Podcast for Singers 
Overcoming Fear to
LIVE LARGE - Unapologetically!

Transcript 

Mel Lathouras 0:00
G'day, welcome to yet another episode of feeler singer podcast. I don't know why I always sound surprise every time I announced that, but here we are episode 29. And I'm so excited because I have

the legend, spoony Joe, otherwise known as IV lo Zophar. here and it's honestly I've been wanting to interview Amy for bloody ages. So Amy is an artist. She's a musician. She's a shiatsu practitioner and energy Reiki healer. And she honestly, she is what I often refer to as the Renaissance woman. She does everything and is good at everything. And I also love her so much. She's my soulmate. And thank you for being here on the podcast booty, Joe.

Amy Dzufer 0:53
Thanks for having me. Introduction. Oh.

Mel Lathouras 0:58
And yeah, so listen, I think the reason why I wanted to interview you will one you're very interesting. But to we there's actually there's so many different reasons why I wanted you on the on here. But just this week, I've been talking a lot with the Filipina membership about creativity and making creative, your creative practice. You know, you're either a me Yeah.

Making creativity or your life's work, even though you have to, you know, you have your actual nine to five or, you know, you have to pay mortgages, you have to look after kids, how we can still make creativity, our life's work. And, yeah, you have made creativity, your life's work. And it's been a bit of a process because even though you've always made art, and you've always been a musician, you've in the past struggled to call yourself an artist. So Oh, yeah, yeah. So let's take you back to when you were little used to draw all the time and put on concerts and, and so when from when you were young, and you're really, you know, this is what you love to do for the joy of it? Where did things sort of go a bit awry for you in terms of, you know, calling yourself an artist, even though that's what you did in that's what you loved? Um,

Amy Dzufer 2:22
the acts? Well, I think because I thought you had to study art to be like, go to art school or whatever, and I never did. And

then I think that was the main thing and that, you know, you various times, you can't make money, like I specifically remember growing up, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I was like an artist, then, you know, the retort was, you can't be an artist, and I was like, Cool.

Shit. What am I gonna do?

hairdresser marine biologist, that that was the things that all the kids wanted to do at our school anyway.

I did want to be a hairdresser, too. But that's an unknown story. Well, actually, I guess I am kind of a hair.

Mel Lathouras 3:19
Cut my hair many. very bloody good job. Yeah. And that's another thing after like, you know, I wouldn't be a sell on hairdresser. But I definitely can do a pretty good haircut in different styles. But now that, you know, it took me to go, Oh, I've had 20 years practice. And the same for the artists thing is I've had 20 years more

Amy Dzufer 3:44
practice and you go okay, what had to do a lot of reflecting and stuff to go, what? What makes you not an artist? Like, what? What are you doing that? You can't call yourself an artist. And it was like, I had to dig deep into self confidence stuff. And anyone doesn't matter what people said, like anyone could say anything. And at the end of the day, it was me that I didn't feel like I was good enough. And still I'll go or it's not good. And I'm like, Hey, bro.

That's on YouTube. All the kids watch the bro.

That, like you never good enough until you say you're good enough. And who cares? Like no, like no one does what I can do. And I can't do what other people can do. And I can't even replicate my own drawings. That I think I said that to you the other day that I was like, Oh, I took for granted that I'll get in the flow. And just I can smash out a whole heap of stuff and then go artists do that again. And sometimes I can do stuff again. But this sometimes it seems really simple like the simplest things to do again. I couldn't do it. I was like shit, I kind of copy my own work.

Mel Lathouras 5:00
If you get a spoony Joe, you can

it will never be replicated

all right, fingers crossed. It just went dark. I was like, as long as the No one copies your work like, you know how oh people can copy and I think I don't know if someone said it somewhere that people can copy you because a lot of times when people ask or if you put your work on the internet, can't people rip it off? And I haven't never been. I've never been scared of that because no one's ever done it.

Amy Dzufer 5:37
But if that's just that, that was the thing that I went on. That's never stopped me from putting stuff out there like I've always fought for kind of forced myself to put stuff mostly like online. That was a thing that I struggled for ages to even do that, but still did it. And like every post would be super uncomfortable. I get super nervous. And now the nervous part is like doing a video

Mel Lathouras 6:10
you've always had that mentality. There's more where that came from anyway. Oh, yeah. As I've known you. So to you. It's just like, Oh, yeah. If someone rips that off, there is more where that came from. Yeah. But usually people

Amy Dzufer 6:25
I guess it comes down to a few. Maybe your massive and you're making heaps of money in

like brand rips you off or something like that? I don't know. But I don't there was you know, that bridge when you get to

come and rip me off.

He's one email

that no one can like copy essence. No. Absolutely. So. So yeah.

Your drawings, but they can never take yourself? No, it won't. It won't be the same. Absolutely not. So yeah, really. You just You just one day gave yourself permission. You just went? Yep. I'm going Oh, yeah. Yeah, three weeks ago.

I was out loud. I asked why so.

But I love what you said about like, it's been like a gradual progression for you with sharing your work on social media. Like you start Oh, yeah, even to people I wouldn't even like, show other people my stuff. I send my friends text messages. And then I was like, hang on, if you can share it with them, like they're probably sick of seeing the same shit all the time or whatever. Yeah, that's probably me talking to myself. I'm sick of CMI and stuff. But

yeah, then to go on social media. And I've tried websites, and I've just never found that.

Like,

didn't really do anything. And just

Mel Lathouras 7:59
and just to give listeners context. So Amy has started putting her artwork, you can buy her original artwork, you can buy prints, and you can also buy a t shirt with her artwork on it. And she sells through her Instagram account. So and I love that because you will use always like you've tried different things like the cartels, but you find that there's more of a just a real kind of genuine connection. Or there is Yeah, and more from Instagram. I can pick what people like things that I like people like but there's in sizings it's so random, that you need that, like that connection and to be able to talk to to Yeah, the people like things that I go oh, people love this. Yeah. Oh, by 10 and no way I wouldn't have sold them. So it's better to leave it open and then you know, people ask when they're ready and whatever. Yeah, doing that pre order stuff has been cool because you do connect with all the people that purchase stuff.

Amy Dzufer 9:00
Love you guys.

But and then also doing like, I thought with you, I could do a drop ship which is

order as you go or whatever, but then I can't do like handwritten notes and like making little name tags for every single one that's

at Jyotisha because I always get you know, it comes with your name hand drawn on it. And he reminds me of Christmas presents. I've got so many of them on my

Mel Lathouras 9:31
head myself.

Actually, I just love my friend

just by way, so if you want to go and check out Amy's work now just go to add spinny Jo so SP ONYJO E but I'll put in the in the show notes anyway. But I what I loved about that, Amy is because you tried everything and you're like actually, I can just keep this super simple. Yeah, that was what

Amy Dzufer 10:00
was confusing me too. I felt overwhelmed by doing.

Like, what do I put on a shop, you can only put 10 things for this price and Lu. And you can invest in yourself and do big website and do things like that. But for me it was just was never working. Yeah, simple things good for me. Yeah. And I think also through this process of one, naming yourself, yes, I'm an artist and to starting to share it with people.

Mel Lathouras 10:30
You've really discovered how you like to operate. Like you definitely like to keep things simple. You definitely forge your own path youth as you're not like anyone I've ever. You just you do things your own way. Like, has that always been the case? Have you always been?

Like, you've always forged your own? You've never really never really followed trends? I mean, you're not really

I suppose you're trendy.

But you, but you're, you're unique. Yeah. Yeah. But what else have you discovered about yourself in this process of, of one saying, Okay, I'm gonna take this up. This is who I am. This is what I do.

Amy Dzufer 11:21
Well, just that it was me. Like, I was my biggest critic. And I was my biggest, like, self confidence. Keep her down on it.

That is

Mel Lathouras 11:35
the Debbie Downer.

Alright, my thanks so much. And

Amy Dzufer 27:15
thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1 11:37
You win the fight to get over lone camps to be able to end to like, really dig down to go. Oh, I did. You're right. Like I like to be hanging out with you. Why can't this That's what I'm saying, like, hanging out with you. I'm just myself. And then why can't you be like that on everywhere else.

Mel Lathouras 12:04
We had these of practising camera, FaceTime each other, we still FaceTime each other every single day. We got we got it. Got it. The whole kind of seeing our face.

Speaker 1 12:16
Yeah, it's different. I think it's to even thinking about, like our ship. When am I gonna say to you on here, even though I talk to you every day. That pressured even this, I don't feel pressured to do this. But the what? What am I going to say? Like, oh, I still have to go. Yes, say whatever. So if I say the wrong thing.

Mel Lathouras 12:42
So what would you say to somebody that's like, Yes, I love I do artwork, and I want to start sharing it on social media at but that feeling like, oh,

Speaker 1 12:51
I can just do it and message it to yourself. Like, if you before you do a post or whatever, send a text if you haven't got any friends to send it to send it to me will be a good job. Oh, find someone that can go? Yep. Good job. Because not everyone will say that. And not everyone likes yourself. And I've learned that I always like Come on. Please tell me I'm so good. And then people won't. They'll be like, yeah, that's cute. Oh, that's not my style. But that was one thing. That's the biggest thing that I can say is if you like what you've done, then it doesn't matter if anyone else likes it. But also if you like it, someone else is going to like it because they like you. There's someone out there that likes you.

Mel Lathouras 13:37
Yeah. And just bringing this back to singing so obviously, well, Amy is actually a singer and a musician. We're obviously talking about her sharing her artwork through social media, but you know if you're a singer musician, like start you know recording yourself playing singing and then yeah, like I need to suggest it send it to a friend but someone that you know is actually going to say Yeah, it's like, yeah, choose your audience. You know, when we

Unknown Speaker 14:05
if you Sorry, I was just gonna say where we

Mel Lathouras 14:09
where we choose people that we know are going to be critical. That's a that's self sabotage. Like that's a way of resisting Yeah,

Speaker 1 14:16
to stop sending stuff to my parents, because they're not my audience and they all say like, if it was alright even though it'd be like that then you have to learn to go or they're not my people or not my not my people but not my

Mel Lathouras 14:35
they're not going Yeah, yeah, hell no. Or they're not gonna buy you your tracks or whatever or they'll probably pay to come and see you seeing complete sociopaths. Oh man standing anyone who doesn't go kids gigs.

Unknown Speaker 14:51
No, that's it. Yeah.

Mel Lathouras 14:55
So, um, my Ba ba ba ba. So yeah, so We've already covered some really big stuff you want gave yourself permission to call yourself. This is you know who I am. This is what

Speaker 1 15:08
I do. Oh, yeah. Have you practice that too? In conversations you will say, or what do you do? I used to say, I'm a mom. And I never felt like I like being a mom. But I never felt like oh, that's, that's the

Mel Lathouras 15:23
only thing that I had. That's one part of what

Speaker 1 15:26
Yeah, and then yeah, it took it took ages to do that to to go, Oh, I'm a musician. And I was okay with being a musician. But I was like, oh, artists, like, Oh, what do you think I thought you had to either sell a $10,000 piece or something like that to be an artist or to be? I don't know.

Mel Lathouras 15:47
You had to Yeah. Quantify with? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's the other another blog for a lot of people is they think that they have to be, you know, it has to be a profession. You know, it has to be Oh, yeah, you can actually just be an artist and just do art for yourself. You don't even have to share it with other people that know what you wouldn't do. The second thing is you worked on, you know, starting to share it and you know, getting over the fear humps around sharing it. So what are some of the processes that you use? Like, have you has, have you used any modalities that have helped you?

Unknown Speaker 16:23
With what do you mean? Like,

Mel Lathouras 16:25
you know, meditation?

Speaker 1 16:27
Oh, yeah, everything. Yeah, meditation, journaling. That's a big one. When you don't, you know, if your friends have heard the same story, or you're sick of your own same story, this brought it out. And you can write for ages and ages and ages. And like, how I sawed off what if someone reads it? Because it's their fault? If I read it, yeah. What else has helped tapping? Love tapping you to do that? Yeah. EFT, tapping. Stretching. Heaps. What else? I don't know, basically, anything out there. That is self help. I've had a crack

Mel Lathouras 17:10
you've used at all. The other thing too, I want to mention is that you, actually, years ago, probably about 10 years ago, I think you probably taught me that permission of play. Like I've just sitting down and go, I don't know what to draw. Like, you know, it's been I've always been a bit stunted. When it comes to, you know, doing anything rd, you know, with pen and paper or, or paints or whatever. And you're just like, might just start scribbling. Just like, just use get your hand and do this with a colour. And then I was like, oh, and then it like, brings you back to childhood. And yeah, and it's like, Oh, my God, this is it. This is you just have to give yourself permission to play. Yeah. You've always been really good at that. Like you just give yourself permission to do the thing. You've painted your friggin fridge. Yeah, yeah, you made it like Gorman esque. It's beautiful. So pink with all these like, you know, bright patterns over the top of it. Just you do really cool things like that. And also, you're super prolific. Like you just churn it out. Like it just Yeah, I thought that was

Speaker 1 18:28
something that everyone does. I don't think they do. And I took that for granted too. And then there are times where I think I had to stop and go, Oh, just because you can, like I can paint this giant big canvas or I used to paint my house all the time. Be like Oh, I'm not going to paint the canvas. I'll just paint a wall and change the colours because I feel like colours can enhance you vibration or whatever your energy or depending on how you're feeling. Or if you want to space you know, it makes it warm or cool or whatever. But I'll do that all the time and then be like oh shoot, I just painted a whole friggin wall like up to the roof. We had a really tall house and not think of that that was something to do and in do it in like school hours. And then yeah, same with painting big giant canvases. I just do it and go what am I going to do? Just do it don't like even think about it. Because if I think sometimes if like sometimes I draw things beforehand and paint over them. But mostly I just go Ready Set scope. And if you if I start I'll get in my own way and then go Oh, or what should I do? And I did that for years and years and years and I still do that but then also learnt it's okay to not finish something in one go either. So sometimes I would I went home, what people work on something for like a year, what the hell. And that was the same with songwriting too. Like, I always thought you had to finish a song and you don't, you can, like write half a song and then go back to it if you want to, or you don't ever have to. You don't have to finish anything if you don't want to.

Mel Lathouras 20:21
Yeah, that's it. That's right. Actually, Amanda Cook, who's this brilliant poet who? spoony? Amy knows, she bought some incense.

Unknown Speaker 20:30
Yeah, that was cool. Yeah.

Mel Lathouras 20:33
So she said last night, you know, class feel a single membership class, because we're talking about creativity and how to make it your life's work, even though you've got a million life things to do. She said, It's about returning. She said just it's, you do the things. But you've she sees it as a thread, you know, and you just keep returning to where you left off. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. And I thought that was amazing. It's like, yeah, just like keep the thread going. Even. Even if it's weeks and weeks. You have a good visual to, you know, just still just come back. Come back. Come back. Sure. I kind of lacking this a little bit too much.

Speaker 1 21:16
Yeah, it's good, though. That gives you like, if you go away it was I can't remember. Like picking up your stitch. Yeah. I'll just keep sewing my creativity of life.

Mel Lathouras 21:29
I did say Amanda cook dinner. Yeah, that's a district out thinking. I hope I said her name. No. Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, you might want to follow her as well at Amanda Cook, because she's amazing. Her poetry is amazing. Oh, my there's so much to talk about.

Speaker 1 21:45
Yeah, I feel like I was like I'm running. I don't know what I've said. You've probably went off on some weird tangents. You've

Mel Lathouras 21:50
put down some pretty solid gold pieces of wisdom. Let's just because I've only got actually, eight minutes until actually, Amanda comes for her singing listen. Oh, cool. Yeah. So you've just recently moved from Brisbane to Royal Victoria. Just that tree change of kind of like it because you've really, you know, it's a much simpler lifestyle in the country. Not that you don't have to navigate a lot of the hecticness of the city life does it has that enhance creativity is that helped? Um

Speaker 1 22:31
well, it because we are staying with my parents. And we didn't have I didn't have my stuff set up. So before I just had access to all my things that made me learn a different style of doing creativity. And I think I don't know when I realised it, but I pretty much every day for me need to do something creative. And for a while it was cooking. Because I couldn't get to my things that I liked to use. What is that called? I'm

Mel Lathouras 23:09
not products. Oh, like you guitar? I know your material, your materials, your pay? Yeah,

Speaker 1 23:14
whatever it is, yeah, tools. Yeah, even even instruments were all packed away we had, which is weird, like I took for granted that, that I always had access to things and then had to get creative about getting creative. So would either be in the garden for a bit, and in the kitchen, and then, like just drawing on scrap paper. But then our you know, I think my sister was a good one that said, what do you do with all your stuff? Like, do you just have piles and piles of drawings? And I was like, Oh, do I do. But also, it's sometimes like, I'll do an epic drawing or something on a scrap piece of paper that I've got or like we're using stuff. So be on cardboard or whatever is around and then just take a photo of it. So then I don't have to keep it but I can look at it. If I like it, or sometimes I'll do something and go Oh, shoot. And then two days later, give yourself space and then go oh my god, that's what are you thinking?

Mel Lathouras 24:22
May you notice in like, two minutes, you've just put down some really like key pieces of wisdom. One is that you don't have to have all this stuff to be creative. And you can look at other things to do like cooking just you know, finding the creativity and oh yeah, little things that we can do to you know, yeah, just being resourceful with with what you have. And just create for the sake of it. And three, you don't actually have to keep it you can just take a photo of it and enjoy it later. Oh, and four is that when you do something and you're not too late. Yeah, giving yourself time Like in space, like, you know, away from it and then come back to it. I'm like that with old tracks that I've referred

Speaker 1 25:05
Oh, yeah. Where I've got you not feeling. And then I'll

Mel Lathouras 25:09
go back and listen to it like years later. I'm like, oh my god, yeah. Yeah, so that's like, oh, honestly, it's only been like a 20 Odd minute interview, but there's so many pieces of good advice through here.

Speaker 1 25:27
Well, that's good. I do feel like I'm going like, Oh, man. What are you really saying? But that's another thing of that's one of those things where like that critical

Mel Lathouras 25:40
the critical mind yeah, wants to

Speaker 1 25:43
have a go or you don't know what you're saying. Whatever.

Mel Lathouras 25:50
And, you know, and that's the thing like, Yeah, it's amazing. People will be drawn to different parts of the conversation or take something unique from from any conversation. That is, you know, resonant to them and where are they on their on their journey will help them for wherever they are on their journey. Let me speak English. I just had a critical mind moment then.

Unknown Speaker 26:14
Yeah, yeah.

Mel Lathouras 26:16
Anyhow, I put a go. I don't want to go.

Unknown Speaker 26:19
All right, you go

Mel Lathouras 26:22
keep talking to you for friggin hours. Like we shoot once a good one. Yeah. Thanks for getting me to do this too. I feel like I feel like there needs to be a part two and part three and part four. Oh, yes. It's true. I do. I'd say this is Amy sofa. Please follow her. Give us some love over at spoony Joe on Instagram. And check out some of her amazing artwork and also, maybe put in an order for a T shirt. I've got two coming in the post. Oh, yeah. Look. That's one of them. Yes, I've got that but I've got it in the white.

Speaker 1 27:03
Yeah, well, I was gonna say you should put yours on and we can be like a mirror.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai