Purpose fuels
Wellness.
Life in Ceremony was born from an innate desire to bring (w)holistic and deeply nourished living to the forefront of my life and purpose. It has become a collection of knowledge, curiosity, beauty, tough lessons, and a desire for connection and understanding that has empowered me to take control of my life by ironically surrendering time and time again.
In my own personal experience, I've found that healing starts with reconnecting to our remarkable intelligence and human nature while pursuing alignment with nature's own divine wisdom. From here we can begin to see the bigger picture. We can begin to understand our part in the grand scheme of this human experience. And we can also begin to live from a deeply grounded place where we trust our intuitive voice and honor the sacred parts of our soul's calling. And from this centered place, we can begin to bring in a life in community and relationship that further enliven's our embodied experience.
It is my belief that healing is not created from a solitary experience, but must be led from a place of belonging and compassion that can only exist within relationship and openness. Through the great mirror of reciprocity, connection and vulnerability, we go hand in hand down the path as we seek deep nourishment and kinship to all that surrounds us. I believe there are no greater riches in this life than to live fully and vivaciously with intention in all that we do, while fostering our connection to the land, the community, and the wild wisdom of our own remarkable human nature. And in doing so, simultaneously create deep healing within. I look forward to serving all those who are called to re-establish this conscious connection and are seeking gentle guidance in doing so. My years on the path of my own healing journey have led me to assisting others in finding their voice, their vitality and their wholeness. And I am so honored to be here alongside you.
In gratitude, presence, practice and surrender,
Mia
My Journey
I was brought up quite conventionally, but with a bit of unconventional determination. I began pursuing a career as a ballet dancer as a child and focused solely on this effort until the age of 18. After leaving school and the normal life of my peers, I began living the life of a professional artist. I moved across the country to pursue my career with the North Carolina Dance Theater in Charlotte, NC (now Charlotte Ballet) and eventually was led back to the California coast as I trained in the city by the bay, with the Lines Ballet of San Francisco. My dancing led me to travel all over the world in pursuit of excellence, which gave me a deep appreciation for art, design and culture from a young age.
I spent most of adolescents in extensive training and being groomed for a life on the stage. And as my training progressed and my opportunities were close enough to touch, I had to face the hard truth of countless physical injuries that only seemed to compile on one another. I also found myself struggling with body image, digestive disorders, and needing to pop multiple Advil each morning just to step into my next class. Needless to say this life was becoming unsustainable and my passion was no longer enough to get me through each and every day.
A mentor finally helped me make the choice to step away and opt for life on my own terms. I found myself nose diving into all of the living I had not yet experienced with so much of my life being in the studio. I also struggled greatly with the loss of my entire identity. I always knew what my future would look like. What I wanted to create. Now what? To add insult to injury, I also experienced my first true heartbreak while approaching this unforseen future.
Opting for some form of structure and direction in my life, I returned to the city I loved to attend art school. I obtained my degree in Graphic Design as I tested the waters of life outside the studio and the theater. Ironically, my college looked directly across the street to my final dance companies windows so I could always contemplate the choices I had made and things I had let go. As I now pursued my new career path through design, I found my landing at a small but mighty music festival production company where I quickly became Creative Lead. This role granted me the ability to get back to the music and foster a connection to my roots on the stage. However, it also enlisted far too many hours at my computer with an immense workload. My need to unwind after work was just as great as the need to be perfect in my role in the office. And disregulation quickly set in.
I eventually chose to step away from the office and work as a freelance designer for a time as I fed my artistic vision as a jewelry designer and self taught maker. I sold my work in small craft markets and nearby boutiques while constantly furthering my knowledge of metalsmith work. I enjoyed the sense of entrepeneurship and working on my own terms. But the amount of effort and constant investment it took to keep my vision and work afloat did not seem to be providing for my life and time in return. This became a very inquisitive time of learning and exploring spaces and ideas I had never given the time to beforehand. And my curiosity ventured into the likes of sustainability, eco consciousness, intentional and nomadic living, as well as the health of the human body and the planet and how often they intertwined. I felt like a sponge just soaking up all of the fascinating information out there. In my first life as a dancer, my interests and focus was limited to that which would propel me forward in that space. Now I had all possibilities to explore.
After experiencing severe anxiety and physical distress for years from highly demanding work and big life transitions, my need to learn only grew. I sought answers for myself as I struggled to move forward freely and found solace in topics such as yoga, meditation, minimalism and holistic nutrition. I had felt the call to start over in a new place and one that was filled with nature. Somewhere I could allow nature to become my teacher and greatest ally. This led my small family to reroute our lives to the forests of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Here I experienced all the power and wonder of the natural world first hand. I finally got the chance to live within it's abundance each and every day, and it taught me so very much. Here I also had the honor of building a tiny house on wheels with my partner as we navigated life off grid in a vintage camper, with no utilities or comforts of a traditional home.
The plan had been to find happily ever after on a self made homestead and enjoy a life away from mainstream society. You could call this the ideal of the burnt out millennial generation. But the COVID-19 pandemic had other plans for our life. It became increasingly difficult to facilitate this build, as well as the relationships and resources needed to accomplish such a big feat and new way of life. We ultimately returned home to San Clemente, CA and had to put our tiny house dream aside while we navigated what came next through a society experiencing great instability, fear and uncertainty. Luckily this chapter instilled within me an unwavering resilience that I could not have imagined.
This time in my life gave me the courage to pursue the unknown. It showed me that the medicine was in honoring my intuition and living within the present moment. It gave me space to pause and reflect in a way most will never know. I continued to honor the call to simplify and redirect my attention to the things that held the most value time and time again. And I created the space to breath life into my holistic and simple living journey while fostering my creativity through writing, design, and enrolling as a student of Academy Healing Nutrition. Here I was humbled to learn the teachings of ancient practices of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurvedic principles of the Indian culture and was able to receive my certification as a Holistic Health Coach and practitioner. By beginning to attune myself to the elements of holistic living, I also found my path to the healing art of Reiki, which is a modality that has awakened an entirely new reverence within me of the incredible capacity our bodies hold for healing. When we honor the energetic beings that we are, we can begin to see how energy is directed in the body and what happens when it stops flowing freely. We can also see how we live in direct relationship with energies outside of ourselves and how they influence us. And thus the influence we have over everything we come in contact with. And spectacularly, it's not new age mumbo jumbo, it's measured fact.
Embarking on this journey of ever expansive knowledge into the human mind, body and soul has led me to become a forever student of this world and it's relationship to the incredible experience of the human being. My greatest pursuit forward is to forever live in reverence to Mother Nature and our own deeply ancestral wisdom. I now seek to encourage, create and facilitate community around this intrinsic experience we all share and to assist others in finding their distinct path back to remembering. To reawakening the power and guidance we all hold within. It's been a wild ride, but something tells me it's only just beginning.