Welcome to extra/ordinary * a newsletter for curious, creative, courageous humans.
From Anna Marie Farmer, coach & artist.
Why subscribe?
Here you will find observations, art and questions that focus on releasing creativity, cultivating confidence, exploring what matters most, and noticing the immense beauty of life that is often hidden in plain sight. The extra tucked right into the ordinary. The extra/ordinary.
Who am I?
Hi, I’m Anna Marie!
I am a coach who supports emerging creatives (we are all creative), responsible rebels (those who want to think outside the box with love) and soul truth seekers (those who are ready to trust their inner wisdom first and foremost) to harness the courage to live & create lives filled with contentment, peace, joy & confidence.
I have written a free love letter every Friday for two years, and I currently offer 1:1 coaching services. Read more about my coaching services & clients testimonials on my website.
I am also a visual artist, a mother, an aspiring poet, an ever evolving free spirit. For fun I practice yoga, swimming, dancing (in my office or my kitchen), walking with friends, and endless creative projects of all kinds. I am a sober grey area drinker, and I am on a journey of recovery from processed foods, sugar, and overeating. All of these joys & struggles have been portals to my own growth and evolution.
I am a certified Martha Beck Wayfinder coach & ICF ACC level certified coach.
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Why join the subscription on Substack?
When you sign up as a paying subscriber, you’ll receive the free Friday Love Letter, and you’ll also receive occasional longer form essays, artworks, invitations to future experiences & events. As a subscriber you’ll be supporting all the work I do as a change worker for peace, a creative human, a mother and an artist. Thank you.
Your presence matters, your creativity matters, your extra/ordinary life matters!
Why did you start this newsletter?
This letter started as a creative exercise, a way to use my voice regularly and build courage for myself. A way to uplift others. A way to share. Then one day on a morning walk I heard Mary Oliver’s voice in my head, “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” And that sealed the deal.
This letter helps me focus on seeing beyond the obvious, below the surface, it’s a place for me to share my own spiritual practice of paying attention to the extra/ordinary parts of life. This is a channel for me to share my art and my coaching work with you!
Why extra/ordinary?
I have always been obsessed with seeing beauty in ordinary life. My parents raised me this way, to look at nature and notice it. To appreciate simple things. It’s intuitive, natural and easy for me, this practice of seeing, naming and beholding the extra in the ordinary, this is my true artist soul. This gift also serves my coaching clients, as I support them to unearth their own truth’s, gifts and authentic selves.
Paradox points me in the direction I most want to go. I am a student of the both/and, the middle way, the third eye, intuition, and of Love.
I am fascinated with the peace and clarity we can gain as humans, by seeing beyond the obvious. By looking at the roots of things, and by noticing what feels, looks, smells and sounds true to our most authentic self. I’m also fascinated by what happens when we can both accept the present moment, and imagine what could be possible. Non binary thinking often eludes me as a human and yet whenever I can re-orient myself to it, I find I am more liberated, less confused and a little bit more myself.
A bit more about me:
I am a mother to one child by choice. I love the ocean, the internet as a creative tool, thrifting cool stuff, home & personal style, writing letters, listening to podcasts and travel adventures. I like the quiet of early mornings with coffee and a journal. I’m a 90’s teen. I left religion in 2004, but I did not leave god/source/Love. Or maybe They did not leave me. Both, I think.
My favorite spiritual technologies are music, poetry, art supplies and being in nature, movement, mysticism, mythology and the power of story.
I have been married for 16 years to my husband, and we have an amazing daughter. I am a Virgo, so I try to work with my perfectionist parts which require some loving attention most days. My enneagram 2 loves the freedom she’s discovered with boundaries, and my recovering people pleaser enjoys memoirs about women who carved their own paths to power, and the freedom I have when I am aligned with my own integrity.
You can also find things I share on the internet:
On my Website here
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