SALTEE + WEST
is a six-month online workshop series addressing the needs and challenges of neurodivergent creators.
About the Series:
SALTEE + WEST is a collaboration between Sara Saltee and Melissa West. We are friends and colleagues with a shared passion for exploring and addressing the needs of creative people who, like us, are highly sensitive, complex, and intense, or who feel otherwise neurodivergent.
We believe that our cultural history of pathologizing and othering neurodivergent people has deprived the world of untold creative contributions. We want to change that story. We are not about parsing diagnoses here - all are welcome!
SALTEE + WEST Workshop Participants say:
“WOW! Excellent session today. Melissa is a jewel.”
“Thank you, Sara, for such authentic expressiveness in the workshop. Your words, your openness cut through the surface of all the debris that seems to be falling from the sky and coating my heart lately.”
“One of the most powerful couple of workshop hours I’ve ever spent!”
About Your Facilitators:
Sara Saltee is an artist, writer, and Founder of the Saltee Academy for Complex Creators. With deep caring and unending curiosity, Sara helps wholly original women navigate complex creative identities, meet the challenges of the creating process, and design lives that honor and express the fullness of their gifts.
Melissa West brings heart, humor, and an extraordinary range of perspectives to this conversation. As a neurospicy/highly sensitive artist, author, and depth psychotherapist/coach, she offers compassion and insight into the challenges of living and creating as an “other,” and powerful tools for finding deep acceptance and honoring of ourselves and our creative processes.
Workshop Details:
Workshops meet live on Zoom the second Saturday of each month January - June, 2025.
The interactive Saltee + West workshops are 90 minutes long and combine presentation, conversation, and self-reflection activities.
Join individual workshops for $30 each, or subscribe to the six-month season for $150.
If the $30 workshop fee is a barrier for you, please email Sara and we’ll work it out.
The SALTEE + WEST Series
January 11
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February 8
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March 8
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May 10
“How can I create when the world is going to shit?”
“How can I focus when I’m overwhelmed by the chaos around me?”
If you are feeling creatively frozen by the chaos of the world, this is a workshop for you!
High sensitivity is foundational for creativity, yet it comes with both gifts and challenges. One of the biggest challenges is dealing with both external and internal chaos and a sense of overwhelm.
Though difficulty managing chaos is often framed as an emotional issue, it is actually a nervous system issue! The tools and strategies that will most help you move back into creative action are those that help you calm your reactive nervous system.
In this workshop, we’ll focus on three key strategies for working with a highly sensitive nervous system in tumultuous times.
You’ll learn about functional freeze, how to recognize when you are in it, and simple tools for coming out of it,
we’ll do some on-the-spot coaching to model the Kaizen process for finding a right-sized next step that doesn’t destabilize you,
and we’ll explore how you can replace black-and-white thinking with a practice of re-calibration.
Don’t let chaos and overwhelm kill your creativity!
June 14
Trust as a Creative Practice
Full description and registration info coming soon
A Saltee + West series subscription automatically enrolls you in all six of the workshops in this 2025 offering.
As a series subscriber, you’ll receive a reminder and join link by email a week prior to each workshop, access all workshop recordings, and save $30 over the cost of six individual workshops.