Monthly Newsletter! Includes Student Spotlight, An Update on Rwanda, + More

It's time for our Monthly Newsletter! Included in this month's edition is a Student Spotlight featuring Dr. Andrea Bell!

Learn more about her, her plans as a Trauma Coach, and her experience with the Orenda's program.

Also included is an update on Rwanda, An Announcement for Therapists, and how to submit Ask the Expert questions for Athena to respond to in upcoming newsletters!

Let's start with Dr. Bell! Here is her bio along with a sneak peak into her plans for her coaching practice. 

Bio. of Andrea Bell, Ph.D., Coach at Write On (through to the other side)!

Much like her first career as a Professor of Literature and Writing, both at Hunter College in New York, her city of birth, and then for over two decades at Palomar Community College in southern California, coaching is a “calling” for Andrea, a labor of love. Like teaching had been before it, becoming a coach is as necessary and as natural as breathing, meaningful and transformative beyond words.

Profoundly appreciative of those who have helped her navigate life’s landmines and challenges, Andrea can think of no higher calling, no greater dream, than to return to others the priceless gifts they have bestowed upon her: the gifts of human connection, joy, laughter, love, and kindness; the opportunity for growth and well-being; and the capacity to live life fully, with passion, depth, and authenticity.

When she is not working to help others achieve “success,” however they define it, Andrea can be found on the tennis court, out in nature, or road tripping up the coast. For the last two-and-a-half years, she has been leading three literature and writing groups, each with eight or nine people, where discussions of and writing in response to literature become means to connect deeply with others, to “bear witness,” and to walk in others’ shoes. A writer herself, Andrea has completed a memoir and several other works of “creative nonfiction.”

As a coach, Andrea will respect boundaries where others might have violated them as she empowers clients to discover and to honor their own unique gifts. Andrea is dedicated to helping others to thrive in the aftermath of trauma, suffering, and tyranny, and to understand the impact on them of (often systemic) oppression and injustice. She will bring to bear on her coaching practice the same openness, authenticity, respect, warmth, humor, kindness, and deep insight that her students so loved and appreciated in her and to which they have attested in hundreds of cards and letters over the years, the same commitment and love that earned her the Distinguished Faculty Award at Palomar College.

Most importantly, Andrea will rely on the skills, knowledge, and expertise that she has acquired as a member of the student community at Orenda, the unique and unparalleled coaching program created and developed by Athena Phillips. Without Orenda, Andrea would not have been able to make the transition from Professor to Coach. She remains indebted to Athena and to the program for its richness, its depth, its brilliance, and its exhaustive scope. Having embarked on the program, Andrea goes out into the world as a coach with the same confidence, skills, knowledge, expertise, and love that defined her connection to the community of students with whom she has worked over the course of so many rich and wonderful years.

Thank you, Andrea! We know you will be a wonderful contribution to your community.

On Rwanda: Please note that we will be closing registration for our February delegation to Rwanda next month! We need to give participants plenty of time to find reasonably priced airfare, to get their required vaccinations, and to start learning! Registrants receive immediate online access to the Orenda Project's Trauma Coach Certification Course. We will practice application with our Rwandan colleagues during our retreat! 

For more information about our logistics partner, the Global Engagement Institute, please click here: https://www.global-engagement.org/programs/professional-development-programs/trauma-coaching-rw

Got Questions? Ask the Expert! Submit your questions to [email protected] for our upcoming newsletters. Athena will respond to pre-selected questions in each newsletter.

Please do not include any identifying information about your clients (gender, race, specifics of the story, age, location, etc). 

ANNOUNCEMENT! 

Orenda will be launching an Exclusive Online Community for Therapists - The Trauma Hub - for those who work with Complex Trauma + Dissociative Disorders. This will include a live monthly Q + A with Athena, challenges, games, access to Athena's worksheets, and of course, each other. 

If you would like to be one of the first to be added to this community, please submit your information HERE to be added to the waitlist: 

https://www.theorendaproject.org/the-trauma-hub-therapists

And don't worry, coaches, there will be a community launched for you as well! Keep your eye out in January, 2023.

Thank you all for following! For more information or questions about any of our products, please reach out to us @ [email protected].

And a special shout-out from Athena - best wishes during the holiday season!