Creative Connections Arts Therapy Auckland

12/08/2025

10/06/2025

21/05/2025

Small loving steps towards a better world

15/05/2025

Bipolar disorder is a complex mental health condition characterised by mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression). While medication and therapy are critical components of treatment, daily habits play an essential role in managing symptoms and improving overall well-being.

Daily habits play an essential role in managing symptoms and improving overall well-being.

14/05/2025

One of the first and most profound lessons I learned while training to become an arts therapist was never to make assumptions about anyone.
When I later specialised in a trauma-informed approach, I came to understand how trauma, both personal and intergenerational, can rewire our brains and our bodies. It heightens our vigilance, triggers defensiveness, and locks us into states of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn (which can lead to us wanting to find safety in group identity, or by signalling our virtue by identifying with a perceived moral high ground).
Through years of working closely with individuals and families, I’ve learned something simple yet powerful: we are all struggling. Most of us are doing our best, often under impossibly challenging personal or social circumstances. Yes, there are rare exceptions, those who deliberately harm, but they are just that: exceptions. The vast majority are striving to grow, to love, and to care for their families and communities as best they can.
One of the most significant markers of healing I see in those with a history of trauma is the moment they realise they can choose a different path. When they give themselves permission to grieve, and commit to not perpetuating the cycle—that is where true transformation begins.
A glance at our collective history shows trauma as a near-constant companion. One of the most familiar responses is the urge to “other” those who are different—culturally, politically, religiously, or in any number of ways. This act of distancing often offers the illusion of safety, of moral superiority.
My hope is this: that we can all become more trauma-informed in how we treat ourselves and one another. That we pause before judging, shaming, or excluding those whose choices or beliefs we don’t understand. That we meet each unique other with the compassion and gentleness we all long for.

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14/05/2025

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29/04/2025

⁣ “It will take just one generation choosing gentle, compassionate, respectful parenting to change the world for all future generations. This is our time. Our chance is now. Let's do our part to change the world, one little heart at a time.”
L.R. Knost

Marie Danforth Page - The Mother⁣, 1916.