We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tatyana Sussex. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tatyana below.

Alright, Tatyana thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I have two professional playgrounds: Everyday Creative Coaching, and Beauty Hunter (on Substack). They overlap in may ways but for our conversation I’m going to focus on Beauty Hunter. The mission here is to practice experiencing beauty in daily life, as a way to grow, transform, and increase capacity for the art of living and all it brings us.

I started Beauty Hunter (on Substack) in early 2021, when the pandemic was in full force, and the news of the day was making me anxious, despairing, and obsessively dystopian. Then one day on a walk, I stopped beneath the canopy of an old Western Red Cedar. Caught in a moment of awe, I remembered something: Beauty. I had forgotten about beauty!

I made a conscious effort to turn toward beauty for two reasons: A) I needed it and B) I considered the fact that beauty might need *me*. I began by slowing down and turning on my senses because I knew this was how to rehabilitate my human-ness. I strolled past maple trees, and admired the bright orange leaves; I said Hello to passersby and saw the kindness in their eyes; I stretched myself to see the beauty in my Dad’s final months with dementia and blindness and experienced surprising love and intimacy with him.

Little by little I woke up to the beauty of living, even in the swirl of the hard stuff. My capacity to be with a mix of feelings and experiences increased; relationships became easier, and more playful, and a general love of people blossomed. More interestingly, I saw the reciprocal nature of beauty, and how that encouraged me to be out in the world more. Life became, once again, so much more than the news of the day (not that I wanted to put my head in the sand).

Because I’m a writer and a coach, and I like to play with others, I started Beauty Hunter because I wanted to remind anyone else who needed it that beauty is alive and well, and to explore a life of Beauty with others. I wanted people to consider “beauty” not as a nice-to-have or a privilege but as something that is essential, persistent, unconditional, and omniscient. How would turning toward beauty change our everyday experiences, just knowing beauty was THERE, whether we felt it or not?

Beauty Hunter isn’t about turning away from what’s challenging or confronting, but to keep expanding our capacity; to stay present with the world, people, and our own unique awakenings through beauty. And to do it in community, having conversations together, and sharing our insights with others.

Tatyana, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve had a long meandering career, beginning in New York at ELLE magazine, where I worked as a young writer and editor. I’ve always loved to write, but editing proved to be an area I also loved—mainly the art of pulling from people that which they didn’t know was in them. This was the nut that eventually led me to coaching—and it’s probably been a constant theme throughout all my work with people. And my writing.

When I learned about this thing called Life Coaching, and the 2008 recession swooped in, I went to a life coach training school. At that time, I wanted to work with professionals who were unhappy, feeling stuck, or wanted to make a change but didn’t know where to start; I wanted to help everyone at work have better experiences at their jobs. Why were so many people having such miserable times? I wanted to change that, give people resources, see that their job wasn’t going to make them happy, to understand where their experience originated, to break free of their prison of thought, see the possibilities.

Coaching is such a transformational practice, and it takes the coach right along with it—growing, shifting, gaining new insight, interests, fascinations, philosophies. I’ve love the sovereignty the web gives individuals to share content and build service-industry storefronts. Blogs, website businesses, Medium, Tumblr, you name it, I’ve had a pop-up shop on every corner. When Substack came on the scene, I wanted to give it a try, and I had beauty on my mind, so off I went. But then another idea came in.

I’d been wanting to start a salon–a gathering centered around exploring ideas—for more years than I want to admit. After I launched Beauty Hunter, the salon had a natural home and purpose. It was time. I had Zoom as a gathering space (the pandemic still going), sent out invitations like I was holding a party, and started with Beauty as the first topic for the first salon. Two-plus years later I’ve held long-course salons (from 4 – 8 weeks) that explore a topic in a conversational way with the purpose of learning, expanding consciousness, delighting ourselves, and meeting new people.

Building community is a big part of the salons and Beauty Hunter. During the pandemic, and even now, it seems like people are hungry to connect, share ideas, and explore without a linear curriculum. Every salon challenges and expands how we think about areas of our lives, from Beauty at Work, Desire, Humor, Play & Fun, Love & Marriage, and more. These longer courses are affiliated with Beauty Hunter, but separate paid offerings. Monthly pop-up salons on rotating topics are included with a paid Beauty Hunter membership.

The human dev area can get pretty serious. I try to bring some levity into the process–when it’s appropriate–because life is a trickster, it’s always playing with us. It helps to remember this. Also, I like to question all personal and societal beliefs in an irreverent and lively way. Lightness and laughter is a great relaxant, and that really helps set people’s minds free, and consider new possibilities.

For creatives—approaching writing and the making of art from a place of enchantment, enthusiasm and curiosity, less from discipline, burden and duty. Making art doesn’t have to be a suffer-fest. Let’s bust that myth loose.

I’m proud of the way Beauty Hunter helps people open up to new ways of seeing beauty and experiencing daily life. No one leaves these conversations the same. I receive emails from participants about finding themselves in a really challenging situation (in one case a father’s incoming death) but because of the salons, they’re able to stop and experience beauty and peace—presence I guess you’d call it—among the chaos and sadness. If we can spread that to more people, to invite people to put beauty at the center of our lives no matter how bad things get, what a radical way to change the world!

Humans have so much capacity to create change, and often in a surprisingly short amount of time–although time and speed is not the focus here. Being able to journey with others and watch them transform and open, grow and thrive makes me proud to be human. Holding a space where people come together, share their lives and viewpoints with others, offer support and a laugh, and forge relationships in such a generous way makes me proud to be human. As I am wowed by others, I am wowed for all of us.

Services I provide:

Beauty Hunter free and paid subscriptions at Substack.
Monthly salons; seasonal courses, workshops and individual coaching.
Bespoke micro-retreats.

The problems we explore and the possibilities created

-Unlock stuckness and start creating: a book, art, a creative project, a business, career, a new chapter, or stage of life—from enthusiasm and delight, rather than discipline and duty.
-Use beauty, play, and fun to create change personally or professionally, make art, tell your story, and experience the world as an engaging, delightful place.
-Have more fun—not because you think you should but because you’re ready to kick aside societal expectations and do life your way
-Create more delight, more enchantment in everyday life, and along the way, especially when the world feels heavy and hard.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Increase our capacity for live and living–to be able to hold all things, all experiences, all views, all good and bad and everything in between.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

That I have to sit with bowed head at my computer with my fingers typing up a storm, as if some Job God/ess was looking down and being fooled into seeing HOW HARD I”M WORKING and reward me with . . . something. Life is tricky, and sometimes it takes a while to see the game you’re playing.

The whole “be productive” message is being re-written here.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.everydaycreative.net/ and https://tatyanasussex.substack.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tsizzlesussex/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tatyana.mishel
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tatyanamishel/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpVDtB8s2Z0U0bsqxoCjRfw