Susan Hensley on The Coaching Corner with Dori DeCarlo

0:00 She is sure, she is sure, she is strong, she is true, is true, she is brave, she is she is you. She is she is she is sure, she is true, she is strong. She is strong, she is true, is true, she is brave, is bray, she is. She is you. Hello, everyone, Welcome to today's Word of Mom Radio. Here on the Word of Mom Media Network. I'm your host, Dori Di Carlo, and you know we are here week after week, show after show, breaking those myths that entrepreneurs and business women, especially those of us building our businesses from home, that we're just dabbling in between big sales and getting our nails done. We're not. We are smart, we are savvy, and we are sharing the wisdom of women in business and in life. And I'm looking forward to bringing today's guest into our coaching corner. Susan Hensley is a transformational coach, speaker, and author dedicated to helping people navigate life's transitions with joy, creativity, and resilience. With decades of experience as a corporate and executive leadership coach, Susan has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities that come with major life changes. Drawing on her extensive background in HR coaching and journalism. Susan's mission is to empower people to unlock their inner wisdom, creativity, and sense of play during times of uncertainty and change. Through workshops,

1:34 speaking engagements, and one on one coaching, Susan guides clients to rediscover their authentic selves and infuse their lives with more color, meaning, and joy. A global adventurer at heart, Susan has lived in various cities across the United States, as well as Hong Kong and London. She currently resides in Austin, Texas with her family, and when she's not coaching or writing, you can find her play her next travel adventure, having visited more than one hundred countries to date. Such an interesting background, and I can keep going, but I would much rather bring Susan in. So, with all that being said, Susan, welcome to Word of Mom Radio.

2:16 Oh thank you, Doria. It is terrific to be here. I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to our conversation me too, And I. Have to tell you, you know, and looking at the things that you are doing and everything else. I would love for you to take us on your journey and talk to us about how you have transitioned into everything you're doing now. I believe transitions. They may appear sudden in some cases, but I think they build slowly the ones that we are interested in making. You know, it's glimmers at different times. Quite honestly, I thought I would stay in that corporate job. I'd still be working there right now. And you know, as life happens, and the job stopped fitting, and then the pandemic happened, and I was still working in the job really stopped fitting, and I recognized that other things were calling me and it was time to go on my own. I had had two very different careers, one in television journalism and one largely in HR, but in other capacities as well, in the corporate world, and it was time for one of those those big leaps. And I ironically it is so funny, because to me it's funny.

3:35 But I think when we reflect on our lives and we see those patterns that lead us places, you don't feel the pattern building. And it's not until we look back at how we move through transitions that you see all the little nuggets, if you will, or the little clues along the way. That lead you to where you are. And I took up art journaling as a hobby. I never thought it would be anything more. And we'll talk in a moment about what it is other than a way for me to play and relieve stress. I never envisioned that it would eventually become actually cornerstone to a new business. And I think probably many of your listeners who look for freedom and flexibility in building their businesses and how they do it, take something that sparks some joy or some interest and recognize that maybe they can mold it into this stage of their life and what.

4:35 They want now. You mentioned art journaling as we were talking about earlier. I love to journal. I go through spurts, my journaling spurts. But I love to color. I always wanted to be able to draw. Not much of an artist that way, other than abstract stuff, but I love to color, love mandalas. Whenever I got sick, that's what I would do. Stuck in bed, out came my art pencils and my special marker and my bag. And so I would love for you to talk about what art journaling is and how you're using it for transitions in mindfulness and processing emotions and things like that. I think it's fascinating.

5:16 I've been a lifelong written journaler and I still enjoy that. And what I found is that when I wrote, it would be pretty linear and pretty logical. Right, there's your day. Sometimes I put where I am, you know what I've been thinking about. Sometimes you end up even with lists, is my mind would wander. So although I have really been a lifelong written journaler, I never played with art. I didn't view myself When a kid, I played with art, but as an adult I wasn't even doing what you were doing in on a This is years ago. Now. I had a coworker who had a whole side hustle as an artist, really talented, and you know how folks are.

5:56 You stand around at work and everyone says, oh, I'm not artist. She's like, I'll teach you guys a few things like rainy Saturday. Go over to her house and she's teaching us about the color will And I'm sort of in the corner and I start just playing with paint and I make this brown mess. But it was fantastic. I literally felt like my inner five year old hume to life. It was pure fun and pure joy. And it was a mess on the page, but I recognized, you know, raising a family and the kind of work I was doing. The mess sort of as a reflection, if you will, of how I felt inside and being a little bit of a perfectionist back in the day.

6:37 Or I try to recover and you get hooked. I realized I didn't need to sort of clean up that mess, and so I kept going back. I got home and got myself just some crayons and just would play no purpose, but in a journal sized book, right. Or sometimes i'd be cooking or you know, literally waiting for water to boil, instead of picking up my phone and scrolling a color for just a few minutes. And I use really inexpensive tools. And I want to give this big tip now because I know our conversation will get more into what it is. One of the keys for silencing your inner critic and using art journaling for play and self discovery and processing emotions is to use the tools you loved as a kid.

7:27 So if you loved crayons, if you love the big fat glue sticks, if you love the funny pace that some kids even ate, right, use that because that really helps to silence that inner critic we have and keeps you in a place of play. So I mean when I started playing, and so I didn't coin the term art journaling, but if you look it up, it can actually mean some different things. That can mean a way for artists. And I use these air quotes to develop some skills. I really use it in the way you keep a diary or journal to process. And so it's about play and mess And then when you I got curious as to why it was giving me so many insights and so much wisdom when I would look at it and helping me process emotions. I started to look and see what research was out there, and I was really fortunate that several great books have been written recently about what happens to our brain when we're doing something artistic, and it's moving to that right side of our brain, that holistic, intuitive, creative, peaceful side. And that's why I kept going back to it. It was a form of stress relief. It was a way to unhook from rigid patterns, which I just initially did it as a pure hobby, like when we are drawn to something we love it. Eventually, in my coaching practice, I recognized I really wanted to bring this in to help people through transitions, because it

8:59 was my art journal that told me it was time to leave the corporate job. I had a bunch of images of people winding roads and people jumping off cliffs, and it's like, what is my subconscious telling me, and what does this really look like. It's so interesting to me because as adults we so often forget how to just have fun. I joke with my grandkids that I'm seventeen in my soul is when I take them to the park, I'm on the slides with them, I'm playing with them, and I'm watching other parents and grandparents look at me like so confused that on a rainy day, we put on our boots and we'll go out and we puddle jump. And my son yelled at me, I can't believe you're teaching him to puddle jump. I said, who taught you to puddle jump?

9:45 He goes, yeah, you're right, and he started jumping in puddles again. We lose things as we get older, and I think, especially doing something like this and combining journaling with art, it really does help you tap back to that inner child that was fearless back in the day where you thought you could be anything, and then as we get older, we talk ourselves out of that. So I want to ask, how does having play incorporate into adult creativity and help with all of that. I love everything you just said because play is what ignites it. Play is, if you will the ground swell.

10:29 It's the fertile ground from which all creativity grows. There is nothing that kills creativity like someone saying be creative when all of a sudden right and you feel that freeze when we are open. So what play does imediately moves us to a state of joy, of curiosity, of wonder. It gets us out of our heads. There's obviously the mental health benefits. Immediately reduces stress, releases you know, dopamine, some serotonin, all the things that we take pills to help us do. Some play unleashes that and then when you do reconnect with that inner child and curiosity opens up.

11:19 That's where that ground for curiosity and creativity follows. You just sort of follow where it goes and versus you know, sitting at a desk saying I have to do this. The example I actually love best for people about the unlock of art, journaling or any kind of play is how many times have you been stuck and something you get in the shower, right? I mean the two don't have to happen, and you're just water whatever, showering, and all of a sudden the idea comes or the answer comes. It's because you freed your mind. You're doing ironically a physical experience, right, It's a somatic, sensory experience. That's what play is. That's what playing with art is. You're into your body and it really frees that creative spirit.

12:08 How can journaling be used as a tool to setting goals and achieving goals and still have that creativity come into play. Yeah, so that's a great question because if we hold our goals. So I like the idea of in an art journal, if you want to use it for goals, you create visualization or colors of what achieving the goal will feel like. Will it feel like the sun is beaming down on you and you have sunshine? Will it feel like you're floating? Right? So I try to get into with part of achieving a goal is that the feeling and the representation of the feeling. I draw a lot of suns. I mean really, I'm talking to circle yellow and things this is five year old art for me and floating because once you really attach to the feeling, then if you want, you can use your journal to outline steps and progress and celebrate it. But part of when you're in that play place is it decreases the rigidity and the fear we can have about achieving our goals. We talk a lot about how we self sabotage sometimes or how we get in our own way. I think if you are using your playing with art and you have the clear goal, you're going to whatever build your business to this, and it's going to feel this way, and I'm going to keep using some because that's really powerful for me, like

13:38 clouds part or you're at the top of a mountain, you can draw a mountain, or you're swinging whatever the image is, you know, and for a lot of women, the superwoman or some of those stances, so you know you can show a figure in victory. The more you represent that and you touch with the fiendling, the more it actually helps your motivation. You're disciplined because you're going off not just a goal of I should and I have to, which can be tight and clinching, but you've outlined the feeling you want, and it really it acts as an accelerator. So I think we're so good in our current society of project management and planning and really using our left brains, and busy busy moms are doing it all right. You are the massive projects planners. You've got fifty things going and fifty lists. When you can associate positive feelings and fun and positive reinforcement, it makes it all more pleasurable. The exhaustion you replenish faster. It helps you realize how resilient you are. So I think it's a really powerful tool for helping with goals, but I like to base it on the why you want the goal and the feelings you're experiencing.

14:56 On that note, think of what Susan just said. We're going to take a quick break, say thank you to our sponsors, and we'll be back here in just a moment. On Word of Mom Radio. She is brave, she is bold, she is you, and we want to tell your story. Are you ready to share your journey with us on Word of Mom Radio. Go to wordomomradio dot com and register as a guest. We want to tell your story because when you win, we all win. In twenty seventeen, Unsilenced Voices was formed to help survivors of domestic abuse and gender based violence worldwide. The organization currently serves Siri Leone, Rwanda, Ghana, and the USA. In twenty twenty two, Unsilenced Voices gifted over thirty three thousand dollars to survivors in the USA and in Siri Leone.

15:55 There are over twenty six young girls who have been rescued from sex traffic and domestic abuse and now going through vocational training school in order to better their lives. We need your help. Donations are critical in order for us to continue our work. We also need volunteers to help with research and development. Please visit Unsilenced Voices dot org for more information. And we're back here with Susan Hensley, and we are talking about the power of art journaling, which I find fascinating. And I have to ask you what does color psychology mean because so many people don't really understand it and how does it play a role in art journaling.

16:44 So colors move us. Color is the sort of language of the soul we all. I mean, one of the favorite questions we are talking about your grandkids. One of the favorite questions small children ask adults, is what is your favorite color? Right? It's so interesting how early in our lives we have favorites and then you ask why, Right, So I think what's interesting is color. And I use this phrase in my book and other times. Is the language of your soul. It moves you even before you are consciously processing what's happening. So, although there's a lot of psychological studies and we use words like blue as it can be tranquility, and green puts us in touch with nature. Red appears passion. Right if you think of all these different things, every one of those colors has sort of a flip side. Almost red can also be anger.

17:39 Blue can also be depressed. Right, I'm feeling blue if you think of how we use it, or I'm seeing red for anger, and yet it's the color of love. So when people are journal and I work with clients or in workshops, it's almost developing your own color key, right, like dry for example, what pink may mean to you may mean something different to me. Right, it is understanding how you view color and when you're drawn to certain colors on a day that's difficult, are you soothing yourself by using pale shades. Are you releasing by using bold shades and drawing lightning bolts? So what I enjoy about art journaling is it's yours and it's unique to you.

18:26 And what I've tried to do rather it's you know, online training or in the book, is get you to think deeply about what's happening in you and why you're making those choices, so that you can process what's the emotions you're feeling more quickly and not just beholding them inside, but you're processing them in a playful, safe container versus like exploding you know at kids or the mess. So it's also giving us a really healthy way to feel what we're feeling. Mentioned the flip side of blue, being feeling blue and anger and things like that. How can you use art journaling to navigate through greek and loss which so many of us are experiencing.

19:15 Yeah in the ass, and anxiety and just sort of fear that seems to be in our our times. I have found it really helpful because there's layers of emotions. We don't always have words. Some days, you know, I'll pick up say two crams or watercolor and they may be contrasting one right. One may be a purple and another an orange, and I'll scribble right, or I'll doodle some of my favorite things and just you know, I'm talking three four minutes to get it out. I'll draw a little screaming faces, whatever symbols I want. It creates this really safe release, if you will, because then you step back, you've felt what maybe you couldn't even give words to. It feels playful because you're doing it with smiley faces or emojis or screaming faces or lightning bolts.

20:07 Right assuming you know you're not fantastic artists, and that's a whole different thing. So you're using these child representations. And what's so great about the art journal is it safe on the page. It allows you to step back and recognize we're not our feelings right, our feelings pass through us, and look, it's all on the safe page. You can flip the page like truly flip the page and move on, and it holds the space. I go back through the years I've done this and look at some of my old journals. It's some of my most grief stricken times, and you know there'd be crying eyes or other things going on, and I have such empathy, and also I see the resilience and the movement through because different ways in grief. Some days with grief there's guilt.

20:54 Some days with grief there's anger, and it's not even some days it can all be at once right, guilt, anger, fear, sometimes shame depending on where the relationship was, sometimes regret. Right, they're it's all natural and normal components deep sadness. Like you know, this little stick figure just laying there covering or flat out on the ground, and it gives you, It allows you to almost mother yourself. It really stokes the self compassion we have, and that is so healing to be able to extend compassion to yourself, particularly in the grief process, to recognize what you are going through and have compassion. I talk a lot in art journaling that when you do your first images, and this goes on, you want to be your own proud parent. You want to think of how you act when your child shows you something. So you're creating this cycle of accepting whatever's on the page and actually admiring it for what it is.

22:00 Once again, it's just yours. It's just like a private journal. This is not something you're running around. You're not becoming an artist. It's a helpful tool to working through emotions and transitions in your life. Is it important to establish a consistency when you journal, especially doing art journaling, or is it just something that you can go in and out of the times. You can go in and out of it. What I have found, if someone's really curious about it, the best way to get going to see if it works for you, because I try and offer it up as a possible tool out there that helps with mindfulness, that helps with processing emotion, that helps with creativity. But not everything works for everyone. So I would say, if it's at all intriguing for any of your listeners, say I'm going to try it ten minutes a day for like thirty days, try and build in a little consistency to see what you discover in doing that. So I think it's very helpful. Initially, I found sometimes things happen and I take a break, and I will start to feel an intertention building up, and I'll no, I need to go play in my art journal. So after it's been established that you like it and it's a helpful thing for you, I would say, then you're making choices and you may feel like when you really need to create more and maybe when it doesn't fit as well or you change up, you know,

23:30 you go from collaging with catalogs to you know, coloring or a finger painting. Right, It's also fun to shake up the materials you play with. I love it. I think that's a great way to kind of wrap up this conversation. So, Susan, as we are closing out, what would you like to leave our listeners with and how may they reach out to you? Sure? I actually want to leave them with where we started. It was your opening question and it really is. I truly believe play is an entry way to our authentic selves and to really fueling our best self. I think our lives need to create more space for all of us.

24:15 Best way to find me is my website. It's Susan dash Hensley dot com. So it's pretty simple. The book is there, which is Art for your Sanity, there's videos, there's an online training, there's a free PDF of how to get started. So really it's just the website. All of Susan's links are going to be live on wardomomradio dot com. Please reach out as somebody who journals. I go through my spirts. I'm in a journaling spurt right now. I'm going to take a look at this because I've never thought I've used art. We talked about it earlier when I don't feel well or whatever, I'm in a sad space, or I'm with my grandkids, which is my favorite because then we just get to create, create, create, create, but just for myself, and I am actually going to start, I'm like, I can't wait. I'm looking forward to today's entry and just throwing a little bit of artwork into it and seeing how it makes me feel, because tapping that kid is really what keeps you happy grounded. To me, the more you play, the more you get to enjoy life.

25:22 Because life is tough enough, you know, we need to have fun. And think of what it was like opening that box of crayle brands. I just used to love the smell and oh yeah, and so you know, the crayon sharpener in the back and all of those fun things. So let that kid come out. So, Susan, thank you so much for being here. I'm so appreciative that you came to share your journey with us. And ho's up to a really cool concept of art journaling. I love it. Thank you for having me. Yes, it's it is fun and we all deserve joy right. On, And for all of you tuning in, thanks so much for being here. We're gonna close out with our fabulous theme song from Smith's Sisters and the Sunday Drivers.

26:07 So till next time, This is Dory di Carlo saying, go out and create a marvelous youth. Bye for now. She is sure, she is sure, she is strong, she is strong, she is true, she is true, she is brazed, she is boul. She is you, she is you. She is she is sure, she is sure. She is strong, she is strong, she is true, she is true, she is brave, she is bold, she is she is you. Is you, she is you. She is sure of herself. Yeah, she takes care of his powerful and strong. Yes, she knows who.

26:48 She is, has integrity, woman, strong and true. You know her by name. See this woman is you. She is sure, she is she is strong, she is strong, she is true, she is true, she is brave, brave, she is. She is you. She is you. She is she is. Sure, she is strong, is strong, she is true, is true, she is brave, she is she. Is she is you. She is you. She is adds value and hope, has proved to be brave. See it's never too late, never time to behave Reaching for dreams doesn't matter. The age believes in herself, Hung from her cage.

27:33 She is sure, she is sure, she is strong, is strong, she is true, is true, she is brave, is brave, she is bold, she is you. She is she is She is sure, she is she is strong, she is strong, she is true, is true, she is brave, is brave, she is she is you,