The Unlikely Artist

If you believe you don’t belong, it can feel pretty painful. A sense of not belonging runs deep. It might even be something you’ve carried with you since childhood. In this episode, I dive deep into the whole issue of not belonging, and I share some vulnerable stories of my own. We often don’t talk about our feeling of not belonging because that admission is loaded with so much shame, and a deep sense that there’s something wrong with us. In fact, most of us feel this way from time to time, and when we understand that it can help diminish our shame. Often, we try to fix the issue by fixing the “wrong” parts of us, with the hope that we can make ourselves belong by conforming to others’ expectations. This episode explores a different way you can create your own sense of belonging. Instead of seeking your belonging in others, you can decide to find that belonging in yourself. You can learn to carry the spirit of belonging everywhere you go. This episode will help you do that. In this episode, I refer to the book by Canadian criminal defense lawyer, Marie Henein, Nothing But the Truth: A Memoir, (McClelland & Stewart, 2021). Her book is not overtly about belonging, yet her thoughtful recounting of how and why she’s made the choices she has is a brilliant example of how we can boldly create our own belonging.

When you discover how to think in a way that helps you feel better and show up more intentionally, you might also find yourself frustrated with the “sticky” thoughts you keep having. Sticky thoughts are stories you keep telling yourself, even though you now understand that these stories don’t serve you. They’re your “go to” thoughts that tend to come whenever you think about a specific topic or encounter a specific, stressful situation. They’re thoughts like, “I’m stuck.” or “I’m not good enough.” or “I don’t belong.” You feel so frustrated. You intellectually get that the thought’s not true and you understand its negative impact on how you feel and what you do, but you still can’t seem to stop thinking it. No matter what you do, this same, unwanted and unhelpful thought keeps presenting itself to you as the truth. This episode is about what to do when you’re caught in a thought rut and you’re anxious to get out of it. I explain why this happens, how your brain is trying to serve you, and how to reduce or eliminate the negative impact of your sticky thoughts.

You'll find this episode useful if you've got an anxious, busy or unfocussed brain that makes meditation difficult or unpleasant for you. I’m guessing that even if you’re a seasoned meditator, you’ll discover some useful strategies. My purpose in creating The Unlikely Artist podcast is to share practices I’ve found useful in my own journey from tax lawyer to artist, and I’ve used to help my clients navigate their own life and career transitions. Mediation is one of the most important tools to help you transform your life. You can use the approaches I share in this episode to open space in your brain for creativity to flow in, your inner wisdom to sing loudly, and quantum leaps to happen. Tune in to this episode to learn a dozen ways to meditate that go beyond more traditional practices. My hope is to inspire you to find a way to meditate that’s easy, enjoyable and works well for YOUR brain.

If you’ve ever thought you might suffer from “imposter syndrome”, this episode’s for you. When you believe your success comes from somewhere outside of you, it’s hard to feel confident that you’ll be able to make it happen again. You may even find yourself wishing other people would stop applauding your accomplishments because they’ll probably expect you to do it again. You’re not at all convinced that’s possible. The root cause of imposter syndrome is your belief that your self worth is contingent on your success. This episode identifies 3 myths that are likely causing you to distrust your success. Learn why none of these myths bear scrutiny. When you start to take credit for all your achievements, you’ll be able to build on them to move your life forward in the direction you want.

This podcast is about the freedom to become who you want. It’s NOT about the freedom to become who someone else wants you to be! For many of us, the number one obstacle to us becoming who we want is our obsession with what other people think about us. This episode explains why our focus on other people’s opinions and expectations is always a losing game. It will never get us what we’re seeking. Our people pleasing logic has two main flaws: (1) We believe if we can secure other people’s approval or esteem, we’ll feel worthy. In practice, this doesn’t work because our self worth always comes down to how WE feel about us. (2) However much we might wish we could, we can’t actually control what other people think. Not only that, but our guesses about what they’re thinking are most often wrong! This makes people pleasing inherently futile. If we stop getting lost in the mess of worrying about other people's reactions, we create space in our brains to focus on our goals, how we want to show up, what we want to create in our lives. The space in OUR heads is what we need to create the lives WE want.

Imagine discovering the best teacher in the world. She knows you better than anyone else, understands exactly what you want, is available immediately and charges nothing. She’s right here. That teacher is you. My biggest learning this year has been to gather the wisdom from all the parts of me and apply it to everything I do. I used to splinter myself into Heather the artist, Heather the life coach, Heather the former lawyer and business leader. I don’t do that anymore. I constantly explore the crossovers between all my roles. I apply what I’ve learned in one role to help me expand what I do another. In this episode, I discuss four useful concepts my artist brain has taught my lawyer brain. I’m pretty sure these ideas will help you too. This week, explore the crossovers in your own life. Consider how what you’ve learned in one role could be applied to another area of your life. Let all your wisdom shine in everything you do!

If you’re a human, you’ll experience disappointment. If you’re a growing and evolving human, you’ll experience even more of it. And that’s OK. In this episode, I share practical steps you can use to navigate through a major disappointment and come out the other side. You’ll learn how to feel the disappointment, turn your attention away from what you did wrong to what you did right, deepen your self compassion, and translate the disappointment into ongoing learning that will inspire you and others in years to come. For some added encouragement, I share my own story of a major and public disappointment as a new coach, and why I now believe that it was the best thing that could have happened.

If you’re having trouble making an important decision, you’ll find this episode helpful. We go through the three main reasons most of us believe we can’t make a decision yet: (1) I need more information. (2) I’m not sure how other people will react. (3) I want to make the wrong choice. None of these things need to keep you stuck. Once we rule out those 3 hurdles, I show you how to use powerful questions and tap into your embodied wisdom to make decisions that serve you. Tune in and start making the decisions that will move you closer to the life you want to create.

Fancy yourself a perfectionist? If you’ve adopted this label, there’s likely a part of you that secretly believes being a perfectionist is a good thing. Listen to this episode to learn why it isn’t. Being a perfectionist won’t cause you do things well. It will cause you to be too critical of yourself and other people. You’ll enjoy life less than you could. And you won’t become all you’re capable of being. You’ll be too busy avoiding the failures that are an inevitable part of your growth and evolution. At the end of this episode, I share a few important first steps you can take to become just a little less perfect. Here’s wishing you an imperfect week!!!

You’ll enjoy this entertaining and insightful interview with my client, Dionne England. Dionne shares how she successfully straddles two worlds – her full-time work as a senior business consultant and her creative life as a business book author and speaker. Dionne’s biggest learning was to not restrict herself by feeling bound to follow anyone else’s beaten path. Instead, she’s created her own way forward by paying attention to what really resonates with and works for her. This interview bubbles over with Dionne’s creative energy. You’ll definitely want to start reading her books. You can find out more about her books at www.dionnethewriter.com. Each week on YouTube, hear Dionne speak in her irreverent and humorous way about how we as business leaders can be much more effective and authentic. Subscribe to Dionne England’s YouTube channel, My Lemonade Stand. In this interview, Dionne mentioned the trusted team who assists her with her content. For branding and graphic design, Dionne works with @lovelystudiobrandingco, for social media and public relations with @upyourpr, and for makeup, videography and editing with @forprettysake_byjosette (all Instagram handles).

In this episode, we examine the way we all use rules to limit ourselves. Our made-up rules affect our lives in dramatic ways. They constrain what we allow ourselves to do and who we allow ourselves to be. When we stop to examine our self-imposed rules, our world opens. We discover we’re free to decide which rules to keep and which ones to discard. We learn how to broaden the choices available to us and we create expansive lives. I refer in this episode to the “Obey” episode of the CBC Podcast, Telling Our Twisted Histories, hosted by Kaniehtilio Horn. That episode explores the western concept of “obey”. It’s a word that doesn’t exist in indigenous cultures, but is deeply embedded in broader society. It’s a word that has a huge impact on our thinking. The mission of Telling Our Twisted Histories is to decolonize our minds, one word at a time. By rethinking “obey” and our compliance culture, we can all take a huge step forward.

In episode 10, How to Think Your Future into Existence, you learned how to use visualization to create your future. In this episode, we focus instead on how to use visualization and imagery to solve your problems. There are several reasons why imagery works so well for problem solving: Repeated patterns of thinking become wired into our brains and steeped into our subconscious. Our subconscious doesn’t understand language. It does understand pictures and images. We need to be able to communicate with our subconscious to solve deep seated patterns of thinking. Imagery helps us step out of linear thinking so that we can find more creative solutions. When we visualize solving a problem a new way, we gain problem solving experience. That’s because our brains can’t distinguish between actual and imagined experiences. Images can help us remember preferred solutions when we’re in emotionally charged situations that make it hard to remember the specific language we’d planned to use. Listen to this episode to hear several examples for how you can use images to solve your problems.

This episode is for you if you associate “difficult” with “valuable” and “easy” with “not valuable”. We're living in a society that prizes effort, diligence, stamina, dedication, commitment and working hard. These things are necessary sometimes. Valuable sometimes. But a lot of times we prize these qualities so much we create a desperate dedication to effort that’s completely unnecessary. Listen to this episode to find out why easy can be better. Learn how to effort less and enjoy life more.

In this episode, I share how you can look inward, instead of outsourcing your decisions. I discuss the four sources of wisdom available to you that no outside expert will ever have. And I provide a framework for making decisions over the next week. Ready for some fun? In this episode I mention that it might be fun to record a podcast episode where I coach someone over Zoom through a dream analysis. The purpose would be to teach podcast listeners how to do this for themselves. Dream analysis is a useful and easy way to access important inner wisdom about your decisions. If you’d be interested in volunteering to have your dream analyzed in a podcast episode, you can reach me at heather@gracedcanvas.com.

Get ready to blow up your concept of what your “career” encompasses. When you learn to think more expansively about your career, you might very well find that your whole life becomes bigger. Language can curtail your choices, or it can set you free. In this episode you’ll learn why it’s true that you're never stuck or confined by the career choices you've already made, your age, or your previous work experience. In this episode I outline a new way to think about your career and what’s possible for you. You’ll be able to make different choices and find the energy and confidence to take the next steps towards creating the life you want.