Meet Lorriane Anderson

We were lucky to catch up with Lorriane Anderson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lorriane, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

I love being inspired and I truly believe creativity is easy when you keep your mind open to new ideas and experiences. I take A LOT of photos in my business. I started taking photos because it’s impossible to have an online based business without pictures but I couldn’t afford to pay a photographer in those first years so I started taking them myself. It didn’t take very long for me to realize not only did I enjoy taking photos but I’m rather good at it. Over the years, I’ve easily taken tens of thousands of photos. At one point, I was taking two or three hundred photos a day, nearly five days a week. As you can imagine, you start to run out of ideas when you’re taking that many photos so keeping my creativity alive is something I really have to work on. I spend a lot of time, searching the internet and other sources for inspiration. Most of my photos are of two things: tarot/oracle cards and apothecary creations but I don’t limit myself to photos of just cards and apothecary jars. I allow myself to be inspired by all things that interest me and I think that’s the key to keeping creativity alive. Some of my best tarot photos were inspired by food photography and interior design. I often use design mood boards to help me compose my tarot flat lays and studying food photography helped me to understand how to layer elements in my photos for more interest. Sometimes I study fashion photos or editorial photos, looking for shapes or colors that are similar to my own business even though the main elements seem unrelated. I think it’s really important to regularly get out of your comfort zone and look for similarities to your own life or business that are expressed in a way you didn’t know to consider. I’ve done this for years and with time, I’ve learned how to spot my specific aesthetic in just about every industry. So now, when I’m traveling and see an unusual trinket I think to myself “this would look amazing as a candle holder for my next deck photo shoot.” Creativity is all about coming up with something new so having new experiences is in my opinion, the best thing you could possible do to keep your creativity alive.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am best-selling oracle deck and spiritual apothecary book author as well as a tarot expert. I think what’s so special about what I do is the ability to connect with so many people. I’m so fortunate to receive messages from people who use my decks or read my books and tell me they feel seen or that I’ve described exactly what they were feeling and they feel like I understand them. Everyone in the world is struggling with something and I have found in my work that many people feel guilty about their troubles, believing their story isn’t worthy of being heard or that their struggles are bad enough in comparison to someone else’s so they don’t seek help. Its true that there’s probably always going to be someone out there in a far worst situation than you but that doesn’t mean your challenges are valid and that you don’t need support. So to know that my work offers that support and validation to literally hundreds of thousands of people around the world, is a very special thing. I think tarot and oracle decks have such a poor reputation and it’s really a shame. So I want people to know and understand that what you see in movies is incorrect. Tarot/oracle decks are tools to help your soul translate what you’re feeling to your brain which often struggles to make sense of complicated emotions, desires, and triggers. I personally don’t subscribe to the idea that tarot and oracle can predict the future but I do believe this practice can help you to make choices that will make your future more bright.

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?

Being adaptable is for sure a skill that has been the most valuable to me. Sometimes things don’t work out. Sometimes you think you have a brilliant idea and it just doesn’t land or something worked really well until it didn’t. You have to be able to pivot. You have to be able to evaluate what’s working and what isn’t and make an informed decision. Otherwise, you’ll be a victim to your own stubbornness and that’s a great way to run your business and yourself into the ground for that matter. The second thing I would say is that mental health matters. I did ok before working on my mental health but I really took off when I made it a priority. I have had a therapist and life coach for seven years and it’s the best decision I have ever made. I had so many doubts, insecurities and blocks that directly impacted how I showed up as an entrepreneur and creative that, looking back, I never would’ve been able to overcome on my own. I didn’t have the tools or knowledge to overcome them on my own. Besides therapy, I am careful to inspire and motivate myself often. I listen to motivational speeches on Youtube every morning and I listen to self-development podcasts while I’m in the car. I read books for personal growth and I watch things that make me feel good and inspired. I thought these things didn’t matter for a long time but they really, really do. Some years ago, I made a HUGE mistake in my business and pretty much everything fell apart. I didn’t sleep for a month because I’d wake up crying and in a panic about the situation I was in. And one day I decided I would listen to a motivational speech everyday and it pulled me out of the black hole I was in. It allowed me to believe in myself and to believe I could make a plan to fix things and I did. Investing in yourself and how you feel is so important to being an entrepreneur. And perhaps the most impactful part of my journey has been being willing to say yes to things. There are so many opportunities that have come up that I was terrified to accept but I pushed my fear down and did it anyway. And being able to do that has opened up so many doors for me. I wouldn’t be a best-selling author at all if I let my fear get in the way. I wasn’t prepared to be a writer in anyway but I knew it was something I wanted to do when the opportunity presented itself. You’re never going to feel completely ready or be able to do something you really, really care about without at least a little fear. So say yes, and figure out how you’ll do it later. As far as advice, I would say that liking something isn’t enough to turn it into a business or even to pursue it as a hobby. That’s just the starting point. There’s a lot that goes into being consistent in anything, business or otherwise. Developing yourself as a person is so key to being successful. Dealing with your shortcomings, learning to lean on your strengths and being open to learning things is going to get you so much further ahead than someone who’s riding on talent alone.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I’m always looking for people to collaborate with. I think it’s important to meet new people with similar minds. If you’re someone who’s in the spiritual space or interested in this space, then please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. It doesn’t matter if you’re into tea ceremony or meditation or astrology or herbalism. I love to meet and be inspired by interesting, openminded people who wish to connect.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.spiritelement.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spiritelement/

Image Credits

All images and publications by Lorriane Anderson