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Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

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Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

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intuition podcast writing

Intuiting, Channelled Writing & Connecting with Natasha Piccolo

January 20, 2022

Becoming an author, writing intuitively and connecting with others.

Welcome to Episode 10 of the Create Your Story Podcast on Intuiting, Channelled Writing and Connecting.

I’m joined by Natasha Piccolo, Mama, Author, Speech Pathologist, Life Coach and Small Business Owner .

We chat about Natasha’s soon-to-be-published book, The Balance Theory and how it was written in a channelled way. And Natasha’s multi-faceted life and the threads that connect it together.

You can listen above or via your favourite podcast app. And/or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

In this episode, we chat about:

Following your intuition
Writing The Balance Theory
Channelled writing
Knowing when a book is finished
Dealing with loss
Being in balance
Healing our inner child
Connecting as a core value
Multiple life roles and how they connect
Mental health challenges + learning
Practical self-care tips
And so much more!

Transcript of podcast

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 10 of the Create Your Story Podcast and it’s the 20^th of January as I record this. We’re enjoying pretty much the heart of summer here with magical swims in silky water and many fish swimming around us. It’s truly joyful!

I’m excited to have the lovely Natasha Piccolo join us for the podcast today to chat about Intuiting, Channelled Writing & Connecting.

Natasha Piccolo is a mama, small business owner and author. She is always up for a good chat as her main work roles include clinical Speech Pathology and coaching. Her business, Resonate Holistic assists clients to facilitate healthy communication across the life span. Her first book, The Balance Theory is out in March with the kind press. She has recently contributed to This I Know Is True – a collection of stories to inspire community progress alongside 18 other women in the health and wellness space. Natasha hopes that her words motivate others to live a life that is consciously aligned.

Natasha and I met through Instagram and as fellow authors in the kind press community. It’s been wonderful watching Natasha’s journey as a writer and author, and we discuss writing her book The Balance Theory as an intuitive and channelled writing process over 10 years which is fascinating. Natasha has many strings to her bow and we chat about the common threads of these roles and passions in her body of work. Natasha also speaks about her mental health challenges, the difficulties and the learning and perspective they provided over time. Natasha is a wise young woman with much to share so enjoy these insights and the very practical tips provided.

In my writing and coaching life, this week I’ve enjoyed working through Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition with the Book Club group that has formed. The ability to work through Wholehearted with a group of women focused on transition is a real joy. There’s nothing like working through a book you’ve written in a practical way with women applying the insights. A coaching and reading community program that will be offered on a regular basis, consider joining in for the next round.

The other focus right now is The Writing Road Trip Free Challenge I’m hosting with my friend, co-writing buddy and brilliant writing teacher, Beth Cregan. The challenge starts on 31 January with 6 free 30-minute workshops over two weeks. So, sign up for our mailing list now. We’ll be sending out the Challenge information this Friday (21 January) with a link to our private Facebook group and the Challenge Workbook. We are going to have so much fun, and you’ll be inspired to engage with your writing plans and writing self in new ways. Plus connect with others also focused on writing. So, if writing is a priority for you in 2022, join us. Links are in the show notes. Head to quietwriting.com/podcast and click on Episode 10.

I also shared how my word of the year is NOVEL and what that means over on Instagram @writingquietly if you want to check that out. It’s a mix of excitement and a little fear as often happens when we step up into a bigger or different version of ourselves. I look forward to sharing more about that with you in 2022.

So now let’s head into the interview with the wise, intuitive, multi-faceted, creative Natasha Piccolo!

Transcript of interview with Natasha Piccolo

Terri Connellan: Hi Natasha. Welcome to the Create Your Story Podcast.

Natasha Piccolo: Hi, it’s beautiful to be here.

Terri Connellan: Thank you. And thank you for your connection and your support of Quiet Writing.

Natasha Piccolo: Thank you. You’re a beautiful inspiration. So I’m more than honored to be here.

Terri Connellan: Ah, that’s wonderful. And I’m so looking forward to our chat because you too are a fantastic inspiration. And we connected around writing and publishing as fellow authors in the kind press, which is very exciting. It’s been wonderful to watch your growth as a writer and an author. So, can you provide an overview of your background about how you got to be where you are and the work you do now?

Natasha Piccolo: It’s a beautiful, big question. I’m a wearer of many hats. Professionally and clinically my role is a speech pathologist, with a life coaching context as well and that’s shaped so much of my worldview. But then on a personal level, in terms of being an author, an upcoming author, that’s just, I think, innate to who I am. So I’m now 30 and I’m at a point in my life where these two beautiful worlds are starting to come together and here we are. I’ve followed nudges. I think that’s the best answer here is that I’ve just followed the intuitive hits and I’ve created this union of who I am at the very core with my external roles. And I wanted to write it all down and tell some stories.

Terri Connellan: Beautiful, what a beautiful blend. And it’s amazing that you’ve been able to bring so much together at the age of 30. And particularly as you say, following your intuition that’s very wise. And I think something that often takes a long time to develop. So congratulations on following your intuition. I think that’s a great skill.

Natasha Piccolo: Thank you. I think it’s something that I didn’t really realize I was doing until probably the last three years when I really did have a big spiritual awakening. And I realized the whole time I was being guided by nudges and that was coming through in the form of meditations. And I thought, hmm I think this little voice has always been here. It’s intuition. That’s what it is.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, absolutely. It’s amazing. You might’ve heard of the Wholehearted Stories that are on Quiet Writing and women tell their stories. And it’s amazing how intuition features as such a strong theme of women of all ages particularly when they’ve had a big transition, like a turning point or when they’re going through difficult times. It’s just fascinating how intuition pops up as a theme.

Natasha Piccolo: Absolutely. I always liken it to the inner child voice. So when I think about it, the childhood version of me is the voice that I listen to, as funny as that sounds, and as I became more and more adult and the conditioning around that developed, I realised that it was that little girl that I was listening to the whole time. She’s the creative side of me.

Terri Connellan: Oh, I love that. A great way to personalise it. Thanks for that wonderful overview. So we have both recently enjoyed, or we are enjoying the process of taking a book from that crystal or that gem of an idea through to draft, through to published book. Your book, The Balance Theory is ahead of publication in early 2022, which is very exciting. So congratulations.

Natasha Piccolo: Thank you so much. We officially launch in March.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, that’s fantastic. Tell us about your writing journey, what it was like for you.

Natasha Piccolo: The journey of The Balance Theory. It was completely channeled. And when I say channeled, it was listening to that little niggling voice of intuition coming through in a collection of downloads. And I had been writing the core content of The Balance Theory for the last 10 years. That part’s incredible when I think about it, that I actually pulled the book itself together in the last 12 months, but the writing and the channeling and the concept development has been 10 years in the making.

And I do share this quite openly and deeply in the book, that channelling process started after the death of a very close friend. So I was 19 at the time and we got a phone call that one of my closest friends had fallen asleep behind the wheel and hit a tree. And I was fresh out of school. You know, that whole idea of world at your feet ready to explore and yeah, naively maybe, just the best was yet to come and all of that. And we got that very soul shaking phone call. Very abruptly. No time to say goodbye. And yeah, I think all artists can relate to a point in their life that something really flipped. And I think that flip did happen quite early for me. And I had a big surrendering moment to the universe and I just said, what are you doing? What are you doing? I, yeah, naively had it all together and I was ready to explore what was coming after school. And instead I had a big trip down the grief process, clinical depression, clinical anxiety, a very, very big shake-up at a very core level. And The Balance Theory was actually born from surrendering to the universe and asking for the answer.

Why, why did you rip this part of my life away or this experience? And the answer to that question came through in intuitive hits in a meditation, which I didn’t even realize I was meditating at the time. But it was just in that quiet moment when I was still, I could hear a voice saying because the universe needs balance and I didn’t really understand what that was at the time at all. But I started noticing. And I think initially, when I look back at those very early writings, it was just self comfort that I was putting a question out and writing down things that would make me feel comfortable or try to articulate the grief and I realized that I was tapping into something that was bigger than me. And over the years it shaped. So that’s the journey there. Like I think it took about five years clinically, like I was in and out of therapy for a long time, to realize that I could channel and transmute it into an art form, but it took a long time to get there. Initially it was purely just comfort writing to process grief.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that and I think as you say, many creatives.. I certainly can relate to your story of going to that deep place where something incredibly challenging, something like the loss of someone really dear, and in a sudden way, particularly can be a terrible shock to the system. I’ve experienced that too. So I really sympathize with you on that and just know that it makes you look at your life differently, completely differently. At a young age that must’ve been a real shock to the system.

Natasha Piccolo: Yeah, my friend Dylan, so I do use his name in the book too, at the time he was my boyfriend, high school sweethearts. So my husband’s best friend. So the three of us had our teenage years together and even to this day, like my husband and I, he’s a huge part of our family. We can feel his presence, especially guiding this book. Yeah.

Terri Connellan: That’s amazing. And it’s incredible the way you described that, from that time, the process of writing started. So it’s a book that’s been shaped over a long period of time. And, that idea of channeled writing is really incredible too, that idea of being a conduit or being open and receptive to what comes through. Is that how you describe it?

Natasha Piccolo: Yeah. I kind of feel, and I do say this in the book too, that The Balance Theory, the concept has come through me. I’m the vessel and I’m just transmuting it out into the world. So it’s for us, it’s for the collective, but it happened to come through my life event or my story. I’m kind of that middleman, I guess. That’s how I feel. Like it’s got its own energy really.

Terri Connellan: Did it feel like a calling?

Natasha Piccolo: Yes. Yeah. And there were times, I mean, like writing over 10 years, there was probably two other times before I actually got signed with the kind press that I thought, okay, the book is done, you know? It wasn’t. Like, it was never published at 0.1 and then 0.2 didn’t happen. And then it was third time lucky, but there was actually more life experience that I needed to have before I got to the point where it actually was published.

And funnily enough, it all came to fruition two weeks before my son, who’s a year old next week, was born. So I think because the whole concept is balance and life death cycles is the tying-in theme, I needed to actually experience rebirth in the form of becoming a mother. And I think that’s what really nailed the final concept that just felt unified when I then approached the publishers.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. Yeah. And I love that idea too. Again, it’s something I’ve experienced where, sometimes you wonder if you’re procrastinating in not getting writing done. And then I know I put my draft away for quite a time and it was like it had to incubate or sit until I experienced more and put the pieces together. So I totally understand what you’re saying.

Natasha Piccolo: Yeah. My process and yours similarly, I think once you are really tapped in, on that intuitive level, the book actually tells you when it’s finished. You get that kind of, yeah, okay, I’ve told the story or stories I need to tell. And now it’s just about fine tuning.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. That idea of getting the message out that you want to get in some form because I just find it fascinating how it begins as an idea in our head or is channeled. And then we shape it into something that we can share with others. It’s quite miraculous in some ways, isn’t it?

Natasha Piccolo: It is. What I find funny is that, especially because clinically my work is speech pathology and a lot of that study was like, that hardcore formal language, understanding grammar and structure and how the spoken voice and the written voice can be different. And it’s so clinical. But then in channeling this piece, sometimes I would write and the voice of The Balance Theory or intuition is really quite illogical because I do liken it to that childhood voice. So sometimes the grammar’s a bit weird or the content is like, oh, we really gonna use that word. Like I’m talking to whatever that entity is. And then like now The Balance Theory is in its editorial phase now, like have that logical layer over the top where we’re actually going, okay, does this read properly? Does it flow? And that part’s coming in now, but the actual writing itself was quite intuitive.

Terri Connellan: That makes sense. Perfect sense. So can you share with us a snapshot of what The Balance Theory is about? You’ve touched on it, but can you tell us a bit more about what The Balance Theory is about?

Natasha Piccolo: Sure. So in essence, the idea of the concept is that the universe is attempting one goal and that goal is to seek balance. And if we are open to observing that at all levels of life, we can see it. So from the cell level to the cosmic level, and I love the idea of like the fact that I by nature am intuitive, but clinically I’m a scientist. I actually observed the same thing. So when we’re looking at human cell biology, the way cells behave. There’s an attempt at what we call homeostasis or the quest for balance essentially, but in a clinical term. We witness it in the way that organ systems interact with one another. We witness it in the way that we attempt to emotionally balance ourselves in terms of our mental health and the impact of that when we’re not balanced.

It’s almost like the book’s split into three sections. So that’s dealing with the self and then we look at one self to another, how they interact with one another and the idea of the energetics of human connection. And then finally the final concept is soul level connection. The final section is actually called kismet connection. So how the energetics of a soul kind of balances itself and in between all of that, I weave my personal stories to illustrate that. So that’s The Balance Theory in a nutshell and what you can expect from it.

Like I was saying, it feels like it’s a concept that needs to be shared for the collective. And I find it particularly interesting that I actually finished it during COVID. Because I think we can all agree in this modern history, if there was ever a time where we really reviewed what balance meant it was when we were all locked inside for a long period of time. And that idea of we were thrown way out of balance. It was almost like thrown out of the arena so we can observe what’s playing inside. Yeah, super interesting. And when we talk about that idea of it not being finished, I think COVID had to happen too before I finished the book.

Terri Connellan: More experiences and circumstance to integrate into that whole idea of balance by the sound of that.

Natasha Piccolo: Yeah. And it’s actually quite funny because before COVID was a thing, I remember logically trying to think about how am I going to articulate The Balance Theory on a collective level, so that there is something that is unifying for everybody’s life experience. And then the logical part of my brain’s saying, well, everyone’s life experience is different. How can we possibly all connect on one thing? And the pandemic happened. So I was like, well, there we go. There’s something we can all talk about. And we’ve all got a take on it. We’ve all experienced what it’s like to be in and out of balance in that time. And I know just from speaking to my circle, there was so many people that… we have that relationship with the pandemic where I was like, oh, we actually love being locked inside. It’s given me time to really evaluate my life and where I’m at.

And then the next day, you’re absolutely on that roller coaster of hating it. And then there’s fear. And then there’s gratitude. Like the whole spectrum of emotion came out to play during that time. And it was interesting channeling that as I was writing.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, it’s been the whole experience of COVID. My work is in transition, so that idea that it’s just been this huge shift and change, and that’s really thrown it back on us, on our internal resources and what toolkit we have, what understanding, what frameworks, how we’re using our personality or all the different aspects we can bring to it. So yeah, I think your book is incredibly timely to pick up on all of those themes that are happening.

So with your channeled writing process, were you surprised at what came through? Like was there, was it sort of landing more than… I guess all writing in a way has a sense of coming from a muse, doesn’t it? Do you see that?

Natasha Piccolo: Definitely. So there were times where, cause I do feel like I had that relationship with whatever the entity was that I would writing and I’d be like, oh, this is so controversial. I don’t know that I want to write this down. And again, like that’s where I speak to that idea of, put on the page and then your logical brain and the brain that understands that this is going into the world and it’s going to be open to a lot of people now, you can shape the language so that it actually comes across in an eloquent way. But there were definitely times where I was like, oh, okay. There was some little shocking moments here and there. And I was curious with it. I was just like, sure, let’s go on this journey.

Terri Connellan: And were there particular sort of rituals and practices that you did as part of your channelled writing?

Natasha Piccolo: Well, I definitely would get quiet before writing, right in the thick of the newborn phase of having a baby too. So there were times where it was easy to achieve quiet and times where it wasn’t depending on baby. But I would at least try and factor in three to five minutes of stillness before going to the computer. Having said that though, there were times where I would still old fashioned hand write. So I found that interesting. A lot of the writing that I did in 2020 in that first lockdown was handwritten. So there are sections of the balance theory that I had to then put onto the computer and it transmuted again when I typed, it came out differently.

But, I think in real time, I’m actually reflecting on this, I think because I was pregnant, I just found it so much easier to jot down in a notebook at the time and then get to the computer. But then all the writing that I had done in this period, which is like the current 2021 lockdown period was all typed. So there wasn’t really anything specific other than stillness, finding the right time of day when baby was sleeping and just having space to open up or to have that intention to open up that channel.

Terri Connellan: So it sounds like you’re a naturally intuitive person. Like it’s probably one of the strengths of your personality by the sound of it.

Natasha Piccolo: So I’m a Pisces moon too, so I think I’m tapped into the collective just by nature of my soul level.

Terri Connellan: Who you are. Yeah. Beautiful. So you’ve also recently had your story When Saturn Hadn’t Returned published as part of the brilliant kind press collection, This I Know is True, which is sitting beside me here. Beautiful book with lots of incredible writing by women and curated by Natasha Gilmour and Sian Yewdall. Could you tell us a little about that story that you wrote and contributed to that collection?

Natasha Piccolo: Sure. So When Saturn Hadn’t Returned, I always preface this by saying I’m not an astrologer, but the idea of a Saturn Return is that every 30 years or so you get a big life lesson governed by Saturn, which is the planet of the life lessons and the responsibility. And the story of When Saturn Hadn’t Returned, again came through in a meditation as that being the title. So that actual title dropped in before I even actually thought about what that meant.

And I thought, okay, so I’ve got the title. What does that mean? And then I just had in my physical hand-written diary a bit of a brainstorm around what that statement means for me. And I realised what I was doing was telling the story of all the lessons I had learned before my Saturn Return at 27 years old. So that was the nature of that.

And essentially the biggest life lesson there was around the importance of healing the inner child,. Because, again, I don’t think it wasn’t until I was pregnant, that I had that full circle journey of realising that there was still a part of my childhood self that wasn’t being seen or heard, not in terms of anybody else, but myself.

And yeah, I guess 2020 was a big year of me going quite inward and I had the space with the lockdown to do that before giving birth to free that little girl. And it was I guess ironic that the contract for the kind press came through the same year. So it really was a healing process. And I pitched that idea to Natasha the publisher at the kind press, and she loved the idea of When Saturn Hadn’t Returned as a concept. And so I got to work. Bubs was eight weeks old when I wrote that. So I was still very fresh into motherhood.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. Motherhood certainly takes you into very creative space. That whole idea of creating a human being naturally takes you into a very fertile space. So it was amazing you could tap into that, but also having read the story, I loved the way you went full circle with your inner child and the birth of your son as well. It was beautifully told.

Natasha Piccolo: Thank you. It was so cathartic to write and I think it actually shaped my first year of motherhood because I wrote that quite early on in becoming a mum. It’s nearly been 10 months that that was written now, which is crazy to say, but whenever motherhood was challenging this year I would actually just reflect on that and say, okay, what part of my childhood, like what part of the wound is coming up? Because he’s obviously triggering something in me. It’s got nothing to do with him. He’s just this little soul navigating his first year. And, it was actually a really beautiful touch point in my first year of motherhood. So I’m very grateful to that writing process.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. It’s amazing how creativity can create something that we need that can help us on our journey. I’ve found that with writing my own book and a bit like yours, it was a blend of personal experience and things that were coming to me. I didn’t quite feel it was channelled, but there was certainly a lot of intuition in the writing process. And I think sometimes we write what we need for ourselves as much as to share with others.

Natasha Piccolo: Absolutely. Did you find that you were writing more of the memoir first or were you writing the concepts first in your own process?

Terri Connellan: I found that I had a pretty clear structure of what the book looked like, which was quite intuitive. I think I shared the mind map in the launch session. I had quite a sense of where it was going. Then I started with the memoir, I think to frame up the story, but I think it was as much to work out my own learning as it was to share it with others. Guess it’s a reflective process to tap deep into that experience to be able to write about it. It’s probably how I’d describe it.

Natasha Piccolo: Yeah. Very cathartic.

Terri Connellan: It is very cathartic. So you’ve mentioned a little as we’ve spoken today and I know you’ve spoken in your writing about your personal mental health journey, about the challenges and what it’s taught you. So what would you like to share about that for people who are listening today?

Natasha Piccolo: Well, firstly, I’m very grateful for my mental illness now. I share in my book that my psychologist, 10 years ago almost, said those words: one day, you will tell me you are grateful for your mental illness. And at the time I was very unwell. And I said to her, like, you have no idea. And she’s like, well, no, I don’t because I’m not you. But one day, trust me, there’ll be a reason, a rhyme and reason. And you’ll be able to express that you found light. And I thought, here we go at the time. Definitely it was not open to seeing the light at that point in my life.

But I guess my biggest thing that I’d want to share with people that are experiencing something that feels quite dark and scary is that it’s an opportunity to be kind to yourself and to see that the shadow side is just as important as your light and to not fear it. And not to take away from the experience because the lived experiences is terrifying at times, but I think when it is terrifying, it’s actually showing you that something’s not balanced in life.

So for me, it was like a compass pointing me back to what I already knew, intuitively that there is light in the world. And to experience that you need that dichotomy and that spectrum. So you need the shadow to see the light. You need the light to understand that there’s shadow. And there is light at the end of that tunnel. It’s a journey. It’s the dark night of the soul. You need to go through it. It’s part and parcel of being human. I’m saying that with a lot of hindsight, though. So it’s a chance to be kind and to forgive self.

Terri Connellan: Thank you for sharing about your experiences. And again, it’s something else that’s popped up in conversations on this podcast. And, it’s just that reminder that sometimes going to the shadow side, the darker side…they’re difficult, horrible, uncomfortable experiences. But if we can, particularly when we’ve been through them, take the opportunity to step back and look at the wisdom, the light that was shed from that time. It can be really powerful for us. So, yeah. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. And it sounds like it’s something you talk about more in your book too.

Natasha Piccolo: Yeah. The Balance Theory gives that a nice big chapter. When I was studying as well, I would have been halfway through therapy at the time, I could feel that I needed to give back with the experience of mental illness. And I did a thesis on understanding anxiety and depression in youth. And I reference that in The Balance Theory, the actual study itself. But it’s such a common thing and yet it’s so lonely. And if I can be just one other voice out there that is willing to talk about it on a public level, I think we are inspiring, healthy, functional conversation around it.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. Thank you for being a voice for that while we’re chatting today. I really appreciate that.

Natasha Piccolo: Thank you.

Terri Connellan: So, as well as being an author, you’re also a speech pathologist and a life coach, as well as being a mumma of a little one as you’ve shared. And you also run a gelato business with your husband too.

Natasha Piccolo: A bit of fun.

Terri Connellan: So you’ve got lots of different streams and passions in your life. So just wondering how the streams and passions come together and play together, and you’ve talked about play, the inner child and play. And I’m wondering too, if there’s a thread that unites your body of work, because often there’s ingredients cluster together that connect things for us and sometimes there’s not.

Natasha Piccolo: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s kind of like what joins speech therapy and ice cream together. That’s one. But there is a common thread there. It’s connection. So I actually want to share this story. It’s a beautiful story that highlights why I do what I do, I guess. So the backstory of this is my husband’s side of the family come from a long line of ice cream makers, gelato makers in Italian, and my husband is now taking that baton and makes amazing gelato. And we decided that well, it was his dream to have the gelato cart that we do events with.

And we were doing our very first wedding. And I’ve just finished a full clinical day. And a lot of my work is in autism spectrum disorder. So I’d just seen a whole bunch of patients that day and went straight to the wedding to help my husband serve. And at the wedding I heard a little boy really, really upset, and he had run out of the wedding because he was overwhelmed from the light and the sound.

And I then learned he had autism. But he ran behind the gelato truck and was hiding in the bushes really scared, really upset, overwhelmed, sensory overload. And I could sense straight away. I knew what it was, like just clinically, I could see it. And I went around the bush and I pulled him out and I said, ‘Hey mate, do you want an ice cream?’

And the only word he could say at the time was chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. And I said, sure. We went to the back of the truck, made him a chocolate gelato. And his mother came around and apologized and she was saying, I’m really, really sorry. You know, he has autism, I don’t mean to upset your service.

And I said, whoa, I know. And it’s okay. He can stay with me the whole night. And I then went on to see that little boy clinically. But the one thing she said to me was we were coming to see you because it’s the first time I’ve seen him voluntarily want to connect. And I saw that. I saw that in the way he just took to you. Maybe he sensed that you were there to help him or to give him that experience of having a chocolate gelato.

And it’s just a beautiful story that I always come back to when I am sometimes wearing a lot of hats. And when you come back to yourself and you say, why am I doing this? Or what am I doing this for? And it’s that, it’s the love of connection. And if I can make a difference, start conversations, then I’m doing my job.

Terri Connellan: Fantastic. Yeah. I love that idea. And connection’s one of my top five values too. So, which is interesting, that it’s a thread for you as well. And I find with connecting it often can be about connecting ideas too. Do you find that? Like it’s about connecting people obviously, and that beautiful story that you told, but it can also be from what you’ve said from the writing you’ve done so far, it’s about, how does this idea connect with this idea and then how do they come together to create The Balance Theory in the first place?

Natasha Piccolo: Yeah, I think connection would be my top value because it does it weaves through everything. Why am I writing a book? To connect people or to connect thoughts, to connect ideas, to start a conversation. Why am I a speech therapist? Very same reason. Why do I hand people gelato? Because they smile and the non-verbal connection is fantastic. And then obviously being a mama, it’s I think the height of human connection, parenting.

Terri Connellan: Fantastic. So, this is a big question. There are two questions that I’m asking everyone on the podcast. So the first one big question, but interesting intuitively to see what comes up.How have you created your story over your lifetime?

Natasha Piccolo: This is my favorite question. Yes. I am an observer of my life, I think. So that’s the intuition saying that. If we go back to inner child stuff, I think from the moment I could pick up a pen, I remember saying to my parents that I was going to be an author. I’m going to have books, people going to read them. My first work at five years old was about an elephant, but, something about, remembering it now, but all airports in the world had shut. Maybe I was channeling COVID. Elephants needed to be the way that we got around. No idea, but I think I have always observed some kind of creativity in telling stories and I have always loved to put them on paper. So first I observed my life or the things that are going through my head. And then I write, and that practice of journaling and retelling has just been paramount to how I’ve created my life story.

And I think then, shaping that and articulating it as I got older, it became about wanting to start and initiate important conversation. So then I kept retelling my stories through telling my own story and sparking chat. My favourite thing to do.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. You mentioned in your bio that you’re always up for a good chat. So that idea of having a conversation. So what I’m hearing there is that you create your story almost by telling the story or by storytelling.

Natasha Piccolo: Yes. Yeah. And then I think I’m also a fan of collecting stories. I’ve always loved reading, like on that level, but I just love to hear somebody else’s story and to find the lesson in listening to someone taking that story and if it’s going to help, passing it on. Yeah. What would you answer to that, Terri?

Terri Connellan: Oh, that’s a big one. For me, how have I created my story over my last? One of my top things is reflecting. My background is as an adult educator and one of the key theorists that I really liked in that area was Donald Schon. And his work was about being a reflective practitioner and I love that idea. So I think for me, it’s been very much about experiencing and reflecting. I think again, it’s a very introverted and intuiting process, which is my strength, but very much that idea of taking things in and then sorting them out internally and then getting a structure to them and sharing them with the world. So, yeah. So similar to yours in some ways.

Natasha Piccolo: I think putting that practical way of then giving a message, like reflecting, transmuting and then telling.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. And then, but I do think structure and being practical to me, and it sounds like for you, two are very important because, again, I think it’s like two parts of my personality and it sounds like potentially with yours, it’s that, here’s the intuitive, but then how do I structure that into something that others can read and get value from?

Natasha Piccolo: How does it make sense? I think because especially intuitive thinking can be so ambiguous and huge. And I know that that’s been a wonderful challenge with The Balance Theory. How do I actually get this into a form that somebody could pick up similarly with like your Companion Workbook and actually do something with it, apply it to life.

Terri Connellan: Yep. It’s a big challenge as a writer. So the next question is, again, something I’m asking people, because, I’ve written my book with wholehearted self-leadership tips based on my experience, but I see it as a toolkit we can all add to. I’ve shared 15 things that work for me that I think will work for many people. What would be your top wholehearted self-leadership tips and practice, especially for women.

Natasha Piccolo: Thank you for asking that question, because I think these are the questions that people can take something away and apply tomorrow, or even in the next hour. I’m actually working through your Companion Workbook at the moment. So I’ve just read the part about your self care practices essentially, and how they shape, can set up your day really.

But I would say, I think maybe because speech pathology is such big part of me as well, having an honest conversation. And I mean that first with self every day, every morning, just that check-in of like, where am I at? What’s going on today? What’s my intention? How can I shape this day to work in my favor so that I show up as the best version of self? That’s probably my little go-to before I do anything else before I get out of bed with breath work.

And then I have a little fun thing I do on a Sunday night. Fun for me because clearly I like practical things. But I look at the calendar and I commit to one self-care practice a day from the Sunday to the next Sunday. So I just looked at the calendar, what’s going on this week and I’ve got my self-care menu of things I like to do. And then I just plot them in. So it’s like a meeting that I promise myself I’ll show up for.

And it can be as small as putting on a face mask while Alfie has a nap, my son to making sure I make a date to go and have a coffee with a friend I haven’t seen. It’s like a self care Sunday hack that I do. It started in lockdown and it’s really, really helpful. And it’s fun. It’s a challenge too. It’s like, well, I’ve had a few coffee dates, maybe I need to go and have a massage, or I need to look at booking a yoga retreat, or I need to just sit in the sun with a cup of tea this week. And, but it’s just been really practical about it and committing to it.

Terri Connellan: I love that. I think I might copy that idea, add that to my toolkit. And I love the idea of having a menu so you’ve thought ahead about what the things might be. And it’s a bit like a plug and play, you know, what does the day feel like, mixing it up with something different.

Natasha Piccolo: Yeah. And making it work for your week. Like there are weeks where like, work is really busy and sometimes it’s just committing to three minutes of meditation or having a big glass of water before you get out of bed. So it’s like, I just need to be really hydrated today to function. That’s my thing. I love a good tick a box, so I just feel like I’ve done. I’ve done me and now the oxygen mask can be on everyone else after that.

Terri Connellan: Awesome. Yeah. I love that. Thanks for sharing those two practical tips we can take away with us. I love them both so thank you.

Natasha Piccolo: Pleasure.

Terri Connellan: Thanks so much for sharing about you or about your life, about your writing, about your books. And we look forward to The Balance Theory coming out in March, 2022. So, that’ll be something for people to look forward to. So where can people find out more about you and your work online?

Natasha Piccolo: Thanks, Terri. I just want to thank you as well, because I think you are an incredible voice and you have a lot to give, and this podcast is going to reach so many people. So I’m just going to extend my gratitude to you. Thank you for having me. And the best way to connect with me is over on Instagram. I love a good DM chat. So @tashspeaks one big word as a handle, and my business is Resonate Holistic for speech pathology and coaching. So yeah, that’s the two, well, I hang out there quite a lot now, especially with the writing process. So come and find me come and say hi.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, I love your Instagram. It’s fantastic. And you’ve got some lovely snapshots about the book too, and foreshadowing about the content, which is exciting. Congratulations. And we’ll pop those links in the show notes too, so people can connect with you. Warmest wishes, thanks so much for being with us today and we’ll look forward to The Balance Theory.

Natasha Piccolo: Thanks for having me.

About Natasha Piccolo

Natasha Piccolo is a mama, small business owner and author. She is always up for a good chat as her main work roles include clinical Speech Pathology and coaching. Her business, Resonate Holistic assists clients to facilitate healthy communication across the life span. Her first book, ‘The Balance Theory’ is out in March with the kind press. She has recently contributed to ‘This I Know Is True’ – a collection of stories to inspire community progress alongside 18 other women in the health and wellness space. Natasha hopes that her words motivate others to live a life that is consciously aligned.

You can connect with Natasha

Website: www.resonateholistic.com.au

Instagram: @tashspeaks

@resonate_holistic

@pina_piccolina

Email: Natasha@resonateholistic.com.au

Book purchase links:

This I Know is True

Australia | Booktopia | Amazon AU

International | Amazon UK | Amazon US

The Balance Theory links – forthcoming when pre-orders open in March 2022.

Links to explore:

My books:

https://www.quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1

Free resources:

Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Other free resources: https://www.quietwriting.com/free-resources/

My coaching:

The Writing Road Trip – a community program with Beth Cregan – kicking off Jan 2022

Connect on social media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writingquietly/

Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-connellan/

creativity love, loss & longing podcast

Creating, grief coaching and pro-ageing with Valerie Lewis

January 13, 2022

Living a creative, easeful and positive life after loss

Welcome to Episode 9 of the Create Your Story Podcast on Creating, Grief Coaching & Pro-Ageing.

I’m joined by Valerie Lewis, Grief & Loss Coach, Lifestyle Model, 60+ Pro-Ager and Creative Dabbler.

We chat about creativity as a central life value and practise and how it helps in so many ways including dealing with grief and loss. And about being a grief coach and 60plus pro-ager!

You can listen above or via your favourite podcast app. And/or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

In this episode, we chat about:

Life after tragedy
Embracing creativity
Choosing not to climb the corporate ladder
Dealing with loss
Making transitions later in life
Grief coaching + supporting others
Creativity + intuitive art
Being a 60plus pro-ager
Becoming a model
And so much more!

Transcript of podcast

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 9 of the Create Your Story Podcast and it’s the 13^th of January as I record this and suddenly we are nearly mid way through January! we’ve had a lot of rain here in Sydney so it’s humid and the gardens are going wild. But I’ve been able to swim and enjoy the mid-summer temperatures. I’ve also been reflecting on 2021 via Susannah Conway’s Unravel Your Year 2022 Workbook this week and also reflecting further on my 2022 word of the year (to be revealed soon). Plus I’ve been planning and preparing for the Wholehearted Self-leadership Book Club where we focus in on Chapter 1 of Wholehearted and the Companion Workbook next week together. As well as preparing for The Writing Road Trip with Beth Cregan which kicks off with a free challenge on 31 January. So there are lots of exciting new things this year and I hope you’ll join me in one of these offerings! Links in the show notes on Quiet Writing at QuietWriting.com/podcast and find the link to this episode.

I’m thrilled to have my friend Valerie Lewis from Visualise and Bloom join us for the podcast today to chat about Creating, Grief Coaching and Pro-Ageing.

Valerie Lewis is a multi-passionate 60plus pro ager. Through grief coaching and personal growth facilitation, she supports and empowers those who are lost and confused with the direction they want to take following a significant life event that has impacted them and their sense of self. Her interests include being an intuitive reader, Reiki and crystals practitioner and avid creative dabbler.

Valerie and I met through a project of a mutual connection Julia Barnickle, ‘What if life were meant to be easy?’ Sadly, Julia passed away early in 2021 as a result of metastatic breast cancer. We connect today remembering Julia and with gratitude to her for connecting us. And it’s fitting that we remember Julia’s message of living a creative, easeful and positive life even in the face of or after difficult circumstances, as this is the focus of the conversation today.

Valerie has been a coaching client in the Sacred Creative Collective group coaching program. We share many similar experiences including moving through deep grief and our passions – including a love of creative expression in many forms and intuitive practices such as tarot as important self-leadership tools.

Today we speak about creativity and how we respond and learn to move through tragedy, loss, deep grief and challenging transitions including ageing. We have fun in this conversation but we also traverse some tragic and sensitive topics so I wanted to let you know this upfront. We consider creativity and intuition as sources of healing and growth and how they support us in making life transitions. Valerie’s story is an incredibly inspiring one especially around how she creates as a central focus and value, has become a grief coach supporting others and is a passionate 60-plus pro-ager.

So now let’s head into the interview with the wonderfully inspiring, creative and multi-passionate Valerie Lewis!

Transcript of interview with Valerie Lewis

Terri Connellan: Hello, Valerie. And welcome to the Create Your Story Podcast. Thank you so much for your connection and for your support of Quiet Writing.

Valerie Lewis: Thanks for having me, Terri. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Terri Connellan: I’m so looking forward to chatting with you today. We’ve connected in many ways around creativity, transition, grief, coaching and more. So it’s great to be able to share conversations on those topics today with others. Can you start us off by providing an overview about your background, how you got to be where you are and the work that you do now?

Valerie Lewis: Wow. Where do I start? Well, I’m originally from the north of England, south Yorkshire, and I moved to London, in the late eighties, following the loss of my only child, my daughter, through manslaughter and the resultant breakdown of my marriage to her mentally ill father. As you can imagine, that was quite a traumatic time. So I would say, that was the main reason why I moved to London basically to start a new life cause I thought, well, I’ve got nothing to lose. And before my daughter died, I had instigated starting a degree because I left school with minimal qualifications.

So it was almost like something that I needed to prove to myself. So I had embarked on the initial stages of the degree. And then after my daughter died, the tutor that I had at the time, he was very encouraging. He said, well, why don’t you apply to one of the universities or polytechnics as they were called. And study that way rather than doing it as I was going to do through the open university. In those days you received the manuals through post and then you do your assignments and work and then send them off to the tutor to mark.

So I applied and I was accepted at Middlesex Polytechnic and ended up moving down to London to do my four year degree. And, in some ways that helped me, that was a tremendous help. It gave me something to focus on and channel my energies in. And it was whilst doing the degree, a friend brought me a book. I made friends with three women at university, and we’re still friends to this day. And one of them brought me a book called Feel the Fear and do it Anyway. And you could say that started the journey of self discovery, self-development, finding out more about who I was.

Life continued. I got a job. One of my sisters had already moved down. My other two sisters moved down and then they eventually ended up moving back with their families and to buy their own homes because it was cheaper in Sheffield. And I’ve remained in London as has my youngest sister. Through that time, I worked and there was a point at which I think it was in my mid thirties. I don’t know if you want to call it a quarter-life crisis or something. Cause I worked with engineers as their admin officer and I remember looking at them absorbed in their work. And when it was time to go home, I used to think, aren’t they going home? They just seemed content to stay there in the office.

And, I just remember thinking, I don’t want to do this, you know, thinking, well, where do I want to go? I did a post-graduate course, the Diploma in Management Studies, because I thought I’m in an administrative field. Maybe that’s the direction that I want to go in. And I remember thinking to myself, well, I don’t want to trap myself. I don’t want to just focus on this. And I think it was through reflecting on who I was. Where did I want to go? I remember thinking, realizing that actually I needed to be creative because that was what fed me. And, I’d kind of neglected that. I’d always been creative. I kind of like neglected that because I was studying and basically adapting to life in London.

And so I started getting back into being creative, making cards. Then I discovered salt dough modeling and got into that. And one of my other sisters she’s quite creative too. So we used to get together and, when her children were young, the schools would have craft fairs. So we’d book a stall and we’d have maybe have a table together. She’d make her own stuff and I’d make my stuff.

And I thought I enjoy this. I thought I don’t want to be trapped in a job where I’m working all these long hours. I want to have some time away from that, where I can do some of the things that I want to do. That’s basically how I’ve been throughout the past 30 years if you like.

Sometimes I felt a bit conflicted about it because you see your colleagues climbing the ladder in one of the fields they’re in. And obviously earning more money. I did get a promotion. I went for promotion and my pay jumped quite substantially. And I felt comfortable with that because one of the things I realized after my daughter died, I remember thinking to myself, you could have all the money in the world and in some ways it’s kind of meaningless if people that you care for are not here anymore. So in some ways I’m not materialistic in that sense. I like to have nice things. I like to wear nice things. And I like to be able to have my books around me and makeup and eat nice food. But having a lot of money is not my main goal. Feeling fulfilled is more important to me, more meaningful to me. Does that make sense, Terri?

Terri Connellan: It does. Absolutely. So, thanks for that snapshot of your life over many years, and what’s important to you. I think that what comes through strongly is your values and how you want to live your life. So we’ll explore more about that as we go through our conversation today. So thank you for that. So we’ve both shared a major transition in your case from corporate life to a more creatively focused life. So can you describe what that transition’s been like for you and how long it took and the main turning points?

Valerie Lewis: That happened last January. In some ways I saw it coming because for the past few years at work there’d been lots of changes, the constant restructuring. My role, if you like became less than what it used to be. It got less stressful. Certain aspects of it, the nicer bits, if you like, the more creative bits of it were taken away and given to another department. And I remember thinking, me and my colleagues thinking, this is strange, something’s going on in the background, you know? And, the restructure that they had before we were told our jobs were going to be moved up north, it happened with one of the teams. They were restructured. And, I think a couple of people were made redundant and the other team basically transferred up north. So that’s why the two people were made redundant from that. And we thought, well, this is odd, if they’ve moved part of our department up north, what does that mean for us?

So in some ways it was almost like you think it’s going to happen at some stage. And, I actually welcomed it. So when it came, it wasn’t a complete shock.

I wasn’t devastated because I thought, oh, I’m approaching 60. I think it’s time. It felt as if it was time for me to be doing something different, something more meaningful, something that I had more control over. So the only thing that I knew that I would mentally have to adjust to was the lack of consistent income. Because obviously, when you’re working, you’ve got an income coming in every month and you know how much is coming. But if you’re not getting that income, you’ve got to create it yourself. So I knew that would be a challenge, but I thought, well, I’m up for it.

Terri Connellan: Excellent. So, sounds like you knew the transition was coming, so you had some time to mentally prepare and perhaps practically prepare for it. And I think that helps too. Certainly for my own transition, it was quite similar. I could see that writing was on the wall. You could see things were coming. And, for me, I started to make a plan for what my life might look like when that time came. So I think that helps as we move through and change. It’s interesting you mentioned that you made that conscious decision in your thirties, not to climb the corporate ladder so that you had space for creative interests. So how do you feel about that decision now? Was that a good decision?

Valerie Lewis: It’s hard to say. I mean, other people might, well, I don’t think anybody else sort of really looks at it. It’s more about me, isn’t it? There are occasions when I think, oh, maybe if I’d stayed in the job and become this, I might’ve been head of this. And then I think, no, this is the road I chose, you know, so I’m happy with it. And in some ways doing a lot of the things that I’ve done feeds into what I’m doing now.

Terri Connellan: So tell us about what you’re doing now.

Valerie Lewis: I certified as a coach. I’ve been jewellery making. So in some ways I’ve had a taste of self-employment, even though I was employed, if that makes sense and earning little bits of money, pockets of money. So it’s not something that’s totally alien to me. I think that I can use my creativity in my coaching, and in other ways to help me achieve an income.

Terri Connellan: I often talk about Elizabeth Gilbert’s line about the long runway, where we’re preparing along the way, perhaps many years before for what we end up, wanting to do that’s important to us. Does that relate to you?

Valerie Lewis: Yeah, I think so. I don’t think you realise it at the time. Do you? Because I look at other people, I look at my sister, for example, who’s an executive coach and she climbed the career ladder. And when she was made redundant, when she started to think about what it was she could do, she realised that one of the things that she’d enjoyed whilst she was employed was coaching others. So she’s taken that aspect and also got trained, did a Masters in Coaching Psychology. And is using that and drawing from her skills in a corporate or in the civil service, if you like. So I think we do draw on our skills, I’m sure in what you’re doing, you’re doing the same, aren’t you?

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. And as you were talking, I was thinking of my own experiences and your sister’s and your own, there are threads that we value that we go back to over time. And often as we’re getting older, we start to stitch them together in different ways. And I think that’s a really exciting part of our journey. Fantastic. So do you want to tell us about what your life looks and feels like now?

Valerie Lewis: It’s kind of like, I’m more in charge of it. Self-leadership that word that you introduced me to. I feel very much my own person. There’s a sense of freedom, if that makes sense. I’m much more at peace with myself. I feel as if I’m more in tune with my own values and I’m not going into work and having to do things that conflict a little bit with how I think or feel.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. So you really have put into practice the things that are important to you, that self-leadership, creativity, embracing who you are. It’s been a real joy to connect with you and to learn from you too and share our experiences as we’ve moved along our road.

So you mentioned, earlier about the tragic death of your daughter and only child and your Wholehearted Story that you wrote for Quiet Writing, The Silent Whispers of my Mind, you share your story and what happened, the impact upon you. Can you explain or share with us what you learned from moving through and on from such incredibly difficult circumstances?

Valerie Lewis: At the time, I wasn’t sure about what I’d learned and I remember sort of thinking. Am I strong? Am I coping with this? And it wasn’t until I volunteered with, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children? I volunteered. They have a helpline, the child death helpline. I think it might be called something different now. But I applied to volunteer for that as a bereaved parent. And it was offering emotional support to basically anybody who was impacted by the death of a child, whether they were the parent, the grandparent, the aunt, the teacher, whoever. Perhaps they were feeling upset or traumatized. It was a free helpline, so they could call the helpline and just pour out their feelings.

And we were there as a volunteer to listen and it was through listening to their stories, it made me realize that I had come a long way and that I was actually quite resilient and emotionally strong.

And I learnt that, I mean, it’s a bit cliche, that there are more questions than there are answers and that sometimes we just have to accept that we can’t know the answers to everything as hard as it is. Because that used to probably torment me in the early days. Why, why, why? And there were certain answers that satisfied me so much. And then I’d want to go beyond that and think, well, no one can tell me why.

I know why she died. I know what was wrong with my ex-husband. I know those sort of medical reasons why. But in the bigger scheme of things, it’s almost like well why was it her time? Why did she go then? And I don’t think anybody can give me an answer to that. So I’ve had to learn to accept that’s just how life is, we don’t know when we’re going to go. Sometimes we have signs, like if you’re ill terminally ill, then you know, but you don’t know necessarily why you became terminally ill, what led up to that? So there’s lots of things that we don’t know, we will never know. And we can’t know. And we just have to come to terms with that or else we’d go mad.

I’d also learnt how important it is to have a wall of support around you. It’s so important because, I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn here with the helpline when I say that there were people who didn’t have that support. And they were really struggling. They had no one to turn to apart from the helpline and I think just knowing that there are people around you can help to keep you, make you feel emotionally supported. And sometimes in the practical sense as well.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. I think the points you’ve raised are just so important particularly that what we learn or the experiences we go through, grief is really a journey over time. That’s certainly something I’ve experienced with the grief that I’ve experienced in my life. And I think you conveyed that beautifully in The Silent Whispers of my Mind. Just that horrible shock when something as terrible as that happens and how we start to make our way through the early days. And then over time. You talk about from fragmented to wholehearted. Yeah. So, thank you for sharing that. And I think the fact that you were able to volunteer to help others helped you realize how much you’d learned is a really powerful story, too.

Valerie Lewis: Thank you. And something else that I learned was that really there’s only, you can decide what your values are. Because I think sometimes when we go through difficult times, it does make us reflect on what’s important to us or not. And really no one else can decide for you.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely.

Valerie Lewis: Have you found that to be?

Terri Connellan: I have. My brother passed away tragically. So, I went through a difficult time and that’s the time that I went back to my creativity, which is my number one value similar to you. And I think the loss of someone so special and so loved and in tragic circumstances, particularly, yeah, it does. It just makes you go back to those places and I think you look at your life in a different way.

So in your work that you do now, you take those experiences to coach others, which is really beautiful that you’re able to take the hard won learning and experiences that you’ve had to be able to support others. So can you tell us about your coaching in this area and how you support people experiencing grief?

Valerie Lewis: Well, grief coaching, if you like, would be seen as a niche or a specialization within life coaching. I think it’s quite new. It’s basically aimed at individuals who’ve experienced loss, whether it’s a death or non-death related and need support and guidance on their grief journey. As you know, coaching is about moving forward. With grief, you’ve got that additional aspect of somebody who may be still going through the various stages of grief. They may still be a little bit hurt, a bit angry, in disbelief.

So grief coaching is also providing practical support using many of the same coaching tools, common to life coaching, as well as providing emotional support through creation of a safe and supportive space for the client to feel that they can heal And that they can express their feelings around grief without judgment.

So there’s a similar way. It is coaching but what I found is that in terms of goal setting, they’ve got to be gentle goals. Very small goals. They may have a big goal, but really with a lot of people who are going through grief, it’s just creating small goals to help them get through the day.

And I find that self-care comes into it quite a lot. So that’s one of the areas that I have tended to focus on with people going through grief. What can they do to be compassionate with themselves, to love themselves, to nurture themselves? What little steps can they take and turn those into goals and actions until they feel strong enough to tackle the bigger goals.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. So that’s a real form of that self-leadership we talked about before is taking control or taking care of what you can in a very traumatic, often very traumatic situation. And what’s the pathway to grief coaching, obviously personal experience of grief is…

Valerie Lewis: Yeah, personal experience and I came across the Institute of Life Coach Training. They’re an American organization. I came across them a couple of years ago and thought about it and then put it from my head like I do with a lot of things that are intuitive and I kept getting pulled back to it. And in terms of thinking about what niche I wanted to focus on, before that I’d looked at working with women who were midlife and who were looking to reinvent themselves. But then I started to think, what can I do with my experience of grief or what I’ve been through? And this is where I discovered this course on the internet and it kept coming back to me. I think it was once I knew that I was going to be made redundant, I decided right, I’m going to sign up for this course.

Because I just felt that I needed some structure. I needed some support around that. So, I mean, I thought I’d been through my own experience, but I need this extra. You know, how do you coach somebody? But as I said, we draw on very much the same sorts of tools as we do as we use in life coaching. It’s just this other additional element of supporting somebody, being there, and creating this safe space for them. And knowing that you’re going to be dealing with somebody who might be a bit fragile and also knowing within that when to refer somebody, , when to be able to say, well, perhaps this person needs more than what I can actually offer them. And it’s counseling that they should be receiving or need to get in touch with.

Terri Connellan: It’s very important work. And I think for many of us, the life experiences, what happens to us, the skills we gain, insight we gain is often what we channel into coaching isn’t it? It’s often a challenging journey, but I think the wisdom that we gain from our experiences, the insight and the tools that we develop are so important to pass on to others. So it’s great that you’re doing the work in this area that will help so many people.

Valerie Lewis: Thank you.

Terri Connellan: So creativity, obviously a very important part of your world. It’s been a touchstone for you over time and more recently you shared in your piece, The Silent Whispers of my Mind, how intuitive abstract painting has been a big part of your journey. So how has creativity been a source of growth, expression and insight for you?

Valerie Lewis: I would say, I’ve been creative in some shape or form ever since I was a child. I think it’s just a natural part of me. It’s something I turn to whether I’m happy or sad. It just helps me. I find that being creative is something I can lose myself in. Whether this taps into being an introvert, I don’t know. But I like to sometimes go into my own little world and shut out everything else that’s going on around me. And I find that obviously you can do that when you’re working on a piece, you’re doing something creative.

And I often find that in the act of being creative, and it’s silent around you, or you might be a person who likes music playing, you can ruminate, you can think, you can think more clearly. And if something’s bothering you, sometimes you find that the answers come to you.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I’m sure it can be the same for introverts and extroverts, but I think introverts definitely draw energy from that time alone and that creative space. So yeah, it sounds to me your personality type, which I know is introverted. INFP – you have a preference for introversion, intuition, feeling and perceiving. It would make sense that a tool like creativity, whether it’s painting or jewelry or some of the things you’ve mentioned provides a vehicle to create a quiet space where you can energize and make sense of things.

So your intuition is also something you share a lot about in The Silent Whispers of my Mind. What I found fascinating in that piece is how you tracked through learning to listen to your inner voice over time. So can you share us with us more about learning to listen to your intuition and how it’s guided you? Cause it’s not often talked about, is it, intuition?

Valerie Lewis: No, it’s still something that I find hard to articulate because it’s abstract, isn’t it? You know, you can’t see it. And it is different for everybody. You know, you look back on things and you think, well, what helped me, and then it’s just being aware that there were certain times when I seemed to know what I was doing, I felt as if I was actually being guided And I suppose some people might say you know, it’s God. And I think, well, it could be God and then over the years, having different experiences when you think that’s what they call your intuition. Like a silent voice or a sense. It’s like your body knows the right thing to do. Something’s baffling you or confusing you, and you’re weighing the pros and cons and then out of the blue, when you’re doing something totally different an answer comes into your head or you’re doing something and you get a reaction in your body.

And it’s through experiencing that. And then learning when I experienced that, that means I’ve got to listen to that. And just learning to be aware of those sensations. It’s learning to be quiet and still, and just being in the moment. And I think being creative helps you do that. I’ve heard people say that running, for example, does that for them, you know, going for a run, clears the cobwebs away and they’re in that moment. And maybe if they’ve had a problem they’d been churning turning over in their heads, they’re getting clarity in that moment.

So there’s definitely something to be said about learning to be still. Shutting out everything else around you and really being in that moment. So for me being creative is like a kind of mindful meditation. And I suppose in some way that that’s where the abstract art came in and that was kind of a mindful meditation. I don’t know what I’m going to paint. I just have these paints in front of me and I start doing shapes and ideas come to my head. Oh, that represents so-and-so. That means so and so, but initially I might not know what it is. I want to get down on paper.

Terri Connellan: I think it’s fascinating that abstract intuitive art was what you were felt very drawn to. It’s obviously something that has called you over time. And when you describe your creativity, the power of it, intuition, it seems to bring all the pieces together. So that’s perfect.

I love that you described yourself as a 60 plus pro ager, Valerie. That’s great. I love that term. What does that mean for you? Tell us a bit about that.

Valerie Lewis: I think for me as I approached 60. I thought my gosh. Am I still middle-aged? And then I actually had to Google it to see what years middle age encaptured. And I thought, well, I’m at the tail end of middle-aged. And it was like looking at older relatives around me and thinking, there’s a part of you, that’s a little bit fearful about getting older and that term to me, it helps me allay those about being over 60 and getting older. It’s about me accepting that, yes, I am getting older. I can’t hide that and really, I don’t want to. I think it’s something to actually be proud of, because not everybody, you know, my daughter died at seven. She didn’t make it to 61. My mum’s mum, I think she died at 63, my mum’s 84 so it’s actually something to be really, really proud of.

And regardless of what society says, I think we’ve got more freedom. We’ve been allowed the opportunity for more self-expression than our parents’ generation, if you like. And I think we should take advantage of that to the full. We should create our own rules, dress, how we want to dress. If you want to dye your hair, dye it. If you don’t want to dye your hair don’t. And live life as fully as you can, within your capabilities.

I look around me and there’s people my age and a bit younger having hip replacements and, and dying from cancer and things like that. So I think to myself, life’s short. I think you’re just aware of your own mortality when you reach this age. So you think to yourself, I’m not just going to sit here and sort of accept that I’m getting older. I want to live my life. And so being pro age, it’s about accepting that you’re a certain age but not letting that age, define you or defeat you.

Terri Connellan: Beautiful. Yeah. And I was fascinated to hear that you did what I also did recently, which was look at middle age and the span, because I was asking the same questions recently because I just turned 60 not long ago. I was thinking, oh, am I still middle aged? Or am I old age now? Or what am I? And I did the same thing.

I was fascinated to find that I could see middle-aged, which is that point. And then there didn’t seem to be a term so much for after. So yeah, I do like that pro ager. I was listening to a podcast, The Magnificent Mid-life Podcast, and there was a guest on there who talked about being age-full, which is nice too. I love that. And, I certainly agree with you about celebrating all that, we’ve learned the sharing of that with others, which in your journey is really important. So yeah, I love your attitude. It’s fantastic.

Valerie Lewis: This is where the modeling comes in.

Terri Connellan: Yes I’ve seen on Instagram. Is that a new career for you?

Valerie Lewis: I wouldn’t say it’s a career, it’s a form of income but it’s another form of being creative if you like.

And it’s also about in a way me celebrating, being the age I am because if you look back 10, 15 years ago, who would have thought that somebody in their sixties will be doing modeling. But I think there’s more of us reaching a certain age. And I think companies are appreciating that their customers want to see a greater representation of people who look like them.

And so this is the right time for me to be doing this because I am not what you would call sort of fashion model. I don’t look like a fashion model. I’m not the right height. I’m not the right build for it, but I might look like somebody who you’d see in the street or your next door neighbor. So that’s basically what I’m doing. Lifestyle modelling and it’s quite fun. It’s something different and it’s fun.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. The pictures you shared on Instagram. I was just blown away. I found it so inspiring. It was fantastic to see. So yeah. Be interested to hear more about it as you get more into your modeling.

So there’s a couple of questions that I’m asking all the guests on this podcast, being the Create Your Story Podcast. It’s a big question, but it’s really just seeing what comes to mind from the question. So how have you created your story over your lifetime?

Valerie Lewis: That’s an interesting one. It’s almost like there hasn’t been a rule book to follow. So in many ways circumstances have shaped some of my story. And other aspects of my story, I’ve taken charge and shaped myself. For example, not climbing a career ladder when that’s something that society expects of you, if you like. I chose not to do that.

Some of the creative things I’m doing, such as modeling and what is interesting is meeting other people who are of the same age group, who have decided to do that as well and thinking, well, you know, this is fascinating.

So my story has been shaped by I suppose obviously my parents and people of their generation, my upbringing, being a black person in a mainly white society. That’s helped to shape it. Being a female. In two of my jobs, I worked in a more male dominated environment.

And also the circumstances I’ve been through have helped to shape my story. And also I think I’m a little bit eccentric and I’ve got a strong streak of independence. There’s always something in me that slightly wants to dance to my own tune. So that’s helped to shape my story. I’m still continuing to shape my story.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. That’s great. It’s lovely to hear all the different aspects that have shaped you, your personality, circumstances and how you’ve responded to them as well. Thank you for sharing that. So wholehearted self-leadership is obviously part of creating your story and a key part. And I’ve shared some tips in my book, but I’m interested for people on the show to share their top wholehearted self-leadership tips and practices, especially for women. So what comes to mind for you as the top tips?

Valerie Lewis: I think the main thing that I would say is work on being true to you. Who are you, or who do you want to be? And that might mean a lot of self-reflecting, digging deep within yourself. I would say a good starting point is looking at your values. What are the things that make life meaning to you or could make life meaningful to you? The values that you hold – are they yours or the values of others? What do you dislike about yourself or what do you dislike about other people? Ultimately, are you living your life for you or for others?

And I think that sort of question becomes more important the older you get, especially as you reach middle age. Maybe if you’ve had a family and your life has been focused on your family, I think you can lose yourself, whoever you were. So at some point, I think most of us, you start thinking about who am I, what am I here for? What gives me joy? And that’s where the self-reflecting comes in. And as I say, looking at your values, I think that’s a good starting point because your values change over time, don’t they? And you might be holding on to things that are not helping you anymore. It’s dragging you down.

Terri Connellan: I think that’s great. I think that question about it with your living your life for yourself or for others and sometimes it’s that overlay of family with its family values, cultural values or corporate values, it’s almost like we have to clear them off sometimes just to work out what’s important for us. I relate to that, like a clarifying process. Beautiful. I love that. And that idea of working on being who you are, who you want to be, and what gives you joy, I think a beautiful tips too for women to take to heart. So, thank you so much for our conversation Valerie today. It’s been so heart-warming, so inspiring and a lot of fun. So thank you so much for sharing your story. Can you tell us where people can find out more about you and your work online?

Valerie Lewis: Okay. My website, Instagram and Facebook under Visualise and Bloom. And LinkedIn under Valerie A Lewis and people can sign up to receive my periodic newsletter. I say periodic because I’m not one of these that sends out a newsletter every month. It’s more like once a quarter. So, if they sign up for my newsletter on my website, I’ve just created a guided meditation. They can receive a free downloadable copy of it. It’s called the Violet Cloud Guided Meditation for Difficult Times.

Terri Connellan: Perfect. That’s a beautiful gift for people who connect with you. So, we’ll pop all those links in the show notes. I’ll also make sure the link to your wholehearted story, The Silent Whispers of my Mind and the piece you shared on creative transition too is there.

Valerie Lewis: Oh, it’s been a pleasure, Terri. Thank you so much.

Terri Connellan: Thanks so much Valerie.

About Valerie Lewis

You can connect with Valerie at her website Visualise and Bloom or via Instagram @visualiseandbloom

Newsletter sign-up: Blooming news + free guided meditation

You can also read Valerie’s Wholehearted Story, The Silent Whispers of my Mind and an interview with Valerie on her transition journey: Sacred Creative Stories of Transition.

Links to explore:

Book Club: Wholehearted Self-leadership Book Club – open for enrolment now, closing soon – join us for January 19/20 book club start.

My books:

https://www.quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1

Free resources:

Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Other free resources: https://www.quietwriting.com/free-resources/

My coaching:

The Writing Road Trip – a community program with Beth Cregan – kicking off Jan 2022

Connect on social media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writingquietly/

Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-connellan/

personality and story podcast work life

Shaping a Multi-Passionate Life with Meredith Fuller

January 6, 2022

Welcome to Episode 8 of the Create Your Story Podcast on Shaping a Multi-Passionate Life.

I’m joined by Meredith Fuller, Psychologist, Author, Media Spokesperson, Career Change Specialist and Theatre Maker.

We chat about shaping a multi-passionate life in practical terms! There are so many tips for living a full, wise and creative life without overwhelm.

You can listen above or via your favourite podcast app. And/or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

In this episode, we chat about:

Making transitions from work or a life we don’t love
Tools for tapping into what is not conscious
Living a full, multi-passionate life in practical terms.
Meredith’s book Working with Bitches
My book Wholehearted & how Meredith is working with it with clients
Thinking and Feeling preferences in women
Choosing projects wisely
How personality insights can help
How tarot insights can help
Setting boundaries
And so much more!

Transcript of podcast

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 8 of the Create Your Story Podcast and it’s the 6^th of January as I record this and we’re firmly into the new year. It’s warm and humid here in Sydney with lots of rain, so it’s a perfect time for setting intentions and goals for 2022 and also reflecting on my word of the year. I shared about my word of the year for 2021, Author in the past week on my blog. So pop over to see how that shaped up over the year and some tips for applying this learning in your life! More on my 2022 word soon as I ponder on all that it might mean!

I’m thrilled to have my friend Meredith Fuller join us for the podcast today to chat about Shaping a Multi-passionate Life. You might remember Meredith featured in Episode 3 of the podcast as part of the first Wholehearted virtual book launch.

Meredith’s concurrent careers have included author, playwright, columnist & media commentator, talkback radio guest, theatre director & producer, TV co-host, actor, psychological profiler and trainer. As a psychologist in private practice, providing counselling and career development to individuals and groups, she has also consulted to organisations on professional development and interpersonal skills for over 40 years. She ran a university careers counselling service for 12 years and has been a sessional lecturer in postgraduate courses in vocational psychology at several universities.

Meredith and I met via our mutual interest in psychological type as members of the Australian Association for Psychological Type about 4 years ago. From that we have discovered many shared interests and passions. Today we will be chatting about the value of psychological type and personality insights in making change, looking at how tarot can help, my Wholehearted book, Meredith’s book ‘Working with Bitches’ and writing and creative living. One of the things we particularly chat about is being multi-passionate and having a number of projects. There is some fabulous advice about how to make wise choices about where to focus and how to practically structure your life so you don’t get overwhelmed or burn out.

A reminder before we head into the podcast about the Wholehearted Self-leadership Book Club as a focus for 2022. One of the things Meredith mentions in the podcast is about the value of community and it’s something that’s integral to my life and work. If you’re looking for community, support and accountability for living a more wholehearted life, join me and a wonderful group of women gathering for the Wholehearted Self-leadership Book Club to read and work through my book Wholehearted and the Companion Workbook together through-out 2022. Part book club, part group coaching, with weekly accountability and prioritising check-ins, it’s a gentle, focused and value-packed way to keep wholehearted living front of mind and make progress to the transitions and transformations you desire in the coming year.

We start on Chapter 1 of Wholehearted in mid-January so it’s not too late to join us now and there is a space for you. People in the group are already commenting on how the accountability is helping them to do things they might otherwise have given up on! So head to the Wholehearted Self-leadership Book Club.

You’ll also hear more about Wholehearted in this episode and how it can support you. Meredith wrote a fantastic review of the book you can read too.

So now let’s head into the interview with the fabulously multi-skilled and multi-passionate Meredith Fuller!

Transcript of interview with Meredith Fuller

Terri Connellan: Hi Meredith, welcome to the Create Your Story podcast. And thank you so much for your support of me and my book Wholehearted.

Meredith Fuller: I’m delighted with it.

Terri Connellan: Thank you. It’s great to chat with you today. So to kick off, can you tell people a little about you and the roles that you focus on in your work in the world?

Meredith Fuller: So, I’ve been a psychologist for over 40 years. I have a private practice where I’ve seen many thousands of individuals who come for career developmental or personal growth, and I’ve also spent a number of years working in organizations on organizational issues, whether that’s leadership, team communication, mainly it’s interpersonal issues.

And I also write plays that I direct and produce at our venue, and I assist my husband with his short documentaries. So, we’ve got a very psychological focus on that. So essentially what I do is assist people to be the best they can be. And I mainly find that people are often in a position of distress. It could be interpersonal problems with people at work, problems in relationships, a poor fit, and they need some assistance in moving towards whatever their life stage is.

And it’s interesting at the moment, there’s been obviously quite a lot of people who are looking at what next? I’m in my fifties, I’m in my sixties. What now? So there’s a very strong theme there. And the other thing that we’ve been doing for the past two years because of the pandemic issue is working with a lot of people using Zoom to do group sessions or one-on-one sessions.

So, I guess what happens for me is there’s lots of different projects that emerge and if I’m interested, I’ll grab it. So for example, at the moment, I’m making a film with some colleagues about domestic violence. So it’ll just depend on what seems to be the critical issues. And the other part of what I do in writing is I’m an author of books and I do a lot of book reviews and write articles for newspapers, magazines, do some TV work, radio work, just a lot of helping people to understand more about the psychology of people.

Terri Connellan: So many threads, but so many interesting aspects to your life and to your work. And I love that at its core about helping people to be the best people they can be and I think that’s where your work at my work comes together. We’re both interested in that space where people can make choices, make transitions, practice self-leadership, understand themselves to be the best they can be, but I absolutely love all the different strands. And so we’ll explore quite a few of those in our chat today.

So thank you. And thank you for your review of Wholehearted too cause, that was a beautiful first review, which I’ll put in the show notes, but thank you for that. And the work that you do, I’m sure is hugely appreciated because it’s one thing to write and create something, isn’t it? It’s about sharing it with the world too. So thank you for that. So we met through our mutual love of psychological type and it’s valuable insights. So why have psychological type and personality been such powerful frameworks in your life?

Meredith Fuller: I’ve always been psychologically minded. And even as a child, I wanted to be a psychologist and it struck me that I was fascinated all through school about what do I think people will become when they get older so much so that I used to write down all the names of the kids in my class and write down what I thought they’d be when they grew up.

So obviously, the issue of vocation spoke to me very early on, and it was clear to me that people were different and that you could cluster them in some way. And I used to wonder why doesn’t anyone else seem to see what I’m seeing? So I felt quite different and alone with that and I guess for me, what I love about AusAPT and working with psychological type is we have a group of disparate people who are all keen to understand what our differences and similarities are.

And we like looking underneath and we like reflecting back on what we’re observing and to my mind, there’s a great depth of thinking that is so helpful for people. And I certainly find that psychological type has informed most of the work I’ve done since about 1998.

Terri Connellan: Wow. It’s been a really long-term influence then. Yeah. So just to explain to people listening Meredith and I are part of the Australian Association for Psychological Type, which is a connection of people in Australia, but globally who have a passion for personality and psychological type and it’s great community for people who as you’ve said think really deeply about the way we’re made up, the way we’re wired and the influence of that with nurture too. It’s not all about how we’re wired is it? But it’s obviously a big player in how things play out. So how do you work with these insights with clients?

Meredith Fuller: Individuals will come for counseling or careers counseling, and they’ll normally present with distress about their relationships at work or their relationships in the family, or with significant others or their difficulty in forming relationships, their concern about their careers and we’ll explore their lives. And I like to look at childhood through to the present and I like to understand their narrative. But I also like to look at what are their ability, skills, interests, values to get that full picture and what their hopes and dreams are in terms of who was this child? What did that child want in the future? And who is this adult now? What does this adult want?

And increasingly, I’m noticing that there’s so many problems with people who are not being valued and validated in their relationships and at work. And so, the thing that struck me about your titles about, this wholehearted and the shadow coming to work and the half-hearted working. The turns of phrase you used were just beautiful because they just encapsulated for me how people talk about work versus self.

And, I loved the way you gave a number of activities and exercises that they could reflect on, that helped them to see what the misalignment is and what’s changed. And that just sits so nicely with the sort of work that I do with people where something shifted. And if they don’t address what’s going on for them, invariably, they get sick or they have to sever relationships or rethink a lot of things.

So definitely there’s a sense that people are coming because they’re not happy. They’re in distress. They know something’s wrong. And they know that it’s very toxic for them, but they feel so stuck and they often feel very trapped and they seek some support from elsewhere because there’s something intolerable that’s going on.

Terri Connellan: That makes perfect sense with me cause certainly when I went through my journey, in my case, I reached out to a coach. There’s lots of different people or actions we can take when we feel that. But it’s that, as you say, that real sense of misalignment between who we are, what we want to do, what we want to be, and then what’s actually happening. And there’s lots of reasons for feeling stuck isn’t there.

Meredith Fuller: Oh, absolutely. And also the issue of age, life-stage. The sorts of issues people might present with when they’re 27 are going to be very different to what they’re presenting with at 57. So, that’s of concern to me that there’s quite a number of women I find who haven’t got the financial security that perhaps men might have. Historically, we know why that is. And they find themselves in this position where they’re being edged out of their organization, or they’re not ready to leave, but there’s nothing for them anymore. And they’re really at their prime and they might be in their forties, fifties, and sixties, and they’ve got so much to offer, but they just can’t get a gig anywhere so that’s a real concern. And the other one is that similarly with a lot of men who are really stuck, lamenting that nobody wants them and what are they going to do with the rest of their lives? People that have been chewed up and spat out. So that’s very common.

Terri Connellan: And it’s ironic as we get through life, we get more wisdom, more skills and, then we get in a situation where we feel of less value. So it’s a huge issue and it’s obviously something we’ve both really noticed in the work and, and I’ve experienced it myself. So it’s something obviously you’re seeing in your clients.

So in Wholehearted, in your work with clients, we both use psychological type and personality as like a compass or a framework or a way of seeing personal development. I’ve spoken about that in my book, and obviously your story is very different. So do you want to tell us more about your psychological type makeup and how your understanding of your personality and how you’re wired has helped you grow and evolve?

Meredith Fuller: And so my preference is for introverted, intuition, feeling, perceiving, [INFP] and I was aware when I was very young, that there were two parts of me, two aspects. There was the very introverted—I loved reading. I loved thinking, daydreaming and performing, and this would be my outgoing situations. So I started working very young. So I was in professional salaried work when I was four and a half. That was because I came from a single parent home and my father had left and there was no supporting parent benefit. My mother was very unwell. We also had in our house, her mother and her mother’s sister who had Down’s syndrome.

So my mother was quite trapped, as a caretaker and not really able to go off to work. So it was quite dire. But from when I was very young, three or four, I just love singing, dancing, chatting to strangers, that sort of thing. And so there was a photographer called Athol Smith who was very famous at the time.

And he and his wife, Bambi, wanted me to do some modelling with them. And so that began a modelling career and that also led into an acting career. So I had a situation where I loved all that. I could go off to work and earn some money to help my family, but I could do things I enjoyed, which was entertaining groups, being in plays, et cetera.

But I knew that was a part of me. And the other part of me needed that balance of time alone. And I always had that fascination by how people were different. Why were they different? What can I understand about that and how to make sense of all of that? I guess I’ve always been interested in these things and another connection we’ve had is with the the tarot.

So I started reading tarot when I was about 15 and that’s always been a lifelong interest in collecting decks and exploring symbolism and the unconscious. And so locating MBTI when I was working at a tertiary institution. It was about 97, 98. It seemed to me that things very much came together with that because here was something cogent.

It made sense in a way that I just felt encapsulated everything I’d been thinking about. So I seized on that and became very involved in doing something to help people train and bringing that to tertiary institutions, bringing that to organizations and then working one-to-one with clients.

And I found it’s been the most useful thing because it isn’t about people running around doing a questionnaire. It’s about understanding yourself through that self-reflection and observation and imbibing the theory yourself. So, it’s got a lot more to offer than say, there’s a lot of tests and little questionnaires and things people do, and they’re quite simplistic.

And of course the fewer categories, the less comprehensive and the less good affinity. So there’s something about having 16 types that’s so robust and it’s something that people can grasp very easily and then it can help inform, well, who am I with? How do I work? What do I need? Where am my gaps in communicating? So it’s something very practical and very common sense.

Terri Connellan: That really aligns with how I feel too. First it’s making sense of your own personality and your own view of the world, I think often is part of the lens through which we see type. And then, in my role as a coach or your role as a psychologist using those skills to help others to see what your strengths are, where you’ve got blind spots, what you might be missing, because we all just naturally have certain ways of seeing the world that’s so natural to us, we think it’s the same for everybody.

Meredith Fuller: That’s a really good point you’re raising because obviously one of the issues about working in my field is that we see the people who don’t fit, who have got distress, who have got concerns, who do feel different. So , I do have a skewed sample in that sense.

So invariably, what I find is there are certain types who come for counselling and careers counselling and my husband, who’s a psychotherapist psychologist, he finds the same thing. So, we tend to work more with the introverted, intuitive, thinking or feeling perceiving or judging types than perhaps the more mainstream types.

And that interests me as well, that I can actually reframe a pretty horrible life experience for someone, and they can actually celebrate what is unique about them and then work to their strengths rather than feeling unwanted in our society.

Terri Connellan: That’s really powerful work. I think type’s such a valuable tool for reframing, for understanding. I like the idea of it as a compass, as Jung used that idea of the compass and the framework for taking us forward. So, thanks for those insights. You mentioned tarot, which is another love we share. I write about tarot as a tool and a support for wayfinding and personal insight in my book. And I know you have been collecting decks and have lots of insights. What are your thoughts about tarot as a personal development practice?

Meredith Fuller: I love the visual aspect for people. It’s very clear that some people are very auditory and they need to have deep conversation and, and music might be really significant in how I might work with them. For some people it’s visual. So films, things like tarot, help them get the awareness, get the insight, help them to name what’s going on for themselves, and also really help them connect with their unconscious.

And the thing that I particularly like about tarot is that it sits so beautifully with doing dreamwork and how in our dreams, we understand that present, past and future are interconnected. We don’t have linear time, that images can be constructed or archetypal. There are messages in our dreams.

And similarly with working with your tarot and working with your unconscious, you’re actually helping yourself to appreciate what’s going on for you in a way that enables you to perhaps have a few more resources in the moment when you’re feeling lost, uncertain, confused. So it’s something very tangible. And it’s also something that I really appreciate because I love ancient cultures, ancient religions, ancient symbolism, and also futuristic work. So I love how it just seems to combine all of those.

And it’s a great tool for quickly communicating with someone else. It’s a little bit like the way we use type that, you know, we can say, oh, you know, my preference is X. So suddenly we understand a lot very quickly. And similarly with cards, oh look, I keep getting certain cards, what’s going on with me. It’s a good way of quickly absorbing and integrating information that helps us.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. So I love two things you said there, firstly, about both tools,type and tarot, or both frameworks are ways of tapping into that unconscious, like what’s beneath the surface or what’s less conscious for us.

And then secondly, how they both like languages or symbolic systems or languages, we can become more fluent in. I love that idea because they do. At a type conference, for example, when we’re together, I just love it. We all understand, at different levels, but it’s sort of a language we can speak.

And as you say, it’s the same with tarot. When I talk about the Six of Swords and the Eight of Cups in the book, I hope people who don’t know that can also get a way in. But for those who understand that, they will bring that understanding to that book. So it just means we’ve got a language for communicating.

Meredith Fuller: It’s interesting. There was a line in the book that was really interesting for me, that you made that I hadn’t seen anywhere else before. And it was very significant. I think, as a teaching tool for a lot of people who are looking at this business of career change. You’re talking about, you’re leaving success. So you’re leaving things that are working, you’re leaving things and you’re going off and you made the comment, you’re actually choosing to leave the successful things.

And that was a very significant statement because for a lot of people where I find they’re stuck is: I earn X amount of dollars and I don’t want to learn less. I’ve been doing this for so long and I’m a partner or a senior administrator or an executive, or I’m a X, Y, Z ed. I can’t leave all this, all this work. I can’t stop and start something where I might earn less or not have my status or not have the recognition. And that can actually paralyze people.

And so we’re looking at the duality of, well, on the one hand, you’re saying you feel dead inside, you hate going to work. You feel there’s so much inside you that’s not being expressed. You’re bored with what you do, even though you’re busy, you feel trapped. And yet you’re saying I can’t let go, you know, do I stay, do I let go?

And there’s something about the way you’ve talked about this card and saying, you’re actually choosing to leave your success. It was just a beautiful way of describing an active decision. And I think that’s very empowering for people who are frightened about letting go of material things, or letting go of how much work they’ve put into something to begin something different.

And with that thread, you also talk about we bring ourselves to every new thing we do. So it’s just a different iteration of what we’ve done before, but some of those phrases will resonate with a lot of people. And it will help give them a boost to say, I can do this. I’m choosing to do this.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. Yeah. I think that idea of abandoned success, and the image of the Eight of Cups. If you have a look at a fairly traditional pack the cups stacked up, and then a person’s choosing to walk away from the full cups. Yeah. And to me, it’s about identity. It’s about how much of our identity we’ve invested in that role, that position, the money that we earn, whatever it might be. And then that choosing to find a new path is incredibly difficult.

Meredith Fuller: I guess what makes it hard is our society doesn’t understand. So when people say I’m having a change, I’m leaving X or, I was doing a more senior role, but I’m going back to do a more specialist role in the same organization, or I’ve worked long and hard for this and I’ve got all these qualifications and so forth, but I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m doing something else. And how other people really try to interfere and say, you’ll regret it. You shouldn’t do it. What if you can’t get another job and everyone will laugh at you and what a stupid thing to do. And they’re actually, I think often frightened because they don’t want that other person to go off and be happy because they’re not happy either.

So a lot of investment in keeping the status quo. So I think the way you’ve talked about the Eight of Cups in that sense, that it’s a really sound decision to choose to walk away from amazing success, because you know you will have different success and the success you will have is more congruent with who you truly are. There’s something in a lot of those comments that you’ve made that I just think for people reading the book will strike such a chord.

Terri Connellan: Thank you for those comments. I really appreciate it because it’s something I really felt personally. And my aim in writing the book was to help cause when I went through it, I also felt a bit lost. And there weren’t a lot of frameworks in writing the book. It was working through what I experienced, but then trying to provide some anchors for others.

Meredith Fuller: That was another thing. I did want to mention this because I was very struck by how you wrote the book. What’s unique about your book is that you talk about your own process, including everything you did, every book you read, every person you saw and you very generously talk about what you took from each experience. And it’s almost like a little road map of, here’s a whole lot of books you can buy or types of people you can go and see, and how a coach might be different to a therapist.

And there’s so much that you give in that that is so helpful because traditionally when people write self-help books or here’s your way of looking at your career or change or whatever. They’re very much about, well, this is the system and this is what you follow. And, they don’t compare and contrast other techniques or things that they’ve struck. They don’t suggest that very wide exploration and they don’t talk so much about the internal distress.

They’re much more about, okay, so here’s your problem. So here’s step one and that’ll go to step three and then you’ll be at five and then you’ll be done. And so there’s something quite desiccated about reading those books. Whereas with yours, a) because you’re so honest and open about everything that happened to you, people can feel that you understand them. But the way you talk about how you made decisions about, will I go here? Will I read that? What did that trigger? What did that mean? Why is this person good at this? It’s so much more comprehensive for people to say, okay, well, I didn’t like that book and I didn’t like that person. But you know, it’s like a hairdresser. I’ll go and find one that cuts the hair how I want. Thanks very much.

You’ve really given people permission to play with the way through. And I can certainly see how this kind of approach has been missing in the past because there are a lot of books came out in the eighties and the nineties. It’s almost like we get waves of things happening, but they never really hit the spot about people who had this profound sense of emptiness and loss and confusion and concern.

And they didn’t help people who couldn’t just snappily work through each exercise and tick off all the goals and have it neat and tidy. And, I like it cause it’s messy and our lives are messy. And you’ve really captured that for people, which is nice. And that sense that you have with your work is, well, it is going to be unexpected. We don’t know how this is all going away, but it could be this. It could be that. It could be something else, but there’s growth in it and there’s excitement. And there’s learning in this curiosity, and there’s a sense of mastery rather than having a person feel well look, I’m hopeless, even the help books don’t help me cause I’m so hopeless. So to me, you’ve really picked up on a book for our time.

Terri Connellan: Thank you. I really appreciate that cause often when you’re writing a personal narrative like that, it’s that challenge of sharing your experiences a bit like, show don’t tell. I was just chatting about this in another interview, the difference between telling people to do something versus this is what I went through. And here’s what I suggest, which I thinks a more powerful way to go. And you’re also an author. So tell about your books and the topics you focused on in your writing career.

Meredith Fuller: So I’ve written a number of books that were more academic, but the one I did that was more mainstream was called Working with Bitches and it was identifying the eight types of nasty people that you find, nasty women and how to deal with them. And why I did that was, again, part of the theme of what was happening with my work is women were saying I’m really struggling with a particular woman at work who might be my support person, my boss, my team leader, my colleague, and they were being undermined or they were being distressed and they couldn’t understand what was going on.

They didn’t know how to manage it. And they were being so triggered. It was causing great alarm. So I wanted to identify what was happening with these themes. So I did some research and worked on about 2000 cases and put together types based on all of the materials, the data that I gathered and then worked through, well, how could people deal with that in a way that was safe and in a way that also appreciated their personality structure. Because usually the people who were coming to see me were very much feeling preferred women who avoided conflict, who were frightened by power and control issues and were really getting decimated at work or in relationships. Often it might be something about a mother-in-law or a sister-in-law or somebody’s sister or something.

So it was a way of validating that what they were feeling was true, because there’s been such a theme of, oh, you can never complain about another woman. We women have to stick together because we’re all a homogenous group and men are the enemy. So you can’t say that you’re struggling with a woman. So they’re actually being silenced before they could even articulate what was going on for them. So it was a way of appreciating that all genders walk up and down a continuum of nice to nasty and what you can do to manage that better.

Terri Connellan: Oh, it sounds a really practical book cause that’s something a lot of us experience in different ways, but maybe don’t have any reference points to make sense of all of that. And often when that happens, we tend to think, oh, it’s us. Is that something you’ve come across?

Meredith Fuller: Absolutely, and of course the other thing with that too, is that often it’s about different personality types. And if you’re not as aware of your own style, you certainly not going to be able to identify what someone else’s style is or where there could be a mismatch or a misunderstanding, or how you could broach that to make it a little more palatable at work.

And one of the key findings in my work, and this has also been researched by Ian Ball, who is our colleague at AusAPT. Interestingly enough back in the day, many, eons ago, I used to work at a university with Ian where he was Head of the Psychology department. So I already knew him before we found ourselves back together in our association.

His research found that while there are far more feeling preferred females, for women in the workplace who had a more senior role, they usually had a thinking preference. So if there’s only about 25% of females have a thinking preference, 75% of those females will be in a senior role in the workplace.

And one of the things that was very clear to me was that people were coming to me with this terrible distress about a thinking preferred manager who actually wasn’t being a bitch, wasn’t being horrible, was actually really trying to help them grow and develop, monitor them, train them, work well with them, but there was such a misunderstanding about the way they went about this. They were really at cross purposes.

So it was also part of my book to say, hang on, maybe that person you’re having trouble with, isn’t a bitch. Maybe it’s something about you you have to look at. So let’s have a look at how you can work better with those people. And I certainly used to find that working in organizations. I’ve done a lot of work in banks and legal firms and universities, where there tend to be more thinking preferred females in positions of leadership and authority. And often they would be having difficulties with their feeling preferred females. And it really was, talking two different worlds, two different languages and so much misunderstanding.

And there were some things you could do to make it work and that really excites me. And again, one of the things I loved in your book, as a thinking preferred female, you operate very much using your feeling and your thinking preferences. And you talk about your integration of those things. And this is so important in terms of, I think all of us men and women being able to access all the parts of ourselves. So I thought you handled that very well. And one of the things I’ve noticed as, I guess walking the talk in your role as President of our association, I noticed that you do the very thing we talk about. You identify well, who are the people on the team, or who the members, or who am I working with? What do those people need to do their best? How can I respond to that, so that I honor the difference that I have around me and I see you actively do that. So I see you working very hard to connect with your committees and your staff and your members and your groups and whatever, and doing it well. And so to me again, there’s that sense of, okay, so here’s someone who writes a book and she actually practices what she’s talking about and I see it. So that was another thing that struck me about what you’ve achieved in this work.

So it also sat really nicely with me about knowing that, it’s very good for many women, I believe to understand a little more about what the thinking preferred woman’s doing, because, historically, that’s been really a problem for thinking preferred females. They’ve had a terrible time at school. They’ve often had a dreadful time when they not yet in a position of authority and they’re struggling. It’s one of those things where the more we understand our gender, the better, and you seem to be saying on our journey to become all of these aspects, let’s understand how it might be played out as we sometimes swing from one extreme to the other till we find that fulcrum balance and why it is important for us to take the time to consider that innermost part of our souls and how we are who we bring to work. We can’t divorce ourselves from all of that.

What happened for me with the book [Wholehearted] was thinking, well, I’m not able to see as many people. I can’t see them in person. We’re doing Zoom work. It’s a bit tricky holding people. Here’s a resource that people can work through that I would say is safe, trustworthy. It doesn’t humiliate anyone. It doesn’t cause people to feel stupid if they can’t work through the exercises or there’s no problem about working through the Companion Workbook and the book. And it’s something that gives us some dialogue when we have a couple of weeks gap between sessions. So I thought you’ve really come up with a tool, right when we must need something.

There used to be a number of books. Everyone would get one every year, like What Color is my Parachute? They were very superficial and they really didn’t hit this spot about people are really saying, who am I really and how do I want to live my life? What does my life stand for? And how am I in relation to others? And so those very fundamental questions and the way we’re changing work. We’re changing work to be, as you would appreciate, most small business run by women, most new business women setting up, most people going off becoming specialists or consultants who are collapsing who they work with at different times.

This is the way that we’re working and doing several jobs in a year. And just going with the flow. And historically, a lot of the books about careers and development just didn’t take into account the new way that work is emerging. So, I’ve been really happy to say, well, here’s a tool that I can recommend both to men and women, interestingly enough, and get them to work through. And then when we talk, they’ve had the chance to really work through some thoughts themselves and that really adds to our work together. So I’ve been really struck by how you’ve put, certainly your understanding of type in, but also your understanding about how organizations have been working and where they need to be working in the future. So it’s got a real breath of fresh air to it.

Terri Connellan: Oh, thank you. And I was really appreciative too of your comments that it’s a book you can use with clients, that idea of particularly in times when we’re not having as much, face-to-face, it’s something people can take away. And it was certainly designed to be part of a whole that people can work through the workbook, read the main book, have their own reflections, have space, create their own ways of working through it. But have a mix as we’ve talked about before of meandering, but also structure to work through. And I guess that’s the teacher in me as well as INTJ coming out. So, yeah, it’s designed to be that sort of self coaching, self-leadership guide as well, supported by also having a face to face.

Meredith Fuller: Yes, that was another thing I liked about it. We want people to sit with the uncertainty. We want people to explore symbolism and dreamwork and art and literature and film and tarot and everything possible. But we want them to be able to do it in a way that they can then integrate that into their everyday life and this helps them do that. Whereas some sort of new age materials, there’s no relationship to get up each day and go to work, come home, and you have to earn an income and you have to feed yourself. And, you have to be in relationship with other people who aren’t on the same journey and all of this sort of thing.

So I felt that you provided those safe walls if you like so there was plenty of space to bounce around in this, but you knew that you were being held in a very caretaking way while you went about exploring all of these, for some people, very new ways of looking at their careers, particularly looking at tarot cards, for example.

Terri Connellan: Exactly. And I think from looking at your body of work, which is a concept I talk about in the book, that all the skills, all the work that we do, the volunteer work, all the different work that we do, often that idea of having multiple sources of income, being a multi passionate, multipotentialite, is very much embraced, I think, by how I’ve moved and certainly it’s embraced in your life. So with all that amazing body of work you have over time and what I also hear from clients is sometimes having lots of passions, people can feel overwhelmed, by which way to go, what to do, what advice would you give to others who are also looking to embrace their multi passionate body of work and interests?

Meredith Fuller: So I had an INTP mother, which is a great mother to have, so she was quite unique and unusual, and her attitude was, you find your own way, Meredith. Value education and trust yourself, back yourself and so for me, I’ve always felt a little different from a lot of people because I’ve always known exactly what I wanted to do is from when I was very young.

So I’ve never felt, oh, there’s too many things, or I don’t know which one to do first. What I’ve always done is I’ve said to myself, I have to go with what’s most important to me at the moment. So what’s the most burning, exciting thing for me now. And I know there’ll always be plenty of time to either come back to something or do it, postpone it and do it later, or do a little bit of it, stop, do something else. I’ve never felt, aw gee, you can’t play with it all. I just knew you could never do it all at the same time. So I find that my question always will be when there are so many things I enjoy doing, how do I choose? I’ll go with what sits inside of me being best, right thing that I have the most energy for. So for me, it’s often about energy.

So I do a lot of pro bono work for clients, particularly cause I work in the creative arts a lot. There are a lot of people in the creative arts, who’ve got no money and I often see a number of those people for nothing. And how do I choose? Because so many people, how do you choose? And something will happen in that engagement with that individual that I’ll feel, and I’ll go with that. So for example, at the moment, this is a funny story, but it’s a good example of how do you choose what you do? We mainly do a lot of our house maintenance ourselves, but in a two story house, there was no way my 70 year old husband was getting up a ladder.

So we had a housepainter come to do the top bit. And he brought his son with him to help hold the ladder. And they were talking and his son had wanted to be an artist and he was really lost. And he was very distressed and there was something in this young man that I felt. So I’ve now been working with him for some months. So he comes every week and we’re exploring his move towards becoming an artist, how he will go about choosing a course to do, how we’ll go about earning some money, to be able to be a student, to purchase all his materials, how he works in the field.

And his sense of identity and who he’s becoming and how he deals with issues because we’ve all got issues, obviously. And because he’s such an aware person, he has a lot to work through. So there was something I felt in him where I felt he had something very special and I wanted to nurture that. And he’s a very humble person and he’s a very respectful person. He’s got qualities as well. So I’ve really felt drawn to working with him. So there’ll be something about that. Or if I’m choosing a play, I want to write, it’ll be a burning issue that I’ve got some energy for. Nothing that might be commercially successful.

It’s always about what I’m interested in and that’s what I’ll do. And if friends come to me and say, how about a project? I’m doing this. Are you interested? Again, it’s always going to be because I either love working with those people or I love the issue and I’m happy to just trust my own sense of where my energy is saying to go.

And it’s very much like that Eight of Cups card. Often it means I walk away from successful things because there’s something new I want to do and different I want to do that the energy is there for. And I know I’m not saying goodbye to everything forever because there’s plenty of time. So it’s something about noticing what’s the spark, what’s the energy, what’s the curiosity. And if you follow that, they’ll always be a few things that bubble up to the very top, rather than everything. And I really love this notion of, just because you’re really good at something, you don’t have to keep doing it. Do something else.

Terri Connellan: Hmm. I love that too. I think that’s great advice because just some of the people I’ve worked with, what you’re saying resonates. And some of them are INFPs too, which is interesting, it’s that idea of just so many passions, so many interests and they compete. But I think that idea of being more attuned to what you’re drawn to and prioritizing that. I’m also hearing you say almost taking a bit of a project approach to things, to help compartmentalize, I guess?

Meredith Fuller: Yeah, I think it’s really important to compartmentalize because I notice for me, if I want to fit a lot of things, I couldn’t keep doing too much of one thing because there wouldn’t be the space. It’s almost like asking yourself, how many days a week are you fit for counseling? How many days a week are you fit for writing? How many days a week are you fit to do radio interviews or whatever it is, and work out roughly what those clusters will look like, and then be really strong.

So I’ll be able to say, well, I counsel on these days so if you can’t fit in with me, sorry, I’ll refer you to someone else because I can’t keep stretching across taking the space from other projects that I really believe in. Because if I do that, I’ll end up getting sick. I’ll end up trying to overstretch and I won’t manage, and it won’t work.

Terri Connellan: So there’s a couple of questions I’m going to ask podcast guests as we go through. And, this being the Create Your Story podcast, it’s a big question, but I’m interested to see just what comes up for you when you’re asked the question, how have you created your story over your lifetime?

Meredith Fuller: Okay. I’ve created my story by allowing myself to sit a bit away from the mainstream. And I’ve enabled myself to listen to what my heart wants to do, even when it seems at odds with what the sensible thing to do is, or the smartest thing to do is, and almost like back myself, even when it looked ridiculous, because I told myself when I was very young, there’ll be a pattern, I don’t understand it yet, but there’ll be a pattern that will make sense to me, but it’s something that I’m doing that’s going to be unique to me. So I can’t be impacted by what everyone else thinks I should do or what one should do.

I have to trust that little voice in me that says, I know I’m here to do something unique for me. And I’ve always done that and to my detriment often, but it’s like I’m absolutely convinced for me that what’s helped me is by wanting to go off and do whatever it is I want to explore because I’m curious about it. Even if it’s not fashionable or even if it’s way too early and then once I’ve understood it or mastered it or done enough, I don’t have to keep doing that. I want to do something else. So a little bit like saying, yeah, just because you’re good at something you don’t have to keep doing it, do something else, as long as it’s what you’re interested in and you believe in it and it sits with your values.

And my values very much came from my childhood and my upbringing, which was about, to care for people and to care for relationships and to care for what the purpose is that we’re here for. And in a deeper sense, in a much deeper sense. And I’ve always appreciated self-expression. And so for me, creating my story was about saying, well, okay if I can trust myself to follow what my interests are and use that as my guide and not be swayed by what everybody else says you should do, or how everyone else goes about doing things, that’s going to keep me most aligned with my true self. And that’s what I’ll follow. And it was pretty clear to me very early on that I didn’t have a lot of the values that mainstream society seems to have.

I believe that if you do things that are really important to you and you do them very well, somehow you’ll be rewarded and it may not be quid pro quo or tit for tat or something, but somehow it’ll work out. If you are transparent and if you do believe in what you do, and if you do respect other people in how you go about that. You know, that whole thing, isn’t it about freedom but freedom as long as you don’t impact on other people’s freedom.

So that’s been a bit of a narrative for me. And it’s almost like if I had to say, well, where does all that come from? I’m convinced it came from being a little girl who used to believe in her dreams and sitting around daydreaming and imagining the future and imagining things way ahead of time and backing that instead of what was just literally right in front of me.

And that came from coming from a family where we didn’t have a lot, it was very difficult. So we had a lot of trauma in the family, a lot of poverty in the family. But what I had with my INTP mother was a woman who said, use your brains and you can help other people. Use your brains and you’ll find a way to construct something positive out of whatever happens. And I saw her do that. So I had a very good role model in my mother. And I also had a very good role model in reading because I love to write, I was always reading books.

I just found that I was far more interested in thinking big picture future than I ever was in what was going on in the here and now. So it was some something about a knowing that I had and that I couldn’t not know once you have that feeling. And also what was good for me, if this makes sense, it’s like I lived my life backwards.

So if you start working at four, that’s a long time that you’re in the workplace, and if you’re very famous, when you’re a child, well, you’ve sort of been there, done that. It doesn’t matter. It’s like I didn’t have to build up to anything. It’s like, well, I’ve already ticked off this and I’ve ticked off that and I’ve ticked off something else.

And so there’s so many things that I had done that really didn’t concern me at all that I could just go along my own merry way, do what I liked because I didn’t have to prove anything. If that made sense.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. That’s fantastic. Thank you. It’s just fascinating to hear how, with all those different things in the mix, how you created your story to where you are now. So thank you for that. So in Wholehearted, I share 15 wholehearted self-leadership tips, particularly for women, but for all people. So I’m interested in what your top wholehearted self-leadership tips might be for women.

Meredith Fuller: The first one is I believe that it’s a good idea to have a small group of people with you, like your clan or friends or colleagues who you trust, that you feel safe with and who have similar shared values. I take that very seriously. I won’t work on projects with people that I don’t feel that we’re aligned about our values and honesty, transparency, trust, loyalty, all those things are really important to me.

So, that’s a very important issue about who do you connect with. I believe that it’s important to work on communication. So, if I’m going to do it, I need to know how I feel. So I’ll do a lot of checking. How am I feeling? What’s being triggered in me? What do I need to do about that? Can I talk to someone? How do I do that? So in my life I’ve always been keen to look for wise counsel. When I was a child, I got to figure out what I would look for in a partner, because how would I know I didn’t have a father. We were very isolated in our home. There weren’t very many male role models.

So I read all the classics when I was in primary school and I thought, I don’t want all the exciting men. I want all the nice men that I’m reading about in these classics. So I thought: these are the qualities I want in a man. I want a nice man. And I got it from the books. And then as I got older, I realized that I want to understand myself and that will help me understand others.

So anything that would help me do the best I can for myself, I will do. So I went into therapy. I went into supervision. As a psychologist, I think it’s important that we do our own therapy and we do our own supervision. So, whether you go to coaches or whoever you go to, it’s going to someone where you can actually explore your process. So I think that’s really important.

And of course, reading, I’m always reading millions of books so I think that’s important. The other thing I think is working out very simply, what do you need for wellness? So, I’m a diabetic, I’ve got a lot of health issues. I have to say part of my day is managing my diabetes, is going to appointments and is to understand that as I get older, I have less energy than I did when I was younger because of that.

So therefore I have to really cherry pick my projects. So I think, know what your health is. One of the biggest problems I’ve seen in nearly every woman who’s come to me is they push themselves way too far. They work too long hours. Doing work that’s killing them and they can’t stop. And so I think it’s really important to say in the week, how much space have you got for work? How much do you need for sleep? How much do you need for your internal life? How much do you need for your relationships and make that pie and make it work?

And I’d also do that with being strict about those boundaries. So both Brian and I, because we’re helpers and we’re feelers, we’re busy. So people come to helping, feeling, busy people and you need to learn to say no. And so while it would be nice to do everything everyone wants you to do, I can’t. So, be really clear about how do you cluster it. So it might be for me, I work in clusters of time. So it might be two days for this and all night for that and a weekend for that. And that’s how I like to work. Other people it might be well mornings isfor this and afternoons is for that. So know what your best rhythm is and then be really strict about how you protect that. And don’t keep saying, oh, I’ll just let this one in. I’ll just let that one in because you’ll get overloaded and you get sick and then, you’re no good to anyone.

So I think they’re probably the key things for me, but, really overall, it’s something about, got to know who you are. You got to know what’s important to you. You got to know what you’re here for. What’s your purpose. And the threads will probably stay the same, although the execution of that will shift over time.

And so you have to keep saying, does this matter to me? Is this engaging me? Am I growing in this? Am I learning in this? Am I sharing with others with this? What’s the point of me doing this and doing it because you want to do it, you believe in it and you love it. So they’re probably the most important things, but you know, it be sensible. Like you might have to say to yourself, well, how much money do I need to earn to live for the week? Okay. I need to earn x dollars. How many hours a week can I possibly work x hours? Well, what do I need to earn per hour to do that? And what will I do to get that? And then if I’m prepared to say, I’ll do a day for that, then that gives me three days for something else. Okay. That’s fine. So it’s not like a childish, I’ll just do what I like, blow everyone else. It’s about making choices and decisions that give the bulk of your time to what you love and you think is very important, but also that you’re mindful that you do live in a society and you do have to buy food and pay rent and, you know, whatever. So something about, honouring, not only yourself, but the other in relationships.

Terri Connellan: It’s a rich body of knowledge, honed from all your experiences and all your client work too. So thank so much for sharing that. And thanks so much for your time today. It’s been a fantastic conversation and I’m sure the listeners will get so many gems of wisdom and prompts to think about themselves. And thank you also for your comments and kind insights about Wholehearted, my book as well, really appreciate that and your support. So, Meredith, where can people find more about you and your body of work online?

Meredith Fuller: My website’s MeredithFuller.com.au. That’s probably a good place to start.

Terri Connellan: That’s great. And you’ve got so much on there about all the things you’re up to your books, your work with your husband, Brian, which we didn’t talk about so much, but he’s a filmmaker, psychologist as well, and your partnership is an incredible part of your life as well. So we’ll pop the links to Meredith’s key work in the show notes and thanks everyone for listening and thanks so much Meredith.

About Meredith Fuller

Meredith’s website: https://meredithfuller.com.au/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mfpsy/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fuller.walsh

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-fuller-8075a110/

Links to explore:

Book Club: Wholehearted Self-leadership Book Club – open for enrolment now – join us for January 19/20 book club start.

My books:

https://www.quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1

Free resources:

Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Other free resources: https://www.quietwriting.com/free-resources/

My coaching:

The Writing Road Trip – a community program with Beth Cregan – kicking off Jan 2022

Connect on social media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writingquietly/

Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-connellan/

creativity podcast

Developing an Artist’s Life with Lynn Hanford-Day

December 28, 2021

Welcome to Episode 7 of the Create Your Story Podcast on Developing an Artist’s Life.

In this episode, I’m joined by Lynn Hanford-Day of Sacred Intuitive Art – a visual artist working with sacred geometry, mandalas and Islamic patterns and a coach and psychotherapist.

You can listen above or via your favourite podcast app. And/or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

In this episode, we chat about:

Challenging transitions
Moving on from difficult times
Developing an artist’s life
Lynn’s art business & practice, Sacred Intuitive Art
Balancing corporate and creative living
Patterns and spirals in art and life
Manifesting & discipline
Living wholeheartedly & in the moment
And so much more!

Transcript of podcast

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 7 of the Create Your Story Podcast and it’s the 28^th of December as I record this and we’re in that lovely liminal time between Christmas and New Year with an opportunity to reflect on what the past year has taught us and the chance to plan and set some intention for 2022. I’ll certainly be making some time for past year reflections. My word of 2021 is Author so it’s been wonderful to step into that space and publish my Wholehearted books. And I’m crafting up new year intentions around my 2022 word of the year which I will reveal soon. Stay tuned!

I’m thrilled to have my friend Lynn Hanford-Day join us for the podcast today.

Lynn is a visual artist working with sacred geometry, mandalas and Islamic pattern. Lynn is also dual qualified as a coach/psychotherapist and works with women in transition who are seeking meaning, purpose and wellbeing. Lynn is especially interested in creativity and intuition, positive psychology and strengths, helping people to access and express their inner wisdom. Lynn helps women discover clarity and confidence, path and purpose.

Lynn and I met via our mutual interest in creativity. You might remember Lynn from Episode 3 and the Wholehearted Virtual Book Launch. Lynn has also written a Wholehearted Story for the Quiet Writing blog called Breakdown to Breakthrough which I also draw on in my book Wholehearted as Lynn’s story resonated with mine in so many ways. Lynn’s wholehearted story tells of how she moved from burnout and a corporate HR career to working with sacred geometry and crafting a multi-faceted career as artist, coach and facilitator working with women in transition and organisations going through change.

And that’s what we chat about in today’s episode: that transition, Lynn’s creative journey to developing an artist’s life alongside her corporate career, art and creativity as a source of healing and growth and intuitive ways of living, working and creating.

A reminder before we head into the podcast about the two programs I’m offering to kick off 2022.

If you’re looking for community, support and accountability for living a more wholehearted life, join me and a fabulous group of women gathering for the Wholehearted Self-leadership Book Club to read and work through Wholehearted together through-out 2022. Part book club, part group coaching, it’s a gentle and focused way to keep wholehearted living front of mind and make progress to the transitions and transformations you desire in the coming year.
If you’re looking for community, support and accountability to get writing done in 2022, join me and Beth Cregan for a Writing Road Trip. We begin with a free challenge in late January on your writing identity and then shift into a 6 week course looking at your writing road map and then come together for a 6 month community writing program where the writing gets done in earnest together and with support.

So now let’s head into the interview with the lovely and inspiring Lynn Hanford-Day!

Transcript of interview with Lynn Hanford-Day

Terri Connellan: Lynn, welcome to the Create Your Story podcast and thank you for your connection and your support of Wholehearted and Quiet Writing.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Hi Terri. It’s really good to be here. I’m feeling a bit nervous, also excited. So I really appreciate the offer and the invitation to take part.

Terri Connellan: It’s a great pleasure to talk with you today and to explore more about you and more about your work in the world to share with others. So we’ve connected in many ways around creativity, wholehearted living, art and writing and so much more on our journey together. So it’s great today to be able to share some of those conversations that we’ve had more publicly and with others. So can you provide an overview about your background, about how you got to be where you are now and the work that you do?

Lynn Hanford-Day: Yeah. I’ve got a corporate background. I’ve spent some over 30 years working in human resources and 25 of those years at director level. And I’ve been in work for 40 years cause I’m 61 now to my horror. But art came into my life in 2014. So in parallel with becoming self-employed, I’ve also developed a life around being an artist. And that’s obviously what we’re going to talk about more as we go through the conversation today, but I’ve got this mix of corporate work and non corporate work.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. So very much like me, you’ve had that shift in midlife from one life that was going down one path and another life, but both of us heading towards more creative living. So we’ve both shared that major transition from long-term career, yours, as you said, in the case of corporate HR to that more creatively focused life. So can you describe what that transition has been like for you? How long it took and what the main turning points were for you.

Lynn Hanford-Day: I covered some of this on the guests blog post I wrote didn’t I, which is, I think about three years ago now, Breakdown to Breakthrough. So in 2013, I had a breakdown. I didn’t work for a year and a half. Some of the impacts of that time were quite catastrophic because I did lose my job. There was no way I could continue working beyond the kind of paid period of sick leave. So we agreed that I would leave and then I run out of money.

So I sold my house in order to get hold of some of the equity that was left in that, which wasn’t huge. And as I came through the other side of that, I became self-employed because I knew I needed to change the way I lived. I recognized that I was my job and how unhealthy that can be.But it was also the . Way in which I could earn a living. So I turned to consultancy and executive coaching and interim management, which is a kind of form of being an agency temp. So I did that, but what had entered my life while I was unwell which was kind of unexpected, but it was also the path forward. It was part of the breakthrough story, this unexpected arrival of creativity in my life.

I started playing around with various courses. It actually began with coloring books. And I got into some online art courses and I was always fascinated by mandalas and patterns. So I tried to find a class and I couldn’t. So I bought a book from Amazon and a pair of compasses and started playing. And it was in 2014 through some serendipitous events that I then found a school in London called the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts which actually teaches a master’s program based on geometry that people can work with a huge range of medium. So it could be stained glass or it could be painting, or it could besculpting, or marquetry all kinds of things and they run public courses and that’s where I began to immerse myself in this practice.

So I’ve had a thread alongside my ongoing corporate work that’s been developing my creative process and becoming an artist which surprises me even now that I would ever describe myself in that way. I hadn’t touched paint since I left school, so, you know, over 30 years ago. And it keeps me sane. It’s really important to me now.

Terri Connellan: That’s just such an amazing story. And I know you’ve moved to the seaside and are working as an artist in a more full-time capacity?

Lynn Hanford-Day: It’s not full time. My work kind of flexes. It’s feast or famine as most people would say when they become self-employed. So it is something that I tend to do on a weekend or some in the evening if I’m doing some full-time work in an organization, but more recently I completed a contract at the end of March and over the last six months, I’ve given myself quite a lot of time and space to what I call faff. So I’m earning my degree in faffing and spending a lot of time walking by the sea and making the most of this lovely place that I moved to two years ago.

And I also thought, oh, I’m going to paint every day, which I haven’t, because it’s been summer time here so I wanted to get out of the house with the ending of lockdown and just experience nature and some fresh air. So the arts kind of comes and goes, but in the last couple of months in particular, it seems to really taken on a life of its own again.

So I was super excited a couple of weeks ago to become part of a new gallery that’s opened in the town here in Eastbourne. They had an open evening last week where it was for all the artists being represented. I met a heap of other lovely people. So I’m really excited about seeing my work properly hanging on a dedicated wall space.

So that’s really good. And the Instagram followers that I’ve got just keeps on growing. And that’s gone a bit wild in the last two or three weeks as well. Where a particular new piece that I’ve been posting seems to have attracted a lot of interest and gained about 200 followers in three weeks. Where’s this all coming from?

Terri Connellan: That’s fantastic. And it’s been wonderful. We’ve been connected for quite some time now watching your journey over that time and how you’re managing to shift into what you love to do. And as you say, flexing, as we all have to do with income and balancing creative living with resources and with freedom, creative freedom as well. So that’s wonderful.

So you mentioned your Wholehearted Story on Quiet Writing, which you shared about your journey from breakdown to breakthrough. So what did you learn from moving through and on from such difficult times?

Lynn Hanford-Day: it was such a pivotal. It wasn’t a moment. It was a protracted period of time. And what, what happened for me is during 2012, I had begun to feel very, very tired. And I can remember at Christmas time, a meeting of the leadership team at work and saying, I feel like I’ve run into a brick wall and I’m really looking forward to… I was going to take the full Christmas through to new year break. And I returned to work something like the 6th or 7th of January. So I did a day back at work and the following morning I couldn’t move. So my body decided for me and so it was a really serious message of like, you have got to stop so physically I was stopped. I saw my GP. I worked with a counselor. I was on antidepressants and my counselor was also a mindfulness teacher. So I got obsessed with the notion that meditation is good for you. But she was a very wise woman who said, what you need to do is learn to relax. You’re actually not capable of meditating right now. She kind of did demonstrate that to me. She gave me a CD, which I just found impossible to listen to. So that got put to one side.

I was in denial for probably three months probably through to Easter time that I was actually ill. I kept telling myself I’ll be back at work. I’ve got the budget to do. I never did go back to work ever. So during that time it was almost a gift and I was very aware of kind of going very, very deep within. Once I was able to concentrate a bit better, I did start to return to some books about Jung. This is one of our other connections, around Jung and types and archetypes.

And so there’s an expression from Carl Jung about having an unlived life. And I got a real sense that that’s where I was at, that I had become my job. I was very overly identified with it and that there was an opportunity here to explore who I was in the world, beyond my job. As I started to recover, to have the energy, to think about what do I want to do in the future.

And part of that was also the time spent painting and playing, giving myself a lot of time to play and also visiting Ireland. A dear friend of mine had moved to Ireland in the middle of 2012 to retire there with her husband she’s on the west coast, on the Dingle peninsula, right at the end of the peninsula.

And I stayed with her many, many times. And that space was also very important space because of the nothingness of it. And it was just a very magnificent seascape and very barren land, which was also incredibly beautiful, but I loved being able to just sit in my car to protect myself from the incredible winds that they get. It really blows a gale. But I loved the sense of the wind and being sat in the car and just staring off into space. And I think that was important time as well. So that transition was, I think, made up of many threads with an inner journey, support from medical professionals and medical help, support of friends, time in Ireland and this kind of emergence of creativity and the willingness to encounter my own intuition and what my heart was saying. So it was a soul journey. And I think there are many wise people who do describe breakdowns or severe episodes of depression as the heart seeking to speak. And I love the expression about being depressed to be rewritten as the two words, deep rest. Hmm. And that’s what I needed was deep rest. Cause I had incredible burnout and the feeling of just turning to ash. So little left in terms of energy.

Terri Connellan: You describe that beautifully, that challenging situation in that image of turning to ash, which really resonated with me too. Just what I’m hearing you say, what I’ve experienced also through my own experiences, which are not the same, but have some similar hallmarks and milestones is that loss of identity or that having to reshape identity. Because I think too, particularly when we’re invested in one path or in work, our identity gets very stitched into that. And then when we need to recalibrate it or something happens and we’re unable to continue down that path, I think that emptiness you describe and that space is often what we need to work with to regather ourselves and collect ourselves and redefine ourselves.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Completely. I met with a friend yesterday and we got into a conversation about unraveling and I know you and I think connected through Susannah Conway. One of her online courses is about unraveling the heart. And it’s a wonderful word. And talking with my friend and also other people through working as a coach, I think there are so many people, before COVID and particularly in a post pandemic world, who’ve got that sense of unraveling.

And once you’ve identified various threads, the opportunity to reintegrate: what do we want to now make of ourselves and this moment going forward? Yeah, unraveling transition. There’s a lot of it about. Isn’t it? The whole world planet is unraveling.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. Yes. When you think about transition, the way I’ve been thinking about it, just in the context of my book Wholehearted, it is the individual journeys, but also now we’re in the context of a global transition as well. So it’s multilayered.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Totally. Yeah.

And I love that word, wholehearted. I know when I first got to know you and got your newsletters and you’d created the wholehearted blog. There was something about that word that really spoke to me. So hence participating as a guest blog writer cause I really wanted to spend time asking myself what a wholehearted life looked like as I came out of this kind of space of falling apart, unraveling. I think it’s more than a word. And to really inquire into: what does it mean to be wholehearted? And what does a wholehearted life look like now?

Terri Connellan: Your contribution and the contributions of others to that blog series has been so powerful because every woman has bought their own story and has also found in the writing of that story and the thinking about that story, what it means for them. So I’ve been really grateful for that for opening up my own insights. Each story seems to open up the opportunity for other women to think about it differently too.

Lynn Hanford-Day: It does.

Terri Connellan: So tell us more about sacred, intuitive art and what you focus on in your artwork.

Lynn Hanford-Day: I kind of fell into a niche without realizing it. So as a child, I loved Spirograph and making spirals and flowery patterns. And I loved kaleidoscopes, labyrinthes, mazes, that kind of stuff. But as I went through my childhood and adolescence, I would love coloring and messing about with paints but I never embraced it as a potential way forward as a career.

I wanted to be a doctor or a teacher, so art didn’t really feature, but I have always loved mandalas and particularly Tibetan Buddhist mandalas. And I guess I’ve always been fascinated by pattern. So right through to my thirties, I was a knitter. So I was more into textiles. And so I would make Aran patterns, Fair Isle patterns, lacy jumpers made of mohair.

So it was still, always about the pattern. So I think that’s something that’s within me. And in the corporate world, in terms of organizational change and organizational systems and group dynamics, a lot of that’s about patterns of behavior. And I trained as a psychotherapist along the way like you do. So I qualified in 2008 with a lot of that was about the repeated patterns of our own behavior, where they may originate from whether they’re helpful or hindrances. There’s always been something about patterns. And, so when I really fell into art, well, I think it came and claimed me, what I was really finding myself doing was drawing circles. And one of the teachers I was with asked me why I kept drawing circles.

I said, I’ve no idea. I like circles. So I thought maybe I’m just going round in circles. Maybe it was some kind of metaphor for where I was in my life and she just said, it’s a really ancient symbol. So perhaps it’s worth exploring. I do prefer circles to squares. We all have our preferences. So as I discovered the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts and started doing some classes with them, it just spoke to me so much and the underlying symbol and meaning of circles, triangles, squares, curves, or straight lines and so on. I never thought I’d be talking about geometry, but I don’t really do it for the math. I do it for the underlying meaning. And it’s possible to look at any pattern and say, that’s a lovely pattern. I like it. Or I don’t like it. But what really stirs my heart is the origin of pattern and where it’s come from and the meaning of square and circle is consistent across all traditions, whether it’s Islamic or Buddhist or Celtic or north American.

So the circle represents heaven and the square represents the earth and they are brought together to bring heaven on earth. And then there’s many, many other layers of meaning depending on the pattern. That excites me so much. I created Sacred Intuitive Art as a means of sharing my work. I started to put my work on Instagram because I wanted to have a kind of digital gallery that I could see the progression of my work. I wasn’t on it to deliberately sell my work. It wasn’t the conscious reason.

But that’s what grew, and the name, I mean, how do we invent names? It was sacred from sacred geometry and intuitive arts, because the other thing I got into quite early on was intuitive and expressive arts, which I discovered was an actual ‘thing’ for people who aren’t artists and it’s actually quite abstract work. And I was kind of doing both. And as I built up my own geometry practice, I wanted to combine them. There’s a big theme for me in life about integration. So what I tend to do is use layers of color in the background and then place a geometric pattern on top of it. And that’s how I’m playing with color and shape and form.

And my Instagram account, I was heading towards 1700 followers now, and I’m like, gosh, and I sell most of my work through Instagram. I had a website built in about 2016 and then I didn’t pay much attention to it in the last two or three years because my mom died and then my dad died and I got preoccupied with other personal matters.

So I came back to it this year and had it rebuilt. So that went live in August.

So it’s the new website, which I’m really thrilled with because was just like, gosh, it’s all my work. I know you write about having a body of work. So doing the website was really revealing as to just how much I’ve done. Not all my work is on that website but it was a moment to reflect and take stock and to see that transition from my early work to what I produce now.

Terri Connellan: That’s been the most incredible journey and, two things. I love that thread of that love of patterns through all different aspects of your life and your artwork, and also your personality, through your workplace and the sort of modalities that you’ve focused on and the tools that you’ve used.

And then, secondly, just how wonderful it’s been watching you share your artwork and also your process. I think that’s probably one of the things I know I love and people love on Instagram and through websites is seeing the artistic or the writing process, going through it and being able to almost participate in that process as well as seeing the beautiful art created. And your new website is just stunning, so congratulations.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Thank you. Yeah. I love listening to other artists describe their process and seeing the work in progress photos and I actually began selling my work through mind, body, spirit shows. So I would have a stool and display my work. And that was such good fun. And what I learned is people are really interested in who you are as an artist. How did you get to do this? And also people are really interested in the story of a picture. Because for many people, this creative process is alien. We lose it, usually through school. I think schools have got a lot to answer for, in how we take creativity out of childhood. It’s such a shame.

And then as adults, we become fascinated with people who have this creative intention as part of their life. So I just got to the stage of thinking, well, I love watching other people paint. Isn’t that weird, but I love watching paint dry from all the people and seeing howthey go about it. Why not do that myself and just talk about what I’m actually creating.

I end up having some lovely online chats through Instagram, with people who are curious and want to ask a question or give some kind of reflection on the work. That’s so enjoyable.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. And I think Instagram is such a great medium for that too. Isn’t it? It’s the instant side of it and the fact that it’s visual as well as the ability to have conversations. It’s fantastic. So we both love spirals, the spiral imagery and the mandalas you feature in your work. And they also feature in my Quiet Writing logo, which has the nautilus with the Fibonacci sequence and the cover of my book Wholehearted features that. So just thought it might be nice for us to just have a chat about spirals. What is it that about spirals that attracts you or attracts us generally to them do you think?

Lynn Hanford-Day: I’m not sure, Terri. I know I’ve always loved them and there’s something about the movement towards the centre. And there’s also something about the movement that’s contained within a spiral as well, so there’s a kind of energy and the vibration in a spiral that attracts me. And then you also get enormous metaphors around how we spiral through life. So it gets a kind of cerebral level. I find that fascinating and also very true, but spirals they’re so easy to draw. You can sit doodling spirals, which I frequently do and then we get people on the beach here where we have a lot of pebbles and people go and use the pebbles and make spiral patterns out on the beach or build a labyrinth from them. And so I think there’s something really deep rooted in the psyche over millennium about a spiral. So what calls you? Cause I love the Fibonacci sequence as well and the whole kind of Ammonite shell and the Nautilus.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, I definitely feel drawn to them. And for me, for my business, for Quiet Writing and for the book, it’s that idea of repeating lessons, like going over the same ground. And I’m drawing a spiral with my hand as I’m talking, which doesn’t really work on the audio waves, but, that idea of spiraling, but often it’s as we’re learning and going through life, we’re repeating lessons and often because of how we’re wired or how we brought up, it’s often similar lessons, but we’re often repeating them but learning at a higher level. So that idea of Wholehearted and the work that I do is about that idea of creating our story and building our wisdom through all the things that we go through, but learning and going deeper. But it’s also like going higher and often we’ll find that there’s that repetition of patterns or of learning and behavior or the same thing cropping up and you think, well, there’s that thing again? You know? Yes. How, how have I dealt with that, but what resources do I have? How can I do this better? So I think to me, it’s a very integrating , you mentioned integration before, so that idea of how we seek to be whole, I think that’s what it’s about.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Yeah. Yeah. And just listening to you describe that, I’ve got the image of the spiral staircase. So you can have a spiral as kind of flat on a piece of paper or make one in the garden, out of shells or something.

But if we turn it into that kind of 3D representation of how we spiral through life we can move up another level and another level and still see what was beneath. And see the repetition or the similarity, and then look up as to do I need to build on this repetition in order to move wherever we’re seeking to develop in our self leadership or other aspects of our life.

Terri Connellan: I love that. And I love spiral staircases too. So for people at the beginning of such a journey or feeling of being a bit stuck or lost or going through major turning points but wanting more creativity or a different life, what advice would you offer from your experiences about that really tough time going through that big transition?

Lynn Hanford-Day: I would say, be willing to sit with the discomfort. Whether or not, it’s a breakdown or some kind of severe illness or some other aspect of crisis that happens to, I think most of us at some points in our lives, they are deeply distressing, uncomfortable periods of time, and in a world of busy-ness and doing, then to sit in opposition, to busy-ness and doing, and the impulse to find the solution. I certainly felt that, you know, and I felt that I’ve got to get back to work and obviously money is a feature of that. But what I’ve learned since then, and over the years since is, there is a message in the discomfort.

And if we don’t slow down, then we don’t always get that message. Hence the repeating patterns. Cause it comes back to bite us on the bum in some way. Yeah, I think that’s how I would sum it up and use help if necessary to kind of stay in that space. So whether it’s through a therapist, trusted friend, a coach, I know you do coaching too. And I do as well. There are people and spaces and places available to give yourself that time. And even if it is only an hour a week with a therapist or a couple of hours with a coach, it can be so valuable just to allow something to emerge.

Because I’ve found that the heart will often speak in a whisper and we need quietness to really connect with that. Some people managed to do that through meditating. I do it through painting. I suspect yours is through writing, but to find something that allows us to connect inwards and listen to that voice inside, no matter the discomfort that’s going on around.

Terri Connellan: No, that’s very wise and hard won insights. So, yeah. Thank you for that. And when we had the virtual launch and we had a chat about a similar theme, we talked about living with uncertainty too, which I guess is part of that discomfort. I talk in my book about the William Bridges change management model, which I know you’d know from your HR work as well, but that idea of that messy difficult middle, which feels so uncomfortable and uncertain, but it’s also where the great potential is too.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Yeah, completely. That word transition, we use it for giving birth, don’t we? So we know that transition’s painful. But we have to go through it.

Terri Connellan: And I think your point about support too, is absolutely critical because that’s the other thing I’ve found and I know you’ve found going, one, they’re difficult, incredibly difficult journeys. And it’s about identity, as we said earlier, which can be quite unsettling and then it also can feel quite lonely. Cause it feels like now no one else has been through this type of thing. But when, as we’re talking now, often you find people one step ahead or have been through or have the strategies for dealing with people who have been in such moments of difficulty in crisis, and it’s important to reach out. So that’s a great reminder.

So, a question that I’m asking each person who comes on the podcast is how have you created your story over your life time?

Lynn Hanford-Day: How have I created my story? Haphazardly, organically. I’ve kind of gone through life in a fairly opportunistic way. I’ve not consciously set out to have this or be that or live somewhere. I know some people do. So I guess what I’m saying, I’m not particularly goal-focused. Maybe I should be, I don’t know. So I’ve created my story, particularly in the last 10 years or so often by looking back to notice the threads and the patterns, particularly in approaching my fifties and then approaching 60, which horrified me. How the hell did I get here and why am I still asking the question, what do I want to be when I grow up? it doesn’t ever seem to go away. So I guess I’ve created my story backwards. Which is curious, actually, in talking now with you about this. There’s a lot of people would say look forwards and coaching is very much about forward focus and forward momentum.

And I suppose it’s in the last three or four years, since my mum died and then my father died and then moving to Eastbourne which was two years ago. That was actually much more deliberate and much more focused around intention. And after my mum died, it was also a year in which three friends died of cancer. And I think that death does put us in contact with life and often leads us to reflect on, oh, well it could all be over tomorrow because actually, yes, it could be. None of us know. And as I’ve become older and got bigger and bigger numbers for my age, the realization that time is passing. So how do I want to live my life? And what does a wholehearted life look like for me at this moment in time? And what do I imagine myself doing when I’m 65 or 70? If I’m given that time, what do I want it to look like? So I’ve become much more conscious. And one of those desires was to have an art studio by the sea. So I’ve managed to move to the seaside two years ago and I still do my arts from home. Finding an art studio has proved to be quite elusive, but I’m lucky that the work I produce can be done from a table in the kitchen, which is what I do.

Terri Connellan: Wonderful. Your story makes me think of, in the writing circles, some people outline, plan ahead and are fairly goal focused and there’s others who… they talk about plotters and panters and the pantsers fly by the seat of their pants and are more organic,

But there’s often a point in a draft of a book where they’ll do a reverse outline and the people who have that tendency and stop and then go back and make sense of what’s happened to then work out where to go next. So it sounds very much like your story has been created that sort of way, which is wonderful.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Yeah, I guess I am a kind of here and now person. I’m opportunistic. The other thing I’ve learned particularly in the last six months is I am quite good at manifesting. So I need to be careful about these thoughts. It says, wouldn’t it be good if because literally it arrives the next day. I was like, oh my God, no, not yet. Not now. I’m not ready.

Terri Connellan: That’s wonderful.

Lynn Hanford-Day: That tells me there’s something about alignment and noticing opportunities and so on. So yeah. Be careful what you wish for. But watching you go through the process of writing your book, which, I remember you starting that a few years ago.

There are some things we need to work at and have a discipline around to manifest, the creation of a book or the creation of a painting, whatever it might be, find our dream home. We need to stick at. Sometimes it’s not always going to come immediately.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. Often, and it’s a nice mix between the two when it works well, as we’re manifesting, we’re setting the intentions, but we’re also putting the work in, getting the skills, which is obviously part of your artistic journey, and my own writing one and putting in that hard inner work too. That’s the other thing in your story and mine is that it’s the showing up to the page and the showing up to life is also because of doing that hard inner work over time and going on retreat, learning new skills and moving through that discomfort as you talked about earlier.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Yeah. Completely.

Terri Connellan: So you’ve read my book, I know, you kindly me some wonderful advance praise which is much appreciated. So you know about the wholehearted self-leadership tips there. So what are your top wholehearted self-leadership tips and practices for women based on your experience to add to my body of work?

Lynn Hanford-Day: I come back to that, building on what I said about sitting with the discomfort, that there is, I think something here about the importance of paying attention to your inner weather. And noticing what brings joy as well as what brings discomfort. We’re kind of wired for negativity as a species because it’s there to protect us and to serve us. Yet, for myself, again, it’s only in recent years that I’ve really paid attention to what brings me joy and pleasure, playfulness, contentment satisfaction and so on. And some of that is through the world of work. That as a workaholic in recovery that it’s been about paying attention to: where does joy come from beyond the workplace? Cause you know, I’m not going to be prancing around as an HR director for the rest of my life. I don’t want to. So where does it come from? And then to give yourself the time to do it, if it’s a thing that you do, or if your joy comes from sitting, staring at the sea for an hour, which is what I do. Then I allow myself to do it. So there’s something about the allowing as well.

Terri Connellan: Hmm. That’s beautiful. Thank you. And as you were saying that beautiful list of words, of, joy and fulfillment and that beautiful list that you shared with us, I was feeling all warm inside that just tapping into the more positive aspects of life. I think it’s so true. And often they’re very simple. Like it’s just that a cup of tea in the sunshine and for me swimming is a big source of source of joy. And a lot of that is about just being in the moment.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Yes, it is. And this is where mindfulness practitioners are constantly encouraging us to be is in the here and now and in the moments. And I’ve learned the truth of that. It’s really powerful. And to just step outside, literally to go into nature or to step outside the busy-ness of the day and it doesn’t need to take up huge amounts of time either. We often say we can’t do that. Haven’t got time. I have given myself the discipline of doing it. And some of that happened in the first lockdown because I do live literally across the road from the sea. And it came from a suggestion from a friend because I post lots of pictures of the sea on my Facebook page with friends. And she said, why don’t you turn it into a potential installation piece, which I haven’t done, but I then took a video of the sea every day for three months.

And I was working during lockdown. I was working from home doing my HR-y stuff, but having that commitment to literally go outside no matter what the weather was. Cause it began in March so we get quite a lot of storms. It was to just stand there and take a 30 second video. And that turned into, go for a walk, go sit by the sea, go meditate by the sea.

Terri Connellan: Powerful practices and easy habits to get out of and easy habits to get into too. So that’s a great reminder to everyone listening. Well, thank you so much for your time today, it’s been such a beautiful conversation and so many layers and great things to draw on from ourconversation today. So thank you for sharing so much of yourself and your beautiful work. So if you can let people know where people can find more about you and your art and work online.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Thanks, Terri. Thank you so much. It’s been a lovely conversation. Yeah, people can find me on my website, which is SacredIntuitiveArt.com and also on Instagram. And my Instagram handle is the same name. So it’s @ sacredintuitiveart

Terri Connellan: Thank you so much. It’s been a great joy speaking today.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Yeah. Thank you, Terri. Go well.

About Lynn Hanford-Day

Lynn Hanford-Day is a visual artist working with sacred geometry, mandalas and Islamic pattern. Lynn is also dual qualified as a coach/psychotherapist and works with women in transition who are seeking meaning, purpose and wellbeing. Lynn is especially interested in creativity and intuition, positive psychology and strengths, helping people to access and express their inner wisdom. Lynn helps women discover clarity and confidence, path and purpose.

Lynn’s art can be seen on her website at www.sacredintuitiveart.com.

You can also connect with Lynn via Instagram and email lynn.hanford-day@sophrentos.com

Links to explore:

My books:

https://www.quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1

Free resources:

Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Other free resources: https://www.quietwriting.com/free-resources/

My coaching:

The Writing Road Trip – a community program with Beth Cregan – kicking off Jan 2022

Wholehearted Self-leadership Book Club – open for enrolment now – join us for 2022.

Connect on social media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writingquietly/