Episode 1: Finding Your Spark!
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Hi guys and welcome back to The Creative Goddess. I’m Nicole Salinger, creative goddess, chief self – excavator and sparkler of inner magic. You can listen to it here, or read this blog post!
I believe everyone has their own breed of magic inside of themselves. In 2021, what will yours be? How do you excavate it? How do you open yourself up, through the mind, body and soul to receiving it? Is it something that you can develop and train? Or is it something already inside of you, just waiting to come out?
For the first time in 100 years, Covid has made us stop, sit and reflect upon our lives, and in ourselves. It’s made us take stock of what is important to us, and made us stop, look and listen to what our souls are telling us, or at least trying to tell us. You might be someone who is starting life on a clean slate, terrified about taking your first steps into the unknown. You might be someone who is stuck in the humdrum of your life, feeling like groundhog day, just itching to do something you love but not knowing what that something is. Or…you might be terrified of getting out of your comfort zone..and trying a new career, afraid of what others will think of you.
And what I’ve discovered is…the common thread is what everyone on this planet wants.. to find their inner magic, that very thing that makes them unique, that gives them a life purpose. And this is because a life purpose, financial or not, keeps us in a healthy mindset. And after years of deep – seeded conversations with people from all walks of life, I’ve realised that having a purpose is the thing that makes us feel full inside. It makes us feel ike we are contributing to the good of the planet. That we matter. It could be as a volunteer position you take on board, it could be a hobby you’ve never tried before, or it can be taking an online course in art, just to broaden your horizons. It doesnt matter what it is. What matters is that you are willing to put yourself on the line and take some sort of ACTION, especially when we are facing life in a pandemic.
Sitting and being indecisive about your next steps is not enough. If we dont do anything about feeling stuck, we start to feel glued to the ground. We start to become immobile and unmotivated. Not knowing how to bounce back with sparkle and vitality!
Throughout my years as both a creative and a wellness advocate, I believe that the 3 major elements to finding your inner magic lies within exercising your body, mind and soul. In that order. This takes action. It takes effort and work. It takes an enormous amount of guts and courage to start glowing again. It might sound ‘too hard’ or ‘too scary’, but it’s the truth. I’ve done it myself. I redesigned my whole inner self first to redesign my life. It took more than creativity alone to find my inner magic again. It took a whole lot of inner reconstructive WORK. And most importantly, to add colour and sparkle back into my life, I had to let go of everything that did not serve my essence anymore, and begin my life over again.
What do YOU need to let go of to leave room for your inner magic to flow? Is it a toxic situation? A negative imprint notions from your previous life chapter? I promise you, that in redesigning your, body, mind and soul, it leaves space for the real magic to come through, back into your life. There is magic in the air, and its happening all around us, all the time. We just have to wake up and let it in.
I want to give you an example of one of my life chapters, and how my personal refurbishment began. I found it in the most unlikely of places.
My local gym.
At the time, I was professionally burnt out, and going through a tremendous personal setback. A divorce. In all honesty, I was at an all time low. I had lost sense of myself, and my life’s values & beliefs. I needed a desperate boost of sparkle in my life but I didn’t know how to psychologically get there, and stay there. I would gaze at my reflection in the mirror and feel lost – searching for the vivacious, confident, happy and positive, woman I used to be. My inner voice of wisdom was faintly there, whispering to me that it was time for a change. An inner, deeper change. But I didn’t understand what a “deeper change” meant. As far as I was concerned, I had two choices laid before me. Facing life as a single mother of 4 young children, I could either play the victim, and feel sorry for myself, or I could play the victor, and take the reins of my own wellbeing. I decided to be the latter. I decided to take responsibility to heal, to work on myself, and to rediscover and love myself again. I figured that as long as I stayed committed to my process, and stayed positive, it would rub off on my kids, and they would be ok emotionally. I was scared. I was excited. But I didn’t know what to do first.
It wasn’t like I could pack my bags and travel to India, like in the movie, ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ and attend an ashram or meditate all day. I had 4 kids who needed my love, assurance and attention! I needed to do something, but it had to be close to where I lived. So, reluctantly, I took change’s hand, and a friend referred me to a gym, which I refer to now as my Goddess Temple. Upon entering, I saw a slew of fit women, and felt a wash of fear and intimidation sweep over me. But there was something else that mesmerized me about this particular gym. It was quite surreal. I stood in awe as I observed mums, just like me, working hard to get fit. It wasn’t YOU vs. me, it was US. It was inclusive. And it wasn’t their instructor bodies I was so fascinated about. It was their confidence. The way they stood. The way they laughed. The way they engaged with other women equally, without competition. Their self esteem was through the roof. They were magnets of positivity. Like the Amazonian warriors in the movie Wonder Woman. They carried themselves with inner confidence and self- assurance.
But moreover, they looked ALIVE. They had an inner spark. They cast a spell on me. Something in me stirred. I realised there and then- that this gym was where I would learn to rebuild my self- esteem. The first steps to rebuilding myself was going to be a physical one – My FOUNDATION. It was in this very place that I was going to learn how to love myself again, and regain my self confidence. This is how the road to my Goddess path was set. So when I joined my Goddess Temple, a shift started to happen inside of me. The shift of “SELF – BELIEF”. It was small, but it was there. It felt like a dark cloud had lifted, and after a while, I suddenly started to think a little bit more positively about myself in the mirror. It made me realize how important the mirror is to us and how it reflects the relationship we have with ourselves. Is your reflection clear and confidant, or is it fractured and cracked?
When I started my path of getting back my magic, my answers weren’t that clear. I just knew that I wanted to have self confidence again. In classic fairytales, the Queens, Princesses and Maidens always looked to their reflections for life’s answers, and being on a Goddess path, I guess I was no different. I was looking for guidance, a way to love myself again and feel strong, ready to redefine my inner & outer beauty. So I looked for inspiration. I remember looking at pictures of Goddesses on Pinterest. And there they were – beautiful, amazonian beacons of confidence & strength. The way they stood. The way they looked at you with eternal wisdom. I needed to start seeing myself this way. I needed to start embracing their physicality. I needed to start loving myself again to survive. I need to have some monumental thoughts!
After a few months at my gym, a golden opportunity was laid before me. I had been enjoying a Dance Cardio program that was fun, slightly sexy and very feminine. So much so, that I forgot I was exercising. The instructor at the time sensed my self- belief grow with every class, so he would kindly bring me up onstage to demonstrate the dance moves to the members. Then, within a few weeks, he endorsed me to train as an instructor for the program.
My ticket back to body confidence. So with hard work, and many hours in front of the mirror, I gained a Les Mills certification in Sh’bam and went on to teach it to maintain my body confidence. But slowly, it began to dawn on me, that it was becoming something more than just myself. I began finding a purpose to help women look in the mirror and come into their own kind of femininity, and the mirror was showing me something I had never seen before.
My own personal magic.
What was reflecting back was a light that was slowly turning on inside of me. What I was EMANATING, was a powerful energy. During class, I began witnessing, like a mirror, the effect of my own power, and it was being reflected back to me through the women during the class. Looking back, was not only the first step to my CHANGE, but it quickly became one of unexpected TRANSFORMATION. So I started to see MYSELF differently on the inside and out.
It was my inner magic and sparkle.
I suddenly felt alive, feminine and so very powerful. I felt I had the power within me to affect another’s wellbeing. That I was significant. That there was a superwoman inside of me that I had just discovered. So it dawned on me. It was time for me to finally feel my powerful and positive potential. That this was a new chapter for me. That knowing my power was going to be the key to my inner peace and happiness.
And thus began my newer, deeper, more significant quest – to go inside and rediscover my worth. First came the physical. It ignited a fire in my belly- to rediscover my inner magic…and get my spark back!
So if life brings you change…don’t. get. stuck. Take action. Get moving! Go out and seek to honour yourself. Feel it in your body first! Find your golden key of enjoyment. Look at your reflection, and do it by trying something new. Something that might test your body. Something that might surprisingly, challenge your Mindset. Something that might just turn out… to be exactly what you need. To open up the gates inside…to unleash your own magic and to decorate your own path, to arrive at your golden destination.
To find out more about me, or to contact me, my links are all in the show notes. Until next time, take care on your path to brilliance, right here, at The Creative Goddess.
