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EPISODE SUMMARY & SHOW NOTES
Rachel Philips Co-founded The Heart Institute of Whidbey, which hosts grown up summer camps, heart journaling events and other joyful art-based escapades in and around Whidbey island in Washington State.
She makes and teaches HeART journaling which is something that extends far beyond what you might think ordinary journaling might be about - there is deep wisdom and medicine woven into her teachings. I can hardly wait for you to dive into this episode.
WHAT WE TALK ABOUT
-The importance of storytelling in all its various forms (including journaling) and how it is so much more than just words.
-The thing she would do to change about society (if she had a magic wand)
-The quiet yet profound transformation she sees take place over and over again when people start to journal with the technique she developed
Heart journals course https://plantingmarigolds.teachable.com/p/heart-journal-course/
Rachel has gifted every listener of Creative Genius $25 off her HeART journalling course.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Hello, beautiful friends. It's nice to be back at the mic. You might hear it in my voice a little bit. I had Covid, it finally hit me in year four of the pandemic. I was very lucky that it took that long. I have two school-aged children. It was just a matter of time, I think, even though they still wear masks, , it happened, I spent a lot of time resting for those of you who know what it's like to be a chronic producer and creator of all things, getting sick like that is really hard.
Staying still isn't easy. I got a lot of knitting. I did get a lot of rest , it's wonderful to be back and with such a marvelous episode for you today, I got to talk to Rachel Phillips for this one.
She co-founded the Heart Institute of Whidbey Island in Washington State. They host grownup summer camps and heart jeweler, heart journaling events, and other joyful escapades in and around the Whidbey Island, Washington state. when I found out I'd be interviewing Rachel for this show, I was excited because her heart journals are beautiful and her artwork is amazing.
And she just exudes this joyful positive, when I think of her, I think of a sunflower and she just has this great energy and I was excited about having the conversation with her about how did she end up on Whidby and why does she do heart journaling and. Little did I know how deeply moved I would be by her work.
By what's underneath what she's doing. You know what she's doing in the world. Through her heart, journaling extends far beyond scrapbooking or journaling. And yes, it's storytelling, but there's a deep wisdom and medicine woven into her teachings, and I can hardly wait for you to dive into this.
We talk about the importance of storytelling in all its various forms, including journaling and scrapbooking. She tells us the one thing she would change about society if she had a magic wand and she shares with us the quiet yet profound transformation she has seen take place when people start to journal with the technique she develops, she gives all of you an amazing deal on her heart journalist course, which I'll give you more information on towards the end. There was a moment in this episode where she reads us.
the reason why she started heart journaling from a piece of writing that she wrote a little while ago, and I was just reduced to tears both in the conversation and again, when I heard it in editing. It's beautiful and this work is profound we all have so much to learn from Rachel, and I really just, I'm so excited for you to hear this episode today.
I don't know if you know this, but I spend well over 25 hours each week producing this podcast. I do outreach to guests and I research their work in the world. I spend a lot of time preparing for and then conducting the interviews. I spend tons of time in post-production, editing and creating transcripts for you, writing the newsletters and website and social media. There's so much that goes into this show and there are also quite a few hard costs that come along with doing this web hosting and podcast, hosting and editing software and equipment.
I do this out of a passion and a love for creativity itself and for you, but there's no one paying me to do I'm an artist myself, and I'm a single mom who's working hard to get myself back on my own two feet after leaving a toxic marriage with two small kids in the middle of the pandemic.
I don't have an outside sponsor. That little commercial you hear in the middle of each episode is for my very own little jewelry company, morning Moon, nature Jewelry.
I think it might be easy to hear the show and think, oh, somebody's paying for that. And they are, but it's me, . And this show is helping so many people reconnect with their creativity and a deeper version of themselves.
I get emails and direct messages from people all over the. that make me cry honestly, every week they tell me things like listening to the show makes them feel less alone or has helped them connect with the courage they needed to leave a job or a relationship or a situation that was deeply unfulfilling or that listening to the show.
Inspired a new kind of courage to sign up for art school when they believed their whole life, that they weren't good enough or to trust that the universe would take care of them when they made a difficult decision. Listening to something their gut was telling them, not something their mind was telling them.
It's not an understatement to say that this show is changing people's lives, I'm not doing this by myself. I'm doing this with the guests and I'm doing this with you, the listeners, and I'm doing this with the support of the Patreon community.
When you choose to support this work, not only as a Patreon, but also by buying my jewelry or my artwork, you're contributing to something that has such a positive impact on others, and I believe on humanity as a.
When you become a Patreon, which you can do for starting at $5 Canadian a month, you'll instantly access our growing library of bonus Patreon, content. I do bonus episodes every other week. I create worksheets and journal prompts and guided meditations. You are also helping to ensure that I can keep going with this show.
Every time a new person joins the Patreon, you should see the smile that washes over me. The feeling of it for me is like when you get to the water station, when you're running a marathon. It really does help me keep going and the reach of that impact is infinite. You're affecting more lives than you'll ever really know. So I wanted to just say that if you're thinking about becoming a Paton, please go ahead and do it. I don't think you'll regret it.
Here's a gorgeous review from Maria in Germany. She writes insightful, pure, and beautiful. Just the podcast I needed listening to Kate and her amazing guests has me pause whatever I do several times in every episode. There's so much truth and honesty in these beautiful conversations, strength to take in for my own art practice and joy in listening.
Thank you for putting this podcast into the world. It means a lot. So on that note, if you haven't left a review, please do that too. You can go over to Apple Podcasts, find creative genius, make sure you're subscribed. You just hit the plus button and then rate and review it. So give us some stars and just write a few words of how you feel when you listen to the show.
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And as usual, if you have ideas or feedback for me, there is a feedback form on kate shepherd creative.com. Look under the Creative Genius menu and there's an item called Tell Me Everything, and you can fill out the survey and let me know what you're thinking and what you want to hear, and anything your heart wants to tell me. You can also send me a direct message.
Instagram at Kate Shepherd Creative or at the Creative Genius Podcast. Listen to the end of the show because we're gonna give you information on how to get Rachel's course for $25 off. It's normally $75 and she's giving it to all the Creative Genius listeners for $50, which is amazing, so stick around to the end of the show for all the information you need to take advantage of that lovely gift that Rachel's giving us.
Kate Shepherd: hello. Beautiful.
You're so vibrant to colorful. You look like one of my paintings actually
Rachel Phillips: Is that one of yours behind
you?
Kate Shepherd: Yes, this is a big five foot canvas that is just like the, a map of my heart. I feel like
Rachel Phillips: I love it. I
love it.
Kate Shepherd: Thank you. I'm really happy to have a chance to talk to you today.
Rachel Phillips: Yes. I'm super excited too What is this show about? I maintain that we have this. Current of creative intelligence that's running through us. Everybody, the whole entire universe, actually, not just every person, but every leaf, every rock, every chair, every seahorse, every person.
Kate Shepherd: Everybody has this current of intelligence running through them that
I call creativity. And it's the thing that tells you how to know things, when to
open, what to paint, how to write a song, how to breathe, When we don't do the thing
that creativity is trying to
do through us we not only stop that energy from moving inside of our being, which creates this really painful
stagnancy that I think is
actually what's behind depression and anxiety and stress and disease
and over consumption. All every dysfunction in our
planet I think can be traced back to that, holding that in.
But the other thing it does is it stops every other being in the whole
entire universe from experiencing
that magic in you. That joy, that that's the whole thing. We're supposed to be in this loop of making and giving and creating we've
generated all these extremely limiting beliefs
about creativity. what it is, who can use it, how to let it out. And I really do feel like that is
the cause of all the suffering. And when I saw That kind of, when that really
landed for me, I realized, okay, I have to now dedicate my whole entire life to helping as many people as I
can have this reunion with creativity.
Rachel Phillips: I stand in solidarity. with everything you say and I feel as though, it's almost like creatives and people that are tapping into this are being called right now. We will be the ones to lead the charge. it feels urgent.
Kate Shepherd: It does feel urgent. Yeah.,
and it feels like there's a rising, and a quickening I waited my whole life to feel called to do something and I always wondered what would it be? And when this landed for me, I was like, oh, this is the most important thing that
anybody could do and we all need to find our
way in it. So yeah. I'm really glad
you're here today to talk to us.
Rachel Phillips: I appreciate it so much. I've been thinking so much about this conversation and how everything in my life has led up to this voice that I have found myself with now. , creating a life that you love is the most creative thing you can do. The world has lost sight
of that and has signed up for these
things that no one seems to be enjoying, but everyone has agreed
upon as normal
Kate Shepherd: Yes. Yes. Oh my goodness. A thousand times. Yes. Yeah.
Rachel Phillips: it's been almost like a life work. , tracing back the root of why this is, and I have a lot
of theories,
Kate Shepherd: I'm realizing we should probably let people know who you are and what you do, and we just for listeners to know we met through our mutual and very dear friend Meredith Cannon, who is an incredible artist on Whitby Island in Washington State, and you co-founded together with her, the Heart Institute of Whitby. And maybe do you wanna tell us a little bit about that and then a little bit about who you are so everybody can kinda get a sense of who this radiant being that we're listening to.
Rachel Phillips: The Heart Institute was something that very organically came about Meredith and I met at the county Fair . I was, so moved by her art. I had seen that the summer before. and , I thought, I will meet this woman. This is much how I met my husband. I will meet this woman and marry her in Friendship I found her Instagram and then she found me and she was equally inspired by what I was doing. And then when we finally met,
it was creative love at first sight. This idea
that we had
stemmed out of, an experience. ,
in my early twenties, I registered to go to the Art Institute in Seattle, I think I
lasted two weeks before. I felt like all of my
inspiration and creativity was sucked out of me, it was nothing at all what I expected, it was a lot of rules and expectations,
which I suppose.
Normal for a school situation,
wanted to create something that was like opposite
of a school, through the pandemic and everything that was happening, we ended up finding ourselves, homeschooling, unschooling, whatever you wanna call it, our children. . I had been doing a lot of well research, but
also just fascination with childhood and play and these systems that we put
our children in and all of that, and, and realizing
that, wow, you know, yes, save the children. But also every grownup I come in contact with is the same.
meaning they need this as much as the children do. They need this pulling out of these
rules and norms and space to play and
figure out what they love, I really created this as almost like an adult summer camp. That's gonna have summer camps for grownups that don't feel grown up.
We're gonna be doing field trips. We right now in the process of procuring a bus,
Kate Shepherd: I love you guys.
Rachel Phillips: imagine just doing what we do together, which is a field trip. You go, we'll take a little group creatives to the tulips and we'll sketch and then we'll take them to a great, restaurant. And are we noticing the bricks on the side of the wall? How cool is that?
Take a picture of that and see what we can do. And
so much of what my work is is having people start noticing their lives and awaken their lives
Kate Shepherd: What are the main tools in your tool belt when you're in that work? What are the things that work the most for you to help people? It's like a remembering, right? It's almost like nudging someone to remember something they already know and how do you do that?
Rachel Phillips: Well.
The way heart journaling started, I was needing proof,
needing a witness to everything that I was experiencing in my life.
And at that time I had very, very small children. I wanted them to know me, not just my words, but also like feelings, I wanted
there to be an account for a.
Life our days
and not just, you have them have to go back through
artifacts and, and try to figure out
what, what happened in these years that I kind of remember. wanted there to be story. story is very important to me. I've always been
connected to it and loved it and sought it out in books, but also meeting people and different jobs and travel and, I really wanted to know the world through everyone's eyes hear their experiences and connect with people in that way.
Instead of being told what a certain person would think based on what they looked like or you their beliefs were. I wanted to connect and find common ground and, that's what I wanted to have my children grow up in. looking
up and
being, present and seeing everything as inspiration we looking at a
compost pile or are we
noticing that a
potato's growing in it? And how funny is that? How fascinated, what do you think's happening here? conversations with my children have kept the child in me alive, and that's what I want bring to grownups. I call them grownups, adults,
Kate Shepherd: however, you identify
Yeah. So I imagine the heart journaling, is, it's, that's something you teach, right? So what is that? If somebody was lucky enough to live on Whidbey Island and could sign up for one of your heart journaling classes, what would it,
what? What happens when they get there? what are you doing?
Rachel Phillips: I teach more
online than I do in
person. They have
very different feels, what I've found
is that the journaling part of it
is one thing, but then
almost always we have to go back to get to the root of what is either blocking or why they want to be journaling.
in an in-person class, We have an abundance of supplies, and I know you advocate for getting great supplies and finding what's around you and using that, and I don't use just art supplies. I also use a lot of, I call them artifacts,
Kate Shepherd: I
Rachel Phillips: every time I use the word heart,
the a r t in it
is always caps art, right?
So artifacts. So these would be things like a
postcard
or a recipe card that your grandma wrote in her handwriting. And once you start noticing these
things And picking them up along the way, you'll find them everywhere and every day. And you pick and choose the things that you wanna remember.
Maybe it's a map from
a place you went.
I coach, people in realizing what is important to them. What do they want to remember? What is this story that they wanna
tell about themselves? And is it for them or is it for
someone else? Sometimes the
journals that we make are gifts for people. I gifted my husband one last year. He was going through a little hard time and he needed a tangible reminder of the people that loved him and why. We have three boys, and I had them each write a little message to him and I printed out photos of our entire life together This is something he can hold and flip through. He told me yesterday, he said, I look through that every day and that it's such a light for him. During the first year of the pandemic, the 2020 year when there was no gatherings and everything just felt so off and weird.
I sent my family what I called a traveling heart journal, . I started it. I put a few photos from my childhood . Thanksgivings and Christmas passed and had the boys write little things. And then I sent it to my sister I prompted her with little things like, why don't you have the girls write a few things?
And she sent it to my other sister who sent it to my uncle and eventually it made it to my parents and they wrote stories. And now is this thing that we can look at holidays and any get together it is treasure.
it's treasure. It'll keep going through the years. I think there's such value in it.
I really do.
Kate Shepherd: So is this what you started off thinking you'd do?
Rachel Phillips: It started off being a letter to my unborn baby. The day I found out I was pregnant. I had this idea of oh, I'm gonna make this little book for them. I'm gonna write a little letter and introduce them to me and all these animals that we live with and their dad and their grandparents.
And so I went to Michael's . When I get an idea, it goes like that, . I'm gonna go gather
Kate Shepherd: now has
Rachel Phillips: And
Kate Shepherd: now.
Rachel Phillips: immediately, and at the time they had this thing, I dunno if you'll remember this. , maybe some of the listeners will, they had these things called smash books.
they were like this binder full of scrapbook paper. And then they had this whole line, they were really pushing the, these like post-its and tapes and different things. And the idea was that you would smash things in this book, receipts and stuff, they don't make them anymore.
I collect them now feverishly if I ever find them. But they discontinued it largely because I think they didn't leave enough room for people to be creative in it. They gave all of these things of this is how you do
Kate Shepherd: Right.
Rachel Phillips: But regardless, I was in . I bought the SMASH book, I brought it home, and I.
The very first page, of course I still have it. It's a letter to this baby, which ended up being two babies. We didn't know it at the time.
so I was writing to my two unborn baby sons and then it just started, happening every day would add something. This is where you live, this is the town you live in. And, oh, let me tell you about this time when I lived in a little cabin in the woods and I was having so much fun recounting my own childhood and what I wanted to give this baby. The stories just kept flowing.
Near the end of this twin pregnancy. I was quite large and had lots of time to craft and people would come and check on me and I would show them what I was working on. And I started getting this real feeling that people were touched in a way that was different the universal response was like, this is really special.
And then it was like I wish I had done this. I wish my mom had , I wish I had something like this. I took all that in. I absorbed all that and the babies were born.
And then we very quickly had another baby, and I had three little teeny tiny boy energy balls in my home. Looking for what I wanted to remember from every day, even the really hard days I'm so thankful that I did it because I look back and even then it was almost like they became our bedtime stories and still when they don't feel good, they were asked to look through the heart journals.
It's like looking back through archives of our life. There's photographs and artwork, and I oftentimes will interview them. I'll interview people in our family or take something like a birth and ask different people their accounts of that day. There's this abundance of perspectives on one moment.
Gosh, if we had that in history,
We just get fed this one version of something if we could get different accounts from everyone that what was happening in their own homes, I really just think that we would all not be so gloomy
Kate Shepherd: My kids are seven and 10 right now. When my son was first born, my God, he was the love of my life. Those of us who've had children know that feeling of just you love them more than anything else in the world.
I got this beautiful Italian leather bound journal and I would write to him every day these love letters, until he was probably about six months old. And then I just got tired and then my other kid came and she doesn't even have a journal and. , I feel even with the photographs like I keep meaning to do one of those online.
Like just upload my photos and print them. Cuz all of our photos are not even real photos anymore. Mostly. So the person who's feeling like grief, cuz it feels like a little bit of grief, I'm feeling around, I missed that chance.
Rachel Phillips: I, I work with so many people that feel that way, and I feel that way about so many things I never wrote anything down about my wedding or even going back. Through my childhood. I have these stories in my head and it's, it is a different and just as beautiful journey to go back.
There's so many different ways and I'm happy to share them
Kate Shepherd: could you give us a couple prompts of how to, how somebody could go back.
Rachel Phillips: for instance just recently I thought, I really wanna go back and do my wedding. Oh, I wish I had saved those menus and if I knew what I knew now. One of the things that I have people do is utilize the internet. Maybe you don't have a map of the place, but you can type in pine River Ranch, Leavenworth, Washington Images. Oh, there's the barn we got married in. Perfect. I'll print that out. And by the way, when I say print, I'm saying print on my home. Printer. I print all my photos out on paper. When you see them in my journals, those are all just cheap printer paper.
I find that they blend in a little bit better than painting over a glossy photo. If I have old photos from my childhood, I'll photocopy them. I have a decent printer, but before then, I would go to my local library and they allowed 10 , colored prints a day free. There's also, there's so many different ways that you can print photos cheaply online, but if you don't have a photo, sometimes I'll sketch a memory what does that little mosque castle look like When I, when you know, what is it in my mind? And I'll do a little sketch. or I might tear out a picture in a book that reminds me of something.
Put that on the page and write whatever comes up. I call it waterfall memory. When you close your eyes and you remember, what do I remember from that day? Oh, he was six. Oh gosh. Okay, now I'm remembering he always wore those dinosaur sweatpants. I'm just gonna write down that. And that reminds me, oh, remember that time we went to the beach?
What beach was that? I'm gonna print out a picture of that you. If you don't have it, you can look for it online. Oftentimes people upload their own photos. You could print out a map of that place. My mind sometimes just goes bonkers. Thinking about the possibilities
of what you can do.
Kate Shepherd: do you, cover that in the class, the online class that you mentioned,
Rachel Phillips: yes , I have how I organize things and what to grab and the four different ways that I do my heart journaling. I also run a mentorship every year with a group of women. We create pages together and I've just started offering private online mentoring, and that's where we can really dive into personal projects. So many of the women that, and actually I have worked with, I have worked with a man A man. And my husband's doing it now too. But I would say primarily women come with these, like it's regret, like they, they feel regretful that they didn't do, I have all these photos and boxes and I just, I need to get them done.
And we work through it. What it will look like, how we can get there. Identifying roadblocks how to use what they have. And there's so much guaranteed in your home right now that you can make the journal of your dreams the archive of your dreams just with what you.
Kate Shepherd: And if you had to sum it up, what is the yearning to do that? , obviously, we have the yearning to do it so much that we regret it when we don't do it. Where does it come from in us? What is it we're trying to do? Or what is it creativity is trying to do through us in that process?
Rachel Phillips: One of the first pages that I, wrote when I was thinking about what heart journaling was when I started my mentorship. It said most of my life is done without witness sewing last minute Halloween costumes, packing lunches and slippers, tossing another load in the wash, frosting a cake as they sleep, posting reward flyers for missing stuffed animals.
But oh the gift of living it. And this is why I Heart journal, to have a witness to it all, to tell the world that I was here. I saw, I felt, I loved, I found the feather in your pocket. I was here and I just know that there is power in story and it's more than, It's more than just words.
It's more than just a photograph. I want the words and the photographs to, and the art and the creating of it. It's why we're alive, like the very first part of our conversation. It's it has to come out of my mind and into a page so that I can show them , I'm more than just a mom.
I have these feelings and these inspirations and dreams for you, for me, for us, for the world. Some of the journal pages I have are about world things too, and I wanna talk about all of that in a way that is different. It's noticing, being inspired and then moving that through in my own way. There's that quote that says we've all seen a painting of a flower, but we've never seen a painting of a flower by you. . And that's how I feel about my own storytelling, is telling the boys that if you looked up this date right now this is what the world would have you believe is the only thing that is happening right now.
But this is what's happening in our house. At the same time that these things are happening we are important things to pay attention to, but we are also building gardens and being together and both of those things are true at the same time.
Kate Shepherd: What would you say is what you notice the most about the transformation journey that someone goes on when they start to do this work?
Rachel Phillips: Before I really did think it was about teaching the journaling the transformation that I have gone on through teaching, getting feedback from everyone is that it's actually about noticing your life. So it's a moment that before maybe would pass by without true intention of noticing that, oh, that's a beautiful moment.
That's something I want to remember. Maybe I'll take a picture of that. Or maybe it's not a picture, but maybe it's just, I'm gonna write down what they said cuz it made me smile. And it doesn't have to be about a child. Many things that I write down are about people that I. and it's a reminder there's so many incredible people in the world.
The man in the red sweatshirt that I see walk his dog every day long beard and looks like he just rolled out of bed. Turns out he's an Oscar winning screen. Right. I'm gonna write about that that was fascinating. It's such a practice of reminding myself all of these amazing things are happening every day. If we truly notice, and I think a lot of people aren't to the point where they can just sit down and whip out a journal and remember, and maybe the first step is, why don't we think about. what You noticed today that you wanna take a picture of. And maybe tonight we'll do a writing exercise where we make a list of what are all the things that you're listening to. And know, that becomes a practice. And they're like, oh okay, I see. And all of those things shape your day.
Everything that you're consuming from what you're eating and listening and where you're going. And when you start to notice that it really changes the way you feel and you wanna add more goodness. it does change things.
Kate Shepherd: Brilliant. I was actually just talking to a friend before we got on this call about how I asked him, what are you focusing on right now? And he was like what do you mean? And I said cuz in your life in general. Whatever you're focusing on, you're gonna get more of because. that's how it works. If you're constantly just looking at the stream on your social media or you're rushing to one meeting to the next, or to work or whatever and all these magical moments are being unseen because you're not focused on them, it doesn't mean that they're not there. It just means that you're not focusing on them.
And so what you're talking about doing is cultivating a practice where you are intentionally casting your focus on things that generate. Joy and happiness and fulfillment and abundance and you can do that just by choosing to look at them and pay attention to them and honor them, and then archive them in the way that you're talking about.
I think it it's such important work that you're doing. I'm so glad you're teaching people how to do this.
Rachel Phillips: you.
Kate Shepherd: Thank you for doing it.
So if you had a magic wand and you could wave it over society and it would support people in the arts to be more creative, what would you change at a systemic.
Rachel Phillips: phones. Screens in general. People would rather live watching other people's lives than what they are thinking. I see it. I see it with kids. That's the first thing that, that I think of is We're not giving children this space to play. Everything that I hold the most dear is rooted in imagination.
We didn't have cell phones when I was younger, but there was this beginning of plugging kids into things, and my parents were feverishly allergic to it, and as I was getting older, I felt that we were, I knew that we were different.
I knew. I was interested in what these other kids were. What is this T G I F on Friday night that everyone speaks of? I'm gonna watch Full House and Family Matters, I'm so thankful now that I was given some boundaries around that. You can watch T G I F when you're at your friend's house, but that's not what we're doing here.
We're chopping wood
Kate Shepherd: Yeah, I have I have that. Struggle. My, my kids' dad and I split up a couple years ago and I was always a very like no screens, from the time they were little, like even if we were at a restaurant, I would turn the six month old baby away. I was just really, that was, I was really clear about that.
And the minute we split up, like a week later when it was my turn to take them, they both showed up at my house with iPads and I was like, what did you do? We agreed. And he was like, I never agreed. You always said, and I was like, ah. So now. , they do that. And actually he's coming full circle cuz he realizes , when my kids are at my house, they just know that it's a no.
They get 30 minutes a day if they've done X, Y, Z. And then beyond that it's just a no. And so one thing about that is that they just don't push me because they know it's a no. But then the magical thing happens is that there's the angsty like anger and rare slamming around when they get the no, especially when they're in a transition.
But then this thing happens right afterwards. They are with their boredom for a minute, and then they figure out what they're gonna do. And it's really cool to watch and we, I actually come right out and talk to 'em about how your brain is like a flower and it hasn't opened yet. And when you subject yourself to all this YouTube bullshit, all these weird videos and app people who are famous for being the most inna characters you could imagine, like I, the, some of the stuff they listen to.
When you expose yourself to that all the time, you're stopping that flower from being able to fully open. And you don't have to like it right now, but this is what we're doing. Cuz my job is to make sure that your flower fully opens . But it is, it's like swimming upstream, it really is a tricky one that the screen
Rachel Phillips: I write about this a lot because I, say that my early childhood was very, a very magical childhood for me. I had one foot in the real world. But then most of me was in imagination world. I dove into books and we had this little creek that went through our property and we would be making these elaborate houses and dolls
but as I got older, I'm thinking more in terms of like junior high and high school. know a lot of artists will, their storyline is that they felt different and that they didn't belong. And I felt different, but I actually felt like I belonged everywhere. . I wanted to do all the things. I wanted to play softball and be on student council.
And I wanted all of it and I was very fascinated by these things, these other things that kids got to do. I still remember that feeling. So I'm trying to be very aware now that my children are getting a little bit older. My twins are nine, Finnegan is six. And they're, I'm seeing them coming out of their world that I created for them.
And the words that I use, the language I use. I'm really trying to be intentional in my journal about working through these feelings for me, because I don't want to say the world is bad and scary. I know that like my husband and I talk all the time, part of us, we tap into the matrix for a minute and then we come back to our little world and cocoon up and say okay, that was intense, but we don't I, we have a tv I watch football. Like we're, we have a balance of the two. I just, I also remember feeling , actual sadness. When I first watched I think it was like the P B S Narnia movie, which is very sweet by the way. But I had such vivid. Visualizations in my mind about what those characters looked at from reading those books.
And I remember when they showed me what their version was, feeling an actual no
Kate Shepherd: I know
Rachel Phillips: that's not what the fun looks like. And, so I do try to, no matter what, cultivate imagination in my children's world because I think that. The phone, the getting back to your question, the phones, it's not just kids.
That's where I was going with that is that it's actually so much worse to see the on a school pickup line on a beautiful day that 90% of the parents are in their vehicle alone on their phone. when that is a moment where you can connect with the natural world with a human there's so many opportunities there are for inspiration and happiness and true connection, and most people are opting out of that. You see it everywhere.
That would be the wand wave. It's like everyone, let's look up
Kate Shepherd: I think you're helping that happen with the work that you're doing with these journals. If somebody wanted to take this class, where should they go online?
Rachel Phillips: My playground of choice is Instagram. That is where I do the most connecting,
rachel Phillips three.
Kate Shepherd: We'll also put all this in the show notes for everybody. I'll put links to your classes and we'll make sure that so if listening to this and you're like, I gotta take Rachel's class, which you do and I want to too, I'm going to you'll have all the links for that.
and I'm sure you know about the the billboard question that I ask at the end of every show.
Rachel Phillips: I love the billboard.
kate shepherd: I wanted to tell you about the word that I chose for today's show, which is adventure.
Rachel Phillips: I love that so much.
kate shepherd: What came up for me when I looked at this word at the end of this conversation that we just had was that I was thinking about the adventure that somebody might go going back and, and creating some of these journals for past parts of their lives how that could be an adventure that you could go on. And then through that process, you learn how to be in and of the world in a different way doing the things that you're talking about, like waiting in the school line and or, or on a bus and you, I never ride the bus anymore and I have my little transfer ticket. I'm gonna put that in there. And you're, you, there's like this sense of adventure now, and it's almost like you have a mission. It's like you're looking for your little treasures on the treasure hunt of life and your focus changes.
And so that was what all that came up for me when I, when I looked at adventure. Now on this end of our conversation, but I wanted to ask you, what, what comes up for you when, when I say adventure?
Rachel Phillips: The whole time you were talking, I was clapping. I was thinking of my favorite ways to take adventures, which is. No planning . My husband and I, we love to just get in the car and go. It always, ends up being that you experience things that you're supposed to experience. Heart journaling oftentimes it starts out with either an event or a picture, and I always start with that inspiration and then just let it happen. And that's where this creativity comes into play of just letting yourself play.
Start with some color on the page and then, oh, maybe I'll snip out a, a flower outta this magazine if it reminds me. This is a, a photo for my childhood. Why don't I text my mom and ask her what she remembers from this photo That starts everything rolling and you end up in a destination where you couldn't have planned it.
Most of the time it's so much better than you could have planned, places that you end up staying. This is thinking of my road trips with my husband, like where you just, you can't look at it online and find it, it just happens. You meet someone who tells you, oh, you have to go to this place.
The adventure is living your life in a completely go with the flow sort of way where you are going towards things that feel good and away from things that don't, and you're dressing in things that make you happy. You are tapping into feeling playful heart journaling is such a supportive practice to that of it's not always going back and journaling past sometimes I really talk about the future.
I have journals where I have talked in detail about the types of property that I wanted to live on, and I'm living on it now the words that I said specifically would happen have happened, and part of that's putting it out in the universe and the hard work comes behind it it is magical to, to look back and to read those words of intention and see that, that it really truly
kate shepherd: I can't wait to take your class honest, like hand on my
Rachel Phillips: Oh, I hope you do. I hope you.
kate shepherd: . I feel an overwhelming need to do it. I'm going to thank you. I wanna ask you the billboard question now too. So if you had a billboard, big blank, huge. It can be as big as you want, you knew that every single person in the world who longed to connect with this intelligence we're talking about the intelligence that tells you yes, no, and ideas and inspiration and gut instinct and all of this wonderful stuff.
audioKateShepherd11979566159: We've been talking about the yearning to connect with that. But something in them tells them, well, but that's for other people. I, not everybody has that gift, and I, I, I don't, I'm one of the people that doesn't have the gift. But you knew that the words on this billboard. Actually get their attention and drop into their heart and open the possibility for them that they do have it in them.
What would the words be that you would put on the billboard?
Rachel Phillips: There are beautiful things in your life happening right now. Notice them and tell about them.
kate shepherd: Thank you so much for coming today. I'm so glad Whidbey is so close. I cannot wait to come down again and visit Meredith and see you and hang out with you guys.
audioKateShepherd11979566159: I can't wait.
Rachel Phillips: always welcome.
audioKateShepherd11979566159: Thank you so much. Is there anything I missed? Is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't, that you wanna say right now,
Rachel Phillips: I wanna say 7 million things now, but I will save it for another time. I can talk all day
about this. I love it so much.
Thank you so much, for everything that you are doing.
kate shepherd: Thank you.
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