Empowered Wellbeing is a Complex Trauma and Addiction Recovery Support Practice that has been offering more than 14 years of Integrative and Holistic Care and Support including…
Parts Work (TIST, IFS, EFIT, and IPNB), Somatic Methods and Expressive Arts Process Work
Grief, Shock and Trauma Recovery Models (DBR)
Somatic Support for Working through Trauma and Related Expressions (CranioSacral, SensoriMotor, Certified Somatics Lab, some Zero Balancing…)
Neuroscience, Polyvagal and Attachment Theory Based Care
Social Justice, Identity, Mediation and Relational Frameworks — Decolonizing Oriented
Relational and Compassion Based Frameworks
Functional and Integrative Mental Health Education and Support
Vitalist, TCM and other Ethno-Herbalism; Energy Work
Meditation, Mindfulness, Traditional Healing Ways, Balanced Mind Meditation Principles
Critical Media Studies Framework for Degrooming
What services are offered
Weekly Ongoing Sessions for Individuals — click here to request an intro free 15 min info call
One Time Intensive Sessions for Individuals, Partners, Families or Groups — click here to request an intro free 15 min info call
Consultation and Mentorship for other Helping Professionals — click here to request an intro free 15 min info call
One Time Intensive Consultation Sessions and/or Trainings — click here to request an intro free 15 min info call
Who might seek our services
Folks seeking support for recovery from effects of childhood or adult sexual trauma, colonial and imperial trauma, poverty trauma, workplace and institutional trauma, narcissistic abuse trauma, and intergenerational and lateralized trauma
Folks seeking support with complex or chronic mental health conditions or the mental health component of other chronic health conditions; we may offer care as part of a collaborative team — please ask if interested
Folks seeking Couples, Partners and Families co-creative equitable collaboration support via a Collaborative Intersectional Framework — please feel free to join the waitlist, spaces open back up in June 2025
Those seeking to develop or strengthen practice as an active Bystander (supportive person and presence) and/or co-advocate in situations with imbalanced power dynamics and power over abuse
How do we work
via Integrated Parts Work (IFS, TIST, EFIT); Neuroanatomy based (DBR, CranioSacral, IPNB, PVT, NMT…) shock and integrative trauma recovery models; SSP (Safe and Sound Protocol) and Brainspotting, Grief Education, Meditation Support
with a Decolonizing Oriented Intersectional Framework and accompanying relational support (RLT, CI, EFIT, Simplicity Parenting; Ancestral and Lateral Community Care; Progressive Parenting and Education Support (Student Directed Pedagogy Based, Council in the School, NVC and IFS applied); Vitalist, Peruvian and TCM Herbalism and Functional CAM Mental Health Support; Ethno-Integrative Support
What do Sessions Look Like
They are typically held via Zoom or another video platform, or Signal, WhatsApp or Phone if that is more accessible.
Weekly sessions are usually scheduled for an hour, with options to extend the time if needed and as time is available.
Clients are encouraged to have what relatively comforting items they can make available with them during session, sometimes it can be a piece of fabric, the words of a poem or song they like or lean on, sand tray items, painting or drawings items, space to move, stuffed animals, or nothing. Some folks like to be in nature when we meet, some like to be inside, and some may cohabit with others or are in the midst of protests, actions, in between survival moments … so they make space for sessions where and as they can. Some folks like to have a journal to take notes in, water bottle and a handkerchief or tissues, if these are available. The most important thing is to bring oneself, and we go from there.
Then based on how a person works best, sessions may be verbal, somatic, arts based, in the language of math…whatever supports a person to express and connect with their own mind/conscience is where we start and then we apply processes for support, such as: parts work, non dominant handwriting, movement based trauma recovery work, Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP), nature of mind work, ancestral and intergenerational trauma recovery processes…etc.
The practitioner supports with facilitation of the process and clients also learn over time how to do these processes for themselves, as learning is social and relational in many ways. Sometimes the practitioner will take time with clients, if they’d like it, and breakdown what process was done and how it worked, so clients can take those insights and practices with them.
Further breakdown of services:
Some communities supported are:
Adults Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse
Adults Healing from Intergenerational and Historic Trauma
Adults Healing and/or Recovering from Addictions, including food, alcohol and process addictions
Adults Seeking Professional Support as they work the 12 Steps and 16 Steps
Adults seeking support with Anxiety, Depression and/or Grief
Adults seeking support with Narcissistic Trauma Recovery: Colonial, Institutional, Interrelation and Workplace Abuse/Mobbing
Adults seeking support with integration of Social Justice Informed Compassionate Communication (NVC), Parts Dialogue (TIST, EFIT and IFS), Meditation, Energy Work and Yogic Principles in the midst of hegemonic empire trauma
Parents, Community Support Professionals and Caregivers seeking support to provide ongoing care with secondary and other ongoing trauma, grief and compassion needs
Case Consultation for Health Care Professionals and Helping Professionals in other fields — Integrative and Intersectional Lens
Support for recovery from Codependent, Grandiose, and Narcissistic Relational Dynamics
Dismantling Exceptionalism, Racism and Chauvinism through Self Inquiry, Compassionate Engagement and Cross-Cultural Fluency Work
Degrooming from propaganda and mind control, as part of recovery from trafficking, fascistic nation-state or cult violence projects
Support with:
Acute and Complex Trauma: including Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Intergenerational Trauma, Racialized Trauma, Narcissistic Abuse Trauma
Complex Trauma Dissociation Care via these models: primarily TIST, DBR, PVT, EFIT, IPNB and IFS
Grief Support (Acute, Complex, Ambiguous…)
Addiction
Anxiety
Depression
Equity and Power related Mental Health Impacts
Chronic Health related Mental Health Challenges
Functional Neurological Mental Health Needs (as Allied CAM Care)
Personality Disorders/Character Structures
Relational Support (partners, couples, families, groups…)
Complex Mental Health Presentations
Applying Traditional Healing Ways, Principles and Practices
If you’d like to know the ingredients of our practice… some frameworks/models etc. offered are:
Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST); Deep Brain Re-orienting (DBR); Internal Family Systerms (IFS); Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB); Nonviolent Communication (NVC); Mindfulness, Meditation and Yogic Principles from Traditional Studies; Polyvagal Theory and Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)…and more
Vitalist and Traditional Chinese Herbology, Functional and Integrative Mental Health Frameworks
Grief and Addiction (including 12 Step supportive) Care and Education Models
Social Justice and Intersectional Feminist Frameworks
Current Fellowships/Externships some staff are trained/engaged in include:
Psychiatry Redefined Two Year
Herbalism Clinical Practice
Peruvian Medicine Immersion One Year
HUMAN RIGHTS AND GLOBAL JUSTICE UPDATES
Book available as Preorder: Genocide Bad. by Sim Kern, available at Interlink Press
NEWS: Abubaker Abed interviewed by Abby Martin of the Empire Files responding to Trump’s threats of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, linked here.
Doctors Against Genocide linked here. An account by Dr. Abu Safiya who was detained without cause at one of Israel’s torture sites, Sde Teiman. Account is linked here.
Israel is still illegally rampaging through the West Bank. Account linked here.
One Health Hypocrisy and Animal Healthcare Workers Against Genocide link here.
Where are all the Gandhis?
Two responses:
First response: It sounds like Israel is confessing to an occupation as or more cruel than the British Empire’s occupation of India, that required a Gandhi for liberation.
Second Response: The British Colonizers did not care about murdering the Indians they were occupying, as demonstrated by their intentional harvest theft and starvation of MILLIONS of Indians. Gandhi organized marches to interrupt British access to the commodity Salt! So every BDS organizer, promoter and participant is a Gandhi.
ABOUT US
We are a BIPOC and GM owned and staffed, Intersectional Feminist, Anti-Colonial, Anti-Empire/Hegemon, Anti-Genocide, Anti-Rape Culture, Anti-Peonage, Pro-Indigenous and Pro-Traditional Eco-Relational Cultures organization.
There is no sanity to genocide championing and excusing — it is a psychologically damaging behavior to justify, for instance, illegal skin and bone burning agents being dropped on children, families, and animals in a region; it is inherently against life and humanity. It leads to adding twists and interruptions to sanity and sanity maintaining logic. There is no maturity in justifying implementing power over policies, funding or enacting of the mass extermination of any peoples, anywhere. To the contrary, that is a sign of mental depravity and worsening illness.
It is just as dangerous to fall asleep to the stories of justification for mass extermination and to normalize a culture of participation, co-signing or learned helplessness to interrupt violent abuse of power over. Becoming numb or unable to acknowledge the clear ethical and moral transgressions one is witnessing or asked to cosign, can be a sign of being groomed into believing that violent abuse of power over more vulnerable people’s lives, homes and livelihoods is justified. In other words, this leads to enabling exceptionalism and even violent supremacy. Saying and doing nothing over and over, or learning to justify lies from sources with dubious motives and no accountability to those more vulnerable and impacted, can erode and override common sense ethics about preserving life. This common sense ethical clarity to not justify genocide, for example, then becomes harder and harder to resuscitate as it withers, and people become unwitting enablers and even easily coerced enactors of mass violence and expect to live pastoral lives of tranquility in the midst of mass administration and cosigning of violence. They may even seek mental health support to reinforce living in a fantasy of denial and “feel-goodism” that is actually potentially narcissistic, sociopathic, psychopathic or on the way down that or a more dark tetradic road.
On the contrary, it is SANE to feel discomfort when others are harmed by systems of injustice! It is SANE to seek healthful and legal ways to bring about justice with other concerned community members. It is SANE to bear witness to political abuses of power that strip away civil rights, including rights to free speech and unrigged elections. It is SANE to have concern that Emperors of a sprawling Empire and its vassals are administered with dishonesty about their reach and abject cruelty over subjected peoples who have little, to less or even no say so in the laws used to subjugate them into dangerous oppression and even premature death. It is SANE to call for change and to steady oneself in the serenity of one’s ethical principles which provide a stability in a chaotic outer world. It is NOT SANE to pretend, deny, or imagine away that the violence isn’t happening, and one has no power to interrupt it by legal and peaceful means with others. This denialism and demand to be distracted from taking healthy action to call for change can even lead to learning to defend and demand the abuse of power, lying and manipulation, as justified, okay and even noble as the path of natural course that must be taken, leading to mass violence, as in oppression, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and even genocide. This is a very dangerous psychological road that teaches a mind that dark triadism and supremacy is okay and justified and why not — oh my goodness!!!! This is a dangerous line for the mind to cross and keep learning to cross over and over until it becomes ingrained thinking, learned habit, and even groomed enactment!!!
We therefore stand against and actively seek ways to ethically, morally, responsibly and legally divest from land and animal/species theft and exploitation, rapacious violence against humanity and other human bodies and minds, and self legitimizing narcissistic nation-state regime violence. We call for the end of Anti-Black and Anti-Indigenous exceptionalist and supremacist violence and its intersecting class violence, gender violence and other forms of subjugation and trickery, in all places and in all forms — it is all psychologically sick and dangerous.
We also mourn that some BIPOC/GM folks may have internalized these supremacist ideas and may be enacting them for individualized acceptance and status, as an ingrained survival response around predatory oppressors — we call for that gatekeeping and mascotting violence to stop! While opportunism as a survival trauma response is understandable, albeit unethical in its clear alignment and emboldening of perpetration, it is also unfortunately weaponized in the hands of supremacists to harm other marginalized people and also put on a face of “diversity” within its violent rank and file.
So opportunism veiled as assimilation is something we attempt to divest from with clear commitment, calling for equity and restoration to eco-collaborative parity, bringing about better quality of life for each and all, not a few in a dangerous cannibalistic unending cycle of nervous system upregulating hell — this is the current economic condition sometimes called the “rat race,” or late stage necro-empire capitalism.
Actively embodying tenants of health awake mental consciousness and compassion in trauma recovery includes actively committing to not fall asleep to propaganda and power mad coercion as best we can, to not enable this vicious wheel of morbidity to churn unquestioned, mourning and divesting diligently from the grooming into exceptionalist enabling or entitlement whenever or wherever it may creep in — this is what is meant by anti-racism or anti-oppression being an ACTIVE and ongoing DYNAMIC work, not a static lapel pin that enables people to somnabulate and traffic violent policies and behaviors unquestioned, while covering it over in liberal doses of appropriated feel good language that does not match and is emptied of all meaning, sometimes regarded as part of a neo-liberal agenda.
Staying WOKE is not a decoration, it has been a call to not fall asleep to the trickery and propaganda of the Empire Ruling Class and its upwardly aspiring gentry class.
One of the biggest meta on meta violence schemes is the enactment of power over abuse under the veil of appropriated woke language, instead of actually enacting divestment from power abuse and power over violence.
We are in both heavy and hopeful times as many struggle to wake up and not succumb to the tricks of bypassing the discomfort of learning and growth. When we do that learning together, degrooming from insanity, compassionately and without excuse for power over abuse, the path of growth becomes the exciting path of liberation that no talking point can every simulate!!!! Growth is dynamic, it is not some promised land for a few over yonder that must be strived for with hellish strain, and it is attainable in every moment that each person steps into it both individually and collectively. It is dynamic and asks for continued commitment, and the reward is in the re-connection with life force in a sane and life-honoring-for-everyone way that feels palpably creative, gentle and non-exclusive. This is the exciting path of trauma recovery that is unique and self actualizing, kind, gentle and warm; not groomed, superstitious, elitist and perfectionist. If this interests you, we hope you will reach out and begin your journey, willing to meet the treasure in growth with commitment, compassion, determination to divest from violent systems, and curiosity. Please feel free to reach out for a free intro call. Of course, don’t forget these principles of kindness are found in nature and actual goodwill towards each other, all species, the cosmos and elements … and ourselves mutually and in a multi-directional sustaining way. So whether you work with us or not, this kindness is available, please commit to divest from the violence and reach for the kindness and growth and let it support you mutually. Good wishes on your and all beings trauma recovery journey individually and collectively!
We acknowledge we have not known freedom yet in this lifetime until we are all free!!!!
What is the Western Hegemony/How does it function?
The seeds of democracy in the “founding” “U.S.” documents were mostly stolen from Indigenous Communities the “U.S” founders were trying to exterminate on Turtle Island, that’s why the U.S. government does not have the consciousness to actually operate humanely towards supporting all people in equity and equal dignity — it’s a stolen idea. The ethos of the U.S. formation by its founders and in its ongoing marginalizing of native peoples might be likened to a cult desire to wipe out natives everywhere, calling them savages/terrorists and stealing their homes/land, and trafficking, enslaving and debt bonding them into an exhausted labor class — this insane project of Manifest Destiny persists today.
Why are colonization and genocide a mental health issue?
It seems obvious that abusing power over to take other people’s homes, pretend they don’t exist, take umbridge when people want their homes back and call them terrorists (to silence conversation that could lead to peaceful solutions), exploit others for aggressive labor with poverty wages, AND pretend that none of this is happening or the genocider is the victim or that you’re just not sure if it is all ‘genocidey’ enough to find immoral…is a clear sign of mental compromise, grooming and/or distress. However, if that’s not obvious enough, here is a song by anti zionist musician & artist Elik and Alon of the Yalla! podcast: start at 1hr 40 min in.
Journalism Resources for degrooming from mass media genocidal colonial settlerism propaganda
Many ask for credible journalism resources when U.S./Western Mass Media is so full of global elitist talking points. Of course, always vet your media for state, cult and personal fantasy propaganda and fabrication. Here are some journalistic/media outlets to consider (in alphabetical order, with web/substack/youtube links — being updated):
Daily/weekly news updates and special reports
Revolutionary Blackout Network: website, youtube, and more
Active Measures: substack, youtube, Twitter/X, TikTok
Breakthrough News: website, Patreon, Youtube, Twitter/X
Caitlin Johnstone
The Chris Hedges Report: youtube, and more
Declassified UK
The Grayzone: website, youtube, Twitter/X, Instagram
Marc Lamont Hill: Instagram, youtube, and more
The Red Nation: website, youtube, and more
Sabby Sabs: website, youtube and more
More highlighted outlets and journalists
+972 Magazine, ei
Briahna Joy Gray
Colonial Outcasts
Declassified UK
The Empire Files
Geopolitical Economy Report: website, youtube, Twitter/X, Patreon
Glenn Greenwald
Jadaliyya: web, youtube, Twitter/X, Instagram, palestineincontext.org
The Katie Halper Show
Makdisi Street: youtube
Middle East Eye
Mint Press
Mondoweiss
Owen Jones
Useful Idiots
Whitney Webb
We are Not Numbers
More outlets
Dr. Fatima
India Global Left
Some Human Rights Advocates, Historians and Lawyers
Alon Mizrahi: substack, youtube
CodePink
Craig Mokhiber
Francesca Albanese
Frank Barat: youtube
Dr. Gabor Mate
Gaia Dan, interview
Prof. Ilan Pappe
Jeff Halper
Miko Peled
Naomi Klein, interview
Prof. Noura Erakat
Prof. Nick Estes
Prof. Ortiz
Zach Foster
Independent Reporters
We honor the indigenous reporters everywhere who risk their lives to tell the truth in the midst of empire based oppression and cruel manipulations.
Comedians who cover liberatory political topics
Aamer Rahman: youtube
Bad Hasbara: youtube
Dave Chapelle
Friday Night Semites: youtube
iamblakeley: youtube
Lee Camp: youtube
Rathbone: youtube
Sammy Obeid: youtube
Yalla! podcast:
Pivotal Documentaries/Journalism
U.S. Economy Global Wealth Gap
British Colonialism in Palestine, the start of occupation by Chris Hedges
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
‘Silent Coup’ How Corporations rule the world, Matt Kennard interviewed by Chris Hedges
Some Key Short Media Clips
Displaced Peoples Pandemic: What is the “Migrant Crisis”/How did we get here? approximately 12 min
Labor Woes, what is the root in Western Hegemon approximately 2 min
JNF Blue Box report
Understanding Sudan
Some Key Addresses to the UN
Re: Hands off Haiti, Dan Cohen
Re: Report on Syria Cover Up, Aaron Maté
Re: Report on Ukraine Aid, Max Blumenthal
Top Bookshelf List and Authors
All books by Prof. Ilan Pappe
Chilean Project and Max Neef
All books by Edward Said
Franz Fanon
The Myth of Normal by Dr. Gabor Maté
How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr
James Baldwin
Kimberlé Crenshaw
Management of Savagery by Max Blumenthal
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
W.E.B. Dubois
We acknowledge we have not known freedom yet in this lifetime until we are all free.
We are updating this website. Please feel free to check back for updates.
photo credit Henry Be via Unsplash