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, and/or old wounding 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 crave. 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 identify as 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 this 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 & 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 detoxing 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 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 reliable and safe.
The holistic power of creative mentorship.
You might be noticing that authenticity is a huge part of this work, and it’s a 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 of 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 tangible support and clear next steps. 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 collective work—the 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 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 in general.
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.
Reclaiming your creative voice.
When E first reached out to me, she was deeply disheartened by the way academic trauma had left its mark on her creativity. Once an enthusiastic, dedicated writer, she now found it nearly impossible to show up to the page. Her love for reading and writing had been overshadowed by the heavy weight of her inner critic, which had grown louder over the years. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to write—it was that the act of writing felt tethered to pain, shame, and a deep sense of unworthiness.
E’s struggle was real, and yet beneath it, something even realer existed: her creativity, her passion, and her desire to once again connect with her voice.
Which is where our work began: In a mentorship container designed to meet her exactly where she was.
Trauma-informed and strengths-based, I worked with E at her pace. No judgment, no rush—just a safe space for her to re-engage with her writing slowly, with compassion and understanding.
Over the course of the next six months, the transformative shifts were palpable. E began to experiment with new ways of silencing her inner critic—not by defeating it, but by meeting it with kindness and curiosity. She started to rebuild confidence, one small step at a time, collecting moments of success that proved she was still the capable, skilled writer she had always been. And as our work together deepened, the most remarkable thing happened: she began sharing her work with others. I mean really sharing it—trusting her words with a wider audience, even sending pieces out to be considered for publication.
The long-term nature of creative mentorship.
What stood out about our work together was not merely the triumph of E’s reclaiming of her identity, but the long-term, sustainable nature of it. Our container wasn’t a “quick fix” to an isolated problem—it was an investment in E’s relationship with creativity, one that would continue far beyond our time together. She realized that writing didn’t need to be something she forced or abandoned. Instead, she began meeting her creative impulses with honesty and care—an evolving relationship rooted in her own rhythms, and nobody else’s rules.
If there’s one thing you take from this story, I hope it’s this: The work that feels impossible is possible. You are not broken, incapable, or wrong for feeling stuck. The path forward is not one-size-fits-all, but a deeply personalized journey—one that I am honored to help guide you through.
Building “creative resilience.”
We need resilience in our creative pursuits much for the same reasons we need it in our daily lives: Hardship is part of the human contract, and we’d be wise to craft our definitions accordingly. When we fall for the notion that success, for example, means avoiding disappointment and struggle, we actually set ourselves up for more of both. How? Because we carry the false expectation that we should be able to work hard enough to avoid them. Which means when they hit, they hit hard.
Here’s the thing: The life of the artist is a turbulent one. And no, that’s not because artists are “tortured” people, but because artists are people who look directly and unflinchingly at real, turbulent things.
On top of that, the work of expression and articulation necessarily involves doubt, confusion, and occasional strife. That’s because art-making is always a kind of translation work, even when you’re working within a single language—even when your medium isn’t words at all. You’re taking a unique vision that lives somewhere inside of you (where? In your imagination? In your body? Are they different?) and pulling it out into a shared reality, where others may absorb its wisdom and curiosity, too.
There’s no other way to put it: Creative work is hard, and often quite strange.
But also: Life-affirming. And nothing short of magic.
Writers and artists do pleasurable but challenging work, and this is to say nothing of the added stress that comes from making public-facing art. For example, if you are a writer who aims to publish, self-publish, or otherwise share your work, then misunderstanding, the occasional feeling of shouting into the void, and rejection are bound to be common experiences.
Coping with hard but common things.
Many of us who write also carry the innate desire to be read, and beneath all the mumbo jumbo of glory and acclaim and external validation, I think this desire is really about wanting the world to see us in our purpose; wanting to form connections, share our gifts with others, and be in dialogue with the larger creative world. It’s a beautiful desire, and I’m always thrilled to support any writer in figuring out what their path to sharing their work might look like, and on their own terms.
But as sensitive writers and artists, how do we protect that desire when things like rejection and misunderstanding are so common?
I’d argue that the most important and sustainable thing you can do—that each of us must do—is maintain close contact with what Brenda Ueland calls the “intrinsic reward”: That thing inside you that experiences satisfaction and deep worldly pleasure in response to your creative pursuits.
Those personal, private experiences have nothing to do with your reception, and they often pre-date any limiting narratives about success that you may have picked up in school, at work, or in other social circumstances.
Your creativity—yes, I’m genuinely talking to you, dear reader—is for the world; you have things to offer, things worth saying, and impact waiting to be had.
But first and foremost: Your creativity is for you.
The way it fills your heart, fuels your thinking, hones your attention, and amplifies your intuition: Creativity promises to do and bring so much wonder and joy into your life. And that’s a relationship you get to have no matter what any single other person thinks about it, period.
Nourishing creativity through mentorship.
Nourishing your relationship with creativity, especially through the transformative space of one-on-one mentorship, allows you to:
Become more fluent in play, curiosity, and creative devotion.
Release your grip on expectations and rules as you make more space for discovery and experiment.
Replace external validation with internal self-trust.
Reap the rewards of your creativity more often, and in more circumstances.
In other words, Creative Mentorship helps you build a life where you can turn to your creativity on a daily basis for personal, professional, spiritual, & emotional support, while normalizing the experience of living more inspired and inspiring days.
Everyone benefits from a more conscious and reciprocal relationship with their creativity—it just makes life bigger.
The most important thing I have to say to you.
Are you seeing yourself in these descriptions and desires? One common belief I hear during free consultation calls is that so many of us believe that our version of creativity doesn’t count. That we aren’t “real” writers, or that we “only” journal, or that our pursuits are “just” hobbies and could never be anything more substantial than that. In fact, with all our obligations to our job and family and community and friends, how could we even dare to invest our time, energy, and money into mentorship when our creativity is so “trivial.”
If you take only one thing from me, let it be this: Your creativity counts.
Your dreams, ideas, attempts, and efforts: They all count. They all matter. Creativity is not something that needs to be earned—not through money, not through success, and not through external validation. It is too primal a part of you to need justification, and too spiritual a part of you to need material approval.
You get to care about and protect your creativity whether it’s a private pursuit that nobody knows about or an integral part of how you earn income. Because your creativity isn’t some side hustle or extra part of you. It is food, water, vitamins, and air. It is a necessity, an integral part of how you move through and process the world.
And that means you are allowed to prioritize your creative needs.
Who are my clients?
You are a creative person. Whether you claim this truth with ease or you carry it in a more private place, you know on some level that your creativity plays a vital role in who you are, what you do, or how you move through this world.
You have a strong capacity for intuition, though you may at times feel so disconnected from it that you worry it isn’t there.
You know that creativity gives you access to a special, sometimes unbelievable place, where presence, self-knowledge, playfulness, and magic cohabitate.
You desire to take the next step forward—begin writing the book, explore a new medium; finish an old project, or discover the next one—but you wish you could start from a place of worthiness.
You might also carry certain beliefs that hold you back: That because you haven’t accomplished certain things “by now,” you are a failure. Or that it’s “too late” for you to have a different relationship with yourself. Or that your trauma runs too deep to ever be overcome.
Whatever stories might be holding you back or giving you legitimate pause, I want you to know that I’ve been there, as have almost every single one of my clients. These things are challenging, tender, and require patience and ease from us as we work to look at them directly. But looking at them directly, especially with a sensitive, trauma-informed guide, is the first step to dismantling any limiting stories you carry, and it’s the only way to do the empowering, life-affirming work of writing new ones.
New stories you might be ready to tell:
Your creativity serves as a daily anchor, bringing clarity, confidence, and a deepened connection to self. This isn’t a rare occurrence, nor one reserved for weekends or vacations, but the way you experience your normal self.
Your creative work is a core source of joy, meaning, and fulfillment—not an afterthought or a side project. Without guilt or apology, you let it take up space in your days.
Your past informs—but does not control—how you see yourself. Your hardships and wounds play a role in what and how you make, but they do not restrict or prevent the making. In fact, the further you go on this creative journey, the more you find acceptance—sprinkled with the occasional gratitude—for the hardships you’ve survived, and the way they’ve made you who you are.
You set goals that accommodate the real you, measuring your progress through meaningful, flexible milestones. Your sense of ambition is influenced more by your internal world than the arbitrary external one.
You experience inspiration more often, while knowing that creative is always at your disposal.
If this work is calling to you…
If your heart is singing at the thought of telling these kinds of stories about yourself…
If you feel your inspiration bubbling to the surface, even now…
If you’re full of that nervous-but-ready feeling that is the hallmark of a sensitive, driven soul…
Then I would love to connect with you one-on-one and explore how Creative Mentorship can support you.
Click below to schedule a free, low-stakes consultation call with me.
This “vibe check” is a great way to make sure working together will be the right fit at the right time.