A therapy alternative or compliment!

Personalized expert support fusing mindfulness with the arts.

Personal Mentoring

Learn the wisdom of mindfulness through creative expression. Manage your anxiety, grief, stress, life transitions—and most importantly, uncover a deeper love, trust, and care for yourself!

I specialize in helping women and teens learn to use creative expression to:

manage big and hard emotions,
feel more confident in managing stress,
build lifelong creative habits to support mental health,
learn the foundations and deep wisdom of mindfulness.

I am available for one-on-one and couple’s sessions online via Zoom or at times in person in Calgary, Alberta.

I would love to teach you the wisdom of mindfulness through creative expression so that you can manage your anxiety, grief, stress, and life transitions— but most importantly, to help you uncover a deeper love, trust, and care for yourself!

In our work together:

We will create & express things in ways you never thought were possible!

Together we will tend with care and compassion to your deepest needs.

Sometimes this looks like noticing what’s happening in our bodies and expressing this through shape, line, and colour. Other times we ask our imaginations to help us find solutions. Sometimes we write poems, sculpt, dance, make marks, find symbols, or play with metaphors. Who knows?!

Each time is different, and each creation is born from what you most need.

We make art side by side; I give you the most fun and interesting creative homework, and all along the way we learn to notice what is going on inside of us and express it through our creative spirits.

Mentoring is a good fit for you if:

Your life is feeling uninspired, and you need some clear direction and individual support to start making changes or making the art you most long to.
You are feeling overwhelmed and don't know where or how to start making changes.
You are looking for structure and support to start reflecting on your personal issues and challenges.
You haven't had success making changes using the traditional tools of talking and reading about your challenges.
You would like to go deeper with something that came up for you in your travels in the Mindful Art Circle.

By the end of our time together, you will:

Know yourself better and have found a more caring and compassionate approach to how you create and your feelings.
Have learned and, most importantly, experienced how art can help you find calm and understand your goals.
Have made so much art! I promise you will create, express, and find/deepen a type of creative expression that you will never forget.
Built skills, confidence, and experience in both mindfulness and gentle creative expression.

3 Ways to Join

How is this different than coaching?

Rachel is a Registered Expressive Arts Consultant/Educator with the International Expressive Art Therapy Association. She also holds a Master’s degree in Adult Education with a focus on using arts based interventions and narrative work for transformational learning. She is not a coach and does not identify with the coaching community. The expertise Rachel brings to her sessions are grounded in mindfulness practices such as RAIN (as taught by Tara Brach) Motivational interviewing, and Internal Family Systems theory.

How is this different than therapy?

Rachel is not a therapist! She is not trained to work with trauma or diagnose mental health conditions. Rachel works with you in the present moment and supports you to imagine a future based on your strengths and hopes. This work is often a great therapy alternative in that it is experiential based. After each session you leave with a customized plan of things to do, art to make, meditation to explore, things to journal etc. Our work together is active and focused on the things you do every day with your time, energy and motivations.

Is this suitable for everyone?

We can work together to determine if this is a fit for you and me! Let’s talk and get clear about your expectations and needs and see if this is suitable for you.

What does the 3-month process look like?

We will work together to make a plan that meets your needs. In our first session we will get clarity on your goals, challenges, and interests. Rachel will guide you in a creative process to help you identify this and touch into some deeper needs and feelings that might not be as easy to access. Rachel will then create a custom plan for you! This will usually entail a series of creative exercises for you to work on outside of our sessions. Sometimes these are bigger creative projects to pick away at or daily practices depending on your goals. We will then meet again, talk about what you discovered in your creative homework and then again create together to get deeper clarity on where to go next. One last round of personalized homework and then a final session to wrap it all up and make sure you have a plan for what comes next. Basically, you will get 3 one-on-one sessions and 2 sets of personal homework!

What’s expected of me?

Show up exactly as you are! Make an intention to work on your creative homework in between sessions and we will take it from there. Life doesn’t always go as we planned but even when it doesn’t there is always something there to observe, witness and learn from.

How much does this cost?

Both packages are $350 ($50 off for Mindful Art Circle Members)

Included in your package is a 3 month pass to the Mindful Art Circle so you can join our community of creatives and engage in our live classes or on demand videos as an added resource to help you create!

What’s the difference between 'Creative Courage' , 'Strength in Stillness' and 'Art Homework'?

Creative Courage is focused on getting you making art! Expressing and creating in ways that are supportive to your mental health.

Strength in Stillness is focused on teaching you the skills of mindfulness through the arts. Here you will express and create with a deeper focus on the thoughts and feelings that come up for you in the process or in daily life.

Not sure which one is best? No problem. You and Rachel can work it out or even create a blend!

FAQ's

What are people saying about mentoring?

"I think every time we unpacked what I created, there was an “ah ha” moment in some way! I was conscious and intentional with what I created in session, but Rachel would help to pull things together and make links that I just wasn't able to see. Rachel’s intuitive and objective perspective is a blessing. Art really is an amazing tool to express things we may not be sure how to verbalize. I am so grateful for this experience, as I was seeking ways to cope with/manage anxiety. I was able to unwrap and eliminate the reasons I had the anxiety in the first place. Rachel is personable and friendly, which made me immediately feel at ease with opening up and exploring anxiety in a safe space. I was surprised at how easy it was to connect on Zoom, and I didn't feel like doing these sessions by distance was an issue at all. She came into my life when I was at the point of wanting to make some major life changes as an attempt to change how I feel inside. Giant thank you to Rachel for her amazing support in this process.

- Terilyn

Important Note

This is not a substitute for professional mental health support. The tools, support, and guidance offered through Workshop Muse are meant to support personal growth and reflection, not act as therapy or counselling. Please seek professional mental health support for proper diagnosis, treatment, and advice.