The World Needs Creatives with Rachael Sardelich

40. How to Find Breathing Space with Jodi Wilson

Rachael Sardelich

There's no space left. Not in your calendar. Not in your mind. Not in those quiet moments between tasks — because there are no quiet moments anymore.

And somewhere beneath the endless scroll and packed schedule, there's a part of you that remembers what it felt like to create from ease. To let ideas arrive instead of forcing them. To feel spacious instead of squeezed.

Burnout has been a running theme throughout this season. Today, we sit with the question underneath it all: In a world designed to keep us constantly available, what does our brain actually need to be both creative and productive?

Join us as we enter the intentional world of Jodi Wilson — bestselling author, health journalist, and founder of Practicing Simplicity. Her new book, A Brain That Breathes, explores the neuroscience behind our collective overwhelm and offers a radical solution: breathing space.

In this conversation, we explore:

  • Why your nervous system is stuck in survival mode and how it blocks creative flow
  • The concept of "soft fascination" — how gazing at trees and clouds isn't wasted time but how your brain actually declutters
  • "Enoughness" — an Indigenous economic principle that teaches us about sufficiency in a culture of more
  • Why self-care has become another productivity metric and what genuine rest actually looks like
  • How our scarcity mindset keeps us gorging on information we don't need
  • Practical ways to create breathing space through small, intentional choices that cost nothing
  • What our ancestors knew 10,000 years ago that we've forgotten about living well

This conversation is permission to stop filling every moment. To trust that your brain doesn't need more input — it needs space to breathe.

Links mentioned:

Explore Rachael's 1:1 Creative Partnership (Enrolments close November 21)

Pre-order A Brain That Breathes by Jodi Wilson

Follow Jodi Wilson:

You can follow The World Needs Creatives on Instagram HERE.

Explore working or collaborating with Rachael at rachael@rachaelsardelich.com and learn more about her work HERE.

You can join the wider conversation and our community over on Substack via THIS LINK.

The original painted work in the show design was hand painted by artist Sarah Darling.

The creation of our original musical score was created by Camilla Rose Sullivan.