Rukmini Poddar: One of the biggest learnings is that art is a discipline and that creativity flourishes with healthy discipline, not like rigidity, but like good structure. My artsy fartsy self was like, no, I don't like that. But I think having a healthy relationship to discipline and community, all that stuff was like incredibly good for me. It just helped thrive so much. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Hey, and welcome to #The100DayProject Podcast. I'm your host, Lindsay Jean Thomson. If you're new to the community, welcome. Here's the idea: every year we pick a start date. You pick a creative project and beginning on the start date, you do your project every day for a hundred days and document it online. You can find out more at the100dayproject.org. That's the 1 0 0 day project.org. While you're there, sign up for our newsletter to learn more about the next round of the project. My guest today is Rukmini Poddar, an artist and the author of Draw Your Feelings, a creative journal to help connect with your emotions through art. She's also a long time member of the 100 Day Project community, having participated over nine consecutive years. Along with her art practice and writing, Rukmini also leads workshops teaching people how to draw their feelings. All right. Welcome to #The100DayProject Podcast, Rukmini, I'm so happy to have you here. Thank you for joining. Rukmini is a long time #The100DayProject participant. And actually, when I was thinking about this podcast, you were the very first person who came to mind. Because you have not only done the project so many times, but you have been such an advocate for the project. I think in your bio on Instagram, it even says “the 100 day project enthusiast.” And you just really have had such an incredible experience. And I think it's going to be so helpful for the audience and interesting to the audience to learn about. So thank you for being here. Rukmini Poddar: Thank you so much, Lindsay. When you reached out, I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes. Anything 100 day project, I'm there. So thank you for thinking of me. I am definitely an enthusiast and I also really value your work in rallying like such a huge global community together year after year. That is no small feat. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, so I'm really curious. Do you remember the first time you heard about the project? What compelled you to participate the first time? Because it's, you know, it's been about a decade now. Rukmini Poddar: Yes, I remember it very clearly. I was graduating from college. I was a graphic design major. I was in my senior year graduation was right around the corner and I was feeling like creatively depleted, even though I was in a creative field. I just felt done with looking at computers, with applying to different jobs. And someone was like, Oh, have you heard of this person? Elle Luna. She's doing this thing called the hundred day project. I was like, what is that? And it's as simple as the name suggests, you do something every day and you post on Instagram and I think there was a small group from my class, actually, that we decided to do it together and I distinctly remember being like, Oh, I'm not going to get past day three because I know myself. I am not a consistent person, not consistent. Besides brushing my teeth every day, I don't know what I've done every day. And even that can be questionable. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Michael Bierut says if you brush your teeth, teeth every day, then you've done a hundred day project. Rukmini Poddar: Okay. Well, that, that's amazing to hear. I put that out there because I want to just show the contrast of like where I started and how this journey of the 100 days has been such a big part of my life, but that's what got me started is like this idea of like, oh, let me just do something creatively every day and post it. And it was like such a low risk invitation. I had barely used Instagram. This was 2015. So just a few of us and a few friends on Instagram. And I remember I just got pastels and I was doing things with my hands because at the time I was on screens and things like that. And it was like abstract imagery. There was nothing to it. They took like a few minutes a day and I would just take these random photos and post it. And I was surprised when I got to day seven, day eight, I was kind of enjoying it and it kept going and that was the one project that I consistently did every day for a hundred days. And I remember like by the hundredth day, I was literally known as like the watercolor girl, because I realized that what you do consistently, you become. I wasn't the graphic designer. I wasn't the recent graduate. I was that girl that posts every day, at least in my friend's circle. And yeah, it was just amazing. What was amazing wasn't really what I created, but it was the commitment. And it was like how I felt about myself by just showing up and doing my little scribbles. And even what I was drawing evolved in 100 days, and they kind of turn more into portraits and images and watercolor and landscape. And I felt like I got like what I got from that 100 days was more than my whole art school experience, actually, in terms of how I felt about my art. It was a sense of confidence. It was a sense of self trust, which I think is so key to creativity and any type of healing work, honestly, like when you can trust yourself that I'm going to show up every day and I'm going to create something it's yeah, you can't really even describe like how powerful that is and how much I needed that to just be like, Oh my God, like a hundred, even if it's a hundred scribbles, it was a hundred and a hundred days is going to pass regardless, but to know that I can do something and change who I am in a hundred days. By just showing up was really mind blowing. And I remember when I finished that hundred day project in the summer of 2015, I actually promised to myself that I'm going to do this every year as much as possible. And, you know, fast forward, it's been like nine years. It’s absolutely wild. And a lot of times in my life, when I feel doubtful about things in my creative process, I come back to this. So it truly was really profound. Lindsay Jean Thomson: That's such a beautiful thing to hear. And I really feel you on the trust thing, because I think what happens, I hear a lot of people say, “Oh, I could never.” You know, depending on your perspective, a hundred days is a lot of time or not that much time at all over the course of a creative life. Not that much. But I think most of us have had the experience of starting something, maybe buying a bunch of expensive supplies, and then you just see it sitting in your closet and it makes you feel bad because you said you were going to do a thing and you didn't do it. My personal feeling is it is totally okay. Not all things are meant for you. And sometimes you have to spend some money or spend a little bit of time and realize that, oh, this is not actually the thing that I want to do. And that's okay. It's okay. But this act of finding the thing that does help you show up. I think what you said about trust is actually a really beautiful thing because that is that goes beyond creative confidence, right? That goes to like sense of self, believing in your capacity to do and be anything in the world. Rukmini Poddar: It's honestly like the greatest gift that we have is our ability to trust ourselves. It's a deeply underrated and so transformative. Lindsay Jean Thomson: So you also said there's been some years that maybe you didn't finish. Rukmini Poddar: Yes. And I'm very explicit about that because I've kind of over the years, I kind of tell myself I'm the hundred day project girl and I'm kind of known for that. I put it out there because I, I saw what it did for my life. And I kind of like to rally people along. I remember the second and third years that I did it. That's when my own friend circle started noticing. And actually I got so many people just in my own life to do it like successfully. And it was really wild. And I would have people come up to me all the time being like, what is this a hundred day project thing? And, and anyway, to answer your question, there's some years I don't do it. Especially because I'm such a believer in the project and the first few years, three to four years was really successful for me. And we can even go into how each project turned into like a little life of its own, like a book or, you know, an illustrated project. But I also want to share that like life is life and we have different seasons of life and it ebbs and flows. And if I become too rigid that I have to do the hundred day project in this way, it might just kill my creative process. And so I think the hundred day project has to work for us and where we're at in our life. Some hundred day projects have taken me multiple years to complete. I keep coming back to it. And in the last few years, I haven't done all a hundred days, but I still said yes to it. And I think that's what, that's my commitment to myself to always say yes to the project and see how far I can get along with it and give myself grace for wherever I am. And I think that's really important because like you said, people don't start this project because they're afraid they're going to fail. And I think that's the biggest block, really. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I always say that however many days you do is perfect. And I think people have a hard time believing that, like if you do one day, two days, and you're like, you know, it's not there for me. Like it's still the, the pull, the, the feeling of the invitation, I feel like people are really inherently curious about. And for me, if it sparks some kind of awareness that you have a desire to create, then it did its job, whether you finished a project or not. And I also always say that like the rules are made up and I think sometimes when people are too rigid, like I have to do it, I have to finish for me, like a really profound experience was actually the first year I didn't finish because that's so unlike me. And so to be able to give myself permission to say, actually, I'm not really enjoying this would maybe be more of a growth edge than to finish. Rukmini Poddar: Yeah, I love that. It's really, like you said, like we have weird attachment to rules. And I think it's important to know that we don't have to follow it. Lindsay Jean Thomson: You do not, you don't have to do anything. Let's talk about the first few projects that you did. Cause each of them really has become, I mean, you have a whole book, you have a calendar. You've created such an incredible body of work and a lot of community around this. Rukmini Poddar: Yeah, those first few projects were really important in my life, honestly, and 2015 was the first year I did it. And that just gave me that sense of self trust. But 2016 is when I started drawing my emotions. And that's kind of become my career. But it started there. I was a year after graduation. It was a gap year. I was traveling. I was falling in love. I was having heartbreaks. It was like life was happening. And I remember in February when the hundred day project rolled around, I thought like, Oh, this, this term came to me, obscure emotions. Like I didn't even feel like I had a grasp of emotions. Maybe now I identify as someone who talks and teaches and I have a whole brand around emotions, but then it was not part of my MO, but for some reason. And I felt that I want to explore what I'm feeling, and I want to draw it out in very simple ways with these simple characters. So, that first series was called 100 Days of Obscure Emotions, and I would take an emotion that we kind of all feel, but struggle to put words, and I would draw them out. It would be things like, you know, when you want to explore, but you're afraid of getting lost, or, you know, when you want, I'm forgetting some of them, but there's a hundred of them and they're out there on the internet. It was such a profound experience for me because I would share things that were so vulnerable and so personal. And when I posted it, and again, it was the posting part for me, that was my growth edge. People would see it and comment things like, I have felt this way my whole life and never had words. Thank you for sharing this like again and again. And it, yeah, I had the same feeling of like, Oh, this is, this is significant. Really? This is just something I'm feeling and I would just do it. And I realized that one, just being able to draw my feelings was important, but the hundred day project encourages to share it, to broadcast it. And that's when I saw the magic of the hundred day project, me showing up and publicly sharing what I was feeling was giving permission to people to feel as well. And it created like this vulnerable container on the internet where I was just every day sharing whatever was coming up for me and people felt like permission to engage with that and to receive that. And so I was getting like a daily like feedback loop from people that this was really good. And so that kept me going and it started rallying together this community. And even in that project, I remember I stopped for a month or so, and, you know, just got busy and didn't want to finish it. And some friends who were following me were just like, how can you not finish? We're waiting. Again, the community kept me going and I finished it. And it was really beautiful. I remember so many people were like, “make this a book.” And so even before, way before I've been published, I self-published that book and I put it out there. Lindsay Jean Thomson: You sent it to me. Maybe like eight years ago, seven years ago, Rukmini Poddar: Yes. Oh, that's right. 2016, 17. I remember in the dedication, there were many people, but I dedicated to Elle Luna because she was just a huge part of my experience and my journey. And I'm so happy I sent it to you as well. Yeah. So that became a book, which the next year became an art show. I was living in New York and I put that as an art show. And then the next year became like an illustrated advice column called Dear Ruksi. That's where the name came from, where I was so tired of drawing my own feelings. I invited people to send me theirs and I would draw it for them. It was like this collaborative – it's to this day, one of my favorite projects because of how beautiful and connective it was. And people sent me some of the most heart-opening and just baring their soul type letters. It was incredible to receive it and then like meditate on it and draw it back. That's when I felt like I was touching on something that felt really important. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I think what's really fun about it too, is you start something and you have no idea how it will evolve when other people begin to engage with it. Rukmini Poddar: Yes, yeah, exactly. Because this project was collaborative. That's the magic. I was putting it wasn't just about me. It was about my emotions in relationship to others. And I think that's what kept growing it. And again, the hundred day project, it just kept giving me permission to explore more and more things. The year after that in 2017, I did 100 days of the Enneagram. Which was something that I fell into and got like obsessively interested in. And I collaborated with a friend and a teacher of the Enneagram. And it was like, I remember at the time thinking like, Oh, I'm going to lose followers. Like no one knows what the Enneagram is back in 2017. And I discovered this, like mine, underground mine, of Enneagram enthused people. And I remember I just shot up, you know, and followers and again, a huge community formed from that project. So every year I was, doing these projects based just what I was interested in. And it would, it was kind of like growing my career without even knowing. Yeah. So that was also pretty fascinating. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I also want to say that it took a couple of years, right? So I think one of the challenges that a lot of people have when they get started is, you know, maybe they're just their friends and family follow them and maybe they're into their hobby and maybe they're not right. Like hopefully they're encouraging about it, but like it doesn't always reach everybody right away. And you kind of have to just keep going. And I think what you're also touching on, this really important thing is, as long as you're interested in it, right? Like you chose to create something about the Enneagram, not knowing how people would respond because you were authentically interested in it. Sometimes I think people try to do the things that they think other people want from them. Rukmini Poddar: Yeah. Lindsay Jean Thomson: But that almost always will lead you in a direction that doesn't feel entirely fruitful or fulfilling. Rukmini Poddar: Absolutely. Yeah. There's one thing that gave a lot of success in this process. It's the permission to follow my curiosity. And I think also the hundred day project could come with a lot of pressure of, “Oh, I need to do something that becomes successful or I need to do something that will like create content.” And I've seen myself fall into that. I've seen others. And the thing is it just loses its juice after a while. We don't want to just create content for a hundred days. We want to do something that's like soul nourishing. We want to excavate our creativity and find something that's truly uplifting and inspiring. Lindsay Jean Thomson: So how do you stay on the soul nourishing path or get back to it when you are led astray, as we often are? Rukmini Poddar: Yeah, you know, it's been like eight, nine years and it's not been easy all the time. It's not been like this progressive linear journey. The first five years were exciting. And with it has brought an entire career for me in a sense, because Draw your Feelings is now my book and my brand. And now I do workshops on, and it started in 2016 with that a hundred day project, which is exciting. And that's the story I share. And people feel inspired by that. But the truth is that there's been many 100 day projects in between that may have not gone a lot of limelight or that I've really struggled and you know, sometimes I say that before I start a 100 day project I want to know if what I require, my needs, require ease or fire – meaning that I need to know myself enough to know that do I give myself a lot of grace? Is this a chaotic year and I need ease and maybe my hundred day project will just be every three days or, you know, I'll be very loose with the rules. Or do I need to like kick myself into gear and I need the discipline. Like I actually want to like the fire of doing it every day. And I think that has also helped me is that really seeing this as a personal project or a personal process? What are my needs? And then from there attending to the project in that way. Another unique challenge that I've come across is that my career has grown. My visibility has grown as an artist and now the stakes are higher. And to be fully, fully honest, I don't feel as creatively free as I did in 2016, when no one was really watching and I could just experiment. And I think Instagram has changed a lot too, like with Reels and stuff. High production posts. It feels hard to just scribble something and take a photo and post it when I have a hundred thousand people following me, I really struggle to just experiment for a hundred days. I'm like, no, if I have to do it, they have to be really good quality posts. And that's, that's actually a huge struggle for me is finding that balance. And so just to say that the project evolves as we evolve. And at the same time, despite all of that, I know that when I can authentically do this project, and even if it means doing it privately, maybe one year, I don't even post it. I do that because I need to do what will fulfill me creatively, especially my work of drawing emotions and helping facilitate people to understand their emotions and create through it. It requires me to like have some solid creative grounds. And I started to see The 100 Day Project almost as a spiritual practice. That like, this is just for me. This isn't even about content creation. This isn't about having a super successful project. This is my way of staying creatively nourished. That makes all the difference. And I will tell you, sometimes I don't do it. And I feel, I feel the depletion. I'm like, Ooh, I'm in need of a hundred day project right now. Because I haven't made art in so long. And I'm probably getting to the point where the hundred day projects is the only time I make art because I get so busy the rest of the year. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I hear you on that. For sure, I hear you. We tried something new and we did a little fall version. We did a three week round. We made it up. I made it up – the 21 day project. And I did it mostly because I was feeling like, you know, after the summer, there's a lot of travel and you kind of like lose your routines and your rituals and the things that kind of anchor you. And the thing that I like to remind everybody though, is that you can start a hundred day project anytime. So if you're feeling ready, you don't have to wait for us to start. You can start right now. You feel the pull. Rukmini Poddar: So true. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Let's talk about the book. How did this come to be? Rukmini Poddar: Yeah, it came, it came to be – well, the interesting thing is that I, in 2020 during the pandemic, I started doing workshops. I started just throwing zoom classes together and teaching people how to draw their feelings in different ways, shapes, colors, forms, how to draw our heart, how to draw what we're feeling. And, you know, I loved it so much. I almost found that I loved teaching and facilitating even more than making art. It just came naturally that before I knew it, I created the six week course. I was facilitating a whole journey for people. And I created like a little PDF manuscript that came with the course. Fast forward a few months later, I basically got a cold email from my now editor just saying that she was interested in my work. She would love to, you know, work together and do I have anything to show? And it feels like it came out of the blue. And in another sense, this is the trust, the process. This has been like the eight years in the making where I could be like, Oh my God, well, here's a manuscript for my course called Draw your Feelings. Let me know what you think. And she was super interested. I mean, it just happened so fast. It's sort of blew me away. That was the beginning of just putting the seeds in of this book called Draw your Feelings, which again, entirely came from a series of hundred day projects, which brought me to teach during the pandemic. And it was between 2021 and 2022 that I just started to work on this book, which by the way, it's one thing to get a book deal. It's another thing to create it. I remember like in just the span of a few days, I was so excited and just so overwhelmed. I was like, what, what next, what does that mean? Write a book. So that was a whole journey itself, but it, it all happened. It came out just last year in 2023, again, many years in the making. And it really taught me also about cycles of there's some moments in our cycle, our creative cycle, where we're very visible or being seen, we're sharing things, but writing the book for me, it was kind of like going inside More than a year and like churning out a lot and then 2023 it's like visibility again and to be honest now at the end of 2024 I'm kind of like, oh, let's go back inside. But that's a little of the process of how it came to be and the book – basically a little bit about it is that it is a creative journal all about taking someone on a journey of identifying their emotions, befriending it, drawing, visualizing it, and really shifting their relationship to their emotions. So that book was just like a big milestone for me. And not just, you know, it kind of signified an opening of a new chapter in what I do. And in my career of teaching and facilitating and really creating this framework in a way of draw your feelings and doing it with groups of people. So that's a little bit about it. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I'm so thrilled for you. And this is actually our first time meeting, even though we've known each other on the internet for a long time. And I just feel so proud of you, you know, like just as someone who's observing you, like it's incredible to see the commitment that you have made and the ways in which you have shared this really powerful message with so many people. And I imagine that the book has just enabled you to take that even further. Imagine a world in which people were more in touch with their feelings, right? Rukmini Poddar: Amazing. Thank you though. Thank you so much, Lindsay. I really appreciate that because I do feel like there's a part of me also that is really proud of me and what happens when I hear my own story I'm like, wow, that's crazy how this all came to be. And like many other people, I'm sure who are listening, there's so many parts of me that are just like plagued with self-doubt constantly. And the creative path is one that is really courageous and oftentimes lonely of you kind of just doing it, you know, I'm in my own sphere and don't realize the impact I'm having, or if this work matters and these questions, they come to me daily. And so I also just want to put that out that, yeah, I want to honor like this journey and also kind of the struggle and challenges that come with doing something new, walking a path that may, might not have been walked on before. You know, it reminds me of like, wow, what does keep me committed? Because again, like I said in the beginning, I would never have thought of myself as a committed, consistent individual. Like I struggle with that. And so it's mind blowing. It's kind of, I like to tell people like, if I could do it, like you definitely can, because you don't know my struggles with this. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I just think that's so funny. But that is your perception of yourself because you have been so committed. So let's talk about what helped you commit or what helped you build a creative habit. Rukmini Poddar: Yeah. Yes. It's yeah. So many little things. Actually, the hundred day project is this amazing container because it gives just enough structure and a lot of flexibility that really works for me and the visibility of the 100 day project. There's something about saying yes publicly, like yes I'm doing this thing and then posting every day. Like it makes the internet feel a lot more friendly actually, especially nowadays where, you know, it can be really a scary thing to post our art on the internet. We don't know how people are going to react and respond. And I feel really lucky that it's always been positive. And I think when we put ourselves out there with that vulnerability and with that authentic voice, people respond and appreciate it. Especially when the internet now is like, So plagued with so many voices and AI and just things that like we want a humanness and I think doing something every day and posting it is very, very human. So just to say like that has helped having a structure, having accountability. I remember like one of the first few years that I've done the hundred day project, I would do it in a physical sketchbook that was big enough to fit into my purse. Like I had a whole setup and I used to tell people that was a big part of the success. It's just the toolkit, like the sketchbook had to fit in my purse. I needed like a simple watercolor things that were portable. And I would literally draw on the randomest places, on the train, in a parking lot. Like it was so interesting. Like when we create the structure to stay consistent, like how we can kind of figure that out for ourselves. Lindsay Jean Thomson: It's funny because sometimes our creativity doesn't want feasibility, right? Like it wants something audacious, something unreasonable, you know, and part of like doing something every day is like, how do you make it feasible? Like does it fit in your purse? Can you take it with you? Rukmini Poddar: The discipline and the practicality as an artist who is sometimes a little overly emotional and just a little too much, I think it's been a big growth moment for me to just practical with my art making that aren't making doesn't have to be this thing that I just get inspired. I'm like struck by lightning one day. And that's like my most inspired art. One of the biggest learnings is that art is a discipline and that creativity flourishes with healthy discipline, not like rigidity, but like good structure. And I think my artsy fartsy self was like, no, I don't like that. But I think having a healthy relationship to discipline a community, all that stuff was like, Incredibly good for me. I mean, it just helped me thrive so much. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Well, I love that. I think so many people hear the word discipline and they think punishment when discipline really means, I mean, it can mean punishment, but it also just means practice. Rukmini Poddar: Yeah. And you know, a big realization I had is that freedom comes from discipline actually, or structure. I used to think freedom is I do whenever I want, when I want. But actually that kind of freedom kept me paralyzed. I was like overly mental. I could never just start, but like having just the right structure and discipline gave tremendous freedom of like, I can actually do whatever I want because I have the structure in place. I know every day I'm going to show up with my sketchbook every day. I'm going to draw something. Again, it just gave so much confidence and trust in myself. Lindsay Jean Thomson: It's already in the bag. It's ready to go. Rukmini Poddar: Yeah, it's exactly. My mind can't think me out of it. I can't procrastinate right now. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I feel like exercise metaphors are kind of lazy, but it's so spot on for me that after 25 years of doing yoga, the hardest part for me is still just rolling out my mat. And if I can have my like metaphorical mat already rolled out for my creative practice, it just makes it so much more feasible for me to actually show up and do it. So like having your kit in your bag is your mat already rolled out. Rukmini Poddar: Yeah, so true. It's just being prepared in those different ways. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Yeah, so a moment ago you were talking about inspiration and I wonder though where you do get your inspiration. So partially it sounds like from just like the act of showing up, but what do you do when you're not feeling terribly inspired. Are there creative people you follow, are there things, practices that you do to get back in touch with that part of yourself that feels inspired, engaged, motivated? Rukmini Poddar: Yeah, it's such a good question. I feel like it's always evolving for me because my brain is finding new ways to kind of struggle with this. It's like being inspired is really hard to do constantly. I don't know if it's possible. And I've liked to kind of rethink that idea of inspiration, because to be honest, I don't feel inspired to make art, I rarely feel inspired to make art. And sometimes it becomes problematic, especially as I'm more and more an artist, an illustrator. Oh, this is a problem if I just don't want to make art. So one thing that I've been thinking about, and I even have talked about in the past is creative rest and knowing that creativity happens in cycles. For me, that's so important that we just can't produce and be inspired in the way we think all the time. Again, why a hundred day project is great. It's like there's a time of year where I can do this.So I think honoring my pauses is really important and knowing a lot of times if I'm not inspired, I'm just exhausted and I'm just tired. The times where I feel inspired, honestly, is when I show up to the page with no expectation. Again, it's become harder and harder to do that because I feel like I've been putting more expectation on myself. But when I come to a page that's already full of scribbles, When I'm playing with my nephews and nieces, when I just have like a ratty sketchbook with me and I'm not creating to show someone, I mean, it's really amazing what will come from that. So that's one thing it's just kind of already approaching, like, you know, I used paper or artwork or things like that can be helpful. Another for me is just the act of grounding and slowing down. I mean, being in nature has always been a huge theme of my artwork and being able to observe the rhythms of nature and seasons is really beautiful. Like I love, even now, as we're getting into the winter time, I love it. I love looking at the leaves. I love seeing like the wisdom that's in nature, like, oh, leaves and trees. They all know how to rest. They all know how to let go. So I find that really inspiring for me. Trying to think what else from the top of my head. Yeah. To be honest, it's not something that just strikes me. It's, it's something either that I ground in nature or it comes in the act of showing up in some small way. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I feel exactly the same. It's like very rarely some like lightning bolts feeling much less a sustained lightning bolt, right? It's like, um, doing the work and being present nature is a big one for me too. Yeah. I hear you on that. Rukmini Poddar: Yeah. And I will say one more thing. Actually, it's also about my journey of drawing. My feelings has been like a sort of like an anchor point for me that when I get too heady or I'm thinking about producing something, when I drop into the process “oh, how am I feeling? Like, what does that look like as a color? What does that look like as a pattern? How do I just like scribble the energy of that?” And I get really present with the emotions of it. I find that to just be really, really helpful of like getting me out of my head, of being able to create something that just energetically feels like what I'm feeling. It's not about what it looks like. It's not supposed to be pretty. I find that really, really helpful. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Yeah. So a lot of it is bringing it back to the body too, right? Like the body now. Rukmini Poddar: Yeah, the body, the heart. Yeah. Very important. Lindsay Jean Thomson: So one of the questions I wanted to ask you is for people who are listening, what do you hope they walk away from this episode knowing, feeling, and doing? Rukmini Poddar: Well, I hope that they walk away from this episode feeling permission and encouragement to step into their own hundred day project and to simply say yes to it, that if they just did one day, that's amazing. It doesn't need to be a full hundred days. It doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't need to be anything. But I think being able to listen to their creative voice. And I think just being able to listen to what is it that I want to do? If I could do anything for a hundred days, what would my unique offering be? What would I want to create? I think that's so valuable. I've known friends who've done poetry, who've done a hundred conversations, who’ve done a hundred pictures in nature. It's endless. And I think it's such an act of like – I don't know, like, I almost dare to say like self-love to be able to claim that space for yourself that, yeah, I'm going to do something creative just because I want to. Lindsay Jean Thomson: For someone who's maybe having a hard time hearing themselves trying to listen, but it like a little disconnected do you have maybe a practice to help anchor themselves in that? Rukmini Poddar: Yeah, I would, I would say don't underestimate the smallest step you can take. Like our brains want to be inspired and do something amazing. But it's the small steps that are amazing and doing anything a hundred times is beautiful. It's the quantity over quality. I also like telling people that I believe in that we hear quality over quantity so much, but it's like no – quantity. You grab a hundred post it notes and you scribble on it for a hundred days. That's impressive. Anything a hundred times. So any small effort, you, you draw a circle and you do that every day on a different sheet of paper. I guarantee that in just like 9 to 10 days, you'll feel different about something. It'll transform you. Lindsay Jean Thomson: You know, I knew you would be the perfect first guest. Thank you so much for being here. Rukmini Poddar: Thank you. I'm just having so much fun and I'm, I'm so grateful to be here. I'm so grateful for this project. I exude enthusiasm about this. So yeah, always happy to talk about it. Lindsay Jean Thomson: I love it. You know, part of my goal for the podcast is to, you know, make it feel more accessible to people to if they feel the spark or the curiosity to honor it. And I feel like you and your experience and your encouragement really helps cultivate that. So I want to say thank you for sharing. Thank you. And, um, I'd love to hear what's next. Rukmini Poddar: Yeah, I, um, you know, it's so interesting. I've been thinking about the hundred day project recently, because as I'm going through my own creative cycles and also figuring out what's next for me, I actually often come back to the hundred day project as sort of like this guiding light, because it's just a part of my process and it's like, never failed me. It's really interesting. It's how I started, it's how I seeded all of these ideas. Like the book, everything, the seed was the hundred days. And so I was feeling kind of stuck recently and I was thinking like, what is next for me? And I realized like, well, what's always worked is coming back to the art, coming back to the discipline and the hundred days. And so there's actually a book that I’m illustrating. It's been many years in the making. And it started, God, everything comes back to this project. It's wild. It started from this hundred day project in 2018, when I did a hundred days of the Enneagram and that project, it took off online. It was really beautiful. And literally since 2018, me and my coauthor – we've been trying to pitch it to publishers. So just like my Draw your Feelings came so easily, this one was so much harder. I mean, it's been like six, seven years in the making. It's just been much more difficult, but it's really forming up and we have a publisher. The coauthor has been writing for the last year. I mean, it's turning into this like behemoth of a project. And just the other week he was passing it along to me and being like, okay, like the baton is yours. You have actually like just under a hundred days to get all the drafts done. I mean, it kind of gave me a freak out. I was like, everything needs to stop and I need to do this. And we were having this meeting. We're feeling really worried. I've been avoiding this project for like a year and a half now. I'm not, you know, I wasn't feeling the same enthusiasm. And then this question came of like, how can we make this work? Like, how can you actually like step into this project and deliver? And I said, well, you know, what's next? This project started as a hundred day project. So maybe I'll, I'll do a drawing a day and this will be our private hundred day project until the book deadline in March. So we literally talked about this yesterday. So it's really on my mind. And I did the first day yesterday and I was looking at my watch and I'm like, I gotta do Day 2. So that's literally how I'm going to be delivering this project. So wish me luck. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Lots of luck. You've done it before. You'll do it again. And I think sometimes getting started is the hardest part. I was actually kind of nervous to start this podcast, you know, and when I had this like aha moment the other day was that I am excited and I'm nervous. And I'm a little bit more excited than I'm nervous. And that's all I need. I only need to be a little bit more excited than I am nervous. It's the perfect combination, actually, Rukmini Poddar: Because the nervousness gets you going and the excitement sustains it. Lindsay Jean Thomson: It's like the fire and the ease that you were talking about earlier, right? Okay. So the book, you also teach classes. I'll link to everything in the show notes, but, give us the quick rundown of where folks can connect with you. Rukmini Poddar: Yeah, definitely through my website, through my Instagram. For this last year, I was running an online community called The Feelings Club where we come together every month and we do workshops and we basically draw our feelings on different topics. Some months it's about drawing the parts of ourselves. It's about drawing boundaries, relationships. Really everything that we can think of, we find ways to draw it out and express our feelings. So I offer workshops for different corporate teams and schools. And so it's just been exciting to take this work further and further out. And so I'm seeing a lot more of that in 2025. If anyone's listening and are interested in a calendar, I'm in the process of putting out my 2025 calendar called the year of healing. So I keep myself busy by creating and putting out new products like this. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here for sharing your story. I think it's going to be really inspiring to a lot of folks. And I appreciate you being my very first guest and your like unending enthusiasm for the project is just such a gift. And I feel really honored to know you. So thank you. Rukmini Poddar: Thank you so much, Lindsay, for having me – grateful to be here. Lindsay Jean Thomson: Thanks so much, Rukmini. You can connect with Rukmini at DearRuksi.com or @RockinRuksi on Instagram. That's R U K S I for both. And thanks so much for listening. That's going to be all from us for now. Remember to go to The100DayProject.org for more about the project and to sign up for the newsletter.