For many adoptees, the early separation from our mothers meant that we skipped the developmental task of simply being, or exploring the world from the safety of our mothers’ arms, of having our needs met, of being nourished.

Instead, we were placed with strangers and told they were family. As a result, many of us learned how to meet the needs of others instead of having our own needs met. This way of meeting the world leaves us disconnected from our selves, aching to be held, to belong, to be at peace; aching to be.

A mindfulness practice provides a safe space in which to learn to be: to learn that we are worthy simply because we are, to listen in to our cores, to tap into our inner wisdom and creativity, to understand what we need in order to be truly nourished, and to find peace and belonging.

This is a multi-session course that introduces participants to working with mindfulness to unpack layers of habits and patterns that have been keeping us from who we truly are, from finding real nourishment in our lives. Participants leave with a practice in place and with tools to guide them through their ongoing journey.

Mindfulness helps us to reduce anxiety, to deepen our everyday experiences, to claim our agency and and move through our lives on our own terms.

Monthly Mindfulness classes are free, stand-alone sessions designed for adoptees to get a taste of the style of the longer Learning to Be courses. Each class offers a mindfulness experience, explanation, and reflection that are designed to help us deepen our relationship with ourselves and to find peace and belonging as we navigate our ongoing adoptee journey. 

These are suitable for those who are completely new to mindfulness as well as those who have been practicing for some time.

When we were taken from our birth/first mothers, we lost more than her–we lost our connection to our ancestors, to our land, to our selves. We lost our story of origin and, instead, learned to live in someone else’s story.

For many of us, this false narrative is at the root of a lifelong sense of not belonging. We spend years, decades, searching for our first family, for ancestral lands, for where and with whom we belong.

The truth is, we can never truly belong with others until we are at home with ourselves, until we learn to live the narrative that is true to and for us.

When we take up pen and paper, when we decide to become the authors of our own stories, we begin the journey home, to ourselves, to the belonging that is our birthright.

This is a multi-session course that combines writing time, writing prompts, supportive response, mindfulness practices, and reflection to offer participants the tools and space both during and after the course to claim the empowerment to tell our stories in our own way and to get those words on the page.

When combined with creative writing, mindfulness helps us to tap into our inner wisdom and creativity and get those rich ideas on the page. It also makes our writing more nourishing and enjoyable.

Monthly Mindful Writing classes are free, stand-alone sessions geared towards adoptees who want to work on getting their story down in a safe, trauma-informed space. Like the monthly Mindfulness classes, these follow a similar style and structure to the longer Writing Our Way Home courses. Each session offers writing prompts, writing time, breath work and other mindfulness practices that help us tap into our inner wisdom and that help regulate our nervous systems as we write into our stories.