The Heart Behind the Work
My story, my practice, and why I believe everything you've lived is ready to be seen.
The Heart Behind the Work
My story, my practice, and why I believe everything you’ve lived is ready to be seen.
Stay Close to the Work
A note now and then from inside the practice — and word when a new map or offering opens.
Our Vision
A world where women in the second half of life stop being seen only through what they’ve given — and begin to see themselves through what they’ve become.
Where the wisdom accumulated through decades of living, surviving and growing is recognized not as the residue of a life — but as the source of a sovereignty yet to be claimed.
Our Mission
We believe that the wisdom a woman accumulates through decades of living — the roles, the losses, the crossings, the survival — is not the residue of a life. It is the source of her becoming.
We excavate that wisdom. Not by analyzing it or planning around it — but by making it visible. Layer by layer, in layered mixed media, in color and image and symbol, in a Book of Wisdom that bears witness to her becoming. Through coaching, through circle, through the depth practice of Visual Wisdom Keeping.
This is not hobby craft. It is not journaling. It is the work of fully becoming — made accessible, made affordable, made available to every woman who senses that something in her is ready to be seen. We do this work together. That is the practice. That is the mission.
Our Core Values
- Sovereignty Over Diminishment. The second half of life is not when a woman's story ends. It is when she finally becomes the author of it.
- Excavation Over Explanation. We don't analyze the life. We make it visible. The image reaches what words cannot.
- Wholeness Over Perfection. We embrace all aspects of the self — the beautiful and the difficult — rather than striving for an impossible ideal.
- Process Over Product. The excavation happens in the making. Not in producing perfect pages — in the marks, the layers, the act of making something visible.
- Depth Over Surface. We engage with the profound questions of identity, meaning, and purpose that arise in the second half of life — not superficial solutions.
- Accessibility Over Exclusivity. We make this work available to everyone, regardless of artistic background or previous experience.
We make one promise. Not to fix you. Not to reinvent you. Not to hand you tools and send you on your way.
To witness you in your becoming.
To offer you a practice that goes as deep as your life has gone. And to walk with you toward the sovereignty that has been gathering itself in you — through every crossing, every loss, every threshold you’ve survived. It takes profound courage to become who you’ve always been. We know. We’re doing it too.
We make one promise. Not to fix you. Not to reinvent you. Not to hand you tools and send you on your way. To witness you in your becoming. To offer you a practice that goes as deep as your life has gone. And to walk with you toward the sovereignty that has been gathering itself in you — through every crossing, every loss, every threshold you've survived. It takes profound courage to become who you've always been. We know. We're doing it too.
The Inner Journey of Visual Journaling
Visual Story Finding
we transform lived experience into wisdom through image, word, symbol, metaphor, object, and landscape. This practice helps us recognize profound patterns across our stories, history, and intuitive knowing.
Symbolism
our first language was symbols, imagery, and metaphors. For many of us, this ability fades as language emerges. Through visual wisdom keeping we reconnect with this deeper form of expression.
Giving Voice
we draw on the combined energy of your strengths and your shadow and push you to the edges of expression. Practice deepens your capacity to transform inner knowing into integrated wisdom through both verbal and non-verbal exploration.
Illumination
unlike enlightenment gives us small glimpses of light, grace, insight, or perspective. These tiny sparks are just enough to stir your spirit.
Presence
is our connection to the moment, our willingness to gaze and let go of negative judgments. It allows inner vision to break through, unfolding deeper meanings and transforming them into wisdom.
Seeing
not just looking. Seeing is when you create with compassion while “visually listening” to an inner knowing revealed in your journal spreads. In practice, you gain access to wisdom and beauty with yourself and the world around you.
Meet Terri Altschul
Guiding Women in the Second Half of Life — Into Wholeness, Through Practice and Partnership, Toward Sovereignty.
Terri Altschul is a coach and practitioner of the sovereignty of becoming — working with women in the second half of life at the exact moment when everything they’ve lived is ready to be seen.
With over 4,000 coaching hours and years of sitting with women at this exact threshold, Terri witnessed what traditional approaches to transformation couldn’t reach. Where words hit walls, images opened doorways. Where thinking circled, making something visible broke through.
She knows this not only from her work — but from her own crossing. In 2012, after losing her mother, words failed her. She turned to art materials and her knowledge of depth psychology — and discovered that the image could carry what language could not. That discovery became The Visual Journaler — a depth practice that draws from Jungian psychology, Celtic wisdom, and the art of layered mixed media to help women excavate the wisdom they already carry but haven’t yet seen.
The medium is not decorative. Mixed media layers — built, covered, revealed over time — mirror the way the psyche actually works. The layering is the methodology. This is depth work made visible.
Terri works with women who have begun to sense that everything they’ve lived — the roles, the losses, the crossings, the accumulated decades — is pointing toward something. Something not yet visible. Something ready to be excavated.
The second half of life is not when a woman’s story ends. It is when it finally becomes possible.
My Official Creds...
- ICF PCC Certified Coach, 4,000+ Coaching Sessions, 2011 to present
- The Visual Journaler, Founder, 2015 to present
- Terri Altschul Coaching, Founder, 2011 to present
- Skillsoft (formerly Pluma) Executive Coach, 2018 to present
- Leadership Development Faculty, American Management Association, 2013 to 2020
- AstraZeneca, Director Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness 2006-11
- Morgan Stanley, VP Learning & Leadership Development (6,000 incumbents, all levels) 2001-05
Bachelor of Business Administration, Organizational Psychology (Graduated with honors), American Intercontinental University · Hoffman Estates, IL
COACHING CERTIFICATIONS
- ICF Credential PCC (Professional Certified Coach) with more than 4,000 coaching sessions
- Certified New Ventures West Integral Coach
- Certificate 18-month Gestalt Training Program
- Certified Coach & Facilitator, Immunity to Change, Harvard
- Certified The Coaching Game, Level 2
COACHING CONTINUING ED
- “The Power of Embodied Transformation”, Coaches Rising
- “Stuck in the Story” Exploring Forgiveness in Coaching Practice, Institute of Coaching
- “Imposter Syndrome & Systems”, Empowering Clients to Engage Their Agency, Institute of Coaching
- “Death and Loss” How Coaches Can Support Clients Through Life’s Transitions, Institute of Coaching
- “Trauma Awareness in Coaching” Certificate, The Deep Coaching Institute
- “Symbols of Transformation” Centre of Applied Jungian Studies
- “Albedo, the Way of Illumination” Centre of Applied Jungian Studies
- “Individuate Through Creativity and Art Making” with Susan Rowland
- “Embodied Transformation,” Coaches Rising
- “Creative Expression, Going Deeper with Coaching Clients,” Gestalt Institute, Cleveland
- “Experimenting with Experiments, a Coach Approach,” Gestalt Institute, Cleveland
- “Writing, Creativity, and the Mindful Coach,” The Mindfulness Coaching School
- “The Art of Engaged Mindfulness,” The Mindfulness Coaching School
- “The Dynamic Trio: EMDR, Positive Psychology & Coaching,” The Mindfulness Coaching School
- Certified Linkage “Leading Organizational Transition”
- Certificate 4Mat4Business Instructional Design
- Certified “TiLT 365”
- Certified Reina “Trust and Betrayal in Organizations”
- Certified Lominger “Voices”
- Certified Group Development Questionnaire (GDQ)
- Certified Hay Group “Organizational Climate”
- Certified Hay Group “High Impact Leadership”
- Certified “Crucial Conversations”
- Certified “Leadership Agility 360”
- Qualified MBTI
- Certified Achieve Global “Quality Service Skills”
- Certified Wilson Learning “Navigator”
- Certified “Managing Professional Growth”
- Certified “FastStart”
- Johari Window
- Certified “Dimensional Team Building”
- Certified Franklin “Timequest”
- Type & Conflict
- Certified “Leadership Through People Skills”
- Info Mapping “Instruction-Based Design”
- Web-based authoring tools include Thinkific, Mighty Networks, Intrepid, Ruzuku, Word Press, Elementor, Joomla, Blackboard, Adobe Connect, Zoom, Adobe Creative Suite, Articulate 360, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Camtasia, Snag-it, Audacity, MailChimp (newsletters and automated workflows)
- MS Office Suite, MS Project, Social Learning Platforms, and Mobile Applications
- Memberships in ASTD, SHRM, ICF, HBA, ODN, and SBA
- Personal Activities: Mom and wife, Grammie x3, Dog and Cat Mom, Book Lover, Art Journaling, Mixed Media Enthusiast, Svaroopa Yoga, Mindfulness
From Terri's First Journal in 2015
(click the images to enlarge them)
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Terri Altschul is an ICF PCC—a Professional Certified Coach with more than 30 years of experience and thousands of coaching hours.
She works with women in the second half of life, drawing on Jungian depth psychology and Visual Wisdom Keeping to guide women across the threshold into wholeness.
Her gift is holding space for what's emerging—and helping you become who you haven't yet been.
