Elisabeth Vismans

If you are looking for a positive change in your life you’re at the right spot. Let me give you a bit of my story.

One morning at age 54 I woke up and said to myself “I’m going to paint. I’m not taking that job offer.” My son and daughter had started college that year, my husband was away for work most of the time. And I was ready for Me Time. So I acted on that thought and I’m telling you it changed the whole trajectory of my life. On so many levels. I had no idea at that time. Now what you don’t know is that I always wanted to paint. My 1st core value is Freedom of Expression, and although over the years I found many creative outlets for expression, in the back of my head were color, paint and canvases very much there.

So …. why am I sharing this story with you? Well once I picked up a paintbrush it felt like coming home. And that feeling I want for everyone to have. Confident from within. Change. But it’s not the end of the story.

The first 5 years I painted about every single day, took many classes and workshops as I had one goal and that was that I wanted to be good. Like museum good! Still not there by the way, but it’s nice to have a goal. After having being focused on mainly oil painting, as I always loved oil paintings, I also knew that I might run out of time, so why not focus on one medium? But … painting in a studio (my kitchen, or sometimes sunroom) is a lonely business. Yes, I took classes and met other artists. That was also the best and only way I met people and was able to make friends. You see I have lived and worked in 6 different countries, fluent in 4 languages and every time I moved from one place to another, I created a group of people around me. Neighbors, friends, there was always a community around. Looking back I noticed that every time I moved away that group fell apart. I was clearly the glue of that community.

So there was this feeling that yes, I was finally doing what I loved but I began to miss a tribe. My tribe. But what can you do as an artist as I began seeing myself? After researching in the blind I stumbled upon coaching, so I became a certified coach, trained at the Coaches Training Institute (CTI). I didn’t want to take an online course and CTI was going all over the world with their training. Right from the start I knew that I wanted to blend my 2 core values. Freedom of Expression and Being part of a Community. But … and here it comes … I had no clue how to do that. Again … after asking and researching I found the right combination. It took me a year and a lot of eye rolls from my coaches. They thought I was crazy, because what exactly did I want was the big question on everyone’s mind. And here comes my 3rd core value in play. I wanted to help people finding their purpose in life. It didn’t have to be painting. It could be anything. But the visual language was the only way  to get there.

And there you have it. Now I have been teaching painting techniques. I coach with the verbal but also the visual language. Those two complement each other so beautifully that this grew out into a whole philosophy of teaching and working with intuition. People told me that it was very spiritual what I was doing. My response was swift at denying that, because after all I’m a down to earth Dutch girl, not into woohoo stuff. However, having lived in Boulder, CO changed that whole outlook.