Emily Pereira is a yoga teacher, dateless trained writing teacher and spirit nature certified spiritual advocate. Most important to her – she’s a woman who’s for other women. Formerly entrenched in the corporate world and caught in an endless cycle of never feeling like IT was enough, Emily had a much (needed) spiritual awaking that allowed her to recover her dormant creativity. She wrote a novel, learned to play guitar, write and sing original songs, paint large canvasses, and dance in Le Vie Noir burlesque troupe – all after 32 years of believing she didn’t have a creative bone in her body.

Background

It started about eight years ago when she started to question her purpose in life. She would experience sleepless nights, this question would keep her awake all night. She kept on ignoring that inner voice for quite some time but she knew she had to deal with it eventually. She would constantly ask the following question from herself

“When are you going to do something that truly matters to you?”

Although, Emily was doing a lot of things in her life that she thought would bring happiness to her life.

For many people, Emily was living a perfect life. She earned quite a lot of money, would frequently travel around Europe, party on the weekends and wear expensive designer clothes all the time. But deep down, she knew she wasn’t living her purpose, she wasn’t happy but she did not know how she could find her true purpose in life.

Emily’s world crumbled when her partner who she had been dating for five years cheated on her. She dropped weight, developed a strange and rare skin condition that no doctor could explain and eventually moved out from her beachfront home into a small apartment. She lost a lot of her friends who preferred to side with her partner. Back then, she was devastated but she realized this event helped her find her true purpose in life and helped her pursue inner happiness and satisfaction. She met this spiritual teacher, James Stellar who is also the founder of Spirit Nature Healing Centre. During their first session, James made Emily realize that her pain had nothing to do with her partner who cheated on her. It was more related to the illusions she had developed about herself and about the people around her. James asked Emily to stop being perfect all the time and believed Emily tried very hard to fit into something that was completely unaligned with her talents and personality. Emily thought she had to be perfect in order to be worthy of approval, acceptance, and love. In one of her sessions with James, he asked Emily if she was doing anything that was creative and Emily’s response was that she is not a creative person at all. He was amused at her response because he believed Emily was creative yet failed to use her creativity up to that point in her life. He went on to explain that creativity is an energy that is a natural part of being human and she was inhibiting her creative abilities by trying to be perfect and not exploring herself. There is nothing in this world that is perfect, a tree is not perfectly straight, a flower is not perfectly symmetrical. He asked her to stop trying to be perfect and to allow herself to be a beginner. A beginner does not know anything so a beginner cannot fail at anything.

How were you able to make money while still tapping into your creativity?

Throughout this self-exploration journey, Emily still had her job. She was able to explore herself while still having a regular job and earning money from it. She says when something is important for us in our life, we make time for it no matter how hectic our daily routine is. You do not need to change your entire life to explore opportunities for yourself and to discover your true potential. For Emily, it was a gradual progression.

How did you end up living in Costa Rica?

Living in Costa Rica has got a lot to do with her retreats. Her retreats are called ‘The Mermaid Sisterhood’ designed for women and these retreats really allow women to link together giving permission to each other to be in a process that begins with surfing on the beach, then yoga, followed by writing. Emily, from her own experience, knows that writing is a gateway to enhance your creativity. She was leading one such retreat in Costa Rica and on the last day of her retreat as she was sitting on her surfboard watching the sun shine brightly in the sky, at that moment Emily felt like she had never been more happier in her life. She said to her inner-self that one day she is going to move to Costa Rica and live there. A few months later was her thirty-seventh birthday and she took a trip to Costa Rica where she met her future husband on a beach and they surfed together. They started to exchange notes and her husband asked her out for a dinner. Before her return from Costa Rica, her husband asked her to move to Costa Rica with him. Emily took some time, thought about the idea and finally moved to Costa Rica and married the guy who is now the father of Emily’s daughter.

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to be creative but does not know how to start?

It all just comes down to permission. A lot of women are waiting for outside validation, waiting for someone to come to them and tell them they have the potential to do things they want to do. However, the reality is that you have the power to give yourself permission right now. It all depends on you. Stop looking for external validation, take the leap, believe in yourself and grow.

What is the best advice you have ever been given?

There are two pieces of advice that Emily would like to share. The first piece of advice that she has been given is to be the beginner, which means to take initiatives in your life, to try out new things and explore your talents and potential. The second best piece of advice is that you are responsible for every single thing in your life. Everything good, or bad that happens to you is because you choose it for you. You are responsible for your own happiness.

How can we connect with you?

You can find more about her from her website.

Her website’s URL is

http://emilypereira.com

You can also find a free e-book on her website by the name ‘Unstoppable Woman’.

You can also connect with her on Instagram through the following link.

https://www.instagram.com/emilybegins/