My Independence Report

Joelle Prevost holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology and is a registered clinical counselor (British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors), a licensed teacher (British Columbia Teachers’ Federation), and a passionate communication-skills coach. She has worked in high school, group, and one-on-one settings.  In private practice, Prevost works with individuals and couples experiencing communication challenges, anxiety, trauma, and chronic illness.  In her spare time, she writes music, makes cold-process soap, plays pool, and enjoys hanging out with her dog and cat in her native British Columbia, Canada.

Kristy Russ is the Maverick Pharmacist Functional Medicine Health Coach with over 25 years of experience in helping people both improve and preserve their health. She helps discover and fix the underlying cause of your health issue, rather than the bandaid solution of standard medicine. She especially works with those struggling with exhaustion, chronic pain, autoimmune disease and the never-ending weight loss battle. Kristy empowers you to take control of your health. She does this by emphasizing realistic nutritional and lifestyle changes that everyone can make and tailoring recommendations to your specific needs. The experience of her own difficult health journey, knowledge and abilities as a pharmacist, as well as her functional medicine training are valuable tools in accomplishing significant results.

My new book, It’s Your Life, Isn’t It? paints a picture of how to look back at your past, analyze your present, and reimagine your future. It provides a way to assess your desires, your strengths, and weaknesses and to put these into a framework that will help you construct a more fulfilling lifestyle. The theme of the book is based on how to manage change. Throughout my lifelong career as an entrepreneur, as well as seminars I have attended, and countless ones I have conducted, in many parts of the world, I believe that I have a broad perspective. It openly discusses the successes as well as the failures, and the lessons learned from the achievements and the errors. Many of the life stories came from those programs, as well as the friendships I have been blessed with over the decades. – Beverly Kievman Copen   You can purchase It’s Your Life, Isn’t It? On Amazon [https://www.amazon.com/Your-Life-Beverly-Kievman-Copen-ebook/dp/B09B17ZZ8L/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8] and Lulu! [https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/beverly-kievman-copen/its-your-life-isnt-it/paperback/product-k7v77d.html?page=1&pageSize=4]

AN ODYSSEY OF SURVIVAL AND GRACE Birthed into poverty and violence, my early life was one of extreme vulnerability. I spent long evenings in the spell of neon lights outside the military bases of my childhood where my mother picked up men. My mother prostituted me for the first time at age nine. I found refuge in the world of language, books, music, nature, and the world of Spirit. There were human angels who came into my life, each for a short time, with the face of compassion and whispers that left behind miraculous seeds of hope and the ability to reach out and past the unbearable circumstances of my life, again and again.    Institutionalized shortly after beginning college, I would not have survived if not for Sydney, a courageous nurse who fought for my release. When I first began this book, I searched for and then learned from her that the institution I was held in was conducting experimental research. My unwillingness to be compliant and take prescribed pills led to my commitment to the worst state hospital in the Illinois System. As I began writing this book, Sydney and I returned to Elgin State Hospital for a visit and conducted archival research. We discovered that throughout the Cold War our nation used thousands of vulnerable, unsuspecting citizens as research subjects: newborns, institutionalized children, African-Americans, Native Americans, prisoners, mental patients, and our own military. But this book is not just about surviving the impossible, it is about recovery of the soul, healing into wholeness, and the possibility of living a luminous life.

Julie Gianelloni Connor started out thinking she would be a writer, detoured into the U.S. Foreign Service, and after retirement returned to a writing career. She is the author of an award-winning book, Savoring the Camino de Santiago, and the owner and editor of Bayou City Press in Houston, TX, which focuses on writing about travel, Houston, and international affairs. Born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Julie finished prep school at The Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, before heading to Houston for Rice University. Her undergraduate B.A. in English and history was followed by an M.A. in creative writing from the University of Houston. She also studied journalism at Louisiana State University, during which time she interned at the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate. Among her jobs in her 20s, Julie taught English as a Foreign Language in Lisbon (Portugal), Barcelona (Spain), and Wimberly (England); was a Teaching Fellow at the University of Houston; and worked in the private sector for a law firm and an audio company. In 1981 Julie began her diplomatic career with the U.S. Information Agency, principally working overseas at embassies on press, cultural, and exchange issues. In 1999 USIA was absorbed into the U.S. Department of State, and Julie continued her diplomatic career there until her retirement. During a 33-year career, Julie rose to the senior Foreign Service while serving overseas nine different times in seven different countries: Israel (twice), Paraguay, Guatemala, Indonesia, Colombia (twice), Malaysia, and Chile. She worked in fields as diverse as anti-narcotics, nuclear nonproliferation, and women’s issues.