Honest Creativity with Lincoln Stoller

Creativity through the lens of a physicist and psychotherapist 

"Creativity to me is making reality in some sense."

Lincoln Stoller is a certified clinical counselor in British Columbia, Canada. He works with people worldwide to help them with the environments they have created, and their sense of self. He’s a volunteer counselor with the American Alpine Club’s Climbers Grief Fund.

Lincoln’s experience includes theoretical physics, business software CEO, neurology-based brain training, psychedelics, and hypnotherapy, soar plane pilot, mountaineer, a father, a partner, and a cultural ambassador to communities in the Caribbean, Panama, and Mongolia.

His work comes together under the heading of recreating one’s state of mind through experience, perception, reflection, relationships, trauma, and spirituality. He questions science and intellect and emphasizes relationships and spirit. He blogs on topics in learning, therapy, and social awareness at
https://mindstrengthbalance.substack.com/

His latest books, "Dream Fragments" and "Dreaming Yourself into Being," explore the psychology of dreams and were published in February 2026.

https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com

https://www.mindstrengthbooks.com

https://www.facebook.com/lincolnstoller/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lincolnstoller/

Transcript

Mari 0:20

Welcome to the Sustaining Creativity Podcast. I'm your host, Mari Reisberg. Over the past several years, I've combined my degrees in acting and somatic psychology to share my sustaining creativity techniques with performers. And now I've decided to share with a bigger audience that includes you. I believe we are all creative, and this podcast is all about that. I'll be interviewing people from all backgrounds, ages, and creativity experiences to share just how creative we all are. Today I'll be chatting with Lincoln Stoller, certified clinical counselor, physicist, and psychotherapist. Please enjoy Lincoln Stoller.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

Welcome to the Sustaining Creativity Podcast. Today I'm chatting with Lincoln Stoller, physicist and psychotherapist. Welcome to the podcast.

Mari 1:18

I am looking forward to digging into creativity and how it shows up in your life and your world and how your world straddles physics and psychotherapy. But before we get there, why don't you share a little bit about who you are and what it is you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Well, since it's such a big topic and life is so long, I don't really want to spend too much time except saying that uh I grew up in a creative family, but creativity, maybe in families, is kind of ambiguous because, well, by its nature, you kind of never know where you're going with creativity. And I think my family never knew where it was going either. So it uh, you know, brother went into sculpture, sister was in painting, mother was a painter, father was a photographer. So uh maybe I developed a distaste for the arts and went into science instead. Um, but I seemed to carry the confusion of being creative with me and never fit into any of the many groups and adventures that I engaged in. And uh, you know, kind of I ended up in well, you know, a long stint in physics, ended up in uh therapy mostly because you know it's great to talk to people about things that are real. And you know, creativity to me is making reality in some sense. Uh I I don't take it as whimsical or recreational, I take it as serious. So maybe that puts a kind of uh pall on the whole enterprise for some people, but that's what uh motivates me.

Mari 3:06

That's great. I appreciate this for many perhaps alternative side of creativity, the making reality in some sense. Where do you feel that understanding of creativity or belief of creativity comes from for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Um, I mean, creativity is a vehicle, it's an attitude, it's an approach, it's a kind of pathway. And uh I I do a lot of dream work and I've written a lot about dreams, and it sort of reveals itself as you go along. So if you're not creative, nothing happens, everything's normal, and uh the scenery doesn't change. And if you start being creative to the extent you're creative, it's like you accelerate into the unknown, and you can go as fast as you want, but things quickly sort of lose focus, you know, if you're creative. Uh first you start encountering things that don't fit, and then you encounter things that don't make sense, and then you might start to try to make sense, and inevitably, if you're creative, you don't know how the pieces fit together, and maybe you take a break occasionally. I think most people will stop and say, I've accomplished something at some point, and feel uh, you know, that you reach a plateau. But if you continue to be creative, you jump off the plateau back into the chaos of not knowing what's going on and trying to figure it out. I don't know why you do, it seems to be kind of a human property. You know, animals don't seem to be so disturbed about the chaos of the world, but some people are, and I guess those people are the creative ones. So I was you know interested in science because I thought that was I wasn't sure it was creative, but I thought it addressed the question of what was going on. I've sort of been disappointed because it's tends to be quite conventional. And uh, you know, I physics is a great thing because it's all nonsense, you know, it's all yesterday's nonsense mixed with current confusion trying to build a picture that you know, and so throughout history, the physicists physicists have always said, Oh, we'll know it all now, you know, now the science is done, and then of course it all falls apart, and um and it happens I don't know, I don't know if the it seems to happen every hundred years, right? So there's Newton in the 1700s, and then the 1800s, you got at the end of the 1800s, you got this beginning of quantum mechanics, and then now we're sort of in this mature phase, and then it gets all entangled with politics and economics and even a certain psychology to a certain degree, but I wouldn't give it that much credit, and um, so you know that's how I sort of got involved in psychology. I didn't want to be a psychologist, I thought it was too vague and uh soft and lacking in certainty, and it is, but still I really appreciate talking to people about their confusion and encouraging them to be creative.

Mari 6:29

That's kind of the basis of my therapy, is is it creative, um trying to be creative, not trying to be assertive and certain you know, doctor might sure so what what does that look like trying to be creative or turn you know supporting someone else to focus or turn chaos into a path?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Well, um in terms of therapy, it means listening to them and trying to understand what they're doing, and I tend to think of it in a creative sense that they're trying to understand usually. I mean people who I have a new respect for people who engage in therapy as people who are trying to understand, whereas other people either think they understand or don't care to understand any further, and um of course they don't understand any better than anyone else. So but there's a I think a great benefit to confusion and chaos. It's fertile, it's full of ideas that don't fit. Maybe they're all wrong, maybe some of them are wrong, maybe you know, maybe the notion of being right is wrong by itself. And so listening to people is the first step. And I think the second step happens before the first step, which is experience. It's been very valuable for me to experience lots of people and places and cultures. You know, I traveled a lot all over the world and lived with people in different cultures and enjoyed doing that. I'm not very good with languages, but I kind of bumbled my way through some very uh strange situations. Okay, um and uh a lot of crazy people. I mean, I was into mountaineering, and that's a repository for crazy people, but also creative and uh driven people.

Mari 8:38

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

So you get some interesting memories, interesting experiences, and then I found physics full of crazy people. I thought all those people were nuts, you know, that uh emotionally dysregulated and socially dysfunctional and uh intellectually overactive, it's like kind of a nightmare, I felt psychologically. I mean, I I wouldn't indict academia entirely, but the heart sciences are tend to be pretty inhumane. At least these days, I mean times change, but sure these days they're very technical and financial and yeah full of tons of research and details. And if you think this is reality, you know, God help your social skills, because they don't help. Um so I have to listen to what people say and I do feel my success is most evident with people who try the hardest to change.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

There's a lot of people are trying hard not to change, change over other people, right? They're trying to change the environment, they're trying to change their relationships, which you can to some extent, but not you know without being involved.

Mari 10:01

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

So that's that's uh I appreciate that, you know, being involved. So report back to creativity.

Mari 10:10

Yeah. The listening and experience. I mean, you say you work in the the dream a lot in dreams. Maybe for people who are unfamiliar with that idea of dream work or how it fits in with psychology, if you wouldn't mind explaining a little bit. I mean, feels like there's there is creativity that shows up in that when we're interpreting dreams or using them.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Dreams used to be more integrated into psychology. Well, never very much because they were kind of the bad boys of science. But you know, there was a certain amount of an attempt to interpret dreams and integrate dreams into daily life and their meanings and purpose. But it never really well, I don't know if it ever really caught on, but it's not caught on now. There's no course in dreaming in psychological training unless you're a Jungian. Right. And um so I think you know, the most people understand about dreams is that they think they're sort of uh meaningful puzzles about uh something which no one's figured out, right? And uh I think that rather than say that, I would say dreams are just unalloyed creativity, they are your mind just uh taking everything and putting it in the salad spinner and just uh seeing what comes out for the purpose of sort of like reading tea leaves. It's like what does your life actually mean when you take apart all these presumed connections that you believe make sense? I mean, how how do you get to a new understanding if you're still holding on to an old one? I mean, you don't really gain any new understanding of something you don't let go of. And a dream, I think, is your mind saying, let's let go of everything, at least to the point where we can still talk, you know, let's not lose language or memory, but let's rearrange everything, and now let's see what you can figure out because now you have an opportunity to see yourself out of the context of what you've constructed, and the more you do that, and the more you're able to do that with some distance, of course, you have to have a certain amount of recollection. Sure. But that comes with practice, yeah. The more you do that, the more lucid you become in these dreams. And lucidity, I wrote a whole book on lucidity. It's it's not it's not obvious what lucidity is, it's like you know, if you realize that everything's false, you know, you just check it out, you're not connected to anything. So you have to be connected to some of the construction. So lucidity, an effect of lucidity in dreams is being engaged in the dream, not rejecting the dream, not abusing the dream, but trying to navigate in the dream in the context it presents you. So being more lucid effectively in a dream means starting to talk to the people who appear in your dream, and starting to react to the presentations they make in a more intentional way, and in that way you sort of guide the dream as if you're putting the pieces together at the same time that the dream keeps throwing you pieces. So I tend to have dreams, hopefully, of people, characters supporting me in my struggle. And I work with them, and uh, you know, I had this strange dream last night of getting lost on some airline flight and being unable to connect to my destination. And the flight attendant became my ally and said, Well, we're gonna make an arrangement here. First, you'll fly to Brazil, and then we'll speak to them, and they'll get a different plane. And I've written all this stuff, and she hands me this sort of thing that sort of looks like a ticket and says, you know, take it, I'll see you tomorrow. And and I I relate this to all my physics, where I'm sort of trying to do that, and I very much appreciate this appearance, this uh evocation of an ally. Some this flight attendant in my dreams had more faith in me than I do in my daily practice. Yeah. And uh so this is a so the creativity, if you're really creative, I think you just can lose it. You can just drop your structure of everything, and of course, that's a great place to come up with new things if you can put your feet on the ground. So in my case, I tend to create these avatars and have them keep my feet on the ground, where and so I just like I can lose it to an extent, but it also gives me sort of patience and and uh what would you say, uh self-faith. Uh that is helping me in my dreams. Right. I mean I dream all the time. There's this idea you only dream at night. I I I you know I dream day, I'm daydreaming all the time, and yeah, and it gets pretty um serious.

Mari 15:45

And that I mean, daydreaming at any version of dreaming I feel has creative tenets in it of being able to enter that more subconscious space because that is where creativity lies. It allows our subconscious to uncover and unfold. And uh as you were speaking, I it made me think of just this idea that creativity comes alive at the edge of our comfort zone. So when we're in some of that tension spaces, whether it's believing in yourself or not, having an ally believe in you more than you do, being able to find that that edge and still keep keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

That's important. I believe the edge is important for mental health, but also going over the edge is a question. I mean, when you're dealing with a person with uh in distress, it's usually because they feel like they've gone over some edge.

Mari 16:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

They need help, they're confused, they're not sure what to do.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

That's a fertile place to be, but it's can be dangerous depending on how balanced you are. And one of the definitions I have of mentally ill is somebody who can't keep to the boundary, who keeps falling off the boundary and is in constant confusion.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

So you don't want to go there, but you do want to keep touching it. And there is something about if you're too organized, the world makes sense. You know, your loan is mowed, your mortgage paid, your job is attended, your family is well, whatever you think, probably ignored. But that's not particularly sane, although it's considered normal and acceptable. And the other side is losing all those things, which is also not considered insane and generally isn't acceptable. Uh I mean, like, look the two things I look at are sort of the media, the sort of creative media, movies and theaters and novels, and how they present sanity, creativity, and growth.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

And mythology, or you know, cultural mythology, and those themes. And uh, you know, most people don't look at mythology these days in our culture, but typically that's been very important.

Mari 18:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

And I I think that's that that's one of the measures of the the lack of our culture, is our lack of mythology. We seem to make do with movies and and uh stuff, but you know, and you see these are very mythological themes in Star Wars and stuff like that. Um it's fun to see them come up over and over again in different forms. Uh like there's a oh um two series uh that are airing now, one's called The Night Manager, and the other's called Young Sherlock, ones for kids, and the others for you know spy enthusiasts. And both of them, as I watched them, were on the theme of the evil father. I mean, it took them you know nine hours to get there. But that's an old theme. I mean, like very old. That's one of the oldest themes.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

The Titans who ate their children. But um, and these things come around, and if you don't think about it in your life, you'll see it in the you know, social memes and social myths.

Mari 19:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

And it should make you think about your own life, and it's kind of an invitation in a kind of demonic way of uh the underworld, you know, go into your drama. So do you that's all I say? I I've gotten a new respect for therapy as as not just a way to help people are dysfunctional, but a way to help people be more functional. Sure, yeah. I'm I'm not really trying to make people normal and happy, yeah. I'm trying to get them to a next plateau of purpose and value. And I so I sometimes deal with people who dismiss me or call me a fraud or you know, get angry at me. And it's one of the things that a therapist has to do is not take it too personally, right? You do what you think is right and you watch what happens, and um it's kind of impossible to be a judge as to the ultimate value of your work because you're not there to reach that conclusion, you're there to help somebody else do their work.

Mari 20:43

Right. Yeah. As you were speaking of mythological or themes and history, and it made me think of the just the the hero's journey and how that shows up in not only in therapy, but also in you know, pop culture and movies and music and all of that.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

All over, right.

Mari 21:09

It feels like there's some aspect of us that connects to that mythological or that theme, but no one's necessarily overtly talking about it. And so it is something that people are trying to suss out or tease apart while watching a movie and recognizing it's calling to some part of themselves.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

I do think there was a kind of human, you know, what is it that made humans so different than other animals? Even chimps aren't very similar to us. They find similarities as time goes on, they fight wars, they have families, yeah, they have clans, but nobody's been as curious and uh devoted to change as. Humans not always in a good way. I mean, it doesn't always work out well for everybody. And um, there's something like I live in uh a society of dogs and cats. I live in Canada on the West Coast. Everybody has a dog, it's like uh Philip Pullman's you know, golden compass stories. They're all got these demons that they're on a leash with, and the people never look at you or say hello, but the dogs always do. I'm always interested in the dogs, and then they're cats. I don't see them much, but I have one. And so dogs, they're curious, but they're never very attached, they they have no attention span, and uh unless they're like huskies or something. Uh and the cats are always curious, but they don't seem to know what to do with what they find, they just sit there and watch things. But people, for some reason, have combined these two. We're kind of like dogs and cats combined. Sure, we can be enthusiastic and curious, and um, of course, we're a little more than that, but I think creativity fits in there. It's not enough to be creative, you have to be stable, otherwise you turn into Vincent Van Gogh and cut your ear off. Right. Or any other artist who's famous for having gone over the you know edge and not come back from, yeah. Which is the sad thing. You know, you'd like to be able to produce great creative works without going nuts, but there's always the chance that you will. I know a lot of scientists go nuts too and kill themselves. Long story of you know unbalanced scientists. And like I say, science is not very emotionally supportive anyhow.

Mari 23:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

So who do you go to?

Mari 23:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

I would like to uh work with more this is my call to all listeners, you know, work on yourself, find someone who can help you, and don't be discouraged because most psychologists are not into growth or into balance and uh recovering stability and making you happy again. And creativity is not about comfort and satisfaction, right? At least not in the traditional sense. Yeah, so you have to go I mean these these are my three foundations for therapy are are honesty, commitment, and courage. And um you know that's like where you start on the fool's journey. You know, you put those things in your backpack and you head off.

Mari 24:40

Yeah. Well, Lincoln, this has been a fascinating conversation and went to places that I wasn't expecting, but I'm thrilled for. So I have one last question. Oh, just one, do you just one, one last question for you. What does it feel like in your body to be creative?

SPEAKER_00 25:03

It feels a bit feverish. It feels like on the border of getting sick.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

And um I mean maybe that's uh sort of the negative aspect. For some people it could be exuberant. I could appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

But it it's um I the nature of the stuff I do requires me to be very motivated because otherwise it's frustrating.

Mari 25:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

I mean it's like I imagine being a filmmaker would be difficult for me. So much technical requirements, so little opportunity to put in chaos because you lose your audience, there's too much information.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

It would be difficult. So uh I'm I'm always trying to get structure because I'm on I mean this is why you know if people are looking at this on video, I make it intentional, I make it intentionally to show the chaos of my office in the background, because I want people to show me their chaos. I don't want to put a you know cultured and um fake background around me because I don't want to present myself in that way, and I don't want other people either. Yeah, of course that limits the kind of people I can talk to, so sure. So uh yeah, uh you know, if I feel too happy, I just pick up some research and get confused again.

Mari 26:37

It's good to know how to find that middle space, that middle ground for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

But you've gotta be a you know, it's because I'm such a grounded person that I do that. Yeah. But if you work with ungrounded people, then they're always looking for stability and comfort. And you know, okay, to a point.

Mari 26:58

Which are valid. Sometimes we need that so that we can find the chaos or the turmoil or whatever the other pieces are.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Go into the dark, well, it's myth, it's mythic, right?

Mari 27:12

It is. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

All these stories, they uh they get dark before they get light.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

And so it in terms of of what people do, I think it's important to fortify yourself to go into the dark. There's so much dark and uh it's not being well handled globally, and it starts locally.

Mari 27:36

Yeah. I agree. Well, thank you for joining me for this conversation today. I really want to do that.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yes, okay.

Mari 27:47

No, I I asked it. If people want to learn more about your work that you have out in the world, how could they go about doing that?

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Oh, I have this big website that's endless at Mind Strength Balance. Okay, I've got you know books on there and I've got blogs and the three things I do are are brain training and emotional training and uh dream work. So um check it out.

Mari 28:15

Great. I'll add a link in show notes so people have easy access to check it out. And thank you again for joining me for this conversation. I really thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks for listening to the Sustaining Creativity Podcast. We'd love to keep in touch, so follow us on Facebook and Instagram. We are at Sustaining Creativity. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, have your friends and family so they can listen to you. We'd love to hear from you. So leave your reviews, comments, and questions. Check out our website, sustainingcreativity.com, for upcoming offerings and creativity coachings. Tune in Tuesdays for our next episode. And remember, with creativity, anything else possible.