Creative Energies Studio

07/10/2026

✨ Our little team is growing! ✨

I’m incredibly excited to officially welcome Sarah Bartel to Creative Energies Studio as our new Support Coordinator. 💛

And genuinely, I wouldn’t want anyone else.

Some of you may have already seen Sarah around Creative Energies Studio. In her work as a Capacity Building Support Worker, Sarah has already worked alongside some of our therapeutic participants, helping them take the insights, strategies and skills developed within the therapy space and integrate them into everyday life. Because if there’s one thing Sarah is passionate about, it’s building capacity.

Sarah brings several years of experience across the disability and community sector, along with formal training in Support Coordination, a Certificate III in Individual Support and a Certificate IV in Small Business Management.

She’s also a mum, visual artist, musician and creative human, with a long history in the arts, community projects and creative enterprise. And all of those different parts of Sarah come together in the way she works with people.

She is warm, outgoing, practical, organised, creative and an excellent problem-solver. She believes strongly in seeing the person before the disability, listening first, and working alongside people rather than unnecessarily doing things for them.

In Sarah’s words, good Support Coordination means “putting the participant firmly in the driver’s seat.”

Sarah also brings a particularly valuable skill set to our work in employment supports. With her background spanning disability support, the arts, community participation and small business, she has a wonderful ability to identify people’s strengths and interests and think outside the box about where those could lead. Whether that means employment, developing new skills, greater community participation or exploring opportunities they may never have considered possible.

There really is no one quite like Sarah. She brings her own combination of creativity, humour, warmth, lived experience, practical know how and genuine passion for seeing people build confidence, independence and lives that are meaningful to them.

I’m ridiculously excited to have her beside me as Creative Energies Studio moves into its next chapter.

💛 Welcome to the team, Sarah! 💛

24/09/2026

22/09/2026

The space between “us” and “me” can be a strange place to find yourself. 🤍

When a relationship ends, we don’t only grieve the person.

We can grieve the future we imagined, the routines and rituals we shared, the version of ourselves that existed within that relationship, and sometimes even the place we once called home.

And yet, the end of a relationship doesn’t necessarily mean the love disappears.

Sometimes healing isn’t about forcing ourselves to stop loving someone, forgetting what mattered, or convincing ourselves that none of it was real. Sometimes it’s about learning to hold what was meaningful while gently creating space for what comes next.

There can be a period in between where you don’t quite recognise yourself yet.

Who am I outside of “us”?
What do I want now?
What feels like mine?
What do I carry forward, and what am I finally ready to put down?

At Creative Energies Studio, we support people moving through these transitional spaces.

Through an integrated approaches of expressive and emotionally focused therapy, we can explore grief and loss, identity, attachment, boundaries, nervous system regulation, rebuilding trust in yourself, and the sometimes messy process of creating a life that feels like your own again.

You don’t have to erase the chapter you’ve lived to begin another one.

Sometimes the work is learning to carry the love, integrate the lessons, and find home within yourself again.

If you’re navigating the transition from relationship to being on your own and would like some support along the way, you’re welcome to reach out. 🌿

Creative Energies Studio
The intersection of arts and health.

FindingYourself Counselling HealingAfterRelationships StartingAgain

21/09/2026

Well… the grant application is officially in 😂

For the past 3–4 weeks, Sarah from Through the Makers Window and I have taken an idea for a community arts project and somehow turned it into a fully developed Arts Queensland grant application.

In true Sherryn/ADHD Frank fashion, we did it at the last minute and learned an enormous amount along the way. And apparently Lord Frank can now add grant writer to the résumé 😂

But the part I didn’t expect was how humbling and grounding the process would be.

Going back through years of artwork, community projects, workshops and creative practice gave both of us a chance to stop and really see how much we’ve done, how much we’ve grown, and how much creativity has stayed with us through all the ups and downs of life.

I’m really proud of what we submitted, and honestly, even if the grant isn’t successful, that reflection alone has been worth it.

Here’s a little snapshot of some of my work from the last decade and a bit.

And as always with art, you don’t have to understand what it means.

Sometimes you just have to trust the process.

The outcome is a bonus 💛

16/06/2026

Supporting those who have served. 🇦🇺

Creative Energies Studio is proud to offer counselling support for veterans, current serving Defence members, and their families. Whether you’re navigating stress, anxiety, trauma, life transitions, or simply need someone to talk to, support is available.

As a recognised Defence Health provider, eligible members may be able to claim a rebate for counselling sessions through their extras cover.

Appointments available:
✨ Face-to-face in Central Gympie
✨ Telehealth Australia-wide
✨ Phone and video appointments

You don’t have to face it alone. Support that understands is just a conversation away.

📞 0421 707 814
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.creativeenergies.com.au

VeteranWellbeing CreativeEnergiesStudio TelehealthCounselling

20/04/2026

Ever notice how your brain can go from 0 to chaos in about 3 seconds flat?

Yeah… same 😅

This is your reminder:
You don’t have to believe every thought that pops into your head.

Pause.
Notice it.
Watch it like it’s just… passing through.

Because you’re not your thoughts—
you’re the one observing them.

And that tiny shift?
It’s where calm starts to creep back in.

22/09/2025

✨ Emotions Speak Through the Body ✨

Emotions & Somatic Cues:
• Sadness → Heaviness, fatigue, lump in the throat, drooping face
• Anger → Hot, flushed face, tension, racing heart, clenched jaw/fists
• Fear → Fight-or-flight, shortness of breath, frozen, wide eyes
• Disgust → Nausea, stomach churning, scrunched face
• Joy → Warmth in chest, lightness, energy, flushed cheeks
• Surprise → Breathless, jumpy, jaw drop, raised eyebrows
• Jealousy → Pit in stomach, racing heart, on edge
• Shame → Hot face, lowered eyes, sunken posture, drooping shoulders
• Calm → Steady breath, grounded, relaxed posture, ease.

💡 Your body is speaking. Listen with curiosity, not judgment.

18/09/2025

😂 Friday Funny (with a truth bomb) 😂

When your therapist says:
“Just notice it in your body…”

…and suddenly you’re aware of:
👉 18 random aches
👉 6 suspicious twitches
👉 3 stomach growls you swear weren’t there before

Welcome to embodiment. 😅

Here’s the thing though, the body really does hold emotions.
That tight jaw, heavy chest, or knot in the stomach?
They’re signals. Not random. Not “just in your head.”

And when we bring awareness to them,
we can move them, shift them, and let them pass through, even if we don’t know exactly what they are.

That’s the gift of embodiment: you don’t always need the story.
Sometimes the body just needs space to release.

💡 And yes, laughter helps too. Because healing doesn’t have to be heavy all the time.

Happy Friday, friends 🌿💜

17/09/2025

🌱 Hope isn’t certainty… it’s possibility. 🌱

Hope doesn’t demand that you know how it will all work out.
It doesn’t need guarantees or perfect plans.
It lives in the quiet “maybe.”
The whisper of “what if things could be different?”

Hope shows up in small ways:
✨ Reaching out again after disappointment
✨ Planting seeds you’re not sure will grow
✨ Letting yourself imagine something good
✨ Believing that healing is possible, even if it’s slow

👉 Fear says: “Don’t hope, it’ll hurt too much if it doesn’t happen.”
👉 Hope replies: “Yes, it might hurt… but what if it also brings life back to me?”

Hope is the courage to hold space for both pain and possibility.
It doesn’t erase the struggle, it grows alongside it.

💭 Hope feels like:
• The soft glow on the horizon before the sun rises
• A breath of fresh air after being underwater
• The gentle warmth of “maybe this time will be different”

Hope doesn’t mean you won’t face setbacks.
It means you haven’t closed the door on what’s still to come.

✨ You don’t have to leap into certainty.
Just let hope flicker.
It’s enough.

💚 What’s one small hope you’re holding onto today?

16/09/2025

💫 Surprise isn’t always shock, sometimes it’s awe. 💫

It doesn’t always come crashing in.

Sometimes, Surprise is a pause in the breath.
A widened eye.
A “Wait… did that just happen?” moment that opens space for something new.

It can feel thrilling, but also unsettling.
Unexpected emotions rise up. Unexpected truths.
You might even feel your body jolt, not in fear, but in alertness.

Surprise is a threshold emotion.
It holds the in-between, before you know what to feel next.
It can lead you to joy, fear, laughter… or sometimes all three.

👉 Protective parts might say:
“Don’t get too excited. Don’t trust it. It might go away.”

But another part of you whispers:
“What if this is safe to feel? What if this is real?”

Surprise reminds us that not everything has to be planned.
That not all good things come from striving.
That healing can arrive in unexpected ways,
a phone call, a kind word, a moment of connection you didn’t see coming.

✨ Maybe you’re allowed to be caught off guard.
✨ Maybe it’s okay to enjoy something before you’ve earned it.
✨ Maybe it’s safe to let your guard down… just a little.

Because Surprise doesn’t just bring chaos…
It brings possibility.