My Path
“The greatest privilege of a human life is to become a midwife to the awakening of the soul in another person.”
- Plato
Meet Lorena:
Shamanic Practitioner
My Anchor
I grew up in the Mojave Desert in southern California. My youngest years were spent running barefoot in the desert alongside my grandma and great grandma. In the middle of the desert, they had a thriving garden. Animals were drawn to them, following them wherever they went, even the wild tortoises that would wander in and stay for the nourishment my grandmothers offered. During the winter, there was often one sleeping in its shell, tucked into the pantry by my grandmother. My grandmothers held each of the families that lived with us, creating a sense of safety and belonging. My grandmas had a way of listening and holding space. They did not often give advice - their presence alone allowed us all to trust ourselves. They loved so much, and their love became the first medicine I ever knew.
One of the most profoundly beautiful moments in my life is falling asleep in my grandmother's lap. The safety I felt there became an anchor in my wider world that often wasn’t safe. Outside of my grandmothers, my childhood world was unpredictable and traumatic. Their love kept a piece of me tethered, even while other parts of me weren’t safe enough to stay. Much of the work of my own healing has been bringing those pieces back to me. My grandmothers showed me real love, beauty, and connection to source. This anchor has led me back to myself over and over in my life, and eventually to my work as a healer.
My Compass
When I was five years old, we moved away to a suburb so that I could go to school. It felt lonely, despite being in a neighborhood with other kids, and jarring. Yet I always had this inner compass that my grandmas helped me build, this deep knowing.
Though my compass didn’t disappear, I did forget how to follow it for a while. During young adulthood, I became distracted and lost touch with what truly mattered to me. It all came to a head when I realized how far I had drifted from myself. The search for answers led me to a very raw and vulnerable place, where I began to process and integrate all that I had experienced up to that point. Slowly, I returned to my authentic self—that girl running barefoot in the desert.
My Threshold
Before I began to really wake up to my own soul, I thought the healing path would begin with some big mystical experience. But for me, the path emerged through very simple moments. At the age of 40, a friend sat with me in utter presence, she saw me, and she heard me. That moment softened something in me. Sometimes presence is all it takes: to see you, to hold that space so that you can truly expand. That moment opened up a little bit of me in my heart and allowed me to be present and vulnerable with others. This led to deeper friendships with people who showed up with intention and deep listening.
One of these friends asked me to do a ceremony for her. I said yes, not really knowing what I was doing, just trusting what wanted to move through me. What happened in that space was so powerful that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. That was when I understood that healing isn’t something you decide to do. It’s something that reveals itself when you’re ready. It asks for your whole heart, your willingness to listen, your courage to stay tender.
My Integration
In the past few years, I have deepened my healing practice. I’ve pursued training in many different modalities—some chosen intentionally, others arriving like whispers from somewhere deeper. As I’ve grown as a practitioner and as a human, I’ve come to understand something simple and profound: everything in my life was always leading me here. Everything that happened to me, happened for me. Every loss, every rupture shaped the way I sit with others now.
If you were to say the words wounded healer to me, I would nod. That is me. My own pain taught me how to stay present with the rawness of life, how to breathe inside hurt without turning away. It taught me how to recognize those quiet openings in someone else, the moments when a person is right on the edge of their own remembering. I know the power of steady presence, of being truly seen. I know what it means to have someone hold a space wide enough for you to come home to yourself.
My Practice
When someone chooses to work with me, they invite both of us into a shared field—one built on trust, tenderness, and a willingness to be real. There is a kind of mutual magic that happens there. A softening. A remembering.
There is a moment, in every session, when two souls meet — and the air itself changes. I feel the pulse of the earth beneath us, the presence of ancestors around us, and the quiet love that holds everything together. I can’t help but cry in the face of that trust, that openness, it is the tissue that connects us all, it is that warm lap that we can curl into.
This is the heart of my practice: to sit with you in the truth of who you are, to tend to what is ready to unfold, and to walk with you as you return to your authentic self.
