Growing up, I was always writing stories, performing in funny videos with friends, and hosting events. Even in university I studied creative writing. It was great. But after university, "practicality" "started eating my brain.
Hypnotized by false beliefs, I didn't think fiction or performance could be a career. I abandoned my Inner Art and joined an advertising firm. I rationalized it by saying I needed to make money, and maybe I could still get to be creative. Not so. I spent many years trying to find satisfaction by switching jobs, getting an MBA, working in purpose-driven business. None of it was working for me. Eventually I just left it all. I quit my job, I pressed pause on my relationship, and I moved to a different country. I gave myself 3 months to figure out what I really wanted to do. People around me said I was crazy.
It took me several weeks to get out of my old thinking. I soon found myself drawing crappy pictures, I was reading like crazy, I was playing games with reckless abandon, and I was journaling, meditating, and doing yoga. Soon I got the idea to volunteer at a spiritual center and I tried all kinds things. This went on for weeks. Then one day, in a meditation, I suddenly saw that one of my arts was personal transformation. This led me to creating a coaching business from nothing, and that's still my work today! It was the inner exploration and childlike creativity that opened the door to see this. And it did not stop there.
Several years into coaching my Inner Artist started calling me again. I did an exercise that I give my clients called Your Proud History. I realized, after everything I had achieved, that one of the proudest moments of my life had to do with me being on stage when I was a teenager. I was shocked. I did nothing at first because it still felt silly to pursue it. But I knew I had to. I signed up for a comedy improv course. In that very first class, it was like an entire, sleeping part of my being was suddenly alive. Soon, "by coincidence," I was invited into a comedy group called Script for Brains. I started performing twice a month. The group asked me to be the host of our shows! I love it. It's so much fun. It has also made me a better coach and a better relationship partner!
Now I'm exploring another long lost piece of my Inner Artist, fiction writing, and I'll be sharing all the bumps and bruises for your enjoyment in our Peaceful Creativity Community. I want to help more people have the experience I had. Our Inner Creative drive is not a coincidence, it's an essential part of us that leads to a better life. Let's explore this together.