I wonder when it became the norm to say you were an artist or a scientist?
I know this is the message I received at school, and even though I adored art and history and learning Welsh (I didn't like learning French), I was told I was a science person.
Don't get me wrong I adore science, biology, human anatomy, chemistry (as long as its just mixing things and making big bangs, I didn't like the equations) but I was made to feel, or should I say I allowed others to make me feel, that only studying a science path was the "correct" the "sensible" route.
My family ridiculed the cousin who did art and held the scientist in the family on a pedestal. So I originally planned a career as a vet, then a nuclear engineer with environmental science, then environmental engineering and eventually did Environmental Biology at University. Yet I ended up following a career in packaging which ironically required me to understand;
engineering (I'd help specify the machinery in the factories)
food science
polymer science
chemistry,
math's,
Physics,
design,
colour,
photography,
behavioural science,
marketing,
sales,
quality processes and system,
Environmental and conservation issues.
But throughout my career I craved something else, something more creative and something more caring and giving.
At night classes I studied body massage and aromatherapy, for me the mixing of oils and lotions a form of alchemy.
In my own time I read books on herbs, flowers, Bach flower remedies, chakras, witchcraft, potions, ribbons and other spell crafts. I gardened and loved designing gardens, (even revamping and designing some for family members). I always attend Tatton Flower Show and the year I was 40 I went to Chelsea, Hampton Court and Tatton. I love them.
I devoured books on coaching and self help, as well as fantastical fiction.
In 2008 I started writing children's stories and ended up with over 45 story ideas jotted in notebooks and attended courses and wrote and edited.
I painted and I sketched, I took up belly dancing, body boarding. I joined a choir.
But in my work I was always the logical scientist. No one could understand my creative side "that wasn't the Haulwen" they wanted. Also, in the UK you cannot currently plan a career in packaging and I was one of the rare people working in the industry with a science background. People wanted the scientist.
I remember working with some people on an education programme for packaging, we were struggling to find a place to chat so I invited them to my home and they stopped and paused. "oh" they said. You see my house is full of art. Every wall is covered in bright colourful artwork, I have art everywhere, books everywhere, colourful objects adore each windowsill or surface. And most rooms contain a musical instrument mainly my husbands, sometimes mine. My home is full of colour. But although this makes my heart sing and I'm all about future thinking and creativity that isn't what people wanted of me.
Before I quit my job, there was a role came up for a Packaging Innovation Manager in the company I worked at. Someone to run innovation for the company. After a few months of agreeing the role I expressed an interest. I knew I was not on the correct salary level for my current grade and the other person doing the equivalent role in Europe worked part time. I asked if I would be considered and do this on a 4-day week so I could dedicate 1 day a week to writing. It would effectively mean a demotion, but I also knew I wouldn't lose out financially. There was no discussion, just a no, "I wasn't an innovation person".
When I late resigned they did say "would you have stayed if we'd said yes to that role?"
In hindsight the role wouldn't have been creative, more a managing of a process but I knew I needed to let my creativity out.
When I finally left this job I expected to go full flow into my creativity, but my writing stopped, my creativity and everything slowed as I embraced my journey of re-discovery of my self. Now looking back I can see how that 14 months of training in Myers Briggs, NLP coaching, hypnotherapy and Time Line TherapyTM was as much for me as a person, than my business.
I needed to reconnect with me.
Now as I shine my light and as I embrace my inner wise woman and make her my truth, my creativity is showing in different ways. My blog writing, my cooking, how I dress and do my hair. Developing my Mojo Academy content and the free content in my Mojo Coaching Club, all allow my creativity to flourish, and although the self-doubt fairy sometimes strikes, I feel more content being creative more of the time.
Embracing my inner child to do what I love when I love it, is key and my daily walks to get my 10 to 20K of steps helps me to stayed connect with my passions.
But there are still things that don't give me my creativity kicks - doing my accounts, doing packaging consultancy which isn't in a creative way, but they are in balance. Because I am a scientist too, I am a balance of creativity and logic, a balance of dark and light, a balance of laughter and sadness, a balance of romantic love and lustful desire.
When we do not have this balance we feel wrong, out of sorts, as though something is missing, but we cannot find our life purpose and our hearts desires until we focus on reconnecting with ourselves.
Focusing on self-care and rediscovery has helped me to reconnect to my purpose and to my balance of creativity and science. Because science does not exist without creative minds making discoveries, and turning things we once thought as magic into logical constructs.
Our heart and our minds are not at odds with each other but work in harmony, we have to embrace this, so we can flourish and bloom to be the light in the darkness for others.
I can say that I still plan to write, and this year I'm getting back into my writing to write my self-help book and then my children books. Sometimes we have to step away to find our truth.
How will you reconnect with your inner wise woman to reconnect with your balanced self?
Bright Blessings
Haulwen
The Magical Mojo Coach
If you're looking for help reconnecting with your inner wise woman and your creativity, join my free group The Mojo Coaching Club