Mindful Art Groups bring women together that are facing similar challenges associated with pregnancy, birth and motherhood. The group setting provides the participants with the opportunity to witness and support one another’s unique creative expressions and emotional processes. Members quickly reach a deeper level of authenticity and intimacy through the use of the art material and its innate ability to express ambivalent feelings, hidden beliefs and memories as well as new visions, strengths and resources.

Participants commit to regular attendance within the group’s 8 week duration and to a set time for self-care, growth and connection. The personal development you achieve and the bonds you establish with the other women help you to nourish and sustain not only inner resources but also an informal and empowering support network after the group work has ended.

The Baby & Parent Art Group offers the parent-child dyad a safe, supportive and creative environment to make art together in a playful, interactive and empowering way.

It is a space and time to bond with our little one and to reflect on our experiences as a parent while engaging with the art material and with our child.

Both the process and the finished art work mirror our expectations, wants and needs, our difficulties, successes, skills and resources. Sharing our images and unique parenting journey with the group fosters insight, connection, self-acceptance, and self-love. We also grow our understanding of others, ability for compassion, and attunement to ourselves and others. The group quickly becomes a supportive community that enables growth and brings about confidence and joy.

The multi-sensory materials are non-toxic and safe for children and adults.

Whilst the sessions help us navigate the ups and downs of parenthood, it is also intended to be relaxing and fun!

Mindful Art for Pregnancy Group: When we are expecting a baby, our thoughts wander off more often than before into the future. We are busy planning for the newborn’s arrival and anxiously working through to-do lists. We are holding on to hopes and dreams of blissful days, and sometimes also to worries and fears around the changes that this child will bring into our lives.

The Mindful Art for Pregnancy Group helps us practice coming back to the present moment and feeling fully alive in the here and now. Simple guided meditations ground our body and mind at the beginning and end of each session. Art making gives us space for sensory and visual exploration and creative expression. It relaxes and centers us. The finished art works hold our mood, feelings and thoughts specific to a certain day, so we can acknowledge and let go of them more easily. They can also be cherished as the traces of our unique pregnancy journey, similar to a journal or personal diary. Sharing our experiences with the group helps us feeling connected and seen and is a wonderful way to build the village we need to raise our child.

 

Birth Story Circles: Whether you are a C-section mama, gave birth unmedicated, at home or at the hospital, whether you were induced, had a premature baby or more than one baby in your womb… Whatever your pregnancy, birth and postpartum story, you are part of the beautiful circle of mothers here in Columbia, MO and in the whole wide world.

In our Birth Story Circles, a closed group of women meet for several weeks to share their story and to listen to each other’s stories in a compassionate and non-judgmental way. Each week, one of them shares, uninterrupted. We listen deeply and with an open heart. We celebrate her heroic journey, welcome them on the other side of this rite of passage and build an empowering and supportive community.