A Collage based Mental Health Workshop where participants will focus on visualizing a part of ourselves that feels difficult to sit with and learning skills to follow our intuition to ground ourselves.
Participants will briefly be taught about the Vagus nerve, a part of our nervous system that alerts us of difficult emotions and techniques for calming it with a focus on collage. We will discuss the various ways individuals can use collage as a calming and processing outlet based on our various senses (sight, touch, sound). I will present a collage I have made to dissect how it has helped me as a Neurodivergent griever. Participants will get to walk away with prompts to create their own collage and practice it as a processing outlet, as well as additional resources such as a grounding technique workbook, a sheet on calming the vagus nerve and a Feelings Wheel. Participants will get to debrief by writing a note to that part of themself on the back of the collage.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify the Vagus Nerve and its responses.
- Describe how and why collage is a multifaceted tool for processing and calming the Vagus Nerve.
- Collect resources to begin their own collage journey and prompts to utilize what they learned.
Ashley Marie Lagrange (they)
Ashley Lagrange is a Queer Neurodivergent Fat Black Dominican American Nonbinary Femme. They’re a Pre-licensed Therapist and Collage Artist born and raised in Queens, New York. Ashley began writing and using imagery to create an archive of the self in their journals. They began collaging as a pastime craft turned coping skill while recovering from self-injurious behavior. Ashley is passionate about the collective Liberation of all LGBTQIA+ identifying folks through the power of radical vulnerability, self-reflection, and community connection. Ashley seeks to guide folks through their emotional processing through a community-based lens that honors individual experience.
Contact:
Venmo: AshleyLagrange
Zelle: Alagrange1218@aol.com
Paypal: @AshleyL1218