Emotional Wellness Month: Honoring our Wellness Teachers Pt. 1
In honor of Emotional Wellness Month, we are happy to highlight our partnering wellness practitioners Taja Lindly, Ati Egas, and Renee Smith.
Left to right: Taja Lindley, Ati Catalina Egas, Renee Smith
Taja Lindley
An 80s baby born in New York and raised in the South, Taja Lindley currently lives in Tennessee working as the Founder of Colored Girls Hustle®️ - a shelter and sanctuary for her self-expression, a sacred portal and platform for her creative projects and collaborations. Her most recent production is the Black Women’s Dept. of Labor - a project and podcast about race, gender and the double entendre of labor - to work and to give birth.
Lindley is a spirit-led interdisciplinary generative artist creating dynamic and iterative works designed to transform audiences and to shift narratives, culture and consciousness. She is inspired by the healing arts and metaphysical sciences which support her healing journey and inform the rituals of conceiving, developing and presenting her artwork.
She is most known for her performances, installations, and podcasting addressing state sanctioned violence, reproductive freedom, economic sovereignty, bodily autonomy and our relationship with the past. Her work is often immersive, participatory, socially engaged, political and autobiographical. Her mediums (to date) include film, memory, sound, dance/movement, text, personal archives, storytelling and discarded materials.
Ati Catalina Egas
Ati Catalina Egas is a Licensed Psychotherapist and Coach with trainings in Brazil, France, and Mexico.
Ati came to psychotherapy after the loss of her mother. After having spent significant encounters with shamanic practices for her own healing, and trying out different modalities, from modern psychoanalysis to soul retrieval, Ati opened her practice in New York City.
During the pandemic, Ati's practice became virtual, allowing patients throughout the world to meet her.
Ati's practice has developed to now integrate a clinical systems approach; along with quantum mechanics, family constellations, and neurolinguistic programming techniques.
Her patients primarily come to see her to break away from codependency; to manage separation or divorce; to thrive during life transitions and to decode ancestral patterns.
She currently works from a solutions-based approach, and less-so from a traditional talk-therapy framework. Her 4-week intensive programs have proven to be the key for her patient's quantum leaps and hundreds of transformations to this date.
Renee Smith
Strategist, Healer, Mother, Alchemist, Flower Essence Practitioner
Renee K. Smith (Ifagbaye Esubola Ayelaagbe Egbesina) is a certified flower essence practitioner and proud founder of Akika Flower Essences & Apothecary. Akika Flower Essences was created to explore the ancestral practice of tuning into plant intelligence as a tool for transformation, healing and empowerment on one’s soul journey. Renee received her flower essence certification from Oceans & Rivers Acupuncture and Wellness and The Flower Essence Society (FES). As a strategist, Renee believes that everyone can manifest their dreams by creating a strategy that encompasses the right people at the right time. Her goal is to assist others to find joy through the use of plant intelligence in as many forms possible beginning with flower essences. As an Iyanifa and Olorisa, initiated to Ifa and Egbe in Nigeria, Renee also uses the knowledge she gains from her spiritual practice to assist her clients in finding and maintaining balance in their lives. She continues to expand her repertoire of community tools for healing through consistent study of our plant allies, learning and practicing the art of alchemy as taught by Master Teacher Diana Pharr and becoming a Level II Reiki Practitioner certified by Taino Reiki Healing. Renee is a Brooklyn native, mother, artist, healer, alchemist, strategist, cultural arts curator, flower essence practitioner, SRJ advocate and community member.
Follow her on Instagram - @reneekimberlysmith