The Big O
The Big O Podcast... Oh yes, the BIG O(gasm) that we all need to experience, regularly... explores ways to elevate yourself and your business using your Pleasure! Where you learn how to step into the true YOU unapologetically! Unashamedly embodying your Femme Fatale energy so that you can be SEEN and HEARD, with pure magnetism! It's time for you to get turned on by your life and business, and experience the Big O!
The Big O
Redefining Creativity with Ali Mapletoft
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In this episode I am talking to Ali Mapletoft about Redefining Creativity.
Ali Mapletoft is the Prosperous Creatrix. She is a visual artist, a coach and a mentor to those wanting to build a prosperous life from their creativity. What she does, is support you to create your MASTERPIECE of a life.
In this beautiful and powerful conversation we talk about what creativity REALLY is and what it may look like for you. We dive deep into why expressing yourself is so important, redefining what success is, and we discuss how to awaken the creativity within YOU.
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Hello and welcome to the Big O podcast. With me, your host, Emma Arini. I am an empowerment coach and public speaker, a visual artist and photographer, an author, a mum of three, and a firm believer in the transformational power of awakening to the magic of pleasure and joy. The Big O explores ways to elevate yourself into a place of personal power through creativity, wild self-love, and awakening to your own pleasure through the feminine energy of flow so that you can embody the world goddess that you truly are. It's time for you to get turned on by your own life and experience the Big O. Hello and welcome back to the Big O podcast. I am so excited today. We are going to be talking about redefining creativity, and I am with the most wonderful guest, Ellie Mapletoff. She is the Prosperous Creatrix. She is a visual artist, a coach, and a mentor to those wanting to build a prosperous life from their creativity. Hello, Ellie.
SPEAKER_00Hi, Emma. Thank you. What a beautiful introduction. Thank you for that. It's really great to be here.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I am so happy to have you here. Now, obviously, I have worked with you. You have been my coach for quite a long time now, and we have been through so much. And this is a hot topic that we often talk about is how creativity can help us in our lives and things like that. So I would really love it if you could introduce yourself to those that are listening and tell us a little bit about what you do.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. I think before I do that, I just want to acknowledge how incredible it's been to see your transformation over the couple of years that we've worked together and just what an act of courage it really is to dedicate your life to creativity and to the creative act and the pursuit of building a beautiful life from your creativity. So before I talk about me, I want to really celebrate that in you because it's such an incredibly wonderful thing to see.
SPEAKER_01Oh, Ellie, you're gonna bring me to tears, and we've only just started. Well, this is it, and I mean this is it. It's been through kind of working with you and that guidance about what you do because you have that message so strong in everything that you do that's allowed me to step into that. It's kind of that permission slip. And I remember actually once a long time ago now, you messaging me saying, This is your permission slip. You are allowed to do this. And it's amazing, yeah, what what working with someone that that has that you know is so strong in their own message and in what they do, it's that inspiration, and that's what allows you to to kind of step into that yourself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely, and you know, you asked me to introduce what I do and why I do it, and I think at the core of the work that I do with creative leaders like yourself is a belief that we are all innately creative, we all carry that spark within us, and it's not something that we are taught from a young age. We're taught this lie that there are creative people and uncreative people, and that's simply not true. And what I do is I work with people who have already made the decision to dedicate themselves and their life's work to accessing that creativity and building something out of it, and that is such a privilege and a joy for me to do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and actually what you said there about the creative and the not creative, that is so, so, so true. And I taught for a very long time, primary school children, and I would see, you know, these five-year-olds, as soon as they kind of hit that key stage one, and to be, oh well, no, I'm not, I'm not an artist. I I'm not a I can't do that, I'm not creative, I'm not. And they they they'd already at that age started to define themselves, which to me just it just made me so sad. It really, really saddened me. And you see this so much, you know, as as they grow, and then the adults that I'm around, they kind of put themselves into that category. And what I really want to do here with this conversation is to to basically break that. Let's break that, let's really get down to what creativity actually looks like and how everybody really truly is creative in their own way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, I really wonder where kids get this from, this idea by the age of five that they're not creative or they're not an artist. And sadly, I suspect it's from things that they hear adults talking about around them. And really, I think it's our all of our responsibility to unravel some of these myths about creativity, such as there are creative people and uncreative people, and such as only the chosen few will make it, only the chosen few are allowed to be creative, because that's simply not true. If we think about the human species and the survival of the human species and how we've evolved, we could not have got to where we are now if we were not innately creative. It's the one thing that defines our humanity and that has allowed us to grow civilization. No, we are an innately creative species. We look around everywhere, we have created the world and the reality that we see around us, and I think that it's important to recognize that and celebrate it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is everywhere, absolutely everywhere, isn't it? And this is it. I think the way that people seem to kind of define it is they automatically associate creative as being skilled artistically, as in being able to draw correctly. This is this is my experience. And when you were talking about the way that the children are starting to do it, what I noticed was they were mirroring, they were they were basically repeating what they'd heard, or they'd been told it. And I was really, really fortunate because I actually think about my experience. And I remember when I was at primary school, and the one key memory that I have is um my teacher asking me to draw this bird for a display, and she basically told me and gave me permission to be creative and to enjoy it and to be good at it, and I am so unbelievably thankful for that because if I hadn't have received that at such a young age, I perhaps would not have followed the path that I'd followed, you see. And what I really want to kind of express is that to me, creativity it's a way of thinking and it comes into everything you do. If you weren't creative, you would be doing the same thing, following the same kind of uh perhaps like a template almost, and doing the same thing repetitely every single day. And the fact is we don't live like that, or you can it for a short period of time, and then something inside you just needs to come out or needs to change or needs to shift, and that to me is your creativity coming into play.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, the fact is that if we weren't creative, we would have never moved beyond living in caves. Yeah, we wouldn't have been able to. It takes an incredibly creative mind to look at the rocks around you or the wood around you and think, hang on a minute, I could fashion this into shelter, or I could irrigate this bit of land, I could get water from that river, and I could persuade that water to come through channels down here into my field to grow things so that we know that for tens of thousands of years human beings have been manipulating the world around them. And when we think about what creativity is, it's making change.
SPEAKER_01We're good at that, yeah, yeah, definitely. And one of my favorite phrases, which actually I coined from you, was love is the ultimate act of rebellion. And to me, that's where creativity lives. It lives in love, like that is it, and creating by by doing this. And I think I think the way that I see it is that you you know, we have the things that we kind of do unconsciously, and then but I think what I'm I'm thinking about here is those people that are consciously activating their creativity and consciously using that to create what you would call a masterpiece, you know, a masterpiece of a life. Yeah, I just and I I just love that, and I know that you have worked with so many people over the years that have been consciously doing this and have been activating this in themselves.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you know, to do that, to declare that, to say, I am an artist, or I am a creator, or I am a leader, it's an incredibly courageous thing to do. And I think that we have this misconception sometimes that people who are creative are somehow flaky or undisciplined or somehow not very good at managing themselves or organizing themselves. And I would argue that the exact opposite is true. It takes an incredible amount of self-discipline and dedication to make it your life's work to live through your creativity. Because every single day is stepping into the unknown. You know, the dancer, the painter, the writer, the poet, um, the performer, the actor, all of these people are bringing something into the world without any guarantee at all that it's going to be received well, or that it's even going to work, or that it's going to turn out the way they wanted it to turn out. We have no guarantees. It's an innately risky business, but it is infinitely worth that risk.
SPEAKER_01It's a lot of courage.
SPEAKER_00It does, it takes a lot of courage, and I really have got so much time for the people who have dedicated themselves to that mission. Like those are my people.
SPEAKER_01It takes a lot, a lot of courage. I remember way back when, at the very start of like kind of my journey with working with you, the biggest the biggest milestone, I think, for me was the three to six months it took me to be able to say I am an artist. That was huge. That was such a massive jump. And yet it was such a big block. And yet, I had been creating art my whole life. I had um, I owned my photography business for nearly a decade at that point, and yet that being able to declare that within myself and make it like real was one of the biggest, scariest things that I've actually done, even to now, even with everything I've been through, that jump right there, that leap, and being able to say, I am an artist. Oh my god, that was so hard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love that. And you know, it's so interesting because I have always thought of you as an artist and a leader right from the beginning. You already had your own business, you were already a successful photographer, you were already doing it, and so it's incredible to me that that that was a leap for you to actually say I'm an artist, because you're an artist through and through. And I think it's really fascinating how much um almost like weight we've attached to that, and how we are all artists really at heart, it's just allowing it out, and and art and the creation of art, the creative act is always a process of allowing.
SPEAKER_01I think that's that's it, you know. I the allow it, the allowing, the surrendering, the all of that for me was a really, really, really sticky point, I think. And allowing myself to be seen, and it was almost that I think the biggest thing for me is I know that a lot of people kind of get this stuck around what other people are going to think of them. What will other people think of me if I say I'm an artist? What does that mean that I'm boasting? Does that mean I'm, you know, this is what came up for me? And that's why it was such a huge leap. And yet, I so agree with what you were saying. Everybody is an artist in it's, you know, in their own right, because art to me is a way of expressing ourselves. It's one of the very first ways that we learn to communicate, you know, it actually our art, our doodling, our, you know, humming or whatever way, it comes even before speech. You know, you see these kind of little tiny toddlers like that are moving and bopping and that are, you know, probably drawing on the walls somewhere. Because it's their way of expressing themselves, it's a way of communicating. And I think, you know, when we think about where creativity lives, it lives in our throat chakra, it lives there because it is our expression, it's our voice. You know, even if we if we can't word it, it's a way of expressing it. You know, whether that is if you're you're feeling something in your body and you're so you just put the music up loud and you're dancing that you are expressing it and you are putting that out to the world, and it releases something in you when you do that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think you touched upon something really powerful, which is that the act of creation, the creative act, is so healing and so cathartic for the person who's engaging in that act of creation. So it is a powerful encounter, and then the receiving of the art, being the viewer, being the person who is looking at that art, that is also a very healing and cathartic process. If we try and imagine a world without paintings, without architecture, without design, without fashion, without you know, all of these things that we take for granted, what a bleak and desolate world that would be. I think we forget how much comfort, peace, inspiration, and energy we take from beauty, design, art that's all around us.
SPEAKER_01I think this is it. We we see it, it's there in everything. And I think because it's there, you know, I'm even thinking about like the curtain designs, your bed sheets, the clothes that you're wearing, it is so present. It is everywhere. And I almost think people forget that that is it. That was somebody's creativity there that that made that thing, the thing that you're wearing on you right now, the the decoration that you've got in your room, perhaps it's a wallpaper or a curtain set or cushions. You know, I'm looking at your um beautiful area that you've got there. You've got your art piece behind you, you've got your lips cushion on the side, you've got your other art piece there. And and the colours, you know, somebody mixed up that colour of your sofa. They found that colour. And I think we forget that it is so present in everyday life. We just forget that it is creativity right there. We're experiencing it every single day.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, and I feel that we can invite ourselves, allow ourselves again, it's about allowing to experience the power of creativity by bringing intention to it. So really noticing things, and that means opening our eyes and essentially being more present in the moment. That is about presence, it's about bringing our attention back to okay. I'm here in this room, there's a beautiful painting on the wall, it's green and blue, and allowing that to wash through us and wash over us in the same way that we would go on a beautiful walk and appreciate the blueness of the sky or the clouds or the way that the leaves are moving in the sunlight, all of these things are food for the soul.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. Oh, exactly. I do know I really, really feel this. So, having just finished um the Pleasure Challenge for my launching my group program evolution, I really, really, really saw in that basically the women becoming aware. Each challenge was designed to bring them back to themselves, to bring them back to pleasure. And so much of that involved everything we're talking about right now. It involved paying attention to the things that you're putting on, your environment, everything that's around you. Because the way that I see it is when you start noticing that, when you are coming back to right now and you notice those things that are just they're there, they're already in your life. It's not like you have to go out and get anything or do anything in particular. It is already present wherever you are. When you start noticing that and noticing that when you go out, like you said, when you're going out for a walk, then what you get to do is once you that becomes a practice, you get to turn that and and look at yourself in the same way. And I think that is so, so beautiful. You get to look at yourself and notice that within yourself as well, and those moments where you can then uniquely express your creativity, and often that comes through, you know. My my whole journey is about pleasure, your own unique pleasure code, and it comes through that, it comes through that awareness of everything around you, and then that awareness of yourself.
SPEAKER_00I love that, and I think that when we can really tune into that, we can really begin to understand that our creativity is a superpower, even when we're not painting a picture or sculpting a sculpture or making something. We get to actually creatively experience the world that we're in by appreciating and noticing.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Oh, I feel that so much. I feel that so much. Can you imagine the difference if you were when you are consciously doing this every single day? I mean, this is it. To me, this is the key to creating a life that turns you on. When you are consciously aware of this every single day, the impact that you can have on your mindset alone. And the way that I see it is when we think about that kind of mindset, that kind of um creative mindset and the way of thinking and the way of noticing, that that to me, it opens up a world of possibility that you may not have been aware of when you were kind of closed off and kind of in your own mind all the time. And because when you're in your own mind, you're in the past or you're in the future, you're either worrying about the things you've done or worrying about the things that are coming, right? And when you're here and now, you get to release that. And that is like that to me, that is where the power of potential lives, the power of possibility and your creativity. And this is why becoming self-aware is so important because you understand yourself and your own unique creativity. It may be the way that you analyze problems, the way you know, a physical thing that you create, whatever it is, when you understand that, that is your power. That is just pure power and potential right there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's when you get to begin to create a life that is a masterpiece. It's not, it's not ever just about one thing, it's not ever just about how successful am I, how much money do I have. It's not ever just about how is my work received or how is my contribution in the world received. It is about how am I experiencing this every day. Am I experiencing this in a way that brings joy and pleasure to me? Because if I'm not, then that is not a masterpiece. For me, if I'm not experiencing joy and pleasure from what I'm creating, that is not success either. And I don't mean to say that we need to be in bliss all of the time. Of course not. That's not realistic. There are moments where everyone's day goes awry. There are times that are really challenging. There are entire seasons in our lives that we sometimes wonder how the hell we even got through them. And I know that you're familiar with that. And I still feel that we get to hold the duality of the shit's really hitting the fan right now, and I am hurting, and I am sitting with difficult feelings, and I'm still engaged in creating a life that feels like a masterpiece. This is still my work of art, even though it has its dark corners and its strange, unruly bits.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I really, really feel that. And what I love about that is essentially what we're doing here is redefining what success is with this. You know, so it's not just when you redefine creativity and you take that different stance on it and you really start to notice it everywhere and then notice it with within yourself. What you're also doing is redefining what success is because you're right, we really do measure it so much by things like, am I earning this much? Am I, you know, all of this. You get to then redefine it. And what I really love about what you're saying here is about your way of experiencing it. And I think that is such a beautiful thing right there. Because to me, for a really long time, it was about the practicalities of it. What's the purpose of this? And actually, if you come back to well, the purpose of this is to experience this, because in some way or another, something is going to transform. I I get to transform with this experience, and I think this is it. You know, we forget that we are a priority. And I think this is what this comes down to. We are a priority. Put our own gas mask on first. Sometimes the things that we do are purely for us to experience it because then we get so much out of it, and then what we give out to the world is amplified, it's increased, it's more generous.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I love that, and this is where I talk to so many of my clients, and I know we've talked about this about alignment. It is so important to me to do things that I love with people I love. And for a really long time, I was missing the point of that. I didn't really realize that that's what we're here for in this human experience to do things we love with people we love, and that can include your family, it can include your clients, it can include people that you're hiring, it can include people that are working with you. But for me, that is such an important thing because my experience, like you said, is a priority. I get to have a beautiful experience of creating my life and business.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I really, really feel that. And it comes back to that love is the ultimate act of rebellion. That we are getting to put ourselves first, which, if you think the way that we are conditioned and programmed, there are so many messages out there that tell us the opposite of that. This is us reclaiming that and saying that actually my experiences are priority, doing things like you were saying, with people you love, experiences that you love, uh a business, a role, whatever job in whatever capacity you're doing, it that you love, you are essentially rebelling there. And I just, oh, I love that. I love that so much. The rebel with me is like, hell yes, bring it. And we get to, I love you know, the phrase. Um, when I'm thinking about the wild woman energy, dancing to the beat of your own drum. And that to me, I always come back to that. If I ever feel a little bit lost and like, oh, which way do I go? You know, when you're in that kind of confusion state, it always comes back to that. That's bring out that wild woman energy. I want to fucking dance to the beat of my own drum here, and I want to do the things I love and experience that because that what that does is it just fills us up. And then everything we do, everybody that we're in contact with, I'm I notice such a big difference in my own children when I'm doing this, when I embrace this energy, you know, and like you say, yes, shit happens a lot. I've experienced it. I I have gone down to the darkest depths that I did not think was possible. I have really truly experienced that. But what kept me going all the way through was coming back to that, coming back to love, basically, coming back to my own creativity, coming back to the things that I loved, and that is honestly the only way. My pleasure is what got me through.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love that, and you know, I think that very often the desires that we have to really enjoy what we're doing get quashed by so many other influences, including a great big wallop of guilt, there's so much guilt around enjoying what you're doing, and you know, I've already said that there are so many different ways to measure prosperity, there are so many different ways to measure success, and I am absolutely for creative women who want to be wildly wealthy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-money in any way. I think that money is a beautiful activator and amplifier, and it's not the only thing, but I think that in our quest to have those things, it's so important to think about who I am being in this story, and that's where I've seen so much growth in you because it is about who you're being, and the woman who's willing to dance to the beat of her own drum and to allow her inner wild woman out, there is something so magnetic about her, and what I see time and time again, and this happened to me, was that when we hold back, when we hide behind so many masks and so many ideas of what we should be doing, very often that has a detrimental effect on things like our prosperity as well, and it's when we're able to actually play that drum, dance to the beat of that drum, actually access and allow that wilder, more untamed side of ourselves that things like prosperity and money actually begin to come to us more easily. I don't even have a way of articulating exactly how that works, but all I can really say is that we we tend to receive a match for who we're being.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I really, really feel that. That is because basically what happens is you end up magnetizing people. You know, I really feel what what you're saying there is that when you're doing this, it's like uh it gravitates towards you. And what I also notice with this, and this is this is very interesting when it comes to talking about that guilt and that shame that you feel, and you know, this is where so many people fall into the people-pleasing trap is is fear of that, because it's fear of judgment around that. So when you are doing that and you are consciously there as you're wild woman, and you are dancing to your beat of your own drama, and you are really engaging with that. Well, guess what? Those people that do not like that, do not want to change, do not want that in their life, they drift away. So actually, although that can be quite a painful thing, you know, particularly if you're quite close to someone, what you're actually doing is you are magnetizing those people that are there and that are on the same path and that want to elevate in the same way. And remember, you are the average of the five people you spend time with. So you want those people around you, and those people, you know, where the the people that you're fearful of, you know, for feeling that shame around that judgment, well, they end up drifting away, and that's okay. That's actually can be quite a beautiful thing for your own growth, and I think you know, that is sometimes where the fear sets in too.
SPEAKER_00But absolutely, and you know, I hear it so often with clients of mine where they they have something really important that they want to say, they have a big mission that they want to bring into the world, and often it is a mixture of something very creative and of something quite spiritual, and the terror that many of my clients feel around what if the people I went to school with see this, or you know, what if my sister-in-law looks at this on Instagram and then you know rolls her eyes and says something awful. That that fear is very real because we want to feel connected, we want to feel accepted, and I guess what I would say to that is that the people who won't receive what you're doing well can sometimes be people that love you, and sometimes the reason they don't receive it well at first is that it feels really scary to them to lose the old version of you, and part of their misgiving is is a sort of it's a sort of grief, you know, they're grieving not having the old you that they were used to having. And we still get to do it anyway, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes, oh not only do I feel that I've I've had that and I've I've experienced that, and what I do know is those that truly love you is it's often that they're trying to keep you safe. And those that are there for you, even if they're finding it scary, I found that they they haven't gone anywhere. It's when I talk about those drifting away, are those that actually don't have your best intentions at heart, they have their best intentions at heart, and that's okay then, because actually you're not really losing anything at that point. But those that are truly there and invested in you, it just can take them a little bit of time to adjust. In my experience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I'm gonna say something that you know may or may not be popular with everybody. I've got to say it. It's that often um I've found with the women that I work with, um, partners can be very skeptical. Partners can be very skeptical about any kind of change. And usually, like you say, they're not doing it out of malice, they're trying to actually keep you safe and keep you the same because that feels safe for them. But I can tell you this, and this is like particularly what I've observed in the dynamic of male-female relationships, is that when a woman really starts to do very well, often the male partner's misgivings disappear and he starts acting like it was all his idea. And isn't it wonderful?
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00Not always, but I have seen it happen, is all I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01It's because they can see, they're magnetized, they can see the power, and they want a little bit, a little slice of that for themselves.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So you will often have partners saying things like, Well, that this seems like a waste of resources, or couldn't you do something more scalable? Or they're really trying very hard with their kind of way of saying things to help, but it's not really helping, and it can come across as quite dismissive, or you know, there's can be an element of mansplaining that comes into it. Most of the time, I think they mean well, but when they see their partner on that stage, or you know, being the artist at that exhibition, or creating that new business, and and they actually begin to see the tangibles, they see the money coming in, they see the validation, they very often completely change their tune about it. And I think that there may be something in that that not always, but often men like to see tangible results because they are much more action and um cause and effect oriented than women tend to be, and there will always be exceptions, but I think women tend to move into things with a sense of the feeling that they desire, and we're very we're very focused on people and feelings, whereas men can sometimes be more focused on results and things, you know. So when they see the results and things of all our hard work, that's when they get it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and actually something that came up as you were speaking about that really put it into kind of perspective with regards to my experience, is that when you know, that point when I couldn't define myself as an artist, which just seems just a world away from where I am now, I was so heavily and driven by my masculine energy. And at that point, and this is something that I am still actively working on is releasing that because that those tangible results is exactly how I defined my success. Yeah. You know, how I defined whether it was worth me doing this or worth me pursuing it. So actually, even you know, from when you're gaining this kind of self-awareness about yourself, is it's looking at that. What are you driven by? How are you defining your success? Are you heavily like like I was into that masculine? Oh, got to see the tangible results, otherwise, this is not worthwhile doing. And that for a really long time is how I live my life, you know, and it's so, you know, it is is so evident actually in a lot of the men, you know, that are around us, not all of them, but a lot of them have that exact way of thinking, and it really puts in perspective, oh yes, it's that masculine energy of results, of doing, of is it productive, is it worthwhile doing, you know, and that can be that's that though is what can really stifle creativity.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and I'm such a believer in this, right? So I often say to my clients, and you will have heard me say this, Emma, and sometimes it just annoys the shit out of people, but I say it anyway, we need to release the timeline. Very often we need to let go of the timeline that we have decided is acceptable for our success or whatever it is, and very often I'll hear women say things like, Well, I'm giving myself six months to make this business profitable, or I'm giving myself six months to make to get to this income goal. And my my question is always why you know, why do you need to do that? Because what I've realized for so many of the women that I work with, and for myself, is that if what we're doing, if we love what we're doing so much that we can see it as being part of our life's work, then a lot of that dissipates, a lot of that impatience does dissipate. If we're really able to say to ourselves, in all authenticity, you know what, if I live to be a hundred years old and I'm still able to do this, then that will be a life well lived. If we can say that and mean it, we can we can disperse a lot of that impatience. And also the other thing is that often what happens is the work that you put in now, you might feel like you're grafting away. It could be at anything, it could be at a business, it could be at um creating a big transition in your life, anything like that. The work that you put in now, you may not see the tangibles for another maybe six months, and then like buses, they all come at once, you know. But it is the groundwork that you're doing now, it's the foundations that you are laying right now that will bear those fruits, and so sometimes I say to my clients, think like a farmer. A farmer doesn't plant, you know, he doesn't plow the field and then plant all the seeds, water it once, and go, well, that was a waste of time. That's not how it works. It's gonna take, you know, maybe a couple of months to start seeing some shoots coming up from beneath the ground, and it is the same with the work that we're doing. I had a client contact me this morning who I haven't worked with for six months, and she contacted me to tell me that she just received a big payment for something that we were working on putting in place all those months ago, and finally that money has come through to her. So, all the work we did together has has paid off now, and I think that we often forget that we are laying foundations and sowing the seeds all the time, you're doing it right now.
SPEAKER_01And you know, I think that's such a beautiful way of just generally looking at your life, even if you're at a point where you're feeling stuck, you're feeling stagnant, you're feeling a bit lost, you know, you're in that state of confusion. Everything that, you know, that to me is is the fuel for change, okay? But everything that you have done up until this point isn't wrong. And this is, you know, it's it's all part of the experience. Nothing is wasted. When you look at it this way, when you are seed planting, everything that you have done so far in your life, it's just little seeds, the little things that you're learning, little things that are growing. And uh it really makes me reflect on kind of my life. I could have very, very easily slipped into huge regret that I should have done this, I shouldn't have ignored this, I should have changed it eight years ago, or things like that, you know? But actually, because of this work, because of because of the work that I've done on understanding myself, understanding my experiences, understanding creativity, understanding kind of what love is for me, um, I understand that everything that I've done right up to this moment is so incredibly useful. If I hadn't have stayed in my career for as long as I did, perhaps I wouldn't enjoy talking so much, you know, and be comfortable talking to hundreds of people at a time. You know, so it's every element, it's so easy sometimes to slip into regret. And that can really that takes you backwards. You're not here and now anymore. Everything that you've experienced has got you to here, so nothing's wasted. And it means, and I think what we're talking about here with creativity, you get to now be conscious with it, and anything that you are now building that you is it's gonna grow, like you're saying about that seed planting. It's it that's the potential right there, right? It's it's the power in that for what can be, and that may not be now, you know. A lot of the things that I am thinking about, some of the things are now, here and now, some of the things I'm thinking two, five years' time, you know, it's it's okay. But I also understand that it may be less time or it may be more time than that. But everything that I'm doing is important and everything is going to contribute towards that. All of my experiences, even the deepest, darkest moments that I have been through, have led me to here and have led me to my life's work. So I am so thankful and so grateful for absolutely every experience that I've had. Because to me, that has been the foundation for everything I am now doing and everything that I will be doing.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. You know, it's so important to remember this. And I wrote a little quote about this when I did my illustrated book From Our Lips, which is a hundred women's lips and a hundred women's words of wisdom to live by. And mine was remember that you're a seed in the dark, the pressure and the darkness are not permanent, and that you will unfurl in all your fullness. And this is something that I think really carries me through in those moments where things are just incredibly bleak, and they can be for all of us. It's that belief that this pressure and this darkness that I'm experiencing right now is not permanent because nothing is permanent. I think for me that's been a really, really powerful guiding light. I think another really, really powerful guiding light is this idea that nothing, nothing that I I'm meant to have is passing me by. And we've heard this before, haven't we? We've heard this like you will pass you by. And I I definitely believe that to be true. I believe that we will receive a match for how we're being in the world. And when we're feeling like, why am I not further ahead? and it's not fair, we get very activated into almost like that child archetype of it's not fair. Why am I not further ahead? Why am I not as successful as I should be? Why am I not making the money that I should have? Why do I not have the body that I think I should have? All of these things we are disconnected from appreciation when we're being like that. We are disconnected from appreciation, and being like that is attracting more of that. We are bringing ourselves more dissatisfaction by not pausing to appreciate because when we pause to appreciate, it's almost impossible to feel that sense of why am I not further ahead?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I really, really feel that. Oh, and it's so easy to get lost in that when you're in that mindset, isn't it? You know, so this is I think this is why coming back to your creativity and understanding ways that you can activate that in yourself is so so important. And again, it comes back to that radical self-awareness. And I think when you can have trust, when you can have trust that nothing is meant that is meant for you will pass you by, you get to step into that with full faith. You know, and I think you know that that it needs to go hand in hand, having that trust that what you're doing is for something, you know, it's for yourself, it's for your purpose, it's for your mission, it's for whatever work you're going to be doing. It's it's all has a purpose. Whatever you're doing right now has a purpose. And I think if we can engage with that radical self-awareness, we can become aware of how for us we can reconnect without creativity, which I just like to repeat again, you do have because everybody has it. And it's just about how do you engage it. Now, for me, I find um things like movement, getting outside, things like that, activate it for me. It just brings me back. There's something that just brings me back, particularly if the sun's out and I can feel that on my face, there's something about that. Um, there's there's things like people like ice bars and things like that. That's a way of like activating them. And I'm just wondering, because you have so much experience with this, what ways uh have you experienced or have you seen that are really good for reconnecting or awakening your creativity if you're in those moments that uh perhaps you're just feeling a bit stuck or feeling a bit lost or are completely unaware of what your creativity maybe even is? How would you engage it through your experience? What ways would you use to reconnect to that?
SPEAKER_00I love that question. Thank you for that, Emma. I think the first thing for me is just change the scenery, and that doesn't need to mean you know, move to another country or go on holiday. It can literally mean leave this room and go into a different one. So that for me is like the first micro, micro step. And I think it's very important to have these micro steps that we can take. I learned this particularly during lockdown. We didn't have that many choices about where we could go, what we could do. So you really had to tune into what is the lowest common denominator, what is that tiny one little thing that you can do to change the energy? So if I'm feeling like I'm struggling to get into my creativity, the first thing I will do is change the scenery, change the energy. So that might mean go out of this room into another room, put some music on and dance. Because I know that's going to shift something, it's going to change the way I feel. It will create a state change. And like you said, it could be go outside. I'm also a massive, massive believer in meditation, although I am the crappest person at meditating ever. So I'll caveat this. You know, I'm not your kind of like super Zen person. People think that I'm very calm, but boy, do I have a busy mind, right? I have a monkey mind that is going all over the place, and so I find guided meditation really, really helpful. That's why I created a meditation for artists package because I needed it for me. So guided meditation really, really helps me, and I think just getting into it, just doing it. So, for example, if you want to create a painting or something like that, don't get too bogged down in. I have to create a painting and it has to look like this. Start really simply, you know, dip your fingers in some paint and just smudge it around on some bits of scrap paper. Allow yourself to play. I think that we forget that the creative act is an encounter. So if you're looking at a blank sheet of paper as an artist or a blank document on your screen as a writer, of course, you're not going to feel inspired because you're not having an experience, you're not having an encounter with anything. So have experiences. If you've got writer's block, go somewhere that you don't normally go and do something that you don't normally do. Um, an example is when I was really having a lot of creative block when I lived in London. I had my set routines, I lived near Brick Lane, I would go to certain cafes and things like that, and I would find that I was I was blocked. So what I would do is go to a completely different part of London that I wouldn't normally go to and go somewhere like a working man's pub, because boy, does that open your eyes. You know, you're suddenly like, my goodness, I'm in a completely different world. So change the environment, change the space, go and see something, do something, feel something that you don't normally feel or see. You know, if you have never attended a, I don't know, a martial arts class, go and do it. It might unlock something of your creativity that you weren't expecting. And I think that this is the key, really. We don't have to necessarily do things that are going to cost us a lot of money or anything like that. Just go and experience something else, and I can almost guarantee that it will unlock part of your creativity.
SPEAKER_01Oh, Ali, I absolutely love that, and so much resonates with me, you know, particularly monkey mind. I too absolutely love meditation, but I really struggle to do it myself, so I really understand it. And I think a lot of people are there, and there is, there's there's so many beautiful guided meditations, and I love the one that you've done that you're you're talking about there, because yeah, something there to help you engage with that. And what I really loved about what you said is about changing the energy, and I think that is where that radical self-awareness comes in, is like what would change the energy for you. Okay, coming back to what will change it for you is a state change, isn't it? And and I love the idea of I was thinking about it, I was thinking about all the possibilities, actually. It was like, oh, I'm here in Bristol, so what could I do? Where can I go that I've never been before? You know, and that sounds really exciting, that really sparked something in me. And I think, yeah, doing things like that just sounds beautiful. And I'm actually going to be doing a podcast all about play, which I'm very, very excited about because I feel I agree with you so much, it is so incredibly important, and I think as adults, as grown-ups, we forget to play, and we forget how important it is.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, and I think we get very stuck in our own bubbles. You know, I was very lucky growing up. I grew up in Lesotho, which is a mountain kingdom in Africa, surrounded by South Africa, small country, lots of different cultures and nationalities there, and so I was given this great privilege of experiencing lots of different things quite early on in my life. And what I found was like you go to a friend's house, it would just be culturally so different from your own. You know, you might go into a friend's house when their and their family were Pakistani, or you might go into another friend's house when their family were Cypriot, or you might go into another friend's house and they were local, they were Basutu people, and you would literally experience different smells, sounds, tastes, ways of talking, arrangement of the furniture. And that was really, really good for me because it teaches you that when you step into a different environment, it completely changes your frequency, your energy, and how you feel, and that is something that I've always had access to. So I feel very lucky in that sense. I was brought up in a non-religious family, but when I used to go and visit one of my friends, her parents used to take us to church. I'd be like, Okay, we're going to church, let's experience this. And I found that that was a very, very interesting way to connect with your own humanity, your own creativity, and just to feel alive is to actually experience something that has absolutely nothing to do with your everyday life routines, but just experience it with an open mind that unlocks so much creative.
SPEAKER_01I love that. I love that. So there you go. There you go. That is your homework. How can you go out and experience things? And I really I love what you're saying. You know, we always think it has to be this big grand thing, but actually, you're so right. Just going around to a friend's house that perhaps has a different upbringing, different culture, you experience so much through just that. You know, I am Greek Cypriot. So whenever I go to Cyprus, you know, that is a part of my culture. And yet it's so different from what's here. It's so social, it's so loud, it's so embracing, you know, there's so much love and warmth there. And at the same time, they are so happy to actively engage in like disagreements and yet still love each other deeply, you know? So it's so different from the the the English culture that I live here, you know, and being a part of that and experiencing that difference, it does, it lights something up in yourself. It's like it's almost that permission slip. It's oh okay, it's okay to be like that too. It's okay to do it that way too. Let's try that, you know. So yeah, I really, really love that. So everybody that's listening, this is your homework. Go and experience something different or somewhere different. See if you can re-engage your creativity. Oh, Ali, it's been such a beautiful conversation. Thank you so much for coming here with me live on this podcast, having this conversation. It's been beautiful. Now, people that perhaps aren't familiar with you, where can they find you?
SPEAKER_00They can come and find me on Instagram. I'm Ali Mapletoft on there. I've got two accounts. So if you just put in Ali Mapletoft, you'll find my Ali Mapletoft creative coach and my Ali Mapletoft artist. That's where I tend to hang out. And I would just absolutely love to hear from anybody who's listened to this podcast and understand what you receive from it because that for me is the most exciting thing. It's actually hearing from people who are getting excited about creativity, who are wanting to become more self-aware. You know, it's such a bold and courageous journey. And I also wanted to say, you know, for anybody who is thinking about joining Emma on her evolution programme, I absolutely know that Emma is a person who will hold space for you in the most powerful and gentle way. This is somebody who has, you know, been set Helen back, and she is so incredible in the way that she has navigated that with so much compassion and so much empathy. And if you want somebody to help you to unlock your next chapter of your life, like I can't think of anyone better than Emma to do that with you.
SPEAKER_01Oh, Ellie, thank you so much. That means so much to hear that coming from you as well. Oh, thank you. And if you are interested in that, then of course you know where to find me. It's at Joyous Missfit on Instagram or come over to the website joyousmisfit.com. And if you want to find out about evolution, it is simply forward slash evolution, and that tells you everything about that program. Thank you so much, Ali. I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and I am really, really excited to kind of see and hopefully hear from some people that have listened to this and are actively engaging their creativity and redefining that for themselves. So thank you so much, and um I look forward to hopefully speaking to you again on this podcast in the future.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much, Emma. I really enjoyed it.
