The Intersection of Creativity, Faith & Wellness

Finding yourself at the intersection of creativity, faith and wellness leads to interesting discoveries that have the power to change how you face the life you live and impact the road you take along your journey. Is there coincidence in faith? Does the divine have a sense of humor and curiosity in timing? How does each of these components wind its way through our life's story? Listen in to learn more about one gal's journey of struggle, creativity, joy, pain, loss, discovery, faith and overcoming so much on A Beautifully Curated Life Podcast by CarolineAnd.Co

Transcript

Caroline Morey: 0:01

Hey, there! On A Beautifully Curated Life Podcast, today we'll be talking about finding yourself at the intersection of creativity, faith and wellness. Listen as I share my creative journey that led me to dive deeper back into exploring my own faith, and the clarity to face illness head on and overcome it. How I went about making the changes to live the life that I have now, and to help others. This is Caroline Morey with a beautifully curated life podcast. We talk strategy and story to learn how you can design the life you desire with more of what you love, and less of all the rest. Listen in each week as we guide you and provide inspiration and education along your wellness and wonder journey. Hi there friends, I'm Caroline Morey your host on a beautifully curated life. I'm a professional photographer, event designer and media strategist with over 25 years experience. I'm also a breast cancer survivor. My job title here is chief awesome officer and creative coach and curator at CarolineAnd.Co and founder of A Beautifully Curated Life Podcast and Brand. I'm a beach girl at heart, native California and by way of Texas in New York, a businesswoman with solid experience serving fortune 100 companies and entrepreneurs. My passion is advocating to design the life you desire with more of what you love, and less of all the rest. I story really begins at the intersection of creativity, faith and wellness after a massive life setback, facing breast cancer and becoming a breast cancer survivor. That experience and the journey changed my life ultimately for the better. It was also the catalyst for how Karolina and CO and a beautifully curated life came to be. It led to reinvention, a pivot in my business and dramatic changes in the ways of wellness, wonder and faith story. Most of my career I've had the privilege of working in a professional creative capacity or role. I went to film school and NYU in New York City. during school I worked for editorial photographers I learned studio management in photo assisting and I had the opportunity to work with so many well known people in New York City. Some of my favorite moments were meeting Gloria Steinem for the MS magazine 25th anniversary photoshoot. Working on films, and still images behind the scenes. I had the opportunity while still in school to photograph and Off Broadway play with Anthony Rapp, Robert Sean Leonard and Elizabeth Shue, Robert Sean Leonard had recently been in Dead Poets Society and I was a fan girl. I worked for photo production agencies where I learned about fine tuning the logistics of shoots for Vogue, and New York Fashion Week, I worked in stock photography agencies libraries, where I learned a tremendous amount about order. cataloging and licensing rights are cataloged and keyworded. When keywording was developing, it was a new thing for major projects, companies such as McDonnell Douglas Aircraft, and then also ironically, cataloging birds from all over the western United States. The work wasn't leaping tall buildings in a single bound, but it was fascinating and my curious brain was aflame with all the possibilities. I worked with magazines where I honed my editing craft for find my story making an elevated my sense of design and layout. It gave me a good taste of the industry and so many options. So I knew that I loved the industry and I wanted to do something within it. As a young person I'd also taught aerobics. Yes, as in like Olivia Newton-John, Lets Get Physical. I wore leg warmers like Flashdance and I loved it. I love dance and I love movement. The taste of sales and fashion fun, especially came into being while I was working in college in SOHO, the neighborhood South of Houston for the non-New Yorkers. It was a fun experience because of awesome friends that I made mostly who loved to go dancing. Late in the evenings after work in the West Village. It was time to be curious and to explore all sides of art and creativity. And like most, I worked in retail, sometimes at a boutique store. Sometimes at a fitness store. One of them sold leotards and then later I worked at a wellness publication. I started a magazine with a friend and that featured various Urban Health interests as the wellness scene was just burgeoning and it was a great time to be connected and learning as we went along. I explored vegetarianism. After finding I seem to have dairy allergies, and it just made me curious to try different options. Also having family who'd been through cancer. It really got me thinking as a young person, how doing whatever we can to make our bodies stronger and healthier, and to help it along, is worth exploring. And doing the world of working in photography was so exciting and fun. And I love the avenues that it took me down. It led to adventures in wellness publishing, which allowed me to meet, interview, taste, test and gain education on so many sides of wellness sectors, from holistic practitioners to vegetarian foods to dance and exercise and fitness studios. And some of the alternative practitioners who work really intrigued me. It gave me a taste of business with a mentor early on, and he reminded us that whatever that we're doing, we're in the business of sales and marketing. And by staying clear on that path, we could share our message and help others that were out there. In regard to my faith journey, I had an interesting road that led to an away from faith. Mine started out with a clear trajectory growing up in a big Italian family, I was raised Roman Catholic, but somewhere along the way, maybe around losing my dad when I was 1314. Ish, the angsty questioning teen years where I just didn't like the fact that the words and the actions weren't aligned. Or more than that, that they just seemed downright hypocritical. It made me feel like I was losing my religion. And it wasn't until much later in life, that I found God entered back into my story. As an artist, there was so much questioning and such exploration, learning of other faiths and trying to understand and make sense of it in the big picture as I became who I was, and found autonomous sense of myself, and how I still felt a reference and a connection to God, but just not within the walls of the structure that didn't fit many of the people and things I believe that mattered. My faith and belief seem to wind in and out through my teen years, and into my early 20s. But through the hardest parts of my story, it seemed like God really showed up. And he carried me through facing my mom's illness with breast cancer, the years of my life after where I lost my mom. And also through the years when I was a teen and my dad had passed away, suddenly, there was a time when we were at home and my brother had asked if some people who were friends of his in a youth group could come over and pray for my mom and lift her up in song worship in prayer. And I remember thinking that it just seems strange to me at the time that strangers would want to come over on a weekend night to hang out with us. But they did. They came over. And they played an acoustic guitar and all their voices, they saying there were like 20 or so people. And there was worship music and there was prayer. And I remember just feeling sort of surprised that these random strangers would want to hang out and be with us and pray for my mom. And for our family through something like this through cancer. It was really hard, not fun, and just really hard to deal with. But something happened in that room, there was prayer, and the song penetrated layers of a hard exterior in my heart and it really hit my soul. It lifted me It brought forth tears and it soothes my soul. And despite the hard parts, we felt a newer coming with my mom's terminal diagnosis. Somehow there was just a sense of peace and a sense of calm. Mom and I had long talks about this faith and the gift of knowing and trusting and making most of the time she had still left which turned out to just be weeks. My mom encouraged me to do what I loved. And that led me to photography and sharing creativity, mentoring and teaching art and so much more. She said when this is over, promise me you'll go back to what you love. And as hard as it was to hear her say it like that. I knew it was my job to do the work in life that I loved and was passionate about, which was photography, the arts and helping people. After taking off a couple of months to travel right explore Europe and light candles at each Cathedral for my mom, I got back to work. I took that time to explore, build my brand and travel extensively. Last sometimes leads us to a place realizing just how valuable each and every moment is. And a lot of healing happened in those moments in between. I've made my next chapter about capturing these moments in life working as a commercial photographer and a wedding photographer and working for all sorts of individuals. I also taught art to kids - as well as teaching drawing, painting, sculpture and mosaics. I just love the arts! Theyre in my soul. And I loved expressing myself help other people finding the way and sharing that there were so many beautiful, inspiring healing moments along the journey. Helping others see the world, share creativity and remember moments that were all too soon gone, they helped heal me. Fast forward 21 years later, after finding a lump on my mammogram and facing my own double mastectomy, and reconstruction over several surgeries. Because of my family history, a more aggressive stance was taken, throwing yet another curveball into what was supposed to be the time in my life where I was going to be building a family with my husband. Well, this news was incredibly difficult to process the fact that I had done the testing about five months earlier than usual, during this year, as a part of our medical exams to foster to adopt, there was a strange sense of coincidence to the timing and thankfulness, that God had us on a journey, and he would lead us through it during this time, I'd made several friends. And it was really interesting, who showed up in my life, I had a really great friend who I met, coincidentally, at church. She was there as a speaker, and she had her own ministry coming from originally Muslim faith and converting to Christianity. And she shared the story about the braveness. (Bravery!) And leaving a really difficult situation and just how strong her faith was. It took her time and time again, and reading and learning and discovering what it meant to her. And so she was there when I got this news about my diagnosis. And she just had an incredible sense of calm and presence and peace, and really helped guide me and support me. And then as I was getting further along the way, I made friends with the nurse who ended up showing in the OR, she also went to my church, and I was starting to go Gosh, it's like such a strange coincidence. Is it a coincidence? What is it really my next door neighbor had been through this same experience when she was in her 30s because she had lost her mom to breast cancer. And after a very similar story, she shared with me all she had been through, she was a huge support. And then many of my former clients who I had worked with and share their wedding day share their memories. One of them sent me a note saying you gave me my memories. And I wanted to turn around and do something kind for you. And so I was just surrounded by so much love and support in my community. After my diagnosis, I sat down at the sand at Woods Cove in Laguna Beach, and I watched the waves. And I just sat really still. And I talked to God. And I said I don't understand this, I don't understand or know how I could be going through this. After all I've been through with my mom, I'm just going to trust you. I also prayed that through this, God would just be with me. And that he would help me to let go of the fear that he would help me to find the strength and the peace that I needed along the way to get through this. And so I remember a few days later, I got into my car. And oddly enough, this audio just came on with a booming voice like James Earl Jones. And it said, Be still and know that I am God. And now I think to myself, I'm a pretty tech savvy girl. And honestly, I have never used this app. I've never used the audio on it. And it was really freaking me out that this just came on. So when this feature just busted out over my car audio telling me to be still and know that I am God and it sounded like the voice of God Himself speaking to me I had to do a double take and be sure that no one was playing with me because this seems straight out of Punked. So I stopped and I pulled over and I looked at what was going on and I listened. I played it again and making sure just listening that I decided right then and there that I would just be still and I would just know and I would just trust and I made the decision that I would just get clear that making living and surviving my priority and taking it day by day by day. After the cancer diagnosis, I got laser clear on the idea that my only goal in the present moment was to focus on staying alive and doing everything I could in my power to bolster my strength to let go of all the stress. And as a self confessed triple type A personality that was absolutely no small feat, and set the stage for self care. As I was going to be facing a rigorous and aggressive treatment plan, I knew that my faith and creativity would be put into overdrive as I focused on staying attuned to God's voice, and using my energy to creatively craft a plan to structure that supported me, and established a multi pronged wellness approach that included my mind, my body, my soul, my spirit, my creativity, and heart, food, nutrition movement, beautiful spaces that would inspire and make me feel okay to provide for my psychological, emotional and physical well being. And talking with my care team, the things that I did, they worked and they worked well as they set me up for strong successful surgeries, treatment and several procedures. My healing, my doctor said was very well paced faster than usual, with strong resourcefulness that allowed me to heal, rebound and pivot into the next chapter of my life, a breast cancer survivor of foster mom, and a full time business woman here to help others. So getting clear in my mind, clearing the stress, adding in meditation, mindfulness, it was so important, you often hear people talk when they're dealing with cancer, about all the things that they're having to do to fight their own body. And so I think it's really important to remember that fighting yourself is counter intuitive to healing. And I really spent some time thinking about that. It's so important just creating space for prayer for sacred spaces, whether it's in your home or somewhere you go to I made the spaces mine made my garden and places in my home somewhere that I could just be with calm and presence and spirit. And then I had to look at my body, I had to look at facing what was going to be happening with the changes ahead. And the doctors had told me that I had to lose 20 pounds before the surgery so that my risk factors for complications would be lower. I'll talk a little bit more to about some of the changes I made, the steps I took and what I did so that I was able to do that successfully so that I could be the strongest, healthiest person to go through this process. I'll share more on the resources and the tools that I used. And just really focusing on soul, spirit, creativity and heart. In the weeks ahead, I'll be sharing more about the process, which coincidentally takes me kind of back, it takes me back and it reminded me of some of the things that I learned as a photographer and as an artist to simplify the picture, to bring out what's most important - I later coin this process along my Cull Curate and Collaborate approach. I went through a process in my life of culling down everything that didn't matter the things that didn't serve me right then and there, the things I didn't need, and stuff that just took up space but wasn't useful. And then paring down my entire life just to those elements. curating really thinking about your life from a gallery perspective, only choosing the parts, and the people who you really love and who you want to hold space. And then collaborating, getting the help I needed. Asking for help from others outsourcing delegating, and being vulnerable because it was hard to ask. It just made sense this time, and it made space and it helped me It gave me all clarity, letting go. It gave me peace, making the choice to seek help connected me with my family and the community resources that served me well and allowed me to conserve my energy for the act of healing and moving forward. It allowed me to get strong and to rebuild my life to share my story and to help others. I was grateful during this time to feel God's presence. I look forward to sharing more stories and details with you each week about how these elements have interwoven into my transformation and the joy that I get to share part of my healing and wellness and wonder journey. I really felt through this process that sharing my story was of the utmost importance. I hope that it impacts you and it helps you through whatever you're going through, whether that's illness or setback or just some challenges in life. I hope that you will in turn, share your stories with us, find us on Instagram or find us on Facebook or on Pinterest. We would love to hear from you and know how you're doing along the way and we wish you well and we'll see you again here on the podcast. If you could use a little bit more inspiration or motivation along your journey, visit us at www.abeautifullycuratedlife.com and sign up to be a VIP get to be in the know on all the latest in coaching, wellness, creativity and faith. You're also invited to hang with us and check out our stories on Instagram at Karolina and Co. Hey friends! This is Caroline Morey from a beautifully curated life. We hope you enjoyed listening today. And if you need a little bit of inspiration or a Kickstart to keep you going come on over to a beautifully curated life.com where we have some great freebies, some workbooks and online education on the topics of movement, meditation, your wellness and wonder journey, as well as coaching and creativity. We also have some cool tools for branding, photography and imaging for your business. And when you need a little break from it all and you're just ready to get away some great ideas for adventure and grounding to round things out. So we hope you'll visit us www.abeautifullycuratedlife.com. Hope you all have a great day and we will look forward to seeing you on the podcast soon. Take care