Listen in by clicking above or watching below
Welcome to Gentle Musings, a podcast for sensitive, creative people finding their way through this WORLD and living out loud—living life as your imperfect, wonderful creative self from the inside out.
I’m Maggy and I’m the founder of Regarding Dew, a creative research studio where I offer creative coaching and courses on writing and living a creative life. If you consider yourself creative to your core, a deep-feeling or sensitive person, if you’re someone who carries creative longing with you and creative resistance—creative resistance as significant as your creative longing—you’re in the right place! I’m so glad that you’re here.
In my home, we have what we call our summer den. This is really just the dining room. In the window: our trusty air conditioner who works hard all day and still, on most days, can barely get the room below 84F/28C. It’s the coolest room in the summer and we’ve embraced it like a temporary studio apartment, grateful for our AC unit even with this summer cabin fever (anyone else??!). My writing chair is relocated here, and to my right an old room divider to partition off the kitchen.
One thing I loved about living in Germany was how many doors an apartment had. A door to the kitchen, to the living room, to the foyer. Open and close to direct air, sound, and scent. They removed the extra doors in this place, the doors that would contain the living room and the hall and the kitchen. So we have this room divider. It’s in the style of a shoji screen—very zen, I tell myself as I admire it with an ice pack on my forehead.
It’s in this small room at the height of the summer that I decided it’s time to start knitting again. In thinking about creative piles lately, I couldn’t help but think about my old yarns and projects. I’ve been meaning to finish a scarf made from yarn I dyed myself and I managed to put it off for six years. SIX years, people. To be fair, I moved in this time—back and forth internationally—and most of my stuff was in storage or tucked away for when the days felt calmer. Trying my hand at knitting again wasn’t a top priority.
When I pulled my project out of the bag, a thin cotton bag that I hand-stitched, it felt good to feel the woven pattern and run my hand along the nobly edges. And then I saw the gap! A little window! A moth’s treat… or feast.
For the people listening/reading who don’t knit, frogging is the process of ripping out stitches (get it? rip it rip it). As a beginning knitter, frogging was defeat. A sign of failure. The more I learn from knitters and the more stitches I’ve sacrificed, the more I see frogging as an important part of the creative process.
This little moth feast wasn’t near my needles—less frogging—it was on the COMPLETE OTHER END. I think there are ways to frog from the other end, but I’m starting over.
So this is just one little thing happening in my creative ecosystem and in this process, I’ve been really aware of thoughts of judgement and discouragement. Noticing the thoughts, catching the thoughts, and returning to a more compassionate stance. This doesn’t mean that I don’t feel frustrated and disappointed and regretful of neglecting this project for so long, and it doesn’t even mean that I’m searching for the bright side or well, look at this way… The way that I meet less-than-gracious thoughts in the creative process is by letting them be there. A super helpful practice is to name what is happening. Disappointment is here. Frustration is here. That’s present right now. Those are very real parts of any creative practice.
Deeper than the part of myself that is disappointed and frustrated is the part of myself that’s committed to making beautiful things. I’m committed to creative resilience and compassion as forever practices.
So I hope Mrs. Moth enjoyed her little snack and I’m actually looking forward to beginning again. Also loving reminder to myself and to you if you need it, whether you’re a knitter or not, to keep cloves and cedar and lavender by your woolen items, whether yarn or sweaters or scarfs in the off season.
And because of all of this, I felt inspired to re-read for myself something I wrote called Your Creative Process is Not a Problem. I read this on video before, but I know some people like things in audio instead and I want to have this up as part of the Gentle Musings podcast so I’m just going to re-read it and if you haven’t heard it yet, then yay! I’m glad here you’re here. I’m also filming this to practice being on camera and I might just double post this because it needs to be said, your creative process is not a problem. Alright, here it is.
Click to read:
Thank you for listening !! The dreamy theme music is by Monsieur Mo Rio.
Maggy
💌 Doors are open to THE CREATIVITY LAB!!!
Transform your creative ideas into reality without waiting for permission or getting stuck in resistance. Five weeks of creative accountability so you can make what you're here to make. You are creative enough as you are. Really, you’re in good company. This is your sign to stop waiting to feel "ready enough" and figuring it out alone. You get to be your full creative self without needing to feel like a "real" artist first. Small groups and limited spots filling up. Save your spot here:
☁️ Pay-what-you-wish 1:1 creative coaching sessions
Move through resistance, perfectionism, and creative fear that keeps you stuck. Deep support in becoming more fully yourself—gently, creatively, and in your own way. Summer only, ends 9/22.
Both of these offerings are great for if you’re working through The Artist’s Way, working up the courage to publish on Substack, practicing being seen in bigger ways, and moving forward on a creative calling that feels too big to hold alone.
