About
Zelda Fey
Hi! I’m Zelda Fey.
My pronouns are They/Them/Theirs & She/Her/Hers.
I’m a lived-experience therapist & coach who supports fellow, neuroqueer folks in healing from trauma, befriending their nervous system, and dreaming beyond shame.
I love witnessing the alchemical transformation of the healing & growth process and seeing my clients blossom as their natural gifts strengthen and radiate out into their lives.
The most rewarding thing about being a therapist is getting to build a creative, loving, and collaborative relationship with my clients.
Healing work can be hard, but it is full of joy and glimmers along the way.
In the moments where my clients are able to see the magic and meaning in their own story, I know that I am doing the work I am here to do in the world.
My Journey To Becoming A Therapist
As a late-diagnosed AuDHD, chronically ill femme with C-PTSD & GAD (with a 10-year history of disordered eating), I often struggled to find a therapist who could support my intersecting identities. As a result, I often felt the need to mask in my relationships, even with healing professionals like therapists, which perpetuated a deep sense of feeling broken and wrong.
Western Therapies have a long history of being carceral & oppressive, and as someone who is both neurodivergent and a mystic, I knew that my experience was "different" from many of those around me. My fear of being psychiatrically incarcerated constantly followed me and limited my capacity to ask for help.
I committed to my path as a therapist, because I wanted to help others with shared identities access healing that centers liberatory and anti-carceral frameworks, personal autonomy and freedom, and weaves in creative, somatic, and spiritual resources to the support healing and growth.
As I trained as a therapist (and found a therapist who shared some of my identities who had similar values), I found that therapy became a place where my story could be held as sacred, could be witnessed, and then could be lovingly alchemized, written forward into a story that is unfolding all the time. I love offering this space of healing & growing to others, where they can feel safe enough to take up space and be seen as who they have been, who they are, and who they wish to become.
Professional Background & Training
I hold a Masters degree from Naropa University in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a concentration in Somatic Counseling and Dance/Movement Therapy. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the State of Colorado and have been in private practice since 2017. Before enter private practice, I worked as a clinical intern at Mental Health Partners.
I am clinically trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Eating Disorder Intuitive Therapy (EDIT), Authentic Movement, Life Coaching (CPC), Internal Family Systems (IFS), Narrative Therapy, Social Justice Counseling, Dance/Movement Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing (MI).
Before opening my private practice, I worked for four years as a Motivational Interviewing Consultant, Coder, and Coach, primarily with parole officers. I co-founded Iris Bridge, where I worked as a Motivational Interviewing trainer, consultant and also offered training and workshops in Authentic Movement. I trained for individuals, organizations, and worked closely with Focus Re-Entry, training mentors that work with pre- and post-release incarcerated individuals in an effort to reduce recidivism.
In addition to my clinical experience, I was a volunteer with the Eating Disorder Foundation for 3 years, facilitating free support groups. I also have volunteered leading somatic writing workshops at both Casa de la Esperanza and Carelink Eldercare.
Personal Values & Praxis
As A Therapist, I Embrace The Following Philosophies
I believe that you are worthy of love and care
I believe that change is possible when you allow yourself the space to do the work
I believe that therapy should address the person as a whole - their mind, body, and spirit
I believe that loving and accepting ourselves for who we are, scars and all, is one of the most courageous things we can do
I believe that we can stop feeling shame when we share our story with someone who can hear it with empathy and understanding
I believe that collective liberation begins with individual liberation, and that the ripples of your healing work have the capacity to transform the world
As a healing artist, I do not believe that liberatory healing practices can be politically neutral. They are grounded in Anti-Oppressive, Anti-Carceral, Abolitionist, Feminist, Anti-Racist, and Decolonial practices.
They aim to dismantle systems of oppression and privilege where they have taken root: in your body, mind, and spirit.
They aim to liberate not only you, but your ancestors, your descendants, your communities and your world.
My Core Values are:
Courage I choose to live from the heart, to follow what I know to be true. I choose to feel the fear and move forward with courage.
Creativity I believe that healing & life are fundamentally creative processes.
Curiosity I commit to learning, to keeping my mind limber and open and receptive to newness and change.
Delight I follow the glimmers of my life and allow them to spark aliveness within me.
Devotion I return with loyalty and love to the practices and people that sustain me and my communities.
Honesty I believe in honorable communication with self & other, grounded in transparency, clarity, and compassion.
Tenderness I refuse to harden my heart, to become callous from the pain I have endured. I stay soft, tender, and sensitive to the world and people around me, no matter the cost.
Respect I believe that all beings have a right to be self-determining and that all beings have their own unique expertise and wisdom to offer.
Ursula K. Le Guin
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
bell hooks
"To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality."
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As an AuDHD femme, therapy/psychology is certainly one of my special interests. I spend a lot of time writing, reading, and learning about psychology, medicine, and mysticism (the realm of psyche).
I read a lot and my favorite genres are: psychology and science, literary theory, mysticism, fantasy, romance, and poetry.
When I’m not reading (which is my favorite activity TBH), I also love crafting & art-making of all kinds! I make journals, collages, and am starting to dabble in creative mending & fabric arts. I also love playing video games (JRPG & rogue-likes are my fave) and learning new languages.
I also love to spend time in nature with my service pup, Eevee.
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I grew up knowing very little about my ancestry. As I learned and developed my values & understanding of cultural heritage, I began engaging with ancestral elevation rituals and genealogical research.
My maternal ancestry is primarily from Italy, England and France with my maternal great-grandmother immigrating from Campobasso, Italy. My paternal ancestry is primarily from Finland, France, and Germany, with my paternal great-grandmother immigrating from Finland.
As someone who resides on the unceded land of the Arapahoe, Cheyenne and Ute First Nation Peoples’ (now called Colorado), I consistently negotiate my values of land-based spirituality, with the reality that the land I call home was not my original homeland.
It is my hope that as I continue to learn and grow, I am able to live in right relationship with the land, with my fellow humans, with all incarnate beings (animal, plant, mineral) and with my ancestors.
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I am a non-denominational animist mystic.
My spiritual practice is grounded in the practices and traditions of Espiritismo Cruzado, “crossed spiritism”, which is a multi-cultural, open spiritual practice that developed in Cuba. I trained in Espiritismo Cruzado with Kaitlyn Graña, in their courses Into the Veil 1&2 as well as through mentorship and direct instruction.
My spiritual practices are dynamic and varied. I engage in prayer, ritual, divination, meditation, visualization/trance, and direct communion with my good spirits.
Although these practices are very meaningful to me, they are not necessarily incorporated into all of my therapy work. Many of my clients have varied spiritual backgrounds, which I love!
Having said that, I do think that my spiritual attunement is valuable for the healing process. The psyche and the spirit are both aspects of the Unseen world (both internal and external), which is what we delve into in our work together.
Intergenerational healing, connecting with your supportive spiritual guides, and learning to speak the language of symbols/synchronicity through archetypal practices like tarot can be extremely rewarding. It’s totally up to you if this is involved in our work or not!