“Sometimes just being heard and seen and valued is what we're looking for at the end of the day,” says Lista Qanaatia Spensley-Tagornak. She was born in Iqaluit and raised in Rankin Inlet until she was five. These days she works as an art therapist and registered clinical counselor in British Columbia, helping people feel seen and heard. She also facilitates workshops, speaks and does consulting around the world.

In her art therapy practice, Lista Wellness, Spensley-Tagornak offers individual and group art therapy sessions online. In these one hour sessions, participants use art to express themselves and for self-exploration. She also provides sessions through Connected North, introducing students to art therapy and allowing them to explore their wellbeing through creative expression and draw on their own inner resources.  

Another place Spensley-Tagornak works is called Relationship Matters Consultancy Inc, somewhere she’s been volunteering since she was a child. She co-facilitates workshops and training on trauma sensitive practice and education, sleep, anxiety and other topics. She’s had a chance to train hospitals, educators, correctional staff and other teams in the best ways to support themselves.

Motivating Spensley-Tagornak along this career path has been her love of art and the impact she’s seen her work make in the lives of her clients. Participating in art therapy herself as a young person was helpful to her personally. Being able to support herself doing meaningful work as a sole proprietor has been inspiring. Due to regulatory requirements, she can only do art therapy and counselling in BC and the Yukon, but she can do psychoeducation work, team building, training and workshops anywhere.

To prepare her for this work, Spensley-Tagornak went to a private high school on Vancouver Island and then a private university called Quest University for her undergraduate program. She completed her master’s program at Adler University, having pursued a masters of counselling psychology in art therapy.

Her advice for young Inuit thinking about pursuing a similar career path or who are thinking about leaving their hometown for education is to reflect on if they feel pushed or pulled towards doing so. In other words, are they intrigued by the idea or are they trying to get away from something else? She recommends pursuing something you are genuinely drawn to.

Spensley-Tagornak knows leaving home can be hard and she recommends drawing on existing supports and leaning into people you trust. She suggests Integrating daily practices that feel like home into your new routines can be helpful. After graduation, she took a gap year to connect with what she wanted to do and asked for help at the local Friendship Centre, too.  She volunteered with a children’s community in India and at an occupational therapy clinic in Indonesia. She realized she wanted to be a helper and some Instagram ads led her to counselling and art therapy.

When it comes to obstacles, Spensley-Tagornak struggled to afford the private universities she attended and needed financial aid. She applied for scholarships based on her leadership from her volunteer experience and the Friendship Centre nominated her for awards as well. Something else she struggled with was her mixed ancestry and feeling confused about where she belonged. She attended a summer camp for teens struggling with identity where she was supported by elders, chiefs, art therapists and even got to travel to India.

Connecting through art, being on land and on the water were big opportunities for her. Not knowing her language was a source of vulnerability for her and learning small phrases brought some healing. Learning to use an ulu was also something she was proud of as well as being able to share her culture when she traveled. The experience of not knowing what she wanted to do professionally was also hard. Now established in her career, gathering with 17 other Inuit counsellors from around the world was a transformative experience.

If Spensley-Tagornak could share a message with her younger self it would be “what's shareable is bearable”, which is the idea that when you share your experiences in an authentic way with people you trust, you can feel supported, nourished and held. It’s also about self-talk, something that Spensley-Tagornak struggled to do in a healthy way, often speaking to herself negatively when she would have benefited more from a pep talk. She also would share an Inuk saying which encourages focusing on what you can control instead of the things you can’t.

To balance her mental health, Spensley-Tagornak enjoys her favourite snacks, her comfy snacks, her crochet project, making food, spending time with people, walking her dog, going out on the land, and doing breathing exercises. She also enjoys meditating, looking at photos that make her happy, and smelling her favourite candles. As part of her Connected North session, she has students draw a shelf of the things that help them with their wellbeing and she has done the exercise herself many times, even making her own literal shelf at home.

As far as inspiration goes, Spensley-Tagornak loves being in nature and integrating it into her work. She uses nature as metaphor and reflects on the patterns she sees mirrored in the natural world that she also sees in her practice. She’s also inspired by the people she’s in nature with, the people she looks up to and the growth she finds in that. She is motivated by the ancestors and by all of the connections that bring people together in each moment, by the passing down of cultural practices and wisdom, and by intergenerational strength.

Knowing her clients are looking to be heard and seen and valued at the end of the day, Lista Qanaatia Spensley-Tagornak draws on her training as an art therapist to do just that. Bringing her cultural perspective to this healing modality, she creates a unique space for wellness for the people in her care. While she faced many barriers to get here, she overcame them to be able to help others overcome their own.

Thank you to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article!