Embracing Our Creative Identity

“You need to have a creative writing course on your website that we can just buy for like 100 bucks or something. I want journalling prompts. You could even maybe do it live in a group?”

I looked at my sister in disbelief like a mad woman. “You would buy that.. from me?”

This is the thing about the journey home to our True Self…

There are always more beautiful layers to unravel, and more of our truth to fully own and express.

The truth is, all this time I’ve been searching for who I am and what I do… the answer was in front of me (and inside me) the whole time.

First and foremost -

I’m a writer.

A poet.

An artist.

A creative.

I heal with my words, my heart and my vision for what’s possible.

I believe in magic, and the spell of our words.

I have been my own expressive arts therapist since I was a little girl.

Age 7, I wrote poetry about my awe of “hearing the wind talking” on our country property.

When I was angry with my parents, I hid in my room with my texters hastily scribbling out my rage “I hate you mum and dad!” on scrap pieces of paper to slide under the door to them.

Another time… I became so angry when I could *feel* my parents arguing at one another outside when I was in my room.

I didn’t like how it made my feel, but I was also very shy and often stuttered or cried when I had something to say. Instead of doing nothing, little Tessa wrote a sign saying “STOP FIGHTING” and took it out to them to express myself.

(They stopped, bless them!)

Age 10, I wrote a poem for my mum’s funeral.

I then kept writing poetry about my mum for years, trying to make sense of my feelings.

Eventually, I wrote an autobiographical story for a high school assignment about her death.

I was 16 and when the teacher told the class he cried reading it, I learnt that my words could impact others.

My dad, sisters and I rarely spoke about her or the experience of her dying, so the piece also stimulated conversation between us.

By the time a public speaking competition opened for registration a few months later, I followed my heart and entered… knowing deep down I had to now share the story of my mum using my voice.

I kept unexpectedly winning each round, despite no training or experience with public speaking. The judges often came up to me afterward to share how courageous I was; how I spoke with so much heart, how brave I was.

It didn’t feel courageous to me; I just knew I had to do it.

Something inside me knew then, years before I studied psychology or spent a decade dedicated to counselling people that…

We need to express.

We need to speak the unspoken.

We’re not meant to suppress all this stuff inside us.

It needs to be metabolised in some way and expelled from our system…

Something inside me knew from when I was a little girl -

We can’t keep it in.

We can’t stay silent about the stuff that matters to us.

We can’t stuff it down and hope it goes away.

Whether it’s pain and hurt and shock.

Whether it’s magic and dreams and awe.

Feelings are meant to be experienced freely, not held internally captive.

Life is meant to move through us, not stay stagnant within.

Since starting my business in personal development 10 years ago, it has been one big creative adventure.

It helped bring me home to these deeper truths I already knew,

Whilst helping others to meet deeper truths within themselves.

And the cornerstone for it all… creative writing exercises and therapeutic spaces designed to help them express their unspoken!

To live an open-hearted, enchanted life…

I believe we must dare to become Courageous Story-tellers.

As Courageous Story-Tellers we approach life with curiosity. Instead of contracting with fear, we dare to open into new realities.

We must be willing to dig deep into self-honesty, be curious about our hearts whispers, and be willing to open into new realities of our creative potential.

To move from victim to creator consciousness, we must be willing to see our very existence as one big awe-inspiring creative adventure.

It doesn’t mean it’s not utterly heart-breaking at times…

Yet when we’ve embraced our self as a creative being, we trust in ourselves to alchemise the shattering pieces of our broken-heartedness into the wisdom, power and beauty of our compassion and open-heartedness.

Is it time to embrace

the power of your

innate creativity?