Leadership and life coach, Kate Jones chats with me on this weeks podcast.
We explore the value of seeking out support, and not just when you’re in crisis. Coaching and mentoring aren’t just for therapy, but can be the guidance you need to create something new in your life. Sharing personal experiences, we shed light on the differences between therapy and coaching, and the importance of finding the right mentors. Trusting the process of change and transformation can be challenging, but it’s a creative journey that can lead to fulfilling outcomes.
Lastly, we weave in the power of nature and creativity as avenues to inner peace and well-being. Kate eloquently explains how these elements can help us access a greater sense of belonging. Rather than seeking answers externally, exploring these aspects can help you connect with your true self. So tune in as we journey with Kate Jones through the transformative power of new beginnings, the magic of coaching, and the promise of a more fulfilled life through inner creativity.
Kates website:
Kates Instagram
Sign up to the next Creative Light Festival here:
https://creative-light.co.uk/
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Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/margaretsoraya/
Join my online Creative Haven community :
https://creative-haven.newzenler.com
Leadership and life coach, Kate Jones chats with me on this weeks podcast.
We explore the value of seeking out support, and not just when you’re in crisis. Coaching and mentoring aren’t just for therapy, but can be the guidance you need to create something new in your life. Sharing personal experiences, we shed light on the differences between therapy and coaching, and the importance of finding the right mentors. Trusting the process of change and transformation can be challenging, but it’s a creative journey that can lead to fulfilling outcomes.
Lastly, we weave in the power of nature and creativity as avenues to inner peace and well-being. Kate eloquently explains how these elements can help us access a greater sense of belonging. Rather than seeking answers externally, exploring these aspects can help you connect with your true self. So tune in as we journey with Kate Jones through the transformative power of new beginnings, the magic of coaching, and the promise of a more fulfilled life through inner creativity.
Kates website:
Kates Instagram
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
I'm delighted to have Kate Jones with me today. She is a leadership and life coach who's living in London and she runs a business called Neon. Today I wanted to talk to Kate about this idea of new beginnings and some of the ways in which she helps people through these new beginnings. So thank you for joining me today, Kate, it's lovely to meet you. Thanks for having me. So do you want to just tell us a little bit in fact, just tell me a little bit about this idea of new beginnings? Are we talking like new beginnings? Obviously it could be divorce, or a new start in life, or redundancy. What is it? Can you describe it to me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I guess this is. I'm particularly passionate about working with people in midlife who are wanting to embark on new beginnings, and sometimes those new beginnings, as you say, are because something major has happened in their lives or in their careers that has forced, if you like, a new beginning on them. So it might be divorce or the end of a relationship or some kind of fundamental change in family circumstances, but it could also be a change of job or the loss of a job or being made redundant. It could be some kind of personal or family illness or loss of a loved one that has caused a kind of radical shift in ways of living or outlook. So that's kind of one set of circumstances in which people find me or come to me, and then the other is people who've just reached that point, which often starts not least from my own experience started in sort of well, definitely mid to late 30s around like is this really making me happy? Sometimes with a lot of clarity about no, it's definitely not and I want to do something different. And this is what I want to do.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's just a. I know I'm not happy and I've no idea what I want to come next, but I know that life is for living and therefore I'm not just going to sit in this place of dissatisfaction. So both of those and I think I'm passionate about it, partly because, I mean, neon is all about living fully that's what I'm about just kind of desperately want. You know, we have such a short time on this planet and so I'm personally very much about kind of making the most and wanting to live well, which doesn't necessarily mean it's kind of jam packed full of stuff, but wanting to find a way to live well and really really wanting that for other people. I think there's so many reasons why because of fear, because of expectation, because of routine people, you know, we tend to stick with what we have, because we don't believe that anything else is possible, and I really, you know, I really believe that there is always something more that is possible. And that's a lot of what my work in new beginnings is about.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's wonderful. I am when you were saying that. I was thinking this is. It's very, very relevant to my life and probably a lot of the people that listening I remember reading a quote, can't remember what it's from, and it said by 35, by the age of 35, 95 percent of us is borrowed and that's because we've spent around about that time. That's when we go through this process, isn't it of? Yeah is it called individuation? Is that familiar word to you?
Speaker 2:Well, individuation, I don't know. I thought individuation meant kind of becoming more of yourself, as opposed to maybe being part of what your surroundings have wanted from you or expected from you.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it does make sense. I think it's. I think it was in the book finding your element, ken Robinson, I'm not sure, but I think it could have been. But this idea round about that time, that that early midlife maybe the process starts, where we're starting to think. Hang on a minute, I'm living this life that I didn't. I don't know where it came from, and it actually came from other people or society telling us that we need to live I don't have children and then have this job and then have this house and then pay for this, and then you suddenly go you turn around, you go hang on, I don't need any of that, or I don't want any of that, or how do we then start the process of getting back to ourselves?
Speaker 1:I think that's, that's exactly what you're helping people with getting back to themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and interestingly, you know, even in my leadership work in organisations, I work with so many people who because the question of purpose you know, what is my life about, what is my work about, what is my leadership about is really key and it's, you know, a central part of leadership development work. And often, so often, I find myself posing that question to individuals or groups of individuals in leadership development question, leadership development processes, and then people sort of there's this horrified look on their faces because either they've never the last time they asked themselves that question was well, maybe they've never asked themselves that question or if they did, it was about 20 or 30 years ago. And now they realise that they have no flipping idea, except they do know that probably what they're doing is not it, you know, and they're you know, and yeah.
Speaker 2:So I kind of feel like in my, in my, in my leadership work, coaching is a bit of an act of sabotage in a way, or is a subversive and act of it's a subversive activity because often people who end up working with me on the in a leadership development context leave their corporate jobs because they, you know it's just like who would want to live like that.
Speaker 2:Really, really, I didn't, I left you know, I was a management consultant at one point and and I made a bid for life by leaving that, that question, what is your purpose?
Speaker 1:it's such an important one, isn't it? And I remember one of the first talks that I gave and it must have been about 10 years ago, and I started it with somebody asked me it was a friend of mine who asked me that round about that time I think it was about 38 at that point he said what's your purpose in life? And he asked me that and I was like, oh, I don't know, I have to think about that for a couple of years. So I thought about it for a couple of years and then I started speaking. I was starting public speaking way out of my comfort zone, but I knew I needed to do it. I opened the talk with that and I said I've been thinking about it for a while.
Speaker 1:My purpose is to share beautiful, quiet places with people. Now, that was nonsense actually. That was me coming up with a purpose, trying to think what is my purpose? Okay, well, this is what I do, so this is what I share. I share these images of quite Scotland. So I said, well, that's my purpose. But it wasn't. It's taken me another 10 years to realize or to work on that and to consciously think what is my purpose. All the time I'm thinking that.
Speaker 1:So, it's not like a you can't just go. Yeah, that's my purpose in life. It takes so long, doesn't it, to find it.
Speaker 2:So I suppose it takes so long and it also evolves, doesn't it? It kind of changes.
Speaker 1:It does, it's an organic thing. So tell me, if I was to ask you, what's your purpose.
Speaker 2:My purpose is to enable people to live, work and lead well. So, in the context of new beginnings, it's about enabling people to supporting people to live well, and I have my definition of what that looks like, but obviously everybody needs to find their own definition of what that looks like, and that in itself is sometimes the substance of what coaching, the coaching process, is about, and for me, it's all in the service of creating a more deeply human world. That's really. What I'm about is creating a more deeply human world where people live from a place of their deep humanity and what is true for them rather than what other people want to expect from them, where organizations are a force for good and have deeply human cultures and where we're all in service of something that is for the greater good, basically a kind of collective force for good. That's my purpose and my own little way in my own little corner of the universe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we can only do what we can do and the thing that is our purpose. We've got to really concentrate on it and not think, well, oh gosh, there's all these other things that we should be doing or could be doing. When you look at other things like maybe helping out poor countries or the people that are in war zones, or the doctors and there's all these big things are just incredible and then you go well, I just help women find themselves through creativity and help them live this life that's in line with their values. But and it's small, isn't it? It's small, but it's so important because people are living this life and it's very similar to what you're doing, actually, but it may be in a different way slightly. But to change somebody's life or to help somebody live a happy life is huge, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It's huge. It's huge, yeah, and it actually it's really nice for me to hear you say that, because I sometimes think, god, maybe I should be I don't know signing up to go and help in the Ukraine, or maybe I should, you know there's. Am I really making any difference whatsoever? But then, you know, hearing you say that reminds me of the, the, the thanks that I get sometimes from clients of mine who, for whom the process has been completely transformative and who are in a completely different space in relationship to themselves, in relationship to others, in relationship to the world, in relationship to their, to their working lives, whatever it might be. And I kind of think, gosh, you know, if we, if we all had the ability to just make a make, that kind of impact on one person's life, then you know, that's, that's pretty cool and it sounds like you know, you and I do that with lots of people. So so, yeah, we just do do what we can, right, we do what we can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's, there's an awful lot of lost people in the world who are they're suffering. You can suffer daily with anxiety or just just being unhappy or being stuck, being stuck in relationships or coming out of relationships and feeling completely lost in the world and alone, and that's a. You know. It's a good thing if we can help somebody with that. And I think I know, I know there's a lot of women in their midlife that are going through these things On top of all the other things that happen to you in midlife. Maybe you, you know your children have left home and your, your, your body's changing, your work life's changing.
Speaker 1:You've and then you're. You can be completely lost and I certainly know many people like that. You know in my life that that need help and the need to be encouraged to refine themselves and that can make the world of difference to that person, but then it springboards on, doesn't it? It springs onto their children, their relationships, their families. It's such a valuable thing. So can I ask you, how do you go about this process? How do you help people?
Speaker 2:It's a wonderful question and it's. You know, coaching is a is a strange thing in a way, because there's no kind of formula to it. I'm the consistent thing in that people that work with me work with Kate, and so there's a particular style and approach that I have, I guess, but there's always there's all. The initial part of coaching is about a kind of deep dive into the, into the individual, and giving them the opportunity to sometimes tell, simply tell, but often kind of excavate, if you like. Like. It's like a kind of process of them digging into themselves and sometimes surprising themselves at what's there and how they feel about it. I mean, I am somebody for whom my inner world is extremely important, and that's where my relationship with my own creativity comes in, and it's also why I love using creativity in my work, because it because so many people are not in touch with their inner worlds, have lost touch with it, or who were never taught or encouraged to be in touch with it. And creativity, for me, is something which enables people to explore and express those parts of themselves which otherwise are not accessible to them. So, yeah, so there's a, and the process of sort of self discovery, I guess, is intrinsic to the whole process, but essentially there's a there's an initial period of relationship building and deep diving into the individual, what their goals are for the process, where they're at some aspects, of reflecting back and how they've got there.
Speaker 2:I often use a tool called the Enneagram, which some listeners might bite me familiar with, which is a developmental tool and a very kind of in depth, one kind of soul level, I think, and then I will develop a, propose a coaching program to people, which will consist, amongst other things, of a number of invitations, if you like, things that I will be inviting people into, some of which are usually creative practices of one kind or another.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so I'm sure we'll get into the kind of the creative part of it, and programs with me last a minimum of six months. There are some people who have been working with me for two, even three years, but for the most part they kind of minimum is six months, and that's because if you wanna, if you wanna bring about some kind of major change in your life, it doesn't happen overnight, sadly, it takes a while, and they're the people that I really want to work with. But you know, superficially, I mean simplistically, coaching involves a series of one-to-one conversations over a six month period, which can be. 99% of them are now virtual, because I work with people all over the place and COVID has kind of changed all of that and it's partly about the conversations that happen in the sessions, but it's much more about being in a process of change, so it's also a lot about you know what individuals do at the invitation of the coach in between those sessions, which can it can be all manner of things. All manner of things.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. I love it because I'm I am the biggest fan ever of going and getting help. What's the word? Going and seeking out support. That's it. Support, a support. I just think it's so, so valuable, and it doesn't matter if you're having a crisis or you're not having a crisis, it can be either. I think that we need to yeah, seek others out, the right people. It's got to be the right people to coach us and to support us in life, and I've been doing it probably since I. I've always done it, actually.
Speaker 1:If I could find a therapist or a counselor or a coach or somebody that I resonated with. I will go to them and I think that has changed so much in my life. In different ways, everybody brings something different. Things aren't always quite right, but I think it's a funny thing with with you know, the therapy is is different to what you're doing, but I saw a life coach once and she gave me certain things. I've seen different counselors and therapists and they're at different times in my life and they've always been important to me, even sometimes they're important to me.
Speaker 1:I had one recently through it was actually I don't know if she was saying this I had one recently through a charity in in Rinesc called Connecting Carers and I was struggling at the time with my, with my son it's a few years ago and life overwhelmed, and they gave me some sessions with this wonderful lady and it was just talking, she just listened to me and actually she supported me through this time when I was questioning do I give up my house in Drum and the Rocket and move to Harris? Because that's what I truly, truly wanted to do and I knew it from my heart. And all these things were, all these logistical things were pressuring me and I was thinking well, should I do that Because my children are still on the mainland, my partners on the mainland? It's ridiculous, but actually when you put everything down on paper, it made perfect business, financial and emotional sense to for me, for me as a person. So I needed to bounce that off.
Speaker 1:Somebody who wasn't a friend, it wasn't a family, it wasn't you know somebody impartial, and she was the most wonderful person. She didn't do that much. We just, we just chatted every so often. So that's just one example that I'm a big believer in coaching of any sorts. I'll do business coaching. I'll do as much as I possibly can get because I think it's important, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny because coaching is still a relatively new industry, isn't it? I guess it's probably, I don't know, 30 years maybe, and there's loads of people out there who call themselves coaches, some of whom have zero training and zero experience and some of whom are extremely, extremely skills. And I think there's still some confusion out there about, you know, what's the, what's the link between therapy and coaching and, depending on the coach, you might get quite a different experience. But you know, essentially, coaching is is much more kind of forward looking. But, you know, certainly, in terms of the way that I coach, you know I work in depth with people.
Speaker 2:So, you know, the conversation doesn't go along the lines of, what's the new beginning that you want? Oh, I want to. You know, move to the outer hebrides. Okay, well, let's just brainstorm how you're going to get there. That's not how the conversation goes. The conversation, you know, it might start with let. Okay, let's look first of all at what's really important about that for you, kind of what is it that you really? What is calling you? In that kind of which? Which are the parts of you that know that that's the right thing for you? In which are the parts of you that are worried about that or resistant to that, and you know, and so we get into immediately, we get into the, into the insides of somebody, in the different parts of themselves that are often in conflict. The deep bit yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:And also the creative bit, I think yeah, I was going to say new beginnings are about creativity. Coaching is about creativity. You know we're kind of the the. The coaching for me is a creative process where two people are leaning into a relationship in service of creating something new, new possibilities for for the coachy.
Speaker 2:And new beginnings obviously are a creative process of kind of bringing something new into being, and one of the things that I think people in my experience often struggle with is wanting to know the exact end point before they embark on the new beginning. It's like, well, I don't know exactly. I need to be really, really clear about what the new beginning is going to look like, what the end point is going to look like, before I feel able to take a step across the threshold. It's a bit like saying I want to know exactly what this painting is going to look like before I put the first brush of paint on the page. You know, or I want to know exactly what this poem or this book or this song is going to read or sound like before I make the first notes.
Speaker 2:It's just like it's and you know, there's amazing David, there's a. I love David White. I use poetry a lot of my own and proper poets in my work and David White is one of my favorite poets and he there's a, a poem called I think it's called start, close, in which is, you know, it's just saying it take the first, think about the first step and then the second. Don't think about the third and the fourth, just just you know, take, take, take, take that first step.
Speaker 2:So yeah, you know that there's that thing about need. There's a whole lot of internal work around letting go, surrendering both kind of holding what you want in your as a compass point, as a direction of travel, but also being able to allow something to emerge, you know, and trusting the process. You know which is so hard. You know, I've been there myself and it's so hard.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it can be really hard yeah, so a couple of things there. I think you think that's where we're going into, that sort of fear fear of failures and it's that we don't. Just, you know that the people that don't fear failure so much are much more likely to just just go and try it and it will be one thing or the other, but it is very it's a very difficult thing, isn't it that? That fear of not knowing the outcome, as you said? I like that analogy. Yeah, I'm not going to paint because I don't know what it's going to be good at the end of it yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know exactly what it's going to look like.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to wait until I'm crystal clear about yeah yeah, and creativity so much of creativity is like that, isn't it? You do have to just go and just do it, and it's about letting go of those, those, that, that, yet the outcome and the, the need for it to be perfect. Once you let go, you can create freely, yeah, and then it's so, so powerful, isn't?
Speaker 2:it. It's a complete leap of faith, isn't it?
Speaker 2:and you know, and obviously kind of a leap of faith in terms of, you know, I, I write songs and sing and I write poetry and and I and I have this practice called visual medicine, which is a which is it's a very niche thing, but it's essentially a kind of painting and a, a creative and spiritual practice, basically, which I also use a lot in my work. And with all of these things there's a. There is just that being able to step across the threshold and just let allow yourself to let go, which I guess the stakes are much lower than in life, where you know you're worried about.
Speaker 2:Am I going to make the wrong decision? Am I going to let my family down? Am I going to I don't know end up living in the outer hebrides and shivering in the winter and thinking these winters are absolutely desperate? I wish I was back in Manchester or I don't know, whatever, whatever. Or I'm going to leave this job and I'm never going to find, I'm never going to find another job. That is all of those things. The stakes I get that the stakes are higher, but equally, you know, when you think about the importance of us living lives and being well in our lives, then you know a lot of the work that I do is about giving people the courage and the confidence to take the leap in. You know, in bite-sized chunks, maybe going at a pace that's comfortable for them. But yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:OK, so can you tell me when? Often, when we're doing this sort of work, when we've got this real sense of purpose and we are doing it as well as you clearly are and you've got such a passion for it, it comes from a place of having been there yourself or having empathy or some sort of understanding for this. So do you mind telling us? Is there something in your life that set this off?
Speaker 2:Yes, Well, I think, I think it's partly, it's partly always been in me. I guess that I've always had a kind of I don't know if it's a restless spirit exactly but a kind of an unwillingness to settle so and on the one hand, it's something that I'm, I'm proud of, if you like. I kind of see as part of my independent spirit and my determination to kind of, you know, to live well. You know, I always kind of see that as something that might be ended up being written on my gravestone, but it also it's also kind of created challenges for me because it's meant that I have had to. There was a whole raft of new beginnings in relationships and in work that I have that I've chosen to navigate my way through. So, you know, professionally I guess this is the third, this is the third stage of my career, because the first part of my career I was trained as a social worker and a probation officer and worked with, worked with offenders in the criminal justice system. Second, and then I, after 10 years it seems to have happened in 10 year kind of chapters then I, then I became a management, joined a management consulting firm, so quite a radical change. And then, after 10 years of doing that. I left in order to set up my own business.
Speaker 2:So there have been sort of three reinventions, if you like, professionally, but personally as well. I mean, for example, I think I think at the age of I found turning 40, I'm now 53, I found turning 40 incredibly difficult. I found turning 50 fabulous. I had an absolute celebration. But turning 40, I think there was something about as a woman. The relationship that I was in at the time had just ended. I was I just come back from a sabbatical a year off traveling in wild, beautiful places in Africa that I'd absolutely loved, but was back in the management consulting firm which by then I knew I did not want to be at anymore. And I was there, was there, was, you know, there was definitely that sense of oh God. You know, I'm starting again in personally and feeling like my identity as a woman was changing suddenly, feeling like I'd become invisible as far as my sexuality and femininity was concerned, and finding that I found that incredibly, incredibly difficult period. So you know, and I guess that was well that was in 2012, I think, 2009, 2010. And I it took me another few years before I, for example, found the courage to leave my consulting job.
Speaker 2:But that whole period of kind of facing a lot of uncertainty and a lot of soul searching and a lot of I remember likening that periods to feeling like, especially when I ended up, even when I found the courage to leave that my consulting job, and as though I'd moved into a vast, massive new house which was huge but completely undecorated no furniture which is completely empty, and I was just completely daunted about how, oh my God, on the one hand, I've got all this freedom now and opportunity, but I like, where do I start? I don't even know what colours I want on the walls. I don't know, because I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do. You know, I had. I just I talked a lot about I want to be more creative. That was my thing. I was saying I'm going to be more creative and I'm going to work more in depth with people. But that was it.
Speaker 2:I definitely didn't have a plan. I had a dream, but not a plan. A bit like Martin Luther King, he didn't have a plan, did he? He had a dream. I'm not likening myself to Martin Luther King, let me see if we made that clear. But you know, I had a yearning. I had a longing for a different kind of life, but I didn't know exactly what it was going to look like or how to get there, and I didn't. I did have a coach at one point actually during that process, but, yeah, having someone to accompany you through that, through that, through that somewhat treacherous and tumultuous territory of change is can be really, really special and really powerful, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I suppose what you're saying there is. It's quite interesting, isn't it? Because it doesn't have to be massively dramatic. The things that happen to us, we all go through times, don't we that? We all go through these changes and there can be lots of little changes, like a new house.
Speaker 1:I got a little bit stressed a couple of months ago with my house because I was like, oh, my goodness, I've got to get it all decorated so I can move the furniture across, and I had to go through this process. I had to go through and it's like, how do I cope with all this? It's just, it's navigating. It's navigating these small things as well as the bigger things that can happen, and we all everybody does that. So what we're talking about here is not for specific people that have had some massive, massively traumatic change in the lives, it's literally for everybody. And it's literally for everybody who wants to live more in line with their true way of living, that they want to. And that looks different for everybody, doesn't it? We stay stuck, don't we? I think that's what you're saying and it's so true. I see it a lot people stay stuck.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I get. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:I mean, it is for those people for whom, as I said, something kind of major might have happened. But also, you know, I think, is it Joseph Campbell in this hero's journey? You know the kind of American was, he a philosopher, who talked about the hero's journey? And sometimes there's that call to adventure, there's that voice in your head that is whispering. There's just, there's something more. I just feel that there's something more than this and some people come to me being really clear about what that something more is and they want help in, in, in kind of creating that in their lives. And some people come just in that place of dissatisfaction or having a yearning or a longing for something different, but having no clue as to what it is or what it might look like. And all you know, yeah, all of all of those are kind of common experiences of people, the people that I work with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so tell me, yeah, tell me a little bit more about the the creative side of things, then. So you do you use creativity as a tool to help people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not the only tool that I use, isn't it? But? And also, it depends quite a lot on the people that I'm working with and kind of what their, what their preferences are, but visual medicine is something that I'm using increasingly. So visual medicine is is a practice that was developed by a very wonderful, very wise, wonderful, fabulous woman called Suzette Clough, who is an artist and psychotherapist based in, based in north London, and she developed this practice, which she calls a creative spiritual practice, which is which combines painting with meditation and journaling and personal development. But it's a form of painting that is literally accessible to anybody, that is able to lift, to scoop paint onto a page and choose which colors they want, to combine it, and it's guaranteed to generate beautiful results and it also has, I mean, the the paintings are often. They look, they often look like satellite images of landscapes or seascapes and an incredibly powerful invitations to the imagination and, suzette would say, to the soul. So this practice is something that she's developed, which. So there's the painting practice itself, which is it is literally, you know it's acrylic paints and you scoop, you dampen the paper and then you, okay, choose the colors and it just does its wonderful thing, but then you use the paintings almost as a way of dialoguing with yourself. You know there's a there's a way of asking questions and then using those questions to using the paintings to help you inquire into the question that you're asking. So it's a practice that I now do regularly myself, but it's also something that I am increasingly bringing into my work with people, because even kind of showing people, sharing paintings that I've done with people, even over zoom, and then inviting them to use the painting as a way of exploring some aspect of a question that they're tackling, is amazing. What can come out of that. You know, stuff like people are like even you might. You know, I'd say initially, you know, can I, can we just try something using this painting, and they'd be like, yeah, okay, I'm feeling a bit skeptical. And then the next minute they're saying, you know, thinking of a conversation I had recently with somebody that was saying it wouldn't it be, I would love to live in that fuchsia pink. There was this kind of splash of kind of magenta pink on the in the painting and it led to a whole conversation about how much she longed for adventure and travel and to be out of the city and to be, you know so, so, yeah, so I use, so I use the visual medicine practice.
Speaker 2:I use writing practices quite a lot. I use free, free writing, quite a lot of Julia Cameron's the Artist Way stuff and kind of morning page, morning pages, kind of wild writing type exercises. There are some people who have specific creative projects that they want to kind of work on, but really I'm interested in finding creative practices that enable people to explore more parts of themselves, express different parts of themselves, become more like treating new beginnings as like paint spreading on a page, rather than some kind of need to control, need to decide, need to push and drive. It's just like how about we approach this new beginning like the paint spreading on a on a on a piece of watercolor paper?
Speaker 2:You know what would that be like? What does that make possible for you? It's much more easeful, it's much more playful, it's much more joyful. Yeah so, yeah so creativity is and we know I also use visualization a lot embodiment stuff, which is, you know, creativity, and I wouldn't call embodiment creative exactly, but kind of different, not just talking, not just talking practices, if you like, not just conversation fabulous.
Speaker 1:I love, I even love the the phrase visual medicine. Yeah, I think it's just brilliant. I really really do, genuinely. I think it'd be nice to have a discussion with you and another time about maybe coming up to my festival, where we we've won a creative festival of a year. Well, I'd love that, so I'd love to and also we're running.
Speaker 2:I've teamed up with a fellow coach who is also a forest bathing in instructor and she and I are starting to are going to start in October as the first one running running retreats that combine visual medicine with forest bathing, because there is a kind of an amazing sort of crossover between the two but and they're really about enabling people to find a deeper sense of connection with themselves. I think you know there's also you talking about people being lost. We can spend our whole time kind of desperately trying to find answers or a sense of well-being by grabbing at things in the external world.
Speaker 2:You know, even things like bloody Netflix and the next promotion, or, and yet you know our view is what if we look inside ourselves for that greater sense of connection and visual medicine and forest bathing, what the natural world, painting and the natural world are beautiful, easily accessible portals through which I mean I know that I personally access a deeper sense of well-being and connection in nature and in the create, in in my own creative expression, then I do really in most other parts of my life, if I'm honest. So we, you know, we're keen to to share that with people wonderful.
Speaker 1:You just you just kind of summed it up there, I think. I think it's a good, a good time to to end, but I think we'll be hearing more from you anyway in various forms. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. It was really lovely to speak to you it's lovely to speak to you, margaret.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, you.