How to Be Emotionally Honest in Your Work with Alex Cook

TRANSCRIPT - How to Be Emotionally Honest in Your Work with Alex Cook

Roger: Have you ever wondered what motivates an artist to do their art or how they deal with their art being publicly critiqued? A couple episodes ago, Dr. Adam Dorsey recommended that to deal with an overwhelming sense of stress and anxiety, we should create more than we should consume. So I wanted to learn more about what motivates a creator and artist to put their heart into their work.

And then to put their work out there. So I sat down with muralists, musician and author Alex Cook to learn more about what motivates his art.

Alex: The best art comes from a place of telling the truth, uh, whether it be aesthetic truth or cultural truth or emotional truth or whatever. It comes from a desire to share a pointed sense of like, I'm exposing what's real.

That's a big part of the motivation to me of making any work of art is revealing some kind of thing that I've seen to be true.

Roger: Alex's superpower of emotional honesty is present in his art and enables him to show his art in very public ways, and yet what he has learned to be true about his superpower can be applicable to all of us.

Alex: And so I just did that. I just closed my eyes and, and asked, you know, what, what am I supposed to do? I got a really clear new idea in that moment. It was a question. It said, is it true? And it meant is you are loved, true. And I went, oh my God. It is. It's true. These guys are loved. This guard is loved. I'm loved.

Everyone at some point needs to feel that they don't have to earn love. It landed in me that this is not my opinion. This is. This is the truth.

Roger: Welcome to the What Do You Know To Be True Podcast. I'm Roger Kasser, and for over 25 years I've been working with leaders and teams to explore and co-design new ways of thinking, working together, and taking action so that they can unlock their potential and create meaningful impact in these conversations.

I talk with ordinary people about their extraordinary skill, their superpower, and the meaningful impact it has on. Others. The goal is not to try to emulate or hack our way to a new talent. Instead, the intention is to learn more about their experiences with their superpower. And in doing so, maybe we can learn something about the special talent in each of us that drives us towards our potential and living into our possibilities.

If you're ready, let's dive in.

Hey Alex, thanks for joining me today. Great to be here with you.

Alex: So glad to be here. Thanks so much.

Roger: My pleasure. So I'm excited to learn more about your superpower of emotional honesty, but before we get too far, what's important for us to know about you?

Alex: I am an artist, a public artist, uh, a community organizer.

Uh, I've been working for almost 30 years as a muralist. My work has been really about taking the internal life and hoping to share it publicly to create conversation and reflect back what it's like to be a, a person living in the world.

Roger: What I love about that is it sounds like you just defined emotional honesty.

Alex: Yeah. Well, you know what I was gonna say, it's something I think about a lot, but it's kind of not. It's just something that comes very naturally. It's something that I do a lot. It's something that I feel very attracted to.

Roger: It was our mutual friend, Kelly Franklin that put us in touch. And I've been loving looking at your work around the You are loved murals.

Please tell us a little bit more about those murals, the why that message, and why those locations and what inspired you to do this?

Alex: Well, a little over 10 years ago, uh, I just had this really powerful inspiration to create murals that said that phrase, you are loved in public. I feel looking back in retrospect, something that sort of destined to be, I had been working on things for years that were.

Trying to express love in public. Uh, but something happened, uh, at that point that just said, this needs to be very direct, very simple, very unapologetic, just very clear. And I got really excited about what's gonna happen when you say something. So kind of tender, but also confrontational. All at once, uh, in, you know, the busiest intersection in Boston.

You know, what, what is it, what is it like when you take a very sensitive subject? And create it artfully and put it in a place where thousands of people are gonna see it every day. And 10 years ago, I didn't know the answer to that question. I really didn't know what was gonna happen. Um, but I felt how I feel, how I always feel when an inspiration, a real inspiration comes along where I just think, you know, this is gonna happen.

I'm gonna make this happen. I'm gonna find a way to make this happen. Uh, and then we'll just see what results from it. I feel very blessed that the result has been, you know, since 2014, about 120 of these UR loved murals in 20 some odd states around the country, and a few, a few, uh, nations, uh, overseas as well.

Uh, the response has been overwhelmingly positive, um, organizations of all kinds. Reaching out to me, uh, you know, wanting to, to give this, this gift to their community, whether it be for a school or for the community at large, uh, or for a prison or a homeless shelter. It really has been accepted and desired.

In, in lots of different locations, which, which meant a lot to me. My, my sense of the project grew over the years to include, uh, this component of real deep universality and demonstrating that universality not only with the works of art themselves, but where those works of art are. Yeah. It would be lovely if, if all these murals were in schools.

Uh, that would be fine. But, uh, it's been really clear to me that to express what I want to express, the murals need to be in a really broad array of locations. So it means a different, and I think better thing when these murals are in schools and. Prisons and worship communities and homeless shelters, you know, they're in wealthy schools for the, you know, upper, most, 1%.

Uh, and they're in public schools, you know, of all types. It has meant a lot to me to, to really demonstrate the universality of the art and of the message. Um, by where they land.

Roger: Well, for one, my wife, the lovely Miss Lara Lorenz wanted me to tell you, you are doing important work, getting that message out there.

Thank you. Um, she has been known to, um, place stickers in very interesting places and or give stickers that say, you are beautiful. And it's lovely to see the reaction when she gives those stickers to people, because I think these are messages that we do not hear enough. I don't think anyone hears the message that they are loved enough.

Mm-hmm. And I think there's, you know, there's, there's something interesting about that word. And in the English language, we have one word, love. But you know, as a, as a recent guest, Kevin Monroe said there's four, you know, the Greeks had four different words for love. Um, maybe we need more words for it because I think everyone's a little bit afraid of saying love.

Uh, a good friend of mine, April McCormick, who's also been a guest on the, on the podcast, has talked about where she's trying to incorporate the word love in a arrow. Space manufacturing environment. That is, wow. You know, the word love seems foreign in there, and yet we know that, and you know, whether it's in business or education or even amongst friends, there isn't a level of affection and the care that we have for one another that the word love fits.

We need to hear it more often.

Alex: When I began the project in 2014, 1 of the first phases of it was facing the really clear resistance that I felt, um, not so much in myself, but I was aware that this is gonna be out of the ordinary and, uh, is gonna sort of push some buttons To do this publicly was so different than, you know.

Me saying it to my wife or, or even saying it to, to a friend, you know, to say this publicly, um, I felt like I had to kind of bash through a wall of, you know, we don't do this in public, men don't do this. I mean, there was really like a gender thing about it. It was, like I said, the, the, I was on fire for the idea, so I was gonna do it, but I really felt like I had to kind of push, uh, against, against.

Concern that I was feeling like, what are people gonna think? You know, when I first started to describe the project to people, uh, and this is still true, the, the, the reactions aren't always good. Uh, some people do think it's too touchy feely and some people just don't get it. Uh, some people think it's, it's, uh.

Too sensitive, but overwhelmingly the reaction has been good. And I'll also say that during these last 10 years, I kind of feel like the cultural landscape has shifted, that I observe that the phrase you are loved is much more, uh, common now than even 10 years ago. When I did it in 2014, I kind of felt like I was the only one doing it.

And now you really can kind of see that phrase. Much more frequently than you did even 10 years ago. It gives me a feeling that like I've been part of this idea that's so much bigger than me to see all these different places, t-shirts, bumper stickers, you know, just all kinds of stuff. Initiatives in schools, you know about, about love, that that is public.

I feel a little bit proud that like I started doing it 10 years ago, which feels kind of like at the beginning, uh, of it, but it really does feel like a different, um, it may be subtle, but. To me who lives in this world all the time. It's kind of not that subtle. It's very observable.

Roger: Yeah. I was curious when you're just talking about some of the resistance that you get, that people are saying that it's, you know, too touchy feely or they don't necessarily want that message out there, what do you, what do you say to people who are not maybe emotionally, uh, ready for that message of you are loved?

Alex: Well, I mean, the quick answer is I just do it anyway. You know? Uh, as a public artist, you can't be super concerned with everybody's opinion. I certainly try to have all the conversations that I can, you know, when I'm out on the sidewalk working on a mural, I love to have those conversations. I really like to.

Have conversations with people who don't get what I'm doing 'cause I wanna let them in on it. Like one complaint that I got at the beginning was, that's making it too easy. What about like, earning people's respect or earning love, which like, I get it, you know, there's something to that. Uh, but that's not the point I'm making.

Everyone at some point needs to feel that they don't have to earn love. I think that's the saving component actually, uh, of, of this, this message. The, the person who, who, who said that so specifically to me back in 2014, a couple of months later after he saw that I was just moving ahead, uh, wrote me an email saying I was totally wrong.

I don't know what I was saying. Your idea is great. I, I just feel like this is a good idea and, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it.

Roger: Oh, Alex, that was a beautiful demonstration of having grace. For someone else who might be resistant to the idea that maybe there's something, you know, deep past trauma that prevents them from tapping into it, or maybe they're just having a reaction in the moment and it's gone.

Alex: Yeah, and I think this project is meant to reach people in, in that whole spectrum. You know, everybody's dealing with some kind of deep, terrible trauma from the past, and everybody has passing thoughts. That are causing res resistance right now. But I like to think that this message being as universal and simple and beautiful as it is and rendered with high quality art, is designed to just come up to somebody and cause them to have a conversation with it.

Uh, and hopefully it can serve them. Hopefully they will allow it to serve them either in that moment or when they see the mural for the thousandth time, you know, three years later. I have literally zero control of, of how people react or when they react or whatever. All I can do is put the highest quality idea out there into the world and have faith that, uh, it's interacting with the, the realness of people that people are, are.

Bringing their realness to interact with that image and that idea. I wanna tell one, one quick story about, uh, resistance. A couple of years into the project, I was asked to do a, a ur loved mural at a, it's a prison, but it's also for people who have been convicted of, I don't exactly know the term of it.

It's like when there are mental illness com components as well as, uh. A criminal element. So it's like a really hard, difficult place where, you know, the worst crimes have been committed, but then also the incarcerated people. Are dealing with this whole range of, of, you know, mental illness and just, just all kinds of difficulties.

So I was going in there to do this. You are loved from your all, this was maybe 2015. I had done, I had worked as a chaplain in a jail for seven years before this, so it wasn't an unfamiliar kind of space to me. So I walked in and I was there with my painting and stuff and I was, went to begin the painting.

And I just felt this like enormous amount of kind of self-consciousness. There was a guard sort of over to my side, big, burly, bearded dude who I imagined was just like, thought I was so stupid. I imagined him coming to his, you know, 40 hour a week job where his job is to deal with potentially the most difficult people.

To deal with in the most heartbreaking, difficult situations. And here's this like long-haired artist gonna come into my space that I know about, you know, and Right. You are loved on the wall. I, I imagine through his eyes that this looks so insubstantial. And just dumb. I just imagined that through this guy's eyes, I look so stupid.

I put down my brushes and I just thought, oh my God, what am I supposed to do? Like, what if, what if this whole staff, all these guys who are here every day and know this place so much better than me, are just so unsupportive of this? So, uh, I'm, I'm a, a praying person. When, when that kind of, uh, concern or fear comes to me, I.

Reach out inwardly. You know, I'm listening for, I know I'm doing a good thing. I know that I've been brought to this place for good reasons to do good. And so I just did that. I just closed my eyes and, and asked, you know, what, what am I supposed to do? I got a really clear new idea. In that moment. It was a question.

It said, is it true? And it meant is you are loved, true. And I went, oh my God. It is, it's true. These guys are loved. This guard is loved. I'm loved. I mean, I feel that in my bones. I, I I have made that my own. I know it's true. It landed in me that this is not my opinion. This is, this is the truth. And then what he thought didn't matter.

'cause I thought, I can't, I can't help him against the truth. If he disagrees, that's fine. It's not my job to defend this even. And then I proceeded with it and that guy came over and was like the friendliest. He loved it. He was really into it. Uh, I had really good relationships with the staff, with the, with the inmates.

It showed me how much I was imagining it there. The resistance was, at that point, in that particular case, was, was from me. You know, it was a self-consciousness. And that little process disabused me of that self-consciousness. 'cause I realized, oh, this isn't me asserting my opinion. This is me really. Uh, aligning with something that I think is definitively true, like I don't have to defend gravity.

So it really took a big burden off me, uh, to see through that, that fear. Uh, and then, you know, it was just the icing on the cake to see that all the relationships in this very dark, difficult place were beautiful. Uh, the guards were very supportive of it, and you can imagine it's always nice to paint together, but when you are painting with people who have, you know, had.

The most difficult lives you can imagine. And then here we are painting something that's so filled with grace and its color and it's, it's harmony, and we're making jokes and we're having fun together. And, you know, the past in that moment is nothing. It's the most tender, brotherly, uh, time. And I just felt like, gosh, this is, this is just such a tender, sweet.

Graceful gift for us to all be together. Um, and there had been that thing at the beginning that kind of like was trying to get in the way of it.

Roger: I love that story and it reminds me of a story you told me the first time we talked, but you know, the, the story, um, similar, you know, some differences, but ultimately spoke to this beautiful truth about vulnerability and sincerity as an artist.

And I've seen, um, in some of the footage on your website about. When you're putting the murals together, you're not painting them by yourself. You're actually involving those, whether it's the school children, the non-profit employees, the communities they serve, and in this case the, uh, the inmates. And so you're involving, you're engaging them, you're helping them create, um, these and, and perform these acts of love that will be there, you know, long after you're gone.

It's something that just, you know, that they, they now have agency and ownership in that message, which is beautiful. And when you told me that story before, and I think it, it, it, it's applicable now. You said something that blew me away and that's this idea that honesty is safety. And I'm wondering if you can tell me a little bit more about that.

You just talked about the vulnerability, but tell me a little bit more about the honesty and how that shows up in your art.

Alex: It's something that I've really grown in over the years, but it's, but it has been a, a part of my vision from when I was a kid. A lot of the fear we feel about expressing ourselves or about putting an idea out there is what are people gonna think?

Um, am I gonna look bad? Am I gonna make a fool of myself? Am I gonna overshare? And it causes people to reel back what they share or to be maybe insincere or to change what they. Think to accommodate the feeling in the room or the feeling in the culture or whatever. The best art comes from a place of telling the truth.

Uh, whether it be aesthetic truth or cultural truth or emotional truth or whatever. It comes from a desire to share a pointed sense of like, I'm exposing what's real. That's a big part of the motivation to me of making any work of art is. Revealing some kind of thing that I've seen to be true there.

There's kind of an implied contradiction of whatever are the untruths that, uh, whether they be really loud or or totally under the surface, that would rather that truth, uh, not be seen. You know, like, like to talk about that you are loved. There's no real person that's like you aren't loved. I. But there's this feeling that a lot of us have, maybe everybody has of like, okay, maybe in my intimate relationship I talk about this stuff, but in public there's kind of a stonewall.

It's just kind of there. We don't talk about it, but you can feel it. I certainly felt it when I started making the Ur loved murals means it extends to, you know, any. Any statement of truth, any, any real inspired artwork? I think that inspiration often comes from the desire to tell the truth, to reveal something, and the other side of that coin is an element of love for the community.

The artist wants to tell the truth as a service to the community because the artist has this feeling that the truth is healthier than untruth. The artist may not put that in words, but I think the desire that, that most artists have to reveal some kind of truth is it's not just for them. It's also you want to share it, you want to be in service to, uh, to the community.

So I feel like my, my work really has a very, uh, two-sided, it, it really does both sides of that coin. Where with the U Love murals or with, you know. Any painting I make of a, of a landscape or, or of a figure or whatever, I'm trying to reveal some kind of truth that's gonna make life better. I'm not one of those artists that wants to get in fights with people and I.

And, and maybe be un be misunderstood. I, I really don't like the notion of being misunderstood. Um, and I think my, my art reflects that there are, there's so much good out there, art out there that's difficult to understand and that's fine and great and I love a lot of those artists. Um, but it's just not, it's not my work.

Uh, my work has largely been to create work and then hopefully be a bridge. Uh. Between artistic ideas and uh, and the community.

Roger: You do ask that question, is it true? And not just is it true for you, but is it true for, I'm trying to, I wanna say, is it true for everyone? I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but is it a, is it a common good?

Is it a common truth that other people can Yeah. Can, yeah. You know, that they can feel, and then you're bringing it, you're exposing it where it might've been forgotten.

Alex: Mm-hmm. You know, I was thinking before this conversation, uh, it is true, but it's like you just said, it's also a, a common good. Like, you know what if I said something much more personal, something that I feel is true, you know, this guy is a jerk.

I feel like that's true, but is it really useful to say that? Like, if I made a work of art that was like, this guy, I hate him. You know, it's true. You know, whatever. I, I might feel that as sincerely as anything else, but it's not really in service to the community. And speaking in terms of, of, uh, honesty being safety.

I think there has to be, it has to be honest and true, but it also has to include a component of I am loving you by sharing it, I care for you. Um, the, the care that's implicit in that honesty is part of what keeps a person safe. I think the thing that makes me feel safe in honesty is because I. When I'm saying something, honestly in public, I'm really trying to do it out of a sense of service for, for the community or for the people that I'm sharing it with.

That's the thing that doesn't need defense. You know, if I'm caring for you, even if you disagree with what I'm doing, I don't have anything to apologize for. I really can just feel confident that I'm doing the best thing that I can think of to do if you hate me for it. I wish you didn't. But I've done my very best.

And I think that's what gives a feeling of safety.

Roger: So well said. I believe like there is a version of emotional honesty where you go around and just calling people jerks and that's, that's your truth. And it's not in service of other people.

Alex: Mm-hmm. And it doesn't keep you safe at all.

Roger: Yeah. Yeah, there's something about honesty that gets us to our, that taps into something that's core.

And I think those, those expressions of anger or frustration are not at the core. They're somewhere else. They're a symptom of something else. And so to that aspect, that does feel emotionally dishonest. A

Alex: a, a word came to mind that I think is part of this, uh, safety piece. Uh, and it's a word that we don't talk about too much.

Uh. And it's, it's innocence. My, I know that my desire to do good is pure. I'm not saying I am an innocent person per se, but innocence as a quality, if we can embrace it and share things, uh, from a sense of I'm doing my very best. I know I have a lot to learn, but I also have a lot of gifts and I wanna share those gifts with you.

I wanna learn from our interaction. I may make mistakes, but that doesn't change my innocence. I'm really just trying to do good. That is a really practical sense of innocence. Um, that gives one a feeling that you can walk through the world with a great sense of confidence and you know you're gonna be a blessing.

Roger: Thank you for that. So what, what do you think is the relationship between your superpower of emotional honesty and joy?

Alex: Everyone feels joy. When they are able to do the work, they're, they're here to do, I think the most joyful thing is to do, to do your work. The most joyful thing is to do the work that you're here to do.

You know, we all have something, gifts that we have, that we just have. Um, and a big part of life is discerning what those gifts are, um, and then putting them into practice that brings about. Joy. And I think those gifts are always meant, meant to serve. They're always meant to, to bless. They're always meant to beautify, um, to do something for somebody, whether it's being, you know, a fireman or, or being a muralist.

And the other thing, the other thing I'll say brings a lot of joy to me, is witnessing progress, whether it be in the world or in myself. Um, nothing makes me feel better than seeing myself getting better at something. And I think that comes from, from work. It comes from, you know, putting in the hours, whether it be just thinking about what I'm doing or painting murals or having conversations.

Um, it just feels great to say, wow, I did it differently last week, or I did it differently last year. I, uh, um, and I'm, and I'm better at it now.

Roger: I love that, and I think our willingness to make mistakes. I mean, we all, we, you know, you spend five minutes on social media and you'll see some of those inspirational posts around, you know, your growth is just outside your comfort zone.

I mean, there's, implicit in growth is the willingness to make mistakes.

Alex: So much of life is made better by taking everything less personally. Uh, I think it's a, it's a really magnetic negative. Uh, that we all feel, you know about identity, I am my success or my my failure. Um, it's so easy to feel like we are our mistakes or, or almost as, as erroneously we are our successes.

Uh, it's just so dangerous to take everything personally. You know, if I feel like, wow, I made this amazing mural. As soon as it's finished, I feel this huge pressure to do it again or to do a better one. Um, but if I feel like beauty is there to be engaged with, I love beauty, I'm gonna go give it a try, that's a completely different worldview than now.

I have this pressure on my shoulders to be a great artist. That that's what I mean, the difference between personal and impersonal. I can go just as hard towards beauty and tenderness and love, but do it in a way where I just know that that exists in the world. I'm not the source of it. And in fact, I think I might be more tender and more loving because I don't have the terror in my life that makes me feel, uh, when I feel that it's my job to be the source

Roger: You were just talking about, not, not.

Taking things so personally, and the way I was thinking about it was in terms of, uh, what, um, Douglas Stone and Sheena Heen wrote in their book. Thanks for the feedback, where they talk about how there are three reasons why people do not receive feedback really well. And one of 'em is this idea that we, you know, our identity can be wrapped up into that feedback.

So if you say, I'm an artist, and you paint something and. People don't like it. Well that's feedback. But if it's, I'm an artist, that that feedback might be a counter to, okay, am I really, am I really an artist? And what I took from their book, thanks for the feedback when it came to identity. If we put our identity in terms of verbs instead of nouns, instead of being, I am a consultant, it's, I advise clients on how to help them reimagine.

How to create higher performing teams. Feedback doesn't sting as much. It doesn't, I don't question my identity. It comes back to my intention, which is some a, a broader concept that you were talking about earlier. If your intention is true, if your intention has that element of innocence, then that feedback that comes back is just data.

Mm-hmm. It's not questioning whether or not you. Or an artist or a consultant or a podcast host, or whatever that is. So I think it's, it's that, that verb versus the noun that makes a big impact. And when we get feedback, I.

Alex: Absolutely. I, I, I feel that to my core, I'm just thinking about my own self. I can see ways in which that feels very natural, and I can also see ways where I can certainly make progress on taking things less personally and not thinking of myself as a static thing, where I'm trying to establish an identity of high quality, et cetera.

I think it's that static idea of I am x. Uh, that really gets in the way. I think that's magnetic in the same way as taking things personally. And if we can disengage from that, that magnetism, that thing where we want to establish what I am, and like you said, be more of a verb, what am I doing? Uh, then, then I think things can flow much, much more easily.

Roger: So what do you know to be true about. Your superpower of emotional honesty.

Alex: I think emotional honesty is a way of, we're, we're choosing to engage with what's real, uh, both in ourselves and in others. Uh, and that heads the conversation in the direction of, um. Substance, you know, making a difference rather than getting sidetracked by, by envy or, uh, or fear or, or jealousy or whatever.

I think, I think being honest exposes where we're at. It tells us where we're at. Uh, it helps us see the map more accurately. I mean, really honesty, it's just getting the true information instead of the false information. You're gonna make better choices when your map is accurate. Than when it isn't. I think honesty is really just having, having the truest map you can have.

Roger: So what did you believe early on about your superpower of emotional honesty that you've come to believe now is not true?

Alex: I remember an early romantic relationship I was in, I was probably 20. Um, I never had any trouble being honest with, with romantic partners. It was always very natural. I always thought like, what in the world why would I.

Duh. Of course, I'm gonna be honest with this person. I'm trying to love them. In fact, I often err on the other side. I erred, uh, with, with being too honest. Very early on had this girlfriend who I loved with sort of an experiment we did together. Uh, we were talking about communication and being honest and we decided to just like be totally honest with each other.

And I think total honesty is great, but we didn't know to what degree. You don't have to share everything. So we ended up sharing more than was useful and people got their feelings hurt and it caused problems that didn't need to happen at all. That was the first time in my young life that I understood that there was, that it wasn't totally black and white either you are dishonest or you are honest.

There is choosing what's useful and it doesn't mean you're being dishonest, it just means you're like. Reading the room, you're, you're understanding how humans work and there are all kinds of things that don't need to be said. We're, we're always navigating that, and I think I've just gotten better and better and better at reading the room.

Poorly motivated, honesty can just cause problem after problem. Mm. It's really, are you, are you doing what you're doing in service of the situation? In service of the relationship, there are all kinds of things that are factually true, that are irrelevant or will hurt somebody's feelings. Uh, and you know, sometimes it's right to tell the truth.

That will hurt somebody's feelings sometimes. That's right. I think to live a human life, you have to be able to deal with information that you don't love, uh, and it doesn't mean you go around telling everyone their flaws all the time. But if they ask you or if a conversation comes up where the, where the truth has to be told, I, I think it's always a spectrum, but I think I err a little bit on the side of, I wanna tell you this thing that I observe, that I think may be uncomfortable right now, but it might put you in better standing later to know it.

Roger: A couple years ago when I, when my, um, my boss was giving me some advice. And I was sitting there in the room thinking, okay, he, he means this really, well. This is potentially some of the worst advice I've ever received in my career. But it's, it comes from a good place. This person is actually trying to help me in the moment, and it allowed me to see the advice as just bad advice.

Mm-hmm. It's not, you know, it's not personal, it's not malicious, it's not, you know, I'm never gonna talk to this person again. It was, oh, no, they, they have good intention. Mm-hmm. Bad execution, good intention. And we can have grace for people like that. Yep. Yeah. And going back to your, your original story of the person coming up to you on the street and telling you the, the mural's a bad idea and it doesn't fit.

It's like, and then later on coming back and saying, oh, I'm sorry I was having a bad day. Sometimes people have bad days. Mm-hmm. And we need to hold grace for them to, to have a bad day or a bad opinion.

Alex: Mm-hmm.

Roger: It's, it's the same grace we would want our friends to hold for us,

Alex: for sure.

Roger: Okay. Alex, are you ready for the lightning round?

Alex: I suppose so. Let's give it a try.

Roger: Yeah. It's back by popular to man. Okay. Fill in the blank. Emotional honesty is

Alex: a, a great approach to life.

Roger: Who in your life provides emotional honesty for you?

Alex: My wife certainly does. Yeah, we, we do our best to live those ideals in our conversations with one another all the time.

It's a really useful and often joyful practice.

Roger: Is there a practice or routine that helps you grow, nurture, or renew your ability to provide emotional honesty?

Alex: Definitely. Uh, I'm a praying person and, uh, I think really the, the bedrock of. The ability to practice emotional honesty is a sense of innocence.

Very difficult to be honest, if you feel ashamed or if you feel guilty or flawed, uh, or focused on your flaws. So my daily, uh, prayer and feeling that I am connected to. Perfect love, inspired by and, and bolstered by a sense of, of perfect love that's beyond my personal ability and that my identity comes from, uh, a sense of this, this perfect love really helps me identify with innocence rather than my mistakes.

Um, so innocence being the bedrock of. Emotional honesty. My practice of daily remembering a sense of universal, absolute pure love brings me to a feeling of innocence where I can be more confident in my, uh, expressions with others.

Roger: Hmm. So good. Is there a book or movie that you recently watched or read that you would recommend that has emotional honesty as a theme?

Alex: I'm gonna forego that question and just tell you my favorite movie.

Roger: Yeah. Love it.

Alex: Uh, when I was 19 years old, I saw the movie Gandhi for the first time, and it changed my life. I'm not sure he, he was so much thinking about emotional honesty, uh, in, in the terms we've been discussing, but the sense of.

Disinterest in self and absolute interest in truth just has stuck with me. One of my biggest earthly inspirations for sure, uh, in how practical he made his spirituality. I think there are, you know, endless ways that people make. Their spirituality practical. His was in, obviously in, in the, the work that he did, which has some overlap with, with my work.

Uh, but I think, I think he had a very clear sense of, of, of innocence, I'm gonna do the right thing regardless of what the consequences are. That's a very freeing, uh, powerful thing to speak, to see practiced in the world. I. It involves overcoming so much fear to just say, I really am just gonna go with what's right at all times.

Uh, and not fear the consequences. Pretty, pretty inspiring. One of the biggest inspirations to me from that movie and, and also from this book, the unflinching willingness to be loving and respectful to the people who opposed him the most. It's just such an unworldly thing. It's something we have so few models of.

But people have done it. It's possible to do, especially right now in a time where people maybe feel like they have more enemies than they have in the past. I am always, you know, pushing myself and, and maybe trying to, to push a, the conversation in the direction of can we countenance people who disagree with us without hatred?

To me, that's the most progressive thing.

Roger: There's large scale agreement, uh, or, you know, in the country about, you know, how things should be, yet you wanna know it from our discourse. You wouldn't know it from what we see on tv. Um, and so it's going to take us coming from a position of love and in a sense and truth, um, and loving those that we disagree with, loving those who feel seemingly are on the other side.

When, yeah, maybe. Maybe we're not actually that far apart.

Alex: Years ago I was on a jury, um, for a, a, a violent, uh, court case. Um, it was for, for a, a really dark situation. Um, and before the jury went into deliberations, the judge came to us and said something that I have never forgotten. Uh, he said, you know, go into your deliberations and, and.

You know, do your best and think through all the evidence. Um, but just remember that we are talking about what was probably the, the, the worst days of everyone involved, uh, including the person who did the acts. He had already been convicted, and I just thought, wow, you know, this. He's trying to bring out that, that we are not defined by even our worst acts, you know, in terms of time spent on earth.

So that was the tiniest fraction of this man's experience. It just really stuck with me where, where we don't have to let ourselves define people by their worst acts or their worst opinions. We can always remember that people are more than the reasons we disagree with them or even, uh, or even their acts.

Roger: Well said. So if an audience member wanted to ask you a question or follow you, where do you wanna point them to?

Alex: I have two different websites. One is for the Ur Loved murals, which we talked about, ur loved murals.com. And my general art website is uh, stone balancer.com, which shows, you know, the whole array of paintings and drawings and the books I've written and various things.

Um, and you can also follow me on Instagram at Stone or Art

Roger: Alex. Thank you so much for this conversation. This has been very uplifting. I love everything that you were sharing about emotional honesty and how it connects with your art, how you ask that question. Is it true? And that's something some other I.

Guests have talked about of asking that question because that, I think that just puts us on a frame of getting out of the stories and the limiting beliefs we might have to something that is actually, you know, more shared and more common and acting from that place of being on. Common ground. And I think about the art, your, your music, um, the books that you've written, everything there comes from that sense of is it true and that sense of innocence and just deep, deep connection to emotional honesty.

So thank you for sharing all of that. I really appreciate it and I really appreciate the opportunity to get to know you a little bit better. So thank you.

Alex: Thanks so much. It's, it's really been a, a pleasure to talk about all these things and to to speak with you.

Roger: Hmm. Okay. Take care. Goodbye.

Alex: Okay, bye-bye.

Roger: Thank you all for being in this conversation with us, and thank you, Alex, for sharing your perspectives and your experiences with emotional honesty with us. The question I'm asking myself now is where and when do I need to remind myself to? Ask the question, is it true? What do you know to be true? As a three Blue Pens production?

And I'm your host for Roger Kassner. We are recording on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish and Suquamish people to discover the ancestral lands of the indigenous people whose land you may be on. Go to native hyphen lands.ca. Okay, be well my friend and love you mean

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