About us - Milena Iacovelli

Have you ever heard about workplace well-being?

Creating a well-being culture is not about another task to accomplish, another priority on top of thousands of other priorities. It’s about making the difference for your entire employee experience.

It’s about making your employees feel that you really care about their physical and mental health, their success, their talents, their efforts, and their struggles.

If you are one of those employers that are facing this hard time where it’s really difficult to keep all the pieces together, where the communication with the team is challenging, the team morale is not at its best, the stress is visible, the performances are down and the productivity too, I can tell you that I totally understand you and I know exactly what you are feeling.

Whatever you do with your teams, there are always critics. Your words of motivation meet a diffuse pessimism. And, even if you try hard with your communication skills, there are always some misunderstandings. As a consequence, the engagement is not at its peak! And the most critical and common aspect I found working in companies was the lack of trust towards management and a lack of communication.

Exhausting and frustrating

Do you recognize some of these situations in your workplace?

Well, I can tell you that I worked in HR for 10 years and I dealt with people and I was an employee myself. And I know exactly how it feels working in a company environment.

Sometimes it can be really exhausting and frustrating.

Long hours at work trying to catch up with all the sudden priorities. The anxiety for the performance that never leaves you. Absences, turnover, people’s requests, and expectations, etc.

Today, I’m a Corporate Art Therapist, Business & Life Coach, and HR Consultant and I help people and organizations to create a culture of well-being where art-making is the tool through which employees, at all levels and functions, can experience their inner true essence, power, self-actualization, and happiness.

Needless to say, the leap from HR to Corporate Art Therapist is not a natural transition. So, you’re probably wondering how I got from there to here. I will tell you.

I am Milena & this is my story

Most of my life I tried to do what was right.

Going to high school and then university, attaining my master’s and attending courses, living in London to learn English, working for a multinational company, etc. Giving my best to “perform”.

But the truth is that I was unhappy!
I felt unhappy about my life. Destroyed by the end of what I considered at that time “the love of my life”, and unhappy about my work.

My self-esteem was completely down and of course also my self-love.

At work I wanted to be promoted but wasn’t given the opportunity, I felt I couldn’t go far, and managing a team wasn’t an option.

Nevertheless, I received a lot of support and appreciation from my boss, management, and also from my international team of which I was part, but nothing happened!

To heal myself from my heartbreak, I jumped right into creative activities.
I started to do painting, pottery, raku, pyrography, and building furniture with pallets. I discovered also new hobbies like trekking, indoor climbing, and sky diving.

Besides exploring my creative side, I also started to invest in personal growth. It was time to understand more about myself and my limiting beliefs.

This led me to personal development courses and 2-year training in Coaching and Neuro-Semantics to improve my self-esteem, to rediscover who I really was, what I really wanted.

Slowly, I started to understand a lot of things about my emotional wounds and demons.

As I started to feel better, I realized that I had already what I needed. I had already everything to be happy. And the answer was simply there.

The treasure I had been looking for was me!

This changed everything, my perspective, my way of seeing things. I was looking at the world with new eyes. I got the key to my sorrow.

Finding art therapy on my way was like a natural consequence of what I had become and to me represented another breakthrough in my life.

I started art therapy as a student but before this, I used it to process the new Milena. Art had already been good to me. I knew it, I lived it, I felt it. It helped me to distract myself from the sadness I had inside.

But doing art therapy was something else.

I finally played

It was a journey inside me throughout my creative me

I drew shapes and figures from my unconscious. I made creations with clay, wood, fabrics, wool, paper, recycled stuff, and more. I shared words and stories with my art therapy colleagues I couldn’t imagine, but they were mine, fruit of my self-understanding and elaboration.

And I played. I finally played! I played with my serious me, with my must-always-be-perfect me, my I-need-to-control-everything me, my there’s-no-time-to-play me.
I danced. I moved my body. I played with ropes. I stared at a stranger’s eyes for minutes.

I dirtied my fingers, my clothes, my face, my body.
I had a great time! It was deep. It was fun. It was completely worth it!

In 2018, I left my job. I said to myself that I didn’t need to wait for anyone to give me what I wanted. It wasn’t easy of course but I did it! I thought it was for me and that it was worth trying. Today I’m happy with my decision. My days are different. I don’t deny the struggle, but this struggle is to accomplish my purpose, my inner call.

Providing space for employees to play, joy and trust again

A call that I couldn’t ignore. Ignoring it would have meant ignoring myself. Today, with what I learned about art therapy through my own inner work and with my professional expertise, I help employees by providing them space where they can play, joy, and trust again.

By helping others being more authentic, I want to contribute to a new well-being culture within corporates, where art-making and creativity can help people to express themselves, release negative thoughts and stress, and find the work-life balance always desired.

Today my customers have a partner to count on, to rely on, as I want to give to employees a different environment. A workplace where to feel satisfied, motivated, appreciated, and listened to. Where to be free to express their potential and their own truth.

Today I run wellness programs and creative workshops based on art therapy and coaching techniques to empower teams and improve their quality of life.

The workplace well-being is not a new or passing trend but is a priority for innovative companies that want to succeed and face the new challenges of fast-changing markets and unexpected adversities.

Professional path & passion

Solemn interest in potential

I’m a Corporate Art Therapist, Business & Life Coach and HR Consultant.
I started my career in the HR field in 2007, working in structured and multinational companies (mainly in industrial and automotive field) where I gained experience in recruiting, training and people development.

My passion for human resources, started when I finished my (Italy), when, with my thesis, I explored how incentive travels can promote the personnel motivation.

My qualifications include a degree in Economics, a master’s in Human Resources Management, a master’s in Strategic Counseling, as well as a 3-year Art Therapy Certification from Artedo School, Italy.

I have invested in life and business coaching with an NLP Master Practitioner Degree from the ISNS International Society of Neuro-SemanticsⓇ, as well as personal development courses inspired by Louise Hay and her Positive Thinking method.

My art therapy work has included helping older adults with mild senile dementia, mothers with family stories of mistreatment and violence, and adults on a path of personal development.

For one multi-national company, I developed a program which used art therapy techniques to help the employees understand and live the company’s values. The project involved 200 employees – from all levels and functions within the company.

I was the director for an art therapy school in Italy for two years, which offered blended training for those wanting to become Professional Art Therapists.

I’ve practiced coaching with individuals and with corporates.

Get to know me even better…

I’m independent, impatient, passionate, curious, reliable, practical, and pragmatic. I don’t like to talk much as I prefer to listen. One of my key skills is finding solutions.

I love handmade things, objects with a story behind, worn by time. The more an object is ruined the more it attracts my attention, like the old bunch of keys from the early 1900s that I bought in a market in Moscow 3 years ago.

I enjoy creating things, I like colors, art, and everything that is artistic and creative.

I also like business stuff: strategy, marketing, economy, organization, and most of all the principles of efficiency and efficacy.

My degree in Economics and my job in HR for automotive and industrial fields have been a strong influence on my way of thinking.

I enjoy food a lot. If I had my way, I would eat a proper Italian Sunday lunch every day. This is one of the reasons I don’t live with my mother! She’s a really good cook.