There’s another addiction I see coming up time and again in our gorgeous Sexy Sobriety Members, and that’s the addiction to perfectionism.

I see it in myself too, when I stress over minor details, triple check every email before hitting ‘send’, or feel intense butterflies before speaking to a roomful of people.

Whereas children are happy to playfully barrel into new adventures, as adults, we tend to want to make sure we’re doing something ‘right’. We fear embarrassing ourselves or looking silly. It’s completely normal and understandable, of course, but this fear can hold us back from really putting ourselves out there and trying a ton of new things.

I was so excited to fly to Melbourne to talk to Jennifer Berlingieri, who is a Creative Arts Therapist and Artist. Jennifer facilitates workshops, groups, and private sessions designed to inspire personal growth and change, and has used the arts in therapy for over 14 years in diverse client settings, including mental health, trauma, drug & alcohol, eating disorders and aged care/dementia.

Jennifer is also a supervisor and sessional teacher at MIECAT for students pursuing the Masters in Therapeutic Arts Practice, which is how I stumbled across her workshop (see Episode 4!).

I couldn’t wait to ask Jennifer all the questions I had before I went to her workshop, like how we train ourselves to accept that art therapy is about the PROCESS, not the final end result, allowing us more freedom and confidence within our experience.

As Jennifer shared, art therapy is not about improving our art work, it’s about exploring our emotions…

“Art therapy accesses the limbic parts of our brains, which is all about memory, intuition, emotions, and creativity. So, rather than talking ABOUT our lives, we are EXPRESSING our lives.”

Indeed, while immersed in the workshop, I found it a highly effective way of getting into my body. All the anxiety, perfectionism, people pleasing, and wanting to do things ‘right’ – it all lives in our heads, and can hold us back from really exploring any pent-up emotions we have stored in our bodies.

Join us as we delve deep into the beauty of utilising art therapy to further develop our emotional maturity and accelerate our growth…

“The more that we as adults can practice coming down from our expectations and getting ‘in the zone’, however we do that – it might be taking a walk or it might be dancing or scribbling – then our brain gets more used to that. So, neuroplasticity. If we can start bringing our brains away from the stress and the anxiety, then slowly, slowly, our brains will actually grow in that direction.”

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Jennifer Berlingieri (M.A.) is a Creative Arts Therapist and Artist who facilitates workshops, groups, and private sessions in Melbourne in order to inspire personal growth and change. Jennifer has used the arts in therapy for over 14 years in diverse client settings, including mental health, trauma, drug & alcohol, eating disorders and aged care/dementia. Jennifer is also a supervisor and sessional teacher at MIECAT for students pursuing the Masters in Therapeutic Arts Practice. She has completed a Master of Arts in Creative Arts Therapy, with a focus on how the use of the arts in therapy can assist people in accessing their intuition, empowering themselves, and transforming their lives.

Find Jennifer at  Creative Arts Therapy :: Facebook

Jennifer Berlingieri

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