The Heart Behind the Work

My story, my mission, and why I believe your lived experience deserves
to become something beautiful

KEEP READING

The Heart Behind the Work

My story, my mission, and why I believe your lived experience is become something beautiful

KEEP READING

Presence and Shadow

A biweekly letter exploring the themes that shape us — through seasonal rhythms, visual practice, and the wisdom hidden in what we create.

Our Vision

To create a world where women in the second half of life are seen, honored, and recognized as essential—where the passage from Mother to Elder is marked and celebrated, not erased.

We envision a community where creating your Book of Wisdom becomes a pathway to knowing yourself more fully—where women welcome all parts of themselves as essential to wholeness. We see a future where this work is understood not as a hobby craft, but as a profound creative and spiritual practice available to all who are ready.

Our Mission

The Visual Journaler helps women transform lived experience into wisdom—through creative practice, depth psychology, and the creation of their Book of Wisdom.

We guide women to create pages that hold more than memory. Through The Visual Journaler method, we teach a practice that integrates all of who you are—the light and the shadow, the celebrated and the hidden—into something beautiful you can hold in your hands.

This is more than journaling. It’s a pathway to wholeness, grounded in 30+ years of coaching and Jungian depth psychology. We provide the methodology, the facilitation, and the community for women ready to honor what they’ve lived and create something lasting from it.

Our Core Values

  • 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 transformation happens in the making, not in producing perfect pages. We honor the journey over the destination.
  • 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.
  • Integration Over Division. We support the bringing together of all parts of self—light and shadow, rational and intuitive—into a unified whole.
  • Accessibility Over Exclusivity. We make this work available to everyone, regardless of artistic background or previous experience.
  • Community Over Isolation. We create supportive spaces where women can share their journey and create their Book of Wisdom while honoring the deeply personal nature of this inner work.

We promise to hold space for your complete self—your questions, your shadows, your light, and your transformation. We offer not just tools and techniques, but a philosophy and community that honors the profound courage it takes to become who you've always been.

Through practice, we develop sensitivity to the visual and symbolic messages that surround us. Your Book of Wisdom becomes a sacred container where images and words speak to each other—transforming lived experience into integrated wisdom you can see, touch, and embody.

Explore The Visual Journaler Method

rs

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.

IMG_1990 (1)
authenticity

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.

tears are never wasted

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

Helping Women Transform Lived Experience Into Wisdom

Terri Altschul is an ICF PCC certified coach with over 4,000 coaching hours and creator of The Visual Journaler™ methodology. Her unique approach—guiding women to transform lived experience into wisdom through visual practice—emerged from the intersection of extensive professional training and profound personal transformation.

For more than 30 years, Terri thrived in corporate leadership development, working with global organizations to unlock human potential. She trained in Immunity to Change (Robert Kegan, Harvard), Integral Coaching, Jungian psychology, and Gestalt awareness practices. While outwardly successful, she increasingly recognized the limitations of traditional development approaches that often remained on the surface, rarely accessing the deeper patterns that truly drive transformation.

In 2011, Terri stepped away from her established career to explore more direct pathways to helping others transform fear and inner blocks. But it wasn’t until experiencing the profound grief of losing her mother in 2012 that her methodology truly crystallized. When words failed to express the depth of her emotions, she turned to art materials and her knowledge of coaching inquiry—discovering a transformative pathway through grief that led to unexpected personal evolution.

This pivotal experience revealed the power of combining visual expression with depth psychology. Where verbal coaching sometimes hit walls, images opened doorways to the unconscious, integrating mind, heart, and soul in a process that honored wholeness. Through this discovery, The Visual Journaler™ was born—a methodology that helps women access their inner wisdom through creativity when words alone aren’t enough.

Today, Terri specializes in guiding women through the second half of life. Her work sits at the intersection of Jungian psychology, developmental frameworks, Gestalt awareness practices, and visual wisdom keeping—creating a unique pathway to integration and wholeness. She is a certified professional coach applying depth psychology to the sacred work of midlife transformation.

With a warm, insightful presence and deep respect for each woman’s unique journey, Terri guides her clients to embrace all parts of themselves, honor the lives they’ve lived, and take their place in the lineage of women who hold what matters.

My Official Creds...

From Terri's First Journal in 2015

(click the images to enlarge them)

Ready to begin your own Book of Wisdom?

Your stories, your lessons, your hard-won knowing—they deserve more than memory. Start with
a free resource, join the community, or dive into a guided journey. There's a path for wherever you are.

START CREATING

Feeling scattered?
You're not broken.

Your fragmented thoughts and emotions are actually speaking a sacred language that you can learn to read.  This free micro-class reveals why traditional approaches to ‘getting it together’ often miss the deeper wisdom your scattered pieces are trying to show you.

Access the Integration Micro-Class

10-minute interactive experience. Unsubscribe anytime.