In a special cancer season episode, Hope Carpenter of @hopehealingarts shares their journey into content creation as an art modality and healing practice, and how to stay soft on social media while stepping into greater visibility.
How to stay soft and connected, while stepping into greater visibility and sharing on social media is one of biggest concerns facing modern artists.
In this episode, Hope Carpenter of @hopehealingarts shares deep insight into the journey toward viral visibility and their personal practice of content creation as not only an art modality but as a modality for personal and collective healing.
Topics covered in this episode:
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About the Guest
Hope Carpenter (they/she) is a trauma-informed multidisciplinary healing arts practitioner. Hope's practices include energy work modalities like Usui/Tibetan reiki, breathwork, meditation and guided visualization, strength-based coaching and neurolinguistic programming, as well as movement practices and somatic healing. Hope also offer readings that encourage folks to heal and grow.
You can find more information on their work at :
Instagram @hopehealingarts
About the Host
Zaneta (they/them) is a queer, multi Brooklyn-based sound ritualist, listening educator, nature recordist, creativity activist, tarot reader, and podcast host. At the core of their work is a deep desire to remember how to live in interconnectedness. Whether that is through meditation and connecting with the self, or in community rituals to connect to the land, Zaneta weaves sound and ritual to create experiences that transform the way participants hear and connect to the world.
In the spirit of an interconnected world, Zaneta focuses on supporting folx to make their art and express themselves fully, knowing that interconnection and interdependence are rooted in our individual wholeness and that our authentic creative expression is at the heart of that wholeness. It’s towards this collective vision that Zaneta offers channeled tarot readings for creative liberation, and offers readings to support artists in navigating their careers and projects.
To learn more about Zaneta’s work visit
Instagram @soundartmagic
About the Podcast
Art Witch is where creativity, magic, and healing align for personal and collective liberation. Hosted by Brooklyn-based sound ritualist, arts educator, and tarot reader Zaneta, Art Witch aims to provide resources for the creative journey. In this podcast you’ll hear from a variety of artists, witches, healers, and experts sharing their wisdom and stories, all with the intention of helping folx make art and share their unique magic with the world.
Art Witch has a Patreon community where members meet regularly for group meditations, full moon rituals, and community conversations on art and magic. In addition, we have a full library of meditations and videos for the creative mystical journey.
To support this podcast and become a member, visit www.patreon.com/soundartmagic
Instagram @artwitchpodcast
Care as Creation, Meme Wizardry, and Visibility for Sensitive Folx with Hope Carpenter
[00:00:00] [00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Zaneta: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Art Witch Podcast. I am your host Zaneta, and thank you, thank you for tuning in. Today I have a really brilliant and wonderful guest Hope Carpenter, and I use the word brilliant because there's a lot that I've learned. I feel like a lot that's become illuminated for me in engaging with their work. And a lot of my friends also really love their work. So I feel like there's stuff for us specifically around visibility that we can really get into in today's conversation.
Before I begin, I wanna introduce Hope. Hope is a trauma-informed multidisciplinary healing arts practitioner whose practice includes energy work modalities, such as Usui/ Tibetan Reiki, breathwork, meditation and guided visualization, strength-based coaching, neurolinguistic programming, as well as movement practices in somatic healing. [00:02:00] Hope also offers readings. Thank you so much, Hope for being here today.
[00:02:05] Hope: Thank you so much for having me. As you were introducing me, I was getting all emotional. You made my little Cancerian heart melt. Um, thank you so much and yeah, I'm excited to dive in. This feels like a very aligned , and sparkly collaboration, so thank you so much for having me for this conversation.
[00:02:24] Zaneta: Oh, thank you, thank you, Hope. It feels like such a gift to have you in the soft, amazing, powerful work that you do here in cancer season. It's so timely. and I have been just following your account for a long time, but also like unconsciously receiving your work friends send me your memes and send me all sorts of your stuff.
And I feel like I've just been in the water with your work for a while, but soaking it up in a subtle way, which is so fucking cool to [00:03:00] me.
[00:03:01] Hope: Oh, I love that. And yeah, as water signs, I feel like we're really sort of open and receptive to like the communal or the collective unconscious of things that are happening. And I'm always struck on Instagram, how there seem to be these waves of so many people going through similar things at the same time, or like having similar insights, uncovering new layers to their healing. So it is really cool to feel like we're swimming in these steps together.
[00:03:30] Zaneta: For those of you who aren't familiar with Hope's work, they are, @hopehealingarts on Instagram and a lot of their creation and creative output is through Instagram. So there's this pulse that you have, it's an uncanny pulse on like the collective waters like you're just feeling into the moment and all of us are just like,' yes, say that thing! Say it one more time! say it on repeat!' Like you seem to [00:04:00] tap in almost perfectly to the moment and what we kind of need to hear in that moment.
[00:04:05] Hope: thank you. That's so good to hear reflected back to me because that's actually part of kind of an intentional, spiritual practice that I have, which is like tapping into, you know, receiving what needs to be heard right now or like, what does the collective need to hear right now? What's kind of coming through?
How can I be of service to the greater than me world? And so that's kind of how I engage with content creation as my own practice. So it's really cool to hear from you that, that's coming across or it's working, so to speak. So thank you for that.
[00:04:41] Zaneta: It's totally working and you're the first, I feel like the first person I've gotten a chance to talk to on Art Witch that really has generated so much collective content has created like so much in the digital world and I'd love [00:05:00] to hear like kind of your journey into this and how you find yourself at this point of content creation and meme wizardry.
[00:05:10] Hope: I love it. Thank you. So, yeah, I mean, I started making memes in 2020 and it was, for me at first just a way to take social media less seriously, or to take my role on social media less seriously. I think I'd been coming from a place where I wanted to be, you know, more of like a disruptor in the industry or like, you know, I thought that you kind of had to be, you know, edgy or, you know, have all these like, really profound, deep or controversial insights and then, you know, share them.
So it was very like, cerebral for me before. So for me, making memes was just almost like taking a break from adulting on social media and giving my inner child permission to come out and letting that inner artist child part of me, [00:06:00] participate in the creative process and in the social process was game changing for me.
but it wasn't until about a year later when I fled from an abusive relationship that I really started to make more memes around healing and really started to focus almost entirely on meme making as, well let's just call it like an art modality for now. Because it was something that felt so soothing and nourishing for my healing self.
And it was something that, again, just like wasn't so serious. Like my life at the time was really difficult and rough and serious. And, you know, I'm going through all these things with like the court process and everything like that. So it's like when I go to Instagram, I want things to be light and playful and pastel and healing, and soft.
And that softness was like a refuge for me. So in reality, I started out just making [00:07:00] that content really for me, without kind of any deeper expectation of like, well, people are gonna resonate with this. Or like, this is how I'm gonna grow my account. Like, it wasn't a growth strategy for me. It was kind of a, you know, this is the only thing that makes sense to me right now. So this is what I'm gonna do.
But I started to feel, you know, obviously as time went by that this work really was resonating with people and especially the work, you know, that I was creating for myself as a survivor, but also for other survivors. I feel like that really kind of dipped into the river of the collective and like people, you know, working on healing similar things.
And that's when I started to become aware of this process of checking in before creating something of like what really needs to be heard in the world right now. And then creating that and following that pulse.
[00:07:53] Zaneta: I love hearing someone center their own needs when [00:08:00] creating. I really love the idea that if you just start from that place, so much can blossom and it can be trusted and it can be something that, is of service rather than trying to focus on like, oh, let me be of service or let me you know, have these offerings and like looking out first and taking action on behalf of like the collective first.
But what if I just actually took the action that I need for myself, which is care, and care as creation and create from that space who knows what blossoms forth from that.
[00:08:34] Hope: Yeah, that's such a beautiful, the care is creation part. For me, you know, tapping back into my creativity after abuse was such a powerful way of connecting to agency, which is, you know, agency is so healing for someone that's been through trauma and there's so much agency in creativity, right, of getting to make creative choices.
And so even something as simple as [00:09:00] creating a meme and like getting to choose the text, but also getting to choose the imagery, getting to put your own style with it. That to me, there's just so much healing in that. And I feel like if I'd gone, with like, what's conventionally healing or like, what did normal people do when they're healing trauma?
I might not have trusted that feeling, that instinct of like, well this is really, you know, healing for me. But I'm glad I did because it's, you know, not the only thing that's been healing for me, you know, EMDR and therapy and everything. Like, that's been really good too. But that creative process is a part of my self-care for sure. And is a part of my trauma healing. And I don't know where I would be without it, to be honest. I mean, I feel like there's just something so, you know, beautifully healing about creativity.
[00:09:49] Zaneta: Yes. And I love that you're not only just sharing making memes or making your art modalities are the only thing that you're [00:10:00] doing. Like, there's other things that are woven into that and I think that there's like sometimes this narrative around artists and art making that's very self-sacrifice, very creation first, care later. Rather than the creation will like be derived from your process of care and healing.
[00:10:21] Hope: Yeah, I just got chills because that's so true for me. And, you know, there's that whole trope of like the suffering artist or like, you need to suffer in order to create something beautiful. What if your joy could be inspiring your beautiful creations, or what if, you know, healing is what inspires that.
And for me, you know, if I ever feel kind of stuck, it's not in continuing to create that gets me unstuck. It's going out into the world and doing something else, going for a long walk, an EMDR therapy session that unlocks something or, you know, reconnects different sort of neural pathways.[00:11:00]
So it's not always like you must create, it's like you create when you resource yourself with the world, right?
[00:11:09] Zaneta: I have really been feeling that this last year especially, I met you and your work, like specifically around visibility in Captolia's Witch and famous kind of container. For those of you who don't know Captolia, she's an amazing, biz digital witch. But in that kind of, uh, container, in your workshop there was this thought that I was like, you know, maybe I just need to like spend a little more time with my own feelings, with my own thoughts. I was like journaling more. And then as I was journaling more kind of a natural process of like, awareness that some of the things I was journaling about were going to be things that I would share with my community.
It just kind of happened. I was like, not all of this is for everyone, but some of this is, and I kind of started to [00:12:00] feel layers of awareness of like, oh, the things that are nourishing to me are also nourishing for other people, but this time that I spend caring for myself is generative without thinking actively, like I need to be generative.
It just naturally can occur that those are planting seeds or like inspiration is happening from caring from yourself. Could you talk a little bit more about your process of self-care and creation?
[00:12:31] Hope: Yeah. Well, I loved what you said about the generativity of caring for yourself because Right, where you put your attention, like that grows, like where intention goes, energy flows.
For me, the process of, you know, taking 30 minutes every day to journal might seem like, well, I don't have time to journal. I should be creating content, I should be making art, I should be doing something for other people. But those 30 minutes are almost like a portal that [00:13:00] stretch time and that create more time for the rest of my day.
So there's something about ritual or ceremony and making things intentional where having that intention more energy flows into that, and it actually creates this magical alchemical container for new ideas and things to sort of well, up from this numinous place inside us that's beyond us, right? So if I'm not spending time open to that, in that magical place, and I'm spending all that time focused on.
This more like personal energy, like my life force directing it outwards. You know, giving, giving, giving, giving, but not resourcing and not filling up from the inside and from the beyond. Then that's where burnout happens. At least for me. That's where I start to feel stretched. That's where I start to feel, the well has run dry, right? [00:14:00] So we need to have that time to ourselves in order to, to build that energy where then we overflow.
I mean, there's just so many concentric rings to this. There's like the self and the, you know, self-contained system of us, and then there's the community and then there's the world and everything like that. And they all inform each other. So how can we be in creative reciprocity with the world.
Like sometimes that means deciding to read more. That's been my creative intention lately, is to actually finish all the books that are on my bookshelf instead of just leaving them there. So deriving inspiration from unexpected places, right?
Like a walk out into the woods can be so much more inspirational than sitting down and trying to come up with a caption for Instagram, right? You might go into the woods and then the caption comes to you there, and then you sit down and it just flows. So for me it's not just what's happening when you're sitting down to [00:15:00] create, but your whole life, if that makes sense. Like everything contributes.
[00:15:05] Zaneta: It makes perfect sense because that's a lot of what I've been, over the last couple years really not only like becoming conscious of, but slowly owning and like reclaiming. It's my right to be cared for. It's my right to be, as kind of a living, breathing, dynamic ecosystem of multi- organisms to be in flow and in flux with the earth so like, it makes sense that so much is coming through when I'm out in the woods, rather than only trying to keep myself in this one little space and doing this, you know, very focused task. I mean, some people might be like, you're not disciplined, or you're unfocused, or you're all over the map, or, you know, there's a lot of old, beliefs around what it looks like to make things, that it's gonna be linear.
And then I think [00:16:00] about how we are these ecosystems and how the energy flows through us and how inspiration flows through us. And then I'm like, well wait a second. I really do need to be a part of something. I need to be a part of that energy flow. And it doesn't always mean that we have to physically go outside.
Not all of us can all the time. But I think it does mean that like the idea of focus or the idea of how things get done, really needs to be reworked, how can we understand this energy exchange that is creativity from this place of singular focus.
I don't think you can reconcile those things exactly. there's got to be some kind of give and take.
[00:16:42] Hope: definitely. And I liked what you said about, you know, the non-linear process because it's not gonna be, you know, point A to point B. It might be, you know, you start with somewhere in between on the spectrum and then you do something completely different, seemingly unrelated. But in the [00:17:00] unrelated piece is where, you know, something comes up that gets you to that point B, where you're saying, okay, this is a completed creation that I'm ready to share with my community.
So there's just so many different, you know, intersections and spirals and different places of connection and interconnection on the creative process and. I think you're right that , we would be limiting ourselves if we said, okay, you need to sit down and finish this project from the start until the end, period.
Like to me, creativity is so much bigger than that and doesn't like to be hemmed in at all.
[00:17:38] Zaneta: Yeah, and it brings up kind of an interesting tension, as artists who live in this society, right? Because it's like if, you're going to say, have a deliverable, if you're gonna give a workshop, if you're going to write a book, if you're going to create a project, you know, there's like usually some kind of arrival date or [00:18:00] deliverable date.
There's going to be this point in time that I deliver this thing and here's how I get there and here are the steps. And it feels complicated to me personally, like I'm just opening up about this, it feels very complicated to reconcile the pressure of delivering, the pressure of productivity with the truth of creating and being creative.
[00:18:27] Hope: Yes, it's so true. And I've noticed that in so many other areas of my life as well, especially in grad school where there's like definite deadlines , you need to have this project finished by now or also, you know, you need to have these steps along the way. For me, it's actually easier to do something like the day before the deadline or the day of the deadline for whatever reason.
Um, that's just how my brain works and it's actually more stressful to kind of break things into like this long thing. but yeah. The expectation of [00:19:00] productivity is really large on social media as well, and that's something that I've had to really focus on healing in myself over the last year, especially as my account has grown.
Sometimes I'd feel this urgency of like, well, if I don't create something, people will be sad that I didn't create something, or they're gonna forget about me or whatever. Like, The algorithm is gonna start hating me. So there's definitely that pressure, and I think it's a lot of times from, you know, the people that teach social media saying that you need to be consistent.
So there's this pressure to like create, I know some people create every single day a post, but I feel like that also can contribute to where people feel burnt out or exploited by the social media platforms instead of creating a relationship where, You know, you can create organically or to post when you feel like it, when you feel called to, when you have something big and new to say.
So for me, a [00:20:00] lot of that healing process with productivity is just letting it be okay to do nothing for a while and just trust that the world isn't going to end, that my community isn't going to, you know, not that individuals will be suffering from me, not posting, but that the community itself, like the health of the community is going to be fine if I take a break. It's gonna be okay. I'm not gonna lose what I have. So just being able to, to rest in that I feel like takes so much work when you are coming from capitalism and white supremacy and all these interlocking systems of oppression that are like, if you're not constantly industrious, then you're not really worth much at all.
[00:20:48] Zaneta: I really appreciate hearing that. I. Would like to go a little deeper with that journey for you, because like you can get virality [00:21:00] and stuff like that but even then if you're paying attention, there's still growth.
There's still nuanced growth happening from moment to moment to moment. And I'd love to hear about this transition into more and more visibility and like how you've kind of worked with that. Especially as you know, someone who is a feeling and caring and you know, connected person.
[00:21:27] Hope: definitely. Thank you. So, I mean, I would say that the growth was really fast for me. I mean, last spring, a little over a year ago, I only had like a few thousand followers, like maybe six or something like that. And I would say only like, just in contrast to like what I have now, but like if you actually think about how many people that is, like 6,000 people is a lot. So I'm always trying to kind of humanize follower numbers. Like if you actually put that many [00:22:00] people in a stadium, it would be a lot like, that's a big audience. 6,000 people, 1000 people is a big audience.
You know, 20 people in your house listening to you talk is a big audience. So I'm always trying to kind of take a step back and be like, these numbers can so quickly become so meaningless that you have to remind yourself, okay, each of these numbers is a human being. Every single person behind a username is a human being and they're choosing to be in my space.
They're choosing to be, you know, in relationship with my, my work. And that's really, really cool. But, so yeah, a big part of the growth is just taking that perspective. And trying to not get caught on that hedonic treadmill of like, ooh, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth. Gotta keep growing, keep growing, keep growing. Right?
Actually, there was a point earlier this year where I was just like, okay, that's enough. This is enough. This is more than I ever [00:23:00] possibly could have dreamed of. So, you know, I had this like moment of, you know, the visibility feeling really intense and I hadn't felt that in like a year, like when my account first really started growing in 2022.
At first it was kind of overwhelming for the nervous system. It was just like, wow, that's a lot of people. You worry like, what if somebody doesn't like me? Or what if somebody wants to hurt me? What if somebody blah, blah, blah, this and that. So there's, you know, all these safety essentially concerns that come up at first when you start having that visibility. So a big part for me was like having, you know, a cyber safety plan, having hard boundaries that I never cross, like I'll never share my address or, you know, things like that. I'll never share, you know, my daughter's full name.
So keeping myself safe has always been, a really big concern for me, especially in the context of, you know, being an abuse survivor it's like I have zero [00:24:00] capacity for being treated abusively. It's really easy for me to just have that hard line where like, I don't accept any kind of abusive or hateful or, hostile kind of interactions. Like the block button is my protection spell. I'm using it whenever I need to I don't have to justify it to anybody you know, if I ever feel unsafe in my own online space, you're gone. Right? Or if you're just here to, rain on everyone's parade, you're gone. Like, I'm willing to have conversations about, you know, important things, but not so much to sort of like always be available to a complete stranger that wants to argue about something they misunderstood. So that's just not something that I have the capacity for.
I do keep my dms open and that's always a fun process to, you know, stay connected to the audience, but also to filter out the stuff where it's like, I [00:25:00] just don't have the space for, you know, if somebody's sharing their whole like trauma history in a DM and we don't have a therapeutic relationship me and this person, we don't have a personal relationship. So there has to be a boundary with that, where like that's something that I also don't have the space and it wouldn't be ethical for me to try to help them heal via Instagram dm.
So there's definitely that, you know, needing to have emotional distance from the audience while at the same time feeling this deep and intimate connection with people. It's such an interesting place to be.
[00:25:36] Zaneta: Thank you for sharing so transparently, about what you've been through and like that, that kind of unfolding with visibility that is insight and perspective that I feel like I almost never really get to hear in just one's own words and like, just so authentically and I very, very much appreciate it. What it makes me [00:26:00] think about a little bit is how our communities have shifted in, being digital, you know, like whereas being visible could have been like within a community of people, you know in real life or being visible might be like, you got some press, you know, like you got some like old school press, like I'm on the radio or I'm like, I don't know, in the newspaper. But now, like what could be constituted as community is evolutionary so recent and also so huge and I feel like you're bringing in relationship, which makes this concept of digital community a lot more accessible to me personally.
If you're conceptualizing it as a relationship, it's just the same framework applied to a different space.[00:27:00] relationship framework and like what do you do in a relationship?
Who are these people? How much access do they have to you? Like, is that appropriate? Is that inappropriate? Kind of starting to frame it as I'm in relationship with my audience. I'm in relationship with my community, regardless if it's digital or if it's in person, you know, or if it's my inner circle.
These are all forms of relationships. And I'd love to hear more about how you've evolved with understanding the relationship between yourself, your work, and your audience.
[00:27:37] Hope: I would say that, you know, the relationship between myself and my work and my audience is always evolving and it's always shifting and it's always in flux.
It's something that, again, having a consistent writing practice really helps me to make those adjustments to sort of notice day by day what's coming up, what's not [00:28:00] working, where do I feel, you know, encroached upon, where do I feel like I need more breathing room. So that's kind of one of the places where I really like to explore outside of, you know, therapy where you have somebody else to, talk about stuff like that with. So writing really helps me with that.
And then the other piece is, you know, there is just something about growth and especially once you start to get to bigger numbers on social media, where there's some things that you just have to let go of, where you just have to kind of take space from. You have to kind of do this inner work in order to not put the same amount of mental, emotional energy into every little thing that you would have.
I remember I was so much more stressed out going on Instagram when I had a thousand followers than I am now. Now it's just like, you know, if somebody does this or something else, it's like I literally just can't care about it. I don't know [00:29:00] if that makes sense. There's only so much capacity that we have, and so for me it's like, where do I wanna put that energy? Like where do I want to give my care? What's deserving of my care? And there's just so much that has to be let go of, if that makes sense.
[00:29:16] Zaneta: There's a freedom almost in like, there was maybe a preciousness before around social media and around creation and the idea that like every single post is so precious and that everything that you're creating and doing on there , is so huge and the end of the world could happen. Like catastrophized almost. Yeah. And then reaching these bigger numbers and for those who are not familiar like what kinds of bigger numbers are you actually like talking about? Like that point when that shifted for you.
[00:29:53] Hope: Yeah, I mean, I would say it probably shifted around a hundred K, but right now I have four 50 K, [00:30:00] which is, you know, almost a half of a million people. So it's almost like I just cannot mentally process that many people. The worrying about what that many people think of me. So it's like I almost don't care as much as like I would have.
Or you know, this is like the classic example. I feel like, you know, when you have a smaller account, you really notice if like a few people on unfollow you after you post something, you're like, oh my God, I shared my heart. I was super vulnerable. I gave this piece of me to the world and then, you know, these people unfollowed me or, you know, somebody blocked me.
You really notice that but like once you start to get to, you know, that sort of bigger place of visibility, you just don't see it anymore in the numbers. It's just not something that you can be consciously aware of. So it's like there's just a lot less. Kind of emotional turmoil or like it matters to me a lot less.
Like, I'm not posting this for [00:31:00] the person that's gonna unfollow me. I'm posting it for the person that's like going to feel seen, or like that's gonna say, I really needed to hear this today. Like, I was crying and then I saw this, and now I feel better. Like, that's who my content is for, is for the person that it's gonna resonate with.
I guess it just like for me was a process of separating like the wheat from the chaff on social media. Like what's important, unfollows aren't important, blocks aren't important. What other people are, are saying or doing isn't important. It's more important for me to have this, you know, direct creative channel and this, place where I can share.
So, That feels to me like a safe and brave community space and then to welcome people into it that'll wanna be there to receive what I have to give. It's like a lot more kind of streamlined than it used to be. I used to be maybe more distractible, I guess on social media.
[00:31:59] Zaneta: [00:32:00] Wow, that's so powerful. I feel like, you just brought in a few pieces that we should record it on an album so that people can listen to it on repeat over and over and over again. Cause truthfully, like, I'm on my own visibility journey and I'm like stepping into new layers of like, being more comfortable putting myself out there in different ways and trusting that.
And I'm like, who do I get to hear talk about this stuff? Or like, where do I get to like really hear someone with a lot of care and a lot of self reflection sharing. Okay. This is what's happened for me and this is how it's evolved and this is like what's kind of gone down.
I am sure a serious amount of work has went into being able to do this. Like, I'm not gonna make light of it dear listeners, if you're like thinking, oh, let me just flip the switch on this. I'm sure there's elements that you can make choices on, but also I am sure you have a huge web of assistance and a lot of ways that you have been [00:33:00] renegotiating this over and over and over for yourself.
[00:33:03] Hope: Yeah, definitely. I mean, again, such a process and there's, you know, some insights that you only get by walking through the dark alone and like coming to an epiphany or catharsis or revelation was something where you make a conscious choice to not, you know, put emotional energy into something or to not let something kind of get under your skin anymore.
So, you know, there is a lot of that deeper work or like working with your scared, your wounded, your criticized, inner child, all of those parts. I feel like there's so much for me, so much parts work in, social media visibility. There's so much, you know, connecting with my inner critic, unblending from the inner critic, befriending the inner critic.
There's just all these parts of me that, you know, care about my safety and care about, me [00:34:00] being acceptable and accepted and all of that. And then also, you know, that. Little inner child, part of me that like really badly wants to be loved and validated. And so making sure that there's some emotional distance from my social media and that part of me that wants the validation and that just wants to be loved, right?
So I can't get that validation from social media that has to come from me, right? So even if tomorrow, you know, knock on wood, if my account was deleted, that inner child, part of me wouldn't feel sad because that was gone. Cuz the validation still comes from here, it doesn't come from somewhere else. So there's just so much healing work and being able to kind of hold space for people.
And don't obviously know what it's like to be famous or, you know, public figure, like in this like I r l world context, but I imagine that it's the same. We were kind of like, just [00:35:00] working through these concentric circles of things that you have been dealing with since you were really little.
I feel like there's like a lot of magic there, with inner child work when it comes to not just creativity, but like letting your art be seen and like letting yourself have that relationship with the world or like, sometimes yeah, it does bring up stuff that happened when I was four, right? Like the first core wound comes up or is echoed or reflected in, you know, something that happened yesterday, for example.
So there's just all these kind of callbacks to, you know, what's a layer that you can go deeper in your healing process today and how can you let the world kind of show you these healing opportunities?
[00:35:46] Zaneta: I always think of social media as like a hall of mirrors almost. Or like there's so much projection happening that It's never really that personal because it's really like what's going on with each individual as they're [00:36:00] seeing all of this and perceiving all of it and what it's bringing up inside of them.
I'm not gonna say it doesn't hurt or that, like, things that happen on there don't hurt me, you know, or feel incredibly weird. But there's a sense of like, oh yeah, every person is struggling through this experience and trying to make sense of it. And it's bringing up all sorts of stuff for them and what parts we are each bringing and who's paying attention is something I'm always fascinated by. It's easy to wanna For productivity's sake or just because maybe not a lot of people talk about this that much.
I don't know. So it's like normalized that like, we should all just be okay. Like, oh yes, I, I can, I have an account and create things and make things and share things and I should just be okay being able to do that. But I love like, bringing in the parts piece to this because [00:37:00] it's almost like, not every part of us has always been okay.
Not every part of us feels okay in every situation. and to like blanket assume that we should be all right and that we shouldn't have these really, really natural emotional responses and needs that come to the surface as a result of interacting with the Hall of Mirrors that social media is like something that feels a little like naive.
This is an expansive and like very nuanced and complex experience. We are complex beings that have a lot of parts, coming in and out, dealing in there. Um, I remember in your workshop in particular you had really shared a lot about dealing with rejection and, you had talked about how to work with your inner critic or like, listen to your inner child or things like that, that I thought were so beautiful.
Could you share a [00:38:00] little bit about, how you engage with your inner critic, your inner child? While doing social media work,
[00:38:10] Hope: Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, we can start with compassion and curiosity. That's where I like to start when it comes to parts work. So, You know, for me, if I, if I notice a sense of resistance, let's say that I have an idea for a post, um, that I wanna make, or there's something on my heart that I really wanna say that I really wanna give, that I feel this resistance, there's this feeling of like, well, what if, you know, let's say that this, um, inner critic or inner protector, part of me is saying, well, it's not okay for you to say that because people might not like it so you should post something you know that is not so important to you because people will resonate with that and that's not gonna make any waves or whatever. So let's just say that that's what my inner critic is showing up to say, what I would do, instead of just [00:39:00] being like, well screw you inner critic, like, you know, I can do what I want cuz that's just gonna lead to more inner resistance, is I'm going to turn with compassion and curiosity towards that inner critic and, you know, just remain open to.
What they'd like to, or what is their intent? Keeping me safe, keeping me protected from harm. Um, and then having a direct conversation with that part where I can say, you know what, even if people don't like what I have to say, it's still my right to say what I want to say. I'm allowed to be authentic. I'm allowed to be disliked. You know, it's completely okay as a grown adult, if some strangers on the internet don't like me, um, it's not okay. If they mistreat me, obviously then I get to spring into action. But if somebody doesn't like me, that's neither my business nor my concern. Right? So, but my inner critic [00:40:00] is somebody that popped up at a very young age when I was still growing.
Where that very much was a concern, right? Like a safety concern in, in school with bullying, for example. Or, you know, you, you need to be likable to your parents, et cetera. So that inner critic is almost like in that arrested development of those ages where to them it's still very urgent for me to be likable and acceptable, um, et cetera.
So letting that part of me know I'm grown up. It's okay, there's nothing really bad that could come of this, and if people don't like it or if people don't like me, we're gonna be okay and we're gonna find a way forward from this. So that's kind of the conversation that I would have with that part of me.
And another way to kind of seal off that conversation with a, a part of you that's in resistance is to. See if there's something that they [00:41:00] would like to do for you that's not the criticizing or not the resisting. So maybe they can help you with spell checking your caption before you hit post, which is something that I often forget to do, um, but have also kind of released the, um, expectation of perfection that I'm gonna always like, have perfect wording or that I'm gonna always have perfect, um, punctuation or anything like that.
So, you know, having that sort of redirection of like, wow, I like that you have this attention to detail. I like that you care about things being polished and I like that you care about. Being acceptable to people. Let's put you in a different role within my psyche. Let's give you something else to do that is going to nourish my work instead of to prevent me from doing the work.
And for me personally, my inner critic shows up before I even put pen to paper, but I know for a lot of people it comes up as they're about to hit that share button and they're thinking like, okay I'll put this in [00:42:00] the drafts instead. Or it comes up after you post and you don't get the amount of recognition that you hoped for and your inner critic says, see, shouldn't have posted it, that it's totally useless. Better not post tomorrow. Right. So just sort of give up. Right. I told you so. So wherever that, that part kind of. Perks up and gets activated. That's where the work is, right? And that's where we can spend that time with that part. And I think loving those parts of us that feel so unlovable is the magic.
Like that to me is the magic. Like if I can love my inner critic, it just melts, right? It just softens. It just allows, it hopes there's a chance that this will go well. And I can say these things that are. Really true to my heart. And like people won't just like it, but they'll love it. And so that's kind of the risk that I think we take on social media is like, [00:43:00] you know, what if something really amazing could happen?
Like instead of thinking about all your worst fears and like all, you know, the worst possible outcomes, like what if something beyond your wildest dreams happened and you suddenly had almost half a million followers like that? You know, that's a whole other set of stuff to deal with. But yeah, I think, you know, being really loving towards our, our critical parts and towards that negativity bias that we have, and just saying like, well, I dare to hope, like, I'm gonna dare to, to dream radically of something really amazing.
[00:43:36] Zaneta: Oh my gosh. It was like I just got a healing transmission.
[00:43:41] Hope: Oh.
[00:43:45] Zaneta: Yeah I can feel your experience, I can feel how you've like, you know, Really marinated in this and like really massaged it and worked it over time. Not just [00:44:00] like parroted information or anything.
Just really like you've lived and worked with these concepts and lessons over and over and over and over again. That was just really beautiful.
What you were sharing kind of brought me to this place of like, it is your birthright to express yourself and to be wholly lovable in whatever way, shape, and form you show up.
And that even allowing us to step outside of what that inner critic may be like this is the safe boundary of what is acceptable or what your audience wants or like what you, can or cannot share.
This is a process of, signaling to self You are so loved that you can show up like you are so loved that you may be rejected and people may hate that [00:45:00] fucking post or something, but you're so loved that you can do it anyway. And that just like, to me it feels extremely liberatory.
For myself, I've been working around visibility as someone who's heavier, someone who's brown, someone who's queer, someone who's multiracial, someone who's going through all these different kind of intersections of experience and recognizing how much that is a necessary step for me to be alive. Like it's so much less about whether or not I am consumable and whether or not there's an ease of consumption and an ease of extraction of my work and that I'm palatable all the time. But like, maybe I am bitter. Maybe this is astringent, maybe this isn't like what you want to hear but that's not really [00:46:00] necessarily about everyone else.
And so I think that there's like aspects of what you're bringing up that feel like if we're only going off of the numbers, we would lose a lot of like what the power of doing this process can be for us as individuals on a healing journey, but also intergenerationally for our communities.
Definitely in terms of visibility for people living on the edge and the fringes and the margins.
[00:46:31] Hope: I love that there's so much of what you shared that kind of broadened my horizon and like made me think on deeper levels about what we're talking about. And I keep coming back to this word, like you said, liberatory. And then there's also the sense of like, Revolutionary and that idea of like breaking intergenerational cycles or, having the, self-love that's unconditional, right?
Like even if you [00:47:00] fail at something, you're still gonna love yourself the whole journey through , there's something so potent about it that it just breaks chains, I feel, right? It's like all these, these chains that have been there for so long, you're at a place now where you can do this for your lineage and say, you know, doesn't matter what anyone else has to say because I love me anyway.
And I love me so profoundly that I'm willing to take a big risk or I'm willing to be audacious, to have the audacity to go against the grain or to do something that, you know, Um, my past self, or like my parents' generation would've thought, well that's not acceptable. You have to keep that stuff hidden away. That stuff is not for the public. Right.
I feel like there's so much about healing and like the whole like, healing community online that's like, it's a direct revolution or like confrontation against the social [00:48:00] messages that have told us you have to heal alone. You have to, you know, if you're an abuse survivor, that's a secret.
Like all this stuff has to be private. And it's like, no. Like I wanna show up and I wanna show up as me in my authenticity, whatever that looks like today, with all of these different parts of me that I've been told make me less than. And in doing so, I free other people to do the same. Right. And then we lead the charge together.
We don't need the revolution to happen because, you know, some big powerful force says it's okay. We do it because, You know, we feel that audacity within ourselves. How can you love your audaciousness? You know, that part of you that, that inner rebel just wants to light it all on fire. Like, that part is so lovable too.
And sometimes that part just needs to be able to, you know, take the reins for a moment. And you know, what parts of you are feeling brave today? Like, lean into those parts, [00:49:00] let them kind of hit the post button or write the manifesto that you've been holding inside, right? There's something so brave about being vulnerable, especially if you do have, you know, more marginalized identities.
I'm sure those voices are louder of like, Nope, this is, this is hidden. Keep this to yourself. Like, this is behind closed doors, or you don't deserve to take up, you know, the spotlight. Or this is for, you know, these people, but not these people. So there's just so many. Messages. It's almost like hypnosis.
It's like on a, it's on a loop inside of us of like what's okay for us to be and what's not. But I think love is like, what kind of cuts through that for me.
[00:49:42] Zaneta: You're honoring this aspect of yourself, that, that like the next leg of the journey is to step into greater visibility or to, you know, post that thing that maybe you felt inhibited to or something like that.
But I'd love to hear also how you navigate [00:50:00] honoring that you are a sensitive person, a person that's been through trauma, a person that's like, you know, or that's still healing or that's still very much, you know, maybe like soft in certain places, you know, and how maybe you check in with yourself, like understanding safety and like showing up and being visible, tending to those simultaneously.
[00:50:30] Hope: Hmm. I love that. And I think for me, creating this concept of an inner sanctuary has been really potent. So, for example, my inner child that's like hungry for validation, that's, you know, hungry for being understood and all these things. That part of me does not get to sit at the front line and like see how my post is doing or like, doesn't get to be a part of that process of like the social media sharing that part of me lives within this little sanctuary [00:51:00] inside of my heart where it's safe and warm and there's unconditional love, right?
So like that part of me has that safety. I feel like sometimes we wish the world was a safe place, but it's not, not always. And you know, we have to cultivate like oases of safety, whether that's, you know, your household with the people that you love or whether that's, you know, in an I R L community or whether that's, you know, just within yourself, creating a space where you can be, where everything that you are is enough and okay.
And lovable, right? And so then if you go into other spaces where that might not be true, such as social media or you know, out on the street surrounded by strangers, that feeling of safety might not be there on the outside, but you're cultivating it on the inside. And different people can use, you know, different, um, modalities to touch in with [00:52:00] this oasis and inside.
But for me that would be, you know, meditation. Visualization, writing, again, art, making all these things, movement, things that are ways that I show love to myself. Really build that. So, you know, a question to come back to could be, how am I loving myself right now? And then taking that with you into the world.
It's like having a pink bubble of, of love around yourself.
[00:52:29] Zaneta: That's so beautiful and so practical and gives a starting point for anyone who's listening because this is a creative act of exploration in and of itself too. What that sanctuary can be, what love feels like to us individually is so unique, so unique to what we've been through. So unique to our temperament and how we exist and what we're dealing with, what we're facing, what kinds of work we're expanding into. I'm sure like [00:53:00] something that also has to be reworked, again, and again and again, like you may have that sense of sanctuary and how you're feeling held and cared for and unconditionally loved now, and then as like things grow or change, then that might have to also be kind of like, oh, my inner child isn't feeling as safe or as cared for, and these modalities maybe once worked for me, but maybe I need to like get creative with that.
[00:53:31] Hope: Yeah. And again, it's like that comes back to the curiosity and compassion. And I recently had this experience where I was interviewed by this writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and I was like having a blast with the interview. I was just kind of like sharing like my life story, getting really personal.
And then after the call, you know, a few hours later it started to dawn on me. Like that wasn't just like a podcast that's some, this is gonna be like in the fricking newspaper. And I was just sharing [00:54:00] all these like, intimate details about my life. Ah, ah, I'm not safe. So that was like another, like all these practices that work for me really well in some context, like social media and, you know, showing up to a conversation like this didn't work for that context.
So I went to the curiosity piece. I went to the compassion. And I started to get curious about the way that my nervous system was responding and that feeling of not safety, how that actually felt in my body. To me it felt like adrenaline, it felt like high alert. It was hyper arousal and just, noticing that I think was so key.
Having the curiosity to notice, wow, I am experiencing hyper arousal right now gave it already a bit of softening where it's like, of course I am. It's a new experience, it's something that's really big and it's a lot to hold for my nervous system. So showing my nervous system, that sense of [00:55:00] almost just the witnessing of it. Being able to witness myself in that state was really helpful. And then from there I could say, okay, what kind of care practices could help me get from hyper arousal back to the window of tolerance, right? Which is where we wanna be when we're doing this big work of growth or exploration or self discovery or sharing our art with the world.
We wanna do that in that window of tolerance where we're able to take critique, where we're able to envision a new way forward. And we can't do that if we're in those, you know, nervous system states of hyper arousal or shut down or collapse. So, you know, being able to turn towards your own experience in your body and be like, wow, I feel really not safe right now. What does that actually feel like in my body? Okay, this is. What this is, what are some things that work for me when I'm in this state? And then kind of get back to homeostasis from there.
So it's almost like my inner scientist enjoys that,[00:56:00] and then, um, once I'm in the window of tolerance, then my inner art artist can find a lot to play with.
Or again, that generativity of like, ooh, like, what's coming up for me? This could be content, like this could be a post about, you know, what it feels like to expand in a new direction and like come back to that safety and sanctuary within. So like you can always turn those things into content once you're back in that sanctuary place.
[00:56:30] Zaneta: Hmm. I think you kind of read my mind there for a second cuz I was thinking about like, the inner child's need for validation and things like that can sometimes lead us to a particular kind of inspired action or creative direction. Like, okay, now I want to start posting on this, or like getting into these different things and yet there's a little bit of parsing out, you kind of have to really, really check in with yourself and really of understand what are [00:57:00] these needs? I wonder if you could speak a little bit into , queuing into these creative impulses born from needs of say the inner child or the inner critic versus like maybe something that feels more within that window of tolerance and kind of like parsing that out for yourself.
[00:57:20] Hope: Definitely. So I've been on this spiritual journey of following my emotions for a long time. One of my teachers years ago said, you know, six words, follow your grief, follow your longing. And that became something that just kind of went on repeat for me. Follow your grief, follow your longing.
And I started to realize that these feelings, you know, the grief and the longing were like trail guides leading me further down my path. Like we're taught from infancy, most of us, to disregard those feelings, you know, stop crying, don't feel the grief. Don't want for so [00:58:00] much. Don't long for so many things. Be happy with what you have. Right? But actually disregarding the social messaging and letting those feelings guide me deeper into myself, like further along that path of knowing myself. I mean, they're just wisdom showers. They're incredible for, you know, tapping into something that's there that is so, it's inside you, but it's beyond you.
And that's what I've found by, you know, following my emotions deeper. And so let's say that I am having a really intense emotion, for example, like anger or jealousy, a feeling that is not socially acceptable. Instead of turning away from it and saying like, okay, I better get calm so that I can create, it's like, what does my anger wanna create?
Or like, what does my jealousy have to say? What does my rage have to teach me? And just trusting that, you know, within the safe container of not unloading those feelings on other people in, you know, , an [00:59:00] unhealthy way. How can I actually be in relationship with those feelings? And it's a mutually beneficial relationship because they teach me about myself and I let them be expressed and for me, it's a very like spiritual practice to be in contact with all of those big feelings that I've been told to not feel, and to see the beauty and the wisdom in them.
And so, you know, a post or some content or a piece of art might come from following the path of whatever feelings come up to disrupt my day, to kind of show its face, right? Big confrontation with a feeling. Follow that feeling instead of running from it. And then there's gems there, there's stuff to mine. There's like all this beautiful work that then I can share that with someone. And then I find that those are the pieces of, you know, content or writing or art or whatever, where people feel this like, [01:00:00] Resonance or this magnetic pole, they're like, oh my God, this is exactly what I needed to hear today. Or, wow, I never thought about it that way before, but you're totally right. And that just totally shifted the way I look at this emotion in my life. Like, that's powerful. And it transforms it from, you know, something that like I'm struggling with within myself to a jumping off point for connection with other people.
So again, like not healing in isolation as Bell Hook said, but healing in community, like taking it from the, the personal to the public is, you know, it's a brave act, but for me it's all in like following those emotions.
[01:00:41] Zaneta: Uh, wow. The articulation you had for your process and like how that happens for you was just like a work of art in and of itself.
Thank you. Thank you. Hope that was just incredible. I feel healed [01:01:00] by this conversation. I feel, like you've given a lot of places to start to explore and connect with yourself as the gateway and the beginning of a relationship that is actually like sustainable in creating. This is where the portal is and really being nourished, being cared for, and then trusting where that exploration can lead rather than like what you have to be and how you have to fit into these very narrow ideas of like what it means to be a content creator, to be someone who shows up in social media and stuff like that.
I just appreciate you so much and clearly all the work that you've done.
[01:01:46] Hope: Thank you so much for having me. This was such a blissful, um, and just wonderful conversation. I mean, I could talk to you for hours, to be honest. Like it's just been really, um, really nourishing for me and [01:02:00] I feel so seen, so I just, yeah. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart for, creating this space for us to, to communicate together.
It's been beautiful.
[01:02:11] Zaneta: Thank you. I have one more question for you and, and I ask out of every single guest, but what would you like to share or what advice would you have for your younger emerging artist self?
[01:02:27] Hope: Hmm. The first piece that I would share with my younger emerging artist self is that you can trust yourself, even if it doesn't make sense to anybody else. And even if it doesn't even make sense to you, the creative urges that you feel and the instincts that you have are never wrong, and they will never lead you astray.
There's an inner benevolence to the creative process and that flow of energy that moves through us that [01:03:00] can't lead us wrong, there are no mistakes, right? A mistake is just something that teaches you more about what you do want to create. So there's no mistakes. It's all a part of your, um, your blossoming process.
So, self trust, and don't be so damn hard on yourself. Be soft. The world is hard enough to, you don't, you don't grow through tough love, especially towards yourself. You grow through, nurturance and kindness. So that's what the world needs more out of, so we can start with ourselves and let it kind of ripple out from there.
[01:03:40] Zaneta: Oh my gosh, I'm just gonna cry.
[01:03:45] Hope: It's cancer season and we're two cancer,
so,
[01:03:47] Zaneta: cancer suns crying in cancer season.
Um, Where can people reach you? What avenues of connection would you like to invite this community into?[01:04:00]
[01:04:01] Hope: Yeah, I mean, right now I'm focusing mainly on Instagram. So @hopehealingarts is my Instagram dms are open. And other than that, I mean, that's like the main kind of place that I'm sharing. But yeah, I would, I would love to connect with your audience.
[01:04:19] Zaneta: Thank you. Thank you so, so much.