Harmonising Art & Flow: Exploring the Intersection of Creativity and Yoga.

Something I am very aware of at the moment, is noticing patterns of holding and rigidity in myself and working on loosening my grip and releasing.

What I perfected in my creative practice and nurtured in my art and design students was the art of suspending the judgemental mind, losing the fear of failure, diving into the unknown, noticing the ignored, not worrying about outcomes, creating and exploring like a child absorbed in the present moment, taking risks and failing well.

Making connections between things, ideas, images, words and people was part of this with an emphasis of cultivating joy in the ‘process’ without focusing on the outcome. This is an alien concept to many because in our patriarchal societies we are driven to focus on production, value, success, output and validation. We live in competitive arenas. Such cultures can foster self-doubt and a growing fear of failure or ‘not good enough’. As we progress through life we may often remember our failures more than acknowledge or see positives and can develop a tendency to focus on obtaining happiness and success in the future. We forget how to to be present, playful, how to operate instinctively and intuitively, how to make meaningful connection with the beauty of life.

An indigo dye workshop, experimental play.

When I left my job in academia in January 2023  I had a spectrum of emotions - grief, anger, resentment. Had I failed? I had put a lifetime of energy and passion into this arena and now I just couldn’t go on. I was deep in the patriarchal system, fighting hard for freedom, kindness and liberation. It was killing me. My body was not a machine. The systems were killing me, not the vision, passion or actual joy of teaching, but the ways of working within an institution. I was really good at my job and I know I touched so many peoples lives, genuinely reassuring them to find their voice, their joy, their authenticity amongst the chaos and competitiveness.

More than that, the course I co-wrote, built and delivered was challenging an industry driven by commerce and creating students who looked at how design operated socio-politically. Students used design as part of a larger collaborative and trans-disciplinary activity to help solve some of the bigger challenges we face in the world today.

Masters projects tackled all sorts of issues from public health, to asylum seekers, homelessness to education the environment, it was endlessly inspirational and totally relevant. What I was really good at was inspiring and nurturing people to feel more confident, to find their voice and to contribute acts of value in this troubled world. And to enjoy the process. 

Susanna with MA students at London Design Festival 2018.

I have wanted to write for a while now about a very special individual who has been a great inspiration to my creative practice: Sister Corita Kent Corita Kent (1918–1986). I feel this is the right blogpost to include her.

Sister Mary Corita Kent, was an American Roman Catholic religious sister, artist, and educator. She worked almost exclusively with silkscreen, also known as serigraphy, experimenting with different methods. Using print as a medium, enabled a democratic output of her work as affordable art for the masses. 

Sister Kent encouraged others to notice and learn to see afresh with new perspectives and delivered humanist messages of hope in a troubled world, especially during the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. Playing with words, messages and positive affirmations there is a spiritual practice in the act of her creativity. Sister Kent developed a joyful form of activism through creativity and design and was an exemplary teacher in terms of opening your eyes and heart.

There are joyous uses of colour, even though her work often dealt with topics such as misogyny, racism and war. Taking inspiration from the signs and messages on the streets of LA from advertising to cultural references, she created poetic slogans that popped with vibrancy and challenged audiences to think.

From 1947 to 1968 she taught art at the Immaculate Heart School in Los Angeles and inspired many creatives.

Filmmaker Aaron Rose’s short documentary ‘Become a Microscope’ asks those who knew her to tell her story.

Corita Kent 

Corita Kent 

Corita Kent

In many ways I draw parallels with the practice of yoga to the creative process. These parallels allow us to explore ourselves and our relationship to the world through noticing, suspending judgement, utilising our senses, feeling, becoming embodied, leaning into the present moment, observing and responding. Being open to receive and to give back with compassion and care is a beautiful thing and one that is often lacking in the world. There is a kind of alchemy in both practices where new thoughts, feelings and knowledge and energy are created.

Printing is a passion of mine. Letterpress, experimental photography and screen printing were my areas of specialism. At the School of Creative Wellness I pull on my past experience as a creative and mix it with my work in yoga to provide a holistic approach to wellness. The letterpress workshops I run for small groups of women explore values and are a form of gentle self activism. Participants explore journaling and visual play which culminate in the creation of a three word personal call to action which is printed using woodblock type on a printing press for each woman to take home and frame: a personal affirmation. This offering was partly inspired by Corita Kent but also with my relationship to print, writing and the creative methods I explored on my own personal journey explained in more detail below.

Susanna letterpress printing

Going back to patterns of holding and rigidity, I knew I had to start the process of letting go of my experiences so far, to see them, look at them, soften and release. I evaluated what was serving me and what wasn’t and I was brutally honest. I had a massive cull of anything that was not serving me and sadly that meant my life's work to date! Or that is what I thought at the time. In retrospect I was freeing myself up from the things that were weighing me down, so I could harness my skills, wisdom and creativity into a new form. A birthing of something new and more authentic at this time in my life’s journey started to form.

The process was an unravelling of myself, a deep exploration that revealed the layers of holding trauma, grief, anger, resentment and low-self worth. My core values and beliefs needed revisiting because although much of the core of me still held the same values, I had evolved and I needed to ask myself what do I ‘need’? I had to find ways to navigate this huge change.

I set aside the patterns of attaining achievement, ignoring my body, ‘progression’, conforming and learnt the art of stillness, feeling, listening and observation of my inner self. I was, up until at this point living in my head and disembodied. I was searching for the methods to live a more embodied life.

Then the yoga returned. I have practiced since my 20s but it drifted in and out of my life and was never a consistent companion. I focused on yoga as a method of self enquiry. I used my creativity, not as a method of achieving, but for pure enjoyment with no deadlines or objectives other than creating rituals that made me feel good. I created digital moodboards, I wrote poetry and lists of words, I collected natural objects I took photographs, I made collections - visual, written and object based. No more funding applications, no PhD applications, no more creating world leading programs, no more bureaucracy, no more seeking validation, no more of not being enough or doing enough. This also coincided with the death of my father who I always, deep down, wanted to please, as many children do.

I moved into a phase of ‘just being’ and taking stock. I began to use my creativity to explore aspects of myself, which when combined with other practices such as yoga, meditation, cranio-sacral therapy, CBT, creative coaching, reading, walking, foraging, writing, photography, drawing, collage and printmaking really helped me to process and explore this deep work of living a more authentic life in a non-linear way.

Miro Board exploring one of my inner characters

I am fascinated by my rekindled relationship and understanding of my body and using breath and movement as a guide and teacher. I still have to really work hard on this as it takes years of undoing to get out of my head and into my body.

Yin Yoga and Restorative Yoga have been integral to this unlearning because it is centred around listening and noticing my internal landscape and feelings and feeling part of something raw and natural and much bigger than my ego or self, as I have known it for most of my life. Retraining in the areas of yoga and breathwork have opened up true creativity, freedom and peace for me. It shows in my classes as I am coming from a place of lived experience, of authenticity. It is really beautiful. I see others loosening their grip on rigidity, owning their space and becoming embodied.

I have become even more aware of ‘the grip’ in the past weeks because my daughter has been mirroring some aspects of myself back at me that I have unintentionally transferred onto her over the years. It is natural just like Philip Larkin’s poem This Be The Verse. We all hold experiences within us, we all face challenges and rigidity and structures that we mould ourselves around and these can become patterns in our life and we can transfer these to others, pass then on especially those closest to us. I am no doubt carrying the ripples of previous generations of experiences in my lifetime.

We all carry trans-generational wounds, some more than others if culturally exposed to suffering. If you are from a BAME or lgbtqia+ community or if you have a lived experience of injustice or of war or are a refugee or minority or know poverty, then these patterns of holding and trauma are even deeper and more raw.

As a mother, the best thing for me to do ongoing is to clear the blocks, ground and root, release the grip and grief and life traumas, in turn this will help provide the energy and safety that my daughter needs to heal her life wounds. If we all learn do this then it will help those around us and this is how change ripples out individually and collectively. Humanity has much to unlearn and heal. The whole world needs healing more than ever now.

Last night I attended a free class by an amazing Yoga teacher who is an artist and poet Tiffany Hamilton Atkins. It was so liberating. The theme was ‘internal liberation’ and it was a somatic and embodied approach to yoga. Something that does not come naturally to me after years of living in my head and worrying what others think or how I should be.

The yoga class encouraged natural and instinctive movement without caring what you look like. These movements allowed us to liberate ourselves from ‘feeling small’ and allowed us to take up space and truly feel into our bodies. No judgement - just feeling. Moving into your own truth and releasing what is not serving you. 

There is definitely a new generation who shun the rigidity of past structures in society and strive to connect more to the earth and themselves and heal others and the world we live in. This is born of our times and as a result of those that preceded us. Each generation can feel a calling if they listen to what they need, collectively they can find new methods to help enable change.

Tiffany Hamilton Atkins

I hope this goes some way to give context as to why I have made this move from an established career in academia, to setting up The School of Creative Wellness. I hope by sharing my words that it gives some comfort and support to other women facing similar challenges in life. It isn’t easy, we hold layers and layers of experiences but the power of breath and movement and the art of seeing things differently and creating change is possible. This blogpost aims to illustrate why I am not solely a creative, a designer, an artist or a yoga teacher. It is the magic in the threads that connect the these practices and ways of seeing that offer potential for personal growth in a holistic way. This is my personal calling right now as I dance in the space between Mother and Elder.

Through my own, personal, lived experience, I now choose to work with women who may have felt for years that they can’t take up space, or live authentically, or equally, or in line with what their bodies need. Who may have dedicated themselves in service to others for years, felt others gaze, judgements, demands, expectations and felt shoehorned into living to the rhythms and demands of a patriarchal society. This can, in some cases, kill the spirit and cause burnout. Sometimes we reach a crisis point, often in mid-life like I did, when the demands become too great to cope with. This is a common narrative.

We all carry stories. Sometimes they are buried, sometimes they rise to the surface, but what is important is that we all have the capacity to create new narratives, we all have the capacity to heal and change the flow and dance of our lives.

My mid-life is all about recognising and releasing and helping others to do just this. This has evolved into a gentle form of rebellion and activism, shunning expectations, exploring what brings me joy, what nourishes me and equipping myself with new tools to help myself and others.

If you wish to explore some of these methods of unlearning and finding your authentic self, wherever you are in your journey, I would feel honoured to work with you and share my wisdom, knowledge, creativity and teaching practice so far. Whether it is a retreat, an event, 1-2-1 work or an online meet- up, I can help you on your own personal journey of recalibration, evolution and transformation.  Just reach out to me or visit our website or book on to any of our offerings via this link. I am offering limited slots for free 30 minute 1-2-1 discovery sessions if you resonate with what I say and have to offer, and feel the calling deep inside.