Right out of university, Dominique Hurley landed a government, nine to five job as a visual art representative and cultural programmer. It was her dream job. After a few years, however, she realized the dream job wasn’t so dreamy.

She felt stuck and found herself mired in the Sunday night crying syndrome of not wanting to go back to work.

This job had been her goal and seemed like the perfect fit. Coming from a military family, not only had she been very well trained in the use of the left brain, it was a naturally strong part of her. At ten years old, her greatest fun was organizing thousands of stamps into categories and albums. She loved that stuff.

Next, she moved onto organizing events for people. At fifteen she became a day camp counsellor, and by seventeen was hired as a coordinator for her city’s after-school programs.

She was pushed fast professionally because of the strength of her left brain and, realizing how valuable that was, for years put most of her emphasis on that side of her personality.

“I was a hyper-organizer,” says Dominique, “It’s what I was known for.” But she became so goal-oriented, she forgot to enjoy the journey. That’s still something she’s learning: that it’s all about the journey. “We’ve made the left-brain the leader, but it should be the other way around,” says Dominique. “For a few years, my left and right brain were at war.”

She needed to relearn to embrace the mystery, but it didn’t come easy, reclaiming the intuitive side of her.

Her art helped bridge the gap.

“The more unhappy I was, the more I needed to paint,” says Dominique “The studio was my sanctuary and my classroom.”

She was still intuitive throughout these years, but more on an unconscious level.

“Science has proven your heart knows what’s going on twenty seconds before your mind or your eyes can see it,” says Dominique. “We were born intuitive, and our heart developed way faster and earlier than the brain, but we’ve forgotten how to use that.”

She reflects on an early example of her intuition helping her make a life-defining decision. As the child of a military family, Dominique moved a lot and when she was ten-years-old, her family returned to the town she’d lived in when she was five.

Back with the same peer group she’d known half her lifetime earlier, she didn’t seem to fit. She was bullied for doing her homework, for being different, because the guys thought she was cute, and felt pressure to be someone she wasn’t to make it stop.

“At that moment, I remember consciously having to choose, do I make myself into someone else that I don’t like and that’s not me, or do I stand up for who I am and get bullied until I can leave and get myself to a different high school.”

She had a decision to make, and she chose to stay true to herself. It was a hard choice, but she credits that decision with forming her desire to help people connect to their true selves. Often, says Dominique, people have forgotten their true selves because they were gradually and continuously shaped by society, by expectations, by outside pressure.

And so, years later and stuck in a job that was making her unhappy, Dominique realized she needed to get back to a place of consciously using her intuition.

She let go of the ten-year plans and started going with the flow (to a certain extent) and following where she felt guided.

“For someone like me who’s not a natural risk taker it was such a stretch of my comfort zone,” says Dominique. But the more she took little steps, the more she learned to trust her intuition enough to take huge leaps of faith.

She quit her safe government job to teach ESL in the Czech Republic, then returned to Ottawa to study, then back to the Czech Republic, and onto South Korea. She’s now lived, worked and studied in five Canadian provinces and three continents.

“Things just evolved,” says Dominique. Her life’s not a straight line, but a serpentine mish-mash of going from education to photography to art and back again.

“It looks a little disjointed and yet right now … it’s like all of the pieces of the puzzle are coming together,” says Dominique.

Those puzzle pieces are a joining of her love of art and her passion for living consciously, intuitively and helping others do the same.

“I feel like I’m just starting out … I may be fifty years old but it’s just another part of the journey.”

Back in the 90s, when Dominique’s unhappiness with work sent her to her studio more and more, she didn’t even consider being a full-time artist. It wasn’t until 2011 that she moved to Newfoundland with that intention.

All of these years later, the studio is still her sanctuary.

“When I’m in the studio, it’s like I’m going into church, for myself or for someone else,” says Dominique. “The art is a portal to the universal energy flow.” She’s had people walk into the room and all of a sudden break down in tears, experiencing this huge release. She smiles, “It’s beautiful to witness.”

The expansion from a primarily art based business to one that now also offers intuitive services came slowly, and she credits part of it to the self-discovery and lessons learned during her ten-year marriage.

“It was a beautiful but sometimes intensely challenging journey due to my husband’s health crisis,” says Dominique. “Through both our self-discovery process during this time, we came to realize that the most loving thing to do to be true to our Selves and to the other was to go our separate ways.”

During the three most difficult years, Dominique had to pull on every resource she could to take care of herself and her husband, which helped her get back into her own spirituality, reminded her to let go of what others thought, and taught her to not sweat the small stuff.

She doesn’t see her divorce as a failure. “We parted with more love than we got together with,” says Dominique, and “what I see out of [those challenges] now is the beauty and the gift.” She admits hardship can feel different when you’re in the middle of it, but her new philosophy is that challenges happen for us not to us.

Dominique has only been offering her intuitive services since 2014 but for decades she was a spiritual workshop junkie. She loved participating in them so much that eventually she started to lead, and then realized she wanted to do more of it.

“I went through huge fear when I was guided to start talking about my visionary gifts and offering them to help people connect to their Truth because I’ve been bullied for this kind of stuff in my life,” says Dominique. “And you learn to shut up about this stuff, [about] having visions … It’s not something society encourages.”

But it is a lot more accepted now than when she was a child or when she first started her art. It’s evolved.

And, likewise, offering intuitive services is such a natural evolution of everything she is and everything she’s always done that it was just about realizing what her unique brand and blend of skills was and how they could work together.

Through services such as Soul Energy Portraits, Discovery Journey Meditation, and Divine Storytelling intuitive reading packages, Dominique teaches people how to access their intuition. She’s also the creator of the Intuition into Action Treasure Map: 5 Steps to Activate Your Intuition for a Happy Healthy Life.

She may channel symbols but leaves it up to clients to interpret themselves. “We’re the best one to interpret the symbolism that comes to us,” says Dominique. “Sometimes you think something is just a coincidence, but it isn’t, it’s the universe talking to you.”

There’s no real label to what she’s doing. She’s an intuitive artist, a certified naturopath, a lightworker, and master educator. Basically, she helps people connect to their true self and live in alignment with their soul, something she’s been consciously learning to do for the past thirty years.

“It’s a beautiful dance,” says Dominique, “figuring it all out.”

Could you use some soul energy healing, interested in learning more about what intuitive services are, or could you use some beautiful, energy-infused art in your life? Visit Dominique Hurley Intuitive Art and Inspiration or check out Dominique on Facebook to learn more.

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