Have you struggled to stay present with meditation? Do you need a quick technique to help you overcome the stifling feelings of perfectionism? Can you use rhythmic art to help you build self-esteem?

MEET CATHY BOYTOS

Cathy Boytos has spent most of her life creating art (Fine Art, Mixed Media, Photography and Botanicals). She is an award-winning Graphic Designer, but now devotes most of her time to Botanical Illustration Art and Zentangle® - a method of drawing structured patterns through dots, lines, curves, and orbs.

Cathy left the corporate world as a Graphic Designer and became a certified Zentangle instructor in 2014. She immediately began teaching Zentangle classes in the Triangle area of NC, and although she has spent years selling and displaying her art at exhibitions, her passion has always lied in teaching it.

Visit The Triangle Tangle and connect with Cathy on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

IN THIS PODCAST:

• What is Zentangle? 03:26
• Zentangle as a remedy for perfectionists 11:04
• Using Zentangle as a practice of gratitude 15:42
• Zentangle is not like doodling 26:38

What is Zentangle?

Zentangle is more than an art method. It is comprised of a collection of patterns that are made up of various shapes.

The beauty of it is that everything is already structured, and all you have to do is start drawing.

Before you know it, you’re going to end up with this beautiful piece of abstract art that most people had no idea they could do. (Cathy Boytos)

After a Zentangle group art class, all the tiles that the art is drawn on are put together into one big piece. You can then see how everyone interprets and draws things differently, and it develops from an art class into a profound lesson.

That is indicative of how we are as people. We’re all different, and there’s nothing wrong with any of us. We’re all unique. (Cathy Boytos)

Zentangle as a remedy for perfectionists

Because the methodology behind the Zentangle method is a combination of structure and intuition, it can be a great remedy and soothing activity for perfectionists.

It is just art and intuitive drawing. We don't put value judgments on it or think it has to be a certain way.

Zentangle began as a form of mediation. This is why it does not work well under ego-driven, intellectual, and thought-centered work, like perfectionism.

Using Zentangle as a practice of gratitude

When people find that they can do this, gratitude comes naturally. You become so grateful … [for] your life, your ability to do this … aren’t we grateful that we can do this? (Cathy Boytos)

People experience gratitude by completing Zentangle art because it allows them to focus on their experience in the present moment and see their abilities in a new light.

They see what they can do, and often feel more confident afterward. The Zentangle can therefore also help people build up their self-esteem and self-confidence.

It is all about the process and not the result.

Zentangle is not like doodling

There is a distinction between completing Zentangle art and doodling.

Doodling is like mindless art. You may doodle when you are doing something else like talking on the phone or listening to a podcast.

With Zentangle, you are mindful. You are intentional and present. You breathe deeply, stay present in the moment, and experience it fully.

Connect With Me

Instagram @holisticcounselingpodcast

Facebook

Join the private Facebook group

Sign up for my free email course: www.holisticcounselingpodcast.com

Rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

Resources Mentioned And Useful Links:

Visit The Triangle Tangle and connect with Cathy on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

How to use Feng Shui for your Counseling Office with Susannah Alle

Practice of the Practice Podcast Network

[CHRIS McDONALD]

The Holistic Counseling Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Behind the Bite, Full of Shift and Impact Driven Leader, go to www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. .

Welcome to the Holistic Counseling Podcast, where you discover diverse wellness modalities, advice on growing your integrative practice, and grow confidence in being your unique self. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. I'm so glad you're here for the journey.

Welcome to today's episode of the holistic Counseling Podcast. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. Have you struggled at times to stay present with traditional mindfulness practices or with meditation? Are you open to learning a simple, easy to learn artistic method that taps into the artist already inside of you? Today's guest is Cathy Boytos and she feels that the Zentangle method is available for everyone. Cathy is an artist, graphic designer, colored pencil artist, and certified Zentangle teacher. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband, Greg and her cat Ennie. She's been an artist as long as she can recall. She loves teaching and she loves sharing the Zentangle art method with lots of people. Currently, all her classes are online via Zoom. Welcome to the podcast, Cathy.

[CATHY BOYTOS]

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

[CHRIS]

Can you tell my listeners more about yourself and your work?

[CATHY]

Sure. I have been an artist, like she said, just about as long as I can remember. Fortunately, for me as a child, I worked through those barriers where maybe somebody might say you can never make a living at this and that didn't stop me from doing the art. As long as I can recall, I've always wanted to color, to draw, to do pen and ink, so it's just, I don't call it what I do. I think it's who I am.

[CHRIS]

Who you are to the core.

[CATHY]

Exactly.

[CHRIS]

So how did you discover Zentangle?

[CATHY]

I was so lucky. It's been about, I'm going to guess about 12 years ago, a good friend of mine, n fact, a woman that was one of my graphic design instructors had become a certified Zentangle teacher. Okay. When she told me about it, I thought that sounds so interesting and because I trusted her and respected her art I knew that if it was something that she was that excited about, I've got to try it. So she did the class where I was living at the time and I went there with about, I want to say 30 other people. It was a big class and it was the first time I didn't even know exactly what Zentangle was. I just knew that I'm going to do this. I sat there and it affected me immediately. I started drawing these little patterns and not only was it easy to do, but it just, it hit my inner core. Something just happened that day. I remember feeling just so relaxed, I got into the Zen, I was just at peace and I knew then this is something I've got to pursue.

[CHRIS]

So what is it, because when you say Zentangle, a lot of people are like, what is that?

[CATHY]

Oh, I know, I know. It's very confusing. If you could see it, you would understand how actually simple it is ---

[CHRIS]

Harder to show on just audio, but ---

[CATHY]

Oh, it's very hard to show, but let me try to describe the best I can. The Zentangle is more than an art method, but let's talk about the art part of it. It is really a structured pattern where you have these little patterns that they call tangles. So you have a tangle that's really comprised of maybe dots or lines or curves or circles or just all the shapes that we're familiar with that we drew as kids. Now, the beauty of it is that a tangle is already structured, so you don't really have to think about, oh, what can I draw? I've got a white sheet of paper here or a blank sheet of paper. I don't know what to draw. So you've got these tangles that are already structured, already formatted. So you can pick some. You'll end up memorizing a lot of them and then you just start drawing and just repeat the lines, repeat the shapes and before you know what, you're going to end up with this beautiful piece of abstract art that most people had no idea they could do.

[CHRIS]

I think it's funny you mentioned that, because I had taken one of your classes online and I showed it to my mom. She's like, I go, mom, you should do this with me. She's like, oh I could never do that. Now my mom is very talented. She's very much got art skills. I'm just thinking if I can do this, you can definitely do it.

[CATHY]

Exactly. I got to share with you, that's a part that gets me so excited. I absolutely love teaching just as much as I love doing the art myself. Now for me, one of the joys is to have a Zentangle class and have people come in, and this is before COVID I had so many in-person classes and I cannot tell you how many people would come in and say, okay, I'm just going to warn you. I can't do art. I can't draw. I'm going to be your problem student. Just to warn you. I'd always say, just give me an hour. The excitement for me as a teacher is to see what happens to them in a short amount of time, the look that comes across their face when they say, or they find out, I didn't know I could do this. I had no idea. I had no idea. People told me when I was a kid that I could draw. I'll say, but look at you, you're drawing and it's magic. It's just short of magic. It really is.

[CHRIS]

So this is not just for people who have some artistic talent then?

[CATHY]

Oh my gosh, no. I think that's a big hurdle that we want to get across to people. Some of the people that have just gone and done some of the most beautiful artwork you've ever seen are people that have been told when they were kids, you can't do art. This is not for you. You'll never become an artist. Oh my gosh. I could go on and on other stories that people have told me and I want to say they were wrong. They were just wrong. And you don't have to have any prior art experience. You don't have to have any experience with anything. I think that's why it's so attractive and so popular because what happens is people, not only are they finding their inner artist, they're really finding their inner spirit. They're finding that place that in my opinion, everybody wants to find, it just works.

[CHRIS]

Yes, exactly. I know we were talking before I hit record about how it's, I think you said was it age 11 that a lot of, especially girls talked down to about art and leave it and don't do it anymore. Can you talk more about that?

[CATHY]

Oh, absolutely. Thanks for asking one of my favorite subjects. I think most of us can remember when we were very little, maybe kindergarten age and we just drew, didn't matter. We had no inhibitions. We just drew. Somebody said draw a tree, we drew a tree. Didn't matter what it looked like. Draw your parents, draw a fire truck, we just drew. We had no right or wrong. We had no fear. We just were happy and self-confident in whatever we did. Then later in life, especially for girls around the age of 10 or 11, we start to absorb these words from our peers, ugly, bad, wrong, not good enough. That is about the age when so many people shut down, especially with art because they have that fear of whatever I do is not good enough, it's not pretty, it's not right? Then unfortunately, sometimes it takes a long time, sometimes decades. So many people have com to a Zentangle and said, I quit when I was about 12 and now I found out that I can do art. It's just, I'm telling you is life changing.

[CHRIS]

It really is. It's something that I do every week. I was telling Cathy too, that I feel like it's amazing too because you can bring it anywhere. Like with painting, I like to paint, but it's a pain because I don't have a full arch studio. I got to get all these, all the equipment, I got to make sure I have all the colors. It's just a lot. With this you, all you need is a pen and paper.

[CATHY]

Oh my gosh and you can put it in your purse. You can take it anywhere. I remember the last time I was on an airplane going somewhere and I don't do that, well, I just get restless. I'm bored. I want to get off that plane. I want to get where I'm going. So I knew that I had my pen and the little paper tiles in my purse, pulled them out, pulled the lap tray down, I'm drawing. I am drawing and before you know it, the pilot said the landing gear's down. I thought, oh my gosh, this is wonderful. This is wonderful. Are you in the doctor's office waiting for something, you're just sitting there waiting, pull out a tangle tile. You can do some tangle right there.

[CHRIS]

Can you talk about what are the tiles and what do you need to use for Zentangle?

[CATHY]

What do you need is they call them little tiles. It's a paper square with little rounded edges. It's three and a half inch square. Now why do they call them tiles? It's because when you put them all together, it forms the mosaic. That's one of the fun part of the classes, in-person classes, especially it is because after everyone's finished, we put them all together. This is another thing that I like to emphasize because what is so important about that is not only is it beautiful, but you get to see that everybody draws a little differently. And this I cannot stress enough, it's so important. When I teach tango, I want to teach you how it's deconstructed, how to draw it, but everybody's going to draw it a little differently. We should. We get to get out of that cookie cutter, everybody's the same, everybody's got to draw a certain way. You get out of that. There's no rights or wrongs. There's no mistakes. Even the little entangled pencil that comes in the kit, doesn't have an eraser because if you feel like you draw a line out of, in the wrong place, just go with it.

[CHRIS]

That's what I love. There are no mistake.

[CATHY]

No mistakes. Everybody has a different style. Some people draw bigger, smaller. It doesn't matter. That is so indicative of how we are as people. We're all different. There's nothing wrong with any of us. We're all just unique.

[CHRIS]

I'm thinking this would be good for perfectionistic people too.

[CATHY]

Oh gosh, I get a lot of perfectionists that come in and say, oh, you don't understand. Let me tell you my story. As a graphic designer, when I started doing Zentangle, it happened to me too. I'm not a perfectionist or I didn't think I was, but one time I thought I'm going to get my role, I'm going to get my templates, I'm going to make this stuff perfect. It's so gorgeous. Tell you that lasted about 15 minutes. I hated it. Because it put me into that perfectionist mode that Zentangle wants to get you out of. Just let your lines be crooked. Go with it. It's just art, it's just intuitively drawn. I tell everybody don't even try to make it perfect. Perfect doesn't exist. It's no fun if it did.

[CHRIS]

Yes, exactly. I know you mentioned it's a meditative art form. Can you talk more about that?

[CATHY]

It was just, and before she could finish it, he said, you're describing meditation. That is how it started. So together they put their heads together and said, well, if that worked, I wonder if we could make this, create some steps that people could learn this so they too could have this experience. I remember the very first time it happened to me. This is when I first, this is before I became a CZT. I was drawing and doing these Zentangled tangles and just, I'll be honest with you, my back was away from the window. I had no idea what time of day it was. My husband had come home, he came up and I remember looking at him thinking, oh, almost like, who are you? Who am I where? I call it like, you come out of those delicious naps. When you wake up and you just feel so calm, you just feel calm. There's no better word for it. It's just like all that traffic in your head finally just stopped. And you're at peace. Let me tell you, this is coming from a lady who tried meditation for years unsuccessfully. I tried, I read books. I looked at videos. I thought, okay, I can do this. Surely I could do this. No, didn't work for me. But however, doing Zentangle worked for me.

[CHRIS]

It sounds like it can be a very therapeutic modality too.

[CATHY]

Oh my gosh, you have no idea. These are the things that I like to stress because not only did it happen to me, but I can't tell you the success stories for my students. I've had people that suffer from depression, they got into Zentangle and they just said I can't put my finger on it. I just feel better. Now, people who suffer from anxiety, which I have all my life, I can tell when I'm getting into that anxiety mode even if I don't have the proper tiles. If I can just grab some paper and just start doing those tangles, making those little curves, those lines, I can feel my body just calm down.

I've got people that have insomnia and one lady in particular, she said that she started doing Zentangle in the evening before she'd go to bed and just started sleeping like a baby. But I think the one thing I like to stress so much, and I know that Rick and Maria stress it so much is the big gratitude and the appreciation that comes from this. When people find that they can do this, gratitude just comes naturally. You become so grateful for everything, your life, your ability to do this for all that is good. You just become so grateful. One of the things I used to love when I would watch Maria draw, and I just remember this so well, is she would just be drawing and I loved to watch her and all of a sudden, she would just say, aren't we grateful that we can do this. I'm telling you it just happens. But people who have had problems with self-confidence, they need maybe some self-esteem. When you start doing art of any kind and trust me, this is beautiful art that you will do, something happens to people. They start walking a little taller, holding their heads a little higher. They can look people in the eye now because they're artists. They have discovered they are artists.

[CHRIS]

Yes. That's powerful.

[CATHY]

It is. It's beautiful to watch.

[CHRIS]

I'm thinking with ---

[CATHY]

I have seen changes in people.

[CHRIS]

I'm thinking for therapists too, to use with clients, because I know I've used with some clients as well and some that we might struggle and talk therapy. Teenagers, it was very helpful to use with some teenagers. Adults, I know there's a lot of resistance sometimes like we talked about earlier, how sometimes it gets beat out of them or they just feel like they had those negative messages they've internalized. So that sometimes that can take a little more, but I think it's possible with all ages.

[CATHY]

Oh, I'm glad you said that. It is good for all ages. Children, let's not forget children. I have done a lot of classes where maybe there's a mixed group. Maybe some people brought their grandkids or whatever and that's fine. You should just see kids come to this like a ---

[CHRIS]

I imagine

[CATHY]

They just are drawn to it. They pick up a tile, they just do it. I did a class one time in an elementary school. Well, the elementary school was having this big festival and they invited me to come and just do some Zentangle for one of the little events that they had. So the parents were all there. I'll never forget this because I was at the front of the classroom with the kids. It was elementary school. In the back, the parents were just standing there, waiting for their child to get through so they could take them to the next room. I saw this man back there and it was one of the dads of the little girls and she was just having a ball drawing with me and all of a sudden turned around and he had grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. He was just drawing and having the best time. It's something that a family can do together. I mean a lot of parents and their children or grandparents and their grandkids is a wonderful thing to do together. It brings families closer.

[CHRIS]

I think too, just remembering, if you ever want to practice and teach clients too, that it's not about the end result. It's the process. I think that's so important.

[CATHY]

Good for you. It's all about that journey. It's just not about doing this wonderful piece of art that you're going to be critiqued about because you won't be. First of all, we never criticize. I tell you, something else, I'm glad I brought that up now, because when you get into Zentangle, the community that you will be part of is just magical because we all support each other. The encouragement that you get is phenomenal. You'll never be alone. There's a lot of people, especially with COVID in the past two years that have been isolated. They've been alone sitting in their homes and their apartments and they're lonely and maybe sometimes they're bored and they don't have any interaction. Well, let me tell you, thanks to this new age we live, in Zoom, there's so many online classes people can take. They don't have to feel lonely. They're not by themselves. They get to feel pretty darn good about themselves.

[CHRIS]

So more connection and community.

[CATHY]

Exactly. Positive community too. I mean, that's hard to find sometimes. It just, it means a lot. And we talked a lot about some of the emotional issues that it helps with, but I've had wonderful stories where people had chronic pain and they found that doing something like this was very helpful. That's something else I don't want to dismiss. It's just, I don't want to say it fixes everything, but it sure does a lot of good.

[CHRIS]

A lot of good coping

[CATHY]

Yes, it does.

[CHRIS]

It really does. Well, and speaking of the feedback, because I know I've gone to your class in person too, and I know you had people, you have people, you would show on projector like, well, what did you do today? But it's like that panic when you're in school like, oh my God, they're going to look at my stuff. Everybody was so positive and you're just so, I don't know, enthusiastic about it all. You just feel good.

[CATHY]

I love it. Like I said, I love the teaching part of it. I do. To me, it's just so beautiful to watch people come in, especially people who have suffered from a lot of criticism and a lot of negative feedback and maybe somebody in their life, maybe they didn't have parents as a kid that supported them and made them feel better about what they were doing. They come to Zentangle and they find out that they're pretty darn cool after all. It just changes your life, not to mention once you get past that and if you look at start looking at some of the art that comes out of this, it is incredible. I mean, people are finding talent they had no idea they had. As a result of that, and this is something I've watched with my students, it can open the door to other things.

I've had students say, well, I didn't know I could do art and now they're doing watercolor and they're doing other art, maybe using oral painting or sculpture. When you find out that you've got that ability, it just opens the whole world for you. It's amazing what you think you can do then. Maria says it all the time. I just love when she says it because she has watched so many students say, I didn't know I could do that. What she says back is now, what else is it you think you can't do?

[CHRIS]

Powerful. And I feel like we need more integration with mental health, don't we with this art form?

[CATHY]

Oh gosh, I can't say enough about that. I long for the day when we can talk about mental health issues, just as freely as we talk about a sprained ankle.

[CHRIS]

Absolutely.

[CATHY]

I wish. Zentangle is so good for that. Grief is another thing that is really big. A lot of people suffer from the loss of a loved one. Especially in these past few years it's been intense and we all need something that is just going to make us feel better. It doesn't have to be something that's not good for us.

[CHRIS]

The healthy coping.

[CATHY]

The healthy coping, something to, I call it stopping all that traffic in my head, but I can't think of a better term for it because sometimes I just ---

[CHRIS]

I think it's getting in the flow, isn't it?

[CATHY]

Yes, exactly. It is getting into that. The thing is, the tangles are so easy to learn. Within an hour of a class, you will probably have finished a little tile in a short amount of time. That's another reason they purposely made these little tiles so small; is because you can finish something like that in a relatively short amount of time. If you're from, like me for years, my gosh, I had so many unfinished projects in my house. It was amazing. But we all suffer from that starting something and not getting it finished and it just feels bad. So if you finish something and you finish something beautiful, it feels good. Look what I've done.

[CHRIS]

Absolutely. So what's the best way for someone who's new to this to get started, because it might feel intimidating if they've never done this before.

[CATHY]

Oh it does. First of all, well, if you go online, which we all do and if you go to places like Pinterest or even Google and start looking at a lot of online Zentangle work, this is where I want to stop anybody right now because it's easy for all of us to fall into what I call that comparanoia disease; I don't know if mine will be that good. All this looks into, I can't do that. It's too hard. Don't do that. Just don't do that. I really recommend that you start off with a CZT and that's a Certified Zeentangle Instructor. What that means is that person like me has gone through the process, has gone through the certification process, has worked directly with Rick and Maria to get that certification so that we understand not just the art, but we understand the philosophy of it.

You can start off with the most simple of tangles and just start from there. Don't let the fact that COVID is still going on stop you. Like I said, there are a lot of online classes that you can take. I happen to teach a bunch of them myself. Just get hooked up with somebody that's going to teach you some beginner classes and just start from the very basics and never, ever, ever rush. Take your time. I don't care if you do the same tangle for months. You do what works for you.

[CHRIS]

What I try to do as well is integrate it with like my breathing practice and do some breathing even before I start and be more mindful because I know because my tangles show me when I'm rushing.

[CATHY]

Oh gosh.

[CHRIS]

I'm not taking my time.

[CATHY]

And you know what that was this funny is you just hit on a very, very important part and that's the mindful part of it. A lot of people will ask me, well, isn't this just doodling? Because I did this when I was a kid. I've doodled. Not really. Let me try and explain the difference there. Doodling is something when you do, when you're really mindless. You're doing that maybe while you're on the phone, maybe you're watching TV, you're doing that with something else and you're just making some lines and maybe some repetitive lines, but that's it. Now when you do Zentangle, as a mindful practice and that is the key, and I know that probably everybody has read so much stuff in the past few years about mindfulness and what it means. Well, what it means is you're actually in that moment. You are only looking at that pen stroke. You just concentrate just on that line, just watch the next line and all of a sudden it starts happening. You can put yourself in that zone. I've had people tell me that as a result, Zentangle, they become better listeners to their family and friends because they're able to stay in the moment.

[CHRIS]

So powerful over every part of their lives too, I'm sure.

[CATHY]

It is. It really is. It's fun. We forget that fun part. I mean, it's not like taking some nasty medicine or something. This is fun. You want to do this. You can't wait.

[CHRIS]

For people too, if you struggle with like Cathy did with meditation, trying to do meditation, and of course a lot of our clients do because they have a lot of anxiety or depression, so it can be harder to stay in the moment and just mindful practices alone sometimes people have trouble with that. So this is more of a hands-on way to integrate that.

[CATHY]

Absolutely. I mean, I kept thinking, what am I doing wrong? I was just trying the meditation and before you know it, the flood of thoughts were in my head again. I thought, I can't do this. I'll never forget that first time when it happened to me was Zentangle. I thought, oh, what a lovely feeling? It's just, when you just feel that calm, who doesn't want that? Gosh.

[CHRIS]

Oh yes.

[CATHY]

Especially in the past few years, past couple years with COVID, anxiety times a hundred. My gosh we've all been worried, stressed out and we've all been home a lot.

[CHRIS]

There you go. This is perfect. And socially distanced.

[CATHY]

You can't go wrong.

[CHRIS]

Yu mentioned the certification. So can anybody be a certified Zentangle teacher?

[CATHY]

Of course you can. Anybody can, that wants to be. Now prior to COVID, this is how everything was done, we went to Rhode Island in a wonderful, beautiful hotel. We were all taught by Rick and Maria and it was a beautiful experience. I am so grateful that I had that opportunity. Rick and Maria, they're pretty clever people. When COVID hit, they said, we're not going to stop this. So they started putting this certification process online and you know what, it opened the door to even more people. This is huge. I mean, it's all over the world. This is not just in this country. Gosh, so many of my students have gone on to become CZTs and doing it online this past year or two was, they said they had a wonderful experience doing it.

I really recommend that to anyone. Now, if you are interested, you can simply go online to zentangle.com. I encourage you to do that for a variety of reasons, but one is you're going to learn so much more about it, more than I can tell you and you are also going to see when the upcoming seminars are, if it's going to be in person or online. There's something I really want to encourage people to look at. If you go on zentangle.com, there's a button, I think over on the left somewhere that says testimonials. What that is a little short YouTube videos of people sharing their personal experiences. Please look at those. They're wonderful.

[CHRIS]

Love that. Oh, that's great. So Cathy, what's a takeaway you could share today that could help listeners who might be just starting and never have done anything like this before.

[CATHY]

The first thing and the most important thing is you can do this. You can do this. I don't care who you are. I don't care what your background is. Not only can you do it, but you can do it well. Really exercise patience, be kind to yourself. You will learn to be much kinder to yourself. Another thing I want for people to take away that, we touched on the people that were perfectionist, something I've watched happen with people who have that perfectionism is they learn how to be kinder to themselves. They learn how to be more patient with themselves. When you learn that there's no mistakes in your art, they can apply to everything you do in life. You'll start to say, okay, maybe I wasn't perfect, but it's great.

[CHRIS]

That's huge.

[CATHY]

That can really change your life. I'm telling you, it can really change your life. We all need to slow down a little bit and this will help you with that.

[CHRIS]

So what's the best way for our listeners to find you and learn more about you?

[CATHY]

Oh, I'm so glad you ask. Please find me, my website is thetriangletangle.com. That's T-R-I-A-N-G-L-E tango, T-A-N-G-L-E.com. Now, if you get to my website, you're going to see a ton of stuff. But on the first page you can see I've got a button that says Current Classes. Just click on that.

[CHRIS]

She's got great classes. I'll say that. I did mention to her that I noticed there was a Zentangle retreat at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina, that's coming up. So sometimes you can go to a retreat too, to learn Zentangle, which is so exciting, I think.

[CATHY]

Oh, sometimes, more than sometimes there are a lot of retreats. When I said you're going to open yourself to a community, you have no idea what is waiting for you. They have something, Rick and Maria put on something called Zen again. I think it's usually in the fall and this is when they invite all the CZTs to come back and have more experiences. There's more, there are some online retreats that you can do. In fact, I taught one recently with a company called Tangle You Productions. You are just, I mean, there's so many retreats. There's so many conferences where you can go and learn more and more and more and meet people. If we're not ready to do it in person yet you can meet them online. I've got students that do my online classes from all over the country and they have formed a little community. They haven't met each other in person, but they're meeting each other online and you would think they're family the way they get along. It's just a lot of fun.

[CHRIS]

Well, I thank you for coming on the podcast, Cathy.

[CATHY]

Oh, thank you for having me. Anytime somebody wants to talk about Zentangle, my gosh, I'll talk to anybody that'll stand down. I love it. Thank you, Chris.

[CHRIS]

Thank you. Thank you to my listeners for tuning in to today's episode. Are you ready to connect with other holistic therapists? Come join my Facebook group, The Holistic Counseling and Self-Care Group, where you gain support, connection and more resources on adding holistic practices personally and professionally. Remember to please support the podcast and rate and review today. This is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light and love. Until next time, take care.

Thank you for listening and supporting the Holistic Counseling Podcast. If you are loving this podcast, please share with your colleagues so we can continue to grow our holistic community. Also, are you ready to take the next step to create an integrative counseling practice? I invite you to sign up for my free nine-part email course, Becoming a Holistic Counselor. In this course, you'll explore different holistic strategies, how to develop your skills as a holistic counselor and how to manifest your dream practice. Go to www.holisticcounselingpodcast.com, scroll down and enter your name and email address today.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.