creativity Archives

Gathering my lessons – a wholehearted story

March 29, 2018

This guest post from Shalagh Hogan shows how gathering lessons of self-knowledge over time can lead to wholehearted Creative Soul Living.

This is the eighth guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing. I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors!

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, with each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable and central part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I am honoured to have Shalagh Hogan as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. My sincere thanks to Shalagh for sharing her story and photographs. Shalagh and I connected on Instagram via our love of creativity. Her story shows how growth and self-knowledge accumulate over time. Embracing creativity wholeheartedly via parenting, blogging, community, writing and social media, Shalagh’s gathering lessons evolve into Creative Soul Living. Read on to find out more!

Gathering lessons of self-knowledge

Despite my low self-esteem and anxieties, I have enthusiastically gathered my self-knowledge with hope for a better life. I accept as a given, my need to seek and grow a more whole version of my formerly fragmented self. Yet up to even a few years ago, the concept of Wholehearted Living, or what I call Creative Soul Living, was still just a conceptual inkling. Having never felt whole, the definition and the feeling of wholeness eluded me.

One lesson at a time is how my self-guided journey has unfolded. I am busy gathering my lessons which rise like cream to the top. From the more important lessons about creativity, community, connection, self-care, and self-trust, I have learned who I truly am, what makes me happiest, and who I want to proudly see myself being. Growth takes its time, yet I always feel like my biggest and best lessons are the ones that have just happened.

Valuing intuition and introversion

As a child, I was fragmented. I held too many pains involving too many people. My self-mirrors were broken, and the chaos was draining. I was a creative with no permission to be me. As a teen, much-needed hope collided with my insatiable appetite for knowledge when my mother’s pursuit of a master’s degree in Applied Behavioral Sciences showed me that knowledge was power, and we can use this power to choose our life’s outcome.

It was then, I also began my life-long journal writing practice, developing my inner voice (which I now know to be my intuition) and the voice of my blog. It was then too that my Myers-Briggs test results pegged me as an ENFP. Although this felt mostly right, last year I was relieved to discover and own that I am equal parts Introvert and Extrovert. Although, for many years I neglected my creative callings, the introverted time I now take to think, write, and create are my self-care practices.

Gathering lessons on self-care and self-esteem

My self-care became essential when I was 38 and pregnant with my son. My anxieties and the last of my self-destructive behaviours shook and woke me. It became clear, how I treated myself would be how my kids would treat themselves. Doing as I did and not as I said, my children would inherit my anxieties, my self-doubt, and my repressed creativity. I truly committed then to taking better care of and healing myself mentally and physically that my children might hopefully do the same. Eventually, I quit smoking, I began eating better, and I continued to seek therapy.

My biggest authentic self “aha”, on which the rest of my work truly depended, was given to me in a therapy session. The therapist offered that I had low self-esteem. At first, I raged against this mis-definition of me. If I wasn’t who I thought I was, who was I then? Yet, this information freed me like a bird from my heart cage. I wasn’t broken and didn’t need fixing, nor did I need to help fix anyone I knew. Instead, I needed to have compassion and love for my humanity. And again, I began gathering my lessons.

Writing and connecting to heal

Bad things can happen for good reason, it may just take a while to see why. When my son was one, an American economic slump forced me to close my lovely little gift and antiques store named Bally Eden and I returned home to mourn the loss of my dream shop. I was anxious and desperate not to be stuck at home with my fast-growing-soon-to-be-a-toddler boy without something “just for me”. Encouraged by an old whisper in my ear, I began to write personal essays and publish them online. It then took five more years to start my blog at Shalavee.com which has just turned six.

I purposed the blog to make me a better writer, create a living resume, and voice my lessons regularly. While I achieved these goals, it was the community and relationships I’ve developed here online during my writing journey which have been my truest gift. My new unseen friends and our connections and courtships via comments and kind letters elevated my ego and gave me an immensely better self-image; a self-reflection where there once was none. I began to see my beauty and not my broken. And, as my voice of pain and healing came through on my blog, my readers said, “Keep writing what you are writing. We feel this way too.” Authenticity and vulnerability were my win/win.

Healing through community creativity

These voices from my community have helped to shift my purpose to offering others my voice to speak through. Our self-reflections echo each other through our communications and we begin to see ourselves as both individuals and as a collective of women with one voice of self-love and acceptance. We are gathering our lessons together. Strangers have become mirrors I will treasure forever, and the internet helped make me visible and whole again.

Although I was terrified, in May of 2016, my community encouraged me to host my first Instagram Challenge called the Soul Selfie challenge. For one week, we explored our souls, our fears, and our truths together in a deeper way via the hashtag #Soul_Selfie. My esteem and courage to lead increased incredibly as I hosted another that Fall and two more in 2017.

Then a small gathering on the evening of the first women’s march in January of 2017, inspired me to start a mindful meet-up group of my own in real life. We meet monthly to discuss a soul topic, eat well, and drink prosecco. We witness, acknowledge, and validate one another and that is so very necessary to my process of seeing my wholehearted self. I have created what I needed which benefits me and others and heals us all.

Vanquishing my anxieties with knowledge

Two years ago, even with all the progress in my writing and my self-healing, I knew my anxieties were still running the show. I found a new kick-butt therapist, a new resolve, and heading into my 50’s saw me amp up my efforts of self-discovery and visibility. Reading was one huge resource I used to finally reach the summit of the value hill I’d struggled to climb my entire life. I discovered I could say and mean, “I can”.

I read four books last year with willful intention to change my life’s outlook and my understanding of myself. First, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert gifted me with such validity and permission for my creative process. I came to understand that I was an Uber-Creative and my inner child needed to be creatively indulged until she trusted me again. From this, I was inspired to create online projects and a creative community to support myself and others in being our creative selves.

I had barely put Big Magic down when I read Daring Greatly by Brené Brown. From her brilliant work, I came to understand the necessity of community, vulnerability, and authenticity. Disconnection is our worst fear and we need to be authentic to belong to, trust, and reconnect with ourselves. And I now understand there’s a connection between creativity and vulnerability.

Then, on my therapist’s recommendation, I read Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David R Burns which was the very first book that permitted me to understand and name my anxieties. I learned how to refute the lies called Cognitive Distortions that cause them. Eventually, this book helped me win the battle against my anxieties.

And lastly, on Terri’s suggestion, I read Cal Newport’s Deep Work. This book showed me that I may be even more capable of making a difference in the world if I allow myself the time and visibility to work on and publish my theories. My deeper thinking and writing will help me and the world, and this feels like a noble purpose.

Creativity conquers all

While reading and gathering my lessons, I became aware of an internal dissonance which my therapist suggested was my inner child throwing tantrums. It seems denying my creativity had my creative inner child furious at me for not allowing her to play. So I decided to just give her what she wanted.

First, I indulged in thirty days of creating paper collage through an online creative community challenge. Having really enjoyed that, I created my own Instagram challenge called Our Creative May and this gave me another month straight to play. From this, our IG creative community established the hashtag #ourcreativeselves to continue posting our creations. I immediately did another challenge in June and July creating daily postcard art for the #ICAD project.

Four months straight of daily creating and continuous authenticity had proven that I did have enough time to create and I was trustworthy. My creative indulgence grounded me and greatly dissipated more of my anxieties. As I continue to replace the slave-driving parent who preaches art as impractical with the compassionate empowering present parent, I recreate a trust in myself proving my word is good. Self-trust is the truest most important result of our authentic creativity.

As my anxiety diminished, I began to understand this powerful lesson of how creativity and anxiety cannot coexist, and how indulging one represses the other. Love and presence conquer fear.

Creative Soul Living

This profound understanding of the inverse relationship between creativity and anxiety, and knowing many others need permission to create too, led me to develop and lead a Creativity Workshop this past November of 2017. I believe that our permission to live more creatively is necessary and integral to us being wholehearted individuals. I believe less consumerism and more Creativism will heal the world as we find creative solutions to its problems.

Creative Soul Living is the term I use to describe my process of Wholehearted Living. I intentionally seek and share my life lessons, prioritize my creativity in all areas of my life, develop my self-trust, value authenticity, commit to self-care, am mindful and present, stay connected with my people, and intuit my grandest Why for being here. And while my Why continues to firm up and my path widens, I know I have fought to reach my here and now, gathering my lessons one lesson at a time.

My future “I can” will include more creativity workshops, e-books, and eventually a book about crafting our own life plans based on our life lessons. My inward soul work has brought me the gift of knowing me and that feels like permission to hope. Hope is what I want to share with the world through my writing.

Photos and artwork by Shalagh Hogan used with permission and thanks.

Key book companions along the way

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David R Burns

Deep Work by Cal Newport

About Shalagh Hogan

Shalagh Hogan, said Shay-la, is a personal essayist, a blogger, a designer, an uber-creative, and mother to a five-year-old ginger girl and just turned teen boy. She resides in an ancient house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, USA, and is always amazed and amused by life’s abundance of lessons. Thrice-weekly she shares the lessons she gathers on her blog at Shalavee.com (Chez La Vie was taken) and currently, Creativity is her Why. Follow her as @shalaghhogan on Facebook and Instagram.

Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You might also enjoy my free 95-page ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’ – all about wholehearted self-leadership, reading as creative influence and books to inspire your own journey.

Just pop your email address in the box to the right or below. You will receive the ebook straight away as well as updates and inspiring resources from Quiet Writing. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot, productivity and ways to express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

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inspiration & influence intuition

Endurance – going the distance with truth, patience and strength

March 26, 2018

Remain true to yourself. Your authenticity alone will keep you in alignment with the energy of miracles.

Colette Baron-Reid, Wisdom of the Oracle – #47 Go the Distance

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: endurance, going the distance with truth, patience + strength

Theme for the week beginning 26 March

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards – #47 Resist coercions of your culture.

This week is about being authentic and true to ourselves and others. It’s about the freedom of standing our ground and working from the truth of our heart.

Advice from the Guidebook is:

With a loyalty to truth, say what you see, regardless of the consequences. Stand firm when your freedom is challenged by direct coercion or insidious persuasion.

This reminds me of Brigit’s message, ‘Don’t Back Down’. Brigit is my guiding goddess for life. She sits on my desk here, as she has for quite a while, with her message of staying strong. “Stand up for what you believe is right.”

This week’s guidance is about endurance and going the distance. It’s wrapped around a core of strength in truth, authenticity and patiently pursuing our goals. How do we know what’s worth enduring for? This is a key underpinning theme this week. Staying strong for ourselves, for what matters and what we believe in is highlighted. It’s worth persevering and going the distance for what we believe is right. In this, we can resist tendencies to conform, to worry about being different and to give up when under pressure.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 26 March

Tarot Narrative:

You can go the distance with whatever is challenging you now. It might feel daunting or endless, but know you have the strength and endurance for the long haul. Whether it’s creative projects, relationships or other life challenges, know that this strength is about authenticity, being true to yourself, receptivity and above all, patience. Open your heart, dance and be in touch with your intuition as you make your path.

Reading notes:

Cards: Strength and Page of Water (Cups) from The Good Tarot and #47 Go the Distance from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

Then there are times when we need Strength, which is getting what we want by standing perfectly still, by being open and by daring to be vulnerable. We want the lion to come and sit in our lap, and so we will sit very quietly and wait for it. We can’t overpower it, we can’t force it to do what we want, so we will sit here patiently, calmly until the lion feels safe enough to approach.

Jessa Crispin, The Creative Tarot (p58)

I’ve written before about the endurance of quiet strength. This sort of strength is not brute strength, it’s a patient, waiting, developing over time kind of strength.

It’s the type of endurance you need to write a book, to parent, to see a much-desired project through and to counter resistance in all of this. Battling things head-on doesn’t always work. Sometimes it’s about being receptive, knowing when to wait and being patient.

The ‘Going the Distance’ card energies were exactly mirrored in the Strength card. Note too that both the Life Design card about resisting coercions of culture and the Wisdom of the Oracle ‘Going the Distance’ card are both number 47. Such synchronicity!

So in this reading, I see connections between going the distance and being true and authentic to ourselves and what we believe in. I see connections too between endurance and a receptive kind of patience. It’s all about staying the course, finding a way through and waiting when the time is not right to move.

In my writing for long-haul projects, I have found that sometimes I just need to wait until more information comes on board. I don’t always realise at the time. But later I can see that I had to wait, go the distance, be receptive rather than act for a while. This can apply to many aspects of life as we wait for the right time.

The gifts of patient endurance

Patient endurance is inspired by the authentic truth of what we believe in. This fortifies us and gives us stamina for the journey. It enables us to sit back and gather ourselves, research, wait for information to come to us, be intuitive.

This is a yin kind of strength just like yin yoga strengthens us through holding poses quietly for a time and breathing into them. We can feel our bodies become more resilient as we stretch gently over time.

Just like this we too can become more resilient as we quietly practice endurance built around the spine of our authenticity and truth.

Keats comes to mind too with his ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, that great poem to stillness and waiting:

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

He reminds us at the end of this ode to quiet strength:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Throughout this reading, the spine of truth, waiting for truth and authenticity and believing in it, breathes through. Whether it be campaigning for what we believe in, writing our truth, trying to get to the bottom of something, waiting for others or having the persistence to carry on.

Endurance through quiet strength

It’s all about finding our way to endure through patience, receptivity and quiet, resilient strength.

Reflecting on ways to build quiet strength is a valuable practice at this time. This might include:

reading and researching more to understand
breathing exercises and finding ways to create rhythm in our days
yin yoga and other practices that help us with core quiet strength
writing, journaling, morning pages – whatever we call it, to help us anchor in quiet moments
intuitive work to sharpen our noticing and ability to make connections
exercise to enact building endurance over time.
allowing others space and time to come to us
being playful and opening up to childlike innocence (Page of Water)

We are encouraged to be a bit more playful with it all when we can and dancing helps too. As Vivian Greene reminds us:

Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.

This is a great week for uncovering endurance through the authenticity of what makes you come alive and keeps you going! Regardless of what is coming at you, learn to dance in the rain of circumstance.

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to hear if you are feeling these energies around endurance through quiet strength, truth, patience and authenticity.

All best wishes for this week of endurance through realising your truth. And dancing in the rain.

May the lion of quiet strength and Brigit guide you to gentle, receptive endurance whatever the weather. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help tap into that inner wisdom and magic guidance. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available in March + April for a May coaching start so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way.

You can download my free 95-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below. You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Strategy, patterns and the higher order of connections

Seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere

Alchemy and conducting magic with spirit and heart

Your body of work – the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

Joy – 18 inspiring quotes on enjoying what you do and love

coaching creativity transcending

Coaching goals and the value of being a healthy creative

March 22, 2018

Coaching goals can be many and varied with surprising connections. Learning the value of being a healthy creative has taught me about resilience and strength.

Coaching goals and connections

Working in a coaching series with coach buddy, Jeanette Buchanan, as part of my Beautiful You Coaching Academy program this time last year, I found myself setting a key goal around being healthy. My goal was to ‘feel stronger and sexier’. I was keen to tap into and learn from Jeanette’s love of exercise and passion for physical fitness.

At that time, I wasn’t moving a lot. I was just getting back into walking, knowing I needed to be exercising more and building my strength. Coaching became a search for the right type of exercise as a form of self-care and personal resilience.

I was going through some tough times in my transition journey. With plans in place to leave a long-term job role, my life changed completely as I supported my mother who was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.

I was as surprised as anyone that the coaching goals I focused on were about exercise and building strength. As a creative and writer, it’s easy to think only in terms of those aspects of life – creativity and getting ideas and words down. But to be our best creative selves, we need to be strong and healthy in body and in mind. Going through the journey of being a carer with my mother taught me so much about the value of self-care as we care for others.

Through my coaching experience, I realized the value of coaching goals about movement, strength and health as central to my well-being and life as a creative and supporter of others. When these areas of our lives are in a stronger place, we are more wholehearted and better prepared for managing whatever comes our way.

Swimming and exercise goals

In my work in my life coaching series with Jeanette, I opened up the door to exploring the exercise I loved as a child and young adult. Through free-writing, I revisited how much I loved swimming, also yoga, tai chi and dancing. But swimming shone through as something to get back to. I wrote:

Swimming is something I also enjoy though I haven’t done it for a while. I don’t like the chemicals and chlorine and pool side of it so this turns me off a bit. And I’ve never really seen the beach as a place to do laps as such. But that can change. I realise the benefits of swimming and it could be good for my back and body at this time.

Just opening up that door seemed to work wonders as it often does with coaching and listening to our inner wisdom.

One day just after I wrote this, exactly a year ago now, I was out walking along the beach in my village and bumped into a friend who had just been swimming in the bay. He told me about a group of local swimmers who swam Monday, Wednesday and Saturday mornings in the sea where I live. I didn’t know about this group and it sounded exciting. My friend took me to coffee with the swimming group that morning and introduced me, telling them all I was joining the group. And I embraced it all wholeheartedly.

Finding the best exercise for us

I’ve written here about 10 amazing life lessons from swimming in the sea and what it has taught me. Swimming is the perfect exercise for me. Writing about my relationship with different forms of exercise as part of coaching helped me get back to something I have always loved. But I’d become disconnected from it and had to rediscover this love.

Here’s a picture of me when I was little in my swimmers in what I now recognize as my natural environment – swimming in rivers and the sea.

I had forgotten how much I loved swimming as a child. Forgotten too that I even used to teach young kids to swim to share my love. I’ve also lived beside mountain rivers and relished the peace and calm from swimming there.

And here’s a picture of me as I donned my first ever wetsuit at the age of 55 and kept swimming through winter last year, rekindling this love and feeling stronger all the time.

Being in movement and keeping healthy through swimming has become a critical mainstay in being a healthy creative. Finding the right exercise that I love has been paramount. As Stephanie Stokes Oliver says in ‘Seven Soulful Secrets’:

The key to staying motivated is to find an activity that you enjoy doing.

This is so true in my experience. Swimming to me is no longer a chore or challenge. I’m really disappointed when, for some reason, I can’t go. I love it so much and the feeling when I dive in and start swimming among fish, breathing deeply in and out is the most calming and meditative of spaces. It helps me feel I can manage so much.

Celebrating exercise milestones

I celebrated 12 months of swimming in the sea with a ferry jump swim yesterday. This meant catching the local ferry out to the middle of the bay in our swimmers, flippers, swim mask and snorkel. All quite hilarious – then jumping off the ferry into the bay and swimming back. The weather and water were both wild and it was a tough one kilometre plus swim in a strong swell pushing against us.

But it was exhilarating. I felt so alive as I pushed my boundaries and could feel my resilience, strength, courage and calm from 12 months of swimming. I am so much stronger, fitter and hell, maybe even sexier? It’s certainly helped me to weather so much with courage and adaptability. It was great to celebrate this exercise and resilience milestone in a way that embodied what it taught me.

Being a healthy creative – what it has taught me

Being stronger in this way has taught me so much about the value of being a healthy creative. If we are going to write books, run entrepreneurial businesses and launch creative programs to support others, we need to be strong in body and mind.

Swimming in the sea has taught me to be in the moment. Each day I swim is different – the weather, the water, the fish and the currents. The beach is different each day and so am I, in terms of what is happening to me and how I am feeling. Through breathing and moving through whatever circumstances I face in the water, I have learnt the resilience of moving through each day with strength.

Over the past year, I’ve complemented swimming with walking, yoga, morning pages, journaling, coaching, intuitive work with tarot, blogging and writing longer length pieces such as my 36 Books free ebook. All these practices have helped me to be a healthy creative.

All of this has helped me to realise that being a healthy creative is about sustainability and fitness for the long haul. It’s no easy task to write a book, as I have found as I reached the 80,000-word mark in my ‘Wholehearted – self-leadership for women in transition’ book draft this week!

Being fitter and stronger, getting exercise, being in nature, breathing deeply and learning about managing different conditions have all been outcomes of swimming and exercise that have helped me reach my creativity and writing goals. They have been integral to helping me get those words down.

Coaching clients’ experiences

As I have worked with creative coaching clients, I have found that goals about exercise and being in movement often arise and support creativity goals. It’s been wonderful to support clients to find their own special kind of exercise and movement that supports their resilience and creativity.

It’s not always a straightforward journey as some of my clients have found. Perhaps it’s because, as writers and creatives, we are often introverts and book lovers. Our natural habitat often includes features like a desk, a computer, a notebook, a cafe (and coffee), artwork and plenty of books. We might relish the outdoors and nature. But it’s easy to get stuck, ironically by our own creativity, and not get out the door into any form of stretching ourselves through exercise.

Sylvia’s journey

I worked with the wonderfully creative and inspiring Sylvia Barnowski on her creativity goals and we found ourselves working on exercise. Sylvia sums it up this way:

After our initial meeting, I realized that it would be a good idea to use coaching to start working on something I would describe as a “lost cause”. I was struggling with this goal for the past few years and I actually started believing that I won’t be able to achieve much. So, I added a third goal – exercising. I knew if I could do even the smallest progress on this goal – it would be something really big for me. Adding this third goal felt like a big shift, raising the bar for myself and for Terri.

After weeks of defeat and trying various things, I finally found an exercise class that my body loved. It was challenging but it felt really good. That was a huge change, seeing myself going to the class every week and being excited about it.

You can read more about Sylvia’s journey of coaching with me here. I was so excited to support Sylvia through her own ‘learning to love exercise’ journey. Finding a way to move that felt right and supported other goals was pivotal. It was fabulous to see how this goal helped ignite and complement Sylvia’s personal and professional creative practice goals.

Sylvia Barnowski

The Healthy Writer

I recently read The Healthy Writer by Joanna Penn and Dr Euan Lawson and will post a full review here in the next few weeks. This book, co-written to reflect writing, personal and GP perspectives, traverses all aspects of writing and self-care including exercise, writing practices, back pain, RSI and mental health.

As my Goodreads review summarises:

Excellent read on writing and self-care by indie author and creative Joanna Penn and GP Dr Euan Lawson. I listened to it as an audiobook which was valuable and found it was like being prompted to review my writing practices and approaches by wise and gentle coaches. Plenty of practical advice on a range of health issues including back issues, RSI, mental health, fitness and practices for the creative long haul. Recommended reading/listening to sharpen your own health regime and writing practices to ensure you are fit for creativity and life generally for the long haul.

I look forward to a deeper dive on this book with you soon given the importance of these issues for our health and well-being as creatives.

How about you?

So here are some tips if you are thinking about your health as a creative and exploring some exercise, movement and wellbeing practices to support your writing and creative goals:

Write about the exercise you loved as a child and see what comes up.
Journal about what you are doing now to exercise and what would make your heart sing.
Reflect on the practices that support you as a creative and see where build movement in more.
Read ‘The Healthy Writer’ – available as an audiobook and a great read in this form.
Commit to doing some form of exercise in the next week, even if it is as simple as walking a few days a week for 20 minutes just to get moving. And build from there.
Find a class that attracts you – yoga, tai chi, exercise, pilates – and enjoy learning from others to get you going with your own practice.

And if you’d like to explore these areas as you choose to journey deeper into your wholehearted journey, I’d love to work with you. I’m currently open for free 30-45 minute consultations via Zoom or Skype to see where you might like to explore further in a coaching series with me. It can be a fabulous and life-changing step, so I encourage you to reach out if it’s calling you.

Here’s where I swim, enjoying the beautiful energy it brings to me. All best wishes to you as you explore possible coaching goals and the value of being a healthy creative.

Photo by David Kennedy Photography

Feature image via pexels.com

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help tap into that inner wisdom and magic guidance. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available in March + April for an April/May coaching start so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way.

You can download my free 94-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below. You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Creative practice in my tool-kit to make the most of this year’s energies

Seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers

Your body of work – the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

Joy – 18 inspiring quotes on enjoying what you do and love

inspiration & influence intuition

Strategy, patterns and the higher order of connections

March 19, 2018

We can’t learn to see if we can’t keep our eyes open. In just this way, staying open to the unexpected expands the openness of our heart.

Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: the value of strategy, patterns + higher order connections

Theme for the week beginning 19 March

The theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards – #19 Design from patterns to details.

This week is about strategy, patterns and seeing higher order connections. We can get so lost in detail especially when times are tough, not seeing the forest for all of the trees. There is a higher form of pattern and strategy there if we step back for a minute to see it. It might be new ideas, seeking solutions to problems, being more counterintuitive, putting the pieces together in a different way. Whichever, we are encouraged to see from the perspective of recurring patterns, images and signs, to notice synchronicity. We are reminded to see the geometry of our experiences: the spiralling as we revisit old habits to see anew or recognising the higher architecture of our experiences.

Advice from the Guidebook is:

Are you concentrating too much on the details whilst missing the bigger picture, or vice versa?…Aim to find unique solutions where possible.

There is guidance in there too about avoiding making assumptions or having preconceptions, remaining open and seeing links and connections in new ways.

So the guidance this week is around making space for new strategy and design in our thinking.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 19 March

Tarot Narrative:

Look for strategy, patterns, the higher order of connection now. See what you’re missing, the geometric shape that can hold the unfolding patterns, events and designs. Perceive what is real and what is fear. Work with the counterintuitive, have courage and be creative in finding solutions.

Reading notes:

Cards: Queen of Air (Swords) and Five of Fire (Wands) from The Good Tarot and #36 Come to the Edge in protection (reversed position) from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

When we assume that we author everything we experience, we snuff the possibility of being touched by the more numinous dimensions of reality.

Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk (p116)

This reading reminds us of the higher order of the strategy of the spirit and opening ourselves to answers beyond the obvious. As Mark Nepo reminds us in ‘The Exquisite Risk’, our ego can have a strong role to play in how we see circumstances; sometimes this means we miss other things like signs, patterns, signals, connections and counterintuitive ways of looking at the situation.

Recent experiences have encouraged me to open up to energy connections and ways of working on more spiritual planes. We can get so preoccupied with the here and now, we forget to breathe deeply, seek answers from our higher guidance and work with energy healing that can help us on another level.

Strategy can sound like a cold word but as an INTJ Jung/Myers-Briggs personality type, it’s second nature to me to see higher patterns. Or at least to attempt to. Like everyone, I can get bogged down in detail and confounded; or conversely, so high in the sky, I miss the real connections.

The Queen of Air (Swords), who links with the INTJ/Mastermind personality type, reminds us to wield our swordy clarity in a real way. As The Good Tarot Guidebook prompts us, this might include: setting healthy boundaries, seeing the underpinning whole, having a clear purpose, and being more honest with ourselves about what is happening.

The Five of Fire (Wands) suggests that freedom to explore ideas and be open is a powerful way to move at this time. Just as Mark Nepo reminds us, it’s not just a mind thing either, it involves openness of heart:

We can’t learn to see if we can’t keep our eyes open. In just this way, staying open to the unexpected expands the openness of our heart.

Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk

The gifts of strategy

I’ve worked in strategy in many areas of my life including leadership of strategic policy in government. The gifts of strategy are many and they include:

stepping back to see connections
seeing the whole
allowing the framework to emerge
letting go of false assumptions and unreal fears
searching beyond easy solutions
putting steps into place to reach higher order solutions
being clear in purpose
seeing patterns and connections
looking for ‘out of the box’ answers, unfamiliar or counterintuitive options
doing the research to know the facts
brain-storming to open up the possibilities

Applying strategic skills to our lives and looking for patterns and solutions in more holistic ways is encouraged now. This might involve creative work: collage, poetry, brainstorming, mind-mapping, Sacred geometry might be a way of doing this, as Lynn Hanford-Day has found: mandalas, recurring patterns and seeing the whole in a creative and spiritual way.

Sometimes we have to step away and do things differently to see the patterns, connections and emerging solutions. I know working with visual imagery can help me. I am a person who works with words a lot, so working another way such as through visual collage can help me to break through to new ways of seeing things.

The above is a visual collage in my journal as part of the Softly Wild ecourse by Victoria Smith. This is a kind of paper altar at the start of the journal, a snapshot in time of what I was trying to make sense of then. Once I saw it all together, I understood the message perfectly. But I would have had trouble coming at it in more logical ways. Just taking a few hours with some magazines, a glue stick, a pair of scissors and an open blank page can be the way to work out the critical strategy for the next steps. It’s a way of accessing the unconscious directly, just as tarot is.

We are encouraged to do work counterintuitively now, so lean into what is not so natural for you to open up new possibilities. If you always work with visuals, try writing. Conversely, if you are a word person, take photographs, colour in or make a visual collage to free up different senses and cognitive functions. If you are a logical step by step person, try mind-mapping. Perhaps breaking things up into steps would be helpful if you can get stuck in the big picture and not take action.

What we are attracting and noticing

The law of attraction also has a place in all of this as we work with more spiritual and intuitive dimensions of energy. Thinking about questions like these can help:

What are we fearing and how much energy are we putting into that?
Are we envisioning the positive of what we desire rather than the negative of what we don’t want?
What is leading your thinking – fear or positive desires?
Are we taking time to notice signs, symbols and synchronicity or have we dulled our intuition?
How are we flexing our intuitive skills in the everyday to find higher wisdom?

We are encouraged to open our eyes to the higher order of connections and symbols and to their magic now. As Carl Jung reminds us:

Life is a luminous pause between two mysteries that are yet one.

Strategy work in action

It’s important to remember what practices help you in your own strategy work and making connections at this time. What helps you in making sense of things? Which activities open up options and solutions?

Here are some ideas and options for tapping into your strategic side:

mind-mapping
brainstorming
making lists
colouring in
drawing and painting
taking photographs
making collages
journalling
poetry
gathering facts
envisioning
creating mandalas
researching ideas

Write your own list of activities for developing strategy, identifying patterns and making connections this week.

This is a great week for uncovering more strategic and connected approaches to life!

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to hear if you are feeling these energies around the need for strategy, seeing patterns and deeper connections.

All best wishes for this week of making new connections, being open, seeing patterns and using all this to progress in our creativity and in life challenges.

May the Queen of Air guide you to clarity and openness in matters of ideas and of the heart. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers

Alchemy and conducting magic with spirit and heart

Exploring magic as the heart of creative inspiration

Your body of work – the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

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Seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere

March 12, 2018

It seems that we humans have always been drawn to find ourselves in the life about us.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: seeking inner wisdom + messages of water

Theme for the week beginning 12 March

The theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards – #34 Seek your inner wisdom.

I always draw the theme card first to set the key message for the week. At its core, this week is about connecting with our inner wisdom in a variety of ways. This is especially the case when life gets challenging. It’s so easy to get rattled, to link ourselves to other’s emotions and to lose ourselves. We are reminded to seek the stillness of inner wisdom through the elements and especially water this week.

Advice from the Guidebook is:

Go within to communicate with the warmth of your true wisdom. Ask your wise-self what s(he) wants to know. Listen for an answer.

There might be much to work through but a place to start is always seeking the inner wisdom and stillness of our own mind and heart. Whether it be swimming, walking, working with tarot, writing – all favourites of mine – or something of value to you, keep doing it. Again, it’s easy when life gets swirly to let these calming practices slide. In them is a place to find inner wisdom if only we listen, through the rhythm of our footsteps, the flow of words or the anchor of our breathing as we move through water.

So the guidance this week is around making space for our wise inner self to be heard.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 12 March

Tarot Narrative:

Go deep within for wisdom now. There’s much to sort: the gifts of challenging relationships, the love required to reach out, the final stages of work you’ve been progressing for some time, now coming to light. Listening for answers in the spaces, seeing the brightest piece, focusing on completion, even if it’s a struggle, are all ways to move ahead now.

Reading notes

Cards: Messenger of Water (Page of Cups) and Nine of Earth (Pentacles) from The Good Tarot and #41 Soul Mates in protection (reversed position) from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

And so, the art of freedom becomes the necessary adventure of grasping the secrets that are everywhere in the open and stirring their aspects within us, in such a way that we come alive: learning from the fish how to surface and dive, from the flower how to open and accept, from the stone how to crack and let light in, and from the birds that wings are more useful at times than brains.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening – for 12 March (p. 86)

This reading reminds us of the power of seeking wisdom in water and the other elements as a way of accessing answers. The Messenger of Water (Page of Cups), via the affirmative and positive ‘The Good Tarot’ deck, speaks of the power of “seeing the best in others.” I love the imagery of the Messenger focusing on the seahorse, exemplifying looking for the rare, mystical and beautiful in our encounters.

This morning I swam with many fish again and found a sense of peace. When I intuitively reached out for Mark Nepo’s ‘The Book of Awakening’ message for today for this narrative, it is all about finding ourselves reflected in the life about us. There is a meditation or visualisation for each day’s reading in this book. Today’s, for March 12, is about revisiting a special place and reconnecting with one aspect of why you keep going back there:

It might be the wind through the grass, or the sound of the water, or the light through coloured leaves.

I visualised and connected with where I swim and that first feeling of pushing out and stroking into a small reef where fish swim. It is the most liberating and calming feeling. I return there again and again for peace and stillness, finding myself and answers as I move through the water.

The gifts of challenge

The Nine of Earth from ‘The Good Tarot’ deck reminds us of the value of pursuing excellence and of self-control and focus. We are almost there, and whatever else is happening, there is an underlying sense of progress despite obstacles now. There is freedom in this and part of seeking wisdom this week is realising how far we have come. Knowing what to do to focus and finish the work we have planned is of value.

My own transition journey has four key features: life coaching, writing, tarot and personality type work. And this is what I seek to meld to offer to others.

I’ve been working on each of these areas for many years but in a focused way for the past 18 months. It’s time now to bring this vision and unique set of connections home into practices and offerings to support others. I’m ready to roll this out and am weaving the blend of skills, knowledge and experience only I can bring forth.

It is the same for each of us. We all have our magic brand of wisdom and talent, our passions and personality, our values and desires.

The Good Tarot ‘Nine of Earth’ reminds us:

I am diligent and disciplined, focused on completing the work I began long ago. I stick to my program, trusting that the plan is unfolding before me exactly as Spirit intended.

Seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere

These times are not without challenge and the energies lately seem so sensitive and highly strung. So as you work on your plan to bring goals to fruition, you may be facing challenges.

Seeking wisdom in the challenges is also encouraged. The Wisdom of the Oracle ‘Soul Mates’ card asks:

What is the gift in this?

We are encouraged to look in the mirror rather than blame others. There are old stories to be healed and seeking wisdom as we negotiate stormy seas is a way to a calmer passage. Wherever you are feeling relationships bringing you down, there is richness in there to be gained if we can dive deeper.

Seeking wisdom in the calmness of water and elsewhere may help to bring these lessons and answers to the surface if we can quiet our minds and listen.

Self-leadership in seeking wisdom

It’s important to remember what practices help you in your own self-leadership at this time. What helps you in seeking wisdom? Which activities calm you and bring things gently to the surface without so much fanfare?

These are the activities to engage in this week.

For me, they are:

Morning Pages and other writing
Tarot and Oracle work including this Tarot Narrative
Blogging
Swimming
Reading
Walking in nature

And poetry. It was lovely to get back to poetry recently via a contribution to Sabrina Davis 25 Tips to Living Unapologetically. It’s wonderful to remember and revisit what makes your heart sing.

Write your own list of activities for being in the now and seeking your inner wisdom.

It’s time this week for seeking your own messengers of water, ways to connect with emotion and deeper meaning.

This is a great week for seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere, whatever helps you listen to your own inner voice in peace.

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to hear if you are feeling these energies around seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere, especially what places and activities help you to be still and listen within.

Where are you feeling swirly and out of control?
How can you make time for the practices that calm you?
What special practices have you let go of and what is the impact of this?
How can you weave a little gentle wisdom seeking back into your life?
Which element is calling you – water, fire, earth or air?
How can you connect with the element you need or that sustains you?
What’s the magic seahorse in your life to focus your attention on?

All best wishes for this week of seeking inner wisdom especially if you are facing challenging times. See how you can work with the elements to connect you. I hope that you find wisdom and answers as you listen.

May the Messenger of Water guide you as you seek to finish those long planned for projects and heal those relationships that need it. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

This image by Lauren at Sol + Co

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers

Alchemy and conducting magic with spirit and heart

Exploring magic as the heart of creative inspiration

Your body of work – the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

Joy – 18 inspiring quotes on enjoying what you do and love

inspiration & influence intuition

Alchemy and conducting magic with spirit and heart

February 26, 2018

Our small lives, which so often can seem random, or meaningless, are actually an organic part of the cosmos.

Rachel Pollack, Tarot Wisdom

___________________________________

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: alchemy + conducting magic with spirit + heart

Theme for the week beginning 26 February

The theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards – Journal ‘Dear Nature…’

I always draw the theme card first to set the key message for the week. At its core, this week is about connecting with ourselves through the alchemy and spirit of nature. When life gets a bit crazy, tuning into the magic of the sea, the bush and the sky is the perfect way to get answers. As I have moved through my transition journey, I’ve spent time sitting on the beach, journal in hand. It’s time to get back to this practice now and listen to the wisdom of nature, spirit and ourselves.

This is a great week for finding quiet space with a book and a pen and connecting with the cosmos. Advice from the Guidebook is:

Receive advice and guidance from the natural world.

We are encouraged to write a letter to Nature voicing concerns, asking for advice, to then walk and notice anything that comes to us. And then to allow Nature to respond by writing a second letter once home.

This is such a wise way to engage with nature and open ourselves to the alchemy of wholeness. Writing in nature is one of the simplest acts of connection. But how often do we do it? It’s so easy to get caught in our offices, our homes, our cafes and forget the magic that happens when we open ourselves to the natural world and its gifts.

Whether it’s finding shells that shape speak to us, stones that we can hold to ground ourselves, or feathers that seem like messages on our path, being open to these gifts can help us gain insight and meaning. The sheer act of opening up to a blank page in a quiet space in nature is a way of opening up to ourselves and seeing what the universe provides as an answer.

So the guidance this week is around the alchemy of being receptive to the elements and wisdom of the universe. We are actively encouraged to engage with this practical magic with book and pen in hand.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 26 February

Tarot Narrative:

You might be focusing on all that’s not perfect or right just now. Or maybe you’ve learnt through habit to think in terms of loss, feeling poor or less than. But you are standing like a magician posed between the earth and sky, conducting creativity like alchemy. Get out into nature and ground yourself like the conductor you are. As you manage change on many fronts, know that connecting yourself with joy and spirit through the elements – wind, water, earth, warmth – will yield solutions and magic as you co-create with forces beyond you.

Reading notes

Cards: Five of Earth (Pentacles) and The Magician from The Good Tarot and #12 A Change in the Wind in protection (reversed position) from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

Our small lives, which so often seem random, or meaningless, are actually an organic part of the cosmos. This is one of the great teachings of the Tarot, and ultimately one of the reasons we do readings – not just to find out information, or to seek guidance or self-knowledge (all of which are important) but also to demonstrate to ourselves that the universe is not broken pieces. Things connect.

Rachel Pollack, Tarot Wisdom (p. 34)

This reading and narrative sends strong messages about connecting with the alchemy and wisdom of the universe. Rachel Pollack in ‘Tarot Wisdom’ emphasises that The Magician is a card that is auspicious especially for writers and other creatives “for it symbolizes creativity itself.” The Magician is the card that I have chosen to symbolize the alchemist creator spirit of Quiet Writing. So it was exciting to see it arrive today in this first week of beginning a new phase of my creative journey and business, free from my former work role and fully embracing my body of work in transition.

Today’s narrative reminds us that though we might find ourselves having a habit of focusing on what is not right or not done or over the next horizon, we just need to still ourselves in nature. Connecting the inner and outer especially through writing in nature are highlighted at this time.

Dealing with a habit of loss

The Five of Earth from the beautiful ‘The Good Tarot’ deck reminds us that reminds us that we can get preoccupied by “the illusion of lack”. It also mentions “overlooked treasures.” I have included the Rider-Waite version of the card too in the tarot flat lay so you can see the visuals there. It is all about difficulty, feeling in exile, out in the cold, or like we are seeing everything through a glass half empty lens.

My journey through transition and leaving the organisation I have worked in for 30 plus years has certainly had overtones of just this feeling. With my job deleted and becoming redundant, it’s been easy to feel like I’m out in the cold and focus on the negative. This can happen with any experience of change – change of location, relationship or job. All can have elements of feeling shunned, undervalued, less than or just plain nostalgic for how things used to be. With all of this melancholy, we can miss fully embracing the treasures unfolding under our nose.

The Good Tarot ‘Five of Earth’ reminds us through its beautiful imagery that the answer is to ground ourselves in the earth, in nature, connected to the magic of nature and the beauty of the world. As the Fountain Tarot puts it for this card:

From a place of quiet you can assess what is truly imprtant, learn from what the moment is teaching you, and determine what resources are actually at your disposal.

Just as last week’s narrative focused on blossoming, this week’s theme is about the alchemy of connecting with nature to work out our magic.

Alchemy + conducting magic

The Magician reminds us of the importance of partnership with spirit and gaining a broader perspective of our efforts. Just as the habit of thinking in terms of loss can cramp our vision, so can not opening ourselves to spirit. Again, the Rider-Waite imagery for this card is valuable in reminding us of how we can be a conduit for creative magic through being receptive and grounding ourselves.

This card shows us that we need to be reaching up to alchemy, to spirit and the power of the universe, to the magic of synchronicity. At the same time, we need to be grounding ourselves in nature and the elements, represented by the items on the table at the Magician’s disposal. The Magician is like an orchestra conductor as he stands between spirit and nature, connecting them. So too we can be conductors of magic as we open ourselves to spirit and inspiration, especially from natural sources.

Sallie Nichols in ‘Jung and Tarot’ talks about the Magician in terms of synchronicity and how we can open ourselves to increasing chances of meaningful coincidences at peak times:

It is our inner Magician, of course, who is responsible for these miraculous eruptions of the unitary world into our everyday world of space and time, cause and effect. (p62)

Alchemy + connecting things

The Magician’s art of alchemy is about connecting things, especially between the inner and outer. So we might be outside in the elements, gathering thoughts in our journal as we connect with nature and notice gifts in our surroundings. Or we might work with tarot and oracle cards for guidance and wisdom as a way of engaging with spirit and connecting with our inner wisdom. Synchronicity might be a visitor as we tune in for signs and symbols especially at times of change.

Alchemy and making connections to transform them positively is a key theme this week weaving through all of the cards. Sallie Nichols shares in ‘Jung and Tarot’ that:

Magic is sometimes called the science of hidden relationships.

She says Jung identified through research that “hopeful expectancy” is an ingredient in common in many magic, miracles and parapsychological events. We need to embrace the “archetype of the miracle” at this time instead of the stories of loss, lack or poverty we might have told ourselves.

It’s time this week to channel our inner magician, get our conducting wands of spirit and creativity out that just might be in the form of a pen and book. And seek natural environments that will open us up and renew us, rather than shut u down.

This is a great week for alchemy and conducting magic with spirit and heart.

Look to see where you might be working out of a perspective of loss, comparison or lack and see where you can conduct your own magic. Get out in nature and write. Don’t be afraid to use the tools that work for you, being unapologetic. Embrace what you love. You too could have a desk like mine 😉

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to hear if you are feeling these energies around alchemy and conducting magic with spirit and heart, especially being in nature to help connect our inner and outer worlds now.

Where have you developed the habit of thinking in terms of loss or lack?
How are you making time for connecting with the magic of nature?
Where are you practising alchemy and where could you deepen your practice?
In which areas are you holding back because of fear or other’s opinions?
How can you conduct magic in your writing or other creative work?
What stops you feeling that sense of alchemy and magic?
How can you be more magical in your approaches to life?
Where can you be more receptive to synchronicity or meaningful signs?

All best wishes for this week of being out in nature and writing, conducting creativity with the aid of the cosmos and grounding ourselves with the wisdom of the earth. I hope that you find meaningful connections, alchemy and synchronicity arising as you create this time and space in your life.

May The Magician guide you in conducting creativity and connecting with spirit to guide your path especially if it’s a time of big change. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help tap into that inner wisdom and magic guidance. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available in February and March for a May coaching start so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Exploring magic as the heart of creative inspiration

Your body of work – the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

Joy – 18 inspiring quotes on enjoying what you do and love

Secret superpowers for creative energy and inspiration

Creating essential intent and making the right choices

Creative practices in my tool-kit to make the most of this year’s energies

How I plan to manifest energy, joy and intention to make the most of this year

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Gathering lessons of self-knowledge

Valuing intuition and introversion

Gathering lessons on self-care and self-esteem

Writing and connecting to heal

Healing through community creativity

Vanquishing my anxieties with knowledge

Creativity conquers all

Creative Soul Living

Key book companions along the way

About Shalagh Hogan

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Remain true to yourself. Your authenticity alone will keep you in alignment with the energy of miracles.

Colette Baron-Reid, Wisdom of the Oracle – #47 Go the Distance

Theme for the week beginning 26 March

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 26 March

Book notes:

The gifts of patient endurance

Endurance through quiet strength

Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.

Love to hear your thoughts!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

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Coaching goals and connections

Swimming and exercise goals

Finding the best exercise for us

Celebrating exercise milestones

Being a healthy creative – what it has taught me

Coaching clients’ experiences

Sylvia’s journey

The Healthy Writer

How about you?

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

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We can’t learn to see if we can’t keep our eyes open. In just this way, staying open to the unexpected expands the openness of our heart.

Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk

Theme for the week beginning 19 March

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 19 March

Book notes:

The gifts of strategy

What we are attracting and noticing

Strategy work in action

Love to hear your thoughts!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Share this:

Like this:

It seems that we humans have always been drawn to find ourselves in the life about us.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Theme for the week beginning 12 March

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 12 March

Book notes:

The gifts of challenge

Seeking wisdom in water and elsewhere

Self-leadership in seeking wisdom

Love to hear your thoughts!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Share this:

Like this:

Our small lives, which so often can seem random, or meaningless, are actually an organic part of the cosmos.

Rachel Pollack, Tarot Wisdom

___________________________________

Theme for the week beginning 26 February

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 26 February

Book notes:

Dealing with a habit of loss

Alchemy + conducting magic

Alchemy + connecting things

Love to hear your thoughts!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Share this:

Like this:

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