Meet Lane Gardner

We recently connected with Lane Gardner and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lane, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
In my early life, I was raised in a fundamentalist religious cult. When I was 9, my family left the cult, but the abuse and extremism continued on. I was brainwashed to believe that who I inherently was, was bad and that I needed to give up everything I ever wanted to be, do or have in order to be worthy of love and acceptance. It was a crushing way to grow up and my early life was full of trauma, instability and a never-ending pressure to be someone’s else’s version of me.

But early on, I discovered a lifeline. I come from a family of self-taught musicians and I experienced the power of creative expression in real time as a young person. Our frequent family jam sessions showed me the joy and freedom, safety and support that comes from making music and creating something with others. This eventually led me into pursuing music and theater and I became a professional performer, traveling the country in leading roles in plays, musicals and operas.

But in a deeper sense, my experience in the arts saved my life. Exploring creative expression through many different avenues helped me to access deeper parts of myself that I needed in order to not be totally “erased” or completely lost to myself by the abuse I was being raised in. Even though I was living in a situation that tried to destroy my true self, my pursuit of creative expression helped me stay connected to my inner-resources, inner-assets and inner-wisdom as I continued to find ways to survive.

After getting out from under that insanity and beginning to create a new life as an adult, I continued to use creativity as a way to heal and repair all the damage that was done to me. It became my source of inner-strength. It became my trusted pathway back to my true essence.

My resilience was born of incredible adversity…but also from having the opportunity to cultivate what I already had within me as my guiding light through the darkness.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’ve just recently released my first book entitled LIFELINE: Recovering Your Mental Wellness Through Uncovering Your Creative Brilliance. What’s kinda crazy about it, is that I never intended to write a book! But life stepped in (as it tends to do when there’s something really important and necessary for growth!) and set me on a path to bring together my past, my pain and my purpose into this project. I never wanted to tell the story of my painful past. I spent years and years running from it and trying to rewrite my narrative.

But the work I’ve developed and facilitated for 30+ years is a direct result of all the hard-won wisdom, hard-core healing and hard-fought progress I’ve made BECAUSE of all that happened to me and how I learned to transform it into a source of healing for myself and for others. Writing this book is the culmination of my work, my life and my true self.

And that’s the essence of the work I do…

I help others learn how to access and develop what I call their Original Superpower. Each person’s unique, creative expression is the perfect innate toolkit for everyday mental health and for deep healing. We can learn how to use our unique, one-of-a-kind creative expression to uncover, recover and discover more of ourselves, and not only improve our mental wellness, but expand our vision of ourselves and what we’re capable of achieving in our own lives and in the world. It’s not about feeling pressure to be an “artist”, it’s about opening a pathway to self-discovery, healing and fulfillment. And it’s about learning how to incorporate practical, real-time tools to navigate the ups and downs of life and living, offering a safe passage to get to the roots of our struggles, transforming pain into power and expanding our capacity for joy, self-awareness, and living our best life.
I work with people on an individual basis through personal coaching as well as facilitating group work through my therapeutic arts non-profit organization, THREAD, whose work focuses on community-based trauma and using collaborative creativity to build connection, healing and engagement through our shared stories.

Our individual and collective mental health is in crisis. Studies continue to show an increase in mental health challenges with 11 million Americans reporting serious thoughts of suicide, an increase of 664,000 from 2021 (Mental Health America, 2022), 2 in 5 adults reporting symptoms of anxiety and depression with disproportionate numbers affecting people of color, young people and those unable to afford health care (White House Briefing on National Mental Health Crisis, 2022) and approximately 350 individuals for every one mental health care provider (Reinert, Fritz and Nyungen, 2022).

We need innovative approaches to our mental health right now. We’re emerging from a once in a century pandemic and we’re just starting to see the devastating impact it has had on our individual and collective mental health. What may have worked for us before, may no longer work for us now. Learning how to go within and access our own powerful tools for mental wellness is not only empowering, but can offer a beacon of hope to individuals and communities who need to know they have 24/7 access to some kind of support when health care might not be available to them.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Courage and the willingness to take risks. Fear is a major factor in all of our lives. It’s totally normal and part of the human journey. But it can also keep us from living a life that feels better and more fulfilling. I always tell myself that it’s ok to not know before you begin. The fear of the unknown can keep us stuck. But all it takes is just one courageous baby-step to give you just enough insight to know what to do next…and the next and the next. And before you know it, you’re living a life that feels more aligned with who you really are and how you really want to live.

Go within. A lot of times we have resistance to looking within. We’re often taught to look outside ourselves for answers, ideas, guidance, instructions on how to be, who to be and how to live our lives. A lot of times we don’t even realize that what we believe about ourselves was given to us by outside voices…people, events, societal norms and expectations. But what if the answers you’re seeking are already within you? What if you could be the expert on YOU? What if you are your greatest resource of wisdom, knowledge and insight about who you really are and what you really need?

Learn how to work with your inner-critic. Get curious about what that inner-critic says to you and when. This voice is often rooted in the traumas of our past…a judgmental authority figure, a cruel classmate, an embarrassing situation. Our inner-critic’s job is to keep us small, keep us from growing into a bigger, more aligned version of ourselves. Getting to the source allows us to see through the facade and take our power back. There’s no one else on this planet who has the perfect combination of gifts, talents, skills and passions in just the way you do. Your inner-brilliance is your gift to yourself as much as it is your gift to the world.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I’m always open to collaboration! There’s no limit to what’s possible when we combine our unique brilliance and wheelhouse in a new partnership! I’d love to expand my reach by working with other non-profit organizations who support wellness in communities, collaborating with mental health professionals, women’s organizations, and any opportunity to speak to communities about this innovative approach to mental wellness.

Please contact me through any of these links:

www.lanegardner.com
www.threadconnects.org
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lanegardnerthreadconnects/
https://www.facebook.com/lanegardnermusic/
https://www.instagram.com/lanegardner120/

Contact Info:

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