Psychology to floristry: Turning your creative passion into a career with Rachel McGregor

Hello, hello. Welcome to the place for offbeat health professionals who have bravely swapped their health care hats for non clinical creative caps. I’m Caitlin, a psychologist turned copywriter, and this is Healers with Hustles.

Caitlin: Rachel McGregor is a psychologist and floral designer based in Melbourne. She works in private practice in Melbourne’s CBD as a behavioural psychologist and also has creative hustle as a floral designer. In her spare time outside of parenting her four boys, her business at Floral Art by Rachel provides creative flower workshops and florals for events.

Caitlin: Welcome, Rachel. Thank you so much for being here. So I’m really keen to hear a little bit about your story. Tell me about your journey from psychologist to florist.

Rachel: Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for having me. So yeah, I’ve been a psychologist for many years. I think I’m on about 17, 18 years now, and I’ve loved working in the field of work with children and children with behavioral conditions.

Rachel: And I more recently started working with young adults and adults. So I’ve had this really interesting career working in schools and disability and private practice. But yeah, I, I had you know, Always this interest in, you know, creative things. I was told when I was very young, I was very creative at school.

Rachel: I was very creative, but you know, sometimes when you’re in school, there’s this. Pressure to be academic and pursue just cerebral things, you know, use your brain in a particular way. And I think I was kind of persuaded or dissuaded away from creative, I guess pursuits when I was at school and heading into uni.

Rachel: So, you know, I did pursue psychology, which is a wonderful career, but I always had this kind of inkling that there was like more to the story with me.

Caitlin: Yes. Yeah. It’s such an interesting point. You say about that, that we prioritize that like academia or that kind of thing over the arts, which is such a shame because I feel like it’s such an important, well, play is such an important thing for humans.

Caitlin: And so, it makes sense that you’d be gravitating towards that,

Caitlin: I’m really curious to hear your answer because I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it, but tell me what do you tell people when they ask you, how can you go from being a psychologist to a floral designer?

Rachel: Yeah. I do get a lot of raised eyebrows. Look just to kind of backtrack a bit. Like I was a psychologist for many years until I had my fourth child. The truth is I had a bit of a burnout after that situation and I, I really just need to do something different, which I sort of then decided to pursue this creative aspect of floristry.

Rachel: Something I’ve always been always been interested in. But specifically now when, when people ask that, I’m like, okay, I’m going to do something better. I’m curious to know that how did I end up pursuing something like that? And then not only did I pursue it, I’ve then, when I returned to practicing after a little bit of a break, I then have continued doing both.

Rachel: So now I’m actually doing both. And that is interesting to people. I think. You know, like I said earlier, people are often surprised by that combination. I think because they have, set ideas about professionals particularly health professionals, that that must be their everything. That must be their world.

Rachel: how could they have any other pursuits outside of that, particularly for such a, Involving and consuming profession like psychology, it is many, many years of training. It is constant professional development. it can consume your mind. It’s so cerebral. So it can feel like some people, like, how could you offset that with something over there?

Rachel: That doesn’t seem so serious. Doesn’t seem to be as you know, do you know what I mean?

Caitlin: Absolutely, like how do you reconcile the two and it caused that, like, whole, conflict caused me so much, turmoil and, definitely burnout at one stage when I was trying to hold those two together, like, how could you have both?

Caitlin: I was like, oh my gosh, I was so afraid that, the APRA police are going to show up on my doorstep and take me away because I, because yeah, it’s like, you’re, you’re not being what a, you know, a psychologist should be doing. You’re stepping outside of water. Yeah. Like your profession typically does.

Rachel: Yeah. I feel like it’s very restrictive, isn’t it? You pursue a profession that’s, you know, it’s very serious and it’s, It’s also has a, carries a lot of responsibility and the expectation on you as a clinician to care for your clients, to always be, on top of everything not make any mistakes.

Rachel: You know, there’s a lot of you know, really strong ethical things we have to deal with. And so I think you’re right. It could be seen as like, well, how can you do something so serious and then do something so not serious? You know, does that make you an irresponsible person? Can I take you seriously as a psychologist?

Rachel: What I was thinking though, as you’re asking that question, Caitlin though is I know that I have a family member in an orchestra and I’ve got one of those maybe semi professional orchestras. And she was explaining to me, there are many, many people of all different professions that play musical instruments.

Rachel: And it’s almost like that’s accepted. You, you get these wonderful, doctors and lawyers and specialists that actually do music as a side thing. And it’s almost like that’s more accepted. For some reason that’s like, Oh yeah, that’s cool. They look how talented they are. But for a psychologist to choose a separate, more creative thing, it seemed to be a little bit more it’s very what’s the way it kind of stands out to people, it seems to be a big deal for them.

Rachel: So for me, I think the shift when I moved over for that period of time. And I was just doing floral design at that point in time. You know, I had a bit of an identity crisis. I had to really work out who am I, if I don’t have this really serious, well regarded profession title title do I have.

Caitlin: What did you learn from that? Like, what was the answer that you came up with?

Rachel: I think that’s a great question. You know, I realized that actually, I think our identity shouldn’t really be in what we do anyway. So I think we’ve really got to have a good sense of self. I think it’s actually could be even, you know, an issue for some people to put all of their Identity and sense of self and, and success and wellbeing into, their professional work with nothing else to, to kind of balance that out.

Rachel: So it was definitely a journey to kind of let go and probably a bit of pride as well. So that period of time when I just was doing floral design. Yeah, but it was just the most freeing experience.

Caitlin: It’s a freeing experience, but you’re right, there’s a sense of pride and I even still to this day when I, you know, meet someone new or something like that, be it a party and they’re like, Oh, what do you do?

Caitlin: I’m always quick to say, Oh, I’m a psychologist, but I don’t say, Oh, I’m a copywriter. And so I think I’ve still got a little bit to work out with that, like, why don’t I jump to the other? Cause I, When I say I’m a psychologist, people often close up a bit? When I say I’m a copywriter, people are like, Oh my gosh, wow, that’s really cool.

Caitlin: What is that? Tell me what, what more. So.

Rachel: Yeah, that’s interesting. Interesting how people relate, isn’t it? Because then, you know, at a psychologist level, they, they might find that intimidating. But I know they’ve created, like me saying to people, Oh, I’m a floral designer, I’m a florist. Oh, they’re just, you know, people will talk to you then.

Rachel: Oh, you know, I don’t know about it. And they’re interested to know what your favorite flower and so it makes it very accessible. it’s been interesting, watching people’s response to that. I think it’s certainly people in my community, my local community that I’m a part of help. They, they viewed me a little bit differently once I’d taken on a second profession of a creative nature.

Rachel: So that has been really cool for me. And it’s really kind of bridged gaps with different people that I maybe otherwise wouldn’t have had. Contacting connection with, does that make sense? Like the local creatives you know, whenever I’m workshops, I made just a broader group of people. When I go to the, the flower market, then, then I meet with, people at events and it’s just, it’s opened up this whole, Different group of people as well.

Caitlin: Yes. So true. Creative people. Expands your world. Doesn’t it? In a good way. It’s

Rachel: such a positive. Positive way. And that’s the funny thing, isn’t it? It’s been all. And I really honestly. Caitlin could not give a negative to my creative pursuit and my hustle. I have not been able to find yet one single negative in bringing this into my life, really honestly.

Caitlin: Oh, I’m so glad to, I’m so glad to hear that. tell me about creativity and like how that is positively impacted

Rachel: Yes. Right. I love that. This is something I’m actually really passionate about. So I’m really passionate about the pursuit of creativity and also that of working with botanic materials and nature. I think coming from a therapeutic perspective obviously, psychology is large, it’s very cerebral, right?

Rachel: Like it’s cerebral, it’s emotional, it’s mental. You know, there’s heart there’s, there’s complexities in it. But when you do a creative thing. and something like working with flowers and natural materials. It’s not just that it’s stimulating in a different way and using your hands, like not just your head.

Rachel: So you’re using your hands and you’re, you’re engaging with different materials. And my goodness, like the aspect of your mind is being zoned in on these beautiful elements. Wow. Like it’s so I can see the benefit to the human psyche just by working with natural materials and using your brain in a different way, kind of like with psychology, you can very, I can become very like front, front of your head,

Rachel: Prefrontal cortex, and I feel like with, with creative things and like with my, my floral design work, I think it is a different part of my brain. I’ve been doing a bit of research. I have had a couple of studies on it. We know that there’s things like horticultural therapy and so on, which have been well validated.

Rachel: There’s less so on work with flowers, but I’m really interested to know whether, there’s more research coming out about clinical outcomes of people actually working with natural botanical materials and their mental health and wellbeing. All I know is for me as a therapist, the improvement for me has been incredible.

Caitlin: I could, Only imagine like, like you said, working with your hands and using a different part of your brain andthe mind, right? Component of it as well.

Rachel: Totally. it’s like everything that we teach our clients to do, isn’t it? You know, it’s like it’s the same advice, but when we take it on for ourselves, I think it, you know, I.

Rachel: I really feel like it’s made me a better clinician and can I, sorry, I’m really got so many things I want to say about this topic, about how the creative aspect is so powerful. I’ll give you a little anecdote, but I had a really difficult after the clinical afternoon recently in practice and I felt, you know, sometimes you feel a bit heavy after.

Rachel: Particular sessions and so on. That’s, you know, can be experienced. You can have, but then the next day I picked myself up and I had the opportunity to, I was creating a piece for something and preparing for a workshop that I’m doing. And I was able to just really almost like I use the opportunity being creative to process and mentally digest what had happened the day before I wasn’t sitting in front of my computer.

Rachel: I wasn’t just like talking about it to a colleague. I was actually doing something that helped me to process and work through it. Yeah. So it’s like that kind of creative arts therapy. See, I guess it was, it really helped me to, to unwind. And I think it’s really good self care for me as a clinician.

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. Quite powerful.

Caitlin: So powerful. And when you were talking about that I can’t remember if I said this to you before, but yeah, my master’s thesis was actually on, yeah, like art therapy and using that as an intervention for burnout, which was a dream. Yeah.

Rachel: Goodness. I guess you have a lot of info on this.

Caitlin: it’s so beneficial and interestingly, so many other professions like medical and yeah, social workers, there’s quite a bit of research about like art therapy for burnout, but of course, psychologists, there wasn’t anything on that, but absolutely. And yeah, the benefits were pretty amazing.

Caitlin: What was the, I’m just trying to think back to the the outcomes, it was people were talking about like a sense of like self efficacy, just generally that like they were able to do more in their daily life, of course, being able to like, yeah, unwind from that outlet. And even like what you were saying, getting out of your head and getting into your body, cause it was really a somatic experience, just like you said, then like you’re able to get in.

Caitlin: Use your hands and kind of process the day

Rachel: experience.

Caitlin: Yes, that’s exactly what it is.

Rachel: Yeah. Kinesthetic. And, we talk about the different ways that we interact with our world and our environment. Like it is really important that we are kinesthetic, that we are hands on, that we do feel and touch.

Rachel: And experience our worlds outside of our brains. And I feel like if you look at the history of mankind, like that is, that is the reality, isn’t it? We were, we were never designed to just be always just in our heads.

Rachel: So it’s powerful to, to use different parts of your brain and your wellbeing just seems to, I don’t know. It seems to just go out of, out of, yeah.Outside.

Caitlin: It really is. And I wonder what, why that is. Like if that’s just. The medical like the medicalization models of our training or something like that.

Rachel: Yes. Yeah, I wonder. Yeah, yeah, I think there can be a certain level of eliteness around. being cerebral and being does that make sense? I know that’s a judgmental thing to say, but there can be no, no. Yes. Yes. Yes. And we will look at different outcomes. Like we know about creative arts therapy and so on.

Rachel: Like, and we know there’s a whole lot of other therapies that are very effective. And obviously we often focus on focus as clinicians on the most evidence based and the treatment things that have been. Repeatedly proven through, you know, various research procedures to make sure that they are the of the highest efficacy and evidence that we can use for our treatments with our clients, which is correct and good.

Rachel: There will be less information on, like you said, creative arts and For me, nature stuff, but I, I don’t know if we can necessarily say that there’s not proof and evidence that they are very, very effective in their ability to impact people’s wellbeing. So now I’m really excited for more research on that for sure.

Caitlin: Yes, definitely. That’s so true. Is it like, what do they say? Like absolute absence of evidence is an evidence of absence. It’s like that.

Rachel: Yeah, correct. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Caitlin: And I could have a little bone to pick with some aspects of like evidence based practice.

Rachel: Absolutely! Yeah, we’ll go there.

Rachel: That’s a whole nother conversation. I could totally go there too. Absolutely, absolutely. But it would be really great to get more research around the true impact on it. We’re only scratching the surface and maybe a psychologist and maybe in health professionals having like creative outlets. We’re also leading the way, you know, I’ve had, it’s opened up so many conversations with my clients about their wellbeing when I’ve talked to them about like, right.

Rachel: Right. Cause I mean, it’s quite often that people don’t actually feel like they allow themselves to have a hobby or something outside of their main job or their family or their commitments or their sports or their health or whatever. And, and I think that I think particularly since COVID. And I’ve been running these creative floral workshops.

Rachel: I’m noticing that people really want that experience of doing something different outside of the everyday world. And I feel like as health professionals, we can actually encourage the general population to actually have that for themselves to pursue that for themselves. Pursuit for the, for, for the mother stayed home with little kids who, you know, needs to do something and feels to do something and encouraging her to do that.

Rachel: Well. The, or the, you know, the granddad that, needs to be encouraged, to go out into the shed and tinker and actually like really encourage people to get out there, use their creative juices. I think as health professionals, we can model to people what that self care looks like as well by ourselves having something in addition to our work.

Caitlin: Yeah. I love that you say that about, because it is like when you realize the benefits for yourself, it, it does open a different type of understanding that you’re like, Oh my gosh, this is so powerful for me. I should ask about it, my clients in their intake or something like that.

Rachel: That’s right. Absolutely. And everyone has a different passion, don’t they? So it’s about finding your, finding your thing, finding what you’re excited to do. Yeah. Finding a thing.

Caitlin: Exactly. What was your thing when you were in school and you were quite creative, what was your thing back then?

Rachel: So I was really into drawing and graphic art and design. Yeah. So I could easily pursue that professionally, no doubt. But again, I was sort of. I’m not persuaded away from anything created. And that again, probably just the, you know, family culture slash, you know, community. I was surrounded by, I think I wasn’t encouraged.

Rachel: And I think, you know, I was actually saying this to a friend today that if I had finished school and I had announced at that point, okay, I decided to be a designer or a floral designer. I remember going back now over 20 years ago, but more than that, that I finished school, well, maybe what, like 25 you know, would I have been laughed at?

Rachel: Would I have felt ashamed? Would I have felt like I’d let people down? It’s possible, right? I might not have felt the freedom to pursue that. And again, it’s got to do with the culture of the community that I was growing up with. But now I think, no, actually I hold my head really high with pride that I have I know that a hustle outside of what I have professionally.

Rachel: So I’m really proud of it. Yeah. It’s really, really good.

Caitlin: That’s beautiful. Yeah. I’m so happy that, you have that and you’re proud of it and because it is such a such an asset to have,tell me more about like your actual business Yeah, because I’ve always, I always talk about like secret wishes.

Caitlin: I think it’s always something I say, but I’ve honestly always had a secret wish, like this image of me, having a florist and being surrounded by beauty.

Rachel: Funny can I be I’ve had so many people say that to me.

Caitlin: Is that right? Well, yeah,

Rachel: that’s what’s really interesting about it. I’ve always dreamed of that.

Rachel: So I don’t have a commercial florist shop front. Just because again, I have my own private practice in psychology. So, so the nature of my flower business is I do flowers for events. And the small events and like, so weddings or funerals or parties or events at the local community centers and so on.

Rachel: And I also do workshops. So the workshop part was interesting. The workshop part developed because I think when people realize it almost went like this, people were like, well, Okay. So this lady over here, like, you know, I’ve got four children. I’m like that mom running around the sport mom, whatever, running around town and the psychologist.

Rachel: And they’re like, well, hang on. If she can do something creative, then why can’t I? I had people saying to me, Oh, well, why can’t I do something like that? And I realized it was actually a need in the community for people to have the opportunity to actually try. So I make my, I make these floral workshops.

Rachel: I currently run them at a studio in Melbourne. And I run them on demand as well as needed. So basically we choose a different theme every time. We make sure it is beginner level. It’s not complex. It’s not too hard. You have to have a florist certificate or training to do it. And we provide beautiful flowers, seasonal flowers and foliage.

Rachel: We have a frame of the local local farm here on the Mornington Peninsula, we get all our foliage from there. And we brew, we have tables and tables full of foliage and fresh flowers from the markets and we create. And we spent an afternoon just creating, and I can see where, you know, people who it’s really interesting as psychologists, people come into these workshops.

Rachel: And the first thing you’ll see the anxiety, and it’s like, I can’t do this. I’ve never done this before. I’ve never made a bouquet. I’ve never made a vase arrangement. I’ve never made a, you know, whatever centerpiece. And, you know, over the course of the time that we run these workshops, I see their confidence build.

Rachel: I see them relax. I see them enjoy themselves. I see the pride in themselves at the end. And I possibly didn’t realize how much my psychology I don’t know if you do it skill or training or experience actually has equipped me for that to actually help people to be fully not fully confident to help people build their confidence.

Rachel: And then the other thing that I love about it is that it’s sort of like, it’s like a psychology course where you have to talk to people about their experience as they pursue something creative for themselves. So I, I can’t help, but separate. I can’t entirely separate my psychology self out from that space when I’m running these workshops.

Rachel: Cause even the way I run them, you know, even the way that I sort of set them up and T you don’t even like, it’s very sort of.

Caitlin: I was wondering about that. I had a question there about how.

Rachel: Oh, yeah, the two interact. They totally interact. And I, I usually don’t let on from the outset of these workshops that I am in sometimes over the course of these afternoons that I run people like, Oh, you know, they find out more about me.

Rachel: And I can see that that comes through in a really powerful way. So whilst it’s not, it’s not arts therapy in any sense, I can’t help but use those skills that I have just for it just to kind of Zone in and recognize when someone’s anxious and know how to deal with them and how to build their confidence.

Rachel: And just watching them. And I thought one day after doing this workshop, I thought, man, like these people have just done three hours of working with flowers. I feel like that could have easily been, maybe they could have done a one hour talk therapy session. Great. You know, five, but they’ve just done this three hour session of flowers and they’re walking out like glowing. You can just really see the impact of it. So I’ve really become quite passionate about these workshops. I love to teach other people about how to be creative and how to implement that in their life. And then I empower them to go out and do it themselves. And I teach them how to prepare the materials and what to look for and what’s in season and how to prep and condition flowers and all these like life skills and everyone’s so happy to grow in this So yeah, it’s been a really incredible experience.

Caitlin: Wow, I’m so happy like how cool for your community that they have that and that you’ve been also that you’ve been like brave and done that because that’d be a really scary thing to be like, okay, I’m just gonna hold these workshops now. is that something that you’ve done? Before as a psychologist, like doing group therapy?

Rachel: Yeah,

Rachel: yeah, for sure. So workshops are something that sort of, I’ve done particularly in schools and I’ve worked a lot in the field of sort of neurodivergence and, and behavioral stuff. So yeah, definitely has been part of my experience and I’d love to do more and more, but applying it to a creative context. It’s interesting. Cause like I said, you still use those skills and, you know, knowing how to present and knowing how to present information in a way that’s palatable. I’ve worked a lot in the education space. So understanding how people learn information and understanding how people receive information, understanding prompts, understanding scaffolding that people need to learn a skill because I know that intellectually, and I know that because of my psychology work and I’ve worked a lot with children and in schools.

Rachel: I kind of apply the same concept to these workshops. So yeah, I do. Yeah. I do see them crossing over. I definitely think it’s hard when you’re putting stuff out there, particularly for a small creative hustle like mine, you know, you’re using Instagram a lot and learning how to use Instagram and learning how to do reels and learning how to kind of market yourself.

Rachel: That’s another skill actually.

Rachel: Yeah.

Rachel: Isn’t it? What do you, what do you think a marketing seems to be really key.

Caitlin: Yeah, definitely marketing is something that’s key, but we’re, of course, not taught any like business things in uni, which I don’t know if I could have handled learning about business while learning about psychology, yeah, no, that’s a big, definitely a big skill and just having the confidence or like the, I don’t know if it’s imposter syndrome or what it, whatever you want to call it, like when you’re doing something new, copywriters.

Caitlin: Yeah. Exactly. Being found out. Exactly. Definitely. Or just showing up and showing your face. And remember the first time I, posted on, I think it was LinkedIn. I started using LinkedIn and I had my, old lecturers and things on there. I was like, can I post something? And then I was like, ah, whatever.

Caitlin: And I just posted some random copywriting thing and yeah, it was horrifying, but then you realize. Yeah.

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. And I’m curious to ask you a question. Are you realizing there’s actually quite a lot of health professionals that have these creative vessels?

Caitlin: Yes, definitely. Yeah. So many more than I would have realized and people doing amazing things like you, like, yeah, doing your, your floristry, like people, yeah, doing all sorts of different things.

Caitlin: I was talking to someone, I think, yeah, I booked in an interview with Then someone that’s a stunt woman now which is like,

Rachel: Oh my goodness. Wow.

Caitlin: So like, so diverse. A lot of people are doing coaching and things like that, but yeah, that very creative.

Rachel: Yeah. And I wonder, just to comment on that, I wonder whether maybe the point of difference is the sweet spot.

Rachel: I mean, I thinking like that, the fact that doing something like what I’m doing, I can’t speak for someone else, but doing something so different to what I’ve done is kind of what makes it so great. I think.

Caitlin: Yes.

Rachel: It’s a difference. It’s, it’s just a different space. It’s a different focus. It’s a different mindset.

Rachel: It’s about how to make this beautiful. It’s about how do I make this, make people feel good. Yeah. Your motivations are different. You market yourself differently. It’s like you say, there’s a bit of imposter syndrome original initially like, Oh, people find out I’m actually a psychologist will, how they feel about that or whatever. But yeah, that you realize you have to grow a new skills when you pursue a hustle and that’s a really good skill I can see probably be going back in the one way I can see that.

Rachel: Psychology has positively impacted my ability to run things like workshops and work with people when you’re interviewing them for events and what they need and so on. But I can see it going back the other way as well over time. And I think I’m still early in that journey, but I can see that the skills I’m learning from the floral design industry and space will also feed back into me running private practice and so on.

Caitlin: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. That crossover or how I’ve noticed it is there probably the conflict, the confidence, like I, for some reason was feeling quite confident in my copywriting, but then in my psych, cause I’m quite a Early career psych.

Caitlin: So there’s still that new newness and like, yeah, confident in that, but I’ve noticed that in my supervisors has commented that in the last six months, I’ve got this, all of a sudden this new found confidence in my psychology work like being in private practice. And I have, I’ve noticed that like, I can, and I have quite a complex caseload and it doesn’t feel so scary like I used to get burnt out quite frequently and now it’s right.

Rachel: Okay. Interesting. Okay. It’s interesting about the burnout. Can I make a comment on that? Because I’ve noticed that I am coping better with my psychology work since taking on a creative. In addition, so it’s kind of what we said earlier.

Rachel: It seems to complement both ways. And I probably, yeah, I think what you said is really key. It seems to be almost like, it’s like a preventative thing. It seems to be, I don’t know. It’s kind of like what’s an example. You know what I mean? Like it seems to prevent that tendency of your, Tending that way, which I tend that way as well.

Rachel: I’ve had a couple of nasty burnouts hence that’s why I stopped doing psychology after my fourth child. I was like, I’m just burnt out. I’m kitted out. I’m just, I’m just at my wit’s end. But it seems to be protective. That’s what the word is. It’s protective to have something outside of your professional work that is keeping you afloat and keeping you focused.

Rachel: So I’m always wondering over time, it’d be interesting to know whether over time as a profession, we develop greater awareness and maybe even policies around that. I can’t, you can’t force someone to do something outside of their professional work, but that’s what I mean. I mean, like greater respect for an appreciation for things outside of our profession that actually enable us to then do our profession in a sustainable way, I just feel like they could be a really great. Opportunity there. I think with your podcast as well. So growing awareness of that, of actually being a really healthy thing, nothing for us to be ashamed of. Yeah. So I’m really grateful for you sort of pushing into that space.

Caitlin: Oh, thank you. And I’m grateful for you to come on and share your story because it’s a big thing to do that, I was just thinking then when you were talking about how you’re saying about like the huge differences, between, doing something that’s so different. And I agree with you there.

Caitlin: I think that that must have something to do with it. Like, yeah. Yes. Yes. Building your, I don’t know if it’s like identity, your sense of self or something like that. You’re like expanding it maybe.

Rachel: Yes. Yes. Right. I think certainly I would say my view of myself has, and my sense of self confidence, maybe my sense of self esteem in a whole lot of ways has gone up once I realized I could do other things.

Rachel: Like people would say to me for a long time and I’ve had children and he was saying, so what are your hobbies? I’m like, well, I’m a mom and I’m a psychologist. And they’re like, okay, cool. That’s, that’s fine. You know? But I have to say like, I, I’ve really enjoyed having this additional part of my world, my view of myself.

Rachel: And I’m just really proud of myself. It’s a really corny thing to say. I’m super proud. I’m super proud of my, my little extra thing that I do. Yeah. So talking to people is, is really fascinating and their reactions to it. it’s a really, always a really great conversation. They’re like, how did you end up doing that?

Rachel: Like what?

Caitlin: Yeah. It’s a good,conversation starter for sure. We haven’t really talked a little bit about like your burnout and stuff. Is that something you want to talk about or you want to share or is it?

Rachel: Yeah. Oh, I didn’t have heaps more to say about it. Yeah. It was kind of wrapped up in sort of, having lots of children and the beginning of COVID and just kind of feeling, like I said earlier, I think probably my comment would be when life becomes like, you can become very small when you are a working mom.

Rachel: And you then just have your work and your kids and your work and your kids and life can feel like you’re constantly grinding, you know, like forward, forward, forward without much reprieve. So like I said before, I’m really quite passionate about like, young mothers and, and parent, young parents actually having a space outside for themselves.

Rachel: You know, a lot of parents are working even with young children now. So we know that that’s just the way things are. So there’s less room and time perhaps for that. But my experience was actually around, around motherhood, around just doing psychology. She and around feeling like I was just giving, giving, giving all the time.

Rachel: And, you know, actually it just brings to mind, someone said something to me one day about my, my pursuit of floral design. They said to me, they said, yeah, you know, Rachel flowers are great because they can’t talk back. I love that. And I was like, yeah, they can’t talk back. And, and they’re just beautiful. And when you hold them, they’re just lovely. And they look at you and this is going to set now you really getting my wacky side now, but like, I’m telling you that plants talk to me like plants, no kidding. Like I’m holding, I’ll be doing an arrangement and I’ll be holding a branch or something.

Rachel: And it just says to me, I want to go there. I’m like, okay, so you’re going to go there. Okay. Mr. Like Rose, you’re going to go there. And it sounds bizarre, but I have this like, whole like conversation with the plant. They’re not, but they’re not, they’re not demanding. They don’t have any kind of, you know, they don’t expect a whole lot of me.

Rachel: I have totally made an inanimate object animate, haven’t I? That’s probably a concern. But right. Like, so I really, totally love these working with natural materials because there’s no complexity in them. The worst that they’ll get is that I’ll have a branch and it’s kind of bending to one side. And I’m like, you know what, that’s how you are accepting who you are.

Rachel: Let’s do some acceptance and commitment therapy right now. You, we’re just going to totally own that you are bent right now. And we’re going to put you here and we’re going to utilize you and you’ve got purpose and you’ve got value. You’ve got purpose. Committed action.

Rachel: We’re going to utilize you. And I feel like that’s probably the beauty of it. You know, So I’m using these and I think, sorry, now you’ve got me on a roll and I’m laughing, you know, plants are also imperfect, aren’t they? Like we, you know there’s been a movement in floristry towards wild and creative, almost like meadow style designs rather than that really strict, restricted kind of bunches. And so with that, I think comes an acceptance that nature is wild. Nature is imperfect. Nature is, is unpredictable. Nature surprises you. So when you’re working with natural materials, you’re, you’re constantly confronted with the imperfections and yet beauty of our world. So at a deeper level, I feel like it gives you a great appreciation of people as humans.

Rachel: We are imperfect. We are imperfectly perfect. And, but we all have purpose and you know, we are, we all can be utilized as spider imperfections. And I feel like there’s been deeper, very deep seated kind of change, probably in how I view the world and others. As I’ve worked in nature. So there you go.

Rachel: That’s probably a very deep kind of anecdote. Anecdote there.

Caitlin: Yeah. Oh, that makes me so, that makes ugh, me and my heart, isn’t it? My heart’s so warm.

Caitlin: It’s so lovely. It’s How profound is that? Like It totally is so profound. It is. It is. Yeah. It’s a beautiful metaphor. And when you were talking about that, what about your levels of.

Caitlin: Perfectionism, because as psychologists, we’re generally very perfectionistic.

Rachel: We are. And I think that what I’ve just said really taps into it. It’s the realization that, I can’t make that branch bend the way I want it to bend for this thing. Right. So I’ve got to let that go. I do think that most people who would describe themselves as artistic would say there’s some love perfectionism in terms of like, can you describe it like this?

Rachel: Like your, when you, when you start training and learning about design, you view the world in a certain way. So then you’re constantly kind of, your brain is kind of assessing. What’s looking right. And I can’t always tell you what’s wrong with, if I’ve made an arrangement, I stand back and look at it. I can’t always tell you exactly what’s wrong with it.

Rachel: But my eye will say to me, that’s, that’s not right. That sound is smooth. Then it’s there. So the only perfectionistic part that does come out is like wanting it to look a certain way that suit that fits your eye. Like, so I can’t describe it, but like the feedback that you get. So I feel like it does come out a little bit.

Rachel: I feel like it’s a real challenge. To perfectionism, because like I said, working with natural materials and dealing with dirt and mess. I think you can see green on my fingernails probably right now I was making big arrangements today. And, you know, like you’re dealing with mess and your hands are sticky and your floor is dirty and it’s, and, and you’re, the leaves are sticky and wet, like floristry is not a glamorous job.

Rachel: It’s, it’s messy. It’s hard work dealing with water, splashing everywhere, your clothes. And so there’s this kind of mess that goes with it. Whereas in psychology, it’s like, put your nice shirt on, you’re in your nice seat chair and you’re back in floor. And so you kind of, the shift in environment is probably the best thing for those of us who are more perfectionistically inclined.

Rachel: And you know, often the mess comes before the beauty as well. And again, that’s a metaphor I think is great for our work in psychology. We, we think sometimes get messy before we can see clarity. And sometimes that mess goes for a long time. And I think Having grace for yourself in that. And I think, yeah, when you work with natural materials like flowers, you’re dealing with that mess.

Rachel: But then you see that the flower grows through the dirt. Pretty beautiful bloom, right? So it all comes around. And that’s something I haven’t spoken about. But the other part of what I’ve been doing is trying to grow as much as I can myself. Which I, yeah, I’m really passionate about sustainable floristry.

Rachel: I’m really passionate about utilizing local and seasonal. Like I said I’ve got a fair bit of, plants and foliage on my own property. I live on half an acre. I’ve got flowers. I grow in different seasons and I utilize like local people’s plants and, and materials. So like local neighbors and people in my community and I’ll knock on their door.

Rachel: Can I use this? And so, yeah, the other part of all this is kind of the watching and seeing plants grow and understanding the cycles and the seasons. I think it just is just really helpful. To understand human nature as well. I don’t know, cycles, seasons, mess cycles. Yes. You know, it’s like all those things, they kind of come back around to human experience too.

Rachel: Yeah. I’ve gotten very deep now, haven’t I? . Yeah,

Caitlin: no, that’s I love it. I like the, the deep, the deepness. I dunno if that’s the word, but I’m all, I’m all here for that. Yeah. And we haven’t really talked about, I dunno, maybe this isn’t something, one of your favorite topics, but what are the.

Caitlin: type of design frameworks or theories and things like that have you learned

Rachel: Yeah, no, when you do floristry training, you do like one of the basic levels of, of training in any artistic profession is understanding principles of design.

Rachel: So like rhythm and balance and flow,, what are the other ones? There’s six principles of design. I feel like I should write them off the top of my head, but basically you go through these principles of design and they are for all artistic professions. They will use the same thing. So I think it’s like design 101 probably it applies to flowers as well.

Rachel: So understanding the flowers in the arrangement, understanding that the space between the components of the arrangement, understanding the, the balance. understanding the rhythm, I guess, of, of that, understanding the color contrasts and understanding things like, you know, the concept of a color wheel.

Rachel: That was a whole new thing to me, like which colors go together and using monotone designs or using complementing designs. So it can get complex as well with flowers because flowers also have meanings. There’s whole books and I read them in my evenings just for fun because I’m a nerd, like different floral meanings and like what different flowers represent.

Rachel: So then knowing which flowers for what occasions and knowing. Yeah. So there’s a whole lot to the design process that is technical and it is that cerebral part. You do have to know, but then there’s this magical intuitive part too. So where you’re just, you’ve got your materials and I’m just actually, this is going to sound again, stuff I’ve not said before, but I actually visioned my designs beforehand.

Rachel: Like today I was meeting, making a native arrangement and I knew that I had the flowers, but I knew I needed grevillea foliage and I was completely fixated on it and I made my girlfriend bring me this grevillea foliage so I could like put it together and I knew as soon as I saw it, I was like, that is what I need.

Rachel: These flowers need this foliage and that’s how it’s going to work. And it looked amazing. I can send you a photo. So the design is really great. Yes, totally. Yeah. So I feel like there’s this envisioning part of it around the design part. It’s just so nice to think about. Like, I just love thinking about it.

Rachel: I literally wake up thinking about my floral designs. and it’s just, it’s a really, it’s been so good for my wellbeing, .

Caitlin: Yeah. Something that’s so nourishing andGives you joy and gives you energy

Rachel: Totally.

Caitlin: Yeah. Vitality

Rachel: I have a real highlight that’s to share that. I, we took our family to Europe at the end of last year, a long anticipated trip.

Rachel: It was a four month trip, so this was a big, big deal we took out for. Four children overseas and my niece was getting married in the south of Germany near the French border and she asked me the flowers. So I actually did my first wedding laurels. In Europe, and it was incredible, it was such incredible joy and I spent days and days, you know, and she actually was born in Australia, so she asked me to just do all these eucalyptus, you could actually order eucalyptus there, so I was working with Australian natives and eucalyptus and the smell, it just smelt like Australia.

Rachel: And I’m there, we can use materials. And what’s my point in saying this to you, the joy that’s right. So then I did this for days and days and days preparing all the flowers, the whole wedding, the bridal bouquets, the table pieces, the arch. And at the wedding someone said to me something like, Oh, I heard you did the flowers for the wedding.

Rachel: I said, yeah, I did the flowers. And I said to her, I’m a little bit weary, but I’m okay. She goes, you look amazing. You look energized. Like, how did you do that? I said, I don’t know. I just feel like so energized by doing it. I didn’t feel burdened by it. And, you know, they couldn’t believe it. This Australian woman with four kids was over there doing the flowers and she was feeling good.

Rachel: You know, I was feeling great. And it just goes to show like how energizing it can be to have a creative outlet. I think it’s usually energizing. Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel: I was buzzing.

Rachel: I was totally buzzing. Yeah.

Caitlin: That would have been what an experience overseas doing that, like going to markets

Caitlin: What were the differences like between flower markets here and over there.

Rachel: Oh, good question. I mean, you get a different range of flowers over there. So flowers growing in the Northern hemisphere, particularly countries like Germany, which are bordering onto the Netherlands. So they have beautiful flowers in the Netherlands and they get shipped all around Europe.

Rachel: And so I think there was a difference in the actual flowers, which is really exciting and special to work with different flowers. When you’re a florist, you kind of get used to your, you know, local flowers and what grows in season and your area, like. Difference between, for example, flowers in Victoria versus flowers in Western Australia or Queensland.

Rachel: So that’s always very exciting being in different places. So the flowers are different. The industry is obviously different. And apparently the way I did the flowers for this wedding, the feedback was they don’t see things like that very often. Like the way I actually did it was different to what they’ve done.

Rachel: So they were quite surprised by that. They just have different methods, I guess, and different approaches, European floral design. So it was really well received because it was just different. Like I just did like, I did like, I wasn’t doing like neat little things. I did like these big explosions of eucalyptus and they were just pouring out everywhere and like the bridal bouquet was like explosions of eucalyptus and everyone was like, wow, I’ve never seen a bouquet like that before.

Rachel: And I was like, welcome to Australia. Yeah.

Caitlin: Explosions of eucalyptus. That’s such a beautiful image there.

Rachel: Yeah.

Caitlin: Great language. Great copy.

Rachel: And I was gonna say one more thing on that is that to be able to offer that gift to people in my family. I’ve done, you know, a couple of special events for family and friends.

Rachel: I feel like it’s a really beautiful gift.

Rachel: It’s a great gift to give to people. So all my friends get flowers from me now and it’s just a lovely gift and a lovely skill to utilize. Yeah, which is something I’d never had before to offer.

Caitlin: Something so special. Precious. Oh, you’re making me want to learn how to do it.

Rachel: Yes! Come to the workshop!

Caitlin: But yeah, I would so love to do that. I would so love to do that. I’m actually coming down down to Victoria.

Rachel: Cool.

Caitlin: In September, so.

Rachel: Ah, awesome. There you go. I’m, I’m running my next workshop on the 22nd, like 21st, I think. So if you’re down here that time, you can come to a workshop.

Rachel: I encourage everybody, I think that, yeah, maybe I should run a special workshop just for psychologists. There we go. Maybe I should like market it through the APS and be like, Hey guys,

Caitlin: yeah, please, yeah.

Rachel: Let’s do something different for each other.

Caitlin: Oh, I think there’ll be so many people will get around that, I think, yeah.

Caitlin: Okay, now for some rapid fire questions. I’m curious about this one, but what is your favorite movie?

Rachel: So my favorite movie is the movie Cruella, the more recent live action one. I absolutely love Cruella and I love The main character, Cruella. I mean, she’s just so incredible. I love her background, her story. This is the movie character, obviously.

Caitlin: I love the, I love that she’s so creative in this wacky way. It’s just kind of this hidden talent. She’s got this whole like trauma background. It’s just, ah, it’s just amazing. Just the power of an individual who’s driven, hey? Love that movie. Oh, I haven’t. Seen Cruella, the live action movie.

Rachel: 101 Dalmatians. It’s a film I haven’t seen for a long, long, long, long time. So it would be called a gong. Rewatch. With a psychologist head-on. Cool.

Caitlin: And what about a concert that you’ll never forget?

Rachel: I guess the, my favorite concert that I’ve ever attended.

Rachel: We were in Spain last year and we actually attended a concert underground in a cave. No kidding. We were on an island called Mallorca. We went deep inside a cave. There were, you know, stalactites, stalagmites and you go deep underground and you end up in this sort of underground, theater auditorium.

Rachel: It’s crazy. And there’s a body of water and they have these beautiful. string orchestra playing their music in a boat as they go up and down this body of water in candlelight or torchlight. It was crazy. It was the most amazing concept with the most amazing acoustics I’ve ever heard. And yeah, I mean, only in Spain, hey, that was my favorite concert. No way. That sounds incredible. Wow. That would have been like Greece funk central.

Caitlin: I’ve yeah. And I’ve been to one of those cans a lot. Concerts, but I do see them advertise. So. I’ll have to add that to my list as well.

Caitlin: And lastly, what’s an absurd thing that you love.

Rachel: An absurd thing that I love is I love bubble wrap. Every time something arrives in the mail in bubble wrap, I immediately grab it and I have to pop it until I’ve popped all the little bubbles and they’re all gone. Yeah, it’s crazy. I know it’s like a sensory thing, but yeah, I’m really into that. That’s so good. Yeah. No bubble wrap is the best. but thank you so much Rachel. Now tell us how we can get in contact with you.

Rachel: Sure. Sure. I probably should’ve said this earlier on. My business is called Floral Art by Rachel. That’s my business. I’m on Instagram at Floral Art by Rachel. My website’s the same, Floral Art by Rachel.

Rachel: And I feel like, where else am I? Yeah. You know, sometimes I get posted on different forums around sort of workshops for Melbourne and stuff like that. But yeah, you can get in touch with me via Instagram or email flowers at rachel. au. And I, yeah, like I said, I provide events and workshops on demand as well.

Rachel: So if people want me to come into their organization and run a workshop for them, a creative flower workshop, I can do that. Yeah, just seeing where it goes.

Caitlin: Yeah. That’s so exciting. Thank you so much for our conversation today. I feel really energized after it,

Rachel: great.

Rachel: Awesome. Thanks for doing what you’re doing and thank you for I guess bringing this stuff to awareness that that’s a really cool thing to have a hustle outside of your health profession.

Rachel: I think it’s super healthy.

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Caitlin: Yay. Thank you so much.

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