Amani Will 

Working with Amani is both life giving and life changing - it is an honor I am deeply humbled to receive. Each session is its own moment of magic, its own safe and generative space that takes its own unique and responsive form. In the last year and a half of working with Amani, I have met 15+ parts of myself—and have introduced some of them to each other. In revealing parts of me to me, I have grown inward, expanded my sense of who I am, of who we are, and of how I am and can be. Through receiving this magic and through witnessing Amani model so much to and with me, I’ve learned to pause when triggered or activated and to drop in and sense what part(s) of me are here, ask what they/we need, seek to understand their goals and strategies, ask what stories they have to share, listen, welcome, receive, hold, thank, love, and integrate. The way I feel so safe, so seen, so known, so remembered, so cared for, so brilliant, so celebrated, so clam, and so whole when in a session with Amani is the way I aspire to feel with and within myself. I am continually amazed by the breadth and depth of Amani’s wisdom, knowing, expertise, practice, tool box, and curiosity. During some sessions, it feels we travel in and beyond and back around countless (and sometimes seemingly random or disjointed) directions—and yet no matter the direction or destination, Amani always seems to know the gentlest, most loving way—leading me to, across, under, around, over, or through bridges I may never have found, most often guiding me deeper into my internal homes—working with breath, meditation, ancestors, dreams, and curiosity as portals and parents—to usher in new (but often long lost and familiar) questions, revelations, patterns, and connections. In 2022, I feel most proud and grateful to have divested energy and life force from my professional work—creating space to invest more intentionally and fully into my internal and interpersonal lives. Spending more time looking and loving inward revealed patterns of codependent dynamics—of the ways I’ve tended to orient myself horizontally in relation to and with others instead of grounding and rising along the vertical channel connecting my core to both earthed deep below and the infinite and ever expanding universe far above. In the process of committing to reconnect with my essence along my vertical channel, I’m relearning what it means and how it feels to be in relationship with another while staying connected with myself. As I’m tracking patterns where my first instinct when confronted with the information that something I’ve done has harmed another is to turn in on myself in an internally destructive spiral of blame and shame, Amani has guided me towards new possibilities where I have access to see myself as separate from another, to vertically align within myself, to love myself enough to stay grounded in my lived reality, and then from that sacred space, find the space to see, hold, love, and be accountable to another. Through our sessions and Amani’s vulnerable modeling, I am slowly, carefully, and eagerly learning to love myself through accountability. Finally, and perhaps most powerfully, Amani has helped me open portals into and with my ancestry. Through meditations, questions, stories, and memories, I’ve found the desire, space, and resources I needed to be curious and to connect with my ancestors and their/our ancestral land. These explorations have held me, lifted me, led me to new and familiar homes—revealed bridges where I always assumed there was nothing, defied the illusion of an empty void, full instead of space, story, and possibility—opening up new ways and feelings of belonging—both in self and in interdependent and beautiful connection with each other.

-AB,
PolySci Organizer/Specialist