Today, we'd like to highlight a very special @beautyforfreedom family member and a valued part of our programming team Olga Barroso @olgabarrosom, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapist and Advanced Certified Jivamukti Yoga Teacher. Meeting and working with Olga has truly been a gift! Olga joined our team this year for Project Mexico with our partner organization @anthus_ac_ as a translator, but quickly became wayyyyy more than that. She dug her heels in and taught photography workshops, art workshops and made herself available when the survivors we served there in Mexico had moments of anxiety, watershed moments or meltdowns. Art is cathartic, it cleanses your soul and the process is so beautiful but also has painful moments when creating. Many survivors experience anxious moments when creating because they see their stories in the work they create...another way of non-verbal communication. Olga has now worked on two more projects with BFF this year and even traveled to the US this week for our @beautyforfreedom Mixed Media Collage workshop series we facilitated at the Survivor and Wellness Weekend Retreat with our partner organizations The S.O.A.P. Project @the_soap_project and U.S. Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking @uscsaht at @the_dekoven_center supporting 75 survivors from all over The United States. The workshop featured in this video is a breathwork exercise Olga created and facilitated with the young survivors we served in Mexico. Breathwork can be supportive for trauma survivors in that it helps to bypass the conscious mind to evoke deeper layers of the psyche, is an embodied practice, and put awareness to our breath pattern that can support moving from fight/flight/freeze/appease and into more safety in the body. Thank you so much Olga for joining our BFF Family! We look forward to more incredible experiences and we are truly grateful to stand beside you in this powerful work!