Cultural Creatives on Creativity

Hi Heidi. Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your business, and/or your passions?

I am a psychic healer who provides spiritual counseling services for individuals. During a session, I help to identify and release blocks in a person’s space– physical, mental, emotional, spiritual– in order for that person to enjoy more ease and freedom in living. In addition to working with people, I also clear other spaces of obstacles, including, most notably, homes and businesses. I specialize in exploring the creative process as we bring intentions from a spiritual focus into physical experience.

What is the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?

Pursue on-going psychic training first as a student, then as a teacher, healer and speaker! It has contributed to significant changes in every aspect of my life. This exploration, like any personal growth process, has challenged me to look at myself and to open into valuing health over comfort.

Name your top five books, movies, songs, musical groups, and/or websites. Are there any books or movies (genres) that you avoid?

My favorite movie entertainment, in general, includes children’s animated film and documentaries, such as Peter Pan, Lilo & Stitch, Monsters, Inc., Riding Giants and Paris is Burning. I am also fond of I Heart Huckabees, Matrix, Practical Magic and Groundhog Day for their refreshing perspectives on life! (I do avoid horror films, excepting Alfred Hitchcock, which I love, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers– I’m too visually imaginative…)

Books? All things Dr. Suess, Winnie the Pooh, Linda Goodman, James Redfield, Robert and Kim Kiyosaki, Alison Jaggar, and Plato, as well as Illusions by Richard Bach, A Course in Miracles, and Hipparchia’s Choice by Michele LeDoeuff.

My CD must-haves include Matraca Berg’s “Sunday Morning to Saturday Night,” Johnny Cash’s “Unchained,” Dixie Chicks’ “Taking the Long Way,” Buddy and Julie Miller’s self-titled CD, Big & Rich’s “Horse of a Different Color,” Bon Jovi’s “Have a Nice Day” and “Lost Highway,” Dan Bern’s self-titled CD, Rickie Lee Jones’s “Flying Cowboys,” Shawn Mullins’s “Soul’s Core” and “Beneath the Velvet Sun,” Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits, and Syd Straw’s “War and Peace.”

What made you first want to become an artist, writer, a creator?

Self-awareness.

Does spirituality play an important role in the creative process for you? If so, how?

For me, spiritual connection is key to creating– the more aligned I am, the more easily I can access my information, and the more successfully I can carry out my aims. If I am scattered, I sit until I am cohesive once more before acting in the world.

Below, Heidi talks about spiritual counseling, and dispels some myths about working with a psychic or intuitive.

What is your first memory of creating something you were proud of?

Not my first memory of creating, but one of my more significant, sustained practices early in life was my focused play with visualization during my brother’s junior high basketball games. I was a few years younger than my brother, and not much of a sports fan. My brother, on the other hand, was an impressive athlete. Consequently, I attended many of his basketball games. After being bored for a while, I decided to play my own game. I would picture the basketball going into the hoop when my brother’s team shot the ball, and I would picture the ball missing the hoop when the opposing team would attempt to score. My brother’s games became a fun opportunity for me to explore time/space relations– and his team went to State that year…

What three words best describe the feeling you get when your creativity is flowing?

Connection, confidence and openness

What sparks your creativity?

Time alone, new environments, permission and inspiration

What was/is the biggest obstacle you’ve faced? How did you overcome it, and what did you learn from the experience?

I did have an extended period of difficulty that lasted from age 12 until age 15. During that time, I moved out of state and went from a school in Southern Illinois with 20 students in my class to a school in Texas with 500 students in my class. I was teased terribly in Texas. I moved back to my small community in Illinois at the end of year, and my parents divorced the following summer. My mom was devastated. The next year, my dad got remarried. In a heated moment, my mom sent me to live with my dad and stepmother. Three months later, over Christmas break, my stepmother told me that I could no longer live with them. I returned to my mom’s. Shortly thereafter, our family home sold, and both of my parents moved to new and different states. My dad and stepmother left for Los Angeles, and my mom and I came to live in Boulder. My world became so unstable during those years of transition– I was incredibly dependent and vulnerable at the time when many kids are discovering a stronger sense of identity.

While I’m not sure that I would say that I “overcame” this experience, I would say that I have moved through it and past it. My biggest lessons from that time period have centered around what it means to be supported by others, how to support myself, how to support others, and when it is appropriate to tap my own reserves, to reach out for help, to offer help and to step back. The gift of those years of instability has been the cultivation of an ability to create networks of support for myself. And although I sometimes still visit those places of feeling completely unsupported, it is usually within a supportive context of friends, family and surrogate family members, counseling and healing sessions, and my own stable life.

Putting your vision into the world can be scary. Many of us wonder if we’re good enough. How do you respond to negative self-talk? What tools do you use to help work beyond your self-doubt?

I consider my vision, healing and contribution to be beyond myself. My commitment is to do my best to express myself, be present with my clients, and take the steps that I know await me. The rest is up to God.

In what ways do you promote your work?

I continually aim to reach an expanding audience through writing, speaking, and on-line presence. Check out my site at www.healings.biz. I find that most of my business is maintained and generated through repeat client contact and word-of-mouth referrals.

What’s your favorite Internet tool either for promotion or enhancing your creativity?

I love developing my site, and having a central location to express my work and vision! With Laura’s help and encouragement (and the egging on of other friends), I am tipping my toe into the waters of YouTube video, but I haven’t decided what to make of that enterprise…

Cultural Creatives tend to want their work to impact society in a positive way. Is changing/improving society with your work part of your goal? If yes, please elaborate a bit on your vision.

In my younger days, I have been a tireless, evangelical social activist. Many of the choices that color the tapestry of my life have arisen from my particular vision of what constitutes harmonious living on this planet. Now, I shy away from too much judgment about people’s choices or the state of the world (not that I don’t get triggered periodically!). The place I work from, and like to live from, is one of fostering awareness. However, I try not to have too much investment in what it looks like to manifest, or live from, increased awareness. In other words, I want to encourage people– myself included– to be who they are, and not to tell them who they should be. At the end of the day, I wish for us each to be present with the society that we have, and to implement any changes from that presence/awareness.

Have you been able to earn a living while pursuing your creative passions? Is there anything from a business perspective that stands out as a key or catalyst to your success that you’d like to share?

I’ve been a full-time spiritual healer since 2001. While I have lived during that time, I dream of having enough passive income to support my pursuits throughout the financial ebb and flow of life. As I transform my practice into a business in order to facilitate that vision, I also began investing in real estate during the summer of 2007. That enterprise has been its own growth process for me, but I can see it blossoming to support my dream. Being a healer and running a business (or two) draw on very different talents– I like to think that employing both facets within myself helps me to remain balanced as a spiritual being having an embodied human experience.