Heal your story through expression, not intellectualization with Devorah Brinckerhoff
Wellish · Sarah Ritondale
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Show Notes
Real healing isn’t pretty. It isn’t a 5 a.m. routine, a perfectly lit yoga flow, or a tidy before-and-after. It’s messy, textured, human — and sometimes it starts with ripping up old love letters.
In this episode, I sit down with mixed media artist and Soul Portrait creator Devorah Brinckerhoff, whose 30+ years as an artist and very real journey through childhood trauma, family estrangement, and her children’s abuse led her to a completely different way of healing. Instead of talking about your story, Devorah guides people to literally work with it — using old letters, photos, journals, and legal documents to disassemble, rewrite, and re-name who they believe themselves to be.
We talk about:
- How creativity can reach places therapy and talking sometimes can’t
- Why your “not enough” wound and mean-girl memories still run the show
- The myth of aesthetic healing vs the reality of sitting in the raw, unpolished parts
- What happens when you stop trying to transcend your humanity and start witnessing it instead
- Devorah’s Soul Portrait process: ripping, gluing, painting, and energetically reclaiming your story
- How externalizing your pain (letters, photos, artifacts) helps you build self-trust, self-compassion, and a new identity
If you’ve ever felt haunted by old memories, stuck in a story about yourself you didn’t exactly consent to, or terrified to look at the “worst thing that’s ever happened to you” — this conversation is your invitation to see your mess as material, not a life sentence.