Healthy Chicks

NAME:

Sam Carney

DESCRIBE YOUR BUSINESS/LINE OF WORK:

I am a reiki practitioner and a women + girls empowerment facilitator. I offer energy healing and mentorship to women and teen girls out of a beautiful new center in downtown Plymouth, MA called Green Tara Wellness. My primary line of work is offering group mentorship programs to girls of all ages along the South Shore.

Every Spring I offer a 6 month group mentorship program called Blossom Bright to teen girls (13-17 years old) at an whimsical farm in Middlesborough, Soule Homestead. Together we spend 1 weekend a month covering everything from positive body image, healthy relationships & boundaries, navigating and communicating emotions and energy, nourishment through nutrition and so much more!

This program has grown steadily over the last 2 years and this Fall I am going full time with this work offering both after school versions to both teens and preteens (Seed to Sprout) at the studio, lululemon in Hingham, MA and daytime programs for the homeschool community every Fall & Spring. The energetic container for this work continues to expand this year as I will be organizing volunteer community service projects, additional workshops, and fundraising events for the girls.

WHERE YOU LIVE:

Along the coast of South Shore MA in a sweet little beach cottage with my beloved and our pup Shasta. There is always tea brewing, soft blankets strewn over every corner, books stacked and food cooking in our little home together.

HOW YOU SERVE THE COMMUNITY THROUGH YOUR WORK:

Our culture is constantly changing, technology is only getting faster, the medias influence is only getting stronger, and the pressure is only getting harder. Kids are up against so many new challenges and distractions these days that we were not exposed to. It can be hard enough as an adult learning how to navigate todays world. I am beginning to view my work as one giant, glistening web of multifaceted truths and experiences overlapping and crossing one another.

This web is all inclusive, all are welcome here. There is truth for everyone here, everyone fits in. This web expands through towns, South Shore and even North Shore, inviting women from the community to come in and share their unique stories and passions with the girls, expanding a network of genuine role models – real women living real lives – mothers, daughters, grandmothers, teachers, entrepreneurs, business women, UFC fighters, performers, healers, creators alike! There is room for everyone here. I even find that as an adult working with these girls, there is healing for us too. The messages we share with these girls are teachings for our own inner child.

There are opportunities for girls in these programs to graduate Blossom Bright and step into leadership roles for the younger generations or working as interns and volunteers at events. There are opportunities for girls to volunteer and design community service projects for the community. One student has even started her own branch off of Blossom Bright called the Forget Me Nots, a group of girls fundraising for a cause. Another student had her first official work experience as she helped plan our first annual fundraiser in August because she is taking college courses in event planning.

My intention started just to inspire these girls and show them that there is not limitation to the impact they can have no matter what age they are when they are kind to themselves and one another. I am continuing to witness every day how Blossom Bright is growing and serving the commUnity.

NUMBER ONE PASSION OUTSIDE THE JOB:

This is a tricky one because I feel as though I have a great deal of passions. Sometimes it is difficult to make time to weave them all in. If I had to pick just one, I would say traveling. As a wild spirited woman, I feel strongly when I say that traveling nourishes my soul. Experiencing new places, people, ceremonies, and sacred landscapes literally seems to ignite something within me, it keeps me inspired. The uncertainty that comes with traveling, pushing myself out of my comfort zone and gifting myself the opportunity to witness what and who I attract by simply being, has been one of the most exhilarating, rewarding practices in my life.

Everywhere I have traveled, I have met beautiful and strange people who have taught me so much about myself and the world. Some of my greatest revelations and spiritual experiences have occurred while traveling. For example, I certainly never would have expected this to unfold the way it did, but over 3 years ago after meeting my beloved and traveling to CA my partner asked me what my dream job would be. It was driving through Joshua Tree California for the first time that I began to dream up this “school” for girls, spreading the wisdom and teachings my grandmother showed me as a little girl. I unknowingly channeled the entire syllabus for a program (Blossom Bright) that had not yet been birthed or even considered until a 1 1/2 years later.

INTENTIONS/GOALS YOU HAVE FOR YOURSELF IN THE NEXT 3 YEARS:

I am always working on walking a fine line between planning or as I like to call it “dream weaving” and staying in the present moment. My intentions and goals for the next 3 years are to continue along my journey of “coming home” to myself through greater self awareness and presence. Through doing so, it is my intention to continue recognizing each part of my journey that is ready to unfold in its own timing. I have ideas of what I would love to create but I believe it is step one to continue going inwards to heal and nourish to allow that innate wisdom to do its work.

The outline of my intentions are to allow Blossom Bright to continue expanding, creating greater impact and value and further reaching girls. I would love to begin writing the book for girls and beginning the podcast for women that have started to come through. It is my goal to continue co-creating a life of rich experiences, sweet abundance, synchronicity purpose and connection. However that unfolds, I am looking forward to witnessing!

ONE PIECE OF ADVICE YOU’D TELL YOUR CHILDHOOD SELF:

One piece of advice I would love to tell my childhood self is that I am seen, accepted, and loved and that it is safe to be powerful. I grew up very timid and shy. I wound up repressing my power and wisdom for my teens and early twenties, fearing rejection, abandonment and ridicule. If I had only understood that my power and wisdom were a part of my beauty, my birth right, and what made me, me – maybe I would have held onto that.

FOODS THAT MAKE YOU FEEL ALIVE & BRING THE MOST JOY:

Food that I feel a connection to. Food that was grown by people I am able to connect with and build relationships to. Foods that still have an energetic pulse from Mother Earth, a high vibration – fresh picked. I feel joyful and alive when eating foods that have been consciously prepared by or for loved ones.

I believe that prepared meals take on the energy of the one cooking. I believe Grandmothers chicken noodle soup had the ability to heal not just because of the nutrients within it but because of the love and intention she energetically wove into the process of cooking.

SONG THAT MOVES YOU:

Ring Around the Moon by Elephant Revival. I am a very seasonal music type person. I have a playlist for just about every season and I have noticed over the years that the playlists I have made in the past serve almost as a journal. I am able to put on a playlist from 5 years ago Autumn and I am instantly transported back into the depths of the emotions and experiences I was moving through at that time. I feel things on a very deep level, there is no escaping that, nor do I try to.

This song always finds its way to my listening ears in the Fall months. From the moment I heard this song to now, it always seems to invoke this deep, mysterious, nostalgia. Now, years later, I connect it to a very liberating time in my life when I was traveling the country, making new connections, falling in and out of love with new faces and landscapes. The one constant for me during that time of my life was my connection to the Moon and her cycles. That connection to the Moon is still true for me today despite having significantly more stability and constancy now.

THREE FAB THINGS ABOUT YOU:
1. I love creating medicine and magic with the plant kingdom. I have been studying and practicing home herbalism for 9 years. My dream is to have rambling herbal gardens and shelves lined with homegrown harvest herbs in the kitchen.

2. I make it a priority to travel to sacred places around the globe where I feel my heart being called to. I believe that wherever we feel a pulse to travel to, that it has something to do with our energetic patterns being needed for the collective grid in that area. Of all the places I have found myself traveling to, my favorite place is Mt. Shasta, CA. (We even named our pup after this mountain!)

3. I grew up as a black belt, cheerleading, motorcycle enthusiast! 🙂

FAVORITE BODY PART & WHY:

My favorite body part is the hands because I believe so much healing energy can be transferred physically through this body part.

I GET MY INSPIRATION FROM:

I get my inspiration from the community of women around me. Two years ago I began offering a Goddess Empowerment Circle at A to Zen Wellness in Bridgewater. This is a circle for women of all ages and backgrounds to come together one Sunday evening a month over tea and to just connect, to tell it like it really is. We share and celebrate one another victories and we hold space for each others struggles.

There is such power in witnessing women of all walks of life in their vulnerable moments, we often see ourselves in each other and there is a feeling of “Im not alone in feeling or experiencing this” that stirs. This has become my most cherished time each month. I am constantly left feeling like my cup is overflowing, like I am a part of a beautifully unique community of women each ushering in the new paradigm in their own corners of life. I get my inspiration from knowing I am a part of this ever expanding web. May our circle continue to grow wider, there is room for each of us.

EXERCISE THAT MAKES YOU SHINE:

Hula Hooping, Dancing and Gentle Yoga! I love the kind of embodied movement that feels exciting and playful, the kind that brings about a smile or helps me to express my emotions. I also really appreciate movement, the slow intentional kind, that helps me to better understand my body’s language and messages.

SOMETHING IN YOUR “WELLNESS TOOLBOX” YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT:

Herbal Coffee! I realized a long time ago that my body did not like coffee, despite what my taste buds and work output had to say. It was undeniable that drinking coffee every day had my heart racing at times, sweaty palms, shortness of breath, and mild anxiety.

I found myself almost becoming addicted to the stress high and the feeling of accomplishing my list at the end of a coffee fueled day. I love creating herbal elixirs and blends in the kitchen, so I set out to create the perfect morning concoction that gave me energy, fulfilled my morning coffee routine, tasted somewhat similar and had some added health benefits.

Once a month I create this in bulk and leave in a mason jar with our sugar and honey stash. I wake up and make this just like I would a cup of coffee in the french press, add some oat milk and cocoa/maca/cayenne powder blend from moodbeli and voila! (It’s great iced or warm.) You take chicory root, dandelion root, burdock root, cocoa nibs, eluthero root, and cinnamon chips all roasted in the oven on 400 for about 45 minutes before burning. I blend this in a high power blender and add some maca powder and store in an air tight jar.

GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT:

This feels complex but so simple at the same time. As of right now, today, I feel as though my greatest accomplishment has been coming home to myself. I have always had an insatiable thirst for wisdom and knowledge on energy and the Universes innermost workings since I was a very little girl.

I always knew in my heart I had a purpose for coming to this planet but as many of us do at one time or another, I became very distracted by our culture and spent a good portion of my teens and early twenties making choices that did not support this mission I held within my heart. While I may have taken the scenic route, I was able to learn a great deal about the distractions we are all up against in this world.

My greatest accomplishment has been having the courage and discipline of coming home to myself; surrendering to the self work, the ancestral and generational healing that was patiently awaiting my arrival. I believe healing is a discipline in a sense. It is not something we can leisurely pick up on a rainy day and place back on the shelf until it feels convenient for our continuation.

Once I made this commitment to myself, I witnessed my life beginning to unfold in the most beautiful of ways. I believe it was this commitment to myself, my healing, and to honoring my mission(s) that allowed me to receive the divine guidance clearly and bring my work into fruition.

FEMALE LEADER(S) YOU LOOK UP TO:

Aviva Romm and Tami Lynn Kent.

IF YOU COULD PICK ONE PERSON TO HAVE DINNER WITH, WHO WOULD IT BE & WHAT WOULD YOU MAKE THEM:

I would choose my Mimi, my Grandmother on my maternal side because she dedicated the later part of her life to encouraging, empowering, and inspiring me to become the woman I am today. It is many of her teachings that I pass forward to the girls I work with today. I would make her a big giant salad of veggies from the garden, a baked potato and some fresh caught fish on the grill because that was our favorite Summer dish together.

GO-TO MANTRA OR INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE:

“Everything is working out best case scenario.” Even when it appears not to be the case, I pause, breath and remind myself that I cannot always see the entire picture when I am focusing my energy on trying to force something to be or to happen in a particular way. I remind myself of a higher order at play, one that I am very much a part of and I remember that everything truly is working out best case scenario.

MESSAGE YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE WITH OTHER HEALTHY CHICKS:

A message that feels worth sharing to other healthy chicks in this world, reading these words, this is for you: Stay on the path. Nourish and nurture yourself. A mother does not consciously know how to grow each vertebra of an unborn child but she nourishes herself and surrenders and trusts her body’s innate wisdom.

We do not need to consciously know how to birth our dream, our project, our relationship, our healing – whatever it is. But it is imperative to nourish ourselves and to trust that there is a deeper knowing, a deeper wisdom at work that will guide us if we are willing to surrender to the process.