Jan 05, 2021

SHELTERWOOD COLLECTIVE

@shelterwoodcollective
shelterwoodcollective.com

Shelterwood Collective was founded in 2011 by Nicole Greenwald and Bethanne Kinmonth. They shared a vision for a grassroots therapy and wellness collective rooted in community, beauty, soulfulness, and sustainability. What began as a thoughtful shared space for therapists to practice in community has grown into a network of healing practitioners and wellness professionals across the state of Washington.

We met up with Nicole Greenwald to see their beautiful space in Pioneer Square, Seattle & talk more about Shelterwood Collective, mental health & personal wellness.

What inspired the creation of Shelterwood Collective?

When I was beginning as a psychotherapist I worked in a space with random, oversized furniture and no windows. The mission of the clinic was beautiful, but the space itself was not inspiring or nourishing. Working with trauma and holding space for people who are feeling broken, scared, or stuck can sometimes feel dark, heavy, and isolating at times. This experience really pushed me to think about what I needed to sustain. I started dreaming with a friend and colleague about creating a space with the body and soul of the practitioner in mind. We found a beautiful building in Pioneer Square with huge ceilings and big windows. This crystalized our vision and in 2011 we created Shelterwood Collective — a nourishing, creative, light-filled space for healers to practice in community. Our Collective honors the freedom and uniqueness of each practitioner while providing a web of connection, support, and collaboration.

How has your role and vision for Shelterwood Collective transformed over the years?

Shelterwood Collective’s mission is to cultivate whole-person healing for the sake of collective well-being. I see my role as a steward and a curator. I tend to the space and to the community and out of this attunement I curate experiences, offerings, and resources to nourish and cultivate new growth. I practice as a depth psychotherapist, but my own work has shifted over the past year to open up space for mentoring and teaching. I support healers in their own development as practitioners as a clinical supervisor and as a business coach. It’s really fulfilling to come alongside new and seasoned practitioners to support their growth and flourishing.

What brings you the most joy in your daily work?

I am moved by the courage and resilience of the human spirit. I feel deep joy when I witness small moments of transformation — my clients feeling a greater sense of inner freedom, feeling the subtle release of an old pattern, or finding themselves showing up more authentically in a relationship. Healing is more about returning to self than becoming “better.” Witnessing this return is such a privilege.

Do you have a favorite saying, quote, or idea that drives you as a professional?

The ways we protect ourselves tend also to be the ways we imprison ourselves.

— Adam Phillips

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
— Mary Oliver

be easy.
take your time.
you are coming home to yourself.
— Nayyirah Waheed

What kind of healing & wellness offerings can be found at Shelterwood Collective?

We are a collaborative, interdependent community of healing practitioners that share a commitment to restoration, sustainability, and justice. Our practitioners provide psychotherapy, mental health counseling, consulting, somatic and embodied healing, and spiritual care. Our home base is in Pioneer Square but we have practitioners in Fremont, West Seattle, Olympia, Edmonds, Victoria, BC, and online via telehealth. Our clients are individuals of all ages, couples, families, groups, and organizations. We welcome all bodies, abilities, races and ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, identities, and expressions. We are a soul-rooted community of people willing to be present, hold hard truths, and go to deep places for the sake of freedom and healing.

What is your space like? Is it open to the community?

Therapy spaces are often private, a bit removed, or even institutional. We chose to root in the city’s art and design district and our vision has been to explore opportunities to make our healing spaces public. This has looked like facilitating healing circles, offering workshops, participating in the art walk, and holding solstice or new moon rituals.

Our collective is open to healers looking for a community of support, co-resourcing, and opportunities for creative collaboration. That might look like practicing from our physical location, or remaining rooted in your current location but becoming a member of our network. Our physical space is designed with a coworking model to provide a safe, beautiful environment that is adaptive and affordable.

In the new year we will be expanding our embodied healing offerings. In my own healing journey much of the past trauma that I experienced manifested in my body. As deeper pain and grief surfaced in my own work in therapy, I found release and integration when I also sought out acupuncture, reiki, yoga, breathwork, and somatic therapies.

A new space within our collective, The Sanctuary, was birthed during the pandemic with the intention of creating an intimate, safe space for tending to body, soul, and spirit. It is open to anyone seeking space for ritual, retreat, or rest. We are finding creative ways to safely offer one-on-one and small group offerings and also increasing accessibility to care and connection online. We are currently seeking somatic practitioners and spiritual healers to join our collective as we evolve and expand. Some of the projects we are anticipating in the new year are rituals and resources to support healers and healthcare workers during this season and a community apothecary.

People can get in touch with us at shelterwoodcollective.com.

Can you tell us more details about subsidized offerings for frontline workers?

Our culture is held up by many oppressive systems and beliefs. The impact of this manifests at work, in our families, and in our bodies. These systemic issues assault collective well-being and dignity. Even worse, there are many inequities and barriers to holistic care and meaningful support.

We believe healing is necessary and that it should be accessible. Our Sustainable Therapy Program is launching in January 2021 to provide you with consistent, competent, compassionate, and affordable mental health care.

This program offers weekly psychotherapy for individuals or couples on a sliding scale of $30-60 per session.

The pandemic has compounded many of the systems fissures and inequities. The burden placed on frontline workers and the lack of systematic support inspired this program. We hope to offer an accessible space to process, heal, and restore.

What impact has COVID-19 had on your collective? What adaptations have you made this year to accommodate for limited social gatherings?

The pandemic has impacted how we are able to hold space for people and many of our practitioners have shifted to telehealth to adapt to the changing needs of our environment. These shifts and the open space they have created have allowed me to feel into what the healing community and the world might need in this time. The isolation and trauma we are experiencing is growing collective awareness of our physical, mental, social, and spiritual fragmentation and depletion. It feels important to allow Shelterwood Collective to evolve to tend to these whole person and communal needs. In the new year we will be responding to the growing need for emotional/social/embodied support by expanding our in-person and virtual offerings. We will be offering some process groups to foster connection and communal healing and curating a monthly workshop series to foster exposure to new ideas and accessible practices for healing and well-being.

How has your idea of community and connection changed since COVID-19?

I believe we are deeply relational beings. Our connections with ourselves and with others is usually where we’ve known the most joy and the most heartache. The pandemic has only deepened my belief that our need for human connection is enduring. A quote from the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips has come to mind a lot during this time: “There is nothing we could know about ourselves or another that can solve the problem that other people actually exist, and we are utterly dependent on them . . . There is nothing to know apart from this, and everything else we know, or claim to know, or are supposed to know, or not know, follows on from this.” The isolation, fatigue, and despair we have been experiencing collectively is profound. The slowing down and solitude has brought me into a deeper relationship with myself. The separation has led shedding of some relationships or commitments and centering of others. In this time with many distractions removed and others intensified, I’ve allowed my need for connection to deepen as a core value. My sense of community has become more intimate and potent.

Westerly x Shelterwood Collective
Photography by: AJ Ragasa
Art Direction/Production by: Jessica Underhill