Kaitlyn Elizabeth doesn't give a shit about being right

Creative Dialogue #8

Creative Dialogues is an ongoing project to learn from fellow artists. I’ve interviewed an astonishingly wonderful variety of creative individuals about their art, creative practices, and how they make it all work (interviews are ongoing — DM me if you’d like to participate).

How it works: I send every participant a list of questions about creativity and the creative practice. They respond to the five questions that resonate most, so every interview reflects the artist’s own curiosities and interests.

Today’s interview is with Kaitlyn Elizabeth (she, her/s, herself). Kaitlyn was one of the very first people I met on Substack when I swallowed my terror and joined a virtual writing group. Kaitlyn was there. I subscribed to her Substack and have been enjoying her wisdom and sense of humor in my inbox ever since.

Kaitlyn enjoys some quality time with her cat Stan — image source: Kaitlyn Elizabeth

Kaitlyn is a psychotherapist, life coach focused on well-being, and business owner located in Denver, CO (although she deeply identifies as a midwestern born water-baby). She has been married to her lovely husband since 2017 and became a mother to their son a few years later (also a mom to two dog-like cats). She’s a sober gal who is as original as they come and loves Taylor Swift. She started her newsletter, dialoguing, in September 2023. It’s woken up a long dormant part of herself that is just so happy to be free and playing.

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Have there been times when you felt out of touch with your creative self? If so, how did you rediscover your creativity?

Oh certainly. I would say most of my adult life, I’ve been disconnected from my creative self. I was a playful and theatrical kid, but I’m just starting to realize this part of me only came out at home. I never went out for a play or pursued creative endeavors publicly. Meanwhile, at home I’d set up a camera and record myself doing accents and bits. You’d think I was auditioning for SNL (even though, at that point, I’d never even heard of the show).  I’d constantly be writing stories, making collages, and couldn’t take a “normal” picture to save my life. As soon as I walked through the doors of my home, I was off creating my own world. 

While I loved academia and still consider myself to be a complete and absolute nerd about learning, I suspect committing myself to school so completely shut down this other part of me. Being good at school meant being right by someone else’s metric. Being creative meant, “Who gives a shit about being right? Can you even be right?” 

So for most of my adulthood, other than in play therapy with clients early in my career, I was pretty buttoned up creativity-wise. After I had my son, I really struggled with postpartum anxiety. I felt so alone, lost, stuck, and yet I could hear this pleading in my head to write down what I was feeling. It was incessant. I had no time to do anything with it then, but it was the start of something churning in me. So I guess creativity found me. I just had to be ready to hear what it had to say. 

I would tell my younger self that she was on to something. That it wasn’t pointless to create. In fact, it’s central to her wellbeing. I would tell her to quiet down and listen to herself. It’s all right there within her.

Kaitlyn with her writing companions Ernie and Archie — image source: Kaitlyn Elizabeth

How do you replenish your creative energy when you’re feeling depleted?

I’m newer to this practice, but what I’ve learned works is very similar to what I tell clients who struggle with waking up in the middle of the night: Go do anything else. Anything other than trying to sleep.

It’s similar with creativity. I can’t try to be creative. That does not work for me. I can only make space for it by doing a bunch of other shit (read: like life) and also by making sure I have periods where I can just be with myself. 

Which artists do you return to again and again? What do you love about their work?

Here on Substack, I love Ask Polly, written by Heather Havrilesky. Her words are often so jam-packed with wisdom, I have to take my time with them. Really let them wash over me. I often read them several times. She brings me back to my Self every single time. All my critical and cynical parts are soothed by her writing and soften into the realness of just being a human.  

Being good at school meant being right by someone else’s metric. Being creative meant, “Who gives a shit about being right? Can you even be right?” 

An early performance — image source: Kaitlyn Topolewski

What is one thing you’d tell your younger self about building a creative practice?

Oh gosh, this made me a bit weepy to think about honestly. 

I would tell her that she was on to something (full tears just came down my face typing that). That it wasn’t pointless to create. In fact, it’s central to her wellbeing. I would tell her to quiet down and listen to herself. It’s all right there within her.

Creativity is essential to fully living. It is the milk in the ice cream, not the cherry on top.

What is one thing this community can do to support you and your work?

You can come hang out over at dialoguing. My pitch for the newsletter so far has been that I’m an off-duty psychotherapist who can't stop thinking about how to deepen, strengthen, and widen the care for oneself and each other. That is all still true, but I’m realizing more with time that I was quite lonely in my professional, intellectual, and creative life. My newsletter has become a community where I can show up alongside you. Right next to you, because I’m in it, just like everyone else. 

I also do a podcast (which you can find on my Substack, Apple or Spotify) with my husband where we chat more about whatever concepts I wrote about that week, as well as a wide breadth of randomness we find ourselves grappling with, like Kohl’s cash, Love is Blind, hall passes, and vasectomies.

If that sounds like a conversation you want to join, I hope you will. 

Any final thoughts on creativity you’d care to leave us with?

Whenever depressive qualities are coming up in a client, one of my first thoughts is to explore their relationship to creativity and play. American culture makes it easy to label creativity an afterthought, something silly, a luxury. I wrestle with the part of me who buys into that narrative almost every day. It's a work in progress over here, but I believe in the deepest core of my being that creativity is essential to fully living. It is the milk in the ice cream, not the cherry on top.

Creativity found me. I just had to be ready to hear what it had to say. 

More ways to support Kaitlyn:

• Subscribe to dialoguing

• Listen to her podcast

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