About Rhonda Mills
I believe each of us is sacred. Whatever our vision, we begin where we are. We all carry a piece of an answer.
Rhonda Mills - she/her - is the founder of Embodied Witnessing. She is a trauma-informed healer, coach, group facilitator, and trainer who is deeply engaged in cultural healing and transformation. Her work is informed by healing principles, mysticism, and principles of nonviolence and social justice. Rhonda's ongoing commitment to her own individual, ancestral, and collective / systemic healing journey provides the ground for all her work.
Since 2001, Rhonda has coached and trained hundreds of executives, teachers, parents, couples, therapists, ministers, and healers. She has organized and led certifications trainings for embodiment coaches and yoga teachers in the U.S. and Canada. She is an experienced trainer and group facilitator who has led hundreds of groups on topics such as personal development, emotional literacy, compassionate nonviolent communication, conflict resolution / relational healing, transformational leadership, embodied integrity, creative expression, inner wisdom, meditation, conscious movement, eating disorder recovery, global social witnessing, and racial identity. Rhonda has experience working in organizations, community groups, churches, in-patient recovery centers, schools, as well as online.
Since 2001, Rhonda has coached and trained hundreds of executives, teachers, parents, couples, therapists, ministers, and healers. She has organized and led certifications trainings for embodiment coaches and yoga teachers in the U.S. and Canada. She is an experienced trainer and group facilitator who has led hundreds of groups on topics such as personal development, emotional literacy, compassionate nonviolent communication, conflict resolution / relational healing, transformational leadership, embodied integrity, creative expression, inner wisdom, meditation, conscious movement, eating disorder recovery, global social witnessing, and racial identity. Rhonda has experience working in organizations, community groups, churches, in-patient recovery centers, schools, as well as online.
Scroll down to find:
- my identities
- my professional path
- my story
- my identities
- my professional path
- my story
I connect with what's essential which facilitates connection and emergent creativity. I find my greatest reward in being: my path brings me more and more deeply home within myself. I consider my greatest contribution is my capacity to see and sense deeply. Principles of nonviolence inform my work, opening space for compassion, discovery, and inner freedom.
My Identities
I receive unearned privilege within systems of oppression and domination related to my identities as white-bodied, gender female, heterosexual, able-bodied. I carry the complexity of mixed-race heritage with ancestors of English, Irish, Cherokee, Scottish, and German lineages. I am an enrolled member of the Sac River and White River Bands of the Cherokee.
Being the change I wish to see in the world requires:
My ongoing commitment is to increase my capacity to perceive oppressive systems which shape the spaces I inhabit, speak to what I see, and act in ways that dismantle collective trauma-fueled systems of oppression and contribute energy towards living systems that benefit all beings.
Being the change I wish to see in the world requires:
- continuing to learn to recognize external and internalized systems of oppression
- willingness to learn in public
- willingness to make mistakes
- willingness to receive feedback
- humility, knowing there are things I don't know that I don't know
- offer my loving attention to what is unfolding locally, in our world, with our Earth
- regularly advance my learning about systemic oppression, collective healing, and related subjects
- integrating what I am learning and bringing it into my daily life, relationships, and work
- directing and re-directing myself to embody a trauma healing process - recognition, re-alignment, repair, restoration
- connecting and collaborating within a community movement of of healers, change-makers, activists, leaders, and creators, who share these perceptions and commitments
- continuing to dive into my family's history related to being racialized "white" along with how my various lineages adapted and survived, so I can both draw on their strengths and move towards right relation, repairing as needed
My ongoing commitment is to increase my capacity to perceive oppressive systems which shape the spaces I inhabit, speak to what I see, and act in ways that dismantle collective trauma-fueled systems of oppression and contribute energy towards living systems that benefit all beings.
My Professional Path
After an international dance career, I discovered yoga, ayurveda and meditation in 1999. A new focus emerged which included my lifelong spiritual connection, the ancient tradition of yoga, and creative movement. In 2003, I was initiated into the Himalayan tradition of Sri Vidya by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait. I continued to study yoga and assist my teachers through 2009, gaining a 500+ hour teaching certification. After discovering Nonviolent Communication in 2005, I completed my Certified Nonviolent Communication Trainer certificate in 2009. By 2010, I completed certification as a Big Leap Embodiment Coach as well as a 2-year Transformational Leadership Training from The Hendricks Institute. Throughout the 2000’s to the present, I have worked with individuals and couples, led Nonviolent Communication Trainings and Conscious Living Learning Playshops, and created and led multiple year-long trainings to certify Yoga Teachers and Facilitators of Embodied Transformation (Coaches).
I’ve been studying trauma healing since 2018. As an ongoing student of Thomas Hübl, I study and incorporate the Transparent Communication relational process into my life and work. I completed the 2-year Timeless Wisdom Training in 2023 and am a member of the Core Group, Inner Science Training Group, and a Collective Trauma Facilitator Trainee.
Beginning in 2020, I engaged in Global Social Witnessing small group practice and facilitation along with a small group of dedicated practitioners. (Global Social Witnessing was initiated by Thomas Hübl in 2017.) Since 2021, I facilitate groups to deepen embodied presence and co-regulation while turning towards challenging events and topics such as racism, the Covid pandemic, and current topics around the world. In 2020-21, I brought the Embodied Social Witnessing practice to the Nonviolent Communication certified trainer community through leading several gatherings to witness polarization within the community.
I became a NARM-Informed Professional in 2021 which is one of the foundations for my Somatic Coaching work. NARM stands for Neuro Affective Relational Model for working with complex trauma.
In the last several years, I’m actively focusing on the collective traumas of systemic white supremacy and colonialism. I participated in a St. Louis YWCA Witnessing Whiteness Class Series in 2019 and volunteered to co-lead sessions locally in 2020. In the summer of 2021, I earned a 50-hour certificate for Embodied Social Justice led by Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams. Becoming informed about how racialized trauma has impacted my life, I became inspired to reconnect with my ancestral lineages: a mixture which includes English, Irish, Native American, Scottish, and German. In 2023 I completed the Historical Trauma Masterclass, certifying me to offer Somatic Archaeology(c) sessions, and I assisted Dr. Ruby Gibson in training her 2024 HTMC cohort. I practice ancestral healing, influenced by an Ancestral Medicine course with Daniel Foor and my ongoing studies with Thomas Hübl.
Facing into my mixed-race cultural heritage has deepened my understanding of the interconnection between inner and outer healing and restoration, and strengthened my resolve to contribute to peace within me and in our world.
I’ve been studying trauma healing since 2018. As an ongoing student of Thomas Hübl, I study and incorporate the Transparent Communication relational process into my life and work. I completed the 2-year Timeless Wisdom Training in 2023 and am a member of the Core Group, Inner Science Training Group, and a Collective Trauma Facilitator Trainee.
Beginning in 2020, I engaged in Global Social Witnessing small group practice and facilitation along with a small group of dedicated practitioners. (Global Social Witnessing was initiated by Thomas Hübl in 2017.) Since 2021, I facilitate groups to deepen embodied presence and co-regulation while turning towards challenging events and topics such as racism, the Covid pandemic, and current topics around the world. In 2020-21, I brought the Embodied Social Witnessing practice to the Nonviolent Communication certified trainer community through leading several gatherings to witness polarization within the community.
I became a NARM-Informed Professional in 2021 which is one of the foundations for my Somatic Coaching work. NARM stands for Neuro Affective Relational Model for working with complex trauma.
In the last several years, I’m actively focusing on the collective traumas of systemic white supremacy and colonialism. I participated in a St. Louis YWCA Witnessing Whiteness Class Series in 2019 and volunteered to co-lead sessions locally in 2020. In the summer of 2021, I earned a 50-hour certificate for Embodied Social Justice led by Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams. Becoming informed about how racialized trauma has impacted my life, I became inspired to reconnect with my ancestral lineages: a mixture which includes English, Irish, Native American, Scottish, and German. In 2023 I completed the Historical Trauma Masterclass, certifying me to offer Somatic Archaeology(c) sessions, and I assisted Dr. Ruby Gibson in training her 2024 HTMC cohort. I practice ancestral healing, influenced by an Ancestral Medicine course with Daniel Foor and my ongoing studies with Thomas Hübl.
Facing into my mixed-race cultural heritage has deepened my understanding of the interconnection between inner and outer healing and restoration, and strengthened my resolve to contribute to peace within me and in our world.
My Story
I see life as an adventure, and my life contains many stories.
One is my story about dancing, which I have loved all my life. In childhood, I began experiencing dancing as a gateway to joy. I danced in dance classes; I danced around the house; I danced outside; I danced on stage. Dancing was a way of moving through life. Looking back, I can see that dancing opened up a spiritual dimension for me.
I experienced the joy of fulfilling my childhood dream to dance professionally, and I experienced setbacks and disappointments. When I was 19, I felt so disillusioned by not being chosen for an elite group I wanted to be a part of that I intended to never dance again -- and I didn’t for five years. When I began dancing again, it was a labor of love vs. something I depended on for my identity: pride when I succeeded and shame when I failed. During my mid and late 20s, I danced in Los Angeles and internationally. My dance career spanned many techniques: modern, jazz, ballet, Afro-Cuban, musical theater, ballroom dance, and Latin / salsa. Twenty-five or so years ago, after performing, teaching, competing, and choreographing, I shifted my focus to dance and movement as a form of healing through improvisational dance, yoga, and simple embodied movements in daily life. That was the beginning of the kind of work I do today.
As a young person attending Methodist church with my family, I felt a connection with Jesus which resourced my heart with strength and compassion and impacted how I understood the world. Through this connection, I realized from a young age that people in all cultures and across history have access to the beauty of love and that no religion or person has a monopoly on that. While I didn’t share my perspective with anyone until a few decades later, feeling a connection with love through Jesus and perceiving love as available to and through each of us still informs my life today.
I was born to parents who were only twenty years old, and one of the impacts on me was emotionally taking on the role of an adult too young. The ways I adapted made me seem independent and strong and generous, and that was partially true. However, self-abandonment and self-denial were ingredients which contributed to later traumas I experienced, like domestic violence. My most difficult times became a threshold, motivating me to learn about complex and developmental trauma for my own healing and to contribute to others through my work. I know from experience that transformation and healing is available for all of us, to liberate ourselves from unhealthy patterns, and deepen capacity to give and receive love.
Birthing two children who are now in their twenties has been one of the most significant initiations of my life. Before their birth, I gave most of my attention and energy to dancing. Early in raising them, I realized I wanted to be more mindful of the world I was bringing them into. I delved into the history of multiple systemic issues such as the environment, medical systems, approaches to education, food production, health, community, etc. While I sometimes felt overwhelmed by what I learned, having a clear vision of how I want us to live has became a beacon and an inner resource. Supporting my now-adult children’s development while doing my best to nurture their essence has been rewarding, even in difficult moments. Plus, they are each wonderful people, and I’m grateful to know them.
All my l life, I have listened to my inner muse and followed my path of learning, healing, creating, and sharing. Orienting to life as a process allows me to continue to learn through my own life experiences in addition to my formal education and professional certifications.
There are so many ways I have been blessed in life: through the gifts I was given, a loving family system I was born into, and privilege in many aspects. At times my life has flowed smoothly, with ease, joy, and expansion. I have also experienced significant difficulties. One of the things I appreciate about the difficulties is the motivation to make life better for myself, my family, and the world around me.
It’s become important to me to face how my personal experiences interconnect with the collective so I can be informed and contribute to a healing movement. Recognizing how the difficulties I experienced did or did not relate to cultural and systemic issues helps me understand what I need, how I can heal, and what I can contribute to others’ healing. For example, I have experienced trauma related to my gender. I have not experienced trauma in the same way related to my race. Being racialized as white, I am a part of a group who historically dominated other races, and white-body supremacy has become systemically embedded in the culture we live in. While white supremacy hurts everyone, it does not hurt everyone equally or in the same ways. Being racialized as white means I benefit unfairly - have unearned privileges - based on the color of my skin. To add complexity, I have a mixed cultural heritage, which includes Cherokee as well as English, Irish, Scottish and German ancestry. My ancestors experienced various traumas of colonizing and being colonized, religious trauma and all kinds of hardships. They gift me with much resilience. Realizing the specific ways I plug in to our collective increases my compassion for myself and for everyone around me who is experiencing or carries trauma of any kind: systemic, collective, ancestral, or personal. Being aware is an invitation for me to discover right relationship, and do whatever I can to restore a world that is healing for all of us.
For me, success is being aligned and cultivating congruence in my mind, emotions, and body. Success is bringing my inner and outer worlds into resonance. Success is living on purpose, connected to being-ness and moving in my chosen direction. Success is loving my life.
I intend to contribute in a way that benefits people who experience systemic trauma that I have the privilege not to experience. My intention is to make the dynamics of systemic and collective trauma more visible, so more people are informed and can turn towards a restorative healing process. Doing this increases my own joy and sense of belonging in this world.
Post-traumatic learning is real, and it is possible for everyone. Life’s difficulties stimulated a desire to learn about many healing modalities that have helped me, influenced my family, and are present through my work. I want to convey the message that to continue transforming ourselves and the systems we live within -- which privilege some and harm others -- all our creativity will be needed.
In my work over the last few decades, I’ve worked in many contexts and environments, from churches and synagogues, to schools, businesses and non-profits, community groups, treatment centers, and with hundreds of individuals from all walks of life. I’ve worked with people who want to heal from trauma, befriend their emotions, improve their relationships, deepen communication, experience inner peace, manifest their creative purpose, be more embodied, feel supported facing a serious medical diagnosis, or address other inner questions or dilemmas.
I’m known for creating a space that feels “safe enough” for people to show up authentically and where people make discoveries that radically open possibilities for them. I support people to enhance their inner communication networks so their minds, hearts, and bodies can flow together, absent areas become illuminated, and their experience of life shifts.
In my trauma-informed coaching and facilitation, I support people to connect with their chosen path, whether they experience that as internal or external, individual, relational, or professional. I support people to connect with their creativity and purpose. I help make visible whatever is getting in the way of aligning with their vision / purpose, so blocks can be alchemized into fuel.
One is my story about dancing, which I have loved all my life. In childhood, I began experiencing dancing as a gateway to joy. I danced in dance classes; I danced around the house; I danced outside; I danced on stage. Dancing was a way of moving through life. Looking back, I can see that dancing opened up a spiritual dimension for me.
I experienced the joy of fulfilling my childhood dream to dance professionally, and I experienced setbacks and disappointments. When I was 19, I felt so disillusioned by not being chosen for an elite group I wanted to be a part of that I intended to never dance again -- and I didn’t for five years. When I began dancing again, it was a labor of love vs. something I depended on for my identity: pride when I succeeded and shame when I failed. During my mid and late 20s, I danced in Los Angeles and internationally. My dance career spanned many techniques: modern, jazz, ballet, Afro-Cuban, musical theater, ballroom dance, and Latin / salsa. Twenty-five or so years ago, after performing, teaching, competing, and choreographing, I shifted my focus to dance and movement as a form of healing through improvisational dance, yoga, and simple embodied movements in daily life. That was the beginning of the kind of work I do today.
As a young person attending Methodist church with my family, I felt a connection with Jesus which resourced my heart with strength and compassion and impacted how I understood the world. Through this connection, I realized from a young age that people in all cultures and across history have access to the beauty of love and that no religion or person has a monopoly on that. While I didn’t share my perspective with anyone until a few decades later, feeling a connection with love through Jesus and perceiving love as available to and through each of us still informs my life today.
I was born to parents who were only twenty years old, and one of the impacts on me was emotionally taking on the role of an adult too young. The ways I adapted made me seem independent and strong and generous, and that was partially true. However, self-abandonment and self-denial were ingredients which contributed to later traumas I experienced, like domestic violence. My most difficult times became a threshold, motivating me to learn about complex and developmental trauma for my own healing and to contribute to others through my work. I know from experience that transformation and healing is available for all of us, to liberate ourselves from unhealthy patterns, and deepen capacity to give and receive love.
Birthing two children who are now in their twenties has been one of the most significant initiations of my life. Before their birth, I gave most of my attention and energy to dancing. Early in raising them, I realized I wanted to be more mindful of the world I was bringing them into. I delved into the history of multiple systemic issues such as the environment, medical systems, approaches to education, food production, health, community, etc. While I sometimes felt overwhelmed by what I learned, having a clear vision of how I want us to live has became a beacon and an inner resource. Supporting my now-adult children’s development while doing my best to nurture their essence has been rewarding, even in difficult moments. Plus, they are each wonderful people, and I’m grateful to know them.
All my l life, I have listened to my inner muse and followed my path of learning, healing, creating, and sharing. Orienting to life as a process allows me to continue to learn through my own life experiences in addition to my formal education and professional certifications.
There are so many ways I have been blessed in life: through the gifts I was given, a loving family system I was born into, and privilege in many aspects. At times my life has flowed smoothly, with ease, joy, and expansion. I have also experienced significant difficulties. One of the things I appreciate about the difficulties is the motivation to make life better for myself, my family, and the world around me.
It’s become important to me to face how my personal experiences interconnect with the collective so I can be informed and contribute to a healing movement. Recognizing how the difficulties I experienced did or did not relate to cultural and systemic issues helps me understand what I need, how I can heal, and what I can contribute to others’ healing. For example, I have experienced trauma related to my gender. I have not experienced trauma in the same way related to my race. Being racialized as white, I am a part of a group who historically dominated other races, and white-body supremacy has become systemically embedded in the culture we live in. While white supremacy hurts everyone, it does not hurt everyone equally or in the same ways. Being racialized as white means I benefit unfairly - have unearned privileges - based on the color of my skin. To add complexity, I have a mixed cultural heritage, which includes Cherokee as well as English, Irish, Scottish and German ancestry. My ancestors experienced various traumas of colonizing and being colonized, religious trauma and all kinds of hardships. They gift me with much resilience. Realizing the specific ways I plug in to our collective increases my compassion for myself and for everyone around me who is experiencing or carries trauma of any kind: systemic, collective, ancestral, or personal. Being aware is an invitation for me to discover right relationship, and do whatever I can to restore a world that is healing for all of us.
For me, success is being aligned and cultivating congruence in my mind, emotions, and body. Success is bringing my inner and outer worlds into resonance. Success is living on purpose, connected to being-ness and moving in my chosen direction. Success is loving my life.
I intend to contribute in a way that benefits people who experience systemic trauma that I have the privilege not to experience. My intention is to make the dynamics of systemic and collective trauma more visible, so more people are informed and can turn towards a restorative healing process. Doing this increases my own joy and sense of belonging in this world.
Post-traumatic learning is real, and it is possible for everyone. Life’s difficulties stimulated a desire to learn about many healing modalities that have helped me, influenced my family, and are present through my work. I want to convey the message that to continue transforming ourselves and the systems we live within -- which privilege some and harm others -- all our creativity will be needed.
In my work over the last few decades, I’ve worked in many contexts and environments, from churches and synagogues, to schools, businesses and non-profits, community groups, treatment centers, and with hundreds of individuals from all walks of life. I’ve worked with people who want to heal from trauma, befriend their emotions, improve their relationships, deepen communication, experience inner peace, manifest their creative purpose, be more embodied, feel supported facing a serious medical diagnosis, or address other inner questions or dilemmas.
I’m known for creating a space that feels “safe enough” for people to show up authentically and where people make discoveries that radically open possibilities for them. I support people to enhance their inner communication networks so their minds, hearts, and bodies can flow together, absent areas become illuminated, and their experience of life shifts.
In my trauma-informed coaching and facilitation, I support people to connect with their chosen path, whether they experience that as internal or external, individual, relational, or professional. I support people to connect with their creativity and purpose. I help make visible whatever is getting in the way of aligning with their vision / purpose, so blocks can be alchemized into fuel.
