About Rhonda Mills
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I’m Rhonda (she/her), and I support people to come home to themselves.
My work is grounded in the understanding that healing isn’t individual—it’s relational. We do not liberate alone. I bring over two decades of training in somatic movement, trauma healing, coaching, and embodied leadership. But more than any title, what I offer is presence, deep listening, and the willingness to walk with you through the truth of your experience. My role is fundamentally that of a guide and companion on the healing journey. I live what I teach, continuing to deepen my own connection with the web of life while supporting others in discovering and deepening their connection with what is most essential for them. I hold this work with reverence. Not as a fixed destination—but as a path toward reclaiming our bodies, reweaving connection, and creating the futures we want to live into. |
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 philosophy of sustainable service
- my professional path
- my story
- my identities
- my philosophy of sustainable service
- my professional path
- my story
My Identities
I receive unearned privilege within systems of oppression and domination related to my identities racialized as white, cis-gender female, heterosexual, and able-bodied. My ancestors are of English, Irish, Cherokee, German, and Scottish 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 draw on their strengths and move into right relation.
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 Philosophy of Sustainable Service
One of the most important lessons in my journey has been learning to give from overflow rather than depletion. Early in my life, I often gave from a place of self-abandonment, mistaking this for generosity or strength. Through my own healing work, I've discovered that true service flows from being well-resourced—physically, emotionally, spiritually and materially.
This means honoring my energy, taking time for rest and restoration, and maintaining clear boundaries about my limits and what is mine to do. I've learned that when I care for myself with the same compassion I offer others, my capacity to show up authentically expands naturally.
This principle infuses all my work: I support others in discovering their own sustainable rhythms of giving and receiving, recognizing that we can only offer what we genuinely have. My commitment to tending my own wholeness isn't separate from my service—it's the foundation that makes authentic, lasting contribution possible.
This means honoring my energy, taking time for rest and restoration, and maintaining clear boundaries about my limits and what is mine to do. I've learned that when I care for myself with the same compassion I offer others, my capacity to show up authentically expands naturally.
This principle infuses all my work: I support others in discovering their own sustainable rhythms of giving and receiving, recognizing that we can only offer what we genuinely have. My commitment to tending my own wholeness isn't separate from my service—it's the foundation that makes authentic, lasting contribution possible.
My path to this work: Here’s how I came to integrate these various healing approaches:
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 the Collective Trauma Facilitator Training in 2025. I am a member of the Core Group and Inner Science Training Group.
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 collective 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 continue to lead Embodied Social Witnessing sessions and weave the principles into my work.
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 was inspired to reconnect with my ancestral lineages: a mixture including English, Irish, Native American, German and Scottish. In 2023 I completed the Historical Trauma Masterclass, certifying me to offer Somatic Archaeology(c) sessions, a Native American healing modality based on the medicine wheel, ancestral healing, embodiment, and neuroscience. I assisted Dr. Ruby Gibson in training the 2024 HTMC cohort. Connecting with my ancestors is now a regular part of my spiritual practice, influenced by Ancestral Medicine - the work of Daniel Foor, as well as my ongoing studies with Thomas Hübl.
Connecting with the cultural heritages of my ancestors has deepened my understanding of the interconnection between inner and outer healing and restoration, and strengthened my sense of belonging, making it even more clear to me that the healing needed in our world happens through us. We are the path to peace.
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 the Collective Trauma Facilitator Training in 2025. I am a member of the Core Group and Inner Science Training Group.
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 collective 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 continue to lead Embodied Social Witnessing sessions and weave the principles into my work.
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 was inspired to reconnect with my ancestral lineages: a mixture including English, Irish, Native American, German and Scottish. In 2023 I completed the Historical Trauma Masterclass, certifying me to offer Somatic Archaeology(c) sessions, a Native American healing modality based on the medicine wheel, ancestral healing, embodiment, and neuroscience. I assisted Dr. Ruby Gibson in training the 2024 HTMC cohort. Connecting with my ancestors is now a regular part of my spiritual practice, influenced by Ancestral Medicine - the work of Daniel Foor, as well as my ongoing studies with Thomas Hübl.
Connecting with the cultural heritages of my ancestors has deepened my understanding of the interconnection between inner and outer healing and restoration, and strengthened my sense of belonging, making it even more clear to me that the healing needed in our world happens through us. We are the path to peace.
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, dancing was 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 a spiritual dimension for me.
I fulfilled my childhood dream to dance professionally, and I experienced joy and accomplishment as well as setbacks and disappointments. When I was 19, I felt so disillusioned by not being chosen for an elite group that I vowed 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 saw the world. I realized from a young age that people in all cultures 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 taking on the role of an adult too young. The ways I adapted made me seem independent and strong and generous, and that was partly 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. It is possible 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 become more aware 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 became a beacon and an inner resource. Supporting my now-adult children’s development while doing my best to nurture their essence was rewarding. Plus, they are each wonderful people, and I’m grateful for 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 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, as a cis-gender woman. 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 is 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.
My ancestral lineages of English, Irish, Cherokee, German, and Scottish come with a complex legacy of colonizing and being colonized, which includes multiple kinds of hardships and also much resilience. Realizing the specific ways I am plugged into 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. My awareness allows me to explore right relationship and do my part to restore ways of being in the world that benefit all beings.
For me, success is being aligned and cultivating congruence in my mind, emotions, body, and spirit. 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.
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 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, dancing was 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 a spiritual dimension for me.
I fulfilled my childhood dream to dance professionally, and I experienced joy and accomplishment as well as setbacks and disappointments. When I was 19, I felt so disillusioned by not being chosen for an elite group that I vowed 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 saw the world. I realized from a young age that people in all cultures 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 taking on the role of an adult too young. The ways I adapted made me seem independent and strong and generous, and that was partly 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. It is possible 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 become more aware 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 became a beacon and an inner resource. Supporting my now-adult children’s development while doing my best to nurture their essence was rewarding. Plus, they are each wonderful people, and I’m grateful for 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 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, as a cis-gender woman. 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 is 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.
My ancestral lineages of English, Irish, Cherokee, German, and Scottish come with a complex legacy of colonizing and being colonized, which includes multiple kinds of hardships and also much resilience. Realizing the specific ways I am plugged into 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. My awareness allows me to explore right relationship and do my part to restore ways of being in the world that benefit all beings.
For me, success is being aligned and cultivating congruence in my mind, emotions, body, and spirit. 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.
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 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.
Ready to explore this work?
Contact me to have a conversation about whether this approach might serve your healing and growth journey.
Contact
Contact me to have a conversation about whether this approach might serve your healing and growth journey.
Contact
