Wounded Healers:
A Healing-Centered Education
Portrait Series & Podcast

Photography by Paper Monday

Wounded Healers:
A Healing-Centered Education
Portrait Series

Photography by Paper Monday

Wounded Healers: A Healing-Centered Education Portrait Series & Podcast


This portrait series captures the profiles of nine educators, community leaders and practitioners, all of whom have dedicated their lives to — in some shape or form — creating spaces for others to thrive, flourish and heal. We call them the Wounded Healers.

The concept “wounded healer” finds its roots in both Carl Jung's work and in Greek mythology. For Jung, the wounded healer represented the sensitivity and understanding of one’s own wounds and how this informs helping others heal. As Wounded Healers, they use their deep understanding of trauma to create conditions for collective flourishing and know the importance of engaging in their own personal healing work to authentically be of service to others. They embrace the challenge of often working and teaching in systems that perpetuate violence and inequality, yet they are resolute in moving through the challenges to bring about a better world. The subjects of this series have dedicated their lives to helping others find wholeness, joy, and hope even as they navigate violent circumstances. They are warriors of a different kind — reflective, undaunted, and tender. Read on to learn about their lives and work.

Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz

Justis Lopez

Wounded Healers: A Healing-Centered Education Portrait Series & Podcast

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6:47 mins

Maria Tan

Maria Tan is a first generation Filipino-American, educator and consultant who works with organizations, schools and individuals committed to serving communities through healing-centered education. She is a former Bronx high school science teacher where she helped lead a school-wide shift towards equitable practices including introducing restorative circles as an adult and student practice, facilitating racial affinity groups amongst staff, and teaching trauma-informed mindfulness daily to hundreds of students and adults.

Maria’s direct experience of healing from teacher burnout inspired her to launch the Thriving Teacher Project in 2020 which created healing and restorative spaces for educators during the height of the pandemic. Through this work, she focused on mindfulness, social-emotional learning, and collective healing as tools to empower educators to show up authentically for themselves and their students.Maria is the founder and director of the House of Thriving where she works with healing-centered thought leaders and organizations to help nurture their vision and bring their ideas to life. Her experience includes designing and facilitating courses and summits, producing and hosting podcasts, creative and strategic visioning, and curriculum/program research, analysis and evaluation. As a passion project, she collaborates with her two older brothers to create workshops and guided meditations centered on intergenerational healing.

Wounded Healers:
A Healing-Centered Education
Portrait Series

Photography by Paper Monday

Maria Tan

Wounded Healers: A Healing-Centered Education Portrait Series & Podcast

Click To Play Audio

6:31 mins

Cory Greene

Cory Greene is a formerly incarcerated co-founder and Healing Justice Organizer with How Our Lives link Altogether! (H.O.L.L.A!). He is invested in developing, leading and implementing an intergenerational, youth-led, citywide and nationwide Healing Justice Movement. Cory (39 years old) was born and raised by a single mother in East Elmhurst Queens, NY, during a time when many mothers and urban communities were impacted by the crack epidemic. His ancestors and elders hail from the struggles of delta Mississippi, and the historical reality of being Black in “America.” Cory’s experiences as a youth growing up in urban ghettos have contributed to his understanding of systemic inequalities. As a result, Cory has committed himself to a wide range of educational projects, healing, and grassroots movement building that seek to change existing conditions for youth of color and our communities.

Cory earned his Associate degree in Liberal Arts Deaf Studies from LaGuardia Community College and his Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Psychology from New York University. He earned his doctoral degree from the Critical Social Personality Psychology program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) where his research efforts analyze the praxis of grassroots pedagogy and healing-centered youth organizing within a process of radical healing. Cory serves as a research associate and leader on numerous participatory action research (PAR) projects. Cory is an organizer with the Formerly Incarcerated Convicted People and Family Movement (FICPFM), a national movement led by formerly incarcerated leaders to change the public policy landscape of criminal justice (punishment). He is also a national organizer with the Education Liberation Project, engaging in a national project to uplift Prison Abolition through an educational toolkit. He is a 2013 National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, 2013 Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellow, 2016 Echoing Green Fellow and 2017 Camelback fellow. Cory's organizing work, humanity and analysis has been featured in critical documentaries such as Ava Duvernay’s 13th, From Prison to NYU, and most recently, H.O.L.L.A!’s Healing Justice Movement Documentary “We Came to Heal.” Cory has been married since he was 21 years old, a total of 18 years. He attributes knowing how to love and understanding of the importance of interpersonal journeying to his wife. Cory is a father who attributes his work, motivation and success to his son’s existence.

Wounded Healers:
A Healing-Centered Education
Portrait Series

Photography by Paper Monday

Cory Greene

Dolores Acosta

Ian P. Levy

Love recognizes no barriers.
It jumps hurdles, leaps fences,
penetrates walls
to arrive at its destination full of hope.
-Maya Angelou

Luis Alejandro Tapia

Wounded Healers: A Healing-Centered Education Portrait Series & Podcast

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5:56 mins

Angela Kariotis

Angela Kariotis is an “artist as public servant.” She is a community-engaged culture worker and educator building creative experiences serving the needs of cities, institutions, and students of all ages for public good. Kariotis integrates restorative practices with the pedagogy of play for a transformative learning experience. Angela is winner of a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship in playwriting, a National Performance Network Creation Fund Award for her solo performance work, and a Tennessee Williams Theater Fellowship. As a performance artist, she’s been presented by venues such as UCLA, University of Texas at Austin, People’s Light, Legion Arts in Iowa, and Contact Theater in Manchester, UK. Kariotis is Curriculum Director and Facilitator of Walking the Beat, a national arts education program interrogating the history of police, the way we police each other, and ideating alternative cultures of care.

The project centers violence as a public health crisis, not a criminal justice issue, and the program is being supported by a grant from the NJ Attorney General's Office as a Community Based Violence Intervention Program. They are creating virtual reality modules, theater and performance, and a community-based oral history project. Concurrently, she is proud to work at Brookdale Community College as their first Director of Diversity & Inclusion working to integrate a healing-centered education framework in higher ed.

Wounded Healers:
A Healing-Centered Education
Portrait Series

Photography by Paper Monday

Angela Kariotis

Jen Gowers

Wounded Healers:
A Healing-Centered Education
Portrait Series

Photography by Paper Monday