Recovery Beyond is thrilled to welcome Tawnia Nelson as our Peer Support Supervisor. Tawnia Nelson has been a Certified Peer Counselor for over 7 years. She focused on the reduction of disproportionate costs and emphasized on improved health outcomes by increased community coordination and reducing major gaps in services. .
She joined We Care Daily Clinics in 2020 and began working on the daunting task of building a peer program in a Medicated Treatment Facility. Aligned with the experiential knowledge and education she began studying the census and the needs of the population. She focused her attention over each departments interworking’s and dynamics. Tawnia also felt the importance of recovering gaps of knowledge and maturity as a supportive approach to education. Through her lived experience she created a 52-unit curriculum with 9 fields of study. The classes quickly developed into a university style learning experience with unit completion and certification and curriculum graduation.
Over the course of her life, Tawnia learned that her spontaneity and creativity led her to some of the most exciting adventures from hiking, white water rafting, to program development. Which was clear when she found Recovery Beyond. She is excited to be apart of building a program that is forever going to change the future of recovery and create an environment of hope through action.
We asked Tawnia to share a bit more about herself. Read more about her below!
Why are you interested in Recovery Beyond?
I am interested in the reality of recovery getting to the next level, creating a vision of community, togetherness, and compassion. Living and creating a new lifestyle with adventure and community.
What are you looking forward to in this role?
I am looking forward to seeing the smiles that come from creating a sustainable lifestyle. I love that moment when you look into someone’s eyes, and you see their realization that there is life in recovery. That aha-moment of knowing although recovery is a choice, if given the right compass life can be its own unbelievable adventure.
What hobbies/outdoor activities do you enjoy?
I love to take long drives into nature filled areas, wander down trails and find paths to explore, you can
find your best treasures and gemstones along the way. As a family we have found the most exciting adventures come when you have no plans or expectations. Our favorite getaway is Whidbey Island. We love to hike near Deception Pass early in the
morning, spend our afternoon rock collecting along the beach and finding a group sized hammock to watch the leaves dance about the air. Of course, there’s always ice cream and more beaches to comb. We grab a bite to eat and find ourselves in a formidable game of monopoly as we are tucked away in the corner of some random market. We always cap our day playing at the arcade and going to the drive in.
I also enjoy camping, hiking, and doing acro-yoga. Acro-yoga is both exhilarating and empowering. Though I admit my absolute favorite hobby is finding a basketball court in any place we discover and pretending to play basketball as my daughter tries her very best to let me score some points.
Anything else you’d like to add!
Back to Rock Tumbling and Rock Hounding, I know it’s an unusual hobby, but it is so exciting. When I was early in my recovery I was often fidgeting, nervous, and shaken. I would go places and invite the most distasteful stares and stigma. I needed to find a way to harness all that energy into something that was a grounding point. One day I found a random rock laying around and I scooped it up into my pocket. I later found myself fiddling with this glorious rock and the fidgeting became isolated, it stopped the stares, and it gave me freedom from the stigma. I loved the feeling of being able to anchor all the energy I felt into something. As I have grown through my experiences, I have found multiple layers of grounding, but this one has always been at the forefront of my heart.
