Meet Natalie Conneely

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Natalie Conneely. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Natalie below.

Hi Natalie, you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?

My generosity comes from a lifetime of witnessing my parents give back to heir communities. My father worked with Save the Children as an Emergency Relief Director and my mother worked for the Peace Corps in Bolivia for more than 35 years. My whole life I’ve known service to be a fundamental part of life. Volunteering at an early age while in 3rd grade, all the way through present where I work for four different nonprofits offering my time and energy to help their community based work.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I founded Pachamama Sabia in 2019 to help address the devastating wildfires in my native home of Bolivia. The mission of Pachamama Sabia ( which means wise mother earth) is to amplify indigeneous stories for conservation.

Since then Pachamama Sabia has partnered with the National Geographic Documentary Tigre Gente that focuses on the illegal jaguar trade from Bolivia to lead workshops on conservation and citizen journalism with indigenous communities affected by the fires. We have visited more than 15 indigenous communities screening the film on solar powered pop up screens and leading workshops to empower the communities to take action and report against any illegal trafficking activities.

Pachamama Sabia is also producing a feature Documentary about the current re-wilding efforts in the jungle lands of Bolivia and hopes to lead the impact campaign to preserve and conserve the land and help protect the wildlife.

I also lead the development efforts for the production company Optimist based in Los Angeles, the company’s mission is to create documentaries that nurture optimism and inspire action. We have more than 15 documentaries that have been seen more than 35 million times in over 180 countries and our films have helped to raise more than $112 million for nonprofits around the world.

I balance it all through my energy healing work with AVNI Healing which I launched in 2014 as a Chakra Yoga Teacher and Student of the Siberian Shamanic traditions. Through my guidance I help people reconnect with their spirits and recharge with the healing power of the elements and ancient wisdom traditions. I’ve been teaching yoga every week to a community of blind Latinos from the central valley with the nonprofit Eyeshine (started by my father who is in his 80’s) since 2020 and launched the AVNI Healing App during COVID in October of 2021 for people around the world to access a 7-chakra energetic alignment and rituals and ceremonies for healing and reconnection.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Looking back I think the three qualities that were most impactful on my journey were the following:

Belief in myself and my intuition- always remembering that my inner guidance is there for a reason and when I fail to remember to listen I usually end up taking the longer, harder road. When i listen and act on my intuition I am always led to the right path.

Persistence and perfect alignment- trusting that if I persist through my goals and persist through any challenges that I might encounter that all is in perfect alignment. It’s hard to remember this when things are tough or you find a pivot in the work, but I believe that everything happens for a reason and find that my trust in the timing of it all has helped me move forward when times are hard.

Learning never stops- I remember at an early age, enjoying the thought of being a life-long learner, a student of life. I believe this hunger to continue learning and expanding my abilities has kept me inquisitive and excited to discover what I don’t yet know.

The advice I would offer folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these is to follow your own path, Don’t try to do what other have done, even if you think you can do it better. Do what is uniquely yours to offer the world- be who you are fully, and show the world those one-of-a-kind qualities that make you the perfect person to offer the world what you offer. Don’t be afraid of rejection or being liked- in the end we are all on the same boat just walking each other home.

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

The most impactful thing my parents did for me was allow me to be me. They encouraged my curiosity and were an example of how to give back even when we didn’t have much to give. I learned at an early age to be an adult and to care for others when they were down. My parents allowed me to work and dream in all of the ways I chose to and encouraged me to try out new things that would lead to my development. My father once told me, “Pick a few ways to help fight injustice. Be an example to everyone by what you do and not what you say.”

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