In London, a creative soul finishes her corporate role and seeks ways to blend her many passions into a new way to live and thrive. Valerie Lewis joined the Sacred Creative Collective in February 2020 for support and community in shaping her unique creative transition and vision.
It’s been inspiring hearing how Valerie has embraced the many diverse creative dimensions of her life and found focus in taking them forward. With commitment and step by step actions, she is negotiating her life shift positively, bringing the threads of her body of work over time together.
I asked alumni from the Sacred Creative Collective to share their experiences and how group coaching contributed to self-understanding and their future directions. Valerie reflected on her journey in life and the Sacred Creative Collective via these interview questions. I am so grateful to Valerie for taking the time to share her wisdom and insights from her transition. Being a group coaching program, the community and collective wisdom is an integral element of the learning and process. It was so wonderful to have Valerie as a vital part of the group sharing her special brand of wisdom and gaining strength and skill for the onward journey. And to be able to share her sacred insights here with you.
Enjoy the interview with Valerie! May it inspire you.
Can you please tell us a little about yourself and your transition journey? What led you to want to make a deeper, more creative shift in your life?
My current transition journey started about 2 years ago, as I became more and more conscious that I was heading towards the age of 60. Aspects of my day job were moved to a different department and my role had become less meaningful; and the beginning of last year when I started on a group programme with a Web Designer & Digital Strategist in learning how to revamp my website – I found myself withdrawing somewhat from the programme as I had a deep urge to ‘go within’, reflect and do some deep thinking about what I wanted for myself in the 3rd phase of my life, which would also mean some changes to the purpose of my website, what it reflected and who it was aimed at/served.
What are some of the challenges you have faced when it comes to living in alignment with your creative desires and aims?
One of the main challenges I believe I have faced, is coming to terms with the fact that I am multi-passionate.
In my early 30’s I consciously made the decision not to climb the corporate career ladder. Mainly because deep down inside of me it just didn’t appeal. I wanted to feel free to pursue or find my “passion” outside of the day job. This decision through the next 20 and more years caused me a lot of internal anguish as I often thought there was something wrong with me for being so undecided and perhaps coming across as flaky/a lost soul.
Outside of my day jobs, I threw myself into undertaking courses, lots of reading, and dabbling in varied interests from, introductory counselling, interior design, colour therapy, personal styling, energy healing and holistic therapies, working with my intuition alone and through attending a few spiritual development classes, and with tarot/oracle cards and providing intuitive readings, some life coaching, and over a 10 year period or so, also making and selling my craftwork and bead jewellery. All with the aim of trying to fit with the then societal norm of finding a one true passion. I realise I don’t fit so neatly into any box. It’s taken me a long time to accept and feel truly comfortable with this fact.
I came across a quote a couple of years ago, and it so resonates, as I realise that over the years that is what I have been doing (following the tugs that come from my heart)!
“Follow the tugs that come from the heart. I think that everyone gets these gentle urges and should listen to them. Even if they sound totally insane, they may be worth going with”. ~ Victoria Moran
Naturally, I can’t realistically follow all my passions at the same time. Some I’ve learnt (and still learning) to blend together and refine to represent who I authentically am and what I have to offer/support others with, whilst some passions will remain in the hobby sphere. But, I am always learning. That is a huge part of who I am.
Can you please describe your focus now and how you are working more in line with what is sacred and creative for you?
My focus now, is to provide a healing, empowering, Personal Growth Facilitation/Life Transitions Coaching service – primarily for people who have experienced a significant life change (such as loss of a child or someone else dear to them, redundancy, relationship breakdown etc) – which incorporates and blends some of my interests (such as Reiki, meditation, mindfulness, journaling, vision collage work and maybe in the future – depending on how comfortable I feel with Covid-19 and health/safety measures – massage therapy). Also to make sure I build in time for my creative craft based passions.
What helped you to develop your skills and new/renewed focus?
My focus has been renewed following deep reflection and also being made redundant from my full-time corporate role at the beginning of this year. Leading up to the redundancy, I was aware that I wanted some support for what I wanted to do with my life coaching and website post redundancy, but wasn’t quite sure of what that might look like and where it might come from.
What helped me was attending a small intimate one day goal setting workshop hosted by Sylvi Hussain (Transformational Coach) at the beginning of the new year. This led to more reflecting and I felt within, that once I left employment, and attempted to give new structure to a new way of living, I would like some support with this and also to be held accountable, as I developed and enhanced some skills, and further give shape and definition to my vision and goals. In a most serendipitous way Terri’s Sacred Creative Collective answered my call, providing me with the support and community I felt I needed to be in action!
What does creative transition look like in your life now and what are you proud of?
I would say creative transition is for me, as described above. Through the Sacred Creative Collective, I became more familiar with the concept of ‘self-leadership’ through Terri’s presentations and group coaching sessions, and in many ways I have been practising this (i.e. striving to live in accordance with my values, getting to know who I was through various modalities such as oracle/tarot, astrology and numerology and a basic understanding of my personality type, etc), but this was reinforced and greatly enhanced during my time in the Sacred Creative Collective.
It has been a long journey and I am most proud of listening to my introverted intuitive self, even when I doubted it and felt confused and being true to myself, and knowing when to reach out to others (who are ahead of me in their journey) for support and guidance when I need it. It was also good to have it reaffirmed that there is nothing wrong with being multi-passionate and not fitting neatly into anyone box, through the other women I met in the Collective who had all led interesting and varied lives and were also going through a similar transitional journey leading to a life that was more enriched and meaningful to them through pursuit of their passions.
What are your next steps?
Although I certified as a Life Coach back in 2006 it is an area I have not consistently focused on, and so much has changed since then in the coaching world (back then, for example, niching was not a thing, nor social media as we now know it). So at the moment a lot of my time has been spent getting myself up to date on what is happening in the coaching world, getting accepted and listed as a coaching partner on a digital community website for the over 50’s, working on a client welcome pack, refining wording for my offering, etc and before the year ends look at how I can use my Instagram account to promote and market my services and get paying clients and may seek coaching for this aspect.
I also have some personal creative projects to undertake (i.e. a couple of abstract paintings to do for my living room wall, selling off the rest of my handmade jewellery stock etc) and more writing – for my own blog and a few guest posts and email newsletter. A neighbour also gave me a large bag full of dried lavender….so I’ve lots of lavender sachets to make for Christmas stocking fillers! Using the goals and actions template from my time with the Sacred Creative Collective I am reminded of my overall vision and goals for my business and personal life, and strive to set actions and review and update every two weeks.
Thank you for sharing your sacred creative story with us, Valerie!
And for the beautiful images curated from your life story.
If you would like to shape your sacred creative life with the help of a coach and the camaraderie of a community, I would love to support you. You can find out more about the Sacred Creative Collective here.
We are enrolling soon for an 8 March start and 6 months of community, creativity and wisdom. We’d love you to join us! Places are limited.
The Sacred Creative Collective is current open for enrolments with an early bird opportunity until midnight Saturday 20 February 2021 AEDT.
If now is not the right time for you, get on the Waitlist to be the first to know next time. You also get Exclusive Early Bird access and save!
You can connect with Valerie at her beautiful website Visualise and Bloom and also on Instagram.
