Our ethos
We Commit To:
The Art of Seeking is a collective hub where courageous curiosity becomes (un)learning, processing becomes embodied, and evolution becomes sustainable.
We are committed to creating spaces of care, accountability, and reflection where people can engage in ways that honor their lived experience, capacity, and context.
Accessibility is not a fixed standard—it is an ongoing practice of listening, adjusting, and co-creating with the people we serve.
Prioritize people over profits and the inherent dignity we all hold
Liberation over performance that centers contextual understanding and constant reimagining
Co-create and integrate truth for ourselves, the organization, and for you
Community sustainability over hustle
Disrupt the mental health industrial complex and commodified “healing”
Understand your experiences in the context of your identities, communities, body, histories, and the systems you move through
Believe you are not “broken” or that “there’s something wrong with you” but are a collection of your experiences and the responses to those experiences that have kept you safe and alive
Healing is not one-size-fits-all. We welcome feedback and remain open to growth in how we serve you.
Values and Anti-Oppression Statement
The Art of Seeking is grounded in anti-oppressive, anti-racist, LGBTQIA+ affirming, and body-affirming care. We recognize that mental health cannot be separated from histories of colonization, racism, ableism, fatphobia, cisheterosexism, classism, and other systems of harm—including those within the mental health field itself.
We aim to:
We aim to:
Understand your experiences in the context of your identities, communities, and environments, rather than treating you as “the problem.”
Name and explore the impact of systemic oppression and trauma when it is relevant to your care.
Practice cultural humility and shared power, including openness to feedback about blind spots and misattunements.
Make space for all parts of you—grief, anger, joy, numbness, confusion, spirituality, and resistance—without pathologizing your survival strategies.
We will not always get it perfect, but we are committed to ongoing learning, self-reflection, repair when possible, and collaborating with you to shape a space that is as brave, affirming, and liberatory as we can make it together.
Accessibility and Accommodations
The Art of Seeking is committed to making services as accessible as possible and to collaborating with you around your needs, capacities, and barriers. If you have disability-related needs, are neurodivergent, manage chronic illness or pain, are a caregiver, or face systemic barriers to accessing care you deserve, you are invited to share this so we can plan together.
Possible accommodations may include:
Possible accommodations may include:
Adjusting pacing, structure, or sensory input
Providing information in alternative formats when possible (for example, brief written summaries or visual aids)
Collaborating on grounding tools and environment setups that support your needs
If you need a specific accommodation, please let us know. We may not be able to meet every request, but we are committed to problem-solving creatively and respectfully within our scope and capacity. The Art of Seeking does not discriminate in providing services based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, language, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, relationship structure, religion or spirituality, age, disability, immigration status, or socioeconomic status.
Land Acknowledgment
The Art of Seeking gathers, practices, and offers care on the traditional homelands of the Council of the Three Fires — the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations — land also stewarded across generations by the Myaamia, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac and Fox, and Peoria Nations, among others. Even the name Chicago descends from a Miami-Illinois word for the wild garlic that once grew along these waterways — a reminder that this land carried meaning, memory, and relationship long before it carried our practice.
We name this not as a closing statement, but as an ongoing one. Indigenous peoples are not only ancestors of this place — they are present, sovereign, and building futures here now. Acknowledgment without action is just another way of consuming a story that isn’t ours to tell. So alongside this acknowledgment, we hold ourselves to a pledge: a living commitment we return to, revise, and grow — the same way we ask you to keep returning to your own practice.
Reciprocity is a practice, not a performance. Here is where we’re starting, and what we commit to as an ongoing part of how The Art of Seeking shows up in this city:
We name this not as a closing statement, but as an ongoing one. Indigenous peoples are not only ancestors of this place — they are present, sovereign, and building futures here now. Acknowledgment without action is just another way of consuming a story that isn’t ours to tell. So alongside this acknowledgment, we hold ourselves to a pledge: a living commitment we return to, revise, and grow — the same way we ask you to keep returning to your own practice.
Reciprocity is a practice, not a performance. Here is where we’re starting, and what we commit to as an ongoing part of how The Art of Seeking shows up in this city:
A recurring monthly donation of $25 to the American Indian Center of Chicago
A recurring monthly donation of $25 to the American Indian Association of Illinois
Attending at least 5 events hosted by these organizations each year
Completing 1 training or event annually led by an Indigenous leader or organization
This pledge will grow as we do. We’ll revisit it, strengthen it, and stay accountable to it — not as a box to check, but as a rhythm we keep.