About your guide
Wenlin Tan
My name is Wenlin and I am honoured to be your guide for this journey. I am a Creative Cycle Guide, a Women’s Career & Well-being Coach, Qigong and yoga specialist, and Red School Menstruality mentor. My passion is supporting Women changemakers – entrepreneurs, creatives, yoga teachers and healers move from overwhelm and burnout to ease, flow and success in their lives.
I bring with me over 15 years of experience working at the intersection of mindfulness, creativity, psychology, and wellness, with over 3,000 hours of training and 8 years of experience supporting women across the U.S.A, Asia, and Europe.
Before you embark with me on this journey, let me share a little about myself and how this journey came to be. My parents, teachers, grew up poor. They taught me that life is difficult, money and success doesn’t come easy, and that I should work hard and be thankful and content for every blessing that comes my way.
I was not an ambitious person by nature, and though I did fairly well in school, was not exceptionally bright, creative or outstanding. But I was always curious about people, and how we can live our lives better. From when I was little, I imagined a world where every single person had all their creative potentials fulfilled. And I longed to live in a world like that
These beliefs continued to drive my behaviour as a hard-working, efficient globe-trotting market research manager and student of Yoga in my early 20s. Though I was paid well and excelled in that position, it didn’t fulfil me, it didn’t light me up. I dreamed of a life where everyday I would jump out of bed and feel fully alive at work, every moment of my life.
Life gave me a kick when my ex-boyfriend of four years abruptly broke up with me, and I realised I didn’t have to hold on to my stable job, or stay in Singapore any longer. I took a sabbatical and later left my only full-time job of 7 years with no plan, and embarked on a journey to discover who I might be and how I might make a difference to myself and others in this world.
During that time, through my hard work and resourcefulness, I created and found opportunities for myself and explored different vocations- I finally realised my dream working as an illustrator and Creative, a career I had always dreamed of as a child. Though I enjoyed the work I found creating to be a solitary activity, and missed the human contact I had while working as a researcher interviewing doctors and patients in my last job. I also continually struggled with imposter syndrome, fluctuating feelings of low self-worth and playing small, telling myself that I could never be truly successful, being someone who never formally received training at Art School.
Later, by chance, I became a Yoga and Mindfulness teacher. It was after I taught my first Yoga class that I realised teaching was a natural talent and passion I had that I had never known. It gave me immense joy sharing Yoga and Mindfulness – the same tools and disciplines that had brought me great comfort and connection through times of darkness and loneliness struggling with an eating disorder during university, and growing up and living with a family member with a psychiatric illness.
As I continued to teach Yoga, the frequent classes and long hours teaching and modelling the postures started to show up as pain in my body. Seeking relief from recurring back pain, I re-encountered the ancient practice of Qigong, something I had seen elders practise in Singapore, where I grew up when I was young. Encountering Qigong was like coming home. I had never felt something so easy, so comforting and healing before. Intuitively I knew it was right for me. Through Qigong, I discovered the Five Elements of Chinese Medicine and, later, the Creative Cycle.
Discovering the Creative Cycle was a pivotal point in my life. Through my self-reflections and further studies of the Creative Cycle, I continually learnt something new about myself and the world. I realised I could achieve more by allowing agency with myself, listening to my body and her needs rather than seeking to control, ignore or own it. I realised I could release people-pleasing behaviours that I had become habituated to from my upbringing, and set healthy boundaries so I could prioritise myself first, and become fully resourced to show up for myself and others in the world. I realised I could save time, energy and effort by flowing with my energies and the energies of the world, rather than rushing or imposing my own agenda or timeline.
Through my embodied practice of the Creative Cycle and the way of the Dao, the flow of life, I experienced a kind of ease, flow and intimacy with myself and with life that I had never felt. The more I embodied these principles, and asked myself, ‘What if this were easy? How can I flow with life, with this situation instead of resisting or fighting it?’ the more I felt in flow, at ease, relaxed. As I surrendered to the Dao, the more my career and business flourished and grew.
Magical things started to happen. Unexpected opportunities unfolded in my life. I received a well-paid opportunity to write regularly for a website, without any fixed deadlines. Despite having been practising Qigong for only four years, I was invited to be featured as an expert and teach at a world-renowned virtual Qigong summit with other veteran Qigong healers, teachers, doctors and experts. And out of the blue, despite having a modest number of followers on social media and my mailing list, I was invited for a paid assignment at a Five Star Resort in the Maldives to create a women’s well-being program as a visiting practitioner.
I was a hard worker by nature. In the early stages of my career, I manifested opportunities through sheer hard work and resourcefulness. But I could not have created any of these opportunities myself, they were beyond my imagination. They only arose because I had done the internal and external work, and declared my intention to the world – that I would be in service of the Five Elements, the Creative cycle, and dedicate my life’s work to be to inspire and touch the lives of millions, and most importantly, myself. By surrendering to the flow of Dao, life itself, I allowed these to unfold
I believe there is a greater container, vessel, holding all of us – I know this as the Dao, the flow of life itself. When we learn to flow with the cyclical patterns of great nature outside of us, and our inner nature, things become easy, we become at one with the currents of life, and success, joy, transformation and abundance unfold naturally. Any need for unnecessary striving, rushing is released.
We cannot seek transformation. Transformation is a by-product, just as success and abundance is. We can only create all the necessary conditions for transformation and growth to arise. And this is what this journey is all about – doing the internal and external work necessary to set up your conditions so success will inevitably come your way.
This is the journey I wish existed 10 years ago, when I thought life was difficult, money was hard to make, and that I was never going to be remarkable, successful, creative or inspiring. This journey is the culmination of all disciplines I have studied, practised and/or taught – Psychology, Market Research, Yoga, meditation, mindfulness, Somatics, Qigong, Chinese Medicine Philosophy.
This is the journey that, I am 100% confident, will transform your career and your life, if you show up fully and do the work (both internal – on your self-limiting beliefs, your relationship with your inner critic, and external – changing your behaviours and your relationship with your career and others in your life).
If you are ready to embark on this journey- sometimes tumultuous, challenging, and at other times beautiful, joyful, transformative, then I am here for you. I promise I will be your biggest fan, supporter and cheerleader when you’re feeling lost or unsure. I also promise I will be the one who holds you accountable – I’ll call you out when you’re playing small, I’ll kick your ass when you’re holding back, and give you a wake up call when you need it.
