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Monday 1pm - 7pm Tuesday 1pm - 7pm Wednesday 1pm - 7pm Thursday 1pm - 7pm Friday 1pm - 7pm

Heart Smart Arts

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Rye
Heart Smart Arts

You are loved, unique and brilliant (you may just not believe it yet) ✨
Therapy, client and family advocacy, support
Small team: Exceptional service

13/11/2025

***THE WEATHER THIS PAST WEEKEND ☀️😍***

Was just beautiful! I hope you got a chance to get out and enjoy it too… as the rain came by Sunday afternoon.

Early morning sunlight is so good for us in the Autumn and winter as we are missing our vitamin D from the summer months. It helps to calibrate our circadian rhythms and to get good sleep.

The rain seems to have arrived this week so grab any opportunity you can, even if it’s just to sit by your window and open it for some fresh air when the sun shows it’s face.

There was a little sprinkling of rain whilst I (Harriet) was out and when I took this photo but the sunlight was just so worth it.

So just a little reminder to take those moments. Put your phone down and breathe it all in. Your nervous system will thank you 💖

10/11/2025

We think it’s really important to be transparent with you about the cost of therapy 🌈✨

It can be a significant amount of money to find every month and we will always discuss this with you to make sure it’s financially sustainable for you as a family.

Our taster sessions are the perfect opportunity to find out what a session is like without committing to a number of sessions just yet. You get to meet the therapist, see the space and try out some of the things we have (art materials and lots more!). We also believe that this shouldn’t cost a huge amount as it’s just to try it out but it is also our therapists time and expertise.

Taster sessions start at £25 and regular sessions are then £75 per session. We offer PAYG options or monthly invoices so you can choose how to spread the cost. We accept bank transfer, direct debit and cash. We do have a very small number of funded places for low income families. This is funding which we spend our own time finding so it is limited and sometimes there is a waiting list for this. Contact us directly to find out more about this.

You may be thinking - is that more than it was? - and the answer is yes. We have had a price increase in October 2024. The last time we increased our prices was 2021 and we hope for this to be the only increase you will see for some time.

*x

29/10/2025

***AUTUMN IS DEFINITELY HERE…🍁🍂***

We are so lucky at the Rye space to be able to enjoy the seasons from our big windows and patio doors facing the garden.

We currently have some space on Wednesdays at Rye. Get in touch if you’d like to know more!

*x

27/10/2025

***THE POWER OF WORDS***

Poet:
Poem: The Mountain
Mural:

Lately, I’ve been feeling called to share Art with impact to draw the connections between creativity and therapy.

I came to poetry quite late after a time of great personal loss when I couldn’t access my normal creative processes. I had always recognised the power of words but all of a sudden, they were making shapes and phrases in a way they hadn’t for me before. Poetry brought me back to a stable state of mind and creativity was the thread.

This is one of the reasons why I am so passionate about Creative therapies because I have experienced the restoration of creativity many times myself.

Creativity helps us access the hard emotions safely and begin to make sense of our experiences. Creativity has a way of communicating beyond the everyday. It can be both timeless and timely. Often we see things at the very moment we need them. In therapy, creativity can help draw connections we could never have seen with conversation alone.

If you or someone you know is struggling, reach out. You don’t need to do this alone.

23/10/2025

***IT’S ROUGH OUTSIDE BUT IT’S COSY IN HERE!***

The Ashford space is looking cosy despite the storm and rain outside. A few steps closer to completing our refit. It’s really important to us that our therapy space feels like a home from home, where all of our clients feel comfortable.

We have some space at Ashford at the moment on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. Get in touch to find out more!

17/10/2025

***EMOTIONS EXPRESSED THROUGH ART🖌***

Photo credit: Artist Lee Kyong, leekyong.com

You will likely know of some very famous artists, no longer living, who have expressed their emotions through art, such as Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo or Edvard Munch. You may not and that's OK too! There are many to choose from.

Humans have used creativity for almost as long as we know humans to have existed to make sense of their experiences, to express their pain and their joy, to warn others and to commemorate.

This is part of the reason why creativity and play work so well in therapy. Because it's innate. Creativity opens the door to exploration, curiosity and moving our emotions outside ourselves onto paper or into a 3D material.

Here is an image of an artwork from a currently working artist, Lee Kyong which is part of a series called "Sinneswelt" or Sense world. Lee Kyong is actively exploring emotions through her work and I really enjoy how the colours reflect this - some blunt and sharp at the edges, others almost indistinguishable from one another. Just like emotions! In her Artist Statement Lee describes finding painting was a way to interpret this world which can be "difficult to understand".

*xpression

15/10/2025

***AUTUMN COLOURS***

You may not know this about me (Harriet), but I absolutely LOVE colour. Specifically putting colours together to see what happens or changes. Lots of my own art making is all around placing different colours together and much of the art I will make alongside clients will be playing with colour in one way or another.

I wouldn't say Autumn is my favourite season but there are some parts I really like. This week I have been really enjoying watching the leaves changing colour where trees go from lots of different greens to a full array or reds, oranges, browns, yellows, greens and purples. It feels like a celebration of Autumn as opposed to things like creeping in darker evenings which I don't always enjoy.

Colour, interestingly, is more than just that. It is a tool I use personally to support my own mood, regulation and mental health. This might sound bizarre but there are actually psychological studies on how much colour impacts our moods in positive or negative ways. For example, there is a whole colour and design theory around how to design hospitals to help patients get well. Even down to having a window (or not) to look out from can have a big impact on how quickly patients might get well. As well as room colour and art on the walls...

So how do I use it? In my home, in my everyday belongings, even clothes, things I look at everyday: I will always choose colours which feel good to me, patterns which uplift me, designs which I enjoy. You will almost never find me with much in black. I'm not sure I even own any black clothes anymore because of how much this impacts me. The only place you'll find black actually is in artwork as it can be so impactful... but probably in small doses for me personally.

So if you want the colourful one, the silly one, the fun one, the playful one (of whatever!), have it. It's actually good for you! You can have so much fun with this if you have children too as they will really enjoy playing with and figuring out what colours feel good to them, even having lots of colour on their plates at dinner!

Enjoy,
Harriet✨🦋

13/10/2025

***WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS? WHY COME FOR THERAPY?***

The short list is:
1) Emotional Regulation
2) Relief from painful or uncomfortable emotions
3) A space to feel heard and valued.

To dig in a little deeper this means:
1) The transformative power of spending time with someone with a regulated and calm nervous system cannot be underestimated. This is how babies a children regulate - by attuning to another - and adults can significantly benefit from it too.

What you're actually paying for when you come to therapy is time with a warm, interested and calm other - the therapist. Someone who will listen without judgement and be present with you, staying in their own calm space to help you find yours. Life can be chaotic, a healed nervous system is the calm from the storm. Who in your life was the person who helped you feel calm when no one else could? That's what therapy is like.

2) This one is self explanatory. But having said that, we live in culture where the most significant coping mechanism for difficult emotions is "numbing out" - whether by alcohol, drugs, s*x addiction, po*******hy, screen addiction... these are just a few ways to distract and push down and ignore the feelings. The problem with this is it's only a short term fix. The feelings get louder this way and eventually break out in one way or another, through rage, a breakdown, a health crisis, serious illness (to name a few). Therapy helps you gently address and acknowledge these emotions, as not part of you but simply messengers passing through with information for you about how to feel good, how to have your needs met and your boundaries respected.

3) Again. Not to be underestimated. How often do you get an hour (uninterrupted!) with someone to just talk things through. Or just release some pressure. Not that often. That's what therapy is all about.

Want to know more? Leave us a comment below.

08/10/2025

***THIS IS A GREAT QUESTION!***

And the answer is absolutely not! Therapy is for adults too and quite a few of the team work with adults as well as children and young people. There is no need to be envious of the kids! ;)

There are times in our lives when we all need some extra support. As therapists, we ourselves will have had and also might currently have our own therapy too. We often need it in order to support others in the way that we do. Most therapy qualifications require you to have your own therapy all the way through training. The majority of therapists have had years of their own therapy in order to keep them well whilst doing this work.

Therapy can be such a supportive and transformational tool. Some people come for a short time and leave when they're feeling better and others benefit so much from the support so much that they stay for years. Ultimately, you are the expert on your mental health and how well you feel and we love to hold space for you to be as well as possible.

Get in touch if you'd like to discuss your options with us. We love that therapy is more and more being seen as the essential self care tool that it is.

*x

06/10/2025

***REST, RESET***

I don't know about you but for me (Harriet), and for us as a business and team, September feels super busy. Getting back into routine after the summer takes some real shifting gears and this can be tricky.

I think some of it personally stems from so much time in and working in education. September symbolises "back to school" and working hard.

At the same time, the seasons are changing. Nature is actually slowing down and asking us to do the same which can feel counter to all this September energy.

It's a good thing to respect your natural rhythms at this time. We have two to three weeks until half term (depending on school dates). This could be the ideal time to plan in some real down time. Some real rest.

For our forward momentum to be consistent, sometimes we have to slow down and even pause for a while. This is really healthy. We can't be "on" all the time.

So here is permission to honour the season, to begin to slow and to allow some time for deep rest as we get into the Autumn season.

Here when you need us,

HSA X

29/09/2025

***HERE'S A LITTLE SECRET FOR YOU...***

Our bodies want to heal, they are constantly working to heal and grow mostly completely without us noticing. Think about a graze or a burn. The body naturally works to heal it, we don't have to tell it to do so.

The same is true for emotional wounds. Some emotional wounds heal without a mark, like a graze, and some might leave a mark, like a burn. And it isn't just as simple as how big was the trauma. It's about how much value we assigned to that event, at that time. And often we do that semi consciously or completely unconsciously: The brain might decide we are never going to do that again because our heart got broken! And it might not tell us about it. We just may find we struggle to be vulnerable in a romantic relationship, after getting hurt, for example. But we didn't necessarily DECIDE we wouldn't open up again. It happened in the subconscious which also makes our dreams by the way...and you can see from these that this is an emotional space not a logical space.

This is why creativity is SO EFFECTIVE for healing because it accesses this exact part of the brain to gently access and heal the trauma.

We can help you connect with your own inner ability to heal. Ask us about creative therapies today!

*x

26/09/2025

***AUTUMN COLOURS***

Autumn colours are beginning to show up everywhere this week. It can be so helpful to give yourself time out in nature to notice and feel the pace slow and change, like the season. We are not unconnected to nature and we too have times of high energy and times when we need rest and recouperation. Autumn is a time in between, reminding us that we need both.

Our circadian rhythms are being impacted by the daily reducing light. This is an excellent time of year to watch sunrises and sunsets or get out early and at dusk in order to help recalibrate our bodies to get a good night's sleep in line with the light in the UK. Grabbing those moments to catch early morning light and sunshine when it comes is nature's way of supporting our moods and the impact of the changing seasons. Dimming the brightness of our indoor lights in the evening can also support with this, as can putting a blue light filter on your devices.

Getting enough good quality sleep is key for good mental health and will support you going into the winter season when our energy is generally lower. Investing in getting good sleep is a worthy investment, whether it is going with the natural light, getting some new pillows or cosy pyjamas. What helps you get a good night's sleep?

*x

Address

Rye

Opening Hours

Monday	1pm - 7pm
Tuesday	1pm - 7pm
Wednesday	1pm - 7pm
Thursday	1pm - 7pm
Friday	1pm - 7pm

Telephone

+447709065200

Website

http://www.heartsmartarts.com/

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