Group coaching / Creative community / Guided art practice
Feb – April 2020
What is Fruition?
Fruition is three months of creative community, coaching, structure, accountability, momentum, wild fun and real change. It’s for ten people who are ready to dive deeper and do the inner work, with a group of peers to motivate, witness and hold space for them.
What do you want to bring to fruition in your life?
This is the question we will ask every time we meet. We will draw, dance, sing, summon spirits and share breakthroughs. We will support each other as we move through resistance. We will remind each other of the progress we’ve made.
No want is too big or too small. Want to write a poem? Want to learn how to cook? Want to start a revolution? Want to feel as confident as you felt at 9 years old? Want to find out what you really want? All excellent aims.
Something magical happens when we gather together to say it out loud. We express our will and in the expression, we strengthen it. We summon confidence. We move through our fears instead of pushing them away. We sync up with our power, internally and collectively.
Transformation isn’t easy. How many times have you tried to overcome something in your life only to revert to the same pattern, over and over? You KNOW the pattern, you WANT to change… but you watch it playing out again.
The work of this group is a creative process for changing that pattern, for dissolving that block for real. What are you capable of once you can feel your true nature, running through you from your head to your heart to your toes?
Artistic skill does not matter. The words you use don’t matter. Whether or not you can draw a straight line doesn’t matter. Doing it perfectly or even well doesn’t matter. There is no right way to do it — what matters is YOU doing the work, little by little, day after day.
Doing the work is hard in isolated bubbles. That’s why group exploration is so powerful: the work is easier to do together.
What Fruition is not
Fruition is not goal setting or advice or step by step rules for you to follow. It’s not positive thinking or spiritual bypassing or pretending that every obstacle can be overcome in your mind. It’s not closing your eyes and wishing. It’s not denying that there are forces beyond your control. It’s not manifest destiny.
We acknowledge reality, including setbacks and trauma and systemic injustice. We acknowledge that sometimes, life sucks.
We can’t control it: but we are a participant in it.
We can use our imaginations to change the way we see reality; to play with it; to align with our dreams. This is not whimsical or passive — it is incredibly powerful.
We acknowledge the power of our imaginations, and we use that power actively.
Fruition is sideways, hilarious, intuitive, counter-intuitive catnip for connecting with your REAL decider, the inner child who is chilling out down there in your unconscious saying YES or NO. We’ll get her on board with your conscious mind. We’ll start noticing the tiny quicksilver signals she is sending to you all day and night — signaling what she wants, and how to get it.
Will you get whatever it is you want to bring to fruition? I have no freaking clue. Will you have a blast trying? Will SOMETHING come to fruition? Will you bloom and grow? All signs point to YES.
Fruition is for you if…
… you watch someone onstage and think, I could do that and I could do it better
… you hate to do lists, goals and five year plans
… you have a book of poems you’ve been wanting to write for 20 years
… you feel incapable and unsure but you know deep down you’re a badass
… you’ve been lost in caregiving and you are ready to scream
… you’re stalled out in research mode and ready to start DOING
… you want to get back to the confidence you felt as a kid
… you want to feel that sense of MAGIC and PLAY in your life again
By the end of April you will be…
… Connected to yourself and to a COMMUNITY
… DOING what you want to do instead of thinking about it
… MOVING through your feelings instead of bottling them up and avoiding them
… Sharing and bringing your inner self out into the WORLD
… Surrounded by people who really SEE you and what you are doing
… Deeply CONNECTED to your creative life
… Actively using your imagination as a tool for CHANGE
… SECURE in your process and the journey you are on
… Dealing with whatever it is you wanted to bring to FRUITION
The haiku version:
COMMUNITY
DOING + MOVING
WORLD SEE CONNECTED
CHANGE
SECURE
FRUITION
Schedule & syllabus
There are TWO cohorts available. Each meets six times over three months in my magical art garage in north Portland (St. Johns neighborhood). Both will also participate in an online forum where we can share progress, ideas and breakthroughs between sessions. Both culminate in a community celebration on Sun May 10 from 2-5pm.
TUESDAY COHORT meets every other Tuesday from 1-3 pm (Feb 11, Feb 25, March 10, March 31, April 14, April 28) [registration closed]
WEDNESDAY COHORT meets every other Wednesday from 10am-noon (Feb 19, March 4, March 18, April 1, April 15, April 29) [registration closed]
Fruition Syllabus // what we cover in our six sessions together
- Trust in the dark: unearthing what is deep in our unconscious
- A tiny sprout: tender shoots, taking first steps & loving shitty first drafts
- Into the woods: the troll under the bridge
- To the lighthouse: beacons, sunrise, the champions that call to us
- In bloom: using metaphors to radically re-imagine our worlds
- Shine like a star: bask, flex, brag, share your journey
Ready to join?
The cost is three installments of $99/month, or one payment up front of $250. You can register by clicking below. Limited subsidized spots are available if cost is an insurmountable obstacle.
Registration is now closed — new round to be announced!
Who am I?
My name is Faith Helma, and I am a life coach, creative guide, artist and teacher. I have 20 years experience leading groups, teaching creative exercises and training artists to work through fear and inhabit their bodies with confidence.
Before I was a coach I worked with Portland theatre company Hand2Mouth, creating charged multimedia performances about big unanswerable questions.
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- 2009
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- 2007
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- 2005
After my first son was born, I couldn’t figure out how to balance parenthood with the kind of artistic life I’d had before, and this led to an initiatory year of self-excavation. I thought of myself as a failed art star. I had all these random, super specific skills like how to sing in polyphonic harmony that were helping me survive my rough transition into motherhood but seemed useless otherwise. I was casting about for guidance wherever I could find it: I embraced zumba, hypnosis, therapy, tarot, even (gasp) life coaching as tools to help me find my footing. I read everything I could find by Martha Beck, Lynda Barry and Byron Katie.
I ultimately realized that there were other words for these random skills I had: active listening, facilitation, coaching. I saw a throughline that had always been there in my years in theater: an instinct to get everyone singing and moving, to pull everyone into the action, to help people learn to love their voices and bodies and use them powerfully.
I also saw that for all the ways I’d followed that instinct, I’d also been avoiding it.
For the first time, I started to ask myself what I wanted. I was 36 years old and hadn’t stopped to ask myself that before! To really ask, and sit with the answers.
I sent a year making a one-woman show called I Hate Positive Thinking, to give myself space and structure to pursue that question, to work through my resistance to the self-help industry, and to give myself a platform to practice stepping into a coaching role. That show helped me bridge the gap from pretending to do something to doing it for real. Over the course of a year, I went from calling myself a “coach” in air quotes to working with clients and developing workshops for real.
For the last five years, I’ve been coaching people one-on-one and in groups, honing my craft, and reading, listening and learning from as many other coaches, therapists and practitioners as I can. I have done this while raising two small kids (now six and two). I have consciously chosen not to pursue life coach certification, so that I can focus all my attention on learning by doing.
I am a work in progress. I am a practitioner. This is a practice. I reject the terms expert, authority, genius, master, guru. I embrace the terms practitioner, facilitator, questioner, author, co-creator, scenius, democracy and community.
Testimonials
“What has stuck with me the most about working with Faith is that I am not alone. That there are other brave creatives also undertaking creative and magical journeys.”
“The practice of metaphorizing critical thoughts was creative, powerful and transformative. The workout kept me going at a steady pace, like having a jogging partner, while my creative practice grew and I strengthened my connection to my inner voice. Faith infuses this work with her contagious creative enthusiasm, spontaneity and curiosity about the mysteries of life. She guides with non-judgment, humor and gentle support.”
“Thank you for a phenomenal creative and energetic experience!”
“I keep returning to the work I did with Faith in 2015 around failure. Every time I get stuck I always recall our work together. Faith’s creative exercises got me through it. In fact, I was working on my new show today, and I got stuck. I said to my collaborator, let’s create a shitty first draft, then throw it away. Of course, it’s the draft we stuck with! There’s so much power in that.”
Faith Helma: Creative Guide 