Kalina grew into her roles of facilitating shamanic healing and therapy quite congruently, with each aspect of her path evolving in a nearly simultaneous manner. Her path as a therapist began in college where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Texas at Tyler. Her first role as a facilitator in healing spaces was through her time as a wilderness therapy field guide in Colorado. It was here that she was first introduced to ways of living in relationship with the wilderness, what it means to hold safe space for those in mental/emotional/spiritual crisis, and the power of ceremony. Here she witnessed the healing power of Nature and sensed that her own gifts of holding healing space on behalf of others began to emerge.
While in this role, Kalina began to see very clearly her shadow aspects that she kept shut away, but continued to run and hide from her truths. Though she longed to feel an aliveness within herself, she remained in a disconnected state, unable to connect with her True Self- for you cannot know the Light without acknowledging the Shadow. The disconnect became overwhelming and she moved on from her role as a wilderness therapy guide. Over the next few years, Kalina chased connection outside of herself when what she needed was to look within. In a desperate search for answers, connection, healing, and a sense of purpose and fulfillment in life, she began to explore a relationship with psychedelic medicines.
It was through one powerful plant medicine trip in particular that Kalina was given insight to a role than she had played in a past life that she would fulfill once more in this lifetime. An inner knowing came forth and offered a word to describe what she experienced in that medicinal journey: Shaman. While she had heard the word used in the past- though misused- she didn’t fully understand what it meant until that day.
This moment carved a new path in Kalina’s life which would lead to meeting her friend, teacher, and mentor, Karen Furr, a shamanic practitioner and Catholic Priest of Our Lady of the Angels Catholic Community. Through her time with Karen and shamanic community, Kalina learned more deeply of a shamanic path in alignment with a New Paradigm framework that emphasized the power of direct revelation in a Universe of Oneness.
Through this path, Kalina began to listen more intently to the messages of Spirit, and the messages that came from her own inner knowing. Trusting these reawakened senses of hearing and choosing to follow their directions, she found herself once again in the realm of mental health support. She returned to wilderness therapy for a bit of time, followed by time spent at a behavioral healthcare facility in rural Colorado. Seeing the necessity to expand her education to hold deeper space in the mental health realm, she attended the University of Michigan for a Master of Social Work degree.
Only days prior to her first day of classes, a massive veil fell from her eyes that she had intended to keep lifted until her dying breath. This veil hid a major aspect of her identity that she kept locked in the shadows for years. In an illuminating moment of sitting with psychedelics, her truth rose to the surface, and she could no longer run: She is transgender. Finally embracing this truth, she took steps to embody herself and her truth. Kalina’s time in graduate school was nothing short of an initiation as she faced challenges beyond the norm of a graduate student, all while undergoing her social and medical transition to live in alignment with her True Self.
Facilitating shamanic healing, providing holistic therapy, and being a transgender woman are all major aspects of Kalina’s identity and are part of her medicine that she brings to this world. Kalina’s journey is one of self-discovery and enduring the discomfort of shedding old skins so as to emerge with an aligned sense of self. She shares her story with others to be a source of encouragement and to be uplifting to those who long for deeper connection with themselves and with Life itself. She sees that her calling in this lifetime is to help bring balance to the world, to her community, and to the environment through assisting others in their journeys of awakening to their True Self.