Darja Milidragovic - Expressive Arts Therapist

I am completing my MA in Counselling and am currently offering reduced-rate sessions as an Intern with Starr Counselling Clinic in Coquitlam ($60 for 60min child/youth/adult sessions with in person and virtual options)

I am also a certified Expressive Arts Therapist with 10 years if experience and work from a trauma-informed, unshaming, strength-based, mind/body lens that invites playfulness, imagination, and a whole lot of compassion for self ❤️ I integrate Expressive Arts Therapy into my sessions only if desired.

Unfortunately, I cannot work with anyone I know personally, but please share if you know someone who is looking for support and a more affordable option.

* Those interested can book a Free 15-minute consult with me by following either of the links below:

https://www.starrcounselling.com/darja-milidragovic
https://starrcounselling.janeapp.com/

I am completing my MA in Counselling and am currently offering reduced-rate sessions ($60 for 60min) as an Intern with Starr Counselling Clinic in Coquitlam. I am also a certified Expressive Arts Therapist and work from a trauma-informed, unshaming, strength-based, mind/body lens that invites playfulness, imagination, and a whole lot of compassion for self ❤️

Unfortunately, I cannot work with anyone I know personally, but please share if you know someone who is looking for a more affordable option. I also integrate Expressive Arts Therapy into my sessions if desired.

* Those interested can book a Free 15-minute consult with me by following either of the links below:

https://www.starrcounselling.com/darja-milidragovic

https://starrcounselling.janeapp.com/

My last painting of 2022. Releasing the toothy, cynical, hungry rage and accessing its power and lessons, so I can move through the grief and heartache of this last year and reconnect to my softness and the depths of my heart. I love when I drink from the medicine that is the Expressive Arts. My emotions look far more beautiful than they feel ❤

Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2023 is more gentle with all of us.

Hi lovelies,

I don’t know about you but the last two years have definitely taken a toll on my creative expression. I know it’s good and necessary to have creative “winters” where ideas hibernate and marinate and wait for their moment to “spring” out from the earth of our hearts and minds and make something delicious. But if you’re like me, that winter has been too long!

I, for one, feel my creativity waiting (and waiting, and waiting) to burst. I want to write songs and spoken word poetry again. I want to sing and take risks. I want to get back to dancing (my personal favourites weere Dancehall and Afrobeats classes, and Saturday nights at Calabash Bistro were my Church!). I want to continue writing my memoir even if it is for my eyes only because it is healing. I want to publish my children’s stories and write many more. I want to paint even though I don’t know how to - but I love it when the child in me takes over and allows the paint to show me the way instead of me trying to take control. There is always an amazing surprise that awaits and uplifts!

When I playfully create, I feel alive, hopeful, and powerful.

But when I don’t create, depression and anxiety slowly creep in and my life force feels stuck. I tend to feel more fear, insecurity, sadness, and lack of purpose. I start to lose hope.

These days, however, I’m feeling inspired to call in this Creative Block and lean into its wisdom. I want to speak with it and find out what its fears and hesitations are and what it wants to say! And I’m wondering if you’d be interested in joining me.

My vision is this: to facilitate weekly 1h drop-in workshops on Zoom ($15). As an Expressive Arts Therapist, I will guide the group through different Expressive Arts explorations that incorporate visual arts, music, creative writing, and movement. We will play and imagine, take risks, and with curiosity and compassion, we will explore together what’s making us feel stuck and what’s holding our creativity back.

If you’ve been struggling with a Creative Block in your life, I invite you to share your experience in the comments and let me know if you’d be interested in joining these future workshops!

And if you’re not struggling and have experienced these last two years as a time of creative blossoming, I am so so happy for you

How do you speak to yourself when you’re not feeling, looking or doing your best, especially when you’re making an effort to change your relationship with something as vulnerable as food?

Do you tend to be understanding and supportive, or does the inner critic take over, overwhelming you with criticism, blame, judgement and shame?

If your inner critic is loud and harsh & your attempts to change are motivated (and thwarted) by self-loathing &judgement rather than self-compassion & understanding, it will be an exhausting and discouraging process of endless ups and downs.

When you’re trying to feel, look, or do better, HOW you talk to yourself matters more than anything.
Transform your relationship with food not only by learning about the purpose of food and how your body works, but ALSO by transforming your relationship with yourself!

Register for our free webinar and begin to change the way you talk to yourself so you can make long-lasting changes in your relationship with food ❤️

Sign up and choose your preferred date at:
https://courses.memethod.ca/zoomworkshop

Have you ever experienced the kind of loss, emotional pain, or emptiness that is simply beyond the reach of logic and words?

That’s exactly what happened to me when my partner Randy died in 2011. Life suddenly didn’t make sense. I felt numb, empty and lost, and words almost always failed me. Thankfully, I instinctively turned to drawing, creative writing and even dancing. Through those I could externalize my pain, anger and grief, place it outside of myself and make sense of it. It was when I saw and felt these emotions expressed that I experienced healing and a deep compassion and tenderness for myself and my trauma.

This form of expression helped me find the beauty and love in the pain, which allowed me to get closer to it rather than run and hide from it. The arts GAVE me something at a time when I thought I had LOST everything.

Soon after, the Expressive Arts Therapy Program magically found me. I was suddenly able to study the very thing I had instinctually discovered as my own healing process through grief and loss.

So what exactly is expressive arts therapy?

Expressive arts therapy combines psychology with the creative process to facilitate emotional awareness, growth and healing. It is a multi-arts approach that taps into our inborn desire to express and create, while also providing a therapeutic way to connect more deeply to our feelings, thoughts, and experiences.

This is especially important when talk therapy can’t seem to reach the depths of our experience, which is usually the case when trauma is involved.

Expressive Arts Therapy uses and weaves between visual arts, music, poetry and creative writing, storytelling, drama, dance and movement to tap into and initiate acceptance, compassion, healing and transformation.

And let’s not forget the importance of the curiosity, play and joy that come when we engage with our creative impulses and power without expectations, judgment, or the need to create something perfect and “worthy”.

There is no good or bad art in this work. There is just you, your process, and what shows up to show you the way.

If you’re curious and want to know more, or if you know someone who could benefit from this work, please get in touch or visit my website:

https://www.expressive-arts-therapist.com