Get To Know Us

Our Approach

We work from a somatic, arts-based, ecotherapy lens and honor each person as the expert of their own healing journey.

We honor the intersection between the health of nature, ourselves, and community. And believe that when we do the work to heal our traumas, wounds, and scars we are not just healing ourselves but we are doing the work to also heal our ancestors and those to come.

We are not here to fix you, but rather to see, hear, and honor you. You have everything you need within you and it is our role to simply walk (or paddle) alongside you and support you to deepen your relationship with self, others and the world around you so you can be your fullest and wildest expression of self

We hold the duality. The ocean holds every type of wave. Waves that welcome play and liberation, waves that bring fear and pain. We are like the ocean and can hold both praise and grief, pleasure and pain, hope and fear all at the same time. Our goal is to support you in reclaiming your stoke and joy amongst the waves of pain, grief, depression, and hurt. Our hope is that you grow your capacity to experience and express it all.

The Research

We are grateful for community-centered research that has brought to light the importance of Blue Mind Science and Surf Therapy as modality for access and healing in the Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice. Their work inspired us to continue bridging the worlds of academia, science, spirit and nature.

Research on the Groundswell Surf Therapy ™ model:

Our Soil & Lineage

We are here today because of those that have tended to the care and healing of the earth and community throughout time and place. Their commitment to resilience & resistance, to speaking their voice and heart, to living out both their love and grief, to letting their intuition and inner wisdom be their guide, to both their hard tireless work and their wild joy…they have created the nourishing soil we now have the gift to grow from. Below are just some of our ancestors that have breathed this work into life and to whom we are forever grateful:

Mother Ocean

She is our greatest and most constant teacher. Her depths are boundless. A constant mirror reflecting, humbling, empowering, and guiding us to deeper understandings of self, others, and the world around us. Surfing, sailing, swimming, diving, listening to and watching Mother Ocean are simply modalities that allow us to deepen our relationship with her.

“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.” (Kimmerer from Braiding Sweetgrass).

We are forever grateful for the gift of this constantly transforming, sacred bond of a relationship we get enjoy with our dear Mother Ocean.

Groundswell Community Project

Groundswell Community Project was launched in 2013 as a community and sea inspired mental health program that formed as an official non-profit in 2016 and since has served over 4000 women and their families around the world  through their unique trauma informed Surf Therapy model. Groundswell Surfsisters run branches for their local communities in Scotland, Peru, and Cuba plus partner orgs around the globe continue to utilize the Groundswell model as their template for community development and healing.  Read the full journey of Groundswell’s birth.

Groundswell Institute was birthed into this new time and place after a year of the non-profit board, staff, volunteers, and participants taking time to pause, listen, learn and lean into what is most needed for the health of our communities and earth. Looking for sustainable models to support increased access to mental health services Groundswell Institute was born. We have the deepest depths of gratitude to all the surfsisters, volunteers, staff, facilitators, board, and community that navigated the waves of change and transformation over the years as we continue to look to nature as our guide towards sustainable joy filled healing. 

Groundswell Community Project continues it’s mission to provide access to safer and braver spaces for women and their families to reclaim their healing, power, and belonging through the practice of surf therapy together. You can support their efforts to raise funds that provide scholarships to trauma informed surf therapy clinics and workshops for women, BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities around the world.

Women Foremothers In The Field

  • Graciela Bottini PSY: Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she served as the President of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association for Latin America

  • Ruth Yeo-Peterman M.A, LMHC: Born in singapore, raised in South Africa, and currently residing in the Washington state, she co-authored the First Aid Arts curriculum and is the Resilience Program Trainer at Center for Victims of Torture.

  • Shannon Thompson: Born in San Diego, found home in the islands of Hawaii, and spent the last years of her life in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. She founded Shakti Rising; a social change organization transforming the lives of women, girls, and the larger community through cultivating emerging leadership and empowering personal transformation as a catalyst for positive change in their families and communities. Her work actively promotes community well-being by creating woman and child friendly societies that are safe, healthy, vibrant, diverse, sustainable, and culturally alive. Their mission is to empower women to uncover, rediscover, and reclaim their whole selves.

Books We Love ♡

The below books and authors that have greatly imprinted and impacted the work we do and how we show up as both therapists and humans in the waves of life together.

  • Robin Wall Kimmerer: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

  • Wallace J Nichols: Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being near, in, on, or under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do

  • Easkey Britton:

    • Ebb and Flow: How to Connect with the Patterns and Power of Water

    • Saltwater in the Blood: Surfing, Natural Cycles and the Sea's Power to Heal

  • Martin Prechtel: The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief & Praise

  • Resmaa Menakem: My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

In The News