the world and how I wanted to show up. All
Speaker 1: I knew was that I had a lot of ideas,
Speaker 1: was really creative, and I really loved making things and
Speaker 1: connecting with people around the world, and so I just
Speaker 1: started with a commitment. That's really how Junglo started. It
Speaker 1: was just a commitment to be curious every day, to
Speaker 1: be creative every day, and to track my progress and
Speaker 1: to track what I was making and what I was
Speaker 1: thinking about and what I was seeing in the world
Speaker 1: that I was feeling inspired by and that come it
Speaker 1: meant was to blog five days a week, and I
Speaker 1: committed to it, and I stuck to that commitment for
Speaker 1: about ten years. And that's really where Jungalow was born.
Speaker 1: And it started in very small, small ways, just um
Speaker 1: sharing a photograph of a plant outside my apartment that
Speaker 1: was changing colors and bringing me joy, a photograph, a
Speaker 1: drawing a project I was working on with a friend.
Speaker 1: Little by little, things started to snowball. And when I
Speaker 1: say little by little, I mean, you know, after about
Speaker 1: five years of of doing this every day, right, and
Speaker 1: and and I started to get asked to collaborate with people, friends, relatives, strangers,
Speaker 1: people around the world, brands. All of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: things that I just started noticing or the things that
Speaker 1: I started making, began to connect me with really amazing creatives,
Speaker 1: other people, clients, projects, And really that's how the brand
Speaker 1: was born. Just following my curiosity and having the commitment
Speaker 1: to stick to it five days a week. Sort of
Speaker 1: sounds maybe a little bit oversimplified, but that's really what
Speaker 1: it was. In the early days of blogging, especially in
Speaker 1: the home decor kind of world, things were pretty monotonous.
Speaker 1: There was a specific style that it seemed like the
Speaker 1: online world was kind of adhering to. It was a
Speaker 1: style that was very modern. It was a style that
Speaker 1: was somewhat devoid of color, of personality of UM life,
Speaker 1: in my opinion. So when I came on the scene
Speaker 1: with my colors, my patterns, my plants, taking inspiration from
Speaker 1: my heritage, from my travels, bringing that out into my space,
Speaker 1: showing that a space could be maximal, didn't have to
Speaker 1: just be minimal, it didn't have to follow UM these
Speaker 1: specific trends. It was like the more I dug into
Speaker 1: that and found that within myself and brought it out
Speaker 1: and shared it, the more I attracted my community. And
Speaker 1: then little by little, with the help of so many
Speaker 1: smart and talented folks that are now on my team,
Speaker 1: we've been able to turn this curiosity into a brand.
Speaker 1: You said something beautifully, Justina, about taking inspiration from You
Speaker 1: said your heritage, from your travels. We've talked about this before.
Speaker 1: I've Gracis Lee taking your time already your diamond time
Speaker 1: at interview for Unicorn Space, and you you helped me
Speaker 1: inspire a game that we're gonna be playing later. A
Speaker 1: remix game, because I became so obsessed with this idea
Speaker 1: of a remix that there could be a batter. But
Speaker 1: you can't really have a batter unless you have your
Speaker 1: baking soda and your flower. And it's into the delicious
Speaker 1: batter that I want to eat before I even bake it.
Speaker 1: But your life and your travels and your experiences in
Speaker 1: your heritage really are all in that beautiful batter. And
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear a little bit about the things
Speaker 1: that are in your remix, like what are those ingredients?
Speaker 1: If you were a recipe, what are you What is
Speaker 1: your recipe for your remix? Oh, my goodness, I love
Speaker 1: this question. Um. How fun. So my heritage, my dad
Speaker 1: is Black and Native American, and my mom is of
Speaker 1: Eastern European Jewish descent. My dad grew up in California.
Speaker 1: My mom grew up on the East Coast in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: She moved to here in l A. Actually she moved
Speaker 1: to when she was ten, and they met in Berkeley,
Speaker 1: which is where I grew up, kind of during the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights movement, And so I grew up in this
Speaker 1: very multicultural household. And my maternal grandmother, Betty, who I
Speaker 1: was very very close with Growing up, she was a
Speaker 1: travel agent. The thing that lit her up was planning
Speaker 1: family trips to different places all over the world, and
Speaker 1: so from a very young age she would plan these
Speaker 1: exuberant trips for us to different places around the world
Speaker 1: and would cut coupons and it was like a whole thing,
Speaker 1: and we get that to the paper tickets in the mound.
Speaker 1: Was like, Oh, we're going to Mexico, or we're going
Speaker 1: to Israel, or we're going to Europe. You know, we've
Speaker 1: got to travel from a young age and see so
Speaker 1: many different places. So that was so important and I
Speaker 1: just always loved, loved traveling ever since I was a
Speaker 1: very small child. When I was thirteen, my family moved
Speaker 1: to Switzerland for a year. My parents were teaching at
Speaker 1: a university there and so we did kind of a
Speaker 1: sabbatical year and I went to the public school in
Speaker 1: Switzerland in a very small town. I learned to speak Swiss,
Speaker 1: German and some French, and learned what it felt like
Speaker 1: to be a foreigner and how much about yourself you
Speaker 1: learn when you're in Trench and a culture that's so
Speaker 1: different from the culture that you were raised in. So
Speaker 1: that was a really pivotal thing for me. So I
Speaker 1: ended up going back to Switzerland and living there for
Speaker 1: another year when I was in high school and lived
Speaker 1: with a Swiss family. And then I ended up going
Speaker 1: to u c. L A. And did my junior year
Speaker 1: abroad in Italy and fell in love with a boy
Speaker 1: while I was there and ended up moving back to
Speaker 1: Italy and staying for another seven years. So this mix
Speaker 1: of these different locations that were very close to me
Speaker 1: and we're sort of pivotal. And then my heritage with
Speaker 1: Black culture and Jewish culture were sort of the main
Speaker 1: cultures that I was raised with, and I was really
Speaker 1: raised with both cultures. Those are some of my main ingredients. Um,
Speaker 1: the mix continues and ingredients continue to be added, and
Speaker 1: I think that that's one of those things that's um
Speaker 1: also really important about learning about yourself and and curiosity,
Speaker 1: right Like, I think that when it comes to your
Speaker 1: own personal identity and unpacking who you are are, that
Speaker 1: something that never stops, and and it shouldn't stop. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm listening to your story and then I see the
Speaker 1: visual representation of your life story in your work at Junglow.
Speaker 1: One of the things that even I have spoken about
Speaker 1: is that you have really brought us to That idea
Speaker 1: of creativity is not nice to have. It's an essential
Speaker 1: part of who you are for our listeners who may
Speaker 1: not have had such a colorful life story and that
Speaker 1: self awareness that you have to translate that life story
Speaker 1: into being a maker. What is the first step that
Speaker 1: people can take with their lived experience and their sense
Speaker 1: of identity to really delve into their creativity in a
Speaker 1: deeper way. It's easy for me to share what that
Speaker 1: is for me, but I think when it comes to
Speaker 1: everyone else, everyone's going to have their own vibe. You
Speaker 1: might like coloring in a coloring book, you might like
Speaker 1: cooking as your outlet for creativity. I think there are
Speaker 1: so many ways to express one's creativity, and there's no
Speaker 1: one right way to do it. For me, I love
Speaker 1: the experience of input and output. So, for example, this weekend,
Speaker 1: I was at the Huntington's here in Pasadena, which just
Speaker 1: these incredible like botanical gardens, and I absolutely love going
Speaker 1: to a botanical gardens and taking photos. I like to
Speaker 1: get really abstract, get really close up to the leaves,
Speaker 1: noticed the textures, the patterns, all the different colors. It's
Speaker 1: something that's so inspiring for me. So I love just
Speaker 1: really taking my time walking through these gardens and noticing
Speaker 1: all the special little moments. I really think that's something
Speaker 1: that everyone can do, right. You just open your eyes
Speaker 1: to something that brings you joy, that brings you that
Speaker 1: that curiosity that delight. Take a photo. Then I sort
Speaker 1: of catalog these photos for myself. Then when I get home,
Speaker 1: I usually get out my watercolors. I could maybe do
Speaker 1: it on my computer or an iPad, like maybe it's
Speaker 1: just a pencil and a paper, but just sketching and
Speaker 1: drawing and just allowing yourself some time to explore without
Speaker 1: thinking about the outcome. It's really just an exploration. One
Speaker 1: of our mottos at Jungalow, and one of the things
Speaker 1: that sort of part of the DNA of the brand
Speaker 1: is that everyone is creative and that everyone can find
Speaker 1: ways to express that creativity in their home. And so
Speaker 1: I think it's really about just carving out time, right.
Speaker 1: And I know that can be tricky for so many
Speaker 1: of us, like dedicating even small amounts of time, but
Speaker 1: I really consider dedicating even just fifteen minutes a day
Speaker 1: to creativity as a form of self care, and it
Speaker 1: can take so many different shapes, and it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to include crazy supplies or an art studio or an
Speaker 1: office or anything like that. It's just something as simple
Speaker 1: as collecting some leaves off the ground and noticing the
Speaker 1: different shapes and the different colors and how they play
Speaker 1: off of each other. That's creative. Jina. You're telling me
Speaker 1: either day on our Instagram live about reconnecting to the
Speaker 1: simple pleasures of that daily creative practice, because obviously you
Speaker 1: have many creative practices going on in a whole cycle
Speaker 1: of curiosity, connecting to others in your community and completing things.
Speaker 1: And we've talked about your love of completion, and I'm
Speaker 1: a huge fan of yours because you complete things. Thank
Speaker 1: you for doing that for all of us. But we
Speaker 1: were talking about that time where you were like, oh,
Speaker 1: I was having a bad day and sort of that
Speaker 1: exercise you were doing in the morning. Can you talk
Speaker 1: to us a little bit about that, because I think
Speaker 1: I want to recreate a version of that for myself.
Speaker 1: Everyone should recreate a version of this for yourself. It
Speaker 1: started almost a decade ago at the apartment I was
Speaker 1: living in at the time. We had this little courtyard
Speaker 1: and there was a peppercorn tree, and the leaves of
Speaker 1: the peppercorn tree looked like eyes, and the little peppercorns
Speaker 1: kind of looked like eyeballs. So I was like just
Speaker 1: sweeping up one day and I was like, these kind
Speaker 1: of look like eyes, these kind of like eyeballs. I
Speaker 1: looked over, Um, they're watching you. They're all watching you. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's a bougun via bush across the way, and
Speaker 1: so there's all these bright pink bracts and then they
Speaker 1: just looked like little pockered lips. So they've got the
Speaker 1: line that goes right for it looks like someone's wearing
Speaker 1: like my favorite shade of Nars lipstick. And so I
Speaker 1: just started playing, and I had a little white table
Speaker 1: on the patio and I just started putting the peppercorns
Speaker 1: and the leaves and the bougon Via bract and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I had a face and it looked
Speaker 1: so realistic, and I was looking at it and kind
Speaker 1: of tripping out. I was like, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: really looks like a face. Right, So I just started
Speaker 1: playing with it, taking a few pictures, and when I
Speaker 1: was done sweeping, I just sweep the leaves away, swep
Speaker 1: the leaves away and put them in the compost, and
Speaker 1: that was it. But every time I saw that face
Speaker 1: on social media, yeah you so that moment, she's watching you.
Speaker 1: It's returning this activity into something creepy. But no, it's no, no,
Speaker 1: it's accountability. She's watching you to make sure you do it.
Speaker 1: She's like the goddess of the Folian. So this, this activity,
Speaker 1: and especially when my daughter was young, became something that
Speaker 1: I did every single day. Is I would go out.
Speaker 1: I would take my daughter out on walks, and I'd
Speaker 1: have a little ziplock bag and anytime I all like
Speaker 1: an interesting looking seed, pod or leaf, I would just
Speaker 1: collect it and put it in my little ziplock And
Speaker 1: then I would get home, when I would put my
Speaker 1: daughter away for a nap, then I would go outside
Speaker 1: and do these little faces and take pictures of them
Speaker 1: and started sharing them on Instagram, and I invited my
Speaker 1: community to make them too, because it really felt like
Speaker 1: something so easy. You needed no supplies to do it.
Speaker 1: It's so fun and everyone's always really smitten with the
Speaker 1: results because their faces look like real faces, and they
Speaker 1: have expressions, and they like look nad or like they're laughing,
Speaker 1: or like they have a secret and they want to
Speaker 1: share with you. And so I kind of started creating
Speaker 1: these little narratives around these faces. I called the project
Speaker 1: Face the Foliage and there's a Face the Foliage Instagram
Speaker 1: account and hashtag as well, and so now people from
Speaker 1: all over the world take part in this movement of
Speaker 1: making these portraits out of leaves and flowers. And it's
Speaker 1: just it couldn't be more simple. Okay, how did I
Speaker 1: not know about this account? Because I'm like dying it is.
Speaker 1: That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen a lot
Speaker 1: of joy. What I love about this Face the Foliage
Speaker 1: is that anyone can do it. That creativity doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be something that's out of reach. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be quote unquote a creative person. Why do you
Speaker 1: think it is that anyone can be creative? Because I've
Speaker 1: seen it. I've seen it over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: I've seen it in my daughter when she was a baby.
Speaker 1: I've seen it in language and learning new languages, even
Speaker 1: just in a single word. There's so much creativity there.
Speaker 1: And I love thinking about the origins of things, right,
Speaker 1: and so in order to create the world that we
Speaker 1: live in, it just wouldn't be possible without human creativity.
Speaker 1: And the human creativity is just it's so clear that
Speaker 1: it's inside everyone. And so when I hear people saying like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not creative, Like you couldn't get up in the
Speaker 1: morning if you were creative, you're making creative to say,
Speaker 1: visions all throughout your day, whether you realize it or not.
Speaker 1: Putting your clothes on in the morning is a creative decision.
Speaker 1: And so some people value those creative decisions in different
Speaker 1: ways than other people. And so I think that when
Speaker 1: it comes to home decor, which is a world that
Speaker 1: Junglow is housed in, people are also making creative decisions
Speaker 1: about their homes all the time. Even if that create
Speaker 1: decision is to leave your walls white, not to inject
Speaker 1: a lot of personality into your home, to do the
Speaker 1: basic basic stuff like, that's still a creative decision. And
Speaker 1: so I think creativity is all around us, and it's
Speaker 1: really inside us all and it's about whether or how
Speaker 1: you choose to tap into it and cultivate it and
Speaker 1: practice it. And that's something that I think is really
Speaker 1: undervalued as well. I think a lot of times we
Speaker 1: talk about people as being talented or creative the same
Speaker 1: way we might talk about somebody who's a brunette or
Speaker 1: has brown eyed is. But to me, this is something
Speaker 1: that is cultivated throughout our lives. And even something as
Speaker 1: simple as a face the foliage project in the morning
Speaker 1: and getting up and doing something like that, it changes
Speaker 1: the way you see the world. Last week we are
Speaker 1: on the podcast, we were talking about making space, just
Speaker 1: how the space time continuum has been collapsing on all
Speaker 1: of us and what a true boundary is. And I
Speaker 1: wonder from what you're saying, if instead of saying I
Speaker 1: have to make space and then doing it, maybe what
Speaker 1: you do is you start with a creative practice, like
Speaker 1: I'm going to do a face the foliage painting. Because
Speaker 1: if you're going to say you're going to do that,
Speaker 1: or if you say to yourself, I'm going to blog
Speaker 1: for say fifteen minutes every single day, you need the
Speaker 1: space to do that. By making that decision to do
Speaker 1: that thing, then space has to be created around it.
Speaker 1: And so I think space could be looked in those
Speaker 1: two different ways, where you can intentionally say I'm going
Speaker 1: to make space or something, or you can pick the
Speaker 1: thing the practice and then say I have to make
Speaker 1: space around how to do that? If we could wrap
Speaker 1: up by talking about the word space sort of like
Speaker 1: a free a free association, because a lot of how
Speaker 1: people associate Jungalow and you is this idea of taking
Speaker 1: the mundane, as we said, to a sublime level. It
Speaker 1: can happen without millions of dollars, with color, with plants.
Speaker 1: That's a physical space. You have metaphorical space in your
Speaker 1: brain for different types of creativity. But can you talk
Speaker 1: just free association about what you think of the word space.
Speaker 1: I hear a lot about holding space right now in
Speaker 1: the wellness arena and talking about holding space for yourself,
Speaker 1: holding space for other people. So I think about holding
Speaker 1: space as sort of this sacred place where you're there
Speaker 1: for someone that you love, or maybe someone that you
Speaker 1: don't love, maybe someone that you're just getting to know
Speaker 1: and really listening powerfully. Then I think of making space
Speaker 1: and making space for me. What that means is having
Speaker 1: a space that reflects who I am and a place
Speaker 1: where I can really grow and thrive with my family.
Speaker 1: And it means being in a in a space that's
Speaker 1: inspiring and a space that I allow to be ever changing,
Speaker 1: in a space that I allow to not be perfect
Speaker 1: and to know that this is going to change tomorrow,
Speaker 1: because I'm going to change tomorrow, and that's okay. This
Speaker 1: is a wet campus. Well. I think we wish for
Speaker 1: you time space, physical space, metaphysical space, mental space to
Speaker 1: be and Justina, thank you for becoming a friend. I
Speaker 1: can't pay you back for all the times that I
Speaker 1: have been inspired by you as well. Thank you both
Speaker 1: so much. Hi, it's me Eve. I wrote Find Your
Speaker 1: Unicorn Space as a permission slip for you to reconnect
Speaker 1: and discover that thing that makes you come alive without
Speaker 1: the guilt, without the excuses. Especially in our all too
Speaker 1: busy world, making time for ourselves is essential work. It
Speaker 1: improves our health, our relationships, and it just might be
Speaker 1: the antidote to burnout. Join me on a journey to
Speaker 1: find your unicorn Space. Visit unicorn space dot com. So
Speaker 1: every episode of this podcast will be ending with an
Speaker 1: action item for you are listeners that we call a
Speaker 1: time out. This is really a time for you to
Speaker 1: focus on yourself and reflect on what you're hearing today.
Speaker 1: Unicorn Space is not a hobby or a one time
Speaker 1: passion or a side hustle, but a space you can
Speaker 1: get curious about something, connect with other humans, and complete
Speaker 1: an idea and so getting curious. Let's you a time
Speaker 1: out today to start getting people inspired, getting people curious
Speaker 1: just this week. You don't have to be choreographing anything.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be writing a giant book. Let's
Speaker 1: just talk about inspiration that we could do this week.
Speaker 1: Small start where you are time out to get inspired.
Speaker 1: No fair playbook Adity comes out without some version of
Speaker 1: a card game. So I'm prototyping this card game. It's
Speaker 1: a remix game. It's like Cards Against Humanity or I
Speaker 1: like to call it Cards for Humanity, because that's what
Speaker 1: we're really trying here. We're trying to be more human.
Speaker 1: So this game starts with me reading you fifty cards,
Speaker 1: and I want you to pick one that you feel
Speaker 1: curious about right now, just anything, don't think too hard
Speaker 1: about it. And then what I'm gonna do is I'm
Speaker 1: going to pick another card that you can remix with it,
Speaker 1: just to get you inspired for this week. And by
Speaker 1: the way, for our listeners, this is what you're gonna
Speaker 1: be doing. You're going to be with us, taking out
Speaker 1: your journal, picking one of those cards and then asking yourself,
Speaker 1: why you picked it, and if you're interested in getting
Speaker 1: a PDF copy of the game, go to fairplay life
Speaker 1: dot com and sign up for our newsletter. Here we
Speaker 1: go otherworldly pursuits like taro, astrology or magic, genealogy and lineage,
Speaker 1: spiritual wellness, racing, cars, horses or boats, circus, theater and production,
Speaker 1: snow sports, sports with balls, triathlon, running, memories and archiving,
Speaker 1: sports with wheels, rhetoric, martial arts, dance, performing animals, travel
Speaker 1: and culture, outdoors, water sports, storytelling, art, stitching in needles, metallurgy, music, woodworking, photography,
Speaker 1: gardening and farming, florals, pottery, beauty, arrows and axes, building
Speaker 1: in d i y, restoration and renovation, cooking, baking, coding, games,
Speaker 1: video games, health and wellness, language and anthropology, event planning, finding,
Speaker 1: collecting and forging, fashion, writing, teaching, research and learning, design,
Speaker 1: math and sciences. So which card of all those just
Speaker 1: stuck out to you today? Travel and culture. I have
Speaker 1: so many, but I can't name them all, so I'll
Speaker 1: just stick with travel and culture. Tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about why. Prior to the pandemic, I was an
Speaker 1: avid traveler. I've been to so many different places, lived
Speaker 1: in various parts of the world, and the pandemic put
Speaker 1: all of that to a halt. It's been very difficult
Speaker 1: to be landlocked and stuck, and it's taken a toll
Speaker 1: on my mental health, as it has for everyone who
Speaker 1: used to travel as their restpit and their winter escape
Speaker 1: hatch and to really get a sense of the world
Speaker 1: beyond themselves. And now I want to hear the values
Speaker 1: that it connects with. I've always been fascinated by the
Speaker 1: human story. That's why I went into medicine. I'm an
Speaker 1: extrovert and I love speaking to different people, learning about
Speaker 1: different cultures. I speak several languages and I'm always trying
Speaker 1: to learn new different words and different languages because communication
Speaker 1: is something that it lights me up. And of course
Speaker 1: seeing different places, the visual aspect of travel, the foods,
Speaker 1: the fashion, the sites, the sounds like, all of that.
Speaker 1: It's an immersive experience. And I love that feeling of
Speaker 1: feeling small in a place that's so vast. Being in
Speaker 1: a city where I don't know anyone and I'm exploring
Speaker 1: it brings out that sense of childlike wonder for me. Okay,
Speaker 1: I love it. I want to just repeat back to
Speaker 1: you what I hear so that I can pick a
Speaker 1: card that I think we can remix with your travel
Speaker 1: and culture. I heard the values of the human story.
Speaker 1: I heard the value of connecting with others. I heard
Speaker 1: the value of learning languages and other cultures. I heard
Speaker 1: the value of communication. I heard the value of beauty.
Speaker 1: I heard the value of being out of control, like
Speaker 1: the idea of surrendering to the unknown. I heard the
Speaker 1: value of taste and immersion. And wonder does that do it? Okay?
Speaker 1: Job reflecting what you said? Perfect? Okay. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to pick a card that can remix with travel and culture,
Speaker 1: and I'm picking research and learning. So what I'd like
Speaker 1: you to do is to have a learning night with
Speaker 1: your family or with yourself. I'd like you to have
Speaker 1: your whole family put ten different locations into a bowl,
Speaker 1: so have them look at it alas You're gonna pick
Speaker 1: just random, tend pop and Guinea or Argentina. Just have
Speaker 1: everybody pick at least two or three put in the bowl.
Speaker 1: Then you're going to pick out one of the pieces
Speaker 1: of paper at random. You'll open it up, so say
Speaker 1: you pick buen us aires Argentina. Now, the research and
Speaker 1: learning part of travel and culture is that since you
Speaker 1: can't go to that place yet, what I'll ask you
Speaker 1: to do is that for everybody to bring one piece
Speaker 1: of research and learning to your travel and culture dinner.
Speaker 1: So maybe that's a craft from Argentina. Maybe that's a
Speaker 1: local food like an empanada like you have to order
Speaker 1: in empanadas. Maybe it's bringing Spanish words to the table
Speaker 1: so that your whole family just converses in Spanish that night,
Speaker 1: even if it's you've never spoken the language before. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a YouTube video with a festival from Argentina. So
Speaker 1: that's what I'll ask you to do this week. Find
Speaker 1: a traveling culture night and then I love it, learn
Speaker 1: about it. I have the biggest smile on my face
Speaker 1: because that is the Unicorn space. It allows you to
Speaker 1: be wherever you are and still pursue that sense of
Speaker 1: curiosity and wonder which lights you up. So listeners, what
Speaker 1: you're gonna do is you're going to play the solitaire
Speaker 1: version of this. Take a card, any card, pick it,
Speaker 1: write down why you picked it, write down the values
Speaker 1: it connects with you, and then take any other card
Speaker 1: from the deck and remix it, combine it, make it
Speaker 1: into a delicious batter with another card and pick one
Speaker 1: thing you're going to do this week. That's a remix.
Speaker 1: So that's today's time out, and next week we'll be
Speaker 1: back to build on the commitment and creativity conversation we
Speaker 1: had with Justina. We're gonna be talking about goals. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to Time Out, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heeart Podcasts and Hello Sunshine. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of
Speaker 1: the New York Times bestseller fair Play and find your
Speaker 1: Unicorn Space. Follow me on social media at Eve Rodsky
Speaker 1: and learn more about our work at fair Play Life.
Speaker 1: And I'm Dr Addi Narucar, the Harvard physician with a
Speaker 1: specialty and stressed resilience burnout in mental health. Follow me
Speaker 1: on social media at Dr add Narucar and find out
Speaker 1: more about my work at doctor a d D dot com.
Speaker 1: That's d R A D I t I dot com.
Speaker 1: Our Hello Sunshine team is Amanda farrand Aaron Stover and
Speaker 1: Jennifer Yonker. Our I Heart Media team is Ali Perry,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Bassett, and Jessica Kranschitch. We hope you all love
Speaker 1: taking a much needed time out with us today. Listen
Speaker 1: and subscribe to Time out on the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.