The Healing Power of Storytelling in Community | Mental Health Monday

With Meghann Perry + Mary Strong

Monday, September 27 @ 11:00 am PST

The Healing Power of Storytelling in Community

In this presentation, Meghann Perry will help us to:

Better understand the healing power of storytelling and what can happen when stories are told in safe spaces
Explore the use of storytelling in both the personal and community-wide healing process
Learn how the process works within the context of Recovery Storytelling (which utilizes the art form of live, personal narrative storytelling to unlock us from our single, self-limiting “Recovery Story.”)
Look at how this work can be applied to much more than recovery from substances, and how it creates and perpetuates strong ties to ourselves and our communities.

We will also be joined by Mary Strong, co-creator, volunteer, and participant of the yOUR story speaker series soon to be hosted by the SHE RECOVERS Foundation.

Join us LIVE for a Q & A session following the presentation.

ABOUT MEGHANN PERRY
Meghann Perry, CARC, RCP, is a Creator, Educator, Storyteller, Teaching Artist, Facilitator and Recovery Coach Professional. She is a CCAR Recovery Coach Academy facilitator and the creator of the Recovery Storytelling workshop series, as well as many other unique workshops that combine the art and science of recovery coaching with the performing arts, creating transformational experiences that bring resilience, healing, connection, and empowerment to youth and adults from all walks of life. She is the Education Theatre Consultant for 2nd Act, creating theater and storytelling experiences grounded in the addiction/recovery experience, community engagement, and social justice. When she’s not coaching, creating or teaching, you’ll most likely find her in the woods.

CONNECT WITH MEGHANN

Website: meghannperry.com
Recovery Storytelling Community on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/recoverystorytelling
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/meghann.perry.5/
CCAR Recovery Storytelling Slams: https://ccar.us/events/p-e-a-r-l-s-story-slams/

ABOUT MARY STRONG
Mary Strong is a former elementary school teacher who currently works as the Educational Liaison for a foster care agency. She is also a mother of two energetic, wonderful toddlers, a wife, a SheRecovers volunteer and a woman in long term recovery. Her patchwork of recovery includes her faith in God, SHE RECOVERS, twelve step work, a recovery coach, counseling, and seeking healthy pathways towards healing instead of numbing. Mary firmly believes in the power of connection in recovery and the need to share our stories when we are ready in order to bring light to and heal the parts of us that we have kept in the dark for so long. Those things, along with the feedback from many other people in the recovery community, led her to create HerStory which in now transitiong to the yOURstory space.

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We believe that when women heal, families heal, and communities do too.

The SHE RECOVERS Foundation Weekly #MentalHealthMonday Educational Series is composed of hour-long, live, recovery-focused educational sessions featuring today’s leaders in women’s wellness, mental health, and addiction recovery.

All #MentalHealthMonday sessions are broadcasted on Facebook and added to our Youtube Channel for future viewing.

With Great Thanks

This series is made possible by Alkermes.

The SHE RECOVERS Foundation was awarded funding in 2021 as part of the Alkermes Inspiration Grants® program to re-launch #MentalHealthMonday in the fall of 2021. This critical grant support will help us to continue delivering our innovative #MentalHealthMonday Educational series and better meet the increasingly diverse needs of our growing community. We are humbled, grateful, and invigorated by this honor.

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Shelly Dimitrijevic

Shelly Dimitrijevic’s professional and philanthropic activities have always focused on improving the lives of others. She began her nursing career at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis and went on to become a LifeFlight nurse specializing in neonatal, pediatric, and cardiovascular intensive care.

Shelly has been involved with numerous charities focusing on children and education including the Charlee and the Chocolate Factory gala, The Venus Orbit, Design For A Cure, Jackson Memorial, and Impact Oasis. In 2010 she founded the Lotus program, a program that focused on educating parents on the nutritional needs of children and basic child development. Shelly also served on the Frost Science Museum gala committee for 7 years before Co-Chairing the event in 2015.

After a diagnosis of Celiac disease and subsequently receiving Certification as a Nutritional Consultant, Shelly recognized that topically applied products have an effect on her Celiac Disease and overall health. She turned her focus to developing skincare that was free of toxic and hormone-disrupting ingredients.

Since she lost her only sibling in 2012 Shelly has been determined to find a way to contribute to the recovery community in a way that can make a great impact and ensure that others have the resources necessary when they are struggling.

Shelly's substantial contributions to SHE RECOVERS of both time and resources have been instrumental and deeply appreciated.

Kirsten Newquist

As a result of being introduced to SHE RECOVERS through retreats and meet-ups, Kirsten will be starting her yoga teacher training in the fall. These retreats also led her to become more deeply involved with SHE RECOVERS in a volunteer capacity. Kirsten was instrumental in setting up some of the Foundation's grassroots groups and currently volunteers her time helping SHE RECOVERS Foundation to design and implement the Volunteer Chapter Network. Kirsten and her husband recently moved from Southern California to Roswell, Georgia to be closer to Kirsten's sister and two young nieces. When she isn't spending time being an aunt, you can find Kirsten hanging out with their rescue Labrador or exploring their new state.

Mary Beth O'Connor

Mary Beth is a founding member of SHE RECOVERS Support for Legal Professionals and is active at the local level with SHE RECOVERS in the Bay Area. Mary Beth has been living a sober life in recovery for over 26 years. She also has a history of trauma and abuse, from which she’s worked hard to recover as well. 6 years into her recovery, Mary Beth attended Berkeley Law. She worked at a large firm in Silicon Valley, then litigated class actions for the federal government. In 2014 Mary Beth was appointed an Administrative Law Judge. She recently retired, so she could devote her time to completing her writing and being more active in the recovery community.

She regularly speaks on behalf of LifeRing and develops relationships with organizations supportive of the multiple pathways approach. In August 2020, Mary Beth had an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, I Beat Addiction without God, where she described building a personal recovery plan by combining ideas from LifeRing, Women for Sobriety, and Narcotics Anonymous. In November 2020 she had an op-ed published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, I was a federal judge, and I support Safehouse. Here’s why. She is currently working on a full-length memoir.

Taryn Strong

Taryn Strong is a founder of SHE RECOVERS® Foundation as well as a trauma-informed yoga instructor, recovery coach, aromatherapist, and herbalist (and daughter to Mama Dawn). Taryn has developed a unique yoga retreat program and led over 40 yoga for recovery retreats since 2012. She is also the host of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast and most recently created and taught the inaugural trauma-informed SHE RECOVERS Yoga Teacher Training Program. Operating from a trauma-informed lens and a firm believer in anti-oppressive practices, Taryn brings an empathic and invitational approach to healing - empowering women to find and follow individualized pathways and patchworks of recovery.

Taryn's courageous vulnerability and passion for recovering out-loud has made her an influential voice in the global recovery movement - smashing the stigma often associated with substance use and mental health issues. Taryn creates and lives with her beloved and two dogs within the ancestral and unceded traditional territory of the Hul’qumi’num and SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples (Saltspring Island).

Susan Carter

Susan is an architect of hope and healing with over 30 years of experience in providing executive-level leadership to heart-centered teams in the non-profit realm. Since joining SHE RECOVERS® Foundation as Executive Director in April 2020, Susan continues to weave her experience with her passion to help other women receive what she has been so graciously given – long-term recovery from substance use disorder, body image issues, codependency, perfectionism, and moral injury.

Susan’s work in the treatment industry quickly revealed how stigma kept women struggling with mental health issues and addiction from seeking help, and the lack of resources available to them once they did. Having served as a founding employee of Susan G. Komen for the Cure for 20 years, playing an integral role in creating the global grassroots movement that changed the way breast cancer is talked about and treated, she felt called to utilize that experience to do the same for women struggling with mental health and substance use disorders.

Celebrating more than 27 years of continuous sobriety, Susan is a Certified Peer Support Worker (CPSW) in the state of New Mexico to provide resources and peer support to those in or seeking recovery. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her fur family of four, Alex, Chaco, Bodhi, and Gracie.

Dawn Nickel

Dawn Nickel, Founder of SHE RECOVERS® Foundation, is a thought leader in the women's recovery sphere as well as an accomplished leader, dedicated researcher, and visionary in the recovery moment. She holds a Ph.D. in health care policy with extensive experience in researching and writing about women experiencing substance use disorders, mental health challenges, and intimate partner violence. Dawn started her own journey of recovery from a substance use disorder and domestic violence in 1987. She is also in recovery from anxiety, grief, trauma, overworking, and cancer. Dawn's tell-it-like-it-is wisdom has created a ripple effect where you will often hear her quotes "the shit you did is just the shit you did - it's not who you are" and "recovering from all the things" resonating throughout many recovery realms.

Currently working on her first book, Dawn is living proof that in a world where all women in or seeking recovery are celebrated, supported, and deemed essential to healthy communities - anything is possible. She is fondly referred to as Mama Dawn in the SHE RECOVERS Community and to her daughters Taryn and Ashley. Dawn lives, works, and plays with her beloved grandchildren on the traditional territories of the Lkwungen speaking peoples on Vancouver Island.

Nika is just one of more than 325,000 women in the She Recovers Community.

“Alcohol is what brought me into recovery but for me, it didn't tell the full story. That is why I love SHE RECOVERS so much. We don't just talk about our demons and the drugs and the alcohol, we talk about the real issues that led us to using those things in the first place.”— Nika

When she was ready to deal with her past traumas and what drove her to drink, SHE RECOVERS was there. Sadly an estimated 34 million women are suffering from mental health/substance use disorders.

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