September 25, 2025 • 55 mins
Air Date - 24 September 2025
Devorah Brinckerhoff is a mixed-media artist and transformational guide who has spent over 30 years using creativity as a direct pathway to self-discovery, awakening intuition, and inner wisdom. Her art career took a dramatic turn when faced with a family crisis involving sexual abuse of her young children. What she thought would destroy her became the catalyst for her most meaningful work, as well as how she related to her own childhood traumas. This led to what she calls “Soul Portraits,” a process designed to help people shed false identities and limiting beliefs that keep them stuck in the past, armored against authentic connection. Her work isn’t about fixing people; it’s about helping them remember who they are beneath all the stories they’ve been taught about themselves. She is passionate about teaching others the power of this creative process.
Websites: https://www.instagram.com/devorahbrinckerhoff/
#DevorahBrinckerhoff #RoyceMorales #PerfectLifeAwakening
Connect with Royce Morales at https://www.roycemorales.com/
Visit the Perfect Life Awakening Show Page https://omtimes.com/iom/shows/perfect-life-awakening-show
Subscribe to our Newsletter https://omtimes.com/subscribe-omtimes-magazine/
Connect with OMTimes on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Omtimes.Magazine/ and OMTimes Radio https://www.facebook.com/ConsciousRadiowebtv.OMTimes/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OmTimes/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omtimes/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OMTimesTV
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2798417/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/omtimes/
Devorah Brinckerhoff is a mixed-media artist and transformational guide who has spent over 30 years using creativity as a direct pathway to self-discovery, awakening intuition, and inner wisdom. Her art career took a dramatic turn when faced with a family crisis involving sexual abuse of her young children. What she thought would destroy her became the catalyst for her most meaningful work, as well as how she related to her own childhood traumas. This led to what she calls “Soul Portraits,” a process designed to help people shed false identities and limiting beliefs that keep them stuck in the past, armored against authentic connection. Her work isn’t about fixing people; it’s about helping them remember who they are beneath all the stories they’ve been taught about themselves. She is passionate about teaching others the power of this creative process.
Websites: https://www.instagram.com/devorahbrinckerhoff/
#DevorahBrinckerhoff #RoyceMorales #PerfectLifeAwakening
Connect with Royce Morales at https://www.roycemorales.com/
Visit the Perfect Life Awakening Show Page https://omtimes.com/iom/shows/perfect-life-awakening-show
Subscribe to our Newsletter https://omtimes.com/subscribe-omtimes-magazine/
Connect with OMTimes on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Omtimes.Magazine/ and OMTimes Radio https://www.facebook.com/ConsciousRadiowebtv.OMTimes/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OmTimes/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omtimes/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OMTimesTV
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2798417/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/omtimes/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Perfect Life Awakening Show hosted by Royce Morales.
Royce has been a transformational facilitator, teaching groundbreaking spiritually based
courses for more than four decades. She is the author
of three books about her teachings. Join Royce as she
takes you on a journey into how to live your
best life and find your true purpose through discovering the
(00:31):
origins of subconscious, disempowering notions and releasing them. She talks
with experts and inspiring people just like you who learned
to trust their intuitive inner wisdom, which led to life
changing shifts. Today, her guests live in empowered existence and
are helping change the world to a higher consciousness place
(00:52):
based on truth and love. You deserve to awaken, to
align with and embody your true self and live a
life filled with love. Transform yourself from triggered to empowered
and create your perfect life. Here is your host, Rice Morales.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Hello, welcome to my show.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I'm so excited as always to bring you an amazing
guest today. The title is Creativity is a Superpower. But
I want to just talk a little bit about the
fact that this is not going to be a show
about art per se it's really about the creative process,
(01:35):
what it can do to awaken you to yourself and
really help release some of those long held beliefs that
aren't true, or be feeling stuck in the past or whatever.
So as a former art artist and art major and
gallery owner, I learned more about myself when I would
do art than maybe even anything else in my life.
(01:58):
But usually I found myself feeling drawn to be creative
when I was sad or like some guy dumped me
in college, and you know, all my creativity would come out,
but I wasn't able to be mindful of it. I
just would do it. But that's the difference that my
guest has developed, and it's kind of a mindful process
(02:21):
of really looking at yourself and seeing what's coming up
and understanding what's going on inside. And it's quite an
amazing process and I can't wait for her to explain it.
But I also wanted to mention in terms of you know, art, Basically,
we're taught pretty young in life that art is a
(02:42):
talent that you're born with, and artists learn techniques, and artists,
you know, have some kind of magical power or whatever.
They're special people. But I think everybody on some level
is an artist. And I think that's what my guest
today is going to bring out for people that it's
not about creating this masterpiece. It's about using art as
(03:04):
a tool. It's using it as a mindfulness tool. So,
without further ADO want to introduce dev Devora read us
and I said it right, yay, And just telling you
a little bit about her before I let her speak.
She's a mixed media artist and transformational guide who has
spent over thirty years using creativity as a direct self
(03:28):
discovery pathway, a way to awaken intuition and inner wisdom.
Her art career took a dramatic turn when faced with
a family crisis involving sexual abuse of her young children.
What she thought would destroy her life became the catalyst
for her most meaningful work, as well as how she
(03:51):
related to her own childhood traumas, and this led to
what she calls soul portraits, which is a process to
help shed those false identities and limiting beliefs and feeling
stuck in the past, et cetera. And her work isn't
about fixing people, it's about helping them remember who they
are beneath all the stories and life events that they
(04:14):
went through, and she's very passionate about teaching others the
power of this creative process. So welcome, Devora.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure
to be here. Yes, what a good introduction. You got
everything in there. There's so much to talk about there is.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yes, it was really interesting when we connected with family,
had so much in common, So it's really interesting how
the universe sort of drops people in my lap all
the time. Amazing. So tell us about your first of all,
tell us a little bit about your professional art career.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
How did that.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Start and where did it lead? Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, I'd always love drawing and painting. As you said,
we are born with creativity. It's a natural part of us.
Whether we're playing with mud, which I also love to
do as a child, or run through the woods. Creativity
is everywhere. Because I had an early my own early
(05:16):
childhood trauma, I was disconnected from from certain things, so
I had trouble in school. My mind wasn't there. I
was sort of off in never never Land and felt
most comfortable in nature, so early on I had a
more natural comfort language with creativity rather than words, math, learning,
(05:42):
how to write script, all of those things I sort
of like didn't want to do. I just wanted to
be in my own world. I didn't even know that
art school existed until I was a junior in high
school and spent a summer at Wesleyan Art Camp and
they were like, yeah, you should apply to art school.
I'm like, what's that? And then I applied. Even though
(06:04):
my grandmother went to Pratt in New York City, we'd
never talked about it, which is just so weird. So
I applied to art school, got in, and the rest
is sort of history. Once you graduate from that, you're
on the gallery path and it just rolls into one
thing after another. Sore. It was so natural for me
(06:28):
to use creativity as a way to self connect that
I didn't know I was using creativity as a way
to self connect until I really needed it, and it
absolutely held me the entire time. So did that answer
your question?
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, So you ended up getting your work into galleries
and it just sort of naturally happened. You didn't have
to go out there stomping around, and.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
There's a little there was a little bit of stomping,
especially in the beginning. I had asked to be in galleries,
and the question was always well, have you been in
a gallery before? And I'm like no, and they're like, well,
if you haven't been in a gallery before, don't like,
we don't want you. And so it was this like, well,
how do you break in? And so I started just
(07:14):
having shows and coffee shops and libraries and actually and
selling my work. And then when you go back and
you're like, well, I haven't been in a gallery, but
I have sold all this work and people are interested here, here,
and here, then the galleries take notice, or at least
that was true for me in my case. It's that
was a I mean, you're a gallery owner, so it's
a weird it's it's a weird bend, like how to
(07:35):
get into that whole scene. And then you know, being
in the galleries are They're great. I had wonderful relationships
with the people that I worked with. I think I
really enjoyed openings. I really enjoyed meeting the people who
resonated with my work. Of course, right like that's super fun.
(07:56):
And then when you're more boots on the ground and
I started opening my studios to the public and it
was very energizing. I loved meeting people from all over.
It was more of a conversation about how art made
people feel. It wasn't as much about selling or art
as a commodity. It was really about connection and noticing
(08:20):
what people ended up talking about. When they were in
my studio, it was much deeper conversation than when I
was in a gallery or at an opening. And then
people who came in and the work really made them uncomfortable,
they would just get out as soon as possible. And
I always wanted to say, wait, wait, you don't have
to like the work, tell me what makes you uncomfortable.
(08:42):
I was so curious about how people moved through the world,
and I wanted their stories. And I think that that's
the thing that made those times in my life very rich,
to have that kind of connection, and it let me
know that I needed to engage with the public more.
And at first I'm such a hermit, so it was
(09:04):
a little confusing for me. I'm like, but wait, this
is so scary, but I love it.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So yeah, that's great. Well, just a comment about galleries.
I can't imagine saying to somebody, well, we can't have
your work because it hasn't been anywhere before. I'm just
that just blows my mind. I would never but.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I'm so glad rhy. It's because of what a ridiculous
thing to say. It's like, it's right, you're just going
in circles.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
So yeah, yeah, well awesome. So you say that you
struggled with dyslexia and low self esteem and you were
an introvert. Tell us how art maybe helped you out
of that in some way or what did art do
for you?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, I think it gave me an First of all,
it was it was something I was good at. And
so like you said, when people start to get that reflection,
oh you're so good at this, Oh you know, I
wish I could do that, And you're right earlier when
we were talking about it, anybody can there's a I'm
(10:05):
creativity is one thing. If you're wanting to enhance your
skills or increase your skills, it's practice like anything else,
it's practice. One of my kids was asked me, Mama,
take me down to the studio. I really want to
learn how to draw. I've been teaching people how to
(10:26):
draw on my own for a while, and we just
went through the rudimentary ways of starting to draw with
gesture drawings and getting him sort of acquainted with how
to see in a very general way. And he was
so frustrated and he thought it was terrible and his
(10:48):
ability to see. If I had tried to get him
he was a natural neo expressionist, is what I'll say.
Like he was so awesome, but if I tried to
like rain him in and make him be accurate, it
would have been a nightmare. And so to really flow
with where you are, that's where the fun is, that's
(11:09):
where the connection comes in. And those things help people
move through their own emotional tapestry. And that's so that's
where the value is. Whether you're receiving artwork and it
makes you feel a certain thing, you're still connecting to yourself.
(11:29):
If you're creating, whether you're writing or cooking or gardening
or drawing, you're connecting to yourself. So it's that is
self connection. But it's subtle, and I think in our
world today we miss it. We don't pay attention to
what's happening in the moment and how we feel in
the moment. And so artwork for me, or creating work
(11:51):
which I had done my entire life, was like a
constant release valve and if I hadn't had I was
diagnosed with cancer and twenty twenty I'm like, if I
hadn't had that, I would have been dead so much earlier.
So I just think that it acts as this way
to just allow us to move through any of the
(12:11):
any of the life's bumps, and then when life really
throws you a curveball. It absolutely held me.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
So when we were talking before, I probably told you
the story of being a gallery owner for twenty one
years and people would walk in and they would look
at something that was abstract or whatever and they'd go, I.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Could do that.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
My answer, my answer, my pat very sweet answer with
a smile, was but you didn't do that. So what
I think that people just don't get it that art
isn't about looking at pretty still lives, you know, it isn't.
I mean, sure, it's nice. It candy, right, it candy.
(12:57):
But when something has a reaction for you, there's some reason,
you know. I mean you look at Dolly and you
and you have a reaction, yeah, Paco, Yeah right, it's
about and it's important and with that mindfulness that I
was talking about before, with being able to look at
(13:18):
something and go, oh, Wow, that triggered me, And what
is that about for me? And you know, why am
I hating this painting? And why am I judging this
artist for doing drops on a canvas? You know?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Right?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
It's the mindfulness that I think is important. Well, it's
true for everything, but especially with art, you know, and
especially because we have so many false beliefs about art
based on how we were trained in this world.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah. So okay, So what happened sixteen years years ago
that changed your life? Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So in protecting our children around we've it took years
to figure out who was who had been sexually abusing them,
and it's very often a family member. In this case,
it was, and in the matter of twenty four hours,
my husband went to go talk to his father in
(14:15):
law about it, and we had all of their support,
and then within twenty four hours that shifted to him
calling every aunt, uncle, cousin, my parents and saying, these
two are lying about this situation and we want to
sue them, and they're crazy and all of this stuff
(14:37):
and it's not so much sexual abuse. I want to
say that sexual abuse that's also my history. It changes
the lens with which you see the world right and so,
and it pivots the kinds of choices that you make.
And as a parent, I was not going to deny
what was going on with my children. But in not
(14:58):
denying it, it it just absolutely blew up the entire
family because people don't want to talk about it, they
don't want to deal with it, they don't want to
acknowledge it. So it's so demonized and it's so misunderstood,
like as perpetrators, which I don't even like that language.
I did a whole stint in Victim of ender mediation
(15:20):
and it talks about the one who caused harm and
the one who received harm, and we all cause harm
and we all receive harm. And so it was much more.
It was much more about people's reaction than it was
the actual events, which were horrific, like truly truly horrific,
and it just it needs to be tended to, It
(15:43):
needs to be held in a gentle way, in a
sensitive way, and it's it's because that's so misunderstood. It
just everyone became fiercely defensive and we all treated each
other terribly, and it blew up the entire family. So
that so I wasn't expecting that. I was not expecting
(16:04):
to be excommunicated from my family, and I wasn't expecting
to be sued, and so it was. I was devastated.
These were people I loved. We went everywhere, we visited
all the time. We felt close except for this one area. Right, Like,
you just don't talk about sexual abuse. You don't talk
(16:27):
about sex, you don't talk, you don't discuss it. You
just put it under the carpet and pretend nothing happened.
But you can't do that if your kids are so young.
My kids were. My son was three, and he he
just needed to have a safe place to express it.
(16:47):
And it was it was very messy, and it made
people very uncomfortable with good reason. It's incredibly uncomfortable, and
I still needed to show up for him, and I would.
I chose to have kids, and I was like, well,
this is happening, and I'm not denying it, because I
knew in my own life what denial did. It just
(17:09):
it absolutely exacerbated all of the problems and didn't help
any of them. So there was that was never an
option for me. I was very much a mama Bear,
and we went from a family a very large extended
family to our family unit of five, and for for
a long time, our world was very small. And that
(17:31):
is when I started painting in a very intentional way
and with a lot of awareness. And so when I
when I, I was devastated, how do I have this
like lovely card from my mother and also legal papers
(17:51):
where they're suing me for grandparent rights and they live
like they They were never disallowed from seeing our children ever,
and so it was just their discomfort, their pain around
what I had suggested was true, which is understandable, and
so but we couldn't talk about it. So here I
(18:13):
was ripping up these cards and these legal papers and
other notes and gluing them down to my canvas as
a foundation. I let my materials tell the story for me,
because I couldn't like in any way I would blame them.
I would be ridiculously defensive, I would be irrational, and
I'd want everyone to come onto my side. And in
(18:37):
this very quiet way, I was like, oh, we all
have a role in this, and I was allowed to
see my own part, to see their part from a distance,
as a witness rather than in the mess. I was
observing the mess, and I had so much more compassion,
(18:58):
and I was like this, it just allowed me to
see it and to acknowledge it. But more than anything,
it allowed me to accept it and then move into forgiveness.
And I had so much self forgiveness that I needed first,
And in doing that, it just shifted how I could
(19:19):
let people be where they were. I didn't need them
to agree with me. I didn't need them to believe me.
I didn't need them to like me. I didn't need
them to love me. I could give myself all of
that and that was a superpower. And yeah, so then
I was like, well I can Everything changed when I
(19:40):
started doing that. So I was moving this stuck energy
of my own history. And you know, we have kids
and we're like, oh, we're giving them so much, But
kids gave me myself back, and in dealing with what
happened to them, I could really deal with what happened
to me. And that, again just it changed everything. So
(20:04):
I was able to rewrite my own historical narrative and
change it changed who I was at a fundamental, energetic level.
And so when people are stuck over something, whether it's
divorce or their child's suicide or the death of a spouse,
(20:27):
or domestic violence or trafficking or war like, I'm working
with people who have these incredibly powerful stories that impacted
them in such a significant way that they have been
living under that experience rather than from this place of
(20:47):
the truth of who they really are. It's extremely powerful. Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, there's a lot there.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's what you've described is reaching
higher consciousness about something, reaching the point where you understand
that you had a part in this. You are forgiving yourself,
you're forgiving them, You're moving on from it, letting it go,
seeing the perfection or the value in it.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I mean, these are things.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
That can take people lifetimes to do. You did it
through art. It's just amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Wow. And I really want to say that if I
tried to get conscious of it, if I was like, oh,
I'm reaching higher consciousness or this is enlightenment, I would
have I would have taken myself off the path. And
instead I was just with it. And it was so
much about being with what was happening inside my body,
(21:48):
and it gave me access to myself in a way
that I hadn't had before. I mean I had, but
I didn't know it. And so it was this pairing
of wow. And again, even when I was ripping things up.
When I first started ripping things up, I was so hurt.
It wasn't like, let's rip this up. I'm so powerful.
(22:09):
I was like, I can't take this anymore. I can't.
I can't live with this sense of such being so
misunderstood by the people. I loved being feeling like such
a victim and feeling like a victim. I needed to
recognize how I was keeping myself a victim. And you
(22:31):
can get stuck in these places very easily and just
perpetuate them and ripping it up. I felt like I
noticed this. It's a very subtle thing, but it does
it for you. It is not your mind. It is
a somatic issue in your body, and it's and your
body's like, oh, thank you, You're finally acknowledging what's been
(22:54):
here for decades. And in an afternoon it just dissolves.
And so it feels like magic and people it's a
hard thing to understand intellectually because it's so somatic.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Wow. So yes, creativity is a superpower.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Super power, it's a superpower, and it doesn't and so
people come to me and they're like, well, I can't draw.
I'm like, great, that's wonderful. You don't have to draw,
or I don't know how to pain. I'm like, wonderful.
Can you rip something up? Can you lose? Can It's
basic kindergarten skills. Anybody can do this. And people are like, well,
I don't want something ugly, and I'm like, it has
(23:32):
nothing to do with what it looks like. It is
all about the process. It is not about the product.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
So it's interesting. I used to One of the processes
that I did with my students when we would go
on a retreat is I would have them write down
something that they wanted to let go of, whatever it
was an emotion and anger, an event. They would write
it down in detail, and then we would rip it
up and burn it. Yeah, you know, it's very power.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
It is, and it is, and that's a there's yes.
I love that. I did a commission for somebody who
handed me stacks and stacks of love letters which were
so so beautiful, and he gave me access to read everything,
and so I was creating a soul portrait for him
for this and he he just wants to burn it up.
(24:23):
So it's this. There are stages to it, which is fabulous.
I love that there's no attachment to it. You can
you can create this thing. It moves all this energy.
So either people can do it for themselves, which makes
it much more accessible. I can do it for them,
which is my favorite thing in the world to do,
and but it's much more in depth. And then there's
(24:46):
like workshops in this in the center and coaching in
the center. So there there's like this wide range of
options for how to use this process to suit your needs.
But that that transition and from this is in my
body to this is out of my body, to putting
rolling it up and putting it in a closet or
(25:08):
framing it and hanging it on your while you engage
with it differently, or burning it, and it's whatever feels
right to you. And it's that same following your own intuition,
because ultimately that is where your power is. We're all
already whole. It's all of our experiences where we get
confused and think that that's who we are. And so
(25:30):
you know, I've worked with surgeons who are renowned in
their field, and it's there's so they have all of
this success, but there's this emptiness and it's because they're
not living from this place of internal knowing, of internal connection.
(25:50):
It's I am a surgeon. Everyone respects me and loves me,
and it's all external. And so how do we how
do we really reconnect with our own power? And it
isn't what we do, right, It's not about it's not
about how other people see us. It's how we see ourselves.
That internal relationship we have with ourselves is the most
(26:11):
important thing we can have. And if we like ourselves
were okay, if we don't, we're in big trouble. It's
how we move, It's how we move through the world.
And coming from that place of really disliking who I
was and moving through all the layers of how I
ended up there to releasing all of those layers, you
(26:35):
end up really liking who you are and you feel
you just feel like no one can touch that because
they can't.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yeah. Yeah, So question back to what you were saying
about doing these pieces for people, is it the same
sense of release to actually do this for them versus
having them do it themselves.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
It's again, people, and we do we do a series
of calls ahead of time that find out if this
is where you are like what's the best fit for you?
And so you know if you can't touch it. So
the things that people have a really hard understandably a
really hard time touching is the domestic violence, human trafficking,
(27:25):
war any war experience, and suicide. So having survived suicide,
so I've worked with war veterans who cannot touch the
harm that they have caused, and that is and so
having to revisit their own materials is too painful. So
(27:49):
when I'm doing that for them, I can see it
through the lens of love and I because that's all
I have is that they were following instruction that would
put other people in prison, and they have gotten awards
for killing well, and it is so confusing to it's
(28:11):
so confusing to feel so stuck and lost and devastated
by the actions of taking a human life. And so
even when people I'm going down a tangent because there
are people who have taken human life in our country
in ways that our system would punish, and it's so
(28:35):
incredibly punishing and doesn't help. And so I love working
with people in correctional facilities because it gives everyone an
option for that self forgiveness to look at how they've
gotten to where they are, so whatever that is. If
people are having a hard time touching that part of
(28:58):
their path, then it sort of by proxy that I
do for them to answer your question. But there's no judgment.
I am not coming from a place of judging anyone.
So whether you've murdered somebody over like infidelity, I'm making
something up, or drugs or whatever. Rage, it's the rage
(29:18):
is what's so important, and the rage is valid, Like
what happened and how how were you told that your
truth was so unacceptable that you had to that violence
was the only answer. And so for me, like I
can't kill a spider, let alone a human being, although
like I think that we all carry that within us,
(29:39):
right like when I was protecting my children, that is
the closest I felt to wanting to kill another person,
And so I think we're all capable of that, and
I'm not. I could never be in a position to
judge anyone else. So when when somebody is having I
can't imagine having somebody I love kill themselves. So it
(30:00):
makes a lot of sense to me that that material
would be very difficult to do themselves because there's so
much self blame involved. In that that it's hard to touch,
and so instead of touching it, it just sits there.
It stays in your body, It stays in the closet,
it stays in the boxes of letters, in the in
(30:21):
the material and the energy, the paraphernalia of how we
end up where we are. Does that make sense. It's
a little tricky to talk about.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, yeah, and I can see that it would be
a release even though they're not physically creating it.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, So we need to take a bit of a
break just to remind everybody. I'm talking to Devora Brinker
Hoss and we're talking about creativity and soul portraits, and
she's going to explain a little bit more about soul
portraits in a minute. We'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Home.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Times TV. Do you crave joy but feel stuck? Do
you go through life feeling constantly triggered and frustrated? Fear
is likely the culprit, and subconscious fear is likely sabotaging you.
Perfect Life Awakening is a time tested, spiritually based approach
(31:18):
to inner transformation created by Royce Morales. For over forty years,
she has helped people get to the origins of subconscious
fears and ultimately help them find their true purpose and
a life full of joy. Sign up for Perfect Life
Awakening today at Roysmorales dot com. You deserve to go
from triggered to empowered, shifting your life with Perfect Life Awakening.
(31:48):
Imagine becoming a super influencer, reinvent yourself, invest in your brand,
and then manifest your success with a robust, spheric approach.
Own Times Media and Broadcast offers a unique and multifaceted
way to become the spiritual and conscious influencer you deserve
to be. By putting your message across our powerful platform
(32:10):
with its proven record of integrity and excellence. Through our
produced shows, Own Times offers the opportunity to become a
social media TV personality, a radio show host, an Own
Times magazine columnist, and a syndicated podcaster all in one shot.
By live streaming your show on Home Times TV and
(32:31):
broadcasting it across the extensive Home Times Radio and TV networks,
you become more than a host. You become an ambassador
and a force for positive change. Own Times open yourself
to the possibilities.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
I want to as I need to. Why can I
support the Feeding America nationwide network of food banks to
(33:10):
help provide meals to those in need.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Join us at Feeding America dot org.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Welcome back. I'm talking with Devora Brinkerhaus and we're talking
about not only creativity being a superpower, but creativity being
a way to awaken and be mindful and forgive and
to get in touch with your intuition, which is something
I wanted to ask you about. And by the way,
I forgot to mention, if you guys are watching this live,
(33:42):
feel free to send over any comm answer questions and
we will we will get them and hopefully answer them.
But let's go back to my question. So you're saying
that it helps to awaken intuition, tell us a little
bit about a little bit more about that. How did
that work for you?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
It's subtle. We all have it, and the more you
start listening to that intuition, it becomes louder and louder.
So when people are talking with me, I'm really genuinely
asking do you want to lean into all of these
things in your past? And if the answer right, they'll
have a feeling in their body. If there's some relief
to it that, then yes. If there's a contraction then
(34:21):
then no, it's it's quite simple. Follow follow the relief.
Follow where you're where there's some opening, some expansion, some lightness.
And so if you know, if you're out there and
you're like, oh, yeah, i've got this box that's filled
with letters and documents, or seven boxes, or you've got
(34:44):
piles all over the place, there's a reason why you're
keeping them, and your body knows. And so if you start,
if there's permission, to start looking through it, to start
feeling what the reaction is. So if I was to
look through a photo album now and come across family
members that I'm no longer in contact with, there's a
(35:04):
there's a contraction, there's energy there, and I'm like, oh,
that's something that I need to address.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
It's not it's not complicated, right, So sorry, we.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Just don't do it. We don't. We don't give ourselves
a second to listen to feel it, because our body
always knows.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah, it's interesting as you're talking, I'm thinking about the
whole issue of clutter in our lives. I mean, people
that come in and help you declutter, it's a natural profession,
and they go through each piece and they say, well,
what does this mean to you? How would it be
if you didn't have it, and they have this whole
process that they do. It sounds very similar to what
(35:48):
you do in a way.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yes, it really is.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah, but the difference is you you end up creating
something from that versus just tossing it out.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, how does that well? And people really like that
aspect of it, because how many of us have something
that was given to us from a grandmother or anybody
special and they don't know what to do with it.
And so if it's a cookbooker or a photo but
they or a painting or a poster like anything you
(36:19):
can rip up, you're still honoring it. You're you're turning
it into something else or these all these memories. So
especially if people send me a box basically of their
from from their childhood to date and it's got a
lot in it. They don't know what to do with
(36:40):
these things, and so it sets it, it recycles them,
but it also transmutes them into into something that's relevant
for who they are now. And so yeah, it's it.
When people don't know what to do with something, it's
it's a way to honor it without just throwing it away,
and that tends to feel better. So like even divorce papers.
(37:03):
People don't know what to do with them, but they
don't want to throw them out. There's so much there
that this is a great thing to do with them.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
And I think when you said it honors it, I
think that's important too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Absolutely, the honoring of the path that we have walked
is essential for moving energy, for self forgiveness, for moving on.
We must honor where we have been. It got us
to where we are today. There's nothing wrong with it,
no matter what that involves, Like, it got you here,
(37:40):
so it's something to be honored. You're survived, you're here.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
I'm also thinking about people as they get older and
they start thinking, what's going to happen when I died?
Every's going to have to throw all this stuff away
and you know, so it's probably part of that that Wow,
what I mean, I've gathered this and I've written this
and I've created this, and it's all going to go
in the trash.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Yeah, No, that's that's a great point because the people
who I often work with a darker shadow side of life.
But people come in and they're like, well, we want
to celebrate the fifty sixty seventy years we've been together,
or my husband just died, or my wife just died,
and I just want to celebrate our relationship, or I
want to celebrate this graduation or that accomplishment and there
(38:31):
and this is the same thing. You can put all
of this into that that says, I love I love you,
I love myself. I'm celebrating us, I'm celebrating you, I'm
celebrating me. It's a it's a way, it's a it's
like a I say to people, it's a visual memoir
of your life. And you can celebrate it no matter what,
whether it's the hard stuff or the great stuff, because
(38:53):
it's not just one thing. Ever, we need both. Everything
is in relationship to the other.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Yeah. Yeah, So tell us you told me earlier that
you have a little exercise that you do to help
people to create these soul portraits or to help yourself
create them. Tell us a little bit about that exercise.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
So people can do a lot of different exercises, and
all of them are meant to get you out of
your thinking mind and into your heart space. So one
of them is a blind contour drawing, and that one,
I don't think is on social media I usually do
it to help people start in a workshop, just something
(39:34):
to do. But it's a drawing where you do not
look at the paper. You look at yourself, either on
your phone or in a mirror. You put a pencil
or pen down and in one continuous line, without looking
at the paper or lifting your pencil up from the paper,
you draw yourself and you take thirty seconds to do it,
and so it's really quick and really fun. They're called
(39:57):
blind contour drawings, and they're usually end up well, I
Am not going to spoil what they look like if
you're not familiar with them. That's the fun part. And
I love to ask people, well, what if this is
how everybody saw you and you walked around as this
version of yourself, what would that feel like? And people
(40:20):
usually just think it's pretty funny. And then I asked
them to rip it up, and almost everyone doesn't want
to rip up their drawing. And I'm like, we get
so attached to things very very quickly, and we get
attached to our identities very very quickly, you know, like
I'm a mom, I'm a doctor, whatever the I am is.
We're very attached to those labels. And it's a way
(40:40):
to disrupt those identities because we're actually none of those things,
and not again, not to demonize those identities, not to
demonize our ego. We all have one, and it's the
full acceptance of every part of ourselves that these creative
exercises are are practicing. We're just practicing the tool of
(41:04):
that self acceptance, whatever it is, and pausing to do
something that's creative. So that's one exercise that's a lot
of fun and pretty easy.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
What you said is so important that we're so attached
to our identity and what we believe it is and
what it looks like. And you know, I'm a spiritual
teacher and you know, I try to get people to
understand that this body is just you know, something we're
kind of walking around in like a car.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
You know, it's our navigator.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, we are in this thing, you know, and it's
not who we are. But it's so hard to get
people to really experience that. So this sounds like a
way that you get people to do that. That's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Well, and it's connected to that intuition that we were
talking about earlier. It's so like that heart space is
your intuition and it's I want people I think just
like you, to come down into your heart. It's the
currency of the future, in my opinion, it's the way
to address all of this. How we've become so polarized
(42:16):
and it's complete, and there's so much fear, and there's
so much blame, and none of it none of it
gets us to our heart. It keeps us in fear.
And so if we can, if we can come down
and recognize that we're all here, we're all the same.
We have exactly the same fundamental struggles of not feeling worthy,
(42:38):
not feeling like we're enough, not feeling like we belong,
feeling like we've somehow devalued, or we don't have as
much value as this other person because they have whatever,
more money, more success, more fame, none of it matters.
So who are we if it's external? Right, if you
didn't have that, what how would you feel? And so
(43:03):
when we lose everything, we're faced with, well, none of
it actually was who I am. And so in loss
you really find that you never were the things you
thought you had. So does that make I don't think
I said that, Well, I think it gets it gets
so confusing. So yeah, so when people get fired or
(43:29):
they or they've lost all their money, or they're no
longer in Hollywood or whatever. The thing is, it wasn't
who they were to begin with. And so when we
recognize that, there's so much more freedom and life can
get much more rich. So I love what you do
and how you help people remember that they're not who
they think they are. And we're taught from such an
(43:50):
early age like what do you want to do when.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
You grow up?
Speaker 2 (43:53):
I'm like, who cares? Be yourself? Moved to your heart,
let your heart lead you where's There's so much more
compassion and understanding for one another when we do that.
And I know it sounds sort of Pollyanna ish, but
the judgment, it's just judgment towards yourself. And so this
really takes a look at all of that.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Yeah, and it flips you into your power, you know,
absolutely superpower, creativity, art, all of it. Yeah. So question,
I'm trying to imagine somebody coming to you and saying
they want a soul portrait and you start doing all
of this stuff. What happens on their end? Do they
(44:36):
express emotions, do they go through fear, do they relive trauma?
What actually goes on on their end.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Usually in a commission it is quite separate. So that's
when people hand me over their materials that feel stuck
with them. There are times so I'll check in. We
have a bunch of calls in the beginning, and then
I get what and people need to resonate with my
style because I'll be it'll be a you know, an
(45:04):
overimage at the end. So they if if they don't
like the kind of drawing or painting that I do,
which is totally fine, then it's usually not We're usually
not a great fit. It's a channeled experience. So I'll
work with her. I'll sit with their materials for weeks,
read through them several different times to get an idea
of what wants to be honored, what's definitely going in
(45:31):
the piece, what's a little less essential, and what's more
on the periphery. Usually everything ends up being in the
portrait because they send it to me or gave it
to me. Uh, and we'll meet in the middle for
where are you now?
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Like?
Speaker 2 (45:46):
What are the words? How do you see yourself now?
What are some things that are important to you now?
What are the books you're reading? What are the poems?
They resonate what are who are you now? And I'll
capture that with written word in my own hand, and
then I'll and then I'll stay with it and see
what images. I get flooded with images, and over the
(46:09):
course of weeks they'll come down, they'll shrink until there
are ten that keeps circling, and then three that keeps circling.
And then when I get in front of the piece again,
I'll let which one come through and stay and then
I'll work with that, and it's sort of a dance
from that point forward. And then there's the big reveal,
(46:29):
and it's always like a little nerve wracking because I
don't even know what's going to happen, and I'm just
a condu it. I'm just letting it be whatever it is,
and people really need to trust me for that process.
And then they have a piece of artwork, and I
have never had one person who hasn't loved it, and
(46:52):
it's been very emotional for them. And usually people are
very quiet for a while, and then they start talking
about what's happening in their body and it takes. It
takes because they'll see snippets of their life in a
corner or a topographical map that was a favorite place
(47:14):
that they was, their old stomping ground that they explored
as a child, or however, the materials that they gave
me sort of peek through and so that they have
pieces of their story honored on their wall that they
can revisit any time. That also incorporates where they want
(47:36):
to be, who they're stepping into, the highest version of themselves.
I don't leave them in the shadow. I leave them
in the highest possible version of love and possibility of
growth and expansion. So it's a constant reminder. It acts
(47:58):
as a reminder of who they really we are and
who they're stepping into, and they get to then have
a relationship with that. And one of the nicest things
about this process is months and even years later, I'll
just get a text from one of my clients and
they'll just say something that hit them about the piece,
(48:18):
or a new insight that they got, or how the
light came in during morning coffee and just say something
really simple and really beautiful, and it's so fantastic, Like
that's such a huge honor to be in relationship with
people and to be let into their life in such
(48:38):
a deep and meaningful way and then to have that
thread continue and touch down because once we've done this
where I sort of fall in love with whomever I've
worked with, and so to hear from them at some
future date is always just such a gift for me.
(49:00):
So that's the commission part of it. They feel like
somebody has held what they couldn't held it in a
way that they couldn't see, and it's given back to
them just with acceptance and love and absolutely no judgment,
with again the highest intention for everyone, because nobody, nobody,
(49:24):
nobody needs more blame or shame.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
Right, Yeah, it's people don't expect that they're going to
get this pretty little picture from you. They know it's deeper. Yeah,
So what about if they are the ones that are
creating their work of art, how does that work in
terms of them expressing and being emotional and you work
(49:48):
with them directly? Also?
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, So I do online workshops and I also do
in person workshops. I'm I'm outside of Portland now in Oregon,
and I love both. The online workshops are great because
people have the privacy of their own space, so the
person next to them can't smell any of the products
(50:13):
that they're using in their portrait because people use all
kinds of things. I like, one person came into a workshop,
a live workshop, and she brought nail polish and she
made her whole portrait at nail polish, and it was
very very stinky, and it was very, very very powerful.
It was a domestic violence situation where her ex boyfriend
(50:35):
at the time insisted that she match her nail polish
to the nineteen fifties era outfit that he picked out,
and so she had to clean off yesterday's polish and
reapply fingernails and toes today's polish on repeat. That was
just one of the many things. And she came into
the workshop almost a year to date after he had
(50:57):
tried to kill her, and so it was in in
incredibly powerful, powerful piece and on it all in nail polish.
She poured out nail polish sort of Jackson Pollock style,
and at the end she wrote trust your gut on
the nail polish, and so it was just it gives
me chills every time I talk about her story where
(51:19):
she just owned it right, she moved into it. He
was in jail, she was safe, and there's all this
energy around now polish and what does it mean to
be in relationship, and but it was very smelly, so
people there were people who struggled with that. People when
(51:40):
they're doing this process for themselves, grief usually it's grief
is strong and it comes up. And whether it's a
miscarriage or stillborn twins, or a divorce or any of
the things that are typical for where we get stuck
in our lives, there's a lot of emotion and often
(52:01):
people will come over and ask me to talk with them,
which I'm very happy to do, and just hold space
for you can witness yourself, because I am not the guru.
I am just there to help hold that space and
walk them through any questions that they have and encourage
(52:23):
them because they've already survived whatever it is that happened
that has broken their heart, and so really it is
about you can do this. You can feel your feelings.
It's okay, you've already been feeling them. In fact, they've
been They've been leading you quietly behind the scenes for years.
(52:43):
And if you can pause in this moment and feel
the loss, it's not nearly as scary as we anticipate
it will be. It's the anticipation we think it's Pandora's box.
It's not it's been there all along. It's just giving
it a little breathing room. The parts in you that
(53:05):
feel I don't quite know, it just just unacceptable. And
when we're with that, we're going to feel emotional. But
it's actually such a relief and people feel genuinely proud
of themselves because they've sat with something they didn't think
they could handle and then they're like, oh, that was nothing.
(53:26):
I'm like, I know, it's so much worse when you
don't do it. So it's really it's so powerful and
people are so brave, but there we get so afraid
of things we don't need to be.
Speaker 3 (53:37):
Yes, I know. I try to convince my new students
of that. It's like, yeah, it's going to be work, Yes,
we're going to be digging, yes, and that's you know,
that's a challenge, but the results are definitely worth it,
and it's just emotions.
Speaker 2 (53:50):
It's just fear.
Speaker 3 (53:51):
So yeah, So tell us how to reach you, and
we have like two minutes, so give us your little information.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
You can reach me on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok is that
it oh in a websitesoul portrait, dot art and anybody
can DM me anytime if they have questions about any
part of this process, whether it's a workshop or creative coaching,
I do that too, or a commission basically those three things.
(54:23):
Oh and I offer prints because people like those as well.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
Wow, thank you so much, Defora, this was so enlightening
and so beautiful the work that you're doing. And keep
it up and reach out to reach out to her
and do this process because I can just I get
chills every time you're talking about it because I know
how powerful it is, so just awesome. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Thanks for having me. I love talking to you about it.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
Oh good good, So gout the good work and I'll
see everybody next Wednesday, same time, same BAT channel. As
they say, deserve to be who you are, absolutely
Welcome to the Perfect Life Awakening Show hosted by Royce Morales.
Royce has been a transformational facilitator, teaching groundbreaking spiritually based
courses for more than four decades. She is the author
of three books about her teachings. Join Royce as she
takes you on a journey into how to live your
best life and find your true purpose through discovering the
(00:31):
origins of subconscious, disempowering notions and releasing them. She talks
with experts and inspiring people just like you who learned
to trust their intuitive inner wisdom, which led to life
changing shifts. Today, her guests live in empowered existence and
are helping change the world to a higher consciousness place
(00:52):
based on truth and love. You deserve to awaken, to
align with and embody your true self and live a
life filled with love. Transform yourself from triggered to empowered
and create your perfect life. Here is your host, Rice Morales.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Hello, welcome to my show.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I'm so excited as always to bring you an amazing
guest today. The title is Creativity is a Superpower. But
I want to just talk a little bit about the
fact that this is not going to be a show
about art per se it's really about the creative process,
(01:35):
what it can do to awaken you to yourself and
really help release some of those long held beliefs that
aren't true, or be feeling stuck in the past or whatever.
So as a former art artist and art major and
gallery owner, I learned more about myself when I would
do art than maybe even anything else in my life.
(01:58):
But usually I found myself feeling drawn to be creative
when I was sad or like some guy dumped me
in college, and you know, all my creativity would come out,
but I wasn't able to be mindful of it. I
just would do it. But that's the difference that my
guest has developed, and it's kind of a mindful process
(02:21):
of really looking at yourself and seeing what's coming up
and understanding what's going on inside. And it's quite an
amazing process and I can't wait for her to explain it.
But I also wanted to mention in terms of you know, art, Basically,
we're taught pretty young in life that art is a
(02:42):
talent that you're born with, and artists learn techniques, and artists,
you know, have some kind of magical power or whatever.
They're special people. But I think everybody on some level
is an artist. And I think that's what my guest
today is going to bring out for people that it's
not about creating this masterpiece. It's about using art as
(03:04):
a tool. It's using it as a mindfulness tool. So,
without further ADO want to introduce dev Devora read us
and I said it right, yay, And just telling you
a little bit about her before I let her speak.
She's a mixed media artist and transformational guide who has
spent over thirty years using creativity as a direct self
(03:28):
discovery pathway, a way to awaken intuition and inner wisdom.
Her art career took a dramatic turn when faced with
a family crisis involving sexual abuse of her young children.
What she thought would destroy her life became the catalyst
for her most meaningful work, as well as how she
(03:51):
related to her own childhood traumas, and this led to
what she calls soul portraits, which is a process to
help shed those false identities and limiting beliefs and feeling
stuck in the past, et cetera. And her work isn't
about fixing people, it's about helping them remember who they
are beneath all the stories and life events that they
(04:14):
went through, and she's very passionate about teaching others the
power of this creative process. So welcome, Devora.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure
to be here. Yes, what a good introduction. You got
everything in there. There's so much to talk about there is.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yes, it was really interesting when we connected with family,
had so much in common, So it's really interesting how
the universe sort of drops people in my lap all
the time. Amazing. So tell us about your first of all,
tell us a little bit about your professional art career.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
How did that.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Start and where did it lead? Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, I'd always love drawing and painting. As you said,
we are born with creativity. It's a natural part of us.
Whether we're playing with mud, which I also love to
do as a child, or run through the woods. Creativity
is everywhere. Because I had an early my own early
(05:16):
childhood trauma, I was disconnected from from certain things, so
I had trouble in school. My mind wasn't there. I
was sort of off in never never Land and felt
most comfortable in nature, so early on I had a
more natural comfort language with creativity rather than words, math, learning,
(05:42):
how to write script, all of those things I sort
of like didn't want to do. I just wanted to
be in my own world. I didn't even know that
art school existed until I was a junior in high
school and spent a summer at Wesleyan Art Camp and
they were like, yeah, you should apply to art school.
I'm like, what's that? And then I applied. Even though
(06:04):
my grandmother went to Pratt in New York City, we'd
never talked about it, which is just so weird. So
I applied to art school, got in, and the rest
is sort of history. Once you graduate from that, you're
on the gallery path and it just rolls into one
thing after another. Sore. It was so natural for me
(06:28):
to use creativity as a way to self connect that
I didn't know I was using creativity as a way
to self connect until I really needed it, and it
absolutely held me the entire time. So did that answer
your question?
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, So you ended up getting your work into galleries
and it just sort of naturally happened. You didn't have
to go out there stomping around, and.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
There's a little there was a little bit of stomping,
especially in the beginning. I had asked to be in galleries,
and the question was always well, have you been in
a gallery before? And I'm like no, and they're like, well,
if you haven't been in a gallery before, don't like,
we don't want you. And so it was this like, well,
how do you break in? And so I started just
(07:14):
having shows and coffee shops and libraries and actually and
selling my work. And then when you go back and
you're like, well, I haven't been in a gallery, but
I have sold all this work and people are interested here, here,
and here, then the galleries take notice, or at least
that was true for me in my case. It's that
was a I mean, you're a gallery owner, so it's
a weird it's it's a weird bend, like how to
(07:35):
get into that whole scene. And then you know, being
in the galleries are They're great. I had wonderful relationships
with the people that I worked with. I think I
really enjoyed openings. I really enjoyed meeting the people who
resonated with my work. Of course, right like that's super fun.
(07:56):
And then when you're more boots on the ground and
I started opening my studios to the public and it
was very energizing. I loved meeting people from all over.
It was more of a conversation about how art made
people feel. It wasn't as much about selling or art
as a commodity. It was really about connection and noticing
(08:20):
what people ended up talking about. When they were in
my studio, it was much deeper conversation than when I
was in a gallery or at an opening. And then
people who came in and the work really made them uncomfortable,
they would just get out as soon as possible. And
I always wanted to say, wait, wait, you don't have
to like the work, tell me what makes you uncomfortable.
(08:42):
I was so curious about how people moved through the world,
and I wanted their stories. And I think that that's
the thing that made those times in my life very rich,
to have that kind of connection, and it let me
know that I needed to engage with the public more.
And at first I'm such a hermit, so it was
(09:04):
a little confusing for me. I'm like, but wait, this
is so scary, but I love it.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So yeah, that's great. Well, just a comment about galleries.
I can't imagine saying to somebody, well, we can't have
your work because it hasn't been anywhere before. I'm just
that just blows my mind. I would never but.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I'm so glad rhy. It's because of what a ridiculous
thing to say. It's like, it's right, you're just going
in circles.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
So yeah, yeah, well awesome. So you say that you
struggled with dyslexia and low self esteem and you were
an introvert. Tell us how art maybe helped you out
of that in some way or what did art do
for you?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, I think it gave me an First of all,
it was it was something I was good at. And
so like you said, when people start to get that reflection,
oh you're so good at this, Oh you know, I
wish I could do that, And you're right earlier when
we were talking about it, anybody can there's a I'm
(10:05):
creativity is one thing. If you're wanting to enhance your
skills or increase your skills, it's practice like anything else,
it's practice. One of my kids was asked me, Mama,
take me down to the studio. I really want to
learn how to draw. I've been teaching people how to
(10:26):
draw on my own for a while, and we just
went through the rudimentary ways of starting to draw with
gesture drawings and getting him sort of acquainted with how
to see in a very general way. And he was
so frustrated and he thought it was terrible and his
(10:48):
ability to see. If I had tried to get him
he was a natural neo expressionist, is what I'll say.
Like he was so awesome, but if I tried to
like rain him in and make him be accurate, it
would have been a nightmare. And so to really flow
with where you are, that's where the fun is, that's
(11:09):
where the connection comes in. And those things help people
move through their own emotional tapestry. And that's so that's
where the value is. Whether you're receiving artwork and it
makes you feel a certain thing, you're still connecting to yourself.
(11:29):
If you're creating, whether you're writing or cooking or gardening
or drawing, you're connecting to yourself. So it's that is
self connection. But it's subtle, and I think in our
world today we miss it. We don't pay attention to
what's happening in the moment and how we feel in
the moment. And so artwork for me, or creating work
(11:51):
which I had done my entire life, was like a
constant release valve and if I hadn't had I was
diagnosed with cancer and twenty twenty I'm like, if I
hadn't had that, I would have been dead so much earlier.
So I just think that it acts as this way
to just allow us to move through any of the
(12:11):
any of the life's bumps, and then when life really
throws you a curveball. It absolutely held me.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
So when we were talking before, I probably told you
the story of being a gallery owner for twenty one
years and people would walk in and they would look
at something that was abstract or whatever and they'd go, I.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Could do that.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
My answer, my answer, my pat very sweet answer with
a smile, was but you didn't do that. So what
I think that people just don't get it that art
isn't about looking at pretty still lives, you know, it isn't.
I mean, sure, it's nice. It candy, right, it candy.
(12:57):
But when something has a reaction for you, there's some reason,
you know. I mean you look at Dolly and you
and you have a reaction, yeah, Paco, Yeah right, it's
about and it's important and with that mindfulness that I
was talking about before, with being able to look at
(13:18):
something and go, oh, Wow, that triggered me, And what
is that about for me? And you know, why am
I hating this painting? And why am I judging this
artist for doing drops on a canvas? You know?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Right?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
It's the mindfulness that I think is important. Well, it's
true for everything, but especially with art, you know, and
especially because we have so many false beliefs about art
based on how we were trained in this world.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah. So okay, So what happened sixteen years years ago
that changed your life? Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So in protecting our children around we've it took years
to figure out who was who had been sexually abusing them,
and it's very often a family member. In this case,
it was, and in the matter of twenty four hours,
my husband went to go talk to his father in
(14:15):
law about it, and we had all of their support,
and then within twenty four hours that shifted to him
calling every aunt, uncle, cousin, my parents and saying, these
two are lying about this situation and we want to
sue them, and they're crazy and all of this stuff
(14:37):
and it's not so much sexual abuse. I want to
say that sexual abuse that's also my history. It changes
the lens with which you see the world right and so,
and it pivots the kinds of choices that you make.
And as a parent, I was not going to deny
what was going on with my children. But in not
(14:58):
denying it, it it just absolutely blew up the entire
family because people don't want to talk about it, they
don't want to deal with it, they don't want to
acknowledge it. So it's so demonized and it's so misunderstood,
like as perpetrators, which I don't even like that language.
I did a whole stint in Victim of ender mediation
(15:20):
and it talks about the one who caused harm and
the one who received harm, and we all cause harm
and we all receive harm. And so it was much more.
It was much more about people's reaction than it was
the actual events, which were horrific, like truly truly horrific,
and it just it needs to be tended to, It
(15:43):
needs to be held in a gentle way, in a
sensitive way, and it's it's because that's so misunderstood. It
just everyone became fiercely defensive and we all treated each
other terribly, and it blew up the entire family. So
that so I wasn't expecting that. I was not expecting
(16:04):
to be excommunicated from my family, and I wasn't expecting
to be sued, and so it was. I was devastated.
These were people I loved. We went everywhere, we visited
all the time. We felt close except for this one area. Right, Like,
you just don't talk about sexual abuse. You don't talk
(16:27):
about sex, you don't talk, you don't discuss it. You
just put it under the carpet and pretend nothing happened.
But you can't do that if your kids are so young.
My kids were. My son was three, and he he
just needed to have a safe place to express it.
(16:47):
And it was it was very messy, and it made
people very uncomfortable with good reason. It's incredibly uncomfortable, and
I still needed to show up for him, and I would.
I chose to have kids, and I was like, well,
this is happening, and I'm not denying it, because I
knew in my own life what denial did. It just
(17:09):
it absolutely exacerbated all of the problems and didn't help
any of them. So there was that was never an
option for me. I was very much a mama Bear,
and we went from a family a very large extended
family to our family unit of five, and for for
a long time, our world was very small. And that
(17:31):
is when I started painting in a very intentional way
and with a lot of awareness. And so when I
when I, I was devastated, how do I have this
like lovely card from my mother and also legal papers
(17:51):
where they're suing me for grandparent rights and they live
like they They were never disallowed from seeing our children ever,
and so it was just their discomfort, their pain around
what I had suggested was true, which is understandable, and
so but we couldn't talk about it. So here I
(18:13):
was ripping up these cards and these legal papers and
other notes and gluing them down to my canvas as
a foundation. I let my materials tell the story for me,
because I couldn't like in any way I would blame them.
I would be ridiculously defensive, I would be irrational, and
I'd want everyone to come onto my side. And in
(18:37):
this very quiet way, I was like, oh, we all
have a role in this, and I was allowed to
see my own part, to see their part from a distance,
as a witness rather than in the mess. I was
observing the mess, and I had so much more compassion,
(18:58):
and I was like this, it just allowed me to
see it and to acknowledge it. But more than anything,
it allowed me to accept it and then move into forgiveness.
And I had so much self forgiveness that I needed first,
And in doing that, it just shifted how I could
(19:19):
let people be where they were. I didn't need them
to agree with me. I didn't need them to believe me.
I didn't need them to like me. I didn't need
them to love me. I could give myself all of
that and that was a superpower. And yeah, so then
I was like, well I can Everything changed when I
(19:40):
started doing that. So I was moving this stuck energy
of my own history. And you know, we have kids
and we're like, oh, we're giving them so much, But
kids gave me myself back, and in dealing with what
happened to them, I could really deal with what happened
to me. And that, again just it changed everything. So
(20:04):
I was able to rewrite my own historical narrative and
change it changed who I was at a fundamental, energetic level.
And so when people are stuck over something, whether it's
divorce or their child's suicide or the death of a spouse,
(20:27):
or domestic violence or trafficking or war like, I'm working
with people who have these incredibly powerful stories that impacted
them in such a significant way that they have been
living under that experience rather than from this place of
(20:47):
the truth of who they really are. It's extremely powerful. Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, there's a lot there.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's what you've described is reaching
higher consciousness about something, reaching the point where you understand
that you had a part in this. You are forgiving yourself,
you're forgiving them, You're moving on from it, letting it go,
seeing the perfection or the value in it.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I mean, these are things.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
That can take people lifetimes to do. You did it
through art. It's just amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Wow. And I really want to say that if I
tried to get conscious of it, if I was like, oh,
I'm reaching higher consciousness or this is enlightenment, I would
have I would have taken myself off the path. And
instead I was just with it. And it was so
much about being with what was happening inside my body,
(21:48):
and it gave me access to myself in a way
that I hadn't had before. I mean I had, but
I didn't know it. And so it was this pairing
of wow. And again, even when I was ripping things up.
When I first started ripping things up, I was so hurt.
It wasn't like, let's rip this up. I'm so powerful.
(22:09):
I was like, I can't take this anymore. I can't.
I can't live with this sense of such being so
misunderstood by the people. I loved being feeling like such
a victim and feeling like a victim. I needed to
recognize how I was keeping myself a victim. And you
(22:31):
can get stuck in these places very easily and just
perpetuate them and ripping it up. I felt like I
noticed this. It's a very subtle thing, but it does
it for you. It is not your mind. It is
a somatic issue in your body, and it's and your
body's like, oh, thank you, You're finally acknowledging what's been
(22:54):
here for decades. And in an afternoon it just dissolves.
And so it feels like magic and people it's a
hard thing to understand intellectually because it's so somatic.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Wow. So yes, creativity is a superpower.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Super power, it's a superpower, and it doesn't and so
people come to me and they're like, well, I can't draw.
I'm like, great, that's wonderful. You don't have to draw,
or I don't know how to pain. I'm like, wonderful.
Can you rip something up? Can you lose? Can It's
basic kindergarten skills. Anybody can do this. And people are like, well,
I don't want something ugly, and I'm like, it has
(23:32):
nothing to do with what it looks like. It is
all about the process. It is not about the product.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
So it's interesting. I used to One of the processes
that I did with my students when we would go
on a retreat is I would have them write down
something that they wanted to let go of, whatever it
was an emotion and anger, an event. They would write
it down in detail, and then we would rip it
up and burn it. Yeah, you know, it's very power.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
It is, and it is, and that's a there's yes.
I love that. I did a commission for somebody who
handed me stacks and stacks of love letters which were
so so beautiful, and he gave me access to read everything,
and so I was creating a soul portrait for him
for this and he he just wants to burn it up.
(24:23):
So it's this. There are stages to it, which is fabulous.
I love that there's no attachment to it. You can
you can create this thing. It moves all this energy.
So either people can do it for themselves, which makes
it much more accessible. I can do it for them,
which is my favorite thing in the world to do,
and but it's much more in depth. And then there's
(24:46):
like workshops in this in the center and coaching in
the center. So there there's like this wide range of
options for how to use this process to suit your needs.
But that that transition and from this is in my
body to this is out of my body, to putting
rolling it up and putting it in a closet or
(25:08):
framing it and hanging it on your while you engage
with it differently, or burning it, and it's whatever feels
right to you. And it's that same following your own intuition,
because ultimately that is where your power is. We're all
already whole. It's all of our experiences where we get
confused and think that that's who we are. And so
(25:30):
you know, I've worked with surgeons who are renowned in
their field, and it's there's so they have all of
this success, but there's this emptiness and it's because they're
not living from this place of internal knowing, of internal connection.
(25:50):
It's I am a surgeon. Everyone respects me and loves me,
and it's all external. And so how do we how
do we really reconnect with our own power? And it
isn't what we do, right, It's not about it's not
about how other people see us. It's how we see ourselves.
That internal relationship we have with ourselves is the most
(26:11):
important thing we can have. And if we like ourselves
were okay, if we don't, we're in big trouble. It's
how we move, It's how we move through the world.
And coming from that place of really disliking who I
was and moving through all the layers of how I
ended up there to releasing all of those layers, you
(26:35):
end up really liking who you are and you feel
you just feel like no one can touch that because
they can't.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yeah. Yeah, So question back to what you were saying
about doing these pieces for people, is it the same
sense of release to actually do this for them versus
having them do it themselves.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
It's again, people, and we do we do a series
of calls ahead of time that find out if this
is where you are like what's the best fit for you?
And so you know if you can't touch it. So
the things that people have a really hard understandably a
really hard time touching is the domestic violence, human trafficking,
(27:25):
war any war experience, and suicide. So having survived suicide,
so I've worked with war veterans who cannot touch the
harm that they have caused, and that is and so
having to revisit their own materials is too painful. So
(27:49):
when I'm doing that for them, I can see it
through the lens of love and I because that's all
I have is that they were following instruction that would
put other people in prison, and they have gotten awards
for killing well, and it is so confusing to it's
(28:11):
so confusing to feel so stuck and lost and devastated
by the actions of taking a human life. And so
even when people I'm going down a tangent because there
are people who have taken human life in our country
in ways that our system would punish, and it's so
(28:35):
incredibly punishing and doesn't help. And so I love working
with people in correctional facilities because it gives everyone an
option for that self forgiveness to look at how they've
gotten to where they are, so whatever that is. If
people are having a hard time touching that part of
(28:58):
their path, then it sort of by proxy that I
do for them to answer your question. But there's no judgment.
I am not coming from a place of judging anyone.
So whether you've murdered somebody over like infidelity, I'm making
something up, or drugs or whatever. Rage, it's the rage
(29:18):
is what's so important, and the rage is valid, Like
what happened and how how were you told that your
truth was so unacceptable that you had to that violence
was the only answer. And so for me, like I
can't kill a spider, let alone a human being, although
like I think that we all carry that within us,
(29:39):
right like when I was protecting my children, that is
the closest I felt to wanting to kill another person,
And so I think we're all capable of that, and
I'm not. I could never be in a position to
judge anyone else. So when when somebody is having I
can't imagine having somebody I love kill themselves. So it
(30:00):
makes a lot of sense to me that that material
would be very difficult to do themselves because there's so
much self blame involved. In that that it's hard to touch,
and so instead of touching it, it just sits there.
It stays in your body, It stays in the closet,
it stays in the boxes of letters, in the in
(30:21):
the material and the energy, the paraphernalia of how we
end up where we are. Does that make sense. It's
a little tricky to talk about.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, yeah, and I can see that it would be
a release even though they're not physically creating it.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, So we need to take a bit of a
break just to remind everybody. I'm talking to Devora Brinker
Hoss and we're talking about creativity and soul portraits, and
she's going to explain a little bit more about soul
portraits in a minute. We'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Home.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Times TV. Do you crave joy but feel stuck? Do
you go through life feeling constantly triggered and frustrated? Fear
is likely the culprit, and subconscious fear is likely sabotaging you.
Perfect Life Awakening is a time tested, spiritually based approach
(31:18):
to inner transformation created by Royce Morales. For over forty years,
she has helped people get to the origins of subconscious
fears and ultimately help them find their true purpose and
a life full of joy. Sign up for Perfect Life
Awakening today at Roysmorales dot com. You deserve to go
from triggered to empowered, shifting your life with Perfect Life Awakening.
(31:48):
Imagine becoming a super influencer, reinvent yourself, invest in your brand,
and then manifest your success with a robust, spheric approach.
Own Times Media and Broadcast offers a unique and multifaceted
way to become the spiritual and conscious influencer you deserve
to be. By putting your message across our powerful platform
(32:10):
with its proven record of integrity and excellence. Through our
produced shows, Own Times offers the opportunity to become a
social media TV personality, a radio show host, an Own
Times magazine columnist, and a syndicated podcaster all in one shot.
By live streaming your show on Home Times TV and
(32:31):
broadcasting it across the extensive Home Times Radio and TV networks,
you become more than a host. You become an ambassador
and a force for positive change. Own Times open yourself
to the possibilities.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
I want to as I need to. Why can I
support the Feeding America nationwide network of food banks to
(33:10):
help provide meals to those in need.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Join us at Feeding America dot org.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Welcome back. I'm talking with Devora Brinkerhaus and we're talking
about not only creativity being a superpower, but creativity being
a way to awaken and be mindful and forgive and
to get in touch with your intuition, which is something
I wanted to ask you about. And by the way,
I forgot to mention, if you guys are watching this live,
(33:42):
feel free to send over any comm answer questions and
we will we will get them and hopefully answer them.
But let's go back to my question. So you're saying
that it helps to awaken intuition, tell us a little
bit about a little bit more about that. How did
that work for you?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
It's subtle. We all have it, and the more you
start listening to that intuition, it becomes louder and louder.
So when people are talking with me, I'm really genuinely
asking do you want to lean into all of these
things in your past? And if the answer right, they'll
have a feeling in their body. If there's some relief
to it that, then yes. If there's a contraction then
(34:21):
then no, it's it's quite simple. Follow follow the relief.
Follow where you're where there's some opening, some expansion, some lightness.
And so if you know, if you're out there and
you're like, oh, yeah, i've got this box that's filled
with letters and documents, or seven boxes, or you've got
(34:44):
piles all over the place, there's a reason why you're
keeping them, and your body knows. And so if you start,
if there's permission, to start looking through it, to start
feeling what the reaction is. So if I was to
look through a photo album now and come across family
members that I'm no longer in contact with, there's a
(35:04):
there's a contraction, there's energy there, and I'm like, oh,
that's something that I need to address.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
It's not it's not complicated, right, So sorry, we.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Just don't do it. We don't. We don't give ourselves
a second to listen to feel it, because our body
always knows.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah, it's interesting as you're talking, I'm thinking about the
whole issue of clutter in our lives. I mean, people
that come in and help you declutter, it's a natural profession,
and they go through each piece and they say, well,
what does this mean to you? How would it be
if you didn't have it, and they have this whole
process that they do. It sounds very similar to what
(35:48):
you do in a way.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yes, it really is.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah, but the difference is you you end up creating
something from that versus just tossing it out.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, how does that well? And people really like that
aspect of it, because how many of us have something
that was given to us from a grandmother or anybody
special and they don't know what to do with it.
And so if it's a cookbooker or a photo but
they or a painting or a poster like anything you
(36:19):
can rip up, you're still honoring it. You're you're turning
it into something else or these all these memories. So
especially if people send me a box basically of their
from from their childhood to date and it's got a
lot in it. They don't know what to do with
(36:40):
these things, and so it sets it, it recycles them,
but it also transmutes them into into something that's relevant
for who they are now. And so yeah, it's it.
When people don't know what to do with something, it's
it's a way to honor it without just throwing it away,
and that tends to feel better. So like even divorce papers.
(37:03):
People don't know what to do with them, but they
don't want to throw them out. There's so much there
that this is a great thing to do with them.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
And I think when you said it honors it, I
think that's important too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Absolutely, the honoring of the path that we have walked
is essential for moving energy, for self forgiveness, for moving on.
We must honor where we have been. It got us
to where we are today. There's nothing wrong with it,
no matter what that involves, Like, it got you here,
(37:40):
so it's something to be honored. You're survived, you're here.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
I'm also thinking about people as they get older and
they start thinking, what's going to happen when I died?
Every's going to have to throw all this stuff away
and you know, so it's probably part of that that Wow,
what I mean, I've gathered this and I've written this
and I've created this, and it's all going to go
in the trash.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Yeah, No, that's that's a great point because the people
who I often work with a darker shadow side of life.
But people come in and they're like, well, we want
to celebrate the fifty sixty seventy years we've been together,
or my husband just died, or my wife just died,
and I just want to celebrate our relationship, or I
want to celebrate this graduation or that accomplishment and there
(38:31):
and this is the same thing. You can put all
of this into that that says, I love I love you,
I love myself. I'm celebrating us, I'm celebrating you, I'm
celebrating me. It's a it's a way, it's a it's
like a I say to people, it's a visual memoir
of your life. And you can celebrate it no matter what,
whether it's the hard stuff or the great stuff, because
(38:53):
it's not just one thing. Ever, we need both. Everything
is in relationship to the other.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Yeah. Yeah, So tell us you told me earlier that
you have a little exercise that you do to help
people to create these soul portraits or to help yourself
create them. Tell us a little bit about that exercise.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
So people can do a lot of different exercises, and
all of them are meant to get you out of
your thinking mind and into your heart space. So one
of them is a blind contour drawing, and that one,
I don't think is on social media I usually do
it to help people start in a workshop, just something
(39:34):
to do. But it's a drawing where you do not
look at the paper. You look at yourself, either on
your phone or in a mirror. You put a pencil
or pen down and in one continuous line, without looking
at the paper or lifting your pencil up from the paper,
you draw yourself and you take thirty seconds to do it,
and so it's really quick and really fun. They're called
(39:57):
blind contour drawings, and they're usually end up well, I
Am not going to spoil what they look like if
you're not familiar with them. That's the fun part. And
I love to ask people, well, what if this is
how everybody saw you and you walked around as this
version of yourself, what would that feel like? And people
(40:20):
usually just think it's pretty funny. And then I asked
them to rip it up, and almost everyone doesn't want
to rip up their drawing. And I'm like, we get
so attached to things very very quickly, and we get
attached to our identities very very quickly, you know, like
I'm a mom, I'm a doctor, whatever the I am is.
We're very attached to those labels. And it's a way
(40:40):
to disrupt those identities because we're actually none of those things,
and not again, not to demonize those identities, not to
demonize our ego. We all have one, and it's the
full acceptance of every part of ourselves that these creative
exercises are are practicing. We're just practicing the tool of
(41:04):
that self acceptance, whatever it is, and pausing to do
something that's creative. So that's one exercise that's a lot
of fun and pretty easy.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
What you said is so important that we're so attached
to our identity and what we believe it is and
what it looks like. And you know, I'm a spiritual
teacher and you know, I try to get people to
understand that this body is just you know, something we're
kind of walking around in like a car.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
You know, it's our navigator.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, we are in this thing, you know, and it's
not who we are. But it's so hard to get
people to really experience that. So this sounds like a
way that you get people to do that. That's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Well, and it's connected to that intuition that we were
talking about earlier. It's so like that heart space is
your intuition and it's I want people I think just
like you, to come down into your heart. It's the
currency of the future, in my opinion, it's the way
to address all of this. How we've become so polarized
(42:16):
and it's complete, and there's so much fear, and there's
so much blame, and none of it none of it
gets us to our heart. It keeps us in fear.
And so if we can, if we can come down
and recognize that we're all here, we're all the same.
We have exactly the same fundamental struggles of not feeling worthy,
(42:38):
not feeling like we're enough, not feeling like we belong,
feeling like we've somehow devalued, or we don't have as
much value as this other person because they have whatever,
more money, more success, more fame, none of it matters.
So who are we if it's external? Right, if you
didn't have that, what how would you feel? And so
(43:03):
when we lose everything, we're faced with, well, none of
it actually was who I am. And so in loss
you really find that you never were the things you
thought you had. So does that make I don't think
I said that, Well, I think it gets it gets
so confusing. So yeah, so when people get fired or
(43:29):
they or they've lost all their money, or they're no
longer in Hollywood or whatever. The thing is, it wasn't
who they were to begin with. And so when we
recognize that, there's so much more freedom and life can
get much more rich. So I love what you do
and how you help people remember that they're not who
they think they are. And we're taught from such an
(43:50):
early age like what do you want to do when.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
You grow up?
Speaker 2 (43:53):
I'm like, who cares? Be yourself? Moved to your heart,
let your heart lead you where's There's so much more
compassion and understanding for one another when we do that.
And I know it sounds sort of Pollyanna ish, but
the judgment, it's just judgment towards yourself. And so this
really takes a look at all of that.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Yeah, and it flips you into your power, you know,
absolutely superpower, creativity, art, all of it. Yeah. So question,
I'm trying to imagine somebody coming to you and saying
they want a soul portrait and you start doing all
of this stuff. What happens on their end? Do they
(44:36):
express emotions, do they go through fear, do they relive trauma?
What actually goes on on their end.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Usually in a commission it is quite separate. So that's
when people hand me over their materials that feel stuck
with them. There are times so I'll check in. We
have a bunch of calls in the beginning, and then
I get what and people need to resonate with my
style because I'll be it'll be a you know, an
(45:04):
overimage at the end. So they if if they don't
like the kind of drawing or painting that I do,
which is totally fine, then it's usually not We're usually
not a great fit. It's a channeled experience. So I'll
work with her. I'll sit with their materials for weeks,
read through them several different times to get an idea
of what wants to be honored, what's definitely going in
(45:31):
the piece, what's a little less essential, and what's more
on the periphery. Usually everything ends up being in the
portrait because they send it to me or gave it
to me. Uh, and we'll meet in the middle for
where are you now?
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Like?
Speaker 2 (45:46):
What are the words? How do you see yourself now?
What are some things that are important to you now?
What are the books you're reading? What are the poems?
They resonate what are who are you now? And I'll
capture that with written word in my own hand, and
then I'll and then I'll stay with it and see
what images. I get flooded with images, and over the
(46:09):
course of weeks they'll come down, they'll shrink until there
are ten that keeps circling, and then three that keeps circling.
And then when I get in front of the piece again,
I'll let which one come through and stay and then
I'll work with that, and it's sort of a dance
from that point forward. And then there's the big reveal,
(46:29):
and it's always like a little nerve wracking because I
don't even know what's going to happen, and I'm just
a condu it. I'm just letting it be whatever it is,
and people really need to trust me for that process.
And then they have a piece of artwork, and I
have never had one person who hasn't loved it, and
(46:52):
it's been very emotional for them. And usually people are
very quiet for a while, and then they start talking
about what's happening in their body and it takes. It
takes because they'll see snippets of their life in a
corner or a topographical map that was a favorite place
(47:14):
that they was, their old stomping ground that they explored
as a child, or however, the materials that they gave
me sort of peek through and so that they have
pieces of their story honored on their wall that they
can revisit any time. That also incorporates where they want
(47:36):
to be, who they're stepping into, the highest version of themselves.
I don't leave them in the shadow. I leave them
in the highest possible version of love and possibility of
growth and expansion. So it's a constant reminder. It acts
(47:58):
as a reminder of who they really we are and
who they're stepping into, and they get to then have
a relationship with that. And one of the nicest things
about this process is months and even years later, I'll
just get a text from one of my clients and
they'll just say something that hit them about the piece,
(48:18):
or a new insight that they got, or how the
light came in during morning coffee and just say something
really simple and really beautiful, and it's so fantastic, Like
that's such a huge honor to be in relationship with
people and to be let into their life in such
(48:38):
a deep and meaningful way and then to have that
thread continue and touch down because once we've done this
where I sort of fall in love with whomever I've
worked with, and so to hear from them at some
future date is always just such a gift for me.
(49:00):
So that's the commission part of it. They feel like
somebody has held what they couldn't held it in a
way that they couldn't see, and it's given back to
them just with acceptance and love and absolutely no judgment,
with again the highest intention for everyone, because nobody, nobody,
(49:24):
nobody needs more blame or shame.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
Right, Yeah, it's people don't expect that they're going to
get this pretty little picture from you. They know it's deeper. Yeah,
So what about if they are the ones that are
creating their work of art, how does that work in
terms of them expressing and being emotional and you work
(49:48):
with them directly? Also?
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, So I do online workshops and I also do
in person workshops. I'm I'm outside of Portland now in Oregon,
and I love both. The online workshops are great because
people have the privacy of their own space, so the
person next to them can't smell any of the products
(50:13):
that they're using in their portrait because people use all
kinds of things. I like, one person came into a workshop,
a live workshop, and she brought nail polish and she
made her whole portrait at nail polish, and it was
very very stinky, and it was very, very very powerful.
It was a domestic violence situation where her ex boyfriend
(50:35):
at the time insisted that she match her nail polish
to the nineteen fifties era outfit that he picked out,
and so she had to clean off yesterday's polish and
reapply fingernails and toes today's polish on repeat. That was
just one of the many things. And she came into
the workshop almost a year to date after he had
(50:57):
tried to kill her, and so it was in in
incredibly powerful, powerful piece and on it all in nail polish.
She poured out nail polish sort of Jackson Pollock style,
and at the end she wrote trust your gut on
the nail polish, and so it was just it gives
me chills every time I talk about her story where
(51:19):
she just owned it right, she moved into it. He
was in jail, she was safe, and there's all this
energy around now polish and what does it mean to
be in relationship, and but it was very smelly, so
people there were people who struggled with that. People when
(51:40):
they're doing this process for themselves, grief usually it's grief
is strong and it comes up. And whether it's a
miscarriage or stillborn twins, or a divorce or any of
the things that are typical for where we get stuck
in our lives, there's a lot of emotion and often
(52:01):
people will come over and ask me to talk with them,
which I'm very happy to do, and just hold space
for you can witness yourself, because I am not the guru.
I am just there to help hold that space and
walk them through any questions that they have and encourage
(52:23):
them because they've already survived whatever it is that happened
that has broken their heart, and so really it is
about you can do this. You can feel your feelings.
It's okay, you've already been feeling them. In fact, they've
been They've been leading you quietly behind the scenes for years.
(52:43):
And if you can pause in this moment and feel
the loss, it's not nearly as scary as we anticipate
it will be. It's the anticipation we think it's Pandora's box.
It's not it's been there all along. It's just giving
it a little breathing room. The parts in you that
(53:05):
feel I don't quite know, it just just unacceptable. And
when we're with that, we're going to feel emotional. But
it's actually such a relief and people feel genuinely proud
of themselves because they've sat with something they didn't think
they could handle and then they're like, oh, that was nothing.
(53:26):
I'm like, I know, it's so much worse when you
don't do it. So it's really it's so powerful and
people are so brave, but there we get so afraid
of things we don't need to be.
Speaker 3 (53:37):
Yes, I know. I try to convince my new students
of that. It's like, yeah, it's going to be work, Yes,
we're going to be digging, yes, and that's you know,
that's a challenge, but the results are definitely worth it,
and it's just emotions.
Speaker 2 (53:50):
It's just fear.
Speaker 3 (53:51):
So yeah, So tell us how to reach you, and
we have like two minutes, so give us your little information.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
You can reach me on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok is that
it oh in a websitesoul portrait, dot art and anybody
can DM me anytime if they have questions about any
part of this process, whether it's a workshop or creative coaching,
I do that too, or a commission basically those three things.
(54:23):
Oh and I offer prints because people like those as well.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
Wow, thank you so much, Defora, this was so enlightening
and so beautiful the work that you're doing. And keep
it up and reach out to reach out to her
and do this process because I can just I get
chills every time you're talking about it because I know
how powerful it is, so just awesome. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Thanks for having me. I love talking to you about it.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
Oh good good, So gout the good work and I'll
see everybody next Wednesday, same time, same BAT channel. As
they say, deserve to be who you are, absolutely
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.