Episode 35: Redefining Yourself Through Community and Creativity with Shani Raviv
In this conversation, Shani Raviv shares how moving across countries, navigating loss, surviving an eating disorder, and sitting with deep dissatisfaction in her work eventually led her to a life centered on creativity, community, and service. Through writing circles, yoga, and recovery spaces, she found herself returning again and again to one truth: healing happens when we’re seen and supported.
Shani reflects on the power of women-led community, the courage it takes to stop playing small, and what it means to finally say yes to the work that feels like home. This episode explores how trusting yourself, leaning on others, and staying open to evolution can change the course of your life.
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This is Redefining Us, and I'm your host, Stephanie Konter-O'Hara, licensed professional counselor. And I'm so glad that you joined us today so we can dive into what it means to be a woman in today's society. Figuring out how we balance everything, how we grow, how we be more authentically us, and figuring out who we are through the transitions of life, whether that be motherhood, success, relationships, and all things that happen in women's lives because it's definitely not a linear journey. And I think by talking about it and normalizing it and validating, we can all arise together and be the women that we were meant to be. So keep tuning in, and I'm so excited about joining the conversation and being in your ears each week. Let's get into it. Welcome back to Redefining Us. I'm your host, Stephanie Conter O'Hara, and today I have with me Shawnee. She's a creator of Journey Writing Circle and the author of an award-winning memoir called Being Anna, a memoir of Anorexia Nervosa. And I really hope that you can get a lot out of her story and how she came to be in this place where she leads writing circles for other people, allowing them to really get into their raw and real feelings through writing and helping them connect not just with themselves, but hopefully with others. And yeah, hopefully you walk away feeling inspired. And if you feel so imposed to connect with her, she is here in Colorado. Welcome back to Redefining Us. I'm your host, Stephanie Controjara. And today I have with me Shawne Reviv, and she's going to share with us more about her story in a moment where she felt like she needed to redefine herself and allow herself to evolve to the person she's meant to be. So welcome.
Thanks, Stephanie. Good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Yes, I'm excited for us to chat. I know we already chatted once before, but it's always good to have these like longer conversations, and I love getting to know people more deeply in this level. So yeah, I'd love to maybe just start off with was there a moment? Was there a transition that kind of led you down the path to redefining yourself and living the way you live now?
Yeah, I mean, you know, in my almost 50 years of life, I feel like there's been so many chapters. Every few years I seem to create a new chapter, depending on relationships and living situations and locations. So about five years ago, I moved from the Bay Area to Colorado. I'm originally from South Africa. And when I moved here, I just wanted to live a more chill sort of mountain lifestyle than what the Bay Area offers, which is more of a rat race. And I really wanted to find more community. So I landed up with a lot of luck from the universe in a co-housing community, which was like instant community, um, with a lot of land around me. And that's what I had been calling in was a lot more spaciousness. I had been living in a tiny house where I could literally stretch my arms and feel the edges of the wall in the back of someone's yard in Berkeley with my seven-year-old son, and I wanted a place for him to roam free. So this had been a dream that I'd been calling in for a long time, and that manifested with meeting the right person, and then I met my partner, who is just a beautiful relationship that I had been calling in for a long time, as well after like many failed relationships and a marriage that didn't work out. So I finally feel like I called in true love, honestly, which is amazing. And then on a work note, I had been doing a lot of work that I absolutely hated for a long time. Like I have a history of writing, that's what I do, is um I'm a writer, and I'd been working in different capacities as a writer throughout my life. Like when I lived in South Africa, I was a journalist. Um, I also come from a history of an eating disorder, which I struggled with from the age of 14 to 24. And when I was in my 30s, I published a book titled Being Anna, A Memoir of Anorexia. So that process led me to realize the depth and power of writing your own story and having it witnessed on a public level. And for years I had been working when I was in the Bay Area as a copywriter and content producer and um copy editor, and I liked aspects of it, but what was truly in my heart was to work with people because I was spending eight hours a day on the computer, and I'm a people person and I love interacting with people, and I most love working with women. So my dad had just recently died, and I was hating my job and waking up every morning, even though I was living in this beautiful studio apartment. I was waking up just hating my life because I just didn't enjoy my work. And I would write, I hate my job, I hate my job, I hate my job. And I was been I had been doing all these money manifestation workshops and praying to the goddess Lakshmi and creating altars and just trying to manifest abundance and like a lifestyle and work, mostly work that would fill my soul, and it just wasn't happening. It wasn't happening. And I met a woman who was my dad's friend who came to to stay at me randomly. Like she lived in Israel and she came to stay with me, and she was very just like sort of no bullshit kind of person, and she was a marathon walker, and she said to me, What do you want to do? And I said, Well, I want to help people write. And she said, Well, just do it. And she sort of opened up the door for me to just say yes to like my calling, um, which I feel like is my calling. Uh and I started Googling immediately, like writing trainings. Um, I've never gotten an MFA or anything, I didn't go that route. And I found this woman in the Bay Area, her name is Lori Wagner, and she was my mentor, and she uh introduced me to this process that she invented, like based on other formulations or other kind of writing foundations, kind of like Natalie Goldberg and things like that. Um, and she calls it wild writing. So it's this process where we use poetry as inspiration, and then we pull out prompts from the poem and write together in a circle of women. I mean, we she does it also with co-ed and mixed genders and all however you identify. But I particularly love working with women, even though I have worked with everybody. Um, I love working with women and I love working with teens. So the minute I got on a call with her and tried this process, it was literally like the angels were just singing. I was like, it was I can't even describe what this did for me. Like it was just life-changing. And that was seven or eight years ago. That was in 2019. I can't do the math, however long ago that was. And um I just fell in love and I was just like, thank God. Namaste, thank you. Like this is the truth has been revealed to me of like where I need to go um in my life. And so I started doing this on the side, like offering what I call journey writing circles. And I started doing it from my kitchen and just inviting friends and spreading the word. And then it I started doing it online during the pandemic and having people from other parts of the world or other parts of the country join. And in the last couple of years, since I've been in Colorado, I've really been asking myself, like, where who are the people that I truly want to serve with this? And she had originally mentioned to me that since I come from a history of addiction, that maybe I should think about working with people in recovery. And at first I had this whole stigma against it, and I said that I didn't want to go back and revisit my whole history. And I had already written about it in the book, which took me eight years. So um, I was reluctant and hesitant. And then as life has it, I met this woman while I was going through some fertility stuff who recommended she had nothing to do with what she recommended, but she recommended this place in Colorado called the Rose House, where I currently work part-time. And I went there and I just absolutely fell in love with the people there. So it's a addiction treatment center for women, um, addiction and mental health treatment center. And I just from the very first day that I walked in there, it reminded me of the very first support group circle that I was in the very first day that I began recovery when I was 24. And it just felt like I was coming home to myself, to the space, to what I was meant to be doing. I had been calling in, being like a facilitator and a spaceholder for so many years, so many decades. Just feels like that's was my lineage and in my blood. And I just feel really grateful that I found this work. And I just love the woman and they love me. And so it's a mutually beneficial relationship. And then since then, I've been branching out to different treatment centers. Um, I work at Denver Women's Recovery and via CARE, which is Colorado Artists in Recovery. And I'm in the process of reaching out to different places to offer it there too, in combination with yoga, because I am a certified um yoga instructor. I was certified with um the Yoga Institute in India and Goa, the main branches in Mumbai. And I've been practicing yoga for 30 years, and I really love to offer like yoga for people in recovery specifically, and make it really around that and getting into your body and um landing in your true self. And that's what the writing is as well. It's just a process of landing in your true self and sharing your truths and being seen and witnessed for who you are. So I finally, finally, thank God, found the work that I absolutely love. And it's taken a long time, you know. I reached out to 14 different places before landing at the Rose House. So it was a lot of groundwork. Um, but I didn't give up, I persevered, and I'm just so grateful because it just feels so, so good to wake up and love the work that I do and be valued for what I offer. And I just feel very, very, very, very lucky and very grateful.
Yeah. Yeah. That's an incredible story. I think what I also hear underneath this story too is this other story of there were these pivotal people in your life. Sounds like mainly women, who really encouraged you to follow your path and follow what your your heart and your body were kind of like telling your mind that you should do, anyways. They kind of like really pushed you. And I think that that goes to the power, I think, of a few things. One, like women supporting women and how valuable that is in every aspect. And two, like people don't get to where they are because it's easy or because they don't need support. Like there was all these other people that really supported you. And yeah, you had to persevere in a lot of ways and kind of push yourself outside of your comfort zone to really get to this place that you are now where it sounds like you feel very like fulfilled and like abundant in a lot of ways.
That is so true. That is so true. I mean, I've done so many courses, so many trainings, and they have actually all been led by women. Like I did this incredible course by this woman in South Africa who does it globally. She calls herself the fairy godmother, and it's like a money magic course, you know. And I've done that and I did that for years and worked the program. And then I did this and another incredible business training with uh Wink, which is based in Boulder with Micah and Elizabeth. Um, Wink stands for Woman in Community. I did that for years and had an accountability partner and just yeah, just put in so much legwork and the power of community, you know, woman community. I mean, both of those trainings had communities. So I absolutely could never have done this on my own. And I'm certainly not like at the peak of my career by any means. You know, I have run a few amazing retreats with women, and I would love to do more of that. And I would love to branch out even more and offer both the writing and the yoga to more treatment centers. So it's it's a process, you know, and yeah, like you said, like the perseverance and pushing through your comfort zone has been challenging, definitely challenging, but absolutely worth it. Because I woke up one day, it was Micah who um is the founder of Wink, and she said, like, if you're not in love with your business, why are you doing it? You know, and this was when I was still doing the copywriting, which I enjoyed. I'm very good at copywriting, but honestly, it wasn't happening. I felt like I was pounding the pavement and reaching out to dozens and dozens and dozens of people, and it just wasn't happening. So I stopped and I said to myself, like, if I was to die in the next year, what would I really want to be doing? So I said to myself, like, it's enough like playing small, it's enough holding back, it's enough thinking I don't deserve, it's enough thinking the time will come, like now is the time. And I realized I have to just get over all my fears of rejection, of you know, not good enough, and just do it. And you know, when I came from that energy of saying yes without like any hesitance, and like now is the time, it's now or never, the doors really, really did start opening. Just it's exactly like they say, you know, the universe just provided with you know, I had to do the work, but it did it did open up.
I think a lot of people, and you you spoke to this that you experience this, like get stuck in that like fear mindset of oh, I'm gonna be rejected, or you know, this doesn't matter, you know, all the stories that we tell ourselves that keep us from being open to what is or what could be. Yeah, I think that's like a huge hurdle that a lot of people face. And maybe even, I mean, I'm gonna dare to say like women sometimes have been socialized to play small and to tell themselves that they don't need to take up space. I mean, that's unfortunately a huge component. I have heard and also have witnessed that people experience eating disorders and even addictions like experience, right? It's like a way to hide yourself, a way to make yourself invisible or make yourself shrink down to not have your light shine. And it sounds like part of your mission, even though you haven't used the word light, but it sounds like part of your mission is to like really help other people see that it's okay. And it's not like even just okay, but you should let your light shine and tap into your authentic self.
Absolutely. Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned that that word because that really does speak to me. Um years ago, I used to work for this uh wonderful organization called Wilderness Torah. They're based in the Bay Area, and um, they used to do like a pilgrimage into the desert in California for Passover once a year. And one time in the desert, uh, it was all about giving your gifts and receiving from the source and stuff like that. And um, very intentional. And one time there was this woman singing this beautiful song about shining your light, and how if you don't shine your light, you you know, uh you can't allow others to shine theirs too. And it really spoke to me. And yeah, I still it's just for me the most it feels like the biggest gift in my life to have had people who shine their light and me be the recipient of that. And for me at this stage in my life where I'm like moving into not my elder years, but I'm not a maiden anymore, you know, to be able to serve as a mentor to other women just feels amazing. And I often think of that quote as one of my favorite by Marianne Williamson that a lot of people actually think was Nelson Mandela, but apparently it wasn't. The the quote about our biggest fear, I don't know if you know that one. Um it says something like, our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate, it's that we are powerful beyond measure. And then she goes on to say, like, it's the whole thing is like we often ask ourselves, like, who am I to be brilliant? Who am I to be special? Who am I to be gorgeous? And she says, like, who are you not to be? We're all a child of God, we're all a child of spirit. Like, why shouldn't you shine your light? Why shouldn't you be powerful in your own, in your authenticity and for the for to serve the good, you know? So it that was a that was a lot of spiritual work to come to that place where I feel like I'm deserving of that and I have something to offer. And now that I'm at that place, it feels so good. So, so good. It just feels so nourishing and so like I don't have to question my worth anymore, which is like just a huge boulder that I could, you know, leave behind. So I really wish that for others. And I feel like I know that every single woman on earth has something to offer. Like it's just it's it's true. So I mean just as they say, get out of our get out of our own way. I always tell people to like what brings you joy, what makes you come alive? You know, there's that uh I think it's Joseph Campbell quote of uh don't ask what the world wants, ask what makes you come alive and do that, you know. So those are some of my favorite quotes that I try to live by.
Yeah. Yeah, I guess like what's I'm really hearing too is this idea of like by you giving and by other people giving, like to you, there's this ability to exchange both knowledge and energy and light and healing. And rather than being a place of just like, what do I want, or how can I get ahead, or like what's gonna just fill my cup, also like be in this place of giving that to other people. And like it's like this uh cycle of reciprocalness that really I think paints a whole picture of what uh, in my opinion, like a thriving community and a thriving person has a part of their secret sauce of like what fills them up and what helps them feel connected to other people.
Absolutely. Yeah, it reminds me of like the concentric circles of a tree and how you just you never know who you meet. And like in this interview with us, like it's a mutual it's mutually beneficial, you know. We're lifting each other up and allowing one another to shine. So yeah, it's very powerful. We're not islands and as you know, we're social animals. We have to have each other. So I'm always I always just love waking up and being like, Who am I gonna meet today? And how are we gonna feed each other? You know, on an energetic level. Like how are we gonna lift each other up?
Yeah.
Just like we met through the mutual person we met through. Exactly.
Yeah. Community and I was just meeting someone the other day. And although I'm not necessarily like a religious person, I do fall back to this like I'm not even sure what it would be called, but like idea that I was taught as a small child in religious like elementary school, around like, you know, do unto others as you want done unto you. Right. And I to this day, even though I'm not a religious person, like live by that. Like I want other people to lift me up. I want people to feed my soul. So it feeds my soul to do that for other people and to treat other people the way that I want to be treated. And it's just like this, yeah, I don't know, like this beautiful, powerful thing that we can all give one another.
Yeah, definitely. And like we're talking about the stages of womanhood. Like I'm really fascinated by the stages of like the maiden and then the queen and then the crone and how the stages of our lives evolve. And it just, yeah, like I said before, it just feels like a really gift to have moved from that maiden stage, which is the receiving stage. Like you I feel like maidens have a lot to give, but they also have a hell of a lot to learn. And like you said, like there'd been so many people along the way who've helped me. And for me to be at the stage of life where I'm moving towards the crone, I never knew that the stage of life could be so rich in that way. You know, where I could be moving towards like the outer circle of those concentric circles and just holding space for so many women. It just fills my soul like nothing else.
Yeah, I think it's so beautiful too to think of it like a tree ring. And yeah, I feel like it just like really speaks to the way that it's nature quote unquote supposed to be. Right? Like you start off with the core and you know, the part that maybe needs the most nutrients, and then as you move out, like you're feeding back into the the tree or into the the community as a a mentor or a leader in that way.
I love that. I just it just popped into my head. It must have been in a field of energy.
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Yeah, yeah. And I I think, and even using the other example that you mentioned about the the crone and the madam and the maiden is like this evolving sense of going back to I guess the theme of the podcast, like redefining yourself at like every phase and like what gifts you have to give and what gifts that you maybe should be open to receiving.
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. Just the reciprocal nature of energy, you know, that can come through money, that can come through time, that can come through all kinds of ways. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I love that.
So as we maybe wrap up, I'd love for you to share with people like what's one thing that you want to leave with people knowing, or maybe a way to connect with you if they want to work with you further.
Yeah, that'd be great. So I have a website, as everyone does, and I wrote it myself before the advent of AI. Um and I designed it myself with the help of a designer. I'm very proud of it. So it's my full name, www.shaniraviv.com. And yeah, I have a contact page there, and I'm always open to people reaching out to me. Um learning more about my journey writing circles there. I don't have anything posted about my yoga, but I love teaching yoga, and I'm more than open to helping people in their yoga practices in any way. And then my book is available in all the usual places, published by She Writes Press. And again, the name is Being Anna, a memoir of Anorexia Navosa. And I don't do much social media. I am on Facebook and I am on Instagram, but I don't do much of it. It's just not my thing. But yeah, those are ways to find me. Yeah, and I love connecting with people. And you know, I love being of of service and being a resource and being a mentor and a friend. And so if anybody has anything they want to reach out about, I'm more than happy to connect. I love connecting.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I hope people do take the opportunity to connect with you. Seems like you have a lot to offer people.
Thank you, Stephanie. Well, thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity.
Fantastic. Well, hopefully you all will connect and I will talk to you next week. Thank you for tuning in to Redefining Us once again and share with other people so other people can continue to listen to Redefining Us and we can get into more listeners' ears if you follow us or subscribe or leave a comment or review. That would be greatly helpful for other people to find us and also just for me to get some feedback. What do you guys wanna hear me say? What do you women care about hearing? I'm totally open to bringing on guests and talking about topics that are unique and inspiring to everyone, so please let me know. And this year, hopefully we'll full of a lot of community building, a lot of public speaking, a lot of resource sharing. So I really encourage you to follow us on social media at Wellminded Counseling on Instagram as our handle, as well as going directly to our website, wellmindedcounseling.combackslash redefining us, so you can be in the know with all the things that are happening in the Redefining Us community. Once again, thank you so much for listening and keeping awesome.