TITLE: Adoptees & Healing with Plant Medicine

DESCRIPTION

In this We the Experts, adoptees discuss their experience with using plant medicines in their healing journey for themselves and others. The panelists will share the ways that plant medicines have intersected with their identity as an adoptee, offering both challenges and opportunities for growth and self-discovery. Questions this panel may contemplate include:

When were you first introduced to plant medicines and what led you to pursue them?
How has your healing journey been impacted by your identity as an adoptee?
With the compounded effect of western colonization and the adoption industry serving primarily western societies, was it empowering to embrace this alternative healing modalities?
How have plant medicines changed your life?

PANELISTS

Pamela Cordano (she/her), MFT, is a psychotherapist and adoptee who is passionate about healing in community. Most of her work over 33 years has been focused on clients who experience serious illness or tragedy, where life was one way and suddenly changed on a dime. She later realized the trauma of this population mirrored her early life experience and that of many adoptees. Pam is particularly interested in the power of healthy community to amplify the healing process. She facilitates healing retreats for adult adoptees which focus on trauma, attachment, and creativity. In 2020 she published 10 Foundations for a Meaningful Life. Pam is passionate about the power of plant medicines and psychedelics to open doors in the adoptee healing system that are nearly impossible to get at with talk therapy.

Nikole “Koko” Shaw (she/her) is a Black domestic infant adoptee born in Southern California and raised in Brea, a small town south of Los Angeles. She runs a social media platform, The BlackAdoptea, tailored to the voices of adoptees and bringing awareness to all aspects of adoption. Koko currently works as a crisis counselor and mental health specialist at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Koko has combined her two passions, mental health and writing and is now creating a process journal for adoptees and pursuing her Masters in Clinical Counseling with the ultimate goal of providing counseling services to adult adoptees. She is a mother of one who enjoys the beach, arranging flowers, baking and playing games with her son. Koko is excited to be on this panel to bring more awareness to the benefits of psychedelics and healing, especially for adoptees.

John McCormick Ramires (he/his) is a transracial adoptee born in Bogota in 1994. He has been in reunion since January 2022, and has been reclaiming his Latino identity and culture ever since. John has been back to Colombia three times, as of January 2024. His latest trip back home was for two-and-a-half months to be absorbed in the culture and to spend time with his biological family. John believes alternative healing and plant medicines can help us explore how ancient wisdom can address modern disconnections from nature. He is excited to join this panel to discuss the often misunderstood world of plant medicines and share his experiences.

Shawn Sodersten (She/Her, Non-Binary) is a mixed-race adoptee, adopted into the white side of her family, a fact that was kept from her until she was 21. She spent the first 23 days after birth in an adoption ward and then a foster family before taking a journey with her adopted father to the adoptive family. She has been a lawyer, a musician, and a psychotherapist. She currently helps people access healing somatically and has adoptees in her practice.Shawn believes that separating children from their birth families is traumatic by definition, and that healing requires more than talk therapy. She looks forward to the chance to speak about her work and to learn from the other panelists about their approaches.