collective dreaming

I was not on TikTok consistently until my partner started taking off there. When I say taking off, I seriously thought they would make a lot of money there, and I know it is possible somewhere because A. is as talented as can be: art, poetry, dance, they do it all. First, A. had 10K views on a post, 100 followers overnight, 200 followers, and up to over 2K by the “end.”. Their TikTok growth accelerated with our love affair. Now that TT is on pause and likely never the same, I miss this silly, fun interaction with our friends and followers; some are now my friends, too.

That is how I saw one of our new friends today at a Zoom room gathering. Two of my other dear queer friends showed up, and we had ourselves a quorum. I spoke of the program I mention a lot here (profound steps through big transition or as I am calling it now, “cultivate”. It is created and waiting for you, BUT more importantly, what has been happening is WE are getting to know each other in new and different ways. In the first week, three coaches gathered. Then many emails came: “I want to come, but I can't this week.” And so there will be many more meetings that I am now calling “queer church”! Shout out to Shelly Breen!

Shelly's Website!

Then, I heard, oh, I did not come because of the church word. So let’s call it the queer collective.

Perhaps you did not know that I, too, have a very small TikTok, and this is my favorite trend that my partner and I created. Song credit: How Do U Want It by 2Pac

TikTok Video

Why should you attend our Saturday Queer collective?

You are queer, questioning, aka 2SLGBTQQIA+. Come on through. Truly, no one will be turned away unless they are not friendly; I ask that everyone shows up deeply committed to kindness and love.

Who else can attend? All Global Majority folks who want support or want to tell us about your healing offering. This is where you might get confused. Bridget, are you creating a collective of healers?

Yes.

Bridget, do you wish for the healers and folks who want healing to gather together regularly? Do you want others to share and tell you and the group about their work, hell yes!

I sincerely hope that we can all be connected through our practices and the things we cultivate. Some call this our praxis: our action, our practice, such as an exercise or a practice of an art, science, or skill. You often apply practical applications of a theory. What are they? Come tell us! Please sign up and please be in touch with any questions. The first bit of time will be for hello's, the second bit will be for individual practice, and the last bit will be to share what happened and what we found in this space. There may be break-out rooms if the space gets filled up. I am all done with the sales pitches for now. I see this working. I put myself out there. I offer the space. We figure out as a collective what to do with it. Wow, now that I type this out, it seems very simple and profound. Register for all the dates; if you don’t want to come to all, that is ok. Just let me know beforehand that you are only coming to one, or two etc. Please share far and wide. I can’t wait to meet you!

Link to Sign up!

“A generous heart is always open, always ready to receive our going and coming. In the midst of such love we need never fear abandonment. This is the most precious gift true love offers - the experience of knowing we always belong.”
― Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

Love and solidarity!

Bridget

cultivate -

creative curiosity

I hope you are finding time to cultivate creative curiosity. It only takes 30 seconds. I will unpack some ways I am doing that these days, but first, a reminder: I am a licensed therapist in CA, VT, and FL. I am currently only accepting telehealth appointments this month to reduce my in-office time. I have a low-cost group for stress reduction, expressive arts, and meditation on Tuesdays for the rest of the year. Coaches, doctors, teachers, and anyone who is in the healing and helping field is welcome! Jump in: https://authentic-alliance.com/person-centered-expressive-arts-group/ (all my information, including phone and email, is also available on that page). Please subscribe, like this post, and share it with a friend.

Thanks for reading Transformation Collective Space! You can also see the post here:

this newsletter - the transformation collective space - on substack

Here is an AM cultivation:

Photo ID: Green, pink, blue, swirls, with yellow watercolor, and a few boxes fill this watercolor paper. At the top right, something resembling a feather swoops upward. I folded the page while it was still wet, which gave a coral-type shape on both far sides of the paper.

End photo ID.

We had a lovely group of activists who joined our mindfulness space, and we welcome you later this month, on November 24, and one last time this year, on December 22. We meet 12-1 PST.

Mindfulness Support Circle for Activists

Click to sign up: bit.ly/activistrestore Registration is required.

Activism asks a great deal of us: our time, our hearts, and our energy. In the midst of this work, it’s easy to lose connection with the more bottomless well of purpose that brought us here.

We invite you to a mindfulness support group designed specifically for activists—a space to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with yourself and your intentions. This is a place to be present, to reflect on where your activism is rooted, and to nurture the clarity and compassion that fuel your commitment to change.

Together, we will engage in guided mindfulness practices that support grounding, resilience, and renewal. This is not a space for debate or critique. There will be no expectations placed on one another—only the invitation to rest, reflect, and restore.

We’re creating a safe enough space where activists can tend to their inner landscape, be witnessed with care, and replenish the energy needed to sustain their work in the world.

Come as you are. All levels of experience with mindfulness are welcome. Co-led with Ashnie Butler. Find out more about Ashnie at:

https://www.innerworkouterplay.com/

Let’s root our actions in presence, and our presence in purpose.

Ages ago, I would hashtag a lot of my posts #obscuredjournaling since I deleted that account, you won’t find many posts from me, but you will find some from my dear friend Susie https://www.instagram.com/creativity_midwife/ and on this amazing account, also an old friend, Kristi Yeh https://parentselfcare.com/ has created a robust about of free info and some really cute books and downloads on her site.

Eventually, I plan to upload the posts from 2020 until I closed the account in the fall of 2022. There is a lot of funny content. Well, it’s funny to me, but for now, here is one quick, fun post of some long-ago expressive arts inspiration.

@expressive_arts_work

In deep solidarity!
Bridget Bertrand (any pronouns with love)
Expressive Arts Facilitator - Creativity Cultivator

https://www.bridgetbertrand.com/

https://substack.com/@transformationcollectivespace

Please pay land tax in any amount you can:

https://native-land.ca/

Mindfulness Support Circle for Activists and Person Centered Cultivation for Healers and Helpers

Mindfulness Support Circle for Activists

Starting on October 27th, Ashnie Butler and I will offer three free Zoom meetings from 12:00-1:00 p.m. PST. Please share this offering. If you call, protest, or hold the line, please attend. “Activists take intentional action to promote, impede, or direct social, political, economic, or environmental change.”

Is this you? Please click here to register.

bit.ly/activistrestore

You are welcome to one or all three of these sessions!

Activism asks much of us, our time, our hearts, our energy. In the midst of this work, it’s easy to lose connection with the deeper well of purpose that brought us here. We invite you to a mindfulness support group designed specifically for activists—a space to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with yourself and your intentions. This is a place to be present, to consider where your activism is rooted, and to nurture the clarity and compassion that fuels your commitment to change. Together, we will engage in guided mindfulness practices that support grounding, resilience, and renewal. This is not a space for debate or critique. There will be no expectations placed on one another—only the invitation to rest, reflect, and restore. We’re creating a safe enough space where activists can tend to their inner landscape, be witnessed with care, and replenish the energy needed to sustain their work in the world. Come as you are. All levels of experience with mindfulness are welcome. Let’s root our actions in presence, and our presence in purpose.

Times: 12-1 PST:

October 27th

November 24th

December 22nd.

Who is offering this work? Ashnie Butler,

www.innerworkouterplay.com

and me, Bridget Bertrand, www.bridgetbertrand.com

“I am so impressed with how you ran that group, with your professionalism, I have not seen you for years and you have been practicing expressive arts for eight years and watching you run that meeting and seeing your depth of knowledge that you are sharing with other therapists about using creativity inspired me as a new therapist”

Offering Two:

Person Centered Cultivation for Healers and Helpers

Register here: bit.ly/personcenteredcultivation

12- 1 PST

The Person Centered Expressive Arts: it is for YOU! It can be magic, we will invite breath, compassion, and aim to be easy with ourselves. Being mindful is the root of most of our healing. The expressive arts, therapy, and life in general offer us one million opportunities to be aware, to wake up.

I weave meditation into the art invitation. Natalie Rogers is the founder of this particular technique; if you want to learn more about her, you can find some great articles about her and her father, Carl Rogers on the world wide web.

Who can attend this group? Spiritual leaders, physical therapists, occupational therapists, community health workers, peer support specialists, social and community advocates, tattoo artists, fine artists, sculptors, crafters, teachers, coaches, and more. If you're not sure if this is the right space for you, please hit reply or email me at bridget@bridgetbertrand.com

Here is one offering for now, so you can feel it in your bones. Stop reading this blog/invitation and gather any creative supplies you have nearby. Write an inspirational sentence to yourself on paper. Try to stop once daily for 5 minutes, look at that message, and then, little by little, we can add a cultivation/creative habit in as well.

Cultivating time for creativity has so many benefits. If we want to support our families in an art habit (or any habit), we need to do the same. I am here to tell you that I don’t really love the word habit, and yet, a commitment is pretty vital in these times.

Practice journaling, line-making, scribbling, etc. If you need to burn the paper afterward, it's okay. Crumple it up, shred it, or hang it up; it is a person-centered practice 😉 I think you get the idea. This space will be a practice space and a space to connect with others offering healing and helping in this world!

Oct 28, 2025 12:00 PM

Nov 4, 2025 12:00 PM

Nov 11, 2025 12:00 PM

Nov 18, 2025 12:00 PM

Nov 25, 2025 12:00 PM

Dec 2, 2025 12:00 PM

Dec 9, 2025 12:00 PM

Sliding scale $15-45

Zelle or Venmo before the group, registration is required.

bit.ly/personcenteredcultivation

With love and solidarity!

Bridget

bridget@bridgetbertrand.com

*neither of these offerings are therapy*

MNDFL = mindful

In 2021, the world was still deep in its COVID response. Most of us were at home and still taking extraordinary precautions. I was in a seeking phase. I had joined many programs to decolonize my mind and my therapy/coaching offerings. These were somewhat new concepts to me. I was working from home for the first time. I imagine this time hop came up for me because I am transferring all of my writing onto this website. Eventually, Substack is not a place I will keep visiting. I did not put all of my writing here at first because, as a therapist, we are meant to keep coaching businesses separate from therapy work. It is to protect the consumer. Is it a way to discourage us from doing both? Either way, the therapy is now located at Authentic Alliance, and this is the coaching site.

So, in general, for me, 2025 is a time of looking both back and forward. The thing I want to share is meditation!

In 2021, I completed a meditation course that has provided me with deep support over the last five years. It’s called MNDFL. I started meditating in high school, though mainly in the "I got high and loved sitting by a stream with my BFF" category. I don’t discount it, even though I will point out the lack of rigor in those early experiences. These formative moments, along with seeing the Grateful Dead and other "jam bands," and discussing the inequities of the world with friends, all helped expand my consciousness. I began interacting with people who didn’t view everything through a Western Christian lens. Fast forward to 2021, and I started the MNDFL program.

"MNDFL is a state-of-the-art training program offered by an unparalleled collective of expert teachers and scientists. Learn from fourteen individuals, including three neuroscientists and a neurosurgeon."

Fifty % of their teaching staff identify as BIPOC or Global Majority individuals, and all facilitated classes have BIPOC/Global Majority leadership. I’m still returning to my own slideshow to inspire me. These slides are stored on Google Drive, so I will find a way to share them here or on other social media platforms as I try to transition away from Google storage.

As I started to write this morning, I remembered the night before our weekend-long retreat to complete the 75-hour MNDFL program, an email came through. We were asked to watch two white men discuss mindfulness. It was an interesting challenge, but I’m pretty sure I made it through both talks. Even though they are old, they’re vast and inspiring. Please read below for my quick takeaway.

John Dunne, PhD - Understanding Mindfulness: Heuristic Accounts
Evan Thompson, PhD - Context Matters: Steps to an Embodied Cognitive Science of Mindfulness

Essentially, I’m bringing these talks and these individuals into this discussion because they shed light on what has been, and still is, the gold standard of teaching mindfulness in a medical/health setting: MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction). MBSR is not ineffective, but in short (and I’m REALLY simplifying here), these folks are saying there’s a context to everything. Our minds are not only just neurons and thoughts in our brains, and mindfulness is not simply about paying attention on purpose—though that’s a definition I can recite after studying meditation/MBSR in graduate school. Meditation is derived from Buddhism, and it’s doing much more than what we see on a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scan in many research studies. I’m sharing all of this to let you know that I love geeking out on meditation.

I meditate on New Year’s Eve. I’ve done this a good bit since the pandemic started; in four out of the last five years, I was on a cushion returning to myself (during meditation practice). I once met my Buddhist teacher in Times Square, had a cup of soup, watched the ball drop, and then went home to Brooklyn. I have to say, these are some of my favorite ways to celebrate our Judeo-Christian calendar.

I guess these disclosures let you know that when I offer to support you in your meditation practice, I’ve put in the time. Though I don’t have a formal Buddhist grounding, I immensely love the philosophy. It took the place of my Christian upbringing when I felt pretty lost. Deep down, I think I knew the church and the people I had been surrounded by wouldn’t all love me if I were an out queer radical person. For some, I imagine that’s still true. I don’t hear from them much.

For those of you still reading, and you want to meet to meditate, shoot me an email.

All the links are always here:

https://linktr.ee/bhopeb

I have some old images of art from a long-ago Instagram account that I deleted when I completed this meditation course. The photo below shows two trees, a moon, a 3D box, and a broken heart. A large part of the painting is black and features the words “bodies of culture” written in what appears to be drops of blood flowing into the earth. There are two mugs beside the art, one containing pencils and the other containing markers. The one with markers has a broken handle, and the text says, “Feminist all day err day.”

In solidarity,

Bridget

bridget@bridgetbertrand.com