About Me
I’m so happy you’re here. I can’t wait to meet you, learn about you, and walk alongside you. Your whole self is welcome here.
My name is Valentina Briceno-Strocchia and I’m here to help you breathe easier. As a person moving through the world as an immigrant, queer woman who lives with chronic pain and chronic illness, I’m committed to breathing easier too. I founded Apamaté to share what I’ve learned with you. As it turns out, it’s possible to live our truest and most beautiful lives in the midst of challenge and change.
Through Apamaté, I offer services as an Executive Coach, Facilitator, and Yoga Instructor.
I share all three offerings online through the Apamaté Approach. This Approach was born out of my personal and professional learnings in navigating this complex world aka this sometimes dreadful and often wonderful life.
The trauma-sensitive, healing-informed, and anti-oppressive part of the Approach comes from a deep respect for different ways of knowing and being based on formal study and my own experience. In my case, moving through the world as a queer, chronically ill Latina has invited me to show up with an intersectional lens in all of the ways I think about and feel through the world.
Taking a whole person and whole body approach is the only way I know how to support you is with integrity. It has taken me a long time to realize that we’re more than our brains and that our bodies carry our stories. To strengthen the Apamaté Approach, I dedicate a lot of time, energy, and resources to learning about trauma-informed practices on working with the body and the nervous system. Though I’m not a therapist, I consistently learn about and draw on learnings from trauma-informed practices, including poly-vagal theory and internal family systems (IFS), to support you in honouring your body’s wisdom. I complement these learnings by drawing on my training as a Yoga Instructor.
Training in social innovation, systems change, and global affairs has also taught me that the way you move through the world can deeply impact your experience of it. Through the Apamaté Approach, I’m eager to meet you where you are and walk alongside you as you determine where you would like to go.
As someone who translates her life and everyday into different languages and cultures, I can appreciate the complexity of navigating the world through many lenses. In making space for multi-cultural ways of knowing, I share these offerings in English, Spanish, and French.
The Apamaté Approach is something I’ve developed by connecting to my purpose and my gifts. It aligns with my passions and brings me energy. Two years ago, I had no idea that this life I’ve created was possible. It became possible for me when I decided to root in my purpose, grow my passion, and blossom into my potential. It’s the privilege of my lifetime to help you breathe easier as you search for and live into your own.
If you’ve read this far, let’s chat!