Rachel’s Heart Therapy

Feelings can sure be messy. 😮‍💨 And, feeling them all can be... well... ewww feelings! 🙅🏾‍♀️🙅🏼
Photo: Source Unknown, from the show Daria.
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"A warm smile is the universal language of kindness." -William Arthur Ward

Flowers are nature's way of smiling at us!
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So important 🥰🌱.

French designers invented these raised gardens that make gardening accessible for seniors and people in wheelchairs!❤️❤️❤️

A mandala a day... 🔴🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣🟤⚪⚫
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Take your time. 🐌
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Codependency is often the aftermath of a lot of pain, often neglect, and other forms of abuse and trauma that the person has survived -- often rooted in childhood. 💔

Humor when used approperiately and in a healthy way can aid in feeling safer to feel the emotional pain so we can more easily tolerate it, and embrace it, in order to understand it or process it in a friendly way.. 😌

Healthy humor should be used as a tool to foster emotional intelligence, deeper understanding, learning, and love. Not to dismiss, belittle, or manipulate our feelings by using humor passively. Or passive aggressively or aggressively by making fun of or bullying: to project our pain onto others, promote unhealthy ego, or drown out or numb our pain all in the attempt to protect ourselves. 🥺

Healthy humor helps us be true friends to ourselves at the very threshold of suffering.

Good humor breathes intelligence and love.🧠❤

Good humor is wholesome and wise and often non-popular because it requires depth and reflection. 😌

This humor art is not to dismiss the true pain of codependency, it is in how we use humor skillfully as a tool to promote lasting healing, growth, and resiliency. It requires thought. Good humor makes us think!
(Art source unknown)
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Labyrinth Art Therapy workshop/trip at Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA with my NDNU Art Therapy cohort back in grad school! 🤗💙♾
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❄✂️ Not one is the same! Art can act as a symbol for individuality, identity, personality development, and self celebration! 😊
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Happy artful weekend from my heart to yours!! 🌈🎨🧶😉
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You have the right to be safe.
Source unknown.
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A new entry in my professional journal, "Feelings Rocks - fostering emotional intelligence through psycho education and Art Therapy".

I hope you enjoy reading and learning!

Warm Regards,

Rachel Howard, LMFT, ATR-BC, RYT 🎨

Link is below!

https://rachelshearttherapy.com/feelings-rocks-fostering-emotional-intelligence-through-psycho-education-and-art-therapy/
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The five senses:
👅 Taste
👂 Sound
👐🏾 Touch
👃 Smell
👀 Sight
✨✨✨✨.
Art making can be a great way to get in touch with our five senses. 🎨❤️
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We can learn so much from animals! 🤍
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Tuning in to share a new fun resource in my store! =)

My Animal Friends is a children's book written and illustrated by me. You will receive a PDF version of this book as well as audios of the mindfulness meditations (Sun & Moon that are also listed as separate resources in my store) as well as the audio where I read the story to you or your child as an option or the adult can read to the child in their own voice.

🐸🐻🦊🐰🐷🐭🐝🦋🐌🐛🐞🐜🪲🦎🐹

I created this little children's book for the children I work with as a child therapist, and I wanted to share it with the world. Therapists, teachers, and parents/family can use this book to help children in a playful and creative way connect with their power animals, spirit animals, animal friends/allies, or guides. The animals are special to each child, and they can call them anything that resonates with them! They can help a child feel safe, protected, connected more to nature and themselves. This book and exercises can help children to access their imaginations and creativity which is such an important part of child development.

🐸🐻🦊🐰🐷🐭🐝🦋🐌🐛🐞🐜🪲🦎🐹

Connecting to nature and animals can truly help children feel a greater sense of belonging and an overall friendlier and playful attitude with their environment which increases a child’s overall sense of ease and wellbeing!

The illustrations look as if a child made them, making them friendly and appropriate for child development and room for imagination to make their own stories. My Animal Friends is not only a children´s book, but it also invites your child to make their own story. This booklet also provides writing prompts and examples/templates for children to make their very own story!

Please refer to page 28 of the ebook, featured here for fun ways to use this book! It is a fun and creative resource for clinicians, parents, teachers, and yourself!

Friendly disclaimer: This book cannot act as a substitute for work with a licensed therapist. This book can be used as a tool in therapy by licensed therapists. I encourage and recommend clinicians to seek clinical consultation with a trained Art Therapist when using this book therapeutically.

(Link to the new entry is below!) =)

https://rachelshearttherapy.com/blog/
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It is so important for children to internalize their courage as a strength when it comes to feeling difficult emotions! This work also helps children to build resiliency, self-esteem, coping skills, personality, and more. Feeling our feelings is not a weakness, totally the opposite: it shows strength!
Source: Oaks Counseling Center
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"Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body."

~Walt Whitman

From his book of poetry: Leaves of Grass. It breathes permission to dismiss what insults your soul at any time. 🌾📒♥️
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A new entry in my professional journal about a mandala-a-day art practice! 🌈

There are pre-made mandalas, make-your-own mandalas, sand mandalas, mixed media mandalas, sacred mandalas like yantras, nature mandalas, and symbolic mandalas, oh so many kinds of mandalas! 💮

In this entry, I share with you a video of one of my mini art journal mandala a day art practice! 🥰🤗

Link is below!

https://rachelshearttherapy.com/a-mandala-a-day-art-practice/
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REACH! 🌈✨🙌🏾 (for the 🌟 s) 😉
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🌕☀️🌝🌞🌑🌛🌜🌟

My first little mindfulness bundle is in my store! I created these 2 guided mindfulness meditations for the children I work with within my private practice as a tool to regulate emotions, exercise imagination and creative thinking in a playful way, to soothe and balance the nervous system during times of stress with distance learning during this pandemic.

I have also used these meditations as tools for transitions for children. For example, parents can play The Ball of Sunlight Mindfulness Meditation (guided) in the morning upon waking up and The Moonglow Light Mindfulness Meditation (guided) before bedtime.

Many of the children I work with reported feeling calm or safe while doing the meditations and I believe the meditations help to promote a sense of empowerment, emotional independence, and self-mastery for children because they are strengthening their own creativity and imaginations to nurture and care for themselves.

🌕☀️🌝🌞🌑🌛🌜🌟

This bundle includes the following:

☼ 1 Audio for The Ball of Sunlight Mindfulness Meditation (guided).
☼ 1 Script that goes with The Ball of Sunlight Mindfulness Meditation if you prefer to read to the child using your own voice.
☾☽ 1 Audio for The Ball of Moon Glow Light Mindfulness Meditation (guided).
☾☽ 1 Script that goes with The Moon Glow Light Mindfulness Meditation if you prefer to read to the child using your own voice.

I hope you enjoy it! They were so much fun to make. I hope others can benefit or get inspired to make their own! These meditations go along with a children’s book I recently made called ¨My Animal Friends¨ which is in the process of either being sold as an eBook or published booklet. Check back soon for that!

Please note that I made these meditations for children, but they are not limited to any age. My tone of voice is geared toward using it with children.

Disclaimer: This product and information is not intended to be used in replacement of work with a licensed therapist or is to be utilized as a form of treatment. Please seek extra support from a licensed therapist if needed.

These mindfulness meditations are intended for:
➤ Parents to use it as a tool with children if they feel comfortable.
➤ Teachers to use as a tool in the classroom if they feel comfortable.
➤ Therapists can use it as a tool in their work with children if they feel competent.
➤ As an additional resource or tool for your personal self-care practice.

🌕☀️🌝🌞🌑🌛🌜🌟

Rachel Howard, LMFT, ATR-BC, RYT

Friendly disclaimer: This product and information is not intended to be used in replacement of work with a licensed therapist or is to be utilized as a form of treatment. Please seek extra support from a licensed therapist if needed.

(Link to check it out is below!)

https://rachelshearttherapy.com/product/sun-moon-mindfulness-meditation-bundle-for-children/

Professional Journal Entry:

https://rachelshearttherapy.com/sun-moon-mindfulness-meditations-for-children/
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Art Therapy is such a profound tool for healing. I feel proud to be an Art Therapist and to witness the depth of healing that is possible through art and creativity within a therapeutic setting. 🌈
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Felt for days!! 🌈🥰
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My current social media disclaimer note!

This virtual space is an everchanging one. I try my very best and work hard to gain awareness and stretch with this ever-evolving realm. I strive to learn as much as I can about it: cyberbullying, abuse of power by way of technology, the current culture around social media, trends, all the different apps, telemedicine, being a therapist and a human at the same time... I love this as an ethical topic as a therapist and also know deeply it is something we are all still figuring out.

This disclaimer note will most likely be one of many I write in my lifetime. This is due to technology growing faster than I believe we can in order to do it justice and really take the time to reflect on the way we are using it.

I aim to respect this virtual space and I vow to try my best to keep up with it (but, slow down, please?) 😁

Thank you so much!

Rachel Howard, LMFT, ATR-BC, RYT
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An entry in my professional journal about victim shaming. It is an insightful and educational read rooted in trauma sensitivity and best practice. I really hope you find it informative! ✍🏽

Warm Regards,

Rachel Howard, LMFT, ATR-BC, RYT 🥊 🎨

(Link is below!)

https://rachelshearttherapy.com/victim-shaming-when-ignorance-is-not-bliss/
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Hello artsy friends! 🥰

I am reposting the reflection video and a new entry in my professional journal on my website that I made about a group of us Art Therapists traveling to Nicaragua to do Art Therapy with a non-profit organization called Viva Nicaragua (now relocated/fleed to Costa Rica due to safety issues). I absolutely love the work they do. ♥️ 🎨

In this video, I reflect on some of the Art Therapy work we did there. I worked with a girl's group! We did yoga, art, and movement in group therapy. We had an art show and it was so heartwarming walking through the community where the girls yelled out "The Strong/Powerful Girls” in Spanish, “¡Chicas Podersas!” as we all held hands and walked proudly. 👑

There was also another group there from a school in NYC that was there to do a social activist project. They had decided to do a mural at a school nearby where they played soccer with the kids there. However, none of them had experience painting a mural while also involving the community. My professor told them that they had an Art Therapist (me!!!) who wrote her thesis on mural painting! I was so so thrilled to leave my original group during our free time to go and lead this mural. It was the experience of a lifetime for me.

I hope you enjoyed this video and post! It was so much fun to make and is such a precious keepsake for me!

(Link is below!)

https://rachelshearttherapy.com/international-art-therapy-central-america/

Video:

https://vimeo.com/641102895

Yours truly,

Rachel Howard, LMFT, ATR-BC, RYT
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Absolutely love this! I just read one of Aubrey's books and am loving learning over at Child of the Redwoods - Montessori Parenting & Homeschooling! 🌲🤎

Children truly are just trying to develop. The behavior or activities they engage in are all attempts to develop. 🤗

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SwzP4_zaDI
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Montessori Meditations - Reasonable Activities

I absolutely love this. This topic often comes up in therapy and also in supervision sessions in my practice and I love to talk about it! 🙂

It is so common (unfortunately) to receive feedback that is thoughtless and can often be damaging to growth.

I always say that if you truly do not know what to do with the feedback given to you, it is generally not good feedback. Giving feedback is such an art and practice, and it is a learning process! However, we want to make sure that we come from a place of care and pure intention for the other.

(Quote/image unknown source).
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