Tag: Support

This program is now full. To be added to the waitlist, please email carla@smithcenter.org

with Mindy Brodsky, LCSWA

865,792 Writing Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty-Free Images - iStock

A typical legal will is about property and assets you will leave behind. But what about the intangible parts of you that you hope your loved ones will remember?

Join us for a program where you will create your own “ethical will,” also known as a legacy letter, love will, or life letter. Share wisdom and feelings with your next of kin, chosen family, or community in writing or any creative medium that speaks to you. These are nonlegal letters to people important to you that reflect your voice, your experiences, your personality and your values. We all experience thinking about and preparing for death in different ways. The ancient practice of crafting an ethical will can be a gift not only for the recipient(s) in the future, but also for you in the present in that it can provide sacred gifts of meaning and spirit.

This three-part workshop series aspires to create a safe space for you to gain confidence in your ability to share your values with loved ones in meaningful ways. Activities will include writing exercises, group discussion, reflective practices, and practical information to help ensure you complete the workshop with a beautiful product that will give your voice life long after death.

Participation is appropriate for adults of all states of health, ages, and faiths. You don’t have to consider yourself a “writer” to participate! Our activities will be fun, simple, and supportive.

Give Your Voice Life After Death: An Ethical Will Writing Workshop will be hosted in three parts. Participants must attend the first session and are encouraged to attend all three sessions. Upon completion of the three parts, participants will have developed a working ethical will. Program limited to 14 participants.
Program dates:
  • March 16
  • March 23
  • March 30

Suggested Donation: $10/session or $25/series

About Mindy Brodsky, LCSWA

Mindy Brodsky

Mindy Brodsky specializes in trauma-informed, strengths-based counseling with a passion for integrative health and healing. Mindy honors her clients as the experts of their lives, and she strives to provide a supportive and safe environment.
After a career in social justice advocacy and her own challenging health journey, Mindy aspires to meet her clients where they are to help them achieve their goals.

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register here or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Erin Price, LICSW

Jackbox Party Pack 3

Looking for more opportunities to connect socially with other young adult cancer survivors? Join us for our February social.

This month we will be playing Jackbox Party Pack games. Games include Quiplash, Trivia Murder Party, and Guesspionage.

Play using your phone, tablet, or computer.

YA Social Hour will be hosted monthly on Fridays from 6:00-7:00pm. Each month will have a new “theme” – please see below for the currently scheduled social hours.

  • February 26 – Jackbox Party

DC Young Adult Cancer Community: https://youngadultcancerdc.org/

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register using the form below or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Michael Lerner

Smith Center 25th Anniversary Conversation Series

The year 2021 marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of Smith Center for Healing and the Arts. In celebration of this momentous achievement, we are launching a series of special conversations. Across the course of the coming year, members of our Smith Center family will join us to reflect upon Smith Center’s roots, examine its present programs and impact, and imagine what the future may hold for us at Smith Center and the larger world of integrative healing.

Our first conversation will be held Monday, February 8th from 6 – 7:30 pm (Eastern Time). We are honored that the speaker for our inaugural conversation will be Dr. Michael Lerner, co-founder of Smith Center. Dr. Lerner will be interviewed by Smith Center’s Executive Director, Lisa Simms Booth.

We hope you will join us for the conversations in this special series. Please feel free to circulate this announcement and share with others the details of this upcoming conversation.

Tickets for this event will be $25 and will help raise money for Smith Center’s 25th Anniversary Fund.

Smith Center’s 25th Anniversary Conversation Series will be hosted throughout 2021.

Selected Themes:

  • Visionary Leaders in Integrative Care
  • The Facilitators’ View on Caring and Healing
  • Participants’ Perspectives
  • Envisioning the Future

Tickets for each conversation will be $25.

About Michael Lerner

Michael Lerner

Michael Lerner is president and co-founder of Commonweal in Bolinas, California. Founded in 1976, Commonweal has program interests in health and healing, education and the arts, and environment and justice. www.commonweal.org.

Michael’s projects at Commonweal include the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, Healing Circles Global, The New School at Commonweal, The Resilience Project, The New School at Commonweal, and the Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies website.

Michael is the author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Approaches to Cancer. The Commonweal Cancer Help Program was the subject of an hour-long documentary, “Wounded Healers,” part of Bill Moyers prize-winning PBS series, “Healing and the Mind.”

Michael is president of the Jennifer Altman Foundation and Advisor for the Barbara Smith Fund. www.jaf.org.  He is co-founder and president emeritus of Smith Center for Healing and the Arts in Washington, D.C. He is past chair of the Consultative Group on Biodiversity, co-founder and chair emeritus of the Health and Environmental Funders Network, and a past Board Member of Global Greengrants.  He is chair emeritus of the board of the Wildflowers Institute in San Francisco, which works with low-income diaspora communities to identify their internal sources of strength in the Bay Area and beyond.

A Harvard graduate with a doctorate from Yale, Lerner left teaching at Yale to found Full Circle, a residential center for at-risk children in Bolinas in 1972.  He founded Commonweal in 1976. He received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1984.

www.commonweal.org
www.tns.commonweal.org
www.healingcirclesglobal.org
www.bcct.ngo
www.omega.ngo
www.resilienceproject.ngo

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register here or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Bernardine Pinto, PhD (University of South Carolina) and Melinda Irwin, PhD (Yale University)

Did You Know?

Smith Center is pleased to announce the launch of a special series of talks designed to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of the center. Each of the talks will highlight one of eight healing practices that research and practice tell us is important to the health and well-being of cancer patients/survivors, and their loved ones.

The topics include: Eating Well, Moving More, Managing Stress, Sleeping Well, Creating a Healing Environment, Sharing Love and Support, Exploring What Matters Now, and Expressing Oneself.

For each topic, we will have two expert speakers. One will provide a clear and concise review of the science behind the given topic: what we do and do not know about the topic, the impact of this practice on cancer-related quality of life and mortality specifically, and national recommendations for action. The second speaker will “translate” this information into an action plan (e.g., provide user-friendly tips about how to integrate this aspect of healing into your daily life). At the end, there will be time for a question and answer period.

Did You Know? will be hosted Monthly on Wednesdays from 6:00-7:30pm.

Upcoming Dates: 

  • February 17 – Moving More
    • with Bernardine Pinto, PhD, University of South Carolina and Melinda Irwin, PhD, MPH, Yale University
  • March 17 – Managing Stress
    • with Candida DeLuise, PhD and Paul Jacobsen, PhD, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD

In honor of our 25th Anniversary in 2021, we are suggesting donations for this series in fractions or multiples of the number “25.” E.G. $2.50, $12.50, $25, etc.

About Bernardine Pinto, PhD

Bernardine Pinto, PhD

Dr. Bernardine Pinto is a clinical psychologist, who received her doctoral degree from Western Michigan University in 1992, after completing her internship at the University of Mississippi and the Veterans Affairs Medical Centers.  She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Behavioral Medicine at the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown Medical School. She then began her professional career as an Assistant Professor at the Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, W. Alpert Medical School of Brown University and rose through the ranks to become a Professor (Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, W. Alpert Medical School of Brown University and the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, School of Public Health at Brown University).  She is currently a tenured Professor and Associate Dean for Research, College of Nursing at the University of South Carolina.  Her research interests focus on the development of theoretically-based exercise interventions for adult patient populations, and in promoting healthy behaviors among cancer survivors with a special emphasis on exercise promotion among cancer survivors.  She has published over 100 original articles and book chapters including publications in top tier journals in her field.  As Principal Investigator, she has received grant funding from the National Cancer Institute, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institute on Aging, the American Cancer Society and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.  She has received continuous federal funding for her research since 1996. Dr. Pinto has extensive teaching experience: in addition to classroom teaching and seminars, she has served as supervisor for psychology interns, post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty at the W. Alpert Medical School of Brown University.  She currently mentors students and junior faculty at the College of Nursing, University of South Carolina.  She lectures extensively both nationally and internationally and has received citation awards for her presentations at scientific meetings.  She is a member of the American Psychological Association and a Fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

About Melinda Irwin, PhD, MPH

Melinda Irwin, PhD

Melinda L. Irwin, PhD, MPH, Associate Dean of Research and Professor of Epidemiology in the Yale School of Public Health, Associate Cancer Center Director (Population Sciences) in the Yale Cancer Center, and Deputy Director of Public Health for the NIH CTSA Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI), is a prominent leader in the field of cancer prevention and control research. Dr. Irwin is also co-chair of the national SWOG Cancer Research Network Survivorship Committee. Her NCI- and foundation-funded research has focused on randomized controlled trials of exercise, diet, and weight loss interventions on cancer treatment-related side effects, adherence to treatment, biological markers associated with cancer survival and quality of life in patients with cancer. She has served on numerous national advisory boards focused on lifestyle behavior change in cancer survivors. Dr. Irwin is passionate about mentoring, and is PI of an NCI-funded training program in cancer prevention and control and PI of an energy balance and cancer education program for early career investigators. Her vision is to maximize opportunities for new investigators so they can become leaders in their respective fields and have a maximal impact on the health and well-being of patients and the population.

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register here or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Smith Center Staff

Join Smith Center staff for a social hour of community and connection!

Click the Zoom link to join us:

https://zoom.us/j/95583981339

Tea and Conversation will be held Monthly on the 2nd Friday from 10 – 11am.

Upcoming Dates: 

  • March 12
  • April 9
  • May 14
  • June 11

Click here to learn more about Smith Center staff. 

 

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register here or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Smith Center Staff

Join Smith Center staff for a social hour of community and connection!

Click the Zoom link to join us:

https://zoom.us/j/95583981339

Tea and Conversation will be held Monthly on the 2nd Friday from 10 – 11am.

Upcoming Dates: 

  • February 12
  • March 12
  • April 9
  • May 14
  • June 11

Click here to learn more about Smith Center staff. 

 

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Chef Cathryn Pethick

Our choice of diet is one of the best ways we can care for ourselves. In the science of Ayurveda, our well-being is best supported with a diet of fresh, whole, seasonal foods, that includes all six tastes, with emphasis on those that will help balance us best.

Here in the mid-Atlantic, our Spring season transitions can be cold and windy, then warm and humid, as we move into our growing season. In Ayurvedic terms, our Spring climate season is cool to warm, liquid and soft, and corresponds to the Kapha dosha. We may have a tendency to experience colds, sinus congestion and allergies, a sense of heaviness, all signs of Kapha imbalance.

In this class, the food tastes we will focus on that “pacify,” or nurture and support Kapha best, are pungent, bitter and astringent, such as spring greens, lentils, millet, asparagus, strawberries, pears, warming spices and herbs. We will include a simple dish called kitchari that is a traditional cleansing and nourishing food that can support the Spring seasonal transition. Recipes and additional Ayurveda resources will be provided.

Suggested Donation: $10

About Cathryn Pethick

Cathryn Pethick, AA, AYS, C-IAYT is a certified yoga therapist and teacher, Ayurveda specialist, and professional chef- whole foods cooking and nutrition instructor. She shares those skills with private clients through her own Well-Being, founded in 2012, and is on staff with Maryland University of Integrative Health’s Masters in Nutrition degree program. At Smith Center, Cathryn teaches cooking and nutrition classes, gentle yoga, and contributes to Smith Center’s wonderful  integrative cancer support retreats as chef and yoga therapist. She has decades of experience in diverse culinary settings, practicing/teaching yoga from a therapeutic perspective, meditation, and the study of Ayurveda, diverse spiritual  and philosophical traditions, and Oriental healing/martial arts. Cathryn shares the intention of nourishing well-being for us individually and as a collective with yoga, meditation and food-as-medicine, by cultivating the healing power of balance, optimal nutrition that supports our vitality, and compassionate presence that nurtures us all.

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register here or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Jenn McRobbie

Going through cancer as a young adult is already tough, but do you sometimes feel like your family and friends just don’t understand what you’re dealing with? Are you feeling extra stress in your relationships as a result of your cancer experience? Join us for a presentation and discussion on how to better communicate and manage expectations with friends and family.

About Jenn McRobbie

Jenn McRobbie

Jenn McRobbie is a lifestyle and fitness coach, speaker and author. In 2013, Jenn was serving as a volunteer supporting cancer survivors as they worked to regain their fitness when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 38.  Jenn turned her intensely personal and vulnerable experience into a springboard for sharing a message of resilience and positivity. Her book, published in March 2015, is an Amazon best-selling book entitled, Why is She Acting So Weird? A Guide to Cultivating Closeness When a Friend is in Crisis. It is her treatise on empowering friends to rise and lift each other during crisis. Since the publishing of her book, Jenn has traveled the United States and Canada conducting workshops and speaking about her experiences in order to help survivors find common ground with their friends and family as they maneuver through a diagnosis together. In addition to being an advocate for cancer survivors and their friends and family, Jenn loves fitness. She believes that there is an intrinsic connection between physical wellness and mental wellbeing. Using a combination of fitness techniques, mindfulness, and her own experiences coming back after major surgeries, Jenn encourages people to focus on functional movement and corrective exercise. Her favorite past time is teaching classes at her local Orangetheory Fitness Studio.

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register here or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Dr. Antonio N. Puente

This educational talk will cover the following topics:

  • What is clinical neuropsychology and how can it be useful to you and your family.
  • What is chemo-brain and how can we treat it.

Dr. Puente will present his knowledge for the first 40-minutes and reserve the last 20-minutes for question-and-answer.

About Dr. Antonio N. Puente

Dr. Antonio N. Puente is a clinical neuropsychologist and assistant professor at The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Georgia following the completion of his internship at the Duke University School of Medicine. He then completed his postdoctoral fellowship in clinical neuropsychology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In his current practice, Dr. Puente conducts neuropsychological evaluations of patients with psychiatric and neurological disorders (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, brain tumors, TBI, ADHD) to characterize their cognitive, behavioral, and emotional functioning for diagnosis and treatment optimization. He also provides psychotherapy, and he developed a specialty in treating adult ADHD with cognitive behavioral therapy on internship in the Duke University ADHD Clinic. In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Puente has developed a program of research focused on understanding the neural basis of cognition and refinement of neuropsychological methods for improved accuracy in the prediction of behavior.

This program is being offered virtually through Zoom. In order to participate and receive the Zoom link, you must register here or by emailing carla@smithcenter.org

with Kathleen O’Toole

Starlings by Kathleen O'Toole

This interactive session with its focus on noticing the small details in the winter world around us, may offer comfort and inspiration as the dark days of deepest winter shorten to allow more light, and a turn toward spring. In this 90-minute session Kathleen O’Toole will share both haiku and short lyric or narrative poems that are grounded in attention to the natural world, as it presents itself as winter turns toward spring, and invite participants to join her in some “practices” (and writing prompts) aimed at being attentive to fleeting experiences that we can all capture in short poems.

No previous poetry writing experience required, just an openness to playing with words. Bring an open heart, and any recent (or remembered) experiences with “winter turning toward spring.”

Suggested Donation: $15

About Kathleen O’Toole

Takoma Park Poet Laureate Kathleen O’Toole is the author of 4 books of poetry (find her at https://kathleenotoolepoetry.com). She has taught writing at Johns Hopkins University and the Maryland Institute College of Art. As evident in her longer work, she often seeks inspiration and consolation in nature. For more than thirty years she has been writing haiku as a spiritual practice of attention, and to deepen her experience of the natural world.