Cake Therapy
Cake Therapy is a heartwarming and uplifting podcast that celebrates the transformative power of baking therapy. Hosted by Dr. Altreisha Foster, the passionate baker, entrepreneur and advocate behind Cake Therapy, this podcast is a delightful blend of inspiring stories, expert insights and practical baking tips. Each episode takes listeners on a journey of self-discovery, emotional healing and connection through the therapeutic art of baking.
Cake Therapy
Fields and Flour Therapy: Exploring Healing Through Baking Therapy and Social Work
Discover the remarkable blend of social work and culinary art therapy with our guest, Courtney Fields, a registered social worker and passionate baker from Canada. Courtney shares her transformative journey of healing through baking, revealing how it became her refuge during a period of grief. She explains how this personal therapy evolved into Fields and Flour, her unique business where she combines her expertise in social work with the joys of baking. The episode sheds light on how activities like baking can enhance mental well-being and inspire personal growth, offering a fresh perspective on therapeutic practices.
Explore the therapeutic potential of creative activities! We discuss how activities such as baking can help create a safe, comfortable atmosphere that encourages open dialogue in therapy sessions. The concept of activity-blended sessions is introduced, where the traditional client-therapist barriers dissolve, fostering collaboration and reducing stigma. From tackling anxiety and perfectionism with hands-on exposure therapy to using baking as a tool for mindfulness and problem-solving, the conversation highlights the benefits of integrating these practices into mental health support for people of all ages.
Courtney also takes us through the entrepreneurial journey of establishing Wildflower Fields, an innovative space that combines a bake shop with counseling services. This model supports low-cost counseling programs and encourages community engagement. We delve into the creative approaches Courtney employs to make therapy more accessible and effective. Whether you're a baking aficionado or someone seeking alternative therapeutic methods, this episode offers a wealth of insights into the powerful intersection of baking and mental wellness.
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Welcome to the Cake Therapy Podcast a slice of joy and healing, with your host, Dr Altricia Foster. This is a heartwarming and uplifting space that celebrates the transformative power of baking therapy. The conversations will be a delightful blend of inspirational stories, expert insights and practical baking tips. Each episode will take listeners on a journey of self-discovery, emotional healing and connection through the therapeutic art of baking. There's something here for everyone, so lock in and let's get into it.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, welcome back to the Cake Therapy Podcast, your slice of joy and healing With me, your host, patricia Foster. And, as usual, we have exciting people in the space sharing their wealth of knowledge with you, and today's guest is not any different. I'm excited to have Courtney Fields. She joins us from Canada and I'm excited to have her here in this space. She has a story to tell. She's mixing flour and therapy. Her business is called Fields and Flour. Got it Fields and Flower. So, miss Fields, she has a lot of letters behind her name. She's a clinical director. She's a registered social worker oh my God. She has a bachelor of social work. She has a master's of social work. She's also a part of the Canadian Horticultural Therapy Association. Member. Welcome, courtney, welcome and thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here, yes.
Speaker 2:Tell us, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I'm good. I'm good. It's a sunny day here in. I'm in Ontario, Canada, and it is a very sunny day here, so that's good news, especially for April. End of April. We're getting ready for the spring, so that's always a happy day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good stuff. I came to Canada twice last year and I'm going to come back sometime in August, so I'm really excited. I was in Ontario too. What is it called? It starts with the Markham.
Speaker 3:Markham, okay, yeah, that's about 45 minutes or an hour from me. I'm in Hamilton. I'm halfway between Toronto and Niagara Falls, so I'm right, ok, yeah.
Speaker 2:OK, perfect. So you know I've been trying to have this conversation with you because I've created this space to speak to like-minded individuals like yourself around the therapeutic art of baking and flour and the kitchen right. So we're really excited to have you here on the Cake Therapy Podcast to kind of add your voice to the conversations where it talks about blending these non-traditional forms of approaches to therapy. So, before we dive into field and flower therapy, I want you to share with our listeners your background. You know, set the stage for your amazing journey into this world of therapy and culinary therapy.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, I'm a social worker by trade, but I like to say I was an amateur baker long before that, um. So I've always enjoyed baking as just like an art form. So I think that I was drawn more to baking than cooking, mostly because I really liked the intricate art of it, especially with cake decorating and cookie decorating and I know you're one in the same that way. You like that as well. So I was really always very drawn to that and that was always a hobby of mine, I want to say even from the time I was like a teenager, a child, and so that's always been kind of in the background for me. But then I began work as a social worker, doing social work and therapy in various settings in my community, so mostly in an educational setting as well as in a hospital setting.
Speaker 2:So I was doing more clinical social work, and so the two worlds were not combined at first uh, for a long time, yeah, so yeah, I was asking you at what point did you you decide to merge them then?
Speaker 3:yeah, so it was actually um, so kind of similar to, I think, a lot of people's stories in this field.
Speaker 3:I think, just discovering that, um, making the connection between, between the fact that baking and my own therapeutic journey, making the connection between baking as therapy for me, was the starting point.
Speaker 3:And so, back in 2019, I experienced the loss of my dad, so he was diagnosed with cancer and then passed away very shortly after, and so it was during that process where I had to stop work and I had to pause for a while and be with my dad, and I took some time off of work. I was working in a school board setting at the time, so working with students in schools, and I paused by work and, I think, trying to find some way to feel better, to work through my grief and to work through how I was what I was going through at the time, and so, because of that, I kind of launched back into the kitchen. I went back into the kitchen and I'd always wanted to make these sugar cookies, and so I thought, you know, I went on Instagram and found all these YouTube tutorials to self-taught teach myself how to make these sugar cookies as a challenge, right, and as something else to kind of focus on and to kind of work through what I was going through in my mind. And that's where it all started.
Speaker 2:Wow, amazing. I think it's like similar for me. Well, I'm actually baking through something right now. So I'm sorry to hear about, you know, the loss of your dad, cause I am too in like a grief cycle and I'm just baking away because my mom currently has dementia. So I get it. It's trying to find that one thing that will heal this part of you. So kudos for you for recognizing that you could actually go back to this safe place of the kitchen to actually, you know, get through what it was that you were going through. So the trajectory you know I'm hearing you say was agency-based social work, schools, hospital crisis programs et cetera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you did this for like over 16 years, if I read correctly. So what was the level of intervention like?
Speaker 3:um in my, in my formalized work, yes, so very a lot of clinical intervention um. So as a social worker, what drew me to social work general is because I wanted to have that ability to do therapy. Um, in Ontario and Canada social workers are one of the main providers of psychotherapy services and counseling services. But I also I think I also was very drawn to the other sides of social work. Social work is kind of a unique kind of career in the sense that there's so many different types of pathways you can take within social work. You can do policy work, you can do community work, you can do grassroots work, you can do individual, family, group kind of practices or more systemic kind of policy driven work, and so I like a variety of that. But when my most of my experience was working clinically, individually and with groups and families in a school board setting so children and youth who are just having issues within the school system, whether that be socially, emotionally, academically I was working predominantly with them.
Speaker 2:Okay. So when did you start thinking that? Okay, there could be a fusion? You know I need to take this other creative approach to my private practice, where I'm fusing this creative side with the interventional interventions that you're providing. When did you decide to go that route.
Speaker 3:So after when I when I go back to like 2019, I was off for a while after my dad passed and I took some time off of work and then during that, all of a sudden that was like the end of 2019, early 2020. And so what had actually happened? First, I didn't intend to formally combine them yet. What I intended to do was find another way to kind of like just heal myself. So I started a little home bake shop and I called it Wildflower Fields and I was doing cake and cookie orders and I kind of thought, well, maybe I can just take a break. And they were still separate. They were still. Basically, I was going to go work in my clinical job during the day and then do some cookie orders and cake orders at night.
Speaker 3:So I did that for a little while, I want to say from like January up until the pandemic, so January, february, march, it was only a few months. And then I started to think, especially during the pandemic, that like there's got to be a formal way to do this. So I went online and I found a bunch of other people who are kind of like in the space saying the same thing, other people in the space and some people across the world internationally who were doing that, and I thought, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to do this, I'm going to try. But I still had this little bake shop. So this little bake shop was kind of going and I thought, okay, maybe if I do private practice, if I work into private practice, because conventionally, when I tried to propose this to my formal, my work, they were, they were a little skeptical, right, they just thought, well, I don't know how this is really going to work, especially in a school setting. And so it was. It became clear to me that I'd have to do this on my own.
Speaker 3:I'd have to do it privately, and so that's when Fields and Flower Therapy became into be so January 2021,. I started the private practice as a separate thing, because that's why they they became separate, because wildflower fields was my little passion project of like a little home bake shop, and then I decided to private practice. Um, and that's when I thought I would combine the two.
Speaker 2:How fun, like. And how has that been?
Speaker 3:like it's been a. It's been a roller coaster, it's been a, it's been a whirlwind I want to say a whirlwind and such an adventure. It's been wonderful. And I have to say, prior to that, where the nature side of it came in is the fact that I always had an interest in walk and talk therapy and being outdoors. I had practiced that very much in my career as a social worker.
Speaker 3:I would often find it's really hard to talk to people in and for a lot of kids and youth in a little office in the in the school or in a little storage closet in the school and I was like, let's go for a walk. How about we go for a walk? There was something about movement. There was something about blending that activity into the session, the counseling session, to be much more rich, much more therapeutically connected and have a better alliance. And so I always knew activity blended very similar to like play and art and all the other things that we would utilize to kind of engage with children and youth.
Speaker 3:But I had always thought that the nature side of it would be very intriguing. So I had done a whole bunch of research into horticultural therapy and walk and talk therapy, nature-based or eco-psychology, which is a very growing field as well, and I thought if I can combine the two and do a little bit of arts, a little bit of baking and a little bit of nature, that would just be wonderful for me. I was like I would love that. That would be my dream career and that's where it kind of landed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is really beautiful, because you know, as we know, that with mental health there's no one size that fits all, so we have to be really creative in how we help people respond to their own personal traumas and the journeys that each individual is on. So kudos to you. So you talk about this. I would say this fusion of this new brilliant idea in 2021, 2020 was in the middle of the pandemic, right, it was. So. Do you think the pandemic itself hindered or helped you to establish, you know, fields and flowers like more securely, like? Tell me about that.
Speaker 3:I think it definitely helps me, because I think one of the things that was happening too at the same time is that, from a practical perspective, people were baking, people were baking, right, it became popular, and so it gave me a little bit of a talking point, too, to say, like, see what, what do we do in crisis? What do we do when we lean into each other? We, we try our best, especially when our, when we are isolated and when we are not able to connect the way that we are used, to connect, we use the resources that we have, you know flour, sugar, all of those, all of those. Come on, people were baking sourdough bread, like it was such a, it was such a kind of trendy thing at the time, right, and I you know, and people were going for walks, people were going out and going for hikes, cause it was like all they could do, right, and so that was such a good talking point for me to say, like, listen, see, this is exactly what we do.
Speaker 3:We do, and oftentimes in crisis times, times of crisis, we lean on those mindful activities to ground us just in, just, by nature, by like, intrinsically, we do that, and so how natural would it be if we could combine the counseling or the psychotherapy techniques with those activities. It would feel very natural, it would feel very warm and it would feel like something that we would just I would love to participate in, right, and I would feel much more comfortable doing so. For us to offer that, like for myself to offer that, I just felt like it was such a natural fit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, isn't it amazing, though, how many people, like everyone, was just baking during the pandemic. Everyone was in their kitchen. What is going on? Yeah, I know my. During the pandemic, I was like I baked the most cakes I've ever baked and I literally burned out during the pandemic.
Speaker 3:Everybody was doing it everybody was doing it, yeah.
Speaker 2:One thing I want to reiterate with our listeners, right, that when it comes on to creative activities, they're not like just standalone approaches. We're not talking about just baking as the only way, right, because there's also some evidence-based interactions and strategies that are also integrated in psychotherapy For sure. So for a listener who hasn't, like, quite bought in and you're hearing, oh, you know, I'm pushing this notion of culinary art therapy. That's what the podcast is about, right, I'm trying to increase knowledge about these alternative art forms that are really saving lives. What do you say about evidence-based intervention that says that these art forms work along with?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that the evidence although you know, I think you know, when you do lit reviews and you try and look for evidence around specifically baking or specifically cooking, it is very limited, right, specifically baking or specifically cooking, it is very limited, right. However, I think that it's just another form of expression that is validated by tons of research. When we think about the expressive arts, when we think about play, when we think about art therapy, music and dance therapy, it's an expressive art form is how I delineate it and how I see it, and so we are not necessarily reinventing the wheel. We see something that is has been evidence, has been evidence-based and evidence-informed, and I think what the nature of it is is when you think about any type of counseling intervention right, when I take, you know, a very, you know, mainstream one like cognitive behavioral therapy right, Cognitive behavioral therapy when you're sitting with your counselor and you're talking about those strategies and you're talking about those elements, who's to say you wear that?
Speaker 3:You can only talk in an office setting. You can only talk at a table and be serious and have a clipboard and have a why. Why does it have to look like that? Right, you can do the exact same talk.
Speaker 3:you can do the exact same therapy in the kitchen, yeah you can do the exact same therapy, the exact same talk while you're walking outside, and so for me it's not necessarily changing the modality of the counseling of the psychotherapy technique from the from the context of it, just changing the modality of the counseling of the psychotherapy technique from the from the context of it, just changing the location absolutely just changing the location.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, and it really is like when, if you pause to really think about it, it's just simply changing the location of the conversation, because you talk so much when you're cooking, you talk so much when you know you're in the kitchen with, with company, you know it builds, it, heals you, it allows you to communicate. So, yeah, I love that. I'm going to actually take that with me. It's just a change of location.
Speaker 3:I think that was profound actually.
Speaker 2:So it really was like, you know, you, you believe in a thing so much, yeah, but then you know, and you create these, this elevator pitch right around it, because it's so For sure, and you're telling them, OK, it's worked for me, but why?
Speaker 3:But then you mentioning that it's still conversation, but it's just in a different space and I think that's why I exactly, exactly, and I think that's why I've used the phrase as well activity blended sessions, that we are blending in those activities while we are doing the counseling. The counseling and I think I use that conversation whenever I'm talking to clients or I'm talking to families about setting up clients, because we work with a lot of children and youth and a lot of adults is the sense of like that's what we're doing, like, please trust me, you're getting the same psychotherapy, you're getting the same counseling session. It's just happening to happen in a way that makes you feel more comfortable in talking. Right, there's a magic that happens in the kitchen and, anecdotally, the staff that I work with, like some of the therapists that are on my team, they you know cause, cause they kind of came on after I started the practice and they're like okay, courtney, so tell me how we do this, right. And so I've done some training and some talks with them about it and I, and anecdotally they can tell you too, right, like that there's something that happens.
Speaker 3:There's some sort of difference that happens when you're in the kitchen versus in a regular talk therapy setting, and it's a level of comfort, it's a level of like leveling the playing field, lowering the stigma, lowering sort of that expert client dynamic. There's something common about us when both of us are standing at the table and both of us are mixing ingredients, there's something that makes it just feel like the therapeutic alliance has been grown organically quicker than if you're sitting there with this awkward sort of like I'm the expert. Then if you're sitting there with this awkward sort of like I'm the expert, you're the patient type of feeling. That just feels very off-putting for folks and that can be a barrier to having the treatment work more effectively. Right when somebody has that barrier. So it's removing that barrier and it's being human.
Speaker 2:First is what I like to see Exactly, and it puts you in a space where, if two or three people are gathered, you're all three of us are going to make the same mistake. There's no pressure to get this right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, we're all like. We're all novices here. We're not going to get this right. If one of us go, it's like a team, it's like novices here. We're not going to get this right. If one of us go, it's like a team. It's like it's it's a team. You know it's a team event, you know we're a team here. Like, if you go down the road, it's wrong. If you don't interpret this recipe correct, this step correctly, we're both, we're all going to get it. We're all in it together and I do.
Speaker 3:I do quite a lot of work with um, with, with children and youth, teenagers and adults who are adults, who are struggling with those ideas of perfectionism and things needing to be a certain way, and the kitchen is such a natural therapeutic exposure therapy to that, because you're breaking an egg and all the eggshells get in the batter and you can see the panic kind of set in and it's like, no, what do we do? And so we are tacked like in in that, like tactfully in that moment, actually using the, the therapy that we're talking about in the session, in a hands-on way, right, and I'm like, yeah, that or I make a mistake. I'm like, oh, I put in the wrong amount, what should we do? So a lot of these things just kind of bring up in a in a very like practical way how we can kind of problem solve and how we can kind of work through some of those feelings, and it just works so well it does work.
Speaker 2:We've seen it work. I know we're trying. We've seen it work. We, we, it's, it's our own lived experience. It's an. It's an amazing experience that we're trying to say listen like come, yeah, do it, yeah, yeah, you know. Come and see, yeah, um, do you do it? Let's talk about how you practice. Is it out of the, the bakery or the?
Speaker 3:you know you have wildflower, yeah, it's a little confusing, I think at first, well, and I think because of the thing, because or the you know you have wildflower. Yeah, it's a little confusing, I think at first, well, and I think because of the thing, because of the fact that this very much unfolded as time went by. So I spoke about how I had this, the home bake shop, so that was like one, one business, and then I decided, wait, I really want to combine these two, I really want to do that. So I started for a little bit. I shelved the wildflower fields as the bakery, I took a pause while I focused on building the practice, and then what ended up happening is I rejuvenated that in 2020, I want to say the end of 2021. I decided that.
Speaker 3:So I'd only been in practice for about a year. I had been practicing out of a regular location, like a regular shared office space, right. So I wasn't yet doing a lot of the baking. I would only be doing the baking virtually because I didn't have a kitchen space. So I was doing walk and talk sessions with clients and regular counseling sessions in the office, and then I was doing virtual, some virtual baking, and I thought I need a space of my, my own. I need a space where I can have this. And that's when the idea sparked to me if I'm looking for a space, why don't I get a space where I can do a pop-ups, I can do pop-up bake shops with the wildflower fields and raise money for a low-cost counseling program, like almost like a bake sale kind of permanent? I'm gonna get a space. Why don't I get a space that I can do all of this for a low cost counseling program, like almost like a bake sale kind of permanent. I'm going to get a space. Why don't I get a space that I can do all of this? So I bought my space my initial space in the tail end of 2021, 2022, beginning in 2022. And I ended up getting that space. So it's a storefront location, but then we built an office within there and there's a little kitchen space. So it's a storefront location, but then we built an office within there and there's a little kitchen space, so it's a health inspected kitchen and I was able to be able to do all the things I wanted it to do. Yeah, and that's when it kind of evolved from there and I started connecting with other therapists who really wanted to do the same work, and so we kind of grew from there and that's where we ended up taking over two more units within the building. So one of them is our therapy practice, fields and Flower Therapy, and that we have now. There's nine plus me, so there's 10 of us together that share that space and we have a therapy kitchen on site, so it's separate from the little bake shop kitchen.
Speaker 3:No-transcript using healthcare coverage or extended benefits to pay for their sessions. We are not a public service and so the barrier to that I had as a social worker, coming from working debt like so many years in private and public services, my heart was kind of like how do I offer this a bridge so that people don't have to pay, or they don't have to pay the same cost but at the same time be able to have our therapists still get their market value, still get their you know their payment for their sessions and be able to still earn their income or earn their living. So there's got to be a way. So that's where Wildflower Fields, kind of like, emerged.
Speaker 2:Okay, I love that model, though, like, it sounds like a lot of building and growth and like almost two years, you know that's amazing. I really love the model of having you know your conversation and I think it really does encompass it. What you talk about the activity, blended counseling um, I read that you know as we were preparing and it sounds like you, you know that space is all encompassing. Um, you're really you would. Um, I'm gonna quote here like, like, where I said it's a casual client centered approach using blended therapeutic modality to help clients face challenges, and that space sure sounds like it does. Yeah, what I want to ask how easy was it? Was it now you have a team of nine to get the buy-in that this flower we're taking out, the therapy we're taking about, the traditional part of you know the social work now is that this flower can be a tool. How did you get the buy-in from your other eight or nine? You know workers.
Speaker 3:Well, and the funny thing is is that they, they, I like to say we kind of just blossomed, and I think it was more because most of the most of the therapists they all were had a similar story to me. So all the therapists either I had worked with in other settings in the school board setting or in the hospital setting, people, people that were, you know, kind of coming from the same angle that I was coming from, knowing that there's limited kind of ability to do creative work in public service, at least in our area, and so we wanted something different, we wanted to try something different. And so they kind of approached me and said hey, Courtney, what are you? We love what you're doing. Tell me more about what you're doing. And then ended up wanting to join in and start offering it as well with me, and so the buy-in kind of came naturally, I want to say because and I say this too there's something really fabulous that I'm really enjoying. In hindsight I didn't necessarily do it with intention, it kind of just rolled out that way.
Speaker 3:But there's something wonderful about the bake shop being at the front of our building and when we have open dates. So we usually open a couple of days a week and people come in and a lot of the merchandise because we have baked goods, we have ice cream, we have flowers, and then we have some gifts, and a lot of the gifts and books that we offer are all mental health themed or wellness themed. So it starts the conversation. So I notice, when I'm standing there and I'm like serving behind the counter, volunteering behind the counter, I notice that you know people will be like oh yeah, my son is really struggling with anxiety.
Speaker 3:Like it starts the conversation and so, even though they're coming into this like kind of very boutique type of space, they're coming into this little shop, this little bake shop. It starts the conversation, which automatically, I think, lowers the stigma because and it and it comes so naturally. So I find that when people reach out to us, when people are looking for services, they are already loving that idea and so just by the fact of being so authentic to what I you know, myself at least being very authentically myself and same with the clinicians that have been drawn to working here, I think we are very much. We are who we are and we as people, and so there's some sort of level of authenticity that is happening already. They already know who we are.
Speaker 2:We kind of present as we are, we're more casual, we're more conversational, and that just leads to, I think, more authentic client connections, which I love Absolutely and, I think, more authentic client connections, which I love absolutely, and I think a space such as a big shop already calms someone down like it's sweet treats here. Right, we're not going into like an office with a dim light sounds like I've done a lot of therapy, right? Yeah.
Speaker 3:I know, yes, yeah, you're not walking in a space with a dim light, you're walking in a space with, like.
Speaker 2:I know, yes, yes, you're not walking in a space with a dim light. You're walking in a space with, like, trees and affirmations space with affirmative words. So it does change the entire, the approach and the outlook coming in already. So kudos for you, for creating that, setting up that space. You know a welcoming space. I need to come and check it out.
Speaker 2:Yes, you have to come and visit. I have to for real. So I'm thinking. So I have the Cake Therapy Foundation. It's the modality is specifically girls. I want to be able to give this to girls who are impacted by the justice system, aging out of foster care, who are in and out of home placement, so I have a focus on just girls. My question to you is what is your assessment process? Like you know, in determining, like, who is more fit for this form of therapy? You know how do you choose your client? Who is, what types of clients are more effective? Do you think this is more effective for?
Speaker 3:I think. Well, I think that the clients who have a natural like, natural interest in the kitchen, a natural interest in the side, I think that for them it is, it just feels like a good fit. We talk a lot and when I do the intake calls and I talk to potential clients all the time and I match them with the therapist that I think might be a good fit for them, um, I'm often really preaching or talking about goodness of fit. You want to feel like this, this aligns with you and I think if you can get that, then naturally the therapeutic kind of um counseling intervention will follow in a very like, in a very fluid way. It will happen very easily. Um, so that's one thing.
Speaker 3:I think it's it's people who like to bake, they like to bake or they like the idea of baking, and so that automatically sets them up to being open to it. Right, it kind of they're bought in already because they're interested. They might not want to talk about their pain, they might not want to talk about their anxiety, but they'll make brownies and then the brownies get them in and then we start talking about it and it just feels much more natural. So I think for me it's just been a really good. But that's how that's from the assessment like process. That's what I would say is people who are already naturally drawn to it. It's a really good fit.
Speaker 2:How do you see all age ranges in your, in, in your um, in your?
Speaker 3:practice, yeah yeah. So we have um, and I didn't know at first. I didn't know whether um adults would be interested Um, cause I mostly came from the world of working with children and youth. For most of my career I've been with children and youth Um, however, I very quickly um, especially with the walk and talk sessions and the sessions in the kitchen. We see all ages and what has been really remarkable for me is the fact that when you think about play or art therapy, people naturally kind of think that that goes with kids. They naturally kind of think, okay, well, kids would like that. That's kind of best practice model, right, but when do adults really get a chance to play? When do adults really get a chance to be mindful and creative? And so this has been a really wonderful journey.
Speaker 3:I think for a lot of our clients it gives them it's almost like a dual purpose. They get to, especially in the kitchen. I'm going to, I'm going to bake something and I'm going to talk to my therapist For multitasking people. They think that this is wonderful, right, but they don't really realize that the value of it, of being mindful and just being in the moment and being in the present moment. We're practicing the skills that we're preaching in the counseling session actively in the session as well. Right, so we're actually doing it, which is wonderful and it's accessible. Which is what I've told a lot of folks is the fact that I don't want to teach somebody or encourage them to do a strategy that is really not feasible for their lifestyle, but most people have access to the outdoors and most people have some access to a kitchen, and so it's something that I'm giving them an opportunity to do and carry on in their regular life outside of the session and imagine that sense of accomplishment right completing something in that process yes, yeah, yeah, I've seen that so much people.
Speaker 3:Oh, I can't bake that. I'm like well, why don't we try? I know you feel like you can't, but why don't we try?
Speaker 2:and we'll learn it together and that's a wonderful, wonderful journey, Because I can tell you that my story is not any different from these individuals who are coming into your space. I just decided to bake a cookie and a cake because I was on bed rest. You know, it's a story I speak at length about in. I wrote a book. It's called Cake. I have your book.
Speaker 3:I have your book. I did, I ordered it.
Speaker 2:So cool. Yeah, you know I speak at length at how like baking has changed my life and when I think about it, I it moves me so much to the point where I'm thinking what was it that got me to the place where I'm now advocating for such form of therapy? Was it a finished product? Was it the process? Such form of therapy, was it a finished product? Was it the process? And I'm at a place where I'm saying it's the combination, the combined impact of the process and the accomplishment that you get and the silence and the space where you get to sit and process it all.
Speaker 2:Do you see these things emerging and connecting with your clients when you're doing it For sure I do, for sure I do.
Speaker 3:There's something really wonderful because they get it, people get excited and it's such, it's an actual like, an actual physical transformation.
Speaker 3:I want to say right, because when we take all of these ingredients, these like random ingredients from our kitchen, and then we come out and you see, so, if I just think about it, a child client, right, for example, who is nervous and, and you know we might not have hit all the things or therapeutic goals that we were trying to get through in the session, but they walked away with this product that they were able to share with their family and they're like we made this, I made this in my session. It just gives a tangible representation of what you're doing, of what you can do if you try, and that's so um, embedded in like theories, like growth, mindset and behavior activation and all of the things that we try to talk about in counseling and therapy, it works so well, right, and I mean occupational therapy as a practice has always been using these activities like this is not something new, right, um, perspective, but I just find that, from a confidence booster, as a confidence booster, it's just been wonderful yeah, amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2:I'm also excited that you actually have my book. I hope you enjoy the read and the story so much. Yeah, so cake therapy, how baking changed my life. Is there a difference, you think, between baking therapy and therapeutic baking, or do you think it's one and the?
Speaker 3:same. That's a funny question because I think you know what I think if I'm going to delineate, if I think about it from a clinical perspective, what is the difference between something that is therapy and something that is therapeutic? My clinical hat would say that therapy, like psychotherapy or counseling as a therapy, is the, the information and the knowledge that and this, the modality that the counselor shares through clinical skills, is what helps with the therapy, is what actually makes the therapy, propels it right, like why do you go to a registered counselor? Why do you go to a counselor? Most of the time is because you trust their skills, you trust their abilities and their experience to try and counselor. Why do you go to a counselor Most of the time is because you trust their skills, you trust their abilities and their experience to try and guide you through what you're doing.
Speaker 3:And so I kind of think about them as like one being led by, like a clinical counselor, and one being kind of just on your own or in a group or in a community setting. I think those are the difference from my perspective anyway, and I lean on you know other art therapists and expressive art therapists who kind of make those delineations and they talk about that, right. I think that's the difference there for me, but I think it's an evolving thing, right. We're in this space together and I think there's quite a few of us now who are really wanting to explore this more and research it more, and I think that it's such an exciting time to be interested in this.
Speaker 2:I absolutely agree with you. It is an amazing time. And I'm saying it's an amazing time because imagine a world where you're connecting with this novel approach, something that existed, you know, for centuries, or matriarchs have been cooking for centuries, but then now it's in this time where we're recognizing like, wow, there is something else here. You know, it might have been doing the same thing for our grandmothers and our great grandmothers, but they weren't able to put their fingers on it. That's why they were always in the kitchen. But it's just for you know, it's our generation now to really kind of come in and explore it, and I'm so excited to be a part of that and the group and the team, the team effort.
Speaker 2:What I can appreciate about a community is like, because it's so novel, everybody wants to know. It's like everybody's like okay, let's come together and figure this out. Everybody wants to know, like, let's come together and figure this thing out because it is real. It's real to each and every one of us, so share with our listeners. Um, what's on the horizon for you besides me coming to Canada and coming to see you?
Speaker 3:because I want to work in that space.
Speaker 2:Yes, what's going on for you?
Speaker 3:there's. I mean, there's a lot of. There's a lot of things that I imagine and I dream about, I think for a little while, especially when you were saying the last couple of years it's been a lot of building the space and building the practice, and I feel like now I'm at a point where we've built the practice and we have clinicians who can see folks, which is great, and that's pretty much what I wanted to get going first. But when I started, when I got the space, when I remember when I got the original storefront unit and this will probably speak to exactly what you were talking about is I did a little Instagram live. I remember when I announced that I got the keys and I was so excited and one of the things because my background is working with children and youth and my work has been working with children and youth I always thought about group programming. I always thought about the fact that we needed to have some sort of program and so lately we've been running Make Big Bloom Grow groups, which have been wonderful. We've been therapeutic expressive arts groups that we've been running myself and two of the child and youth care practitioners, which has been wonderful, wonderful. But when I, when I go back and I rewind a bit. Why did I start this? And I think back to that.
Speaker 3:One of the things that always struck me is I worked a lot with kids in the in the education system who are struggling, who were not able to maybe attend traditional school, who were struggling with attendance, struggling with mental health, struggling with family dynamic issues. So very a lot of young girls or young students who were struggling with that. And my thought was for those students who really were struggling with that and they needed to get support. There was not a lot of places that they could go to get all of the support that they needed Right Like, and what I mean by that is they could go to a counselor that they needed Right Like, and what I mean by that is they could go to a counselor and they could go to their part-time job and they could go and do a hobby and they could go to their school system. But they had to go to all of those places in silence, right, and I thought we had one program or a program where they could go and they could get educational support, they could get counseling support, they could get life skills. They could get life skills, they could get work experience working in the front of the shop. You know, I was really passionate that that would be a really nice alternative education setting and that is what I really wanted.
Speaker 3:From the get-go with Wildflower Field, I thought, okay, maybe that will work if we have a little new question setting and I could help with that. Maybe that will work if we have a little question setting and I could help with that, because that's where my experience came from. That's what I wanted to do and what was missing, and so I'm hoping that in the next couple of years that will be something that we can use now that I have the space, um. So I think that's something that will be on the horizon, um, but I'm just excited to see where things kind of grow and how it kind of transforms in the next little while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get excited when I hear the end goal in terms of developing these human, these young people, into future entrepreneurs or whatever you know, if they decide to use this tool to become leaders of tomorrow, because it's the foundation of cake therapy, so I love to hear when someone else connects with that as well. It's really, really close to my heart. What do you want your legacy to be? Tell me what is Courtney's, what is that's?
Speaker 3:a good question. I don't know. I don't. It's funny because I think you know likely wildflower fields and likely, like my practice will probably be my legacy. I've become so passionate about one of my work now and what I'm doing and I really think for me personally it's been the missing piece when I was working in other settings. You know there was so much good work that we were doing. There was great work that we were doing in the school system and the hospital system, but I think some of the systems issues were preventing us from really blossoming into the type of clinicians and the type of programming that we could offer. And I get so excited.
Speaker 3:The Make, bake, bloom and Grow program. We just were in our second group of it. We ran a first group and it was a four-week program and we talked about emotion regulation, anxiety and stress, friendship and social skills and in communication, as well as self-esteem and confidence. And it was a four-week program and I don't feel like I'm overstating it If I talk to my fellow participants and my fellow leaders in the group. It was just magic. It just was so wonderful and that was so gratifying to me to be able to run a group that touched these kids and touched families and the other practitioners. We felt so good about the work we were doing with those kids and it was fun. It was fun. We baked cookies, we planted seeds, we did games, we did art and it was just so much fun and the kids got really great learning out of it, and so that's what lights me up, so being able to create more programs like that. I think I'll be spending a lot of time doing that.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm excited about yeah, one I'm gonna take from that is like you planted seeds and you, more than physically planted seeds, you planted, you know, seeds. Yeah, we're going to see bloom and blossom um a decade from now. Yeah, I hate to wrap this up, I you know this has been a great conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you and I are going to connect again. We are we're too, in alignment. I can feel it. Yeah. Yeah, we're definitely in alignment and I loved it. I've enjoyed this conversation. Tell our listeners where they can find you as we're wrapping.
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course, so I'm mostly more active on Instagram. I'm trying to spread out my focus, but I'm mostly on Instagram and we have two handles on Instagram One for the therapy practice, which is Fields and Flower Therapy, like the baking flower, and then for our social enterprise project for Wildflower Fields. The Bake Shop Institute VO, which is the nonprofit-profit project, is wildflower fields, and so both of them are connected on instagram and we have facebook pages and websites as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, courtney, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm I've done many interviews and I've thoroughly enjoyed having this conversation with you. That's like really no lie. This has been a slice of joy and healing. Um, when I've enjoyed completely the conversations, I tell people that I've given them the entire cake, but I just gave them wildflower bakery. Uh, wait, um, and I won't wait. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining me. Wildflower Fields Bakery or the Bake Shop. We'll put the correct. Could you repeat the correct name of the bakery we're recording, because I'm missing that.
Speaker 3:Wildflower Fields Bake Shop and Studio and it's attached to our practice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I'll make sure that all of those connections are in the description. So thank you so much again for joining us. This has been the Cake Therapy Podcast. Thank you, today's mindful moment. Just as dough needs time to rise, so do we Allow yourself the space to grow.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to the Cake Therapy Podcast. Your support means the world to us. Let us know what you thought about today's episode in the comment section. Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and if you found the conversation helpful, please share it with a friend. Also, follow Sugar Spoon Desserts on all social media platforms. We invite you to support Cake Therapy and the work we do with our foundation by clicking on the Buy Me a Coffee link in the description or by visiting the Cake Therapy website and making a donation. All your support will go towards the Cake Therapy Foundation and the work we are doing to help women and girls. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next episode.