The next OurHistory Retreat:
Friday, October 13-Sunday, October 15, 2023
OurHistory Retreat
OurHistory Retreat is a 2 ½-day, 2-night retreat for transracial, adult adoptees. We hope during this OurHistory retreat, participants will be able to renew friendships, create new connections, and find support with one another, as they find inner healing.
The healing can be from the traumas from our own adoption experiences, or perhaps from past relationships that have come from adoption, or other hurtful experiences—such as experiences as BIPOC. During this long weekend, we hope participants will find the OurHistory Retreat a conducive venue to help gain further insight and begin or continue the healing journey.
OurHistory Retreat is open to transracial adult adoptees ages 21+.
Sample Itinerary
This is a sample itinerary. More details will be shared in the registration confirmation packet. **Subject to change
Saturday
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner provided
Small & large group discussions
Workshops & Guest Presenters
Documentaries & discussion
Friday
Ice breakers
Dinner provided
Large group discussion
Sunday
Breakfast and lunch provided
Reflections
Closing Circle
Cost
Full Retreat (overnight)—single occupancy—$350
Full retreat (overnight)—double* occupancy—$325
Daytime ONLY—$200
*Limited double-occupancy rooms available
location
MN Humanities Center
987 Ivy Ave E.
St Paul, MN 55106
Workshop facilitators
Check back soon for more details!
Lindsey—Embody Yoga
Lindsey is in her 6th year as a space holder. She comes with a trauma- informed yoga background, specific to folks who are/were incarcerated. She also is certified in aerial, restorative, and Hatha yoga. As a fellow adoptee, she's in her 3rd year as a community partner with AdopteeBridge. Lindsey's intent to teach is based on our ability to self soothe when we have enough practice and guidance. She is a social work student and is driven by community to effect change. You might not see her business Embody Yoga as a brick and mortar, but she offers a mobile practice given the population she aims to support.
Nicole Sheppard, MA, LPCC
Nicole Sheppard, MA, LPCC, identifies as a cis-gender, transracial/transnational Korean adoptee. She is a mindfulness-based psychotherapist at Mental Health Systems (MHS), specializing in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). With the Korean Adoptees Ministry (KAM) Center she served as a project manager of a Minnesota Department of Health-funded mental health and suicide assessment of the adult Korean adoptee community from 2016-2019. In her first decade of adulthood she lived in Seoul, Korea and was a leader in global Korean adoptee community development at Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link (GOA’L). She is a graduate of the Permanency and Adoption Competency Certificate (PACC) Training at the University of Minnesota and Training for Adoption Competency (TAC) by the Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.).
Basanti C. Miller
Basanti Miller (she/her), Ed.M., is a Twin Cities creative writer, free-thinker, and arts educator. She is dedicated to amplifying historically silenced voices, particularly transracial adoptees, through artistic expression, reflection, and community building.
Suni Zmich
Suni (pronounced “Sunny”) retired from an Accounting/Finance career in 2020 to write a book about adoption. From her perspective as an adoptee, she interviewed people from all sides of the adoption triad, compiling 34 stories in her book, Through the Lens of Ourselves. After an enlightening immersion into the adoption arena through research and live interviews, Suni learned that fully understanding the adoption experience requires consideration of all sides of the adoption triad—adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents.
Adoption is an amalgam of grace, fear, joy, anger, and love, which pushes us to know WHY we exist.
Through the Lens of Ourselves captures 34 stores of the adoption triad: Adoptee, adoptive parent, and birth parent. This collection portrays the life-long effects as biology and circumstance collide—the craving for identity, the yearning for normalcy, and the grieving over that which was lost. Fewer than 5% of Americans are adopted, yet nearly all Americans know someone touched by adoption. By illustrating the primal nature of human relationships, these poignant narratives draw in adoption community members as well as those who do not have direct connection to adoption.