Mental Health + Artistry Workshop Series 2025

Making Time for Your Art: How to Set Boundaries & Embrace Your Personal Style of Assertiveness

When: Wednesday, February 26@12noonCST (Live on Zoom)

This one-hour workshop will include a discussion with full-time author and editor Britta Jensen and full-time therapist, Jennifer Merrill regarding the challenges that artists face in an often brutal industry, as well as therapeutic techniques for overcoming specific challenges, which often include imposter syndrome, creating healthy boundaries with work, artistic deadlines, family responsibilities, finances, while effectively and assertively communicating your needs as a creative without being passive or aggressive, but finding a healthy middle.

In this workshop we’ll answer these common questions as well as many more from attendees.

How can you nourish yourself as an artist?
What challenges are common amongst all artists and what common threads do we find in trying to assert and maintain boundaries with regards to our artistic work & balancing day jobs and other family commitments?
What does assertive communication look like for you personally?
What healthy behaviors have helped our clients find their personal style of assertiveness?
What reasons do people give for not taking time for the things that matter most to them and why?
How have we found ourselves setting boundaries to help us thrive in our work and artistic life?
What can artists do to feel like they aren’t constantly running on a hamster wheel or attempting to finish a never-ending to-do list?
What does it look like to make time for your art?
How can we set boundaries and get over the cliff of being scared to feeling relieved because we set those boundaries?

Please note that refunds are not given, except in the case of class cancellation (refunds will be minus the card fees, which are not refundable, approximately 6-10% of the course fee.)

About the instructors:

Britta Jensen

Britta Jensen’s debut YA novel Eloia Born won the 2019 Writer’s League of Texas YA Discovery Prize and was long-listed for the 2016 Exeter Novel Prize. Reviewers called the book “both a dystopian narrative and a quest story; consider it a spiritual successor to Lois Lowry’s The Giver and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village.” Subsequent publications include Orphan Pods, Hirana’s War, Ghosts of Yokosuka as well as short stories in Mixed Bag of Tricks, The Castle of Horror Anthology vol 6. Her stories explore themes of persevering through disability, parental separation, and the intersection of love and various cultures on new worlds. She earned a BA in Acting Performance from Fordham University and an MA in Teaching of English Literature from Columbia University. For the past twenty-two years she has taught creative writing and edited books for both traditional and indie authors. She has received numerous awards, including the General Sharp Award from the US Army, for her innovative teaching of creative writing in New York City, South Korea and Germany. Friends often refer to her as a polyglot—which is a product of living twenty-two years overseas in Japan, South Korea, and Germany before settling in Austin, Texas. She enjoys mentoring writers and editing books with her company The Writing Consultancy and with Yellowbird Editors. In her spare time, she dances with her awesome tailor husband, and volunteers with the Relief Society, SCBWI and the Writer’s League of Texas. Britta is a member of SCBWI the Editorial Freelancers Association, Reedsy, and the Alliance for Independent Authors. Visit her YouTube channel for more insights into her writing process. (Photo credit: Laura Dalava)

Jennifer Jo Dahle Merrill, MA, LPC, NCC

Meeting you where you are and journeying together to discover and heal is a tremendous privilege as a therapist. Sometimes healing means confronting. It does not have to mean overwhelming. I dedicate our time to creating a collaborative, kind, direct approach that is centered on you. My hope is for you to achieve greater ease and connection with yourself and others.

I love to facilitate insight and to incorporate tangible skills as part of my work with adults and couples. Throughout my life and career, living and working overseas, I have engaged people with many different languages, backgrounds, cultures, and religions. I recognize the need to incorporate your unique values and experience into the counseling process. I value being inclusive and creating a warm accepting environment that is inclusive to all.

I obtained my Master of Counseling Degree from Northwestern University and am a graduate of California State University Sacramento. I am EMDR trained and have completed Level 2 of Gottman Couples Method. You can learn more about her counseling practice here.

Testimonials from Past Workshops

“I got so much out of the Character Immersion Workshop and can’t wait to use it on more of my characters!” –Lynne Kelly, author of Song for a Whale, The Secret Language of Birds and Chained.

“The class was so rich with ideas and wonderful exercises. Our group will be talking about some of your ideas for weeks to come, I’m sure!”-Maureen Turner Carey, author & librarian, Westbank Library

“I can’t express enough how much this workshop was a breakthrough for me, but for the rest of the characters I have written since. I keep going back to the material because I had been stuck on an important character who was acting only on the surface of herself: she was showing up in the right scenes and saying the right things. When I put her through this Immersion Workshop I discovered her core motivation which will allow a more purposeful character to have much more impact those same scenes and those same lines.”-Marc Hess, author

“A breakthrough for me was better understanding my character through the POV of another. When writing from another character’s POV, so much more was revealed that both clarified and verified things swirling around in my head, but couldn’t yet breakthrough.”-Kellie McCants, author and actor