FLOWER TALK WITH MAGGIE; A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE

As part of the WOS series, I’m having a flower talk with Maggie Folasade Coker who is a Woman of Substance in every sense of the word. I came across Maggie a few years ago on Instagram and began following her mindfulness journey. The first obvious thing that drew me to her was her love for flowers which by now you can tell is something that has become an uplifting part of my life. Her sense of community and passion for mental health through her love for flowers is something of an exemplary nature – one I do not feel I can do justice to which is why I’ve asked Maggie some questions to get to know her and her work a bit better and perhaps support her journey.

I discovered you on Instagram about 3 years ago when you left a lovely comment on one of my posts. It prompted me to take a look at your profile where your appreciation for flowers and plants alike was very telling. Can you tell us how your love for flowers and plants came about?

I think around the age of 7 as a shy melancholic child is when I discovered my affinity with flowers. Even at that young age, I noticed the effect it had on lifting my mood. Playing in the garden with flowers gave me moments of happiness where I felt ok being me. The smell of wild roses sent me into a euphoric dreamland, I’m not sure there is a scent more beautiful than wild fresh roses. To this day it remains my signature scent, and is the key scent of my aromatherapy workshops.

I’ve been a business owner for a few years and found the task of it not so easy especially at the beginning. How did you find setting up your own concept store? What drove you to pursue it and what advice would you give to those looking to pursue their passion?

Setting up my concept store was an adventure, a rollercoaster of emotions, definitely not easy, but for every artist, musician, chef, creative, or aspiring business owner I was able to help or mentor, it was entirely worth the challenges that come with being a small business owner.  My store served the community as a hub to fuel creativity and entrepreneurship, as well as a refuge for those looking to find their place in the city. I guess my first efforts at intentional community building started with Rag And Bone Man. 

Firstly I encourage anyone to pursue their dreams at all costs! It’s our life purpose to live out our passions, and if you are able to generate revenue from it, then that is a bonus! But firstly do it because it comes from a place of love, the question you must ask yourself is, would you do it if no one was watching, and you didn’t make a penny? Then it flows more naturally and lessens the feeling of being weighed down with heavy business stresses. 

If you are lucky enough to turn your passion into a business, then try if you have the means to get people to do the things you are not good at! In particular financial challenges, maybe you struggle auditing or doing your accounts, don’t just plough through and mess it all up, ask for help. If you can’t afford an accountant, maybe someone in your family or friend group can help you out. The biggest advice I would give is to ask for help! Very often new business owners are afraid to admit they are struggling in fear of being judged as failures or being told we made a mistake in taking the risky entrepreneurial route. Running your own business can be extremely taxing on your mental health, so the more support you have the better! 

What does being a holistic mental coach involve?

Much like a fitness coach gives you guidance, encouragement, and techniques to improve your physical health, a holistic mental wellness coach works pretty much the same with your mind. A holistic mental wellness coach will teach individuals the cognitive skills and emotional skills needed to reduce unhealthy stress and anxiety. For example, breathing retraining or deep breathing is a very basic cognitive-behavioral coping strategy for managing anxiety. It is a simple technique, but it can be very powerful. Diaphragmatic breathing can be used as a way to manage your anxiety. Another example is Self-monitoring. Self-monitoring is a very basic cognitive-behavioral coping strategy, and it is pretty much at the core of all of the cognitive-behavioral coping strategies.  In order to address a problem or a symptom, we need to first become aware of it. Self-monitoring can help with this. There are a number of steps to self-monitoring; however, the steps can easily be learned and quickly applied to your life.

I do this by teaching key principles, supporting new behaviour, guiding new thinking habits, challenging unhelpful beliefs and thinking, identifying your stumbling blocks, holding you accountable, and ultimately walking alongside you during your mental wellbeing journey until you reach your goals. Now if we address the holistic part, what exactly does that mean? A holistic approach means looking at all of the different systems and how they work together. A holistic life coach is going to help you function in a way that promotes emotional wellness throughout your entire life, including your body, mind, and spirit.

Strengthen both your cores – physical and psychological. In addition, using my key skills and practices, for example, the use of aromatherapy for insomnia, or flower therapy workshops for stress relief. 

I love that you want the focus on mental health to be on par with that of physical health. Are you able to share your personal experience with mental health or why you’ve come to focus on it?

I’m a firm believer in holistic naturopathic health, not only treating the symptoms but looking at the whole, from emotional to physical. I’ve always been interested in plant therapy, and holistic practitioners treatments. I’ve been getting acupuncture for the last 10 years for anything from emotionally, hormonal, and physical issues. In London I worked as an aromatherapist and massage therapist, I only used organic plant-based oils, I saw the results, my clients felt the results and experienced the improvement with their mental wellbeing. In my opinion, it’s not necessarily the individual suffering with mental health issues in society that needs fixing, it’s the society they are living in that needs to adjust, there is a bigger reason at hand as to why so many people are suffering from anxiety, and other stress-related mental illnesses.  People have always naturally gravitated towards me to share their mental health challenges, and maybe it’s because I speak very openly about my mental health journey, I actually don’t see any difference between talking about my physical and mental health, but understand that is not everyone’s reality for a number of reasons. I hope we can all feel empowered to show vulnerability and express our feelings openly without feeling a sense of shame or fear of appearing weak, especially in relation to men’s mental health.

We have to stop breeding societies where we are supposed to all strive for the perfect picture of happiness, which is normally attached to some capitalistic material gain or if you are a woman, being in a relationship. I feel there are so many brilliant floral stylists, that no one would miss me if I decided to use my floral skills to focus on mental health, after all, flowers are nature’s antidepressants! 

I love that you’re passionate about intentional community building. I believe in the power of community too as well as empowering people. Your latest guidebook FlowerTalk which is named after your brand does just that. Can you give us an insight as to what to expect from this mindfulness guide book?

Flowers have the power to bring people together, and form trusting relationships. In my experience I’ve seen the magical powers of flowers open people up on what could normally be a tense situation. 

  I hope this guide book can be a symbol of change as to how we view the process of accessing mental health support, as well  boarding the conversation of what types of groups of people are excluded from different options of mental health support. My urge to build a community of holistic practitioners, healers , indigenous botanist, and ethnically diverse licensed therapist is to break away from the traditional couch, patient set-up, where you may find yourself talking to a person you don’t feel has real understanding of your challenges, yet they have the PhD so somehow you are forced to trust them. I want the licensed talk therapist, and practitioners to be a good reflection of the society we live in, so if you belong to the LGBTQ community, and feel you would rather speak to a therapist that belongs to your community, then I hope I can provide that, or if you are a black woman who needs a black female therapist. The book is also going to be filled with beautiful flower photography, and illustrations, a place to journal and doodle, with useful tips, I hope my FlowerTalk guide will be mental health’s answer to the Lonely Planet 😉 A mental health guide book deserves a place on the shelf next to any other guide book. I also hope employers will use it as a workplace tool to show their employees that their mental health is a priority. 

In an era of social media where it has been reported that it continues to affect the mental wellbeing of its users, not to mention the add on effect of the pandemic, I think many folks will benefit from your work. How can they go about accessing your book and other mindfulness services which you provide? 

Well ironically online is currently where you can book me for my holistic mental health coaching, and I hope with enough support I can get this printed guide book in as many European cities as possible, London or Manchester is actually my next target city outside of Germany. 

Let’s get into some lighthearted conversation. What’s your favourite flower and why? 

I  think for nostalgic and therapeutic reasons, the wild rose. For aesthetics purposes, I love fluffy peonies. I find them so beautiful, and when they are in full bloom it’s almost certain they will burst out in laughter. But I also love blue delphiniums . So many gorgeous flowers. It’s hard to really pick one or two. 

What book are you currently reading?

I’m reading for the second or third time “Women Who Run With Wolves”.

“In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Estés analyses myths, fairy tales, folk tales and stories from different cultures to uncover the Wild Woman archetype of the feminine psyche. The book stems from these interpretations of old tales and creates this wolf-woman parallel, by incorporating her own previous studies that suggest “wolves and women are relational by nature.” 

Where are you looking forward to exploring once things settle down? 

Personally I will travel around Africa researching Africa traditional botany, and other healing remedies, and rituals. 

Thanks for taking the time out to share the work you do. I’m sure my readers will appreciate it. Where can they find you online so they can follow along and support you? 

You can find me at @flowertalkofficial and support my gofundme to help get my guidebook published though this link.

Thanks for reading “Flower Talk with Maggie; A Woman of Substance”. As always, feel free to follow me on Instagram where I post daily and subscribe to my YouTube channel for weekly videos.

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