teachers and lineages
I consider myself in recovery after a long connection to academic learning with both undergraduate, and graduate degrees as well as a graduate certificate and numerous other certifications, training and work experiences (see CV). I have spent 25 years practicing (23 of those years as an RN) in systems that I (and likely you) have come to understand are at the root of much of the ill-health, harm and perpetual violence we are experiencing in our bodies and communities.
In the last decade I have reoriented my practice to focus on disrupting and dismantling these systems and patterns in myself, the spaces i work in and the relationships I am in, knowing full well in my gut, that something else is necessary and possible!
In the last 5 years I have intentionally changed whose stories I listen to and how I listen. I have opened my ears and my heart to voices that have been historically and are still most often rejected, denied, silenced, and oppressed. I am listening to Indigenous, Black and Brown peoples of the global majority; to queer, trans, and disabled authors, artists and activist locally in my own life and community, as well as around the world who have been risking their comfort, often their lives resisting the violence of these systems of dominance all along calling for, dreaming of and creating a collectively liberated future.
These voices have and continue to guide me back home to myself, my connections and my responsibilities.
It is through the experience and exploration of my own grief, the deconstruction of my own socially constructed identity, attunement and tending to my embodied patterns and a re-learning of what it means and requires to be in kinship with this world, that I am able to remember my place in the fabric of all that is related.
see below for some of the teachers who have guided me thus far, and stay tuned for a running list of the the authors, artists, creators whose work I refer to in my daily life and practice.
Teachers
2024 | Liberation Practice Field with Care and the Erotics of Liberation (year long - currently enrolled)
2024 | Slow art, somatic practices and creative rest with Shauna Kaendo and Trudi Smith and current member of the Oh Hey Community
2024 | Kutenai Art Therapy Institute post graduate Art Therapy Diploma (currently in second year)
2023 | 10 month embodiment incubator with Jennifer Murphy and the Celtic Creatives
2023 | Institute for Radical Permission with Sonya Renee Taylor and adrienne maree brown
2023 | Reparative Comunal Consultations for White Bodies (Year One) with Resmaa Menakem
2023 | Marketing for Weirdos with Anti-capitalist business coach Bear Heberts
2023 | Foundations in Somatic Abolitionism with Resmaa Menakem co-facilitated by Carlin Quinn and Jennifer-Lee Koble
2021 | Collective Care, Solidarity & Justice-Doing: Resisting Burnout with Vikki Reynolds
2021 | Certificate in Somatic Attachment and Regulation Strategies with Linda Thai
2021 | CityU Masters in Counseling (year 1)
2020 | Ancestral Lineage Healing Intensive with Shauna Janz
2019-2020 | Carmen Spagnola 12 month Numinous School, Secure: The Magical Art & Subtle Science of Attachment and active member of the Numinous Network for 2+ years
2019 | Partners for Youth Empowerment Facilitator Training level 1
2019 | Stone Bone and Water: Working with sacred grief. With Shauna Janz
2017 | Being an Effective Change Agent by BC Patient Safety Quality Council
2017 | Understanding Experience & Co-Designing Solutions by Ko Awatea
2017 | Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) Sanyas’ Indigenous Cultural Safety Training White Settler Community of Practice.
2017 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Ulab: An introduction to leading profound social, environmental and personal transformation
2016 | PHSA Sanya’ Indigenous Cultural Competency Post-Training: Bystander to Ally
2014 | School for Health and Care Radicals Change Agent Certificate
2014 | PHSA Sanyas’ Indigenous Cultural Competency Training: Core program