Richmond Women speaking the unspoken outloud
Loving Yourself Participants' Bios
Susan Kohler
Susan Kohler is a licensed professional counselor in private practice who provides individual therapy for adolescents and adults. She specializes in treating eating disorders, body image disturbances, depression and anxiety. In addition to providing traditional psychotherapy, she uses creative modalities including art, games, storytelling, therapeutic activities, and sandtray to help clients heal and grow.
When she is not working, she enjoys competing in triathlons, playing with her dogs, and traveling with her husband. She can be reached through www.richmond-counseling.com.
Marian K. Agnew
Spirituality and energy medicine became increasingly important interests in Marian's life after having been a military wife for 50 years and raised five children. Aware that quality of life was fast disappearing in the Washington Metropolitan area, she become involved in saving parkland, creating recreation areas and preserving historic sites. In 1972, she acquired the right-of-way along the Potomac River from the U.S Park Service for the George Washington Memorial Parkway Bike Trail that enabled citizen activists to build the most popular recreational facility in the country. Five parks were added to protect the Potomac shoreline. She lobbied for both the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts. Pursuing her interest in the environmental movement, particularly water quality and other public health issues, she obtained a law degree from Catholic University in 1979, 25 years after graduating from Smith College as an art major. Over the next 20 years her interests diversified to include energy medicine. After Studying with Carolyn Myss, she eventually became a member of her conference staff. Originally trained as an artist, Marian has used those skills to renovate an historic apartment building in Richmond; and now plans to enjoy her retirement here. She is delighted to find other women in the arts interested in the same spiritual and creative issues.
Jodi Urban
Jodi Urban, one of the producers of Loving Yourself, is a Certified Massage Therapist and Energy Medicine practitioner. She is a Bhakti yoga (the path of love and devotion) student and incorporates this practice into her work with her clients. The basic principle of Jodi's work is "to help us find ways to love, honor and nurture ourselves on a regular basis, not just when we're hurting. It's a shift in consciousness in the way we take care of ourselves, each other and the planet itself."
Colleen Phelon Hall
Colleen strives to separate the idea of motherhood from martyrdom. She started researching, writing and exploring ideas that could help women overcome the false idea of perfection, competition and the mistaken idea that doing anything for oneself was selfish. She has juggled a career as a professional artist, entrepreneur, wife and mother. Despite a successful career creating artwork for celebrity clients such as Mark Wahlberg, Beyonce and Jay-Z, Colleen felt like she let herself fall off her own "to do" list. She came up with the idea of the “permission slip” where women take time to take care of themselves in order to be happier and better able to care for the ones they love. She hopes to spread this message and empower other women to write a “permission slip” of their own. Colleen received a B.S. degree in Business Administration and a B.A. in Studio Art from the University of Richmond.
Colleen can be contacted at her website: www.colleenhall.com and email Contact@colleenhall.com
Annielille
Gavino-Kollman
Artistic Director and Founder, Annielille Gavino-Kollman is a native born Filipino trained in the Royal Academy of Dance for ballet and at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center for modern dance. In New York, Annie assisted Milton Myers, a master teacher in the Horton technique. Professionally, Annie danced for Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble and Dallas Black Dance Theater performing works by Talley Beatty, Katherine Dunham, Alonzo King, Elisa Monte, Donald Mc Kayle, Kevin Wynn, Alvin Ailey, Ron Brown, Nejla Yatkin, Nathan Trice, Christopher Huggins and many others.
As a teacher and choreographer, Annie teaches Horton Based classes at Dogtown Dance Theater. She guest teaches and choreographs for the Appomatox Governor's School for the Arts. She also choreographs for the Richmond Pilipino Class where she gets to share her knowledge on Philippine folk dance to the young Filipino-American community.
