Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley
Finding the Throughline: Conversations about the Creative Process invites you into the minds of writers and other creatives as they open up about their process, their doubts, and what kinds of changes they’re thinking about making. The questions are mildly invasive, honestly, and the answers are unvarnished…and so refreshing!
Whether your creative work is writing, painting, making music, parenting, or simply living, Finding the Throughline can help you get—and stay—inspired. Invigorated, even.
For detailed show notes on each interview, visit katehanley.substack.com. And if you’d like to hear these interviews in one ad-free episode (as opposed to broken up into three shorter episodes with a few ads sprinkled in to keep the lights on), become a paid subscriber once you’re there.
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1076
Replace Your Negative Self-Talk with a Specific...
I want you to head into the holiday feeling refreshed and uplifted. That’s why today’s tip is going straight to the source of where nearly all stress originates, and that’s to your very thoughts.
4 min
1077
Cook When No One’s Hungry EP: 66
Cooking is actually fun. It’s creative. It’s got good smells, pretty visuals, and good tastes. It’s movement. What’s not fun is try to produce something edible when you and/or the people you’re feeding are hungry. That’s stressful
5 min
1078
Why Driving Without the GPS Is Good for Your So...
Surely there are some places in this world where you don’t need an omnipotent GPS voice to get you there. I mean, what happens when the grid goes down and we’ve all lost the ability to navigate by ourselves? What then?
4 min
1079
Have Fun, Dammit (Why Fun Matters) EP: 64
When you’re having fun, you are in the moment. You are very present, and you are relaxed. That’s when things can flow. As paradoxical as it may seem, sometimes you have to plan for fun. This is one of those times.
4 min
1080
Set Better Boundaries with an “I Don’t” List E...
Knowing what’s on your “don’t list” will help shore up your boundaries, and that helps you walk a little taller and keeps any bad behavior from taking away from your well-being.
4 min
1081
Identify Your Bad Habits EP: 62
What are your bad health habits? Are you like me in that you intend to drink only one glass of wine, but always end up having two? A lot of times, after you raise your awareness about something, it starts to shift all on its own.
3 min
1082
Take a Real Lunch Break (no Screens!) EP: 61
Today I am encouraging you—imploring you, even!--to take an honest-to-gosh lunch break. And by that I mean, move away from your computer, and keep your hands and your eyes off your phone. Why?
4 min
1083
Take (at Least) One Mindful Breath a Day EP: 60
Today, I want to help you find your way into two great practices--conscious breathing and mindfulness—by doing ONE SIMPLE THING that only takes about five seconds. Sounds pretty good, right?
6 min
1084
Don’t Keep the Peace EP: 59
It may seem like your highest goal in any difficult situation is to keep things from spilling over into anger or upset. But keeping the peace can look an awful lot like sweeping things under the rug, and ignoring what needs attention.
6 min
1085
Embrace Order EP: 58
The average person spends 15 minutes a day looking for a lost item—that’s a lot of unnecessary stress on a daily basis, and over the course of a year, that’s more than 91 hours spent on rummaging through your bag or your house silently freaking out.
4 min
1086
Try a No-Spend Day EP: 57
Today’s tip is about dedicating some amount of time to NOT spending money. Because sometimes NOT doing something is the best way to help you figure out how you want to do it in the future.
5 min
1087
Validate, Validate, Validate EP: 56
We all long to feel heard and understood. Like, deep down in our souls we want to feel gotten. And it is so easy to do this for another person. So easy! And yet, it’s pretty rare that we actually do.
5 min
1088
Share Your Pronouns EP: 55
I have something very specific to suggest that you do in honor of International Kindness Day. And it’s not be kind to others! I hope you already know to do that, right?
6 min
1089
Know When to Pick Up the Phone EP: 54
Today’s tip is designed to help you be a better and more efficient communicator. And in this day and age of overflowing inboxes and texts a-plenty, it may surprise you, because I am going to encourage you to do something that may seem even a little...
4 min
1090
Be a River, Not a Pond EP: 53
Today’s tip can nudge you into feeling more generous, which isn’t something you hear about nearly as much as you do about gratitude. Gratitude is focusing on what you have or what you get. And generosity is focusing on what you can give to others....
5 min
1091
Soak Your Stress Away, For Real EP: 52
Today’s tip delivers self-care in all kinds of ways, helping you tend to your physical health, your mental health, and even your psychic health.
3 min
1092
Write a Thank You Note EP: 51
Imagine how tickled you’d be to pick up your mail today and see a handwritten note from someone thanking you for something you did or said. It would make your day, wouldn’t it?
4 min
1093
Give a Better Compliment EP: 50
There are many ways that compliments don’t end up being all that complimentary. Especially when they are related to appearance, compliments can get loaded, quick.
5 min
1094
How to Truly Help Someone You Love EP: 49
Of course you want to swoop in and fix things for someone you love if it’s possible for you to do so. But I want to plant the seed in your mind that fixing things for other people is in no way guaranteed to actually be helpful.
4 min
1095
Take an Objective Look at What You Eat EP: 48
While you might spend a fair amount of time thinking about what you’re going to eat, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you don’t spend a lot of time observing what you eat.
4 min
1096
Find Your Power Hour. Protect It With All You’v...
Everyone has a time of day where they are most likely to be operating at full capacity. I like to call that time of day your power hour. It’s kind of like you get to be a super hero for only one hour a day—what hour would you choose to don your...
4 min
1097
Do What You Can While Can EP: 46
My mother in law raised 5 boys, she worked full time as a Spanish teacher and she had dinner on the table every night at 5:30. Once I asked her how she did it and said well, you just do what you can while you can.
5 min
1098
Bless and Release EP: 45
We all have heard that to forgive is divine, and it is. But it can also feel like a pretty tall order sometimes. The desire to forgive may not come for a while, but there is a half-step a long the way, and that’s what I want to talk to you about...
4 min
1099
Make One Thing Reusable EP: 44
I recently read that every single piece of plastic that’s ever been made—which adds up to 8.3 billion metric tons—is still on this Earth. Some plastic is recycled, sure, but, according to National Geographic up until 2015 only 9 percent was...
6 min
1100
See the Fingerprints on Everything EP: 43
Today we’re talking about a way to look at the things you buy and consume as more than mere things. And that is to think about all the many, many people that went into creating those things.
3 min