"Don't wait for it" I said. "Create a world, your world. Alone. Stand alone and create, and then love will come to you. It comes to you"
Anais Nin From the Diary of Anais Nin Vol 1
Artist, Children's Play Therapist and Coach - the external that's the easiest to describe.
I have been working therapeutically and creatively with children who have gone through early childhood traumas for the last 15 years wearing many different hats. Schools, children's homes, refugee camps, mental health charities, youth services, creativity has woven through all of them.
As a Play Therapist and coach I am passionate about facilitating a safe space for children and adults alike. With children we come together in a playful, loving, accepting, curious and empathic space where deep self awareness springs out through play.
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As a coach I work with adults and young people supporting them in a solution focused, cognitive behaviour coaching framework. The coaching space allows clients to look at life's challenges, hiccups, and barriers with a compassionate mind. And if the compassionate mind isn't there we'll find it. Clients leave motivated, excited about the future and shocked at their own capacity for endless growth.
Facilitating a space of acceptance, change, belonging, getting stuck and getting unstuck, this is the work I love. For the wee ones through art and play we learn, we grow, there is no magic wand just complete attention and connection. That's my bag.
Mandalas inform me of my inner world and give me the necessary time to process my response to the outer world. As I create, my body pauses and lights up simultaneously. Not all my art is made to be sold. Some you won't see, in the bin, on my skin, on my desk, scrawling pieces in my sketch book, on scraps of paper. They're the mess and they're what get me to the pieces I share here.​ It's all a practice in showing up. Show up. And paint.