Institute Guides
Practitioners of Depth, Timing, and Relational Genius
At Becoming Self: Institute for Human Development, transformation is never a solo endeavor. It unfolds in relationship – with time, with nature, with story, and with others who walk beside us. Our Institute Guides are those companions: practitioners who not only understand the Becoming Self, but who embody it in their own unique way.
Each Guide brings a distinct genius to the Institute’s holistic offerings – whether through somatic wisdom, ritual design, narrative healing, ecological insight, or developmental coaching. They complement the core teachings of The Becoming Framework with their own lived experience, professional expertise, and symbolic fluency. Together, they form a constellation of support for those seeking soulful, timing-sensitive growth.
Some Guides lead CEU-accredited trainings. Others facilitate online courses, offer group rituals, provide one-on-one mentorship, or co-create custom programs for individuals, organizations and communities. Depending on your needs, your journey may be supported by Dr. Jason Geoffrion, founder of Becoming Self, or by an Institute Guide whose background aligns with your field, your timing, and your unfolding.
This is not a static faculty – it’s a living network of practitioners committed to relational integrity, developmental precision, and soulful expansion. Each Guide is chosen not just for what they know, but for the personal growth they’ve engaged in, and how they hold, listen, and transmit.
Explore the profiles below to meet the Guides, learn about their offerings, and discover who might be the right companions for your next revolution of becoming.
Jason Geoffrion, PhD
Founder & Director Becoming Self Institute, ~ Creator of the Becoming Framework and Life Cycle Sequencing
Dr. Jason Geoffrion is the founder and director of Becoming Self, a guide, psychotherapist, life coach, teacher, and transition specialist with a PhD in human development. For more than 25 years he has supported questioning youth, adult seekers, and exploring professionals. His work centers on identity, growth, and transformational experience and is embodied in The Becoming Framework, a holistic model mapping thirteen life cycles from infancy to ethereal presence. Using the Life Cycle Sequencing process, he turns missed developmental milestones into practices of self-compassion, narrative reclamation, and embodied growth. Based at his riverside home in Colorado, he creates reflective tools, symbolic exercises, and collaborative communities. He offers trainings, online courses, workshops, and retreats that integrate developmental theory, ritual, and somatic practice to invite lifelong, living transformation.
Rachael Skolnik Bonaiuto, MA, BC-DMT, LPC
Founder of Embodied Wellness ~ Authentic Movement ~ Akashic Records Consultation ~ Somatic Educator
Rachael Skolnik Bonaiuto is the founder of Embodied Wellness, a Board‑Certified Dance/Movement Therapist and Licensed Professional Counselor who centers somatic wisdom, creative embodiment, and compassionate clinical skill. Trained in Somatic Counseling and Authentic Movement, she guides clients to reclaim bodily sovereignty after illness, injury, or systemic harm and translates insight into practical change using dance/movement therapy, somatic attunement, creative intervention and experiential practices. Rachael offers individual and group therapy, movement‑based workshops, retreats, Authentic Movement teacher preparation, and consultative support for clinicians. Her work is trauma‑aware, evidence‑informed, and steeped in cross‑cultural and international experience, emphasizing self‑regulation, relational depth, and sustainable wellness. Based in embodied practice and community collaboration, she cultivates pathways for increased self‑love, creative expression, and lasting behavioral change, and welcomes collaborative projects that bridge therapy, intuition, movement, and somatic education.
Gabriel Cannon, MA
BSI Organizational Consultant ~ Educational Leadership ~ Policy Studies
Gabriel Cannon brings clinical skill, educational leadership, and wilderness facilitation to guide adolescents and adults through embodied transition work. Trained in Counseling Psychology and Educational Leadership, he has ten years of hands-on systems experience as school counselor, dean of culture, and assistant principal in Denver Public Schools. He designs and facilitates rites-of-passage programs, somatic mentoring, and school-based curricula that combine trauma-informed assessment, relational safety, and practical skill-building. Gabriel is a practitioner of ceremonial practice and body-centered modalities as a SomaSource Practitioner and Golden Bridge collaborator. He delivers outpatient treatment, family and couples therapy, supervision, and mentor coaching, and builds cohort learning environments that scale ethical initiation work. Based in Colorado, he leverages outdoor programs, group rituals, and creative arts to translate developmental change into everyday action.
Ellen Geoffrion, MA, LPC, R-DMT
Founder of Spring Wind Resourcing ~ Creator of the Spring Wind Method ~ Reiki Master in Training ~ Aroma Psychology Practitioner
Ellen Geoffrion is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Colorado and a Registered Dance / Movement Therapist through the American Dance Therapy Association. With more than 12 years in clinical practice, she blends somatic counseling, attachment-based work, grief and end-of-life care, and dance / movement therapy to help clients access healing through the body. Educated with a BA in Dance and Communication Studies, and holding an MA in Somatic Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Dance / Movement Therapy, Ellen’s published thesis explores D/MT’s impact on grieving children. Her clinical experience includes hospital and hospice internships, leadership and mentorship in group practice, and a private practice shaped by parenting a neurodivergent child. She specializes in the Spring Wind Resourcing Method, Reiki, Aroma Psychology, and somatic approaches that support children and adults. Ellen lives beside the Middle St. Vrain River in Lyons, Colorado, and brings grounded presence, creative movement, and deep attunement to every therapeutic relationship.
Jody Gold, MA
Founder of The Way We Can
Jody Gold, founder of The Way We Can, is an MSOD-trained practitioner who elevates teams so they work as effectively together as they can. Drawing on a decade as a middle school teacher and a Master’s in Organizational Development, Jody’s work produces successful, resilient, interdependent teams across tech, energy, healthcare, education, and the nonprofit space. His work creates a deep shift – from “me” to “we” – in how teams think, decide, and act. Using a research-backed map and practical methodology, Jody helps organizations prevent problems before they arise even as they solve problems and capture emerging opportunities. Signature offerings include off-site retreats, Art of Alignment™ decision-making, Heart of Belonging groups, and tailored individual and executive team coaching – combining experiential learning, conflict transformation, and smarter decision-making to raise interaction quality and collective intelligence. Jody’s practical optimism – and his belief that serious work can also be joyful – helps organizations move faster, make better decisions, and build the cultures that work and that last.
John W. McCluskey
John W. McCluskey is a veteran educator, principal, council carrier, and facilitator who has been working to humanize education and leadership since 1989. For more than three decades he has cultivated learning environments rooted in relationship, belonging, and shared responsibility. As principal of New Vista High School in Boulder, Colorado, he has helped shape a student‑centered culture where dialogue, authenticity, and community stewardship guide daily practice. His work is grounded in the belief that young people thrive when they are seen, heard, and invited into meaningful participation, and that schools become transformative when relationships – not compliance – form their core.
Kathryn Holt, PhD, LCSW
Depth Psychology ~ Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy ~ Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy
Kathryn C. Holt is a depth psychotherapist in private practice in Longmont, CO, specializing in body acceptance, soul work, and postpartum support. She offers a rare synthesis of depth and behavioral psychologies, specifically feminist and psychodynamic psychology, DBT/RO DBT, and experiential movement practices such as Qoya Inspired Movement. She writes and teaches about bodies, motherhood, and spirituality in psychology. She studied dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) at Columbia University and completed her PhD in depth psychology with a focus on Jungian and Archetypal Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Grounded in her own journey through bodily disconnection and maternal transformation, she creates an atmosphere of mutual respect and care for our human experiences. Kathryn teaches, consults, and leads workshops that help clients reclaim bodily authority, deepen attachment, and live with greater ease and meaning. Dr. Holt is the author of ‘Overcoming Body Hatred Workbook’ and the co-author of the well-received ‘Stronger Than BPD Journal’.
Elizabeth Jameson, MDiv
Spiritual Guide ~ Soul Coach ~ Writer ~ Retreat Leader ~ The Inner Alchemy of Wisdom
Elizabeth Jameson is a midwife of being, a spiritual guide and soul coach whose work weaves together three threads: the wisdom of the mystics, the embodied cosmos and the depth of lived human experience. A priest, teacher and retreat facilitator for over three decades, she gently accompanies others through thresholds of loss, change and awakening. Her offerings blend contemplative practice, poetic reflection and soulful community to help people reconnect with their true self and the Love that holds it all. Her journey through grief, including the death of her beloved child Bee, deepens her capacity to accompany others into healing and joy. Elizabeth’s presence creates a field where the sacred can be felt and where emergence is honored over fixing. She trusts that every act of returning to our own “I am” expands the greater “we are” – healing not only ourselves but also the world we touch and the Love that touches us in return.
Dominica Lumazar
Multi-business owner ~ Award-Winning Strategist ~ #1 International Bestselling Author ~
Dominica Lumazar is an award-winning strategist, multi-business owner, and #1 international bestselling author known for blending heart and strategy to build brands that inspire transformation. From her roots in jazz and creative arts to leading Sweet D Marketing, a Silicon Valley-based agency specializing in growth strategy, brand elevation, and business development, Dominica’s work bridges business intelligence, psychology, and soulful leadership. Featured in Forbes, CNBC, and Total Prestige Magazine, she empowers others to align who they are with what they build – proving that real success is measured not only in profit, but in purpose, impact, and legacy.
Jackson Maloney, BA
Founder of Standing on the Earth ~ Youth Mentor ~ Rites of Passage Guide
Jackson Maloney is a youth mentor and rites of passage guide based in Boulder, Colorado. He founded Standing On The Earth in 2023 with the mission to support teenage boys and young men through the threshold of boyhood into adulthood. He blends wilderness-based initiation and apprenticeship-style mentorship to help guide adolescents towards greater maturation, focusing on emotional awareness and capacity, identification and pursuit of their passions, clear communication skills, ability for insight and self-reflection, and connection with nature and the world around them. Drawing on his own transformational encounters in nature and ceremony, his creative career as a poet and songwriter, years volunteering with Men’s Leadership Alliance and Twin Eagles Wilderness School, and his own personal struggles as a teenager before he met his own mentors, Jackson offers a space for teens to build trust with somebody outside of their immediate family. His vision is for a world where all adolescent boys have the support they need to become healthy, thriving, generative, joyful men who are utilizing their gifts in service of something greater than themselves.
Mary Rose, MA, LPC
Founder of Moving Toward Health ~ Paradox Process ~ Vital Mind Reset Coach ~ Holistic Therapist
Mary Rose is a Licensed Professional Counselor, somatic therapist, and Vital Mind Reset coach who blends twenty years of clinical training with a lived recovery from autoimmune illness to help people feel safe in their bodies and reclaim clarity. Her work reframes symptoms as intelligent signals and pairs somatic therapy, the Paradox Process, parts work, and lifestyle medicine into a 44-day Vital Mind Reset that rewires regulation rather than merely managing pain. Clients come to Mary Rose when therapy, supplements, and willpower haven’t worked – she offers an embodied, compassionate path that integrates nervous-system practices, nutrition, environmental detox, and measurable experiments. Grounded, practical, and deeply attuned, she guides people from chronic survival into steady regulation, clearer priorities, and sustainable vitality, inviting clients to listen to their bodies and recover a truer, more confident way of living.
Maren Gauldin, MS
Enneagram Facilitator and Guide ~ Transformational Coach ~ Soul-Centered Organizational Development Consultant ~ Founder Seeds to Wholeness
Maren Gauldin is a transformational coach, consultant, and Enneagram guide with more than twenty years of experience in human and organizational development. She works at the meeting point of inner awareness and outer leadership, helping individuals, couples, teams, and mission‑driven organizations align who they are with what they create. Her work centers on human potential, systemic transformation, and the inner architecture that shapes how people and systems function. Through her practice, Seeds to Wholeness, she integrates organizational development, somatic intelligence, consciousness studies, and the Enneagram to support clients navigating thresholds of growth. Guided by the belief that every person and every system carries the seeds of its own wholeness, she blends deep inquiry with practical design to turn insight into embodied, sustainable change. Rooted in a commitment to justice, liberation, and collective becoming, she offers coaching, consulting, facilitation, and transformational programs that invite clarity, courage, and aligned action.
Christi Strickland, MA
Founder of Circle Forth ~ Facilitation Mentoring ~ Collective Transformation
Christi Strickland is the founder of Circle Forth, a facilitator, teacher, and mentor who blends living-systems thinking, nature-based wisdom, and embodied practice in order to foster thriving people and purpose. For more than two decades she has trained facilitators, led experiential leadership courses, and supported groups across education, health, justice, arts, and community settings. Her work centers on designing regenerative group life that is collaborative, joyful, and accountable, integrating current theoretical understanding of group development, council, restorative practice, somatic presence, and rites-of-passage. Using outdoor learning, ritual, and practice-based curriculum, she turns group conflict and fragmentation into opportunities for repair, clarity, and sustained action. She offers facilitator training, retreats, strategic planning, cohort mentorships, and project facilitation that develop practical facilitation skill, relational capacity, and resilient community systems. She seeks to ignite a culture of collective wisdom in these times of upheaval and uncertainty.
Our Invitation
We invite you to step into a space where your development is not judged, but celebrated. Whether you’re in a season of emergence, integration, or renewal, Becoming Self offers tools and teachings to help you navigate with clarity and compassion. This is not just a framework – it’s a way of seeing yourself and others with deeper understanding and grace.
Join us in co-creating a community where growth is sacred, timing is trusted, and becoming is honored. Explore your current Life Cycle, dive into past Life Cycles, contribute your wisdom, and connect with others who are walking their own path of transformation.
You’re not alone. You’re not late. You’re right on time – and we’re so glad you’re here.
