Inner Gold Workshops

A full day of creative practice for survivors of trauma and substance abuse, offered free of charge in the Los Angeles area. Each workshop is deliberately small and runs from late morning into the evening, long enough for people to arrive guarded and leave differently.

The day moves through five sessions, each led by a working artist or practitioner in that discipline:

Visual art. Hands-on work with real materials, early in the day when making something is easier than talking. Participants take their work home.

Movement. Guided and gentle, entirely non-performative — reconnecting with a body that trauma has often made an uncomfortable place to live.

Creative writing. Words for the parts that haven't had any. Nothing is read aloud unless the writer wants it read.

Dance. After lunch, when the room has loosened. No experience, no choreography, nothing performed.

Sound bath. The day closes lying down, in sustained sound — the part participants most often say they didn't expect.

Lunch is provided and eaten together in the middle of the day. Materials are provided. Nothing is performed or displayed without the maker's say-so, and anyone can sit out any part of the day.

Why this shape. Trauma and substance use affect the nervous system, memory and emotional regulation. Research on structured music and movement programs suggests they can support emotional regulation, reduce isolation and strengthen engagement with recovery, by working through channels that talk alone does not reach. Inner Gold is built on that research. It is a creative and peer programme rather than a clinical one: our facilitators are artists, not clinicians, and the workshops are not therapy or treatment.

Supporting the work

Inner Gold is free to participants and funded entirely by donations — the space, the facilitators, the materials, and the meals shared together.

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