The Outside Journey

My name is Moira (rhymes with Laura). I grew up in Wisconsin and moved to St. Louis to go to Wash U. There, I studied anthropology and pole vaulted on the track team (Go Bears!). After graduation, I worked in the non-profit space working on alleviating hunger in St. Louis through promoting urban farming and redistributing food that would otherwise be wasted. During this time, I started doing yoga and fell in love with the practice. I completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training and started teaching both in a studio and in a maximum security men’s prison. This experience opened me up to a passion for healing and social justice. I continued to study yoga completing both a Prison Yoga Teacher Training and my 500-hour yoga teacher training. I then had the opportunity to create and teach a mindfulness curriculum at a non-profit that worked with individuals recently released from incarceration with the intention of reducing recidivism. At one point, I recognized that the training I had could only take me so far and I realized that I needed to know more. My desire to provide deep healing took me to pursue my Master’s in Counseling from Northwestern University. Throughout my internship in grad school, I worked with clients who held marginalized identities and continued to deepen my drive for social justice. As I was considering the next step in my journey, I found IFS and aligned with the goal of creating systemic shifts in society through creating inner liberation. I am currently practicing as a Provisional Licensed Professional Counselor (PLPC) under the supervision of Rennie Grayson (check out her work here).