Shining Her Light
If you’ve been fortunate enough to work with spiritual teacher, Julie Hoyle, you know her light shines bright in all she does. In fact, she’s known for sharing her spiritual gifts with grace and generosity, whether as a teacher, mentor, author, artist, or awakening activator. Perhaps one reason Julie is an expert at advising others is that early in her life, she understood the importance of trusting her intuition and acting on it.
Even when she was really young, even when she didn’t have the words to describe what was happening, Julie knew to trust the intuitive hits that landed in her. She explains, “It was just always completely organic. It always felt safe, and I always acted on what I heard inside.” It wasn’t until her teens that she learned not everyone responded to inner directives in the same way as her. Instead of following these intuitive nudges, other folks tended to not trust them, often questioning them to death.
In teaching others, Julie uses herself as a model of someone who acts on and lives by what she hears inside. It’s always been that way for her. She tells of one instance when she was around sixteen and learned she missed passing the required number of certificate exams in school by two, making it impossible for her to move to the level of advanced studies. She needed those studies in order to go off to college and train as a teacher. At first, she accepted the results, though it made her depressed. She’d always wanted to be a teacher, and she longed to leave her hometown, where she’d never felt a resonance Then one day, as she sat in the student lounge thinking about what her future might look like if she never moved away, she received intuitive guidance to go speak with the supervisor—a man, who Julie, like all the students, was afraid of—and tell him she wanted to sit again for the subjects she’d failed. She says, “I didn’t even question it. I just stood up and went and talked to the supervisor.” He agreed to her request. On her next try, she passed the exams. This set her life on a different trajectory.
For anyone who wants to learn to trust and respond to their intuitive guidance, Julie offers a simple exercise. She recommends acting on the small directives as they come. For instance, you might get a nudge that you need a call a friend. Respond quickly. Don’t put it off. By acting on the small hits, she explains, bigger ones will follow. The more you do the process, the more guidance you’ll receive and your trust will grow. For Julie, “It’s been unfailing,” she says, “I’ve never in my entire life responded to an intuitive hit and had it go belly up.” Of course, if a directive doesn’t resonate with you or if it’s not coming from grace, then say no to it. If it’s pointing you toward making a big change, be fearless, but do the practical work, find support.
Intuition also plays a role in art. When she’s giving art instruction, Julie says, “I really turn it into a very intuitive, very playful process because it is extremely empowering for people to suddenly find that they have access to this sort of creative energy and this creative flow, and it’s incredibly important.” Art is useful in helping folks get in touch with and express what is happening in their lives. Julie guides her students to extract what is innate within them and helps them to find their creative voices and to awaken spiritual energy. As she explains, “Spiritual and creative energy are one and the same. They are not separate. It’s the same flow.” She often finds when someone experiences a spiritual awakening, they want to express it artistically, through writing, music, poetry.
Julie says she notices there is more interest in art and sharing these days, more of a focus on creative outlets and creative expression. It’s one blessing to come out of the pandemic pause, she explains, because it allowed many people the time to focus on the creative ideas they always wanted to explore. She says there is an opening for each of us to ask ourselves, what am I being called to? What does that look like? How can I help to uplift humanity? How can I shine my light?
Today, Julie continues to listen to and act on the inner directives she receives. Through her teaching, writing, and art, she guides others to do the same. She helps them to find their creative voices. She helps them to awaken that spiritual energy. She is shining her light in all she does, serving to brighten our world.
By Karen H Lizon
