Sylvia Poareo is a gentle Curandera/Consejera (healer/spiritual counselor) whose work is rooted in guiding and supporting each individual in their own liberation within collective healing. Informed by the Chicano experience and growing up as an orphan in SoCal, her life was an initiation into deep trust in and reliance on Spirit/Creator.
Connecting deeply into the heart, to the cosmos and nature as a pathway to healing, she recognizes the profound wisdom, resilience and fortitude we carry in our bones. She supports ancestral remembrance and remembering parts of ourselves, our innate humanity and cultures of origin as a path to truth, healing and wholeness.
Her greatest wisdom is drawn from her experience as an orphan and a mother learning to reparent, repair, reclaim and liberate herself to give and sustain life for her children with less trauma than was passed down to her.
She supports this self-reclamation held within ancestral, natural and spiritual connection. She weaves neuroscience, somatic practices with ancient wisdom, spiritual mothering and soul retrieval to address life challenges.
Her approach is informed by her journeys with original instructions/ancestral teachings, Curanderismo healing arts (Mexican traditional medicine), nature connection, land tending, ethnobotany, herbalism, seed saving, social work, activism and somatic exercises. Sylvia is well known for her gentle, compassionate, yet clear and effective way of bringing many elements together to support our integration.
She helps mothers break cycles through conscious mothering circles, and spiritual retreats. She has walked many through the ups and downs of parenthood, relationships, healing trauma, lifting off cultural constructs, and always seeking to preserve our children's innate essence.
To remember our interdependence, mutuality and reciprocity, much of this work is held in community.
The spiritual community she supports is deeply rooted in equity and liberation from systems of harm. We support inclusion, accountability and spiritual work without spiritual bypassing. We embrace inner work for individual and collective liberation knowing as we reclaim profound Love within, we are meant to share it. Our support in local community reflects this.
Sylvia has a deep understanding of generational trauma, mental illness, navigating the system (family incarceration, foster care), and how systemic and racial injustice creates environments of inequity in our communities. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work, a Master’s Degree in Social Welfare at UCLA, and is a certified Transpersonal Counselor with the Association for the Integration of the Whole Person. She is also a Certified Facilitator of TRE (Tension and Trauma Release Exercises).
Above all, she counts her lived experiences and wisdom from elders as her greatest teachers. She is immensely grateful to her brave yet wounded mother, her resilient sisters, many Mexican mamas, her sisters in motherhood and mentors Anita Archer, Margaret Paul, Sharon Pearson, Melinda Rodriguez, Sally Alonzo Bell, Curandera Maestra Estela Roman, Dona Angelina, among many.
And as always, her hope is simply to save and plant seeds, actual and metaphorical, for the regeneration of all.
About Sylvia's Fire Relief Work
Watch the video below to hear directly from Sylvia about her work with victims of the September 2020 Almeda Fire in southern Oregon. [If the embedded video does not play, view it on Vimeo here.]
Not sure what type of assistance I need but I struggle immensely with my oldest child.
Thank you so much for reaching out. Sylvia has many ways in which she can help, from individual sessions to workshops and retreats. Reach out to her via the Contact page, or email her at sylvia@connectingwithin.com to discuss your options.