We were lucky to catch up with Meghan Nally recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Meghan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

When I was beginning my internship experience in my creative arts therapy counseling graduate program, I found myself constantly in a dichotomy of feeling tied to portraying myself a “certain way” to my clients, but also longing to stand in my truest energy and version of Self. Thoughts that were always humming around my mind when I first entered the field of mental health: Don’t be too loud, or too quiet. Don’t say too much or too little. Don’t stand that way, stand this way instead. Check your body language. Did you word that weird? Did you say that wrong? again and again and again…

In grad school, there’s a lot of this self-checking and just overall self-awareness. While I believe is totally necessary to our profession, I had to unlearn a lot of the rigidity to thrive in my career, and to show up as I’m supposed to- as me!
I found myself in the very beginning not listening to understand, but listening to respond the “right” way. Which is so not me!

I really struggled with the idea of connecting with others on an emotionally intimate and vulnerable level, while not showing up as my authentic self, or feeling like I was wearing a therapist “mask.” Always censoring and checking myself to ensure that I was doing ‘all the right things,’ was actually hindering my ability to allow my natural gifts to shine: my natural ability to listen, have compassion, understanding, patience, kindness, and unconditional love – ALL went out the window when I was putting myself under a microscope.

One day after internship, actually through an art reflection, I created a work called All Phases of Myself Looking in the Mirror, and through that experiential that I gifted to myself- was my defining moment. In that moment, I realized that for me to show up as the therapist I want to be and know can do meaningful and powerful work with clients, I had to be able to look myself in the mirror at the end of each day and be okay with the way I showed up.

It was that moment that I decided that being a therapist was way less about “showing up the right way” and way more about me showing up in a way that feels authentic –
to mirror to my clients don’t worry; I’m showing up as myself- you can too

Meghan , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Meghan Nally and I am an art therapist, Reiki master/ energy worker that utilizes the creative process and energy healing to empower others in realizing their own inner ability to heal. I am the owner of Hearts Open Healing, which is my virtual and in person safe haven for all and any looking to explore the inner depths of themselves and tap into their emotional heart space. In a nutshell, Hearts Open Healing is an act of rebellious compassion and unconditional acceptance in a world that channels so much of the opposite of that. At Hearts Open Healing, the goal is to guide others in safely and consensually connecting with all versions of Self, so wholeness can be achieved.

At Hearts Open Healing, I offer individual and group Reiki sessions, energy art, where I function as a channel for creating a painting of your aura/energy, I offer oracle/tarot readings, therapeutic art workshops, crystals and spiritual artwork, and soon will be offering non-clinicial art therapy sessions. 1x monthly, I offer a community group distance Reiki session through google meet, where people from all over the world have been connecting in community for a year now. One of my main goals through Hearts Open healing is to build community and accessible art therapy + energy healing modalities to a wide range of communities.

I currently am working towards my clinical licensures, ATR-BC and LPC, and am under clinical supervision.
Aside from Hearts Open Healing, I currently offer art therapy and verbal talk therapy at two different private practice agencies, where I combine clinical art therapy/ psychotherapy theory, and holistic approaches to create a personalized and full-person approach to mental health care and healing.

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

If I could go back, I would choose to be an art therapist and an energy worker again and again, because I believe what I do is my soul’s purpose- my dharma. I feel extremely privileged when I say this, because I believe it’s an honor (and privilege) to enjoy your career and for it to feel soul-aligned. Using the art process as a form of healing is what helped me when I was in the depths of my own darkness. Art expression was, and always has been, always will be my medicine. My profession as an art therapist allows me to live that truth, and spread it, to the fullest.

Speaking of my own darkness- my own “stuff,” if you will- we all have it; just different textures, weights, colors, and sizes of it.
my own shades of darkness and the fight to find the light are what led me to this path of fulfillment that I now embody today. I feel as though I turned my pain into power and healing, and I feel called to assist in lighting the path for others to do the same, if that feels right to them.

As a therapist and space holder, keeping your own “stuff” in check, is one of the most important components of keeping therapeutic alliance client-centered and as bias-aware as possible. And I also feel that having great awareness and tenderness for my own “stuff” allows me to show up in my humanness in a way that dispels shame, and grants me the ability to see people for who they truly are- not what they have been through or what is holding them back.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Kind of tying into my defining moment- I had to unlearn that there’s a certain way to be a human- a therapist, energy healer, artist, and overall space holder. I realize that my truest power comes from standing in my own energy and sense of Self- not anyone else’s energy or their idea of what I should be.

It’s harder to be yourself than it is to be anything else- to be yourself is to rebel against what has been placed, projected, and put onto you. Which I believe, is a life-long unlearning journey that I invite everyone reading this to participate in- if you feel called♡

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theheartsopenhealing.com
• Instagram: heartsopenhealing
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Heartsopenhealing/
• Linkedin: Meghan Nally