CG | Episode 033 - Jill Girling - TV Writer, Creator, Producer, Show Runner. 'Stop Letting Fear Steal Your Creative Dreams'

EPISODE SUMMARY

TV Writer, Producer, Assistant Director and Show-Runner Jill Girling known for Cube (1997), Ride (2016),  Queer as Folk (1999), Find Me in Paris and Spellbound joins us today for a very special heart to heart about how paralyzing the fear can be when we first come into contact with our creative gifts, how it can derail our loves and what we can do to find our way back to ourselves. 

SHOW NOTES

TV Writer, Producer, Assistant Director and Show-Runner Jill Girling known for Cube (1997), Ride (2016),  Queer as Folk (1999), Find Me in Paris and Spellbound joins us today for a very special heart to heart about how paralyzing the fear can be when we first come into contact with our creative gifts, how it can derail our loves and what we can do to find our way back to ourselves. 

When we start to see how these mechanisms work, how we're keeping ourselves from our dreams, it's like the portal to not doing that anymore. And that happens right here inside this episode.

Oh and I made you 7 days of journal prompts to go with this episode! Sign up for the Newsletter to get 'em!

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT 

-How Creativity plays the long game with us, taking us on adventures that only make sense looking back at them

-How fear of how bright the creativity inside her was stopped her from following her own creative dreams and ultimately led to a life of depression and alcoholism, and how she stopped that cycle and started to live the life of her dreams

-How she healed her workaholism for once and for all 

-The one drastic thing she did that has done more for her creativity than anything else she has ever done

-How she realized she couldn't juggle working, drinking AND writing. Wanted to give it a real shot - said to herself, lets see what happens if i quit drinking

-The simple thing she does to get through times when she is overwhelmed with work - the little reward system that keeps everything functioning. 

RESOURCES USED IN THIS EPISODE

Spellbound
Find me in Paris (HULU)
Great Gatsby
Legends of the Fall 
Brad Pitt
Jackie Chan 
Rumble in the Bronx
Adhd
JJ abrams 
HBO
Hallmark Movies
Ride (Nickelodeon)
Paris Opera Ballet School 
Gilmour Girls
Vancouver Film School

 FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jill Girling
I had like A Beautiful Mind moment where my whole world made sense from what I was like as a child how why I suffered in school because I'm going to be 57 next week. So I went to school in the seven days, man, and there was no ADHD there was like hyperactive kids. But there was, it was not like it is now. So there was nobody was getting diagnosed with anything you were all supposed to be learning in the same way. And so all of a sudden, I realized, like every single thing, from alcoholism to an eating disorder I had as a teenager, to all of it, it all made sense. And as I went down a rabbit hole of research, all of those things are all linked for people with ADHD.

Kate Shepherd
Hello,

Happy New Year. I hope you got a really beautiful rest over the holidays. I got together with ang Miller for a special holiday edition of the show, which we aired a couple of days before Christmas. There are some things in that episode that aren't even holiday specific. So if you missed it, we talk about how to resource yourself in difficult situations and how to maintain connected and keep a good flow around your intuitive function. And as a superstar when it comes to intuition, and sourcing a really deep part of ourselves wisdom, really, I have her on in a couple of weeks for a full episode. But the holiday episode was a really good one. So if you haven't heard that, go back and check it out. It's really full of love and wisdom. And I think you'll really enjoy it. I wanted to start off this episode and also this year with an intention I hope you'll share with me. And it's around easing into the year, easing into ourselves trusting everything is happening right on time. I think the tendency around this time of year well, I know the tendency around this time of year is to sort of push ourselves to shed things that aren't working and take on a whole bunch of new habits that we think are going to change our whole lives. And we can be really hard on ourselves during this time. And it kind of comes from this good place of wanting ourselves to be healthy and to grow and improve. But that always needs to be tempered with a gentleness. So I wanted to just say that out loud. Because in the midst of a whole bunch of new year's resolutions and striving for greatness, I think it's important to remember being gentle with ourselves really is for our success. Ultimately, we're not going to succeed without that gentleness, you know, I pull a card for the beginning of every episode. And today I wanted to pull a card for this year for all of us. I just pulled it a moment ago, I actually said out loud. Wow, that is a good one. The card I pulled was synthesis, the picture on it as of an angel facing a rainbow with her arms wide open. And it looks like she's just rejoicing. One of the first things that came up for me was just what a tremendous amount we've all been through over the last few years. In the ruins of a lot of the things we've gone through is treasure. You know, there are always gifts in and amongst the pain and in amongst the debris. There's a learning that happens. And there's a growing that happens. Even in times when we think we're asleep. Creativity is always at work inside of us building and growing and reorganizing, helping us to hear it better. And so I just thought synthesis is so beautiful, because maybe 2023 For us can be an opportunity to synthesize a lot of what happened a lot of what was just stating a lot of the growth that was percolating and happening and some of it was kind of rat a tat tat, rapid and really fast. And some of it was really slow and happening on a more invisible level. But I really love the idea of synthesis for 2023. So let's keep that somewhere tucked away in our hearts. As we walk into this beautiful new year with bravery and curiosity and open hearts, you're going to ease on in to 2023 together. Thank you for being here. And for making time for creativity in your world. You've probably heard me say it a million times. I do believe with all my heart that building a deeper connection to the creativity that's inside of us is the most important thing each and every one of us can do the ripple effects of it. The benefits to ourselves and the people around us when we strengthen our intuitive function. We strengthen our knowings and our connection with creativity and all it has to offer to us are vast and infinite and immeasurable. And I do believe that it is the thing that will stop humanity from glitching and heal so much of what's wrong right now. I love to ask you to please leave a review for the show in Apple podcasts if you haven't done that already.

It not only means a great deal to me to be able to read these really encouraging words from you, but it helps other listeners discover the show, which ultimately helps me keep the show going. And there was one that I wanted to share with you that I just read the other day. It's from Mellie. In the house, she writes light, exclamation point, I've been listening to the creative genius podcast for the last two weeks or so. And wow, I am inspired to create. It's brought a lightness into my life, and I can honestly say, my heart is full of joy. podcasts have reignited my passion to create. I'm living more authentically in all things life and art. The guest speakers have a wealth of knowledge, and they're relatable. Kate is a superstar, and I'm so grateful she followed her colleague to create this for us. I love this podcast. Mellie Thank you, can you hear my voice? You know, I'm in my kitchen here in front of this microphone, connecting with these guests all over the world via zoom for the most part, I don't get to see your reactions. I don't get to see your nodding heads. When you hear something that really resonates or lands, I don't get to see you say out loud, yeah, or watch you inhale. That deep breath you take when you realize something familiar that somebody says and how it was already inside you all along. But when you share these reviews with me, it gives me a little glimpse of those things. And I'll tell you, it's why I'm doing this. So if you haven't left a review yet for me, please do so. It really, it means a lot to me. Thank you by checked in the other day on Patreon and the library have bonus content that's available for Patreon supporters and it's been steadily growing and there are so many goodies in there. It's everything from beautiful guided meditations and journal prompts and worksheets to so many bonus episodes. You know, I do a bonus episode every other week, you'll unlock it all automatically when you sign up to become a supporter of the show. Your support is everything to me, I really need you to be able to continue to do this show. And you can find out more about how to do that on patreon.com/creative Genius podcast. And I've been wanting to give you the opportunity to tell me if there are things you would specifically like to hear about on this show. You know, maybe there's someone an expert in some facet of creativity that you'd love to hear more from. Or there's a specific topic relating to creativity that you want to hear more about. Or even just an artist that you really admire who you'd love to hear them have one of these in depth conversations with, let me know, find the creative genius and 2023 post on Instagram. And leave a comment for us with your suggestion. And make sure to tag any guest recommendations you're making so that they know we want them on the show and so that I can find them more easily. You can also send me an email, just find the contact page on Kate Shepherd creative.com. I'm really excited to introduce you to today's guest, her name is Jill Girling. She's a writer, producer showrunner and creator of some beautiful television, you might know her work, if you've ever watched the wonderful TV show that find me in Paris, she's responsible for that. And she sits down with us today to have a really raw open heart to heart. You know, Jill is someone who over the years, like many people who had a really deep current of creativity running through them, Jill experienced a lot of fear when she came into contact with that. And we talked about all the ways over the years, her life went off the rails, you know, she got really, really lost. She also shares with us her experience as someone living with ADHD, how that's connected to all kinds of things, and only realizing that as an adult did was able to connect the dots and with that the freedom that she's gotten from, from knowing that that's why she's different. And that's how she's different. And over the course of this conversation, which was a real curious, open hearted. Look at her wonderful, exciting and Storied Life, Jill and I kind of simultaneously realize the mechanism by which fear derailed our lives to keep us from our dreams. It was really powerful for me to be a part of that conversation inside the conversation, but then also listening to us talking about it afterwards. I was really excited to bring it to you. Because I think when we start to see how these mechanisms work, how we're keeping ourselves from our dreams, it's like the portal to not doing that anymore. And that happens right here inside this episode. And I'm really excited for you to hear it. I want to ask you to do a couple things while you're listening to this conversation between Jill and I today. One when we talk about the mechanism fear uses to derail us from our dreams. Find out if you're doing that too, and find out what you need to do to stop choosing fear over your dreams. And the second thing I want to ask you to do is to take a second to forward this Is episode to somebody in your life, somebody that you love, who has a big current of creativity running through them, maybe who feels like they're creatively blocked, maybe is struggling with ADHD, maybe just loves ballet or great TV. Think about one person that you can share this episode with. Here's my conversation with Jill grilling. Jill, I'm so happy to be sitting here talking to you today. Thank you for coming.

Jill Girling
Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

Kate Shepherd
For our listeners who are meeting you for the very first time you're a writer and a producer and a director and a creator of film and TV. Not director show runner show runner, thank you for correcting me.

Jill Girling
No, it's okay. I just I don't want to call myself a director because that's such a specific and incredible skill. And so I'm not one I maybe one day will be one. So I'm a writer, showrunner creator. So I kind of get my creative thrills working with the director, we sort of we really work in tandem, televisions changed quite a lot over the last 15 years. Were on a TV series, you know, you have the person typically the person who's created the show is on set as the onset producer showrunner, sort of making sure that creative tone of the show is working all the way through,

Kate Shepherd
we've created these, this encyclopedia of limiting beliefs around creativity, that hold us back, you know what creativity is? Who has it in them, who's allowed to use it, who's allowed to express it, what the product of your creativity has to look like, or feel like or sound like or how it has to make someone else feel like there's so many rules about creativity, and human beings are, for the most part, very obedient little things who are like, Okay, well, that's not for me then. So I just won't, I just won't, I won't do that. And we met because your dear friend, Dr. Cheryl, Dr. Cheryl Arish was a guest on episode 22.

Jill Girling
She's amazing. She her and I went to theater school together when we were 16. And she was this gorgeous redhead, who was on the cover of 17 Magazine. And to me, that was the coolest thing ever. And as gorgeous as she was she was even nicer. Ben, she was beautiful. She's an amazing, amazing and brilliant too. If you

Kate Shepherd
haven't listened to that episode, go back and listen to that episode, because it's so great. All you're saying like she her kindness and compassion just oozes out of her. And she's also incredibly intelligent. You and I connected over Instagram afterwards that I feel like we're already friends. I know. I know. Amazing. So maybe this is a good time for you to tell us about how did you end up getting into that line of work you wanted to be you wanted to be an actor, I wanted

Jill Girling
to be an actor. So we already met Cheryl era, that acting camera. I went to Second City for classes when I was 16. And I went they actually didn't know I was underage, I should have been 18 and started auditioning for them. And then they found out I was 16. And they were like you're not getting in. But they sort of took me under their wing and and I kind of I hung out there with all the older people. And I realized that I wanted to be the one telling the stories, more than I wanted to be the one performing them. So that was my goal. And then I took a hard turn and got lost. And it happened to me a few times in my life and my career. And I wonder if it's linked to fear, I'm not sure but when I sort of decided I'm going to do I'm going to be a creative person. I'm going to maybe be a director, maybe be a writer, maybe an actor, I don't know. And I went off traveling, I thought that's the best education. And I sort of forgot about the creative path that I was on and did anything but that. So I ended up in Southeast Asia. I ended up becoming a smuggler.

Kate Shepherd
Okay. I'm so glad you brought that up because we wanted to ask you about that how you start off wanting to be an actor. You get a little bit scared. Okay, that's normal. And then now you're a smuggler. Wait, what?

Jill Girling
I know, okay, it's okay. It was just such a weird chain of events. I ended up getting in a car accident. And I got all of this money from this car accident. And I've been saving money to go traveling. And suddenly I had this windfall of money. And I had some friends who were in Thailand, this is in the late 80s. And nobody was traveling in Thailand in the late 80s. It was a very different time. I went and met them there. And they had just been in I'm not going to say where they were because a lawyer recommended as I talk about this project that I'm working on not to say where it wasn't. So in another country in Southeast Asia, they had heard about that they'd stayed at this guesthouse. There was a smuggling ring. And I was like, and they were like, yeah, there's all these people who are smuggling in there. You could smuggle anything from drugs, to gems, gyms, two watches, you know, all stolen. And I said, I want to go there. And they were like, What do you why? Why? And I said, because I'm going to be a writer one day, and I'm going to I want to go and see what this is. So I moved to this guest house a couple months later with my then boyfriend, and befriended everybody at the guest house and got to know them and got to know the woman who ran the runs. And I decided if I really wanted to write about it, I had to do it all. So I should preface with this is the dumbest thing I've ever done. Like, I don't think this was a wise decision. It was really stupid. But I decided that I was so smart to not do a drug run, that I would smuggle watches in cameras that was going to sort of set me up to to write a show about it. But I got caught. I talked my way out of jail by pretending to be a famous Canadian actress. And I literally said to the customs guy, who is who found my stuff, can I please speak to your supervisor, I'm not used to being spoken to this way. And he let me go through. Wow. And I never did another run. The boyfriend at the time went off on a run and went missing for three weeks. And it was very harrowing experience. And we left that country shortly thereafter. Wow. And now there's the show was that the first attempt at smuggling you got caught was the first and only time what a blessing. It was yes, it was a blessing scared me so straight. And then I get to I literally walk outside like it's a movie. And a car pulls up. And this guy, you know, rolls down his window. I say my code word. I get in the car. I get taken to this guesthouse which turns out to be a whorehouse Oh, God, and I'm like, and a couple days later, they said, you know, we they didn't have a flight for me. They wouldn't send me back and I and it's you know, there's no email, there's no cell phones. It was really scary. And then they said, Okay, we have a flight for you. You have to take this money back. It was 2.5. It wasn't Japan. But it was in yen. It was 2.5 million yen, which was like 25,000. Us and you could you were only allowed to take 2000. So it was like a bigger jail sentence to take this money back. And no one had told me I was doing this. And I said, I'm not I'm not doing it. And they said, you have a you have a boyfriend. Right? They knew his name. They knew his passport number. And they said, Do you want to see him alive again? And I said yes. And they said, Ben take the money. So I took the money. And I squeaked through customs.

Kate Shepherd
Okay, so you're, I'm just kind of I'm trying to put myself in like creativities boots here. Something is whispered to you do this thing. Because there's a reason for you to do this thing. It doesn't really make sense. Like you're a good girl. You're You're a Canadian for crying out loud.

Jill Girling
I know. I was a bit of a crazy wild rebel, though. Yeah, I did crazy wild things. I really I did I mean, but yes, inherently a good guy. But something whispered to you something whispered. And it's what's really interesting is that I would send you know, I'd never told my parents what I was doing, of course, to later, I would send them post many, many, many postcards, and I sent them pictures of like the people I was living with. And I was, I didn't say what the place was. But I have all of this evidence, my mom saved everything. So I have all of these postcards with my headspace at the time where I can read between my own lines, what was going on, and letters to friends that they kept and gave back to me and pictures of these people that I've based characters on this show. I have a writing partner I've worked with for years, we've we've had a show in development on this for 20 years, probably. But I think I'm I'm getting close to something. You know, when we started developing this in 22,002 2003, Breaking Bad wasn't out. Netflix didn't exist. At that point. We I think we killed our male lead in the pilot doing nonlinear storytelling. And everyone's like, you can't do this. And now everything's changed. We think the time is now for this show.

Kate Shepherd
That's so exciting. So what is the trajectory of the show? Where where is it at in its birthing process,

Jill Girling
it's being rewritten. And it's, it's going to be set in the 80s when we originally set it in 2002. And so much has changed with technology that it has to be now set in the 80s because you couldn't smuggle the same way now, right. I'm in the middle of another project right now. So it's on the backburner for one of the next things that I'd like to do. It's called milk run. And I have a couple of actors who are interested. And so we'll see we'll see what happens. Very

Kate Shepherd
exciting. I wonder if we could go back a minute because you all you do. You're doing all these media working on finding parents who are God spellbound now, like there's so many exciting things they are doing. Thank you. But I want to I want to go back a little bit to talk about after the smuggling some of your journey to get to where you are today.

Jill Girling
Yeah, it was a labyrinth. So you

Kate Shepherd
you're scared straight from smuggling,

Jill Girling
you scared straight from smuggling. I ended up when my then boyfriend got caught. He got lucky. And he got deported. He didn't get caught with drugs. He got caught bringing something else back. He was deported. So he said I can either come back to where you are, or I can go home. And I said I'm not going home. I'm not going back to Toronto can tell you where we went because we didn't do anything illegal. We went to Taiwan. We had a friend who had a school there. We slept on his the floor of his school for a month. And in fact, I read all of the books I never read in high school but I was supposed to read in high school and then I wrote my English teacher a letter and apologize for being such a jerk. I said Great Gatsby is my favorite. And she asked actually sent me an essay question. And I wrote her an essay on the Greek gods because I was a real I was, Oh, I love high school. And she was also the guidance counselor, the Dean of discipline, I, I was not kind to her. So it we had a very nice, a nice moment together, that guy and I broke up there. But we both became English teachers. I stayed there for probably six months, and then went back to Toronto, and became a bartender, while I was trying to get into the film industry as a PA worked on one show, as a PA, the show lost its financing. So I ended up working at this bar, you know, as a bar that I drank in, and they offered me to come in and work on Gay Pride Day. And I didn't realize that it was a kind of an audition to see how I wasn't, I was a really good bartender. So I got a full time job. And I worked there for two years, I was one of two straight people working at this gay bar in 1992 is a very, very different time to be gay. I wondered what it would be like that in Toronto, there's Church Street at that time, you could only be yourself within a couple of blocks, you know, in a couple of bars, you couldn't just be out. And I thought, what, what, why, why it's, you know, my parents always had gay friends, like it was never a deal to me. So I thought it would be really interesting to make a documentary about it, and then realized I didn't have any money. So I applied for film school. And that's how I ended up at the Vancouver Film School. And I made this film, which starred it was going to originally be about coming out. I didn't know anybody in Vancouver. So I do run around and find people who wanted to be in my movie, and I met this guy named Paul Street, you know, he was six foot seven, gorgeous. 25 years old. He was the surrogate father to this young boy, his best friend's son, this kid who had lived with a single mom. And so he was raising this child, and he was gay. And in 1992, that was crazy. And then he also was HIV positive. Nobody in my class wanted to work on the movie, they were afraid they were going to get AIDS, you know, they were so ignorant about how it worked. By the end of the experience, they fell in love with Paul, and we were all really changed by that experience. He died three years later, it was before the cocktail. And it's funny, I had no idea was going to move to Paris. But I he wanted to come to Paris one more time before he died. And he was too sick to fly. So I took his ashes, and I scattered them here in 1998. And so now I go visit him sometimes. Wow.

Kate Shepherd
It's just when you look at it, like you're looking back. It's so it's like, yeah, it's all Yeah, yeah, right. Like it just all the pieces were like, well in this and then they'll get all locked up. But when you're in it, you just have no idea and you don't have

Jill Girling
any idea. So it's interesting, because you know, your question about like, where did so I go off smuggling and I come back now I'm bartending and I gotta get my shit together. And I go, and I make this movie. And then I get a job in the industry. As a PA three weeks out of film school, I get Legends of the Fall with Brad Pitt. You know, I'm bringing Brad Pitt water now. And then I worked with Jackie Chan on on rumble in the Bronx and all these things. And then I moved back to Toronto, I became a really successful ad, assistant director, which is the least creative job on the planet in the film world, I think because later I discovered that I have ADHD. It's a great job for somebody with ADHD, because it's a multitasking thing. And it's constantly new things. But there's nothing creative about it. I think that sort of when my drinking became heavier, like I always partied, I was always a party girl. But I think, you know, in the early stages of my day career is just so happy to be working in the industry. But it's sort of I blinked and you know, years have gone by, and this is what this is my job. And I mean, I'm sort of in this hamster wheel, I drink a lot, I party a lot. I work a lot. I go traveling for three months. And then I come home. And I do the same thing over and over and over again. This is a period of years and years and years and years of doing this having no idea that I was miserable. And no idea that I was so far off my original path. I just I was so lost. And I had absolutely no idea I was lost. My writing partner was an ad as well, and approached me and asked me if I wanted to write with her. And I said no. And I realized I said no, because I was terrified to actually I talked about wanting to be a writer and I was writing all the time is writing a book, you know, and I wasn't really I was but I mean, I never wasn't really actively doing it. And then one day, I was standing on set and I looked around and I was like, Oh, you're I am facilitating somebody else's dream again. And so I said, Okay, let's do this. And we sort of sat down and had some ground rules. And one of the things I said is I want an international career I want to live in Europe having no idea that this would even happen we started to write and we were absolutely horrible. So anybody listening who wants to be a writer don't be discouraged by your original terrible, horrible writing where we thought we just stroll into HBO with our terrible like that's just not how it works. We didn't know better and when our eighth when we finally got an agent who's still our agent who's still amazing she was like could you just maybe go into somebody else's writers room and I was like I don't think so. I I've been paying my dues as an ad. My writing partner quit the business and how Have kids and started working as a photographer, and I stayed an ad. And I started to just every show, I would start by day three, I would make sure the producer knew what I was doing that I wanted to be writer. And this is the data and they'd start reading scripts like we had, we had JJ Abrams, dad be on a conference call with us and about milk run, actually, and just started sort of using those connections. And eventually, they paid off with our first series was through one of the producers that I was working as an ad for and a couple of Hallmark movies came that way as well. Suddenly, about halfway through this process, I realized I couldn't juggle aiding drinking and writing. So I thought, let's see what happens if I stopped drinking. I got sick. And I told everyone it was because I was sick. But when the doctor said, yeah, you probably shouldn't drink, the only feeling I had was relief. I didn't have to tell anybody. I didn't have to have the shame. Admitting I had a problem. And about a year after I quit, somebody said, Why don't you drink and I said, Oh, I'm an alcoholic. And somebody said, I've never heard you say that. I said, I've never said it, but it's true. And once I kind of realized it was true, and it was okay. Then I started to really be able to heal myself and work through a lot of stuff, put myself into the writing for real. And that's really when things started to, to work.

Kate Shepherd
I want to go back just for a minute to the film that you made in film school. That was a really important moment. When I'm listening to your story. I hear creativity was talking to you. And it had it's got this you're a storyteller. And here's tell these stories and you're in the bar and you're working and you're seeing like the story, you can just see it. And so you tell that story. And what you didn't tell us just now is that that film went on to the international festival circuit and won award. There you are, it's your first film and you're winning awards. It's good. I feel like what happened to you happens to a lot of us. And it's important that we talk about it because I don't know if we noticed that it's happening when it's happening. Same thing happened to me when I was 22 years old, and I brought a bunch of my paintings, ingenue style into this gallery. And I was just like, Oh, look at my beautiful paintings. Do you want to have a show for me? And they're like, sweetheart, you have no idea how hard it is to get a gallery show and that and I'm like, but just and but then I was like, but look at them. And then they were like, Oh, actually, yes, we will upgrade you. And these are amazing. And that's they picked a date. And they're like, we'll do all your media, we'll do this. Well, I was 20 something years old. Yeah, I left that gallery. It was I lived in Ottawa at the time, it was minus 35 degrees. I had my paintings in my portfolio, I can still feel my skin burning because it's so cold. You know, in the winter, in this memory of me standing at the bus stop going. I can never do that. I can never do that gallery show. Because what if these are the only good paintings that I have in me? What if everybody finds out that I'm actually not a really good artist? What if? What if? What if What, like all the things and I went home and I swear I put those paintings under my bed and I did not touch a paintbrush for the next 20 years? No, it scared me that badly. And and I think the same thing that made me do that was the same thing that made you turn around, get a job as a bartender, you know, start or being a dating and get the job is that yeah, get a job on site doing somebody else's creative thing. It's the same mechanism. It's the same mechanism. It's the same thing. You get close to this radiant, beautiful big intelligence that's like what you are. That's what you're made of. But you're not taught how to wrangle that whole debt, master it live with it as a child, none of us are really taught that. And so it scares the life out of us when we get close to it because it's so big. And it's so incredible that we and then we do all kinds of crazy messed up things like become alcoholics, or really dangerous behaviors or just shut down or spend you were lucky to just spend a decade bringing somebody else's creative visions to life. But many, many, many people spend their whole lifetime doing that for somebody else. And they never actually go back and touch that thing. So something in you went back and said, No, no, no, no, no, no, it kept calling you. Yeah. But now we're back into that part of the story now where you're you realize now again, actually, I am a storyteller, and I have to just quit drinking. And

Jill Girling
yeah, I have to tell these stories. Yeah. Thank you for talking about that, though. Because you're absolutely right. Like I think I mean, it's true. I didn't even say to you, and then we won a bunch of awards. Like I never tell that part of the story. Really, that's really true. Like we won these awards, we I went to all these film festivals and all this great stuff happened. And it must have scared the shit out of me because I just I just add, I just worked as an assistant director, I just did, you know, and drank I drank a lot. So while I was facilitating these dreams, I was also weakly hosting these fabulous parties. I had this loft on College Street in Toronto that we named the Hamptons. So people can say like, what did you do this weekend? I went there, and I'd have these like, crazy, crazy wild parties at my house every weekend for 10 years. And I remember the last party was the one that I was at sober, watching how people treated my house and how I allowed them to treat it and If they weren't, the parties were fun. But they were out of control. And I was out of control. I realized I'm never going to get out of this, whatever that like it was, it was a dark, dark, dark place. And I didn't even know what was going on. Once I really grappled with that and really quit drinking for real, and I never I was very lucky knock on wood. 12 years later, I've never had a relapse. And now you know, the the work is a lifelong thing, right? It's you got to, you got to keep doing the work on yourself and peeling back those layers, whether you're drinking or not, as you evolve as a human.

Kate Shepherd
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Jill Girling
No, I do. I remember it. And it's funny because there's a book, the book I was writing because I was writing a book I got stuck on it, it's in my closet. And I'm going to need to pull it out. Because I found it. This is the craziest thing. I found the book last year, and I opened it up. And there's a whole passage in the book. So my show find me in Paris is about time travel in Paris, okay. And we wrote that show in 2016. What I'm talking about was written in 2001 2002 is a much darker story than my kids show on Hulu, there was this kid who is basically a dead time traveler. And in one of the chapters, he shows up through a phone booth in Paris in 2016. And I forgot about it. So it was like this, it was always and so I would go home and I'd be kind of drunk and I'd write some stuff down. And then I'd never do anything with it. I just I would never never I'd never got past a certain point. But it was it was calling to me. And and like you say, you know you, if I look back at that, I'm like, Oh, time travel, Paris, all of these things ended up coming later. You know,

Kate Shepherd
when I look at it, it just seems so clear to me that creativity has an MO for every person, right? And it's like, I'm going to tell stories through you. And I'm going to make music through you. And I'm going to do paintings through you. And I'm gonna do a podcast for you. And I'm going to do all these things. And when you look back at your own life, you can see Oh, every moment led me up to this moment of creating this. Yeah. And I think that when you're in a dark time, can you can you kind of be there for yourself by looking at what are the threads, like what's trying to what's trying to happen through you, because there is something that's been trying to happen through you that's trying to take you to the place that your heart really wants to go intimately. And it's it's it's never stopped trying. It's always whispering Yeah.

Jill Girling
So we all experienced the pandemic, which is awful, respectful of all of the horrible things that happened. And I got very lucky, I've never had it, although I'd probably had it in January 2020. And didn't realize that's what it was. I'm lucky I didn't lose anybody. So when I say when I look at the positive sides of it, I don't mean to make light of all the horrible things that have happened. Sure, being a positive glass half full kind of person I like to look at well, these are the positive things that came out of it for me, my worth up until then, was defined by my work when I was doing find me and para weed. So we have a show before find me in Paris called ride which was on Nickelodeon, which we did 20 episodes and it didn't it didn't do great, unfortunately, but we loved it. It was our first show was great experience. And Life is funny. You know, if we had if it had gotten picked up, we may not have been able to do finally in Paris. So it just it just all worked out the way it was supposed to. You know, we didn't make money writing for 10 years. Now we are we have the embarrassment of riches. And I did nothing but work for the next five years. And it was almost obsessive, I wouldn't take days off. It was I was defining myself through this job. When the pandemic hit, we had finished finding Paris we had, we had always planned on three seasons, we were gonna do a movie, but then COVID hits. So we didn't do the movie, but it was always it was marked out at three seasons. And then very luckily, our boss said, Let's do another one. And we're so now with this show we're doing now is spellbound. And it's it's not a spin off. It's a reboot. It's sort of the same formula, but with a different cast set at the Paris Opera Ballet School with different magic. She's a witch. We started developing that early in 2020, before the pandemic, pandemic hits. Everybody sort of takes a minute. And then we start working on spellbound and we were developing three or four other shows. By the end of December 2020. I was just as burnt out as if I'd shot an entire season. A lot of that stuff was like I didn't have to be doing it. We took a two week Christmas break and then we were gonna go back in January and just Keep, keep plugging along. And I thought I don't want to do that. I really, really don't want to do that. So I called my writing partner and I just said, Listen, you are free to do whatever you feel like doing. I'm not working until there's a paycheck. And someone tells me I have to go back to work, whether that's a week or six months, I don't care, I'm not working. And I think she was relieved, like, I think she was she was like, Yeah, that's a good idea. So with the exception of like a five day, writers room sort of brainstorming session in March, I was off from December, mid December, until October. And I have never taken that kind of time off in my life. And I completely undid the workaholic habit, I completely completely changed the way I work. And that has done more for my creativity than anything.

Kate Shepherd
This summer, I had to make a really brave decision to or what I felt was brave to take August off, I just was like, You know what, my kids are 10 and seven, and I live in beautiful British Columbia, there's a river a 25 minute walk from my house, we're going to go swimming every day, I'm just going to be with my kids, I'm not going to worry about whether or not that means I'm going to lose all my listeners, or the algorithm isn't gonna like me anymore, or I can't worry about that. And also, I'm trying to tell everybody about listening. Mm hmm. I'm learning in my own way about sustainability with my own creative practice. When you were talking about how you weren't really, you know, you weren't making money and you were doing other people's dreams for all that 10 years and and then it started to happen. And then you worked crazy. For five years, it reminded me of that reminds me a little bit of so for the people who are listening to this going, Okay, that sounds a little familiar. What what do we what can we share about that that could be useful.

Jill Girling
So what I'll say is, I am not a doctor. I also did not get diagnosed by a doctor. I just so what ended up happening is this a friend of mine, her both of her kids were being diagnosed with ADHD. After the third time, she started telling me what was going on her and I both went and realized it was me. And I had like A Beautiful Mind moment where my whole world made sense from what I was like, as a child, how, why I suffered in school, because I'm going to be 57 next week. So I went to school in the 70s man, and there was no ADHD there was like hyperactive kids. But there was it was not like it is now. So there was nobody was getting diagnosed with anything you we're all supposed to be learning in the same way. And so all of a sudden, I realized, like every single thing, from alcoholism, to an eating disorder I had as a teenager, to all of it, it all made sense. And as I went down a rabbit hole of research, all of those things are all linked for people with ADHD. So I will when I'm back in Toronto, we'll we'll go and see somebody to get an official diagnosis. But I'm 100% sure that I have ADHD, once I realized that my creativity also became much clearer to me because I stopped blaming myself for certain things. So there's two ways to go about it when you think you have ADHD. At first, I was like, well, that's ADHD, so I can't help it, then you're like, Well, you can because you can also change habits if you know you do something because of ADHD, you can change the habit. And basically, for people with ADHD, if something's boring, you don't like it, you have a hard time latching on to it, like who likes to do their taxes, or who likes to organize their bills and their paperwork. That's a big problem for people with ADHD. But it's it's a matter of just changing the habits and doesn't always work, believe me, because I was supposed to organize some tax stuff today, and I did everything I could to avoid it. But I will get there and work great on a deadline. Instead, though, instead, you know what I did, I rode my bike around Paris, I went and ate a delicious dessert at a cafe. And then I went to a flea market. And then I came home and had a conversation with my cousin. And now I'm doing this and so that's a way better day. It's the awareness and then the acceptance, and then deciding whether or not you're going to go well that's ADHD. So I am not going to change it or understanding. There's just habits you have to change in order to cope with your ADHD. Not for very long, I felt a bit of shame. And then I was like, What are you? Why are you ashamed? This is like a fantastic discovery about yourself. Like it explains a lot of stuff. It's also not a bad thing if you if you like, our brains just work differently. It's not a good or a bad thing. It's just different. Well, I might not make a good accountant. Thank God for accountants. I need my accountant so bad. My brain doesn't work that way. But I get to write stories. Part of being able to be a good storyteller or be a good showrunner is my ADHD brain works in a way that facilitates that I have no shame no problem. Nothing like I'm thrilled that I understand myself now. It's it's sort of like when I say to people you know about alcoholism. I'm like, Look, I've got blue eyes, and I'm an alcoholic. And I like this is just part of who I am. And I have ADHD, they're not good or bad things. They're just part of my makeup. And it's once you accept that, and once you, for me, I embraced it, I get myself now on a different level. And I like myself in a different way than I did before. Because I just didn't understand why I couldn't do things a certain way,

Kate Shepherd
it seems to me. And when I think about even how we've named this, this ADHD, though, it's that word deficit is right there in it. But actually, when I look at what the behavior of somebody who's dealing with ADHD or who was blessed with ADHD, it's actually an abundance of an ability to focus and concentrate on the thing that you love the most upset, which is not a deficit at all. And so you know, you're talking about your day. Oh, I went, and I did, I had my dessert, and I went for a bike ride. Like that's, that's, those are the things you should be doing. It feels like that's a gift that your life led you and yeah, I feel like the more we have this conversation about ADHD and what it really is, we can flip it right. 100% of about any Yes, you can be a victim about it. Yeah. Or you can be empowered by it. Yeah,

Jill Girling
I agree. And and, you know, there's people who like, Oh, we didn't know when I was a kid, and I things would have been so different. And Baba, that's all true. But oh my god, I just figured I figured out the most amazing thing that makes everything makes sense. So now I don't have to stress about why certain things were the way they were like, it would have been awesome to have teachers understand it, or have my parents understand it. No one understood it in the 70s. You know, they just didn't in the same way. And so now that there's no people talking about it, and taking the shame away from all of this stuff, like it's true, like I hyper focus on stuff, that that's how I write scripts. That's how I run a show because I hyper focus. That's part of being having ADHD, not every showrunner has to have ADHD, of course, but that works. For me, it's a great job for somebody like me, no, I don't want kids to feel like they've got this stamp on their head. It's like, this is a great quality. And the you know, the shitty qualities about ADHD, procrastination, your brain has a deficit of dopamine. And so you have to find dopamine in different ways. There's, like, you know, with certain things, like getting your taxes done, or doing all that stuff, you can give yourself a little reward system, you know, like, I'm going to go and do 30 minutes of downloading all of those Canada trust statements. And then I'm going to take a half hour break, and I'm gonna watch whatever. And I do that when I'm writing when I'm really, really burnt out. And we've got 26 episodes we oversee for each season, it's a lot, I start prepping in May to be writing and prepping and location, scouting, doing all that stuff. It's exhausting, right, and you're getting notes from networks, and you're getting notes from the production company. So there's, there's a lot a lot hitting you at this one particular time in the process. I think it was on ride, I discovered that if I allowed myself to watch an episode of Gilmore Girls in the middle of all of this now, I realized I just was getting some dopamine. And then I could go back to work, right? So you find what makes like a not so at that time, when I was a full on workaholic, I had to really talk myself through not feeling guilty doing that. Now I'm just like, oh, I need I need some television. Because that's I know, that's gonna make me feel better, or a little dance party in my kitchen or play with my cats, or go for a bike ride. I used to feel guilty about doing that. And once I realized I had ADHD and doing that was actually going to get the job done. changed everything.

Kate Shepherd
That's so important. I feel like I was doing a yoga class the other day, and the teacher was saying, What are you resisting? What is it you're trying to overcome? And can you just yield to it?

Jill Girling
That's a great question.

Kate Shepherd
It was a yen yoga class. And I was like, No, I cannot yield to it. This really hurts.

Jill Girling
I do love it you in class, though.

Kate Shepherd
That question has just been kind of reverberating in my head for the last couple of days. And it's totally what you're saying. And you didn't have the information to even know what you were you were you were just sort of trying to overcome this. I trying to be like everybody else, I'm trying to be organized like everybody else. I'm trying to work like everybody else. I'm trying to be successful and be a good, you know, worker like everybody else. I'm just trying to be a good human like everybody else. But we're but you are built differently. So you didn't even know. So you're trying to overcome this thing that actually wasn't even overcome a bull. But I guess what I'm hearing you say is through having the awareness now that this is very likely what you're dealing with. It gives you the context, yeah, you can make a decision about whether you're trying to overcome it or not. Or you can say, you know, I don't have to overcome I can yield to this, I can make it work for me, I can understand. I am like this, therefore, I need this in order to function. Yes. And when you

Jill Girling
change a thing, I really wouldn't you know, if it's excruciating for me to go through paperwork, I can accept that. I would never trade the high of a hyperfocus when you're writing a script, or you're excited about a story or your onset and your shoot like that. I would never trade that. Yeah, I think it's really like I had to give myself permission. Part of that was also taking that that year off and giving myself permission not to constantly be working thing, but also like understanding that you are allowed to take breaks. And you're allowed to do something fun in the middle of a workday, because it's actually going to make your work better. And now it doesn't have to just be your work. It can also just make your life better doesn't all have to be about the bottom line of productivity. Sometimes it's just to go ride a bike in a desert in the middle of a Friday afternoon. Absolutely. That wasn't even so I could go write something that was just for pleasure. And there was a time where that would have been like, Ooh, I don't know. Like, maybe I should be working on ideas for next season. It's like, no, no, you're on holiday. Go ride your bike in a desert in the middle of the day.

Kate Shepherd
Yes, yes. After Cheryl introduced us 10 year old and my seven year old I was a boy and a girl we started watching, find me in Paris. And think thank you for that show. Because you so bear with me for a week and they're with their dad for a week. And every night that they're with me, we get to watch an episode of fighting in Paris together, we all get into bed and we hold my little iPad, and we and we watch it on CBC jam. And it is it's, it's, it's we love it. We absolutely love it. And the kids, my daughter got back into ballet because of the pandemic we kind of pulled her out of ballet and then we were looking for something for her to do so she's now at a real dance school doing ballet and she's gonna do the Nutcracker this Christmas, like at a theater. And then my best friend randomly emailed me the other day and was like, Do you want to take adult ballet classes with and I was like, What? No, wait, yes, I do. I want to do this. I do. And so you did do that. Right. We're doing it. And I feel like as I'm standing there in the studio with this beautiful, you know, with all the mirrors in the bar, and the teachers are real ballerina and I have no idea what I'm doing. But I'm wearing real ballet shoes, and I feel really connected to my inner 10 year old and I wanted to thank you for that. My kids ask me questions. They know I'm talking to you today and they're like, Cosmo, my son, and Elvia my daughter, they were like, you have to always ask them. What do you want me to ask the guest, you know, and they they'll have questions about like, why do you paint sunflowers? Or why did you write that lyric in that song? Or and they and all they want me to ask you is can we come visit you in Paris? Yes.

Jill Girling
Oh my god. So first of all, I love your kids names. Beautiful name. And you can telling me this is just gives me so much joy. So thank you. And thank you for watching. And oh my god, you got please come to Paris. That would be amazing. And I will take you on a on a tour of the garden. Yay. If you kept on.

Kate Shepherd
Okay. Okay, amazement, the other thing I wanted to ask you was what does that feel like for you now to know that your work after all these years, the story that's been trying to come out of you has now come out and is out there in the world? And is has this kind of ripple effect, like you've affected my life? Like I'm now taking a class and my daughter's taking a class and we're performing it, that ripple effect is very, very real. And what does that feel like for you now to know that I'm just one of millions of people who that happens for

Jill Girling
that is genuinely incredible thing to say. So thank you. It's so strange, because even as I'm shooting spellbound, I'm like, oh, yeah, people watch this. And then, like, kids, you know, I have, I have a lot of kids who follow me on social media. I'm always just amazed that people watch it. Like, we're just, you know, slugging along, getting the episodes written, and then getting them made and getting them cut. And so when I hear these stories, it just, it makes me it makes me so happy. And so thank you, I like, I feel so grateful that I'm able to do this for a job. And I'm able to do it in Paris, which is makes it even more amazing. It's a real responsibility as well, like, it's really important to put really good quality stories out for for people, not just kids. And so for spellbound, it was really important to all of us that our lead is a black leader bipoc lead with a fully bipoc writers room, because we want to change the way the ballet world is it's a very white world, it's really important for us to have this for young kids to aspire to, you really realize like you people are watching. What are you telling them? What are you teaching them? What are you showing them, and it's very, very, we have a real responsibility to make sure that everybody's represented. And so I feel like it's a privilege to be able to do that every single day.

Kate Shepherd
Well, it's beautiful work. Thank you. The other question I had for you about about this story, and it actually deepened for me a little bit when you told me about the writing that you did way before the show even was written you know, the time travel or time traveling dead kid. It feels like that's that story. There's something that's been trying to be told through you that transcends even this time and maybe even that the writing and the show like there's what is the story what is the what is at the core of the story, or stories that are trying to be told through you?

Jill Girling
It's so complex, but it's I it's really about time is not Near life is there's so much more going on around us than we realize. And that's I think those are the stories that I want to tell. I think we

Kate Shepherd
all have experiences with people who've passed on, I have a dog that this sounds super corny, but visits me with tennis balls still, like, I'll be trying to figure out a problem in my life. And I'll walk down the street and there'll be a tennis ball. And I'll see a tear will immediately pop out of my eye. And I will know it's from Lucy. Yeah, not every tennis ball does that to me. But it gives me information. And there. I don't know what that is. But I know that it's something like there's a there's a felt sense of knowing and we all have, have had contact with that, whether we're religious, spiritual, whatever or not, we all have an affinity. It's undeniable. Like you'd be crazy to say, No, you haven't had a magical moment of strange magic at some point in your life. And I guess that brings me back to the fear thing. Why are we so scared to allow ourselves to contact that explore that? Even allow it to be possibility? What do you think that's about?

Jill Girling
Well, I don't know. Because I've never been afraid of that. I've been obsessed with that my whole life. Like when I was a kid, we were, there's four, I have three half siblings who are all older, you know, we go on family holidays, and we were all allowed to pick an activity. And from the age of four, I picked cemeteries. Like, I love cemeteries. I've never been afraid of death. I've never like I don't want to die. But I, I think they save it to the end. Because it's like the ultimate adventure. And I've always felt like that, ah, I don't know why I'm not afraid of it. I mean, it's just such a societal thing to be afraid of it. I think religion has a lot to do with that the world, a lot of the world is operated on fear. For me, death is not something I'm afraid of. And I and so I why why I like to write about stuff like that, like, so that's why the dead time traveler kid, I guess. But you know, I think about my dad who's been gone 16 years, but he's around all the time. All the time.

Kate Shepherd
How do you feel him? How did? How does he show up for you?

Jill Girling
Well, sometimes it's just like, if I've lost if I can't find something, I just asked my dad where it is. And without fail. I think 100% of the time, except for maybe one or two times where something was really lost. I have found it.

Kate Shepherd
And I know it's him. Okay, so I feel like that brings us back to the whole. So the whole reason that I started this show is to start to talk about, you know, how humanity is glitching because we've become disconnected from creativity. And I feel like creativity is another word for God or the universe, or Universal Intelligence, or the thing that's making all of those things happen. Creativity isn't just about like going to the art store and getting pencils and crayons, it's a it's a much bigger definition, I think, agree agreed were closed to it or close to it, because of can't even begin to understand the mystery of why we became fearful of it because it's, it's, it's the ultimate resting place. It's the ultimate comfortable you can give yourself to it, you can, you don't have to figure it all out. It's just happening. And it'll just continue to happen. And I see when I hear your story. You know, how you, we didn't talk about when you were younger, but what led you to be so full of fire. And, you know, you were the What led you to be, you know, like, I wouldn't have found myself smuggling watches, Southeast Asia, like there is something any of that led you on that adventure. And but I get the real feeling that there's this presence that's guided you through your whole life through the ups and the downs through the alcoholism and through the, you know, pushing down your creativity and, and then letting it up again, and then pushing it down and then really letting it up again, and I just I can feel do does that resonate with you? Do you feel a presence in your life with you that so I

Jill Girling
mean, I was a wild wild kid. I was a wild teenager, I think probably because I had ADHD and didn't know what it was became like, this is a more serious conversation. But I'm funny. And so I I just made everybody laugh to distract everybody from the fact that I couldn't answer the questions or get the answers right, because I was too distracted with ADHD, right? I became the sort of wild funny, crazy kid and then I found alcohol and so that I became the party girl. Now see, that's an ADHD moment. What was your question

Kate Shepherd
again? And this is my ADHD moment? I don't really remember. So this, there you go. What's the what's the what's the fear? Why are we why are we so scared to come into contact with creativity and that intelligence? Why are we so scared to let it in and run our lives? It's a really

Jill Girling
interesting question of why we have stopped ourselves over certain periods of our life. Like why I pushed that down why i and i The answer is always fear, I guess fear of failure at some point, maybe fear of success. What is what does that look like? How do you how do you follow that? Maybe? Yeah, I don't know. I don't have The answer Yeah.

Kate Shepherd
And I think that maybe we don't need the answer. Maybe it's just that we should keep asking the question.

Jill Girling
I think that's right. I think that is exactly right. Because it seems

Kate Shepherd
to me like you're, I don't want to put words in your mouth. But so I'll ask you instead, are you? Are you do you feel like now you're doing what you're born to do?

Jill Girling
Yes, yes. Absolutely. And for so long, I was so off track, like, a couple of big times. And then I, you know, I'd I'd course correct and go to film school and make this movie and then I'd be in I'd be in the I was in the film business, as a administrator, basically, as an ad. And then of course, correct to get. Now I feel like I'm really doing what I meant to do.

Kate Shepherd
I'm just testing this out. What if that fear? What if all those detours that we went on with our fear that led us up to these to where we are now, we're actually perfectly orchestrated moments of intelligence allowing us to open at exactly the right rate or pace. I love that, like,

Jill Girling
there was no off path. It was just the path, there

Kate Shepherd
was no off path. Yeah, like, if you think of a flower, like a, I was thinking of a hibiscus flower opening, like if you try to tear it open before it's ready to open all of that really, delicate tissue paper, like pedal is going to just tear. Yeah, and there's a wisdom in it opening at as slowly as it needs to open over whatever period that is. And what if the fear that stops us from just gushing out our gifts when we're 19 is actually a very wise mechanism that's saying, Well, hold on, like, let's just stop here. We'll do this for a bit. And then you need to mature that needs to grow that needs. Yeah, like, what if it all just happened right on time?

Jill Girling
That makes me so happy. Because when you when you say that, like if this all came out at 19, I was a train wreck at night, I wouldn't have been capable of what I'm doing now at 19. Right. So yeah, and then, but all the detours make for an interesting life. So I can tell interesting, hopefully, interesting stories, because I did all this crazy stuff. So I love that theory. And I bet you Well, I mean, it's certainly a much more positive way of looking at it, instead of saying, Oh, I went off track all these times. It's sort of like, nice. I took some detours that that, you know, while while the flower was blooming,

Kate Shepherd
right? And then in this moment, when I feel fear come up now, can I not try to beat it down? Can I thank it for showing up because it's taking me somewhere, that and it knows what it knows what it's doing. It's there for a reason. It knows what it's doing. And I can trust it. And I don't have to, yes, we don't have to let our lives be ruled by fear. But it also doesn't have to be our enemy. Because I think that's what happens when we start to go into you know, addictions and stuff like that. It's like now I'm trying to get rid of the fear, too. And so I can't feel anything. So I'm gonna numb it down. And I'm just gonna not feel anything. And that's not helpful either.

Jill Girling
I love that because fear for me, and probably for everybody. But just speaking for myself, like fear can really be paralytic creatively, I love the idea of just sort of the next time I feel creatively afraid to just sit with it a sec, and be like, so what do you what are you afraid of? Like, are you afraid you won't be able to pull it off? Are you afraid you won't have another idea? Like, because that's never happened? There's always more ideas, so you just might not have it. The second instead of torturing myself for not having the idea that I need, I'll just go off and do something fun. And then come back. And usually it shows up.

Kate Shepherd
Yeah. And that you don't have that kind of wisdom when you're 19. You shouldn't do that yet.

Jill Girling
You don't? Yeah, you don't. So I think what you're saying really makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that. I'm going to take that next time. I'm afraid I'm going to be like, we'll just let it just chill out for a second.

Kate Shepherd
Yeah. So something I say to my kids, they're two years apart their boy and a girl, my goodness, the fights that happen in my house sometimes. Often, I'll say to them, you know, what's your anger trying to tell you? Or what's it trying to show you? Because it's not just abject anger, like it's trying to get your attention. So it just felt like, it's not about your brother, or your sister like, what? What is it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's great fear. I have to have you back when you can talk about your other projects, because I feel like there's so much juiciness there. So let's do that. For sure. I would love that. I've taken up more of your time than I said I would. So I think My pleasure, thank you. So before I sat down to talk to you this morning, I always sit down and I say a little prayer helped me help me ask the questions that need to be asked so that what needs to be said can be said and what needs to be heard can be heard. And I really feel like that happened today. So thank you so glad. Thank you. And and I pull a little word from my little heart shaped bowl of angel cards. And our word today was openness. And I just I like that just an overarching Yeah. Beautiful work for us today. Yes. And then the last thing I want to ask you is, you know for talking to that person who longs to feel more connected To this intelligence that's in them longs to feel like they could be a creative person or more of a creative person or let more of that part of themselves out, doesn't know what they, you know, it doesn't feel like they have it in them doesn't feel like life has chosen them to have an amazing opportunity or whatever. And they just don't believe they're good enough or creative enough, or whatever it is. And you had a billboard that this person and every person that felt like that, would you knew that they would see it, what would you put on that billboard,

Jill Girling
I'm going to paraphrase from a friend not that she invented these words, but she she uses this a lot. And I love it. Her name is Jen pastula. And the phrase is, I get to have this, any single person who feels the call to be creative, you do get to have it, you do deserve it. I never thought I did. I thought that was for other people. But in fact, you are worthy. It is in you, you get to have it just like everybody else. The only thing stopping you is fear. And that just if I can swear, tell that fear to fuck off. Because you really, really deserve to have it and just go for it.

Kate Shepherd
I love that so much.

Jill Girling
Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. I was terrified. And I did it anyway. I don't get terrified very often. But when I do I do it anyway, I keep doing it. What is the worst thing that can happen? You're not going to die. If you have a creative failure, you're just going to learn from it. Thank

Kate Shepherd
you for sharing your beautiful self with us today.

Jill Girling
Oh, thank you for having me. It was a delight. This conversation

Kate Shepherd
was powerful. You know, in real time, Dylan, I came to see the ways that we had let fear of shining our light to brightly engage in all kinds of dysfunctional behavior that ultimately just kept us from our dreams. I wanted to close this episode with a couple things. One was a post that I found on Instagram that Jill posted on her 12 year sober anniversary. She wrote 12 years sober today. It was hard. And then it was easy. Then I couldn't imagine my life without alcohol. Who would I be? Now I couldn't imagine my life with it. Who would I be? Definitely not this version of myself. One that I was able to confront, get to know. And eventually not only love, but really genuinely like this was impossible when I was drinking. Because for those of us with a problem, it robs us of our authenticity. After years of struggling and negotiating with myself. When I finally shed all the shame and fear of what I'd find under the mask, I quit for good. And I felt nothing but relief. This is my story. It isn't necessarily everyone else's. Your journey is your own. Just know, there's peace and endless possibilities. On the other side. Love Joe. And I wanted to share that with you all today. Because whether it's alcoholism or any other dysfunctional behavior, these are things that we turn to, when we're too scared to face the brightest part of ourselves. You know, when we come into contact with this light inside of us, it feels enormous. It is so bright. It's natural to be blinded a little bit by it. We're not taught to shine our light. In fact, many of us were taught to dim it. But now it's time for you to choose your dreams over your fears. It's time for you to do the thing you came here to do. It is possible, likely and very normal if you've built up some protective walls to prevent yourself from shining too brightly. It's what the collective fear in this world has taught you that it is time for the radiant, knowing creative part of you to step forward and shine, and to lead your life where it was always meant to go. I have created some journal prompts in the form of a worksheet to help you reflect on where you might be running from or dimming your own light, and how to begin to let it shine. The worksheet is available as a free download when you sign up for my newsletter at Kate Shepherd creative.com And I'll be adding it to the ever growing library of creative genius resources inside the creative genius Patreon page. Visit patreon.com/creative Genius podcast to find out how to access this and lots of other materials. I'd like to invite you to join the private Facebook group. It's called the creative genius family. It's a safe space to share about your creative struggles and triumphs and connect in person with other listeners just like you for support and inspiration and love. Find out how to join on Kate Shepherd creative.com by searching family or search Facebook groups for the creative genius family Make sure you're signed up for my newsletter. I pick a random person from my email list once every month and send them an original piece of my artwork. It's one of my favorite things to do. It takes a lot to put together the show, please consider supporting me to do it. You can visit patreon.com/creative Genius podcast to find out more. And please keep my jewelry or paintings and especially gratitude birds, which keeps selling out in mind. Next time you're looking for a treat for yourself or for a loved one. You can find everything I've mentioned on Kate Shepherd creative.com. Thank you for being here, for opening your heart and for listening. My wish and intention for the show is that it reach into your heart and stir the beautiful thing that lives in there. May you find and unleash your creative genius