Permission to Pause: Reclaiming Your Creative Energy with Isabel Bagsik

• Learning to practice how to rest (5:12)

• Exploring the perpetual culture of being accessible all the time (11:05)

• Realizing that intentional breaks birth creativity (14:50)

• Using the three tiers of rest practices (18:58)

• Generating creativity through rest (24:58)

• Debunking the myth that you are not good enough to take moments of rest (30:38)

“There are so many ways that we can rest, and it doesn’t have to look like a nap. Walking outside, that’s a movement practice, and we’re moving our bodies, but that’s still a form of rest because we are taking a break from our computers, we’re getting fresh air, we’re changing our environment where we are.”

“Some things that I now practice are things like starting my day with journaling and a meditation to set the tone and set my energy for the day so that I don’t jump into my laptop first.”

“We weren’t made to be connected to our technology for so long.”

“There are so many ways that we can rest, and it doesn’t have to look like a nap.”

“So having the intentionality and the presence in that moment can be really shifting, right before you enter your next call, or even if you want, like, an active practice shaking or dancing”

“With this quick practice of channeling their younger selves clients were able to connect with their creativity in a refreshed way, in a new way that their younger self needed or was innate and inherent, a way to connect with that part of themselves. And even like a week after that, clients have shared that there was creative flow and ease in how they approached their projects.”

NICOLE

Hello, friends. Welcome back to the School of Self-Worth. I am your host, Nicole. Today I am super delighted to welcome this week’s guest, Isabel Bagsik. She is a former art director turned creativity wellness guide, who supports creatives, claiming their gifts from a place of rest. She is a Filipino American multidisciplinary creative who is energized by my soulful conversations, and did we ever have a soulful conversation. We really dug into the importance of rest to tap into your creativity, and Isabel is a huge source of wisdom, ideas and tools, that can really support you in your life.

So get ready for amazing tips and an incredibly powerful conversation. If you’re a high-achieving career woman who wants the exact step-by-step to understand the secret language of intuition, I’ve got a private podcast that gives you the complete behind the scenes on how to master intuitive communication patterns. Dm me secret at NICOLE on Instagram to get all of the details.

Okay, friends, let’s get into this next level conversation. Welcome to the School of Self-Worth, a podcast for ambitious women who know they are worthy of an astoundingly great life. Join us weekly as we get on the right side of your intuition, redefine success, and reclaim your self-worth. I’m your host, Nicole, an award-winning journalist who left it all behind to become a best-selling author of three books and work/life balance expert, helping ambitious women unlock their intuition and step into a life of fulfilment and radical joy. Every single week, I will bring you diverse and meaningful conversations with successful women from all walks of life who share insight about what it takes to be brave, joyful, and authentic every day. Every episode is thoughtfully designed to leave you feeling empowered with tangible tips and advice that will lead you to your next breakthrough.

Well, I’m so delighted to be here today with Isabel. Thank you so much for being on the show.

ISABEL BAGSIK

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

NICOLE

Well, I love the conversation topic that Isabel and I were chatting about, which is really about rest; creating into how that supports creativity. I also just want to get to know you a little bit and have a conversation about you, Isabel. We were chatting a little bit before, but what I’d love to know is a little bit more about your journey to being someone who actually talks about rest as a creative source, and that’s something that I’m just very excited to explore. But tell us a little bit more about yourself as well.

ISABEL BAGSIK

Yeah, for sure. So I’m Isabel Bagsik. My pronouns are she, her, and I’m a former art director now fulfilling my role as a creative wellness guide. So I’m a Filipino American creative, and I’ve had the honor of holding spaces for over 300+ BIPOC and LGBTQIA, plus change makers. So it’s been really amazing to support creatives claiming their gifts from a place of rest. Rest is really huge for me to focus on because from personal experience and from my peers and folks that I’ve worked with, burnout is such a big thing that so many people talk about, and how has this become the norm? And so I really wanted to challenge that and see how can we not make rest an afterthought, but rather the start of, and integrated into, the creative practice for a new way that we approach our relationship to our creativity. So that’s where my focus is. Also just moving through a surgery, a minor surgery at the end of last year, really focused me into what rest looks like. A forced rest of about two weeks recovering, and so that really shifted where rest plays in my life, you don’t know when it would end or how long it is. So how do I ensure that I pursue my creativity fully, passionately, joyfully, while adding rest as an integrated part of that process so that I can continue this for many years to come, and not get burned out after just one thing?

NICOLE

Yeah. Thank you so much. What would you say to, I don’t know what your childhood was like, but I feel like a lot of us didn’t learn how to rest necessarily, even from when we were kids. I don’t feel like anyone told me to rest, they were always like, go play, go do something, then I took on my own interpretation of achievement and always was trying to do better or win more or get the next level of whatever it is. So I’m curious about for you, was that the same thing, or did you feel like you were taught rest when you were a child?

ISABEL BAGSIK

Oh, this is a good question, because no, rest is not taught. I had to really, and I still am really learning how to practice it and even teach my own parents, especially my mother. I think, not learning how to rest and this idea of survival for especially people of color or children of immigrants, this is a common narrative of this focus of survival, especially moving from one country or from one situation to another, this need of your values and your productivity and what you create, what you produce, what you do. That’s such a valid experience to be coming from, but with this new era of self-actualization and realizing a new way of moving and understanding, there’s another way of approaching our life. I feel like I’m in this really grateful opportunity and space, having this acknowledgment, gratitude for my ancestors, for my parents, for allowing us to survive so that I can move and think in this way. How can I now honor their sacrifices and the things that they did, in a joyful way, to honor them in a rested way, in ways that they could have never imagined doing. That’s definitely something that I had to learn about, but also have this gratitude for my lineage, especially with my mother. Both my parents were born and raised in the Philippines, my mom in the province, my dad in the city, both of them having several siblings.

My dad even shared a story of how he and his three siblings and two parents have shared one mango. It would be sliced between all of them, and that really shifted this perspective of where I came from and the privileges I have now, and how it really explained a lot of their work ethic, which I really respect and honor and have looked to respectfully. I feel like part of that has been within me, too, of sometimes working too much and working too long. So how do I shift that for myself and teach my parents, especially my mother, a different way of moving? Those are all some things that I’ve been reflecting on in terms of my relationship to rest and how that ties into my own lineage.

NICOLE

‘parents and whoever’s listening, it’s helpful to look back, to be like, what did you learn from it? But my parents were children of war, so I always think about how when you’re a child of war, you’re experiencing so much trauma. There’s so much going on around. My mom is from Taiwan, and my dad was mainland China, before they moved, so when you’re in that experience, for them, what was it that got them out? And for them, it was education, and that’s how they actually were able to move to North America. When I look at that, I think that’s the value then, is to work and do anything you need to work really hard to get the education, because education is basically going to save you.

When I reflect upon it and look back, I realise how that makes so much sense, why for me, that value would be so high on education, but wasn’t actually really high on anything else. It wasn’t like, you had to work an extra job, or you had to do all these other things. Extracurriculars were always with the goal of education, so extracurriculars were fine, but everything always was grades, extracurriculars, all related to this destination of college, I’d say, as a kid. It’s interesting when I look back at it, because during my 20s, I definitely turned it into working really hard, and it just became this very automatic ‘work as hard as possible’, because once I was in college, I had already achieved the goal. So then I was just already trained to constantly work.

Then, obviously, we live in America, which is just working constantly. I’ve had friends from other places saying  Americans work a lot, and I was like, no, we don’t. But oh, my God, we work so much, we really taking it down. I feel like I’m always kind of retraining my nervous system to work less and then still trust that the business, my life, is going to work really well with me working less. I would say I work probably the least amount of hours now than I’ve ever worked in my life, and I still feel like I work too much for my nervous system, for what my brain and my body really need. So I’m curious for you then, where did you start to play with this idea of rest or how to incorporate it into your life?

ISABEL BAGSIK

Yeah, there’s so much that you share that I resonated with, so much, like the lifestyle of western society, of hyper independence and moving the goalpost further and further, after you’ve reached one milestone, we have to do the next thing. There’s so much to that, so thank you for sharing that. And then to your question, where I’ve started to integrate that into my own life, I think one moment would be thinking back to my work in the design industry as a designer, as an art director, of the really long hours that would be expected. Working through lunch too, we have this reserved time for a lunch break, yet there was still this unsaid, inherent culture of people still messaging through their lunches, still working through their lunch break when that break was already reserved for ourselves. It’s like this perpetual, unsaid thing of you need to be on all the time. You need to be accessible all the time through the day and sometimes even on the weekends, when certain projects would be launched, and that makes sense for that job, in that industry.

But after a certain time, I realized that can’t be the way that I navigate this world, the way that I connect with my creativity, especially with the work that I was doing, especially tied to social media. The attention span is so short, there needs to be new content all the time, that’s also why the work was tied to that too. Even though it was fun, as a consumer, once I got into the behind the scenes part, it was too much for me and my own nervous system. So it was a lot of untangling and unraveling from that and seeking new ways of what rest and a slowed down way of approaching my creativity could be for myself.

A lot of it was seeing other creatives, especially other creatives of color and women of color, approaching their rest practices and modeling that, showing that it is possible and showing what they were doing. Kind of a way of permission for me to tap into that for myself. Not to say that I didn’t have that permission, but it was like this internal thing that I couldn’t see that pathway. It just was never taught. We were talking about how our parents, our ancestors had other things to focus on. It was just not a concept that I even knew existed or was possible for me, so some things that I now practice are things like starting my day with journaling and a meditation to set the tone, and set my energy for the day so that I don’t jump into my laptop first.

Especially at the start of the pandemic, I worked in my room, and my laptop was just on my desk. So right from bed, I’d roll out and start work. And looking back, I’m like, that can’t be! We weren’t made to be connected to our technology for so long. Another practice that I love doing is going outside. I think that’s such a simple thing, such an accessible thing for folks who can move outside to practice, because, again, we’re either glued to our computers or on meetings all the time, or inside buildings. How do we get fresh air? How do we refresh our eyesight to see other colors or textures, or hear the wind or all these things can really help regulate your nervous system in ways that we don’t realize, especially getting sunlight, too. Slowing down and doing other things, even though, especially as a creative, I feel like I need to be doing one project, or I need to do this other thing for this x, y, and z event. With practice, I realize that when I actually take intentional breaks and do something else, it actually allows for my subconscious to work and be energized and opened up even more. Many ideas have come through just intuitively on a nature walk or when I’m doing something else, or when I’m about to go to bed.

A lot of folks don’t realize that these breaks aren’t an afterthought. They’re not like an extra thing. They’re actually a way to make things more easeful and flow. Why can’t we do something easy? Why does it have to be hard all the time? So those are some things of how I’ve been practicing rest for my creativity.

NICOLE

Beautiful. Well, you said something interesting. At the beginning of the pandemic you were just rolling out of bed and getting onto your computer, and everyone was doing it – in their PJ’s! But I’ll just say this, I was not that person, because I had been on zoom before the pandemic, I actually had a whole practice before that and didn’t even really think anything of it, because I have a dog. In the morning, I would meditate and then walk my dog and have breakfast and everything, then I would get onto zoom, and all these people were saying they just got out of bed and onto their computers. And I’m like, why? That’s insane.

You would never normally do that. You would drive your car, or take transport, and go to the office, then get online. I remember I did a post about it, and one of the TV stations in Seattle featured it, and I did not think it was groundbreaking, but apparently it was, that people were not learning to do a morning ritual practice before they started work. But the toll became very clear right when we were halfway through the pandemic, and people were just so burned out because they were working two or three more hours per day, than they had previously, so the productivity was insane, but the people were super exhausted. Plus, if you had kids at home, you were also raising children and doing all this other stuff.

So it was interesting when you said that, and I’m curious if for you, although you’re not in that job anymore, if you found ways in the middle of that, because a lot of our listeners are women who are working and also have kids. How did you learn to incorporate rest practices in the middle of busyness, in the middle of a full season of life, where it hardly feels like you have enough space and time for anybody, let alone yourself, and to really incorporate it. Because when people say rest, I think they often think it’s about taking a nap, which is lovely, if you can take a nap, yes, take a nap, but how can you start to think about rest differently? And how can you do, and not even bite size, because I’m not necessarily a fan of bite size being the only way, but bite size to build more sustaining practices, is how I like to think of it?

ISABEL BAGSIK

Yeah, thank you for that question. That is something that I’ve reflected on, how, with a nine to five, could I still integrate rest into my day and also delineate the difference between active rest and more passive, still rest. There are so many ways that we can rest, and it doesn’t have to look like a nap. For example, what I shared of walking outside, that’s a movement practice, and we’re moving our bodies, but that’s still a form of rest, because we are taking a break from our computers, we’re getting fresh air, we’re changing our environment where we are. I think having some fun approaching what our rest practices could be, can be really an effective way to dream about and fantasize what that could look like for ourselves. Kind of thinking about what I like to invite the people that I work with, of customizing a rest toolkit for ourselves. So especially thinking about the different tiers of accessibility or tiers of complexity, that’s something that I actually typed out into my phone that I could reference during moments where I might be emotionally charged, or just don’t have the bandwidth or the capacity to think up a ritual or routine. That’s what I’d love to invite listeners to do.

Think about three tiers of rest practices or grounding practices. So tier one is the most easy, accessible thing that you can do in a few seconds. For example, what I even noted down for myself is a breathing exercise, maybe it’s taking a certain amount of inhales and exhales, and that’s something that anyone can do, no matter where they are. Maybe they’re commuting in public transit, or they’re driving or they’re on a walk, or walking to a different meeting. That’s something that they can do immediately. So that’s like a tier one type of a work

Then tier two type of a rest practice could have some tools, but still technically simple. So maybe it’s journaling, or maybe it’s a dance movement. That’s something that I like to do, put on a song that feels good or feels aligned with whatever emotion it is. Maybe it’s like an angry song or a sad song to release that energy in your body. So it takes a little bit of tools, maybe, and maybe some space where you might want to be private or not. That’s something that I associate with the tier two.

Tier three is a little more ritualized, more indulgent. Maybe you’re planning out a nature hike, and maybe you invite folks to join you and it’s a whole day event, or maybe it’s a home spa day where you have a bubble bath for yourself, and you do some body care and put on some perfume. Those are some examples of these different tiers that I like to invite folks to dream about, play with, write out for yourselves, either in your phone or maybe taped up on your wall in your room, just so that you can access it and remember it, especially when you don’t have the capacity to think up what to do. That’s one thing that I like to invite folks into. Then, in terms of especially those who are working full time jobs, how do you deepen the quality of your rest? If we don’t have the quantity, how can we deepen the quality? For example, maybe you only have five minutes in between a zoom meeting. Maybe it is a few moments of really deep, intentional breaths. Because for me, sometimes I forget that I’m breathing, or sometimes I have shallow breathing just with the rush and the pace of having to jump into different zoom calls, addressing different emails, and all of those things. Having just the intentionality and the presence in that moment can be really shifting right before you enter your next call, or even if you want, an active practice shaking or dancing. I’ve jumped up and down or shook my body or shook my hands to just move the energy through my body in just a few seconds, and you can do that in between calls, because maybe you’re working remotely, you’re not physically walking from a different room. You can invite a little bit of that movement back into your day if that’s something that is supportive for you and you’re able to have that movement.

Those are a couple of things, and drinking water, that’s a thing that even I forget to do. Have a big jug of water or water bottles on your desk to remember, to replenish yourself. A simple thing, but often a common one that folks do forget. Those are some things I wanted to invite folks to practice and try out.

NICOLE

Thank you. I love all of those suggestions. There’s so many good ones in there that are really rich. I find for so many people, taking breaks or doing really baseline things, like get up and go to the bathroom, or drink some water, can be really challenging to remember when you’re in the thick of things or when you’re working, and I always think about this, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts. I find what you’re calling ‘rest’, for me, is also like a lot of practices that I have through the day that really also clear my brain out, because if I’m on the screen all day, for me it’s like max, 4 hours, then I typically have to go take a walk or do something else. Then there’s all these studies that show when you walk, in particular, that it stimulates a lot of the creativity hormones, like all the things that would actually flush blood through your body and just like getting oxygen in and really moving, helps with so much creativity and it helps with regulation.

I know for myself often, if I’m writing, if I’m stuck, that actually giving it up, going for a walk, coming back and sitting down, I actually am refreshed. If you know Anne Patchett, the author, she was saying at a talk recently on her last book, that she completely wrote it whilst on the treadmill. She has one of those walking treadmills, and she said that usually she’s always so distracted when she writes, but when she was on the walking treadmill, she just was so focused and just wrote straight when she was on there. I think I need to get one of those for my next book, because sometimes I’m sitting there staring at the screen, and I don’t really know what to say  next. But I’m curious about for you then, how you think about it in terms of rest, fostering creativity, because that’s walking, which isn’t necessarily what people would think of as rest, and I’m curious what else you think of or know, for how rest can support us to actually generate creativity.

ISABEL BAGSIK

Yeah, I love that. Now I want to get like a walking treadmill with a standing desk and see what comes out of that. So thank you for that recommendation. But in terms of creativity, I think, again, can be such a potent way to access our creativity, of integrating it into our practice. Some ways that I’ve practiced it in my own life and in my own creative practices, for example, movement is a big thing. Taking that walk around my neighborhood helps my subconscious; let’s say I’ve been working on something or creating a new program or offering or event, and I might be blocked or like you said, maybe feeling stuck, then the walking helps.

Things just channel more easily. It just flows. I’m like, oh my gosh, all these ideas. Now I have to furiously type it out before I forget. So sometimes it doesn’t have to be hard. How can we make it easy? That’s one thing of letting our subconscious, our brain, rest and do something else, think about something else. For example, another thing that I have invited folks into is an inner child practice. It’s like a fun way of connecting with our creativity that is a nonlinear side of our brains, like using our nondominant hand. I’ve invited clients into this practice and just immediately they’ve had visceral experiences. Even like a week after, they’ve experienced some huge shifts and transformations in how they’ve approached their creativity, which really shows the power of connecting to your inner child and doing these creative, accessible practices. One thing they did using their nondominant hand,  I invited them into drawing their inner child portrait. So I’ve had folks either bring a picture or at least visualize their younger selves and use their nondominant hand to draw that image within like two minutes, without lifting their pen off the page. There are some restrictions that they have to follow, like the time allowed and not lifting your pen off the page, and this  releases the perfectionism, but it also has the sense of play.

Again, this is a more active type of rest, where you’re not doing something so related to a job or a project or ideating something, it’s more of a playful practice. Releasing the idea of perfectionism was a huge thing. A lot of folks had tension with having to do this, as it’s not going to look a certain way because they’re using their other hand, that they don’t usually use. And then there’s that time limit. But afterwards, a lot of folks have shared that they were able to release a lot of that. In that moment. They were invited and challenged into releasing a lot of these things that they’ve thought, at least from society’s pressure, on having to navigate. Like having to show up this way or having to perform a certain way.

With this quick practice of channelling their younger selves, they were able to connect with their creativity in a refreshed way, in a new way that their younger self needed or was innate and inherent, a way to connect with that part of themselves. Even like a week after that, clients have shared that there was creative flow and ease in how they approached their projects. And it really shows how some of these practices can be very transformational to our creative processes, our craft, our practices. How can we make it easy? How can we make it fun and pleasurable? Because it doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be a struggle or a challenge. And thinking back to our inner child creativity, it was all about play, all about experimentation, so that’s what I like to think about, rest in terms of, okay, what does my present self-need? But also, how do I nourish my younger self? Because that part of me is always with me. It’s just a matter of remembering and connecting back to that part of ourselves.

So that’s a variety on the spectrum of how rest and creativity can be connected.

NICOLE

I love the left hand one because I’ve never really done that. Or like the nondominant hand, which for me would be left, and it’s really challenging. When I occasionally do use it, I don’t really know what’s happening, and then your brain has to switch gears because it’s using the other hand.

ISABEL BAGSIK

Right.

NICOLE

I’m curious too, for you. I don’t know if you come across this with your clients. I know this happens with mine, where they don’t even feel like they have the self-worth there for them to do some of these practices. What would you say for women who feel like they don’t have the time, it’s not even possible, when actually it’s them confronting or dealing with this deeper level of thinking that they are not worthy of taking this additional time. Their worth and value is always around work and what they produce and what they are doing, rather than them taking space.

ISABEL BAGSIK

I have definitely witnessed that too, and I have experienced that in my own life as how am I even allowed to rest? That can’t be a concept. That’s not for me, that’s for other people. But of course it is for us. Rest is a birthright for all of us. It should be, and something that we often forget, and we’re socialized to not be connected to, because in a capitalist society, again, our worth is on value, on what we create. And how do we shift that mindset of what our self-worth is? How can we recreate that narrative in a way that feels so aligned, coming from a place of love and joy and alignment? And so a lot of that is going to be the internal work of shifting that narrative for ourselves and also seeking out support, too.

Again, in this western society of hyper independence, we forget the power of community. We forget the power of support systems, especially coming from a Filipino background. Community is literally how children are raised. Villages raise children, villages take care of elders. We exchange and redistribute energy, resources, labor. That’s another thing that I also look to in terms of seeking support, affirmations, love for affirming this new self-worth that I want to step into. Those are some things that I like to keep in mind, like I am allowed and I should be allowed, and I am able to shift what self-worth looks like in terms of how I can access rest, and that rest is indeed important for me, and that it is safe to practice rest and that my community is here to hold me in a way that I am allowed to ask for that support.

So those are some things that come to mind, and in terms of remembering self-worth, especially as a creative, that the collective, the community is waiting on your creative medicine.

If we don’t claim and step into our creative gifts, our responsibility to pursue our creative ideas and projects, then our community is going to be without your creative medicine that you could have otherwise shared with folks. If you can’t see that now, think about the movies or documentaries that have moved you. Think about songs that might have helped you through really deep emotions, or a book that you really loved and reread, or a poetry book that really affected you and saw yourself in. That could be you too. And that is for you. That path is for everyone if they remember their self-worth. That yes, you do have something to share, and your voice should be honored and practiced in using. That’s something that I had to remember, too, just this past year, stepping into this confidence and reclaiming my voice.

I was playing small for several years and I had forgotten that side of myself. And with support from community, with this reframing of my own self-worth and internal narrative, I started stepping back into my creative gifts and how transformational that was in terms of my creative relationship, and how I share that with my community, with clients. If I didn’t do that for myself, I wouldn’t have been able to see the transformations and changes with clients in their own creative relationship. And once they do that, how much more can that get spread? Creativity might seem like surface level, this self-centered or one-sided thing, but really, when I look deeply into my mission, if we can foster this loving, nurturing way that we approach our creativity and spread that out to others, to remember that part of themselves, how whatever they create for their local community, for their global community, how much more healing can happen with their poetic processing of the world.

NICOLE

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that, Isabel. There are so many things to what you just said, but I also feel very strongly that it is when people are really connected to who they are, right? Their most creative selves, like who they genuinely are, then the world benefits. If you are hiding yourself or staying trapped in jobs that don’t serve you really, actually doesn’t do anything for the world. That’s not who you’re here to be. So I’m totally with you on that one.

The other thing you said that I also found really supportive and helpful, especially for our listeners, is around community. I find for my clients, they often feel very isolated in their challenges, and then when they start to come together in community, they start to see the other people who are doing the same things, or people who are trying to make that change in their lives, then it’s a lot easier to do than when you’re doing it in a little silo of yourself, and I hear this all the time. I just want to do this on my own. I’m like, well, you definitely can, it’s not like it’s not possible. It’s just so much easier and faster when you’re doing it in community. I’m in many different communities, and I find so much inspiration in them, and I find the women who are in my community with each other, they can lean on each other, they start to help each other, and then their progress is so much faster. So thank you for pointing that out again, because I think it can be very easy for us to forget, especially when you’re living in this little siloed world where nobody else is working on themselves, or nobody else is trying to move out of that job and get into a creative space. They think you’re the weird one, right? You’re sort of the weirdo who hasn’t figured it out, but there are actually places where you’re not at all weird. You’re actually the norm. Like everybody is really looking for their unique voice in their space. So thank you for sharing all of those things.

You have given us so many tremendous tools actually, in this particular podcast. And for someone who’s starting out and saying, okay, like I want to just start to try a rest practice, what is one practice you would give them just to begin with?

ISABEL BAGSIK

Yeah. So I’ll give one for the more still type of rest and then one for a more active type of rest. A still one could be, especially for those who have never practiced any of this, to find presence when you’re eating a meal. How can you slow down a little bit instead of scarfing down your lunch or your breakfast, or whatever you’re eating, even a snack, how do we slow down our bites, our chews? How can we bring in all our five senses and look at what we’re eating? Can we smell it? Can we appreciate and savor the taste on our tongue? Yeah, all of those. Bring in all those senses and also a sense of gratitude for the farmers, for the people who delivered the food to the grocery store, for the people who might have packaged and boxed it. Having this presence and gratitude into a meal, I would love to invite folks into this for a more still type of rest.

And then a more active type of a rest practice could be like what I shared earlier, of putting on a song that matches the mood that you’re feeling, and then just dance it out. Have that energy, move through your body and release the notion of what your body is supposed to look like. Is this cool, be weird, be eccentric, do the weird things of how a child would dance and move. There’s no judgement, especially if you can do so in your own room. How can you move in a way that just feels good and releases that energy? Those are two practices that I’d like to invite folks into.

NICOLE

Awesome. Those are so accessible and beautiful. Thank you so much, Isabel, for sharing those, and thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom here and so much learning for people, especially around crafts, because I feel like it is one of the most challenging practices for women, and any person in general, who suffers from perfectionism and that people-pleasing side.

All right, well, it is time for us to do our rapid fire questions. So this is simple, easy. What was the last thing you watched on TV?

ISABEL BAGSIK

Oh, I am currently watching the Fall of the House of Usher, directed and created by Mike Flanagan. And I just love a lot of his other projects, so, yeah, that’s what I’m watching.

NICOLE

Cool. So fun. What is on your nightstand?

ISABEL BAGSIK

Several books. I always like to have a couple of books right before bed. So one is Women who run with Wolves, and Karma of Success.

NICOLE

Cool. Amazing. Okay. And then when was the last time you tried something new and what was it?

ISABEL BAGSIK

Something new. I would have to say the first thing that’s coming to mind is my birthday this year, and it’s not exactly super new, but it’s fairly new. I did a pole dancing class, and I invited my dad and my sister and her partner to join me, and it was really fun to see them play and connect with their bodies in this way. It was the second ever pole dance class that I did, but it’s been a while since the first one, so that’s the one that I’ll bring up and share.

NICOLE

That’s so fun. How did they do?

ISABEL BAGSIK

They were really good. I have to say. I was struggling a little bit. I wore the wrong bottoms, so I was slipping. But they had a lot of fun, and they were able to do quite a few of the moves that were taught. So that was really cute and exciting to see.

NICOLE

That’s awesome. I’ve done pole dancing. I find it very challenging because it’s so much strength, it’s a crazy strength to be a pole dancer.

Okay, last one. What are your top three most used emojis on your phone?

ISABEL BAGSIK

Oh, my gosh. From memory, I have to say, it would probably be the laughing emoji with the tears off to the side, not the sideways one, just like the upright one. And then another is probably the heart that’s on fire. The third one is probably the kind of like a smirking one with its lips.

NICOLE

Awesome. Yeah, I love emojis. They express so much for us.

Well Isabel, thank you so much for being with us today on the School of Self-Worth. I am so grateful. I know that our listeners got so much from hearing this conversation with you.

And what is the best way for them to find out more about you. or to follow you on social media?

ISABEL BAGSIK

Yeah, I really love this conversation as well. So thank you for having me. I’d love to invite folks who are listening, to book a free clarity call with me that is available on my website@unconventionalbliss.com. From there, you can learn more about how your rest and your creativity can be nurtured. Even though creativity might seem like it’s for full time artists, and creatives, I want to remind folks that creativity is for everyone, and is in practice in all of our lives. Whether you’re making a meal, whether you’re figuring out how to reschedule your day with your kids, whether you are an entrepreneur or in tech, there are so many ways that we approach creativity. So that is one way that I love to connect with folks through that clarity call and learn more of how I can best support you.

I also want to share a sneak peek of a new offering that I’ll be creating, which might be launched by the time this gets shared. I’m excited to share first here in this podcast, that my new offering is a group program. So going back to the importance of community and how we can show up and have this sense of accountability, but also hype each other up, have that support, and that’s why I love group programs. This group program is really about going from ideation to launch, taking my background in event organizing and working in the design industry. Whatever your idea is, whether you are a casual crafter or someone who has a big project that they want to launch, or you’re in the middle of, and just want that support, that’s what the program is going to be about. So yeah, excited to connect with everyone.

NICOLE

Yeah. Thank you so much and we’ll link to your website in the show notes and have more details there for everybody as well. Isabel, thank you so much for being on. I’m so grateful to have you on and sharing your wisdom here. And thank you everybody for listening to the School of Self-Worth.

Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. Before you go, don’t forget, if you are a high-achieving woman who wants to uncover your biggest blind spots preventing fast intuitive decisions, I’ve got a 72-second assessment for you, so make sure to dm me quiz on at Nicole at Instagram, and thank you for being here and for listening. We read every note that we get from you about how the podcast is making a difference in your life. Please know how much we appreciate each and every one of you. Until next time, I’m Nicole Tsong and this is the School of Self-Worth.