1:1 Coaching
by Sasha Tivetsky
Unblocked: Working through creative blockages with a strong self-consent practice
Boundaries + Your Business
I would highly recommend doing Unblocked and Boundaries + Your Business coaching as a 3-month coaching program.
See pricing.
Unblocked: Working through creative blockages with a strong self-consent practice
7-Week Class in April 2024 or 1:1 Coaching on your schedule. Available in 8 week and 3 month packages.
“I can’t summon connection down from the ether and expect it to land in my lap. But I can do everything in my power to create a welcoming environment for it when it does decide to show up.”
— Kae Tempest, On Connection
Consent + Creativity: an Unexpected Link
When I started this work back in 2019, I felt my life rapidly changing. Learning about consent drastically altered my relationship with myself and others, and deepened my relationship with my body. This all made sense to me. What did surprise me, though, was my relationship with my creativity.
As I sat with friends over a potluck dinner this past week, at the home of my dog’s puppy’s human (my dog had puppies before I adopted her and I serendipitously found one of the puppies at the dog park last year), we all talked about our relationships to creativity and flow.
“For me, it’s been about consent. Letting my current self to say no to a past self that gave me a todo list. If I trust that the desire will come and stay open to feeling the creative impulse, then if it’s not there, I allow myself to say no,” I said.
In order to play, explore, and create, we have to feel safe. Having a personal consent practice has given me a more compassionate relationship with my creativity that has made it easier to find flow because I don’t force it. I travel with my sense of safety, knowing that I can feel my desires and needs, ask for them—from myself, from my creative force, from a divine source—and handle whatever answer I get.
That said, I value ritual which I define as—and I may be absorbing some of Brooke Herr’s definition as well (if you don’t know their work I highly recommend checking them out)—routine with meaning. Ritual brings discipline, which is distinct from punishment. For example, I write in my journal every morning. This means that even on days when I don’t do any other form of writing, I’m still ‘a writer.’ I’m not suggesting that if someone doesn’t write everyday, they’re not a writer; I’m saying that for me, this practice has helped me maintain that particular sense of my self.
Beyond this, there’s also the issue of wanting-to-want to do something, or wanting to be at the end of a process but not wanting the process. For example, I want to be good at guitar but I don’t always want to practice. I want to have the ceramics that I imagine in my mind, but I don’t want to get my hands wet and cold. I’ve written pretty extensively on that here.
Some consent practices for creativity:
Only allow yourself 5 minutes to create/write/play music and then teach your body that you can hold that boundary by actually stopping.
Pick up the guitar. Hold it. Feel what it feels like. / Open the document and just look at it. / Pick up the paintbrush and notice what it feels like in your hand. Do nothing else.
Instead of asking yourself, “Is it good?” ask, “Do I like it?”
Make dumb shit. Make something for no reason that is totally stupid. I wrote a song about it.
Specificity is a creative muscle.
Is this for you?
This program is for artists, musicians, creatives, writers. It’s for people looking to deepen or return to their creative practice and for those looking to embark on one for the first time.
“Craft is the thing you develop while you’re waiting for connection to show up.”
— Kae Tempest, On Connection
If you:
struggle with people-pleasing tendencies in your work
feel a codependent relationship with your art (“People need this from me so I will give and give and give”)
feel guilt or shame about making money with your art
struggle to find motivation to create
don’t know where to start or when to stop
want to make more money from your art
want to find a sacred relationship with play
want to find a more easeful relationship with your authenticity and creative self-expression
grapple with your ego as an artist and want to believe what you have is worth sharing with the world without feeling like an arrogant shithead
This is a trauma-informed, neurodiversity-aware course that takes into account the reality of the Capitalist system we live and create within.
What will we be doing?
This program will give you practice tools to access your creativity, work through perfectionism, mythbust the idea that making money off your work makes you a baaaaaaad evil Capitalist, and help you find or reconnect with your voice.
This is a hybrid live & recorded class. You’ll receive recordings of my Practice Saying No class and my Nonverbals class (a $150 value) before we begin. We will be working from my workbook Boundaries + Consent for People Pleasers in conjunction with the Unblocked workbook.
Session 1: Perfectionism
Session 2: People Pleasing
Session 3: Inner Critic
Session 4: Imposter Syndrome
Session 5: Your Voice
Session 6: Asking for What You Want
Session 7: Share your work!!! Invite your friends!
Consent and boundary knowledge can help you find evermore nuance and subtlety in your communication. It gives more options, expands structure, and opens up space for creativity.
What you can expect from this course:
a deep dive into your blockages
a magnifying glass up to the ways you may keep yourself small. Perfectionism, anyone?
a thorough examination of your self-sabotaging strategies
exercises to help create the environment in which creativity can flourish
a concrete, structured approach to your creative practice centered around consent with yourself
Read what people are saying about these classes.
“A creative connection brings a person closer to themselves when they have started to drift. ”
— Kae Tempest, On Connection
Wrestling with My Ego
In 2017 I did a ceramics residency in Japan. I was staying in an idyllic town, surrounded by cherry blossoms that bloomed and died in a warm snow storm-esque flurry of petals everywhere, and all I had to do was make ceramics. But I was more stressed than I’ve ever been in my life.
I chewed up my lip and the inside of my cheek until it bled. I couldn’t stop. I had brought a book on Jewish meditation with me and was journaling and meditating everyday, but all I could think about was my ego as an artist. How could I possibly believe that what I had to say and make was worth anyone else’s time, and yet, if I didn’t, who would? I had to kill my ego so I could believe in myself.
I’m proud to say that now I am my biggest cheerleader, my biggest champion. I am on my own team. I believe what I’m making is important and needs to be put out into the world. I rarely feel my guilt flare, and I have tools to move through it. I recognize that sure, I could create art in my closet and never share it with anyone, but who would that benefit? I no longer believe that by sharing my work, I take any space, time, or energy from anyone else; I believe that by sharing my art, I may give permission to others to share theirs.
Are other people judging you, or is it past versions of you?
Boundaries + Your Business Coaching
Available in 8 week and 3 month packages.
Loving your craft means you should get paid more for it, not less.
Dear self-employed healers, artists, practitioners, mental health professionals, freelancers, organizers, and activists,
Are you caught in the hamster wheel of capitalism and urgency? Are you merely surviving and want to thrive? Let’s bring in a new era of ethical leadership where we, the healers, activists, and artists, set the standard for being resourced and in doing so, give others permission to do the same.
You set out to live your purpose. Do you find yourself thinking, “This is not it?” You can achieve your vision. It starts with your ability to ask for what you want with confidence.
Asking for what you want is part of self-advocacy. When you move through the world with an embodied sense of “I’ve got this, no matter what,” you call in aligned people and aligned work because you are in alignment with your own values.
This shit is fucking with your money and it's time to make a change. You are worth more than what you are charging. If you struggle to know your worth, have a hard time valuing your energy, and want to feel resourced so you can access ease and pleasure, I am here to help.
Come practice with me.
“Are you making enough money to live your values? We are dreaming a new economy of care into being when we’re willing to thrive and support each other in thriving.”
— Dez Davis
This container is intended for those who are or want to be self-employed, are healers, coaches, artists, freelancers, practitioners, mental health professionals, those who are looking for more creativity and sustainability in their work, and those who are in career transitions.
Are you taking on projects that feel misaligned? Do you feel like you can’t stop working? Do you feel like you’re headed for burnout in your work life? Are you feeling creatively unfulfilled in your work? This class is for you.
We will practice saying no to projects that don’t align, we’ll set and negotiate rates, I’ll share my brand manual and marketing funnel, we’ll mythbust the idea that if you love what you do you shouldn’t make money from it and the idea that making money is the same as being a capitalist. We will brainstorm offerings that feel gratifying and sustainable, talk about your voice, how to find it, and where it can go, and fight the impulse to offer everything to everyone in favor of finding your unique niche. This work has proven again and again to make myself and others more money while staying within your capacity and loving what you do.
There’s magic in desire. Asking for what you want is the spell.
“Mia’s program needs to be a requirement for businesses starters. It gave me the language, frameworks and somatic tools to state and live my boundaries with confidence and care.”
— Kuan Lo
Commissions + Working Together
I’m interested in collaborating on:
music
theater
writing
performance
TV
film
ceramics in certain visual/fine art contexts (not retail/wholesale)
Contact me with details about a project or commission. I’m based in Los Angeles and frequently in New York.