Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelsay Myers

Hi Kelsay, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?

One of the aspects of my identity that has informed so much of who I am and how I move in the world is being surrendered at birth and flown across the world at three months old. I’ve come to think of it as somewhat like the photograph my parents captured of me taking my first steps around age 1. My arms are outstretched – reaching up – and there’s a look of pure joy on my face as the sun shines through the window in our family living room.

The photo not only captures my first steps, but my experiences as an adoptee. Growing up, I had a lot of support, love, joy, light and warmth in being able to experiment and figure out who I am, but that was tinged with the posture and longing of reaching up and out towards the unattainable: the unattainable birth mother, the unattainable knowledge of where I come from, and the lack of genetic mirroring in those early years of my life that created a need for reflection, recognition and the ability to see myself in others.

Like many older millennials of my generation, I sought out that reflection in actors, musicians and TV or literary characters that had qualities (sometimes physical but mostly personality-based) I aspired to. I learned to see my image in the images of celebrities and fictional characters. The one that I base much of my professional work off of is the character of Sabina in Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (and the movie based on it). The bowler hat was a powerful symbol and metaphor in Sabina’s life, and Kundera writes about the power of metaphor, words and their meanings in the novel at the literary and semantic level.

For Sabina, the bowler hat represents a time of freedom, power and sensuality in her life, and it also represents home, and the history of her father and grandfather who wore it before her. For me, it represents that freedom, power, sensuality, home AND the longing for mirroring, and the reflection of myself that I see in her image.

The work I do in expressive arts is about embodying metaphors for psychological healing, enacting different aspects of the self and working through them in dialogue, ritual, drawings or movements to integrate or complete the messages or stories they represent in the psyche. The arts offers another way of mirroring and reflecting the self back to us, and brings more layers of healing. In fact, I’ve found it brings out the deepest layers of healing. I not only offer this work to my clients, but I live and practice it as well.

Over the past few months, I took some time off from promoting my business to work on my own life/art poetry and dance movie. When people ask me why I spent so much time doing it? I admit, I am a bit puzzled because it’s so much a part of how I process and heal, not just what I do in my business. In order to heal myself, I go to express myself using the healing modalities I’ve been taught, studied and that I’ve trained extensively in. And just like my clients find healing in that space where the arts and their psyche meet, and their life and their art become ritual, I too am healed when I do my own life/art process.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

It hasn’t always been smooth, but I’ve learned to appreciate the challenges for their wisdom. Learning to live as much of my life as possible in the present has made a huge difference in how I see things and how I am able to be in the world.

I would say my biggest challenge was about committing to being in this world, which didn’t actually happen until 2019.

I realized in 2004 during my first year of college when I was away from my family that the absence of that support system had been my safety and belonging. On my own, without the genetic heritage and roots to really connect me to the world, I felt rootless. I had been able to adopt a home and security, but it didn’t follow me outside of that protective space. I spent the next 15 years learning how to become rooted, solid and strong in my own center, to connect myself to my lineage through the healing arts, and to finally be able to stand and walk on the ground rooted.

In 2019, the work of creating and reconnecting to those roots through a lot of somatic work, Reiki and other energy healing, and using my life/art process training to walk and take a stand from my core and feel into the ground in new ways led me to what I had wanted. I remember standing on the ground and feeling tethered in a way I hadn’t before. I thought: “This must be what it’s like for people who know their family origins.” Ever since I walk differently, more solidly. And after that I was able to really be in the world without any suicidal ideation or longing anymore. I am fully committed to being here in the present and have been for the last 5 years.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?

Dialogical Persona Healing Arts offers trauma healing, expressive arts, and personal empowerment coaching for bold hearts on the road to transformation, embodiment and self-expression. My work focuses on inner healing, health and wellness using the mythic self, wholeness and dialogue for trauma resolution and compassionate change.

Unlike other coaches or mental health professionals, I don’t have a step-by-step repeatable formula that I fit you into. I work with individuals and meet them where they’re at. I am trauma-informed and see my clients as the experts on themselves and their lives, so I co-create a program that is custom designed for each person’s lived experiences and intentions and dreams for themselves. I hold space and witness my clients, and if needed, guide and teach them to be more resourced and discover more aspects of who they are, so they can grow and expand into what they’ve been wanting.

Like life, it’s not always a smooth road, but it’s a better road than the one they’ve been on. I feel so honored that I get to witness people become more relaxed, at peace, find the ease or the joy they’ve been missing. I see them create businesses they’ve been longing to for years, or get inspired to make art or films or write books they didn’t have the confidence to before.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?

There are actually many childhood memories that are dear to me. One that has been coming to mind recently as I have just turned 40 is going to the Sleeping Bear Dunes with my parents and some elementary school friends and leaving them in the dust as I ran to the top. I’ve never been much of a fan of running because I don’t have the stamina, but for some reason, that trip I didn’t mind having the wind knocked out of me as I ran, climbed, and sifted through the sand dunes to get to the top by myself. I remember (and still love to this day) feeling the wind giving some resistance and blowing my hair around, and there was also the resistance of the sand. This memory has come up several times, and I’m still processing it, but there is something in that meeting the resistance, going off on my own to reach my destination (and still knowing I had my friends and family below me making the climb at their own pace), and challenging myself to do something I don’t even like to do that is important for me at this new era of my life too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dialogicalpersona.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dialogicalpersona
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DialogicalPersona
• Twitter: https://x.com/thebowlerhat
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kelsaymyers

Image Credits

Professional shots in multicolored wings and large gold bowler hat by Stephanie Mohan of Creative Portraiture, all others by Kelsay Elizabeth Myers