Take Aim, Let Go: How Archery Is Helping Women Heal

At the Woodley Park Archery Range in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, Mindful Archery helps women process and prepare for everything from breakups to burnout to reaching their highest dreams one arrow at a time. Led by self-described “soul-collaborator” Angie Fadel, a former pastor with more than 15 years of archery experience, the workshop blends meditation, breathwork and forest bathing with hands-on archery instruction. The goal is to provide attendees more than stress relief, Fadel tells the Los Angeles Times, but acceptance of self and a regulated nervous system as they reach for their dream life of their dreams. 

Participants begin each session by grounding themselves, then drawing a personal target on paper — sometimes an abstract feeling, sometimes a word cloud of hopes, sometimes a source of harm. The physical act of shooting, Fadel explains, unlocks personal power. 

“Even if the arrow doesn’t go where you want, there’s this immediate thing that happens in your body that feels good,” she says. “When you let go of that string, there’s an energy, there’s a movement — actual, physical energy moves. Something magical happens. It helps the things that are stuck in the body get unstuck. It’s somatic. Then it’s an extra bonus if you do hit your target, because the slap of the paper feels even better.”

Fadel came to this discovery by accident and initially thought it was only helpful for her. An archery lesson from a master archer friend triggered an unexpected emotional release, so she began pairing the sport with introspective journaling, eventually adding targets to process everyday stress. When she saw the same relief show up in a struggling friend she brought along for a lesson, she realized the practice could help others too.

“Think about what would feel good to either annihilate, or bring in, or let go of, or make peace with. You can put all of it on your target,” Fadel says. Almost everyone hits their target at least once, due less to technical skill than to repetition and most of all to the trust attendees build in her coaching and, eventually, in themselves. It’s a lesson that tends to outlast the workshop. “Archery isn’t about doing it right, it’s about repetition. The more you can be in your body, and relaxed with the repetition, the better you are.”

The name “MindSite News” is used with the express permission of Mindsight Institute, an educational organization offering online learning and in-person workshops in the field of mental health and wellbeing. MindSite News and Mindsight Institute are separate, unaffiliated entities that are aligned in making science accessible and promoting mental health globally.