Meet Angela Winter

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

Hi Angela, so excited to have you with us today and we are really interested in hearing your thoughts about how folks can develop their empathy? In our experience, most folks want to be empathic towards others, but in a world where we are often only surrounded by people who are very similar to us, it can sometimes be a challenge to develop empathy for others who might not be as similar to us. Any thoughts or advice?

My empathy has been forged in the fires of life.

Born with a natural sensitivity to others’ emotions and circumstances (I’m a Cancer sun and an INFJ!), I’ve always felt others’ feelings within me and had an instinctive pull toward compassion and understanding. But it’s been the lived experience, the heartbreaks and healing, that shaped this affinity into a way of being.

As a child, I weathered the bitter divorce of my parents, stepped in as a caregiver for my younger brother while our mother worked to make ends meet, and later endured abuse from a parental figure. By the age of nine, I already knew the complexity and pain of the human experience. I often wished I could be someone else entirely. But instead of closing off, I turned toward healing – spirituality, therapy, and a deep inner journey that helped me transform pain into understanding.

That path has continued into adulthood. In the past several years, I’ve walked through my own divorce and the profound process of coming out, leaving a heterosexual marriage to live authentically as part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Navigating the healing of my own children and myself has stretched my heart in ways I never imagined. It’s demanded empathy for everyone involved and deepened my compassion, my resilience, and my commitment to living and loving with presence.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I’m a brand alchemist, designer, transformational coach, and the founder of Awakened Creator, a holistic creative studio devoted to helping soulful entrepreneurs bring their truest selves to life through brand and web design.

At the heart of my work is the belief that when you are your business, your brand should be a mirror of your soul and a beacon for the people you’re here to serve. I partner with coaches, creatives, healers, and thought leaders to craft authentic, strategic, and deeply aligned online spaces that don’t just look beautiful – they feel like home.

My signature BrandBodiment™ approach blends intuitive creative direction, strategic design, and deep inner work. Together, we clarify your identity, embody your unique gifts, and build an online presence that resonates with your ideal clients on an energetic level. This is branding not just as a business tool, but as a sacred act of expression and connection.

What excites me most is witnessing the moment when a client sees their truth, their essence, reflected back to them in their brand and feels a profound sense of recognition, alignment, and readiness to rise. That transformation fuels me every time.

Right now, I’m focused on expanding my one-on-one offerings with custom brand and web design and new creative intensives for those needing a faster infusion of clarity and support. Whether we’re working together on a full rebrand or a single strategy session, my mission is always the same: to make the world more true and more beautiful, one aligned brand at a time.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Looking back, three qualities have been most impactful on my journey: artistic rigor, personal development, and resilience.

I’ve been immersed in the arts since I was two years old, when I joined my first dance class. What started as “Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around” turned into ten hours a week of disciplined training by the time I graduated high school. I also took private lessons in piano, flute, and voice, pursuing each with passion and commitment. That dedication led to accolades in all three and ultimately two college degrees in voice and pedagogy.

The artistic process taught me more than just craft. I learned how to bring ideas into form, see the big picture while honoring the tiniest detail, and collaborate with others to create something meaningful. Discipline, iteration, storytelling, structure, and creative flow – these now inform every project I guide my clients through.

Personal development has been equally foundational. As I’ve navigated loss, trauma, healing, and transformation, I’ve come to see that everything I encounter is ultimately for me. That lens has helped me commit to becoming the most aligned, authentic version of myself, and in turn, to support others in expressing their truest voice. As a certified life coach, I bring deep listening, intuition, and emotional fluency into the design process, making each brand a deeply personal and resonant reflection of the person behind it.

And through it all, there’s been resilience – the steady courage to keep going through the hard. From childhood abuse to adult heartbreak, from professional pivots to spiritual growth, I’ve learned to alchemize pain into healing and beauty. Without that resilience, I wouldn’t be here now: living a life that once felt out of reach, grounded in joy, creativity, and purpose.

If you’re early in your journey, my advice is this: trust your inner nudges and don’t stop believing in what’s possible. It is possible to heal. It is possible to create a life you love. It is possible to express yourself fully and feel safe doing it. Let your intuition lead you – it knows the way to a life more beautiful and aligned than you can even imagine right now.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

The book that immediately comes to mind as a turning point in my development is The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

I first read it in my twenties, not long after finishing graduate school, on the recommendation of my voice teacher. At the time, I felt disoriented and unsure of my creative worth. I was weighed down by self-doubt and longing to reconnect with the part of me that once felt inspired and alive in the act of creation.

Through the book’s wisdom, exercises, and gentle spiritual guidance, I began to remember the voice within that had always led me to creative expression, the part of me that longed to contribute to the world by sharing my soul, my vision, and my voice.

At its core, The Artist’s Way offers three foundational practices:

Morning Pages – daily stream-of-consciousness writing to clear mental clutter and hear your inner voice,

Artist Dates – solo adventures to refill your creative well, and

Walks – to reconnect with the natural world and the deeper rhythms of your mind and body.

Over the course of 12 weeks, Cameron blends these tools with prompts, reflections, spiritual insights, and personal growth exercises that guide readers back to their innate creative essence – not as something earned, but something remembered.

For me, this book brought together all the threads that had been quietly shaping my path: spirituality, creativity, intuition, and personal transformation. It gave me language for what I had long felt but hadn’t yet named: that my desire to create was a sacred impulse, a conversation with the Divine. It taught me to trust that voice, to stop seeking external validation and instead anchor into co-creation with something greater.

One of the most powerful takeaways was Cameron’s invitation to see ourselves as extensions of the Creator. If we are made in the image of the Divine, then our creative impulses are holy, too. That understanding helped dissolve much of the judgment and doubt I had carried. It affirmed what I now know to be true for me: we are all Creators, and the still, small voice within – the one that nudges us to express, make, share, and serve – is worthy of our deepest trust.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.awakenedcreator.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apwinter

Image Credits

Photos of me by Sarah Rachael Photography