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The Gentle Rebel Podcast

The Gentle Rebel Podcast

De : Andy Mort
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 The Gentle Rebel Podcast explores the intersection of high sensitivity, creativity, and the influence of culture within, between, and around us. Through a mix of conversational and monologue episodes, I invite you to question the assumptions, pressures, and expectations we have accepted, and to experiment with ways to redefine the possibilities for our individual and collective lives when we view high sensitivity as both a personal trait and a vital part of our collective survival (and potential).Andy Mort Art Développement personnel Réussite personnelle Sciences sociales
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    Épisodes
    • How I Use One-Page Mini-Zines To Generate Ideas Quickly

      How I Use One-Page Mini-Zines To Generate Ideas Quickly
      Feb 10 2026
      Do you want to generate ideas quickly, without overthinking, without requiring perfection, and without using AI tools? One-page mini-zines are great for brainstorming and exploring things with both speed and depth. In this post, I want to show you how I use this medium not only to structure our Haven zine, but also to develop its topics and prompts. Mini-zines can be a great tool to carry in your back pocket (literally!) for processing, planning, and expressing yourself in different contexts It often helps me when my mind is drawing a blank, and I want a low-stakes way to expand how I think about parts of life that feel stuck and in need of a shake-up. At the end, we will do a quick, easy exercise together to get some creative juices flowing without using much brainpower, if you’re up for it. https://youtu.be/CFzQZcNf4QA What is a mini-zine? If you’ve never seen one before, a mini-zine is folded and cut to form a booklet you can hold in the palm of your hand. My favourite way to do it has eight panels that become pages. It is also reversible, so you can use sixteen pages from a single sheet of paper. The nature of zine-making is that there are no rules. As long as you have something to write with, you can turn a piece of paper into a mini-zine. No extra tech or tools required. Here is the basic folding method I use Folding a One-Page Mini-Zine Fold the paper in half lengthways.Fold that in half.Fold it in half again.Unfold it all and fold it like a booklet.Cut the fold down the middle halfway to the intersection of the fold across.Open it out and squeeze it to form a diamond.Push it together and flatten.Fold again, and you have a booklet you can flick through. When I use mini-zines to generate ideas, I keep them in this booklet format and treat each panel as a separate page. As you will see if I number each page, this does not necessarily put the pages in the most obvious places. You get used to it after a while. This format has been great for this collaborative community project in The Haven because it gives us limits. We set a six-week window for development and production, and we have sixteen pages to fill, including the cover and back. We use a simple prompt and let our imaginations take hold. Why Mini-Zines Work For Generating Quick Ideas For me, the core element that makes this work so well is its limits. One of my biggest obstacles to ideas is the blank page. The paradox of freedom is that when we feel too free, we often end up searching for rules anyway or staring at a blank page forever. Eight or sixteen panels are perfect numbers for setting limits on idea generation. Not enough to be overwhelmed, but not too few to feel pressured by the need to be perfect. When we are aware of the limit, we are free to stop once we reach it. Our only task is to keep generating ideas until we reach the number. Quantity matters more than quality at this stage. We know we can refine and iterate later. A quick exercise to try (10 Minutes) We can do a simple exercise with a blank mini-zine. Go through and number each page like I showed earlier. Set a timer for one minute. On each panel, write down as many things as you associate with the number as you can. Don’t edit, self-censor, or overthink it. Let your intuition lead the way. Reset the timer and do the same for each numbered page. When you’ve finished, flick through the pages and see what you notice: What catches your attention as you go through the pages?What were you feeling and thinking while doing this? (Did it feel simple? Were you hesitant or resistant? Did you feel rushed or able to move at your own pace? Were some easier for you than others?)What do you feel drawn to explore next as a result of this? There are five more exercises like this that I will share in future posts. I will break them into three broad categories: brainstorming for quick creative ideas, brainstorming for helpful questions, and brainstorming for fresh options when facing challenges and decisions. If you fancy joining us to collaborate on a future issue of Coming To Our Senses, The Haven doors are always open.
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      9 min
    • People Keep Asking Me to Cancel Their Subscription To This App

      People Keep Asking Me to Cancel Their Subscription To This App
      Feb 6 2026
      Around Black Friday last year, I started getting strange emails from people asking me to cancel their subscription. Only, they weren’t from Haven members, and they were talking about a weekly charge of $7. After a brief panic and some investigation, I confirmed this was not possible. I assumed these messages were bots phishing for something. Then my attention was caught by one that said, “Hi, I’ve just been charged for the Haven Bible app, but I cancelled my subscription through the app prior to the charging date.” Ahh. It must be a case of mistaken identity. Mystery solved! Well, half of it at least… https://youtu.be/mP6rxVuBmRo …But Why Were People Emailing Me? A quick search for “cancel Haven Bible App subscription” showed a knowledge base page on my website as the top result. I added a message to inform people that this was not the site they were looking for. Still today, I’m getting messages from people who scroll past it and tell me to refund them. I even received a second email accusing me of stealing their money because I refused to help them cancel their subscription. I had already replied to their first email, pointing them elsewhere. Bizarre! It has been a slightly sobering experience, pointing to how unobservant people can be at times. The Auto-Responder I created a short auto-responder to reply to these messages. I asked them to drop a quick reply when they work out how to cancel it so I could pass that information along to others in the same boat. Only one of about 60 people who emailed me bothered to follow up. A special shout-out to Lauren for taking the time to do that. I’ve been able to point people in a more helpful direction as a result. In reality, I don’t know if it’s genuinely difficult to cancel this subscription. What Is This Haven Bible App? After my search, the algorithms started delivering short videos of people promoting the Haven Bible App. It’s been heavily marketed by influencers. I became curious and began to notice overlaps with certain self-help industry mechanics we’ve been unpacking here in recent months. The app is an AI chatbot that answers user questions and prompts with responses from biblical texts. It’s marketed as a way to get simplified explanations, moral guidance, help with reading the Bible, and a sense of connection with a wise guide. Tools, Guidance, and Quiet Influence It’s worth considering the issues surrounding the use, trust, and reliance on this kind of technology as a source of information and guidance. Despite being presented as objective, a chatbot never is. By nature, it always contains biases. It’s programmed and personalised. Over time, it can shape our beliefs, values, and worldview based on the personal information we give it. There’s nothing necessarily inherently wrong with that, but it’s easy to imagine how this could be abused, with the user not noticing that their critical thinking is gradually replaced by conformity to a narrow, dogmatic framework. There’s also the issue of AI sycophancy. This is often described as a deliberate feature designed to hook users, creating a sense of affinity with the technology as if it were a feeling, thinking being. This entered public discussion in 2025 when researchers and mental health professionals raised concerns about what they described as “AI-related psychosis.” One widely reported case involved a man called Allan Brooks, who became misled into believing he had discovered a world-changing mathematical formula after hundreds of hours interacting with ChatGPT. These systems are designed to shift from instruments to relationships through encouragement and affirmation. They tend to praise and validate user input, reinforce existing beliefs, and create a sense of safety in the interaction. They don’t require you to articulate feelings or needs clearly, and they reduce the need to negotiate meaning with others. First- and second-person language further reinforces the illusion of connection. Recognising Unhealthy Dependency on an App A useful question here is whether a tool helps us grow beyond it or cultivates dependency. When dependency forms, creators can charge whatever they like for continued access. And will likely extract other information, such as personal data. Habit formation is central to platforms like this. The perception of a companion you can ask anything of creates reliance not just for knowledge, but for reassurance and connection. Features like reminders and streak maintenance mirror the same techniques used by apps like Duolingo. Not to keep people learning, but to keep them opening the app. The important distinction is whether a tool helps us develop skills and understanding we can take with us, or whether it locks value inside its own ecosystem. With Duolingo, it became clear over time that keeping people engaged mattered more than helping them learn a language. When leaving feels costly, users become vulnerable to price ...
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      15 min
    • 7 Reasons to Start Drawing

      7 Reasons to Start Drawing
      Feb 3 2026
      I’m holding something very exciting in my hands. A physical copy of Sam Marshall’s beautiful book, Sketch: A Project Guide to Drawing With Confidence. Sam and I spoke about it a couple of weeks ago. I want to pause at the beginning because the first chapter, Why Sketch?, is packed with juice. It speaks to how I understand creativity and why it matters, not just personally but collectively. Whether or not you plan to start drawing, this feels like a reminder of why creativity matters at all. It feels more important than ever to emphasise the role of analogue, tactile, hands-on forms of creative play, which give us something we can’t get in the slightly disavowed relationship with creativity mediated through a screen. https://youtu.be/ukeHIBP_bcI “To make art is to sing with the human voice. To do this you must first learn that the only voice you need is the voice you already have.” – Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland This feels like the grounding point. As Sam says, this is not a “how to draw” book. It’s an encouraging project guide that helps you sketch in your own way, connecting with confidence in your own creative voice. The voice you already have. Sam offers seven compelling reasons to develop a sketching practice. They act as anchors we can return to when resistance shows up. 1. A Space to Call Your Own Sam describes the sketchbook as: “Your own private sanctuary. It’s a place for you to express yourself freely, without judgement or criticism.” In a world shaped by the onlooking gaze, this feels gently rebellious. A space held for yourself. Not for sharing. Not for approval. A place with no rules, as a private breathing space for the creative spirit. 2. A Gentle Way to Explore Your Creativity All you need is a sketchbook and a pencil. That’s it. A low-stakes beginning that resists the urge to wait for the right materials or conditions. This is an unfolding practice, not an outcome-driven one. You add things as you go, once you get a feel for what deepens what you’re already doing. 3. A Way to Slow Down and Be More Mindful Sam writes: “I draw to calm my busy mind, to slow down, and to connect with my surroundings. I guess you could say that drawing is my meditation.” This is true of many creative practices. They can’t be rushed or forced. I remember joking when ChatGPT first launched that I wouldn’t need to journal anymore. Instead, I could just ask it to write an entry and I wouldn’t have to think. This was obviously absurd, yet I later met people doing exactly that. It shows how productivity thinking has taken over. Doing things only if they serve a measurable purpose. Drawing starts to feel acceptable only if it can be instrumentalised. That framing strips it of its real value. 4. A Way to Help You See More Sam writes: “Drawing helps you see. The more you draw, the more you look, and the more your world opens up.” “When you take the time to draw something, anything, you notice details you might otherwise miss. It helps us see what is there, rather than what we think is there.” Seeing more is not something you can rush. It’s a by-product of staying long enough. Drawing creates the conditions for noticing. 5. To Lift Your Spirits and Connect to the World Sam says: “I feel so connected to the places I’ve drawn; they are special places in my mind, and because I’ve committed them to memory through drawing, I feel I’m able to visit them anytime.” Drawing embeds you in a place. It’s the difference between depth and skimming. Between “doing” a place and actually tasting it. Creativity changes how you inhabit the world. It moves you from consumption to relationship. 6. To Reconnect With Yourself and Your Goals Sam writes: “If you’ve had a rocky road with drawing in the past, if you’ve felt you aren’t creative, then just proving to yourself that you can draw can be incredibly healing.” Creative hobbies are generative. They can spark confidence, energy, clarity. When we slow down, things start to connect across different areas of life. Breakthroughs and insights appear in their own sweet time. 7. A Tool for Remembering Sam notes: “My sketches evoke more memories than any of my photographs do.” This speaks to the role of the senses in memory. Being somewhere long enough for your internal state to change. Long enough to feel hunger, shifts in light, temperature, mood. Drawing deepens the bond between experience and memory. And when art is involved, even mundane days become memorable. Time, Fear, and Returning To Simplicity Sam asks: What’s preventing you from keeping a sketchbook?Time often comes up, but it’s usually a cover for fear. Fear of messing up, not knowing what to draw, or not matching what’s in your head. Her suggested mantra: “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a pencil and a piece of paper.” Drawing becomes easier the more it’s woven into daily life. It only feels ...
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      31 min
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