Kenyan counseling psychologist, cultural strategist, mindfulness practitioner, empowerment educator, and advocate for justice — bringing lived experience, joy, and genuine human connection into every room she enters
“I’ve walked through trauma, displacement, and loss. I’ve witnessed injustice firsthand. But I don’t hold onto bitterness. When we hold pain too tightly, we leave no room for <em>joy</em> — and I choose joy.” — Nuna Gleason
I have lived through trauma, displacement, loss, racism, and the complicated experience of rebuilding a life far from home. I also spend much of my professional life close to difficult realities — sexual violence, injustice, migration, and the challenges facing women and communities.
But I have learned that pain and joy are not opposites. I don’t have to wait for everything to be okay before I allow myself to experience joy.
I find it in ordinary places: being outside, moving my body, laughing, dancing, spending time alone, connecting with people, practicing gratitude, and staying close to the parts of myself that make me feel free and alive.
I still miss my homeland deeply. I miss the rhythm of my culture, the wisdom of my mother, and the land that raised me. I carry those things with me — in my work, in my family, and in how I move through the world.
I am grateful for the life I have built in Maine, for the people who have welcomed and challenged me, and for the opportunities my children and I have received here. And I also understand the contradictions of living as an immigrant and a Black African woman in America.
I don’t believe gratitude requires me to ignore what is difficult. And I don’t believe difficulty requires me to give up my joy.
That understanding now shapes much of my work: helping people make room for culture, belonging, connection, healing, and joy — even while we continue doing the difficult work of creating change.
COMMUNITY WORK
My community work is deeply personal to me. I don’t do it simply because it is my profession. I do it because I have lived close to many of the experiences that shape the communities I work alongside.
Through Wounded Healers International, I work alongside women and girls affected by sexual violence, particularly in Kenya. This work comes from my own experiences, my connection to women and girls in my home country, and my belief that survivors deserve dignity, opportunity, safety, and the ability to build lives beyond what has happened to them.
Through the Maine Afro Yoga Project, I work with immigrant and multicultural communities here in Maine. I understand what it means to leave home, rebuild your life somewhere unfamiliar, miss your culture, navigate systems that weren’t created with you in mind, and sometimes experience isolation or racism.
But I don’t want our immigrant experience to be defined only by struggle.
I want us to have joy too.
I want us to move, dance, laugh, spend time outside, meet one another, share our cultures, make friends, and have places where we can simply enjoy being alive. That is a big part of why I created Maine Afro Yoga.
These communities and experiences are also part of what I bring into my consulting and speaking. I am not only talking about cultural responsiveness, belonging, violence, healing, or joy from a professional perspective. I live close to this work.
Supporting raising awareness and supporting women and girls survivors of sexual violence in Kenya.
A culturally rooted wellness and community-building project using movement, mindfulness, and collective care to create accessible spaces of connection and belonging.
