I am white, 43 years old, sexually fluid, and was raised in a low income family in the rural Midwest without organized religious influence. Both of my parents served in the U.S. Army and later worked blue-collar jobs. I grew up as the youngest of three girls in an old farmhouse my family rented for over thirty years. I now own, with help from my sisters, a similar old farmhouse where I joyously raise my two children and serve my community with an in-home private practice. I also have a shared professional office in my neighboring community.    

I began studying healing work after my mother became ill and died in my twenties. I traveled nationally and internationally pursuing training in the healing arts and have been cultivating my practice for over twenty years. I am a trauma-informed healer, single mother, and women's dignity and rights activist. I hold a license in massage therapy, a certification in meditation coaching, and numerous certifications in a variety of other healing modalities. 

I believe that awakening the authenticity, validity, and significance of our sacred inner world is essential for transformation—both individually and collectively. I continue my own inner work through psychotherapy and other trauma-informed healing modalities that have deeply supported my healing. I am a survivor of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, all perpetrated by white American men.

I am a 78 year old white, heterosexual female. I was born into a blue-collar family in the Midwest and was the first in my family to attend college. My father worked in factories his entire life and eventually became a supervisor. When the youngest of my four siblings entered kindergarten, my mother found a job at the post office in our small rural community. We attended the Catholic church every Sunday and catechism every Saturday.

I left the church when I began college. After flunking out of Michigan State University after one year, I became engaged to a man I soon married and almost immediately had two sons. I hid in that marriage for ten years. After my divorce, I began the rest of my life—discovering my inner world and spending decades in therapy, which I continue today.

As a single parent, I achieved my BSW and MSW and am now deliciously single. I work as a psychotherapist and have written four books prior to this guidebook. I have been a regular panelist at the Commission on the Status of Women, a division of the United Nations. I currently serve on the Women’s Task Force for the Parliament of World Religions, and I dedicate myself to mentoring many women in my community. I have served in numerous leadership roles at my housing co-operative with the intention of cultivating community and caring for our land. I continue to discover that the older I become chronologically, the younger I feel in spirit.

I am a white, queer, Ashkenazi Jew raised in a wealthy family in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado. I was a child of the 1990s—spending time in malls and movie theaters, playing night games with the neighbor kids, and taking jazz dance classes. My father died when I was nine years old, an experience that deeply shaped the trajectory of my life. 

I have been incredibly fortunate to encounter elders, therapists, and friends who guided me through challenging passageways. In my young adult years, I studied meditation, taught yoga, worked in food justice, and engaged in the painstaking yet deeply rewarding work of unearthing my authentic self. I am an alumna of Resource Generation, a collective of young people with class privilege organizing to redistribute land, wealth, and power in the U.S. I organize with numerous groups in my community; activism and mutual aid are constants in my life. 

I hold a Master’s degree in Spiritual Guidance from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and a Certificate in Climate Psychology from the California Institute for Integrative Studies. I operate a counseling practice focusing on somatic, anti-oppressive healing work. I hold a deep belief that we can find freedom from the wounds that we carry—and in that freedom, bring our aliveness and creativity to building a new world together. As of this writing, I am 38 years old and live in Ann Arbor, Michigan with my awesome cat, Lilith.