Tag: life coach

hello and welcome to audiovisual cultures with me paula blair i am delighted this time to be joined by artist and life coach michelle myrick who very generously talked to me about her life and work in song writing painting teaching and how her creative practices inform her coaching michelle has very kindly offered a free online workshop on using art to embody awareness taking place on the 15th of august 2020 do visit http://www.michellemyrick.com forward slash art to sign up and that link is in the show notes for you huge thanks to our patreon members for sticking with the podcast throughout trying times please do keep up to date with all the goings on on the socials we are av cultures on twitter and facebook and ivyculturespod on instagram you can also find michelle on insta as michelle myrick underscore coach i got a lot out of listening to michelle and i’m sure you will too my computer had difficulties towards the end of the call hence the different image line and we were cut off but we spoke for nearly an hour and it was in our i find enriching and enlightening and i really hope you enjoy this as much as i did hello michelle hi paula how are you today i’m doing fantastic and yourself i’m well thank you um so you’re joining us from norway i am that’s very exciting yes yes thank you for having me on i’m delighted to be here oh thank you for coming on um i was thinking because um i’m in the northeast of england and it’s super bright all the time so it must be even more daylight for you at the moment it is well i mean we’re wearing southern the southern part of norway so we don’t we don’t have the midnight sun but pretty close to it it doesn’t actually really really get dark um especially like early in the spring april may i have a little trouble adjusting because i’m from canada so we we have normal normal i guess you know daylight and and darkness but uh we’re in the part of canada where i come from but here it my sleep cycle gets affected early in the spring because uh it’s like all of a sudden it doesn’t get dark until 11 or barely dark at 11 you know and now i mean even even getting close to midnight i guess it’s still quite light out you know kind of thing and you know you’re awake with the birds at 3 30 4 a.m so it’s yeah it does affect the sleep patterns no doubt um so but yeah so you’re um primarily would you call yourself a painter as an artist then um well i guess i came to painting a little bit late in life to be honest um i’ve been a singer songwriter musician uh i guess that’s the the longest label i’ve had uh in my career in my life um i guess i’ve been playing music for about 35 plus years now professionally and um recorded a couple of albums just recently my own solo album um and uh i guess painting was something that i picked up uh only a few years ago but it has brought all parts of me to the table um i i found that it opened up something different inside me that music hadn’t you know i’ve i’ve had a lot of um i guess insights from music from writing music i do a lot of my own songs and things like that but something about the painting felt different and when i started painting my songs that’s all the whole everything changed everything started opening up and um going deep deep deep into self-discovery true through creative outlets actually letting myself go back and relive some of the painful experiences of my life and really finding resolution there and then presenting it in front of people as a live performance you know that that really uh had a huge impact well it was hard to do to be that vulnerable because i mean you know when you write your songs you write your songs about your life from your own perspective your own challenges your own obstacles those kinds of things that’s one thing to get up and sing a song in front of people and then you know to paint it to do a visual representation of that brought so much more emotional um i don’t want to say baggage but emotional uh stuff to the table to the process right it went a little deeper and people really related to that and i believe paula the reason why is that even though we all you know have different experiences but if i’m on stage talking about an experience of mine that brought me extreme joy or extreme pain you’re relating your joy or your pain to mine even though our circumstances are different we all live on a similar emotional plane with how we deal with life right so when i got myself in front of audiences and sharing this sharing my life um yeah it was a precarious kind of place to be because i was opening myself up so much you know and in order to be authentic with us i really had to go into those emotions again in order to present them so the the song series show is what i developed and i just this is my little uh pamphlet i’m still doing that still doing that show internationally but what that led to was audiences they wanted more because i mean how much can you actually give in a two-hour period right in front of people how much story how much you know background can you actually give and um so i came back from canada after having a successful run of sold-out shows there and um decided i was going to write a book now that process the process of taking my own story and

i don’t know in a sense characterizing myself so having to look at myself from that you know from that distance from that observer’s view and going even deeper even deeper than what i did in writing the song series show and the stories behind the songs and paintings that really uh i want to say cracked me open that’s the odd words to use it absolutely um opened me wide open and it was true those creative processes the songs the painting and the book that i knew i had a larger message that i wanted to share with the world and i think life coaching which is what i’ve become since i’ve become a certified life coach is one way for me to bring all those parts of myself to the table to help other people find resolution in their lives to actually uncover the messages and the lessons from their own experiences and then how to use them how to stand on top of them in fact you know rather than letting those experiences weigh us down like a weight around our necks you know but standing on top of our experience standing on top of the truth of who we are and moving forward with that that that has been life-changing for me and i think the people that i’m working with it’s having an incredible impact as well

um so yeah there’s there’s a lot there that we can get into a little bit more because it’s fascinating those connections across different media that you’re engaging with um it’s fascinating what you’re saying about starting to paint your songs and i was wondering about the difference between with a song you would re-perform that so is there maybe a sense of reliving if you re-perform something but with the painting you do it and it’s over and you can look at it but it’s a really good question but i tell you that the interesting thing from my perspective as the artist as the creator was that you know some of these songs i had written 20 years 30 years ago and when i created the painting of course i’m a different person now you know we’re always growing we’re always evolving we’re always expanding and we’re always gaining different insights so as a more mature woman i could look at what my 20 something self wrote and see her pain see see what she was trying to process you know back all those so many years about 30 plus years ago and i mean being able to look at myself from that kind of stepped back that’s really interesting like that is really interesting and and that’s kind of what i present in the live performances is that juxtaposition between the two michelles no the younger one that wrote the song and the the woman that wrote that that made the painting and how they that journey what that journey was all about you know that’s what my book is about somewhere here yeah like i mean my book is called stepping stones and it’s it’s actually about that it’s about that process of learning that process of you know a lot a lot of people say oh just forget the past now i’m the kind of coach that says the opposite because i really think that the golden nuggets of our life experience are in the past of course and from what have made us who we are and it is the things that we’ve gone through it is the experiences that we’ve had that have shaped us as individuals that have formed you know what we represent and how we like present ourselves in our lives you know and where we want to go with that i mean we take all of that with us so i don’t think we need to forget our past but i think we need to process it and that’s what i help people do i help people process their past to find what is in there that they haven’t seen before that they can um i guess use as a stepping stone you know use as that standing on top of their of their lives and moving forward from there you know having their past empower them rather than weigh them down that’s a leap it takes work it takes a lot of mind management which is what my certification as a life coach has taught me how to deliver right how to use these different techniques and modalities to to actually help people make that kind of a transformation because it’s powerful it’s powerful you know because we define ourselves a lot by our past yes right and and some of us are carrying a really heavy dead weight of our past but i help people lighten that up see it differently you know and use it listen i always say this you know we go through so much to gain our insights to gain our wisdom wouldn’t it be a shame to let that go to waste yeah i can’t argue with that you know i mean let’s use it let’s use what we’ve been given to empower ourselves and have an impact on other people and you know that’s not about going out and saving the world but it’s about having a healthier relationship with your partner having a healthier relationship with your children with your own parents with your co-workers with your friends it’s it’s about how you live your life you know it’s about what you bring to it how much awareness and mindfulness and everything that you can gain from what you’ve been i mean to me i was trying to run away from my past forever forever until i picked up a paintbrush you know i mean it’s it’s incredible what has happened but it’s that creativity that has like opened me up and now i’m actually using that when i deliver my coaching programs i use creativity as a method as a means to get to that deeper part of ourselves you know to access that inner knowing i don’t care what your college your wisdom your guidance i like to call it the souls compass actually you know because um many of us either we’ve been given a map for life or we’ve created one ourselves you know that that says okay you gotta get a good education then you gotta get a good job then you gotta get a a partner perhaps some kids a house all these things are supposed to you know these are the landmarks on our map of life that are supposed to bring us happiness right but how many of us actually get this and this and this and this and this and this and are still not happy you know it’s not things it’s not those map landmarks that make us happy what make us happy what makes us happy comes from within is that inner guidance is that thing if we follow that and where that leads us that’s what creates inner happiness and fulfillment right so i teach people how to go there instead you know and um it’s it’s an honor and it’s a privilege honestly to see people light up you know from the about their own lives about their own life they have it all in size it’s already there it’s just the light has been turned down yes i think we so easily become defined by the negative things and then in pushing the negative things away we’re only showing a performative positive side of ourselves but to actually confront that it’s a huge it’s um it’s a very brave thing to see i would say it’s not easy but here’s what i would like your listeners to know on the other side of that oh that’s the rainbow stuff that’s that’s where the goal is on the other side of that because you are truly living who you are you’re owning it you’re taking responsibility for your own life you’re taking steps that are true to your own purpose to your own heart to your own soul’s compass and honestly i i i don’t know why it took me so long to get there you know because it’s such a beautiful place to live your life from to be guided in that way from from inner insight not from any of this stuff out here any of the things that we can obtain and achieve and you know those things are good i’m not putting those down but to be guided to be to be driven by purpose from the inside it’s it’s a different way of living and it’s it’s beautiful it’s beautiful and i love seeing that turn on in people it’s just amazing

amazing

i know confidence and confidence building is part of your work as well but do you ever encounter people who feel a bit tentative about the creative side of exploring that because they think oh i’m not good at drawing or i’m not good at painting or you have absolutely how would you overcome that i would say at 9.5 people out of 10 feel that way and you know something i completely get that um but the process that i lead people through um dispels that completely because the way that i teach people to create i actually developed a step process a five-step process and it’s it’s about accessing guidance from within it’s about making decisions from intuition and it’s about bringing different parts you know of your past to that and creating something meaningful for your life i mean okay art any kind of art is is uh subjective right you know you might love uh the mona lisa i might hate it i might i might say like what’s that all about you know i don’t get it right so it’s it the main thing is is to make something to be able to create something that has led you through a process of knowing with yourself you don’t need artistic experience but what a lot of people find when they let themselves go when they allow it right that they actually do create something that they love yeah and they proudly like display in their homes you know um and and they can’t believe it’s like they they’re like i i can’t believe that i’ve done that that i’ve made that that i knew how but we we are creative as humans you know we are we are creatures we are creative creatures and um we have so much wisdom potential and inside of us that we don’t even tap into that we don’t let ourselves go we don’t allow it you know and out of those 9.5 that didn’t think they could draw a stick man you know i would say at least six or seven of them make something that they’re extremely proud of that they has blown their minds that they even created it and the others make something that they have such profound meaning and connection with because it came from within you know came from within now they might not want to display it in their living room but i bet you it’s hanging in their bedroom you know it’s right because it’s part of it’s part of and that’s the important thing it’s it’s that process creative process that opens up the end result is just a bonus you know it’s just a bonus right you know um i’ve had people go through my program my art program in particular where i do this step thing i have a separate course just for that um and they they have gone on to become you know either visual artist or you know i had somebody make um a wire sculpture at one time and you know like it’s just you can take this process that i have and make anything it doesn’t have to be a painting because that’s not the important part right the important part is listening to your intuition letting your soul speak right and and just being the vehicle for that and and letting what comes out form takes shape and and when people create something like that and they can look at it they’re not looking at that object they’re looking at their experience you know that’s the difference yeah that’s the difference in creating this way because i often think about finished artworks as the documentation of the process that went happens for it to be made and there’s a performative element in that so when somebody’s making something they’re enacting they’re performing not just the act of making it but it’s that it’s that thinking it through the creative process the um the trying stuff and maybe there’s evidence or it’s covered over of not quite getting it right maybe trying something else and so on and so forth you know so is that is that something that you explore a bit as well possibly for sure i mean i mean some of my most popular paintings came from mistakes you know came from something that i did by mistake and i was like oh i kind of like that you know let’s go with that then like you know i might have started out with with some idea for a painting but you kind of have to be the vehicle and you kind of have to let come what’s going to come i mean whenever i go into my studio i go in yeah i might say okay today i want to do a landscape or today i want to do something abstract or today i want to do whatever and but i don’t really have control over that you know and and if i went down with the exact same you know circumstances tomorrow i’d create something different again because every single minute we are somebody different than the minute we were before so what needs to come out is gonna come out right i’ve had a couple of people go through my program a couple of times the art the art workshop and uh they’ve created something completely different both times you know because we are different from time to time to time we are processing different things from time to time to time right you know we are faced with different challenges or obstacles or insight or even potential from time to time to time so it’s it’s a process that you can use over and over and over you know to just access okay what’s going on with me today you know what needs to come up today what what what’s going on in here you know it’s a way of reconnecting with yourself actually and you can do that to writing i’ve had people go through it and do it to writing like i said someone made a sculpture one time they make paintings they do collages they whatever it’s that act of creating the act of allowing the act of letting go right and kind of turning this off and turning this on so hard to do it’s not easy but it’s possible and it’s possible to be i like i i bring people through a process of being able to do that you know right it’s uh you know to help guide them i guess you know because everyone goes at it in their own ways because we’re all different we’re all different but it’s possible for everybody if one person can do it it’s possible for anyone yeah right um and on your website there’s quite a lot of focus on it’s trying to guide people in how to tell their stories and that’s how you can understand the self and become aware it’s um the different ways of expressing your story um and you’ve got behind you in the in the image there one of your really gorgeous paintings and um you tend to have quite a maritime or you know c metaphors um so i was wondering if you’d like to talk about ear b the lighthouse metaphor that you’re using in your current programs well there’s kind of a story behind that um uh probably not the one you’re expecting either but um well to begin with i guess full disclosure i grew up at the lighthouse in um in newfoundland canada and newfoundland is the most eastern province of canada and um i i come from the east coast of the island of netherlands and in fact my my ancestors are six generations of lighthouse keepers in my family my ancestors took the distress call for the titanic gosh you know way back then in the early 1900s so we have we have quite a uh heritage of keeping in my family um so the name seems quite obvious to come from there uh but it’s it’s not really uh well i just recently and and this the kind of stuff that happens i’ll you know let your listeners in on this uh when you start tapping into your intuition uh on a regular basis you you start to sense things you start to i call it intuitive hits you get these intuitive hits you know um different things i used to get over the years like you know you’re driving along and you’re going more than the speed limit and you know all of a sudden you’ll hear a voice in your head oh you should slow down you know and then all of a sudden you see a police car up front you know that would have caught you for speeding or you know different different things you know you have you have this intuition we have we all have this intuition that we don’t pay attention to so much but once you start paying attention to it you start uh you start sensing you start feeling more i believe now there’s a little forest here close to where we live that i like to go walk and it’s absolutely enchanting uh you know the trees here in norway are straight up pretty much and they’re very tall and i grew up on a rock a rocky part of the island even where i live is it’s very very where i grew up was very very rocky no trees and if there was anything that had any chance of surviving it’s probably only a couple of feet high and it’s twisted in every shape of the alphabet you know it’s just because of the wind because of the extreme weather so when i go into that uh forest like i just feel like i’m in a fairyland you know uh and anyway this one morning about a couple of months ago i was um i was walking there and the way the sun was coming and hitting on this one tree there was covered in masks but the tree came up and then it took a bend you know so i was like oh that’s so unusual i hadn’t noticed it before so i stopped to take a picture and lots of times i take a picture of things and as i was getting you know finished putting away my camera whatever my phone and started walking past i had this this sense i won’t call the voice because it wasn’t really like that um touch the tree or touch it you know that that kind of feeling so i went over and i put my hands on the tree and i have never i’ve never had any kind of um like healing or or any kind of sensations or anything like that before and i felt a thumping in my hand automatically my brain said that’s your pulse michelle that’s your pulse then i started paying attention to it and it wasn’t it wasn’t like a regular pulse and it wasn’t in the place where you should where you would get a pulse right and then my two hands started to tingle so i was like okay there’s some gee whiz i’ve never felt like this before and so i closed my eyes and it was like i felt like when you drop a pebble in the water and you know when it ripples out i had that feeling of like coming out from me and then coming back into me and it was almost like like waves in the ocean in a way you know like being on a boat almost that feeling in your head of being you know a little bit off equilibrium which was fine dandy um and i had woken up with a pain in my wrist because i have an old sprain from when i was a kid but when i took my hands off the tree the pain was gone it was literally it was gone it hasn’t come back since so now i long story i’m sorry if now i always touch the trees every time i’m over there i try different trees i get different sensations i get different feelings i get different um sort of like uh sensations i guess i mean this might sound crazy to some of your listeners and to you probably as well but whatever about it i there’s something there that i can’t ignore and i know now i’ve done it so many times that i’m not making it up every now and then i get that pulse again not always but every now and then i’ve tried to have my hands up high have my hands down low having them that way it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter where i put them with the you know right kind of thing anyway but but one of the one day i took my hands off the tree that i was wet and those words be the lightest hmm just popped into my head being lighthouse and i said what’s that about you know and and i came home and i was talking to my husband about it and be the lighthouse okay well what’s the lighthouse about the lighthouse is about being strong you know it’s about standing withstanding any storm it’s about you know uh being like solid you know certain kind of thing it’s a it’s a beacon of hope and of courage and it’s what guides people to ashore and you know it’s it’s it shines a beam out like you know uh and i said my goodness that’s what i’m doing in my coaching that’s what i’m doing in my coaching i’m helping people turn on the light inside you know i’m helping them get you know more confidence in themselves more belief in themselves more courage to to be themselves you know more certain about where they’re going in their lives i was like be the lighthouse that’s it that’s it that’s it so i sat down then and developed a full-fledged program around it and uh it’s uh it’s had an incredible impact absolutely incredible impact i’m so proud of it but i mean it came true my intuition and it’s it’s brought all parts of me to the table again you know it’s the teacher in me i’m i’m a registered teacher by trade no i i graduated oh i won’t tell you how many years ago was too many it’s a long long time ago and you know so i mean my curriculum development skills come into play here you know um also i’m bringing art uh processes through writing to creating bits and pieces of my soulful art making workshop come into this program as well um and helping people like understand what do i want you know and really define what is that what you know and then laser beam in on what you need to do the do part and align yourself energetically with that you know but there’s a lot of mind management in the first couple of weeks there’s a lot of mind management techniques and things like that around you know around thinking because everything comes back to without everything everything we think we’re guided by our feelings but we’re not our feelings are created from our thoughts you know if you wake up someday and you’re feeling terrible you just gotta ask what am i thinking about who’s making me feel so terrible you know and once you can get to that what you once you figure out what that is what am i thinking about myself or about the situation or about whatever and then switch that you automatically change your feeling which changes your behavior which changes your results of your life so it it really does go back to top control and sorry for the lack of tea hsn that’s the other part of me i can hear it yeah don’t worry at all don’t apologize for anything like that yeah it’s uh yeah it’s like a strange accent for a canadian i know but a massive place it’s uh got angel accents yeah i mean and and the area where i grew up was heavily populated by by uh people from the uk actually yeah yeah yeah but yeah so i mean that’s that’s kind of um that’s kind of where i am these days and uh trying to to help people turn on their light yes and with every resource that i have

it’s um it’s a refreshing thing to hear about because i feel like we get mired down in hearing stories of selfishness and um maybe that’s changed a little bit in recent months with the pandemic and everything but um you know it’s it’s so nice to find people who are they have they have these talents so they have these experiences and um it’s a very you i mean you must make yourself very vulnerable in taking lived experiences allowing them bare and using them to help other people do the same but to to build back and to become stronger for your future so um it feels like a really positive and there’s a this is an ideal time to do that because it feels like well i don’t know we’re just at a we could be at a turning point i think in that connection with nature especially with our the natural world and maybe remembering those roots that well we are creatures and we haven’t evolved that much beyond it and our lives are very ruled and facilitated by technology at the moment but you know if you feel that compulsion to go and hug a tree maybe just go and hug a tree because maybe just go and hug a tree you know you know i mean spend some time like well for me sitting by the water such a profound impact on me yes you know or like gardening you know if you can’t do anything if you’re stuck in a little apartment with you know with a windowsill you can garden you can grow herbs but just you know having like you said all of that connection a connection with life you know and i mean to go back to that vulnerable part you just said like oh goodness i i guess it has taken me to get to here to understand that the thing that i thought was making me so weak is actually my strength that is my strength you know but it took owning it right it took taken responsibility for my actions i mean i lived as a victim for a very very long chunk of my life you know because i’ve had some horrific things happen to me and um i’ve experienced severe loss in my life and that’s not something easy to come back from it takes it’s taken me decades to process it you know and it’s the thing that i thought was my weakness but actually by going into it understanding how i you know got trapped inside that victim mindset how i let that experience those experiences of my life be my excuse now owning that is difficult right that’s the part of the that’s the work of this work right is actually owning up owning up to how you’ve been treating yourself to how you’ve been behaving and to how you’ve been you know towards other people like i i wasn’t always the kindest person on the planet because i felt like i had been dumb wrong by yes you know so i was angry i was i was bitter and i i allowed myself to to be that in the world because i felt i had a right to yes i felt entitled to it you know but until i owned up to that and understood how it was not creating the kind of life that i wanted to live until i swallowed that pill if you will that i was creating my own suffering you know it took getting there in order to change things and that my friend is mind management that is you have to be diligent about the kind of thoughts you’re thinking yeah you know you have to operate from a place of potentiality and possibility and abundance instead of lack and scarcity and all you know this happened to me and that happened to me so because i can’t because because that’s that’s bs let me tell you that’s bs that’s something you’re just using as an excuse

i get real with people you know and that’s the kind of coach that i am because if if i see that someone is uh you know ready wanting to change but they’re getting trapped in their own mindset i’m going to call it out i’m going to try to help them to process that to release it to reframe it you know in a different way so they can move forward i mean that is what growth and expansion is all about but it’s uncomfortable it’s uncomfortable because you know your brain is going to tell you something different because our brains are built to you know to to keep us alive to keep us comfortable to keep us safe that’s the job of the brain so that brain is always telling you oh don’t go out there don’t take that risk stay home on the couch you know stay home be safe don’t try anything new but then you have a higher mind up here that’s telling you oh i could possibly i could possibly but you know for a lot of us this lower mind down here drowns it out it absolutely drowns out that higher mind and i help people switch that about i help them listen more to their higher mind and understand you know have sympathy for their lower brain that’s trying to to um to protect them but you don’t have to pay attention to it you don’t have to you know it’s a process it’s a process right and it’s work but it’s it’s not something that’s impossible to change for sure i’m proof i’m proof of it you know and if i can do it anybody can do it trust me

really yeah yes it takes a very long time to learn how to check yourself and also that you should as well because you get i mean i i and i know so many other people who’ve been there time again and still go there where you’re blaming yourself for things and then you get mired and

very negative feelings towards yourself and i suppose one thing that i use is imagine one of your best friends and somebody was saying those things about that person how would you feel and you think well i would that you with a superhero outfit would come out you know why can’t you be that friend to yourself you know exactly but i mean sometimes like when when the you know what is that phrase they say when a student is ready the teacher will appear like if you’re ready if you’re actually ready if you’re fed up enough living the way you’re living if you feel deep in your soul that there’s something else for you in your life that you’re ready you know you’re ready then to make a change you’re you’re open to to different perspectives to different ways of thinking i’ve seen people make a shift within a couple of weeks paula like really truly changed their lives around it within a couple of weeks i mean that’s profound you know and and it is just a shifting perspective uh i could say or you could say or you know they could read something or do a certain activity and just a light bulb comes out you know it’s different things for different people so like even though i say yes it’s work and yes it’s uncomfortable and yes you have to be diligent about it you know it can happen quite quickly for people who are like they’re ready you know you’ve tried this that the other thing and it’s you know you ha it hasn’t gotten you where you want to be right and and you still feel like there’s more but you don’t know what that more is that’s the time to go inside that’s the time to tap into your souls compass that’s the time to go in there and find out what is it what is it that sets me on fire you know what do i what do i want to do with my life you know i i am in my show in the song series show i don’t know if you’ve seen this or if anyone listening has seen it jane fonda did a um a ted talk i believe it was ted talk now i might be wrong about that but you can i think it is a ted talk called the third act okay i don’t know if you’ve seen it but she talks about how you know you reach a certain point in your life when you know you you have to come to terms with okay you know time is kind of running out here what do i really want to do what is my third act right where where am i going to get that fulfillment and she says something really wise there and i i actually refer to this in my show is that it’s not the uh well where do i put it now it’s not the not the experiences that make us wise it’s the wisdom that we take from the lessons that’s different right when you look at that it’s not our experiences that make us wise but it’s the wisdom that we take from them in other words it’s the perspective it’s how we look at things it’s how we look at our lives we can choose to look at our lives as a victim or as a warrior right we we can choose our thoughts when that turned on when that idea like just latched on to me i was like oh my gosh oh my god you know and it’s it’s changed everything that one little thought right and it’s never too late in life i think it’s probably an important thing to point out would you get a range of ages in your workshops i do i do um from people generally though they’re in their probably early 40s i have some people in their 70s right you know it’s uh which is kind of smackdown where i’m in the middle of i’m 55 myself uh in a couple of weeks time and uh actually next week and uh yeah and thank you and um you know i i think it’s it’s it sort of goes back to this jane founder thing is that you do reach a point in your life because you know in our 20s in our 30s we’re busy oh my god we’re busy we’re you know we’re doing all the things doing all the stuff and uh building careers and families and all this kind of stuff and getting educated and all that stuff and you know we don’t necessarily think about um our life being on a time clock when really it is you know i mean since the day we were born we’ve been dying yeah yeah right so but when you get to this point in your life i think and and you still feel there’s more you know what happened for me around 43 right uh and i don’t know something shifts it’s like i’m i gotta find this out i can’t i can’t die what i find in this house what it is i’m supposed to do here what it is i’m supposed to do in my life you know what what is that thing right you know and and it’s it can take some time to to discover it right but it’s possible completely completely possible and you’re never too old to learn new tricks let me tell you yeah right have you learned anything new yourself recently oh my goodness i’m always learning i’m a i’m an avid reader and of course you know running an online business and covet kind of little little fire underneath me for this uh getting things up online i’ve had to learn how to build websites and landing pages and you know capture forms and mail systems and integrating all of that when doing social media and all that stuff so i mean you know that’s a big chunk of what i have to do as well if i want to get my message out there is coming and talking to people like you paula you know yeah right so yeah i mean it’s it’s it is a a process i i never considered myself a techie not in any stretch of the imagination but the things that i have had to learn how to do since i started painting which is only three years ago you know in 2017 and uh i if you had to tell me uh in december 2016 that i would have built a website that i was taking contracts internationally to paint that i’d be after writing a book recording a cd becoming a life coach i would say you’re crazy right you know i could not have seen all that but now i can see how everything has led me to here this is my purpose this is why i’m so passionate is why i come alive when i talk about these things you know it’s why i’m so driven to help people achieve transformation in their lives you know it comes straight from my heart and soul right

um okay i’m just thinking

yeah um i’m just answering my questions because we’ve touched on a lot of stuff anyway and

yeah i mean i was wondering as well because i think just to think about your life coaching again a little bit um because i know uh in myself i’m sure many listeners out there possibly even yourself in the past as well have struggled with things like confidence and assertiveness and i mean when people are undergoing the training and the guidance with you maybe there it’s going to take a while to you know get to a point where you can own your confidence you know you can be confident you can because i think it’s something that’s especially difficult for women i think there’s something just hardwired maybe it’s uh at social conditioning or something that we’re just hardwired to be uh diminutive small tiny things oh i shouldn’t take up the space oh i shouldn’t speak um and i mean is that you is that something in particular you can target in the creative processes and the workshops and that sort of thing i mean how would you maybe approach that sort of problem um i mean the first thing that comes to my mind is that yes as women we are hardwired to be nurturers you know the man is the gatherer the woman is the nurturer but we both have men and women we both have masculine and feminine energies right and you know like in in a lot of ways women have uh had to tap into their masculine energy in in the last few decades okay think about it i’m not sure about your parents and your grandparents but i know mine mine were either worked from home like we had a little small grocery store my mom worked in my grandmother didn’t know she took care of her like the nine children you know right and uh you know it was that she was the nurturer the caretaker that that’s what we’re hardwired for but in the last several decades you know four or five decades women have had to tap into their masculine energy quite strongly to survive in that man’s corporate world in the business world so you know we we really have surpassed in in that way in so many ways of having to be able to um be driven you know and and be focused and get the job done and all of these things and what has happened in as a result is that we have denied a lot of our nurturing feminine energy which also involves self-care yeah yeah we’re taking care of ourselves you know we’ve kind of forgotten about that in so many ways because we’ve had to be so focused on our masculine energy but here’s the thing that i feel a shift in in the last decade or so is that the feminine is rising the feminine energy is rising the planet needs it mother earth is crying you know we’re witnessing that right now so i mean this feminine energy of care is becoming so much more important than it ever was is becoming more visible the need for it the need to have more of a balanced approach you know for men and for women there’s a lot of men out there suffering yes suffering because they’re not allowed to experience their feelings they’re not allowed to to process they’re not allowed to feel you know they they have been so focused masculine energy you know but they have the feminine energy as well right soldiers there’s a shift happening i i honestly believe in planetarily shifts shift happening right now and you know in all seriousness everything is energy everything is energy and i believe the feminine energy is on a rise so women and i hope men equally are starting to understand that we do need to take self-care and you know something once you start taking care of yourself once you start honoring who you are once you start having more respect for the for the body the person the mind the soul that you are confidence starts to grow just that one thing if you just increase self-care if you give yourself that five minutes sitting by the water in thought you know just for yourself just for yourself you’re not having to think about your kids or your parents or your job or your wedding just just giving yourself that time picking some wildflowers and putting them in front of your desk on your desk or on your bedside or you know just something that makes you smile that’s self-care self-care doesn’t have to be you know going for a weekly massage and a pedigree and a manicure you know that’s that’s lovely don’t get me wrong that’s lovely but we can do so many tiny little things of self-care that helps us honor who we are helps us respect who we are which helps us build confidence in who we are you know that i think that’s really really important um i actually created a painting called virago about this a few years ago it’s um it’s an image of a very feminine looking woman and and and it’s because i strongly feel this that we need to tap into that feminine part of ourselves you know bring that out more um virago by the way is a greek word i don’t know if you’re familiar it’s yeah it’s um joan of arc for example was a virago but a virago is a female that is in the sense really um more masculine or visibly masculine very very strong confidence you know and has a lot of masculine characteristics like john rock for example right but in my painting where i go i’m while i’m honoring that i’m also saying let’s not forget about the feminine let’s not forget about her let’s bring some balance back to the picture again you know and um that is kind of owning all of who we are right owning everything that is us all parts of ourselves right and uh just thinking about that sense of identity um uh maybe that’s a very clunky segway but that’s sensitive identity um i was wondering if you would like to tell us a bit about your branding as well because i think you’re in the process of um shifting that a little bit because you have been operating under ammo artworks and um working on the art of awareness and you’re shifting into something that’s uh that’s uh um i mean it’s it was your name anyway but um but it’s not more overtly your name that you’re working under is that right yes yes so i i set up ammo artworks um three years ago when i started painting and uh i mean i i honestly like i don’t wet anything halfways um when i when i when i crack that shell through painting i i was prolific that first year i saw i i actually painted 138 paintings that first year and sold almost all of them so i had to set up a company quickly you know to do that and ammo artworks was born from there now ammo is my initials and michelle myrick olson when i married an olsen uh in 2015 my my initials became ammo i don’t use them never really have except when i was teaching in the middle east uh they called me miss annie because that was my name tag a-n-n-e and they they pronounced also phonetically there so i was i was like i was like on another planet in saudi arabia and i was like i was a different person miss annie you know oh you know that’s the story in itself but that’s in the book as well yeah but i guess i checked in but yeah okay so ammo artworks was set up as um as a company sell my paintings right and then of course i started writing books recording cd so it it it’s still art you know so i said okay that’s all right and ammo artworks will still work for this has been audio visual cultures with me paula blair and my very special guest michelle myrick please do sign up for michelle’s free online workshop on using art to embody awareness taking place on the 15th of august you can do so at http://www.michellemyrick.com forward slash art the link for that will be in the show notes wherever you’re accessing this episode i do hope to see you there as ever the music is common ground by airton used under a 3.0 non-commercial creative commons license please help support the podcast with a membership at av patreon.com or one-off donations to buy me a coffee.com forward slash pei blair given my recent technical hiccups these will be appreciated more than ever take care of yourselves and be accent to each other thank you so much for listening take care and catch you next time

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