I run these experiential virtual workshops from time to time, and they’re always so fun and generative. During this 90 minute small group session, we will:

✨Cast a magic circle to created sacred energetic space and invite a flow state

🌱 Explore how Jung discovered and used active imagination to bring unconscious thoughts into awareness for personal growth and creativity

✍️ Utilize different automatic writing techniques to generate ideas and connect with your existing creative skills

🔮 Engage in a creative exercise by dialoguing with a figure from a dream or tarot card for inspiration and guidance in your projects

🤸🏻‍♀️Practice inner child meditation to connect with a favorite childhood art form

It’s going to be such a lovely evening filled with creative inspiration and flow! You can sign up via my website - hope to see you there!

Follow Heather’s work and various projects here and here!

Find Jordan’s Intro to Jungian Experiential Dreamwork course here!

Sign up for Jordan’s next Jungian Active Imagination Workshop (to find creative inspiration via the subconscious) here!

Psyche Magic Website, Socials and more!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

And yet, I’m still hopeful. I can envision a world in which human-to-human connection becomes all the more precious and vital, and physical presence and co-regulation become highly sought-after experiences. This is why, as a somatic EMDR Therapist, I much prefer working with clients in-person. The healing potential of a trauma-focused modality such as this, for me and in my experience both as a client and a therapist, comes from the focused connection rooted in genuine care that unfolds between two people in a room together.

After years of dabbling in various intuitive and energetic healing modalities (such as psychism and mediumship), I finally decided to train in Reiki with my dear friend Kindy Girdley of Revel Nashville earlier this year. Reiki is a modality I have grown to love because of its gentleness and simplicity. Reiki refers to the Japanese term for universal life force energy, and can address energetic imbalances that can lead to physical and emotional distress. In my most powerful sessions, very little was exchanged between practitioner and recipient besides the flow of the Reiki itself.

What I discovered was that I was unknowingly already performing energy work in my EMDR sessions with clients. I often feel as if we are both in an altered or hypnagogic state, and I would experience intense, spontaneous exhales emerging from my own body at key moments of the client’s process, as their own bodies began expelling and releasing unresolved energy from residual, unprocessed trauma (for more on this, see Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman and Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine).

Once I learned that Reiki could be administered via both the hands and the breath, I realized this was exactly what had already been happening naturally. Energy was flowing between us as the client engaged in bilateral stimulation, which was moving the often stuck/frozen trauma responses of the past, and freeing up space within the client’s system to orient to their historic triggers with more choice and freedom (this is what the “D” in EMDR indicates: a desensitization to the traumatic material).

This was a tremendous paradigm shift for me. I understood that while energy work modalities such as Reiki are not Psychotherapy, they can be a powerful adjunct that deepens both the therapist's and the client’s experiences towards building safety in the body and nervous system, promoting lasting change. This is why I want to offer both modalities in my practice as a depth-oriented clinician. It allows me to use the full spectrum of my own specialties and sensitivities in a way I feel can serve both my own growth and healing and my clients more completely.

The research backs up my own experience of the healing process, both in the therapy room and on the Reiki table. This article from the Atlantic outlines a journalistic process of discovering that Reiki “works” because caring efforts rooted in safety and connection between humans have an undeniable healing effect. Essentially, it works because we care deeply for each other in these contexts (Reiki, while referring to “universal life force energy,” also refers to the force of unconditional love). To channel one of my other idols, Ina Garten: What’s more caring than that?

Interestingly, while I prefer in-person sessions for both Psychotherapy and Reiki, one of the training modules for Reiki in my lineage of Usui Reiki Ryoho, was all about a special symbol for performing Reiki across distances (this can refer to either physical distance or across time and space - meaning you can send Reiki to versions of yourself and others, either in the past or in the future!) I’ll admit, I was a bit skeptical about this aspect of the practice at first. But experience has already humbled me by the magical mystery and the vastness of Reiki's capacity to be beneficial across any and all of these contexts. And as I say to my virtual or “distance” Psychotherapy clients who meet this way by necessity, it’s a whole lot better than nothing!

In the interest of ethics and transparency, I am choosing to keep my Reiki practice separate from my Psychotherapy practice (for now). I will perform both in-person and virtual Reiki sessions via the coaching/”edu-tainment” arm of my practice that houses my Podcast and other creative endeavors: Psyche Magic LLC. If you or someone you know is interested in booking a session, you can do so here.

Thank you so much, as always, for being here learning along with me, and for taking the time to read these pieces of my heart that I feel called to share. I’m so grateful and I hope this can be another endeavor that brings a bit of joy, light, and connection into an often weary world.

In this 2-CEU virtual training, Jordan will guide you through a series of experiential dream work methods inspired by the work of some of the pioneers of our field, such as Carl Jung, Fritz Perls, and Eugene Gendlin.

These methods can be utilized to enhance meaning-making and dissect the core, emotional material from a dream to be addressed therapeutically.

I hope you’ll tune in to build some skills and confidence to be able to work with the rich psychological material within your client’s dreams!

Access the recording here!

I absolutely loved being a part of this conference last year and am so thrilled to have been invited to present again this year!

This June, I’ll be presenting at the Summer Solstice Summit, a three-day virtual conference bringing together tarot experts, witches, therapists, and divination practitioners for a weekend of learning, reflection, and community.

The summit was curated by Shannon Knight (host of The Tarot Diagnosis podcast) and features 14 incredible presenters, each exploring tarot and ritual through their own unique lens.

My workshop will explore Magical Parenthood: bringing ritual into the daily tasks of nourishing, caring, and creating that are each of our birthrights.

We will explore motherhood/parenthood through an archetypal and non-gendered lens: embodying archetypes and deities that guide us into our creative power, such as The Empress and Demeter (mother of Persephone).

We will practice altar building and energetic practices around cleansing/grounding our energy and setting sacred energetic/creative space.

We will discuss incorporating the cycles of nature/wheel of the year into daily activities, the power of modeling creativity via music and art, rhythms and rituals to build and scaffold emotional regulation, and exploring the fifth house in astrology (as well as deep dives into the tarot symbols behind both The Sun and Strength cards).

We will close with an inner child/inner artist meditation to strengthen this connection both internally and/or externally.

If you enjoy thoughtful conversations about tarot, ritual, psychology, and creative practices, I think you’ll really enjoy what this weekend has to offer.

Tickets are $150 - and you’ll get 15% OFF if you use my promo code JORDAN15 at checkout!

Details: The summit will take place online via Zoom June 26–28, and all sessions will be recorded and available for 90 days, so you can watch anything you miss.

You can explore the full lineup, learn more about the event, and reserve your spot here: https://www.thetarotdiagnosis.com/summersolstice

It’s going to be so fun and nourishing, and I hope you’ll join me!
Jordan

In this 2-CEU virtual training, I will guide you through a series of experiential dream work methods inspired by the work of some of the pioneers of our field, such as Carl Jung, Fritz Perls, and Eugene Gendlin.

These methods can be utilized to enhance meaning-making and dissect the core, emotional material from a dream to be addressed therapeutically.

I hope you’ll join us to build some skills and confidence to be able to work with the rich psychological material within your client’s dreams!

Save your spot: https://abundanthopetherapy.com/ce-trainings/p/dreamwork

Questions? katie@abundanthopetherapy.com

Know any Therapists who might be interested? If so please feel free to share!

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In this 3-CEU virtual training, Jordan will guide you through a series of experiential dream work methods inspired by the work of some of the pioneers of our field, such as Carl Jung, Fritz Perls, and Eugene Gendlin.

These methods can be utilized to enhance meaning-making and dissect the core, emotional material from a dream to be addressed therapeutically.

I hope you’ll join us to build some skills and confidence to be able to work with the rich psychological material within your client’s dreams!

Save your spot: https://abundanthopetherapy.com/ce-trainings/p/dreamwork

Questions? katie@abundanthopetherapy.co

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We had so much fun when we debuted this workshop last year and I can’t wait to do it again on Monday 1/26 at 7pm CST! (Recording will be available as well)

During this 90-minute virtual workshop, we will:

🌱 Explore how Jung discovered and used active imagination to bring unconscious thoughts into awareness for personal growth and creativity

✍️ Utilize different automatic writing techniques to generate ideas and connect with your existing creative skills

🔮 Engage in a creative exercise by dialoguing with a figure from a dream or tarot card for inspiration and guidance in your projects

🤸🏻‍♀️Practice inner child meditation to connect with a favorite childhood art form

It’s going to be such a fun evening filled with creative inspiration and flow! I hope you’ll join me and please share with anyone who you think might be interested!

Again, tickets are available on my website! Hope to see you there!

Follow Christina’s work and various projects here and here!

Psyche Magic Website, Socials and more!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Enter: Jungian Active Imagination. By dialoguing with archetypal figures from our dreams, fantasies, and divinatory characters via tarot, we will discover an incredibly rich, untapped creative resource we can plug into anytime.

I taught a workshop on this technique back in July, and it was such a fun and generative experience that I couldn’t wait to offer it again. I hope you’ll join us!

When: Monday 10/27 at 7pm CST

Where: Via Zoom (the recording will be available for those who can’t attend live as well)

More info:

During this 90-minute virtual workshop, we will:

🌱 Explore how Jung discovered and used active imagination to bring unconscious thoughts into awareness for personal growth and creativity

✍️ Utilize different automatic writing techniques to generate ideas and connect with your existing creative skills

🔮 Engage in a creative exercise by dialoguing with a figure from a dream or tarot card for inspiration and guidance in your projects

🤸🏻‍♀️Practice inner child meditation to connect with a favorite childhood art form

Again, tickets are available on my website! Hope to see you there!

But last year, for my birthday, my husband gifted me this beautiful watercolor postcard setup from one of our favorite local shops, The Green Ray. And I’m proud and frankly shocked to say, there is something about this medium that has stuck with me in a way I’m attempting to process here.

Granted, I consistently paint with watercolor alongside tutorials specifically designed for children. I do this because I am a beginner, and if I try to learn via materials suited to those who are more advanced, I know I’ll get discouraged and quit. So there’s something for me about inner child work and embracing the fact that I’m a beginner as a part of the lesson I’m living into in this practice. But this is the other thing I love about watercolor: its accessibility. You truly need just a basic palette and a brush to get started, both of which shouldn’t cost more than $5 - $10.

I wonder if the gateway for me was the fact that this kit was designed around making postcards for others. Knowing how many of us struggle with the perceived “frivolity” of art making in a patriarchal and capitalist society, there may have been just enough of a permission slip for me inherent in this idea of making cards for loved ones that allowed me to crack a tiny opening in the doorway to this form of making.

Watercolor is notoriously “difficult” to work with because, as an artistic medium, it is hard to control. I have heard this exact sentence uttered by many artists a number of times. But for me, who has never considered precision to be any form of strong suit (drawing is still difficult for me despite attempts to take classes), there is freedom in letting the medium, or rather, the element of water itself, take over in certain aspects. I’ve learned to embrace that, in my visual art experimentation, I’m much more suited towards abstraction than representation.

With watercolor, knowing from the beginning that I can only control so much allows for the freedom I need to be able to play and experiment. Releasing the sole responsibility for the work and how it turns out allows me to enjoy the process as a collaboration. This brings me to the deeper aspect of working in this medium that I’ve been attempting to put my finger on: the idea that this practice brings me into a deeper relationship with the element of water as a practicing witch.

Water, as an element, is associated with the subconscious, the mysterious, and all that we cannot grasp. It is the life-giver and the life destroyer. It carries associations with the ever-shifting aspects of our emotional worlds, with healing modalities, with purification and renewal. It is often symbolized in myths and folklore as the bridge between the natural, human world and the spirit world. Water whispers messages of truth and intuition. And we, in turn, can whisper our intentions into water as a form of magic-making, trusting that the water will carry and transmute this energy towards our goals and desires.

When I watch the paint swirl into pools onto wet paper in a watercolor technique known as “wet on wet”, I get to behold a distinctly alchemical and, therefore, magical process before my very eyes. It bleeds and spreads to its own whim, and for me, this is the aspect that keeps me enchanted. I have grown to love this gentle chaos.

As someone who values learning to work with the subconscious as a means of staying inspired creatively, cultivating a deeper relationship with the element of water is an act of devotion and a form of honoring this commitment to stay the course. I recently wrote for Witchology magazine about a similar process for working with the element of air (with correspondences to spoken word, the voice, writing, communication, and intellect) by caring for the local birds.

I recently came across a video on TikTok (my FYP, blessedly, is filled with budding artists) of a woman who said she was trying to “romanticize her life” by drawing, and that the result ruined her night. She revealed a rudimentary colored pencil drawing of a palm tree. But the amazing part of the video was the comment section bursting with encouragement and delight. So many folks related to this feeling, this fallacy that if we aren’t immediately skilled (read, marketable) at an endeavor, it isn’t worth our while (or worse, perhaps we ourselves aren’t worthy or worthwhile). But the comments revealed admiration and appreciation for the attempt at making something, and the bravery inherent in trying something new and embracing the uncomfortable uncertainty inherent in this process. Everyone encouraged her to just keep going.

In a recent Ted Talk, , author of many novels as well as the recent nonfiction book We Need Your Art, delivers a powerful manifesto about the urgency of art making in a world that’s in so much pain (or to use her words, a world that’s “on fire”). With palpable conviction and urgency, she states, “In a society that profits from you being stuck on your phone, making art is a revolutionary act.” I especially love her sentiment that artists dare to imagine a different world, and that creatives never leave the world the way they found it. I so often and so desperately need the reminder that creativity is vital, not frivolous.

Thank you for giving me a space to create. Thank you for reading these words and for ingesting them. I hope they are inspiring to you.

In case you missed it, on Monday 10/27 I’m teaching a virtual workshop called Dream Your Masterpiece: an experiential workshop using Jung’s Active Imagination techniques to draw creative inspiration from the collective unconscious. I hope you’ll join me!

We had so much fun when we debuted this workshop back in July and I can’t wait to do it again on Monday 10/27 at 7pm CST! (Recording will be available as well)

During this 90-minute virtual workshop we will:

🌱 Explore how Jung discovered and used active imagination to bring unconscious thoughts into awareness for personal growth and creativity

✍️ Utilize different automatic writing techniques to generate ideas and connect with your existing creative skills

🔮 Engage in a creative exercise by dialoguing with a figure from a dream or tarot card for inspiration and guidance in your projects

🤸🏻‍♀️Practice inner child meditation to connect with a favorite childhood art form

It’s going to be such a fun evening filled with creative inspiration and flow! I hope you’ll join me and please share with anyone who you think might be interested!

Again, tickets are available on my website! Hope to see you there!

With permission from the artist and her management, this episode includes a snippet from Mary’s forthcoming song, “A Lock of His Hair Under Glass”

This episode touches on the following topics:

The Aces in Tarot (specifically the Ace of Wands)

Sustainable artistic practices

Building an artistic community

The value of practicing various art forms in an unskilled way

Where to find artist residency programs

Artistic inspiration through nature and unfamiliar environments

Animism relating to musical instruments

The arts as political resistance

Dreaming as a way to process our deep emotions

Lucid dreaming

School of Song and their amazing Brian Eno workshop (!!)

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross

Follow Mary’s work and various projects here and here!

Psyche Magic Website, Socials and more!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

In John Cleese’s fantastic book “Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide,” he acknowledges that when most people consider creativity, they think of the arts. So he offers the following broader definition instead: “Creativity can be seen in any area of life – in science, or in business, or in sport. Wherever you can find a way of doing things that is better than what has been done before, you are being creative.” In this sense, creativity is really about newness and innovation, which always requires a process of experimentation. This breeds curiosity (more on that later). He also speaks of his time in law school at Cambridge, “I realized that my schools had such an obsession with logical, critical, analytical thinking that they never appreciated that this kind of mental process is useless if you want to be creative. It was presented as the only way of thinking.”

I can (somewhat) relate, as I chose to participate in a rigorous IB program in high school, where I took classes such as advanced chemistry, advanced algebra, and calculus. Truthfully, the only way I got through any of these classes was with help from my incredibly brilliant friends (our primary social activity in those days was studying together at Starbucks). But I caught glimpses of another way of thinking that felt more natural to me through language arts, especially in one of my Spanish classes, where our teacher presented all of the material through the lens of Art History. In addition to his booming voice and insistence on speaking only Spanish in class, as well as his ban on “clicky pens,” we studied the works of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Pablo Picasso. For the first time, I realized I actually cared about the material and historical context on a deeper level.

I finally understood that I couldn’t connect emotionally or viscerally to the subject of history until I started learning about it through the context of the art being created at the time. As an INFJ and a person with ADHD, I struggle with memory and recall. I could memorize facts in the short term, which made me a good test-taker; however, there was almost no retention, something I still struggle with, which can be pretty embarrassing at times. For me, retention is associated with emotional resonance because emotionally imprinted memories are stored differently in the brain than purely informational or factual ones, partly because emotional resonance enhances memory in general. See also: semantic vs. episodic memory.

Because art is so often symbolic (which is the language of the unconscious, our most prevalent mechanism of thought), it worked on my brain and nervous system in ways that not only served my learning and recall when it came to essential movements and moments throughout history, but it also began to change me as a person. It helped shape me into someone who could view the world from multiple viewpoints simultaneously, learning to cultivate curiosity and embrace the unknown. This ended up being an essential contributor to my deconstruction from a fundamentalist evangelical religious upbringing, which I’ve spoken and written about extensively.

I understand now that I chose to study Art History and both classic and contemporary film because, from an unconscious place, I knew I needed to learn more experientially. In my late teens/early 20s, these pursuits helped shape my still-developing brain into one that could approach problems and questions less rigidly and more creatively, because creativity is simply the ability to find new ways of doing things. It is experimentation, which comes from curiosity. As Albert Einstein said, “if we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research.” I was, slowly, and really for the first time in my life since early childhood, learning to flourish.

In Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, they describe a study at Harvard from their Human Flourishing Program in which they created a “base measurement of flourishing” based on five metrics: happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships. They then determined some evidence-based ways to train your brain to flourish, including a creative writing exercise in which you imagine your “best future self,” then write from that perspective about your life as if it has already happened, which was proven to increase both a sense of optimism and life satisfaction. My fellow witches will recognize this as a ritualistic and magical process, and others may recognize it as a form of “manifestation.”

They write, “Flourishing, we believe, is about living an authentic and full life. It’s feeling present and alive by noticing what you already have around you. It includes caring about the welfare of others and contributing to the greater good. When you are flourishing, you are curious, creative, and open to new experiences, with a conscious commitment to fostering a positive mindset. Too often, we equate a “good” life with perfection, with everything going right. Flourishing removes this unrealistic bar, and embraces a lifelong quest to gain insights, to grow and thrive. Awe and wonder, curiosity, enriched environments, creativity, rituals, novelty, and surprise help contribute to flourishing.”

Curiosity is a foundational building block of flourishing (this is why your therapist is always saying “I’m curious”, or prompting you to be curious). It’s also, incidentally, why curious people tend to make for such interesting conversationalists. Magsamen and Ross cite research proving that “...curiosity induces higher levels of positive emotions that lead to happiness. It expands our empathy and strengthens our relationships, with studies revealing how highly empathetic people tend to be the most curious about others. The arts are particularly good at cultivating curiosity, because they tap into our need to understand and be moved, and at the same time, to be comfortable with ambiguity. The simple act of observing art without judgement and seeing what emerges becomes an excellent prompt for personal insight”. This is also why I tend to view tarot decks as rich, portable art galleries that can help us cultivate these types of experiences anytime, anywhere.

Magsamen and Ross describe wonder as “... a complex feeling that creates a heightened state of consciousness and emotion. It’s akin to curiosity, but it’s more expansive in scope and contains attributes of surprise and joy. It has been defined in scientific literature as our innate desire to understand the world, which simmers inside each of us waiting to be ignited.” Wonder often seeds our curiosity. It is also, incidentally, the natural state of children. For many adults, a natural and simple way to re-awaken this sense is immersion in nature, the ultimate enriched environment, partially because nothing about nature is predictable.

After I went to graduate school to study clinical Psychology and become a Therapist in my mid-20s, I completed my degree just before moving from Los Angeles to Nashville. I knew whatever clinical hours I earned towards licensure would count towards a California license, but not a Tennessee one, so I needed to delay my clinical training until we completed our move across the country. Like a moth to a flame, I gravitated back to the arts and wound up working at The Broad Museum as a Visitor Services Associate and tour guide for about a year. The museum is the incredible private collection of contemporary art from a family who has chosen to make the work free for all to see. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, and Andy Warhol, to name a few. And, truthfully, the job consisted of a lot of standing, goofing around with my coworkers, and reminding people not to touch the art. The best part of it, hands down, was the probably 20-30 hours of a free crash refresher course on contemporary art that I got as part of my training.

I was also doing The Artist’s Way for the first time, and it was an incredibly inspiring chapter in my life, where, after yet another rigorous course of study, I needed to return to the arts again, this time in a more experiential way. Being immersed in the arts in this beautifully enriched environment every day (The Broad’s building itself was an incredible feat of architecture as well) was truly awe-inspiring and pushed me into a new chapter of both singing and songwriting. What was happening was that I was re-awakening a sense of wonder and possibility. The same sense that continually fuels my love of travel (I was lucky enough to take a life-changing trip to Paris and the South of France that same summer).

Truthfully, Psychotherapy and Therapeutic training/internship placements can be breeding grounds for vicarious trauma, overwhelm, and impostor syndrome. By balancing this intense time in my life with an emphasis on Neuroarts (the study of how the arts and aesthetic experiences measurably change the body, brain, and behavior), I discovered a formula I still utilize for circumventing the burnout that is so common within the helping professions. Because if I’m making things and experiencing the world with a sense of wonder and curiosity, I’m no longer stuck in a codependent pattern of existing merely to “help” and serve others.

It feels like a triumph to finally feel comfortable and confident enough in myself to be able to say that I appreciate my choice to get an education in the arts, and for all the ways I was a confused and misguided young adult, I did something nurturing for myself by, in the words of Joseph Campbell, “following my bliss.” Thank you so much for being here and for giving me a space to process and share parts of my healing journey that are so meaningful to me. I hope they’re helpful to you, too.

In case you missed the last one, I’m teaching another round of my virtual workshop called Dream Your Masterpiece in October! It’s an experiential workshop using Jung’s Active Imagination techniques to draw creative inspiration from your subconscious, and we had SO MUCH FUN last time, so I can’t wait to offer it again. I hope you’ll join me!

Should I run a group where we do The Artist’s Way together? I’m definitely itching to do it again, but I don’t want to do it by myself! Leave me a comment if you’re interested! Thank you so much for reading!

As reflected to me in a recent dream I had after the training, trauma is any experience, either tangible, relational, or systemic, that overwhelms the nervous system to the point that it is impossible to get back to homeostasis (or the window of tolerance) for any sustained period of time. In the face of this, we often cope by doing anything that takes us out of ourselves and our bodies, out of our internal experience, because we are naturally wired to avoid discomfort. Cue addictions, obsessions, distractions, codependency, and over-functioning. Thus, it would follow that we begin to heal by regaining safety within ourselves via our bodies and learning to sit with our difficult emotions.

I have transitioned into working with a somatic therapist in my own therapy work, and it has been incredibly healing and helpful, because she regularly and gently guides me out of my head (my comfort zone!) and back into my body. Intrinsic, implicit, intuitive awareness that so often guides us without our knowing, and from which disconnection keeps us stuck, lost, and sick.

I keep thinking about the fairly recent research indicating that mindful dancing is more effective for treating depression than medication. I would like to see similar research done for singing, which is a special interest of mine and has been a great source of both pain and healing for me throughout my lifetime. I view singing as a form of somatic therapy, Just as bird song implicitly calms our nervous systems, singing stimulates the vagus nerve, which helps us shift into the parasympathetic “rest and digest” part of our nervous system. So singing or humming can become a quick cue for the body that we are, in fact, safe, and that the email we just got from our boss is not, in fact, the equivalent to being chased by a tiger in the jungle.

However, singing, while absolutely my go-to form of coping as a child, has not always been accessible to me. In fact, I hypothesize that I began to “lose my voice” as my childhood traumas compounded. Once I was a teenager, I would open my mouth to sing, especially in front of anyone else, and the voice would be stilted, meek, and quiet. Almost as if I were being invisibly choked. I later learned that trauma can manifest as a build up of tension in the chest and throat (I also developed an autoimmune condition that attacks the thyroid, which is, incidentally, located in the throat). And I’m not alone: people talk anecdotally about losing their singing voice after trauma, especially those who sing as an embodied way to process their emotions. And I have heard trained singers say they sounded technically “better” when they were dissociated.

The same thing happened with my dancing, I saw a video recording of one of my performances and I was appalled at how held back and small my movements were, when in my head I thought I had been dancing “full out.” Much of this realization was in the context of singing and dancing as a part of church choirs and functions (I was heavily involved and indoctrinated in fundamentalist religion at the time) which was where I was also digesting strong messaging around women’s roles and not taking up space, that they should support the men in their lives rather than shine on their own.

But I kept singing, because it felt good and I needed it. I just did it when I was alone. And only then. There was suddenly this heavy emphasis, after my stint in a high-achieving IB program at my high school and subsequent college application process, on measuring my signing on a scale of either good or bad, acceptable or not acceptable to someone else, and I became obsessed with this idea that perhaps I couldn’t actually sing and everyone had just been playing along and placating me when I was younger.

As I told a friend recently who had a similar experience, taking voice lessons and having someone confirm “you’re not actually tone deaf” as an adult is a canon trauma healing event. And that’s exactly what I did, after singing strictly when I was alone for most of my life, I found a loophole: I would record myself signing my favorite songs cappella and share them with my closest friends. But there was always this part that was looking for some kind of approval or confirmation that this was worthwhile, that I was “good enough” to be able to engage in this form of healing that I actually desperately needed. But I still felt like I needed permission.

Finally, several years later, I’m in graduate school and I’m going to therapy for the first time (shoutout to my first therapist Layla, who became a household name) and I begin to understand and give voice to my trauma. This translated directly to my decision to start taking voice lessons, something I had never gotten the opportunity to do when I was younger. Even just the act of learning to sing live in front of another person and not panic was healing in itself. But I learned to utilize and control my voice, to sing more powerfully and with conviction, and it was incredibly transformative. What I didn’t realize at the time, was that learning to sing with my full voice meant learning to be comfortable with and in my body in a way I never had before. This is just one example, but in order to sing with your full diaphragm you have to let your belly be loose and free. That alone was radical for me.

Then things really got interesting: I found that when I was fully embodied and singing freely and fully, it often overwhelmed me and I would start crying inexplicably mid-song. This was especially hard for the parts of me that wanted to “sound good”: I couldn’t do that if I was choked up! What I understand now is that the power of my full voice was giving me access to incredibly strong emotions I hadn’t yet processed, and there was almost this fear or overwhelm emerging in the face of the empowerment. My system didn’t yet know and trust that it was safe to express myself in this way, a common experience for those who have survived trauma and C-PTSD.

During this time, I was also experimenting with writing songs instead of just poetry (which I had been doing for years as a way of expressing myself and processing my emotions and my internal world). In some ways, poetry felt safer because it was a bit more cerebral and less embodied than singing. I was sharing them with my therapist, but felt shy about sharing them with friends and my partner who worked in the music industry with “real artists” all day every day. I kept them in notebooks and drawers and moved on with my life. At that time, I took any form of rejection or any dead end as evidence that I was unworthy and misguided and needed to pack it in and do something “worthwhile” or “productive” with my time.

I went to my first songwriting workshop via my voice teacher in 2018, and I will never forget the feeling of aliveness and excitement I felt. We wrote a song over a pre-existing track as a group, and I was the one who came up with the hook: “Jailbreaker.” I didn’t know anything about being a top line writer, but after obsessing over artists like Sia (an incredibly emotional and embodied singer, especially post-sobriety) and Adele for years, I had ingested this ability to find the hook or the “thesis statement” of a song via a powerful central image or idea.

One of the other people from class reached out to me to help finish the song I shared (another hook and melody which had some to me one day in the shower), which eventually became “In My Mind’s Eye.” A beautiful singer and songwriter friend of mine here in Nashville helped me finish it years later. That was the first time I ever co-wrote a complete song, and finished it with a producer. But I still didn’t feel like I had earned my place in the room (even though it was my song!) And my friend’s (completely fair!) decision to submit it to my partner to pitch for sync licensing instead of releasing it under her artist name felt like another rejection to hold in my arsenal of imposter syndrome arrows I flung at myself constantly.

I had the same issue with my voice in that writing session, I recorded some harmonies while my friend sang the song, but my voice came out pinched and quiet. I still felt like I hadn’t earned my place, and it sounded like I didn’t believe in myself. Because I didn’t. In fact, I remember at this time (around 2021) I still couldn’t sing aloud in my own house if my partner was home. It felt disruptive, hurtling me through memories of being asked to keep it down as a kid, of getting in trouble for humming in class while the teacher was talking (I was in 1st grade and didn’t know she could hear what I was humming in my head!) But getting in trouble was intolerable to me as a child, so I internalized this message that my singing was disruptive and I needed to keep quiet.

In 2024 I had a missed miscarriage, which was one of the most painful and devastating experiences of my life. I had been processing my childhood trauma verbally in therapy for years, and I was still experiencing lots of physical triggers that were impacting my sense of well being and safety/intimacy in my relationship to my partner especially. When I got pregnant again with Iris, I decided to do an EMDR intensive with a therapist and mentor who specialized in emdr here in Nashville, so that I could let go of the physical manifestations of my trauma and move forward into this new chapter in my life unencumbered.

My EMDR intensive with this skilled and practiced clinician was a transformative and life-changing experience, in which my body moved and shook in all of the ways that it needed to to release all of that stuck energy, and I was finally free. We ended the intensive by strengthening my sense of boundaries and the knowing that I can and will say no anytime I need to. I left the session and, when a car cut me off on the drive home, I breezily clapped back verbally at them instead of cowering in fear. I found that my singing voice was freer, and more natural. I felt like I had permission to take up space by singing in my home and beyond. I found an ease and a vibrato in my singing voice throughout the rest of my pregnancy that had always eluded me.

And so once my daughter arrived, I could sing to her all the time. She loves music, especially Julie Andrews musicals like Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, and singing has already become an essential part of our bond. I never dreamed that processing my childhood trauma (which was related to childhood sexual abuse or CSA) would be the thing that would finally free my voice. I no longer cared about signing perfectly or measuring my worthiness via how my voice sounded. I just sang because I loved it and because it felt good. I truly don’t have words for how freeing and healing this has felt. I firmly believe that singing in itself is somatic therapy, and for that reason, many of us who have specific forms of childhood trauma need therapeutic and trauma-informed guidance in the form of experiential/somatic therapists and voice coaches to be able to access and reclaim our voices. I also want to normalize that this process can take years, but it is so, so worth it.

I have a dear friend who is going through cancer treatment for myeloma (if you’re reading this, I love you). She is one of the most incredible people I know, and is an amazing therapist who has been fiercely committed to her own healing for decades. She was recently sharing how, in the face of her diagnosis, her priorities snapped into sharp focus for her in all of these really clear and powerful ways. One night, I was journaling and I just wrote down: if I found out I were dying (which we all are!), what would I be doing with my life? There was a singular and crystal clear answer: writing songs. I was about 9/10 months postpartum and finally coming up for air, so I signed up for a round of classes with School of Song.

I had been stalking their classes for years since my friend who’s a musical artist told me about them and encouraged me to try it, but I hadn’t been able to pull the trigger because 1) newborn trenches and 2) imposter syndrome. But that night, in the face of my thought experiment inspired by my dear friend who is literally fighting for her life (I’m thrilled to report she is getting the absolute best treatment and her prognosis is excellent), I just impulsively signed up for a class. Did I actually have time to take the class while caring for my 10 month old? No! Did I do it anyway? Yes!

The first day of class was so chaotic: I was unexpectedly juggling Iris and I almost logged off several times. The mental narrative of “I can’t do this, who am I kidding” was just so loud and persistent. The teacher had us write a song right away, using two notes, A and G, and using a word association exercise we had done together to begin the class. “You have 10 minutes: go!” I didn’t have any instruments nearby, but I glanced over at Iris’s playpen in the living room and saw her toy xylophone sitting on the carpet. I quickly found the notes A and G and (somehow) wrote a quick melody and recorded it in time to submit it to the class. I didn’t have time to second guess or overthink, and I did it! It set the tone (no pun intended) for the rest of the class: nothing about this has to be perfect, it’s about playing and experimenting and coming up with something.

I’m so proud to say that I showed up with fresh ideas almost every class (we had class and writing homework twice per week for about 6 weeks). I noticed that, in the context and container of the class, I was in this headspace where I was receiving or “catching” song ideas regularly, whether I was sitting down to write or just taking a walk with my dog Chloe. The channel was open and the ideas were flowing freely.

So much of our teacher’s instruction and guidance was around getting out of our heads, of creating this open expanse and interesting free associative exercises where ideas could just arrive. Then we could use our conscious minds to cull through them and hone them further. This is also the subject of my podcast, Psyche Magic, where I interview artists and healers like Angie McMahon, Sam Burton, and (forthcoming) Mary Lattimore about working creatively with the subconscious for creative inspiration and personal growth/healing via methods like Jungian Dreamwork and symbolic exploration of the tarot.

One of the most incredible and unexpected takeaways from class was that, when I was writing consistently and “scratching that itch,” this familiar sense of restlessness I didn’t realize I was carrying daily and constantly was assuaged. It was just gone. There was a deep settling in my nervous system. I didn’t have the spinning swirling energy around me telling me I should be doing more or something else, constantly feeling for an itch I couldn’t scratch. I felt settled and satisfied in a way that felt completely novel, like a missing puzzle piece had just fallen out of the sky and into place. Has this been it the whole time? Has this been the thing that was missing, the thing I couldn’t put my finger on? The ease and satisfaction were unmistakeable, but it reversed as soon as the class was over and I got back out of the habit of writing all the time.

It was so fun and satisfying to always be writing in the background of my mind no matter what else I was doing, which often kept my mind from spinning off into other, less helpful directions (hello, generalized anxiety disorder)! What the lovely folks in my class didn’t know, and what has taken me quite some time to try and sit down to articulate, is that it had been an almost 10 year process of healing for me to be able to give myself permission to show up to a class like that, as someone who doesn’t play much of any of an instrument (I know just enough chords on piano to get by). To be able to show up, write something, share it, and sing it (live) before the class would have been unfathomable before. And so I’m celebrating and sharing this because I think it’s vitally important to name that it can be a long road to reclaiming our creativity. In many cases, there isn’t a quick fix.

Before the class ended, I immediately started reaching out to friends and acquaintances to set up writing sessions, because I knew I needed to keep exercising this muscle in collaboration and community. And those doors have opened so much more easefully than I ever could have imagined, which in my experience tends to be the case when we are acting in alignment with our personal purpose and spiritual gifts. I can’t wait to see what comes from this new chapter, and I’m so grateful for each and every one of you for giving me space and community (there’s that word again!) to talk about it and try to make sense of it. Thank you so much for being here.

In case you missed it, on Monday 7/14 I’m teaching a virtual workshop called Dream Your Masterpiece: an experiential workshop using Jung’s Active Imagination techniques to draw creative inspiration from your subconscious. I hope you’ll join me!

🌱 Explore how Jung discovered and used active imagination to bring unconscious thoughts into awareness for personal growth and creativity

✍️ Utilize different automatic writing techniques to generate ideas and connect with your existing creative skills

🔮 Engage in a creative exercise by dialoguing with a figure from a dream or tarot card for inspiration and guidance in your projects

🤸🏻‍♀️Practice inner child meditation to connect with a favorite childhood art form

This is going to be such a fun evening filled with creative inspiration and flow! I hope you’ll join me and please share with anyone who you think might be interested!

Tickets are available on my website:

https://www.jordanhale.net/workshops

Register with a friend and get 20% off - just email me both of your names at psychemagicpodcast@gmail.com to get your promo code

For more on this subject see episode 17: Psychedelic Therapy with Robert DeSalvo LCSW in our podcast feed!

Follow AJ’s work and various projects here!

⁠⁠⁠⁠Psyche Magic Website, Socials and more!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Sign up with a friend to get 20% off (details below!)

Join us for this virtual workshop Monday 7/14 at 7pm CST via Zoom (the recording will be available after the fact as well!) where we will:

🌱 Explore how Jung discovered and used active imagination to bring unconscious thoughts into awareness for personal growth and creativity

✍️ Utilize different automatic writing techniques to generate ideas and connect with your existing creative skills

🔮 Engage in a creative exercise by dialoguing with a figure from a dream or tarot card for inspiration and guidance in your projects

🤸🏻‍♀️Practice inner child meditation to connect with a favorite childhood art form

It’s going to be such a fun evening filled with creative inspiration and flow! I hope you’ll join me!

Tickets are available here!

**By registering for this workshop, you acknowledge that Dream Your Masterpiece is an educational workshop and is not therapy not a substitution for therapy. All sales are final. The zoom link will be sent to you the week of the workshop. If you have any questions, you can email me at jordanhalecounseling@gmail.com.

I'm so excited to share this event I am truly THRILLED to be a part of. I will be giving an experiential talk/workshop on working therapeutically with the elements (fire, air, water, and earth). It’s going to be SO magical, y’all!

Tickets are officially available for the Summer Solstice Summit, and as part of my email list, you’re getting early access and a discount!

🌿 What it is:
The Summer Solstice Summit is a virtual tarot and witchy wellness conference hosted by The Tarot Diagnosis. This event is happening the weekend of the Summer Solstice: June 20th, 21st, & 22nd.

This three-day gathering is all about aligning with the energy of the solstice: a time of illumination, nourishment, and deep growth. You’ll be joining an amazing lineup of 15 intuitive and insightful presenters (including me!) who will guide you through workshops on topics ranging from:

✨ Tarot and Creativity
🌑 Shadow Work
🌌 Astrology
🔥 Creative & Magickal Rituals …. And so much more!

🌞 Here’s what I’ll be offering during the summit:
In “As Above, So Below: Working Therapeutically with the Elements” we will learn how to harness the power of the four elements (fire, air, water, earth) to enhance creativity and engage with meaningful self care to improve mental and emotional wellness. We will explore research indicating the powerful positive effects ritual can have on our mental health, and explore means of working therapeutically with each element to bring enhanced power and energy to our goals and intentions

Whether you’re a seasoned tarot reader or just starting to explore your intuitive path, this summit is designed to leave you feeling inspired, grounded, and reconnected.

💫 As a subscriber to my email list, you get:
• First dibs on tickets
• 15% off with code Subscriber15
• Full access to replays if you can’t attend live

🎟 Save your seat now:
👉 Click here to learn more and grab your ticket!
Use code Subscriber15 at checkout for 15% off!

Can’t wait to see you and celebrate the Solstice together! 🌞✨

Jordan

Comment a dream image/theme below and I’ll break it down for you in a future newsletter!

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This upcoming New Moon in Taurus on 4/27/25 is sitting in a square to a Mars/Pluto opposition. So this is a really fertile time to plant seeds of intention around anything you’re willing to fight for long-term, anything you’re fiercely dedicated to, and even willing to struggle over because it’s that important. For me, this is moment is about breaking through my fear around writing songs, so I have finally signed up for a class through School of Song as an offering to the universe and a personal commitment to following my bliss and creative passions.

If you need guidance for setting your own intentions, below the paywall below I have a ritual for building a dream altar to improve your dream recall and build a collaborative/symbiotic relationship with your subconscious so you can receive guidance about that which is most meaningful to you!

I thought a fun theme to dive into for this full moon could be losing teeth in dreams. This is notoriously one of the most common and perplexing dream symbols out there! To me, the theme of losing teeth in dreams is a great example of what Jung would have called the collective unconscious: in our most ancient and primal recesses of our subconscious, our teeth represent assertion and dominance, protection and survival. They are often interpreted as symbols of significant change and personal growth and the tension and pain of new beginnings (as the mother of a teething infant I can attest to these types of “growing pains”!) After all, just as we eventually lose our baby teeth, something old has to be shed to make room for something new. Losing teeth in dreams can connect to a beckoning from the subconscious to let go of outdated, old patterns. And if there’s a theme of rotting teeth in the dream, this can indicate a call for more nurturance or care in an aspect of your life that may be neglected at the moment.

Of course, as with any dream theme, it’s also important to associate as to what teeth bring up for you personally. For some, they are symbols of appearance or self image, for some, aggression, potency, or decisiveness (the emotions of the dream can also give clues as to where the emphasis lies). Losing teeth in dreams can belie a fear of aging or a loss of control in some aspect of your life. From there, you can expand your inquiry into themes in your current life, and ask yourself what is making you feel “toothless” at the moment (more specific journaling prompts included below!)

Below the paywall below you’ll find:

—Journaling prompts to help you gain more insight about this dream symbol

—A guided meditation for lucid dreaming (gaining control over the plot or narrative of a dream, which can be used for healing and re-storying by finding an internal, felt sense of agency and autonomy)

—A ritual for building a dream altar (sacred space) in order to connect to your dreams more vividly and intentionally

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