Episode 114 - Finding Creative Flow

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welcome to the liturgists podcast everybody my name is michael gunger on the liturgist podcast we talk about lots of different subjects and we talk about them through lenses like philosophy and science and religion and art and we got a lot of creative people that listen to this show and there are a lot of us who are interested in how art kind of informs and shapes our spirituality and how it's a fruit of it and how it's expressed by it and related to it and we want to talk about some of that stuff on today's episode our guests for today are lauren evans who is a badass singer here in los angeles and my wife lisa gunger who goes by the artist's name these days isa ma and who is also a badass by the way and uh so i talked to these hilarious powerful talented women about how they find flow artistically creatively and how that's related to their spirituality i enjoyed the conversation very much i hope you will as well uh we'll jump in thanks for being here everybody [Music] i've been making noise for a long time i started singing and recording probably when i was about 10 years old whoa my dad was a worship pastor musician guy and you know you just had a lot of connections yeah it was it was cool i i mean i didn't know what the heck i was doing i was just 10 and my dad was like we're going to the studio and i was like okay let's go and so you know uh my dad at the time had a writing partner um named rick thompson who is a part of this band called sweet comfort band just this big christian yeah band from back in the day and um you know he and rick are good friends in fact i grew up calling rick uncle rick and uh so he and my dad were writing partners and so they would write together all the time and so i remember being in diapers at rick's studio and his girls were babysitting me while he and my dad were writing in the next room and so you remember being in doctor i was just about to say yeah that's an amazing i just or she was in diapers till she was very old ten recording were you in diapers which is five she's fine no judgment if you're in dynamics lucy's still in diapers she's five season diapers hey yeah yeah just you know sometimes you just don't feel like taking that trip um so i would like to be in diapers right how easy would that be i was just a burning man and there was a there was a tent that adults could put on diapers and go for that thing again wow yeah sorry keep going keep going i don't want to derail you no it's okay that's special um yeah like go for that thing again go for like the baby life again yeah oh wow i guess back to simplicity i don't know if they had to change it themselves i want to know so much about that because that's it that takes it to another that takes it to another level if you have to do that yourself take care of what happens yeah can you like be a nurse in that tent or like women that will nurse you as well i didn't go full spectrum i opted for other activities and these people weren't geriatrics i don't know oh okay probably not not a lot of geriatrics at burning man that are like feeble hey because you'll die they don't even die burning man yeah yeah yeah that's not the place all right so diapers do you remember being diapers i remember being a diaper and rick's daughters would look after me while he and my dad wrote songs and so um you know it's my dad that kind of discovered that i had this little voice well a big voice for a little kid and um and so i started singing he and uncle rick's demos and um as they were pitching their songs to labels and managers and artists um people would inquire like who is that singing and you know one thing led to another next thing i know you know my dad's driving me all over southern california taking meetings with people who i didn't know who they were i was 10. you know i was a kid and you know i was more interested in like i don't know i was a weird kid i really liked science and like earth science and yes and you know like i used to collect rocks yeah i collected rocks what that's why we love each other that's why we love each other we didn't it's all about the rocks we've never talked about oh my gosh what was your what was your no we don't have to go i'm just gonna keep following trails we gotta talk about finding flow eventually here yes we're gonna flow we're in a flow we're getting oh see we're finding flow there we go we're gonna trip right into it um yeah so you know that's how i started out doing demos for my dad and rick and um and then uh ended up signing a production deal with uh a production duo called buster and siobhani who you know they were known at the time for doing the boomerang soundtrack and uh and uh kirk franklin's stomp oh yeah and uh so they were known kind of in the urban world and the gospel world a few times yeah you did um yeah so uh yeah so i was assigned to them for a couple years we ended up doing the prince of egypt soundtrack they gave me a stage name the whole thing it was super weird in that regard but um that was a huge adventure can you say your stage name wait my stage name at the name was christian christian hated me wait it was a lot well i mean i think part of christian just chris no no like who came up with that um well buster and siobhani did and for me i didn't get it you know i'm like why do i need a stage name like why can't people just know my name oh we want to protect your identity and like okay i'm i'm i'm 13 14 years old i don't know okay so you know they're they're trying to figure it out so was i yeah it's just funny that it was just christian this is christian thought a little bit more about it maybe hey you know but it's fine it was it was fine yeah original but you know but it was funny because i remember like doing performances down in like south america like in peru and people would hear my name and they would laugh because i guess in certain cultures christian is a man's name yeah so they see this little this little black girl christian they're like that's weird [Laughter] but um yeah so that was kind of the genesis of my getting into the music business and it's been a wild ride since then um and so yeah it was interesting kind of being in this space where you know my dad was like i said it was a worship pastor you know he did like all the promise keeper stuff and worked at maranatha music down in orange county for a long time um and i was always kind of stuck in the middle of this thing because i had no interest in doing christian music um growing up because i just thought it was corny oh i i just i didn't like it i mean i had a couple groups that i liked you know but for the most part i just i didn't enjoy it and so i'm just like i don't want to do this [Laughter] and so um but it just so happened that a lot of the connections that we had were you know both in the ccm and gospel world i kind of have a unique angle from there because you know being a person of color you don't really get open doors in ccm very often don't get me going please [Laughter] and so you know so i i was kind of in this unique position you know kind of having access to all roads so to speak you know um but i really wanted to do more like pop r b because that's what i enjoyed and that's what was easiest for me um but because i was so young the and the producers i worked with didn't really know how to make young r b music you know because i was like 13 14 years old like you know most in the pop world especially in in kind of the mainstream world they kind of wait till you turn 18 so they can start sexualizing you and so you know like i was too young to be sexualized um and so they weren't really sure like oh well what do 14 year olds talk about you know wow and um and i wasn't and and i wasn't the normal 14 year old either you know i mean sure i had my i had my moments of boy craziness you're like i know songs about science and let's sing about let's sing about uh yeah that's solar system let's sing about this don't learn synthetic um but also i was really into animals and so i'm like yeah let's sing a song about you know what it would be like living on a farm you know but also like you know i i was too white for the black kids two black for the white kids i was too christian for the secular realm but i was too secular for the christian come on now i was kind of this kind of gray area that no one knew what to do with i don't know anything about that lauren what are you talking about ambiguous we don't know what you're talking about yeah so um yeah and i've actually appreciated being kind of this anomaly you know this kind of weird amalgamation of things that no one could quite put their finger on wow you know i always appreciated it it's not marketable you know at least it wasn't then now maybe so maybe a little more find your little niche now yeah but um yeah and so um that's kind of where i lived and how i got my start so just to be clear you're not in the church world anymore uh it's that's hard okay that's a hard question to answer because i'm kind of in and out of it you know musically yeah like um musically um for whatever reason like church people really love me well i mean you know i'm okay um you're one of the most lovable people i know i think but but yeah so you know and um and so i get invited to a lot of like christian things i have songs on worship albums you know that i've written even as recently as a month ago and we'll get into like the spiritual side and why that's kind of funny to me but um yeah so i mean i don't turn down an invitation yeah because for me you know humans are human especially and money's money and yeah and you know we got to eat out in these streets i don't know guys like i was listening to christian music yesterday i just heard a christian song on the radio on the way over here on kiss fm on the pop station really yeah i was like a christian song it was a christian song on the pop stage yeah lauren daigle song oh yeah whoa she's like everywhere right now yeah i just recently got hip to her yeah yeah it felt good what were you listening to i don't want to say now you guys talk jesus i really don't want to say what i was listening to the first there's two different things i listened to one was one of this a little while ago you're really gonna laugh okay a while ago i was listening to nicole norman who i love love her music and i just i was listening to river god over and over and over oh it's fucking so good oh guys why are you making me answer this you don't have to answer now it's maybe you know it's too far to our old music i'm only offended that you're calling it christian music i know you know well it was quite the old stuff the first time the old stuff i was just like i wanted to go back and hear the sound and i just love i was loving it well you guys do make pretty awesome music thank you i mean my first introduction to gunger was bones that's the first song of yours i ever heard and i was just like oh my gosh this is good music oh yeah i was like this is good music you guys are and he knows you know some stuff i appreciate it i mean it felt good i felt good in my body listening to it yeah and i also was like man we made i like that music we made nice yeah i still liked it that's cool did you have a mirror you just looking in the mirror while you were listening as well kissing myself i was like sticking my tongue out and frenching myself rubbing your face with honey does anybody say frenching that's older than like 12 french exactly i love pinching myself yeah so going back to you saying you you have some songs on these albums yeah so you know um and i don't know for me you know music is music even when i was you know kind of a die-hard hardcore christian person uh named christian named christian to a handful of people um you know even when i was a christian christian named [Laughter] that's a big move that's a huge move sorry you keep interrupting no it's okay um yeah so you know even when i was like a hardcore christian back in the day i never kind of saw a separation like i never understood the sacred versus secular thing like that just didn't register to me because all of my spiritual experiences were all encompassing you know and i had spiritual experiences in any environment that i was in and so um so yeah it's just who you're marketing it to you know really when it comes to songwriting and so um in this case like okay i know the language and i know what's meaningful in this culture you know and so i can actually speak to what is meaningful in this culture in a way that really reaches people you know and i can still you know insert you know my some of my core beliefs into this music even though i may not necessarily agree with the language that's used to communicate it you know yeah um yeah and so you know i i just kind of stay open to whatever flows in my direction [Laughter] all right how about some of your your history yes um his story his her story can we talk about here [Laughter] yeah i think my i've talked a little bit about this before on the podcast uh but my i loved my church upbringing there's a lot that i loved about it and obviously a lot that i uh didn't love so much in retrospect but i always felt like i was a really spiritual kid i would feel god around me all the time even before like i think i got saved quote and co-saved on the sofa when i was like four or five like i remember doing that with my mom but even before that as a kid i just felt like there was always something else that i couldn't see um so as i grew as i grew up i i think i started writing songs out of that um it really felt like i could like hear a melody like floating in the air and it was almost like you just kind of snatched it out of the air i call that fishing yeah i go fishing yeah and so i'd like climb these trees in our front yard and i would like write poetry and write songs and um so that's where that that started for me and it was really like nurtured in the church so i'm really really i'm so so grateful it felt like i don't know where i would be without that um while i'm sure a lot of girls were like they weren't given a voice nobody gave them a microphone to say here sing this thing and that was what was happening to me in my church context the pastor it was uh the pastors of the church were a husband and wife and the wife was i'm sure she's like a strong eight woman and she would be like i was like super delicate fragile feeler she gave me piano lessons and i just i just remember her like putting her hand on my back and being like play lisa oh and she was like like yes and i was so scared [Laughter] but i was like i did like feel an energy like a thing that was like whatever you want to call that transference that she like gave me that made me more confident and and i just banged away on the piano like so so fucking loud drove my dad crazy um and she would just say like sing what is it what is it that's like in your body what do you want to sing and so i learned at an early age to like get out of the head and just sing whatever was coming to me i didn't you didn't think about it i mean at first i thought a lot about it was really uncomfortable but that i felt like that was like the whole practice that the whole spiritual practice in music and in church was like i would see people dancing or playing music and there was something in me that really wanted to experience that flow that i think i could recognize that they were in the uh just letting the body do what it does without worrying and as especially as like a really i was a really really shy kid and also maybe at that time an enneagram too so like all my worth came from what people thought about me so having that practice of just flow on the piano or flow and voice i was was so beautiful like i'm really glad that i got that and i had people encouraging that and that's where my songwriting started coming from but then i i felt like i started trying really hard to write a certain way so i led music in church for a while and um in youth group and it wasn't until like college that i started trying to write like more worship songs the songs that i wrote yeah i would say it was like some of them were just typical songs and then some were about god but they didn't really feel like they had a place in like the secular world or the christian world so i started trying to write worship music and it just didn't it didn't work for me yeah i so like cliche like i lift my hands and worship and praise and adoration and michael would tell me he's like no that's not a good song and i get so pissed that i'm it's so rude but he'd say he's like that's not your that doesn't sound like you you're trying like you know he knew i was trying to write differently than what was in my heart but yeah i think that all of that was like the practice of finding finding the flow and now more than ever i mean it's i'm so much older now i think i've i'm getting into like my entire body that feeling of flow in in my art i think i've definitely felt that at different seasons of my life and i've definitely felt the times where i've tried and it's like i'm thinking so hard about it or trying to make music like someone else or trying to make it marketable like i can tell when i get caught up in the trying and then i'm done with the song and i kind of hate it because i can feel that i'm trying in it but it's the songs that i know have come from the flow that i that my body gets back into that memory of when i wrote it and it's like oh yeah that feels good because it was just flowing instead of trying so hard [Music] it's normal at so many different points in our life to feel like something is getting in the way of being present or happy something stopping us from achieving the goals that we have for ourself or feeling connected to the people that we love betterhelp will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist to help you 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people taking care of their mental health again it's betterhelp h-e-l-p-com liturgists so lauren how lisa did a great job of kind of transitioning us into oh you like that translation yeah it was good well done you're a professional um facing so many gatekeepers that needed you to be exactly one way for you to fully belong in their camp how did you learn to flow and and find your own voice and find your own uh way through all of this these mazes of people trying to make you into one thing or the other yeah i think in a lot of ways um i became a chameleon on purpose um you know after my bout as a well recording artist uh under a production deal i transitioned and started doing demos for people and i had to be whatever they needed me to be oh we're we're pitching a demo to britney spears can you sound like britney spears you know and i i became a chameleon on purpose um and i and and i got to learn like different uh work styles and different arrangement styles and different writing styles and i for me it was like going to school and so for me i'm just like i'm just going to increase my tool kit my palette can you i'm really sorry but i just can you give us your britney spirits how was i supposed to know oh my god something wasn't right here [Laughter] oh my god wow oh okay which is like okay can i just say that's crazy to me oh yeah why why for me i have so many questions like let's get this this makes me it makes me angry actually i'm like let's get this badass black woman to sound you sound way better and this is not like a doubt sorry there's no shame i'm sure you're saying you sound way better as you sing as you sing you're sounding you sound way better than britney spears why weren't you that's my like what the music industry i mean i know why yeah yeah yeah well you know he's white i wouldn't i wouldn't be mad at it you know i mean for me it was you know and and it's interesting this concept of flow i've taken that approach to my whole career in my whole life meaning you know i am not a hustler i am not the person to go you know cold call i'm not a type a personality i'm a nine and so you know i'm more like okay well let's see what happens and i don't want to bother you but you know because i know you're going through this over here and i'm you know kind of regulating yeah but um yeah i've never been a hustler everything i've ever done has been you know word of mouth or people reaching out to me about stuff i mean there might be the occasional time where you know i have an idea and i reach out to people to implement but for the most part i just kind of flow and you know so in that particular season like sure yes you know you know there's a part of me that feels like i'm not done being a recording artist you know in fact i'm i'm in the process of working on an ep now which is really interesting but and it'll be the first music that i've ever released of my own you know like i've been on everybody's projects yeah um everyone from chaka khan to the black eyed peas to armand van buren you know i've worked with you know a lot of really awesome people yeah um and i've you know supported what they do um but i've never done my own project just for my own sake but i feel like it's time for me to do that now but anyway back then i i just kind of i wanted to add to my palette and my skill sets and um because i knew that i could make any sound that i needed to make you know vocally or even writing wise you know having been exposed to so many different styles and personalities you know you know i can i can kind of pull from this reservoir of like okay well these types of songs are structured this way you know but how can i take this structure and infuse authenticity into it and so that you know sure it might not be my particular vibe you know but um but i can still be honest in a vibe that's not my own um so you know i i wanted to be an actor growing up or i wanted to act i was intrigued by the stage i really get excited about it but i never i never took the opportunity to because music always kind of you know was the main thing but um but yeah so when it came to finding my authentic voice and finding flow for myself uh musically initially it was kind of hard because i had been so many people i had worn so many hats and um but part of it for me was getting quiet enough to hear myself again and yeah and and then making myself available for whatever wanted to be said or sung um there is something really special about um that moment when you're fully in your body and you're listening not just with your ears but you know with your inner ears so to speak you know um and you just kind of pick up on what's happening atmospherically and can translate that into sound yeah you know i i was actually in the process of writing a book about it before i started to deconstruct writing a book about flow like hearing it here yeah i was writing a book about at the time it was uh about um prophetic creativity um which i then changed to uh intuitive creativity and then i just put it down because i'm like i don't know if i believe half the stuff i mean yeah that's that's interesting i think so much of flow got like intercepted by power yeah because right like a lot of us growing up in the church were like the prophetic voice was so was was really strong yeah in those circles and and it felt to me it felt really good and there were moments i felt so like you know edified and encouraged and feel like my heart was opening and then like power structures go and people use that oh they realize they have a platform to control yeah and so then this really beautiful thing that we were all experiencing which was flow yeah got intercepted um and so i know i for one like didn't want to feel that anymore yeah and that intuitive thing or the the feeling of like the prophetic or whatever you want to call it we're all just changing we're just changing the name of it because the the prophetic or whatever that's triggering for a lot of us so like the intuitive or the thing that we're hearing it seems like a lot of us are in this uh space season of listening again yeah and so their bodies are coming alive and we can we have the ears to hear yeah because you know like it's that's not something this flow is not something that's exclusive to a christian construct and um because i've seen it happen in hip-hop sessions and pop sessions totally you know where that you know just being able to reach into this unseen thing and pull out something that resonates with someone that's a complete stranger yeah um yeah that that that is a universal yeah thing yeah and i think that's when we to me that's when art really moves me i can see a piece of good art and if i can say like yeah i see how they constructed that really well but the thing that i'm so moved by which i recently saw this with hillary mcbride she's been dancing a lot and dance as an art form has just been like like this thing this last year for me um so she did this thing at wild goose where she started she started her whole i don't i don't want to give this away for when she does this with other people the way she starts is really different and she's in the flow yeah she doesn't start her session with here's this outline that i have which again that's okay but she starts in letting her body flow and that's when i think that's why we're all so impressed with like people who solo well yeah they're soloing and they're in they're in the flow there's a you can tell their brain is they've practiced the scales enough they've practiced the dance moves enough or the painting of the brush enough to know it's just in their body so like when i was watching hillary i'm like she's not thinking about it it's just happening and so when i see a music artist in that setting this isn't there's no thought it's just happening i'm i don't know how many times i've been blown away with michael's soloing because i can i can tell he's his whole body is in it and and feeling it and right and then like not as i'm moving my body right now she's writing like a snake so sexual yeah can i pick up where you were going with that i love that about the the amount of practice that it takes because i was noticing that about both of your stories that you both had to go through some like really uncomfortable places whether you're you know you're in different situations where they tell you to sing like britney spears or at least or whether you have some pastor woman slapping you on the back of me i'm like no these were not natural places for you to go and i think sometimes we can look at the the result of flow we see a master jazz musician or some comic or some somebody that's in the thing that we want to do and they're flowing and you can tell that there's it's effortless um and we're like i see i want to do that i just want to play the stuff i like and flow with it and not be worried about it but that kind of flow is representative of years and thousands of hours of discomfort yeah it's like you have to yeah um like i would love to be able to just flow right now and paint a beautiful painting but i don't even know how to draw like a good circle yeah you don't you know like i haven't spent yeah you do any any any time in uncomfortable drawing places yeah to be able to get the craft down to be able to like get the muscles adjusted um i think about zen buddhism and like flow is basically the ultimate goal of when you're the master is somebody who doesn't think about it anymore yeah it's there's no more thought because if there's thought if there's effort and the body's fighting itself trying to get it to do something that feels unnatural and so if you're in zen archery you've got to fire that bow thousands and thousands and thousands of times before the arrow shoots itself and there's no more thought and so like seeing how flow seems to depend in some way and existing in uncomfortable places for long enough and it seems to like start in simple small ways so like you find you're in a place that's uncomfortable long enough you've been running that one scale for long enough all of a sudden that scale is not that hard anymore and you know so me practicing a lot of hours on the super locrian scale is not that i need that scale necessarily and you very often in my life and you singing like britney spears yeah like in an uncannily crazy good way uh crazy it's not something i hope that i'm gonna hear on your record yeah no that's not my that ability to like hear what britney spears does with her voice and and learn how to control your voice all that bullshit that you had to go through is somehow part of what makes you free to flow it's my dad's fault [Laughter] one of the things because i mean it is is kind of like training for the olympics it's kind of like being an athlete in the sense that i mean not always as disciplined but just in the sense that like for instance if you're a long-distance runner you know you don't train you know on flat ground you know you're gonna train up you know at a higher altitude or underwater you know to build up your endurance to build up your strength to you know get you know get your muscle memory so that when you are on flat ground it's actually kind of a breeze yeah um but my dad my dad when i was little when he realized that i had a gift for singing you know part of my ear training was he would make me what is called a he called we called it a lick tape and so you know cassettes were a thing back then and so um so he would record like all of his favorite wow you know vocal moments from you know aretha franklin donnie hathaway um you know like the best of the best you know daryl coley all these crazy vocalists and you know and he would record it and so that that same riff went on like back to back for maybe like 30 seconds yeah and and then it would go to the next riff and my homework every night was to listen to the riffs emulate them mimic their tone mimic the ver the speed of the vibrato you know and i need i had to know those riffs backward and forward and and to be able to combine them in different in in different ways and so that was part of my training i hated it but i'm grateful for it because it it taught me how to listen yeah you know it taught me how to listen with intent and it's it's yeah it's been it was kind of the foundation of my music training well like as you're talking i'm like i'm gonna do that for emily it's not a bad idea yeah but even as you both are talking it's like yeah i just kept thinking of like this might sound really cheesy but like the rock is here right and you've got the water and the water is like rushing against it against it against it and finally finds that like oh here's where i can flow yeah and here's and it just like expands and starts breaking away you know uh the pieces of rock as it goes and then it finds yeah you're running up against the thing against the thing against the thing and then you find where you can flow i think um yeah for me that's been such a big thing because i i really wanted to sound like other people and i i could kind of do this not not to your degree good lord but i never really knew where i fit because i i wanted to always be like in the folky michael couldn't attest to this like i wanted to be in like the folky band but i would get invited to sing with people like israel and like these gospel singers and i would like i'd be excited but not as excited as i should have been yeah yeah because i mean i was i yeah i was excited but i always felt like i i didn't know where my my place was i didn't i didn't know what my voice was yeah and so i try to do that or try to be like the really quirky or i felt like i was like fluctuating between two worlds a lot and then even it was like last year that i i kind of got sick of how i was sounding yeah um and so i would just go into the studio and i would record a song with like no tact like just like see just to see what kind of sound could come out that i had maybe been suppressing trying to sound like a really pretty girl or like to have this really beautiful voice i was just like experimenting with what was in my body and then i felt like it wasn't until after that because even in that it felt like a trying i'm trying to break out and so like once i could break out which for me i think was finding the hole in the rock yeah like oh i've been trying to like sound like all these other things where is where is the thing that feels natural where is it was me contorting my body i knew how to contort my body to shoot the arrow yeah i knew how to do it sound like that singer or that singer but what just came out of my body naturally what was the arrow just being shot and being really great with whatever that was instead of trying to make it sound a certain way so other people like it but just this is this is this is just the sound that this happens naturally um oh and like what a i could feel my i can feel the difference in how my body settles into what i'm singing um when i'm in the flow when i'm not and it's just like it's it's such a difference yeah but yeah it had to be the years of resistance and the years of being in places that were uncomfortable and learn yeah going going through it it only comes with time yeah right there's it can't be instantaneous no i mean unless you're just like a little genius even but even little geniuses have to practice well yeah to become the geniuses that they could be yeah true like something there's prodigies but then how how far are you gonna go with it yeah [Music] how has your art and your flow with music and stuff how have you ladies seen that interact with your just other ways of being in the world like in your normal lives as i've noticed um we were just talking at least and i was talking about this earlier today about how we're just naturally drawn to musicians yeah like i went to a party recently was a bunch of influential people and the media i just the people i was immediately drawn to nobody knew what each other did for a living river and we eventually found out oh those were the music people in the room yeah yeah so i think that especially i say especially music that's that's our world so but i'm just curious is it how do you guys feel about has music informed how you flow in your normal life or do you flow in music because you are just a flowy person in your normal life how are the two related like between your your religion your philosophies your personalities your music how do you see it all uh relating to each other mind explosion um goodness yeah i don't know i've i've never known anything else you know i've i've never have like i've never had like a quote-unquote normal job i've you know like my whole existence from when i was a kid really has really uh been about music and it is and that's kind of been the nucleus of my my life you know and it's it's been interesting recently um you know i've been really disillusioned with the music business and um and because of that i've been really demotivated musically you know creatively um and so i've been thinking about like okay well what else could i do you know that isn't music that you know wouldn't you know kill me um you know i have been procrastinating with getting my real estate license for about two years i'm sorry i hate hearing that i know because it's like it's like i'm trying to think of a and it's the river saying i've just been thinking about how i don't have to be what can i do aside from being water like what you are like you are so musical you can't even have a conversation on a podcast without singing several things it was like what wow that was amazing yeah you know that's just yeah that's my name yeah and it's such a huge part of every aspect of my life you know because i'm always um observing and you know like no matter where i am i can be somewhere in a conversation and hear a line like oh that's actually a really great song title like oh that would be a really interesting concept for you know for for a song and so i mean i think i will always do music no matter what i do just because that's that's who i am that's what i do i'm sorry i don't interrupt you but no the i just wanted to clarify what's sad about it is not is that the world doesn't compensate you yeah accordingly yeah to your talent yeah yeah and i mean i i feel blessed that i'm sustained currently yeah yeah but i'm a futurist by nature and so i'm always i try to stay about three steps ahead of the curve like okay well you know i don't i'll never stop doing music but just in preparation for you know just being an adult you know thinking like okay well you know practically speaking what what other things can we do yeah you know but even as i've been part of the reason i grew interested in real estate you know besides the fact that you know obviously it's a good investment but um but beyond that is i saw kind of the parallels between um you know real estate investing and music publishing you know and so like my brain is still is still wired for music you know even if it's the business side of music you know like um yeah i don't know i'm i'm forever um [Music] kind of relating to life and the world from the perspective of of music you know whether it's um the actual creative aspect you know and like you know for instance like uh i approach project management just like i would a songwriting session you know it's all about collaboration like okay cool well you have this role you have that role you know um you know how can we all work together in flow to you know push this ball down the field wow yeah um yeah and so music is kind of the grid for how i view the world wow so you've learned like yeah it's like you or what i hear you saying is this practice that you've had for so long now that like just leaks into everything else spills over into everything else yeah i don't know why the word leaks sounded gross to me sounded like pee-pee i mean it flows it overflows that sounds better to scripture yeah luke's works too [Laughter] yeah yeah it's funny that michael says that we do gravitate towards the musicians we were at this like party with some friends and it was funny there were so many like um celebrities there that i got i got nervous like i couldn't i was like i reverted back to my really shy child self i was like i'm just gonna go in the corner and not talk to anyone because i think everyone here is so awesome i couldn't talk to them i think like charlie day was there and i i don't really get starstruck i love charlie day and we talked for a minute and then i think i just looked at him and walked away i walked away [Laughter] didn't say yeah but then i decided i was like i'm either gonna be the really awkward person here trying to talk to people or i'll just stick to myself and so i just went like to the pool with the children yes put my feet in the water but then there was this person in the house with striped outfit on which i realized in that moment i realized i've always had an affinity towards outfits like with shorts shorts and tops that go together [Applause] i just a quick side note i had this i had a sweatsuit what a sweatsuit a sweatsuit interesting when's the last time you had a sweatsuit i had i don't i didn't know there was such a thing yeah like a matching sweatshirt and sweatpants oh yeah i mean i remember the gray ones that we used to get it like what was it mervin's oh my god does that exist is gone sweatshirt sweatpants that match each other it was paints tubes of paint were printed on the sweatshirt and the paint oh we like that and we collected rocks yeah see so the paint like dripped from it was printed like it like there was paint dripping like i have to explain that the guys there was not actual paint it was printed on like it was dripping from the top to the pants i wore it all the time yeah and i love that it was a set yeah so i see this guy at this party that has a set it's a set here's a shirt that saw stripes and the shorts are exactly the same they almost look like pajamas and i was like that guy my body was like you're safe talking to that guy yes i get that okay i get him i get why he's wearing that yeah so i like to go and he looks kind of homeless perfect crazy hair i mean it could probably be like my husband with longer crazy hair and an outfit yeah that's great so i'm talking to him and we're just and he's a musician of course it was like that of course and it just felt like we just started talking about music and it's it's like oh i've if i knew italian i was like there's the guy at the party who speaks italian yeah and you don't it's it's just that comfortability in the body it's like an old friend it's an old friend yeah and you get it you're like yeah on that album when that guy plays oh yeah i know oh wasn't that amazing and yeah like i mean i was i was the kid who i would go in my room and play the same yeah the same song on a tape over and over again and i would sit in front of it i wasn't doing anything else i would sit in front of her i put my dad's headphones on and listen i wasn't multitasking i like listened and i would read the lyrics well uh while listening um i've totally gone off the rails i was seeing the dream within a dream within a dream derivations of like wow where where's she going where's reality where did we start here i don't know i don't know i don't know where we started but it felt exciting it was fun i liked the paint jumpsuits and stuff yeah yeah yeah yeah but i think it's like for me now i think i've tried to live in the other world like i see what other people do and i get really excited about it and i sometimes think i should live in that world like therapy world i love hilary mcbride and we do these we do these retreats and right i love thank you you've been to one i have yeah yeah or like i get i i feel like a nine maybe sometimes in that aspect like i can get excited about a lot of things so much so that i can lose my own flow and like what i'm actually good at yeah and so i can try to be good at what other people do and i'm just trying and then i see the guy in the striped outfit at the party i'm like okay that's the flow i can try to talk to all these other people and it feels good but it's it's like a trine but then just i could just let my body be like what it is just be the weird artist yeah i liked what you said before lauren about listening to your own self this in your own body and i think that takes time and it takes that takes practice and trial and error but yeah eventually you learn to to hear that still small voice indeed um that's like you just you just know what what's natural eventually more and more so um and you don't have to to fight so hard against yourself and that's a really hard journey for a lot of people i think is to actually be able to hear their inside voice their their heart their own heart in a world that is screaming at them what they're supposed to be yeah everybody's always screaming at you what you're supposed to be a culture media your family your friends your religion every your lack of religion whatever it is um is always telling people what how you should fit in and do you guys have any um thoughts or advice about i guess thoughts for yourself invite don't know what everyone wants to hear advice the advice was the advice would be like listen to yourself like yeah but how do you hear yourself i think for me you know when i'm being inauthentic with myself it in internally in my body it feels almost like operation you remember the game you know when you touch the sides you know yeah like i i feel tension in my body i feel uh and i mean it's a different tension than say the discomfort of doing something new you know it's more like an anxiety it it i don't know how to describe it it feels red you know you know and and so you know any time that something feels red you know to me that's my body's way of saying red flag red flag you know turn away this is not the direction for you um and so that's kind of the first layer you know yeah the first line of defense the body's like wrong answer um but then you know i go to the places where i feel the most peace where i feel um yeah like like for me um water does that for me you know whether it's the ocean whether it's a lake you know whether it's some somewhere with a waterfall you know like i if when i'm in the presence of water especially water that's in motion um it'll it it it does something to me internally i feel like it it it's it puts me in sync with you know the universe or you know with um it just you know there's a rhythm to it and so i'm i feel connected to that that particular rhythm and so when i'm uh kind of syncing up to that rhythm i it allows me the opportunity to get really quiet and and and just pay attention to what comes up for me whether and i'll sit there with a journal like you know what what's coming up what words are coming up what pictures am i seeing um in my mind's eye as i'm just being here um that's been really helpful for me um to to just you know really because i mean there's no one else there so i'm like i'm just gonna listen and see you know what what emerges from this space yeah lisa got anything oh boy oh boy yeah i feel like listening has been like the listening to my body has been like the theme this year and but it started i think it started years ago when we started meditating with our friends in denver i didn't get it it didn't it's it's that practice like okay i'm gonna try this thing i didn't understand what it was about i thought i knew and then it's led to me knowing what it feels like to listen and so my body can get it's more it's more immediate like i'll do these body meditations in the morning i do it every morning now um and my body it's uh it it used to take a while for me to feel any energy like any of the energy flow like through the earth or through my head or and now it's it's almost immediate um because my body's in that practice of listening to itself so i just lay in bed and do like a body scan and so sometimes i'll do like imagery if i if i feel a lot of thoughts coming and i can't listen to the body it's just thoughts are just coming i'll imagine a bottle of water that has like suddenly that's been like rolling and then suddenly stopped and so i'll imagine the water slowly like coming to a halt and just settling in in the bottle of water or i'll imagine like a plume um going from my head down through my body and that helps me settle and so then once i feel that settledness and i feel the thoughts have just dissipated that's where the listening starts i think for me i've noticed that learning to love myself and loving my own body and loving my own heart and um rather than being afraid so at any junction in my life there's usually there's fear or there's love you know so like you can um when i'm making a song when i'm putting a guitar part down i have the ability to go what's the safe thing what is the thing that's going to make people like be better yeah um what's the thing that's going to be that's going to make this sound cool and this this is unconscious but it mostly um but it's like this is the thing that you would do and if you because this is how you're successful and if i make a really cool song a really good song and successful then i'm safe right and sometimes that's different than this would be fun i like how this sounds like when you're a kid and you're playing you don't process your play through you know what's the cool way to play barbies necessarily most of the time you know it's not like what's the what's the uh most socially acceptable way to pre to play tag no you're not thinking that you're just like oh i'm it no you're you're just playing you're just in it you're flowing you're in the moment and then you get taught by all these attached relationships in your life what's acceptable how you should behave in the world and how you behave in certain ways and it it makes you feel danger makes you feel danger makes you feel like oh i can't go that way and be accepted so you learn to fit the mold a lot of times it seems like it's like junior high and you know it's like from then on you're like oh i don't sing like what four-year-old says i don't sing yeah yeah yeah is this a study like like yeah like as the kids get older like how many kids stop raising their hands like who sings like every kid sings yeah yeah and every kid plays and ever like so for me learning to be mindful enough of the different when i'm thinking about i could play this or this if i'm thinking um [Music] and eventually i think you do that enough and it be again you can get out of thought and you just start following the impulse that feels like play that feels like um happiness rather than it's less constructed it's it's less going through a bunch of filters of like if i do this then i could and and so it's learning to me learning to flow is big part of as a big part of that has been loving my childlike self that just plays and trusting learning to trust that when i follow that it's not going to lead me astray yeah and um some of that it really is just about the shame yeah that we get thrust on us from junior high on or whatever uh and from religion and from all these things and there's just shame of like the flesh is bad you better not those you have all these impulses you better control them and you get to put all your stuff through a bunch of filters and then you don't want to buy that striped jumpsuit because what will they think of me at the office but when you're in the flow um of your own heart and your own play and that's not to say sorry to put judgement on people's clothing if you don't like striped things fine i liked how you brought it back to the striped jumpsuit yeah you know i'm a professional podcaster uh i was like oh he's done this before what is not what a hot man i see what he did i see what he did there but as you know bringing it back to love it might sound a little corny or i don't know uh it shouldn't though i don't think lovely it comes back to love for me like following love and following your own heart eventually you you can um that that that helps me find the flow absolutely yeah because if you don't love your body if you don't think your own body is good why would you listen to it yeah so that does you're totally right it starts with love you're both such wonderful people lauren thank you for being here gosh i love honor i love you so much i love you so much going to go talk about our rock collection yeah we are uh anywhere people can find what you're doing um no i mean well i mean instagram i guess is one way when does your eat i don't know yet what's your instagram handle it's the real l evans the real l evans okay okay mine will be at lisa gunger uh instagram yeah the issa music i have a woman single the song woman that has been on the liturgist podcast yes um finally finally coming out on the 27th yeah there's going to be a video amanda sudano ramirez sings on it who's part of john awesome thank you thank you uh just fyi everybody that video came out last 27th so it's out you can find it look for issa ma the song woman on spotify or youtube or whatever we hope you enjoyed today's episode our guests have been lauren evans and lisa gunger your host has been michael gunger this has been edited by tagus layer haydn and uh we want to as always thank the patrons on patreon that support the show and make what we do possible all the love to all of you see you next week