Meet Sara Mcqueen

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

Hi Sara, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

We are each born with unique circumstances, bodies, environments at various times. These variables are the ingredients of our make-up. What brings one person success, and another is swallowed by despair is partly these external environmental challenges, part biology, and I believe, Grace.
I am the daughter of Wilma and Everett who moved from a small town in Arkansas in the 50’s when I was 3 years old to Northern Indiana in the Midwest of U.S.A. I was middle of 6 children, and we were lower middle class, yet I always felt we were poor because of how hard my mother & father worked to give us all we needed. As a child, I did not receive much attention or emotional support. In fact, I was admonished if I “had time” to feel sorry for myself. this was considered selfish.
My inner spirit needed to be seen. I needed to shine, and my personality was strong. I went outside of my family for the things my parents did not have time or ability to give me. School was my place to shine. My mother had been a teacher in a one room schoolhouse in Arkansas, and I loved learning and wanted to be a teacher. I was like a sponge. So, these early years are when I found my place of meaning.
I did succeed in school and found the world of art and creativity in high school, ending up with a partial scholarship and work study to allow me to be the only one of my siblings to earn an advanced degree. I taught Art for 30 years and found it the most rewarding (and challenging) career. I have so many rich memories and still meet up with past students who honor me with their appreciation of opportunities for creativity and learning I was able to share with them.
I am now an elder, a grandmother, and am at the stage of life where I have perspective and appreciation for all the gifts and opportunities that came my way. Gratitude is a daily practice.
Yet my story is not “over”. I am still awakening to where my self-confidence and self-esteem reside or where they live in my being. My spirit was strong from birth. I am grateful for this. But I was not able to find the spiritual nourishment as a young child that would help me develop self-esteem from within. I looked outside. Teachers, books, accomplishments helped me to build confidence. I found many mentors who lived examples of the ways that felt right for me.
Holding a dream or vision that is alive is most important. Following that with commitment and love has brought me to a place where i see a legacy now that those dreams and visions fulfilled. I created not only a family, an artist’s career, but helped build a sustainable community on land we purchased and live peacefully in co-creative harmony. At 74 years of age, I am still developing and nourishing a self-esteem that comes from an inner source; a well of inner knowing that I am being supported internally and not from external validation. This is a beautiful horizon, and I daily take a few steps in honoring my innate worthiness toward it.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Nature has been my deepest love throughout my life. I am a self-taught Herbalist having studied plant medicines for 50 yrs. After college, I followed a dream of living close to Nature and in community, and just stepped in without an previous experience. I built and lived in a tipi without running water or electricity for almost 3 years in the 1970’s. My husband and I found a piece of land and created a land-buyers group, and now the community, May Creek Farm is thriving with our 3rd generation and celebrating 49 years this May 2025. The beginning of my story is published in a book NO ORDINARY WORD, a compilation of stories from 50 women internationally (available for a limited time still on Amazon).

My Art is exhibited regionally and locally and I am represented by 2 galleries in Bloomington, IN. I have a number of artistic styles and veins and they are grounded in inspiration from nature and my spiritual and inner work. I have art represented in 2 Universities, and am a Signature member of 3 Watercolor Societies, and am published in the book Artistic Touch 6. My granddaughter named my studio with the tag line “where the magic happens”. I call myself a “Creativity coach” and love to host workshops in the Art of Allowing© and Wild soul Woman© Nature Immersions.

My newest passion is that I am now creating inks and paints and making my own materials from plants and natural materials I collect. I have an upcoming solo Exhibit at a local Gallery in May 2025.

I lead women’s circles and guide meditation and give Astrology readings. I am a certified Art of Allowing© intuitive painting coach. My passion is following ll sources of the divine feminine for these last 20 years. I worked with Mary Reynolds Thompson as A Wild Soul Woman© Coach in working with the creative inspirations of the landscape and Nature. These activities and 5 decades as a Sufi initiate in Inayatiyya have deepened my path of Love of Spirit as expressed in the “Manuscript of Nature”.

Most exciting news right now is my launch of an Intuitive inquiry Oracle deck I am creating from my paintings of the last decade. It is an invitation to connect to inner worlds of metaphors, myths, and the unconscious yearnings for personal guidance. I am about to launch a Kickstarter, and the Introduction for my deck is on my website https://sarasteffeymcqueen.com/intuitive-inquiry-oracle-deck/
I have a presence on facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, all with my name sarasteffeymcqueen.

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?

TRUST
Inspired Vision
Optimism

Where is your passion? What enlivens and inspires you? Who are “your” people, your deeply trusted circle of friends? I have always been in relationships. I am an extrovert and love to share, learn from, and witness others. Community has been integral in my life. For me having supportive and trusted friends can buoy us in times of struggle. This is most important at this time in our history. Building and finding community in wherever we live. Faith and Trust is a gift and to be strengthened and developed.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

I adopt a “both/and philosophy. There is much wisdom is paradox, and I feel we are in the state of the world because of too much focus on binary, dualistic and linear thinking. As an artist and art teacher I often remind myself and others that there is always more than “one” right way to approach a creative solution to a problem.
Of course, it makes sense for us to us to be aware of and begin with our strengths. I was given the attribute of optimism and a large bit of trust. I am grateful and these things support me in times of challenge and give me my resilience. Yet, all qualities can become imbalanced. This is a secret of life, to know balance. So too much optimism can lead to indulgence and too must naive trust can lead us into danger. We must honor our unique gifts. I am an uplifter and inspirer for others thanks to my strengths. For some it is the gift of emotional or mental intelligence. There are many forms of intelligence and appreciating diversity can be our strength as humanity.
I am an incredible extrovert, loving to participate in group efforts, and I appreciate my openness and the joy I feel in connection. Toward the end of my teaching career I was introduced to the book, QUIET: the Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I was stopped in my tracks! I was awakened to the world of the introvert. I realized I had been so outgoing, that I was weak in the skills of listening and taking in quietly- without feedback. It served me as a teacher but weakened me as a friend. I had at that time been volunteering in an International Environmental Organization called Tree Sisters, and the founder, Clare Dubois was teaching and sharing in our Network a technique called “holding space”, a deep listening and witnessing process. Practices like this have awakened me to the power of being a witness, and receiver for others. I am giving my attention, sharing my interest, not my words.
My response is that we are always developing our personality. It is an art. And unlike a lot of other creative processes, I feel it is never complete.
Our strengths are gifts- but so is awakening to our unlived potentials- our shadows. This is an area of personal interest for me. Carl Jung, a famous psychologist, brought the idea into our culture in the last century. These are the parts of ourselves we have rejected, not seen, or accepted in our own personalities. They show up in our judgments. We project them and are irritated or even angry to see them in others. Like a famous Rumi poem, “The Guest House”, I believe in an awakened world we can learn to make room for ALL parts of ourselves, even the rejected parts. This kind of inquiry and psychological work creates an openness and can build understanding and hope for peace- in ourselves or the world. This is hard work. This shows in our need for a scapegoat throughout history and keeps us from wholeness I believe. We also have a positive shadow which is the parts of ourselves we see in others and admire and perhaps are not in our range or ability. We may feel jealous. We romanticize or glamorize others, yet the gift would be to allow ourselves to invite or discover these ambitions ourselves.
As human beings, we each have strengths and weaknesses. There are many strategies and practices I have found and incorporate into my life that help me in my areas of weakness. Positive affirmations are nourishing and replace negative self-talk. Re-framing a negative comment can be empowering. Great writers and teachers inspire and inform me like Maya Angelou, Pema Chodren, John O’Donohue and many more. So, my answer is both honor our strengths ANS work on our weaknesses.

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Image Credits

All my own work

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