Helping humans heal
If you believe personal healing is collective liberation work, perhaps our paths were meant to cross
Meet Solasta McIntyre - the soul behind Full & Plenty Joy
I am a Somatic Psychotherapist, Spiritual Guide and Creative Artist who has come to this work by way of my own underworld journey into healing the Self as service to the collective.
Rewind to my early 20’s on my last day of IOP treatment for an eating disorder - With the stone “serenity” in my hand, blessed by my newly beloved recovery comrades, I shared my intention was not to be happy.
Instead, it was to feel it all.
Though my body is regularly an overwhelming place to be for my psyche, I have come to value the authentic information it provides me from sensations and feelings. I now accept them as one of my greatest assets - in building intimate relationships, in creating inspiring art, and in fully understanding my needs, desires and dreams. True self respect.
Though feeling can be painful, it can often be joyous. Pleasurable even. Feeling moves, and movement is life.
It is this commitment to keep living a full life that keeps me feeling. This ability to feel keeps me growing. This ability to grow helps me evolve as a member of this interconnected world that desperately needs us to feel again.
I used to hate my body. I used to compare it to others, both to tear myself down and to feel superior to others. I used to hate stretching because I wasn’t as flexible (or as thin) as the other dancers. I used to hate the fat that kept growing in my chest, making people perceive me, my body, my gender, and my sexuality in a way I didn’t want.
I used to try to fit in and “be normal”, be well-liked, and be “popular,” despite the toll it took on my mental health, spirit and relationships.
This impulse to assimilate is an inherited survival trauma response from my gaelic ancestors who traded in their poor immigrant card for the Whiteness club after fleeing to turtle island. This unintended harmful lineage is one of many I seek to break.
I used to hide my magic…
my spirituality, my desires, my flamboyant colors, and loud emotional expressions of joy and despair and fast excited talking and impulses to dance freely down the sidewalk. I used to try to be a “cool girl” and win the hearts of boys who had no respect for me and I, only a conditioned fixation on. I used to try to “not be white” because I was so ashamed of my ancestors and privilege.
I used to be frozen in fear of messing up in the relentless white liberalism pursuit of being a “good white person.” I used to be afraid of failing. Of letting people down. Of letting people go. Of taking a break and going inside. Of missing out. I used to feel ashamed of my fluidity and of my connection to the Otherworld.
I used to think I was too sensitive, yet too much, yet not enough all at once. I used to think a lot of terrible thoughts, mostly about myself.
What helped them all fall away?
(As much as is possible in a world so fragmented and toxic.)
01
Choosing Recovery
02
Getting Embodied
03
Becoming Radical
04
Orienting to Pleasure
05
Allowing Creativity
06
Re-membering Magic
The seventh thread throughout all of it was being in community and solidarity
making meaningful art with people I felt safe enough to be fully expressed around. Together, brave enough to share our authentic stories with the world in hopes of building a better one. Of course, these steps were non-linear, more like spirals - part of an ever unfolding returning to source and truth through the 5 C’s - courage, curiosity, consciousness, compassion and commitment.
I am the embodiment of my ancestors
These are my lineages
I am a Bruadrach - Dreamer and Visionary in Scots-Gaelic. My people come from what’s known as the Celtic Isles, and like them, I am deeply tied to where the land meets the sea in the Northeast of Turtle Island.
I am AuDHD, Queer, and Nonbinary - the Sacred Trinity, a human who speaks astrology, channels ancestors and creates art from personal stories. I’m Pisces Sun with full and plenty Saturn-ruled placements constellating my strong Wounded Healer energy. I believe in the journey of the Self serving the Collective.
I am a politicized healer working within the mental healthcare system as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a Master’s in Somatic Psychology from CIIS.
I specialize in providing queer, gender and neurodivergent affirming care with a foundation in eating disorder informed somatics, embodied CBT and a fusion of humanistic, relational and transpersonal psychology.
I am a spiritual worker, body worker and cultural worker who adores supporting folks doing the same. I am interested in re-membering my mixed European, American-Gaelic lineages in order to repair ancestral harm and reroot into my peoples long lost magic.
I have come to this therapeutic work through my own healing journey from complex historical trauma including internalized white supremacy manifesting as disordered eating, fatphobia, and perfectionism.
I am a McIntyre, meaning craftsperson, helping folks build a sturdy vessel to sail the infinite seas of the unconscious and ancestral memory from my eclectic ever-evolving witch’s bag of mystical, intellectual and practical tools.
I am a descendant of the Dalriadan Highlanders, people in deep imaginative connection to the land, a collectivism and oral tradition culture, and a legacy of resistance to protect the sacred - the magic.
I am a child of immigrants and colonizers. Of people who lost their lands and stole others. Of people who assimilated into Whiteness at great cost to self and others.
I am a child of intergenerational divorce. Of queer love and trancestors. Of dolphins and whales. Of writers and publishers. Of entrepreneurs and community leaders. Of land protectors and labor activists. Of kitchen witches and flower whisperers. Of priests and spiritualists. Of poets, singers, musicians, performers, directors, and dancers. Of magicians, swimmers and survivors.
Of people married to the coast. Of well ancestors asking me to remember and earth spirits calling me to rematriate the land.
Like you, I have thousands of ancestors. I am all of them - light and shadow.
I am infinite, and so are you.
Let me help you remember
