Alana Rain Art Therapy

06/04/2026

therapy

19/09/2025

For detailed yet simple practices on listening to the Lung Brain, the Body Brain, the Heart Brain & the Gut Brain, please read Sister Dang Nghiem’s book, Flowers in the Dark.

The sensing body is alive and speaking; learning to tune in is one of the greatest gifts we can REMEMBER that we already own 🩷

14/09/2025

Just love this flower 🌺

12/09/2025

Our capacity to hold space for others is directly tied to our capacity to hold space for ourselves.

One thing I love about the teachings of the Plum Village lineage of Buddhism, is that they offer simple and practical methods of healing.

The quotes above are from the book “Flowers in the Dark: Reclaiming Your Power to Heal from Trauma with Mindfulness”.

Sister Dang Nghiem was born in 1968 during the Tet offensive in Vietnam. As a child she suffered the traumatic effects of sexual abuse, violence and loss before moving to the United States with her brother as a teen. She lived in various foster homes and experienced further tragedy before becoming a doctor and ordaining as a nun in 2000.

Mindfulness practice is more than simply staying calm. It is the practice of meeting all parts of self. It is staying with the intensity of our emotions as they arise in the body and mind. It is being present to all of the discomfort that we have been avoiding. It is looking at the very roots of our suffering and holding space for pain.

Mindfulness can help us make contact with our inner child. This is not always easy. As parents we can find ourselves easily triggered by our children because it is like we are staring our own inner child in the face. And perhaps we have been avoiding that inner child for so long. When we start listening, repair becomes possible.

I highly recommend this book of practical wisdom.

The way out is in 💛

17/08/2025

Notes to self.

It’s easy to get lost 💛🌸🦋

22/07/2025

Remembering the love and wisdom of the great Joanna Macy, who passed a few days ago. A Buddhist scholar and practitioner, ecologist, activist and teacher of sustainable activism, her love and compassion for the world and her teachings on how to navigate these times remain truly inspirational.

It is sad that her passing did not make news here in Australia.

May we honour her incredible life’s work, as with all great teachers, by acting in ways that keep her legacy alive.

Wishing you a peaceful passage Joanna, thank you 🙏 🙏 🙏

11/07/2025

DANCE/MOVEMENT AS EXPRESSIVE MODALITIES

The body is the first tool we use to express ourselves, long before we learn to talk or paint. Movement is our first language and stays with us throughout the lifetime. The way we carry ourselves and subtle expressions of movement and gesture reveal a lot about our personality and life’s experiences.

As such, movement is considered a potent modality in expressive arts therapy. It is an embodied form of knowing and offers direct pathways to our inner world. This is not about dancing or making grand professional movements, it is about tuning into what our body already does and how it would like us to give it space to move in ways that feel authentic.

From here we can gather information related to our emotions and thoughts and develop self awareness. We can learn to re-relate to our body (modern society does a very good job at severing somatic and sensual awareness), allowing it become a trusted source of wisdom to guide our lives.

01/07/2025

Love is the flower 🌹

This is the medicine that we desperately need more of in these times. ❤️

29/05/2025