Today we’d like to introduce you to Chelsea Green.
Hi Chelsea, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Thank you! So, I’ll start by giving some context for my journey. I grew up in a small town in the Appalachian Mountains, which shaped much of my love for the blueridge mountains and my passion for finding peace & justice in a world that causes so much pain.
So, I was raised by a single mom. She had two beautiful girls, my sister’s father from Mexico and my own from southwest Virginia. My mother was progressive due to her California roots, but its safe to say I leaned even farther in what later seems like an attempt to balance out the system we were in.
Because of this, what began for me as nonviolent action as an 11yr old calling for justice against the people down the street physically abusing their dogs, and calling out homophobia and racism throughout my highschool halls, later became outspoken advocacy for social and environmental justice as an adult in a world I’m intimately connected to.
This is a role I find myself in often as a therapist, an organizer, and as a visual artist.
It has been at the intersection of these interests in art, social justice, and inner healing that I’ve found synchronicity and grace. It’s where I found myself being connected via a non-profit organization CTZNWell to the civil rights icon, Ruby Sales. Commissioned by Ruby’s SpiritHouse Project in 2021, where I am drawing some of America’s most influential black and brown women in the arts and social justice movement.
For the last two years, I have acted as the Director of Mindful Mornings Charleston, a grassroots organization and monthly speaker series.
Currently, I work as a therapist in private practice, serving families, couples, and adults. And my current passion project is a local monthly pop-up called Community Constellations.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The simple answer is no, it hasn’t been an ‘easy path’. Not for myself or any successful person I know and look up to. Yet, the road need not be easy to enjoy it.
The challenges of my past were the experiences I needed to build the confidence, skills, and resilience I have today. These are the hard-earned, ever-evolving muscles I’ve built to step into brave space with others who are looking to do the same.
So, in short, I myself am a survivor of complex trauma and intimate partner abuse. I am also 7 years into recovery and 10 years into a regular mindfulness-based practice. I’m an navigator and a survivor of intergenerational trauma.
I know loss, sadness, anger, and heartache, and I can now distinguish the difference between pain and suffering.
It’s my personal & family history, in all of its nuance, that makes me the whole human, artist, teacher, and forever-student I am today.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Anu Beginning Therapy LLC; Community Constellations?
I am currently launching my next community project, Community Constellations, which are monthly experiential workshops that gather in community to have honest conversations about what it means to be human, and the opportunity to heal from personal challenges that originate in their past, at work, in relationships, or in their family history.
These experiential workshops are different from coaching and talk therapy. Community Constellations are 90-minute pop-up experiential events held in various locations in Charleston, South Carolina, designed to invite participants into curiosity, connection, and a willingness to see things differently.
Community Constellations help us share an experience that — if we’re willing — can leave us changed for the better.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
I know that is easier said than done, but if I reflect on the mentors and teachers who’ve been most influential in my life, it’s the ones I consistently felt were safe and authentic to themselves.
On the contrary, the teachers who led me to doubt myself, or struggle to connect in a grounded way, were the teachers who, ultimately, did not become my teachers. I never forced myself to connect, but I challenged myself to be vulnerable and authentic to what I needed.
The best mentors, walk the line allowing you freedom to make your own mistakes and offering guardrails of wisdom.
They don’t save you from your painful experiences, but they’re there to help you process what went wrong, and how you may learn, and grow from it.
Contact Info:
- Email: chelseagreencmi@gmail.
com - Website: https://www.
anubeginningtherapy.com/ - Instagram: @
chelseagreencreates - Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/ chelseagreencreates - Other: https://www.eventbrite.
com/o/licensed-therapist- chelsea-green-30654370974
Image Credits
Brian D Smith Photography
