We were lucky to catch up with Flea (Felicia) Tripp recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Flea (Felicia), really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
In listening to my body and spirit, I found my purpose. As a child, I was the friend who was the primary listener for others while finding my own joy through dancing and walking in the woods. I continued to play this witnessing role for friends and strangers alike as I grew. I replenished my capacity via dancing for myself and solo hikes. My parents influenced my purpose as well. My father, a physician who highly valued community service and faced racism in the workplace, taught me to be of service to others and to recognize inequities in society. My mother, a lawyer who worked to improve the criminal justice system and faced sexism at work, inspired me to challenge societal norms and to be an advocate. My mother also asked me to find my own ways to be of service, advocate, and activate. Fueled by their foundation, I listened to my body which gradually revealed that I could understand others through reading my own bodily senses and subtle energetic messages. I began to take deep listening seriously and pursued a career as a college and career counselor. In the process of losing both parents to illness and navigating my own cancer journey, I heeded messages from my body and spirit which guided me to center movement and nature in my own healing. This was also my proactive response to a fractured healthcare system that could not care for me as a whole person: a biracial, bisexual woman who deserves and values emotional, spiritual, and physical health care. As a result, I sought training as a somatic and nature based life coach.
The more I offered presence to myself and to others through coaching, the clearer my purpose became. My purpose is to offer deep listening, movement, and presence to others so that they can be of service, advocate, and activate communities for social change.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a lover, dancer, and entrepreneur that aims to bring healing justice into the world. To deliver on this vision, I created Trippin’ with Reflection, a life and career coaching and consulting business. In coaching individuals, I draw on deep listening to ensure that college students and helping professionals feel seen, heard, and develop a sense of belonging. As someone who cares deeply about healing and environmental justice, I facilitate workshops where we draw upon nature’s lessons to navigate change, loss, and grief. Grief work in this moment is necessary to address our nation’s epidemic of loneliness and social/political division, to help us recognize how we all share feelings of love and eventually, loss.
Ultimately, I am a dancer because movement and somatics (i.e using the body’s sensations and wisdom as a guide in choices) serve as the primary way I bring about change in myself and others. During a session, I invite a client to tune into their body and spirit via breathwork. Then I ask them to follow the sensations in their body to lead their movement. As they move from these internal messages, they discover what is essential in their choices from their body’s wisdom which follows the earth’s cycles. Tapping into body wisdom is important now because we need a greater set of skills and knowledge that aligns with nature’s movement and lessons. This alignment empowers us to make individual and community change that prioritizes interdependence and belonging given the critical junctures we are at with climate change and social upheaval.
More information about me and my services can be found at feliciatripp.com
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The 3 qualities that have been most impactful for me on my journey are: being my full authentic self in old and new spaces to enhance my own and others’ healing, being curious about nature’s lessons, and being compassionate especially when taking risks.
For folks who are early on their journey in developing these qualities, I recommend…
Try small ways to step in your vulnerability in different settings. In a familiar setting, share something about yourself that you haven’t shared before. For example, while attending my regular bootcamp class, I shared with a fellow exerciser that I recently auditioned for a dance/theater company, revealing that I am also a performer/artist.
When you are making a choice, consider how nature would make the decision. Recently, when deciding to create a new workshop, I was unsure about investing the time and effort to offer the event. Then, I paused and thought about how when nature plants a new seed, they put it in the earth, nourish it with rain and sunlight and watches to see what happens (whether it is successful or not). With this nature reflection, I designed the workshop, nurtured it with creativity, enjoyed the development process and waited to see how participants responded. Nature’s guidance helped me to dive into my workshop fully and to let go of my attachment to the outcome.
Take a risk, big, medium or small, and then be compassionate with yourself. I created and offered a new workshop, and then felt bad that I only had a small number of participants. I called upon compassion to help me make space for my wide ranging feelings. My feelings varied from a desire to be recognized for the effort I put it to marketing and creating the workshop, my excitement for participants’ positive responses to my disappointment over low attendance. Giving myself grace, I could discern each of these different feelings versus letting my disappointment be the loudest voice, drowning everything else out. As a result, I accepted that I was proud of myself for trying something new and learned that I needed to try different marketing strategies going forward.
To sum it all up, give yourself permission to be fully you, seek nature’s guidance, and be gentle as you hold yourself accountable.
Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?
Karen Roeper is my mentor and helps me develop the qualities I need to overcome challenges and be successful as a somatic life coach and grief worker. She is the founder of Essential Motion, a transformational practice of embodied awareness. As I studied to become an Essential Motion Senior Leader, I learned the qualities of being open to the connection between my body, breath, heart, and mind; as well as, the skill of pausing to connect to presence. Two of the largest challenges I have faced include the passing of my mother and the loss of my uterus to cancer. During these challenges, Karen coached me to listen to these connections in my body, where I recognized how my body wanted to grieve. I needed to move my body and breathe deeply to allow my feelings’ energy to find a home in my body instead of feeling stuck. Whenever I felt overwhelmed by my grief, I remembered to pause, breathe, and reconnect with my body, just as Karen had taught me. I brought myself into presence where I could identify what I was thinking and feeling in the present moment and move through the overwhelm. Gradually, drawing on both of these qualities, I developed movement affirmations, grief rituals and skills in honing presence, that I regularly use in my offerings of somatic life coaching and grief workshops.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.feliciatripp.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feliciatripp20/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086673768020
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/feliciatripp/
Image Credits
Headshots provided by Patanisha Alia Williams; other photos taken via cellphone
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
