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'A conscious queen'

by Nina Culver For Coeur Voice
| December 10, 2018 1:11 PM

Hayden artist and women’s empowerment and creativity coach Colleen Russell has finally achieved her longtime dream of publishing a book that hit shelves earlier this month. The story of her journey to self discovery is titled “The Feminine Path to Wholeness, Becoming a Conscious Queen.”

“I’ve wanted to write a book since my 30s,” she said. “I think I wanted the life of an author, or what I perceived as the life of an author. My deep desire was to go through my story and sort and see how did I become this way? Obviously, it took me this long to mature enough.”

Russell, 63, starts her book and her journey when she was a young child living on the southern Oregon coast in a large, poor Catholic family. She traces the early roots of her fear of abandonment and feeling that she was a bad person.

She also writes about her father’s reaction when she became pregnant at 17.

“It was clear that he was not going to reject me or send me to a home for unwed mothers, which was one of the options I had considered for myself,” she wrote. “He loved me for who I was, but I was so ashamed I could not accept it.”

She had no plans for her life, but earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Oregon State University. She worked in advertising jobs and eventually achieved her goal of making $50,000 a year, but something was missing.

“I had achieved success in the outer world, but there was an unfulfilled longing inside me,” she wrote.

After her husband died of a heart attack on a holiday ski trip, Russell quit her job and started her personal and spiritual journey with a trip to Europe to visit the Findhorn Foundation, a spiritual community in Scotland. She also attended a variety of workshops, was an avid reader of self-help books and explored different types of spirituality.

“I have an explorer’s spirit,” she said. “I want to know answers and traditional religion didn’t give me the answers I was needing. I just kind of felt trapped in my own skin.”

Still, Russell said she is grateful for her Catholic roots even though it’s been many years since she’s set foot in a Catholic church.

“I value a lot of the things I learned from Catholicism,” she said. “I haven’t thrown out everything I learned. When I left I felt boxed in. I didn’t feel like I could question the system.”

Along the way she was asked to give a presentation to a small group of people going through changes and transitions in their lives. She began doing presentations and giving speeches more and more often.

“Maybe I went from a career to a calling,” she said. “That was a way I could give back something of value that was more important than yellow page ads.”

She graduated from the Jungian-based BodySoul Leadership Training taught by Marion Woodman in 2010 and earned a master’s degree in Transpersonal Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in California.

Russell said she always thought she didn’t have any talents, but during her journey she discovered her talent for art. She began painting in 2010.

“It just started to emerge from my subconscious,” she said. “I can intuitively draw things.”

The thought that she had finally found her talent thrilled her. “I feel joyful that I discovered my artistic self,” she said. “I feel like I found my destiny.”

She loves to use bright colors in her creations, many of which appear in her book.

“I’m not a pastel girl,” she said. “It’s the color I like playing with.”

Russell said she wrote her book for women like her who are trying to explore themselves and find a purpose.

“My hope is that other women will find what I call their soul story and their life passions,” she said. “It’s not exactly an easy path, but it’s a doable path.”

Each chapter ends with various exercises readers can complete to help them explore their inner selves and go on a journey of their own.

“I believe that women’s gifts have not been expressed,” she said. “I believe we’re barely tapped into the potential of the human. All of us have this creative potential and we’re not living it.”

Russell’s book is available on Amazon and at Inquire Within and Vanderford’s in Sandpoint. Her art is available on her web site at www.theartfulsage.com.