Why You Are Burning Out At 50 - and how to reclaim your peace with somatic therapies
Create with Franz
Are you a middle aged woman on the top of your career in a high-stakes environment? Maybe you are the one everyone depends on—meeting deadlines and managing teams with outward grace. But internally, the cost of "over-functioning" and now redesigning your role with AI in mind, has become unsustainable. If traditional productivity hacks like time-blocking and mindset reframes are making you feel worse, if rest makes you feel guilty, it’s time to look beneath the surface. In this episode, Dr. Julie Merriman explains why midlife burnout is a nervous system injury, not a lack of...
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Sound: a bridge to the Divine
Create with Franz
I had the great experience of sitting down with Jeralyn Glass, an internationally acclaimed opera star turned sound healing pioneer and author of Sacred Vibrations. Following the tragic loss of her son, Jeralyn transitioned from the stages of Broadway to the forefront of holistic medicine, discovering how crystalline sound can act as a powerful healing tool for the mind and body. From a scientific perspective, sound healing is rooted in the principles of entrainment and vibro-acoustics. Every organ and cell in the human body vibrates at a specific frequency; when we are stressed or ill,...
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Is Artificial Intelligence making you comfortably numb?
Create with Franz
As the world debates if AI will take our jobs, playwright and CTO Doug Clarke is worried about something much quieter: is AI taking our humanity and replacing our friends and therapists? In this frank chat, we dive into the meaning of our relationship with artificial intelligence through the unique intersection of Hollywood innovation and the Off-Broadway stage. Doug shares his journey from building high-level tech systems at DTS and IMAX to writing deeply vulnerable plays like Soulmate and Anxious Attachment. We explore the seductive danger of AI companions—tools that never...
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The ADHD marriage reset: from conflict to growth
Create with Franz
Is ADHD creating a gap between you and your partner? Maybe you cannot organize household tasks and chores, bills, appointments and shopping. You then get blamed by your partner for ‘not caring’, forgetting everything that is not written, being ‘lazy’ and ‘not being there.’ The accusations escalate and you become offended and defensive. Your partner might act like your parent taking over all the duties that you seem unable to take responsibility for. In the end, your relationship cracks. You stop taking holidays together and doing anything with your partner because it ends up...
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Why trends kill creativity when you are buying art
Create with Franz
Have you ever looked at a piece of art in your home and felt… nothing? In a world of fleeting trends and mass-produced convenience, many of us end up with spaces that look "correct" but feel completely disconnected from who we actually are. We buy what is fashionable or what fits the sofa, yet we remain spiritually hungry for a deeper connection to our surroundings. The solution isn't to buy more art, but to understand the "why" behind your own intuition. Sonya Sparks, founder of the Sparks Gallery in San Diego, believes that art is the ultimate path to a meaningful life—provided it...
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Finding your purpose after trauma: the 28,000-mile journey to belonging
Create with Franz
If you’ve ever felt unwanted or stuck in the shadows of your past, there is a way back to your center. Today, Nathaniel Allenby shares how he used a 28,000-mile cycling journey across ten countries to transform survival into artistry and find the purpose he thought was lost. For those who have suffered from abuse or low confidence, the world can feel like a turbulent place where finding your path feels impossible. After surviving muggings in London and the physical toll of global travel, Nathaniel returned to found Cirque Quirk, San Diego’s highest-rated circus entertainment company. In...
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Why a human voiceover actor is better than any AI clone
Create with Franz
Have you heard the "autopilot" fear currently running through the creative world? It’s the nagging thought that says: Why bother training for a career in voiceover when an AI can clone a voice in seconds? Many aspiring artists are stalling before they even begin, convinced that the machine has already won the race. But is a cloned voice actually the same as a human story? Or are we confusing "data" with “connection"? Let’s make the case that while AI can create realistic digital avatars, it currently lacks the emotional depth, spontaneity, and "soul" that define human performance. ...
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The courage to create: beyond the starving artist myth
Create with Franz
So, you want to be an artist. But there is a "but" here, isn't there? A chorus of internal voices holding you back: I’ll never get paid for this. Nobody will like it. I don’t have time. It isn’t a "real" career. If you’ve listened to our previous conversations on the "autopilot" brain, you’ll recognise these as the classic scarcity narratives—the mental traps that lead to analysis paralysis before you even pick up a brush. We convince ourselves that in a world of Canva and AI, the human artist is obsolete. But what if that's just a convenient excuse to stay safe? The solution isn't...
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Solving the ADHD Riddle with neurofeedback
Create with Franz
Have you ever felt that a diagnosis—for yourself or your child—was a definitive label of limitation? In the US and beyond, an ADHD diagnosis often arrives with a heavy cloud of fear: fear of academic failure, social struggle, and a lifetime of being "difficult." We fall into the autopilot habit of asking, "What is wrong with this person?" when the real question should be, "What is getting in the way?" The solution isn't found in a label, but in understanding how the brain processes information. This is the life's work of Dr. Connie McReynolds. With over 35 years of clinical expertise, Dr....
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Retraining the mind: Can VR stop youth crime?
Create with Franz
If you have listened to a few episodes of Create with Franz, you probably noticed how many times we mentioned that we often act in automatic mode, without much thinking, and we repeat the same mistakes over and over. You also learned that while habits are hard to break, change is possible for everyone. This is particularly important when it comes to those youth who, for various reasons, are embracing gang life, criminal behaviour, drugs, drinking, smoking and many other dangerous lifestyles that eventually lead into serious issues. What if the solution is to retrain their mind, so they don’t...
info_outlineAs the world debates if AI will take our jobs, playwright and CTO Doug Clarke is worried about something much quieter:
is AI taking our humanity and replacing our friends and therapists?
In this frank chat, we dive into the meaning of our relationship with artificial intelligence through the unique intersection of Hollywood innovation and the Off-Broadway stage.
Doug shares his journey from building high-level tech systems at DTS and IMAX to writing deeply vulnerable plays like Soulmate and Anxious Attachment. We explore the seductive danger of AI companions—tools that never tire, never withdraw, and never ask anything of us—and why that "perfect" consistency is actually a barrier to the healing found in human struggle.
If we are relying more and more on Artificial Intelligence as a friend of therapist, Doug - who has been having therapy for years with a real person - offers a wise perspective: set up healthy boundaries!
What you will learn from him:
- The Difference Between Convenience and Growth: Why the "messiness" of human relationships is a requirement for emotional maturity.
- AI as an Emotional Anesthetic: How those with anxious attachment styles are at risk of using technology to soothe surface-level pain while leaving the underlying wounds unaddressed.
- The Architecture of "Human Premium" Art: How to lean into live, emotional experiences that digital models can never replicate.
- Practical Boundaries: How to use AI as a high-efficiency tool without letting it become an emotional escape.
About Doug:
Doug serves on the executive committee of the Television Academy's Science and Technology peer group, where he puts together educational programs on the principles of agentic AI in their industry. He is also a playwright. Last year his first play, Soulmate, opened in Los Angeles and then ran off-Broadway in New York. It's a story about grief, depression, and how love can become its own kind of haunting when we don't know how to heal through its loss.
Quotes: AI is becoming, for a lot of people, the most consistent presence in their lives. An AI chatbot is always available to you. It does not get tired of you. It does not get tired at all. It does not withdraw. It does not have its own needs that compete with yours. For a person whose history with other humans may have felt inconsistent, frustrating, or painful, the consistency and presence AI offers can feel like relief.
It can develop into a feeling that can be compared to a kind of love. But what it's doing is quietly keeping us from developing the greater sense of who we are in a world that we share with billions of others. How we need to work hard to truly see, accept, and love others. We are walking into something we are not built for: the slow replacement of the harder, messier, and more honest work of human connection with a simple comfort.
A comfort not found in nature. A comfort that asks nothing of us in return. AI by itself isn't the problem.
The problem is what happens when we start to depend on it to avoid the exact human experiences we need in order to grow, and to stay connected to the people around us. For those with an anxious attachment style, AI is a near perfect anesthetic, because it soothes the surface without ever coming close to the wound underneath.
Topics covered: AI, Anxious Attachment, and the Future of Human Art, is AI good for Therapy, need of human connection, AI friends, emotional growth,
Find Doug here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasaclarke/
Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/5vsP5gg3Oqs
Suggestions:
Wondering about the attachment styles Doug mentioned? Grab the definitive guide to understanding human connection, breaking anxious patterns, and building real-world security: Attached by Amir Levine. This best selling book, featuring over 23k reviews, is found by clicking the link below (Please note this is an *affiliate* link so I earn something like 5 cents if you actually buy it!) https://amzn.to/3SWGTLs
Trade the chatbot for a blank page. Break the habit of venting to an AI therapist and practice true emotional self-reliance by processing your thoughts by hand with a classic Leuchtturm1917 Hardcover Journal. https://amzn.to/4yndhHw (Please note this is also an *affiliate* link so I earn something like 5 cents if you actually buy it!) This notebook opens flat, doesn’t bleed through and is offered in many lovely colours. You are worth it!