If you’ve been feeling demoralized by the 24-hour news cycle and the weight of the world, you aren’t alone and you aren’t broken. In this video, we explore why creating a safe haven for yourself isn’t about denial or being “unproductive”—it’s about reclaiming the aliveness you need to keep going.
Most advice tells you to “stay informed” until you’re exhausted or “just crush it” despite the chaos. On this channel, I provide a sanctuary for messy, joyful creativity for people who are tired of the pressure to perform when the world feels like it’s burning.
My Promise to You:
- 🤦🏻♂️ I’ll never tell you to force productivity through resistance.
- 🤷🏻♂️ I won’t ask you to ignore your intuition or reality to fit an ideal.
- 😁 I will never imply you are “broken” because you need a break.
What we’re exploring today:
- The News Cycle Cost: Why it’s okay to say “no” to the constant beating at your attention.
- Creativity as Survival: Why awe, wonder, and beauty are the things that make being here worthwhile.
- Finding Five Minutes: How to give yourself permission to pull back and reconnect with yourself.
Sound good? If so, subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming guidance on escaping the ‘shoulds’!
And if you need a safe place to come and be with others right now, I invite you to join us for our next free Creativity Circle (don’t forget to confirm your subscription!).
Want more tips? Check out this playlist with all my previous Creative Pep Talks!
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Join my free creative community, The Spark! We celebrate each other’s creative courage, and I’ll be sharing programs for subscribers and listeners there in the coming months.
Get in Touch
I’d love to hear your feedback, questions, and experience with these ideas! Send me a note at fycuriosity.com, or contact me on Instagram, or Bluesky.
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Transcript: Find Your Sanctuary
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Two weeks ago was an unusual video for me because I addressed what’s going on in the world a little bit more specifically than I usually do. And I kinda wanna follow-up on that because the world is still terrible, and there’s so much that I could say about this. I want to start, though, by telling you about the first follow your curiosity creativity circle, which met that following Saturday, and which was interesting and a little bit challenging for me because we all gathered. A lot of us were meeting each other for the first time, and it was lovely.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:05]:
But I could tell at the very beginning that a lot of people really wanted to talk about what was going on. And there was certainly a part of me that did too because how could you not right now? And yet, I had promised that this group, this gathering would be a safe space away from all of that. And therefore, I felt bound to keep that promise. In fact, I opened with the words, I promised you a safe haven and a safe haven you shall have. And so a part of me felt like I was shutting down the conversation, but I also knew that I was keeping that promise. And that wasn’t to say that there’s no place for any kind of conversation like that, but it was to say that we all need safe places to pull back and give ourselves a break from what’s happening in the world right now, which is not to be in denial. It’s not to say that it’s not important, but it’s also to say that we ourselves are important, and we all need to take care of ourselves in the moment. And even if it was just for that one hour, one small short hour, we all deserved to have that time where we did not have to think about what was going on in the rest of the world.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:28]:
It was all still going to be there at the end of that hour. It was gonna be waiting for us to decide what we wanted to do, what we were up to, what we could handle at the end of that hour. And that’s really what I want to talk about today because, you know, I think there are so many things that people say and believe about creativity and a creative life and incorporating creativity into your life. And when the world is terrible, it tends to be, what are you doing that for that’s not important? The world is on fire right now. And there is a place for that. There are moments when it’s not practical to do any of those things. But I still believe that we are here for the moments of joy. We are here for the moments of awe and wonder and beauty that make being here worthwhile.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:33]:
If we’re not here for those things, I don’t know how we survive all of the other things. And if we deny ourselves those things when all of the other things are happening, I don’t know how we get through them. I really genuinely don’t. I think we need to find ways to balance out the bad things with the good things, or we’re all just gonna go crazy in one way or another, and that doesn’t serve anybody. So I’m just here to remind you again that it is okay to give yourself that safe haven, even if it’s only for an hour, even if it’s only for five minutes, if that’s all you have. Because in the world of the twenty four hour news cycle, there’s always something beating at your attention, demanding that you pay attention to it, whether that is good for you or not. And it is okay to say no. No.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:31]:
I am going to take five minutes, half an hour, twenty minutes, an hour and a half, a whole day even to say this space is for me right now. This is for me so that I can come back into the world in a better way and a better space to handle it and do my best to do my part to make things better. And that probably includes listening to music, drawing something, reading a good book, writing a poem, whatever kind of reconnection with yourself in the form of a creative act appeals to you, and it could be one thing right now and something else twenty minutes from now. When that circle started, I did not have any idea what, if anything, I might come up with to do in that circle. And I came up with two prompts to give to everybody, And within seconds I was writing a poem. You just never know. So if you’re looking for permission to give yourself a break, this is it. If you need a safe place to come and be with others, I invite you to join us for the next circle.
Nancy Norbeck [00:05:50]:
The link is either below this video or in the show notes for this episode, so it’s really, really easy to find. It is absolutely free to join us. Everybody is welcome. There are very few rules because this is not school. I am not gonna call your mom and dad. There’s no permission slip needed. It’s very free and easy. You can bring a friend.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:12]:
And I hope that you’ll consider joining us, but if you can’t, I hope that you will still give yourself the same permission to make space for yourself so that it’s easier for you to interact with the world the way that it is right now. And then we can start to make it better. Because I really think that when we do our own part, even just for ourselves, that is the first step to doing that. So think about it. Take a couple minutes for yourself. I really think that it will help. And, you know, if you need suggestions or ideas, you always know where to find me. Good luck.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:49]:
If you’re tired of thinking about answering a creative call but never actually doing it, Come join me for an hour and start feeling like yourself again. The follow your curiosity creativity circle is a safe, welcoming, and encouraging environment where we send the shoulds and inner critics off to summer camp, where they’re kept busy rather than getting in our way. You can find it at the link in your podcast app. See you there, and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.