I’m having SO much fun talking with various truly incredible women about my upcoming Wild Heart Expressive Teacher Training that begins in May.

And I’m also getting lots of questions about the program through these conversations. So I thought I would address some of the common issues and concerns here.

Do I have to be a mental health professional to participate in this program?

This expressive arts/ intuitive painting work CAN take people on very deep emotional and psychological healing journeys. It’s designed to help folks become more present to themselves and that includes feeling what they feel during the creative process.

And through the training you WILL learn how to create the containers and hold the space in such a way that will help people feel safe enough to have their emotions as they arise and express them through making art.

However, during this expressive arts process you are not taking on the role of therapist or counselor to your students. What you are doing is teaching them how to be present to their own unique unfolding in a compassionate and loving way and facilitating their relationship with THEMSELVES through their creative process.

You will learn how to truly hold space which means that you are not fixing your students, solving their problems, taking responsibility for their process or believing that you have to heal them.

You will be learning how to trust the creative process, trust your students and their own inner guidance and most importantly to trust yourself and your own intuition as facilitator and guide.

From my experience the MOST important thing you need in order to be successful in this program is to be on your OWN healing journey. And to be regularly engaged in your own psychological, emotional and spiritual healing process, because you can’t take someone to a place that you yourself haven’t gone to.

I’m really drawn to take this training but I’m not sure I actually want to teach this process. Part of me just wants to do this deep dive immersion for a year because I know that it will be incredibly healing for ME. Is it OK to take the training for that reason?

Absolutely. I can’t tell you how many women have gone through this program with exactly that intention. They can see the value of committing themselves to their own personal growth for year and they want to do that in a powerful community of women while making soul art.

Now, some of my teacher training students have definitely gone on to open studios, teach classes, offer workshops and lead retreats after the training.

For example, I have people at the beginning of the training write up a vision about how they see themselves as an expressive arts facilitator in the future. One woman wrote about wanting to buy a building that would house her classes as well as an art gallery and a shop where she would sell hand made goods like her jewelry and other people’s crafts. And she did EXACTLY that. Her vision completely materialized.

But other people have used the confidence and expansion they experienced in the training to write and publish books. Jennifer Lee used her participation in the program to create her bestseller, The Right Brain Business Plan. Damini Celebre wrote Painting The Landscape Of Your Soul, an in depth manual that combined intuitive painting with her shamanic work. She had never even thought of herself as a writer but got inspired through the teacher training program to birth this book.

Some people combined this process with other modalities like yoga or bringing it into their work as ministers or chaplains, or into their practices as psychotherapists and healers.

Some people have used it for their own personal healing and freed themselves from painful patterns of anxiety and depression or from addictive processes. And to have more joy and meaning in their lives.

Others have used the intuitve arts to heal old childhood wounds and through that process found the courage and confidence to leave unhappy marriages.

One woman was able to finally work through her conflict around having a child and is now the happy mother of four year old girl.

And some have used it to transform their relationships with their families by bringing some of the concepts and processes they learned in the training home in order to shift painful family dynamics in ways that led to more openness, love and connection.

Some people used the program as a way to claim and reclaim themselves as artists and totally free the painter within. One woman combined her background as a Yoruban diviner with her new found passion for painting. This creative energy marriage led to an outpouring of paintings through her from the spirit world that she now sells to people who want a spirit painting in their home.

One woman entered the program knowing she was dying from a rare form of cancer and used the program to reconnect with her spiritual self to help her with her transition and continued to paint in this intuitive expressive arts way up until she died.

A number of women who have signed up for the training told me that they had NO idea WHY they were called to do the program. All they knew was that their intuition was guiding them to take this step and what they wanted was to strengthen their relationship TO their intuition and to be supported in leading a powerfully grounded intuitive life.

If you are one of those women who are drawn to the training for no clear and tangible reason, you might not figure out WHY you decided to do it until you’re knee deep in the process. And that’s really OK. Some of my students who have had THE most powerful transformations came into the training from the place of not knowing from their heads, but instead trusting in the call from their hearts.

Do I have to be an artist to take this training?

First of all, I think EVERYONE is an artist. All you need to do to claim yourself as an artist is to MAKE art. And we will do PLENTY of art making in the program.

But you don’t NEED any kind of art experience or training to participate in the training. This program is not about making art for other people, but learning how to use the creative process for your own healing and creative freedom and helping others to do the same.

I’m excited about the prospect of taking this training but it also really scares me and I’m not sure why?

This program is designed to help you to embrace your divine feminine power, to release old patterns of not enoughness, to become more fully self expressed and alive and to reclaim your truth, your voice and your creative self.

As much as most of us really WANT those things, it scares us to actually contemplate becoming that person. Because it means we will need to change certain things about how we operate.

The program is designed to take you step by step through the process of healing and reclaiming your true self and your capacity for powerful leadership. Even if it’s just becoming the leader of your own life.

You WILL change through this training. Guaranteed. But you will also be held and supported throughout every phase of the process and encouraged to follow your OWN rhythm. This means that you will be able to integrate the transformations as they happen. And that these changes become a permanent NEW part of you.

These are just a few of the common questions that I get from folks regarding the training, and certainly don’t address everything. You are more than welcome to email me with any other questions that are more pertinent to you. AND… you can also sign up for a free informational interview with me regarding the training by clicking on the blue button below.

If you want more info you can go to the page on my website that talks about the training in greater detail and also contains a free webinar about the training, also by clicking the blue button.