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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
I was so identified with being resilient and so wanted to rise to the occasion and meet the expectations and and meet my role and handle what I was supposed to handle that when I started to feel like the wheels of my capacity coming off, it so deeply threatened my identity of being resilient that I just kept like I actually had a a somatic experience of like turning on a generator in my body.
Kate Northrup:Hello. Today on the podcast, I have the woman who was my coach while I was writing Money, a Love Story when I was like 27, 28, 29, somewhere in that range. She helped me so much at that time and then we became friends. She was at my wedding. We have voice memoed back and forth over over a decade since that time.
Kate Northrup:We've had parallel paths in a lot of ways and in this conversation, conversation, you're going to hear the incredible story of how she gave herself permission to go into creative recovery and birth the most incredible one woman show. And in this episode, we talk about taking our cues from the seasons. We talk about cover crops. We talk about marriage and money and the illusion of breadwinning, which was a pretty poignant moment for both of us, and what it's like to be a little bit much in the world. So enjoy this episode with the absolutely incredible, Sheila Davidson.
Kate Northrup:Welcome to Plenty. I'm your host Kate Northrup and together we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy. And to have abundance on every possible level. Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty. Let's go fill our cups.
Disclaimer:Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrup or anyone who works within the Kate Northrup brand.
Kate Northrup:Hey. Hi. Welcome. Thanks. Thanks for coming all the way here.
Chela Davison:Oh, thanks for having me.
Kate Northrup:My god. I'm so excited to talk to you. It's lovely. That's great. Okay.
Kate Northrup:So because folks listening don't know this, you were my coach when I was 27. And that's been a while. That's a long time ago.
Chela Davison:We've known
Kate Northrup:each other a really long time. You coached me through the year. I was writing Money, a Love Story. Yeah. That was so fun.
Kate Northrup:And you are, what do you call it in that form of integral coaching, the invitation of where you're going?
Chela Davison:New way of being,
Kate Northrup:thank you. Yeah, welcome. My new way of being was taking my seat, which I feel like just this year. Mean in many ways I've taken my seat since then, but there's been some new stuff just at this time. I think that's an interesting thing about being over 40, and finally being like, oh wait, I'm not new.
Kate Northrup:Okay. I'm curious for you, you've had a lot of different meanderings since then and evolutions of your career and your business, and we'll talk about those, but I do want to know for you, have you found since turning 40 that there's a level of like, oh, here I am.
Chela Davison:Yes. Yeah. And it's weird because I would say, like when I look back, you know, my husband will always be like, I don't I still don't feel like a grown up. I mean, is a grown up man to me, he's like, nobody feels like a grown up. And I'm like, I have felt like a grown up Really?
Chela Davison:Since I was Oh yeah. No, I never felt new. So it's an interesting through my twenties I felt, yeah, I felt mature for my age, I felt solid in what I was doing. In certain ways, since turning 40, I feel less solid. Cool.
Chela Davison:In in very cool ways. Yeah. But yeah, it's interesting to think back and go, like, I actually always felt pretty right here with what I was doing, but since turning 40, there's kind of a like, oh this can actually be way more fun. So there's almost like a throwback to a youthfulness that love threw my so much, Scott.
Kate Northrup:Also because we started our relationship only by phone when I was your client, I almost said your student, but whatever, same thing. Whatever. I just assumed you were significantly older than me. Oh yeah? And then when we were ending our coaching package, somehow I realized that you were two years older than me, or three maybe.
Chela Davison:See, it's my old vibe.
Kate Northrup:I was like woah, I would call it a wisdom vibe.
Chela Davison:Okay thanks, that's way better.
Kate Northrup:You do not have old vibes at all. And in fact, I will say when you refer to yourself as a midlife hag, we'll get to that. I'm just like, that's not how I experience you
Chela Davison:Oh, thank God.
Kate Northrup:At all. And I'm curious about that Okay, well I'm putting a pin for pounding back because I really wanna come back. I really wanna come back. So you have felt like an adult from the time you were a teenager.
Chela Davison:Yeah. Maybe even younger. I mean, had I had seeds planted, and I'm sure we'll get to this when we talk about the show and all of that, of the stories that were told about who we are and what we start to identify with. And so I always had these nudges or ways of being related to as an old soul. Right.
Chela Davison:Or, you know, having wisdom or By your
Kate Northrup:parents, by other people in your community, by teachers. All. All.
Chela Davison:I was always precocious, outgoing, said things that maybe you weren't supposed to say, but not in an obnoxious way, but I also in was kind of paying attention in attuned kind of way. So I got this messaging that I saw things. Uh-huh.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Helpful, harmful, somewhere in between?
Chela Davison:I would say mostly helpful. Mostly helpful. Yeah. I think there were definitely ways that I picked up responsibilities that over time that calcified into some heaviness, but overall helpful.
Kate Northrup:I mean the reason I ask that is because our nine year old is very with it. Very. Like she's ready to run a small country. And if it were societally appropriate, she's ready also to babysit. Like much small you know, smaller children.
Kate Northrup:And I tell her, you know, how smart and with it she is. And as someone who was also very smart and with it as a child, I'm just curious, like, other people's experiences, like, is that useful for children to have reflected?
Chela Davison:I think so. I mean it was for me. It felt empowering. I felt like I could go do things, that I would be capable, that there would be people who were at my back as well. I think there was a way you know there were times when my mom was like, I didn't really know how to parent you because you just kind of parented yourself.
Chela Davison:But then she was there to fall back on, so it was like a sweet balance. I think the risk is knowing when you don't have it together, when you're not with it. Because I also hit like a lot of success markers early on. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Right, because you started your salon when you were 19. 19, and ran that very successfully for how many years? Eight years. And then you sold it?
Chela Davison:And then I sold it?
Kate Northrup:Yeah. For like you
Chela Davison:sold it? Good chunk
Kate Northrup:So you sold your first company for a good chunk of cash when you were 27.
Chela Davison:Or 20 Somewhere in there. Whatever, seven. Yeah 27, a year after I had my first son. And then my marriage broke down within a couple years of that, and so that experience even, I had enough money for multiple years I had multiple years income, so I retrained in coaching. I was a single mother.
Chela Davison:I was able to support myself and my son. Like I had a lot of experience of being capable with it, successful, And so in certain ways, I identified as being very resilient. And as things unfolded and got more complicated, as I hit things that were harder and more challenging and couldn't just make shit happen in the same way, it was really disorienting and confronting So and I think that for our littles, for us, for our little ones, to also be able to know that being with it, and being bright, and being capable is a part of who you are, but it's not all of who you are, and it's also okay to be vulnerable, to not know, Yeah. To ask for
Kate Northrup:to raise the flag and be like, I'm drowning here. When was a moment for you when you realized that you could have raised the flag and said I need help, but you didn't for longer because of that identification as capable?
Chela Davison:I would say there were a couple of times, sometimes we need to learn things more than once, both of which led to some significant burnouts. So there was a period of time from 2014 to 2018ish in there where I pivoted from having my coaching company to I was the president of Integral Coaching Canada. You may remember this. I was Thank you. Teaching, coaching, traveling for teaching, and was in some succession leadership succession planning.
Chela Davison:And I was so identified with being resilient and so wanted to rise to the occasion and meet the expectations and and meet my role and handle what I was supposed to handle that when I started to feel the wheels of my capacity coming off, it so deeply threatened my identity of being resilient that I just kept I actually had a somatic experience of turning on a generator in my body. Like, I would just try to generate more energy. It's like, there's more where that came from until there wasn't. And, I mean, this is where a joke started to come into our home where my husband would be like, it's like you get up at 4AM and start sipping on the workahol. Like if I can hear you in the middle of the night pacing, I'm like, Okay!
Chela Davison:So there was like, yeah! He's very funny. He's a very funny man. So that was one, and then I would say there was a period where there were a number of losses. My husband had a number of family losses, death in his family, which flanked both sides of us getting married and having a baby, and buying a house, and it was just like one thing after another thing after another thing.
Chela Davison:And in so many ways, it was like all these dreams come true, but the weight of them was a lot. And then the responsibility I felt to feeding the whole ecosystem that I said I wanted, that I had grown, that I had pushed for, was just way too much.
Kate Northrup:So what did you do? Well
Chela Davison:I sipped on some more alcohol.
Kate Northrup:I just know that there's people listening saying like, oh god, she's describing my life.
Chela Davison:Well I pushed for too far, too long for too far, or too far for too long, and then I started to hit a wall where I looked around and I went, who am I willing to disappoint to get my life back? And who am I willing to let down to let get my life back? And the first person was me. And it was like a series of choices, So I pulled right back in my company, I let go of team, I stopped running things that I was running, I reclaimed my creative life force. I just said no.
Chela Davison:I stopped doing things. I wintered. Now I look back, and I can actually look back on it with a romantic sensibility. Again, my hilarious husband will say, Wow, you have this twentytwenty vision. He'll even say in times of crisis, Don't worry.
Chela Davison:In a year, you'll look back at this as the best time.
Kate Northrup:So it was the best time. So there was a time in there, and I can't exactly remember timelines, but I do remember one conversation we had after a very long time of not talking. I do happen to know it was the 2019 because I was somewhere about to do a speaking gig, and I was calling you because I was on West Coast time. I mean, East Coast time, but I was on the West Coast. So I was up early, you're an early riser.
Kate Northrup:And we talked, and then there was some other follow-up conversation around that time when I was on some windy road. I don't exactly remember, but you and I were having this semi parallel but different experience in our lives where we were feeling overburdened, under resourced, probably I'll just speak for myself, I was feeling really resentful, particularly around Mike, particularly around the business. I was caught in this identity as breadwinner and feeling really annoyed about that. And we talked, and you were having a similar experience. Was that in that
Chela Davison:time period? Would say my resentment unfolded after that time. So it was close to that time. And and by my resentment meaning what I found so fascinating about that conversation, and what you just named, particularly around Mike and breadwinning, is I remember you saying in that conversation, it's interesting. We're having it's like externally or objectively, we are in very similar circumstances.
Chela Davison:Owning our companies, breadwinning, young children. But our stories about them were really different. And at that time, I had which it wasn't until I started to say it out loud in therapy that I was like, this is fucking absurd. But at the time, so we had an agreement and a dream that Andrew was going to take an extended parental leave, and he's like always wanted to be a dad, he is a total nurturer, and I wanted to be able to go back to work, and I had all these identities around not having to give up my career and all those things. And at first it was like a dream come true, and then it started to be really really hard, and I was so depleted, and things weren't just I didn't have the same as it goes.
Chela Davison:And in that conversation, what I remember going, oh, is I had this belief, because he was also doing his master's at Harvard at the time, and if I couldn't pay for all of our living expenses, having just totally stretched to purchase our first home, which was not much of a starter home, pay for him to go to school, pay for any childcare in addition like, if I couldn't if I couldn't do all that, I was failing.
Kate Northrup:Oh, yeah.
Chela Davison:And and now I go, that's just like completely unreasonable. But at the time, it was like, not only did I have this resilience identity, I had like a I can make shit happen identity. And I can be of service, and I can be joyful in it, and if I'm not having a good time while doing all of that, I'm also failing. And so all of those were like making things very hard. Mhmm.
Chela Davison:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:I mean, hilariously, given the name of your show, it's too much. It's too much. It's a little bit much. It's too much.
Chela Davison:Yeah. Can I ask you Of course? Okay.
Kate Northrup:Know we're but like, I'd rather Great. Have a
Chela Davison:for you in that time, because I remember that conversation, and you saying in, oh, interesting. We have these different stories, and I'm in resentment in, like, what it would mean if you loved me as my partner, and how that would shift things. Yeah. But we've also talked about the illusion of breadwinner
Kate Northrup:versus I know that Mike is listening right now because he is such a sweetie, and he listens to every single podcast episode, and so I just want you to know, Mike, this is healing in action right now. Because I was talking with Shayla before we started recording about this resentment around the identity as breadwinner, but how Mike and I have had many follow-up conversations where he's like, okay cool, and also here are some literal things that were going on financially that due to your identity as essentially downtrodden breadwinner, you were not able to see. And that's the thing about identity.
Chela Davison:That's the thing. It's what's in your view, what's out of your view. And Andrew and I, because he may or may not listen to this,
Kate Northrup:who knows? Who knows? But once I tell him I talk about his ass, he probably will.
Chela Davison:The number of conversations we have had about, well, guess downtrodden, like, oh, I guess I'll pay for
Kate Northrup:that. Right.
Chela Davison:It's like very martyr y. It's very martyr y, but here's the thing that really kind of blew something open for me that was fascinating around enculturation, or how we we take the dominant narratives of culture, because what it felt like Andrew and I were consciously doing and continue to consciously do is really go, okay, what are we both called to? What is our life's work? What is our family work? How do we want to show up as partners?
Chela Davison:And how do we want to do that that is within the norms or outside of the norms? And so there are a lot of ways that we've challenged traditional gender norms, and I identify as a feminist, and part of that includes how he gets to show up as a care worker and as a domestic partner, and he is amazing as a domestic partner. But what I started to notice during that time, at first, until I started to feel really burnt out, I felt so supported in being able to pursue my call in how he was showing up in the home. And then over time, I started to value that I earned money more than what he was contributing to the mental and emotional labor. And there I'm it doing more.
Chela Davison:And it was super diminishing to his contribution, which was incredible, which I asked for, which I wanted. And so us in our healing, in our endless therapy,
Kate Northrup:and many other things that we have done to be in
Chela Davison:a very delightful spot in this moment, is is actually unpacking that, and how those unconscious beliefs that I had, that he had, how they impacted how we valued me, how we valued him, and actually I was in a place of ending up resenting and diminishing his contribution in ways that I would not have fucking tolerated in the opposite direction.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Isn't that wild? Yeah. You know, hello. The patriarchy is inside of us.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. All of us. All of us. And the moment we start pointing fingers is really like that's just a PSA. That's not for Chela.
Chela Davison:I think pointing fingers, or just any resentment at all, you know, I think that that's part of what we started to really unearth and work with over time, is like, if there is a resentment living in us, what is that about? And how do we actually process it and move out of it? Which I feel like we've really, I'm really proud of us.
Kate Northrup:I'm so proud of We you talked during some dark times.
Chela Davison:Yeah, we did.
Kate Northrup:Speaking of what is birthed in the darkness, because all everything, all the best stuff comes from there, comes from the times when we think we're not gonna make it, comes from the times when it's just so constricted and so contracted, and it's just like, You have made some pretty dramatic shifts in the way you work over the last couple of years, and in fact, complete identity. You don't identify as a coach anymore. Is that true? What's true? Tell me what's true.
Chela Davison:Well gosh, I mean it's all feeling real fluid right now, but I would say that's a skill I have. Yes it is. It is a skill I have, and I still work with some people. But that's not the my dominant identity anymore. No.
Chela Davison:It's true. And that has shifted through what happened in the dark. Actually, so shall I tell you my story? Please. Okay.
Chela Davison:Please do. Because I'm having so much fun. So when I turned 40, my husband bought me chickens.
Kate Northrup:Did you ask for them?
Chela Davison:I've I've wanted chickens for
Kate Northrup:so long. Yeah. Because I'm like, if anyone ever gives me a living animal for a birthday present, I would be like Well, what was it? It it actually was part of
Chela Davison:my undoing, because I wanted chickens really badly, and so then I got the chickens, but I didn't have the infrastructure for the chickens, and it was one of those dreams meet reality, and I was like, my desire to homestead in this garden that I'm building and these chickens that I have, it's just one more make work project that I cannot sustain. And then I unraveled, and that was right before everything collapsed.
Kate Northrup:You're a Gemini,
Chela Davison:right?
Kate Northrup:Uh-huh. When's your birthday?
Chela Davison:05/31/1981. Cool. Moon and Taurus Scorpio rising,
Kate Northrup:just in case you Oh yeah. Oh, so nice. Nice. Mike says Scorpio rising too. Is he?
Chela Davison:It's a good one. I I thought I was sad rising for a long time because my stepmother changed my birth time because she didn't think I could be Scorpio rising. That's So much to unpack there.
Kate Northrup:We don't need to starve. We don't need to say that. Yay.
Chela Davison:Yeah. So my mom my mother was like, I am correct about your birth time, and here it is in writing.
Kate Northrup:Yes, given that I was the one There giving
Chela Davison:does, Anyway, okay.
Kate Northrup:Scorpio rising. So
Chela Davison:true. Which, yeah, really, like, oh, no wonder I like talking about the things I like talking You
Kate Northrup:like the depths.
Chela Davison:I really like the depths.
Kate Northrup:So yeah, you are really also a Gemini. You do it in a really fun way.
Chela Davison:Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. I really feel like this is part of coming into being a middle age tag, which clearly I'm not, but this is
Kate Northrup:Seriously, you're not.
Chela Davison:There's something in that though that I'm like
Kate Northrup:Like it feels permissive for you on some level. It must. It
Chela Davison:does. It does. It And fun. And like, just I just kinda wanna like And it's funny them my way out of shit.
Kate Northrup:True. Yeah. I guess. Yeah.
Chela Davison:Yes. I mean, ask my husband some days. So anyway, I part of the unraveling turning 40 is I've always wanted to write books. Now you wrote a book when you were 27. Good for you.
Chela Davison:I'm not jealous at all. But when I turned 40
Kate Northrup:You helped me, thanks. You're welcome.
Chela Davison:This was part of my reckoning actually, is that I've worked with lots of authors. Yes you have. I've worked with lots of people who have built very incredible, lucrative businesses. I've helped people develop out bodies of work. You've been major behind the scenes.
Chela Davison:I've been major behind the scenes. For
Kate Northrup:you listening, I just want you to know that Chela has been behind the scenes of many of the people that you follow and read and listen to. Yeah, thanks. Then I was like, don't Hello? Where's my Chela?
Chela Davison:Yeah. So I was like, I'm gonna go write a book, and then I didn't. Okay. Because I wrote this show instead, kind of by accident. And there was a course, a friend of mine who's been super influential, T.
Chela Davison:J. Daw, in my writing career, my creative practice for years. He was like, hey, I'm doing my solo show course. He's made a living writing incredible solo shows. Cool.
Chela Davison:And I was like, who has time for that? I do, because I just burnt my life down. And I really wanted creative recovery. I actually wanted something that was so outside of my business that I wasn't trying to turn into something, that wasn't going to be my next thing, and and now it's become my whole life. But it was really the creative process of writing this show, which is now called A Little Bit Much, its working title at one point was Are You There, God, It's Me?
Chela Davison:Existential Angst. Was like one of the most incredible experiences of creating something, because it really came through the dark, and really came from listening to what is this and what does it want to become. So for most things I've written, programs I've created, things I've developed, there's like some vision out here, and then I'm filling in this. For this, every week I had to show up with five new minutes of material, most of the time it was by the seat of my pants, piecing something together. And then by the end of twelve weeks, I had about an hour ish of things.
Chela Davison:And I started to comb through it and go, what is this about? What is it saying? And I ended up spending about two years on this project, and it like, was the most playful, enlivening, healing, reclamative, is that a word?
Kate Northrup:Mhmm. I like it.
Chela Davison:Great. Experience. Yeah. It's been super fun. Wow.
Chela Davison:So creative recovery.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. There's a concept I talk about that's inspired by regenerative farming, which is I think a mutual love I'm that we currently not tending to any plants, but I think you are.
Chela Davison:I am, I am. My garden's a little sad, but I got some indoor puppies that are okay.
Kate Northrup:But you have one. Yeah. They have one. I am currently not personally responsible for any plants. In fact, just before the episode started, I plucked one dead plant off the set because I cannot even keep an air plant alive.
Kate Northrup:But I do love gardening and farming metaphors. So the metaphor is, in regenerative agriculture there's this concept of cover crops, and cover crops are things that are planted that are not to be taken for sale. So they are not commercial crops, they are cover crops, and they are planted to regenerate the nutrients in the soil and to re enliven the humus, the layers of topsoil, so that later on they're more fertile and richer, but the cover crops are just there. And so I'm thinking about that in terms of your creative recovery and creating something that was not meant to be taken to market, at least not at first. And I'm wondering what came up for you as you were doing that as someone who's so good at building things that are marketable.
Chela Davison:Yeah. It was just like a deep relief. It was a deep relief, and it also let me be in emergent ways of playing that felt vulnerable. So first of all, as somebody, even though I'm outgoing and expressive and my career has been in service of people and in service of their life's work. And so to write a one woman show felt so indulgent and super selfish.
Chela Davison:Really? Yeah. It was like, why would like, who do you think you are? But what was interesting is when I went into the course, I was like, oh, I'm I'm with a whole bunch of people who are writing solo shows, and so and it's kind of bananas to think back to that even having felt like a thing a few years ago, but at the time, it was just like yeah. It just felt uncomfortable.
Chela Davison:If I couldn't hook what I was doing to how it was going to be of service, it felt not valuable. We can unpack that in so many ways. And so it just felt, like, really close in, and the different there were so many monologues or pieces, explorations that never made it into the show that ended up being off theme. Some that I would even pull in to share with other people in the group because there was something I could feel needed to be healed through the telling of the story. Yeah.
Chela Davison:But I knew it wasn't gonna stay. So the whole process was like excavation, healing, self expression, play, and then the medium too, like the show itself is, it's a mix of storytelling, but it's funny. It's very funny. Thanks. But it also makes me cry.
Chela Davison:That is now when you say, Do you not identify as being a coach anymore? This is what, if that's all I did, was have people cry and laugh in very short periods of time, like same sentence? That's the dream. There's something that that has done, and now that it is out in the world, it's been this really interesting experience of like, this is for me, I'm letting it heal something in me. I'm I'm reclaiming parts of my expression that in professional context, and I still show up in professional context, and I'm like, not gonna drop c bombs there because I'm a grown up.
Chela Davison:But on my stage and in my show, I can, and I do. And so that's like, is really enlivening, and it moves a lot of creative energy to take risks and play.
Kate Northrup:It's very Scorpio rising.
Chela Davison:It's very Scorpio rising.
Kate Northrup:Have you always been, well I guess you did say that as a child you would sometimes say things that were just bold. My question actually is were you always kind of mouthy?
Chela Davison:Yeah I was. I I was. Was.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Like, you you were just born that way, or did you grow up in an environment where it was encouraged or modeled?
Chela Davison:Both of those things. K. Both of those So in my show, actually, I tell this story, which my aunt and uncle came to the show, and after they said, I remember when that happened. I remember when your father called us and told us what he did, and we were like, you said what? So I made a comment in class when my teacher wouldn't let me go to the bathroom.
Chela Davison:Oh yeah. Where I said, fine, I'll just bleed all over this chair then.
Kate Northrup:Which was like so How old were you when you said that?
Chela Davison:15 or 16? Tenth Tenth grade. So good.
Kate Northrup:It's so good. I was
Chela Davison:so mouthy. Oh no, I was like, I wanted to get condoms in school and do a play about it, and the principal was like, no, and I was like me me me me. And my father, when he was called in to reprimand me, said, you're just gonna have
Kate Northrup:to figure out how to deal with
Chela Davison:her because I'm not gonna squelch your self expression, And things will go easier for you if you work with her instead of against her. And so that was like and my mom my mom's like, I don't love the sex stuff in your show, but I'm so proud of it. Like my That's so funny.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. I don't love it, but I'm so proud of
Chela Davison:it. She's so proud
Kate Northrup:That's of perfect.
Chela Davison:Is perfect. So there's a way that I and I got all sorts of messages that I was too much, that I talked too much, that I was too bossy. Those came from all directions too, but my parents were really really determined to let me be who I was, and to find ways to let that express.
Kate Northrup:So it sounds like the messages about being too much were not mostly coming from your parents. No. Maybe a little bit from time to time, but pretty much not?
Chela Davison:Pretty much not. Pretty much not. Like some kind of, you know, like there was Chela, pull your aura in, your energy is all over this house, that was a staple.
Kate Northrup:Oh my goodness. Know, they'd get overwhelmed and be
Chela Davison:like, god, this is a lot. You know, my stepmom would be like, this is
Kate Northrup:a lot. So
Chela Davison:I'm fucking lot of energy, and so when that, you know, and through my adolescence, all my brothers, friends, none of them had sisters, they were all just like, what is happening? I was a whirlwind of a force. And I started to see the ways that that didn't work or didn't honour people. Because while I'm also that, through my teen years I had friends who were like, we love you being around our parents, and I had other ones that were like, you cannot be around my parents. You say shit you're not supposed to say in front of parents.
Kate Northrup:And I'm like,
Chela Davison:you're not supposed to say this in front of parents?
Kate Northrup:Because at your house you could.
Chela Davison:I could say things. So you're not supposed to be like, oh I lost my virginity last night, or we did a bunch of shrooms on Saturday. You don't say those things.
Kate Northrup:At other people's houses.
Chela Davison:At other people's houses. So there became a point where I started to see what society expected, but I also care. I really care about other people's experiences.
Kate Northrup:Yeah, you're a very attuned person. There are people who are a little bit much who just bulldoze every situation they're in, and they don't actually care. That's
Chela Davison:not me. That's not me. No. And so that was something that I had to learn the capacities to calibrate my energy. Because a lot of the expression wasn't about trying to impact or trying to bulldoze.
Chela Davison:It would just kind of spill out, you know? And so I'm like oh okay.
Kate Northrup:It's like confetti. Yeah, so
Chela Davison:I actually learned energetic practices to expand my being, to contain my energy, to be able to receive people, to make sure I'm not pressing my energy into the space. And having worked for decades in lots of relational spaces, I'm really good at that. So it's like a nice range. But to be
Kate Northrup:able to do that, I don't think most people are able to both ebb and flow in community, in professional spaces, in all sorts of spaces, while also keeping their muchness. And you have. Seem to. And that's really something. Oh thanks.
Kate Northrup:You know, because most people just like it's either they're too much or they squash it.
Chela Davison:Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I, I mean there's definitely times, I wouldn't say it was squashing, but in periods where I wanted to really honor my responsibilities and the people who depend on me, there was a containing in a way that actually squashed creative aliveness. So not squashed expression so much, but like Creative aliveness. Creative aliveness and dampened energy, and really felt like a grind and a slog for a long time. Yeah.
Chela Davison:But not so much suppressed. But definitely working to, I think, big edge for me and one for people who are a lot of muchness. Because one of the interesting things that's happened is since doing this show, people are like, oh, I'm too much too. And it's like, yeah, let's do that. And also, what is our impact on people?
Chela Davison:And people who don't have that, because there are a lot of people who are like, I've always felt like I'm not enough, and I want to take up more space. But how do I take up space when other people are taking all the space? And so that's something that feels really important to me, is to sense and feel who are the people who actually want to come out more, who don't feel safe to do that, and how do we, as big energy people, make it safe and make room and contain ourselves in ways that allow people to feel safe and seen and self expressed? Because self expression isn't just It's not like just explosions.
Kate Northrup:You are the first person who taught me about the Enneagram, and we are both sevens. Yes. And while everybody who is told they're too much is not a seven by any means, I am curious, my own experience of being a maturing seven, as I go through my life, is that there's something around the energetics of being able to sit with my own enthusiasm, my own desire to tell, for example, Mike 35 ideas in fifteen seconds, and hold it but not tamp it down, but also not vomit all over him with my ideas. And I'm curious if you can speak to that in yourself. You spoke to it a little bit, but for example, in the time that you were in that twelve weeks with your friend in this one person show class, whatever it was called, right?
Kate Northrup:Was there a desire to shoot these tendrils of creativity out and turn this into something? Or really, had you developed your capacity to hold your toes to the discomfort of staying and not doing a million things by that time that you could just actually savor the sweetness of letting it be creative recovery?
Chela Davison:Yeah, think I was really able to do that. I was really able to do that for a few reasons. One, could call it a healthy integration to five, which is Okay. An Enneagram What
Kate Northrup:does that mean?
Chela Davison:Five being the investigator, so one of the healthy integrations of seven is rather than chasing experiences, moving into the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing, and having our energy go outward, is an ability to actually focus and go in, and go into depth. Yeah. To prune the number of things, all of that. I'd say during that time though, honestly, I was just too tired to turn it into something. So I actually didn't have that impulse at the time also, that was during the two and a half years that I was not on social media.
Kate Northrup:Oh yeah!
Chela Davison:Which was like very good for When my depth did you go off? I went off in 2021. It was my fortieth birthday gift to myself. And I was off for two and a half years. So that whole, there was just not a lot of noise.
Chela Davison:There wasn't a lot of static. And there was something about the process itself that was so nourishing, I didn't feel like doing something with it. And it kind of remarkable to feel the way I wanted to keep coming back to it. And then I did a couple of readings, and I just kept wanting to come back to it. And it's the probably the longest I've worked on something.
Chela Davison:Like, else I've done from start to to start to birthing, incubation to being tasted by the world, has been very short time horizons. And this one took a couple of years before I got it on stage. And the value of that for how proud I am of it as a piece of work is due to depth work and staying What with
Kate Northrup:do you recommend when folks are sitting in the desire to start something new when they haven't actually followed through on the thing they already began?
Chela Davison:Well, that really depends on the person. Totally. That's a tricky one, because I think there's tremendous value in following where the energy is. Yeah, I think there's tremendous value in that. And in fact, I'd started, like I said, I'd started working on a book proposal.
Chela Davison:Was looking to hire somebody to do that, and then I ended up being like, I'm sorry. There's just no energy here. I'm Canadian. I'm sorry.
Kate Northrup:I'm Canadian. That
Chela Davison:is how we say hello and goodbye. Yeah. I'm so sorry. I'm not gonna do that thing. Yes.
Chela Davison:Right.
Kate Northrup:I'm I'm not yeah. Because you followed the energy.
Chela Davison:Because I followed the energy, and so but I also tried so and I had some deep questions. Is this just a form of resistance to the book? Which I don't which now that I've written the show, I'm in the midst of working very dedicatedly on turning the show into a book proposal.
Kate Northrup:Oh cool!
Chela Davison:Which is really fun, and asking like oh what does it want to be now? Because it's got a whole other entity coming in. It's cool. But I think for folks, you know, if I just put on my little coach hat for a moment, what I've been doing with people for decades is helping to develop capacities to be able to close that gap between our current patterning and the kind of patterning we would have if we could realise the things that we most want to realise. And so for someone who primarily, as a habitual pattern, follows the energy of new, or if we were to talk about regenerative farming language, follows the energy of spring, that there's just more juice there.
Chela Davison:And then before that thing takes root or gets finished, there's a tendency to bounce towards the next thing. That actually creates a lot of creative suffering. Because we don't trust ourselves to carry something all the way through, and we don't ever get to harvest the fruits of our labor. And so if that's a patterning, what I would say is stay with the thing even when the energy isn't there, and learn how to stay, learn how to take your seat. And once you do that, I find, and I've seen in many people, is once you get past the hump because typically the inspiration has we could even call it creative energy, Eros, the way it starts is really exciting.
Chela Davison:It's really magnetic. It gives us a lot of fuel. But then as it starts to get hard, as we start to wrestle, the things, will this be any good? Is it going to come together? Like actually, we want to play with metaphors, actually birthing the contracted period of bringing a human into life is painful.
Chela Davison:There are questions of can I do this, and will I get through this? And those come up in the creative process. Is this a piece of shit? Will anybody like it? It seems so brilliant in my dark cave, but as I start to bring it out, you know?
Chela Davison:So all of those things come up, and if we can't stay with and both know that those questions are normal, stay with the challenges of those, then things aren't going to see the light of day. And so with this show, I went through all of those things, and then I did readings, I got feedback, I worked with TJ, who helped word by word, and then I performed it. And it's still in its infancy. I've only performed it 35 times. It's starting to get traction.
Kate Northrup:Sounds like so many times. I know. Well I remember when I think it's 35. What? I know.
Chela Davison:Well, when TJ first said by your thirtieth or thirty fifth, that's when you're really gonna start to know the show. And I was like, oh, I'm gonna perform this show. So there was a point where I didn't You didn't because when you were writing
Kate Northrup:it, you weren't writing it to perform it. You were just writing it to write
Chela Davison:it. I was writing it to write it. Then I was like, I guess, right. You perform a show after you write it, you know. And after the first time I performed it, I was like, oh, I have something.
Chela Davison:And so there were many moments where while writing I went, oh I think I have something here. And then, oh I don't think I have something here. And then, oh I think I have something here. And then what is this indulgent piece of garbage? And then, oh I think I have something here.
Chela Davison:And then is this just like a flaming pile of dung heat? Oh I
Kate Northrup:think I
Chela Davison:just And so being able to stay with those rides and waves, and get help, and get feedback, and then trust myself. It's been really fun. And now that it's in the world, I've gotten to part of what I've been doing with this, or any creative project, is there's what I think it is, and then letting myself be surprised by what it wants to become. So what it became for me, and then what I've seen it be for others, has been fascinating. Letting people tell me what the show is, and what it means to them, and how it's impacted them, and the diversity of experiences has been so moving.
Chela Davison:I mean that's what art is for. Turns out. Turns out.
Kate Northrup:Turns It's for the artist. Yeah. And coming back around to what you said about, oh, is this self indulgent? Oh, it's not explicitly to be in service. I want to dig in there a little bit because in the end you have taken it to stage 35 times and it continue to go around the world, but you did it for you to heal parts of yourself that needed to be healed.
Kate Northrup:And so one could very easily argue that that alone is a service because now there's a more integrated human mothering, wifeing, being a friend, being a coach, being all the things that you are in the world. But then also people get to receive you and receive your stories and they make them laugh and cry. Your show is so smart and so funny and so poignant. And also you say things that I'm like, it not a dissimilar experience to reading my friend Laura Belgrave's book Tough Titties, where I was like, oh, wow, you just said that. That's the best.
Kate Northrup:Because I don't say things like that, but I want to be able to, and so you doing it is very permissive and expansive for me. Whether I will start saying those things or not is to be known, but it's fun to be around.
Chela Davison:Thank you. I appreciate that, Patricia.
Kate Northrup:But I'm curious now knowing where it's going today at this point, what do you think about that conversation about it being of service
Chela Davison:now? Oh it's definitely of service. And what's been interesting is, so as you know, part of what I've been doing in my coaching for a very long time is I play at the intersection of calling, like helping people to realise their calling. And part of why I did this is I was helping people to realise their calling, and I wasn't doing that for myself. And so I felt like a giant hypocrite and totally out of integrity, so I'm like, oh better pivot and do this thing.
Chela Davison:And so what's been so fascinating is to uncouple the belief that somehow being of service is to martyr going back to that, Is to martyr, is to give of ourselves, is like, oh, I've got to work so hard, and then I'm contributing. Like, oh, that's not a very regenerative way of thinking about our contribution. And so what's been really cool is having the embodied experience of the more joyful, the more playful, the more self expressed, the more it's just for me, the more it seems to contribute and make a difference. And it's also just a very different scale, because I'm used to working in-depth spaces and one on one and small groups, and so to be on a stage with hundreds of people, but then have people come and tell me what has happened since, that's been the part that I didn't expect, and I didn't know. And yes, I say things, and I'm like embracing the part that kind of like, yes I just said that.
Kate Northrup:Yeah, totally just said that. How was that for you?
Chela Davison:But it's like, as a craft, I think that's the part that I'm the most excited about, is that when you can say something that is shocking, but speaks to, as some people have described it, that's the thing you think inside but you never say outside, It creates a form of connection and intimacy, and then you have humour, which opens people up. And then you have depth and vulnerability, which connects people deeply in. So it wasn't like I well clearly I did not strategically set out to do that, but now I'm like oh, that's what that's doing. And now as people write to me, a woman came up in a coffee shop and was like I saw your show, and I feel like for the first time I really like myself and feel like I have permission to just be how I am. And we're just like weeping in a coffee shop together.
Chela Davison:My cousin extended her mat leave, another woman finally told her husband she wanted to go back to work, a man came up to me and said, I want to go get to know my wife better, teenage boys have come and said they understand their mother better. It's been a very moving, unexpected experience. And a lot of people are like, wow, it's so brave. Which is the worst I'm like, is it? Should I not have said those things?
Chela Davison:Why is it brave?
Kate Northrup:That's hilarious.
Chela Davison:It was really unsettled the first few times that people told me it was brave. And now I get it, I get what is being said. But it's really encouraging for me, because it makes me want to keep being braver. I think one of the things that can happen when you're in public is that you share something, and if it's vulnerable, and it's real, and it's authentic, and it hits, and then there starts being attention for that. There can be a like, oh now I've got a it's like how quickly Persona wants to come so I feel like my work is to just keep moving that out and looking for new brave edges for myself.
Chela Davison:And because it seems to really help. And the way the world is, I feel like as much honest art as we can possibly have right now.
Kate Northrup:Percent. And also that piece that you said that at least as a creator myself, it makes me feel much more relaxed, is listening for what it wants to become as opposed to setting it out. That's why for me writing a book proposal was torturous because it's this illusion. That I have any freaking idea what it is, right? As though when you're pregnant you're like, Oh I know exactly what this kid's gonna be like as an adult.
Kate Northrup:Like, No, you don't. That's what so many of the structures around creativity require when creation and commerce intersect, Which is why I just really love that you created this to start with for you. Thank you. Yeah. It's really beautiful.
Chela Davison:Yeah. It's it's felt really good. And I I'd like to actually just say something about that for folks who because I think that this piece of art and commerce intersecting, it's been such a journey for me, but it's also been a big journey in the creatives. Like I started a community of practice where we show up and we write together, called the Creative Cauldron because I wasn't getting my ass in my seat and doing shit. So I was like, oh, better if I if other people are expecting if I have to show up for other people, I'll show up for myself.
Chela Davison:I'll do it. In talking with other people too, some of the things that come up around creativity so much, especially for those of us who are online a lot, is what we receive and what we see and what we're taking in, what we're consuming are people's finished products. And we don't see what goes into that, and we don't see what's behind the scenes of that, and we can consciously know that, but it doesn't matter, because when we have that amount coming in, what it feels like in the animal of our body is like, I should just be able to do that. And then what we're measuring is our inner process, what happens in the dark, what happens in the depths, against out there. And so one of the biggest, the quickest way to dry up the creative pussy is to think how is this going to be received, is to be in any kind of performative state in thinking about outcome first, and it's really hard not to do that.
Chela Davison:And so there's like and with the speed of things, it can feel like and I'm in this all the time. I don't have time. I don't have space. Time scarcity is a real thing. I'm constantly trying to push space out to be able to let things take the time they take.
Chela Davison:And that was one of the gifts of this show, is I didn't have deadlines and outcomes, and so it took years. And now it feels like, oh, that happened real quick. That just was a massive transition that happened very fast on the other side of it. But when I was in it, it just felt deep and slow because I wasn't trying to make it into something. And that's really, really hard to do.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. It is. But it seems like it's worth it. I think so.
Chela Davison:And I think too, what I'm worried about even as I'm saying that is that this is you know when you hear people tell a story, it's like, oh yeah, this is like I have an outcome of a show that is well received that is out in the world. And so then it can actually sound like, Oh, go do this thing and then you'll get these results. But the aliveness and the joy and the healing and the pleasure that has come through this process happened before that hit the stage. And to me, that if I can leave people with anything is making art and being creative is not just our birthright, it's a human need. And we have to do it, whether it goes somewhere or not.
Chela Davison:Absolutely,
Kate Northrup:and I will just add to that, that creative expression is actually one of the most effective nervous system healing tools. Crafting, making a balloon animal.
Chela Davison:Those little stress coloring books, I've got
Kate Northrup:a friend who got 11 of those for Christmas one year.
Chela Davison:I'm like somebody's telling you something.
Kate Northrup:That's hilarious. Anything. Making sourdough, making mocktails, whatever. Making a tower out of sugar packets at a diner, it actually, it's really healing. It's just really important for our ability to be here.
Kate Northrup:To give ourselves permission to create whether it is ever seen, experienced, witnessed by another human, whether you ever tell about it or not. It's worthwhile in and of itself because it feels good, but it also is very healing for the nervous system.
Chela Davison:Beautiful, I love that.
Kate Northrup:I love you, Kayla.
Chela Davison:I love you, Kay.
Kate Northrup:Okay, so where can people look to come see your show to learn more about your creative containers?
Chela Davison:Yeah, yeah. Probably my website's a good spot. Great. Chaeladavison.com, and then I have a sub stack, which you can find through my website, and it's called Wizdotainment.
Kate Northrup:Oh yeah! Yeah. That word is so That was the wisdom enthusiasm. I know. I just, when you said Wizdotainment to me for the first time, I think it was in a voice memo, and I just was like, Jaila has created a complete genre fresh.
Kate Northrup:Fresh genre. Fresh genre. Fresh genre. Wizdotainment. Wizdotainment.
Kate Northrup:So good, and the show, I mean, I don't know that I said this, but I loved it so much. Thank you.
Chela Davison:Thank you.
Kate Northrup:It's brilliant. Thanks. Yeah. Just like you. Thank you.
Kate Northrup:Thanks for being here.
Chela Davison:Thanks for having me.
Kate Northrup:Subscribe, leave a rating, leave a review. That's one of the best ways that you can ensure to spread the abundance of Plenty with others. You can even text it to a friend and tell them to listen in. And if you want even more support to expand your abundance, head over to katenorthrop.com/breakthroughs where you can grab my free money breakthrough guide that details the biggest money breakthroughs from some of the top earning women I know, plus a mini lesson accompanying it with my own biggest money breakthroughs and a nervous system healing tool for you to expand your abundance. Again, that's over at katenorthwick.com/breakthroughs.
Kate Northrup:See you next time.