Live Radiantly

This episode does a deep dive into the nuances of emotions, because for many of us it takes time to embrace the full spectrum of our feelings. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC discusses why it can be so challenging to recognize and name your feelings, while introducing the work of Sharon Dregne Gerstenzang, who's work breathed new perspective into the world of our emotions. The art therapy guided meditation will take you to a lab, where you can observe how the different feelings families transform one another.

One of the most unnerving aspects of healing, growth, and transformation is when you feel lost and unsure. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC explores how to manage what most of us resist, feeling lost, unsure, and confused, because it is a necessary part of evolving as a person. The art therapy guided meditation is designed to help you find comfort in the discomfort, by experiencing the guidance she offered during the show as a transformational practice.

Everyone has an inner saboteur, those parts of ourselves that tend to wreak havoc when we feel afraid, overwhelmed, and stressed out. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC dives deeper into why we have them and how Internal Family Systems work can support your healing and growth work. Then she invites you to make friends with your inner saboteur with a playful guided meditation, using the transformative power of an art therapy. 

In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC invites you to consider the power of expansion and contraction, and how both are important to your health and wellbeing. Then she guides you through an art therapy experience that will help you anchor in and find a flow between them.

This week’s episode dives into the ingredients you need to cultivate a life in which your truth sets you free. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC explores what having healthy ego strength means and offers ideas on how to support your evolution, because we're all works in progress. The guided art therapy experiential offers an opportunity to connect to how you experience honesty and authenticity so that you can recognize that energy when it's present in your life.

This week’s episode looks at a part of your core identity, your essential self, the lovely, often quirky, part of your personality that makes you who you are.In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC explores how this part of yourself helps you persevere and enjoy life The guided art therapy experiential offers an opportunity to connect with this part of yourself and how it serves you in life.

This week’s episode is all about the gift of presence and how it can support you in life, whether your in a situation that is asking you to defy the odds or wanting to feel a deeper connection to yourself and others. In this episode, it's Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC explores the meaning and benefits of presence. The guided art therapy experiential offers an opportunity to experience presence and how it can energize your body, mind, and spirit.

Let's explore the dance that we’ve all done when we find ourselves in situations that we can’t control and yet still feel committed to sticking with and through the uncertainty. In this episode, it's Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC explores the benefits and reasons why learning how to let go and hold on can serve your health and wellness. The guided art therapy experiential gives you the chance to notice what it feels like to assist you in having greater discernment about what you need.

This episode is all about love, in every form that it takes, from self-love, to our sacred connections, to the collective. In this episode, it's Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC intention that we tap into this deep power through awareness, reflection, and art. The guided art therapy experiential will help you feel love from the inside out.

This episode talks about the importance of exploring your agency and personal sovereignty with regards to feeling resilient and living a life that is true to you and your possibilities. Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC explores the 3 most important factors that help you work on your agency and sovereignty. The guided art therapy experiential will help you assess your vitality and address any needs your energy has to give you more capacity for growth and healing.

When you're living through unprecedented times, it's typical to experience feeling afraid, overwhelmed, and alone. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, looks at the reasons why contribution is a powerful antidote and shares how her cancer experience helped her learn how to balance her need for self-care with her desire to be of service. The guided art therapy experiential will help you embody the power of contribution, both giving and receiving, as a way to enhance the therapeutic impact on your health, wellness, and wellbeing.

This episode is dedicated to restoring your energy reserves when life feels turbulent and you're living through extraordinary times. It's inspired by Maurice Sendak's book "Where the Wild Things Are". In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, discusses what rewilding is and how it can impact your health, wellness and wellbeing. The guided art therapy experiential that invites you to become Max, the main character from Where the Wild Things Are, to feel that connection to the natural world.

Learning how to trust and surrender are two essential components of feeling empowered. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, examines the nuances between the three ideas and how they work together. The guided art therapy experiential will help you notice your response to these words so that you can explore your relationship.

Change is something that is unavoidable in life. Sometimes we choose it, other times it comes as a surprise, or out of great need. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, talks about a model of change that can help you assess where you are at in the process as you navigate it. The guided art therapy experiential will help you release the pressure that often comes with change, whether you've chosen it or it's chosen you.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs can be a powerful tool for assessing and identifying what you need while also giving you the opportunity to feel gratitude for your evolution. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, discusses the 5 level system with a reflection for how it can relieve the inner critic. The guided art therapy experiential will support your ability to notice where you are at and how to respond with compassion.

Shedding is a conscious practice of releasing and letting go what no longer serves, a great practice to contemplate as the year comes to the end. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, discusses the various ways that you can welcome in this natural part of the life cycle, while sharing tips for doing so with compassion. The guided art therapy experiential will ease you into the practice.

There's some important distinctions between these two, knowing them can help your appreciation and gratitude practices grow.. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, highlights the nuances. The guided art therapy experiential is a unique twist on the loving kindness meditation to sew these two practices together.

Most of us tend to overlook the value that exhaling brings into our lives. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, highlights the good info about how our exhales serve us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The guided art therapy experiential incorporates the guidance for exhaling that Stephanie learned from research, combined with a relaxing visualization. 

The one thing that's a constant in life is change. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, unpacks the 4 distinct phases to enhance your ability to work with them, including highlighting what's needed to move from one to the next. The art therapy experiential uses the art-it-out, art-it-in method to help you express and find validation for your feelings, so that you can think more clearly about what you need.

Living with intention involves being mindful of what drives you, the energy of gripping and savoring can shine a light as to what's happening inside. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, unpacks what can drive us to hold on tight and how savoring life can ease tension. The art therapy experiential offers a guided visualization inspired by a trust fall to help you explore what this energy feels like inside.

How we communicate understandably impacts our relationships, including the one we have with ourselves. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, highlights the intersection between communication styles, self-worth, and boundaries. The art therapy experiential offers a guided visualization to help you differentiate how you feel inside when conversations are constructive, vs when they've gone poorly.

Love has the ability to transform our lives when we allow it. Love teaches us how strong and capable we are when we least expect it. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, highlights how experiencing and exchanging love together supports us individually and collectively. The art therapy experiential offers a guided visualization to help you see, feel, and tap into the power of love anytime you feel like you need a boost of that vibration in your life.

Somedays the best we can do is to give ourselves a time out so that we can reset our focus and thoughts. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, highlights the healing power of forest bathing and how it can help you reset. The art therapy experiential offers a guided visualization into the forest, because sometimes we can’t get to the actual woods and yet imagining that you are there still benefits you.

Thanks to a listener's request, we're diving into the relationship between yourself and your projects. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, explores how you can streamline your growth and healing efforts by raising awareness of what pressure, anxiety, and blocks are trying to tell you. The art therapy experiential invites you to find your footing once again, so that you can more forward with greater ease.

Each and every one of us has experienced moments in which we were overwhelmed and didn't know what to do. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, discusses what spiritual bypassing is, it's connection to burnout, and how art therapy can help you take a mindful break from distress. The art therapy experiential is inspired by Dumbledore's pensive, with the hope that it will help you unburden.

Tension is a sign that something is needing your attention. And while it's understandable that you might want to resolve it quickly,  there's value in learning to live with it while you seek to understand its message. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, discusses the psychological perspective on tension and how laughter can help you find reprieve without dismissing your feelings. The art therapy experiential is a playful take on getting relief, so check it out.

We all know that when we feel like we belong to a group, this helps us to feel a sense of place in the world. However, it's easy to overlook how valuable it is to belong to the most important person in your life, yourself. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, discusses why this is so influential and how to create a roadmap for cultivating a healthy connection to yourself through the 5 principles of belonging. The art therapy experiential will help you explore one of these prinicples, creating an internal sense of security.

When the unexpected happens, you can feel caught off guard and under a lot of pressure to course correct. Yet there's a lot of benefit you can receive from the lessons you didn't plan for if you can find a way to unpack them. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, discusses the emotional impact of being blindsided and how you can respond with greater resilience if you harness the power of influence. The art therapy experiential will help you check in with yourself and tap into your creative wisdom of how to take care of yourself no matter what curveballs you face.

Tension and stress can cause us to close up or shut down, which can interfere with healthy transitions and your resilience. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, shares how she came to terms with her own need to work with the energy of softening, it's psychological meaning and benefits. The art therapy experiential introduces you to a method of softening the tension you feel inside through a guided visualization of meditating with flowers.

 Acceptance is a critical component of breaking up with the patterns that make us feel stuck. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, discusses some of the concept of the repetition compulsion and how therapy can help you sort through this often frustrating cycle towards acceptance, which gives you more capability to choose your way. The art therapy experiential introduces you to a method of accepting yourself, just as you are, and then inviting in the energy that can help you move towards a direction that feels more aligned with your needs and desires.

Setting goals is an important part of transform your life and personal growth. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, discusses some of the pitfalls that come with traditional goal setting practices and suggests that perhaps we can be more successful if we approach goal setting from a place of reverence and respect. The art therapy experiential encourages you to discover how to transform the relationship between yourself, your goals, and your heart as a way to actualize this idea.

It's human nature to compare ourselves to others, but if you rely on it for self-motivation, in the long run it's likely to do more harm than good. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, discusses the effect of comparison, the benefit of it in small doses, and how to turn to curiosity and creativity to fuel your desire for growth. The art therapy experiential guides you through a process of self-reflection on how comparison impacts you and then helps you to visualize it flowing away so that you can listen to your creative wisdom.

Discomfort pushes our buttons because it brings uncertainty and the potential for a loss of control, which understandably is very tricky to sit with. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, talks about how the brain is wired to keep us safe and why discomfort can set off alarm bells unnecessarily. The art therapy experiential guide you through the process of sitting with the feeling of discomfort and using art, music, and movement to practice decreasing it's energetic hold so that you can listen to what it has to say.

Cellular meditation is a practice of self-care that embodies the belief that you can heal and grow one cell at a time. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, shares the story of how this practice evolved from reading the Biology of Belief by Dr. Bruce Lipton during her cancer treatment. The art therapy experiential guide you through the process of connecting to "what is" and "what's needed" to support your health and wellbeing.

In honor of Pride month and Juneteenth, we explore the importance of identity congruence on your health and wellness. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, explains what exactly this is, how your subjective experience and environment contributes or challenges your ability to feel congruent, and how it relates to your self-worth and capacity to show up in life. The art therapy experiential helps you to explore times when you've felt in sync and out of sync within yourself, giving you an opportunity to explore, reflect, and discern what's needed to support your health and wellbeing.

Existential dilemmas are one of those factors of life that no one is immune from, yet they can wreak a lot of havoc in our lives if we don't figure out how to work with them. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, explains what existential dilemmas are and how the concepts of finite and infinite can help you ease your processing of how they're impacting your life. The art therapy experiential helps you to explore your reaction to these words and imagine how it would feel to flow more naturally between them.

There's a strong correlation between your voice + your throat chakra. When your throat chakra is open, communication flows more easily. When it's blocked, not only can your communication falter, but you can feel a stagnancy settle over your life. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discusses how our throat chakras get blocked, common symptoms you might experience, and how music and art can work together for healing. The art therapy experiential helps you to go inside and observe what's happening, right here, right now.

There's experiences in life that touch upon universal themes of what it means to be alive. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discusses how you can approach reflection and inquiry using the Hero's Journey to glean insight and meaning from your experiences. The art therapy experiential helps you see the Hero's Journey in your own life, through the lens of positive psychology. May it serve you well!

Grief and gratitude are two feelings that often co-exist with one another, and yet, more often than not it's easy to find yourself feeling conflicted and in a power struggle. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discusses how listening to your heart can bring a more natural ebb and flow between the two. The art therapy experiential helps you tune into your heart and it's messages through visualization. May it serve you well!

Your mental load is so much more than a to-do list that feels impossible to contain. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discusses exactly what the concept of mental load is and why it can be tricky to balance it. Then, practice letting go a bit with the art therapy experiential that helps you take a break from your mental load through the metaphor of drifting.

Toxic positivity happens when you, or someone you know, responds to difficult sitiuations and feelings with the belief that you must stay strong and only see the good. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discusses why we can fall into this trap and how art therapy can serve as a way to express your feelings with more ease. The art therapy experiential will guide you through a meditation on acceptance as inspiration as using creativity as a way to communicate and respond to your feelings, emotions, or sensations in a new way.

Your emotional intelligence (EQ) impacts every aspect of your life, whether it's your personal goals, your relationships, or how you navigate the ups and downs of life. The good news is, this is something that you can always work on. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discusses the 4 pillars of emotional intelligence and the traits that you can use to support your EQ work. You'll use art therapy to experience your emotions in an embodied way, and visualization to explore a difficult moment as well as something you're grateful for. 

Acts of courage come in all shapes and sizes, and they can have a significant impact on your health and wellness. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discusses the behind-the-scenes work you can do internally to get mentally and emotionally prepared to make your next bold move. Using Mary Oliver's poem, The Jounrey, for inspiration, Stephanie will guide you to use art to explore what comes up when you imagine being courageous and what you need to feel capable. 

Poignant moments can reveal so much about who you are, where you've been, and where you're going, especially if you take the time to work with them. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discusses how these moments are made up of anniversaries, markers, and milestones and combs through the nuances between them.You'll use art therapy to tell the story of a poignant moment in your life and how it impacts your identity and relationships with others and the world around you. 

This show highlights the book, The 4 Tendencies, by Gretchen Rubin, which explores the ways your personality responds to internal and external expectations. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, describes each tendency and how you could use art therapy for personal growth and goals related to your personality. You'll be guided through a loving kindness meditation, an excellent way to approach collaboration with yourself and others, which serves as the inspiration of your art therapy practice this week. 

In a follow up to last week's shadow work episode, Stephanie opens up the importance of looking at how you motivate yourself, so that you can strengthen your self-leadership skills. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discussed how to move away from pressure and force towards self-worth and empowerment to get what you want out of life.You'll use art therapy to increase insight and awareness about how you lead yourself.

Shadow work is how to be inclusive of the parts of yourself you reject so that you be your whole self. The shadow offers lessons and gifts that can super charge your personal growth and healing. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discusses what the shadow is and how to work with it. The art therapy experiential is a gentle way to welcome in the unwelcome and create the opportunity for communication with all parts of yourself.

There's times in our life when our hearts are heavy and we are tired. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discusses how to work with this challenge so that you can get respite. Inspired by Brené Brown's work, be guided to use art therapy invite in relaxation, rest, and play to balance out your energy. 

Determination, perseverance, and creativity are the building blocks that you can use to move from feeling stuck towards a path of healing and growth. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, discusses this relationship and how you can use it as a mantra and a practice of finding your way through life. Be guided to use art therapy to tap into your intuition to determine what you need to persevere, using the power of creativity to give yourself what you need. 

When you are centered, you are anchored to yourself in a way that promotes a sense of equilibrium even when it feels like things are falling apart. In this episode, Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, an art therapist and breast cancer survivor, explores how everyday tasks can help you to get centered and the three step process you can learn to master. Be guided to use art therapy to deepen your centering practice.