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Rachael Alaia Helschein

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Hey there! I am Rachael Alaia and I am a writer, facilitator, and educator helping folks engage in body awareness, ecological sentience, and experiential inquiry for personal & planetary healing. My work seeks to bridge culture and ecology, transformative justice and spirituality, trauma resolution and storytelling, somatics and regenerative design. I hold a Masters degree in Education and a Bachelors in Environmental Studies. I am an experienced practitioner and teacher of yoga and meditation, a trained guide of transformational group work, and I have engaged in expressive arts as a therapeutic method for healing trauma my entire life. I am known for creating and facilitating spaces that are both nourishing and provocative, comforting and life-changing; Spaces that honor the entire spectrum of the human experience. I am humbled and honored to have the privilege to engage in this work.

Why I am called to facilitate the Work

I deeply appreciate the foundational message and philosophy of the Work that Reconnects, it's invitation to connect across difference, it's commitment to the entire spectrum of human experience. I facilitate because it is my passion and my gift.

How I see the Work serving the Great Turning

The Work helps us to reconsider and rewrite the dominant narrative of business-as-usual. It works to midwife the death of unsustainable, anthropocentric, capitalist growth-machine, climate change denying, prison industrial complex, white-supremacist, patriarchal, power-hungry perspectives and practices of being human—so as to attend to the birth of an authentic, regenerative, life-supporting, democratic, liberatory, holistic, integral, Earth-centered paradigm. It is work that collaborates + commingles within emerging commons, serving as praxis for individuals, relationships, and communities seeking to heal.

Audiences I work with

Parents, Therapists, Coaches, Healers, Scientists, Herbalists, Artists, Writers, Birth workers, Death workers, Mind-Body Movement + Art Instructors, Community organizers, Activists

Background & Training

Other relevant skills & experiences

I am a writer, facilitator, and educator helping folks engage in body awareness, ecological sentience, and experiential inquiry for personal & planetary healing. My work seeks to bridge culture and ecology, transformative justice and spirituality, trauma resolution and storytelling, somatics and regenerative design. I hold a Masters degree in Enviromental Education and a Bachelors in Environmental Studies. I am an experienced practitioner and teacher of yoga and meditation, a trained guide of transformational group work, and I've engaged in expressive arts as a therapeutic method for healing trauma my entire life. I create a variety of online content to help engage and educate folks on topics like climate justice, cultural trauma, and ecocide.

Experience facilitating other events & workshops

I've incorporated WTR practices into in-person movement classes, yoga trainings, and workshop circles, as well as into online mentorship, courses, and support groups. I'm also a local activist and homeschooling mother who works to incorporate WTR concepts and principles into my everyday life.

In these workshops, what WTR practices have you used and how?
I've facilitated (at least) the following practices:

Introductions with Gratitude
Open Sentences on Gratitude
Mirror Walk
Open Sentences on Honoring Our Pain
Breathing Through Meditation
The Milling
Cairn of Mourning
Dance to Dismember the Ego
Harvesting the Gifts of our Ancestors
Letter from the Future
Callings and Resources
Five Vows
Gaia Meditation
The Four Abodes Meditation

All of these have been taught during in-person workshops and retreats.

What year did you begin facilitating the Work That Reconnects?
I have integrated WTR practices and teachings into my work for over five years, after first being introduced to the work by a dear friend and teacher Spring Washam. I've led a handful WTR focused workshops in both English and Spanish, in the United States and Mexico. I am looking to expand my opportunities facilitating the Work that Reconnects.

Please summarize the number and types of workshops, retreats and presentations of the Work that Reconnects that you have facilitated.
Online Programs and Courses:
"Wild Soul Journey” Online Course (March-April 2015)
Wild Presence Meditation Online Course (May 2015)
The Nabalo Collective, Nature Path Online Course (2015-2016)
Mystic Wolf Women Online Program (November 2015-May 2017)
Wild Mother Online Program (August 2017-November 2017)

Workshops:
Wild Soul Women’s Gatherings (Ongoing from November 2014-August 2017)
"The Power of Darkness” Workshop (December 2015)
“The Earth, The Stars, and Your Yoga” Workshop within the 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training with Anna Laurita of Davanna Yoga (October 2015, January 2016, May 2016, October 2016)
"Invoking the Imaginal” Workshop (July 2016)
Being Human: Wild Movement As Medicine Workshop (March 2018) *taught in Spanish*
Nuestra Vida Como Gaia: Prácticas para Reconectar nuestros Seres, nuestro Mundo (September 2018) *taught in Spanish*
Earthself workshop series (November 2018)

Retreats:
"Woman, Reclaim Your Wild" (July 2015)
"Wild Rhythm Journey" with Caroline Sánchez Cardenas (July 2016)

Are you helping others to explore the depths of the Work That Reconnects?
I am about to launch an offering called The Changing around the topic of climate collapse and ecocide. The arc of the program is loosely based on the Spiral of the WTR and will include many core WTR practices. The program is a twelve-week virtual learning community, support space, and facilitated framework aimed at engaging our collective agency, resilience, stamina, and responsiveness in the face of ecocide and climate collapse. The program is a chance to consider climate collapse in an embodied kind of way, experiencing how our rapidly changing world lands in the intricacies and nuances of the body and our relationship with the wild intelligences of the earth and the more-than-human world. The program is an opportunity to connect with, receive the company of, and be witnessed by other folks with a mutual concern for the planet and a shared commitment to deep presence through these precarious times. The program taps into somatic awareness, critical inquiry, and radical togetherness in devotion of an alternate narrative beyond the violent dysfunctions of business-as-usual.