What is "Retirement" as a Creative?

I definitely caught some flack when I said that I was retiring from photography at the age of 38.  Some people thought it meant I was retiring from ALL work and had some massive pension or savings plan.  Even my own husband dissed me, like "where's the beef"... as in "pension"?  Frankly, there are many people who retire without a pension, so can we just quit with the limited definitions?  I think my favorite back-channel comments were from skeptical colleagues who assumed I had somehow failed and was using the word "retired" to cover up some kind of failure.  I find it hilarious how people love to run away with their imaginations rather than just asking me!  People love to project their internal fears and worries onto others, but thankfully I've got enough experience and success not to be phased by these kind of projections.  So, let's consider some other definitions of retirement, OK?


(Art by Dale Chihuly, Photo by Anne Ruthmann)

Here's what retiring means to me... to have completed a working journey and learned all that I came to learn in my choice of photography as a career.  To me, "retired" means I did everything I wanted to do, met the challenges, figured out how to make it work for me, and don't have any challenges left that I want to conquer.  I won awards.  I spoke at conferences.  I was published in magazines.  I received international recognition.  I made a little money and then I made really good money.  I learned how to keep my business going during an economic crash.  I learned how to move my business 5 times.  I learned how to work with low end clients and then how to work with high end clients.  I sold photography packages I didn't even think were possible to sell.  I gave back everything I learned every step of the way on PhotoLovecat.  What more do I really need from a photography career?!

My journey with photography as a career feels fulfilled and complete.  I conquered the issues.  I overcame the challenges.  I learned.  I grew.  I became whole and full as a photographer, feeling secure in my work and my worth and how I operated as a creative business.  Because of this sense of completion, I felt I really needed to put everything I learned into the Pricing Workbook for Creatives so that it can help others have a great creative journey as well.

I don't know anyone else who has had to restart a creative in-person service business in as many different states as I have.  This journey has definitely been unique and taught me what I needed to get up and running quickly with the appropriate pricing and offerings each time I've landed in a new place.  This journey taught me how to hustle hard with little jobs when I needed to make freelance contract work turn into a full time income.  It has taught me how to network, negotiate, and price appropriately to meet the needs of high-demand clients without completely slitting my own creative wrists.  All of that starts from the solid foundation that I've outlined in the Pricing Workbook for Creatives.

I learned so much of this process through hard knocks, but if I can help early creatives, small business owners, and service providers have a better grasp on their value and worth up front, than I am sure that people will stop overworking and undercharging for their creative efforts.  I am certain that personal service, individual creativity, and creative careers can be extremely rewarding businesses for the right people.  Running a small business, or just operating in a fully-supported way as a freelancer is an amazing journey, one that I continue on in many different forms.  However, as for commercial photography... I feel complete and fulfilled.

I could have continued working with my amazing recurring commercial photography clients just for the money, but money can be made in a lot of different ways.  I've always been multi-passionate and one forever job just doesn't feel like it has ever been my path.  I love learning new things, and it was time to move on and learn some new things!

Never be afraid to pivot for your own development and happiness.  Society likes us to stay in a safe box of pre-defined options, but your story is yours to create, no one else's.  Do what fulfills your soul, and don't let the critics or naysayers keep you down.  Do what works for you and let your journey inspire others to do the same!

Sorting Out My Clairsentience

For a long time, I thought empathy and clairsentience were the same thing, but once I gained more control over my own emotions, sensory experiences, and energetic field in general, here's how I now sense the difference between the two:

Empathy - an emotional attachment to the condition of another living being
Clairsentience - an intuitive felt understanding about another being's condition



When I see someone stub their toe, I might cringe and say ouch because I have a memory of what that pain feels like and where it's stored in my own body, which is empathy because I'm responding with emotional attachment to something that triggered a feeling.  When I see a foot that has no obvious signs of issues or pain, but I begin feeling an odd pain in my own foot when I'm close to someone, that's clairsentience working between two energetic sensory fields full of information and awareness.

When I watch the news and begin feeling the weight of the world weighing down on me and depressing me, that's empathy triggering and engaging my emotional response.  When I watch the news and suddenly start feeling a sense of tummy issues when a particular person is on the screen, even though I can't see their tummy, that's clairsentience working with my intuitive awareness of what may be happening in that person's body.

The challenging part of clairsentience is that you can't exactly tell what feeling is yours and what isn't yours until you know your body so well that you know what you're feeling can't possibly be yours because it makes no sense based on everything you know about yourself.

Meditation helped me learn how to treat all of the sensations and feelings in my body more like clouds of information that simply move through the body so that I can be less attached to how things make me feel emotionally and a much better observer of my own sensations.  Once I was able to see sensations more objectively and less emotionally, it was easier to notice what sensations would come and go from my body and how it correlated with what I was doing or experiencing in a moment.  This made it easier for me to understand clairsentience as an energetic awareness full of information rather than an annoying physical sensory experience.

By being such an intensive observer of myself and of everything else around me in my environment (thank you photography career), I began to notice that some feelings would enter my body when people would get close to me and then leave my body when people would walk away from me.  Likewise, I would have some sensations that only happened in certain buildings or rooms, but not others.  The quickest way to figure it out was to step in, and then step out, and then step in again to see if it was just me or my proximity to something. Those were the first clues I used to help me understand and make sense of my clarisentience and sensitivity to my environment.

I've had these sensations all my life but never understood them.  They would just bother me and distract me and make me self-conscious or not feel well, but I didn't know how to sort them out from myself until I figured out how to manage my mind's observation tools separately from my emotions and sensory experiences.  When emotions and sensory experiences are tied together, it's really challenging to sort out our own stuff from other people's stuff, because emotions make it all personal.

Once I became more aware of what sensations came and went, versus which ones traveled with me all the time, it became easier to sort out what was and wasn't mine.  My aches, pains, or tummy things that travel with me no matter where I go, or only happen when I eat certain foods or move in certain ways, become so predictable that they are like learning how to ignore the sound of an air conditioner or refrigerator.  Knowing the hum of our own body means that it's easier to be aware of what is unusual and how it seems to pair with environmental changes.  This is also why it's important to observe your own body's reactions to different foods, different lighting conditions, different temperatures, different everything.  If you can't sort out what predictably makes you feel a certain way, it's hard to sort out a lot of other things, so we always need to start from within first.

Once I was finally able to understand what was mine and what was outside of me, I also became aware of ways my sensitivity grew or diminished in relation to certain things.  I noticed that clean living foods like fruits and vegetables made me more sensitive to the environment around me, and heavily processed or fried foods and alcohol dampened my sensitivities more.  Once you know this, you can really use food and drink to shut down your intuition and awareness when you just don't want to feel things, and I'm sure that's why people make the worst decisions when they are drinking or have reached a point of feeling numb to the environment around them.

Until I learned the daily practice of reiki self-care, it was almost a fight between wanting to be healthy and sensitive, versus not wanting to feel everything around me.  Reiki gave me more balance and control over my energy, my sensitivity, and the reach of my energetic field as well as more practice in containing it when needed.  I eventually learned how to move through the world much more comfortably even while having my sensitivities engaged.  I learned how to gain a little more control over my energy field, and how to push it outward, build an energetic wall, and pull it inward.  This is mostly just a process of controlling our thoughts and awareness, because our energetic field actually has some level of conscious control.

I'm not unique in being able to control my energy field and awareness- we all can place our awareness in someone else's field.  As an example that most people have experienced, or that you can try the next time you're in a crowded space... it's looking at someone across a crowded room and then having them suddenly look directly back at you even though you're far enough away not to be easily noticed.  They become aware of you specifically because you placed your energy and awareness next to them on the other side of the room and they intuitively picked up on it, whether they knew it or not.  Now, when you do this, because your awareness is across the room, you may not be completely aware of the person right behind you that may be eyeing your wallet or about to startle you, because your awareness has been placed on the other side of the room, so use with caution and don't be creepy about it.  Likewise, the next time someone startles you or catches you off-guard, double check where your awareness was just before you were startled- you were likely mentally focusing on something away from your immediate surroundings.

Now that I have better control and use of my clairsentience and ability to feel into things, I don't have to go around feeling everyone's stuff when I don't want to.  When people ask me to "see what I can feel about them" at random in public, it's easier for me not to immediately feel it, because I've actively learned how to turn the sensitivity down in public spaces.  Having control also makes it easier for me to have a level of sensitivity and clarity when I do want to feel deeply and accurately for clients during reiki sessions and distance medical intuitive work, because I'm not carrying a bunch of other confusing stuff around with me or trying to sort out other information when I'm not doing a client session.

Do you recognize your own sensitivities?  Have you learned how to work with them and better control them as they show up in your life?  Share your thoughts or questions in the comments below!

Anne Ruthmann
www.abundantsphere.com

Heart of Healing Podcast Interview - Anne Ruthmann / Reiki Energy Healing

I'm so grateful that Tom Fuld has created a lovely show full of healer journeys and information about holistic healing practices.  It is often the unknown that intimidates most people, and by giving a voice and set of stories to relate to, we help reduce the barriers in ways that help people seek greater healing in their lives.

When Tom invited me to share my story on the podcast, I have to admit I wondered if I was ready, since this journey seems to be moving so quickly for me, but just like being invited to give the TEDx Talk, I am so grateful for the opportunity to share what I've learned so far, that I would feel like I was throwing away a lovely opportunity if I passed at the chance.

During the interview for this podcast, Tom asks me to answer the following questions:

1. What is reiki?

2. Who uses reiki?

3. What is it like to practice or experience reiki?

4. How did I come to reiki as a healing practice?

To hear my answers click play in the player below or load a copy to your playlist, the podcast is only 30 minutes long and he does a great job of moving it along quickly and keeping it interesting...

Anne Ruthmann

www.abundantsphere.com