The other day I was at a cafe where I display flyers for our retreats. Two women were having coffee, one of them had one of our flyers in her hand. As I walked by, feeling quite happy that someone was interested in a retreat, I overheard her saying to her friend: ‘who is this Dr Erika Jacobson?’
Isn’t that funny? I wanted to turn around and say: it’ me!! I’m that chick.
I didn’t. But as I walked back up the street with my soy flat white in hand, I was thinking two things:
1. OMG, there must be a whole lot of people out there who have seen the marketing material for the creativity retreats and wondered the same thing. Who the hell am I? They don’t know why I’m claiming I can help them;
2. If I had turned around and said to the woman in the café: hi, it’s me, I design and facilitate the retreats, what would she want to know?
So here are few fun facts to help you see if I am the right person to spark your creative mojo:
I teach Creativity & Innovation at Murdoch University - I designed the structure and content …actually, since 2002 I have been teaching people how to embrace their self-expression and be more creative…so I have a tool box full of techniques, processes and activities that spark creativity, help explore creative blocks and generate ideas;
I have a degree in writing; I have taught writing since 1996 in various forms to diverse students, I have written two novels (unpublished - one was funded by DAC), I’ve written, directed and produced six plays with state, federal & non-government funding…I have taught it long enough to know that the main lesson is that you have to turn up - because YOU CAN’T EDIT AN EMPTY PAGE!
I was a zumba instructor for 8 years… relevant because…I got moves ;-)
Through Act Out, a business I founded in 2007, I used creativity, social theatre and other arts-based approaches to help communities problem-solve around tough and wicked issues like domestic & family violence, sexual abuse, bullying, marginalisation, eating disorders, racism, sexism…to collectively express the problem and access creative solutions and share that with the community;
Over the years I have learnt that what I love the most is being creative, having adventures, walking, especially in nature, and travelling…so I created Edgewalkers - it’s my way of combining it all… it’s going OK so far ;-)
Most importantly, I have developed a creative habit, that is, I regularly engage in a creative activity that fuels my spirit, whether it is a daily writing practice or a daily yoga practice, or a daily walking practice, I understand the importance of sticking with it NO MATTER WHAT… I have learnt that judging the outcome, the creating process is what is liberating and expansive, not the creation itself…sure, that can be a work of art that everyone admires or a something mediocre that nobody notices, but it does not matter, the gold is the action of being in a creative action regularly.
Basically, I have been turning what I love into income generating endeavours since 2002… and that is something worth sharing…
