We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paula Gasparini-Santos a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Paula, thanks for joining us today. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

The kindest thing anyone has ever done for me is have the courage and love to call me out on my blind spots. He was a dear friend in College, at a time that I was navigating and finding my way in the world. Instead of blindly supporting me, he challenged me when he would hear me make choices out of alignment with myself, he would invite me to self reflect, and he would shine a light in the places I wasn’t showing up as my best self. It wasn’t kind in terms of the definition we usually associate to kindness, but it was the kindest thing someone has ever done for me and shaped the woman I am today. Because of this friend’s courage to have the hard conversations with me, I walked a path in life that got me to everything I identify with today. I see loving honesty as the kindest act he gave me, that changed and shaped the woman I am today.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m Paula Gasparini-Santos. I identify as an immigrant artist and mental health coach born in Brazil. I earned my MA in clinical mental health and art therapy from Naropa University. My artwork brings together creativity, poetry, and psychological research and acts as a tool for personal development, and community engagement. In my paintings, I blend words into colorful backgrounds evoking universal messages about humanity and self-awareness as well as philosophies about life, love, and faith. Like my private practice, I utilize my art as a platform for dialogue and as an invitation to look deeper, ask questions, and find liberation from our narrated experiences of life. In my art and my mental health work with clients, I am passionate about inviting in people curiosity and openness so that there is a potential of something shifting inside them, and subsequently that shift bringing about a wholeness and grounded-ness inside their human experience.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

A million times yes. I would choose what I do every day. I think the only thing I would do differently if I could go back is trust myself sooner, take leaps into working with clients the way I believe is best.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I used to work as a mental health counselor at agencies. It was fulfilling, meaningful, and important work. However I found the clinical restrictions difficult to work through and I felt that I could impact clients in a more substantial way if I build my own practice. I now work as a mental health coach, bringing together my creativity, my trauma training, my psychology background into a place that clients come to get results within months. I am more direct in my support now, bringing challenge, openers, and insight into a space of healing what the world brings to people.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.PaulaGasparini-Santos.com
• Instagram: @gdosart
• Other: Fresh Start Therapy, Longmont, CO, 80501

Image Credits
Elliot Whitehead IG @elliot.whitehead and Anna Fischer IG @a.n.n.a.f.i.s.c.h.e.r