Interview with Mariëlle S. Smith

I’m excited to have Mariëlle S Smith on my blog today! We meet at the Facebook Kickstarter’s Author group. Enjoy the Interview!

Welcome Mariëlle! Why did you start the path of personal and spiritual growth?

That is a good question… Looking back, I’ve always been interested in spirituality, but I was raised in an environment where the spiritual was consistently mocked, so I stayed far, far away from it.

Looking for a way to heal my social anxiety, I started doing yoga in my late twenties. It was through the different teachers at my local studio and the different spiritual practices they wove into their classes that my interest in spirituality and spiritual growth woke up again. I began to meditate, and it felt like coming home, like being reunited with a part of myself I didn’t even know I’d lost touch with.

Somewhere on this journey, I was introduced to crystals and oracle and tarot cards. I also came in touch with energy healing, which brought me to Reiki and becoming a Reiki master. Next came past life work, which led me to the Akashic Records and becoming an Akashic Records practitioner. By that time, I had already established myself as a creative mindset coach, and, while it took me a minute, I eventually allowed these spiritual practices to fully integrate into my coaching work.

Yes, the spiritual growth path is a journey… How do some people react to your path and what has this taught you about yourself?

I started this journey in 2013 and I’ve only just stopped hiding this part of myself from some people. My mum suddenly passed away last month, and it was an incredibly spiritual experience for me. I hadn’t lost anyone this close to me since I found my way back to the spiritual, and it made for an interesting journey. What’s more, I kept telling people about the experiences I was having, the messages I kept receiving, the things I was seeing, even those who I knew wouldn’t believe me.

I do think the reason I’d dropped all the masks I still wore around certain people was simply because I was too exhausted – my mum had been in the ICU for seventeen days before she passed – and too overcome with emotion to keep them in place, to put myself back in the spiritual closet around those not open to it. But the best part was that I absolutely didn’t care whether or not people believed the things I shared, and that was a first for me! I also ended up having beautiful conversations with people I’d never expected it from.

One of the worst reactions I’ve ever had came from my ex-partner, who admitted during our divorce that there had been times where they’d considered having me committed to a mental hospital. Even now, and it’s been six years since this confession, I’m at a loss for words. And this was when I was just learning how to read cards, so long before I became a Reiki master and started working with the Akashic Records. If they could see me now…

What I’ve learned from this, amongst other things, is that the more confident I am about who I am and what I do, the better people’s reactions. Generally speaking, of course. Some people will always react poorly (my ex being a case in point), but I now understand that says everything about them and nothing about me.

I’m sorry to hear about your mom. What a growth experience it was for you to not care what others think. As far as your ex, an ex is an ex for a reason! You’re an author and oracle card creator. What is that process like for you?

Generally, an idea just pops into my head out of the blue and then I entertain that thought for a moment. I used to get a lot of ideas, with only a few of those being actually aligned with me, but the more time I spend in the Akashic Records, the fewer ‘bad’ ideas I get.

To separate the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’ ideas, I used to write them down on a sticky note I’d put up in my office. Once in a while, I’d look at my collection of sticky notes and throw out the ideas that no longer spoke to me or I’d forgotten about entirely. Quite a few of my clients struggle with this, figuring out which creative impulse to follow and which to let be, so I wrote about this practice in my first ever Substack post.

Once I get an idea, it can take a while before I actually pursue it. I used to feel an urgency around each idea I got, but working with the Akashic Records has also improved my knowing when something needs to be created. Some projects need to percolate longer than others, and sometimes I’m not quite ready to fully commit to it. This doesn’t mean they remain on the back burner until we’re both ready; I’ll pick them up and dust them off and maybe do some research or jot down some ideas every once in a while, and then I’ll let them be again.

When I’m ready and the project is ready to come to fruition as well, I’ll feel the nudge to actually start working on it. This is when the project becomes a priority, something I have to finish.

To give you an example, the initial idea for my Cards for Creative Courage oracle deck came to me the spring of 2019. Over the years, I kept adding a couple of affirmations to my notes, but I didn’t feel the need, that urgency, to commit to it until I was preparing my first Kickstarter campaign. It suddenly clicked that this oracle deck – which had been on my mind for the past three years – would make a great companion deck for the book I was working on. That’s when the deck took full shape in my head and I was able to finish it in a matter of weeks.

I love your creative process and how you learned to listen when it’s time to start. Can you offer our readers advice on how to keep inspired about creating?

Move to Cyprus. No, I’m joking, although the main reason I moved to Cyprus five years ago is because I couldn’t stop writing the first time I visited the island. My family did all the touristy stuff while I spent most of the week sitting on a sunbed next to hotel pool, writing idea after idea in the notebook I’d been smart enough to bring along.

What moving to Cyprus did was make me see things anew, which I believe is a key ingredient to feeling inspired. And you can achieve that by switching up your morning route to work, walking your dog the other way, joining the Tuesday instead of the Wednesday yoga class.

Likewise, you could try creating at a different time, or at a different place if your craft allows for that. It feels incredibly silly, but sometimes all I need to do to unstuck myself and get those creative juices flowing again is move my laptop from my office to the living room.

It reminds me of what H.G. Wells once said: ‘If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn’t expecting it.’

You can do the same with your creativity: open yourself up to it at a time – or a place! – it isn’t expecting it and see what happens.

Another thing that happened when I moved to Cyprus is that I created a distance between myself and the anti-spiritual environment I grew up in. My first tarot book came to me within a week of moving. Of course, this was a physical distance, but sometimes all it takes is a little emotional or mental distance, a few good boundaries around yourself and your creative work.

You have many tools to offer people. Please share your offerings and how to get in touch with you.

This is such a timely question, because I’m working on two new things!

Let me start with my free offerings though. On Illuminate, I share my weekly thoughts about creativity and living a creative life, and most posts include some sort of tool to help you on your creative path.

I’ve also started recording meditations this year, which can be found on Insight Timer and on my ‘podcast’: Illuminate | Meditations and musings for the creative soul. I also record the weekly musings I post on the Illuminate blog. This is a passion project of mine, one that lights up my soul so much but I don’t have much time for, so I record and post when I can.

As for my other offerings: with my Akashic Creative Coaching, I coach creative people through their persistent creative blocks or unhelpful patterns and help them figure out their creative purpose.

What I’m currently working on is the expanded anniversary edition of Tarot for Creatives: 50+ Tarot Spreads and Other Intentional Practices to Unlock Your Full Potential and Live Your Best Creative Life, which I’m running a Kickstarter campaign for. The new edition has over fifty card spreads, seventy-eight exercises related to the cards in the tarot, and a bunch of intentional practices that’ll help you get the most out of your creative practice. The campaign runs until the 27th of September and backers receive the book at least six months before it becomes available to the general public.

The other thing I’m working towards is my Akashic Creative Coaching Meditation Circle. On or around each new moon, I’ll be organising a guided journey into the Akashic Records around a specific creative topic. During these live calls, the participants will be guided into their own Akashic Records, where I’ll prompt them to ask certain questions around the topic of that month. After the journey is completed, there will be time and space to share experiences.

We start 1 November, but there will be a free introductory meditation on 2 October in which participants are introduced to their Akashic Records and get to ask questions about their creative purpose. While it’s free, you do need tickets, which you can get here.

The best way to get in touch with me is through my website or by emailing me at marielle@mswordsmith.nl.

Mariëlle S. Smith is a creative mindset coach who helps fellow creatives on their path to fulfilling their soul’s calling using a combination of life coaching, Akashic Records readings, cartomancy, and Reiki.

She has published fourteen books for writers and other creatives, including the 52 Weeks of Writing Author Journal and Planner and Tarot for Creatives, and is one of the co-hosts of the Diving into Writing podcast.

Mariëlle is currently working on the expanded anniversary edition of Tarot for Creatives, which is now running on Kickstarter.

You can find Mariëlle on her website or on Substack

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