Following The Creative Thread
My earliest memories are of creating. My dad was a graphic designer and illustrator, so art supplies were always plentiful. I remember the cardboard box at the top of the attic stairs in my first childhood home, overflowing with colored paper, glue, scissors, crayons, and markers. I would spend hours lost in a world of cutting, pasting, coloring, and imagining—perfectly content creating on my own.
Somewhere along the way, I was encouraged to pursue a more academic path because of my aptitude for math and science. But when I arrived at college and sat through my first engineering classes, I knew almost immediately that I had made a mistake. Within weeks, I had dropped half my course load and enrolled in fine arts classes instead.
Ultimately, I chose a career in interior design because it seemed to offer the best of both worlds—satisfying my creative instincts while engaging my love of problem-solving. Over the course of nearly forty years, I found meaning in many aspects of the profession, particularly designing schools and senior living communities that would positively impact people's lives. Yet the truly creative moments were overshadowed by documentation, specifications, project management, budgets, and coordinating with contractors. I increasingly found myself longing for greater creative freedom.
As I entered the empty nest phase of life, other shifts began to unfold as well. I became a Reiki practitioner as well as a Reiki Master and teacher. I completed my yoga teacher training and deepened my commitment to mindfulness practices. At the same time, I found myself returning to drawing and painting.
The more present and self-aware I became, the harder it was to ignore the parts of my life that no longer felt aligned. While I was grateful for my career, I could also feel the growing tension between the work I did and the creative expression my soul was craving.
I knew I wanted to lead yoga and mindfulness retreats, and I also knew I wanted to weave creativity into those experiences. I experimented with combining meditation and art-making through journal creation, mandalas, and other projects. While meaningful, they still felt somewhat structured and outcome-oriented. I was searching for something that offered more freedom—something less about creating a beautiful product and more about self-discovery, expression, and transformation.
Then, about a year ago, I stumbled across a website for Intuition Painting®. Something about it immediately spoke to me, and I signed up for a five-day retreat. From the moment I began painting, I knew I had found what I had been searching for.
Intuition Painting® wasn't about technique, talent, or creating something worthy of hanging on a wall. It was about listening. It was about trusting, following curiosity, releasing judgment, and allowing buried emotions, stories, and wisdom to emerge through color, shape, and movement. It felt less like learning to paint and more like remembering a forgotten part of myself.
The experience was both liberating and deeply transformative. By the end of the retreat, I knew I wanted to continue to explore this path and share the magic of the process with others. I will complete my facilitator training program in a few months and am so excited to be exploring ways to incorporate this intuitive art practice with the other mindfulness practices that have already become such an important part of my life.
Looking back, it feels as though the thread of creativity has always been present—in the little girl at the attic stairs, the designer searching for meaning in her work, and the teacher creating spaces for healing and transformation. Intuition Painting® has helped me reconnect with that thread in a profound way. It reminds me that creativity is not something reserved for artists; it is a birthright. It is a pathway to self-discovery, healing, and wholeness.