Methodologies That Inform My Work With Writers and Creatives
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In addition to an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and an MS in Environmental Studies, I hold an ICF Accredited GISC Competency Development Program Coach Certification and teaching certificates in the Gateless Writing Method and Sequencing: Making is Knowing.
A lifelong learner, I am trained in Strengths Finders, the DiSC Assessment, Compassionate Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Soul Collage, and have studied at The Poetry Studio, Foresta Academy, Paint Wisdom Studio, and in many other courses that pair creative theory and experiential practices.
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In my work, I attempt to mine the ebb and flow of the creative process, honoring the pause, what Victor Frankl famously described in this way...
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"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Gateless Writing is a methodology founded by Suzanne Kingsbury whose research marries creative brain science, ancient Zen, and practical craft tools and resources that support writers and creatives to move beyond the conditioned, critical mind to a place of limitless potential and expression.
A Gestalt Cycle of Experience is a core structure of the GISC Core Competency Coaching Model inviting clients into sensation and awareness towards making choices and acting change, as individuals or in groups. There are six phases in a cycle: Sensation, Awareness, Mobilization of Energy, Action, Contact, and Closure. The process ebbs and flows.
Sequencing is an approach to art-making developed at River Gallery School to help free the maker from "impediments to creative energy" and "interrupt destructive patterns of thinking." When we engage our hands with materials we activate the senses, and tap into new sources of awareness.
We observe both the known and the hidden when we work together to explore what Rilke refers to as the "trackless distances," creating a series of vision-centric discoveries, locating voice, form, and our place within a place. Let's work together!
With Jodi, I have found my teacher. Her enthusiasm for the creative process–––hers and ours–––is contagious and has kept me writing, with more quantity and better quality, and even through the incessant screams of my harsh inner critic. Her mind is sharp and her warm heart huge. The skill and compassion with which she leads others to the page and to art is life-altering.
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— Susan Lebel Young, MSED, MSC, Author and Columnist