032: Acting on the vision: creating who you're becoming
Making a reverent practice of who you want to be
It wasn’t always clear.
When I left my academic career to start my business, I thought I was setting up as a ‘writing coach.’ It made sense. After all, I had decades of experience—as a teacher and mentor—of supporting hundreds, if not thousands, of people with their writing.
Fast forward three and a half years. Now, I see I was craving something deeper: to support creatives in a holistic way; one that encompasses deep healing, one that attends to the somatic and the spiritual as well as the mechanics of making.
Fulfilling the vision of what I want has come about through doing, even when I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing. Sitting across from people, day after day. Thousands of conversations. Listening to them, listening to what is materialising in me through the process then calibrating, and recalibrating, my actions as a result.
Over time and through those thousands of conversations, I’ve come to realise that what I’m striving for isn’t a tangible thing ‘over there’ I can grasp just with my thinking. The awareness has come from placing my attention on the thing and making a reverent practice of the doing.
The vision of what I want for my work and my life didn’t hit like a single lightning strike.
It’s been emergent. It’s taken shape through a slow, unfolding realisation that resonates on the inside and feels like truth.
Last time, we explored the figure of the persistent visitor: the creative vision that appears at your door, asking for your attention even when you're not actively thinking about your idea or your creative work. Today, let’s look at what this persistent visitor is really asking of you.
What I've learned from working with hundreds of creators is this: your persistent visitor isn't just inviting you to make something.
It’s initiating you into a different way of being.
Most of us separate personal development from our creative practice. We meditate, then we make art. We do yoga, then we work on a new business idea. We work on ourselves, then we work on our projects.
What if this separation is keeping your vision stuck in the realm of ideas?
Your persistent visitor doesn't just want expression; it wants integration. It’s asking you to allow your creating and your becoming to co-exist—not as separate practices, but to be interwoven.
Creating ‘from’ vs creating ‘as’
There’s a distinction between ‘from’ and ‘to’ that changes everything.
Creating from who you currently are means using only your existing skills and identity. It means staying firmly in your comfort zone to shoehorn your vision into familiar forms. It's the painter who dreams of abstract work but keeps painting landscapes because ‘that's what I'm good at.’ It's the writer who has a longing to write a memoir but only writes in their established business voice because ‘that's my style.’
Creating as ‘who you're becoming’ means letting the vision teach you who you need to become. It's allowing the work to reshape you as you reshape it. It's having the courage to say, ‘I don't know how to do this yet, but I'm willing to learn. Who would I need to become for this vision to emerge through me?’
The difference is profound. From tries to squeeze the vision through your current self. As lets the vision expand your whole self.
How you create matters because unless your vision is realised through practice, it doesn’t have an expression in the world. Yet you fight yourself, exhausting your creative energy. You try to force your current identity to create work that requires a future identity.
Integration eliminates this internal friction. When you create as ‘who you're becoming’, you stop fighting yourself. You start recognising that your creative practice isn't separate from your personal development: it reveals exactly the inner work you need to do.
Your persistent visitor brings a gift: a kind of personalised curriculum for your own growth.
Where the practical meets the spiritual
When you embrace creating as ‘who you're becoming’, you develop capacities you didn't know you had. The vision that keeps showing up isn't just calling for your skills; it's asking for your courage, your vulnerability and your willingness to be changed by the work.
Maybe your persistent visitor is revealing that you need to learn to work with uncertainty. Or to trust your voice. Or to collaborate instead of controlling. These aren't obstacles to your creative work. They are the work.
Most creative blocks don’t come from a lack of talent or technique. They come from resistance—resistance to becoming who the work requires. You feel the pull towards the vision, the pull to create, yet the resistance holds you back. The moment you begin to recognise this, you can work with that resistance rather than bypassing or suppressing it.
The way forward
Integration isn't just an abstract philosophy. It's practical medicine.
When you stop separating your becoming from your creating, something opens up. The persistent visitor starts to feel less like a demanding guest and more like a wise guide.
Next time, we'll explore the specific practices that support this integration: the deliberate creative practices that honour both the vision you hold and your becoming. First though, let me ask you this:
What would change if you stopped trying to create from who you currently are and started creating as ‘who you're becoming’?
That question will prepare you for everything that's coming next.
Love, Rachel
Community inspiration
I was so inspired by my conversation with , a somatic coach and yoga teacher who was my guest this week on Stories of Creative Courage. We spoke about the ‘feedback loop’ at the heart of creativity: how connecting first on the inside allows us to gather intention (and courage) to express on the outside. One of my favourite parts of the conversation echoes the message of my essay above—that we can’t rely alone on structures and systems to bring our work into the world. Alexandra says:
"The more I sit down to force myself to come up with the best structure, the less accessible it becomes. I take myself out of that... and then really the answers and creative solutions will pour in."
You can watch the replay below.
Episode 9: Alexandra Lais, somatic coach and yoga teacher
From Overwhelm to Creative Flow: How Nervous System Work Unlocks Your Creative Courage
Creative inspiration
To read
The Crossroads of Should and Must by Elle Luna
The framework Luna offers in her (beautifully illustrated) book can help you identify when you're trying to squeeze your vision into familiar, safe forms instead of allowing it to expand you into new territory.
Luna's personal story of leaving a successful design career to follow her ‘must’ (rather than her ‘should’) demonstrates that the persistent visitor asking for your attention isn't just inviting you to make something—it's inviting you to become someone.
Try this
The Identity Bridge Practice
At the start of each creative thinking or making session, begin by asking: ‘who would I need to become for this vision to emerge through me?’ Write down 3-5 qualities of that future self. Then, spend 5 minutes embodying one of those qualities before you create. If your vision requires courage, sit with what courage feels like in your body before you begin.
Make a practice of this and notice what happens over time.
Memorable quote of the week
The act of creation is a kind of ritual. The origins of art and holy ritual lie in the same human needs.
—Willa Cather, American novelist
What’s next in your creative journey?
As your guide into creative courage, I'm here to help you transform those invisible blocks—the fear and shame that live beneath the surface—so you can express authentically and freely.
Here's how I can support you:
Make an appointment for a virtual coffee (free). I hold 3-4 slots every month for a 20-minute chat so we can either get to know each other, or reconnect. This is for everyone! Perfect if you’re curious about meeting new people and making, or deepening, connections.
Book a 30-minute Creative Breakthrough call (free) to gently uncover the exact fear or limiting belief sabotaging your creative expression so you can finally share your work with confidence
Read my manifesto for creative courage (free). Follow my story in serial form about the core principles of my creativity, my journey into creative courage and why I founded Wordplay Coaching.
Creative Courage Circle: an ongoing intimate group for deep creative healing and mutual witnessing, so you can express authentically without feeling alone on your creative journey. Please contact me or book a call to explore this option.
Bespoke 1:1 Creative Transformation journey based on the principle of finding your Essence process. This entails 6 months of personalised integration work to embrace your hidden aspects and create from your complete authentic power.
Interesting idea! Will think about this. thank you, Rachel.
Thanks Rachel for this post! It explains exactly what I am trying to do, but couldn't articulate. I was wrestling with 'but it's going to take so much longer, if I need to learn this xyz' - yet I didn't want to write from where I was currently. So excited to go forward with the emergent as my guide.