

"One of the most intensely beautiful and powerful events I have ever experienced.
Lara has a true gift for bringing people together in peace, love and unity."
~
David Little
ABOUT LARA

Drawing on training in multiple healing modalities and spiritual traditions
My credentials include training as a Cognitive Hypnotherapist between 2009-2011 with the Quest Institute in the UK which covered a range of modalities including Ericksonian Hypnosis, Parts Psychology, Time Line Therapy, Gestalt techniques, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). In 2010 I certified as an advanced practitioner of Emotional Freedom Techniques (Tapping/EFT) with The EFT Center with EFT Masters Emma Roberts and Sue Beer, and a Matrix Reimprinting Practitioner with Karl Dawson, the creator of Matrix Reimprinting, and in 2014 I completed the Level One and Two Focusing Facilitator Training with Eugene Gendlin and Ann Weiser Cornell of The International Focusing Institute. My group facilitation training includes The Work That Reconnects Facilitator Development Program in 2010, which covered a range of practices including earth-based facilitation, community ritual, empowerment work, and also included training as a facilitator for The Work That Reconnects, a body of experiential group work created by Buddhist scholar and deep ecologist Joanna Macy. I trained as an Awakening the Dreamer Symposium facilitator with the Pachamama Alliance in 2010. I completed the Intensive International Intensive Training (IIT) in Nonviolent Communication (NVC) with The Center for Nonviolent Communication and with Marshall Rosenberg as the core teacher in 2011. In 2014 I trained as a facilitator for the Restorative Circles Process, developed by Dominic Barter as a community truth-telling and reconciliation process within the Restorative Justice movement. In 2016 I completed the Certificate Program in Nonviolence Studies with the Metta Center for Nonviolence in Petaluma, CA. In 2019 I trained as an in-home hospice volunteer with the Hospice of SLO County in San Luis Obispo, CA. My decades-long study and practice of the Dharma includes attending multiple Buddhist retreats and completing the two-year advanced Dharma Practitioners’ Programme at Gaia House, UK in 2010-2011.
My work to support the transition to a healthy, sustainable, regenerative and peaceable culture began over a decade ago and includes being an active member of Transition Town Brixton, a community-led initiative within the Transition Town Network, teaching workshops in Nonviolent Communication and co-facilitating local inter-faith dialogs to find common ground between people of different backgrounds. I have worked as a prison volunteer and led trainings and circles for a diversity of groups including youth on probation, native youth, veterans, eco-villages, and the homeless community. I have worked as a mediator for couples and families, and have designed and conducted life cycle ceremonies for individuals, couples, and intentional communities. In 2016-2010 I launched a project of "living and giving on the road" called The Green Road, and traveled through Oregon and California for four years leading community grief rituals, transformative workshops, and re-wilding retreats.
My work to support the transition to a healthy, sustainable, regenerative and peaceable culture for over a decade, including reviving the Heart and Soul group of Transition Town Brixton, a community-led initiative within the Transition Town Network, teaching workshops in NVC and co-facilitating local inter-faith dialogs in the search to find common ground between people of different backgrounds. I have worked as a prison volunteer and as a mediator for families, activist groups, and intentional communities, and have created and held trainings and circles for a diversity of groups including youth on probation, native youth, veterans, eco-villages, and the homeless community. In 2011 I adopted a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity. Between 2016-2010 I traveled through Oregon and California facilitating rituals and workshops to nurture connection, inspire creativity, and foster resilience through my lifestyle project The Green Road.
While I have explored many paths to healing, I consider my greatest source of knowledge for alchemizing pain and grief and cultivating true resilience to have come from navigating the many rough initiations in my own life including: chronic childhood illness; early near death experiences; childhood abuse and violence; suicide attempts, teenage homelessness; self-harm and eating disorders: fibromyalgia and chronic pain, complex trauma, multiple addictions, suicidal ideation, and the tragic deaths of family members and friends. By embracing the raw truth of my life in all its beauty and difficulty, and walking a wholehearted path of deep surrender and radical trust, I have gained a degree of insight, compassion, and resilience that enables me to support others from an embodied understanding of how to reconnect with the wisdom and guidance of our ancestors, repair our relationships with the sacred animate world, and reclaim the sense of wholeness and deep belonging that is our ancestral birthright.
"Those who undertake the full journey into their grief come back carrying medicine for the world."
~
Francis Weller