Gaia standing in a field of milky oats wearing a brown hat, a white embroidered, button-down, sleeveless shirt and light-blue striped paints, looking at the camera and smiling. Photo by Julia Maryanska.
Professional Trainings
Somatic Experiencing 3-Year Professional Training (SEP) • Ongoing with Somatic Experiencing International
Masters in Women, Gender, Spirituality and Social Justice (MA) • California Institute of Integral Studies
Beyond Attachment (Module 1) • Embodied Touch in Psychotherapy (Module 2) • The Birthing Reflex (Advanced Touch) Relational Somatic Healing
Counseling and Hakomi Foundations Year 1 • formerly The Center for Consciousness Medicine (now called GatherWell Psychedelics)
Dharma of Trauma Level 1 • Hakomi Institute of California (now offered through Embodywise as ISITTA Trauma Training)
Disrupting Our Whiteness • Holistic Resistance
Foundations of Somatic Abolitionism • Education for Racial Equity
Conscious Dying, End of Life Doula and Death Midwifery Care Level 1 • Final Passages
Work That Reconnects Facilitator Training • The School for The Great Turning
Gaslight the System: the politics of madness and sanity • Liberation Spring
Social Permaculture and Permaculture Design Course • Starhawk with Earth Activist Training
Who might benefit from this practice?
As a practitioner, my medicine is harvested from the landscape of my own and my communities’ healing journeys. Themes that arise in my practice are:
Somatic, nervous system resourcing and support for trauma resilience and resolution; support with chronic pain
Developmental or early childhood trauma healing; attachment wounding and challenges in intimate relationships
Queer identity and sexuality; navigating gender transition; polyamory
Reconnecting with the cycles of the body and Earth; womb and menstrual cycle healing; abortion & miscarriage care; healing the Motherline
Eco/political-grief; work with depression, anxiety, anger and rage
Beginning or deepening into a spiritual practice; re-connecting with ancestral lineages and guides; strengthening intuition
Noticing and shifting internalized oppression; practicing rupture/repair, accountability and reparations
Navigating Saturn Returns, challenging life-transitions, rites of passages and initiations; deepening relationship with mortality, death and the ways that death can feed life; end-of-life care
A close-up of Gaia’s hands gently holding a purple thistle flower surrounded by oat stalks. Photo by Julia Maryanska.
Gaia perched in a big hole in a hawthorn tree, holding a bunch of mugwort wearing a black dress and a brown hat. Photo by Julia Maryanska.
Lineage & Mentors
My offerings to community are humble attempts at passing on the gifts shared with me by the many teachers, mentors, colleagues and friends who have shaped me into a more loving, discerning and liberation-oriented practitioner. I give special thanks to the women and queer people of color, whose radical compassion and devotion to healing justice continue to show me how to practice collective care and liberation. Some of these wise ones are:
Spiritual Feminism Teachers: Arisika Razak, Dr. Alka Arora, Dr. Annette Williams, Brenda Salgado, Dr. Mara Lynn Keller, Jean Marie Moore, Starhawk, Pandora Thomas, Anjali Lynn Nath Upadhyay, Samwise Raridon, East Bay Meditation Center
Somatics Mentors: Dr. tayla ealom shanaye, Lauren Brown, Valeria McCarroll, Kari Stettler, generative somatics practitioners
Restorative Justice/Accountability Teachers: Holistic Resistance, Kati Silva, antoinette santos reyes, Sonya Shah, sujatha baliga
Grief Ceremony Mentors: Joanna Macy, Lydia Violet Farshid-Harutoonian, Lara Lwin Treadaway, Coby Leibman
Ethical Business Practices Colleagues: Racheli Wercberger, Patterson O’Sullivan, Christina Sandwen
Power, Rupture & Accountability
I do my best to prevent rupture and harm from happening in my therapeutic and consulting offerings, and, I am humbly aware that I am human carrying positionalities of power (white, middle class, able-b0died, US citizen, cishet-passing) and can cause harm. I can also be harmed in this work and am consistently reflecting on my own scope of practice and boundaries with clients. As a practitioner, there is a power difference with my clients and I am committed to carrying and sharing that power with as much transparency and integrity as possible.
I am available to receive feedback in-person during sessions or during a scheduled time outside of session. If it feels difficult to offer this feedback to me in person due to the power dynamic, please request a feedback form where you can write down concerns or experiences of rupture or harm for me to read. I am not a part of an institution which oversees the ethics of my work, so I am doing my best to create an ecosystem of accountability for myself within my professional community. This includes consistent communication with clients, supervision, mentorship and colleague support.
If you have concerns or feedback about how I can create more safety in my practice, I would be grateful for your reflections. Thank you for co-creating a community of safety, respect and accountability with me!
A close up of Gaia’s olive-toned hands holding a bunch of mugwort. Photo by Julia Maryanska.