GOLEM Expressive Arts

02/02/2026

Hi friends,
I created this cycle after a long conversation with a colleague that stayed with me for a long time. We were talking about how becoming a therapist isn’t a straight line, but more like a spiral. You think you’ve finally landed somewhere solid, and then something shifts and you’re right back at the beginning, but with a little more awareness this time.
It started with a quick sketch in my notebook. I was trying to capture that strange mix of urgency, hope, burnout, and epiphanies that so many of us go through while becoming mental health professionals. First you want to save the world, then a client, then, in a moment of honesty, you realize you’re trying to save yourself. And only after all of that do you begin to discover what’s already inside you, and slowly start to trust the process.
It’s not a linear journey, and it definitely doesn’t end. But I’ve come to believe that cycling through these phases is part of what makes us good at this work and helps us evolve as humans and therapists.
If this resonates, feel free to share it and leave a comment. Because what we say - in disputatione nascitur veritas.

golemdesigns

01/25/2026

Hi everyone,
Here’s a little peek into the therapy space I’ve been tending for the past couple of years.

It’s not fancy, but it holds a lot — stories, tears, laughter, relief, new insights, parts that haven’t spoken in years.
People come in carrying all sorts of things — trauma, self-doubt, stress, grief, burnout.
Together, we slow down, listen, get curious. We follow the thread.

Therapy isn’t about fixing you.
It’s about finding new ways to be with what’s hard — and rediscovering what’s always been there: the good, the intact, the resilient.
It’s about finding the full range of (e)motion — and learning how to move through life with more clarity, connection, and care. Warmly, Anna

partswork traumainformedtherapy counsellingbc healingjourney

01/15/2026

Beginning in the carousel
➡️Mindfulness, parts work, being in nature, cold plunges, movement, and deep therapeutic support helped me ease some of those roadblocks and heal others. Not all at once, and not perfectly, but I expanded and softened with time.

Eventually, I trained to become a therapist — not because I had it all figured out, but because after I had walked through fire and ice, I discovered a deep resource within me to support others through their challenges. I studied trauma, the nervous system, IFS, and mindfulness-based approaches, merging them like an amalgam to find my unique therapeutic purpose.

Now, when I work with clients, I don’t search for what’s broken, but for what’s intact. I listen for what’s been buried, silenced, or forgotten, with compassion.
I support people coming into relationship with the parts of themselves they’ve spent years pushing away. And I offer tools that help them move through the hardest moments with more clarity, softness, and authentic choice.

In the end, healing for me isn’t about becoming someone new.
It’s about coming home to yourself, reconnecting to your truth, and finding your unique, authentic way forward.

I’d love to hear what this stirs in you.✨
What have you learned from your own story?
What parts of you are asking to be heard or seen more fully right now?

selfrediscovery mindfulcounselling

01/13/2026

Hi everyone,
When I first began working with clients, a single tear in the room would activate every anxious part inside me.
I wanted to fix, soothe, offer something brilliant, or do anything to make sure I wasn’t failing my client.

Years later, the tears still come — but my body responds differently.
Now I recognize them as a sign of opening, safety, and truth.
A moment where something inside finally feels held enough to soften.

Therapy isn’t about rescuing or repairing.
It is about trusting that people have more wisdom inside them than we sometimes remember — and that my job is to hold steady while their system does what it knows how to do.

If you are a client or a therapist in the making
your process takes the time it takes
and trust grows one session at a time.

Thank you for being here,
Warmly,
Anna

01/12/2026

Hi everyone

I’m arriving into this year slowly and noticing that my body has its own sense of timing.
Alongside my therapy practice I also run a small pottery studio where I teach and make work, and clay gives me something literal to look back on, the pieces I created, the shelves filled, the classes taught, so reflection there feels straightforward. Therapy doesn’t work that way. It unfolds quietly inside people, and sometimes the only sign that something shifted is how someone breathes or stands or speaks the next time we meet.

I no longer try to force my year end thinking into December thirty first. My nervous system didn’t open then and that’s okay. I’m reflecting now, when there is energy for it, and it feels much more honest. If you have been moving slowly too, maybe there’s nothing wrong with your pace. Your year can begin the moment you are ready.

✨ Thank you for being part of this community
Warmly
Anna

12/26/2025

I’ve been walking Clay Street for more than two decades now.
Not just literally, but as a way of being, a path shaped by art, creativity, emotion, flexibility, resilience, and self exploration.

I came across this street sign in Seattle and it made me smile. It felt like a reminder of the work I’ve been doing and the path I continue to choose.

To my students, colleagues, friends, and everyone who’s found their way here, and those who will, let’s keep walking Clay Street together.
With curiosity. With courage. With a willingness to stay open and keep learning.

May the green light stay on for exploration, creative risk, and honest becoming.
Here’s to a year of wandering, making, and growing, one step at a time.

12/08/2025

“when you mindfully breathe you live. when you forget, you survive.”

This sentence came up in a somatic session last week and it stayed with me.

Most of the time we breathe without noticing. The body keeps going, but we don’t really feel here. The nervous system does what it knows: survival.

When we bring attention to the breath, even for a moment, something changes. We actually arrive in our body again.

Welcome back.

If this speaks to you, save it for later or share it.

11/03/2025

For many years I worked in two different worlds — clay and therapy.
One spoke through the hands, the other through the heart.
Lately, they started to meet.

Through touch, shape, and presence we can discover our inner world, connect with our parts, and listen to what lives quietly inside us.

Parts in Clay grew from this meeting of material and ethereal, where creativity becomes a path toward healing. It is a space for curiosity, vulnerability, and gentle awareness — a way of listening through the hands when words are not enough.

⸻

10/24/2025

It’s a rainy day in Vancouver. My clients rescheduled to online, so I took my dog for a walk. As a long-time mindfulness practitioner, my body just starts practicing on its own. I could really feel the rain — even when it was so hard it started to pe*****te my coat, my shirt getting wet. I just leaned into that sensation, feeling every step. There’s something about that—coming alive through the body, through now.

And also, battling the little fears. So what, I’m getting wet. No big deal. I’ll come home, change, make some tea. Lately I’ve been drinking London Fog with lavender I collected from my garden—just steeping it with earl grey and a bit of soy milk. Delicious.

It’s these small moments, savoring the step, the sensation, the feeling. A little shift we can practice—turning the uncomfortable into a full-body experience.

09/20/2025

So often, people come to therapy with me and say: “I’m not creative. I’m not artsy.”

I hear that a lot — and I understand. But to me, creativity isn’t about painting or sculpting. It’s about how we meet life: how we adapt, connect, and make meaning when words alone aren’t enough.

In therapy, creativity can be simple and quiet — noticing a feeling, trying something new, or giving voice to a part of yourself that’s been silent for years.

✨ Creativity already lives in you. Sometimes it just needs a safe place to come forward.

09/05/2025

08/27/2025

August is a threshold.
A time of half-finished tasks and fading sunlight.
A time of new planners and endless to-do lists.
A time of both needing more rest and lingering restlessness….

If you’re feeling stretched, stuck, scattered, or simply unsure, you’re not alone.

Here’s a creative practice I often offer clients (and use myself!) during those liminal times of transition:

Draw two vertical lines on your page, creating three sections:
• Left = where you’re coming from
• Right = where you’re heading
• Center = where you are now — the “in-between”

Staring with the left side, fill it with shapes, colors, textures, scribbles, moving freely and slowly. Then complete the right side. After that- turn your back to your artwork for a minute of so, and as you come back to it- fill in the center- where are you now.

And when you’re done, pause. Observe. Listen. Let the artwork speak to you. Try answering:

What do I notice?
what surprises me?
What was unexpected?
What feels heavy?
What feels light?
What needs to change?

Optional: write a short letter from your art to you. Start with:
“Here’s what I want you to know…”
You might be surprised what it says.

—

Share what you discover! 👇🏼