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Developing an Artist’s Life with Lynn Hanford-Day

December 28, 2021

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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 28th 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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

Lynn Hanford-Day

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:

Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Wholehearted Companion Workbook

Free resources:

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

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

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

My coaching:

Work with me

Personality Stories 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/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writingquietly

Twitter: https://twitter.com/writingquietly

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

creativity podcast writing

Wholehearted Virtual Book Launch 2

November 22, 2021

Subscribe on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Podcast Page | RSS

Welcome to Episode 3 of the Create Your Story Podcast!

This episode is the second Wholehearted Virtual Book Launch event on 10 September 2021. I chat with Beth Cregan, Lynn Hanford-Day and Meredith Fuller, who have been key partners and supporters on the journey of writing Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition and the Wholehearted Companion Workbook.

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

  • About my book Wholehearted.
  • The value of co-writing and community to help write with Beth Cregan
  • Moving from Breakdown to Breakthrough with Lynn Hanford-Day
  • How Wholehearted can help people in transition, with Meredith Fuller
  • Tarot and intuition
  • How creativity, writing and art can help us heal, grow and transition
  • And so much more!

Transcript of podcast

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 3 of the Create Your Story podcast. This is a recording of conversations from the second Wholehearted virtual book launch event, just after Wholehearted was published on the 6th of September, 2021. Being locked down when the book was published, all the initial events were of necessity of virtual.

It was an opportunity to connect with people who’ve been on the journey with me in various ways. And chat about our connections as they relate to Wholehearted, some key themes arising in the book and about the value of the book for people going through transition.

So in this episode, I’m joined by Beth Cregan who is my morning co-writing buddy who supported me as I completed the edits and prepared Wholehearted for publication via our early morning writing connection. Beth’s a writing teacher, storyteller, writer and founder of Write Away With Me and has a soon to be published book on teaching writing.

I’m also joined by Lynn Hanford-Day, visual artist specializing in sacred geometry, Islamic patterns, mandalas and yantras at her business, Sacred Intuitive Art. And she’s also a Wholehearted Story author on Quiet Writing and we’ve connected through social media and our stories have lots of parallels. Lynn’s story Breakdown to Breakthrough is mentioned Wholehearted and is a story I found myself going back to as I wrote because of the parallels, so it was lovely to connect with Lynn in launching and publishing Wholehearted.

I’m also joined by Meredith Fuller, a psychologist, psychological spokesperson for the media, author, playwright, theatre creator and a fellow psychological type practitioner, which is how we met. And she also wrote the first fabulous review of Wholehearted, for which I’m very grateful. Meredith has some fabulous insights about Wholehearted can help people in transition and shares how she is using the book in her work with clients with positive results.

This was a deep two hour conversation, edited down to 1 hour, about Wholehearted, the book, getting to what matters, moving on from an unlived or unfulfilled life, strategies for dealing with uncertainty, how creativity can help us heal and so much more. There’s so much in this conversation that you can apply to your life and to work with clients. In the show notes (below), I share links about where you can find out more about my book Wholehearted and the Companion Workbook as well as more about our guests. The great news too, is that there are solo episodes coming up with Beth, Lynn and Meredith too where we dive deeper into their stories, their writing, and how they’ve created their story. I hope you’ll enjoy listening and that you’ll gain some insights to help guide your life, especially if making a shift to more wholehearted living and writing and creativity are important for you. Enjoy listening.

Transcript of Wholehearted Virtual Book Launch chat

Terri Connellan: Well people, thank you so much for joining me for the online launch of Wholehearted. It’s really important to me to have you all here from different parts of my life: long-term friends, family, colleagues, people I’ve met through social media, Wholehearted Stories authors, my psychological type connections, my morning writing buddy, people from so many places. So you’re all welcome. It’s lovely to have you here.

 I’m delighted to be joined by three special people today who are going to chat with us about writing and about the journey. And I’ll talk about the book as well. So firstly, to welcome Beth, my morning co-writing buddy. And we’ve been both writing books for quite a long time, getting up at 5:30 in the morning and writing together by distance between Melbourne and Sydney virtually co-writing, which has been fantastic. Beth’s a teacher, storyteller, writer and founder of Write Away With Me and has a soon to be published book on teaching writing. So welcome to Beth.

 We also have Lynn Hanford-Day. Lynn’s a visual artist specializing in sacred geometry, Islamic patterns, mandalas and yantras at her business, Sacred Intuitive Art. And she’s also a Wholehearted Story author on Quiet Writing and we’ve connected through social media and our stories have lots of parallels. Lynn i s mentioned in the books, I thought it’d be lovely to have Lynn here to chat today, too. So thanks for coming in early from England.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Yeah, you’re welcome.

Terri Connellan: It’s great to have you. And Meredith Fuller. Meredith is a psychologist, psychological spokesperson for the media, author, playwright, theatre creator, a fellow psychological type practitioner, which is how we met. And she also wrote the first fabulous review of Wholehearted, for which I’m very grateful. So welcome to Meredith and friends from all parts of life celebrating Wholehearted with me. It’s great joy to have you here.

 So what we’ll do is I’ll tell about the book, about writing the book, why I wrote it. And what I think might be in there for people who, who are looking to engage with the book then we’ll have a chat first with Beth and then with Lynn and then with Meredith, but feel free to ask questions any time.

So first of all, about the book. There is Wholehearted and there’s the Wholehearted Companion Workbook. So the two books very much go together. This is the main book Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition. And the Wholehearted Companion Workbook sits alongside it, but the two books were born from the same draft. So when I wrote the draft of Wholehearted, it was a 100,000 word draft. And when I sent it to Penelope Love, who was my editor for the book, she said to me, you’ve got two books here, which was lovely to hear. Cause I knew I had to cut it back. But I didn’t quite know where to start. So we went through the big draft and color coded which parts went in the main book, which parts went in the workbook and which parts maybe went somewhere else to be repurposed. But most of that draft was used in some way, shape or form.

So the why of the book. In some ways the book chose me because my experience was that I was moving from a 30 year career in the vocational education sector and teaching and leading within that sector. To wanting to shift towards more creativity and writing, coaching, just getting my life into creating my story in a different way, from the way it was going. And I think getting back to what was important to me, right from the outset in my life, but perhaps going down different paths, sometimes we don’t quite go down the path that we wish to go down. So I found that as I was going through that journey, I had plans to, still have plans to, write a novel and to write other things. But I just found this book was really calling me to write about that story as I was going through the journey of the experience.

So the why of Wholehearted was partly for myself, to make sense of what was happening, to fulfill my dream as a writer, but it was also about supporting women to develop self-leadership resources to live more creative and wholehearted lives. Because what I found is, as I went through the journey, there weren’t a lot of other resources to help me. I actually felt quite alone. And it was quite uncertain. It was a very difficult time. And often when you embark on a transition or a change, other things happen in that mix.

And it was about finding the signposts, the way out. It was about connecting back with what was important to me, about honoring my body of work. From that I developed a suite of 15 Wholehearted Self-leadership skills, which are in the book about things that really helped me to anchor myself and live the way that I wanted to live.

So I shaped all of that learning up. And in there as well there are some shadow aspects too. Often with any journey, there’s the light and the dark side, and some of the shadow aspects were things like having a shadow career which is a concept of Steven Pressfield’s. For me, it was about being a writing teacher when I probably wanted to be a writer. He uses the example of someone who’s a roadie for a band when they really want to be the musician. So it’s interesting just to look at what might be lying alongside or beneath the shadow careers that we’re pursuing as well. Things like grief, comparisonitis, envy are all things that I explore in the book as well.

Meredith had a lovely line in her review. She says, ‘As an introverted, intuitive, thinking, judging female INTJ, her work is well-structured while enabling the reader to meander.’ And that was definitely how I felt when I was writing. I knew where I was going. I actually had the structure pretty much sorted. That’s a mind map from February 2017, which pretty much captures what the book’s about. It says the structure could be personal narrative and application and exercise. And that’s exactly what it ended up being. So a mix of memoir, personal narrative, people engaging with it themselves and then working through it as well. So, yes, so there’s definitely structure there and it certainly is an INTJ structure. The cover of the book with the Nautilus shell, the symbol for my business is very much that idea of spiralling, going over our learning and often the same lessons will come to us or the same experiences and we’ll keep spiraling up through. So that’s, the meandering structure and often in the book, I’m revisiting things from a different perspective because I think that’s how we learn.

So the why that kept me going was that very much about completing the book to support other women. Part of it was about my journey and capturing that and the desire to complete a book and publish a book too was also very strong, but it was very much about that ‘why’, about supporting women to lead more Wholehearted lives through having the self-leadership resources and the skills and the strategies and a bit of a roadmap and a compass or a toolkit to know how to do that.

Beth and myself and another writer were having a chat and the word tenacity came up. And we was saying that it’s a psychological journey of, you know, here’s the ideas and you go through the drafting and for me, it was a four and a half year journey to get from that mindmap to where we are today. And it does require tenacity and it requires a real commitment to the outcome. But also to the process, I think it has helped me to understand the process. There’s a lovely book which Beth recommended to me called the Writer’s Process by Anne Janzer. She compares it to bread making, but you get the ingredients and you mix it up and then you let it sit. Then you let it rise. You move through that stage. And I think for me, that long journey was very much like that, that whole experience of letting things rest, letting them grow. But there definitely were times when I felt like It was all too hard because one, it takes an extraordinary amount of time and two it’s complex and three, it’s just a slog. Beth, do you want to comment? Cause we were chatting about that. You had some lovely insights too, because Beth’s just finishing her draft to head into her publisher. So she’s very much in the slog phase.

Beth Cregan: I feel like I’ve just finished the worst of the slog phase, but apart from the dynamics that you’ve already mentioned, I think for me, part of what was really tough about staying with it was that I feel like I’ve had, not so much a crash course, cause it’s been going for awhile, but a course in learning how to fail and learning how to put yourself up each day and not get it right. Learning that you can write and get notes back to say this argument doesn’t hang together. And I’m not someone who grew up in a family where failing was okay, really. We learned, we had plan A and plan B and plan C and you learn how to plan not to fail. So for me, turning up each day and not getting it right which is part of writing. So I feel like in a way it doesn’t matter what happens with the book. I think for me, part of the journey was learning how to not get things right. And be okay with it. I think that’s part of writing, don’t you think Terri too?,

Terri Connellan: Yeah I do and I think for me, particularly I’ve been surprised at the endurance that it does take. Like a marathon versus sprint mindset. You start with the plans, you do the draft and you don’t know where you’re going. And I had a bit in the middle where I had that first draft finished a hundred thousand words, and I sat it aside and I would tinker with it. I’d fix up the grammar and, move a few paragraphs or sentences around, but I didn’t know what to do with it too. So a lot of it’s about the level of skill you have. And what I learned on that journey was to reach out to other people. And I’m a person who’s very independent and will try and work things out myself, but it was really important to reach out to Penelope who is a publisher and editor of 25 years experience. And worked through with me on that a hundred thousand word draft working out, which was which book. And then chapter by chapter back and forward. One thing I learned is that it takes as long as it takes. Sometimes you can’t rush things. You just have to sit with it. And I found the sitting was sometimes about that incubating and also about letting other experiences come in as well. So I could write what I needed to write. So it was almost like the wisdom had to catch up with the draft.

But the hardest part for me was the editing. I had no idea how hard editing a book is. There’s the developmental editing when you get the structure right. And then we went through chapter by chapter. And then after that time, we probably went back through both books another six or seven times. So you’re just reading and each time it’s a different read.

Sometimes it’s fine-tuning, but it’s still reading. Other times it’s looking at the structure as a whole. So it’s interesting, cause by background, I’m a teacher of reading and writing. Knowing all those things about narrative and structure and writing, and then taking my skills to another level, which has been a really exciting journey. And one I can help others with too, also do some more writing, which is great. Beth and I are going to do a podcast chat soon about all the lessons we’ve learned through that journey.

So I might ask Beth a few more questions, now we have started chatting. We write in the morning. So we hop on usually at six now and set our timer, write for 25 minutes chat for five minutes about writing and about mindset which is fantastic. And then we do another 25 minutes. And you do two or three rounds. We try for five mornings a week and that’s a great way to start the day. So Beth and I formed a really lovely connection through that. So we thought it would be nice to talk about the role of co-writing and support in the writing process. Beth, how has that helped you that whole co-writing, writing together as we’ve written our books?

Beth Cregan: I would say it’s instrumental. I was thinking because you’d sent through the questions, I’ve been thinking about it in the last couple of days and I was really lost. So I had written a book or a manuscript and it had been accepted and then the publisher had changed hands sothey’d been overtaken by another company and they said, this manuscript, we’re not going to go with it as it stands now. We want it to fit into a different structure. So I had something that I envisaged was ready to go and it suddenly wasn’t. And at the same time that that happened lockdown started. So that was March last year. So I was basically without my job, which is writing workshops in schools, which I love. So I’d lost my work. I was in a house with my two daughters who were both working from home and my husband who’s super loud, working from home, like on the phone a lot. And I really felt alone and I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to keep doing it. I just got this idea that I was going to see who would join me to write at dawn. And at that time it was 5:30 in the morning. So we used to wake at five and be ready to go at five 30. So Terri wasn’t part of that first crew and the other two came and sort of left. And by the time they were ready to go, Terri and I had connected. So it’s really been the two of us that have been doing it all that time. I actually don’t think I would be here without that. So it was foundational to get up and to start my day in community with somebody who was a little bit further ahead of the journey than me in terms of, I think you were editing. When you started, you were doing what I’ve just finished. So you were probably a year really ahead of the game. Or a process ahead of me anyway. And without that, I don’t think I would have kept going. So it started, it gave me a structure, it got me out of bed, but it also gave me courage. It was hard. It was a hard job for me to do, to take something that was organized in one way and throw it all up in the air and put it back together. And it required real courage. And it makes such a difference. You’re not writing together, you’re on screen, but you feel the energy, you feel the support and it does give you tremendous courage to do the work that you need to do.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. It was, and that was the same for me because when we connected, I was going through one chapter at a time. And cause I had two books. I didn’t make it easy for myself. I was doing writing two books at once. So as one chapter came and the next one would come back and it was like this constant iteration going through. And then when I finished one book, we go on to the other book and then when I finished that one and then we go back to the first book and it’s a really hardcore process and it does take commitment. So just that ability to have others, as in my acknowledgements in the book I’ve acknowledged many people here and in one way, shape or form. And it made me realize, you think writing is sitting down with a pen and or computer or any creative act, but there’s actually, all the influences, all the connections, the camaraderie that we’ve enjoyed. I totally agree. The other thing we’ve talked about a lot is the value of routines and getting that work done too. So just that discipline, we often know by 7 30, 8 o’clock we’ve got done what was important.

Beth Cregan: That’s exactly how I feel. I feel like by the time I finish, usually my husband wakes during the end of our morning and as we’re finishing up, I can smell the coffee and you know, that it’s time to finish and you do. I come out of that room thinking I’ve done the best of what I need to do. Everything on top of today is a bonus, but I’ve actually met my creative self for the day. And that to me is the most important. It’s not always the most commercial. It’s not always the bit that earns me money, but it is the bit that’s most important to me. So it feels like church, dawn writing.

Terri Connellan: It’s important. For me, it’s about getting what’s important, done because often particularly running a business and earning money. Writing is not a fast way to earn money. It is a way we can combine with other methods to earn income, but it’s actually something that’s easy to put aside because it doesn’t seem like it’s a quick path to income. And because it’s a long haul, it’s easy to put aside. So yeah, to me that camaraderie has been so important. So you’ve read Wholehearted. What would you say it offers women? Who would you recommend it to and what would you be saying to them?

Beth Cregan: Well, I think it’s for anybody who wants to live aligned to their values. And that was really what spoke to me about it. And I think when I wanted to start a business and do something different, I did work in schools originally, it was because I wanted to follow my values. I wanted to put what was important to me first in my life. And I feel like Wholehearted is about that. It’s about living in line with your values and the tools that teach you to trust in yourself. And I think that self-trust is so through, I was always interested. I always had Oracle cards and those sorts of tools available to me. But I think it was after reading Wholehearted that I really thought, it’s not just a fun thing to do when you have a quiet moment, it’s a way of training your intuition. It’s a way of trusting yourself. So I feel like it, that to me really stood out. This is a way to learn to trust your gut instinct and align with your values.

Terri Connellan: Thank you for those insights. I love that idea of self-trust cause we talk about like self leadership to me means lots of things: being self-directed, fulfilling ourselves, but that idea of self-trust I think is a lovely dimension. So yeah. Thank you.

Beth Cregan: You know Terri and I’ve never met each other face and yet we wake up together every single morning.

Terri Connellan: That’s funny. The first person we see

Beth Cregan: It’s a very powerful way to form community without that face to face contact. I wouldn’t have thought it was as possible as it is online.

Terri Connellan: Exactly. It’s been really powerful. And I think for anybody who’s writing or thinking of writing or working on creativity, because I’m an introvert, Beth’s an introvert. One thing I’ve really learned from my journeys… I would walk to the beach on my own, I’d write on my own. I now write with other people. I walk with other people. I’ve actually found that – I don’t know if it’s because of midlife and seeking the opposite, but it’s actually helping me to have that community to get things done. It’s probably lockdown as well. It’s doing things in different ways.

Susan has asked what role did the Oracle cards play and what benefit did they bring to you? So thank you for that question. So tarot and oracle are in my book, I use them quite a lot. And Beth was just mentioning how she’s picked up on that practice too, from reading the book and putting it into place. So when I started my transition journey, I had three goals. So one was to become a coach, apart from writing which was the reason for it, to become a coach, to become a psychological type practitioner and to learn about the intuitive art of tarot.

So I didn’t know why tarot was important but I knew it was something I wanted to do. And as I’ve explored in the book, what I found over time, that it was actually my personality where my extroverted thinking side had been dominant in the workplace. And what I found was I had to get more in touch with my intuition. So what I do in the morning, I do Morning Pages just to write about how I’m feeling, what’s happening and then I do the tarot work and I find that it’s very much about tapping into the wisdom that’s beneath the surface of what’s happening. It’s a structured way to listen to my intuition.

Do you want to make a comment Beth too, I know you’re exploring at the minute.

Beth Cregan: I used to use oracle cards. Just to ask questions and perhaps look for answers. I don’t think I ever looked that much at the symbols. I would pull out a card and then quickly go to the guidebook and find the answer. So I sort of expected that someone else had the answer and I was going to access it through the Oracle cards. And I think through tarot I’ve started to just pick one or two cards, look at the symbols. See if any of the symbols actually speak to me. So maybe use one of those symbols to think about to anchor that week. So last week it was a pomegranate. That was one of the symbols that came out. So every day I would check in and think how does that symbol speak to me today? Is it the fruit? Is it about feeling juicy, which is an Ayurvedic term for having something to give. I listened to a podcast where the woman suggested that you draw your cards and then you write yourself a spell and that is little rhyming spell. It’s the This Jungian Life podcast and it was an episode about tarot. And I love that. So now sometimes I write myself a little spell and I’ve had some real breakthroughs. I’m finding that really astounding. I’m sure you’re totally used to that, Terri but I’m finding that things are coming up and I’m just like, whoa, that was exactly what I needed for that day.

Terri Connellan: That’s how it works for me. And what I’ve found with writing the book too. I had that structure of where I wanted to go based on that mind map and putting the structure, which I put in Scrivener, which is a writing software, which some of you may be aware of. So when you put it in the Scrivener, you’ve got the whole structure there and you can write wherever you want to write. So, I did most of the bulk of the writing in one month. I wrote 50,000 words in one month using NaNoWriMo, it’s National Novel Writing Month, but it wasn’t a novel. So I wrote 1,667 words each day. And through the practice of Morning Pages and Tarot, I would find that something was surfacing. About my passions or maybe about envy would come up. And then I’d think, well, that’s what I need to write about today. So it was a nice way of tapping creatively into what was surfacing at that time. So I hope that’s helpful, Susan. There’s heaps more in the book about it..

Beth Cregan: And I guarantee you’ll be, curious, and interested in learning more.

Terri Connellan: Thanks Beth, and really appreciate your support and our co-writing together. Thanks so much.

So perfect segue, talking about intuition, to have a chat with you, Lynn. So Lynn Hanford-Day is a visual artist, particularly sacred geometry and her website and her work is around Sacred Intuitive Art. I think we connected online through social media. I have a Wholehearted Story series on my blog. So whilst I was going through my writing of my journey and going through my own journey, I also invited other women to write stories for my blog. And Lynn wrote a story called from Breakdown to Breakthrough, and I found it was a story I kept going back to again and again, as I was writing my story because it echoed so strongly. So that’s one of the many reasons I thought it would be lovely to have Lynn here today. So Lynn,do you want to tell us about moving from breakdown to breakthrough? And it was a huge story, but how you see that process, what it’s like to move from really tough times through to breaking through, to being more wholehearted or whatever language is important for you.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Yeah, thanks, Terri. I look back on that blog post now and see it as a kind of really important milestone in my own recovery, if you like. So I had a breakdown in 2013 which came as a huge shock to me and everybody else who worked with me. Looking back on it, I think that the signs were there. I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t notice. So I’d had a 30 year career as a Human Resources Director. Along the way I qualified as a psychotherapist and as a coach. And that was back in 2008. Yet, having had all that training, I didn’t recognize what was happening for me. So I woke up on January the seventh, 2013. I couldn’t move. And. I told myself for three months that I was fine. Even though I was being signed off sick a month at a time, which is quite unusual in the UK, it’s usually for a fortnight, they keep reviewing, but it was when I accepted that I was unwell, that things began to shift for me.

And during that time I received an email from an artist. I’d bought one of her paintings, which was a very ethereal painting. And she was offering a workshop in meditative art. I had no idea what meditative art was. I hadn’t done art since leaving school. What really called me was the word meditation, and I’d got it into my head that to meditate was my way through to recovery. Although my counselor had said, you’re too ill to meditate. What you need is to learn to relax. So off I went to this workshop and it was a portal for me and it was really a process of automatic drawing. So we had a guided visualization. And then with closing our eyes, we just allowed the pencil to move across the page.

And then we looked at the scribble and noticed whether there were any signs, symbols, actual figures, you know, a house, whatever it might be and then redrew that. We sat in her kitchen and drank lots of tea and ate lots of cake. And it was a very kind of nurturing space for me, but that ignited m y exploration of creativity. In a very kind of monochrome world, I was fascinated with color and it was through those workshops that I was able to play. And I think I hadn’t had a lot of play in my life. I was very much my job. I was very much the career woman or single parent. I’d got divorced in 1999. I’d got a son who at that time was at university. I was going through the empty nest kind of feeling, feeling very lost. And I was living for my job and I also had a lot of unresolved grief. You mentioned grief earlier, so I kind of revisited Jung and in reading various other texts, this whole idea that you’ve mentioned Terri, about the shadow life, but for me, it was about the unlived life. And I became really interested in the symbology and meaning. I was also really fascinated by tarot and oracle. So I kind of started playing with that. And I’ve always had a love of mandalas. So I’d got a coloring book and I would spend hours coloring in cause it switched off my chatter in my head. And as I began to feel better, I tried to find a workshop to learn how to draw Tibetan Buddhist mandalas. That’s what I was after.

Couldn’t find one and ended up buying a book off Amazon, a pair of compasses and a protractor hadn’t used since it was at school. And again, I started playing and I also discovered something called intuitive arts because I don’t view myself as an artist. Intuitive art was a kind of a “real thing” that meant people who couldn’t paint could be allowed to paint and it involved a lot of layers. It’s a paint for the process and the sheer joy of the experience, rather than having to paint a particular outcome or anything representational. And I absolutely loved it. And it was , coming from within, hence the word intuitive. And so not having to draw or to create something that someone could look out and say, haha, that’s a picture of the house down the road cause I really didn’t want that. So a lot of things kind of coalesced and over the course of a couple of years, I did eventually find some classes. There’s a college in London in traditional arts, which are all based on geometry. And I kind of moved from making the stuff up and drawing my own patterns through to learning a lot of the underlying principles of many designs that you’ll see across the world be it in Christian churches or mosques or Shamanic stuff or Native American Indians. This is worldwide. And I was fascinated by it. So I’ve kind of progressed from there. And that was, I think, pivotal in terms of the breakthrough. I know if somebody had said to me, you’re going to become an artist with an Instagram account and people around the world are going to love your work enough to want to buy it.

I would have like, what are you smoking? That’s just not me. And here I am, I still work full time. I became self-employed. So I earn a living through consulting and coaching. Sometimes I take on contracts back in the world of HR. So my art is done at weekends or in the evening, and I’m not an early bird. So my practice is frequently late in the evening or on the weekend.

Terri Connellan: Thank you so much for talking us through a many years journey and a beautiful journey. And I think the reason why your story resonated so much with mine and with the book, I think we’ve tracked along journeys in that we both had long careers, mine was in a government environment and yours in different corporate environments. But that idea of getting to what’s important, not knowing what the path is necessarily, but that’s where intuition comes and that’s what I’ve tried to describe in the book too. Just the whole process of how we can follow our heart and move, seek out people to help us.

And skills. It’s interesting you mentioned courses. For me, skills was the framework. And I don’t know if that’s because I come from a background in skills training, but it was like, and I hear it in your story too: I want to learn this skill. I want to learn this skill. And it’s like a sort of stepping stone that we we go through to get back to what’s important or to get to what we perhaps should have been doing all the time, even though we didn’t know what it was.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Completely, I still do a mix of kind of making up the pattern myself, as well as working with some kind of very pre-defined patterns, particularly from Morocco or Persia, Persian patterns, but that tradition going back to say the 13th or 14th century. But for me, it’s so much more than the pattern because the underlying meaning and symbology of those shapes is really quite profound as is the geometry. So I’ve had an incredible learning experience, which again, I wasn’t expecting because a lot of that underlying meaning takes us back to people like Jung.

There’s a psychology, there’s a lot of numerology that sits within it. There’s a lot of connection to the cosmos. So I absolutely love patterns that reflect the cycle of the moon or Venus. And each of those planets create their own orbital patterns which are truly beautiful and timeless. I often set the pattern on layers of color, which is the kind of going back to that original inspiration about intuitive painting.

So as a creative process, it’s given me the space in my life and within me to do something completely different to the corporate world. And I think that’s why it’s become such an important practice for me.

Terri Connellan: And I think that whole journey you describe in your Wholehearted Story and in what you’re describing, and what I talk about in the book is that in all the discussions we’ll have today, we’re all interested in Jung. We’re all interested in intuition. We’re all creatives, so it makes you see why we’ve connected. It’s about that journey of wholeness often has those elements and we see it time and time again, of how creativity saves us, doesn’t it, art or writing.

Lynn Hanford-Day: Yeah. I think particularly with drawing of any type, it takes us to the right brain. And I’ve lived in a very left brain world and emphasis on the rational and the logical. What I’ve also encountered through working with arts is how it brings up the inner critic. If you want to encounter your inner critic, ask somebody to go and paint a picture because it’s right there immediately. And I think whatever your creative passion is, then the inner critic is very much alive and well. So I suspect you encountered that through your process as well, Terri. Learning to accommodate that voice and learning how to quieten that voice. And as you’ve mentioned as well, learning patience and the art of slow, because for me, the voice of the heart is often a whisper and we have to be quiet to hear that and to really pay attention.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for those beautiful words. And again, that’s in my journey and also in all the Wholehearted Stories that different women have written. You hear again and again that hearing a voice, sometimes it’s an actual voice, sometimes it’s just learning to listen to that intuitive pull towards some sort of work or creativity. But there’s continuing themes about that importance of listening to our intuition. I saw it in terms of my personality structure, just as our world is extroverted more than introverted, it’s sensing more than intuitive. One, cause she can’t see it, it’s not a logical thing. It’s not easily seen. A lot of what we’re seeing is that ability to reflect and Lyn has made a comment: ‘this pandemic will have triggered significant reflection on the way we have worked and lived our lives. Wholehearted seems therefore very timely.’ I think that’s exactly what it’s about too, that journey from being very focused and often it’s about money. It’s about income. It’s about identity. I found a lot of my transition shift was about identity. I don’t know if that resonates with you Lynn?

Lynn Hanford-Day: Completely, I realized that I was my job and my identity was very tied up with that. So I also knew I needed to change the way I lived my life. Otherwise I was in danger of repeating the experience. You know, relapse into depression is actually quite high and I was terrified of that happening. I think it’s the most frightening experience I’ve had. I had ovarian cancer in 2004 that you were either terminal or not, but with a breakdown, it’s like, how long is this going to last? Am I losing my mind? All of those things were very present for me. And to trust that I was going in a descent that was an important message for me. So to come out the other side of that living life differently and making considered choices. I think the word is discernment, which is often something a bit tricky to define and to tune into what gives me joy. And I think the pandemic has perhaps brought this into a place of clarity for many people that what really matters to us are not necessarily material things. And you know, what matters to me is actually having the time and the space to paint. I can cope with most things if I give myself that space.

Brian Walsh: I’ve been touched by, there’s something that permeates the three stories from Lynn and Beth and yourself about the capacity that you’ve demonstrated to be able to go to that place of not knowing and to believe it and to live it, despite all the difficulties and then to break through and deliver something.

I think that’s incredibly inspirational and I congratulate you all for doing that..

Lynn Hanford-Day: Yeah. I remember at the time, those opening verses to Dante’s Inferno about being lost in a dark wood. And I was really aware of that and, you know, memories of myths, like Inanna’s descent and so on. I was so conscious that that’s the place I was in and maybe it was intuitive, but it was like ‘I’m here.’ And although I’m trying to resist it and keep telling myself I’ve got the budget to do at work. And like ‘I’m in this place’ and like I said, it took me three months to kind of surrender into it. But that was the moment when healing began.

Terri Connellan: And for me it was choosing to walk away from a job where I felt I was quite successful. Where I got value from it, where I was getting money from it, part of it is stepping away from the certainty of things. But not feeling in alignment, not feeling valued, not feeling it was where my creativity would flourish. And that idea of feeling half-hearted rather than wholehearted is something I talk about it. And Lynn uses the phrase ‘unlived life’, they’re all different versions of the same feeling. I think of that sense of loss of self or not feeling fulfilled where we are. That’s why I love that whole idea of transition and that Six of Swords card that I talk about in the book. If anyone knows tarot because it’s about going on a journey when you don’t know where you are heading. It’s very uncertain and part of what I’ve tried to capture in the book and the conversations we’re having tonight are about is how you find those footholds and frameworks and compass es that help you which is why for me tarot, writing, psychological type, we’ve mentioned Jung a few times, for you, art Lynn. You know, the writing journey itself, all those things help us to move from the unknown. But definitely for me, that whole phase of uncertainty was incredibly stressful. I think that that living in the unknown, why the pandemic itself is also a huge change. We’re all going through our own transitions about it because it’s that unknown and that uncertainty of what the future is and for personal transition, it’s very much about that idea of what our identity will be.

So that’s why I wrote the book because particularly for women, but I think men can benefit from reading the book. I think it’s about how we can heal in lots of different ways and have tools to help us as we move through change to getting to what’s important.

So Lynn, do you want to make a comment about what you think Wholehearted offers women.

Lynn Hanford-Day: I sent Terri a note only yesterday, I can remember her writing that first draft. What an incredible creation you’ve made. I think it does offer inspiration and I love the way you’ve woven together memoir and personal narrative and the invitation for people to explore for themselves. I think the power of story and memoir can’t be underestimated. It’s the invitation for us as a reader to witness you and at the same time go, oh yeah, me too. And because you also have a story that shows a progression that you’ve also achieved many of your dreams, and that’s also inspirational to people who may be feeling a bit lost or just needing some more encouragement to keep at it with the tenacity. So I loved it and I’m sure many other people will.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, we’ve been on that journey together, so it was beautiful to have you be one of the first readers to provide feedback. So thank you so much for those words and for being here tonight.

Thanks for your comment, Lyn… (in the chat) “it was a loss. I could only feel half-hearted in my leadership roles. There a dream would be that we could work in these critical roles and feel wholehearted while doing so.” And I guess that’s a challenge for the workplace, all workplaces generally about how we can bring our whole self to work. That’s why David Whyte’s work, which I know many of you know David Whyte, the poet. He worked with in workplaces. His book The Heart Aroused is about bringing poetry into the workplace which really resonated with me and his book Crossing the Unknown Sea is very much about how we move from one space to another. He talks a lot with people in work places in all those books about the poetic and how we bring those things more into the workplace so we can feel fulfilled, which is a big challenge.

It’s hard. And particularly if we’ve been in an organization a long time and the organization’s changing, which happens, and everyone has different journeys. But for me, trying to squeeze what was important to me, which was writing, which was creativity, into like, I’d try and do it on in coffee shops on the way to work. And then I’d try and do it when I came home and what I started to do was I, arranged to job share with someone which created time to start to make a transition. And then my mother became ill and I never went back to work, which is what I’ve described in the book. It was a really difficult time, but if we can’t find ways to feel whole in the work that we’re doing, then I think to honor to ourselves to find a way to do that, whether it’s part-time, making a transition, it could be a sideways move within the organization. I’m not advocating people need to leave. It’s about trying to find places or work differently so that we can all get to where we want to be.

Beth Cregan: And I think we have so many more options now than perhaps we had 10 or 20 years ago because it is working for yourself. I always tell a story to the kids that I work with, that when I was about eight or nine, my dad who was a fabulous storyteller, said, the question everyone asks, which is what you want to be when you grow up.

And I said that I wanted to be a storyteller. And I think I probably said that because he told fabulous stories. I wanted to be like him, but I remember him saying, well, you can’t really, being a storyteller is not a job. So you’d be able to tell your stories at night and it really stayed with me that there were set ways to fulfill your dreams, but now you really can be a storyteller. A lot of the boundaries have broken down now. And you would think that would make it much easier, but I wonder sometimes if it makes it harder, because there are a lot of options, if you don’t like what you’re doing, you can see all these people making decisions outside that organization.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. There’s lots of different paths but I think what I’ve tried to do with Wholehearted is provide that storytelling you mentioned, that memoir, that gives people some hope and some footholds. I haven’t talked about money and obviously that’s part of how we make these shifts but I was more interested in the inner journey and the hard inner work of making those shifts because I think whatever the transition is, whatever the change is, that’s how we can negotiate how the money making happens and how we make those shifts.

Moving towards what matters and to feeling more whole, to feeling more integrated and certainly the challenges that I went through with family. And with lots of different challenges where you do hit rock bottom in different ways and you feel really tested. I think it’s that shadow side too where you go into the really difficult emotions and the hard spaces of grief, of rejection and of disappointment and then you work out what next, and I think it’s moving through that gives you the emotional skillset and the tools to be able to move through. And I think they also teach you what does matter.

 Thanks so much, Lynn really appreciate your beautiful sharing of your story and thank you for your support on the journey and for being here tonight.

Yes. So I wanted to introduce Meredith and just have a chat with Meredith. So we connected via psychological type. We are both members of the Australian Association for Psychological Type and both of us value the role of using Jungian concepts. Psychological type for me, it was one of my three pillars of change was learning psychological type because it made such a huge difference for me. And I know it’s something you use in your work as a psychologist. You’re a fellow tarot lover and you also wrote the first review of Wholehearted for which I’m very grateful and a very generous review. Thank you so much for that.

So I wondered Meredith, if you wanted to share about what you see in the book and in your own life about the value of psychological type and personal insights in making change?

Meredith Fuller: One of the things that I was struck by in the book is so many of us are in that liminal state because we don’t know what’s to come. And it is definitely the process of vocation is confusing now for people who are looking at their third part of their life, in their forties, fifties, sixties, even seventies, what next? And there’s no safety, there’s no security, there’s no structure. And given the comment we made earlier about so many people in our society are not like us.

And they are really struggling with the concept of not knowing, the concept of moving towards something that has no guarantee, that makes no sense that it’s so vague and amorphous. And so what struck me about your book for many people is that we’re trying to help other people who get the call and the call can be illness. Our bodies speak to us, they won’t get up and get us out of bed, or there’s some sort of crisis, whether it’s a retrenchment or COVID generally or whatever. And often that dispirited thing that we’re upset, we’re sad, we’re angry, we’re grief stricken, we’re lost. We’re desiccated, what’s happened that we can’t continue.

And in that liminal space that is taking quite a period of time. There isn’t much that is around to help the vast majority of people who can’t trust that inner voice. And they might want to go to see a careers counselor or coach or a psychologist or whatever. And what’s happened is that there’s not enough of us. We can’t service the needs adequately. People are having to wait inordinate amount of times to see people. And also for a lot of us working on the zoom or the technology is not necessarily the best way when you’re doing psycho-therapeutic work. So it’s very frustrating.

What struck me about your book, and I agree it’s good for men and women. And I’ll tell you a story about a man shortly because it’s very pertinent. This is something that I’ve actually started to recommend a number of our clients purchase. As of now, and I’ve explained why and how and we can give them homework and they can be actively engaged in sitting with that not knowing, sitting with the lack of guarantee, sitting with a frightening process, but being held and doing some active work so that when we can hook in and connect with them, given whatever happens with lock downs and whatever, there’s been a sense that they’ve been accompanied as they’re going along this journey, rather than feeling that staccato stop start experience, holding their breath, which is what’s going on for a lot of people who aren’t getting that help.

I see this as something that is an aid or a tool right now for a lot of people because people are being asked to do something frightening, to let go. So they’re afraid to let go and afraid to hold on. . But what your book does is help the vast majority of people who need structure, who need a plan who need to know how, this will guarantee if I take the journey that I’ll end up somewhere. It gives them a process that they can work with. And that’s why I think it’s really helpful. I’ve got two clients at the moment. One of the clients is a female who’s about 57 going through tremendous grief and loss of self and the difficulty was, we just couldn’t see each other very much because of the pandemic. So I actually got her to go through the workbook and then we’ll check in and I found that very helpful for her because she was being held. So that was important.

The other thing is I have another client and it’s very interesting. He’s a man who was in the army. He worked in about 20 or 30 different countries. So he’s always been moved around. School-wise, home wise, lifestyle wise, became very involved in physical fitness and health. During COVID his business disappeared because he can’t see people to help them. And he had a massive break where he absolutely lost it. And he was trying to get some work in a corporation. And of course he’s a feeling male which we know is about 25% of the general male population and a very difficult experience, but he’s also a sensing. So he’s a sensing feeling man which makes it very complicated for him. And he’s a J, very organized man. Very lost. But what happened was, as he was negotiating with the corporations, he was stuck with how political they were, how much they lied, how much he went away, thinking I’ve got the job. They said, they loved what I did. It’s all happening. And nothing happened. And he felt so betrayed and he was really not coping. And the idea of trying to go on a journey where there’s no guarantee. No “you can’t just go and try something else and that’ll earn your money and that’ll work” was absolutely terrifying for him. So I’ve actually been getting him to go through the book because questions are very relevant for a feeling tone male who’s absolutely lost. Okay. But, this is the comment I made about why I like how you’ve done your work. Often there’s this dichotomy. We can purchase career books and they’re like a business book and they’re so twee and tight and structured that they’re really of little use when you’re talking about an internal world in your heart, or you can buy pieces of fluff that are just absolutely not anchored anywhere and are quite silly and vague and amorphous and don’t help.

What I think you’ve done is you’ve created a space where we’ve got enough exploration for the intuitive world we’re moving towards. And certainly the more matriarchal world we’re moving towards but enough to help the vast majority of people who need some kind of plan as they explore what it’s like to know we’re going to come out of the other side of COVID, totally changed everything disintegrating and we’re actually talking about a new sense of how we live and work, et cetera. So for me it’s a psychological type book that’s come at a most helpful time for us to suggest other people read it, to go through it ourselves, that somehow isn’t a dichotomy, it’s a continuum and that’s what makes it a very precious thing that you’ve done.

And I’ve found the other thing is in how you’ve written it because you’ve been so generous and open and how you’ve talked about how other people have helped you, how their resources have helped you. There’s such a baring of your soul that people feel that they can trust you.

That was my experience. The other thing I thought I have to tell you, because this has just blown me away. I started getting involved in tarot when I was 15. So that’s over 50 years ago and my whole life has been about collecting unique, different tarot. So we’ve got several hundred bizarre, queer, odd tarot decks. In all my life. I have never met anyone else who can tell me about other tarot decks I’ve never heard of. You have been remarkable. The other thing you’ve done is your personal interpretation of what you’ve done with the symbolism has been interesting to me because it makes sense to me as we’re losing this very materialistic, 3D world, and we’re going into a very intuitive wave world, communications is very much more on that telepathic connection of using symbolism and synchronicity into how we’ll be living, which is really what the tarot is about. It’s using our unconscious, it’s using how we can embed each other with the messages and tell ourselves that messages and then interpret.

But your particular way of discussing cards particularly the Eight of Cups I’ve never come across before. And I really love the themes that went through the book that transcended every other definition, every other deck and so forth. So for me, your originality was something that I’ve been struck by in the work and why I say, even if you’re very comfortable knowing tarot, there’s something you, new, if you’re very comfortable doing careers counselling, there’s something new. So for me to feel comfortable to say to my clients, take this, go through this. And when we can see each other again, we’ll have done so many chapters or whatever was just such a relief.

Terri Connellan: Thank you so much for those beautiful comments. After four and a half years of writing, it’s so amazing to have readers and looking forward to hearing more feedback as we go forward. I really appreciated that the book can be used by individuals in a psychological coaching/ counseling context. It’s designed as a self-help process, but I wanted it to be whole, reflecting what the book’s about. It’s got my journey, it’s got the tools and then it’s got the support that takes people through. So that’s great to hear that for those people who were quite isolated at the moment with the impact of COVID and also your insights on tarot cause I know you’re a great devotee. So for me it was also making it accessible for people who didn’t know anything about cards which I’ve tried to do. And it’s great to hear that it also has insights for people who know the decks and cards really well. So thank you for that.

So you do think Wholehearted offers something for women and people of all genders? Cause I um’d and ah’d about whether to make it a broader title, but I did feel I was particularly talking about the experiences of women, but it doesn’t stop it being read more widely. Does it?

Meredith Fuller: No and I think that’s why it’s helpful for practitioners because the practitioner can say to a client who may be male or maybe gender fluid or whatever. Take this and do this with it. And then they can guide a person through that. Whereas if you tried, I believe if you tried to make it all men, women, all LGBTQ, everybody, I think you lose a lot of the potency because it really is primarily for the women who are looking at a particular journey, but it also picks up a number of the minorities who don’t quite with our typical corporate world. So to my mind, the care that you’ve taken to make it so personable is better than having it so broad that you can’t go as deeply as you would have liked. And I’m sure that people will be able to recommend,’ look, read it”. That’s enough for people to say, hey, this is helpful.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. I know a few people have bought it as gifts for others. I think that ability to gift it to someone as an experience and a journey. Quite a few of my friends have said, oh, I know someone who that will be really invaluable for. So thank you for your comments, that idea that it can be an experience and a journey to help people who really need it. And that it does come from the heart cause that was the question that popped up yesterday about moving into intuitive leadership and from a more rationally oriented extroverted sensing world in. So, I was tapping into my strengths in writing the story and I was conscious, it was a very introverted, intuiting book, but I thought I’ve got to write what I’ve got to write.

So thanks so much for those comments Meredith and for your support and particularly the review. So there’ll be more conversations about wholehearted self-leadership, writing, creativity. Some of the great things we’ve talked about tonight. So thanks for joining and thanks for your support.

Links to explore:

Free resources:

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

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

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

My books and book club:

Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Wholehearted Companion Workbook

Wholehearted Self-leadership Book Club – kicking off December 2021

Review of Wholehearted by Meredith Fuller

My coaching:

Work with me

Personality Stories 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/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writingquietly

Twitter: https://twitter.com/writingquietly

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

About Beth Cregan

Twelve years ago Beth combined her passion for creativity with her great love of writing to launch her business, ‘Write Away With Me’. Since then, she’s presented hundreds of writing workshops to inspire and encourage young writers to find their voice, develop their writing skills and connect with their inner storyteller. Her work has branched out to include presenting writing workshops for adults of all ages and stages and taking on the role of a writing mentor. She believes writing simply makes life better so in 2017, she set out on a journey to write a book to inspire teachers to develop a daily authentic writing practice in their classrooms. Soon to be published in 2022 by Hawker Brownlow Education, writing this book was a transformational experience both personally and professionally. Beth lives in Melbourne.

Beth’s website: Write Away with Me

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/write.away.with.me/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writeawaywithme/

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 website: Sacred Creative Art

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

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lynnhanforddaysacredintuitiveart

About Meredith Fuller

Meredith’s concurrent careers have included author, playwrightcolumnist & media commentatortalkback radio guesttheatre director & producer, TV co-host, actorpsychological 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’s website: https://meredithfuller.com.au/

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

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

love, loss & longing wholehearted stories

The Silent Whispers of my Mind – Journeying from fragmented to wholehearted

September 16, 2021

This guest post from Valerie Lewis shows how learning to listen to the silent whispers of our mind can help us shift from feeling fragmented to more wholehearted living.

This is the 23rd 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–the invitation is open.

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, 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’m honoured to have Valerie Lewis as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Valerie and I met when she joined me as a coaching client in the Sacred Creative Collective. In this story, Valerie shares how tragic life circumstances affected her so deeply. And how she moved through grief and feeling fragmented to connecting the pieces of herself through listening within. Thank you for sharing your story, Valerie.

The Silent Whispers of my Mind – Journeying from fragmented to wholehearted

My only child was killed at the age of seven. Amongst the shock and disbelief of what had happened and feeling as if I had been thrust into some horrific, unimaginable nightmare, as the days and months passed by, my mind felt so jumbled and filled with chatter. One minute my mind would tell me I couldn’t cope or I didn’t know how to think or couldn’t think straight. Sometimes at night when all was silent around me, my mind would tell me it was all a very bad dream and tomorrow I would wake up and my life would be as it was before and back to normal. 

There was one time, though, when a voice, which seemed different and to come from a deeper place within my head and upper body emitting a warmth and calmness which I temporarily felt (as it spoke), assured me I would get through this. Afterwards, I was to wonder if I had actually had this thought or not because I couldn’t determine whether the voice that had spoken was in my head or outside of it.

Life can be scary

We all get scared and want to turn away, but it isn’t always strength that makes you stay. Strength is also making the decision to change your destiny.

~ Zoraida Córdova

During this painfully surreal time, I had a lot of decisions to make, some minor and many major, and there were practical tasks to be attended to. Some of my biggest decisions revolved around the fact that I was no longer who I used to be. Indeed, who was I now? I can look back and realise that the voice within my head, you know, the one I said felt as if it came from a deeper place within me, the whispering voice that was calm, matter-of-factly and assuring, really came to the fore (not sure why—maybe I was just more sensitive and receptive), and guided me in some of my decision-making (such as the decision to file for divorce and also officially change back to my maiden surname).

Of course, sometimes it was a battle, as the internal monologue was overwhelming. It was as if diverse thoughts vied for attention. Thoughts of the past, thoughts about the present, thoughts about the future that could have, should have been and thoughts about a future that I couldn’t really define, visualise or even fantasise about. Fear and an overwhelming sadness were predominant emotions during that time. But there was also a strong will to make it through that existed within me as I embarked on my journey to discover who I now was and the eventual decision to move away and create a new life for myself in another city. I was not to know then that my ‘journey’ was a journey of self-leadership and would involve so much discovering and learning.

A fragmented life

There were times when I felt too scared to look ahead to the future. The future I had envisaged and had been working towards was now a shattered dream. Many of the tangibles in my life were no longer there in the form I had previously known them – my husband (was committed to a secure hospital for the manslaughter under diminished responsibility of our daughter, and diagnosed as schizophrenic), my daughter, our home, our car, even our cat Smokey – our relationship was now different as he was ‘adopted’ by an aunt and uncle and was no longer ‘my cat’ as such. Even the non-tangibles – routine and familiarity were now changed.

I no longer felt whole. I and my life were fragmented, with many of the pieces, like a jigsaw, now no longer there. Would I ever wake up one day and my heart not hurt so much? And would I someday feel happy again, and how was it even possible for a human being to shed so many tears? Would I ever become a whole person again and when would it happen – next month, next year, in five, ten years or never? How would I know, how would I feel then?

Feeling my feelings

When I said I didn’t know how to move forward, not necessarily in a practical sense, but in the way I felt and dealt with my feelings, someone suggested to just take each day as it came. It made sense to me. Instinct told me that to survive, I had to go through what I had to go through. I had to feel the feelings I felt. There was no other way if I wanted to remain sane. I would get through this. The calm, matter-of-factly voice had whispered that one time to me. No matter what the other voices said, I needed to hold on to these particular words and the lesson I was learning, that it is best to not ignore feelings (emotional states).

Somehow, we have to find ways to go through them. Sure, we can try to circumvent them, but feelings are pretty tenacious and can be quite slippery. They can sneak back into our minds and bodies and cause us to remain stuck with hurt and grief or to become ill.

One book, gifted to me by a dear friend in 1988, ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’, by the now deceased Susan Jeffers was perhaps the first ‘self-help’ book I devoured as I sought guidance on how to deal with my inner fears and confront and cope with life’s challenges. 

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them—that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.  

~ Lao Tzu

The silent whispers of my mind—my inner wise Sage

It was some years later that I really grasped and understood that my silent whisperer, the one that stood out (and still does) as differing from the other whisperers, was my intuition. This developed during the late ’90’s and early noughties. I became familiar with energy healing (namely Reiki); explored astrology, colour therapy, crystals, tarot and oracle cards; embraced creativity and journaling; and read many more self-help/personal development books. I also gained a better understanding of my personality as an introvert and thus my natural inclination to go within to seek answers and understand the world and my existence within it. Personal development classes with someone I now look back on as a mentor type figure, and also some spiritual development classes also helped to integrate this realisation.

My calm, silent whisperer does not repeat their initial message – they say it once. Sometimes they don’t even speak. I just have a deep sense of ‘knowing’, or some might say, ‘a calling’, a feeling which seems to fill my upper body. This is unlike the everyday mind chatter or internal monologue that goes on in our head. That calm whispered message or deep sense of ‘knowing’ can occur ages before I’m in a position to act on it. This is to the point that as time goes by, I start to question if it really happened because the other voices have started to interfere and jostle to make their point of view known and dissuade me, or life gets in the way. 

Trusting the silent whisperer

I trusted the silent whisperer’s message without question a couple of years or so after when I met the person who is my partner now and moved in with him, after being hesitant about sharing a home with someone. Another example is from 2014, when I felt called to track down and contact the woman whose personal development classes I’d attended over 10 years previously. I was pleased that although now retired and not actively marketing her services, she was happy to work on a one-to-one basis with me providing directional support and using guided meditation to reconnect with my inner self.

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

I’ve trusted the messages of the silent whisperer when it has seemed to make sense, but sometimes the scenario that plays out makes little sense. Life has presented me with more challenges and no clear route on that path. I’ve had to learn (AND am still learning) to trust that in time (maybe even many years later), the road would become clear, things fall into place and the initial messages would make sense. 

Who am I?

I can’t remember why or how I came to purchase my first deck (Rider Waite). Or the book that I also purchased the year before my 40th birthday and spent many hours studying (Principles of Tarot by Evelyne and Terry Donaldson) still on my quest to discover more about myself and journey towards becoming whole and less fragmented. Evelyne and Terry say that “it is not so much what is ‘in the cards’, as what we ourselves are able to see in them”. Also that ‘the Tarot is really a set of windows through which we can look at life from a different perspective.’ Two of my favourite cards are the High Priestess and Empress – archetypes which I feel represent my inner and outer self.

High Priestess

The High Priestess is the Goddess within. She is the feminine principle, the Yin, the receptive side. She represents the intuition. She shows us the path to realisation is reached by overcoming our own self-doubts, and by listening more trustingly to our own feelings and intuitions.

Empress

The Empress teaches us how to love. It is love that makes our lives unfold and grow. As opposed to the High Priestess, the Empress represents the physical (tangible) world. The Empress is there to show us how we can learn about emotions and feelings through self-expression.

Extracted from the ‘Principles of Tarot’ book

Floating – by Valerie Lewis

Self-expression and intuition

I feel more whole but keep on growing and becoming even more whole. For a good while, intuitive abstract painting has intrigued me and, a couple of years ago I decided to give it a go. The painting above ‘Floating’ reflects the words of the below quote and combines, for me, the two tarot archetypes:

In this life, your so called ordinary life, you must be rooted; and in your inner space, in the spiritual life, you must be weightless and flying, flowing and floating.

~ Rajneesh

Below is ‘Pink Haze’. She serves as a reminder that our life issues are rarely a monochrome black or white. What is in between those two colours, especially in times of transition, if we learn to listen to our intuition, can inspire and guide us onto a path that is true to who we are being/becoming and to living a life that is wholehearted and authentic.

Pink Haze by Valerie Lewis

My experience has shown me it is not always a straightforward path. There may be a circling back, dips, curves, stumbling blocks and so forth as we journey along this path we call life. The truth is, we are all born with intuitive abilities. We use intuition (hear those silent whispers or feel it within our bodies) every day of our lives, some more than others, but often we might be unaware of having done so.

Through perhaps fear, listening to the many voices (inner critic or ego), we ‘rationalise’ or dismiss what we have intuited. It often becomes easier to turn to others for help and guidance. But ultimately—the answers we seek are within us—and we already know what we need to do (even if we think we don’t)—to live life with a mind and soul more wholehearted and less fragmented.

Key book companions along the way

Just a few of the many books that have made an impact on me and my journey:

Feel the Fear (And Do It Anyway)—Susan Jeffers (1987)

The Successful Self (Freeing Our Hidden Inner Strengths)—Dorothy Rowe (1988)

Principles of Tarot—Evelyne and Terry Donaldson (1996)

The Magic Path of Intuition—Florence Scovel Shinn (2013)

The Artists Way—Julia Cameron (1992)

Tune In (Let Your Intuition Guide You to Fulfilment And Flow)—Sonia Choquette (2013) extract free with Spirit and Destiny Magazine

Healing Grief (Reclaiming Life After Any Loss)—James Van Praagh (2000)

Love is in The Earth (A Kaleidoscope of Crystals)—Melody (1995)

I am Diva (Every Woman’s Guide to Outrageous Living)—Elena Bates, Maureen O’Crean, Molly Thompson, Carilyn Vaile (1999)

Inspiration Sandwich (Stories to Inspire our Creative Freedom)—Sark (1992)

About Valerie Lewis

Valerie Lewis is a multipassionate 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.

You can connect with Valerie at her website Visualise and Bloom or via Instagram @visualiseandbloom You can also read an interview with Valerie on her transition journey.

Photographs by Valerie Lewis, used with permission and thanks.


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