Unscripted - Opening (With Patricia Fitzgerald)

Patricia Fitzgerald explores "Opening" from many perspectives and shares her own story of opening up to her own life. Patricia Fitzgerald is a visual artist located in Dublin, Ireland. Her main focus is on the art of Mandala and the power of mandala as a tool for the expansion of consciousness. Her internationally-selling work has been exhibited extensively in Ireland. As well as creating stunningly detailed mandalas, she also hosts workshops and retreats in Ireland and abroad.

Transcript

Welcome to Unscripted,

Conversations exploring where we've come from and where we are going.

We begin with a single word and we go wherever it takes us.

There's no agenda,

There's no script,

Just the passion to share the conversations that matter.

Today I am following the word trail with the wonderful Patricia Fitzgerald.

Welcome,

Patricia.

I am so thrilled that you're here.

It's so lovely to be here Polly.

Absolutely my pleasure.

Please do tell us a little bit about yourself because you are a wonderfully,

Gloriously diverse person.

I am.

Too diverse sometimes.

My name is Patricia Fitzgerald and I am a mandala artist and a writer,

Author and meditation facilitator based in Dublin in Ireland.

And I wasn't always this.

I was,

Seven years ago you would have found me behind the desk of a library and I was a librarian for 27 years.

So it's been a huge change for me.

I had quite a big awakening in 2012 when my marriage broke up.

Everything in my life literally changed from my home,

Obviously my marriage situation,

Everything was up in the air and it gave me a gift.

You know,

Obviously it was a difficult time.

There's no two buts about that,

But often in the darkness we find the light and I seemed to find my soul calling for something much deeper.

And I took risks along the way and I left my permanent pensionable job much to a chagrin of colleagues and family and overcoming all of those obstacles.

And then I went on to write books.

I have recorded meditations and I do my mainstay is mandala art,

Which I absolutely love and find to be hugely loved.

Now before we go into your word,

Which is segues,

But I'm now really curious to know,

Have you always painted?

When I was a child,

I remember one of my first memories is going across to a girl across the road to her birthday party and I must have been about seven and we had bought her a colouring book on markers and I didn't get across the road.

I remember being in the middle of the road down on my hands and knees,

Ripping open the present,

Starting to colour myself.

So I think it was in me.

I wanted to go to art college and I remember doing my portfolio and then I wasn't allowed,

It was a recession in Ireland and I was told to go get a proper job,

Which I did.

And I put myself through art college at night,

Which I didn't enjoy.

I was always drawn to the spiritual and to the feminine and to the ancient Irish and Egyptian cultures.

And that was just a no-no at that time.

And that would be nearly 30 years ago.

We were rocking onto 30 years ago.

And I didn't paint for 25 years.

I went on,

I was working as a library assistant and I got a scholarship to do my degree in philosophy and sociology,

Which is my librarianship degree.

And that's funnily,

As it turns out,

It's very relevant to what I do now.

And so it was only through the divorce.

I began writing actually.

And that is how my creativity was just bursting.

There was something like this ache,

You know,

You're sitting on the sofa and you're going,

Is this it?

There's something more,

I know it,

You know,

I could feel it in every cell of my body,

But I didn't know what it was or how it was going to come.

And I couldn't have been more surprised by how it did come.

Which does lead very beautifully,

I assume,

In some ways and on some levels to your word,

Which is opening.

Tell us what opening means to you.

I think all along my journey,

It has been opening and opening and opening in every single way.

I think opening up to my creativity,

Opening up to,

You know,

I was not worrying anymore what people would think of me.

That was huge for me.

I was always a people pleaser,

You know,

So going against the grain and opening up to my true self instead of always being the good girl and doing what I was told was a huge opening for me.

And I think from my experience and when I talk to people who come into my studio,

It's for a lot of us,

That's an issue.

And just to know that it is something that can open.

There is a lock on a box,

But the box can be opened.

And I had stuck my creativity in a little black box,

Covered it in muslin and wrapped it up in my heart and just left it there.

And it was hurting.

There was corners of the box that were sharp.

So what did in your journey,

What did you have to open before you could open the box?

Does that make sense?

Before I could open the box,

I think I had to open up to what was wrong in my life.

I had to take a proper look.

I had to get the shovel dirty.

You know,

I had to dig deep within me.

I had to do things that were uncomfortable.

And I did a DIY divorce,

You know,

And I,

I was allergic to the office.

Allergic.

And the fact that I actually did that and got through it amazed me.

Like I couldn't believe I did that.

And I think that gave me confidence in a weird way,

But I can actually do more.

And then I bought and sold my house as well without an estate agent,

Which was another huge learning curve and very fulfilling actually.

And myself and my ex-husband,

We get on like really well.

And I think it is through this journey of healing and the mandala and meditation,

All of the processes that I've used and have helped definitely me personally.

And I think my relationship with him.

So we're great friends,

Which is wonderful for our daughters.

So,

Yeah.

So actually,

I mean that,

That process of,

Of learning to almost to,

To take those decisions for yourself and then to act on them by,

You know,

Doing the,

Doing the divorce,

Doing the,

Doing the house sale.

Those,

Those are fantastic examples of when you take responsibility for your life.

So do you,

Do you think it was symbolic of that,

That overall process of taking back your life?

I do actually.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there was other things.

I mean,

Those,

It was symptomatic of much more that I had bottled away from childhood,

Particularly creativity,

I think.

I think creativity,

It's just,

It's not just something you do,

You know,

Because it's something you are,

And we all are to some extent or another,

You know,

We're creative from the moment we get up in the morning and we decide what we're going to wear or eat.

So,

You know,

It's just so funny because you're just,

The words that you're saying are exactly what I've just been writing as I'm preparing a course,

Preparing a course on creativity.

And it amazes me the extent to which in society we are conditioned to think that we're not creative,

That creativity is,

It's a nice sideline.

And yeah,

But as you said,

Yes,

It's a hobby.

Yeah.

When you're getting a real job.

But as you said,

It's like from the minute we wake up in the morning,

We are creating our day.

We are creating our life.

Every choice that we make is creating something.

Every decision we make,

Every act we take is creating.

So we are inherently creative.

And I believe that every thought we have is creating.

So it's opening,

You know,

Opening up to that understanding that we are innately and inherently creative.

And I don't know in the UK what it was like,

But I know certainly in Ireland,

When I grew up,

You know,

If people,

You did art in school,

If you were kind of,

You know,

You weren't that good and I was centered onto the art class,

That kind of thing.

And so it wasn't valued at all.

But particularly,

I know there are,

I have some friends and I talk to them and they say,

Oh,

My father really supported me.

And I'm going,

What?

You know,

My parents didn't,

They just didn't value it.

It was an academic,

You know,

Be a doctor,

A lawyer,

A solicitor,

That success.

But an artist is not.

It's interesting you say that about school because so many schools now in the UK with funding cuts have actually stopped teaching art and music.

Oh my gosh.

It breaks absolutely.

And,

You know,

I,

I can't wrap my head around that because if we are only able to express ourselves through very rigid structures and very limited ways,

Then we won't express ourselves ever.

Absolutely.

And actually it's the opposite in Ireland.

They're more embracing creativity and it's becoming a part of every subject.

So every subject has a creative element.

So even mathematics,

Science,

Which are to me,

Very linked to art and have a creative element.

So it's interesting that it's going two ways.

So with your painting,

I mean,

That's to,

To enjoy painting is one thing,

To go down the route that you've got,

Which is so,

It's,

Your work is both immensely precise and structured,

But at the same time it has an incredible freedom within it.

Did that take you by surprise?

It did.

It did.

Yeah.

I work completely intuitively now.

Whereas before I remember painting years ago and being so,

You know,

Frustrated with the whole process.

I was trying to get something to look this way,

You know,

And if it didn't look that way,

It was wrong.

And you know,

That wrongness that was put into,

Into us from so many levels,

I suppose that's what it is.

But now I paint,

You begin a mandala,

If your listeners aren't familiar,

I'll send you some photos,

Probably be my second wonder the podcast,

But they're generally geometric designs.

And sometimes I do very free flowing design.

So I send both and it starts with the bindu,

Which is the centre.

And the bindu is the same as the Hindu woman's dot on the forehead,

On the third eye.

And it means the centre of profound awareness.

So I inscribe the first circle and you know,

I might have an intention.

I might say I am,

Or once upon a time and a story is going to unfold on the canvas or the page.

And I have no idea what that story is going to be.

I don't have any idea about colours or shapes.

I'd never go in with ideas in my head about what's going to happen.

A lot of the time lately,

I've been working with dreams and I would have an intention maybe of bringing the dream into the mandala,

But that will happen again intuitively.

And I will work with what has happened in my dream landscape.

And that's another opening,

Opening to this mysterious realm and this wisdom that is held within each and every one of us.

I do believe,

I really do believe that from working with dreams and with intuition.

And I think it's something that we all have.

And it's another thing,

I suppose,

A creative feminine aspect that has been repressed greatly over many,

Many years.

Absolutely.

And I suppose witnessing it is,

I don't know,

I didn't at 2012,

I often think that,

You know,

What was,

What was I doing in 2012 or 2008 when a lot of people had these great awakenings and I was thinking to myself,

I wasn't doing anything in 2008.

I had to remind myself I actually gave birth in 2008.

So that was,

And then 2012 was when I was made redundant.

Where am I going with this?

There was a reason I was going down this route and I from,

No,

There was a completely lost way to end.

But it was,

It was to do with that.

Oh,

The opening up of the intuition.

Sorry.

That's exactly where it was coming from.

That having,

Because my,

My journey was relatively recent,

I suppose in terms of that opening up to running my own business from an intuitive space.

And I'm watching and witnessing people experience that growing sense that it doesn't have to be done this way,

That it is actually okay and safe to,

That we are going to burn all our bridges and destroy our lives by listening to our intuition.

Just allowing that a place in our life.

Yeah.

And it's not just,

I suppose for me,

The way I look at it is,

Is that I see so many people thinking,

Oh,

It's just that,

That little spidey sense that we might have to do or not do something.

And that that's as far as it goes.

And yet what you're talking about here is actually giving yourself over completely to the intuition as a guide.

Yeah,

I would give myself over very much as a guide,

But I still use the rational,

I think it's like the yoga,

It's the heart of the head,

The union of the mind,

The heart and the gut and balancing that.

And there's ways I think Mandela art itself,

Both meditating on it and practicing it will do that.

The geometries will do that too.

You know,

There's various forms of meditation and sound therapy,

All of these things that are in harmony with the planet,

The universe and this much greater thing that we're a part of.

So creating your art and your meditations and your writing that that's a form of personal expression and it's something that you are obviously called to bring from within you to share.

What's,

Do you have any intention or expectation of the impact that it will have?

I don't,

I don't.

I'm not a great,

I do goals,

You know,

And I do create a visioning and I'm great believer in that,

But my goals are generally,

I'm very open to how things are going to happen.

So I might say,

Say for example,

I got,

I have a beautiful studio in Marley park,

Which is the old courtyard,

300 acre park in Dublin.

And it was literally five minutes up the road from my home.

And I always had that on my vision board.

And I remember going,

I actually walked out to get into my car one day and a neighbor was coming across the road and she said,

Did you hear that they're renovating the old courtyard and they're making art studios?

And I went,

Nope.

So I checked it out.

I put my name down and it's the local authority.

So local government,

It was about a year later,

Bureaucracy.

I heard back about a year later and there was an appointment made for about six months time.

And again,

I forgot about it completely.

I didn't get kind of attached to it,

I suppose.

But one morning I was dropping my daughter to school and I came back and I had a bit of a sinus kind of thing.

And I said,

I think I'll go back to bed.

And I just had a gut feeling,

You know,

Gut feeling.

Check your diary.

Checked my diary.

The viewing was in a half a minute time.

So up I popped and I went on the viewing and there happened to be a girl,

A woman I know from a Facebook group that we have in Ireland called Bite the Biscuit.

And she was there and we were both on the same tour together when we went around and then we were handed the rents.

I went,

Oh,

Okay.

I can't afford it.

And I said,

Look,

It'll happen in a different way.

So I didn't get upset about it.

Whereas in the past I would have been really upset if I would have gone home and hid myself under the duvet.

But no,

I said,

No,

It'll happen.

This is another way.

There's another way for this to happen.

And so I went for coffee with Eimear and we were just chatting,

You know,

And she said,

I don't think we can afford it.

And we just looked at each other and that was that.

So we share this place now.

It's just been wonderful.

And I've learned so much about business from Eimear and Katrina or the owners of Anu.

And I learned so much from them and the way it has happened,

It's just beautiful because if I was there seven days a week,

I wouldn't be able to do the writing or give workshops all over the country.

I'd be stuck there.

But the way it is now,

I'm there half the time.

And so it's just opening up to the possibility that the universe has a better plan than you.

So you have your plan and your goal,

But you just stay neutral.

You know,

Not neutral.

You're doing it with love and with passion.

And I wouldn't say ambition is the word,

But passion.

You know,

What's going to happen.

Faith,

Faith is the word.

And just the way it opens up.

And I could tell you so many stories like that.

My life kind of unfolds in that way now.

And the more,

I think once you have the first experience of that synchronicity,

That beautiful kind of co-creation with something bigger than yourself and the synchronicities and conversations that suddenly happen and pop out of nowhere,

That you begin to have more faith in it.

I mean,

You begin to have more trust in your intuition.

And so even starting with baby steps,

Like say you're driving home from work and you say,

You know,

There's probably 10 different routes you could go,

You could take.

So you kind of listen,

There's probably one or two normal routes you take.

You listen in and say,

Which is the best route for me today?

And just listen to kind of feel at your body and say,

Well,

Which feels light and which feels heavy.

It's kind of like you have a pendulum or a yes,

No button inside of you.

And it's getting to know that and what it is in your body,

Because it will be different for different people.

So say,

For example,

Mine is I can feel the lightness in my heart and I feel the no in my stomach.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I find that really interesting to work with.

And again,

Even with meeting people,

You know,

The vibe you get,

You know,

When you walk into a room,

We all have this sixth sense and it's not nonsense.

It's you walk into a room and you sense an atmosphere,

You know?

And so,

You know,

People ridicule the idea of intuition,

But I thoroughly believe in the power of it.

I really utterly live by it and I kind of know,

And the more I work with it,

The more it,

It's the stronger it gets,

I suppose.

And I wouldn't always just go,

Oh,

That's my intuition.

I'm not going to use rational thought like,

You know,

I'm not going to make silly decisions and go and,

You know,

Make a huge decision without also having the rational mind is important too.

So it's bad.

Yeah.

I think it's so important that we allow that intuition to communicate to our rational mind so that it's not,

It's not either or it is,

It is allowing that intuition to come up and be formulated through thoughts,

Rational thought,

Because it is the rational thought.

It is the,

It is the intellect that actually says,

How am I going to do this?

Because,

You know,

You could take your intuition,

But you,

To create a mandala,

But you still need your rational thoughts,

Work out the actual steps that you've got to take.

I mean,

I've seen you with your enormous compass,

For example,

Doing your circles.

It's like,

You couldn't do that entirely intuitively because you've got to engage your head and your mind in the actual process.

And so it's,

You know,

It's so true.

There's a communication that has to happen between the two.

Yeah.

It's like that balance of the masculine and feminine energies within us.

So the feminine energy is the receptivity and the allowing of ideas to come through us.

And the masculine energy has nothing to do with gender.

Maybe the yin yang is a better word than because gender is so loaded.

But the masculine element of ourselves is the taking action in the world.

So often you see people who have loads of ideas,

But they can't seem to bring them out.

And if you look around you,

Wherever you're sitting now listening to this,

You look around you,

You know,

You'll see your kitchen table or your sofa or your television or your iPhone or your Mac,

Whatever it is.

That was once an idea in somebody's head.

Nothing,

Everything has come from an idea.

Every single thing.

Exactly.

But it's,

This is why,

As you know,

I mean,

This is why I work with the elements because to me it is a natural,

What we tend to do,

As you said,

We,

You can get great ideas and then do nothing with them or you can,

Or you can take a lot of action,

But never see it through to completion.

And that's,

As I realised was,

Was because people weren't fully accessing all the different aspects of their creativity.

You know,

We need to allow the idea to explore the idea,

To act on the idea and then become the idea.

You know,

Unless we,

Unless we allow ourselves to go through that cycle,

That creativity is not fully expressed.

It doesn't,

And it doesn't benefit us,

Nor does it benefit the world.

You know,

And I know that you create your art for the sake of argument because it's something that you need to do.

And I know,

You know,

Having an artist,

My dad's an artist and you know,

A lot of art,

Artists in my family,

I know that you know,

Creating art is something you have to do because you are called to do it.

And there may not be an expectation of that,

But it is in the process of expressing that art and releasing it into the world that it does have an impact.

That it,

It does have an impact.

It does.

And I think releasing it into the world makes space for new art and new ideas.

Whereas if you kept it all,

You know,

I often see,

I've seen that where people are being creative and they're too afraid to,

To put it out there in case,

You know,

You'll be judged and don't get me wrong,

You will be judged,

You know,

And that's okay.

And it's becoming okay with that and learning how to be resilient,

Which wasn't a natural thing for me.

And it's something that I had to work on and work on,

But you know,

It can be done.

And I talk about that in my second book is called Who Would You Be If?

And it's a personal development book for women.

And you know,

I cover things like cultivating resilience and it's a huge,

Thank God it can be,

Because you know,

Not all of us are born with that.

And I'm sure a lot of the listeners,

Because you're probably on the creative bent if you're listening to this,

I wouldn't mind,

You know.

I don't think any of us have resilience baked in.

I think we have it,

I think we have it conditioned out of us as we grow up.

I think it's something we have to recognise and be open to reinstalling or remembering or however you want to describe it to bring it back into ourselves.

And I know that a lot of people,

For example,

Talk about you and you hit a button,

You just couldn't give a hoot about it.

But I don't know that it is about age.

I think it is,

To me,

It is about the point at which you recognise that you are being cowed by the world and the point at which you say no more.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I'm increasingly seeing younger people step into that,

Which is wonderful.

It is.

And I'm,

You know,

The process that you went through going through your divorce and re-discovering who you were and being brave and bold and taking risks,

That in itself,

Of course,

Will have opened up your child to that.

Yeah.

Oh,

Okay.

It's okay to be like that.

It's okay.

It's not a bad thing.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And it's lovely to see her.

She's 14 now.

And yeah,

She's very creative herself and,

You know,

She's learned a lot.

She's seen me build this from nothing.

And it's nice.

I have to say that's one of the things that I've noticed in talking to women who run their own businesses and who are mothers.

One of the things that is just seems to be so consistent is the incredible spirit of their children.

I don't think that's an accident.

I think it's that process of us going out there and expressing ourselves.

Yeah.

I'm being comfortable with failure because she's seen me fail too.

So she sees behind the scenes the days when I'm not doing this anymore.

When I do have those days,

Like we all have those days.

And it's kind of knowing because you're on this social media and it all looks wonderful everywhere.

And just knowing that everybody,

No matter how successful they are has those days,

That's what it is to be human.

But it's not all a level that we're all,

But,

But,

But,

But,

But all the time and nor should it be,

You know,

Boom,

Slump,

Boom,

Slump,

Like an economy,

Like everything in the universe has the law of polarity.

So there'll be ups,

There'll be downs.

And it's just accepting that there will be ups and downs and knowing that,

You know,

When the downs are there,

You look,

This too shall pass.

Yes.

And,

And the downs are the preparation for the up as well.

And you learn every time.

Absolutely.

So being open to being open to learning that and,

And seeing,

Seeing that it's a pattern,

Seeing that it's a rhythm.

Yeah.

Because you can't,

As an artist or any form of creativity,

Any form of creativity,

You cannot be in that state of peak creativity all the time.

I'll be exhausted.

Can you imagine a chef that had to cook 24 hours a day,

You know,

At that level?

I mean,

That's,

It's just not possible.

And the same,

You can't be inspired and creative and acting on it and,

And growing all at the same time.

You know,

It's.

Yeah,

No,

There are days that where I've kind of very much listened to my body.

So,

Or listened to how I'm feeling.

So the days that I don't feel like creating,

I don't,

I don't force it.

I don't,

I'll go and do something else.

I might do a little bit of work on my website or something,

You know,

So I might do that kind of activity and I'll get something.

I always get something done every day.

I believe in that.

I'm a great believer in small steps.

And then things just happen like by magic when you do that.

But also I take myself off.

I'm like Churchill,

I take myself off to bed for a nap frequently.

And I know he was a great believer in that.

And I've heard,

I've heard other people do that.

I really believe that's hugely beneficial.

Like say when I was working in libraries before I left,

I left in 2017,

I resigned,

But it got quite,

You know,

It was busy at the end and you're trying to make this huge life decision and there was a bit of a toxic environment going on.

And I would come home and I go,

Okay,

I've gone,

I've left now.

I'm going to,

I take myself up to bed.

I do a little meditation,

Which I'd usually fall asleep during and I'd wake up completely refreshed and in I go and start creating and doing things.

So it's like you can,

And I still do it,

Even though I'm not in that environment,

I might be in the shop say in Marley and I'm doing one thing where I might be doing a podcast or something and then I might go for a little nap and then I wake up and it's like a new day has started.

I'm not kind of,

I haven't had this huge busy,

Busy,

Busy,

Busy day.

And the idea of busyness as being worth that you're more worthwhile.

Like you're nobody if you're not busy is very detrimental to both.

I think you believe,

You know,

For your mental health,

Your physical health,

Your wellbeing,

Your family life,

Everything suffers.

And the idea of busy,

Busy,

Busy is worth taking a look at on your relationship to that idea.

But it's okay to stop.

It's okay to go for a walk in the forest.

In fact,

It's usually important.

Very important.

Cause if we don't reset then,

And that was a,

That's,

That was a lesson that I learned very hard very early on in my business is that I,

I couldn't,

I'd have,

I'd be speaking to a client and I'd be fully engaged in that and I'd end the call.

And then I was like,

Right now I couldn't hit that reset button,

You know,

And I was stuck for the whole day then that I didn't know how to shift and be able to do anything else.

And it was just like,

So it just left me in this really difficult place in my business.

Really difficult because I just couldn't,

I hadn't got the energy or the impetus to be able to,

To,

To expand and to,

To,

To do more.

And so I think that that ability to have to,

To find your own reset button,

Whatever it is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

With,

And doing it without guilt.

So,

You know,

My taking,

I remember at the beginning I'd take a nap and I'd go,

What if somebody calls to the door and here I am just conked out in a bed.

But I'm over that.

I'm over that.

It really works for me.

So,

You know,

It could be for different people.

It might be a jog.

It might be cooking.

Just doing something completely different with the brain and just relaxing.

For me in that I love a nap.

Well,

It's also,

It is the time then when you,

When you do that,

Whatever it is that you do,

Whatever works for you is the time when you actually make the space for the creativity to come in.

Yeah.

And funnily it's coming in through my dreams.

So often the afternoon naps are the most fruitful in terms of dreams.

So you are actually working you see.

Yeah.

I am actually working when I'm sleeping.

I have no guilt about it.

I mean,

That's what's going on in our heads,

You know,

Processing everything that we experience.

We have to listen to our bodies to get that information don't we?

We can't,

We can't analyse it into place.

We have to just let it.

No.

And I think it's dangerous when you're looking at every,

You know,

All these videos and these,

You know,

Coaches and do this,

This,

This and this.

And you know,

You're always to be active 24 seven,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And it's just like,

Oh my God,

I feel like I can't take it actually.

And it's not natural for us.

Yeah.

This is,

This is one of my absolute,

This is my mission to actually allow people to find a natural rhythm to their business because this constant push and even when it's not framed as a push,

It's a push,

You know,

Is to me a presence to be doing this,

To be doing that.

And I've been literally just before we started this conversation,

I was talking to somebody who was saying exactly that,

I can't live up to that,

You know,

And it's,

It's a pressure that we don't need to put on that.

And do you know what?

I don't think many people can.

And it's not necessary because it doesn't,

It doesn't actually achieve anything.

I mean,

It's just the,

The,

The world that we live in now is just so noisy that I say all the time,

It's not about raising your voice.

It's about dropping it.

Just if you can just be yourself and find that,

That,

That form of creativity,

Be open to that form of creativity that is yours,

Be open to bringing it forward in a way that feels right for you.

Then,

Then it's trust,

Faith,

That.

And it's you being you.

It's like,

I actually was at a great gig on Friday night,

Cake Tempest,

The English performance poet.

She was playing in Vicar Street in Dublin.

Oh my God,

She was amazing.

She was just amazing.

But my friend was with me and she said,

It's so hard to find something,

You know,

To be different.

And I was kind of thinking,

No,

She's not being different.

She's being her,

She's being herself.

And that's when you are yourself,

When you can strip down that onion and open up to the,

The possibilities and the potential of yourself,

That's when you will be different.

And the irony is,

Of course,

That we as humans,

We are very scared of not belonging.

And so we tend not to be ourselves because we will be judged and then we may not be accepted,

But you can only truly belong if you're being yourself.

You have to belong within yourself.

Exactly.

So you're right.

You're both different and,

And,

And,

And,

And accepted because when you Yeah.

But also being comfortable,

But you're not being accepted because there are people who will not accept you and that's okay.

If you,

As you said,

If you,

If you,

If you accept yourself,

If you,

If you,

If you are comfortable with yourself,

Then that becomes actually largely irrelevant.

It does.

You know,

If you think about it,

If you try to please everybody,

It becomes very,

It's beige.

It can't ever kind of break outside of the limits are very strict on what we can be if we are trying to please everybody and not be ever.

So yeah,

I mean,

So we've sort of,

In some ways,

We've done almost a circuit in that it is that come back to that fact that opening up to yourself,

Opening up to being yourself is the path which you break out of that box.

Yeah.

And I think there's boxes within boxes within boxes.

Oh yes.

I don't know where the paper box is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the journey.

That's the life.

That's the dance.

And it's beautiful.

You know,

And it's enjoying.

So what do you think will come next for you?

I have no idea.

I'm very open to it.

I kind of go every morning and go,

I wonder what was happening today.

I'm very open to,

To,

To the,

To allowing it unfold,

You know,

This journey.

I think it's,

It's,

It feels to be bigger than me.

I don't know.

I can't explain that really well in words,

But just go with it.

I went into the,

What we call in Ireland,

The local enterprise office,

Which is like business.

And it was just the most hilarious meeting.

Like I was,

You know,

They were saying,

Oh,

What's your,

What are your goals and your achievements?

You know,

All I was going on,

Geez,

I work with the universe in my head.

There's no point in me being here.

I can't actually engage in that structure or confinement of it.

So I don't know what dream I'm going to have tonight.

I don't know.

And,

But I do find when I listen to the dreams,

They are just,

They're leading me in a way.

So,

Yeah.

So I'm kind of looking at working with egg tempera,

Which is the beautiful that you grind the pigment and you mix it with egg yolk.

So it's really all chemical and it's used in the Renaissance and in ancient Egypt.

And I went to a course two weeks ago here in Ireland on the foot of a dream that I had about,

About egg tempera.

Anyway,

It was a whole series of dreams and synchronicities that I ended up in this wonderful workshop with Fergus Rhine,

Who's an Irish artist and very,

Very skilled craftsman master at it and just ended up there.

And so I'm just kind of leading with that.

I'm going off to do icon painting in London in May with the,

The possibility school,

Which is the Orthodox and the Russian Orthodox way of gilding gold.

So I can't,

So I just,

And that's all on foot of kind of information I've had through dreams and then opening up to synchronicities that happen in my daily life and allowing myself to go with them and follow them.

And being completely open to it.

It's been an absolute delight to talk to you.

I mean,

It's just been such a wonderful energy to your story and so inspiring.

Thank you so much for being part of it.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening and following the word trails with us.

I hope you found it inspiring and intriguing.

The details for all of my guests are in the show notes beneath to help you continue to follow the trail.

Reviews

So inspiring. Thank you

thank you❤🧡💚💙💜💕