"I've never felt so alive!"

Maybe you've already done a good deal of work on your thoughts and beliefs but you still feel stuck with something uncomfortable. Now what? You're not necessarily afraid of doing deep work, but in your experience, digging through your history hasn't changed your life. And revising your thoughts hasn't changed how you feel deep down. It feels like you're searching for something blindfolded. It seems like therapy has come to a dead end, right?

Not necessarily!

Trauma isn't just stored in the brain. Trauma is stored in the body. There's a lot more to our experiences than just our thoughts and beliefs.  Given how the brain develops, a good amount of our lives cannot be processed verbally or even consciously. They must be processed through the body or else they stay trapped there.

I'm all for making the unconscious conscious, but sometimes it is not necessary, available, or even beneficial. In these cases, the most expedient and ethical thing is for me to help your nervous system un-block itself so that you can move on.

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• Cognition-focused approaches didn't fully work for you or they set you back

• You prefer to take an active role in your process

• You're an abstract (non-linear) thinker

• You often feel like words fall short of your emotional experience

• You sense there is something deep inside that can't be accessed verbally

• You're not very interested in methods that require you to be overwhelmed

• You know what healthy boundaries look like but you haven't found a way to make it natural and automatic

• You feel a bit off - a bit off balance, a bit off center

• You're frustrated with limiting yourself and not fulfilling your potential

• You're tired of performing mental health. You wish you could just be healthy and thrive without the extra effort.

Why I use Guided Drawing:

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• PTSD

• CPTSD

• Somatic symptoms for distress

• Self-esteem issues

• Implicit memories

• Flashbacks

• Birth trauma

• Post-surgery or post-accident trauma

• Attachment trauma

• Generational trauma

• Sexual assault trauma

• Religious abuse trauma

• Racial and Political violence trauma

• Dissociative Disorders

Some treatment methods can feel like you’ve dived into the abyss and you're running out of air, but Guided Drawing feels like you're riding the edge of a wave. You won't be overwhelmed. You'll probably feel exhilarated.
 
We'll start with large sheets of paper. With pastels in each hand, you'll map your body sensations. Through expression, I will guide you to hear your body's inner guidance - to find impulses and rhythmic repetition that ease pain and release stress. Then we can channel your creativity to repair boundary breaches and generate new ways of responding. At some point you may be drawn to use acrylic paints that enhance your sensory experience. Finally, as you settle into a sense of well-being, positive meaning and beliefs will rise to consciousness.
 

The Benefits

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• Release pent-up stress

• Re-calibrate your nervous system

• Reduce irritability and agitation

• Interrupt destructive patterns

• Reconstruct healthy boundaries

• Reconnect to your internal strength

• Restore internal equilibrium and self-esteem

• Constructive expression of negative emotions