2025 Wrap-Up
A Year on Loose Soil
This past year was a weird one for me.
2024 was a year full of manifestation and clarity: studying under Sonia Choquette, going to Finland for an artist residency, and getting accepted into the London School of Muralism for the start of 2025. On paper, it was an incredible year.
However, at the end of 2024, I felt like a complete and utter failure. I went to bed crying most nights because I felt so lost in my business and felt like I hadn’t achieved my financial goals, even though I had achieved some really amazing things. It was actually my most abundant year financially, it just came from everywhere except my business.
And that hurt.
So enter 2025, a year of feeling a bit lost. After many late-night chats with my partner in the lead-up to 2025, it became very clear that I needed to stop associating my self-worth and sense of success with my business finances.
My theme for 2025 became:
Give myself a year of not worrying about making money.
And man, oh man, was that hard for me to do.
This brought up so many lessons and contrasts, but slowly, as the year progressed, it became easier.
Coco the Cat
At the very start of 2025, Coco, one of our neighbour’s cats, came into our lives. One day, he just started meowing at our back door nonstop. Then again, the next day to do the same. It was freezing outside, and into the even colder night, he continued meowing and pawing at our door.
At some point, he left, only to return with a scratch on his brow. We let him in, cleaned him up, and called his owners while he sat watching Hey Arnold! on the TV (cats seem to love that show). They told us they had just had a baby and Coco had been spending less time at home. They said it was okay to let him in, just never to feed him because he has stomach issues.
After that, he came over every day, snuggling Matt awake in the morning and then hanging out beside me while I worked. He became part of our life so quickly and so sweetly and helped us heal from the loss of our last cat.
Mural School and Blomma Beauty
I got to meet some really lovely people in Muralism school and had the absolute joy of painting a mural for Blomma Beauty. I love working with them and their business and really appreciate all the different ways we have collaborated over the years.
Together with volunteers, we painted Blomma Beauty’s new workshop studio in Islington. But while working on the designs, I got COVID, and was sick in bed for weeks. I was so worried about the amount of school I missed and about the looming painting date. Luckily, I recovered just in time, and we were able to finalise the design and paint on schedule. It felt like such a relief and a triumph and I am so proud of the final outcome.
Identity Shifts and Creativity Calling
After doing a digital detox in Finland, I really struggled with being online again. Social media felt harder than ever, and any task involving a screen became a challenge. So I made some big changes, like no longer offering intuitive web design, which had been my main source of income.
I found myself wanting to spend more time making art, while still loving intuitive coaching. So I started slowly adding more creativity and art into my workshops and coaching programs. After finally feeling seen as an Artist in Finland, I wanted others to feel like artists too, to access that part of themselves.
Long COVID Fog and Saying Goodbye
One of my goals for 2025 was to have working holidays. But after having COVID, I was foggy and exhausted for months. I had to really ground into listening to my body and slowing down. I leaned into journaling, going for walks, and spending more time outside.
Then we found out our landlords wanted to sell our flat and we had to move. It was too much to manage on top of Muralism school, so I dropped out.
We had to say goodbye to Coco, the hardest part of the move. He added so much joy to our lives and we fell completely in love with him. We also said goodbye to the squirrels and other neighbourhood cats. Hulk the squirrel even showed us her babies the day before she moved. It felt like everyone was saying goodbye at once.
The move got Matt and me craving more stability and wanting to own our own place. We found our dream home; however, we had to pull out once we received the searches and reports and continued to feel unsettled in the new flat we are renting.
Workshops in Canada and Hugs
Even through all of that, I still hosted two intuitive/creative workshops in Canada while I was there for my cousin Kelsey’s wedding. I hosted one in Vancouver with Sharon called "the art of self compassion" which focused on the intersection of art-making and inner listening as a way of returning to self. I also got to travel to Burns Lake to host a workshop with Jenny, the Patchwork Intuitive, called "The Art of Us", which was A Creative Journey of Intuition, Healing, and Ancestral Connection inspired by us reading "Women Who Run with Wolves".
Jenny and I studied intuitive coaching together years ago and continued our spiritual study online over Zoom, but had never met in person until then. It was so nice to finally meet her and Melody Saul (one of my first intuitive web design clients) and give them long-overdue hugs.
Inspiration and Active Holidays
I love animation and got to attend Playground In Motion; it was so inspiring to hear artists talk about their craft. I also attended the Mind Body Soul Experience at Alexandra Palace and got to meet wonderful people and support my friend from Life Alignment. It reminded me that in 2026, I’d like to try doing trade shows again.
One of my goals this year was to spend more time outside and have more active holidays. I walked the final 120 km of the Camino de Santiago with my friend Charlotte, and later hiked through Madeira with my Mum.
A Mural That Moved
A few months after the Blomma mural, their studio flooded, and they had to move just around the corner. Instead of repainting a mural, we took the same visuals and, with the help of my studio mate Shell, created a window display that they can take with them anywhere. A nice reminder that art can be resilient too.
Click on the links to check out:
Lessons from Loose Soil
So many beautiful things happened this year, and I am very grateful. But it also felt like a year on loose soil: with the fog of long COVID, moving suddenly, deciding not to buy a home, and everything happening in the world. It’s been hard to feel settled.
However… this year also brought a lot of clarity:
I want to offer online courses focused on intuition + creativity
I want to write and illustrate a book
I want to merge my 2 businesses together
I want to participate in trade shows
I also feel like it's time to take a break from Instagram for a while. You’ll still see me from time to time, but I’d really like to focus on writing. I will still be writing blog posts and newsletters and may post the vocational YouTube video to share my findings as I do research for the book, so if you would like to keep up to date, please sign up for the ChantalG newsletter or check out my website or YouTube channel.
Looking at 2026 – Time to love my life
Right now, 2026 feels like it will be a bit of a cave year for me.
I plan to keep the theme of not worrying about making money because I still feel like there are lessons to learn, and honestly, I didn’t get experimental enough this year.
Another theme is coming in too:
to love my life.
I want to have a love affair with my life and focus on all of the things I love about life. I have the tendency to feel life as heavy and a burden, and it's time to shift that.
I am excited to see where these lessons will bring me.
Thank you for being a part of my journey.
