Creativity: in conversation with somatic and spiritual teacher Madison Morrigan
I first came across Madison during Covid lockdown, when I was taking lonesome walks through graveyards during my maternity leave. Her podcast Everything Belongs was a balm for my soul. Since then I have done a number of Madison’s programmes, each one giving way to different transformations each time. Here Madison shares her creative process with me, and a free meditation for you to try at the end.
Madison, you are a force of nature in creating and reinventing your offerings. How do your ideas form or come to you?
Thank you so much. I consider myself an artist and mystic first, a practitioner second, so any offering I put into the world has very much been through a personal incubation. Nothing I put into the world is shared purely from an intellectual place–it’s a living offering, something I embody and live (albeit imperfectly, of course). In this way, I hope the offerings I sell are more than products to consume, but an invitation that’s felt vibrationally, relationally and through my words into a relationship with your own transformation.
Often, ideas for programs start as images, dreams and symbols I receive in my personal healing work. It’s my belief that images are the precursor to embodiment– whether from dreams, medicine journeys, ritual or in my own somatic sessions, images will show up from the subconscious to help us develop new understanding. The programs I offer almost always arise from this space.
For example, the phrase “Guardian of the Good,” which has become somewhat of an accidental tagline, came from a 90 day commitment to sobriety where I sat in a daily silent morning tea ceremony. Honoring this practice daily showed me I needed to stop “fixing” what I felt was wrong with me, and instead create and protect the good parts of life. Naturally, as it worked on me, it wove itself into my work. Nearly 3 years later, “The Fortress,” my year-long program, emerged from that place. A large part of the program emerged from images of my heart, with all my younger selves spiralling their way to the very depths. Naturally I created a guided hypnosis with similar imagery you can find here.
It also cannot be understated my love of learning. I am almost always taking my knowledge deeper with training, apprenticeship and ongoing education. How can we not be transformed and inspired when interfacing with expansive teachers and knowledge?!
Can you tell me how you advocate for your own work? How do you take up space, ensure you are paid/ decide on what to charge? What about this makes you feel uncomfortable, if anything, and how do you navigate this, particularly as a woman?
Starting this work as a naïve, autistic 23 year old, I had an innocent audacity and enthusiasm that I’m so thankful for, but was most certainly not sustainable. I wasn’t aware enough to be insecure about putting my work into the world. I was so grateful to do what I loved that I worked for next to nothing for many years. This time helped me develop a platform of people who trusted my intentions, and gave me time to develop skill as a practitioner while learning about business, money, marketing and sales. It took a few years of scraping by while having a very full workload to realize I needed to charge more, and come to see my time as valuable.
For years I felt guilty for charging for my work and had poor boundaries. Charging as a coach felt arbitrary– some colleagues were charging $40,000 for offerings I charged $3,000 for, while people asked for scholarships on nearly everything I offered. Coaching, back then, was the wild-wild-west, and many people were opportunists more than they were healers. #girlboss. I feel fortunate to have had really grounded people in my life who helped me navigate the delicate balance of being a practitioner in the healing space with also being a creative, entrepreneur and businesswoman. I learned that valuing my time and work didn’t mean I had to sacrifice my integrity or violate my boundaries.
I actually find it’s those who violate their own boundaries and feel exhausted from over-giving to be the same folks who want me to give beyond my capacity. I think this is a product of internalized patriarchy– something women frequently impose on other women. Care-taking, emotional labor and mothering are inherently under-valued in the patriarchy. Fems are expected give for free to prove their “goodness,” or simply because a need has landed on their doorstep. Healing my own internalized patriarchy helped me see how this expectation is entitled, immature and dishonoring of the feminine, and how all of us are conditioned to do it to one another in a way we would never to a man. This, above all, helped me learn to value emotional labor as labor that deserves proper compensation. Shoring up my internal “no,” baking my values into my business and being generous where I can is what helps me stay in my integrity the most.
These days I price my private sessions and groups based on a national industry average, considering my financial needs along with the demographic I work most frequently with’s income and capacity. Advocating for reasonable pay for my work is truly nothing more than not giving away work for free (even when strangers on the internet demand it in my DM’s) and knowing what my sliding scale prices are in advance.
What are your sources of creative inspiration?
Art, music, nature, learning, relationships, good conversation, yummy food! Ultimately life is my continual teacher. By nature I am inclined to perpetual seeking & learning, dot-connecting and evangelizing about what I love. It’s hard to keep a good thing to myself– sharing what inspires me, inspires me!
I am honestly just endlessly fascinated by humans– how we think, relate, feel and why we do what we do. It’s likely being autistic influences the depth of my curiosity regarding our inner world. One might say people & spirituality are my special interests, and the intersection of both are found in everything and everyone. It makes it hard not to be inspired! Each person, including myself, is like a secret door leading to an inner world that is ever deepening, changing and expansive. It makes every day I’m myself, and every day at my job… every day I interact with others a natural source of creative inspiration.
Where do you create, can you describe the space in which you work? What is it about this that feels important or significant to you?
I just moved, actually, so I’m still settling into my new office, which doubles as my altar space, my tea ceremony space and my closet. As I set up the new space I notice my need for little vignettes of beauty, nostalgia and sacredness. I’ve got three oracle decks to my right. An altar for a group program I host is beside them, with books stacked all around. I’ve got photos hanging of my mentors, my dog, my closest friends, and Mother Mary on my white board next to drawings of the nervous system and Enneagram symbols. There are candles, books, plants and art I’m working on– usually paintings of flowers. What’s most important is that it feels private, a space that’s my own where I can go and be uninterrupted in my work, whether that’s with clients, with my journal and tea or just with a book. I need time to putter in these spaces in order to be creative, which is as simple as cleaning up, lighting an incense and candle & making it pretty. Beauty is a portal to the Sacred, and since I was a child it was important that my space reflects that.
What are some of your creative challenges?
Usually capacity and time. As a practitioner and business owner living under capitalism, I can easily fill my days with tasks, clients and work so much that my creative energy goes towards marketing instead of what my Soul really wants to create. Don’t get me wrong, I love being clever in my marketing, but it doesn’t light me up in the same way painting, writing for Substack or creating programs does. But alas, to run a successful business doing what I love at this capacity, it must be done. Or at least that is the story I currently tell myself.
I can be somewhat of a workaholic and a perfectionist, with a side of people-pleasing by nature, so I have to keep my calendar in check and not fill it with every request that comes my way. I’ve been on my own financially since I was 17. Being scrappy and hustling has always been the way I got what I needed. Hand-outs and free passes were never a thing in my family, so as someone with an eye for the finer things, I learned early the life I wanted was up to me and only me. I’m grateful to have learned a hard work-ethic, but I’m working on softening into trust and cut back my incessant over-working. In recent years I’ve taken a pay-cut to honor my need for the spaciousness creativity requires, even though it scared the shit out of me. (Spoiler, I was more than okay and had more than I needed). Rituals like tea ceremony, monthly sessions with my practitioner and my recent move to the country are ways I’m orienting my life to help me remember myself and trust that it’s not all up to me. The universe has my back.
What trends or patterns across your industry have you noticed since establishing your business?
Oh my, I began this work 11 years ago, when OG blogging was still how people got clients and using Instagram for business felt bold. No one I knew in real life knew what a life coach was, and those who did thought it was a joke career! Since then it exploded, and multiple trend waves have blown through. First it was the hustle girl boss era, where you could do anything as long as you “leaned in,” thought positive and just posted enough inspirational quotes. This was back when everyone tried to automate everything, live on the beach & sell the laptop lifestyle. I live in the midwest, so that never quite spoke to me, but I was certainly influenced by trying to work smarter, not harder.
As the wave of online entrepreneurs grew, I started noticing a trend of Instagram therapists giving mental health advice. Suddenly everyone was an expert, everyone had a diagnosis, everyone was a coach, everyone had a hot take and advice to give. It got louder and louder, and then Covid created an explosion in the online healing space. People were scared about their jobs being gone, and saw an opportunity to cash in. Suddenly the space became over-saturated with noise, and everyone was selling, talking and cancelling each other, all the time. Some people made big money during this time, but without a sustainable business model or actual skill to back up their work, many of those people left the industry as quickly as they got into it.
Post-Covid, if that’s even a thing, there was a big contraction. Consumers now felt like experts on mental health with more information than ever before, but no embodiment of it. Selling courses got harder, and no one wanted to be on Zoom. Coaches panicked, even seasoned ones, closing their businesses and leaving the space altogether. It was during this time the wave of somatics began, in my opinion, because more research was coming out about the limitations of CBT compared to embodiment. Gabor Mate became a household name and suddenly everyone was a somatic coach with a Substack– and hey, me too.
Right now, like many folks who pay attention to trends, I see a rise in altered states and dissociative, conservative spirituality. I think it’s just the start of a far-right, conservative influence in this space. AI causing mania. Folks spreading misinformation. Trad-wife content trending. The wellness coaches are all drinking raw milk, going back to the land and getting in touch with their inner “feminine” or inner “masculine.” Not all of this is wrong, but I predict people will fall into cults, high control groups and delusion as anti-intellectualism, fear about polycrisis and distrust of government increases. As a spiritual person who has ridden the waves of all of these trends, they have a high side and a shadow side.
This time offers a potential to get in touch with the land, with our higher power, with sacred ritual and the transcendent– all things I am in support of! And just like any trend, it will have its cultural influence, and it will pass. As the business owner I am, I’ll speak to what’s happening. I’ll use the language of the trends where relevant. And as always, I’ll be influenced while I honor myself and my work the best I can in the midst.
What’s on the horizon for you? Where do you want to take your creativity and ideas next?
Oh goodness. Right now my programs and private coaching are thriving, I’ve been enjoying posting Tiktoks and Reels, and I don’t desire that to change! It feels stable and fun; like a solid foundation to build upon which will allow me to explore new avenues of creativity and playfulness. This fall I am hosting a brand new retreat called Communion with my partner, who is a Yoga Therapist. It’s the first time we will collaborate in this way, which I’m thrilled about!
Personally, once I get settled in my new home out here in the woods, I am hoping to have more time to write, paint and dream about building a dream home. I am also assisting in a year-long shamanic apprenticeship starting this fall, as well as taking another somatic training. Always learning! Who knows what will come next– life is always surprising me!
Is there anything else you’d like to share with me about your creative life as a female creative and business owner?
Having the opportunity to reflect on my creative life and business I am grateful to see how I’ve shaped a life that works for my brain and orientation to the world. My wish is to express more of my spirituality with the world, and reading my own words back I hope to be more honest in my creations– to not curate them for an external gaze, for sales or good marketing, but to share the truth on my heart. To share what wants to come through me with less fear or trepidation about how they will be received.
Check out more of Madison’s work here:
Her favorite pieces on Substack:
All photo credits go to Madison Morrigan.