Colleen Thomas

Colleen Thomas is a ritual artist and meditation teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. She works with people who are ready for a change but don't know how to make it happen, co-creating custom rites of passage with them. These can mark weddings, grief, coming out, career change, and the moments that don't always come with a built-in ceremony.

She is a Certified Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness Teacher and holds a master's in Creation Spirituality from Naropa University. She credits her teachers with gratitude and honor: David Treleaven, Starhawk, SarahAmira de la Garza, Matthew Fox, Laura Amazzone, Yeye Luisah Teish, and Russill Paul.

Since the full-scale invasion, Colleen has shown up for Ukraine every day. She creates trauma-sensitive audio resources, studies the Ukrainian language, and curates ways for others to help. Her 10 Minutes for Your Heart Series was created for Ukrainians processing personal trauma. The Everyday Magic for Ukraine Podcast offers short rituals for allies carrying this from a distance. She also offers Grounding and Stabilization practices through The Complex Trauma Institute, which is based in the UK and works with therapists in Ukraine. As a non-Ukrainian, she echoes historian Timothy Snyder in saying her offerings come from the humble and limited perspective of an outsider.

Her meditations on Insight Timer are slow, spacious, and compassionate, for people who feel overwhelmed, anxious, or emotionally tender. They include a series of sleep meditations called Bedtime Magic for Resilience. Music for the series is by Terry Hughes.

Before this work, Colleen hosted Shame Piñata, a podcast exploring people's real rite-of-passage stories in their own words. It is now on hiatus, and the full archive remains available.