Welcome to This Is Me Thursdays! To read other posts in this series, click here. If you want to be involved, please email me for more details! Today, learn more about Ophelia Brewer, someone I connected with at the last place I worked.
I worked with her for quite a while at my last job, and it’s been fun to get to know her better outside of a work setting. She’s involved with so many different things, and she always creates really cool and fun makeup looks. I really love how open and vulnerable she was in her answers below, and I look forward to connecting with her more in the future. Check out her Instagram, and let her know you saw her post here!
This Is Me: Ophelia Brewer
Share a little about yourself and what you’re up to these days.
Lately I’ve been focusing on self care, and focusing on developing myself spiritually. I think this is a natural inclination when the world seems out of our hands. We reach inward and upward. We find ourselves and what we believe in.
What does life purpose mean to you? Does it really exist for you/all of us, or is it just some pipe dream?
That’s a tough one. I think people get caught up in this idea that someone’s life purpose is a linear path, or a singular objective. I’m of the belief that we’re all born to live. I think we choose to be alive, from the beginning until the end, so the purpose of life is to BE ALIVE.
What motivates and inspires you in your life?
I think my biggest motivation is seeing where things will go next. I get excited easily, and the most exciting thing I can imagine is everything I have yet to see and experience. As far as inspiration goes, I think people inspire me more than anything. Whenever I write a song or poem I think about the experiences I’ve had with others and it never fails to inspire me.
Is what you do now what you always imagined doing? Why or why not, and what have you learned because of that?
Well, I do a lot. I’m in a band, in a coven, I do burlesque, and I work in cosmetics and skincare. I remember when I was younger I always imagined that my life could be like this, but I always thought it was just wishful thinking. I never truly thought that my life could be the way it is and it’s really amazing.
What’s something you desperately want other people to know or realize that may help them in their lives?
Worrying is almost always just your mind making up things to be upset about. Scenarios that may or may not happen. The best thing we can do is ground ourselves and take our worries one day at a time.
How do you define belonging and connection, and how have your definitions changed over time?
Belonging and connection are both things I’ve honestly struggled with. I’ve spent a lot of time feeling like an outsider until recently. That being said, I’ve started to learn that belonging and connection come with pursuing your happiness. Usually if you dedicate yourself to the things that make you happy, you connect with other people you can share that happiness with.
What’s something you make sure to do every day/week/month that helps you practice self-care and self-love?
I try to make it a point to ground and center myself regularly. I get stuck in my head a lot, and it makes it more difficult for me to live in the moment or genuinely experience the world around me. Grounding and centering has really made a difference in my ability to really embrace life instead of living in the clouds all the time.
How do you define success in your life and/or business?
When I was younger my dad always told me he wanted me to be successful. When I asked him what that was he said success is being able to live happily surrounded by the people you love most. I’ve taken that to heart.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I kind of hit the reset button on my life a couple years back. I had a salaried job, a nice apartment, and my life was this sort of picturesque image of success. Despite that, I wasn’t happy, and I made a lot of bad choices because of it and wound up losing everyone and everything. I decided to move and to stop living the way other people thought I should, and my life has transformed in ways I never thought possible. In a lot of ways it’s almost too good to be real, but it’s real and it’s every day and I’m so grateful to be here. Long story short, life can be better than fantasy if you live it for yourself.
Photo courtesy of Ophelia Brewer
