About Kaeli
I’m not offering you theory from a distance. Everything I bring to this work — every tool, every invitation, every moment of sitting with someone in their hardest season — has been lived, tested, and carried in my own body and heart.
“I am living proof that creative expression heals.”
Kaeli Hansen
Where it began
I have been singing since I was two years old. Music wasn’t something I chose — it chose me. From my earliest years, creative expression in all its forms — music, writing, dance, visual art — was simply how I understood and moved through the world.
I went on to study music formally, and later became an instructor teaching music theory, ethnomusicology, music technology, choirs, jazz ensembles, and composition, with a deep emphasis on creativity through improvisation. I learned early that the most transformative thing you can offer another person is permission to create freely, without judgment.
That belief has never left me. It is the thread that runs through everything I do.
The caregiving path
In 1992, I became an unpaid caregiver for my first husband’s grandparents. It was the beginning of a long arc of showing up for others in their most vulnerable seasons — family, friends, and eventually my first husband Sean, when he was diagnosed with stage IV throat cancer.
I have sat with people in their final hours. I have learned, again and again, that people keep growing until the very end — that the soul does not stop reaching toward the light.
When I lost Sean, I walked through a grief I could not have imagined. And then, slowly, through daily photography of nature and tending an organic garden, I found my way back. Creativity did not distract me from the grief. It carried me through it.
Today, my second husband Kurt lives with the effects of multiple strokes and needs constant care. I am not speaking about caregiving from the outside. I am in it, every day. And I know you are not alone.
Healing can seem impossible. I know because I have been there. A traumatic brain injury, deep grief, the relentless weight of caregiving — and through all of it, creative expression brought me back to who I truly am. It can do the same for you.
The return
After losing Sean and surviving a traumatic brain injury, I didn’t know if I would find my way back to myself. The damage was real — physical, emotional, spiritual. But every morning I picked up a camera and photographed the natural world. Every season I put my hands in the soil. And gradually, something in me remembered.
I have also spent years supporting individuals through addiction recovery in peer-based settings, walking beside people as they find their own footing again. In all of these spaces — grief, trauma, recovery, caregiving — I have seen the same truth emerge: we are not broken. We are finding our way back.
This is why I do this work. Not because I studied it from a textbook, but because I lived it. I am still living it. And I want to walk beside you as you find your own way home.
Education & Practice
Ready to take the first step?
A gentle 45-minute conversation to explore where you are, what you’re carrying, and where you’d like to go. No pressure, just presence.
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