We were lucky to catch up with Jozlyn Bodine recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jozlyn, thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

Before I became a full-time creative working for myself, I was working a corporate position at a digital marketing agency. I had spent four years there, and it was the “safe” choice. I had a consistent income, health insurance, and a feeling of relative safety. At the same time, I was starting to become completely blocked from my creativity. My job was a numbers-driven position where quantity was valued more than quality. My passion and joy were both gone. I was surviving inside a system that kept me afloat but not thriving.

That chapter ended in the summer of 2025 when I was laid off. Then I had a choice: I could find another safe position and keep the same pattern going, or make the choice to choose my own happiness. I chose the latter and became a full-time creative freelancer. I made the choice to live in joy and alignment.
A few months in, I found out I was going to be a mom. Suddenly the risk I’d already taken got a whole lot bigger. Building a business is one thing; building it while preparing to bring a child into the world is something else entirely. There’s no guaranteed income, no safety net, and many people who support you but don’t entirely understand what you’re doing. I’ve had to sit in that discomfort that comes with the scarcity mindset.

Regardless, I knew I couldn’t go back to being the person who settled. I’d spent months unraveling imposter syndrome, learning to stop self-sacrificing and reconnect with what actually motivates me to keep going. My work as a designer has always been guided by intuition, not just material experience and skill. I’ve been reading tarot cards for years, and now I use them as a tool for guiding my creativity. I meditate and channel creative direction from my clients’ energy so I can place them in the same alignment that I’ve had to fight for. These aren’t things I could do inside a corporate box. These aspects of me would’ve had to stay separate.

The progress has been slow, methodical, and real. I’ve landed several clients. I’ve been showing up as the version of myself I’d been afraid to be publicly: a designer who leads with intuition, who integrates spirituality into strategy, and who believes the most powerful work comes from people brave enough to be fully themselves.

I’m still in the middle of this risk. It hasn’t “paid off” in some dramatic climax yet. But I’ve come to understand the concept of pronoia: the idea that the universe is actively working in your favor. Getting laid off felt like the ground falling out from under me at first, but looking back, it’s the biggest opportunity I’ve had. It forced me out of a place that was slowly draining everything that made me who I am, and it put me exactly where I needed to be to build something real. Once I started seeing the truth of it, the anxiety quieted and hope got louder. I’m creating work I’m proud of, I’m building something that’s mine, and I’m about to welcome a child into a life where her mom chose to follow joy instead of what was safe. All I can continue to do is trust the universe and find alignment in my life.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

My name is Jozlyn Bodine, and I’m the founder of Jozlyn Creative, a freelance design studio offering web design, graphic design, and brand strategy. I’m also a Creative Intuitive, which means my spiritual practice and my creative work go hand in hand.

I’ve always been drawn to building things, figuring out how they work, and making them look and feel intentional. Over the years, that evolved into something much bigger than just the technical side of my design work. I realized that a website or a logo is more than the files I was working on. Design is the visual language of someone’s identity, and if you don’t understand who that person truly is, the work will always feel generic. That discovery pushed me toward brand strategy and eventually into running my own business.

What I offer through Jozlyn Creative is a real creative partnership. I work with clients on brand strategy, web design and development, and visual identity. But what sets my process apart is the intuitive layer. I’ve been reading tarot and oracle cards for years, and I bring that practice into my client work. Before I ever open a design file, I sit with the energy of a project. I pull cards. I meditate on my client’s story and vision. That intuitive process gives me a creative direction that doesn’t come from a mood board. The brands I build actually feel like the people behind them.

I solve a problem that a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners carry without realizing it: a disconnect between who they are and how they present themselves. They know their work is meaningful, but their brand doesn’t reflect that yet. Maybe their website feels outdated, or their visual identity was thrown together quickly when they were just getting started. I help my clients close that gap. I take what makes them unique and translate it into design that’s expressive and strategic. What I design becomes a mirror for who they are.

I’m proud of the fact that I’ve built this business on my own terms. I haven’t followed the conventional path. I integrate spirituality into strategy in a way that some people might not expect from a designer, and I’ve chosen to lead with that instead of hiding it. I’m also proud of the community work I do. I volunteer my design skills for events like Carolina Pagan Fest, and I’m very involved in the pagan and spiritual communities here in the Upstate South Carolina area where I live.

What I want people to know is that Jozlyn Creative isn’t a design mill churning out work. I’m not here to hand you a template with your name on it. I’m here to sit with you, understand you, and create something that does you and your business justice. If you’re someone who values authenticity, who wants a brand that resonates, not just one that looks polished, that’s the work I do.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding part of what I do as a creative is being a channel. When I’m working on a project and everything clicks, there’s nothing else like it. It’s like I’m not just designing; something is moving through me. I’m translating something bigger than myself into something tangible that my clients can hold and say, “that’s me.”

As a queer trans woman, authenticity and self-expression aren’t abstract concepts for me; they’re things I’ve had to fight for. I know what it feels like to be out of alignment, and I know the joy of making that choice to live in harmony with yourself. My experiences shape everything about how I approach my work. When I help a business owner express who they are, I’m facilitating something I understand on a personal level.

My own journey toward self-love and alignment helps me guide someone else through theirs, and that’s the most meaningful thing I could ask for in my work.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The biggest lesson I’ve had to unlearn was “the fear of not having enough should be what drives my decisions.” We’re taught from a very young age that poverty is always right behind us. One wrong move, one risky choice, and it’ll catch up and get you. That fear is baked into everything. It’s in the way we’re pushed towards “safe” career choices, in the side-eyes you get when you say you’re a creative for a living, in the voice in your head that says you should be grateful for a paycheck when the work itself is burning you out.

The fear is a trick. It’s designed to keep you settling. It convinces you that staying somewhere miserable is safer than betting on yourself; it frames playing it safe as wisdom when it’s just compliance. I spent four years in a corporate position that was slowly drying up my creativity because I believed the alternative was worse. I thought I was being responsible. What I was doing was letting my fear make my choices for me.

Lately I’ve understood that living your truth is it’s own form of manifestation. When you stop making decisions from a place of fear and start making them from joy, you’re telling the universe you’re ready for more. You’re creating space for opportunities that couldn’t reach you in the mindset of simply surviving. That doesn’t mean fear disappears completely; it means you stop letting it in the driver’s seat.

I had to unlearn the idea that settling was protecting me. The fear was holding me back from everything I wanted.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jozlyncreative.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jozlyncreative/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jozlyncreative
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jozlynbodine/

Image Credits

Carrie Allen, Caitlyn Sanders, Cassie Coe