Frida Mirror:
through Frida's powerful reflection,
come find yourself
e-course with Maya Gonzalez
Frida has become a beloved window into the human heart: her life, her art, her self. She invites us into a deep and familiar place. The Frida Mirror holds the potential to highlight internal, often nonverbal experiences in a powerful and simple way.
What doors would open if you owned your power?
In this course, you have the opportunity take full advantage of Frida’s depth and use it as a jump off point into the tradition of using art as a tool of self knowledge. Frida’s image becomes the window into your own heart as you learn the power of looking into the eyes of another and finding yourself. Throughout the course, Frida's image is used as the foundation of your own self- portrait. Her face serves as the perfect reflection for you to see your self as deeply as she saw herself opening up avenues of self expression, self awareness and reclamation.
Here's a sample video from the Frida Mirror Course:


Frida Mirror is a full course that arose from a simple project I have done over the last 10 years with children and adults alike with surprisingly powerful results. It's artist-sourced, 1000’s of kids-tested, and 100’s of grownups-tested.
It is a highly individualized journey unique to each person, this kind of creativity heals. It opens our minds. Makes us more of who we are. Invites us to be part of all that is. This is the power of creativity.
More about the course materials and their intention:
In Lak’ech
Tú eres mi otro yo / You are my other me.
Si te hago daño a ti / If I do harm to you,
Me hago daño a mí mismo / I do harm to myself.
Si te amo y respeto / If I love and respect you,
Me amo y respeto yo / I love and respect myself.
Mayan inspired poem, “Pensamiento Serpentino”
Luis Valdez (1971)

Like the video above, I'll take you on a visual and auditory journey as it relates to each session's focus. You'll learn more about Frida, her life and her art.

Using Frida's image as a base, I'll model the project for each session in video format allowing you to witness both the act of making art as well as how I use the project to explore more about myself and my life lessons.

Brief writing prompts provide the opportunity to go deeper into each session. And, prayerful meditations distill the session themes into a portable form to carry around with you. I encourage you to write the meditations down and read them out loud to yourself repeatedly throughout the day. Put a copy near your bed, on your mirror, anywhere you fancy!
Holistic Approach
A holistic approach is a mindset that takes into account the heart, the body, the mind, the spirit and the unknown as well as your community and societal experience to support the whole self. With the whole self on board the creative process deepens.A Holistic Approach Supports you to:
- Reclaim and appreciate your whole self
- Strengthen your unique voice and vision
- See all the connections
- Remove external judgment
- Support natural creative flow
- Source wisdom from within yourself
- Engage your true power
- Understand the larger context of experience
- Change the world as you change your self and do your work
- Support not just what you do, but how you do it
Intention
The journey always begins within, but not without taking into account the larger context we live in. Freeing ourselves and creating art from this place changes everyone. This is about full empowerment, not just about creating art.- Rediscover the magic of intentional creativity
- Learn that everyone is an artist, there is never a right or wrong way to make art and that art is always an act of courage
- Develop greater confidence in your ability to create your life
- Gain clarity on how to live your life with greater ease and what needs healing
- Face the unknown, remove blocks, grow bigger, get in the flow, and always, all ways follow your heart
- Change the world by transforming yourself
- You are the Revolution!
Radical Self Love
This work is very gentle however profound. In this course, we do not dwell on trauma or its effects, but it is powerful to be able to ackowledge where we've been to ourselves and from that place real change begins.- Those who judge their body and/or weight
- Parents, role models, those who work with children and want to convey body positive messages
A Session-by-Session Look:

In this first session, we begin with Frida’s beginning and that unspeakable, highly unique aspect we each bring to our lives and our living.

This session you meet Frida during the era of her great accident. She has been changed forever and her life will never be the same. Her image invites you to intuitively explore similar experiences in your own life and through her image follow your creative mind to what is at the heart of your deepest life lesson.

This session Frida meets her second great accident, Diego. In so many ways, Diego is the essence of Frida and Frida is the essence of Diego. Their life together was tumultuous, intensely creative, revolutionary and magical. FridaDiegomirror invites us to know ourselves through the reflections of our relationships.

This session Frida shows us how to be our biggest, most extensive self in all directions.

This session Frida provides us with a doorway into our deepest selves. Frida navigated the edges of reality that many of us try to avoid. Pain, limitation, isolation. Feel her presence with you. You are not alone. You may be surprised at what you learn about yourself.

So often we do not take ourselves seriously as painters, artists, creators. This session invites you to see yourself creating your greatest work of art.Are you holding yourself back? Do you understand your creative power?

In this last and final session we come to terms with what we have gathered, where we have landed and who Frida sees in the mirror when she looks at us.
Maya Gonzalez has been teaching about the power of creativity to heal and transform for over 20 years. She realized that it's one thing to make art and quite another to understand that WE ARE ART. All of Maya's teachings rise from her own learning and healing, inside and out. She has always used art and creativity as a tool for self-awareness and perspective through life experiences, including navigating and healing from a long-term illness/brush with death.
Hell bent on equity. Deeply committed to children's books. Maya is both an acclaimed fine artist and award-winning children's book author and artist. She is a progressive educator and activist who loves thinking the big thoughts and making things happen. www.mayagonzalez.com
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