EVOLVE: A Restorative Career Workshop For Health And Wellness Professionals
![](https://quidwell.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/GaliaCollaborative_1_0419.jpg)
Meriden McGraw is the co-founder of Quidwell where she works…
Ashley is a licensed clinical psychologist who provides both individual psychotherapy, coaching, and group workshops.
Before I met with Ashley Solomon, I read her “My Story” page on her website. I should have filmed it because my little brunette head was nodding quicker than my husband’s ugly Ohio State bobblehead. Female empowerment. System-level change. Personal ownership over that change. Freeing women from the negative cycle of body shaming and disordered eating. Helping teenage girls build resiliency. The importance of connection. And the belief statement, “life is too short for fat-free ice cream.” Yes, yes, yes, yes. All of the bobblehead nodding.
So, I wasn’t surprised when our meeting turned into a two-hour conversation that could have lasted much, much longer. Ashley is about pretty much everything I’m about, and she’s killing it. She’s changing the world in SO many ways. Ashley is a licensed clinical psychologist who provides both individual psychotherapy, coaching, and group workshops. She founded the Ohio branch of a national organization called the Eating Recovery Center here in Cincinnati, and she oversaw national clinical operations of ERC outside of Ohio. In the private practice which she runs today, Galia Collaborative, she still helps female identified individuals with disordered eating or eating disorders, and she also uses her vast knowledge of the corporate setting to help coach women to success. We’ve all got barriers, roadblocks, fears that hold us back. Ashley helps her clients identify those barriers and break them down. On top of this Ashley also councils individuals with anxiety, depression, and/or fertility concerns.
I know a lot about therapy from both a personal and professional perspective. For that reason, a lot of individuals in my life come to me and ask for referrals when they need to see someone. After meeting Ashley, she’s moved to the top of my referral list. She just gets it. She’s warm, welcoming, non-judgmental, and she understands so many things from both a scientific perspective and from lived experience. And, her office is super stylish.
During our conversation, Ashley and I talked a lot about how important it is as someone in the health and wellness industry to take care of yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually. It sounds trite, but it’s only constantly repeated because it’s true—if you don’t care of yourself you can’t take care of anyone else. I agree 100% and I’m always looking for ways to enhance my own wellbeing. For that reason, I’m bummed that I’m going to be out of town for Ashley’s next workshop.
The workshop is titled EVOLVE: A Restorative Career Workshop for Health and Wellness Professionals. In Ashley’s words, “Professionals in helping fields are in a unique position of using ourselves as our most vital tool. But, too often we expend so much of our energy in service to others that we fail to step back and examine where our resources and career are going. The result is burnout, misalignment, and our impact staying smaller than it should.”
The full-day workshop is designed to help individuals in the helping and healing professions align or realign with what they really want personally and professionally.
As Ashley says, this workshop is ideal for professionals who:
- Have excelled in the past, but now feel stalled
- Have big visions of what the future can hold, but unsure how to manifest them
- Feel unclear on what the next step looks like
- Know you can have a bigger impact but are stuck in getting there
- Are burnt out, uncertain, or spinning your wheels
- Need an opportunity for reconnection and nourishment with folks who get it
The workshop is on May 10th, and I highly recommend it. I also recommend checking out Ashley’s other offerings at her website here. We’re going to tap into Ashley’s expertise to focus on a few other mental health topics in the future so stay tuned!
Meriden McGraw is the co-founder of Quidwell where she works to optimize the health of women. Outside of Quidwell, Meriden combines her master’s level education in mental and public health with her training in mind-body modalities to teach individuals and groups techniques for optimal wellbeing. Meriden holds various certifications in pranayama (breath techniques), positive psychology, mindfulness, and yoga. On an average day, Meriden can be found practicing yoga, drinking kombucha, dragging her husband to strength training workouts, and taking her pup for a walk.