Today’s shared stories come from Angie Fraley, Tamarisk Saunders-Davies and Marian Buck-Murray.
Angie Fraley
I am absolutely doing what I love…..creating an extraordinary life out of ordinary moments while teaching others to do the same. I do this through creatively blending the vehicles of art and yoga my (two biggest passions) to uplift and inspire others to see the world through a different lens.
I’ve always done art. As a child it was my escape from the world around me. I would get lost and lose track of time and nothing else existed. That was a very safe place for me in a very unpredictable environment so I liked it quite a lot. As I got older, the “artists starve” mentally reared it’s ugly head and off to work I went (dental assistant, gymnastics coach, manicurist, and finally entrepreneur). I opened up a paint your own pottery studio and ran it for eight years before selling it. I LOVED teaching other people how to paint, how to lose track of time, and be whole heartedly absorbed by what they were doing.
Now I just wanted to know if I could love doing everything in my life as much as I loved being creative so that I could always be happy….not just when I’m creative. But could I?
Enter YOGA.
To me, doing what I love, means loving what I do…..no matter what task is at hand. I realized that after I completed a 500 hour year long advanced studies yoga program where I had to put my heart on a table for all to examine – terrifying! This is when I decided to put my art into my yoga practice and my yoga practice into my art.
I stopped teaching others how to “do art” and started painting JUST FOR ME – liberating! I was painting as way to remind myself to get quiet and meditate. Somehow, organically things started to unfold when I was relaxed enough to get out of my own way. Doing art from my heart eventually birthed om2art.com, a place where I can share my journey via a blog featuring art with hope through observations that my yoga practice and life continue to give me.
Yoga and art are a way of life for me. I feel like I’ve been let in on a secret and need to share it with the world. Whether you are doing art or doing the dishes – the principle is the same. Enjoy this moment….be fascinated with this moment….be open to this moment and the wonders that are in it. I assure you, if you are able to do this, you will find joy now…..not if/when your environment is perfect….but happy and content, right now…..what a gift.
Oh and by the way, it’s something I still wrestle with myself (just ask my kids and husband)…..but this is why it’s called a yoga PRACTICE. I practice self study….showing kindness to myself and others. I practice finding the joy in the moment, practice being absorbed by it, and practice in knowing that it’s all unfolding exactly as it’s supposed to.
As far as what I’d love to do next? Well, I would love to enter the licensing world, attend art retreats, and teach workshops across the country. But more than any of that……I would love to soak up and enjoy each and every moment of the entire process.
[Images courtesy of Angie Fraley]
Find out more on her website here.
Tamarisk Saunders-Davies
Tamarisk and her sisters
Catalyst. A person or thing that precipitates an event or change.
My catalyst came in my early twenties. It was a Saturday morning, I was in my London flat with my boyfriend packing for our impending holiday. The phone rang. The woman at the end of the line had an American accent. She was asking for my sister, who I shared the flat with at the time. “She’s not here right now, can I take a message or can I help?” I asked the caller. “Maybe you can…do you know how I can find her sister?” she asked. “You’re speaking to her…I’m Tamarisk”. Long pause.
“I’m looking for someone called Mark Saunders-Davies”.
“He’s my dad…” I trailed off, becoming slightly panicked about just where this conversation was going.
“He’s my dad too” she said, haltingly.
My boyfriend, only hearing one side of this increasingly bizarre conversation, started giving me quizzical looks and perched on the edge of the sofa openly eaves dropping now. Who could blame him! We started gabbling away, finding out all we could about each other and furiously cooking up plans to email pictures and meet up. As soon as possible.
After we put the phone down, it felt like someone had poured pop rocks into my brain. All sorts of thoughts and ideas seemed to be exploding at once. Why hadn’t I known I had an older sister before? Why did my dad keep this a secret? What did this mean for the identity I had for myself as the “oldest of two sisters”?
I made calls to my sister who was on holiday in Rome. I called my dad confused and in tears, overwhelmed with all the questions I wanted answers to. Fast forward to now and my once hidden sister is a huge part of my life and our family. But this experience became one of the key events that got me to quit a job I hated and retrain, first as a psychotherapist and then as a coach. During the shock and awe that this discovery created, I leaned on the support of my own therapist. I learned, finally, how to articulate my needs, feel my feelings and not be scared by them and lean into the vulnerability that I felt while the landscape of our family changed and expanded at rapid speed.
While all this was happening for me, I woke up to how crushingly dull I found my job. Working in public relationships I was bothering journalists daily about stuff they didn’t want to write about and never would. I became almost envious of my therapist. She was instrumental in helping me create clarity from all the chaos and I knew, deep in my bones, that I wanted to do that too.
Wasting no time, I researched and found a post graduate counselling and psychotherapy training, dropped my job down to four days a week and got myself qualified. Psychotherapy trainings require you to do a lot of work for free while you’re working towards accreditation. Undaunted, I sought out as many placements as I could. I took pay cut after pay cut in part time jobs. I gave up my weekends. I fit clients in before and after work working incredibly long days. I gave up any semblance of a social life. None of that mattered because something was unfurling inside me. I was doing work I loved. Making a difference in people’s lives every time I met with my clients.
But my evolution into doing work that lit me up, that felt like it just moved through me didn’t stop there. I became more and more focused on the nature of relationships. Finding out about and getting to know my sister was an invitation from the universe to expand the way I related to myself and everyone in my life.
Upgrading my skills set to include coaching became the missing piece to the puzzle. Getting clients into action is my specialty. It’s when we take action that we create clarity. And that’s beautiful to witness.
With hindsight, I can recognise that despite the confusion, the pain and the questions finding out about my hidden sister threw up, everything always unfolds perfectly. Without that experience I wouldn’t be the strong, powerful women I am today. Without that one phone call I would never have come to know my beautiful, extraordinary sister. Without that experience I wouldn’t have fully know who my dad is.
My big dream for the future is to create a community of incredible women who feel empowered and capable to ask for what they want in their relationships and get it. In my work I see how women play small simply because they haven’t taught the skills they need to negotiate boundaries, work their self-worth and set healthy limits in their relationships.
It’s not possible to play small to make others feel big.
[Image credit: Chloe Brown.]
Find out more about Tamarisk on her website here.
Marian Buck-Murray
My name is Marian Buck-Murray. I am a Transformational Health Guide. I show people how to nourish body and mind to transform their lives. I love what I do.
Over the past three decades I have journeyed though PTSD, autoimmune illness, and two heart surgeries. Believe it or not, after all that, at age 50, I feel fabulous! In fact, I feel better than I’ve ever felt during the whole of my adult life. I know this is because of my illnesses, not in spite of them.
I’ve come to understand that our bodies always tell us exactly what we need to know. What looks like disease and pain is often the body’s best way to bring us back to life. It’s sometimes the hardest falls that propel us into the light.
For me, it was my heart that pulled me back to life. You see, I had never truly healed from my sister’s suicide when I was a teen. Unknowingly, I dissociated from the trauma, and went on with my life. College, a job, and a loving fiancé. Yes, I had plenty of messy ups and downs, but I had no clue what was hidden deep within me.
And then – BAM. On the 10th anniversary of my sister’s death, as I prepared for my upcoming wedding, I was struck with a bizarre, undiagnosed autoimmune disease. It started with a rash, fever, and excruciating joint pain. And then, finally – recurrent pericarditis – fluid in the sac around my heart – a cry from my trapped, un-shed tears.
My heart had begun to awaken me. She was illustrating my imprisoned pain with poetic metaphor, unlocking the door to healing. The illnesses that followed – Guillain- Barre Syndrome, a closed aortic valve, and a coronary artery blocked by scar tissue – would all eventually show me the map to heal my life.
However, although I had a map, I didn’t know how to use it. After nearly two decades of Illness, I was down, depleted, and desperate. And then, during one of my darkest moments, I read Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love. So I began to pray – for the first time in my life. Miraculously, within no time, I was guided to the perfect healers and teachers who helped me heal my life.
Ultimately, I healed from PTSD, adrenal fatigue, and low Immunity, through a combination of Rubenfeld Synergy, EFT, Kundalini Yoga, Meditation, Prayer, and Healing Nutrition. It’s as though I was granted a treasure chest of healing gifts. I’ve used them all to create joyful, energized health.
Today, I have answered my heart’s call to share these healing treasures. As a Transformational Health Guide, I help people harness the power of illness and adversity to transform their lives. I show my clients how to use funk-busting foods and techniques to have more energy, better mood, better digestion, stronger immunity, and enhanced spirituality. I am a seasoned traveler on the road back from illness, and I carry candles, lamps, and flashlights to enlighten my way. I’m here to share the light.
PS: I made it to my wedding, and I just celebrated my 23rd anniversary to my amazingly supportive husband. I have two terrific daughters, and two adorable cats.
[All images courtesy of Marian Buck-Murray.]
Find out more about Marian on her website or connect via Facebook.
Image: Cover of ‘Kodansha Bilingual Encyclopedia of Japan’
