Polly Mertens: 0:26

hey, superstars, welcome back polly here, sam pruitt. What’s up, beautiful humans well, my dear, we have an episode today. That well, this week, as we we talked in a recent episode, your birthday is in the beginning of august, mine is in the beginning of September, so we’re recording this around the eve of my birthday. You know it’s going to come out a little bit later and, as we talked, tell us the name of the episode, because you really coined this. You coined what we’re about to talk about Life as art.

Samantha Pruitt: 0:58

Yeah, and to me, we came to that because of you. That’s how I perceive how you live your life. So when we knew we were going to do a birthday episode, I was like we have to do life as art, life as art. You are the creator.

Polly Mertens: 1:16

Yes, yeah. So you know, for many, many years. I just want to insert this and then I want to go into you have some statistics that you’re going to drop and just hold on. People like you know, buckle up, cause it’s going to be a little nail biting here when you drop these statistics of, like, how amazing we are, that we are human in form, if you will, or soul in form, human form.

Polly Mertens: 1:38

It’s like so many years I would have told you I’m not an artist, like you know, like I can’t draw, I can’t paint, I don’t play a musical instrument, like there’s so much inside of me that was like nope, nope, nope, not creative, not creative, not creative. And the more that I look around and I tune into what creating is, I’m like, okay, maybe I am Okay, maybe you know, and what I love is when you have people in their life, like I have you in my life, to speak positive words of influence over me. Like your life is art, Like that was such a. I was like what you know. I was just bearing witness to what was real, right, and I think we’re saying we all have this or we can tap into this, right, and I think we’re saying we all have this or we can tap into this.

Polly Mertens: 2:25

One of the things before we hit record was, like I want to open up the definition of people’s understanding of creation and creativity, and art is not your traditional artist that people might think of as a painter, a songwriter, a musician, a sculptor, something like that. Right, like wide open. So let’s tell them, though, before we go into the definition of creativity and creating. It’s like how did we get here? How amazing is it that we have a life?

Samantha Pruitt: 2:55

Yes, we have a life right. It’s pretty mind boggling, and when I think of life as art, I think about how you use your time, your moments, your days, your years to create an expression upon the world, the planet, the people you meet. That’s what I think of life as art. Some people do it 24-7. I believe it’s just who you are. You don’t know how not to do that. You’re an incredibly creative person and it’s fun to watch. You do all kinds of crazy things and I’m like what the hell is she doing now? We were just talking earlier about what you did just yesterday alone. You know, oh, I bought this thing, I created it, I did whatever. I love that and it actually is incredibly inspiring to see people like you in the world, who actually are artistic creatives in the obvious way. But what we’re saying today life as art is that every human was created and is a creator.

Polly Mertens: 3:59

Mic drop right there. Boom Creators. We don’t often, you know, say so. Say something about that, because I just want to like rant on where we get conditioned out of remembering that we are creators. Right, whether you label yourself a traditional artist, yeah, we can all create. We can all call ourselves creators. We don’t. You know this. I’m hoping we’re going to start some new conversation here with people, cause this, definitely, as you started opening me up to this idea, I was like, yeah, yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 4:31

And some people think of themselves as a co-creator. If they are a religious person or you know, however, they might relate to how they came here and became, and so let’s talk about that, because this listen, my beautiful humans, if you listen to what I’m about to say next and are not completely inspired and blown away to take back your creative life, oh, it’s just amazing to me. So how do I exist? How does Polly exist? How do each one of us, the listener, how do they even exist? First of all, what are the odds of you being alive? One in 400 quadrillion? One in 400 quadrillion. I didn’t even know what the hell a quadrillion. Wow, one in 400 quadrillion. I didn’t even know what the hell a quadrillion was.

Polly Mertens: 5:27

Yeah, I had to look it up I was like, or something absolutely bizarre.

Samantha Pruitt: 5:36

So one in 400 quad quadrillion that you are alive. First of all, the universe had Okay, I’m not even going to get into how the universe exists the universe had to exist. This planet we happen to live on earth had to be inhabitable. Okay, that’s miraculous. I won’t get into the details of that, but you know, you can study this stuff.

Samantha Pruitt: 6:01

Hundreds of millions of years of that, yeah, only 100 billion humans have ever existed. Wow, that’s really not a lot. Your ancestors had to have survived. What If you think back into the history of your family, your ancestry, and to say I love those shows, by the way, where they track people’s ancestry and they tell themate, in order for you to even have the opportunity mind blowing your mom and dad had to find each other. That’s kind of random, but it probably was pretty random, right. They then combined their DNA and this is how this went. They then combined their DNA and this is how this went.

Samantha Pruitt: 7:11

Females who are going to give birth moms have two million eggs. So a woman has two is born with two million eggs okay. A father is born with trillions of sperm okay. Is born with trillions of sperm Okay. One egg is released by the mother per cycle Okay. So she’s got a couple of million. She released one. That’s like 12 a year. You got 12 opportunities a year. Yeah, exactly when we say cycle 15 million that’s the minimum, by the way. 15 million that’s the minimum, by the way. 15 million sperm are released per encounter. So mom drops an egg. Dad brings 15 million minimum sperms to the party.

Polly Mertens: 7:57

Okay, they don’t all make it to the party.

Samantha Pruitt: 7:58

That’s like they think they’re making it to the party, but they don’t make it to the party. 200 on the average make it to the egg. So the one egg, 200 make it but one, and it takes about 30 minutes for the fastest one and 24 hours for the slowest person. These, out of these 200 sperms that actually make it to the egg, one makes it in and you are created and and what are the chances of them missing each other?

Polly Mertens: 8:28

I mean, that’s like hours and days of those things like, because the egg doesn’t just sit in the channel for 30 days. It’s like you know, what is it like?

Samantha Pruitt: 8:36

two or three days maybe but what if it was a different egg or a different sperm? All right, so my whole point of all this is you were created. You are a creative act. Life is a creative act. For each of us to not think that we are creative or that our life should not be an expression of a creative act makes no sense. That our life should not be an expression of a creative act makes no sense. It’s innately who we are, at our very core, at our very essence. So life as art.

Polly Mertens: 9:12

And I think you know, one of the things I want a presence to is I think the asleepness or the reawakening that I had from the sleepness was, um, a, I didn’t feel like I grew up with creative parents. You know, like, like we were talking beforehand is like, oh, you know what are the chances that somebody you know takes up a sport or an art, or you know cause, I do remember, uh, being a kid and raising my hand and saying I’d like to learn how to play the flute. You know, uh, you know like to learn how to play the flute. Or you know doing drawing and you know, like I need to learn how to play the flute. Or you know doing drawing and you know different things.

Polly Mertens: 9:44

But I wasn’t in a household where it was like art was brought into the house or lots of rich music was played, or you know conversations about those things. You know, like it wasn’t fed, if you will, or nurtured and I think a lot of us, unless we grow up in that household and, by golly, if you did, what a rich environment that was for the imagination. You know, like, right you know this is we’re talking.

Polly Mertens: 10:09

I think the one thing that was a little weaving of my life thread is I grew up in New Orleans.

Samantha Pruitt: 10:15

Ah, okay imagine Mardi Gras oh yeah, imagine that. Just the amount of creators walking around the streets, exactly.

Polly Mertens: 10:23

Exactly the creativity in. Well, and one thing is you know New Orleans is a hub for artists, you know. So if you go to the off of Bourbon Street and stuff like that, that whole French quarter is art galleries left and right. You know it’s like a Sedona or Santa Fe or you know whatever. There’s art galleries. And then the expression in Mardi Gras is creative, it’s costuming, right, you know it’s, it’s let’s dress up as something let’s express. You know face painting and things like that. So now that I say that that only comes around like once a year, you know, but you’re so drawn to these things, you seek them out.

Samantha Pruitt: 10:58

So when you travel, you go to places where artists hang out. You do a lot of creative expression through costume, through dance, through music, all kinds of that. Is that? Do you feel like that is just part of your DNA?

Polly Mertens: 11:11

I think that is. I don’t think so. I would say that more so the conditioning around the family. You know my dad was an engineer Right, you know so. So civil engineer, very mechanically oriented, did well in math. My mom was, you know more, on the other side. You know she worked in human resources. Writing was her thing. So I think, coming in this you need to. You know the conditioning I got was you need to get good grades, you need to get a good job and get out there right, Make money yeah exactly.

Polly Mertens: 11:42

And so the flamboyance, the expression, you know I didn’t see my parents living a lot of that. You know they didn’t have a lot. I mean, if anything, it was through their work. You know my mom got some expression, if you will. So all I’m saying is I think my creativity went to sleep.

Polly Mertens: 12:03

I think, you know, it was like get a job, make money, and then, as I took care, more care of myself and I started just awakening to what is self-expression Right, you know, I think a lot of this, after my overcoming the eating disorder and stepping back into the enjoyment of self-expression and all the forms that self-expression can take, I mean, we’re self-expressing right now. Oh, word art, hell, yeah, yeah, totally so. Like just being reawakened to self-expression as a term, as a concept, as a oh. I have an expression and I respect hugely, like social justice and self-expression in all humans, all forms. And then I think it just set me on a little journey to start to see all the forms that it could come in. And then you start to get in your little channels like, oh, this is, I love playing in this.

Polly Mertens: 12:56

Or I let you know like I’m hugely lit up by color, color, color, color, sound some, but mostly color, right, and I don’t know if that’s the costuming as a child or whatnot, but like the metals in your in if you’re listening to this you can’t see it, but in Samantha’s office she has all of her metals and it’s just a rainbow of colors, right, and that just lights me up. It’s like it’s so fun, right. So how about you, my dear? How is your life as art? How are you experiencing it?

Samantha Pruitt: 13:26

Yeah, and I definitely didn’t grow up with art being part of life either. You know, I tried to play the violin in sixth grade. That was quite a moment. I think I lasted a couple months and I have no idea why. Probably one of my friends was doing it. It looked cool. I don’t know. I wanted to carry something to school in a box like everybody else did.

Samantha Pruitt: 13:46

Like who knows, yeah, we do so many things. There was always music playing in my house, you know. We did have music a lot and I, to this day, like music lights me up. I like to sing, I like to listen to music. It definitely influences expression of emotions and thoughts and ideas and things like that. But I don’t play music.

Samantha Pruitt: 14:10

But I love to look at art. You know, whether it’s whatever someone else has created, I’m fascinated by that and by the creator themselves. But for me, my expression of life as art really revolves around human connection and relationship, expression, connectivity to other humans, building connection and expressing myself in that way. When I think about life as art, I think about like leaving an imprint on someone, on many peoples on the world, on the planet, on the space that I inhabit. I think of art in that way and that’s why I also feel that everybody is an artist, because we’re all doing it and we can all choose what that imprint is going to look like, what it’s going to feel like, what it’s going to be, and I think there’s so much incredible power in that. So that’s how I think of it for myself.

Polly Mertens: 15:09

You know, I love that it was reminding me of. Maybe I’ll touch upon this. And then I want to go to the definition of creator, because I want us to all feel a groundedness and you know creator creativity, you know the act of creating, if you will, so, as you were saying, the impact that you have on people, and I often say I want to grow up to be a big rock so that I can leave a big ripple in my pond, the people that I touch and whatnot, and the RV that I have, as you know, is super colorful, right.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:41

Speaking of art driving down the freeway, how many feet is the size of this RV? 32? Foot 32 foot RV, a piece of art, driving down the freeway 60 miles an hour. And there’s Polly behind the wheel.

Polly Mertens: 15:57

Okay, funny tangential story. Maybe we’ll tell this one. I was going to say first I’ll tell the story of the the the evolution of the RV, cause I didn’t buy her that way, right? So when I bought her um first year, I owned her. I just had to get used to what the fuck is an RV 32 feet. How do you, how do you do this? What, like I, impulsively, I followed the impulse that I saw in someone else and the lifestyle that they had of living in an RV and stuff. And this was before RV life and all that’s our van life. But this gal was just like inspired me. I was like I’m getting one of those, right? Liberation Bought one and she was 25 years old, you know, had been well-maintained, but she was not a beauty, right? You know a picture. You know she’s not one of these like flash. You know you bought a beautiful RV.

Polly Mertens: 16:50

I mean you had a beautiful Mercedes Sprinter van. It was a jewel. Yeah, she was sexy. Right, mine was like you know, and the more time I spent in her, the more joy I got about where she took me and the experiences that I went on and the places that I saw you fell in love with her.

Polly Mertens: 17:12

Well, absolutely, that’s what it was. Well, you know how it’s like we’re so influenced by our environment. Yeah, so, being inside of her, being with her, you know, I went out in her. I think it was like in the first or second year 90 days, I did a Western US tour to like 10 national parks and this big old tour solo, and it was just like fun, fun, fun, beautiful, beautiful, just all this amazing stuff. And I came back and I was going to go out on another tour that next summer and I went and I just looked at her and I went she just doesn’t look as beautiful as I feel about her.

Polly Mertens: 17:49

And so that was like the start of the formulating and the dreaming and I was like I just want to paint her so she looks as amazing on the outside as I feel about her on the inside right. And then so that was like the start of it I was like what do I do and how do I get it paint? Can I wrap it? And it was like tens of thousands of dollars to wrap a big, large. I was like, okay, we gotta like settle down here.

Polly Mertens: 18:11

And then I got an inspiration of the art and really what I recognized for myself as I was driving down the road, feeling this life expression of myself. You know I had. I had I had a divorce, sold my house, kind of cut my losses, paid my ex-husband off right, quit my job, get in this RV and I’ve got this new life, this new expression of what I’m going to be right, or you know what? What is life about? And I was like I want more people to feel like they can do this too, like I wanted the RV going down the road an interruption.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:53

I want her to interrupt. You can’t miss her.

Polly Mertens: 19:00

If she comes into your line of sight, you’re like, but bam, okay, and then you read what she says and you go the front of her says follow your bliss. Who can argue with that? Right? The back says wander less. Right, like, just reminding people.

Polly Mertens: 19:10

And I’m actually in the process this month, one of the things I’m going to paint on the side of her, on the door, because on one side she has no writing. On the other side she has some writing, adventures calling and I must go right. But the one side, with the tree of life, has no writing and I’m going to write live a life you love, right? So that’s the next quote that’s going to go on here. But let me tell you about this thing that happened yesterday, just because this is a funny story. So, speaking of the thing that I did yesterday, so I’m on Facebook marketplace kind of looking for some I had been considering. Oh well, maybe I’ll find a piece of furniture to to paint. You know, maybe that could be the way that I paint, because just like, like getting little canvases not very inspiring to me, I’m like it’s needed to exist differently in the world.

Polly Mertens: 19:51

So I was like oh, maybe furniture. And so I got this little alert there was a dresser for free and I was like oh, so I run over there in my car and I’m like you know, you know the free, free alert.

Polly Mertens: 20:01

It’s like there until gone. I was like, pop over there, I get over there. And the stressor I was like, oh, I’ll just throw it in my trunk or whatever. I have a Honda. It didn’t fit, of course. I was like, well, I’ll take the drawers and I’ll put it in the car. And I was like, okay, I need another vehicle. And I sat and I was like I don’t have it. Oh wait, I do have another vehicle.

Samantha Pruitt: 20:24

You took your RV to get the dresser, so I can’t imagine what the hell.

Polly Mertens: 20:30

These people were thinking so. And here’s the other story. They live on the end of a dead end, right? Which is that’s like a no-no, for well, there can be a no-no depending on the size. So I looked down and I’d already been down there once, because I went down in my car and I was like, okay, I can’t really go down the four. I was like, oh, okay, so I did this thing. So I started going backwards down the road to this, to you know, and when I went there and got the, I texted the woman. I said, oh, I picked up the, the drawers, I’m going to come back for the dresser. I just need a bigger vehicle, low and bold. So I’m backing yeah, not quite, you know, it’s not a big garbage truck or something, but so I’m going cruising down the back of this street and I’m like looking for the house. I’m like where’s that house? Where’s the house? It was quiet street. It’s a dead end. This wasn’t, this was safe people I don’t want you to think like you know and I’m just going back.

Polly Mertens: 21:15

Going back, and I and I look and the garage door had been opened, I don’t know whatever, and there was two women sitting in there and I was like, oh, this will be funny, maybe they’ll, you know, because everybody has a different reaction to the colorful bust Some people love it, some people smirk at it, whatever. So I jump out and I’m going to get the dresser and these girls just mother, daughter, you know, daughter was maybe 22 or something, you know and they’re like what is this beautiful thing? And it’s like, oh my God, they were just like, know, coke bottle eyes just as big as can be, like what? The? Oh my gosh?

Polly Mertens: 21:51

and we talked about it and so they helped me load it up into and they’re just like, bye, you know, just made their day you know anyway, so that was just a little detour of how the bluff bus gets to make an impact in the world, like that’s my expression what you’re reminding me of is how, every moment, we have an opportunity to create and express ourselves.

Samantha Pruitt: 22:18

So you do some things like you buy an rv and then you proceed to paint the entire thing all these different colors and there’s art all over it and whatever you know. You buy furniture and you paint it. You plant a garden from zero weed garden into thriving. Now you have vegetables and you’re growing fruit and you’re feeding yourself Like. These are all incredibly creative acts. Creation is happening in the act, and I think you’re going to read the definition of creation.

Polly Mertens: 22:48

Yeah, let me share with you. So this is just Google, whatever it says, the definition of creator, which you and. I and everyone is a creator. A person or thing that brings something into existence. Read that again. A person or thing that brings something into existence. Read that again. A person or thing that brings something into existence, that’s so good, brings it into existence.

Polly Mertens: 23:12

Like you know, a lot of people that I listen to would say you know the chair, that you’re sitting on the room, that you’re in the building, that you’re in whatever. That was once a thought and I’m like, I think it was more than a thought. I think it had to be a thought to become, you know, but I think there was something even before that Right, and I think that’s that inner life force, that energy that we all are Like, like you said, there’s a sperm in an egg and now you’re a human. I’m sorry, what the hell.

Samantha Pruitt: 23:50

Yeah, and the odds of that one in 400 quadrillion.

Polly Mertens: 23:51

But yet here you are, yeah, yeah. So don’t take it for granted, people, we are creators and I think one of the things that’s helped me the older I get, the more wise I get, the more I tune in and allow that definition. And you, you know, blessing on me. Your life is art and everyone listening to this. Your life is art too. Right, you are a creator.

Polly Mertens: 24:08

Just listening to that definition, we are all bringing something into existence, and I love what you said earlier is are you bringing things into existence that are aligned with your values? Are you paying attention to what you’re creating? Are you, I would say, creating deliberately? Are you creating by default, right? So a lot of my years of life were this story or this social conversation that we often hear grow up, get a good job, you know to have a family, etc. And sometimes you and I work with women and we have gone through phases in our own life where the end of a phase called, you know, a marriage or a child moving out, or a job or a career that you no longer want to be a part of, right? We get into these pivot periods and those are beautiful opportunities for somebody often to ask themselves wait a minute. What am I creating?

Samantha Pruitt: 25:00

Exactly. Exactly, I mean, I can think of. I’m 55, I can’t even, uh, never mind. Hundreds, probably thousands of times I’ve gotten into situations where I’ve gone. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t like this.

Samantha Pruitt: 25:18

How did I create this mess or this dynamic or this relationship or this whatever? Fill in the blanks. You know where you live and all the different things that are called life and living, and sometimes you wake up and they’re just not no longer working for you. Maybe they made sense at one time and they don’t make sense anymore. You can, at any time, start to create again. Start to create again. Maybe you think well, I’ve built this whole life, you’re having a birthday this week and you’ve built an amazing life for yourself. But what’s really important is what is the life you’re building next? What does tomorrow look like? What is next for you? You right, what is the creative process that you will continue to go through as the creator of your space, your time, your energy, your physical body, the relationships that you decide to? You know manifest like all of that is you being the creator of those things, not being a passive agent asleep at the wheel.

Polly Mertens: 26:28

Yeah, and I think something that helped me a long time ago and I just want to remind everyone who’s listening to this is you know, we can get into a job and it looks like we live out of our inbox, right? I remember my job being run that way. It was like, oh, what’s on the inbox? Okay, that’s what I’m doing today, Very little deliberate, like, oh, I want to go from here to there.

Samantha Pruitt: 26:51

Reactionary.

Polly Mertens: 26:52

Very reactionary and life as well, especially in the child rearing years for a lot of women. Or you know, some sort of climbing some ladder or pursuit of something. You know, if you’re not deliberate, I mean you have the beauty of you get inspired. You find things in life that inspire. You’re like I’m doing another Ironman, like 13 years ago was your last Ironwoman and you’re like I’m going to do an Ironman and you get on this trajectory, like you’re very clear. And one thing that often jumps out at me, because when I learned about these things was in the context of back in the day we used to call it time management. You know, when people in the 80s, 90s, whatever 2000s, were doing time management classes and Stephen Covey, you know oh yeah, day timers and stuff like that.

Polly Mertens: 27:38

Well, I’m just laughing. Flashbacks, yes, right, the little book you know the daytime or whatnot. But one of the things I got from my study with Tony Robbins was he calls it rapid planning method, which is like it looks like a day timer, like it looks very much like oh, it’s like you know, it’s got calendars and lists and things like that. But he took the next level and this is where I started doing this years ago and I think this is how my life now looks and I almost like it’s like I’m a fish in water. I almost don’t even realize that my life is the way that I’ve created it, because I’ve started doing this so many years ago.

Polly Mertens: 28:13

Which is, you take a grand vision for your life. You sit down with yourself and you define, sometimes from contrast, like screw this life or screw this job, or screw my body, or you know, like I’m not happy with something. Yeah, what do I want instead? And you begin to pour into through your imagination, through your suffering, through your heart, what it is you want, right, and then from that you can begin to plan a life, you can begin to design a life. You can create time, space ideas, like right now, one of the things that I have.

Polly Mertens: 28:46

This isn’t a time management kind of thing, but I have a list on the back of my day timer. You know. I have a list of a hundred things that I’ve never tried before, you know, like write a poem or go on a go see a new national park or something like that. It’s it’s the way that I express in the world. The way I create is through inspiration, through finding what feels good for me, right, and I think for you. It’s. What do we want our life to feel like? Is our core message right.

Samantha Pruitt: 29:17

Exactly. To me it’s like I said, leaving a mark or leaving a stamp based on my unique values, purpose and passion. So that’s only. I have those. That’s me, and I make those decisions and I decide what those things are. And everybody listening to this is exactly the same those lucky damn humans that were born right. So if you can take that and then go out and express it, to me that’s the art part, it’s that creative taking it, creating it and then expressing it out, and it can be pretty much anything in any way, shape or form.

Samantha Pruitt: 30:02

I do do a lot of physical activities and races and challenge physical challenges and I absolutely feel like that is me being a creative artist of my life, utilizing my body in this way, usually utilizing my time and energy and resources in that way, and then what I do is I’m creating an experience and then I create the experience.

Samantha Pruitt: 30:29

Nobody creates it for me. So even if it’s me going to a race, like I’m going to do this Ironman race, I’m going to create every second of that experience based on my thoughts, my ideas, my interpretation, my expression, my interpretation, my expression, etc. You know, when we go backpacking and camping and we’re out in wilderness, I mean, I feel so creative. First of all, you are dropped into nature, the ultimate creator, literally the epiphany of creators, and I go out in nature all the time, just like you do, and it’s it fuels that creative part of us. By the way, it is definitely pouring fuel on that. But then we go into those places and we think even differently yet again about how we are here, why we are here, what are all of those things that we want to be doing, and it fuels and elevates that creative aspect of our own experience. It’s to me it’s kind of mind boggling.

Polly Mertens: 31:32

I mean this is really unique to humans.

Polly Mertens: 31:34

Yeah, and I think one of the and I don’t know how this works because I don’t know the science well enough but I think you know I’ve just done two trips and I’ve done three trips in the last three weeks. Each one had a let’s call it trail walk or trail hike component to it. One was visiting the giant redwoods on the California coast, which was amazing. Two of them, sorry, two of those weekends had some jaw-dropping, you know redwoods that are some of the biggest trees in the world. And then just this past weekend, finding a grove of giant sequoias in California Sierras, which just the scale, like I was just moved to tears, you know, like I was wasn’t even a minute on the trail and 30 seconds of seeing this monstrous beast and I was just like wow, you know. And then when I did the math, those things you know, when they get to a certain size, like like this one, they’re 500 to a thousand years I was like, okay, so that was like. I was like was that 1800, 1700? I’m like no, that has like no two, that has a no, it was a thousand twenty four. Wow, I was like that’s like roman empire, shit, dude, that’s when that tree was born. That tree started growing and, like the roman empire and whatever, you know, I’m like, oh my God. And then here I am, meandering through my life, waves of places, I’ve been all around the world or whatever. And then, like I told you, there was just this happenstance and I was like, oh, I was at this certain campground and then I looked at this little sign and it said, oh, there’s a grove of sequoias six and a half miles away. I was like, if something is six and a half miles away and it’s a grove of sequoias, I have to go see it. You know, exactly, drove my little butt over there and it was just. I mean, I cried for like 10 minutes.

Polly Mertens: 33:18

I think the neurons in our body are transformed if you’re paying attention anyway. I mean, like there were some people that got out of a I was just about to leave and there was a boatload of people. This was labor day, weekend, you know, people are partying, having a good time, visiting with family. You know, power to them, right, they’re all having their experience. They’re like collective carload of people get out talking really loudly in a giant grove of sequoias. I’m sorry, this is like church for me, sacred space, like how could you not be in awe and just you just don’t want to talk, but whatever you know, so they’re whatever. But if you’re not aware of what you can pick up, you’re just doing more of your life, right, you’re just more. You know the energy and the vibrations of the people around you, whereas I was, like solo, walked into this you know grove of energy and just felt it Let it.

Samantha Pruitt: 34:12

You know, fill me, you absolutely feel it, because there is a real energy there. We’re all energy. So hello, check into that, if you’re just learning this for the first time.

Samantha Pruitt: 34:25

You’re just learning this little factoid for the first time. But, additionally, when you bear witness to, like, you’re fully present and you are bearing witness to your surroundings Okay, we’ll just use nature as one example you are transformed into that nature. You’re part of that nature. You can’t just go to the edge of the Grand Canyon, get out of a bus, walk over there, take a look around and then turn around and get back on the bus. You need to be down in the canyon, in the nature, put the phone down. You’ve got to go. Exactly it is. These are transformational lifetime experiences that people, human beings, must, must, must experience. It will absolutely change their entire body, chemistry, brain, body. 100 of you will be changed by this experience. But additionally, let’s say it’s not nature, let’s say it’s going to be present with other humans. Maybe you’re going to a play, maybe you’re going to a concert, maybe you’re going somewhere where there is a creative expression and you’re bearing witness to. You love to go to dance things. I mean, you’re a dancing girl. Somebody’s cooking, you know so people are. Somebody is cooking in the kitchen. You are witnessing and part of the creative act, this individual or groups of individual.

Samantha Pruitt: 35:59

I just watched this. This is so random, but I watched this Netflix docuseries last night on mariachis. Okay, I did not know this was such a thing in Texas and in high school. The high schools have teams of mariachi players and they compete. This is a big thing, by the way, and I was like it was so beautiful. I cried watching these teenagers teenagers it’s horrible being a teenager. It was so amazing for them to find this creative outlet, like-minded humans to make connection to, to create music. I was blown away, okay, and then to watch them play and do this creative act. So we have so many opportunities. So I remember when my son he was big in drama and he started doing drama when he was five, five years old. Well, first of all, he was just born a creative person and since he opened his mouth and could express himself, was always an incredibly creative person in the world Expressing, expressing His energy was just, yeah, it was just coming and coming and coming.

Samantha Pruitt: 37:18

So, through music singing for him, singing and then through drama, and he did dance also he found these creative outlets and to witness this okay, I birthed him, so it was different. But even if I wasn’t the one who birthed him, but me being the one who birthed this human to bear witness to his creative journey as he evolved from five all the way through out of high school, expressing himself in these ways was incredible. The power that he gave himself through the creative act to become more and more of who he was along the journey. I mean, I don’t everybody deserves and needs this. We, we have it inside of us. We just need opportunities to express it. And I really think that’s what we’re here to talk about today and to tell people is maybe your creative energy went to sleep. So I shared with you today.

Samantha Pruitt: 38:21

I was at the gym doing my workout, because it’s 110 here and there was this older female in the studio. You know I was running, lifting weights and then going and doing core. I was doing the circuit running around the gym. People just think I’m insane, but I’m training for an Ironman. It is borderline insanity. So, anyway, when I would come back into the little fitness room. You know there are some females and they’re doing their little stuff more private and all that and here’s this older female you know, late sixties, early seventies or something, with her leg way the hell up on the ballerina bar in full ballerina mode with these gorgeous legs, doing these moves. There’s no way in hell I could get my leg up there, by the way, and also to watch what she was doing, and I was just in awe of her. How beautiful was this woman owning her creative act of being a dancer or expressing her body in this way. It was a little bit of magic. In my everyday experience it’s all around us, polly.

Polly Mertens: 39:23

It’s everywhere. You know, and the thing that I started to get present to as you’re telling the story about your son, and then also this you know the interaction in the gym and you said the word bear witness, but I I’m starting to think that there’s more to it than just witnessing it. You’re collaboratively creating it. Like you know that that phrase, if a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there, does it make a sound right.

Polly Mertens: 39:46

So the answer is bear poop in the woods well, okay, that’s different, but but this one. Because their senses right. So, as a human being, we oh, I see through our five senses, right. So a tree falling in the forest doesn’t make a sound unless it’s picked up by the inner eardrum of a human right, like it has. Like that’s how sound is detected, if you will. Right, makes a vibration, whatever, right. So, like my RV going down the road is like a vibration out there. Somebody sees that and they pick up on it. Right, they’re receiving, they’re co-creating, they’re inspired. You know, like you and I, we like to ding the bells of people and wake them up, and what I’m hoping we’re getting out of this if you’re listening to this at this point is A, you’re a creator. What you create is unlimited. Do not be limited by thinking it has to appear in a box that’s called. Like you need a paintbrush in your hand or a musical instrument, absolutely.

Samantha Pruitt: 40:48

No, special talent is required.

Polly Mertens: 40:50

No, you were born with it and guess what You’re already creating. You are already creating. Telling that story about the day timer is when people tell me I don’t have time for something. That is one of the I love to raise my hand and go guess what time is an illusion. It’s priority management. There is no such thing as time management. It’s priority management, right, and one of the things you and I love to remind ourselves and people, if they work with us and just hear us, is you have a certain amount of period on this life. We don’t know when. That is right.

Polly Mertens: 41:30

Some of us, the finish line is getting closer than the start line. Who knows right? People get diagnoses left and right, but if you don’t take that pen, that, that musical instrument, that that creator’s gift, whatever that is for you, into your hands and start utilizing it, prioritizing your expression, whatever that is, and if you’re not sure what it is like me, like this garden that I have right now, this is like what the hell happened, you know, and I mean there’s been staying with us and my husband’s a big gardening freak and you’re like that looks fun, I’m going to get into that.

Samantha Pruitt: 42:04

You went home and you’re like boom garden. Well, yeah, and there’s a big gardening freak and you’re like that looks fun, I’m going to get into that.

Polly Mertens: 42:07

You went home and you’re like boom garden.

Polly Mertens: 42:08

Well, yeah, and there’s a whole little trail that that happened and I had no idea the joy and the creation that gardening is like it hadn’t occurred to me, you know, in the past it’s like, oh, I’ll grow some vegetables or you know, some flowers or whatever, but I’m getting such richness as I layer the lens that I see my garden through. This is art. This is a creative expression and you know, we talked about bearing witness or creatively collaborating with the people that see it right, like you sit in an audience and you take in the artist’s expression, right, we’re as moved and joyful sometimes as the artist who’s creating it. I think the Olympics was art. It.

Samantha Pruitt: 42:50

Yeah, absolutely yeah, I do art.

Polly Mertens: 42:52

I watched the documentary of Federer retiring I was like that man is totally an art. You know, like these athletes One thousand percent Right.

Samantha Pruitt: 43:01

So life as art, they’re, they’re the prime examples of life as art.

Polly Mertens: 43:07

So. So here’s a story that this shifted for me. So my house is situated I have a small little grassy little front yard and then a little backyard in the back and I, when I moved into the house, it had two little planter boxes like raised beds. We’re like, well, that looks obvious. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll do some gardening in that. And I’ve been in this house for about five years, various forms of like. I’ll grow a little of this, I’ll grow a little of that. A couple of years started realizing I just got inundated with bugs, right, so I gave up. This year I got newly inspired after visiting you. You know Dave’s like what kinds of stuff. He’s the planter.

Samantha Pruitt: 43:41

What kinds of things you shouldn’t be growing are apparently growing in our backyard.

Polly Mertens: 43:45

And then a friend of mine was. The story was she was like, oh, I can’t grow a garden because all the ants or sorry, the gophers eat everything and stuff like that, or the deer. And I was like I’ll grow you a garden. And so I moved the garden because the bugs were so bad in my backyard. I said, well, my front yard gets actually the better sun, I’ll put it out in the front yard. Having no intention for this to be what it turned into. My front yard it’s a big melon patch, Like part of it is a melon patch. I got broccoli. I mean it’s a little chaos because I don’t love neat rows of garden. Kind of like my artistic expression is it whips out, it doesn’t. It’s not like a civil engineer designs it. What’s beautiful about this is I can sit in my dining room table and I can look out the window and I have two kitty cats that hang out on the front porch and they are the neighborhood green entertainment committee yep people love to

Polly Mertens: 44:38

stop by and visit my kitty cats. Dogs love to chase them, whatever. But people stop by my house and they like, look over my little. I have a little fence that’s maybe like two feet off the ground just to protect the cats. And then my garden is changing every day. Like all of a sudden, a new cantaloupe will appear. I’m like, what the hell? Look at that, you know, just this giant cantaloupe. And then the watermelon’s growing by, like, like I had no idea how fast watermelon grew. It’s like it’s just like blowing up a balloon just every day.

Polly Mertens: 45:04

So yesterday I had this cute and they had come by about 10 days ago. There was this gentleman I found out his name yesterday, liam and his little daughter, about three years old. Her name is Poppy. So I had, you know, invited them in and it had been, maybe you know, 10 days since they had last come. Maybe they had come before, you know, in between, I don’t know. But what was really sweet is, you know, inviting them in start to get to know them. Like, these are my neighbors, you know, and I just have these little interactions with people, like people walking their dog, and especially with little kids, like the little kids like, look over the side of the fence and they’re just like looking in the garden and if I’m out there I welcome them in and I say all that. It’s just, it’s created this really social experience for me. You know, it’s like I’m creating art. People are taking it in and enjoying it and weaving Right.

Samantha Pruitt: 45:53

Right and you’re inspiring them right. Their exchange I was saying bearing witness to, was kind of the example I was using, but they’re coming into it with you, they’re a co-creator of the experience and they’re going to walk away inspired and, who knows, plant a garden, or the daughter might get curious about broccoli at dinner or whatever the hell happens. You know what I’m saying, but it’s all good.

Polly Mertens: 46:19

Yeah, yeah. And that’s where us being our most expressed self, like gardening, is an expression. For me, some of it is my travels. For us, it’s this podcast, right? Whatever you your, your races and you sharing that on social people are like oh my God, samantha is amazing, I can’t do that, but I can do this Right. Or or they see something and they get inspired to take a step, take an action, right. So there is no, is no time, right? It’s prioritizing, it’s recognizing. I want that, I want to get up to that, I want to be a person who does that. That’s important to me, whether you like or don’t like whatever is in your life right now, or you’re just inspired to try something new, or to try something at all for the first time, or many times, but like exactly, get up to it.

Polly Mertens: 47:05

So I think our expression is here to bring other people into their expression, so I hope that, um you know, stories that we’ve told have helped people understand that a they’re a creator they were, and the odds of them being created are One in 400 quadrillion.

Samantha Pruitt: 47:27

Yes yes, they are a creator.

Polly Mertens: 47:30

So give yourself permission back to be a creator in whatever spectrum of color expression that looks like. And I think sometimes we have to stop saying we’re not Even not. You know, it’s like I’m not an artist, like I would tell you that if you had asked me 10 years ago I’m not an artist, I’m not an artist, but I was only, you know, anchoring myself into not being that and I allow now more. Maybe that garden is a little bit of art or maybe that you know right.

Polly Mertens: 48:00

So allowing ourself more and more of that and seeing yourself in this spectrum, this beautiful spectrum of art, and how you express and the impact that you’re leaving on people and the message that you want. So exactly, so your mark. So what is our like? Closing one thing, as we always love to help people, you know, like if they only listen to one thing in this whole episode, what do we want them to remember? What do we want to ask them?

Samantha Pruitt: 48:26

episode. What do we want them to remember? What do we want to ask them? I really want people to close this episode with us knowing that they are a creator, they are a creative, they are we all are and they should go on about living life as art and leave their mark as art and leave their mark. You know, that is just. We’re all here. It’s so bizarre that we are here now, now that I’ve actually looked at all that closely. You know, obviously it took science classes, but like it just is beyond comprehension to me. And we’re here for a reason. We’re each here, such as snow, just, as such a unique grain of sand snowflake like just, and we’re here to to leave a mark on the planet, on each other. It’s a time stamp make it beautiful.

Polly Mertens: 49:14

make it beautiful and it can be very small or it can be great. Not everyone was born to be a Picasso or a you know Gandhi, or you know like become the next president. It’s like, whatever your, we could use a few of those. Yeah, speaking of good candidates, love that, get up to good things and get out in the world, make an impact, right, yeah. And your mark can be your family. It can be your partner, your relationship, your business, your community, your state, your country.

Samantha Pruitt: 49:51

Any form of expression.

Polly Mertens: 49:53

Yeah, you want Look good after it, all right. Well, whatever that is, I hope you’re left with something and you take away your creator and do something with it. Be intentional about it. Yeah, all right, my dear, take away your creator and do something with it. Be intentional about it. So, yeah, all right, my dear. What do we want to remind our beautiful humans of our closing thoughts for every episode?

Samantha Pruitt: 50:11

Well, I want to add that you’re a bloody miracle. You know that. So am I.

Polly Mertens: 50:23

And how your life feels is more important than how it looks, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.