At our core, believe in…
Our founder…
Lia Love Avellino
Co-Founder & CEO
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With the middle name “Love,” Lia was destined to seek connection. She has done so in a variety of professional capacities, including as a somatic and relational psychotherapist, published sex and relationships author, and a facilitator and community organizer implementing population-based interventions.
Personally, Lia has struggled with trusting others to withstand the whole of her. She is in the process of exposing her major botches and open wounds in order to use them as threads for connection to others. Motivated by the words of poet Antonio Machado, she believes that just like golden bees, we have the capacity to make white comb and sweet honey from our old failures.
For the past several years, Lia has been on a mission to bring the science and ethos of therapy outside of the clinical setting. To this end, she developed a support circle model, culling from research in the social sciences, fiction and fable, sensorimotor psychotherapy, and personal and professional lived experiences. Using social justice and experiential learning frameworks, Lia facilitates a group process that gives people the space to develop deeper connections to themselves and others.
She graduated with distinction from Columbia University and has received awards for innovative research and excellence in the provision of therapeutic care to vulnerable populations, while managing a national component of President Obama’s initiative to reduce teen pregnancy across the nation. With a commitment to making research more accessible to the public, Lia writes a monthly column for Well + Good, and has appeared in/on a variety of media outlets, including Glamour, Elle, BestLife, The American Journal of Sexuality Education, CNBC’s MakeIt, Motherly, ABC’s The Tamron Hall Show, Men’s Health, and more. @lialoveavellino
Our team…
Aleja Parsons
Facilitator
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For years Aleja was paralyzed by perfectionism and felt chronically misunderstood and compartmentalized. Her attempts to control other people’s perceptions of her disconnected her from her self-worth. Her biggest struggle was knowing how to live as the person she truly was instead of who she thought the world wanted her to be.
Aleja wanted an escape from the pressure of fitting in. More than anything, she was desperate to feel accepted and affirmed. Her desire to feel like she was enough, her desire to live free and be true to herself—these things are the foundation of her work.
Aleja is committed to creating spaces where people can acquire the tools, skills, and resources to live as their genuine and authentic selves.
In her professional roles, Aleja is a faculty member at the Family Translational Research Group at NYU, a clinician at Relationship HQ specializing in couple’s therapy, and the founder and director of Authentically Me—a digital empowerment business that teaches all womxn how to set and reach life goals. As a researcher, therapist, and entrepreneur Aleja integrates her expertise as an evidence-based psychologist, years of knowledge gained from working with clients from all backgrounds, and her personal lived experience. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Denver.
Benjamin Seaman
Facilitator
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Benjamin ran away from home as a teenager and suffered from isolation and money worry from 15 to well into his 30s. As a result, he became obsessed with the ‘how-to’ of personal finance and relationships. When he started his private practice, Benjamin dove voraciously into these topics and discovered we all carry blueprints for love and money that guide our decision-making and shape our view of what is possible and what is available.
Benjamin successfully rebuilt his own lens to allow for a successful marriage, and now he’s on track for early retirement. Nothing makes him happier than sharing what he has learned—to promote health, wealth, and happiness for others.
Benjamin is a practicing artist and psychotherapist who focuses on creating new possibilities for people. He’s the former director of a spiritual retreat for gay men and previously taught antiracism at NYU Silver School of Social Work. Benjamin is trained in Psychoanalysis, Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples, and Internal Family Systems.
Lavender Suarez
Facilitator
Ashley Rucker
Facilitator
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Lavender Suarez brings presence. She is a sound healing practitioner, artist, and educator. Since 2014 Lavender has conducted healing sessions for individuals, couples, and groups of all sizes. She regularly facilitates meditation workshops and has been a featured presenter at The Whitney Museum, The Rubin Museum, MoMA, Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, D.C.), The Brooklyn Public Library, The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Lincoln Park Conservatory (Chicago, IL), and Wanderlust Yoga Festival. Lavender’s critically acclaimed book Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives (2020) delves into how tuning in to one’s listening skills can foster creativity and connection. To learn more, connect with Lavendar on Instagram @lavenderhealer
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Inspired by her own lived experiences with a sibling suffering from drug addiction, Ashley Rucker founded TherapArt during her own journey, shaped by dance as her form of healing. As a trained yoga instructor, meditation, and movement educator, she found freedom through free-form movement as a way to heal the body, mind, and soul. With TherapArt, Ashley facilitates meditation, movement, and art therapy workshops and ceremonies in New York, Miami, and Mexico, as well as virtually. Ashley is a New York native and studied fashion at Buffalo State. She has called New York City home since 2011.
Hope McGrath
Facilitator In-Training
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Hope McGrath utilizes her unique blend of coaching, intuitive healing, and mindfulness practices, with a splash of fashion expertise, for a holistic approach to radical self-love and personal transformation. As a Certified Professional Coach, accredited by The International Coach Federation (IFC), and a multi-passionate entrepreneur in fashion and art. Hope loves helping women, and a few special men, bust through their confidence crises to make major moves in their personal and professional lives so they can enjoy living with less stress, stronger relationships, clear goals, peace of mind & fulfillment. Hope is the Co-Founder of the Tropical Transformation Wellness Retreats and is an Executive Coach for the Better Manager platform. As a biracial woman, she is a mixed-girl advocate who lives in Brooklyn with her artist husband, teen daughter, two cats, and a Pomeranian. To learn more…HopeMcGrath.com or connect on Instagram @hope.mcgrath.
Kelly George
Facilitator In-Training
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Kelly George is a native Brooklynite, bipolar neurodivergent, queer, Black-Latinx woman born to immigrant parents from Panama and Trinidad lands. A beautifully complex multifaceted human.
The truth – simply existing can be taxing. Now add existing in a corporate workplace with standards of being and belonging that were not fundamentally designed to include or welcome you. Often, Kelly would carefully pick and choose the identities carried into each room she entered. Hence hiding invisible disabilities like her neurodiversity made sense. Kelly told exactly no one at work for fear of being judged as an “unreliable” employee or barred from being “employable” as a skilled professional. Out of this challenge her passion to make sure other Black and Brown neurodivergent leaders feel psychologically safer in corporate workplaces and beyond ignited. Kelly founded Real Resilience Coaching to support leaders, organizations, and communities in designing emotionally just work ecosystems, custom designed with the neurodiverse community in mind. Invisible disabilities are not deficits, and accessibility needs affect everyone at some point in their life. Now, how does it feel to choose to exist as you are!?
Priya Bhanderi
Facilitator In-Training
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Priya is deeply inspired by the ancient African Ubuntu wisdom, which posits that a person is a person because of other people - in other words, “I am because we are.” Humans depend on connection, care, and community to exist, and the relationships they have over time shape who they are as a person.
Priya facilitates circles where humans go on a journey to better understand themselves in the company of like-minded seekers. Individually, they shine a light on and tap into their strength, resources, and capacities, and together, they witness each other’s struggle, stretch, and shift - in big ways and small - along the way.
Priya is a psychotherapist at Transformative Psychotherapy and a clinical trainee in the couples and family counseling program at The Ackerman Institute for the Family. She specializes in trauma-focused therapy and received her master's degree from Columbia School of Social Work.
