Team | Mentors

Cris Avila practices under the license of Marriage Family Therapist and as a Somatic Experiencing^® Practitioner. Cris enjoyed earning a Master’s Degree in Transpersonal Psychology with Existential emphasis from John F. Kennedy University. She dances with Jungian Psychology and as a hobby, Cris enjoys dream interpretation. Currently, Cris offers her services at Kaiser Permanente, Delta Fair Medical Psychiatry Offices.

Tengo un interés profundo de conectarme y honrar mis raíces, mis ancestros y los de los demás.

Cris has a profound interest to connect and honor her roots and ancestors. My personal practice is nature-based contemplative meditation and Mexican traditional curanderismo learning from Zapotec and Mixtec wisdom. Cris also enjoys spending time with her pets and relating with nature.

Cris's life’s trajectory has been about feeling fully alive, learning to walk amongst everything that is, and finding my place. Her mission is to guide others who may have a similar yearning.

Funda Battle is the Coordinator for HEARTraining^® Turkey and a HEARTraining Mentor. She believes that OI is one of the most accessible and effective approaches for bringing people to true healing and is passionately working to bring Organic Intelligence^® to Istanbul. She offers workshops throughout Turkey with the aim of helping others cultivate self-compassion and a deeper understanding of human physiological and psychological interconnectedness.

Karen spent 10 years teaching academic reading, writing, and critical thinking for international students in American universities. But her true love was to find integrative approaches to facilitate the experience of feeling more fully alive. Since 2004, her training included various therapeutic bodywork modalities and mindfulness practices, and then expanded to include Somatic Experiencing^®, Touch Skills for Trauma Therapists, NeuroAffective Touch™, and now Organic Intelligence^®. She has also trained in expanding erotic intelligence and facilitating sexual wholeness.

Karen maintains a private practice in Orange County, California, working primarily with adults. She specializes in working with the dysregulated nervous system patterns underlying chronic pain and other syndromes. She collaborates extensively with mental health professionals, providing touch therapy for their clients with a history of early dysregulation. She also has a passion for supporting people who want to develop their capacity for healthy love and sexuality.

Dr. Heather Berberet is a San Diego Psychologist specializing in couples therapy and a Mentor in the OI HEARTraining^®. When not working with adults, couples and adolescents in her private practice, she is mothering her daughter, loving her wife, and watching Doctor Who (and Star Trek, and Star Wars, and anything sci-if/geeky, really). In addition, she can found in the morning and evening walking her three dogs, trying to see the world for what it really is and enjoying the view.

Heike Bill is a Gestalt Therapist and a Mentor in the OI HEARTraining^®.

Rob Blinn, PhD is Associate Faculty and will co-teach the Hawai'i 2 HEARTraining with Steve Hoskinson. He holds a PhD and MS in Clinical Psychology from Palo Alto University and a MA in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA. Rob practices yoga and sitting and walking meditation on a regular basis. He also enjoys walking his two dogs and hanging out with all of his pets. Rob lived in Beijing, China from 2003-2014 and now makes his home on the Big Island of Hawai'i.

While in China, Rob commuted to the San Francisco Bay Area to train with Steve Hoskinson and was project director of the 18-month China Earthquake Relief Project (CHERP) focused on healing survivors from the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, utilizing practitioners who were trained by Steve Hoskinson and Peter Levine. Rob specializes in Disaster Mental Health, Trauma Healing, auto accident trauma, and men’s issues.

Rob is an Organic Intelligence^® (OI) Practitioner, a Somatic Experiencing^® (SE™) Practitioner, A Neuro-Affective Relational Model (NARM) Practitioner, and has completed Kathy Kain’s Touch Skills for Trauma Therapists (TST). Rob is in private practice with East Hawai'i Somatic Healing, Inc.

Baylee Bolton is a Mentor at the OI HEARTraining^® and has been been in the health and wellness field for over 10 years. She is a Holist Health Practitioner, Certified Massage Therapist, and Yoga Instructor. Baylee has spent the last 3 years working in the somatic fields as an Organic Intelligence^® Practitioner and Somatic Experiencing^® Practitioner.

Baylee's primary form of work is Somatic Touch, combining OI and touch/massage work. She has a private practice and works part time along with a Naturopathic Doctor doing medical massage and OI Touch therapy. Baylee also volunteers with a San Diego based nonprofit group called Warriors Live On, where she works with veterans. She loves working with all age groups with a focus on working with children, stress and anxiety, and PTSD. Baylee has even been known to work on some of our four legged friends as well.

Michelle Borok, LM CPM is a mentor with the Berkeley HEARTraining^®.  She is a California Licensed Homebirth Midwife, and holds a B.A. in Social Welfare from U.C. Berkeley.  She has studied Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, working with both adults and newborns.  She is currently completing the San Francisco HEARTraining and the Organic Intelligence^® OI Expert Master Class Program with Steve Hoskinson and Sean Feit Oakes. 

Michelle has a special interest in Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and weaves its principles into her beloved midwifery practice.  She has taught many classes and original workshops, including Female Sexuality at U.C. Berkeley, and  Legacies of Medical Racism and Transgender Competency for Healthcare Providers at Maternidad La Luz Midwifery School.  She has been a mindfulness and insight meditation student for the last 12 years, studying and meditating with some of the most extraordinary Buddhist teachers of our time. 

Michelle co-parents her amazing goddaughter and finds parenting and communing with nature to be her most devotional and resourcing practices. 

Eliza Carlson, LMHC, CN is the founder of Sound Mindfulness Group; dedicated to supporting individuals who are struggling with life circumstances, challenged by limiting self-beliefs, coping with depression or anxiety, or simply have the desire to live more fully with less suffering.

She is a licensed mental health counselor and certified nutritionist in the State of Washington. Eliza brings a compassionate, mindfulness and body-centered orientation to her work as a psychotherapist. Deeply influenced by the wisdom and insight she has gained from many years of meditation and retreats practice and her extensive training with Steven Hoskinson in Somatic Experiencing^® and Organic Intelligence^® (SE/OI), her work focuses on using in-the-moment awareness as a gateway to insight and healing.  SE/OI can promote nervous system regulation for correcting the negative effects of chronic stress or trauma.

Eliza is also a certified instructor in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and offers this 8-week meditation class quarterly.

Berkley has been a meditation and mindfulness practitioner, artist, educator, and social justice organizer for the past fifteen years. Berkley has been integrating these skills into her study and practice of nervous system regulation and trauma healing since 2015. Berkley believes that everyone deserves wellbeing, justice, and access to our full spectrum of human experience including connection, love, and joy.

Berkley practices nervous system support in the Organic Intelligence® tradition and is an OI® Expert and Mentor.

Marisol Colette, MSW, LCSW, SEP, OIX is a Mentor at Organic Intelligence^®. She holds a Bachelor’s of Social Work from Warren Wilson College and a Master’s of Social Work from Columbia University in the city of New York. Marisol meditates daily and has a regular yoga practice.

From 2007-2015, she worked at the VA Medical Center providing support to Veterans experiencing homelessness, PTSD, mental health and substance abuse issues, chronic pain, adjustments to medical diagnosis and more. In 2010 she began studying somatic therapy, including Organic Intelligence.

Marisol Colette is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), and an Organic Intelligence (OI) and Somatic Experiencing^® (SE™) Practitioner with a private practice Sol Reflection. She offers professional and organizational trainings in the Asheville, North Carolina area.  Additionally, she teaches in the Social Work Department at Warren Wilson College.

Intrigued for many years in his youth by the intersection of Buddhism and psychotherapy, Andrew trained in Core Process Psychotherapy - a Buddhist psychotherapy practice - at the Karuna Institute in Devon, England, in the 1990s.

Since then, alongside his private practice, he has played sax and percussion in funk bands, facilitated drum circles and samba bands in schools and the local community and currently plays in a New Orleans-style brass band. He lives with his wife and teenage daughters in the west of Ireland.

Andrew has a daily sitting practice which he regards as indispensable for both his personal well-being and his professional practice.

In his one-to-one and group work, Andrew draws upon a deep trust in the power of attuned presence, laughter and the embodied wisdom of the organism. There is an invitation for connection and coherence to arise as a precondition for the processing of discomfort and disregulation; a dance of attunement between persons and organisms.

Andrew feels deeply privileged and fortunate to be engaged in this work.

David Cornwell was born and raised in Ireland. He completed an undergraduate degree in Geography at Northumbriua University Newcastle upon Tyne. He started practicing meditation during university when he was 19 years old. Upon leaving university David worked as a meditation and yoga teacher, settling in Istanbul Turkey, where he founded Cihangir Yoga, a studio that today employs 100 people, teaching 600 students per day.

David began training with Steve Hoskinson in 2013. The models of Organic Intelligence^® underpin much of David’s work.  David is currently completing a Masters program at the Karuna University in the UK in Mindfulness Based Psychotherapeutic practice. David is also enrolled to study a masters in Mindfulness Based Psychotherapeutic Practice at the department of psychiatry at Oxford University, beginning October 2018.

David currently lives in Mallorca with his wife and two children, where he maintains a private practice. He continues to travel to Turkey where he co-directs a pioneering mindfulness clinic located within Turkey's American Hospital, which provides inpatient care, as well as an educational outreach program. David offers trainings in mindfulness skills for health care professionals in Turkey.

For Sarah Cotten, the art and science of healthy living have been a lifelong passion. At an early age, Sarah clearly noted the mental and emotional roots in her mother’s struggle with Crohn’s disease and other illnesses. The quest for a deeper understanding of that stress-disease link inspired her training and work in the practice of Somatic Experiencing^® trauma resolution and Functional Nutrition.

Additionally, Sarah is a life-long meditator and yogi and has been in private practice since 2012.

Robin Craig is OI Associate Faculty and has studied with OI Founder Steve Hoskinson since 2006. She studied Neuroscience at the Vollum Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research in Portland, OR before moving to Arizona in 1996 where she became a Licensed Professional Counselor and reconnected with land and heart. Initially, this reconnection came during the time she spent on the Navajo reservation, for the first time experiencing how connection to place and community truly creates a foundation for the exploration of being a human on this planet.

The exploration of community and connection continued through her work at The Southwest Forest Alliance and then at Northland Family Help Center, a place that offers services to victims of crime and also houses a domestic violence shelter. At Northland, she was part of the group that brought a deepened understanding of Trauma Informed Care to the organization, which meant creating an environment to support the staff in what was needed for their own expanded resiliency, which then created a safe and healthier container for the clients and residents.

Today, Robin is a student in John Yates’ (Upasaka Culadasa’s) meditation teacher training program and has been exploring how to restore physiological, spiritual, and psychological resiliency through the natural interweaving of Organic Intelligence® and meditation. Through this training and her time studying OI with Steve, Robin has been discovering the natural ways that OI’s understanding of going “beyond trauma” goes hand in hand with deep spiritual teachings and practice. Both teachings bring the understanding that joy is a part of the path to the deep spirituality and interconnection that is ours by nature.

Robin is also in a singing trio, where the expression of music and harmony reflects her curiosity of how different voices come together to form community and collective understandings.

Link to Robin's OI Blog Post

Being a bodyworker since 2000, Eve has been witness to the wonder that is: we all share the same anatomy and physiology – a common biological language. A common experience, connecting us to the same powerful thing: life force. This has kept her focused specifically to understand the effects of stress on the body.  And, more relevant, the innate healing capacity therein.

Eve’s practice began in 2001, and it includes training in various bodywork modalities and somatic approaches, is influenced and guided by the principles and teachings of Organic Intelligence®. She continues to remain curious, interested and inspired by her work.

She has been practicing Bikram Yoga since 2009. The mindfulness, focus, and discipline that practice offers have rippled through her studies and work. Additionally, she has studied and practiced various forms of seated and moving meditation which all influence her awareness, presence, and way of life.

Dana Duclo, EdS, MHS, is completing her third year of the OI HEARTraining® and is an OI Mentor in Tucson, AZ. 

Dana is the founder of Inner Rhythm Consulting, LLC, where she teaches Heart Rhythm Meditation® and Organic Intelligence®--embodied approaches to trauma and stress resolution that help clients restore a sense of inner rhythm and connect to the innate wisdom, aliveness, and coherence within. Dana is passionate about helping people discover they can live vibrantly and easefully beyond the effects of stress and trauma, offering nervous system education and compassionate support to children, adolescents, and adults.

Dana holds an EdS degree in Educational Psychology and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology.  She is a certified School Psychologist with over 20 years of experience in the education system as a psychologist, counselor, and educator.  Dana is also a certified meditation teacher and faculty member at the Institute for Applied Meditation, where she has practiced and taught meditation for 12 years.

Sean Feit Oakes, PhD, is Associate Faculty at Organic Intelligence^® and co-teaches the San Francisco HEARTraining^® with Steve Hoskinson. Sean received his PhD in Performance Studies from UC Davis, researching states of consciousness in Buddhist meditation and postmodern dance practices.

Sean teaches OI, Buddhism, and Haṭha Yoga with a focus on the integration of meditation, philosophy, and self-inquiry with trauma resolution and social justice. He has studied in Zen, Tibetan, and Theravāda Buddhist lineages, trained as a monk in Burma, and was authorized to teach Insight Meditation by Jack Kornfield in 2010.

Sean Feit Oakes teaches at East Bay Meditation Center, Yoga Garden SF, Piedmont Yoga, Yoga Tree, and Spirit Rock Meditation Center, where he completed the Dedicated Practitioner, Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation, and Community Dharma Leader trainings.

Boaz Feldman is an eco-socially engaged contemplative acting for worldwide positive change, and Associate Faculty at Organic Intelligence^®. He started practicing Vipassana (Mindfulness) meditation as a monk in the Thai forest tradition close to 15 years ago. Every year since then, he has spent at least 3 months in intensive retreats of silent practice.

Boaz has studied business, economics, buddhism and psychology and trained as a therapist in various traditions including systemics, psychosomatics, psychoanalytics and the contemplative sciences. He has been involved in various humanitarian and development projects in conflict-affected regions (Afghanistan, Myanmar) as a bio-psychosocial trainer.

Boaz currently works at a private practice in Geneva, trains groups at NGOs (activists, community leaders) and organizations (executives, lawyers) in empowerment and resiliency, and teaches the Organic Intelligence HEARTraining^® in Turkey and co-teaches the HEARTraining in Switzerland with OI Founder Steve Hoskinson.

Boaz is a visiting professor for the University of Trinity College Dublin MBA programs, and conducts mindfulness and compassion research at the National Research Center for Affective Sciences at the University of Geneva.

Andrea is a Mentor in the OI HEARTraining^®. She came from a diverse background, having worked in the film industry as a commercial production manager, a stint working as a 911 police dispatcher and 10 years as a self defense instructor when she found the work of trauma resolution in 2000. While studying Somatic Experiencing^® (SE™) she got her certification as a massage therapist and opened her private practice.

After many years of coordinating and assisting SE and OI trainings Andrea continues to coordinate Somatic Practice bodywork classes for Kathy Kain and assist at the HEARTrainings to deepen her work. She is a beginning instructor for Organic Intelligence and has also developed an online Boundary course, Boundaries and the Body. This year she will launch her podcast, The Boundary Spectrum.

In 2004, Andrea found and married Kevin, whom she followed to the Central Valley of California so he could return to his love of farming on the family pistachio ranch. They have 2 cats, Sadie and Mulan.

Veronika Gold is passionate about personal growth, exploration of consciousness, finding the best ways of serving the planet, and helping others find their place and passion in life. She specializes in the treatment of stress disorders and has a private practice in San Francisco and San Mateo, California.

Veronika works in the research of PTSD treatment and using psychedelics in mental health treatments. She has studied different types of meditation and regularly practices Embodiment Meditation of The Realization Process.  She enjoys being in the nature, hiking, traveling, and spending quality time with her family and friends.

Veronika is a citizen of the world. Born in the Czech Republic she traveled in South East Asia, lived in Australia, Japan, and Indonesia, and in 2003 moved to the Bay Area. Veronika has dedicated her life to ease suffering on the planet. She is involved in projects protecting the nature and committed to personal healing and helping others heal. In 2017 she became vegan.

Gloria Gonzales is a Mentor at the OI HEARTraining^®. The process of unfolding is like watching a horizon. Imagine driving in a car on a long stretch of desert highway — open and expansive. The mountains and sun rise before you, your view is broad, and the sense of receiving and observing nature is pleasant, perhaps even grand.

This is how an Organic Intelligence session feels. Is it time to move beyond trauma, and let something greater unfold from within you?

Gloria is founder of Eight Elements West, an Institute for Somatic Education and Integrative Wellness. Sessions incorporate integrative body-based modalities like visceral manipulation to integrate emotion, voice and touch.  Cransiosacral therapy addresses restrictions in cranial nerves, brain, and spine. Gloria’s 35-year background also includes a degree in Kinesiology/Nutrition, hypnotherapy, reiki, and mindfulness-based somatic practices of Iyengar yoga/pranayama, and Nia (blends tai chi, tae kwon do, aikido, modern dance, Duncan, jazz, Alexander, Feldenkrais, yoga). Sensation, emotion, and cognition woven together in OI support biological coherence, relieving physical and emotional symptoms.

Monika Harrison, LMT, CNMT, SEP, OIX is Assistant Faculty and Lead Mentor with Organic Intelligence. She is co-teaching the Tucson 2 HEARTraining with Robin Craig and has done ongoing study with Steve Hoskinson for a decade. Monika has had a private practice since 2006, facilitating healing through nervous system regulation and supporting systemic coherence. She works with individuals, helping them get to a place of integration, wholeness and feeling fully alive and engaged in this world. She uses both a face-to-face and hands-on approach, pulling from her training in OI, as well as her background as a SEP and bodyworker. Her specialty is working with folks who suffer from syndromal patterns with pain associated. This includes but isn’t limited to PTSD, anxiety disorders, depression, fibromyalgia, history of trauma (physical/emotional), etc... She also does pre- and post- medical procedure work. Monika’s practice comes from the belief that everybody has an intrinsic impulse towards being whole and healthy. She feels that compassionately tending to this impulse helps a person shift their system towards self-healing and self-support.

In addition to her practice, Monika enjoys witnessing how this intrinsic impulse shows up in her children, and how they explore the world and their interconnectedness through play and experimentation. In her own activities of daily mindfulness, strength training, and dance, she is continuously curious about the fractal nature of the universe and how it becomes embodied in our daily lives.

Maggie Horton-Brande is an Organic Intelligence^® and Somatic Experiencing^® Practitioner. Maggies sees clients in private practice in San Francisco, and coordinate the SF Bay Area Human Empowerment and Resiliency Training.

Mentoring students through the deeply personal and professional process of learning and integrating OI's principles is one of Maggie's primary joys in life. Since 2008, her professional background is in bodywork and Massage Therapy. Maggie has also practiced Deep Tissue Therapy, Shiatsu, Acupressure and Medical Qigong in California.

Currently, she is in ministerial training in the Lohan Order of Buddhism with Reverend Fa Jun Shakya. Maggie's personal interests include the study and practice of Chinese and Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Daoism and Qigong, social justice, Nonviolent Communication, the art of the conscious partnership, music and the outdoors. She is a passionate LGBTQI ally and honors all gender identities. Maggie aims to develop compassion, wisdom, and skillfulness.

Bram is an Organic Intelligence^® (OI Expert level), Somatic Experiencing^® (SEP), and Sat Nam Rasayan Practitioner. He has studied with Steve Hoskinson for over 6 years, as well as Kathy Kain, and is certified in her Touch Skills program. He grew up with an Aikido sensei as a mother and a traveling artist as a father, and was steeped in both mindfulness and creative practices from a young age.

Bram has completed yoga teacher trainings in multiple traditions, tantra and conscious relationship coaching with David Deida, studied and practiced Shipibo Shamanism in Peru, and was a singer and fire-tender in the Native American Church for 4 years. He is also a music and technology nerd and runs a small recording studio in Encinitas, CA.

Bram brings his diverse background to offer compassionate support to people from many walks of life. He loves working with creative individuals, young adults, and those who are working towards achieving their goals and realizing their dreams.

Kevin Lanoue, JD, CST, LMT is a Mentor at the Tucson 2 HEARTraining® in Arizona. He holds two degrees from the University of Arizona: a B.S. in Creative Writing, and a J.D. from the Rogers College of Law (2007). He also studied poetry and film for two years in the MFA program at the UA. In addition to his private practice (Present Moment Integrative Wellness), Kevin also works in the hospital unit at a renowned treatment center in Tucson, Arizona. He is currently completing the Tucson HEARTraining and the Organic Intelligence® OI Expert Master Class Program with Steve Hoskinson.

Kevin is passionate about Organic Intelligence® and Craniosacral Therapy -- independently and in concert with each other -- and the many benefits these subtle yet powerful modalities offer in support of health and well-being. He is deeply grateful to be doing this work, and to his clients, teachers, and mentors. Using techniques and practices from both the Biomechanical and the Biodynamic approaches to Craniosacral Therapy, Kevin’s treatments include gentle work with structural alignment, the ebb and flow of cerebral spinal fluid, the movement of muscles and connective tissue, and restoring balance to the fundamental fascial structures of the body. Craniosacral sessions can be deeply grounding, and offer physical unwinding, emotional release, and improved energetic flow. In Nervous System Regulation sessions, Kevin supports an understanding of the nervous system state, and shepherds observable physio-emotional states using techniques from the Organic Intelligence® protocol (which includes elements from the wisdom of mindfulness and is based on the science of self-organization).

In this way, healing happens from the nervous system up and leads to a more vibrant life in the present moment.

Maggie Locke is a Mentor at the OI HEARTraining^®. She discovered somatic therapies in the mid-1990s during a course of personal treatment in Bioenergetic Analysis. The work affected her so profoundly that she transitioned from a successful 20-year career in journalism to study and practicing this approach.

After 10 years of working as a Psychotherapist with the severely mentally ill in a variety of settings she was introduced to Somatic Experiencing^® during a workshop. Almost immediately she sensed significant change in her system and entered the SE™ training.

Another 10 years later, having established a private practice based on somatic approaches, Organic Intelligence invites further expansion into her relationship with herself, her work and the world.

Maggie is a mother, a grandmother and a dual citizen of the United States and Ireland. Her life — much of it lived abroad — has been an effort to bridge different cultures and eras to find her ground amidst breathtaking change. While the kind of community and connection she knew as a child in a rural Irish hinterland no longer exists, she has found a sense of connection and grounding within herself, through the deep experience of her own body.

Her work aims to open this capacity for others who navigate their own losses and longings, to help bring them home to themselves in the natural world of their own physiology.

Helma Mair holds a Master’s degree in Somatic Psychology from Santa Barbara Graduate Institute and a PhD in Somatic Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She is a Mentor in the OI HEARTraining^®. In addition, Helma is a fully qualified Somatic Experiencing^® practitioner, NARM practitioner, and Hakomi therapist and has served as an assistant at Somatic Experiencing and Organic Intelligence^® trainings.

Helma has completed a program in Relational Somatic Psychotherapy, combining knowledge of the body and relational processes as valuable supports in the therapeutic process. Helma has also trained in Integrative Energy Therapy, a gentle and non-invasive form of connecting with one’s internal experience at an energetic level. To complement her therapeutic work, Helma practices Aikido, a Japanese self-defence system, in which she holds a fourth-degree black belt.

Brent Morton is a Mentor at the HEARTraining^®, a Buddhist meditation teacher, bodyworker, and a somatic provider using the Organic Intelligence^® approach. Brent lives in Seattle where he teaches group meditation classes and provides one on one Organic Intelligence sessions.

His practice and training includes completion of a 4-year Buddhist meditation teacher training through Jack Kornfield and Spirit Rock Meditation Center; completion of the 3-year advanced training in Somatic Experiencing; continued mentorship with Steve Hoskinson and the Organic Intelligence approach to trauma healing; completion of a 750-hour massage training and licensure as a massage practitioner; completion of 3 yoga teacher trainings and 8 years of teaching yoga asan in a studio environment; 2 years of study of Craniosacral therapy through the Milne Institute; over 10 years of practice and study of Buddhist meditation, including over 50 silent meditation retreats and practice in Thailand, Burma, and India.

People typically come to see Brent for a somatic approach when they are feeling sad, anxious, overwhelmed, angry, confused; when they have recurring symptoms that confuse other providers (easily "triggered", digestive issues, panic attacks, auto-immune issues); because they are having problems with their close relationships or have issues with boundaries; because there is a specific issue they are coping with; because their identity is somehow in flux; because they are seeking growth and increased wellness; or simply because they feel something is "missing" and desire deeper meaning in their lives.

On a more personal note, Brent enjoys saunas and cold plunges, long philosophical conversations, beaches, nature, coffee, chocolate, music, sailing, good books, and unplanned international adventures.

Sara Oakes is Lead Mentor and co-teaches the Berkeley HEARTraining^® with Sean Feit Oakes. She began professional healing practice as a bodyworker, training in massage, Polarity Therapy, Deep Tissue and structural work. Turning toward subtle modalities, she completed the Milne Institute’s Visionary Craniosacral training followed by Somatic Experiencing^® training with Steve Hoskinson, Peter Levine, and Kathy Kain, and the Organic Intelligence^® OI Expert Master Class Program. She offers craniosacral bodywork for adults and children, weaving somatic bodywork with OI and trauma resolution. In recent years, her focus on pediatric care has expanded through work with the Craniosacral Children’s Collective and as a Tummy Time Tutor.

Dance, yoga, singing, Buddhism, and Authentic Movement are all integral aspects of her practice, along with meditation and other formal contemplative modalities. She has practiced meditation in the US and in Southeast Asia with many wonderful teachers, and completed the Dedicated Practitioner and Community Dharma Leader Programs at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She teaches mindfulness and Buddhism to teens at Spirit Rock, and East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland.

Ellah Ray is a Homebirth Midwife in service to the primal nature of the birthing experience. She sees instinctive birth as both ordinary and sacred - and a radical act of love and courage. She supports individuals to develop confidence, openness, and joy, as they claim their bodies, babies, and families during a most potent experience of a lifetime. After all, we belong to this wild earth and we belong to each other.

The teachings of the Buddha and the clear seeing and expansive heart that arises through taking an interest in and paying attention to the moments of life are integral to Ellah's path. She’s had a Vipassana and enquiry practice since 2001 and completed the Dedicated Practitioner Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in 2012.

Ellah is committed to understanding power, privilege, and oppression, both internal and institutional, and to speaking out against it. She values protecting and nurturing that which is beautiful in life; so that each and every one of us gets to experience health, joy, and liberation.

In 2016, Ellah began studying Organic Intelligence® and loves how it folds seamlessly into all aspects of her life. She looking forward to joining the mentor team in the upcoming 2018 OI HEARTraining® in Berkeley, CA.

Mark Read-Smith is a Licensed Professional Counselor Associate, Certified Rolfer™, and nervous system health coach in private practice at Coalesce in Asheville, North Carolina. As an Expressive Arts Therapist, Mark enjoys using creativity to facilitate an experience in session and with groups.

Mark has extensive training in the nervous system process, movement, structural integration, and group work. Mark has experience bringing the principles of Organic Intelligence into use at a residential substance abuse treatment center; working with individuals and groups. In addition to in-person and online sessions, Mark consults on several online nervous system class platforms.

Mark is grateful to be part of the mentoring team in the current San Diego HEARTraining. Mark feels love and joy for all of those who are currently a part of the San Diego training; teachers, mentors, OI staff members, and students.

Nathan Rehm is a licensed social worker, psychotherapist, and HEARTraining® mentor in Phoenix, Arizona utilizing Organic Intelligence® to further the expansion of awareness and healing on the individual and collective level. After receiving a masters degree in social work from Arizona State University, he found his passion in trauma healing and completed significant trainings in a number of recognized trauma-focused psychotherapy approaches. With this foundation, Nathan recognized the need for an organic approach that goes beyond trauma-focused therapy to actualize true lasting transformation in his clients and culture.

In addition to applying OI to daily life, Nathan participates in sitting practices of buddhist-inspired loving-kindness and mindfulness of the breath and body, as well as the Eastern Orthodox-inspired Jesus Prayer.

Rebecca Renfrow (she/her) comes from the woods in Kentucky and lives now among the green and growing urban nature of the Pacific Northwest. With a background in circus arts, creative group facilitation, and long cultivated commitment to collective liberation work, she brings joyful orientation to movement and an expansive possibility to her work.

Rebecca has an MS in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and is a mentor in the Organic Intelligence® HEARTraining®. In her Seattle-based practice, Rebecca uses Organic Intelligence®, Somatic Experiencing®, and the Somatic Resilience and Regulation model to support artists, activists, educators, professional helpers, and others working to emerge from cycles of suffering.

Rebecca comes to therapeutic work with a healing justice lens. Her hope is to support individuals and communities to build resilience and capacity to shape and sustain movements toward equity, dignity, and wellness for all peoples.

Rebecca cultivates embodied mindfulness in relationship with the brilliance of the natural world. She loves to breathe with trees, watch water move, and is astonished by the apparent patience of moss.

Charlie Ruce, LMFT is a licensed marriage and family therapist, practicing at The Soul Care House, a thriving group practice in San Diego, CA. Charlie also serves as the Clinical Director of The Soul Care House, managing and training the staff team of therapists to most effectively create transformation and wholeness in the lives and relationships of their clients.

Charlie has recently begun using the OI principles to coach executives on how to create "flow" within their personal lives, leadership style, and organization or business.

Charlie is also a student of the Wisdom and Perennial teachings within the Christian tradition. He has seen a Spiritual Director for the last 7 years and he and his wife Heather attend an annual week long retreat focusing on centering prayer and other wisdom practices.

Heather Ruce is a spiritual director, accompanying people as they learn to live in the present moment and attempt to deepen their awareness of and relationship with the Sacred. She sees nervous system coherence as a crucial component of becoming a more fully alive, conscious, connected being. The Organic Intelligence® model resonates deeply for her by providing the framework to support clients’ naturally occurring biological coherence. As this coherence increases, an opening is created to participate in a much larger coherence, beyond the individual, and into the collective.

Heather lives in San Diego with her husband Charlie. She works out of her home and with clients who live out of the area via Zoom. She has a Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy and is a student of the Wisdom stream (especially as taught by St. Benedict and G.I. Gurdjieff),  facilitating Centering Prayer and Meditation groups as well as Wisdom practice circles. She has a deep love for the earth and animals having cared for many different exotic species.

Tiffany Sankary is an artist who integrates Organic Intelligence® with the Feldenkrais Method®, Authentic Movement and creative process. She loves how direct connection to the here and now supports the unfolding of bigger life vision/ purpose.

In addition being a continuity Assistant Trainer for the Boston Feldenkrais Training Program, and maintaining a private practice, Tiffany teaches and organizes classes and workshops in Boston, MA and online. She’s the creator of Movement & Creativity Library, an online resource/community with 150+ Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® lessons and guided practices to support nervous system regulation and awaken creativity.

Tiffany is the editor and illustrator of Feldenkrais Illustrated: The Art of Learning, a visual guide to the philosophy and writings of Moshe Feldenkrais. Her drawings have been published in Tikkun magazine, Turning Wheel, and the Feldenkrais Journal.

She will be a Mentor in the upcoming Minneapolis OI HEARTraining®.

Martin Schlozer is a Mentor and Coordinator of the Basel HEARTraining^®. Martin is a Physical Therapist and a Feldenkrais Teacher (IFF). He has a long experience with and broad theoretical background in many areas related to movement, pain management, learning, mindfulness, neurophysiology, and personal growth and manages a private practice in Arlesheim, Basel, Switzerland.

Martin has worked with the Feldenkrais Method^® in personal sessions through touch (Functional Integration^®) and with groups (Awareness through Movement^®), while deepening his understanding through NLP, Ericksonian hypnosis, focusing, Somatic Experiencing^®, and Organic Intelligence.

Through the 3-year Embodied Life Mentorship Program with Russell Delman, a combination of Feldenkrais, Focusing, Meditation and Nonviolent Communication, he deepened his experience in  Mindfulness and Compassion.

Through Aikido he found SEITAI Noguchi, a Japanese Method to support the body’s inherent energies and impulses for self-healing. He teaches SEITAI Groups in his DOJO and supports his teacher Unsho Sensei to bring more awareness to this work in Europe.

Martin’s hobbies are aquarelle painting and hiking.

Committed to the OI work, Martin mentors students in the Istanbul HEARTraining in Turkey and promotes and coordinates the first HEARTraining in Switzerland, which will take place in his new SHINGENKI DOJO in Arlesheim, close to Basel.

Rachel is a white, female, psychologist. In a previous life, she lived and worked in England as a high school teacher.  She came to the US in 1997 and earned her doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 2007.  Rachel completed training in Somatic Experiencing in 2013, and OIX training in 2018.

A leading edge in her own growth is in using what she has learned from SE practitioners of color to develop self-awareness and resilience as a white ally.  She is committed to making the wonderful training and practices of SE and OI more available to all those who wish to access it but aren’t privileged with the time, money or support to do so.

In the past three years, Rachel has also returned to her practice of ki-aikido with tremendous excitement:  she finds that the integration of this embodied spiritual practice and meditation with understandings gained from OI is leading her down unforeseen spiritual paths.

When she’s not working, she snatches time for singing and reading, and indulge her domestic self in cooking, garden, and knitting.  She’s a cat person.

Charles Stacey received his MA in Family Therapy from the University of Houston/Clear Lake.  The Satir Model and Milton Erickson’s work formed the basis of his practice.  While doing a general practice he found his focus was on trauma and that continues to so today.  He was introduced to Bruce Perry and his work with attachment trauma and the brain while doing home-based family therapy.

Next stop, was the Navajo Nation where one of his tasks was to integrate traditional healing and western methods.  This brought Charles’s childhood among the tribes of Oklahoma and his earlier career as a filmmaker to the fore. Much of the work documented cultural retention and spiritual practices.

He added EMDR to his toolbox and then Somatic Experiencing® with Steve Hoskinson and a seamless shift to Organic Intelligence® in 2017.  In his private practice, he used Supportive Touch extensively.  In addition to his therapy work, Charles is a singer/songwriter performing with his wife and a group of talented friends.

Amie Summers is Associate Faculty at Organic Intelligence^®. Among her firmly held beliefs is that we all possess an innate impulse for healing — within each of us we have exactly what we need to get there. The intention of the work she engages in with children and adolescents is to help them reconnect with this inner strength and knowing.

This belief, coupled with the teachings of Organic Intelligence^®, has meant bearing witness to awe-inspiring transformations in children and their families. Helpful tools along the way include lots of play, sensory awareness, dialogue and narrative-creation, and mindfulness.

Her two greatest teachers are her children, two boys under the age of five. They’ve taught her more about herself than she could ever hope to teach them — not to mention they’re experts in living playfully, with ease, and in the moment!  Growing a personal practice of mindfulness meditation, one of Organic Intelligence’s guiding principles, has meant engaging with herself, other humans, and the world-at-large in a deeper and more meaningful way.

Amber Sutter is an Organic Intelligence Mentor, Certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator, Certified Early Childhood Associate Teacher, a lifelong dancer, and a mother of two girls.

She is the founder of Sensory School, a resource center and parent mentoring service to help neurodiverse families enhance connection.  She received a firsthand lesson in Sensory Integration when her daughter was diagnosed at age 2 with Sensory Processing Disorder.  Though the process of learning to better support her daughter and strengthen herself Amber discovered Organic Intelligence® (OI).  OI as a tool for healing trauma and building resiliency has greatly improved her family’s connection and development.  Amber works with neurodiverse children, parents, and families to build and apply tools for resiliency and healing in the midst of sensory integration challenges, giftness, other neurodiversities, and trauma.

Dancing is Amber’s soul food, and she enjoys applying Organic Intelligence® in teaching and working with dancers to support mind-body integration and expansion of capacity.  Amber integrates mindfulness into her everyday life and practice through daily meditation and Fusion dancing.

Heath Wilson is an OI mentor at the HEARTraining^® in Istanbul, Turkey. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in psychology and is a long-time Rolf Practitioner, Craniosacral Therapist, Enneagram-Coach and meditation teacher. He is founder of Good Guy With Edge™, a men’s integral growth process, and is proud to have recently trained as a self-defence instructor for women, based on the holistic Model Mugging^® system.

He believes the most enduring transformations in a human life come from the conscious exploration through one's body, sexuality, emotions, mind and spirit, especially in relationship with others. To this end, Heath welcomes all themes when working with people. He integrates Somatic Experiencing^® and Organic Intelligence^® in a variety of ways in the personal development work with clients. He has over 20 year’s experience supporting positive changes in his clients’ lives.

Book a session or group work with Heath in Cologne, Germany or an individual Skype session. Visit the mentor list in your OI Virtual Classroom for contact info.

English, Spanish and German spoken.

Diana Wood is a Mentor at the OI HEARTraining^® and a Somatic Psychotherapist with 35 years in the healing arts field.  She began with structural bodywork, progressed to clinical social work and after retiring from a county agency, returned to her roots in somatics (SE™ & OI) and Jungian theory and practice through Kalffian SandPlay.

Diana's focus is on creating a safe and supportive therapeutic container for clients to explore, encounter and learn to have compassion for the wounded parts/states residing within their soma and psyche so that they may fully engage their lives with wholehearted embodied joy and commitment to self compassion. On this journey, wherever we are, we will be contributing to the transformation of our world that we so earnestly seek. We are embodied beings of Light within an alive manifested world, we only need to dare to embrace it.