I'M GLAD YOU'RE HERE
For over half my life, I struggled with intense bouts of emotional pain that I later discovered had the name "perfectly hidden depression."
Perfectly hidden depression is a term for appearing successful, cheerful, and emotionally stable on the outside while privately experiencing severe emotional pain.
Coined by psychologist Dr. Margaret Rutherford, perfectly hidden depression hides behind anxious perfectionism that is trying to compensate for shame and a fear of emotional vulnerability.
HI, I'M SHELLEY
I am a psychotherapist. I am also an educator with the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association. I support creative women to self-discover, self-attune, and self-accept through daily spontaneous art and writing practices.
MY STORY
30 years ago, during an extreme period of family crisis, tragedy and loss, I experienced a profound spiritual opening that took me up and out of my emotional pain for a period of six months.
Later, when my habitual personality structure came back online, the intensity of emotional pain returned, and I had to learn how to clear the shadow material in my body and mind.
Through spontaneous art exercises I designed for myself, I found simple, daily creative ways to attune to and accept myself. This greatly helped to clear my emotional pain.
WHAT DO I TEACH?
The subconscious mind and body can hold painful emotional tension for decades, and this blocks a soul connection to your innate originality. I teach women to deeply self-discover, self-attune and self-accept through daily spontaneous art and writing practices.
Spontaneous creativity loosens perfectionism and helps you break free from the limitations imposed by past emotional pain conditioning. Daily spontaneity brings air, light, and colour to old wounds and emotional heaviness conditioned from the past.
Creative inspiration intensifies once a layer of shadow has been cleared from the subconscious mind and body.
MY THREE VALUES
Self-Discover. Self-Attune. Self-Accept.
Practice spontaneous creativity. Heal your shadow and become an inspired creator.
As human beings, we can become so outer-referenced and socially conditioned that we easily forget who we are and lose contact with our soul's inborn originality.
I believe that daily spontaneous movement, art-making and freeform self-expression can take you beyond painful emotional patterns and return you to your original self-loving, joyful, inspired soul nature.
Without a doubt, your thoughtfulness when preparing this program, your calm, nurturing manner, and the easy pace of the lessons made it easy for me to work through. I will never forget what I learned.
____ Course participant: Inner Child Therapy Worksheets
Your course, is among the best 'journeys' I have gone on in this life. It is challenging, revealing, refreshing and inspiring. Thank you for all you've gone through yourself to have evolved and become so experienced that you can offer this growth service to others.
____ Course participant: 100 Days of Art Journal Therapy
I enjoyed the entire course, I looked forward to the video each week. The content is excellent, well presented and visually pleasing and your presence is very reassuring. Thank you for this excellent course, which brought me beautiful discoveries and made such a difference in my life!
____ Course participant: Collage for Self-Discovery
A free, extensive collection of expressive arts directives and emotional check-in tools designed to promote healing and joy.