Today we’d like to introduce you to Kalli Kronmiller.
Kalli, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started my career as an elementary school teacher. I taught second grade for a few years and then became the school’s art specialist teaching art, music, dance, and drama. I was pretty good at it. I had a knack for teaching and children were my jam. I was honored when I won the Golden Apple Award in my second year of teaching. I liked teaching… enough. It was intense and required a LOT, and felt exhausting. But I had a special connection with hundreds of children who called me “Miss K.”
At that time, I began training in the Beverly Taylor Sorenson BYU Arts Partnership where I was able to tap into creativity through learning integration of the arts into the school curriculum. Teaching with the arts was so much more fun! I also started a Master’s Program in Marriage, Family, and Human Development at Utah State University with a focus on children’s social and emotional development because I was perplexed by how to help my students navigate the emotional and social quandaries they faced. “Go talk it out” wasn’t working and I didn’t have the skills to support them beyond that. I soon discovered that my passion lay in the emotional realm much more than in teaching math and reading, and with my training in the arts in education alongside my Master’s in children’s social and emotional development, a fire was lit that would lead me to major life changes including a change of cities, a change of careers, and ultimately a change in my entire identity.
I knew teaching was not what I wanted to do long term, and after completing my Master’s Degree from Utah State I was still teaching while also doing research for the Positive Behavior Support Initiative and BYU Arts Partnership. One summer afternoon in 2009, after my sixth year of teaching, I found myself wondering what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I remember having a felt sense and deep knowing that more education was in the cards for me, but couldn’t imagine what more I’d do. So I googled my top passions at the time, all together in one search (wellness, the arts, emotional and mental health) and the first hit that came up was something called “Expressive Arts Therapies.” I’d never heard of this and as I read more I remember thinking, “WAIT…You can get paid to make art to feel better??!”
I had dealt with severe depression over the previous six years after what I’d later understand was a trauma I’d experienced. Making art and playing my piano, guitar, and singing were what kept me afloat. I’d gone to counseling which helped, but it was in creating art, writing raps, and singing the blues that resonated with my aching soul. Without knowing what expressive arts therapies were I immediately applied for the program that popped up in my Google search… and in less than a year I found myself in Boston attending Lesley University as I began a new Master’s program in Expressive Arts Therapy and Mental Health Counseling.
The experiences I had in grad school through the expressive arts awakened me to a connection with myself and with Source that I had never known was possible. It felt like for the first time I began to breathe. I moved into my body. The right and left brain and mind-body connection came viscerally. I FELT things like I never had in both my body, the felt sense, and in my emotional experience… like scales were being shed that I hadn’t even known I was carrying… and a lid on the top of my head that I didn’t know was there opened up, allowing light and knowing to flow into me. I was experiencing healing through expressive arts and finding peace that I hadn’t ever accessed through my regular talk therapy experiences.
My grad school experiences felt less like grad school, and more like first, healing, and then, a deconstructing of everything I’d ever known and the person I’d always known myself to be. In addition to expressive arts, yoga became a lifeline, and I completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training through Bodhi Yoga in 2012. By the time I finished my three-year master’s program at Lesley University, I felt like I’d been sent through a mulcher and spit out, with all the pieces strewn about that, over time, and with much deliberation, I began to sort through and try and make sense of. It was a juxtaposition of the most clarity I’d ever known while at the same time being more confused and uncertain than ever before. I spent the next decade sorting through all the pieces and putting myself back together in a way that made more sense and felt more true to me. Authenticity wasn’t and isn’t easy and takes time.
In the meantime, I earned my hours towards my therapy license through a rare gig traveling the world as the educator and therapeutic aide to a child of a billionaire and her three siblings. We spent approximately three days in one place, on the move for seven months, covering 23 countries, living in glamping tents on safari, lavish hotels, or on boats and cruise ships. I was the educator for all four children and the therapeutic specialist for the child with special needs. I could write a book filled with unbelievable stories about that experience–the good, the bad, and the ugly. It took a toll on me. I came to Salt Lake City upon completion of my almost-year abroad where I could connect with family and rest and recuperate.
I was fortunate to be hired by The Healing Group as I started on my journey as an actual therapist. The support, guidance, training, and opportunities provided during my time there were fundamental in helping me get my footing as a mental health professional. I was able to also learn and grow through work at Valley Behavioral Health and La Europa Academy before starting my private practice in September 2017: Expressive Arts Therapy Utah.
In addition to intermodal expressive arts therapies (psychodrama, art therapy, music therapy, dance/movement therapy, sand tray) I continued my training in therapeutic modalities including EFT (Emotion Focused Therapy), EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing), Theraplay, DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), DARE (Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience), IFS (Internal Family Systems) and most recently Somatic Trauma Therapy and Somatic Attachment Therapy. Lots of training have been the result of my continuing quest to understand and heal in my own body, mind, and psyche and find the best ways to support my clients in their healing experiences. I am also trained and almost certified as a Martha Beck Wayfinder Life Coach.
Today, I’m working virtually and in person in both my private therapy practice and my coaching practice. My work as a therapist at Expressive Arts Therapy Utah allows me to support people in the local community and state in addressing and healing trauma and addressing and improving mental health issues. Through my role as a coach at Expressive Arts and Embodied Coaching, I support clients near and far through individual and group work to improve life through embodied awareness and nervous system regulation. It’s a privilege to journey alongside others in this intricate, beautiful work.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I’d say the road has been far from smooth, but the struggles have allowed me experiences that have fostered empathy in a way to connect to our common humanity, which has served me in the work I do. I wrote in the last section about my experience in grad school which felt like it undid me. Post graduation I found my biggest challenge was that of the “IMPOSTER SYNDROME.” I dealt with pretty severe anxiety daily for several years about my role as a therapist. I did not feel like I knew what I was doing and what was going to help people. Learning to trust that my education and experiences were enough was not simple or easy.
I think one reason I’m trained in so many modalities is because that was my coping strategy for dealing with imposter syndrome. Time in the therapist chair (and in the client chair) has helped me grow my self-assurance and trust in my skills and knowledge. When I was in grad school they always told us that it would take about five years until we started to feel like we had a clue about what we were doing. I’m now in my seventh year as a therapist, and that rings pretty true.
It took a lot of hours and time and supervision and therapy for me to land where I am today, and I’m still navigating that territory of anxiety and working on continual healing of what’s in my way. But my anxiety and my long experience with depression have been an opportunity for me to learn and practice self-compassion and permission to be human, to practice the skills and modalities that I bring to clients. Everything I bring to clients I’ve first been practicing on myself.
As you know, we’re big fans of Expressive Arts Therapy Utah, Inc. & Expressive Arts and Embodied Coaching. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Expressive Arts Therapy Utah and Expressive Arts and Embodied Coaching are businesses I run out of my home using telehealth and Zoom. Before the pandemic I had an office, but found the convenience and ease of telehealth conducive to the work I was doing with clients, so have continued the majority of my practices online, with occasional in-person meet-ups.
The work I do with clients using expressive arts therapies, attachment repatterning, and somatic practices is unique and different from regular talk therapy in that it is a whole body/mind experience allowing integration, nervous system regulation, and healing at a deeper level than left brain practices and talking can reach. The eclectic approach I use in therapy and coaching with numerous modalities has allowed the work to be extremely client-centered with options and choices, which are essential pieces in healing. We do talk therapy, and beyond that, we have transformational tools that connect an individual to their creative, right-brained, implicit, holistic capacity for healing. Using the arts in therapy and focusing on tuning in to the body offer a way for individuals to move into the real home of themselves and their bodies.
I will be leading a new Somatic Attachment Circles 8 Week Online Experiential Series exploring the basics of Attachment Theory and Polyvagal Theory, Neurodevelopmental Movements, and Touch Needed for Forming Secure Attachment, and Somatic Exercises for Healing & Repatterning Your Own Nervous System this summer, and all are invited to enroll!
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I live for rollerblading and roller skating… oh and biking! My third-grade self who roller skated in the driveway while dancing to Debbie Gibson lives on inside me!
Sometimes I live out of my car for months at a time while road-tripping with my dog, and exploring the world while working remotely. I dream of summer in Montana, wintering on Kauai, and soaking up spring and autumn in Utah!
I recently began working one shift a week at Anthropologie, my favorite store, to add more color, creativity, fashion, and connection with others to my life!
Pricing:
- Intake Sessions: $160
- Regular Sessions: $145
- Group Sessions: $35-$55
Contact Info:
- Website: www.expressiveartstherapyutah.com
- Instagram: instragram.com/expressiveartstherapyutah/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/expressiveartstherapyutah?mibextid=LQQJ4d
Image Credits
Joey Holliday Photography
