In this week’s Unraveling Adoption podcast, Beth talks with Kelsay Elizabeth Myers, a professional writer, artist, and somatic movement educator living in Marin County, CA. She is passionate about personal and social transformation for trauma healing. She's a Korean transnational adoptee who has been on a healing journey the last several years, after spending the first 32 years of her life in self-destructive behavior patterns.

Kelsay founded Dialogical Persona Healing Arts where she offers individual and group coaching programs and online courses that use expressive arts and transformational processes to help others discover new ways of understanding themselves, reclaim their creative flow and feel more settled in their whole system, so they, too can experience more power, excitement, and joy in life. She is currently a Ph.D student of Transformative Inquiry at California Institute of Integral Studies where she uses a variety of psychological approaches and arts-based research practices for trauma integration and wholeness. 

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💌 Sign up for our Unraveling Adoption email list: http://eepurl.com/hVIAVX

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RESOURCES:

Kelsay’s information:

• Kelsay’s website: DialogicalPersona.com

• Kelsay’s podcast (co-host with Leela Davis): What I Didn’t Tell My Therapist: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-i-didnt-tell-my-therapist-reboot/id1473447399

Other things mentioned in this episode:

• Tamalpa Institute: https://www.tamalpa.org/

• The Body Keeps the Score: https://amzn.to/3yumsYZ

Other Resources :

• APtitude Support Group for Adoptive Parents Facing Adoption’s Challenges: UnravelingAdoption.com/APtitude

• Other Parents Like Me - oplm.com 

• Heather Ross - Life Coaching for Parents who have a child struggling with addiction: https://heatherrosscoaching.com/

• Adoptee-Therapist Directory: https://growbeyondwords.com/adoptee-therapist-directory/

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Unraveling Adoption is produced and hosted by Beth Syverson

Music written and performed by Joseph Nakao

Email questions or comments to Beth@UnravelingAdoption.com

Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube

Support Unraveling Adoption on Patreon: Patreon.com/UnravelingAdoption

www.UnravelingAdoption.com

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TIME STAMPS:

  2:00 Kelsay’s adoption story and childhood, including racist microaggressions and bullying

  4:58 Kelsay’s racial identity

  7:20 Which was worse, racial trauma or adoption trauma?

10:40 How Kelsay’s trauma manifested in abusive relationships

13:20 Intuitively realizing her sexual abuse in foster care through her “felt sense”

15:26 Conscious dancing to begin her healing journey

18:05 Kelsay’s training in somatic movement healing modalities

22:45 How somatic movement has helped Kelsay deal with racism triggers

24:39 Somatic movement to help kids

27:37 Autoimmune conditions and somatic movement

30:57 Our culture’s mind/body split

32:05 Kelsay’s advice for transracial/intercountry adoptive parents

In this week’s Unraveling Adoption podcast, Beth talks with Simon Benn, an adoptee living near York, England and host of Thriving Adoptees podcast. I was recently on his show, so I wanted him to be on our show as well. Trading podcasts across the globe. Simon has been on a healing journey for the last 13 or so years, after a discovery about his adoption that rocked his world. He wants to help other adoptees move toward healing with his podcast and webinars.

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💌 Sign up for Unraveling Adoption’s email list: http://eepurl.com/hVIAVX

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RESOURCES:

Simon’s information:

• Simon’s podcast Thriving Adoptees: https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/

• Beth’s episode on Thriving Adoptees: https://thriving-adoptees.simplecast.com/episodes/personal-growth-with-adoptive-mom-beth-syverson

• Simon’s recent Healing My Primal Wound webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnz7I7V_IOQ

Other resource mentioned in this episode:

• Rupert Spira: https://rupertspira.com/

More Resources:

• APtitude Support Group for Adoptive Parents Facing Adoption’s Challenges: UnravelingAdoption.com/APtitude

• Other Parents Like Me -  https://www.facebook.com/other.parents.like.me

• Heather Ross - Life Coaching for Parents of Addicted Teens: https://heatherrosscoaching.com/

• Find a Tele-Therapist: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/online-counseling

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Unraveling Adoption is produced and hosted by Beth Syverson

Music written and performed by Joseph Nakao

Email questions or comments to Beth@UnravelingAdoption.com

Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube

Support Unraveling Adoption on Patreon: Patreon.com/UnravelingAdoption

www.UnravelingAdoption.com

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TIME STAMPS:

  1:18 Simon’s adoption story and childhood

  4:14 What Simon’s adoption file revealed about his birth mother

  7:35 Revelations and epiphanies

10:05 What is the primal wound? What is wounded? Simon’s new metaphor

18:55 There’s no such thing as a second-hand insight

21:23 Simon’s advice for adoptees coming “out of the fog”

25:05 Simon reading his poems “Beneath” and “After the Fog”

In this week’s Safe Home Podcast, Beth talks with Amanda Kari McHugh, an adoptee and an engagement journalist who is making her mark on the adoption community with her project Voices of Adoption which you can find on TikTok, Instagram, and Substack. In this project she elevates the voices of adoptees and birth mothers. 

Stay tuned for ways you might be able to participate in this project! 

Amanda is pursuing a double masters in journalism and engagement from grad school at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.  She hopes to be a resource to help other adoptees and also to help other journalists find good adoption data.

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💌 Sign up for our Unraveling Adoption email list: http://eepurl.com/hVIAVX

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RESOURCES:

Amanda’s information:

• Voices of Adoption on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@voicesofadoption

• Voices of Adoption on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_voicesofadoption/

• Voices of Adoption on Substack: https://voicesofadoption.substack.com/

• Abortion/Adoption video collage that Amanda created: https://www.instagram.com/p/CdtUQEfj5dl/

Other resources mentioned in this episode:

• Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/

• Boolean Search Terms: https://www.lifewire.com/boolean-search-terms-google-1616810

• Desiree Stevens and Access Connecticut: https://www.facebook.com/AccessConnecticut/

Other Resources:

• Other Parents Like Me -  https://www.facebook.com/other.parents.like.me

• Heather Ross - Life Coaching for Parents of Addicted Teens: https://heatherrosscoaching.com/

• Find a Tele-Therapist: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/online-counseling

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Unraveling Adoption is produced and hosted by Beth Syverson

Music written and performed by Joseph Nakao

Email questions or comments to Beth@UnravelingAdoption.com

Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube

Support Unraveling Adoption on Patreon: Patreon.com/UnravelingAdoption

www.UnravelingAdoption.com

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TIME STAMPS:

  1:25 Amanda’s adoption story and childhood

  4:25 Kudos to Amanda’s school counselor for knowing about adoption-competent therapists

  5:50 Amanda’s attachment style is complicated

  7:09 How lack of family medical history impacts adoptees

10:00 Advocating for adoption reform and dealing with pushback

12:00 Blasting apart adoption myths, getting people angry at her

14:35 Pushback has improved Amanda’s reporting

15:20 Where does Amanda find adoption data? Who keeps track of “goods transferred?”

18:50 Privacy laws - are they a farce?

20:00 The Yelp of adoption agency databases idea

20:44 Voices of Adoption on TikTok and Instagram 

22:38 Objectivity is a myth but we can try to understand the other points of view

24:11 What exactly is engagement journalism? 

25:00 “Domestic supply of infants” necessitated discussion about adoption and abortion 

27:12 Amanda’s TikTok video (audio only)

29:25 The aftermath of the viral video

32:37 How the Voices of Adoption on Substack will create community-sourced resources

35:50 Amanda’s dream for collective members to get paid for their emotional labor 

39:09 How to participate in Amanda’s projects and join the Voices of Adoption community

41:04 The importance of moderators in social media

44:11 How we can share our stories safely and authentically to help people coming out of the fog