Welcome to my blog page! I love writing about the healing power of the creative process. Here you will find a collection of all of my writing from all the way back to 2005! Enjoy!
In my early days as a psychotherapist whenever I would begin with a new client I would often get the question, “How long is this going to take?” Meaning, how much time will it take before I am healed and this problem I am bringing to you is permanently solved. ...
When Gemini appears on the scene you can be guaranteed an endlessly entertaining torrent of scintillating conversation about anything and everything under the sun. Gemini’s primary superpower is an unquenchable curiosity that searches far and wide for the most...
In these times of radical change and upheaval I’ve heard a number of people question the relevancy of this inner creativity work or making art at all. It can seem like this focus on healing and internal awareness and exploration using art is no longer necessary when...
Whenever I begin one of my workshops, classes or retreats I always get a big laugh when I say : “You are all here because you think of yourself as someone committed to pursuing deep psychological and spiritual healing. You sincerely believe that you want to become...
Greetings to my beloved wild heart community, My signature online intuitive painting class Painting With Fire begins in a couple of weeks. And many people have happily signed up in eager preparation for a 6 week deep dive into their sacred creative being...
No matter what it might look like from the outside, everyone is learning the hard way. So give yourself a break. If you’re struggling or floundering or feeling stuck and confused and can’t see a way forward out of whatever is challenging in your life right now,...
In the Wild Heart Expressive Arts approach to intuitive painting and art-making we are in a continual dance of trying to navigate our relationship to the judging mind also known as the inner critic. I’m defining the inner critic as the part of our psyche that is...
As many of you know who have been in my world for awhile, prior to the pandemic, I lived my life pretty much on creativity retreats. I offered Wild Heart Painting workshops in some of the most beautiful natural places in the western United States...
Some tips for when you find yourself at a creative standstill. Don't expect yourself to be creative. Or original. Or goddess forbid an ARTIST! Don't even call what you do creativity. Or art. Simply pick up a brush if you paint. Open a notebook if you write. Put on...
Many of us are still wrangling with a bullshit layer of some old UNHELPFUL story that comes out of an ancient family wound. And this wound is related to the way that we took on the pain of those around us who couldn’t be supported to see their OWN beauty and gifts and...
I often think of the intuitive painting process as a spiritual adventure. It reminds me of this lovely quote from the poet John Donahue: “Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits.” I really see creativity and...
I am totally dedicated to helping folks find their way back to creative flow. Which means I’m endlessly curious to discover what gets in the way and BLOCKS creative flow. One of the most nefarious and unfortunately popular of the creativity blockers is...
My signature online intuitive painting class Painting With Fire begins in a week. And many people have happily signed up in eager preparation for a 6 week deep dive into their sacred creative being through the intuitive painting process. But there are still quite a...
My signature online intuitive painting class Painting With Fire begins in a week. And many people have happily signed up in eager preparation for a 6 week deep dive into their sacred creative being through the intuitive painting process. But there are still quite a...
My signature online intuitive painting class Painting With Fire begins in a week. And many people have happily signed up in eager preparation for a 6 week deep dive into their sacred creative being through the intuitive painting process. But there are still quite a...
There’s a lot of different ways that people unconsciously shut down their creative flow. But one of the more popular methods is by believing that you can only create when you are in a particular frame of mind. Sometimes it’s a belief that you need to feel inspired, or...
What I sell is the unknown. I make it safe for people to explore the invisible, to not know what they are doing or why they are doing it and trusting that it's OK to do it anyway. I give people permission to do away with stories. With explanations. With understanding....
I’m pretty sure it will come as a surprise to NO one to hear that I spend a lot of my time thinking about creativity. I’m endlessly curious about what it is, how it works, what gets in the way of its full expression and what helps to keep us in creative flow. So today...
When people come to work with me one of the first things I tell them is that this intuitive painting process is an exercise in Radical Self Acceptance. And everyone who hears that invitation nods their heads in agreement. I mean, who WOULDN’T give a huge...
One of the things that I am deeply committed to in all the work that I do with the women in my life is to help them to recognize and eventually release old patterns of self sacrifice and always putting others needs ahead of their own, otherwise known as being the Good...
As we leave 2020 behind and step into whatever 2021 has in store for us I’ve been thinking about happiness. In fact, the word that I have chosen to guide me through this next year is joy. 2020 was hard. There were many losses, some of them tragic, for so...
Over my winter break I had the pleasure and the honor to be interviewed a couple of different times by some amazing creative women. And the first interview was with the wonderfully soulful and powerfully insightful psychotherapist and podcaster Rebecca Wong for her...
As we approach the end of this Year Like No Other, I find myself ruminating on the issue of trust. Knowing what to trust and how to trust when the world has turned completely upside down, the road map of life as we have known it is gone and nothing is going to...
Things I know for sure in this time of uncertainty: Even in the best of times, life is a scary, confusing, overwhelming shitshow threaded through with tendrils of grief and disappointment and heartache. Even in the worst of times life is a beautiful, amazing,...
Generosity and Creative Flow Helping people become more creatively expressive is my mission in life. And I've learned a few things about what works to keep your creativity, which is really another way of saying your life force, operating at its full and fulfilling...
I was working with a woman student of mine not too long ago and when I asked her how her painting process was going she said that she was having a hard time connecting with her creative source because she was obsessing about something else. She was going to be in a...
Our rational, logical and linear mind is more limited than we are led to believe. There are many times in our lives when we need to make choices or decisions and just don’t have enough information from the visible world to take confident action. And when that...