Practitioner Atieno Bird

All my life I’ve sought effective ways we can free ourselves from unnecessary suffering and self-limiting behavior, individually and collectively. While suffering is often our greatest teacher, my heart’s purpose is to help all of us together transform it into learning and liberation, even joy.

After I finished my MA in Conflict Transformation, I was certified in an extraordinary tradition founded by Moreno, a European MD in the 40s who did not look at patients as victims of mental illness, but as powerfully creative beings who can experiment their way through limitations using innate, divine creativity. He believed in the expansiveness of the human spirit, the power of practicing desired roles and ways of being, and in our capacity to tap into the energy of possibility and of true community. Certification in this methodology (Psychodrama) requires coursework across five subject areas foundational to therapy and 800+ hours of training and supervision.

I next certified in an emerging field – coaching – that holds a similar story about who we are as human beings and how we can draw on the higher Self to surpass limits. I studied and practiced through the Coaches Training Institute and obtained the International Coaching Federation’s (ICF) advanced mastery credential (PCC.)

A coach sees you as a leader in your life. You are the one who creates it, building on what is already working. A coach allies with you to break down limits, using the enzymes of powerful questions and full confidence in your strengths, process and emotions and in the good that wants to unfold for you and your people.

I spent the next twenty years in my own private practice; coaching, facilitating, and training in corporate, clinical, law enforcement, nonprofit, multilateral and government settings with over 1,000 professionals. I’ve coached executives in law firms, government agencies, public utilities and media companies and led retreats and team coaching for the World Bank, NASA, FEMA, GSA, the SBA, Accenture, Adventist Health, police departments, public service agencies, hospitals, schools and nonprofits. I facilitated Psychodrama groups daily for several years in a treatment program for homeless adults in DC. I serve women held in prisons through a nonprofit called On the Inside, which uses the arts to create community and healing. And I regularly offer group facilitation and women’s retreats.

For every client, I was supporting their intrinsic power to transform their experience of life through deeper connection, wisdom, and self-acceptance. And, knowing its magic, I added group process to the individual support whenever I could.

When the pandemic changed the world, I began to research every cutting edge approach I could find, hoping to recharge my practice and supercharge my clients’ results. I explored numerous somatic approaches and trainings, but it wasn’t until I experienced “MAP” that I knew I’d found something that could deliver deep and lasting results.

MAP, which I’ve combined with my existing skills, is itself a combination of profoundly effective techniques that speak directly to the subconscious mind. I am eager to see how many people, groups, and communities can be touched by its vital power for transformation over the course of the rest of my working life.

I was based in NE Washington DC for many years. I now live in an old farmhouse in a quiet hamlet in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia near Charlottesville with my husband, two children, and our majestically fierce yet elegant and adorable mini schnoodle, Ivan.

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