Creative Conversations
Online Mentoring and Coaching with soul at the center
Hello, I'm Andrew, a Mentor, Visual Artist and Psychotherapist living in Newport, Wales. I hope you will find all the necessary information here to learn about the one-to-one Mentoring and Coaching sessions I am offering, but please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
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My unique approach reflects an ongoing synthesis of personal and professional experience over the past twenty years in the fields of art, psychotherapy, spirituality, Nature, mental health & social care.
On this page​
Introduction
Benefits of mentoring
Who I work with
How to contact me
Themes I can support you with
How the sessions work
Walking your path
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Working together to nourish, revitalise, and deepen your vision for life
An introduction to soul-oriented mentoring
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Mentoring sessions provide you with a confidential, informal, and compassionate space in which to explore and develop your life through soul-filled conversation. We will cultivate an appreciation for mysteries of psyche and soul, and welcome the richness, inspiration and meaning that is available through spiritual, depth psychological, and artistic perspectives. Our conversations will be aimed at listening carefully for the wisdom of your inner life, developing a deeper understanding of yourself, and meeting the world as fully as possible by bringing your gifts closer to the surface.
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The mentoring / coaching sessions embrace spontaneity and exploration, as well as more practical work where appropriate, such as; goal-setting, structure, planning, and how you use your time.
For those who live, work, or make art with openness to a spiritual or soul-oriented impulse, there are great benefits in being able to share and explore your experience in confidence with another human heart that is sympathetic and alive to these perspectives. We might consider our meetings to be a kind of temenos, which is a Greek term for space kept apart from the routines of daily life, specifically for the purpose of attending to the divine.
Much mentoring and coaching has commercial or financial success as its exclusive goal. Whilst being visible in the world, making a living, and creating success on your terms are welcome to feature as important elements in our work together, we will attend to these themes with same respect as any other, prioritising depth of personal and spiritual integrity in all you do. ​​
How working together can benefit you
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Speak in confidence about your life, recognising the richness already present, and also identifying what you need to welcome into it.
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Emphasise and expand upon your gifts, talents, and strengths.
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Overcome blocks and obstacles that are limiting you.
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Broaden your possibilities for living with a sense of vision and purpose.
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Nurture your capacity for awe, wonder, and beauty.
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Getting ideas and projects off the ground, and following through with them.
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Finding fresh perspectives that help with existing work or situations in life.
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Moving on from ways of being that do not serve your deepest purpose and idea of a life well lived.
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Encountering true imagination, and finding new ways to express this.
Who I Work With
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I work with individuals in the UK and internationally. It is not necessary to have any prior experience of mentoring, coaching, or therapy in order to meet with me. The mentoring sessions do not follow a set program or teaching format. They are conversations, where together we shape each encounter according to what you might need from it.
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We might meet on a single occasion, every now and then, or on a regular basis up to weekly meetings.
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If you are involved in an organisation whose staff, volunteers, or members could benefit from mentoring sessions, please feel welcome to get in touch.
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How to contact me and arrange your first session
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I invite you to contact me to make an enquiry and book your first session. Please use the form or email link at the foot of any page on this website, and I will respond as soon as possible. I look forward to hearing from you.
Creativity | Work & Purpose | Spirituality | Nature
The main areas I can support you with
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You might have specific aims in mind for our work together, or your purpose could simply be engaging in heartfelt and meaningful conversation around themes of significance to you. This offers a kind of genuine freedom that can hold real transformative potential, as we embark upon the journey together.
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Art and Creativity
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For makers and creatives of any kind, at any stage of the journey/career, who would like to explore their work and its themes in depth. We can look at the sometimes difficult to navigate terrain of the artists path, sources of inspiration, creative processes, and why you do what you do (in an imaginative and life affirming way, rather than a reductive one). Perhaps there is a particular project or piece that you are working on which is posing questions for you. Or maybe you would like to develop your work within the support of a mentoring relationship.
If you have an appreciation for art, or work in ‘the arts’ but do not necessarily regard yourself as an artist or maker, we can bring the art that inspires you into the center of our conversations.
You might be keen to embrace your creativity, but be finding it difficult to connect with, or unsure how to begin. ​
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Spirituality / Transpersonal
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Whether you have a particular religious faith, or your path is more inclined to the mystical or magical, we can explore your experience. Transpersonal implies the ‘spiritual’, but more broadly refers to a sense of connection with something greater than your individual sense of self, and reaching one's potential as a human. If this area is unfamiliar, but you are interested in engaging with this aspect of yourself in a new way, then we can consider what that might look like for you.
If you are feeling somewhat isolated with your sense of the sacred, which is not unusual in cultures that have lost of much their reverence for the divine, you might consider this an invitation to a form of spiritual companionship.
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Work, Purpose and Meaning
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Whether you work within a large company, or are an individual with your own endeavor, together we can explore the significance of work in your life, the challenges and joys it presents you with, and how a vision for soul and creativity can be present to enrich the working life.
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Psyche, Soul, and Nature
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Living with awareness of the more-than-human-world and our place within the web of life. We can cultivate and honour your reverence for Nature, and explore how connections weave their way through art, work, vision, and a sense of being in the world. We can hold a space for witnessing both the beauty and power of places, landscapes, and other species that resonate with you, whilst also acknowledging experiences of grief relating to damage, changes, and loss.
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For counsellors, therapists, and others in the field of caring for body, mind, and soul
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A time and space that nurtures you and your work in a different way to clinical supervision (but is not a replacement for it). Perhaps some of the themes mentioned above are of interest or importance to you, but feel like they are ‘squeezed out’ of professional life. Please get in touch to discuss how meeting for mentoring sessions could be useful for you.
How the sessions work and what you can expect from them
Your mentoring sessions will be tailored to you, rather than follow a predetermined format. This is an invitation to participate in a transformational process. We can embrace a mix of open spontaneity, and more structured work around planning, goal-setting, and how you occupy your time. Our focus will alternate between close attention to specific details, and at other times taking a wide-angle view to witness the ecology of different aspects comprising your inner life, outer circumstances, and the world in which we live.
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The sessions are essentially conversational. This means we will develop a sense of mutual ground, rather than adopting a traditional expert/client or teacher/student relationship. My personal vision for mentoring is a process of collaboration in which we are both participants adopting the spirit of enquiry, for the purpose of serving your deepest vision for life. I will contribute my own thoughts and ideas when appropriate, but the way forward that we are seeking will generally be through accessing and listening to the wisdom that comes from within you, rather than suggestions from me. The intention is that the ways to proceed which can serve you best will emerge through the medium of conversation between us.
You can expect to be listened to carefully, treated respectfully, and responded to with a sense of interest and curiosity. We may sometimes navigate sensitive or difficult terrain, but the creative and healing potential offered by a sense of playfulness and humor should never be too far away.
If you are an artist or maker you are welcome to bring examples of your work to the session. If you would like me to familiarise myself with your creative work prior to (or between) our mentoring sessions I am happy to do so. This will allow me to prepare thoughts and responses in advance of our meeting. An additional fee will apply for this.
Walking your path, the lifelong journey of becoming who you are.
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“Traveler there is no path. The path is made by walking.”
We could hear this excerpt from a poem by Antonio Machado in relation to feeling stuck, alone, or lost. These lines suggest that if there is a path ahead which seems clear and well-trodden (i.e. ‘easy’!) then perhaps it is not your own path that you are walking. Even if we feel a deep certainty about the way, we might recognise challenging terrain ahead and fear to tread it. Alluding to the necessity for action in transforming our lives, we can note that the path is not made only by thinking or dreaming.
As a way forward, we might learn to be cautious of prematurely seeking answers, and place more emphasis instead upon finding and nurturing our most inspiring questions to live by — which often make themselves known to us through images, visions, dreams, ideas, passions, and sometimes puzzles — that seem to come from the very core of our being.
Questions like this may feel part gift, and part burden to carry. What we are being tasked with is to understand how the kind of answer required of us is about meeting these questions and visions with our most wholehearted attempts to give them expression. A communicative and relational response that deepens and expands upon the mystery, bringing them to life. In this way we can move into new and creative ways of travelling our respective paths, living more fully with both ourselves and others as we go. The deepest questions we are presented with in life are there to be lived rather than solved.
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To borrow from a poem (Sometimes) by David Whyte; Questions that have waited patiently for you. Questions that have no right to go away. ​