How’ve you been diddling my love? In the last month, I’ve learnt A LOT about what I know I don’t know 😁 and even more about what I’m yet to know that I don’t know! 😮‍💨

Tbh, it feels a bit like I’m standing beside a growing pile of stuff that I need to eat, chew and digest to be able to move forward, but I’m already full to the brim and it’s growing way too fast for me to take any kinda bite!

[Current live scenes:]

Basically babes, my overly protective unconscious mind is having none of this ‘learning something new’ business. In fact, she wants me to have nothing to do it.

Far too dangerous innit.

I mean, what if I got as far as to create a children’s book and it actually got made? Other people might have an opinion on it, judge it and ACTUALLY SEE IT?! No chance she’s gonna let that happen. Not on her watch.

Despite my studying the human mind for years as a coach and understanding exactly what’s happening here (a whole load of very normal resistance), I’m right there in the trenches experiencing the human condition too, and let’s be real – it’s fecking hard sometimes!

So there’s two options on the table here;

1. Oppose everything my body is encouraging me to do (which is give up and not change anything), swim against the tide and just start leaning into the discomfort of not knowing enough, learning and sharing. Or…

2. Give up. Put this so far down my list it becomes invisible, and stop sharing my diary entries here.

So which did I opt for?

= I am not defeated babes! 🦁 RAWR!

Far from it.

At times like this, I often sit quietly and imagine having a natter with my 80-year-old self. And for me, it’s just not an option for us not to be giggling about ‘that time when I let myself play as an artist/author with creating children’s books’. However inconvenient, ‘impossible’ or impractical it was.

The regret of not trying would just be intolerable for me.

Because of how everything has played out for me and my professional life over the past few years, I’m now acutely aware now of how much creating and creativity is more than a career, an interest or a passion to me, it’s actually a necessity.

In all its beautiful forms.

I stop functioning without it. I love that my career is now stewarding creativity every day, and I love that I now know how crucial it is for me to create for me too.

And while my resistance evidently feels more peak than it’s ever done in my life, my commitment to overcoming it is fucking peakier! Ha!

Plus – the little wins through the resistance? When they do come; those lil microbites of progress through the mounds of ‘stuff’ in the way – they’re as sweet as honey bebe! 😋

This month’s microbite to big bite:

Like this month, grasping how much children’s book illustration needs to tell a story through the FEELING the visual creates, rather than expecting words to do all the work, has gone from being a nibble of a discovery / a nibble of progress, into a kinda lightbulb moment that feels quite pivotal.

And how do you create a feeling with an illustration?

With colour, texture and composition of course. With characters’ posture, size and scale – sure, but mostly?

With expression.

So yep, I was today years old when I started to learn the importance of, and begun to learn how to draw – expressions babes!

What a revelation 😅

Of course, the obvious are ‘happy’ and ‘sad’, and I can of course draw those two. But ‘embarrassed’? ‘Cocky’? ‘Shy’?

I realised I didn’t quite know where to go.

Here’s some v.rudimental sketches of my learnings-in-progress.

Understanding the six ‘core’ emotions…

1. Happy

2. Sad

3. Angry

4. Fear

5. Surprise

6. Boredom

…and how the characteristics of those emotions blend to create more complex emotions…

• Embarrassed (surprise + fear)

• Cocky (bored + happy)

• Shy (fear + happy)

…has opened up a whole new dimension in my visual thinking!

All of this is just developmental play-work that typically wouldn’t be shown to anyone, and I do still feel quite far away from creating a character to develop a story around too (which I’m okay with)…BUT!

I’m now looking forward to bringing more complex emotions and expressions to the mix now over the next month, and seeing if anyone/anything I create ‘comes to life’ more as a result ya know?

And that’s the coolest bit about learning more when you realise you’ve always more to learn! It gets MORE enjoyable!

This month’s co-creating call!

I’m also hosting this month’s co-creating call on Thursday 20th February at 7:30pm GMT 🥳 so if you’re about and you’re craving some down-time/creative-time to yourself (that you otherwise struggle to give yourself), then I’d love to see you there!

After a bit of colouring in warm-up time, I might try creating a character! HBU?

If you’re not yet a subscriber and would like to come along and try it out, you can subscribe on a 7-day free trial by tapping the button below (and if you choose to unsubscribe during that, I don’t mind at all! I promise we’ll still be mates) 😊

Claim your 7-day free trial

Right, I’m off to go bowling with the fam so I need to warm up my bowl-ey-tippy-toes!

Look after yourself, and hope to hang with you and your creativity on Thursday! 🫶🏻

Is it perimenopause? Is it a natural side-effect of mid-life-living? Is it having my complete world-view and life-perspective blown wide open by the genocide over the last 15 months? Or is it my stepping off the hamster wheel of being a full-time business owner? 🧐

Not sure.

Probably a bit of all of the above tbh.

But what I do know is, this is the most chill and grounded I’ve felt about starting a new calendar year since I can remember.

My new year brain in my 20s was perpetually filled with existential dread of the unknown about where my life and career were going. Almost desperately asking my career and setting career goals to help me better understand who I was and what I actually wanted.

My new year brain in my 30s and early 40s was then perpetually filled with setting business-business-business goals – how could I grow it more, improve it more, get it seen more, enjoy it more. Every year hoping that ‘this year was MY year’.

(In hindsight, I think I was just always trying to prove something to myself somehow. Or to the world).

But now? I officially reached my mid-40s in December 🥳 and following my big life change in 2024, I’ve really surprised myself by my new year brain just happening upon this feeling of…well, contentment 🥰

It’s so unfamiliar! 😅

Any ‘2025 achievement’ that’s come to my mind/heart, is purely just about how I can play more, live more and grow as a person.

Not as a professional.

Something I actually don’t ever remember doing/feeling before. And that feels proper different man! I’m proper diggin’ it!

So! Inspired by ’s ins and outs for 2025…here’s mine!

IN (what I’m doing more of)

1. Dance classes / more joyful dancing in general

2. Roller skating backwards like-a-boss (i.e, practise way more)

3. Weekly sketching (working towards daily!)

4. Art & Pottery classes IRL and making tangible art (first one’s booked!)

5. Learning more of the Irish language

6. Silliness

7. Bold colour and pattern

8. Painted nails

9. Buying pre-loved things

10. Making new friends

OUT (what I’m letting go of)

1. Uninspiring YouTube workouts / moving out of a feeling of obligation

2. Roller skating backwards clunkily like an un-oiled robot

3. When-I-get-time sketching

4. Passively learning art tricks on social media and rarely actioning them

5. Only speaking the English language

6. Seriousness

7. Swathes of black and neutrals

8. Forgotten nails

9. Buying new all the time

10. Being too busy to socialise

The best bit

What I love most about this new vibe with my new year goals, is how accessible they feel.

I don’t have to wait or work for months on end for a goal to bear fruit like I would a professional goal. They’re actually more just like different decisions I get to make y’know? And there’s so much space and freedom in that!

Have you got any ins and outs for 2025? Emma Gannon’s ones are so lush. For instance – OMG YESSSS to really good socks! 😁

Let me know if you’ve got any gooduns in the comments too!

Co-creating club hot date

I’m also dead excited to host my next co-creating club again for January for my paid subscribers! 😊

By that I mean;

1. We gather online for about an hour. Likely a Monday/Thursday at around 7:30pm GMT – vote in the poll below!

2. You bring something to the call that you want to spend some time creating/playing with.

3. I bring something to the call that I want to spend some time creating/playing with too.

4. And then we go create/play together!

(…on mute mind, so if you wanna blast tunes, sing your heart out or even make music, you can do so to your heart’s content!)

The impact of that peer accountability means in practice, we both make that commitment in our calendars each month, and can’t help but then create/play each month…with things that are actually important to us!

Lemme tell ye, it’s so much fun actually MAKING TIME to play – and then playing! 😊 It feels like the 1980s for me all over again ❤️

So tell me…

It would be the coolest honour ever to create and play alongside you babes 😊 even if that playing is something like colouring in (which is what I did for the first 20 minutes of our last session)! 😍

Anywaysies, my laptop is about to run out of charge and I’m at a coffee shop without a plug! But let me know what co-creating club date works for you and I’ll see you there babes! HNY!

Big big love and creative magic ⚡️

Our first co-creating club this week was such a delight babes 🥹 I’ve probably hosted near 100s of accountability “co”-kinda calls in my time as a coach and a creative coach, but there was a special somethin-somethin about this week’s session that just felt…*different*.

I think it was because for the first time, it felt like I was creating alongside creative peers and pals, helping each other stay accountable, sharing the same aim of just wanting to give more to our art, and ourselves.

It wasn’t about me ‘facilitating accountability’ for my clients.

And I got so much enjoyment (and creative juice) out of it. And from what I could gather, it seemed like my fellow co-creators did too. (If you were there, you can speak for yourself in the comments! LMK, k?) 😁

But yep. Chuffed.

Would absolutely adore to see you at our next one, next month too, if you can make it 😊

Embracing slow creating

Y’know the #SlowLiving lifestyle that’s been growing in popularity and making waves the past couple of years? (And rightfully fecking so – f*ck capitalism, burnout and living on a hamster wheel!). Well I’ve been taking inspo from it, and I’ve embraced the #SlowCreating lifestyle too!

Partly because of necessity – my pace has had to change. But mostly because my sole priority in doing any of this (illustrating books, writing books, writing this Substack), at whatever pace I can create it at, is to enjoy it.

I mean, what would be the ACTUAL POINT otherwise?! 😅

My day-to-day life as a working mama, head of a creative dept. and creative coach, mean time pressures and deadlines are already a part of my all day, every day. To then add self-imposed time pressures and deadlines on my art (that are only there to serve my own ego’s-set timeline tbh – ‘Create my first children’s book by the end of 2024’ for example), just began to make very little sense, and more so – began to strip away any enjoyment in it for me.

So I’ve embraced the idea that it’s OKAY to not be at the stage that goal-getter me of 2020 would’ve prescribed me to be at.

It’s OKAY to not be at the stage of my picture book course where I’m penning my first book yet.

It’s OKAY for me to continue at a pace that makes my experience with all of this feel joyful, playful and not pressure-ful!

And ironically, embracing that is actually helping me move forward far more than I had been – when I was by myself, getting squished under my own self-imposed pressures.

Namely – my picture book course that slowed me right down, and has 100% helped me begin rekindling my LOVE of just sketching ❤️ …

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I’ve been chatting with a few subscribers since my last post and yay! 🥳 We’re gonna give this co-creating club a whirly!

Why? Because it’s proving trickier than ever before to keep our creativity, self-expression and creative fulfilment alive. Which means, in actual fact; the thing that makes us feel most alive, most content and most free, is what society has taught us to deprioritise most and have the least time for.

So I’m simply saying, fuq dat to that!

It’s just too important.

If we’re not making time for the bits that make life worthwhile, what kind of life is it, if it’s only filled with the bits that don’t make life worthwhile?

One go babes.

That’s all we get innit.

This isn’t a practise or dress rehearsal version of life where we get to have another run at it. Life is in session right. this. moment. And I for one, want to create stuff that I love creating in mine! 😊

If you feel the same as me and you want to give more of you to your creative outlet (that creative outlet that you’re just not making the time for by yourself), you should defo come join us.

Accountability is a crazy-powerful thing, and creating alongside you would be a huge honour too 🥹

Whether your creative outlet is reading, writing, painting, colouring, crocheting, dancing, drawing, composing, calligraphy…or anything outside or in between! You and your creative pursuit are welcome here ❤️

Our first session is going to be Thursday December 12th at 7:30pm GMT, and your Zoom link will arrive via email to all paid subscribers that day.

So pop it in your calendar. I’m so excited to get creating witcha! ⚡️

Big big love and creative magic,

Join chat

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I don’t know about you babes, but I’m not creating/playing with my craft half as much as I’d like to, which in turn means I’m not posting/playing here half as much as I’d like to either.

And if you feel in a similar place, where your week to week feels a whole lotta ‘all work and little to no creative-play’, then maybe we should hang out more and see what we can do about that 😊

Namely in the form of a monthly co-creating session! ✨

By that I mean;

1. We gather online one evening a month on Zoom for about an hour. Likely a Monday at around 7:30pm GMT.

2. You bring something to the call that you want to spend some time creating/playing with.

3. I bring something to the call that I want to spend some time creating/playing with too.

4. And then we go create/play together!

(…on mute mind, so if you wanna blast tunes, sing your heart out or even make music, you can do so to your heart’s content!)

The impact of that peer accountability means in practice, we both make that commitment in our calendars each month, and can’t help but then create/play with our craft each month!

So whaddya think?

It’s something that I’d always hoped to offer to my paid subscribers if the demand was there. It was such a special part of my previous group creative coaching program too, so this is me getting a flavour-flave for whether the demand is there – here!

So tell me…

I’ll keep this poll up for a week and see what the verdict is.

It’s important to note, whatever you ‘create’ in these sessions doesn’t need to be ‘needle-moving’ or in any way towards making money from your creativity either. It could be anything from colouring-in, crocheting, cushion-tufting, or clarinet-ing, to getting your own children’s book written and illustrated too!

Quite literally anything ‘creative play’, goes!

Looking forward to seeing where this poll takes us ✌🏻

To our creativity and beyond!

I feel like I’ve been WD40’d babes. Lubed up, back in my delicious draw-ey play zone, and in creative motion after a whirlwind summer that I just never could’ve predicted or planned for. 

When I started my Substack back in February, my life, day-to-day routine and plans for 2024 looked sooooo different. And I’m actually so so chuffed that I started back then and have managed to document the shifts of this year; a year that feels like it’s delivered a huge life change for me. 

I’m chuffed because I’ve documented in real-time that life sometimes needs to do its life-ting, and I sometimes just have to be a fallible human, press pause, and put down a ball or two in the process.

But!!!

That ball-drop doesn’t then mean I’ve missed the boat entirely, that this Substack is a disaster and my original aspirations are now unachievable. I know I’ve had some disappointed Substack unsubscribers in amongst my pause ❤️‍🩹 but I absolutely understand that.

It just means the ball is waiting for me to pick it up and get playing with it again when I’m better equipped.

And here I am, back ready to play, with ball in hand!

So I want to publicly thank you, so SO much for bearing with me through my pressing of my pause button and still being here 🥲 

You’ve been so patient, and you’ve actually no idea how supported and encouraged you’ve made me feel. 

I really do notice these things, and you’re a huge part of my creative lube supply I promise ye 😜 so, thank you. 

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah…

Getting called out!

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I don’t know about you, but September felt like it lasted a couple of fecking days, tops. I know it’s an absolute yawnfest to read about ‘how fast time goes’. I’m already boring myself writing about it tbh! But September felt so ridiculously like some kinda glitch in the matrix for me, it warranted a mention.

Trying to adjust to the back-to-school routine in amongst most days living out-of-routine (some Manchester, London and Dublin-days away, and some horizontal living in the Canaries’ sunshine – which I haven’t done for like 20+ years!) 😳 defo added to the matrix-glitch-vibes in hindsight.

Let’s just say, things have felt a lot more backwards than forwards.

But despite my whole-month-long-inability of knowing what day it was, I feel like I’ve actually micro-stepped forward a bit in my writing, I’ve baby-stepped forward in my art-creation, and I’ve bunny-hopped forward in my not-so-new role too.

So I’m bloody well celebrating that.

This illustration I stumbled across really helped me celebrate it too…

I know from years of coaching others, and from being immersed in the world of personal development as a client myself, it’s so so easy to be disheartened in these tender, ‘early’ days of creation when the going-in-circles feeling is rife and frequent.

Whether that’s in creating art, creating children’s books or creating any other change in life.

The expectation is [impatient] rapid, notable result…or bust (AKA: a thrown-in towel).

Before things can feel clear, or before tangible, ‘visible’ evidence of that creation appears, the natural (and easiest) assumption to make is that ‘Ugh, maybe this isn’t for me’, or perhaps ‘I’m not good enough to see this through after all’.

*Cue that towel-throwing moment*

But I’ve been really thinking about how to create change through a whole new lens recently, and it’s been working!

Here’s what’s been going down

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Okay, here’s the tea: I’ve been avoiding posting 😬

Albeit unconsciously. Mainly because I’ve no profound leap of creative progress to share, I’ve no lightbulb moments of clarity to bestow, and I’ve no cool lesson or nugget to talk about.

Until I realised…that that, in itself, is exactly what needs to be shared.

My perfectionist roots/running-a-business years still have a strong hold on me – convincing me that I need to offer ‘substantial value’ in the way of something profound, lightbulby or cool to be worthy of speaking at all.

But I firstly remembered, this space isn’t that. I’m not here to be some kind of thought leader with an end-game of growing a client base from this.

This space is my real-est take on what it takes to pursue and commit to your art in amongst REAL life shiz.

And the fact of the matter is, real life shiz has been shizzing with a capital SHIZ, and I’ve now realised I’ve a duty to document that part too.

I also remembered, your interest in this Substack may be because you’re in pursuit of your own artistic homecoming too and you’re curious to see how someone else is doing it. So it’d be completely insincere and irresponsible of me to feed you a posivibes-only, glossy edit of this process where every week I’ve got sparkly progress to share.

[Also, how boring] 🥱

Making a commitment to yourself to pursue [and document] your own artist recovery is no small feat. Particularly in amongst life’s other responsibilities. It unavoidably means that sometimes, a huge part of that is going to feel like no progress is being made at all, even though from a bird’s eye view, that’s probably not true at all.

So here I am today, vulnerably sharing my wobbles rather than my wins. Wobbles that have emerged from an ‘interesting few weeks’ since my last post where I shared my ECD announcement. 

It’s funny how things come back around too isn’t it? I remember hosting a series of live coaching/trainings back in 2020 titled ‘The Employee to Entrepreneur Series’. 

My coaching business back then focused on helping coaches and creatives to make that transition into starting their own businesses y’see. 

And now? 

Now I’m toying with the idea of doing a written ‘Entrepreneur to Employee’ series on this Substack, to document my transition the other way. Ha! 

Whaddya think!? 😅

So why have the last few weeks been ‘interesting’?

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In part one, I shared the story of my 2022 dream-quitting – the walking away from a nine-year, dream-chasing-pursuit where I achieved more than I thought was possible in my business (and theoretically should have been happy, right?).

But instead I realised that that dream wasn’t ‘mine’ at all, so I pivoted that business to start a new one – one that WAS mine; one where I was able to work as a creative again, and coach creatives while I did.

Now today I’m sharing the story of my 2024 dream-quitting (yep, there’s actually more!) – this time though, it feels like an even bigger ‘quit’.

*Gulp*

Because this time it’s the walking away from my 11-year pilgrimage as a business owner babes 😬

Walking away to equally honour my moral and inner compass, support my creative dream of creating children’s books, and return home to where I know now that I belong for the long haul – engaging my creative brain as much as possible on the daily.

Yep. Told you it was big huh? 🙃

So here’s how it went down.

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I’ve been trained and honed as a deadline-driven creative my whole adult life. I’ve spent decades getting briefs, generating ideas, editing those ideas and then executing those ideas within super-tight timelines. Day in, day out.

Bish bash bosh.

No time to waste babes! Stuff to create!

And while that skillset has obviously been handy in my design career – in my softer, self-initiated quest to ‘come home’ as an artist/author/illustrator of children’s books – that ‘deadline training’ has begun to feel like a bad, unhelpful habit that’s hard to press pause on ya know?

It’s almost as if, if a client pressured me to get my first book written by like, tomorrow, I reckon I’d probably be able to do it! Or at least, get *something* together.

But I just don’t wanna write it in ‘do it by tomorrow’ energy. Plus, I know that *something* just wouldn’t be from the heart.

When I realised I didn’t want to just illustrate, a big part of that revelation was because I had no interest in swapping my deadline-driven designer life, with a deadline-driven-illustrator life.

That’s just not what this is about for me.

I’m not necessarily wanting writing and illustrating children’s books to even pay my bills and become my ‘job’. For the first time in my life, I’m actually happy for my bills to be paid through other creative means.

What this IS about for me, is creating my own sense of time-stands-still-ness in my life, my own sense of joy, satisfaction and legacy in my life, and mostly my own sense of true artistic expression in my life.

Ultimately, what I truly desire, is to savour this process of making my art.

And that’s the bit I’ve been finding hard in amongst my deadliney-training...Savouring.

Until…

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I’ve got part two of my How I knew it was time to walk away from a dream diary entry baking nicely in the wings, but I’m not quite ready to hit publish on it just yet 🙃 …so in the meantime, I wanted to fill you in on how my first children’s book idea is moving.

And honestly?

It’s been clunky AF! 😅

It was inevitable really. The buzz of inspiration and the sheen of a new idea always has a ‘best before’ date where the shine gets a bit less shiny dunnit.

A bit like the buzz of meeting and dating someone new. At some point, the relationship with the idea (or the person), has to decide what *it* is – is it a short-term fling/idea, or is it going somewhere with potential?

Either way it kinda needs to evolve into something – the ‘next stage’ somehow, whether that ‘next stage’ is the end of the road, or not.

And that’s kinda where I’ve been at. For weeks.

Clunking around with what that next stage is.

I mean, I’ve never written a book before, let alone a book designed to connect with littler people, so of course it’s going to feel like I’m trying to make something fit me that right now, feels at least 10 sizes too big; grappling at all this metaphorical excess fabric as it keeps getting away from me.

I feel overwhelmed, out of my depth and just trying to stay afloat; basically treading water in amongst the ‘bigness’ of the task I’ve set myself; Write and illustrate children’s books without having a clue how to do it!

Real talk: ‘Hanging in there’ and keeping on, keeping on, has felt less and less like progress lately, and more and more like just swimming in circles.

I’m certainly not new to this heavy, clunky feeling (AKA: resistance) either. I know I’ve definitely tailed off at this point in the past too.

Maybe something a bit easier to access or achieve came along to distract me. Maybe I convinced myself ‘If this was truly for me, it should feel a bit easier’.

But that ain’t happenin’ this time 💪🏻 I’m not tailing off anywhere babes.

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I read a post by recently and it really got me thinking.

She was telling the story of Henry Holland, the ‘accidental’ fashion designer and founder of House of Holland, who essentially;

• built a highly successful fashion empire on hyperspeed

• suffered the inevitable growing pains that come with rapid growth

• felt the burn of the pandemic, and then

• his company went into administration.

He’s since redirected his creativity and become a potter btw (which couldn’t sound more like a dreamy, happy ending to me if it tried!).

Now it got me thinking, because it brought a lot of what I’ve been through in my past 11 years of self-employment, right to the forefront of my mind.

In particular the last four years.

They really have been, shall we say, ahem…*something else* 🙃

Now I’m not professing to have built anything near ‘a highly successful fashion empire’ a la Henry Holland!

But in 2020-2022, my coaching business saw so much growth (growth that I thought I wanted with my whole being; that generated over £130k+ in revenue in a relatively short amount of time; that meant I didn’t have a choice but to grow a team alongside me) – I mean, it dysregulated my nervous system to the point that it took me well over a year to notice that I was actually building somebody else’s business entirely.

(My own coach’s, to be specific – and maybe this incredibly problematic side of the coaching industry is a topic for another Substack in itself – I’ve some tales to tell alright!)

The bit that hurt the most

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I’ve had my book idea for a month now, and the great news is – I still like it 🙃

Yessssssss.

Delighted with meself.

I’ve come to learn though, that an idea’s incubation time, is almost as important as the idea itself.

And it’s taken me so long to truly understand that – probably because it goes against every fibre of my over-achieving, productivity-focused conditioning of 43 years!

I mean, stopping? Not doing ANYTHING with it? You sure?!

Yup.

Allowing my idea to sit on ice, by herself for a while (yes, she’s a her), has allowed me to 1) test my commitment to her, 2) grow fonder of her and 3) ruminate on how she’s going to best be brought to life.

And it’s weird that absence has made my feelings grow fonder, when the main reason I put her on ice in the first place was because I went off in a huff with her 😂 (AKA: a creative block).

ENTER: Le creative block

The block was born in me just having TOO BIG a story to tell to be honest.

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I worked on some really enjoyable illustration projects a couple months back for an agency client, and it gave me a really good flavour of what a full working week as an illustrator might look like.

Of course it was partly divine because, other than a few coaching calls, me and my pencil hung out together all week, which I loved. But it was also a bit stifling, which threw me, because my expectations were that I’d feel 100% nourished and wholesome and lush!

So I sat with my feelings for a bit, little bit annoyed with myself because I really wanted to enjoy it, trying to work out what my body [read: my reaction] was trying to tell me.

= I don’t want to *just* illustrate.

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I’ve never taken part in Joanne Hawker’s #MarchMeetTheMaker challenge on Instagram before, even though I’ve been publicly ‘making’ stuff for 11 years, and privately ‘making’ stuff for decades now.

But this year, I decided to throw my hat in the ring and have a go because;

• Some changes are in store for my business this year, so I want to share more of what I’m doing OFF the ‘gram with my community, as a creative, a human and a coach for creatives, and this challenge felt like a good momentum-supportive way to do it

• I’m going to be winding down my @kerrylyonscoach IG account this year, and have my @iamkerrylyons creative account as my only IG presence, so sharing my story there feels like the right home for it (more on my future relationship with Instagram soon)

• The timing of the challenge matched my capacity, so that was that!

How and ever, I was not expecting the discomfort!!! Sheesh! 🫠

I’m trying to figure out why I’m finding it so challenging.

I don’t think it’s a fear of being seen because I’m well used to showing my face online, speaking on video, doing live broadcasts and cocking things up, all the things. I’ve been doing it for years in fact, occasionally even make-up free with a towel-turban on. In short – I don’t think it’s a self-conscious thing.

I don’t think it’s the prompts themselves either, as I’m seeing other creatives’ interpretations of them and they ‘fit’. Like, I can see how they fit.

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So what IS IT?!

Do you think it could have something to do with the fact that this is about meeting ME? The maker?

The person behind the craft?

This isn’t about me ‘showing up’ for my clients or the people I can help as a coach like before – doing that felt a lot easier then because everything I said and created wasn’t about me at any point, it was all about them.

But this?

It’s all about meeting ME innit 😂

*cold shiver*

I feel a weird internal pressure to be my most clever, most witty, most likeable self at all times – so people accept me as part of ‘the pack’ I guess.

It’s ultimately all very primal I know – but it’s still uncomfortable AF. Ha!

In the vein of self-compassion though, I think it’s certainly not helped by the fact that I’ve massively struggled with making any IG content since October 2023 that isn’t centering Palestine and the genocide being committed on them as a people.

It makes complete sense that if a genocide is being live-streamed on Instagram, I’m probably not going to want to create ‘playful content’ that sits alongside it. In fact, even just typing that feels awful.

I know how I feel, and understand how I feel, so I’m not being hard on myself that doing this feels like shite!

Maybe there’s two equal-sized animalistic parts of my resistance.

One part is protecting me from being rejected by ‘the pack’, whoever they are.

The other is the part of me that’s interconnected with nature, with the Earth, with my fellow kin – and witnessing their hurt feels like I’m being hurt too.

I don’t think there’s a neat and tidy self-coaching tool I can use here either, other than just leaning into the self-compassion I already feel for myself and how I’ve been feeling for the past 5/6 months 💔

And hey, maybe it doesn’t need to be comfortable either.

Maybe it’s okay if it feels like ‘work’. I can do hard things and I’ve certainly done things way harder than this challenge!

What’s important is that I don’t ignore and overrule my feelings, but that I also focus on why doing this challenge is important to me.

Be interesting to see how I feel at the end of March on this one.

I’ll be back 😉

Big love,

PS, Also, big-up Joanne Hawker for doing everything she does to orchestrate and facilitate this challenge every year – it’s no easy feat and I’ve nothing but respect for her!

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My artist date last week delivered the goods and then some. Way more than I thought it would. And I don’t think it was an accident or coincidence that I’d been rollerskating the night before.

Creativity catnip

The more I learn and coach on the experience of creative comebacks, play-without-agenda is right up there for creativity catnip.

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I’m feeling particularly sensitive and emotional today.

Partly because some occasional bickering that happens on a rushed, school day morning dysregulates me more than most (let’s just say #perimenopause and leave it there!)

Partly because I opened Instagram at breakfast to witness yet more heartbreaking and devastating footage of what’s still happening in Palestine.

And partly because I feel a bubbling frustration within myself for my recent lack of creative progress lately.

– I’ve not yet managed to stop equating my worth with my productivity by the way – eternally a work-in-progress on this one.

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Anyway, when I feel like this, I know without a doubt that my morning pages are a must, no matter how busy my day ahead is.

Not only to try and dissect what’s at the root of my heightened emotion, but also to regulate my central nervous system a bit and self-soothe so I don’t project all over everyone around me.

– The benefit of being a certified coach for years means I get the perks of getting high on my own supply when needed y’see 🙃

Today was defo a ‘when needed’ kinda morning.

I knew the bickering was exactly that, and not something I needed to dwell on any longer. I also knew my heartbreak for Palestine was a correct feeling to have, and one that I have little control over for the foreseeable.

So I set about trying to coach myself and understand the part I can take some control over – my creative inertia.

I simply asked myself, What are you waiting for?

That prompt took me down a familiar road that’s probably pretty common of most artists and self-led creatives;

• I’m waiting for my style to be more defined before I really start

• I’m waiting for my artist voice to be clearer before I really start

• I’m waiting to be ‘good at it’, *first*

A ha! There it was.

My long-serving perfectionist habit (fed by my long-serving equating-my-worth-with-my-productivity habit) had come over to stay recently, uninvited.

I think this is a near-unavoidable side-effect of high-achievers who are wanting to come back to their art too. Pretty much everything I’d learnt to be successful in one area, was cockblocking everything it took to be successful in another – my art.

So how DO you get good at it Kez?

My immediate response (which revealed that I knew what to do all along)

= I’ve gotta make shit

Which very much includes Making.

AND very much includes Making Stuff That’s Shit.

I didn’t get good at walking (I’ve got a great walk), until I first allowed myself to fall and be shit at walking.

And I can’t get good at writing and illustrating children’s books, until I’ve first allowed myself to be shit at writing and illustrating children’s books.

The same goes for the colouring books I want to create, the murals I want to paint, and anything else I want to create through my homecoming.

My logical mind knows this, but my unconscious mind doesn’t care about that. Which is why this ain’t my first rodeo in this conversation.

With every single thing I’ve managed to create during my artist recovery so far, this internal conversation has happened in one way or another, over and over again. And I’ll be honest – the temptation to shame myself for that is pretty high too, because I’m a fallible human like we all are.

But because my coaching training/experience has taught me that unhelpful patterns like this are with us for a reason though, I’m just not that mad at it anymore. In fact, I’m a little sentimental about this being a part of my own, personal, creative challenge.

That’s because at some point in my story, this pattern allowed my literal survival. I wouldn’t be here without it – so that’s why I’ve kept it, and keep using it. (The same is true for you and yours).

So I know before I start – I’m going to want to perfect my way through this, and at the same time, if I want what I want, that can’t be my strategy because art doesn’t work that way.

Once I can identify that this pattern’s back in motion, I can choose to do something about it.

So this is what I do…

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I remember where my inner artist child is

Because when I do, productivity, perfectionism and doubt become irrelevant specks in the distance, and instead – we just make art together, have fun and go play 🎈

We make shit! 😊

Today was particularly emoshe, because when I pictured her in my mind’s eye, she was in the front bay window of my childhood home where I lived up until my parents divorced.

She stayed there and never left.

On her tiptoes, about 7/8 years old, reminding me so much of my daughter.

She’s trying her best to reach and peer over the window ledge, excitedly waiting for me to appear on the drive from behind the tall conifers to come collect her.

Confident all along that I was coming back for her too. She didn’t doubt me for a second. Eyes narrowing while she makes me out in the distance.

“She’s here! She’s here! Wahhhhh!”

She disappears from view. All I see are her little hands clapping over her head. Dashing to the front door in her Care Bear slippers, bursting to let me in, eager to find out what our plans are together today.

Our hug is so solid. Heart to heart.

There’s not a millimetre between our chests.

*Squeeeeeeeeeze* as we say “Kezzaaaaaaaaaa!” in unison.

“So are you ready? Have you got everything?”

She nods with a huge smile as she swaps her slippers for wellies. I take her warm little hand and head out the door, both wondering excitedly where today’s play date is going to take us.

Neither of us can wait…

We’ve been hanging out so much more since I started my artist recovery, and remembering her is the biggest gift Julia Cameron gave me in her book The Artist’s Way.

I’ll be back and share what we got up to…

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(Inside scoop: if you’ve seen my about page by now, you’ll know that’s through me building/pivoting three businesses in my time already) 🙃

But every single keyboard-key I’ve typed within those writey-things before now, has always been for someone else.

And I don’t mean that begrudgingly. No-one was asking it of me. I wanted to.

I mean that in the way of my writing up until now, has pretty much had the sole objective of trying to *help someone else*.

And while of course a big part of my intention IS for my Substack to help you and for it to be valuable in ways I can’t perhaps fathom right now, during my first post!

But another big part of my intention, for the first time ever…

Is now I’m actually writing for me.

Wahhhh.

For the first time, I’m truly documenting, not ‘creating content’.

For the first time, I’m truly expressing myself, not writing ‘with my dream client’s challenges in mind’.

I had no idea it would feel so liberating and weirdly…cleansing?

But I also had no idea how fecking nerve-racking it would feel too!

I feel massively vulnerable already, before I’ve even properly started, because now I know there’s no ‘content’, client or strategic plan to hide behind.

Now?

It’s just lil’ ol’ me, figuring out my way ‘home’ to my childhood, illustrator-dream, and talking about it.

And that way ‘home’ is inevitably going to be clunky AF, because I don’t know for sure how this is gonna play out! That feels nervous-farty-terrifying.

I already know there’s also gonna be times where I’m going to feel embarrassed, not good enough, probably even defeated and hopeless sometimes too.

*Swallows a bit of vom*

But I vow to share it all.

Because it’s important to me to do so. I think we’re all weary of the glossy, overnight ‘success' stories’ that skip over the part where you lose your damn mind in the process. That’s not the reality for the vast majority of humans.

When you’re creating positive change in your life, I ultimately just wanna normalise the ‘losing your damn mind’ in the process bit, document my progress (peaks, pit stops and pitfalls), and show myself, my daughter and you, that we can still be a badass bitch at the same time 😜

Ammi riiiiiight?

So buckle in bebe.

We’re off…

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