Embracing Creative and Spiritual Callings with Chela Davison

Embracing Creative and Spiritual Callings with Chela Davison

Gorgeous listeners, welcome to this week's episode of Finding Your Way Home; a little moment of deep connection, where we dive into the inextricable link between mind, body and realising your most authentic self.

In this episode, we sit down with the wonderful Chela Davison; Master Integral Coach, Writer, Producer and all-round creative force, to share her profound journey of "finding calling". As a guide to thousands on the themes of artistic recovery and spiritual alignment, she walks us through the blueprint you need to truly hear, attend to and bring into life the mission that fires you. Irrespective, perhaps of the trepidation each one of us faces in squaring up to our true purpose. 

Chela shares her transition from leading an incredibly successful coaching business, positioned at the top of her field, to letting it all go to allow a greater creative force to move through her. This willingness to surrender to intuition led to the writing and release of her empowering one-woman show - an opus on the themes of identity, societal expectations and being "A Little Bit Much". 

We explore the powerful impact of listening to one's inner voice, the importance of community and shared spaces, and how to express your spirituality in a way that feels true to you. You'll learn how to navigate the practical challenges & sacrifices that can come with following one's true path; in their turn, liberating the immense and transformative power of feeling enlivened by a life spent in authenticity, presence, curiosity and connection.

I hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed sharing it with you.
 
Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Introduction to Creative Recovery

00:32 Welcome to Finding Your Way Home

01:28 Meet Chela Davison

03:12 Chela's Journey into Coaching

04:57 Integral Theory and Coaching Methodology

05:35 The Evolution of Chela's Career

08:53 Cultivating a 'We' Experience

11:41 Anthea's Embodiment Training

16:52 Chela's Transition and Creative Recovery

20:16 The Birth of 'A Little Bit Much'

29:09 Exploring Creative Control and Relational Dynamics

31:41 Navigating Internal and External Challenges

32:26 Balancing Responsibilities and Pursuing Passion

34:30 Creating Space for Creativity and Community

36:34 Financial Sacrifices and Personal Fulfillment

44:20 The Importance of Community and Secure Relationships

51:05 Spirituality and Personal Connection to Spirit

55:30 Final Thoughts and Ways to Connect

To connect with Chela:

- Follow her on Instagram: @cheladavison
- Check out her website: https://cheladavison.com/
- Read her work on Substack: https://cheladavison.substack.com/

For more on Finding Your Way Home, including events and learning programmes:
- Visit @ab_embodiment or www.ab-embodimentcoaching.org

And if you've enjoyed the episode, remember to Subscribe and share it with a friend - you couldn't imagine the profound ripple effect your support has… 

With love, always x

Transcript

0:03

I listened to what I needed for creative recovery and then I listened and got curious about what was coming through. And then once it was through, I listened and got curious about what it wanted to become. And now that it is something I'm listening and I'm curious about what it's doing for people, and as I find out, that tells me where to take it.

Anthea: 0:32

welcome to Finding Your Way Home, the secrets to true alignment. I'm your host, Anthea Bell, movement teacher, mind body coach, and lifelong spiritual seeker. This is a podcast about the depth, weight, and profound healing power of connection between mind and body, spirit and soul, and from one human to another. Together with an incredible range of inspiring guests, we'll explore just what connection and alignment mean. How to get there in a world full of the temptation to conform, and how great challenge ultimately can lead to life changing transformation. Get ready for groundbreaking personal stories, conversational deep dives, and a toolkit of strategies to build not just your inner knowing, but your outer world. Let's dive in.

1:28

Gorgeous listeners, welcome to this week's episode of Finding Your Way Home. We have another beautiful international episode for you. I'm sitting in front of the divine creature that is Chela Davison. Chela and I met actually over the spring at an event called Relax Money Run by Kate Northrop and her amazing team, and it was this melting pot of incredible women with profound personal professional transitional leadership stories. And Chayla came to teach the group on really the. Profound importance of listening to the budding instincts within that are calling you toward purpose, calling you towards presence, calling you towards service, calling you towards a deeper level of self connection, and perhaps you allow yourself on a day-to-day basis. And as you can imagine, if you've been listening to this thing for a little while, I could not resist trying to get her to come and speak with us and magically she agreed. So Chela, we are so unbelievably grateful to have you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. I could listen to you speak all day long. I love your voice. Thanks for having me here. I'm so excited to have this conversation together. I have a feeling and listeners just be aware of a feeling that we are gonna undulate as we do because there's a sort of a, a melting of minds here. I learned in my research on Chela, that she's also an integral coach with ICC. And so there is this there is this resonance in certainly mind body integrated practice and presence that I feel even sitting with her. I wonder if you could start us there, just talking a little bit about what was it that led you into even coaching initially as part of how you offered your service into the world. It really was born out of an experience I was having when I ran my first business. So the first company that I owned was a hair salon that I started when I was 19. And at the time, I mean, I did my first silent meditation retreat when I was 18. All the books that I read when I was a teenager were personal development books and spirituality and, and the overlap of business and dharma. And so I was really steeped in those explorations of inner work and our inner worlds. And the part that I loved the most in the work that I was doing as a stylist and a salon owner was what was cultivated in the we space with my team. So I really loved developing a healthy, fun, playful culture at work. And I found that my clients, I mean, they say bartenders and hairdressers are who people tell everything to. And so the kinds of conversations I was having with clients as well were so intimate. And what I would feel, both with staff and with clients was the, the deeper yearnings of. Who they wanted to become or who they were. And I could feel the limits of my capacity to support that. And, and I could also feel the strength of my capacity to support those things in the roles I was in. And I did a deep dive. I just got completely enamored with all things integral theory. First through Ken Wilber's books and then through connecting with a really vibrant, budding integral community. At that time, this would be the early two thousands, and I was kind of like, oh my gosh, if you could take these theories and apply them to a coaching methodology. And then I even started in a very kind of. Not very skillful. Wait, trying to sketch out, well what would a coaching methodology look like applied with this. And then I found out it already existed and that Laura and Joanne had co-founded Integral Coach in Canada. That was like a spark of a call of like, of course I'm gonna go do that. Yeah., From my understanding, you really worked your way up the ranks of that of that organization and then started not just teaching your clients, but also then cultivating the next wave of students who would be coming through the trainings. I presume that that was an evolution in and of itself, going from, from one to one to one to many, essentially. Yeah. And it was it was so, it's so sweet to ask these questions and reflect back on that time because, and even work, work, the, it's so interesting to hear the term work my way up the ranks.'Cause it didn't feel like that. But there was a I, I, I was something of a, of a prodigy I guess in those days. So at the time, I don't need to get into all the details of how the trainings were structured, but at the time I certified at the highest level of mastery that a student ever had. There was like a, a kind of a talent for both the methodology, but it's application that just seemed really natural to me. And, and so I kept being asked to do things asked to sit on committee, volunteer to sit on committee and then asked to mentor and then asked to phone coach. And so I just kept being asked to do things and eventually it. Felt really clear and generative that I would be folded into the company in, in more ways. And so, yeah, eventually came on as first managing director and then a president of the company and was the lead teacher of all three modules. And so in a way, the, it, the one to many I think maybe I didn't notice as much at the time. I'd already done a decent amount of facilitating and speaking and teaching in my previous industry. So I was comfortable there. So it's kind of been, when I look back at my whole career, it's kind of moved like that. It's been like this weave of kind of moving towards where the call is and what feels really aligned and generative and like, of course, and then past experiences and capacities would be like leveraged and kind of woven in and then those would would grow together. So the teaching was so, profoundly impactful. Not just the teaching, the experience of the teaching itself, but being mentored by Laura Devine the co-founder and the chief architect of the methodology. It was like we'll go down as probably one of the best experiences in my entire life getting to, to work with her and with both of those women. Yeah. We talk in in integral theory about this concept of way of being that you start as one way relative to whatever topic it is that you're pursuing and you evolve, and this is how it was taught to me. You evolve and transcend and transmute the old way into the new way and. That was the first thing that struck me about the theory., The beauty inherent in the idea that you are not trying to ostracize, override even, even improve. I never even heard that phrase during our training. It was this gorgeous, as you say, this weaving this, this conversation gradually over time. And I think that so speaks to the human journey in general is we are always looking to evolve through with mm-hmm. Talked about the we space earlier. And I suppose I wonder in, in light of your work, what do you feel are the kind of key aspects or criteria or foundation to really be cultivating a, we experience this kind of relational field? Oh, great question. I think the, the first would really be presence and listening. And curiosity first and foremost about like what is here even in that, you know, some of the notes that you just said around this theory, not trying to improve or make something happen similar with a we space to cultivate a, a shared we or a particular culture, whether it's just you and me here in our, we that we're cultivating or in a team that you're growing or in a program that you're running and holding or in your local community. A lot of times when, when we think about growing or cultivating or building a culture, the attention can go towards what we want to create or the future of it. And if we do that before we become very intimate with what's here. Then it can be like laying a vision over top of reality and then it creates like dissonance or static. So to me, the first thing is to be really curious about what is here, who is here, what are they, what are we each bringing to the room? What does it feel like to be together as we settle? And so that, that is the first piece. And then as we co-create, continuing to pause and listen for that, and as somebody who's very I have a lot of energy and intensity and I can just go. And so that one of the. Things that I've really cultivated and worked with over time is, I know that I can really impact a space and a we, and if I'm not and I don't think we all need to be regulated all the time, but if I'm not like checking for how regulated I am or if my intensity and enthusiasm takes over, I, I need to like check, oh wait, how, okay, how do I like pull back and listen for what's here now that I've actually impacted the space? And I think if all of us do that, what are we actually bringing? How are we influencing what's happening here? How are we holding back from influencing what's happening here? If we do that collectively, there's actually something that starts to happen between us. I mean, it gives me goosebumps hearing that. Genuinely in my body, which is not surprising'cause you and I check in on even those signals a lot when we're in connection. What would happen if, if more people were involved in that way of thinking, that way of operating, it'd be profound. Mm-hmm. I run a really sweet, gorgeous training, you know, baby comparison to, to ICC. But one of the biggest pieces of feedback that we've had from the group who came through last year was they've never been introduced to a space before where they could lean into deep cohabitation and trust in the learning process. And for me, I was astounded that that was the biggest positive takeaway that they had. They've had incredible things happening in their careers. They've deepened their romantic relationships, all of those things that they came in for. But the key marker for them was, what is it like for me now to inhabit space with others? And it reminds me that it's so primal, it's what our bodies are crying out for. It's what our cravings often mean. It's, it's why most people get to the end of a working day and their body is crunched down and compressed because they're not alive in that way. That's, that's about relationship, not least the relationship from me. To me. That's so beautiful. I'm curious, can I ask, I'm so curious'cause these spaces, and I'd love to share about a group I'm in that is doing something, but what is it that you are doing that either that feedback showed you, that you're implicitly doing or that you're explicitly doing to cultivate that?'Cause I know so many people need it and leaders want to be able to do more of that and some are skilled at and some aren't. Sounds like you are. What are you doing? I think that. I think it actually touches on a couple of the things that you've already mentioned. I was drawn to ICC initially because the way that I was navigated, even when I did my first interviews, was with a level of presence that I recognized and I knew that ethically that was a line for me., British people have a real aversion to being sold to, and I was oppressively not sold to by actually by Jenny Tipper in, in our first meeting. Love Jenny. And she just, she just saw me. And actually I remember it's the first time I had heard someone call me ambitious and high achieving. And she said, she said them as kind of curiosity questions, you know, and she sent me a challenge. She was like, I think a really beautiful edge for you would be to not make your bed in the morning. And I couldn't do it. And still to this day actually, I have never done it. And even that tiny interaction where she was looking more into me to see if it was, if this was the right fit for me, that she was trying to sell me on the program. That was a bit of a temperature check for me with the organization. And I think before that, really what had happened for me is I went through two glorious. Horrible waves of anorexia. And so of course you learn the most incredible levels of dissociation pretending not being with what's here. And I understand and deeply forgive that. That was a brilliant strategy. And there came a point where that strategy was not useful if I wanted to really be alive in the world. And so that was about, sort of 10 years ago that I started a recovery journey in that. And, and that was then what started me going through therapy and coaching and then starting to train in all of those modalities. And then the physical side of things really wrapped all of that together. So the training that I ran is technically an embodiment training, and it's really about how do we go from being out there separated to being deeply rooted and embedded in the fullest, expansive version of who we are. And I credit every single experience that I've had for allowing me to gather. Beautiful ways of doing that. And I suspect that that's what then the, the group experiences is that when we slow them down, we are not slowing them down because I'm not interested in action and activating them, but we're slowing them down, as you say. Because unless we can start with the foundations, all that you're ever gonna have is a very liminal, surface experience that is stop, start. And I don't, I don't want anyone else's nervous system to go through any more of that than the world that we live in sort of encourages. So my, potentially, my bias is if you start from activating into your center, and if you can learn forgiveness on a deep level and learn connection on a deep level, everything in your material outside will come. Sorry, that was a very long answer to your question. No, I love, I I mean, hey listen, you've had me on here for how many minutes, you know, I like long answers. So that was beautiful. No, it's really nice to to both hear more but also feel what it is that you're doing in your, in your work with people. Well, this is why your work feels so significant. So we are absolutely gonna turn the lens back and, and I'd really like to find out for me and for the listeners, you've been on a really interesting journey more recently, right? Of listening to your inner calling and really navigating the realities of that other liminal space, which is the space to transition. I, I'd love for you to just describe that journey for, for the listeners that haven't heard it, and we can go from there. Okay, great. How far back do I go? Well, as you've heard, so I've, my background is in coaching and so, while I was with ICC for a number of years, I've also had been in private practice bookending that part of my career as well. So I've been working with clients since 2009. And primarily entrepreneurs, artists, practitioners, coaches, therapists, authors and at the core of the work, it's really about call. And even though sometimes I'm more like helping people develop a body of work or I'm right in their business ecosystem, or other times it's more the deep inner work. I've been in the background of a lot of people who've, who've done some pretty beautiful things with their career at their, this intersection of art personal development and leadership. And several years ago, there's something, you know, in this in this topic of finding our way home. So for me, there are certain markers that really tell me when I'm deeply aligned and those markers from my interior experience of what it is that I'm doing and how I'm moving and where I'm going but also the way it kind of, flows and interacts with the outside world. And I was in a particular period in my life, small child, recently moved a lot of external disruption, some big family losses. And what was happening in my work was like off that, there's no other real way to say it without just getting into it was just like hard, tiring, heavy things. Cumulatively felt like a really large lift, even though each person or each moment it seemed right. The lift was big and I felt really, really burnt out and started to feel what I experienced as my integrity being out, a lack of integrity because I'm working with people around call and. I was not feeling in alignment with my call and my identification with being the person who helps people meet their calling and not being in alignment with what was calling me, was just like there's so much dissonance around it. So I pulled right back in my business let go of team, stopped running programs and just got really quiet. And part of it was like, I think I wanna write a book. Like I was feeling this desire to express creatively in different ways and to go somewhere different with my career, but it didn't actually feel like it was nestled in coaching in the way that it had been. So it was a real, like taking my own medicine from like frameworks I work with to methodologies I work with. And. Just for shits and giggles. I took a friend's course, I, it was really like for creative recovery. He, and he just reached out and said, Hey, no pressure. He'd done some creative coaching with me before, we'd written together on projects years ago, and he said, Hey, I teach this solo show writing class and I thought you might be interested. And I'd seen it for years and was always like, oh, that'd be fun. One day, you know, like when I have time when I'm not like the breadwinner and running a company and have children, like all whatever. And so I took it and it changed everything and I wrote a show without any intention to ever perform the show. And yeah, I was just like, oh, I'll just do this class and then I'll do the next class. And it was very different than how I'd ever approached things before. And the aliveness that came back. That I hadn't felt in years simply through the, the process the various things that healed through the process. So it was like I was explicitly going, I'm gonna do something that has nothing to do with my life's work for a creative project. And now the whole bloody thing has become my life's work. So that's the transition. Yeah. That was a long answer, so I'll pause there, I love it. Can you tell us about the show? What was this thing that came through you? Well, so the instructions. Were to for the second level, like once we kind of had a little bit of a concept. So after the first level we, I had like some idea maybe, and I knew it was going to be a one woman show, an autobiographical monologue. I wanted to practice with the craft of comedy maybe some performance poetry I've written for years. I love language, so I just really wanted to like, explore some stuff and tell some stories. But I didn't have a through line or specific stories I wanted to tell, or like there wasn't something burning to get out of me. It was more about craft. And the two first working titles that I came up with before the show was written was, are you there? God It's me, existential angst. And white woman complains about capitalism and with which we're both fun and but I didn't actually know what the show was. And so as I started to write it, what I would do is I'd write five minute chunks to bring to class, to workshop. And at the end I had about an hour plus of material and then I got to actually ask it what it was. And, and that was a really incredible enlivening creative experience. And and I had support in that. And TJ Dah, who's the teacher who also became a dramaturg and director of the show just helped me and he was like. This isn't about existential angst, it's about identity. And I'm like, oh, it is about identity. So then we, we just kept shaping it. It became like this piece of clay that was being worked and where we would magnify the theme, where we would go, this is not on theme. And so we cut it out. And so now the show is called a little bit much. And that is one theme of identity that rolls through is the internalization of the identity of being too much which has been very much alive in my lived experience and of a lot of women. And so with those, what the stories explore, like what underpins it, is it's really just personal stories. Some are raw, some are touching, some are funny. What most people who've seen it say is that they laugh and they cry often at the same part. And so it's like a really intense. Ride, it's a little bit much really to receive as a participant, but the, the thread that weaves through are the ways that we internalize stories about who we are through our lived experience, through what we're told in media and the way that those stories calcify into identities and then the way we may disidentify from them. And so, even what you were talking about with the Integral coaching methodology you know, change processes, identifying with something, disidentifying with something, all of those themes are woven through in the background. The audience isn't aware of that necessarily, because I'm not explicitly talking about theory. But it is shown through the telling of story. Which is such a powerful thing because in giving someone a story, especially if it's a personal story they can relate to on a deep level, the resonance becomes such an easy gateway for the imagination to be able to understand a concept that is still personally deeply, deeply, deeply relevant. But you do it almost, it feels to me, you get underneath the barrier in the block that might make someone seize up if they were asked directly. Could you tell us about this experience that you have of being both too much and not enough at the same time? Did they, did those two go hand in hand for you? Was there also a feeling of lack. With too much not Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, they feel like they're flip sides of the same thing, right? So to be too much of something is to be not enough of this other thing, whatever that ideal is. And there are a lot of themes specifically about being a woman throughout the show. But part of what has been really cool to experience you know, in, in a way, I would say for sure this is a piece of feminist art. But it is in no way anti-male. And and so the men who have come to the show the feedback I've received from them anyway, has been really moving from teenage boys to like older men and everywhere in between and saying things like, wow, I feel like I know my mom more and I can't wait to get, go home and get to know my wife better, and I really want my daughter to come and see this show. And so that's been really heartening because I think that. The, the too much, not enough, or just not right. You know, there are women who have come to the show and they've had an opposite experience. They were like, I've never been too much. I've always felt like the opposite. Like, I, like I don't express a lot and I'm kind of in here. And so it seems like, and we're, we're still, I mean, the show is still getting out into the world. I toured it last year and I'm going to be touring it again this year. What it seems like it is happening for people is it, it allows for that introspection and it also gives permission. To explore more deeply. And a lot of what the women who've come to the show, some of the patterns I've tracked over time is many of them will, will group together and then go process it together collectively. Sometimes women who come together, but sometimes people who didn't come together and just start chatting after the show and then they wanna go somewhere and connect and talk and process.'Cause there's a lot in there. My dad am I allowed to swear on this? It's English. It's okay. Okay. So my dad, after the show, he, he came up and he, he compared it to George Carlin, which is just excessive praise, so we're not gonna take that on. But it was the, it was the specific thing that he'd seen. He's, and I said, what was it that made you think of that particular artist? And he said, you're saying really, really horrible shit. It's so funny, I can hear it. And and not the whole thing is saying horrible shit. There's like, it's really got different tones depending on what story it is and what I'm exploring, but I'm, but there are some of the, some of the monologues just kind of point to the pains of the cultural experience that when I was about to say it, like a spoonful of sugar, but no, like a spoonful of laughter. It's like the, the tension and discomfort can, can be released and then be metabolized, so it's doing something. But honestly, because I wrote it without setting out for it to do a thing, that's part of the continued listening for me. Like I, I listened to what I needed for creative recovery and then I listened and got curious about what was coming through. And then once it was through, I listened and got curious about what it wanted to become. And now that it is something I'm listening and I'm curious about what it's doing for people, and as I find out, that tells me where to take it. I adore that it's a completely different relationship to creative output. That it's not ownership, it is relational. Right? It is this, it is this separate thing that is linked to me, but it's not, I don't take dominion over it. I ask it what it wants to be. That's radical This is, this is my, yeah. This is my entire approach to creativity now and it's been amazing to see because I work in different ways and in different mediums, and anytime I do something with this show, it moves fast and easily.. It has its own life force. And so when I go to work on other things, like I'm working on a book right now and it's been like, it almost feels like we're in this attachment dynamic that's like. Okay, but do you really want me? Well, like, are you really gonna do it? And, and we're like, we're, it's this kind of back and forth. It's so interesting to feel the energy of it and how I'm relating to it and how I feel like it's relating to me and I'm like trying to find my way through. And I've got a great editor who's helping, but it's so interesting to feel those different things and in, you know, my decades of working with people in different contexts, on their ways of being, on their businesses, on their creative projects, on what makes them come alive. I think so often, you know, when you said dominion over, it's like we live in a culture that has so many systems that are oppressive, extractive systems that the. Assumption or our internalized way of approaching work and creative work and expression can be to try to get control of it, to colonize it in a way and, and try to turn it into what we want it to be. And when we do that, I mean, sometimes it works to produce results for a time. But it's constrictive and it's extractive and it will eventually extract of something, whether it is other people, whether it is external resources, whether it is our internal resources. And so this way of approaching creativity or call even as a whole from I am in relationship with something. Something that comes from the world, that animates this world, however you wanna hold that. And if I can listen deeply to what that is and, and then play and co-create with it, something starts to come into form and that's what the show did. And it feels like it just a real joyful dynamic being that I'm getting to steward., And it's a real like, pleasure and honor. And anytime I start to try to figure out what it wants to be or produce a particular result, or start getting attached to a metric that is anything other than relational with this particular piece I get really fucked up. I get sick, I get really tired. I get preoccupied and self-conscious with things that feel really old. And anytime I just lean into the relational field with it I feel deeply empowered. I feel like I'm doing right by a conversation that needs to be had, and I feel right, like I'm doing right by spirit. So many places we could go from there. But the thing that this reminds me of is being in the bed of faith and how difficult people find it to rest in what they consider to be uncertainty. Mm-hmm. How, how, how feared we are of that. I, I wonder, I know a little bit of the, the answer to this, but again, those that are with us won't, presumably. It was a challenge also for you, not withstanding the importance of the creativity, the importance of coming back into integrity and alignment, and nevertheless, you're the breadwinner, blah, blah, blah. I, I presume that that slide into this shift was not necessarily one that came without internal challenge for you. Yeah. Yes. Accurate, yes. And, and no. So, yes, there's internal challenge, there's external challenge, but there's also internal grace that's like, amazing. And so, one, just in case my husband listens to this, I'm no longer the only breadwinner. So we're really clear. So there's been a lot of shifts just in, in all of the, the pieces of our lives. But as I started to pursue this show, so the part that was like not an internal struggle at all was to go, okay, this part of it was the timing is I spent two years on this show just on the side, but I started to organize things in a way that let me follow it. And I think for listeners who are at. You know, I'll tell the story of it, but, but I'd like to actually talk about kind of the mechanisms at play for folks in transition because, you know, I'm, I'm gonna be 44 this year. I have been the primary, I am now a co breadwinner. I have two children, 17 and six. We have a mortgage, we live in a very expensive place on the west coast and, or, or considered unaffordable in comparison to what it costs to live here in the average income. So there are all these external pieces around responsibility and what I. What we have set up for our life that need to be maintained or, or we choose to maintain them. And so there's actually a lot at stake. And that's the first thing I wanna say is that there's a lot at stake that when I would follow impulses and dreams when I was in my twenties, it's a very different place. And I've worked with a lot of people who come to midlife and have a deep call towards something else, and they feel incredibly bound by not just the external structures, roles, job, business, things that they've set up that they feel they need to maintain, but the internal structures and identities of who they are and what it would mean to make the kind of change they wanna make and what the impact in Ripple would, would be. And so for me, the biggest impact in Ripple and fear in pursuing this path is around letting other people down or disrupting our security too much and yet, so, so at the beginning it was just like titrated really. I wasn't even, like I said, I wasn't even going to do anything with the show. And so for the first year it was just like this delightful creative reprieve. And then I found I wasn't working on it as much as I wanted to work on it. And so then I actually started a program within my business called the Creative Cauldron to invite other people to come and co-write and co-work and make art together and en liven our creative spirit. And it's still going it's not big, it's an intimate group of people. Some people come for a season and go, some have stayed the whole time, have worked on dissertations and written books and, you know, write content for their businesses and a whole mix of things. And so it's, but I, I made it as a space for me, which was the first offering within my business where the space was meant to hold me as much as it was meant to hold other people. And I. In doing so, it was like I carved this line in the sand around going, this is call this creativity, this show. There's something here and it matters. And so I'm gonna put it upfront on my schedule. It's not the thing that's gonna get kicked off the side of my desk. And it also doesn't mean I have to quit everything and blow up my life and not attend to what needs attending to. So for people who are in a transition time or a call, sometimes it can feel like all or nothing, or I need to figure out what it is or I need to know if it's gonna work before I can pursue it. I don't always like to come to places and be like, do the thing I'm telling you, but do this thing. I'm telling you if there is a call, find the smallest way that you can start to engage it regularly and just see where it goes. And it doesn't mean you have to blow up your life. So that was the first part, and there was no internal struggle around that. It was just like joyful. And it, it actually started to give and release life force and move life force that hadn't been moving, that was particularly stagnant and what that did is it actually gave more energy and clarity in the other ways in the other places in my business. So again, I didn't shut stuff down. It actually created more of a generative relational field with the clients I was working with, with the projects I was taking on. It was just. Great. And so when I decided to go all in, and again, I still have my business, I have run programs, I still take a few clients. So by all in, I mean it's all still in transition, but when I decided to go all in on the show, like make it the top thing on my to-do list, the first priority on my calendar, it wasn't actually an internal struggle, but what I did know it was going to be is I knew it was going to be a massive financial hit because I wouldn't be able to run my business at the way that I was running it and prioritize this show. And so what it's meant practically, which I think really matters when people go, well, can I do this thing and make it work and still maintain, like, maybe not. So I made the least amount of money that I'd made in my company in 15 years and it was one of the best years of my life. And I just keep watching myself orient. So the, the, the biggest struggle actually has been the way I watch myself fall back into what we would know to be current way of being, or old way of being. Specifically around ways of working, ways of holding people and programs ways of going in my business before I go, oh no, this, this is, this is actually it. It's, it's taking me and, and I'm ahead of where I think I am with this call and I need to like, update everything to go all in, not just the show, but everything that's kind of shifting in, in how I'm showing up and being in the world and in my business and in my life's work around the show and that craft and, and that presumably is also, I don't really want to use the phrase self prioritization because actually. We've established that this isn't really, this creative product isn't really self, and yet it is. But there is something that's occurring to me about, gosh, what, what must it be like, what must it have been like for you to, to, to adjust the size of your team? To let people go, to begin to close down certain client relationships? You know, a lot of what I hear in my one-to-one work is around the difficulty people have sometimes in the perception of loss, and certainly in the perception of the impact of their decisions on others. So we spend a lot of time talking about, okay, well how can I be in a space of love with myself and really in recognition of the truth of what is for me, and support that gentle separation in a way that is supportive, but also recognizes the independence of both parties and the. Distinct agency that each person has to hold for themselves, I suppose. I wonder what would you say to someone in a similar position that was worried about causing harm or letting go of others in the way they have been holding them? Oh, what a beautiful question. You know, one of the things that I felt so fortunate about in that time, and there was actually just one person who was majorly impacted by those moves, and honestly, those moves of shutting things down, it was before the show. So it wasn't like, oh, I'm called to this thing and it was like, I have to winter and I have to close down. And so, first what you just named. I'm like, oh, wow. It would've been really nice to have been having conversations with you at that time.'cause it was incredibly painful and it felt like deep failure actually, because I couldn't keep going in the way I was going because I didn't have the capacity to, I didn't have the energetic capacity to. And that felt like because I was identified with being resilient, it was like, it, it really felt like a deep, painful loss and failure. And and it was also true and right. And I had to honor myself. And, and I'm grateful that both the significant person it impacted and the other contractors we had cultivated such a a relationship of trust and love that it was, there, there could be some mutuality around it and some understanding, but I, that feeling of I am responsible for this person and we've been co-creating this whole thing was very strong. And I've worked with a lot of leaders in different sectors with different size teams, with different relationships to closing down teams. Some who are like, just kind of ruthless, doesn't matter like we've gotta look at the bottom line and we need to work the people around that to keeping people on teams for way longer, that aren't the right fit, that aren't at the right pay just because of the relationship and the guilt. I guess it just so depends like, I really hope that we each want to honor the impact that we have. On people and that other people's journey is not our responsibility. And, and we're, we are in co-creative and co-creating relationships. So what we do matters and to maintain a team or to maintain being an employer of somebody else's life work if it doesn't actually work, is out of integrity. Such an important phrase out of integrity or in integrity. You know, similar to the question that you asked at the beginning that had me thinking, what would it be like for the world if they were really orienting toward those principles? That the same thing applies for me. I wonder, I wonder how people out there would live day by day by day, if their metric was, am I in a sense of alignment for myself today? Am I in alignment with my life? Are the choices that I made before, are they so relevant now? What is it like for me to change the script? I mean, it speaks to so much of your work. What is it like for me to allow myself, to give myself permission to be a sentient being that's gonna pivot? Mm-hmm. You know, you, you had me thinking so much about practical compromise. Okay. So I wanna make this shift. Okay. So there are things that I'm gonna need to clear. There are things I'm gonna need to let go of. There are, there are compensations that I just need to get steady with in the belly of faith that says, if not this, then something better. Mm-hmm. Yeah., I love that and I think, you know, so much of, I don't know if you have this experience'cause we all have different algorithms and are fed different things and lean to different things. But I think there's a lot of narrative around call and being on purpose. Like, you know, if you're really doing it right, then it's easy and abundant and that's not always true. Like sometimes, but not always. Alignment doesn't always feel like that. And, and there's actually something about sacrifice and discomfort that is, can be really holy and so practically, and I've had people be like, oh wow, you did what? So when we, when my husband and I realized, you know, we're both really dedicated to call And we put it before other things. And so there are impacts to that. And so when we realized that I was going to go for this in this way we, we have a lovely home and it has a basement suite and we moved our family of four into a one bedroom basement suite for a year. And we rented out rooms to a variety of people on the island. It ended up being a really regenerative, beautiful exploration of being able to offer affordable housing and make enough money to cover our mortgage payments plus, and live in a leaner way to actually let the income really fall without it destabilizing our family system., And it was really fun to be in that and be, and check and be like, does this feel. Failure. Like I should be able to just go pursue this artistic endeavor and not have my, and it was like, no, this is, this is real life and this is taking risks and this is doing it for love and doing it in love together. And to feel supported in that way. By him and with him. It was, it was really a cool time. Related to this, I went to Costa Rica two years ago and I was really fortunate to be invited into a very small community of actually expats. Most of them were from the US or from Israel. And they had sort of clustered together in this one particular area in the Carrara region on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. And I was floored by how beautifully this community wove I. With one another. People that have independent online careers dotted all over the globe. You know, some of them probably are fairly significant. I, I dunno, I didn't Google, but, and yet they're stomping around the field. The, the, the head of, head of the household, the, the chap that I was staying with, you know, he had masking tape over the front of his boot because he was like, well, it's still functional. And, and so much of that trip taught me about how much richness there is in, committed community, how much beauty there is there, and how much, even for me, coming from the background that I've come from, that reduces the craving You mentioned before that, when I started to try and operate from a place of control or agenda, i, I, it felt wrong inside. Like, it, it just, I went mad. And for me it's, it's a little bit similar when we get into too much either control or often it's pairing too much separation. Mm-hmm. The craving and the madness is kind of there. Or at least those are the conditions that make it so much more easy to slide into that. So when you describe this community experience just fills me with such a beautiful feeling and reminder for any of us that opening up your life, even if it is not in a way that feels financially lucrative, is. Phenomenally abundant, phenomenally abundant. And I think that's one of the things that is really challenging about being raised in and living within a capitalist system, is that we the, the overemphasis on individuality consumerism growth financial growth and all of those kind of values woven together has not only has people prioritize money as the primary resource, and this is not an anti-money tirade at all but is the primary resource that is going to offer them security and, and wellbeing. And, and to do that in a way. Those pursuits, particularly when we're in economic times that are tighter those pursuits actually create more separation from community care because we are busier we are tired, we are preoccupied, we are stressed, we are dysregulated. And so our ability to co-regulate, to attune to each other, to engage in social community, volunteerism, things that actually weave networks of community care that are more resourcing are feel less available. And I love what you just said about how the craving increases. And there's earlier when you were talking about holding your group. I wanted to share about a, a group that I've been a part of for, we're in our eighth year and there it's seven of us and a friend started it and we've been meeting pretty much, you know, give or take months here or there every other Monday for the last eight years. And it's a We Space group. And so what we're actually engaged in is that very thing we were talking about, about what's in the room. It's essentially a collective meditation to feel what is happening in the collective space. And what we found over these years is each year there's different kind of notes or themes that happened. And it was during year six, moving into year seven that we started to notice that we had been, had been cultivating but not yet gotten to collective secure attachment, that it actually took that long, that meeting with. Working with bringing what was happening in the room, responding to what was happening and how we were reacting and responding in the room. And it's a very sweet happens to be a low conflict group. So it's, it's, it's not intent. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful space that really trying to give language to is very hard. But we've all been like, we should try to give language to this at some point. But to just actually note and notice what it means to be in secure relationship with others and secure relationship, you know, one-to-one versus secure collective relationship. And there's a lot of, you know, books and conversations about developing secure attachment with our primary attachment figures. But to actually bring that lens into are we cultivating safety and security in our relationships everywhere? And can we do that in group And then to notice the degree to which we are not? Safe, secure relationships collectively and in group. And that lack of safety and security creates all of these things, these cravings, these clingings, the sense of scarcity, the sense of separation. Has us chase things chase securities in ways, we don't actually need that much materially to be very, very well. And when we do that relationally, at least in my experience, it it opens up all sorts of opportunities to secure more material security. I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, it sounds like a stunning, stunning group. A stunning experience. They're so lovely. They're so lovely. I bet you if someone did biological studies of your all of your sort of metrics over that period of time, they'd find that that, or the absence of that would've made a really big difference actually. Massive. Massive. I mean, and it comes up all the time. Each of us will talk about the way that it shifted our marriages, our parenting, our careers, our other friendships, our whole ways of relating to relationship. It's been a profound experiment for all of us and really deeply meaningful. It's beautiful.'cause I was going to ask you, in the way of these things, you have a list of, of the topics that you want to ask, these incredible speakers. And I was gonna ask you about how important community is for you and, and I feel as though we've had the answer to that. I suppose the final question that I have just on calling is actually your relationship towards spirit spirituality of a, of a personally defined nature. What does that mean to you? I love this question. One of the theories I came in contact with through those integral circles kind of early on, was a helpful lens for me. So I wasn't raised religious, I was raised by hippies kind of new age sensibilities you know, like auras and chakras and grounding cords and but then, you know, went on to and was very curious about, about studying various lineages. So I've had a very eclectic spiritual education, but have never felt a sense of belonging as my friend Shahar calls it, a spiritual misfit. But the theory that I, that I loved, that's really helped me because in certain ways I have felt, I feel very. Deeply spiritual. And yet, you know, like when I, when I hang out with any of my Jewish friends, I'm like deeply jealous of the ritual and this texts and the sacredness and the community and the gathering and like the depth of spirit. And so there's kind of this sense of like, well, am I as spiritual a being as I feel without a lineage anchor that I'm really steeped in? So that's been an interesting kind of piece in claiming my own relationship. But the theory around the three faces of God, first person, second person, and third person relationships to spirit. So. For listeners who aren't familiar, just real quick. First person would be like, I am God, or God moves through me, or Spirit animates me. Second person is an I thou relationship. So, you know, religions or spiritual relationships where God is separate from an omniscient being a, a God's deities that we are in relationship with, pray to and then third person relationship to God as, God as nature, God as everything arising. And I love those. And so for me, my relationship to spirit isn't, is an inquiry and a dance between, so I have prayer practice and that is in relation. There's a, an i thou relationship. To the mystery. I don't have a form or a picture of what that is, but to the mystery. I definitely feel, especially in creative ways, especially in relationally potent moments, in moments of synchronicity and moments of you know, like naming a longing and then having kind of lifeline up. That feels very first person. Like I am not a skin bag and a mass of cells. I'm, I, I have a body that is animated by a soul that is connected to something of, of other and all worlds. And then nature. I mean, God, you just need to stop for a single moment and, and watch a hummingbird find its way to a flower and go, how is that not God? Or watch something like slowly decaying and being eaten by. The mushrooms and bugs to go, how is that not God? For me, it's this, it's everything, all of it all at once. And, and you get to have a personal individual what do I wanna say? Not even personal. You get to have a moment by moment experience of that relative to where you are at the time. You have me thinking about safety because never have I heard someone who is standing in front of a hummingbird interacting with a flower and hear them expressing any sense of not being safe, not belonging, not being a part of, mm, it's so present in nature. Oh, that's so beautiful. Yeah. There's a Ram Dass quote. I'm gonna butcher it, but maybe you'll find it and have it accurate in, in the show notes. But it's it's about trees and like, we don't look at a tree and go, that doesn't look quite right. You know, it's some, it's some, somewhere in that territory around the ways that we judge ourselves and each other and the way things should be. And it's just like, it's so cool how that doesn't really happen in nature, we'll find the full quote, but there's also a version of it that they've created about this tall poppy syndrome, of we don't look at a tree and judge it for wanting to climb up toward the sun. The same kind of theme. I, I know that you and I could probably keep gabbing on for a long time, and I know how busy your day is, but I would love for you to just share on what are the best ways for people to connect with you. We'll make sure everyone that you have all of the details in the notes, but let us know how would you like people to engage with you or your content if they're curious to find out more. Yeah, I'd love that. So I write on Substack. I would say my Substack, it's called WisdomTainment you can find it under my name. Also simply going to my website, www.cheladavison.com and which depending on when this. Airs might be an entirely new websites. I'm in the midst of a really fun rebrand right now. But either of those will, will take you to that publication. And yeah, I write there regularly. I share video there. I invite people into things. But I really love connecting with people. So also if you listen to this and you were like moved by something or have a question about something or you're just like pursuing a call that you're so delighted about or terrified of and you just wanna be seen in it and tell me about it. I love those emails. I feel like the more we simply allow ourselves to be known in what we're up to it helps to magnify it. And I'm somebody who will always hold a dream with precious care. Well, listening to your dream in its full fruition has been such a treat. I am so grateful that you came on. Thank you. Is there any final message that you would like to share for the listeners? Well, I adore you to the listeners, but I, I think my final message is actually to you. I really I'm so grateful that you reached out and that you asked me to come and join you. And I feel that your transmission in the world is really, really loving and wise and needed. And thank you. Thanks for including me in your life's work. Yeah, it's the second time on this call. I have full body goosebumps. I'm gonna leave it there. Gorgeous people on the other end of this, we adore you. You are what make this program. You are my call. And so please be in touch with us with any questions that you have. Like Chela said, if you want to be in touch with her, absolutely reach out. We'll make sure that that happens. And please take care of yourselves and those around you. And if you've gained anything from this episode, perhaps it's just a little invitation to let the whispers within you be heard attached more by you and by those around. Take care team.

Anthea: 58:13

Gorgeous listeners. I hope. You enjoy today's. today's. episode. To find. More about our. Featured guests. Have a look in the show. Notes.