09 - Sarah Dalesandro: Art Therapy, Creative Expression & The Inner Child - Healing Trauma & PTSD

This episode feels important with a capital I. I sit down with Sarah Dalesandro, an artist who has been painting for over 20 years with a background in graphic design and art therapy. And it is the art therapy that I really wanted to dig into with her in this episode. 

I'd heard about art therapy over the years, I had even gone to a few sessions myself, but I hadn’t understood the mechanism of it, the why or how art therapy works and can heal past trauma.  Sarah explains what's actually going on with the left brain and the right brain in trauma experiences, and how creating art can support us to access, reconcile and ultimately resolve past traumas in ways that are sometimes limited by talk therapy alone. 

Her explanation of left brain-right brain relationship and how art can help us process things that are keeping us stuck made so much sense to me, she explains in a way that nobody has ever explained it to me before and I found myself wanting to jump into my studio to start to explore the possibilities of communicating with my own subconscious through art. 

Her insight about the importance of UGLY art was a significant perspective shift for me. Have a listen and see if it is the same for you. 

Sarah shows up fully for us in this episode today, she is brave and raw and open. I marveled at the thing inside her that from a very young age never gave up on herself and kept beckoning her back to Art as a way to process some of the terrible things she’d been through.  And it dawned on me that we all have this presence within us. May her sharing her story remind us of this part of ourselves.  

Kate Shepherd: website | instagram | facebook

Sarah Dalesandro: https://sarahdalesandro.com/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sarahdalesandro