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A podcast about creativity as the path from surviving to thriving. Real, authentic, and unfiltered conversations surrounding the creative act—daily practices, small moments, and bold leaps that cultivate a better life.
For those of us who've mastered survival but are ready to do more than just get by. Hosted by Jon Murphy, PMHNP-BC—exploring how embracing creativity in ways both small and large becomes the bridge from enduring to flourishing.
Disclaimer:
This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice or treatment. The views expressed are my own, drawn from clinical experience and personal perspective. If you're in crisis, please seek support from a licensed professional or emergency services.
Survivors.
Welcome back to Survival Notes.
This is Jonathan Murphy,
psychiatric nurse practitioner,
and this podcast lies somewhere in
between creativity and adversity.
I'm not sure if I figured that out yet.
But it allows me to be creative
in a way that is spontaneous.
So spontaneous creativity.
What is that?
It's a blank page.
You start writing things down
and you try to push away that
negative voice in your head.
I've talked about this before, and
here I am talking about it again,
but this is what keeps the faucet on.
If you want to know how to create.
You need to know how to
turn on creativity, so how
do you turn on creativity?
You have to find something that you can
do repeatedly and make it very small and
do it consistently, and make sure that
thing that you do is going to be something
that exposes you to the opportunity
of stream of consciousness Thought.
It can include writing, it
can, be talking like I am now.
It could be playing music,
it could be taking pictures.
It could be making art, it
could be painting, it could
be a variety of other things.
But what we're able to do in that
moment is channel our emotions.
If we can channel our emotions.
So not push past frustration,
but rather use our emotions to
channel that creative process.
We might find a way to grapple with
grief or boredom or frustration or
sadness or loneliness or whatever it is.
Instead of cringe or start
binging on Netflix, we go to
the page and we write a poem.
And that poem comes from a
place of our emotional center.
It's good to have a release
of your emotional center.
We're not meant to
internalize our emotions.
We're meant to use them as a guide, and
that guide tells us things where to go.
You know, that guide will be real
quiet when we're doing the right thing.
Not, you know, there's not a lot
of big emotions , and I think the
problem here is the word emotion
is confused too often, so I'm gonna
come up with a new word right now.
So we want to move toward emotion,
but most people don't feel emotion.
What they feel is stress.
So let's call them stress feelings.
Okay, we'll go with that for now.
Caught up in the stress feel and
that makes people scared of emotions
'cause that is not enjoyable.
What's so great about anxiety?
So it has to do with when we felt
stress, were we connected at all?
And interestingly enough.
When I was growing up, I really
wasn't connected, but I found
my way out through creativity.
So that's why it's so easy for me.
But I understand that I'm not your
average bear, but lately I've been
creative in spite of the world,
and I see the value in that and
I know what I'm uniquely positioned
to do, and I would say that creating
content online in the manner that I
do it, which is alongside my clinical
work, it's a, a shift in the normal
way of doing things, but I'm adapting
and finding my way because I was
never gonna make it in this field.
As a therapist and nurse practitioner
because it required me to switch
states of mind too frequently
and too often, and too jarringly.
So you're going from clinical
mind, openness, connectivity to
paper, punching, clicking on
buttons and knobs, having to do
things because of the system.
So we have responsibilities to
maintain, so you have to figure
out a way to get through it, but
ultimately adapting and creating.
And now here I am a few months later
and it's all built, and now I can
reshift focus and hopefully inspire
you out there to talk about creativity.
Is it something that you struggle with?
Is it something that is easy for you?
What does creativity mean to you?
Sometimes people are afraid of creativity.
People that are afraid of creativity,
they have a fear of expressing themselves.
So being open is too threatening.
If you're gonna be creative, you have to
accept that people can put you down and
they can throw tomatoes right at you.
But it's okay.
You have to be good.
But it's just simply the process.
It's all about the process.
So I know what that process looks like,
but other people can look at what I create
and they go, whoa, you did all that, but
I could look at your stacks of emails
and your stacks of Excel spreadsheets.
Your sort of Tupperware is
lined up for your meal planning.
I could look at all that and
be like, how'd you do all that?
Just different strokes
for different folks.
But if you are the creative kind or
you yearn to be, then you know, I just
wanna make this podcast kind of looming
around that central tent pole because
it's so necessary to talk about for me.
I really wanna have conversations and
discuss it and discussions move around.
This awesome thing that we do is
create and express ourselves as
a source of healing and a source
of joy and feeling in the moment.
So here I am checking in with you
now and I'm asking you to do it.
So here's where we are at
the Compass Point Institute.
We got the Compass Point
Institute Podcast Network here.
Got three podcasts on it.
I host two of them.
we talk about toxic family systems,
this podcast, survival Notes, and
then James Kennedy and I host the
Compass Point Institute podcast.
Then we have the YouTube channel.
And the YouTube channel
is now gonna be shorts.
You know, the algorithm.
Is a tricky little beast to play with.
It's probably hard to imagine what is
going on with all that algorithm stuff,
but creating in the , modern age, in
the modern era, creativity in the modern
era, it asks certain things of you, it
asks you to, to speed up the process.
It makes you look at your wonderful,
precious art and suddenly realize
maybe it's better to just.
Get it done, and I really appreciate
the opportunity to refine my process
with making little shorts on the Compass
Point Institute, YouTube channel.
And uh, yeah, I think we're gonna
continue to do some really awesome things.
And then for the long form content,
I'm going on my own merry way.
I'll be launching my Focus Path
YouTube channel, and I got some really
great long form educational content.
I'm excited to teach to you.
Habit formation complex,
C-P-T-S-D boundaries.
A lot of good stuff coming, so stay tuned.
Thanks for listening to Survival Notes.
Why don't you go ahead
and check out my blog.
That is my Focus Path blog, and
until next time, keep thriving,
keep surviving, see you next time.