Easter Holiday Workshops

Rather than resting this Easter after 14 solid weeks of teaching, I am hosting a series of four workshops locally. These focus on aspects of mindfulness and the neuroscience behind it, taking time in nature to find inspiration, creating abstract art (and its history), and visual journaling. All the workshops are unique blends of information, practical techniques and experiential learning that aim to educate, inform and empower those with mental health challenges to become calmer and more creative.

I really enjoy building bespoke classes and workshops that combine a number of diverse elements alongside creativity in order to help others. It is the reason I retrained and left my former career. I have so much more job satisfaction these days and feel this is my true vocation. Mid-life career change is not easy or for the fainthearted. It can involve extended periods of time studying, turning one’s life upside down, and one must be dedicated to creating the change in order to be the change in the world they would like to see.

Rather than feeling like a pointless cog in a large machine, I now work with people of all ages and backgrounds who want to learn new skills, learn about artists that have gone before, become artists themselves, and get support to manage and ameliorate enduring mental health conditions.

Knowledge is something that can be acquired all through life and passing that knowledge on is like a key that unlocks many doors for people. Watching connections being made and witnessing students developing over time is a real privilege. I also learn lots from my students via their input, observations and reactions to education.

So, although I don’t get much of a break, at least I get to enjoy the work I do and when it is partially in the bright spring sunshine, that is bonus.