We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Elena Daniela Onica a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Elena Daniela, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
The truth is i never intended to do what i do, everything just came to me, and I found myself teaching people how to develop their consciousnesses through journaling. Because i’m an artist i carry a sketchbook around all the time. In the beginning I was only drawing in it. Almost everyday when I was watching T.V or resting the sketchbook was open near to me and i would use the drawing as a way to make my thinking process more clear, a sort of meditation. As the years went by, sentences started appearing between my drawings, sometimes thoughts i had, sometimes things i heard on T.V or funny things my friends shared. The sketchbook became a platform to share my stream of consciousness, but this was only the beginning,
As time went by, little stories started appear in my sketchbooks, everything I experienced in my day to day life made its way into the pages, it was the first time in my life i was dealing with my feelings, expressing them, analysing them, getting to know them by name.
After getting familiar with sharing my feeling I started analyzing them, getting to know the patterns governing my behaviours, and asking myself how did they get there? Where are they coming from? The questions I asked myself for the first time made me start searching for answers and without noticing the learning process began. Hours and hours of podcasts and YouTube videos trying to figure out every pattern i recognised in myself and how did it get there, and every piece of information was documented in my sketchbook.
The massive learning that started in 2022 never stopped, making me discover the wonders of the human mind and soul , alongside the secrets of the universe, leading to my spiritual awakening and changing the course of my life for good. Shortly after I realised what happened… The tool that led on this journey where my sketchbooks, and they are actually journals!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Daniela and I specialise in Spirit Matter and Paper products. On the one hand multi disciplinary artist (fine arts, writing, illustration, graphic design) owner of ODE studio, an art studio specialising in paper products.
And on the other hand Spiritual Teacher, Intuitive Coach teaching Consciousness Expansion through journaling.
Since I’ve known myself I had an inclination to fine arts, and I wanted to become an Illustrator. My formal education is a degree in Education & Graphic Design specializing in Illustratration. I worked in the graphic design and illustration field as a freelancer for some time but something was missing, It wasn’t fulfilling, I hated working for clients and I couldn’t understand how I live my dream life but still feeling bitterness any other day.
Everything started coming together when I began doing exactly what i wanted, journaling my thoughts every spare minute. For the first time in my life i felt true freedom, the creative process took me to that place which is beyond time and space, the ultimate freedom. the present, moment. By being in the present moment I discovered myself, the depths of my mind and soul, and the documentation of everything in my journal led me to start my healing process.
By knowing the self one starts knowing the world around and everyone in it, “as within so without”.
My spiritual education is mostly self-taught, I specialise in Automatic Writing as a way of channeling information from the subconscious parts of the mind and soul, moreover I took courses in Jewish Kaballah and Esoteric and Gnostic practices, alongside hundreds of hours of spiritual and scientific knowledge from all disciplines.
The spiritual teaching alongside the artistic process I practiced led my to the understanding of the method I developed by following my intuition through the years – Consciousness Expansion through journaling.
First step is knowing the small self aka the personality by starting listening to the mind and body (thoughts+feelings)
Second Step unveiling the subconscious by recognising the patterns and triggers in our behaviour and analysing them
Third step is recognizing the desire self and starting making the changes needed
Fourth step developing inner authority and connecting to divine guidance within.
The beauty about the process of Consciousness Expansion through journaling is that it fits everyone doesn’t matter one’s belief system. The process makes you trust yourself and find the divine guidance which lays dormant inside till you wake it up, you can call it The Innermost, The Quantum field, God, Divine Guidance, Consciousness The Akashic field it truly doesn’t matter because when you connect to it you just know.
Im still surprised to this day that theres where journaling got me, but I finally found my purpose in life and now my mission is to teach others to find their way to a happy and purposeful life.
As we all know digging in the caves of the subconscious may be painful and triggering because things hide there for a reason, what made it easier for me is my passion to paper products, art and graphic design. Every painful suppressed memory found its way into my journals in an aesthetic way, alongside a beautiful drawing and a pleasing balanced composition. The combination of my two passions made me want to continue and do the work every day, doesn’t matter how painful it was, the artistic part had its amazing role as relief from the subconscious revealing, a time to pause, relax and process everything.
Alongside Consciousness Expansion through journaling I teach also Manual Graphic Design so one can develop all the skills that will make the process much more easy and enjoyable.
Another thing we develop these days at ODE studio, is designed Journals with beautiful compositions, instructions and inspirational quotes, especially for ones that don’t find pleasure in drawing or illustrating. Moreover for the ones who journal already, and their journal is a mess (like mine) were about to launch stickers that help to organise the thoughts and feelings alongside topics and themes in your journal to make it easy to navigate and learn about yourself in a more pleasing and effective way.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
In the beginning of my journey, I thought my mission is to share my beautiful art and get paid for it, but soon I realised something isn’t working, the struggle is too harsh. Things really started changing for me when I figured that the process I developed – Consciousness Expansion through journaling can help people like it did for me, the focus changed from helping myself spread my art and make a living out o it, to helping people discovering themselves and start their healing journey. You see, our goal on this planet is to help each other through the gifts we were given by God or the Universe. Each one of us has his unique light to share to the world and really make a difference, when one starts spreading his light by being his unique self, then he starts feeling true fulfillment. And that’s my mission, teaching people how to be their unique held self in order to impact the world in the best way possible.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Social media like any other thing you want to succeed in, is a game of perseverance. You have to understand that people don’t succeed overnight, you have to do it everyday sometimes for years. But social media doesn’t have to be a burden, it can be fun, and it depends only on you. The moment you realise your social media is not for your family and friends, and you drop the judgment, you can develop your unique style and share whatever you do in a raw authentic way. If you try too hard or copy others it wouldn’t work, the job is always being yourself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.onicaelenadaniela.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onicaelenadaniela/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danionica/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC85mkU6JWafQC0oEeDslNaQ
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@onicaelenadaniela Tiktok