A solo mini episode about my passion for creativity and how it has not just shaped my life, but also become a cornerstone in my family's ethos. I discuss my own creative pursuits - painting, writing a book, and managing this podcast, each laden with its share of self-doubt and perseverance. I chat about " How far have you come" and Morgan Harper Nichols' empathetic poems.
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A solo mini episode about my passion for creativity and how it has not just shaped my life, but also become a cornerstone in my family's ethos. I discuss my own creative pursuits - painting, writing a book, and managing this podcast, each laden with its share of self-doubt and perseverance. I chat about " How far have you come" and Morgan Harper Nichols' empathetic poems.
Sign up to the next Creative Light Festival here:
https://creative-light.co.uk/
Sign up to my newsletter to hear first about new retreats:
Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/margaretsoraya/
Join my online Creative Haven community :
https://creative-haven.newzenler.com
Today I'm sitting on the doorstep of my house. It's end of August now, so we're in a little bit of a change in the weather and the wind's picked up a little bit lately. There are a lot of bees on the plant in front of me, so hence the bee noise. But I just wanted to mention that I did a little giveaway on Instagram. Andrea Gilpin was the winner of the print, and thank you to all of those who reviewed this podcast. It makes such a difference. So thank you very much and also do remember to follow the show. I think some of you were quite grateful when I told you how you actually review a podcast, because it isn't that immediately obvious and you can't reply to every podcast episode as you can with normal social media. You can only review the podcast as a whole. If you are listening on Apple Podcasts, you can follow the show, so you just click the three buttons at the top and go down, drop down to follow show and that means that it will automatically download every episode for you.
Speaker 1:Yesterday I was in all day actually, and I was writing an article for an outdoor photography magazine and it started to feel a bit strange and I decided that I was feeling a bit strange and a little bit down, a little bit low, because I'd been in all day writing an article probably, and this self, this awareness of what makes me feel better and what I should be doing in my life, and trying to balance that. It's always a balance, isn't it, when you've got work to do as well. But I decided by five o'clock I needed to get out of the house and, even though the weather wasn't very good, I went to meet the local swim group for a little swim at Hogbost and I just felt so much better, so much better. A lot of the time, I talk about being alone and being creative, but I think there's also massive value in community and there's a place for that, whether that community is a creative one, a swim one or whatever it is in your life, whatever looks like, there's a huge benefit to that as well. So I got out, I went swimming, I had a run around the beach with Skye, who was being ridiculous as usual on the beach, and I went home feeling so much better that cold water therapy, followed by a lovely hot bath, is just the thing I'm learning that I need to be out every single day and I need to be in the water every single day, so I'm continuing trying to get into the water every day.
Speaker 1:I just got back from Glasgow really recently, so I was kind of still in recovery from the experience of driving around Glasgow. I was dropping my son at university. In those words I thought I would never say, but I'm saying them now. Both my boys are now at university and I'm so proud of them for the lovely, caring and talented men they've become, despite everything that they've been through. Basically, at the age of five and seven they were plucked from everything that they knew in life and ended up having five house moves and three school changes in their younger lives. So I'd have kind of understood if their chaotic younger years led to a different path.
Speaker 1:Today and throughout the chaos of bringing them up, I took the hard route and I made a business out of my passion, and my creativity was always very prominent in our lives as a family. It wasn't always the easy way, but it was definitely the right path for me and without creativity and following that full time, I wouldn't be the person I am today and I don't think I would have got through the things that I went through, because I need to be creative. I need that in my life and it also need to be true to who I am. And my boys, I guess, grew up seeing that, watching me, watching me photograph, watching me battle with learning to write and to experiment with filming, and I often drew them into that process. So I would ask both of them actually, they both had their turns of editing YouTube films for me, because I couldn't understand the editing as well as them and they sat there listening to me as I practice my presentations on them and I guess in every moment I also encourage them to be as creative as they wanted to be, and they would often sit late at night. You in particular, would sit late at night drawing these amazing characters that came from his head. They were both very artistic and then the music came in and that kind of took over for them, both of them, and today you and is in fourth year studying music in Edinburgh, and Kamen is in his first year of sound design, and so that leads me to my thought process today. I was up late last night doing a lot of painting and this morning I was writing a piece of my book. Now, both things are things that linked my past my paintings definitely experimental.
Speaker 1:At the moment I'm just learning techniques and the writing I'm unsure of. In fact, this podcast I'm often unsure of as well, and I often run it by my oldest friend before publishing it and I'll always say is it okay? Because I want very much to inspire and help others and I'm always conscious of getting the tone and the pitch right because I don't want to patronise or to make others feel envious, and I guess I just want to inspire others by her being real, being human and honestly sharing my struggles as well as my joys, and I hope that it inspires you to be creative as well. My book that I am writing is a constant mind game with myself, slow progress, constantly querying, and I think when I look back in my life I've questioned how much the things that I've taken on are just too hard. I sometimes have felt I just can't do this. Why am I doing this to myself? The hardest one actually was learning to stand up and talking for the people. But then I think, what if it's not all about me? What if my creative life showed my children that they could do the same? What if the focus shifts away from those self-absorbed negative thoughts that I sometimes have and when I remember that it's actually about inspiring other people, well then I stand up that bit taller and I am more determined than ever to just keep going, to keep learning, to keep creating.
Speaker 1:And as I was thinking through this this morning, I was writing a little piece about how I've come full circle with my painting and I was going to talk about the subject of looking back on how far you have come and how that can often spur you on as well, and I was led down this kind of rabbit one which was a wonderful rabbit one because I had a great time of looking at Morgan Harper Nichols books, because she wrote a book called how Far have you Come, and I thought, well, I'll just have a look for a piece of writing from her, because she's the most amazing writer who really supports in her very empathetic way. I flipped through her book how Far have you Come, and there is another one as well, all Along you Were Blooming and I was reading through those. I had a lovely morning reading through her quotes. And then I found another book of hers called the Storyteller Stories and poems that she'd written over the years in response to people who had sent letters in.
Speaker 1:She says there are 100 poem letters in this book. I share them with you because I believe you have a story to tell and I hope these poem letters encourage you to keep telling it, and so she has various responses to people that have written in. But on this page, which was actually the last page that I looked at, this quote was the one that some dealt for me personally. For the Storyteller, tell the story of the mountain you climbed. Your words could become a page in someone else's survival guide, and for me, that's everything. Take care for now.