Why I am Leading/Co-leading Two Year-Long Groups for Adopted People

It often takes me a while, but when I get something, I get it. I tried to write “my book” for over thirty years, for example, and then something in me clicked: I found my reason, my why, and I also found the helping hands Joseph Campbell says accompany you when you are on your hero’s journey (EVERY adoptee, I believe, is living out their hero’s journey from conception on), and with this powerful combination there was no way I wasn’t going to finish. I found it was okay if I didn’t know how I was going to write the book if I knew I was going to do it.

I don’t think I could have written You Don’t Look Adopted without HBL, my friend who saw the book when I told him what I wanted to write, my friend who was there for me every step of the way, saying, You can do this. You have to do this. Keep going. This is important.

When I used to ride my bike like a want-to-be beast, I learned how to draft off of trucks. If you watch the cult movie Breaking Away, you can see a scene where Dave drafts off a Cinzano truck and ends up racing past cornfields on an Indiana road at 60 m.p.h. until a cop pulls the truck over for speeding.

When a force greater than you pulls you forward, you can accomplish so much more than you could alone.

The times I was feeling lost or alone in my vision, I could draft off of HBL’s belief in me and in my project. I wasn’t alone in trying to create something from nothing. Someone else held the vision for me when I was overwhelmed or wanting to quit.

I have a new vision now, and it has to do with what life could be like for an adopted person when they are able to own their sense of self and have a vision of what life wants from them and what they want for themselves.

For this reason, I created two year-long classes, both of which start in May so you can draft off my belief in the kinds of lives empowered adoptees can have. The first one is called Personal Equity, and I’m co-leading it with Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao. We just wrapped up a 6-month long weekly class on boundaries which was wonderful—I have found this thing of putting adopted people together in a group committed to growth and healing is like planting seeds, watering them, and giving them plenty of light. Growth happens. I asked Joyce to lead a class on value and money with me because those seemed like core, core issues that I don’t see many adopted people attacking head on in groups. I want to dive right in and examine our beliefs about our personal value and our relationship with money and see how we can empower ourselves and each other. I want us to feel rich. This class meets on Sunday mornings from 9:30-11 ET and costs $200 a month.

I also wanted to lead a class on the concept of enough because I think, from the moment we are born, most adoptees struggle with having too much or not enough of almost everything, and so enough becomes a strange, unvisited land. When you don’t feel like you have enough security, love, money, attention, success, talents, food, on and on, it’s hard to focus on the goodness that is at the core of you and relax. What you feel like you have too much work, too much debt, too many things, too many bad memories, too much stress, on and on, it’s also hard to focus on what is good. “Enough” is like mercury, I think, hard to pin down unless you get really intentional. This class meets Wednesdays from 12-1 ET and costs $100 a month. Both groups have a limit of 15 people.

Living in chaos can be a choice you decide to follow because at least then you don’t have to feel the deepest pain you have perhaps carried inside ever since you were relinquished—the pain that could take you under and kill you, you think. I have felt that pain, and I survived it. I know I can feel anything now. I’m not afraid of the silence or the emptiness inside of me. I am afraid, however, of missing my chance at living out this life as fully myself as possible. I am so curious. What am I capable of doing? What do I really love? What will happen next if I let myself listen to my guts instead of mostly trying to stay safe?

Facing these kinds of things with others makes the whole process less overwhelming because when you see others do what you are afraid of doing, and you see that they survive, you see you can do it, too. When you see others as strong and capable even when they are bent over double in tears, you realize you also are strong and capable even when you are sobbing.

I’m inviting you to join me in these groups because I believe in myself; I believe in Dr. Joyce, and I believe in you. I believe we can make good things happen if, together, we put our shoulders to the wheel of what we believe is true and push.

Let’s see what we can make happen.

One life.

Make it good.

(You can learn more about these offerings in the class section of this website.)