Meet Benita

Welcome, c a t a l y s t !

My mission is to better the world by supporting folks to make the difference you are here to make.

The catch? Without us being on an endless hamster wheel of overwhelm, burnout, and illness.

Showing up in your highest power sounds like it coooould be an exhausting lifelong marathon.

After all, it requires creative bravery, mental versatility, social awareness, emotional flexibility, cultural humility, physical resilience, and a dose of sparkly goofiness. Whew….

But really now—what’s more satisfying than overcoming obstacles toward a meaningful goal?

If sometimes painful, as growth is, the journey can liberate a tremendous amount of energy: I see you joy, delight, and wonder.

In the face of tremendous injustice and heartbreak and legacies of pain in each of our ancestries, our hearts and bodies are sending us clear messages about what needs to be righted, for our own and the collective nervous system.

As we feel, our bodies naturally know how to discharge and redistribute bound energy and get re-grounded.

In a “flee” mindset, billion-dollar global industries compel us to turn away from noticing and actually feeling rough feelings—including vital exhaustion. Instead the norm for fleeing especially among those of us living in late-capitalistic societies is to chronically numb ourselves, whether in ways that are culturally deemed ‘unacceptable’ (e.g., gambling, porn, substances) or ‘acceptable’ (e.g., work, video games, consumption).

In a “fight” mindset, we might have some conscious awareness that we are heartbroken, pissed, exhausted. Sometimes we react reflexivity against how painful it is to live in today’s world (yet another reason to rage against the machine), and vow to push to make things better—even if it means we have to sacrifice the very things that refuel us, like connection, fun, relaxation, and sleep. This sacrifice of course exhausts us more. Mostly we accept or tolerate struggle as the price we have to pay to do what the world needs.

But, what about what you need? You’re part of the world too. In fact, you’re the center of your universe.

What you might not yet feel deeply is that rest is more than luxury.

Rest is fundamental fuel for grounding, nourishing, and enlivening the nervous system.

Your nervous system is the contact point between you and society. With a balanced nervous system, society will less likely “get under your skin.” You’ll respond rather than react, and even better, will have capacity to exercise agency, with ever-widening influence.

Dedicated to finding an answer to bone-crushing fatigue, I draw from my academic, personal, practitioner, and community-building expertise to create customized experiences and programs.

I bring a unique set of skills and perspectives to my offerings.

• As a college psychology professor, I research, teach, and mentor about how social, cultural, and physical environments are internalized and shape health. A critical health psychologist, the major focus of my scholarship is on contexts that shape behaviors and sub-clinical disease markers.

• As a birth mama of twins, one with complex special and medical needs—on top of a demanding academic career—I experienced exhaustion like none I’d ever imagined.

• As a social change maker, I witness many folks suffering from extreme fatigue caused by a combination of lack of rest and inordinate taxation of mental, emotional, and physical faculties. And I learn and act in community toward liberatory, decolonized healing to create a world that works for all.

• As a yoga nidra facilitator and a health coach, I use a range of practical tools including breathwork, neural rewiring, and mindset to support energy balance and re-training the nervous system for entering states of deep relaxation and awareness that are our birthright.

The rest prescriptions I offer are designed to be a catalyst to BLISS (Building Leadership for an Inclusive Sustainable Society), so my mentees connect to pleasure while reclaiming a fuller capacity for mental agility, creative depth, physical wellness, and social connections.

Five Principles Guiding My Life, Work, and Interactions

There is more than meets the eye. This is a key reason I appreciate the power of yoga nidra. Lying down with your eyes closed? It looks like nothing is happening. Instead, over time, profound rewiring throughout your nervous system supports you to you meet the demands of your envisioned world-shifting with grace and ease.

We need multiple perspectives. We can better create the world we want when we consider truths offered by a wide range of perspectives. Our spacious listening gives others a chance to clarify their own thinking. And it helps us piece together a more accurate picture of reality that we necessarily miss if we rely only on our own beliefs.

Humans are capable of more than they can tell. Each of us has tremendous power to set things right—in our micro-interactions, and as part of wider collective efforts to create a world that works for all. What if more of us lived as if this power were possible, accessible, and potent? You can learn to reconnect to that inner source.

You get to decide for yourself what is right for you. You live with the riches of your integrity. Even when appearing to conform is practical, you can reach for your own perspective. Society flourishes where folks believe they, like everyone else, are precious—and act like it, creatively, joyfully, and just-fully.

Do your part and the universe aligns. Creating a world that supports all life can seem like a mere aspiration: how possibly could this happen? But it’s not important to have all the precise steps laid out. Because when you decide and then do your part the path to a next right step makes itself known.

Deeply resonate with these principles? Called to consider the possibility that you can rest—even if it sounds preposterous to the calculating mind and your over-full life?

Are you moved by the thought that instead of pushing through the endless to-do list, better solutions can come from strategically customized, supported r e s t ?

It’s time to reclaim your energy to be the change you want to see in the world.