Welcome to Finally Friday with John and Melissa.

Hey, hey, hello! Chat is up. Who wants to chat? Chat is ready to display messages. Hey, well, we're gonna give people like, well, we got it here early. It says four-ish.

Yeah, it can be early or late when you say ish.

Well, everybody get a beverage. We're gonna start in. It's Friday. Cheers.

Yay, Friday!

Get a beverage, get a cup of tea, cup of coffee. Look, TikTok, you're only in half of TikTok. Oh, there's the other half.

Hi, TikTok.

We're, we're trying to get TikTok to connect with our restreaming video. So it's a Total pain in the neck at the moment. So on Instagram and TEDx and YouTube, we've got chat available. So feel free to hop in the chat and have a chat. This needs to go on. Just test it. Nothing really showing. Kind of anti-helpful chat. Doesn't seem like the chat thing's working.

We can monitor the chat since we have these windows open.

Hi, Lauren. Blessed, how are you? Good to have you on with us. Hey, Pogo, how you doing, man? So we're probably just gonna kick into it. And so the aim of Finally Friday, what's the aim of Finally Friday, wife?

Is to update everyone on our week, what we're doing creatively, thoughts about—

Thanks, Lauren.

Life.

Yeah, we just wanna talk about life, creativity, the creative process. Melissa's an artist. I'm a writer. You know, a lot of us, a lot of you know us from the trauma background we've come through with dealing with the Phoenix Collective and the Deal With It book. We wanna read something from that today. But, you know, we're moving and transitioning in life from being involved full-time with a nonprofit as our sole focus into doing artistic endeavors. So we wanted to be able to talk through those processes and just celebrate people and celebrate creativity. You know, about life and all those sorts of things. So, so we weren't here last week.

Last week we did not do Finally Friday.

And the reason was we had a funeral. Melissa's sister-in-law passed and it was very sad, but it was a tremendous time of reflection actually for us. It was about our relationship, about the role and nature of family. And I think about the need and the reason to pursue your dreams, that your creative dreams and your creative endeavors.

Yeah, don't wait. Just start now. Let it be messy and ugly and just do it.

And I think that's what, and Lauren just popped in and said she's got a slow creative process and don't rush the Don't rush the process. And that is, oh, I think all creativity is slow. I think people who speed up the process, I just don't think it's about speed. I think you can do it like a painting quick or a writing quick, but the process to create is— It needs room and space, I think, like headspace, life space, literal space, like you, You know, you've gotta have a nice space and, you know, I'm blessed with the writing shed I've got in the studio we've got for Melissa because they are places where, you know, we get to be.

I started on the kitchen table, but that was my dedicated space for a little while.

Yeah, I remember writing in a toilet for a while. It was the only space I could get. We had someone pop on Instagram and said, do you think PDS is real. PTSD is real. Very much so. I think the impact of trauma is very real. And I think in, you know, all of our lives, we experience trauma to a degree. But people with PTSD will know that it is a very harsh reality that you have to live with. And, you know, I talk about it in Deal With It. And we've got some exciting news on Deal With It. We're re-releasing it later on towards the year. And, you know, here's, here's a quote for you. Perseverance, dedication, stamina, tenacity, persecution, mistreatment, ill treatment, and oppression. I started out by reading a lot of biographies. The people I read about were from varied backgrounds, with some dating back to the early 1st and 2nd century. Most were from the 1800s and 1900s, while some were from modern era. Some were theologians, medical doctors, even Lewis and Clark. All of these folks had to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds, all shared a common belief, continue to push forward. And I think in anything in life, be it artistic or just the day-to-day, the passion and the drive to push forward.

Push forward, continue to push. Those days where you feel like you're, you're going backward, if you can just Fall forward.

Falling forward is important.

Yeah. If you can just move the ball an inch, it's, you're an inch further than you were yesterday.

Lauren had a question for you or a comment.

My ideas take years to ruminate. One portrait would take 12 hours to paint, 2 years to ponder. Wow. Lauren.

It's a lot of pondering.

That is, that's awesome though. When you finally get it painted, does it feel like release?

Yeah, that's an interesting question.

Because my paintings are a lot, um, maybe, I mean, I can see the rumination part. I'll have something in the back of my mind for a long time before I might ever get to drawing it. Um, but I would, uh, I, I definitely have never taken 12 hours to do a painting. I'm— I work a lot more quickly than that. Wow. So creatively, on the creative front, I think for this week, because we did have to do some unexpected travel last week, and you know, it was very emotional and everything, we didn't— I didn't do a lot of painting. This week, and John can always tell when I'm about to like fall into a heap on the floor, you know, because I haven't done any painting. And, or he can tell when I'm like sort of locked down and not creative. And so he'll come up with a little game for me to play. And so we have these little creative games, like he may draw 3 lines on a piece of paper, and then I have to make a picture out of it. Or this particular one. He drew dots all over the paper and—

Numbered them.

Numbered them, almost like connect the dots from when you were a kid. But they were in no particular fashion or order, and I had to make a picture out of them. And so this was my chicken.

Chicken. 10-minute art exercise.

And so it took me probably a minute to draw, and then I spent 10 minutes coloring it in, and I was the happiest person in the world. It changed my whole day. So—

We were talking with some friends today, uh, business partners of ours with Wisdom OS, and we were talking about how as kids you'd sit down and a parent or an auntie or a relative or somebody give you a coloring book and hand it to you and say, draw me a picture, make something this, and you'd just sit there and do it. And even with reading as a child, you would sit for hours and read. Writing as a child, you would just sit for hours and do it. And as adults, we tend to just not give time. We wanna create in— we create often, we have to try and create in a pressure container as opposed to giving ourselves room and just being random with it, making creation play. And I think creating is play, be it writing, writing poetry, You know, painting, anything, music, it just should have this element of play.

Play. Yeah.

And, you know, doing that. And so, you know, it's particularly in a busy lifestyle, sometimes you need a friend, a partner to kick it out. Another thing we might do is we'll just hop in the car and I've done 3-minute painting games with Mel. And in a little city where we are, we'll, I'll pick 5 stops in my head. And she's gotta jump out of the car and she's got, you know, 3 minutes to do a sketch.

And so I bring a little tiny watercolor set and a water brush and I just make a quick painting and the time pressure takes you out of your head, takes me out of my head, takes all the sort of decision-making out of it because I don't have a lot of time to, you know, make a lot of decisions.

So It's just one of those things.

Yeah.

You gotta do. We did have another death, didn't we, this week?

Oh, we did. We, we lost one of our chickens. Her name was LaFonda, and she was a good chicken, and she lived a good life. But RIP LaFonda.

LaFonda. When she started naming our chickens, I knew I was in trouble. So, that's the thing.

Yeah. LaFonda passed last night.

So In a box.

She was a good chicken. I brought her in the house. I was trying to make her comfortable because she didn't seem to be well. And it's really hot here in Texas. So I was trying to see if I could, you know, if the AC would help her, but she passed. She was an older girl, so she lived a good life. She did.

She's a good chicken. Any other questions on art, creativity, or suggestions or ideas?

Has chicken soup. Yay.

Um, anyone's got, you know, we do a lot of work in trauma, artist therapy, um, all those sorts of things. If you've got any questions that you, you wanna ask or things you wanna touch on, feel free to, to do that. Love to, love to connect, love to chat about it.

I love reading all the comments. Thanks guys for reaching out. Yeah, it's great.

It is. It's great. I'm just looking at X for our live feed there. See if there's any questions there.

What else are we— oh, so we talked about La Fonda. We talked about Creative Games. Did you wanna talk about Gina?

Yeah, look, had a very exciting call with my agent, my literary agent connected with Gina about 12, 18 months ago and been writing a couple of books. So I've written 32 books, nonfiction books, and about what, 6 or 7 years ago decided to really switch in and focus on fictional writing. And so in this season, these last, how many years has it been? 6 years?

Yeah, 2019.

2019. 7 years I've written 6 books. And I, I read a quote by Harlan Coben. He said, get the first 4 books out of the way because they'll be crap. And he's pretty true. Like the 5th book, I'm, I was really excited about, but the 6th book was the one that she really likes.

Agent got excited.

Really excited about.

Yeah.

So we had a great talk with her about it and we had a great conversation about where the Harker series is going and what to do. And that whole process is fascinating is, well, I decided to go really the traditional style, getting an agent, finding a publishing house, a trad publishing house. And so that's been a really exciting journey. And the other thing we're doing, as I mentioned before with Deal With It, is with our partners in Wisdom OS, we've got a massive database list and we're just going to launch that book ourselves. And we're excited about that. We're excited about what it is to partner with some friends, get our book to people because we've got the Phoenix Collective. And the Phoenix Collective is a 2-year trauma recovery course. We took all 15 years of our trauma recovery lessons, put it into a, like a 2-year block, and then just put it out there for a lifetime so people can get on there and, and get 15 years and $150,000, $300,000 worth of recovery. into their life. And we wanna make that part of the Deal With It launch is package it up and get it to people because, you know, I had to start with nothing and I think people should be able to get a leg up. You know, they should be able to stand on our shoulders, so to speak, and go, okay, I can learn from what these couple have done and what they've done as a couple. How can we go forward? So that's actually what we're doing with Deal With It. We're gonna re-release Deal With It. In, um, in November.

We're making some revisions now, and we're trying to bring the cost down on the book because right now the inside has some color, uh, charts and things in it. And if we print those in black and white, the cost can—

Cost comes down and we can include the, the 2-year course.

Yes.

So you'll basically get, uh, a 2-year trauma recovery course book signed for you. And so we're really excited about doing that. I think that's, that's important for us for the next stage of where we're going.

Yeah, I think so too. So lots of exciting news on the writing front this week.

And Mel is releasing a new thing called the Art Gallery. So any of you artists out there who are interested in collaborating, I'd encourage you to connect with her at Mel Ryan underscore King.

On Instagram.

On Instagram. And she's, we're gonna set up something called, we've, we've got the URL, theart.gallery, and we wanna showcase art. We, we just think there's a way to get art out there, particularly artist therapy, folk art, new artists. And we wanna create a platform where people can share their art, share their art, build a network, collaborate on sharing each other's art. And then, you know, if you share on Art Gallery and Mel posts it and you get a sale, well, That's just awesome because we're looking for partnering with people where reciprocity is just part of their DNA. And so it's a chance to take. We've all got 2,000 or 3,000 people on our Instagrams. All of a sudden we've got 20,000 and 30,000 people on our Instagrams.

And so the idea is sort of like an online artist co-op, I guess, would be the best way to describe it. Yeah. Not sure about any of the details yet. So, but would love for people to start reaching out to us, and we can kind of start a dialogue about—

Michelle likes your—

Thanks, Michelle.

There's a chicken. This is our— we mentioned earlier on we had a— Mel was in a bit of a funk, so we had a join the dots chicken drawing competition. So, yes. Anyone got any questions on On anything really, anything on trauma, on art. Anyone wanna share a story in the chat about things you've got, questions you got about trauma, questions you got about the creative process? You might have questions about writing. Like, would you be interested in doing a writing workshop? Would you be interested in learning how to write? Would you be interested in learning how to publish, learning how to get an agent? These are things that, you know, I've spent 60-odd years learning and I wanna give it away. I cracked it, you know. And Wisdom OS, our partners want you to give, I don't have a story. Like, what are you saying?

He says, give us a story.

Give us a story. He's always after a story. He's a card, that fella. I'm telling you. They've got a great— here's a story for you. So I had a mate come to me. He had been working in the Coast Guard for years, like 300 rescues. One of his jobs was to stop the people— no, he couldn't stop them, but to get to retrieving the bodies for people who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I think we're talking 325 bodies they retrieved. And his back was so smashed up with the discs. from the compact of the waves with, with running this. And so he was part of our network of veterans and, and first responders we were helping. And we connected him with Wisdom OS and using frequencies, frequency medicine, we played through the phone. He had the first relief in, I don't know, what was it, 10 or 15 years?

Yeah, it was a long time.

Um, that he'd ever had. So, you know, I, I love what we're doing with, with Wisdom OS and the role that things like frequency and alternative medicine are playing in recovery. Because of, you know, I, I love, you know, Western medicine's got its place, but so has alternative medicine. You know, having a think about some of these things, our body's a battery, our body runs on frequencies. And I, I think it's worth, if we've worked out anything with the whole Fauci vaccine virus thing, is that you gotta have a, be prepared to have a look at things a little differently. And I, I think just being able to look honestly at different things, I think is very important for life. And I feel like we live in a world where people have stopped asking some of those bigger questions. They've stopped thinking, um, stopped thinking about creation. Everyone's so fearful at the moment, and that really stifles creativity.

Hmm.

Um, you know, it's, um, it's, it stifles the creativity. And fear inhibits. And I think that's part of the process with being creative. If you're scared to create, if you're fearful for what other people's response will be, then you're not going to create.

Or fearful of anything, wasting paint. John had to sit me down in the early days and I, you know, I bought really nice watercolor paper and I had paint and he was like, it's just paper. Just start. Just do something. You're not gonna waste anything.

Because waste— you're not wasting if you're learning.

Yeah.

Right.

Nothing is wasted. I think a lot of times too, like, if I'm feeling like I'm sort of, I have some sort of fear or, you know how you just feel like if you've been reading too much news or, you know, whatever. If I go outside, particularly if I go outside and walk barefoot in the grass, it makes me feel so much better because I'm Connected to something that's bigger than I am, you know. Um, and I'm, and, you know, there's all sorts of science behind it. Nature, all the things.

Natures.

All the natures.

Get a dose of the natures.

So, uh, yes, I highly recommend if you're feeling stuck creatively, just go for a walk.

Yeah, we're thinking of coming out to Tennessee, uh, next year. And doing an art and writing bit of an exposé, going out there talking with people. We've got some connections out there. We're going out there to do an event, a transformation event. And so I think we're going to Tennessee and possibly Indiana. Yeah, set up some time in bookstores. So I was thinking of doing some painting outside. So yeah, if you're up in that area and you wanna come along, hit up with Hit up and meet out on a Saturday morning or something and sit around and stand around for a couple of hours and do some plein air. Does anyone watch Landscape Artist of the Year out there, or is it just me who has to watch that with her?

It's the best show, man. It's a great show.

It is a kind of cool show.

I, I feel like we need a US version of that show.

Yeah, no, but it's not English. That's the way it's like. The English are just very English about the whole thing, you know. So it's kind of cool. So anyone got any questions about life? Any questions about whatever or trauma recovery? We had someone mention in there about the role on TikTok, actually, about the role of creativity in trauma recovery. And I think one of the keys is understanding trauma is the way your brain changes. And What creativity can do is actually help open up aspects of your brain that have been trained, um, with, uh, because of trauma. And you know how we're talking about fear and the, the relationship between fear and creativity? Often what happens with PTSD and some of those trauma-induced states is you become very fearful. You become fearful for your own life and other things. And by pushing into something of creativity, you're actually confronting fear. in a different form. You, you have the fear of acceptance, the fear of approval, the fear of assessing your own work. And so you, by pushing that in, you're actually rewriting some of those synapses about how you view yourself, not just the synapses, but your worldview about how you view yourself, your thoughts around the process. And I think it can be a very powerful way to start to re-engineer yourself. And, and using art as a therapeutic basis, I think, I think it's very important.

Um, back in the early 2000s, they were doing a whole bunch of sort of brain mapping and they were noticing that when you're in a creative flow, whether you're painting, drawing, writing, doesn't matter as long as you're in sort of your zone, that the same part of the brain lights up When people described feeling peaceful. And so that sort of peace center of the brain is what you— yeah, what you tap into when you get in that creative flow. So—

If I can encourage you to, to follow us on, you know, I'm on a bunch of social channels, Dr. John A. King. Melissa is on primarily Instagram and YouTube on Melissa Ryan_King. If you've got any questions, Um, please go on there on the Finally Friday post that I just put up there. I put it up about half an hour beforehand because like it's Friday, man. I'm flat out getting organized, you know what I mean?

Doing our best.

Put any comments or thoughts or questions and next Friday we'll try and turn around and get to it.

It'd be fun.

Yeah.

Give us anything you want us to talk about next week.

And maybe you've got something you want to talk about. We, we brought a guest on a couple of weeks ago, BJ, to talk about writing. And we'll probably bring someone else on in the next couple of weeks, either an artist or another writer, and, and talk about that because we, we, we would like to end the week on a positive note. Um, you know, we, all of us have got up and pursued our dreams all week long.

Yes.

And it can, the, if you will allow it, the world will wear you down.

Yeah.

And so we, our idea with Final Friday is to try and put a bookend in our own life. We work from home.

We're looking to celebrate the good things that happened this week, especially the good creative things. And it would be really fun to celebrate all of your good creative things that happened this week. Yeah.

And everybody shared. So even if you wanna put that in the chat, like, if you've had a big win this week, that'd be cool to know. If you've got a creative process that you're doing, drop it in the chat and we'll give you a shout out. I know BJ was on here a couple of weeks ago and we gave her a shout out. She's releasing a new book.

Yeah, she's got a new book coming out. So yeah, that'd be really cool if you find one of our Finally Friday posts and just put in the comments, even if you got a cool update, we'll be glad to share it because I really think we should all celebrate each other as creatives.

I think so. I'm thinking of getting my agent Gina on to talk about what is it like to get into the book agency, what the book publishing game is. If that's something that would interest you, drop it in the comments on this post On, on my Instagram account or on Melissa's Instagram account, and we'll try and connect with those people. She's got a couple of great friends. I don't know if you know Churchgoing Mule. She's just awesome. We'd love to get her on to have a chat in a couple of weeks.

Marshall's taking an Instagram break, so we gotta wait for that.

Well, yeah, she's an artist. What are you gonna do? They're like that.

We're like that sometimes.

Yeah, you do. There's too much BS out there. So, all right. Well, anything else? Any other questions? Anyone want to share a win, an artistic, a creative idea, a book they've got published that we can give a shout out to, a painting you've just done, a new beverage you've just discovered? I did find a very good whiskey the other day. Like, I like Irish whiskey. This thing was like $18. It's like, I mean, it's cheap as chips and it tastes like a $70 bottle of whiskey. Irish was phenomenal.

What do you remember the name of that brew hub place we went to on Wednesday across from Lula B's? It was great.

Oh, that was great.

Dallas.

Was it the Lone Star Brew or the Dallas Brew or something? Yeah, that was a good, that was a good brew. Yeah.

I wish I remember.

We went to a place in Louisiana on the way back from South Carolina called Sam's. I am a Reuben convert. I have never had a Reuben sandwich in my life.

So we stopped in Louisiana for po'boys because that's an experience.

Apparently, that's the thing.

But this guy doesn't like shrimp.

I hate shrimp.

They, they had a Reuben po'boy.

It was unbelievable.

It was ridiculous.

Sam's in Louisiana. Just pop in there. It's like, man, it was, it was so good.

I, it's right off of Interstate 20. I don't know what town it was in.

We stayed too far too long. You know, it's definitely not a 20-minute in and out.

Oh, no, it's not fast food.

No, it's not. But that Reuben was to die for, man. I could—

We're gonna have to do better at, like, recording some of these things, like, take our Selfies or yeah, you know, whatever. We're not very good at.

I'm flat out remembering to do this. Like, crap! It's Friday. Bloody hell! Get to the shed.

So thank you guys all for joining.

Yeah, thanks for having a chat on Friday. And again, please on Mel's Instagram and my Instagram or any of my social accounts. If you got a question you wanted to bring up or a guest you'd like to come on, if you've got a book or a painting you'd like to promote, yeah, you know, let us know. We'd love to help each other.

Yeah, it's fun.

If you're a total dick about it, we won't help you. But like, just don't be and it'll be awesome.

Oh, one of my collectors, Julie, has joined us.

Hi, Julie. Camp.

Oh yeah, she, she bought a chicken.

She bought— hey, Julie.

A couple chickens, actually.

Did you see Mel's new chicken? Oh yeah.

Okay. Did you tell a color by number chicken that I did the other day?

Yeah, I gave her a story like he just collect 10 dots and draw a chicken.

So creativity games are fun.

Does anyone want this chicken? I'll post it to you.

We'll do it.

If anyone wants this chicken, put a comment in the thing and like, I'll send it to you. Mel will sign it. Picasso's got nothing on Mel's chickens.

I tell you what, thank you guys all for coming.

Yeah, appreciate it very much. It's great. Have a great weekend. Be blessed.

Do something fun and creative this weekend.

Yeah. Get yourself outside. Get some time. You know, everyone can find 10 or 15 minutes, put their feet on the ground, hug a tree. The frequencies, the, the science behind hugging a tree. I'm not a tree-huggery guy. But I'm now a tree-huggery guy. My business partner is Captain Woo Woo. He does all the, you know, when I like, if, if people tell me get in touch with my feminine side, I say, you know, I cuddle my wife. Get in touch with your woo woo side. I talk to my mate Matthew. He's got all the woo woo any man would ever need. He does. He's really into this stuff, man. But he know he's a science guy, so he's got all the knowledge behind it. And he's been talking about on different stages about the frequencies from trees and how Grounding can happen just by touching a tree. And in, in nanoseconds, the frequency and current in your body changes and gets in tune with the earth. And that's why it's some of the best things you can do for yourself. If you travel a lot internationally, uh, is take your feet off, shoes off as soon as, not your feet off as soon as you hit the ground. That's a bit hard, but shoes off as soon as you hit the ground.

Take your shoes off. Yeah.

Because it gets you in touch with the frequency or touch a tree, um, for a couple of minutes. And that, so that's really, um, Yeah, really kind of cool.

Yeah.

So get yourself some time, take some time, take a moment. We gotta reorganize the shed.

We're gonna organize our garden shed. So John has room to do some woodworking.

Yeah, she wants me to make us, carve us some crows and I wanna do some of my art for my people in Australia. I'm an indigenous man, Wurundjeri. Mel's Cherokee. I wanna do some, we wanted to start to do some collab projects. Around some of, some of indigenous art stuff. So, yeah. So we'll let you know. We gotta do that. We gotta do the garage and then I gotta, next week we'll probably paint the deck. So.

We have a lot of house projects going on.

Primarily because I've been writing for 2 years and neglecting the house. We're not, we're not messy. We're just like behind.

We have other things we'd rather be doing. That's true.

Smoking cigars and writing books, painting. So I might take it for a bit of plein air or outside painting once we get off.

It's 102 degrees outside, so it'll be like probably some speed painting.

Well, I could do just plein air through the front window on the car.

Yeah. And just the AC blasting.

All right. Why don't we just stay home? What's telling? We'll do something in the morning before breakfast.

All right.

All right. Love you. Have a great.

Bye, friends.

Bye bye. Cheerio. Turn all these off.

Don't you do it? Restream. Oh yeah. Just push end right there.