Our Approach to Healing
Our Approach to Healing
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Creative Spirit Collaborative's approach to healing carries a dynamic intention to listen deeply to honor ancient wisdom, within ourselves, within our bodies, within nature, and within interdependent communities rather than an invention of something new that we created. Long before "somatics" or "ecotherapy" had names, people lived in an ongoing relationship with body, art and dance in ceremony, community, cycles, land, and spirit, because survival required it.
The Creative Spirits in our Collaborative are therapists, coaches, and healing arts practitioners based in Eugene, Oregon with practitioners also based across Oregon, Washington, California, and beyond. We are attempting to build a bridge out of a crumbling healthcare system built on colonization and capitalism. We acknowledge that the system we were trained in can perpetuate those harmful foundations by isolating and pathologizing the individual while ignoring the history and systems that produced the symptoms and our estrangement from nature, culture, community, and other healing wisdom traditions. We acknowledge that we are in process, questioning the status quo, unlearning and relearning in real time, and we are actively working on dismantling these systems in every collaborative choice at CSC, mitigating the harmful impacts, and actively reimagining sovereign and collective healing journeys within our offerings. For more information about our Land and Labor Acknowledgements, please click here.
Who does Creative Spirit Collaborative work with?
Who does Creative Spirit Collaborative work with?
Our approach is tailored for heart centered *visionaries, *empaths, *intuitives, *creatives, *environmental or social justice advocates who may also be *therapists, *social workers, *alternative healers, *healthcare providers, *caregivers who are burned out by the very systems they were trained to work within. Our approach is an offering for those healing professionals who are seeking a place where they can temporarily surrender their responsibility to hold everyone else, while being held with compassion in their humanity within a true healing system and which can empower their unique healing lineage and personal wisdom and presence.
Our approach also often draws people who have felt like standard mental health care was not created with them in mind and has been potentially incomplete, ineffective, or even harmful. People who identify as *2SLGBTQ+, *PGM, *people with ancestral, cultural, religious, or nature based trauma, *who are experiencing spiritual awakening or emergency, *people who identify as neurodivergent, *people who carry chronic mental, physical, or spiritual ‘illness’ that has not been helped by Western Medicine or Psychology, and *anyone who feels like they are on the ‘fringe’ of the ‘normal’ modern world.
Introduction to the
5 Pillar Approach
Introduction to the
5 Pillar Approach
Somatics & Embodiment
Somatics & Embodiment
Somatics has ancient roots in the movement of animals and ceremonial dance. The most essential definition of Somatics is embodiment or presence within the body. However, at CSC, when we refer to Somatics, we are not only referring to the physical but to all of the layers that comprise our being: physiological, neurological, energetic, mental, emotional, and spiritual. When we refer to Somatics at CSC, it is important to know that we are holding the vision of your somatic wisdom and wholeness as it manifests through your relationship with your body and your body’s relationship with the world around you. A somatic healing journey may include attunement and deep listening to your body’s repository of pre-verbal and non-verbal experiences, emotions, kinesthetic memories, and sensations all of which are portals into the body's inherent wisdom language and its role in your healing journey.
We utilize a variety of somatic approaches such as intentionally aligned movement, dance, breathwork, yoga, and other organized somatic practices but most of all, your own intuitive body guidance to deeper awareness. By attuning your awareness to the wisdom of the body, the body’s own communication system begins to blossom and map the territory to your own empowered healing. Research demonstrates that somatic practices can help begin to develop a resourcing relationship with the body, reduce muscle tension and pain, provide neurological regulation which helps reduce symptoms of trauma and anxiety, and provide direct communication with bound memories, help to regulate emotions, develop intuition, and connection to spirit fostering an embodied, resilient, grounded, center.
Nature & Ecotherapy
Nature & Ecotherapy
Within the heart of CSC, is not only a boundless love for the natural world but an integral recognition that when we tend to our relationship with the animate natural world, we discover mutual healing for all of nature’s inhabitants. Ecotherapy has ancient roots within Shamanism and Indigenous wisdom which holds many generations of stewarding a deep reciprocal kinship medicine with the Earth.
Ecotherapy research is catching up with what ancient lineages have always known, that we have co-evolved with nature and our identities, our mental wellbeing, emotional resilience, sense of belonging and purpose, inner harmony, and our physical vitality are existentially interdependent with the natural world. Research demonstrates that building a relationship with the natural world can help reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, enhance cognitive and immune function, restore balanced effortless attention, improve neurological regulation and sleep, and promote a sense of awe and interconnectedness.
Ecotherapy practices may begin to reawaken an intimate healing relational awareness when we: first recognize ourselves as an intrinsic part of nature, simply acknowledge the air created by the trees that we breathe or a moment of sunshine reflecting our own inner light, the existence of natural elements within our very own bodies, aligning our rhythms with the lunar and solar cycles, discovering the non-human beings of nature as part of our ecosystem of support, steward the healing of the land, or practice deep intuitive listening to the elements, plants, animals, rhythms, and voice of the Earth.
Transpersonal Wisdom
Transpersonal Wisdom
The exploration of consciousness and the integration of wisdom traditions form the cornerstone of our transpersonal pillar. Transpersonal therapies encompass spiritual and mystical experiences that transcend the individual ego. By drawing from mindfulness practices, meditation, and contemplative traditions, we guide individuals toward self-transcendence and expanded awareness. This pillar invites individuals to embark on a journey of self-inquiry, tapping into their inner wisdom and connecting with a greater sense of purpose. Through Transpersonal therapies, individuals navigate the depths of their consciousness, fostering profound personal growth and transformation.
Expressive Arts & Creativity
Expressive Arts & Creativity
Art has an extraordinary ability to transcend words and delve into the realm of the subconscious. Expressive Arts Therapies provide a creative outlet for individuals to explore, process, and communicate their inner worlds. Through mediums such as painting, music, dance, and writing, individuals can externalize complex emotions, facilitating healing and self-discovery. Expressive Arts Therapies encourage authentic self-expression, promote emotional regulation, and enhance self-esteem. By engaging in the arts, individuals tap into their innate creativity, fostering a deeper connection with their authentic selves.
Benevolent Community
Benevolent Community
Healing rarely happens in isolation. It happens in relationship: in the witness of another, in the safety of being truly seen and in the particular alchemy that arises when people gather with intention around shared growth. What we mean by community here is broader than most people first imagine. Yes, it includes conscious spiritual community and intentional healing circles. But it also includes the family that raised you, the yoga class you attend on Tuesdays, the coworkers you share a mission with and the forest ecosystem you walk through on your lunch break. Community is reflected at every layer of existence, from the microbial biome that keeps your digestion running to the mycorrhizal networks threading through the soil beneath your feet. We are, each of us, already swimming in it. The invitation is simply to become more conscious of that.
Rugged isolationism is outdated and ineffective (and soul-killing), because relationship itself is the medicine we often need. The healing of our minds, bodies, relationships, and planet are deeply interconnected; like it or not, we are in this together.
Introduction to Our Values
Introduction to Our Values
ACKNOWLEDGED POSITIONALITY
We acknowledge that we must recon with our privilege within social roles, identities, and differential power patterns we hold through factors of race, class, education, income, ability, gender, sexuality, neurotypicality, and citizenship. We acknowledge that CSC practitioners are primarily passing as a white, gender normative, and highly educated community. We also acknowledge that our positions as therapists, coaches, and healing arts practitioners hold an additional inherent level of power and privilege which we want to tend with care, consciousness, transparency, and humility. We also acknowledge that not all of our practitioners hold these positions and we intend to continue to welcome people of all sizes, ages, genders, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities, abilities, neurodiversity, and world views. We will continue to grow our skill set to meet this vision and reflect upon the limitations of the training we have and to actively question the worldviews, frameworks, and modes of knowing that have been erased and excluded from the field.
WHOLEHEARTED PRESENCE
Presence without abandoning aliveness, yours and our own. We don't hold the clinical mask or performative wellness as medicine. Wholehearted presence and allying with you through all the peaks and valleys is part of the medicine. Grief, wonder, uncertainty, shame, fear, fierce tenderness, rage, love, and all parts of your humanity are all welcome here.
EMBODIED WISDOM
Beneath the noise of diagnosis and fragmented and reductionist Western medicine and psychology, we view the body as a sacred temple and wise sage, not a pathologized container of symptoms universal to everyone. We acknowledge that differing bodies, identities, and experiences hold different embodiment stories and somatic responses to unhealthy, oppressive systems and violent histories. We acknowledge that the body's responses have wisdom which can guide you on your own healing path.
KINSHIP & BELONGING
We acknowledge that a felt sense of kinship and belonging are foundational and fundamental medicine. A sense of being held, belonging, and kinship with a place on the land and the Cosmos, with the non-human beings of the land, with a lineage that is far older modern systems. Practicing reciprocity with the land, waters, non-human beings, teachers, traditions, ancestral lineages who stewarded this Earth long before cultivates that sense of kinship and belonging. Kinship, belonging, and reciprocity as a part of mutual healing cycle.
RADICAL RELATIONSHIP
We reject the role of the blank slate, the expert, and the sterile colonized distance in relationship. Radical relationship is part of the medicine, relationship with ourselves and our parts, with each other and your parts, with human community, and with the community of nature, ancestors, the Cosmos, and Spirit. We are committed to holding your full humanity through the ebb and flow of your healing journey. Whether contracting, unexpected, or messy or vital, expanding, or exquisite, we acknowledge that all of it is part of the healing journey and we hold honor and reverence for each of those moments of raw, authentic, unmasked connection.
SOVEREIGN HEALING
We trust the wholeness and wisdom already woven into your body, your spirit, your healing story, and your lineage that has always been inside of you and cannot be extracted from you. You are not broken and waiting to be fixed by a broken system. Sovereignty is listening deeply and wholly to remember and rediscover that you are your own expert, your own empowered healer and we honor that within you and support you leading the way on your healing journey.
COLLECTIVE LIBERATION
No one heals alone in a broken system with the world on fire. No one is liberated until everyone, all beings, are liberated. We acknowledge collective liberation as an unwinding and loosening oureslves from failed oppresive systems in the world we have known in a messy, incomplete, and at times arduous and other times etraordinary process. CSC is intending, learning, growing, co-creating, and collaborating to weave a new tapestry of an anti-oppressive, collectively liberating healing space.
EVOLVING CONSCIOUSNESS
Contemplative action in motion in every moment. No experience is separate from the opportunity to co-evolve ourselves. We all are a part of the collective evolution of consciousness. The collective consciousness of humanity evolves together as we take each step in full presence to each moment of potential liberation. Collective evolution holds an open welcome to multiple modes of knowing such as intuition, ancestral wisdom, animist relationships and ways of being in the world such as honoring essential diversity in ecosystems and humanity.
CSC Practitioners
CSC Practitioners
Our collaborative continues to grow, change, and evolve. Click below to explore the background, philosophy, and speciality of each of our creative spirits.
We frequently collaborate with healing practitioners of like-mind and heart, as well as partner with sister organizations to benefit our communities. We also host guided practices, resources, and educational content from healers and teachers we know and trust in our virtual community on Patreon. Click here to learn more about the amazing people in our orbit, as well as ways you can learn from- and work with them!
Current Openings
Current Openings
We are currently welcoming therapists for in-person work in Eugene, OR and/or virtual work in Portland, OR areas (special preference given to candidates with bilingual or diverse lived experience who resonate with our approach).
We are also currently welcoming virtual healing practitioners interested in contributing to our online community (special preference given to candidates with diverse lived experience who can contribute to our 5 Pillar practices.)
For more information or to begin the application process for therapist or virtual healing practitioner, please click below:
Location
Location
Our Eugene office is located in a shared, healing office space at 3525 Hilyard St in Eugene, near Tugman Park. The entrance and parking are located in the back of the building.
Therapists also provide services for clients throughout Oregon via telehealth and coaches and healing practitioners work with clients in OR, WA, and CA and beyond.
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