I’m Mo and I focus on therapeutic healing practices from a Black womanist perspective and artistic expression. My work at InPower is rooted in the healing of children, teens, and young adults. I believe movement is an art — and through somatic bodywork like dancing and yoga, I help younger people find identity, empowerment, and voice.

I’ve spent over eight years working in higher education, supporting former foster youth, first-generation college students, and marginalized scholars. What brought me back to school was serving LGBTQIA+ young people and being a high school counselor. I saw that so many scholars were dreaming about their futures but battling anxiety and depression. That’s when creative coping skills like music, poetry, and art became part of my everyday practice.

Not long after my time as a school counselor, I was called to become a yoga practitioner. My training is focused on social-emotional learning for educators and teachers — and my yoga practice now is for all bodies, including fat bodies and chair-bound people.

I bring a California, Bay Area perspective to my work and hold a deep sensitivity about being a visitor to the greater St. Louis area. I earned my B.A. in Collaborative Health and Humxn Services with a focus on Social Work from California State University Monterey Bay. Before that, I went to Solano Community College, where my passion for education, foster youth, and poetry first came together. My lived experience as someone who is adopted, a trauma survivor, and the first in my family to attend and graduate from college gives me an empathic and contextual lens in everything I do.

I take every opportunity I can to attend spoken word events and collaborate with local STL activists and artists. If you ask me what brought me to STL, I’ll tell you, “My ancestors and spirit brought me here.” In my spare time, I visit Black-owned eateries, drink a lot of tea with honey, and if I had unlimited time, I’d create art through my fashion, buy more plants, and rap to my two cats.