Welcome to the Erin Wilson Show.
I'm Erin,
Designer,
Creative strategist,
Intuitive,
And the CEO of Erin Rachel Designs.
This is a space for reflection,
Insights,
And storytelling with the intention of giving you the keys you need to unlock your creative potential and become the creative CEO of your own life.
Showing up for yourself is hard.
Why is it that showing up for myself is so much harder than showing up for other people?
Starting a podcast is so vulnerable.
Really putting anything you create out there is so vulnerable.
I know this is something that every creator feels,
And really,
I feel that every human is a creator.
Some humans just haven't discovered yet what their form of creation is,
But sharing your creation with the world is a form of showing up for yourself.
It's a form of being true to yourself and who you are,
Being authentic,
And it's scary because it feels like taking off a mask so that people can see the real you underneath and your thoughts,
Your process,
To see you in your natural state,
And it is super vulnerable.
But I feel like I'm done with disappointing myself to please others,
Or to believe at least that that's what I'm doing,
That I am pleasing others,
Because half the time I think we're imagining what other people are thinking or feeling or what they're going to think,
And there's just no way that we're put on this earth to go through life worrying about what other people think of us.
There's just no way.
Like,
Have you ever experienced you're just completely immersed in the present moment?
Maybe you're out for a walk in the fall and there's crunchy leaves under your feet.
The sun is shining through the trees in just the right way,
And it's hitting your skin and it's warm,
But you're bundled up in your coat and your scarf,
And in that moment you sense the magic of life.
Because life is pretty magical.
It's actually a miracle that we're here,
That I am here in this form right now getting to experience life.
I feel like we have made ourselves numb to that experience,
Which on the one hand,
Then when we do have those moments where we recognize the magic of life,
We're able to recognize it because we go through most of our days focused on work,
We're focused on our thoughts,
How we think people are thinking about us,
We're focused on goals,
And we're very future focused as humans.
So because of that,
We're really able to recognize it,
But are we really able to appreciate it?
I feel like there's this constant longing,
At least within me,
To have more of that magic in my life,
So it doesn't feel so fleeting,
So it doesn't feel like a brief moment of luxury.
I want my life to feel like that more,
Because it's so inspiring.
If I go out for a walk in the crisp fall air and see the vibrant trees and the sun and all of that beautiful stuff,
When I come back,
I feel more creative,
I feel more inspired,
And I feel like we all need more magic in our lives.
At least where I live in the world,
In North America,
I feel like we're so focused on work and being productive and producing things,
But that producing things comes from a need to survive,
Right?
To pay the bills,
And I think there's a balance that can be found there with doing something that you really love and you're really passionate about,
And as a bonus,
It keeps a roof over your head,
But I know there are so many people going through life who,
They go to work all day most days,
And life just goes by so fast,
And there's no magic in the everyday.
And there's no creativity,
There's no play,
There's just feeling depleted,
Feeling like a cog in the wheel or whatever that phrase is,
You know,
Something in the system that keeps it operating,
But we've built this system,
That's the funny part,
We've built our world the way that it is,
In terms of having physical money that we exchange,
Going to work,
Let's say nine to five,
Five days a week,
We created that,
The earth didn't create that,
The universe or whatever didn't create that,
And so we're all just kind of stuck in this system that was created,
And it just kind of is what it is,
But I don't know,
I don't think that's the life that I want.
And I think I've worked to not live that life in a lot of ways,
Being self-employed for one,
I have worked for companies before,
And there's perks to it for sure,
And it's nice working within a team,
And you know,
The benefits and all that stuff,
Because those are things we need,
Because we built it that way.
But being self-employed,
Having my own business,
I can design my day the way that I like,
I can work with who I like,
I can work from where I like,
Because I have a job where I can work from a computer,
Which I think is just so important for me.
I know that's not for everyone,
I know working from home's not for everyone,
But I love it,
Because it gives me more flexibility and opportunity to build that magic into my day.
I can go travel somewhere and work with my laptop,
Which is something I'd really like to do,
Because I haven't officially taken a trip somewhere with the intention of working from that location.
I've just taken trips places just for the sake of it,
But I am really feeling called all of a sudden to travel more,
And just feeling that travel itch,
And I haven't really in a while,
And I think part of it is that we moved to BC from Ontario in 2021,
And I think that itch has been soothed from that,
Because there's been so much to explore here,
And we love it here,
And I think for me,
And I think for my husband Matt as well,
It just feels like that magic,
There's less distance between us and the magic.
I feel that the work culture is stronger in Ontario,
Here it's a little more balanced,
People work to live more than they live to work,
And people spend lots of time out in nature,
Just connecting with each other,
Hanging out,
So I think that's been really good for taming any travel itch,
But all of a sudden this year,
And I've been kind of in a hermit mode too,
I feel like my nervous system has been going through a lot of healing,
And so I haven't really felt comfortable with the idea of traveling,
Especially somewhere where the culture is very different,
But I think I've come to a point in that healing process where now I'm feeling ready to expand again,
And to explore other cultures and other places,
So I'm feeling very called to it,
And again with that intuition piece,
I'm feeling for some reason really strongly that I'm going to be going to Europe this year.
It's been on my mind,
So I actually set the intention that that's what I want to do,
So I'm inviting an opportunity to bring me there.
I know that I could just go,
But I feel like it's so much more magical to say that that's what I want,
To have all these synchronicities where it's like,
Specifically France is coming up a lot,
And I'm hearing it,
I'm seeing it,
Things are reminding me of it,
So to have these synchronicities happen,
And then to receive an opportunity to do it would just be so much more magical than just saying,
I want to go to France,
So I'm just going to book a ticket,
Which is also great,
And I think honoring our desires and taking action on them also is amazing,
And I like to do that too,
But I just love to play with co-creating my existence and saying,
I think this would be cool.
I'm now opening myself to an opportunity for that to happen,
And to just see where that goes.
So yeah,
I'm feeling very,
Very drawn to that.
We'll see what happens,
And if no opportunity comes,
Then maybe I should just book a trip somewhere.
I'm very curious to know why that's coming up,
And I feel like anytime I've had a strong feeling about something and about an opportunity being aligned,
It's been so exciting and so rewarding,
And I have the experience,
I'm like,
Oh okay,
This is why I had to experience that.
You know,
I had to meet a certain person,
Or I had to see a certain place,
Or even just geographically,
I think that places can activate something within you to kind of level up,
Or to get some kind of creative inspiration.
And so I think maybe that's part of it as well,
But yeah,
France.
There are other places in Europe I'm feeling drawn to as well,
But for some reason that one is sticking out in my mind,
And it's also popping up in places around me.
For example,
My sister's a big reader,
And she sent me a page from this reading journal that I got her,
And she was like,
This is my favorite page in the book,
And it's like a plain black and white outline of a stack of books,
And so you draw each book,
And it says finished or something on the side,
So you draw each book that you finish,
So you copy what the spine looks like,
And you kind of see a little bit of the cover.
So she put the first four books,
And one of them had the word Paris in it,
And the other one didn't.
It was The Winter Witch,
The other one was called,
And I responded to her,
And I said,
Do you think I would like either of those two books?
And she said,
Yeah,
And she was kind of giving me a synopsis of them,
And the one that doesn't have Paris in it is also based in France,
Or is related to France somehow,
And I was like,
That's weird.
I was drawn to the one because it had the word Paris in it,
But I didn't know that about the other book.
So little moments like that,
And you know,
There's always the chance that it's just coincidence,
But I feel like in my experience,
It ends up not being a coincidence,
And I think these things happen repeatedly to get our attention,
And to start getting us thinking about the potential opportunities,
And aligning ourselves with them,
And so I have no idea what could be in store for me in France,
Or in Europe,
But I'm just going to go with it,
And I feel really excited about it.
I'm getting that full body yes intuition feeling.
I don't know if it's something related to work,
No idea,
So I'll definitely chat more about it if anything happens with that,
But coming back to what I started this episode with,
Showing up for yourself.
The more you show up for yourself,
The more you put yourself out there,
Which is a form of showing up for yourself,
Declaring who you are to the world,
The more you align with the highest version of you,
And the more that attracts opportunities that are in alignment with that version of you.
So I feel like every time we do the courageous,
Vulnerable thing of sharing ourselves with the world,
Whatever way that looks like,
The more we embody that version of ourselves,
It just keeps growing and growing from there,
And I feel like the more we do that,
And the more in tune and aligned with our true selves we become,
The more we are rewarded for that courage.
Yeah,
That's what I feel.
That makes sense.
I want to leave this with an invitation for you one day this coming week to practice courage and to share your true authentic self with the world in some way,
Even if that's starting with a small group or with a person in your life.
It can be a small step or maybe it's a in a bigger way,
Like for example posting a video or a blog post or finally publishing that book that you've been sitting on or sharing a painting you made,
Whatever that looks like for you,
And I feel like you know deep down what that is.
And I also want to remind you that if something makes you uncomfortable,
But in that way where you're like,
Oh I know this would be good for me,
But I don't want to do it,
I want to remind you that on the other side of that is beauty,
And you have no idea the extent of that beauty.
And you could be,
Like whatever you're imagining,
It could be 10 times,
100 times better than that just from you being courageous and sharing yourself.
And also when we do that we inspire other people to do the same,
So you're not just doing it for yourself,
You're doing it for other people too.
And you know some people might not agree with you or they might not like it,
It might make them uncomfortable,
Whatever.
You know,
We can't make everyone happy.
I think this is a lesson that we all learn in our 20s,
So that by the time we're in our 30s we're like,
Okay that's not working,
Me trying to make everyone else happy,
So what do I want?
I can only speak for myself,
But that's definitely,
Maybe not right at 30,
But you know I'm 32 now and I definitely feel like I'm a lot more solid in that now.
Like living for other people just doesn't make sense because when you live for yourself you really are living for other people because you're showing up more joyfully and more whole and you know you're showing up because you want to,
Not because you feel like you have to,
Not because you feel like you owe someone something.
For me,
I would rather have people in my life who are showing up because they've taken care of themselves and now they're ready to show up for me,
They're ready to be in my life,
They're ready to you know have fun together and to take care of each other when we need it,
Not out of obligation or worrying about what I think or whatever silly things that humans do.
But just imagine if we all lived with more courage and if we all put ourselves out there more,
If we weren't so afraid of how we were going to be perceived.
I mean that would be really beautiful because we all have such unique ways of seeing the world and unique ideas but we're so afraid to share them because we don't want to be seen as weird or like we don't fit in.
But I think that's the problem is we've become too rigid in what's normal.
I mean it's kind of a blanket statement and I think in general humans are getting better at like waving their freak flag,
So to speak.
And I love seeing that and I'm still warming up to it myself,
Don't get me wrong,
Because there's those people that they're just so out there and so authentically,
They're vibrant eccentric selves.
And it does make you uncomfortable if you've been masking yourself especially.
If you feel vulnerable just witnessing other people do that,
If you've been putting on masks depending on where you are,
Who you're with.
But if we all were like that or started to you know take little steps to just be more authentically ourselves,
It would be like you think about making a painting with different shades of gray with a couple pops of color versus a canvas that's just covered in splatters of different color.
Like so much variety,
So many different tints of colors and sizes of the the brush strokes or the splatters and it would just be so much more interesting to look at and to experience and it would evoke completely different things in you than looking at this gray painting with just a few little spots that stick out.
Yeah,
I think we need to all put ourselves out there more and share more and so this is my invitation to you to practice that this week.
And I know it's scary and I believe in you and I'm right here with you because I'm still getting used to it.
But anytime I have practiced that,
I've been pleasantly surprised and I get past the fear and I'm like okay it wasn't that bad and now I've met this new person or now these people know what my perspective is which feels really nice to share or oh I finally hit send on that thing and now I'm not holding in my voice and my expression anymore.
Right?
So on the other side of that fear is something really beautiful and it's right there for you to accept it and receive it but you just have to practice that courage and that vulnerability.
So get to it and I'm so excited for you to experience what's on the other side of it.
And that is my tangent for the day.
Thanks for listening.
