Thriving Adoptees - Let's Thrive

Are you stuck with beliefs that stop you from loving you? That make you feel less than? Beliefs that keep you small? Listen in as Terri shares her insights on becoming unstuck from these beliefs and setting her free to realise her potential.

Here's more about Terri from her Amazon profile

Terri always knew she was adopted, but it was never a topic of conversation, ever. She was in her forties when she and her biological brother met for dinner and had their very first conversation about loss and adoption.

For most of her life she lived in a constant state of guardedness and didn't feel safe-but was unaware of it. This was "normal" for her. It's just how life was. She had few opinions, at least few that were voiced. It wasn't safe to have feelings, especially if they clashed with the feelings of others or might cause any kind of disapproval or confrontation.

In her candid memoir Terri addresses the complicated issues of adoption. She draws from her experience as one of five adopted children as well as her experiences as a biological and adoptive mother. Terri is a certified yoga instructor with training in the expressive arts. She experiments with a variety of artistic mediums, including writing, photography, silk dying, and acrylic pour painting. She loves being in nature, gardening, and hiking. Terri and her husband live in the north Georgia mountains, where they frequently welcome their six beloved grandchildren.

You can contact the author at: [email protected]

https://www.amazon.com/Adoption-Constellation-Memoir-Adopted-Adopting-ebook/dp/B0BGQLW4VP

https://www.instagram.com/adoption_constellation/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-decker-12464020/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Do you suspect your beliefs may be holding you back? Are you sure that you're getting in your own way? Listen in as Jean shares how our beliefs form, how we get wise to them and, most importantly, how we bust them.  An incredibly thought provoking episode.

Here's a bit about Jean from her website:

Jean Provance graduated with her Bachelor’s degree in visual arts and psychology and then moved forward completing her Master’s degree in social work in 2008. For Jean learning is a lifelong process and continuing her education to deeply specialize in work with trauma survivors especially those affected by adoption and foster care. Jean’s background in visual arts and play therapy allow her to integrate creative interventions that reach children, adolescents and adults alike. She is an EMDR certified therapist. Jean also holds a certificate in adoption counseling. She completed the training to supervise social workers towards their clinical licensure in 2013 and completed SIFI to provide field instruction to MSW interns in 2010. Jean anticipates her play therapy credentialing to be completed in June of 2023.

Jean loves utilizing known strengths and discovering new ones during therapeutic work with clients. She wants sessions to be collaborative, with mutual consent while providing a safe holding environment that allows clients the room they need to grow and flourish.

When Jean isn’t holding space for client’s she enjoys spending time with her family, running, gardening and caring for family pets. Jean continues to work on many artistic projects and is always looking to have some fun.

 https://www.featherlightcounseling.com/

https://www.instagram.com/featherlightcounseling/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086935247788

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Are looking for love from others because you don't love yourself? Shame can drive us to do that. And in some cases we take that to extremes. Yi’s love addiction spiralled until she became acutely aware of it and joined a 12 Step programme to overcome it. Listen in to see how loveable you are.

Woo Ae Yi, formerly Ame Ai, is a screenwriter, playwright, author, poet, lyricist, and unofficial anthropologist. Both “Woo Ae” (우 애) and “Ame Ai” (雨愛) translate to “rain love,” and Yi believes that, just as rain falls on everyone, that everyone deserves to be loved. With a prolific library of thirteen titles, Yi has written on the topic of adoption, race, culture, romance and sex, spirituality, and prison since 2008 through various mediums. Yi has been publishing creative and nonfiction works only somewhat longer than she has enjoyed membership in Toastmasters International. In the future, Yi plans to write more about Korean (and/or Asian) adoptees, prison, her personal experiences as a part of the LGBTQ+ community, paranormal topics, and Islamic hell. Yi has been happily married for four years and enjoys watching animé and musicals, and listening to K-pop and The Beatles.

https://www.facebook.com/authorameai

https://www.instagram.com/krazeanpoet/

https://twitter.com/YiWooAe_Krazean

https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorameai/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Our relationships are fundamental to our happiness. And attachments are fundamental to our relationships. So how can we have healthier attachments? And avoid toxic attachments? Adoptee and mental health counselor Emelia shares what she's learned personally and professionally.

Emelia Thygesen is a licensed Mental Health Counselor. She received her Masters degree in community mental health at Canisius College in Buffalo New York in 2011. 

A proud adoptee and mental health advocate, she has over 10 years of experience working with clients in their teens to adulthood, in a variety of mental health settings. She is an adoption competent counselor who is a part of the adoptee community. 

https://www.courageforchange.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emeliathygesen/

https://twitter.com/ethygesenlmhc

https://www.facebook.com/Courageforchange1

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Are you frustrated on your healing journey? How can you heal faster? Listen with big ears as Isaac goes deep to share his ongoing insights on healing to speed you along your healing journey.  A very vulnerable, inspirational episode.

Isaac Etter is a social entrepreneur. Isaac was transracially adopted at the age of two.  He is the founder of  Identity a startup focused on using technology to help foster and adoptive families thrive and the owner of a small business strategy agency, Etter Consulting. Isaac has a deep passion for innovating the adoption and foster care space and helping passionate people build their first company. He is also the father of an amazing son and avid learner.

Isaac has been bringing his ideas to life since his first business, a recording studio, he started in his parented basement in high school. He has been on several non profit boards in the Lancaster, PA community where he resides. Before starting Identity, Isaac co-founded an education and advocacy organization, SafeHouse Lancaster, where he was the co-executive director. SafeHouse Lancaster merged with YWCA Lancaster in July of 2021.

Isaac began his work in adoption and foster by speaking and leading trainings for adoptive and foster parents. He still has the joy of leading trainings whether through Identity or for adoption agencies, college, or an event. Isaac is always open to keynoting or leading a workshop for organizations.

https://isaacetter.com/

https://www.facebook.com/isaacetters

https://www.instagram.com/isaac_etter

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrPxVJcXBCUjmYpVKdpR8pg

https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaac-etter-/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Many of us feel there's something missing from us. Perhaps a hole only our birth mother can fill. Or something else that will make us whole. We've felt this so long we ache for completeness. So what do we do? Where do we look? How will we go from having a hole to feeling whole? Listen in as adoptee and coach Candi answers some of our most existential questions.

Here's a link to the image Candi mentions:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XvuxuHZgi8PDyA6cx0yvj2q61B6N-K2k/view?usp=sharing

Here's a bit about Candi and her book:

A raw, often wry, memoir of mothers, mysteries, and miracles. 

Surrendered at birth in a closed adoption, Candi Byrne’s biology and ethnicity is a secret. The impending arrival of her first grandchild ignites an urgency to identify potential genetic time bombs and confirm her ancestry. Due to arcane privacy laws, Candi is repeatedly denied access to the one person who could provide that information—her biological mother.

After years of failed attempts, she resigns herself to never learning the truth about her roots; that is, until her ninety-year-old Aunt Delores has a vision and insists Candi resume efforts to find her birth family. Candi is gobsmacked when an internet search she’s performed thousands of times before suddenly reveals her birth mother’s identity. Within hours, she ends up on the doorstep of her birth mother—a place she’s sworn never to visit.

After a series of guilt-driven interactions with “Those People,” as she refers to her maternal birth family, Candi terminates contact. Although the reunion proves disastrous, it opens her eyes to truths about her relationship with her adoptive mother, Delphine. Though their relationship was difficult and contentious during Delphine’s life, a series of miraculous experiences after her death guides Candi home to herself—where, she learns, she has belonged all along.

https://www.sweetfirecoaching.com/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1647422795/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_0J00P6AHHVS73TT69EYB

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Does rejection haunt you? Feeling you were rejected as an infant is one thing. Being rejected as an adult takes rejection to a whole new level and can lead us adoptees to very dark places. That's why some of us shy away from search and reunion. But what if we can heal from rejection as an adult? How does that healing happen? Listen in as Reenie takes a deep dive into healing after reunion breaks down. Wherever you are on the journey you'll get something from this.

Here's link to Joanne's interview https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/theres-nothing-wrong-with-us-joanne-bagshaw

Here's a link to the other  podcast I mentioned https://dramyjohnson.com/free-resources/changeable-podcast/

Reenie Robertson was adopted at 3 days old. She is passionate about the topic of adoption and has helped several people find and connect with their biological family.

She enjoys writing short stories about adoption as well as life in general: it's struggles and joys.

She lives in Washington with her Husband and two children.

https://reeniesramblngs.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ReenieRob

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

At some level, often unconscious, many of us believe that a good reunion will make us whole again. But that reunion might not even happen. And even if it does, we haven't got a clue how well it will go.  So where's the hope given all the unknowns? How best should we navigate the process? Adoptee Heather shares her what she's learned from her own reunion and coaching fellow adoptees on their own journeys.

Heather G. Marshall was born in Leith, Scotland and grew up in Kilmarnock. From there, she emigrated to Kinsale, Ireland with her family before moving to the United States. Her fiction and creative nonfiction are published in literary journals in both the US and the UK. Her first novel, The Thorn Tree, is set in South Carolina and on the islands of Arran and Skye in Scotland.

https://heathergmarshall.com/

https://www.instagram.com/heather_g_marshall/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Trauma can keep us mired. Or help us grow. So how do we make sure it helps us grow? So we harness it to live our best lives? Listen in as Maya dives deep on her hard won insights on going beyond the pain.

Maya Fleischmann is a freelance writer and the author of Finding Ching Ha and If You Give a Mum a Minute. Her book reviews are published in book industry trade journals, such as Publishers Weekly, BookPage, and Audiofile Magazine. Her stories and articles have appeared in travel and cultural magazines and books, to include Peril  and Chicken Soup for the Working Mom’s Soul.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Maya has lived and traveled overseas extensively. She currently lives in Florida, where the turquoise waters and sunlit skies remind her of her childhood home in Hong Kong. Read more about island talk and travel tales at Turquoise Maya.

https://mayafleischmann.com/

Here's a link to the interview with Elliott Driscoll https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/genetic-validation-with-elliott-driscoll

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.

Ruptured attachment with our birth mothers often weakens our sense of self. So what do we do? Jo shares her top insights as a psychotherapist who's worked with 14,000 clients.

Here's a bit about Jo from her website:

I have been a practicing psychotherapist for thirty years with a focus on mental health and wellbeing and supporting adoptive families and adults affected by adoption.   I am a Senior Accredited Member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy.

Adopted adults have a unique identity and broader perspective and understanding on what it means to be parented and belong in a family. But even the best adoption can leave an adopted person with questions about their life that they need answered. Often these answers can be found in birth records, and we are now running a Birth Records Retrieval Service, we also offer you time to think and reflect with others in our Adults Affected by Adoption Listening Group and to participate in our Blog by sending us news and articles on adoption (please contact us if you would like to contribute).

https://joannanorthadoption.co.uk/

Guests and the host are not (unless mentioned) licensed pscyho-therapists and speak from their own opinion only. Seek qualified advice if you need help.