Women, Creativity & Seeking Validation (Heartland Book Chapter)

When we make something and put it into the world, it is so natural to want to know that it is making a difference and that people are benefiting from it. And when we’re making the things that we feel we need to make and trying to sell them in a business, it definitely adds layers of complexity. Potentially. 

It is super easy to slip into seeing sales (or lack thereof) as validation that your work is “working.” Sales validate that people want it, that its got value - at least enough value that you can pay the bills.

And so we often enter into this existing framework of “marketing,” “business,” and things like the “ideal customer avatar” and try to learn all about it as New Earth business owners. But seriously, if one more person asks me to describe my ideal customer avatar to them in business coaching, I think I’ll flip a table. The last time I went through this, my intuition said, “This is all wrong.” (It doesn’t have to be all wrong for you, but it was another one of those existing structures that I finally realized wasn’t the template for me.) 

Because when we’re identifying the ICA so that we can “market” to them, we are honestly crafting our message to manipulate their decision making. I sense that savvy and New Earth buyers are going to sniff this out and stop participating, and instead, go where the authenticity is. And I’m not saying that some marketing isn’t authentic, I’m saying, it’s crafted. 

There’s an alternative, which is, focus on being the conduit of the authentic frequency you are meant to bring through. Just be that. And the stronger you be that, the stronger the force of Creation that you’ll exude. You become like a magnet, or a lighthouse. 

You co-create with Creation. 

If you’re meant to do this soul work, if you’re meant to live your mission and bring it through to the people, you don’t actually have to do anything other than exactly that. You have to transmit the frequencies that Source is transmitting through you. 

You have to be creational. 

Let’s go back to seeking validation that you’re on the right track in your soul work. I’ve done that plenty. In fact, it was one of the biggest shadows in my business in the first five years - but I didn’t realize it. I couldn’t see that I was doing it until I could. That’s how it goes with the shadow side of things. 

The soul call.

Originally, you had a calling. A hunch. Maybe even an explicit divine instruction that led you to your soul’s work. For me, it was pretty explicit. I was supposed to leave my job as an academic director in a school I’d help to found, just one year in. I heard from the beginning, “You’ll only be here a year.” When I didn’t listen, and it came to the 16-18 month mark, things started getting really messy at work. It was like the Divine’s way of giving me the boot out the door. I was preparing to write my resignation letter to hand in on a Monday. It was the Thursday before. I put up a prayer and said, “If I am supposed to do this, I need a sign.” My first coaching client came out of nowhere on Friday, I had a conversation with her at two in the afternoon in my office at work with the door closed, and she signed and paid $3000 in full on the spot. So rare. Now that amount of money wasn’t going to carry me very far, but it was pretty high-level confirmation that I was supposed to leap. 

Come to think of it, in the beginning years, I had a lot of miracles like that. When I’d get close to running out of money, something unbelievable would happen. I’m not even sure I ever had a sustainable business in the first three years, but I always had money by some miracle. And then, that sort of stopped. Like, God wasn’t saving my ass anymore. At which point, I began to flounder. 

I was floundering for many reasons, which I’ve written about in this book, but I was talking to a shaman at a potluck about this circa summer 2022 (yes, I live in Asheville, we have the neighborhood shaman at the local potluck) and he smiled and said something like, “Ooh, yes, now it’s up to you.” 

Help! 

As in - the support had been pretty awesome for a while, but I wasn’t receiving it anymore because I could actually do better. I was supposed to grow up and be a spiritual adult. But I still had a lot to work through. 

And looking back, seeking validation was one of those core things that hung me up. 

I heard the purpose and the explicit call. Over and over again, I did zany brave things, like tattooing a snake on my arm when the Goddess told me to (within a 24 hour window), leaving my job, changing my last name and baptizing myself in a local river, starting my podcast and offering programs right and left to women in feminine/masculine spiritual awakening. And for a while, it was all very validated! It was working! People liked what I was saying and they joined my programs, and I’d have very successful “launches.” 

Hardship can lead to seeking validation.

And then after not-so-ideal things happened, and I was not sure if my son and I were okay financially, I started to panic, and to look for assurances. I started to look for sales more than I stayed aligned to the creative muse. If I made something and tried to market it, the words were more formulaic, and I’d get upset when another launch failed, when it felt like people couldn’t hear or feel me anymore. I was the same magical person! I just wasn’t exuding the magical and enthusiastic energy anymore, because I was scared. And I made the entire thing about money because not enough money was coming in. So I was in a cycle of trying to create, launch, dud, panic, try again. 

This is the same period of time when my guidance had told me, “Write all of this down” for the book that would become Heartland. I’m very glad that I kept writing, and even though sometimes my writing was really good (better said - when my writing was really beautifully channeled and ringing with authentic truth and frequency), I was still looking more at how things weren’t “working,” at how it wasn’t being validated, than I was actually focused on seeing the creation through. 

Which has all been a part of the process, and as I sit here writing this part in 2025 and a part of me feels shame for it taking so long, another part of me knows that the unfolding has all been in perfect divine time. 

Meaning, I didn’t get it before now. It takes the time it takes. 

Hopefully I can save you some time. 

Validation will trip you up.

Validation will trip you up. That’s my point. And when we’re in stress, when we’ve taken really big risks, we might quickly orient toward looking for assurances that we’re okay, that it’s all going to be okay, that we’re on the right path. 

But they call it faith for a reason. 

The soul path doesn’t really come with assured outcomes. It’s hilarious to me that once upon a time I did think, quite strongly, that if I said yes to my soul’s path, that things would work out for me. Hear me now!! That is not why we say yes to the soul’s path!! 

You are not guaranteed anything. 

And so, how will you live? 

The only thing that actually leads to success.

I would rather live a creational life than a fearful one. And I would rather channel what I know God is telling me to say and create than I would like to spend my life looking around to see if anyone understands. 

The total irony and truth of it is that if you are being anything less than your full, true self on this path, it won’t work. So you’ve got to turn the bravery dial really far up. You’ve got to turn the dial on your authenticity all the way up. You’ve got to create from a place of being most true to your Soul Self. 

That’s the frequency of singing your authentic song of Creation. That’s the frequency of being the lighthouse. 

Anything less than that will be kinda cool, and some people might recognize you and what you’re trying to do, but you won’t excel. As I write this, I’m not to the point of excelling. But now I know why. 

Choose creativity over reactivity.

To seek validation on your creational soul path is to look sideways, rather than staying aligned to the Creation. It is to write the post and look at the “like” count. It is to create something and only think it’s worth while if you meet your financial goals. 

My friend has a teenage daughter who has an incredible singing voice. She started a YouTube channel and her mom said that she just wanted to start building and have a place for her songs to be shared. She does not sing as though she’s singing for the like count. She sings like Creation is moving through her and she’s just got to do it - she’s got to get it out and give it to the world. 

All in all, we can be reactive or creative. We can respond to what’s been done, or we can be the person who is so aligned to the instructions we’re receiving from within us, from that voice of the divine, that we live a life co-creating with that spirit. 

Creation is built on the Gold Frequency. This Gold Frequency runs through all that is alive, and it rings with the true sound tone of Creation. That Gold Frequency is inside of you and your Creations. When you hit the mark, it rings like a bell. This is also a feeling. It’s why I sat down to write tonight when I was bordering on stress and an unfinished to-do list. I like the feeling I get when I partner with my Soul and Source to come together to make this book sing. 

In fact, I want to be in that feeling more and more of the time. 

Which means, my validation-seeking days are over.