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Carolina Grace received a BA from Trinity College, CT in Psychology, her Elementary and Special Education teaching credentials and MEd from Dominican University in San Rafael, CA, and an MA in Somatic Counseling Psychology through the Contemplative Based Masters Program at Naropa University in Boulder, CO.  

Carolina has been passionate about education, mindfulness and the kindness of the healing process, since she was 6 years old, guiding and teaching her little brother. Upon her college graduation, she worked with elementary and high school students, paying particular attention to the psychology of learning and the way the brain and the child light up with learning through encouragement, collaboration, and song and how diverse learning styles and methods of teaching evoke the whole student. As an elementary classroom teacher, she was particularly inspired engaging her students in healing dialogue and ritual to teach them about social-emotional wellness.  

Simultaneously her own healing path brought her to the practice of yoga and a powerful spiritual experience propelled her to study yoga in India. Incorporating yoga into all aspects of her life, Carolina became curious about how mindfulness and yoga healed the mind and body leading her to study Somatic Counseling Psychology at Naropa and the 5 Mindfulness Training from Thich Nhat Hanh at Plum Village Monastery in France.

At Naropa she was interested in investigating the mind/body connection and supporting others in healing trauma, and rewiring the brain. Carolina created a therapeutic modality based in mindfulness and vocal empowerment for women to reclaim their embodied, intuitive nature, and authentic voice, to heal issues affecting women (body image, sexual violence, competition, and self esteem) and to reclaim sisterhood and mutual empowerment. She incorporated this work into a theatrical production of the Vagina Monologues as a therapeutic director. This work became her research and study for her thesis on the healing and balancing of the Divine Feminine through Mindfulness, Art, Creative Embodied Expression, and Community Healing. She is an avid activist and organizer for One Billion Rising, a global dance based movement led by Eve Ensler’s V-Day, and she has organized and led groups from San Diego to New York City to end violence against the feminine in all beings through this global dance of liberation. She has also served at the UN for the One Mama Alliance, an NGO in Kenya for women and families.

As a clinical therapist and coach for over 10 years, Carolina has served in hospitals, homes, and agencies. A trained DBT therapist, an Integrative Body Psychotherapist, and a student and teacher of dance therapy, she has specialized in trauma and the mind, body, spirit healing process through both top down and bottom up methods. She has created healing retreats, curriculum, recovery programs, therapy groups and holistic wellness coaching programs and her private practice, The Return Counseling, works with individuals, couples and groups. Carolina has also been a featured teacher at diverse topical summit gatherings, yoga festivals, the World Economic Forum Decompression, and leads local events and regular yoga classes.

Carolina’s work incorporates voice, devotional song, movement, dance, prayer, mindfulness, story-telling, activism, and transformational community practices facilitating a visionary path of healing to liberate our soulful selves that is everyone’s creative birthright. Through compassion, embodiment, body positivity, trauma integration, and Divine Feminine spiritual healing, her clients and event participants are learning to integrate the past, rewrite their life story, reconnect to their spiritual guidance and discover the joy and wonder of their unique expression and purpose.

Carolina recently relocated from the Bay Area, loves Santa Fe and New Mexico and is grateful and honored to be teaching at Southwestern College as a new Adjunct Professor. She brings a teaching style that is dynamic, embodied, inclusive and collaborative, invites and celebrates vulnerability, and facilitates transformational education. Her work is inspired by and devoted to the vision of conscious stewardship of our mother earth, the incorporation of indigenous ways and sacred ritual, the awakening of humanity and the healing and balancing of the divine feminine in all beings.