EP 40: Creating Space For Self And Learning From Your Child With Laura Holway

Laura’s creative and insightful heart is so bright. It’s easy to see why she is such a great artist, consultant, and mother.

Grieving the unexpected, healing through art, accepting tantrums. Gain insights on better ways to approach discovering your personal values and to allow space for expressing emotions without suppression.

As an artist and a consultant, Laura is passionate about exploring ways of creating a nourishing, satisfying, and heart-centered life. Through her work, she helps individuals identify their personal values and move toward living a more authentic, fulfilling life.

She believes people who take the time for self-discovery are brave, and acknowledge the vulnerability it takes. Identifying personal values can be challenging, but that’s where her coaching comes into play. Through coaching, Laura helps show that there are more possibilities than we often realize. One key to this exploration is looking at what phase of life you are currently in and what priorities you want to say “yes” to.

“There are so many ways of doing things, and we have to find the rules that work best for us. And then we have to reinvent when our circumstances change.”

She guides people through emotional and thought-provoking questions, like what lights your body up, or alternatively, what exhausts and depletes you. One exercise she recommends is practicing dreaming, a process of envisioning your goals in life and what you want daily life to look like.

But because life is ever-changing, even the best-laid plans can take unexpected turns. She notes that when this happens, there’s a certain amount of grief work that needs to be done to help process the sudden transition. Though there’s great freedom in acceptance, she explains that there is a certain beauty in allowing yourself permission to feel the emotions of the moment.

“The more I give myself permission to feel that way and to lean into that, the more I’m able to move forward.”

This is one of the many lessons she has learned from her child. It’s a healthy reminder for her that even through difficult times, moving through discomfort helps increase her tolerance threshold.

Laura speak about her experience going through a divorce, and how honoring her own healing process allowed her to establish boundaries navigate when she needed to compartmentalize and when she could safely experience the full breadth of her feelings. She also credits dance as an important part of her healing process.

In her journey with motherhood, she was initially surprised at how certain gender roles in her relationship began to play out. She realized how easy it was to value her child and spouse’s needs over her own. She has been able to apply her coaching tools to her own life and through conversation and awareness, she has been able to expand how those roles operate.