Most people know me as your Messy Muse Mentor and host of the Follow Your Curiosity podcast. What you may not know about me, though, is that I became a creativity coach because I was not allowed to watch Doctor Who.
I am the only science fiction fan in my family, and they did NOT understand. TV on a weekend afternoon—also not allowed. So I wrote my own.
They could keep me away from the TV, but they couldn’t keep me away from my own imagination.
I didn’t know I was writing fan fiction, but I loved it. I wrote all through high school and wanted to be a writer, but that wasn’t allowed, either. It wasn’t good enough for a gifted kid. I had to say I wanted to be a lawyer or journalist on my college application instead.
By graduation, there wasn’t enough time to write…and it wasn’t supposed to be important anymore. I was an adult, doing adult things, which didn’t include writing stories.
Ten years later, I’d done pretty much everything I was told to do to have a good life, and on paper, I did, but some part of me was lost, empty—like the most alive part of me had been cut away. I was on a hamster wheel, each day just like the one before. Wasn’t being an adult supposed to be more fun?
I met some friends online who wrote, and I felt something inside stir, but it seemed to be locked behind an invisible wall.
Then one of my LiveJournal friends said, “We’re doing a fan fiction challenge. You should sign up.”
So I did. I wrote a piece of West Wing fan fiction—and my dormant little spark roared back to life. Words that had been dammed up for more than a decade spilled out. My brain fired on all cylinders. I bounced off the walls. I don’t know how I slept.
My first original story wrote itself over a weekend, and I started a novel. I jumped into an MFA in creative writing, because I wanted more—and to give my ESL students the same experience I’d had.
Instead, my teaching job vanished just as I graduated, and I ended up in an office job that started sucking the life out of me. BUT: I stumbled on creativity coaching, and instantly knew that was where I belonged.
I also started the Follow Your Curiosity podcast because I wanted to hear people’s creative stories—and it saved me. It showed me a side of myself I hadn’t even known existed, where I am literally free to see where my own curiosity takes me. It also gave me defiant proof that I am so much more than my office supervisors wanted me to believe I was. And, to the surprise of no one more than me, I’ve been able to interview quite a few Doctor Who cast members, which has been one of the greatest joys of my life.
I’ve learned—twice over—that creativity is the fastest path back to yourself. That self you thought was lost, in a world that tells you to be less than you really are. The spark we all have as kids is our life energy in motion. It may feel like it leaves us, but it’s still there, waiting for us to come home to it.
And that’s why I do what I do.
Too many women are living dull, deflated lives because they followed all the rules, but instead of the rewards they were promised, they lost touch with the truest, most playful part of themselves.
I help them reconnect with their lost inner spark—the one that knows exactly who they really are and what truly lights them up—so they can reconnect with their curiosity and joy, and have a lot more fun…because creativity isn’t just for kids. It’s for all of us.
PS: You might think that’s just any old photo of a lavender garden up there, but it’s not from just any old lavender farm. Curious? Ask me where I was when I took it!