Episode 134: How Anxiety and Perfectionism Can Get In The Way Of Creativity
In today’s episode, I am talking with Beryl Young of Momtography a mom, photographer, and teacher, about High Functioning Anxiety and creativity.
Honestly, I have always had a mixed relationship with creativity.
I have almost always loved it and thought to myself, I want to do that more! And then months, years pass before I actively pursue something creative. Why?
My Monger’s message of perfectionism and practicality always gets in the way:
“She tries but she has no talent”.
“What are you going to do with it? You are going to have all these art projects and nowhere to put them.”
“You have to drag all the art supplies out and spend MORE money on creative. Get real.”
I get in my own way.
This is why I wanted to talk to someone who deals with High Functioning Anxiety and is still able to pursue creativity for a living.
Today, I am talking with Beryl Young of Momtography. She is a mom, photographer, teacher, and creator of popular classes to support parents in capturing the life they love. A former elementary school teacher by day, she’s taken her experience in education and photography and brought a message of creativity, resilience, connection, and fulfillment for camera lovers young and old.
Beryl’s work has been featured on The Huffington Post, PicMonkey, Mpix, and Digital Photography School. She’s taught hundreds of moms around the globe how to use their camera to its fullest potential and connect in deeper ways to the people they love most in the world.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
When Beryl realized that she had High Functioning Anxiety and how it shows up in her life
How she got around the perfectionism that can get in the way of creativity and gave herself permission to create
How creativity helps her manage her anxiety
What self-care looks like to her
Resources mentioned:
+ Read the Transcript
Beryl: When I was faced with a blank canvas. I was like, oh, I don't want to mess it up. So yeah. What do I do with this? Which is funny because my mom is an artist and she's a mixed media artist and she has high functioning anxiety. So it shows up differently for different people too.
Nancy: Honestly, I've always had a mixed relationship with creativity.
I've rarely engaged in a creative pursuit and thought that was awful. I've almost always loved it and thought to myself, I'm going to do that more. And then months, years past before I actively pursue something creative. Why? In short, my monger, her message of perfectionism and practicality always gets in the way I can hear my fifth grade art teacher telling my mom.
She tries well, but she just has no talent. Or my Monger says, what are you going to do with it? You're going to have all these art projects and nowhere to put them, or you have to drag all the art supplies out and spend more money on creative crap. Come on.
I get in my own way when I can get past all those messages and engage my creativity, whether that be painting creative writing or practicing embroidery.
I absolutely love it. This is why I wanted to talk to Beryl Young of Momtography someone who deals with high functioning anxiety and teaches creativity for a living.
Your listening to the happier approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.
Beryl Young photo mom and mentor is a mom photographer, teacher and creator of popular classes to support parents and capturing the life they love. A former elementary school teacher by day she takes her experience in education and photography and has written a story of creativity, resilience, connection, and fulfillment for camera levers, young and old barrels work has been featured on the Huffington post PicMonkey M pics and digital photography.
She's taught hundreds of moms around the globe, how to use their camera to its fullest, potential as a tool to connect them in a deeper way to the people they love most in the world. Beryl and I talk about mongers and creativity and how they go together. I love Beryl’s, honest down to earth approach. We also discussed realizing she had high-functioning anxiety and how it shows up in her life. What self care looks like to her, how creativity helps her anxiety. How she got around her perfectionism that can get in the way of creativity, giving yourself permission to create and how you get past the message of what am I going to do with it? Once it's done.
Okay. I'm so excited today. We are going to be talking with Beryl Young about high functioning anxiety and creativity and the intersection of them, which I'm super fascinated to find out.
Welcome Beryl.
Beryl: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here today.
Nancy: Thanks for showing up. Okay, so I just want to jump right in and ask, because I know you have an interesting story. How does high-functioning anxiety show up for you? Yeah.
Beryl: In so many ways that I really didn't realize, I don't think until I started my own business, like I'm a creative business owner.
And as I was building my business, I would realize that I would set these expectations for myself on what I wanted my business to look like, what I wanted my life to look like. And when that expectation and reality didn't intersect. I would beat myself up. I don't consider myself like depressed, but I would go into these depressed states where I just couldn't get motivation to do anything.
And then I also have those perfectionistic traits to control oh, I can do all of this. I'm just going to do it myself. So I tend to go into that realm as well. And if I don't think I'm going to be good at something, I just won't do it at all, especially, and that link between creativity and anxiety, I.
My main modality for creativity is a camera. And I think I chose photography because I was like, oh, there's no blank page. Like I can just go out and take a photo of something. And it's right there. When I was faced with a blank canvas, I was like, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to mess it up.
So what do I do with this?
Nancy: WAY more pressure Totally
Beryl: Totally WAY more pressure. Which is funny because my mom is an artist and she's a mixed media artist and she has high functioning anxiety. So it shows up differently for different people too. But I get the same way, like even with writing, like I enjoy creative writing too all by all sorts of pretty journals.
Because they're pretty and I want pretty things, but then. I'm like, oh, I don't want to write in it because what if I mess up?
Nancy: amen. To that. I have so many empty journals for that. Very reason. Yeah. Yeah.
Beryl: Or if I use this, then I'm going to use the whole thing. Like I, I also, I don't know if this goes along with the high functioning anxiety you'll know better than I do, but just I'm great at starting points.
As a creative it's oh, I have an idea. Let me start it. But then the follow through and finishing is very hard to,
Nancy: yeah. We call that being an 80 percenter in our house. We do 80%. And then the last 20% you don't have to do because you might do it wrong. And so if you only do the 80%, then you know that still open to perfect it.
Beryl: yep, that’s me. (Laughter) So here I am
Nancy: Before we hopped on, you were talking about how you figured this out because it was, it wasn't like you've known the high functioning anxiety and ADHD is another component of this for you. Tell me how you figured out. Have you the journey you went on to get to the,
Beryl: So we have to backtrack about four years ago.
First I went to the doctor just for like my annual checkup. And as the doctor and I were talking, I mentioned that I had been feeling anxious for a certain period of time. And as doctors sometimes are willing to do, he's oh, here's some medicine. Why don't you try taking some anxiety medicine? And so I did and I felt better.
And so that was the first inclination where I was like, oh, maybe I have anxiety symptoms. Because I started to take the medication and I did feel like, oh, some of my heart palpitations went away. Like I didn't realize I was experiencing certain physical symptoms of anxiety and I went for that doctor's appointment.
And then that paired with the fact that I'm a mom, I have a nine-year-old daughter and it was around the time that she was in kindergarten, that we started to just see how things were going with her in school. And I was like, I think she had. ADHD. And I said this to a couple of my mom, friends, and, it was always an even like the school, they would blow it off.
Oh, she's, it's just developmental. But she was always this busy kid that would never sit still. We did a, like one of my dearest neighbor friends. We would like exchange babysitting. So they would go on a date night and then my husband and I would go on a date night and she came over one night and she basically said my daughter, she won't sit still to do anything. And I'm like, okay, finally, someone else besides me and we had this like catch 22 because she was a birthday where she was like one of the youngest in her class. She made the birthday cutoff by four days. So some of what was going on in school was very much developed by them.
Some of it. I was like, ah, I don't know that this is, and so I really had to turn into this advocate of like really starting to learn about what ADHD looks like and how it can manifest in different ways that it's not just the boy that won't sit still in class that has this constant motor and. As I was doing that research by the time she got to second grade, we were still coming up against some of the same challenges that were happening in kindergarten.
And so we went to the doctor to get her evaluated and she was diagnosed with ADHD and, being her advocate and doing all of that research I started to just. Read blogs and listen to podcasts and look into books. And I came across this amazing book called Understanding Girls With ADHD. And that was when, like all the light bulbs.
Some of the high functioning anxiety traits were also very much traits that were talking about in this book. And so I then had to turn around and start educating the school. My daughter has high functioning anxiety as well. It doesn't manifest at school. We would go through TSA and she would hide behind me at age seven.
Like not willing to talk to the TSA agent because she was afraid she wasn't going to say the right thing and that they were going to they were giving her an angry look. But at school she's comfortable with her teachers. She's comfortable with her friends. That speaks volumes for the school that she goes to, but they're like she doesn't have anxiety.
She doesn't have ADHD. She's fine. She's adjusted, she's doing this, that and the other And then I would shine the light on myself and my own, like insecurities in my business, in my life, in my upbringing. And I was like, oh, you know that saying the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree, right?
Be like apple first. And then I was like, oh, hello, tree me. I think I need to explore this for myself too. And I didn't go through the full psychological evaluation as an adult. The doctor was like, oh, let's just do a little bit of a self evaluation. But I was essentially diagnosed with ADHD about a year ago.
Went, huh? I don't think I actually had anxiety. I think I had high functioning anxiety that went along with the ADHD that I've probably had my entire life. Yeah. So yeah. That's my story.
Nancy: I think it's fascinating. Because I think two things are fascinating. One just the combination of ADHD and high functioning anxiety and how that we use those coping skills.
I mean it's similar coping skills. I always say we have anxiety and to quiet the anxiety, we do these unhealthy coping skills, perfectionism people, pleasing, et cetera, et cetera, worrying about doing it wrong and the critic and all that stuff. But the same time, it's hard to pull apart.
We do the same thing with ADHD symptoms and we don't want anyone to see. So we're trying to keep it hidden that we have these, this zaniness in her head for lack of a better way. We develop these unhealthy coping mechanism, isms around us. So I think that's fascinating that, that shows up in both of those areas.
And I think it's fascinating that so often, like that's one of the main reasons I, my mom, clients come in to see me is they're like, I see this in my kids. And I'm trying to get myself under control so that I can help them.
Beryl: Totally. Yeah, no. And I was like, I have to be a good role model for my daughter.
And what does that look like? And it's also interesting to go, oh, the way it manifests in her is different than the way it manifests in me. I got a lot of my perfectionistic, like people pleasing. That my mom has, and we were both very hard workers that enjoyed school. Part of the ADHD executive functioning traits are that like, when you have diagnosed ADHD, you can hyper focus on the things that you really enjoy, but then the things that are difficult or mentally taxing you avoid.
I was avoiding a lot of things in my business, but I never avoided school. I actually enjoyed reading and I was good at school. So my anxiety never surfaced. My daughter likes socializing. She likes people. She likes the social aspects and the connection of going to school, but she's not as motivated.
But learning new things or, and the areas that are difficult for her, she can't necessarily hyper focus on. And it's very interesting to be parents seeing a child going, wait a second. Why don't you enjoy school more? I loved school, right? But you want to be able to support them. And so we have had to put a mirror, not just on her, but on me too, to go, okay how can I relate to her in this way?
Nancy: Yeah. Because I think that would be, because I don't have kids and I think that would be so hard to not put your stuff in general, not put your stuff on them but also the idea that. How can you not like school? It served me. It was a place for me to channel and get good grades and, like to really be an encouraging the apple, to be the tree and to recognize no, that's a separate being.
Beryl: Totally. Yeah, no, that separation of okay, this is her life and her expense. But also, still being the mom.
Nancy: Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah,
Beryl: because her high functioning anxiety also shows up and my mom just told me I could do school. I'm not good at school.
I can't lean into those perfectionistic qualities with school. And so there is this like messy emotional roller coaster of okay, I know you don't like school because of certain structures or you don't enjoy these things. And unlike me. She doesn't have as many of the people-pleasing qualities that I do.
Yes. She has other traits of high functioning anxiety, people pleasing. Isn't one of them. So she doesn't care who she offends in the process. That's not to say she wants her teachers to like her. She's not going to work hard on an assignment if she doesn't enjoy it
Nancy: solely to get the good praise from the teacher.
Beryl: Correct. She'll find other ways, but then she'll come home from school. Her high functioning anxiety, which I see in myself too, is the teacher doesn't like me, because I didn't do this work. Or I don't know how to do this. Or, she has a hard time finding her personal confidence and as do I, especially in the area when you don't feel like you can show up as your best self, where you can't have the perfect byproduct of whatever it is you're working on, right?
Nancy: Yeah. It's interesting. Because growing up, my mom also high functioning anxiety. And so she gave me a lot of like tips for how to survive the real world.
So she would walk me through This is how you make friends. And this is what you, this is the game you need to play. And these are the people that, if you suck up to these people, you'll have it easier. And just gave me these backdoor approaches to stuff, which was, I look at some point in my life, I was like, I'm so glad she gave that to me.
Because she really gave me like a, how to model, which was helpful. Because that's what she wanted. And so she gave it to me, but I never got to figure it out for myself. I was always figuring out what was her go-to, I was following the rules that she had given me, and that's how I set up my life to follow those rules rather than figuring it out for myself.
Beryl: So I know my mom did that for us too. That really resonates with me because I feel like for a long time, her model was passed down to me. You work hard. And not everyone's going to like you, and this is, we just stick to yourself and not, instead of trying to be friends with everybody, like some of her people pleasing stuff, she recognized it, but it's also interesting.
Because one of her favorite sayings was kill them with kindness. And I'm like that might've been a little bit of the people pleasing too. I also agree with that methodology as an adult too, though. But there were certain things and I can't think of a specific example right now that at some point I'm like, oh, this model of what she's passed down to me is not working for me right. In my life. And I had to reconcile that for myself.
Nancy: yeah. Yeah. And I think picking that apart is hard, and then also then I'm assuming could be triggering. Are, am I passing that down? How do I not do that to my kid? How do I not. Not that it was all terrible.
Like I think, the intention of my mom was so good. Like she was really trying to make life easier for me, but she didn't leave any room for me to figure it out for, for me to ask, is this helping? Is this how I want to do it? Especially as I got older, it would have been cool to have that be a conversation, a
Beryl: That’s a struggle for all moms How do I not mess my kind up?
Nancy: Totally. Yeah. And how do I be kind to myself when I know I have, like totally, like I just had a client recently who was like, who told me she had I just had a really bad mom moment. And she told me, the moment. And I said then you just practice Brené Brown and you circle back and you explain what happened.
That's all you could do, yeah. For sure is having that kindness. But yeah. Because I think a lot of times we want to, as adults, then we want to blame our parents, for, but to recognize they did the best they could with what they had the same as we're doing the best we can with what we,
Beryl: Mom and I just had that conversation back at Thanksgiving.
I think I had to do a lot of self inner work just around who I wanted to be. And my fears of letting my parents down when I walked the path that was different than how they had raised me, not wildly different. It wasn't like I was going out and doing terrible things, but even like getting tattoos and dying my hair pink is this image that my family.
Expects of me. I had a lot of fear wrapped in that, which was like, I was like in my early thirties, I'm like, I am in my early thirties. I should not care what my parents think. If I get tattoos and dye my hair pink and it was a thing, but it was shocking to hear. I always felt like getting. Body art. I thought my parents were not going to approve of that just because of like the portrayal of who you are.
Because we're people pleasers in our family, right? As this, the daughter that I want to showcase to my friends, when my mom and I actually had a conversation about it, it was her own high-functioning anxiety. Around like medical stuff is the tattoo parlor clean. Are you going to get some disease from going and getting this done?
She could care less about the artistic aspects. So it was interesting to see my fear. Yes, work completely different manifestation of what her fears were. But we were sitting down and just talking about some of those things about, ways, her anxiety surfaced when we were younger. And she actually said to me I hope, when you realize now that you're an adult, that we were just doing the best we could with what we had.
And what a beautiful, like self-awareness on her part to have that. Yeah,
Nancy: absolutely. Yeah. That's such a gift. Yeah. Yeah, because when I sometimes I'll think back and be like, oh my gosh, like how old was I? When my mom was my age meant to be like, oh, like in my mind she had it altogether. And then to think, oh, she felt like I feel right now, which is not having it all together.
That is an interesting that's just an interesting place to go that whole generational surviving. Totally interesting. Okay. So that went down a turn that I wasn't expecting which is why I love having these conversations. I want to take it back to creativity because for a lot of people, and you've mentioned this with the blank page and the, that I'm not, I can't even, maybe not for a lot of people, but for me, creativity is hard.
That is the ultimate trigger. And it is something that really helps when I can bust through all the crappy messages. And I can even remember, it was a couple of years ago, my husband and I took a painting class. My husband is loves to be creative. He took a painting, we took a painting class and I have the typical story of art class and the art teacher took my mom aside and was like, yeah, she does not have it. Like just, let her slide on through, because she's not going to, and we did this painting and I loved it. Like it was so relaxing and I loved it and it was like, wow, you have that old message that you suck at art, but that's, and that's the only message you're hearing when there are a lot of messages potentially there.
I know I'm not alone in that thought, because I've heard it a thousand times, but speak to all of that. Totally.
Beryl: That's a big question, but we actually have in our company. My business is called momtography Moms and photography blended together. And I hear this a lot. Because of some of the things that I said before oh, I don't feel creative or the creative things I used to do. I can't find time to do as a mom.
And so creativity just feels hard. And I don't know if you're a Liz Gilbert follower. I love the book big magic. And so a lot of our methodologies at momtographer. Yeah. We're inspired by her work. And
Nancy: I have to say briefly to interrupt you quickly. It's so funny. I did not like that book initially because I was like, oh, this is too Woo, woo. The idea that the creative ideas out there and at finds you blah, blah, blah. But I swear to God. Writing my book was a big magic thing. That was downloaded to me from someplace else. Like I know, like I I'm a believer in that concept since I wrote my book, because it totally was.
Beryl: So I have some thoughts about that.
Okay. The first thought I want to I'll share at least share a methodology, and then I'll share my thought on your book and how it connects to high functioning anxiety, because. The first piece of our kind of creative coaching methodology at momtographer is to get curious. And what I loved from big magic is that was Gilbert said, if you're having trouble anchoring into your creativity to think of it as curiosity, instead of creativity.
Yeah, and that's not a direct quote, but that's just my interpretation of it, but I know she uses the word curiosity, and I was like, I love that for every mom that is struggling to be creative or anchor into that. If you ask, what are you curious about today? Usually a mom can come up with an answer that we work with like pretty quickly. I want to take a picture of my kid, or I want to take a picture of the flowers or I'm just curious about getting the dishes done in my sink. Like sometimes it has nothing to do with the creative experience. And what I realized for me, because I had some similar reactions to you about that.
Like the woo-woo sides of big magic, even though I do tend to go down the woo-woo path a little bit, but, waiting for that train to come through and you got to catch it before it runs away. Some of that is true. And some of it is just, another piece of our methodology is consistency.
Sometimes you just got to sit down and do it, but at some point, if you are creative and writing is a creative experience. And I have found in writing some of our programs or in, yeah, there are those kinds of just big magic type modes. Where I'm like, oh, that thing I just said to a coaching client, I don't know where it came from.
It came from somewhere else, but it was the right thing to say in that moment. And it was because I let my guard down and let my anxiety I just in the words of Elsa, let it go little bit. Yeah. And I think sometimes we can't listen to our inner voice and our inner intuition, when our levels of high-functioning anxiety are constantly like, what are people going to think of this or that when that inner critic is getting really loud, it's harder for those things to get in.
I tried to find strategies for myself and for our students to get around some of those perfectionistic tendencies.
Nancy: Okay. Because there's, I think the idea of a couple of things, I like the idea of the consistency in the sense of. But what bugged me about the Elizabeth Gilbert was like, it was just seemed like obviously the title of the book is big magic, but it seemed like I could sit down and get an idea and just write it.
And it would be amazing, but it, that consistency piece, the curiosity piece and the consistency piece are also because that those were big factors in writing my book. Like that I had been writing for years that I had a lot of curiosity about the subject that it wasn't just like all of a sudden, I just woke up and got inspired to write something about chemistry.
When I hadn't done anything in chemistry ever, it was, this is something that inspires me. Let me write about it. Something I'm curious about, let me write about it. So I like that idea because that's what lets your guard down. Totally those two steps.
Beryl: other two, because it's our creative coaching methodology is four CS.
So curiosity is that first one. And then we talk about commitment, curious, and you write all those ideas down. What are you curious about? Which one are you willing to commit to? Because sometimes our moms come forward and the camera's the way in, but they're like, wait, what really? What I want to be doing creatively?
This, I want to build this business, or I want to write this book or I want to do this other thing. That was a surprising thing for me, because I started my business out of this traumatic experience and how photography helped me heal from it. And I think I was surprised. I was like, no, I'm a photography teacher, but then all these women would come in and they pick up their camera and go, but no, wait, there's these other creative things that I love to do.
And so I think that commitment piece. Especially, when you have high functioning anxiety, your head just swirls with ideas, like the overthinking is insane. And so I'm like, all right, you got to pluck one of those out of your brain and just try it, let it be an experiment.
Nancy: It's hardest part.
Giving yourself that permission.
Beryl: I know. I say it like it's so easy. Let it be an experiment. Yeah. Easier said than done. So it's curiosity, commitment, and then connection. How are you going to connect to that idea? Because you can't get to a place of being consistent until you figure out how you're going to connect it.
Yeah. So I'm sure for you writing your book, it was like, do you need a specific place to write your book? I know when I've written my online courses, I had the one coffee shop where it was like a ritual. What was my ritual? I would go to the coffee shop when my daughter was napping and I would write there, and that turned into a habit that I could do consistently.
Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, that brings the methodology full circle. Those are the four c’s that we go over
Nancy: So curiosity, commitment, connection. Consistency. Nice. I like that because it was funny that the commitment piece and the experiment piece, I wanted to say I always trying to find the perfect, even though I say there is no perfect system, I'm still trying to find the perfect organizational system constantly.
It's like my personal quest. And finally somebody said to me, pick one and stick to it. Pick one instructor for a year. And I was like, whoa, like that seemed, that's a big commitment. And so I decided to pick one in, but what it opened up my mind to was like, there is no right answer here. All there. It's not like I'm constantly afraid to pick one.
Because I might pick the wrong one. That's what I get stuck in. But then I'm like, you will know what's the wrong one until you. Commit to it and do it for a while. Yeah. So I gave myself, so I picked, I was, I picked us to do paper and I gave myself six months, and then I, and I've been tweaking it as I go.
And, it's been hit or miss, but the, that was the first time when somebody said to me that's why, like how you have commitment and it's an experiment that I can say, okay, every day I'm going to show up and, photograph blah. But that's my commitment and it doesn't matter if there's no right way.
Beryl: I have this story from our mom tography community when I started teaching and there's a lot floating around and photography spaces of do a 365 project, which is taking a photo a day for a tire year or do a project 52, or here are these photo prompts for the month that you should photograph.
I didn't want to do those in my head. For a very long time, like it just made my skin crawl and I started to ask myself why it was totally because of my high functioning anxiety. I would start a 365 project and then I'd miss a day and I beat myself up for missing a day. How am I going to make this day up?
How can this project still be perfect? It's not perfect anymore. So I finally, then actually my husband got in on it. He's if you can't do it, I'll do it. So he did a 365 project when our daughter was a year old and he actually finished, he did all 365 days with his phone. Look, I did it. I'm like great.
Nancy: And he didn't miss a day. He did it perfectly.
Beryl: He probably, he doesn't, he has other stuff, but he doesn't have necessarily high functioning anxiety. He falls under another flavor of anxiety. But he probably missed the day, but didn’t care. He just took a picture the next morning or made up for it and didn't beat himself up over it.
But I finally finished one. I was trying to do it like my big fancy professional DSLR camera. I decided to do one with my phone because my phone was always with me. The pressure was taken off immensely. Oh, I can take imperfect photos and still finish this. But like any photo project always felt very constrictive to me.
I don't even know if that's a word constricting. Just because I was like, oh, like it triggered all of them. Perfectionistic piece. Now I have to do this and I'm going to fail if I don't do it the right way. But we have noticed that like our community does need motivation. I've let go of some of my like, oh, I hate photo projects. They're terrible. We do them more now. At momtographer, but we also share, because we have a lot of creatives have high-functioning anxiety, even if they don't know, they have it I'm sure that they exist and would self-identify. And we've shown other ways to embrace photo projects, which is choose a subject you're interested in and see how many different ways you can photograph that subject.
Maybe like you set the parameters, are you going to do it daily? Are you going to do it weekly and do it until it doesn't feel that anymore? And then switch to something else?. I took 30 days. Photos, 30 ish days of photos of like my morning cup of coffee. I called it the, my daily cup project and I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do with these, it was fun.
Because I would collect mugs from different places or I'd take photos while I was traveling and eating or drinking a cup of coffee at a restaurant. I took a picture of my smoothie one day, because I didn't have coffee and I did it until I was like, okay, I'm done. Like this doesn't feel inspiring anymore.
I'm not curious about this anymore. And I got to be in control and call the shots around the project.
Nancy: Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, there's a woman. I follow on Instagram for no reason. But every morning she does a story about her coffee, about the French press. And it's just her doing the French press and pouring the coffee and I watch it every morning.
And she said that she gets so many comments from people that are just like, I enjoy seeing this ritual. And so like when you said that about the coffee, like that's just a cool. Ritual. Yeah. Until it's not. And then you stopped doing it.
Beryl: And I did that, the project when my daughter got older. Because I realized like the things that inspired me about photography in the beginning and becoming a mom and the changes of like your child in those first many years of their upbringing, I was like, oh, there's no more firsts.
And she's at school all day. What am I photographing now? And so I needed to find something just to keep me inspired and motivated to shoot. And that was how that project came to be. It was through that coaching process of what am I curious about right now?
Nancy: And is that just, was that just on your phone or was that with the camera?
Beryl: It was probably a little bit of. Okay. Yeah, I think I just allowed it to be what it needed to be. I know when I was traveling, I didn't really take my big camera with me but I'm sure some days at home, I took photos with the DSLR also.
Nancy: Yeah, that's cool. What so here's a weird question for you because I know you do photography, but one of my big things, that one reason I'm not more creative or do creative projects is because my Monger will tell me it's impractical. What are we going to do with that? Where are we going to put it? Ooh, that's a big one. And so it is, I know for photography that isn't, but I'm just curious your take on
Beryl: Our moms struggle with that too. And I think I struggled with that personally because do, I say that to myself sometimes too.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to pick up my camera today because. Yeah. What is this? What's the purpose?
Nancy: Yeah.
Beryl: We talk a lot about setting an intention for your photography or for your creativity in our community. And that intention can be as big. I want to get good at taking pictures because I want to be able to take my baby's newborn photo and hang it up on a big canvas on my wall.
That was my like initial big personal goal. I want to have a baby. I want to take that photo of myself and I want to not have to hire a newborn photographer essentially. And the moms that are really like interested in photography, that's a lot of their main motivation in the beginning, but that motivation can also be, I just want this snapshot so I can send it to the ground.
Or, and I think that intention becomes very important. I want to take these photos today because I know I feel good and I feel creative and I feel like I've unlocked something bigger inside of me when I do it. And sometimes we will. Give our students, the guidance of go on a photo walk today, take whatever camera you want to take, whatever pictures inspire you and then come home and delete them.
Like the magic of digital photography is that you don't have to do anything right. You haven't wasted any money on film. So there doesn't have to be a purpose. And I see a lot of parents especially struggle with that. Because, the magic of digital photography is that we can take photos upon photos, but then you have 30,000 photos sitting on your phone or on your computer.
And it's what do I do with these? I resisted it. Printing photo books for a long time because of my mom, they're going you have to do this perfectly. You have to use all the photos. How are you going to use them? I didn't have the struggles. Some of our community will come forward and say, I don't even want to open this folder because how can I delete photos of my kids.
Nancy: OH, wow. Yeah.
Beryl: There's a lot of guilt and anxiety and throwing photos away. And we've tried to take on the Marie Kondo methodology of photo spark. Do you really need, do you really need 15 photos of your child making similar poses? No. Like it's okay to delete those, right?
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that there's like a right answer, but I know that setting a personal intention helps.
Nancy: Yeah. That makes sense. Because I think you, because that's what my husband will say. We don't need another painting hanging on the wall.
That's just crappy. My office is covered with paintings that he's done. That I just think are amazing. Because I think just doing the creativity is amazing. But I, but the intention, and when I think about me sitting there doing that painting that I loved when we took that class, then I can tap into that intention oh, that was worth it.
Beryl: It's funny that you say that because I don't go to a lot of the paints. Because I'm like, where am I going to put this thing? Once I paint it, I have no idea where it will go. But there is something about the practice and the act of doing it too. And how that's yeah. And how you feel when you go do it.
Nancy: I think it expands. It's a bypass. The creativity is a bypass around all of that perfectionism and people pleasing. Like when you can get into the zone of, concentrating on taking a photo, that's interesting to you for no other reason, then that's just bypass it. It's training your brain to do it differently than it has to be perfect.
And, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that crap that the monger spews forth. Totally. Which is yeah. Which is awesome. Ah, this has been so cool. Thank you so much.
Beryl: I feel like you, and I could just keep going and go. I know for hours, we won't make your listeners that
Nancy: no, but I, because I just feel like we just dabbled and hit a lot of topics that I have not hit yet on the podcast, as far as parenting and the generational stuff. And then also just tapping into that creativity, which I think is such an important part, but it is helpful to talk to someone who knows how hard that is to do and who is still figuring out ways to do it.
Tell me how people can find you and what you're working on over.
Beryl: Totally. Can I issue a challenge to your listeners? That'd be fun. Okay. So we have a project it's our signature project at momtography, it's called the a hundred steps project. And this project stemmed out of my own like perfectionism and lack of motivation to go photograph.
And I was like, all right, I can get up off my couch. I can take a hundred steps. And I can find joy and appreciation and like right now and shift my perspective. And so I tell our community, go stand at your front door or wherever you can pick a starting point wherever you want it to be walk a hundred steps, find a way to make a photograph in the place that you're standing.
Wow. Yeah, because it, you have that like, all right, I have the guidelines, it's a hundred steps, to do that. But I think it also forces you to think creatively and to get out of your head and you don't have to do anything with that photo besides just we would love to see it. So if you go find us on Instagram, it's momtography CEO.
That's how you can follow me on Instagram when you can tag me and hashtag momtography and then our website is momtography.club.
Nancy: Awesome. I really like that. Because like you said, it has rules. And a challenge. Like it's a mix of both.
Beryl: Yeah. So hopefully it'll help some of your listeners go for your listeners that are moms.
It's really fun to do with your kids too. If you can get them to go with you. Oh yeah.
Nancy: That's a great idea. I love that. Thank you for just that. I'm going to do that. When we hang up on my way down to get the laundry, I'm going my steps and see where I left
Beryl: it.
Nancy: Awesome. Okay. We will link to it, that stuff in the show notes, we're also going to link to the book that you mentioned about the ADHD that changed everything for you. And thank you for taking the time to do this. Thanks for having me.
For the record, I did practice the 100 hundred step challenge and have practiced it multiple times since so often I hear these challenges, but I never put them into practice, but I did.
As soon as I hung up from our interview, I tried it and I've done it a few times when I've been stuck or feeling particularly Mongery, it's a fun way to get out of your head. See the world differently. I challenge you to try it.
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