My Story in Brief
My first 6 years were spent in a rural idyll. We lived in a wonderful pub with real fires and real beer. I spent my time in the ideal country environment cared for by wonderful childminders who could not be bettered. I loved learning about nature and growing your own food and it was the best time.
When I was about 7 we moved to a complete opposite kind of life – to a mining village with tin baths and spittoons for atmosphere! Then quickly out of the pan and into the fire of urban Derby and its delights. I learnt I had to to grow up fast and look after myself. I was taught to hide all signs of emotions in order to survive and be faux tough!
I grew up with what Psychologists now call Emotionally Immature Parents who are distant rejecting self involved. You are left feeling invisible ,worthless, If you are inward looking like me then you perform for them-be who they want not who you are. You are kind and thoughtful and hope to receive the same in return- it doesn’t work. You may even like me have much success in sport or some other arena. They barely notice. They don’t know they are damaging you but they do. Being a “performer” can become, without help -a way of life.
You often have no words of your own when you grow up in such a difficult family so you turn to the arts to find someone who understands. My words I found in music and lyrics. I would sing the songs that resonated with me-they had to be true and I had to feel it if I was going to sing it. This “catch” inside was my way of knowing this is an issue for me that I need to deal with. Its a truth I need to explore. I use this technique to this day to help me locate lost feelings.
As a teenager I decided I will not live like this. I had no idea what I wanted to do in life except I had a strong attraction to being a famous singer. I loved to sing and hours dancing and singing made me very happy in my teenage bedroom. Some dreams are not meant to come true and later in life I realised how it inspired me but when I did join a couple of hobby bands – the pleasure of the soulful self expression was gone. What remained was anxiety about “doing it right” so I think I made the right choice in not pursuing it. I knew I needed security. I wanted a proper home and a key to the front door which I had never had. Most of all I wanted a garden. A place of peace and creativity.
Initially after school I worked for two years in a bank in Piccadilly London. It was physically located between St James Church – a hub of New Age Thought and RADA headquarters. I later thought it was a kind of metaphor of my work to come. I brushed up against fame then by way of cashing cheques for famous people going next door!
Working in a bank made me relish getting a degree to do something else! Eventually I got a degree and qualified as a commercial property chartered surveyor. Working in every kind of organisation from commercial agents and local authorities to retail chains and managing private investors property and residential land development sales.
My had father died when I was 20 and for many years afterwards I had the feeling I should visit a medium and discover what happens when we die. I was very resistant to that idea. We had never been close and I was ambivalent at best about the idea that he may still in some way be in my life. Still a little voice inside would not shut up about it!
After a few years at work I got a chronic illness called Chrohn’s disease. Its very painful and that wears you out emotionally. So eventually –two operations later, I’m more willing to listen to that little voice. I am a pragmatist and said -ok you win -I’ll check it out. It changed by beliefs and my direction in life. I realised because of illness and all the other negatives I needed to understand my feelings and and start dealing with them before they dealt even more drastically with me. There’s nothing more deadly than a repressed empath, its so bad for your health.
So I started an emotional /spiritual investigation that goes on to this day. I started to discover there was a lot of help and healing in spiritual Love and meditation. There is a lot of wisdom and guidance to tap into and use for help to get to better places.
So much of my creativity and authenticity was lost but using meditation and understanding more about how life works beneath the material level I began a process of reclaiming my true self and my true feelings. I started to find my voice.
I had become someone I believed will impress others and lost touch with myself and what I wanted or needed at work or in life. Its a very common story. So I started to look for ways to earn a living in a way that would make me happy not just well paid or secure. I wanted to do something I cared about. This was my motivation in healing myself-to get more of what I wanted in life. For me that’s a very powerful drive.
I decided to do a part time Masters in Work Psychology as it complimented my interests. Doing the course helped me understand why my work was making me miserable. I understood how painful a lack of engagement can be . I felt the anger and hurt of being managed by people with no emotionally intelligence. I felt the emptiness of working with no Vision of why we are doing it. When I thought about it there were clear comparisons between my upbringing and this kind of world of work. I had stumbled into the very thing I was trying to escape.
Feeling empowered by all this knowledge I left my surveying work to concentrate on my own Soulful Work some of which you see here! I left the University too but got half a Masters – a Post Grad Cert in work Psychology! I had decided I was not going to trade money for happiness any more. I had concerns as to whether it would be ok financially but I had a belief in the support inside myself. I felt it was absolutely the right thing to do. I worked long and hard on myself and bit by bit I emerged until one day an idea came to me. Music and pictures to tell stories and give guidance to myself and others. To use the lyrics as guide as I had always done to try and discover hidden feelings. For those people who don’t want a therapist but need some help. For creative expressive sorts like me. Educational and fun!
My approach is that we need to deal with our inner personal emotional issues as a way to thrive in our work. It releases our passion our creativity our joie de vivre.
Its been no easy ride . I have big creativity imagination and sensitivity which is undermined by self-doubt and thus provokes endless confusion. It has been a process of removing the emotional debris of childhood to reveal the truth of my talents and the possible uses of them. Learning to Love myself enables me to be vulnerable enough to share creative ventures such as these on this site. So many of us are crushed by our early years and thus hide away and never get to give what we could have done so well. It feels like such a waste and its something I care passionately about.
The purpose of this site is to share creatively how to do this kind of work. We need to work to discover and then remove blockages and then our lives can be a much more pleasing affair. I think that we need to step up and be more creative be more compassionate to ourselves and others. If we are not expressing our selves I believe it is damaging not just to ourselves but to the planet and nature. We become angry and frustrated in our uncreative lives and this impacts everything. Feelings have to go somewhere and we can see how pressured people feel and how out of balance the earth is. We need new ways to understand ourselves and to be more creative in every way.
To assist the next generation I now mentor a care disadvantaged young lady through MCR Pathways organisation. A charity to help youngsters at school with one hour a week as a mentor. It helps provide support not just for their future career but to just be there for someone. I wish I’d had such a person when I was growing up.
Creativity for me still includes a passion for singing and dancing but also growing flowers in my garden and my allotment. It makes me feel wonderful to have a house full of flowers and even better knowing that I grew them. Its so satisfying to create something beautiful like a garden.
I have a desire to help people use creativity to get them through work in better shape and use it to change themselves and their lives. Then its fun not a chore. The easiest way I know of cheering myself up is to stick on a record and sing and dance away my upset. The interesting question I ask of myself and others is why then do we not do it all the time? Why sink into misery and upset when we often know how to avoid it. Why when we know so much about what could make us happy and healthy do we not do it? What stops us? When we know that and and how to handle it -then we have made a great stride toward creating my idea of a Soulful Life! If you would like to learn more about this or the videos or would be interested in a talk for your group about such things then please get in touch.
Yours Creatively
Angela Courtney
