MENTORSHIP FOR CREATIVES
What’s keeping your creativity small?
Dear sensitive human,
I see you. Your heart is full of the desire to be writing, making, and filling up your days with the creative joys and ambitions you dream of.
But then, life happens…
Your demanding job consumes most of your weekly energy. And though you dream of spending your weekends working on that old project or luxuriating in books / arts & crafts / a new creative pursuit, you’re too busy resting and recovering, just getting through. You feel deeply dispirited by this reality, and you worry that you’ll be forever stuck on the hamster wheel of obligation.
Your ambitions fluctuate as often as your energy does, leaving you confused about what you really want to pursue, and when. A pile of half-finished projects and good ideas surround you. You’re unsure how to maintain consistency with any of them, let alone what consistency even looks and feels like for you.
Your creative vision is a clear one, but your anxiety, self-doubt, or old wounds make the page feel like an unsafe place to go. And so the vision remains just that: a vision, unseen by anyone but you. There is so much grief in this experience, how you feel scared of the very things you also love and desire. You spend a lot of time—more than you care to admit—struggling beneath the weight of this.
The unique obstacles faced by sensitive humans.
You don’t have to be “sensitive” to run into these kinds of obstacles, which western society—with its capitalist mindset and punitive rules—is rife with.
But when you are sensitive—when you’re neurodivergent, HSP, or a self-described weirdo & old soul—you’re more prone to being overwhelmed by these aspects of daily living.
That’s because your sensitivity is the very same quality that lets the world’s wonders in. It’s responsible for your inspirations, your dreams, your great ideas, and the breadth and scope of your relationship with the natural world…which means it’s also the place where that “too much” feeling creeps in, and where external obligations and other people’s opinions sometimes pool.
The sensitive creative human is also a porous one. And that isn’t a quality to fix, but to accommodate.
Because that porousness, that impressionability, is what keeps you inspired and curious and coming back again and again to the most artistic and treasured parts of your life and the world around you.
As a result, a regular part of your emotional-creative hygiene must involve getting rid of the stuff that isn’t really yours or no longer serves you.
More than just setting good boundaries and being proactively guarded, you must regularly detox from the world’s noise in order to maintain space for your own creative music.
This detox work is some of the most potent work that transpires in one-on-one mentorship.
Detoxing your creative channel.
When I begin working with a new client, we’re not always diving right into a project or book. More often than not, we start by identifying outdated “rules,” decluttering harmful baggage, and beginning the gentle work of making space to daydream, experiment, and play.
Together we:
Take an authentic look at your commitments, capacity, and limitations, so that you can build feasible practices and habits that accommodate your real life.
Work on re-defining your terms. What’s your version of consistency? What does an authentic, divergent pace feel like to you? Creating authentic terms of engagement is one of the most detoxifying—and healing—steps of this journey.
Practice looking at the old wounds—together, and at a pace that honors your nervous system. As an ex-social worker, I take seriously my role in bringing a trauma-informed lens into my work with other creative humans. Through skilled, highly attuned, and compassionate guidance, you’ll build the self-trust that allows your body to once again view the page, and all your wildest creative ideas, as a safe and reliable place.
The holistic power of creative mentorship.
In case you haven’t noticed, authenticity is a huge value of mine, both personally and professionally. As a neurodivergent human, I know firsthand the importance of nourishing our creative selves authentically—which also means holistically.
That’s why every 1:1 mentorship container focuses on three key elements:
Spiritual support. Many of my clients find relief, self-empowerment, and outright joy in teasing out the spiritual underpinnings of their creative pursuits. From ritual and magic to a cosmic sense of purpose, making ample space for art and writing is one of the most profound ways to tap into a higher, greater, and more soulful sense of self.
Emotional support. Creativity lives in our ideas and thoughts, in our imagination and intuition; it runs like a river through all our feelings. And because it intersects with these most sensitive aspects of who we are, our wounds and hardships tend to cross paths with it, too. As a trauma-informed mentor and coach, I hold space for the full scope of you, and I believe strongly that the only way to properly attend to what shows up on the page is by also attending to what shows up off the page.
Practical support. What habits might be most sustainable and effective for your lifestyle and needs? What are your most authentic drives and inspirations, and what kinds of practices would support them directly? What are your truest goals, most private ambitions, and dreamiest creative dreams? We’ll ask and answer such questions during our time together, ensuring that you walk away with practical, tangible support. This includes routines you can keep in place long after our time together, and creative exercises that will continue to pay off down the line.
In this way, creative mentorship is an investment in the longevity of your creative practices.
It’s a way of bringing sustainability, devotion, and commitment to this primal part of you, while shouting to the universe—and to yourself—that your creative life is your real life.
Why this work is vital—now more than ever.
Here’s the thing: Doubt and uncertainty will always accompany the creative process, especially for those of us who are highly sensitive.
But there’s a layer to our suffering that usually stems from learned narratives, social conditioning, and old wounds.
In this political moment, ruled by division and the stoking of fear, it’s crucial that we do the individual work of unlearning, unconditioning, and healing, which not only allows us to shine brightly as beacons of hope and permission for those around us, but prepares us for the collective work: of organizing, serving others, and speaking up.
I am convinced that stewarding our creative parts is the same thing as stewarding our activist parts; that becoming a better writer, artist, and creative thinker also means evolving into a more compassionate and attuned citizen.
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare”
~Audre Lorde
Lorde’s timeless words are a rallying cry and a compass for this moment. And I believe strongly that she’s talking about the work of the artist, too: Caring for my creative pursuits is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation.
What happens when we let our creativity stay small…
What does all this toxic conditioning, and the harmful narratives they perpetuate, look like?
It looks like learning to assess your creative output through prescribed benchmarks that don’t reflect your real values.
It looks like becoming dependent on the external validation you were taught to seek growing up.
It looks like experiencing hardship or trauma in the classroom, and then watching as the effects get tangled up with your ability to access creativity outside the classroom, too.
You are not to blame for these results—and you are not alone in experiencing them. So many creative people are struggling with the same stories we all must swim through: The myth that genius requires misery. The notion that our joy must be at odds with our intelligence or craft. The painful, confusing experiences of receiving rejection. The struggle to maintain our creative vision when comparison culture lurks around every corner.
These harmful stories intersect with the systemic -isms that keep us disproportionately small—sexism, racism, ableism, etc.—and sometimes make creativity feel like a privilege. Being creative from this space can be exhausting at best, and feel entirely unsafe or impossible at worst. In other words, your creativity stops feeling like it belongs to you.
…and what becomes possible when we don’t.
There are instances of suffering that require larger, systemic overhauls, and others that we must experience as a condition of being human.
But it is possible to unlearn, purge, and create healthy boundaries with the parts of your suffering that aren’t necessary. These are the parts that were never yours to begin with. They stem from old stories, false benchmarks, mythical expectations, and other narratives that alienate you from yourself and your creative empowerment.
By building what I like to call creative resilience—by cultivating practices led by curiosity, sustainability, play, and devotion—you begin to break habits of self-doubt and self-criticism, reclaim your agency & intuition, and rewrite the story of your creative value.
In short, your creativity becomes yours again.
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