What: Home is Where the Heart is An Adoption and Biological Reunion Story, Performance, Film, Memoir, & Q & A with Jenni Alpert (aka “Cami” of Cami and Don The Biological Duo) a special evening with formerly fostered adoptee experienced in biological reunion. Jenni Alpert (aka “Cami” of Cami and Don the biological duo) to share her biological reunion story, songs, and memoir with Q and A and a one-time only complimentary screening of Homeless the Soundtrack.
When: Sat Dec 11th 2021
Time: 7pm PST doors open 8pm Start Wine/Light Snacks/Beverages
Where: Electric Lodge, Venice CA 1416 Electric Ave
Tickets: $20 – In Person, $10 for students and youth 14 & up $10 – Two Hours of Continuing Education Units (CEU) $20 – ZOOM Virtual TICKET
Agenda: 7pm-7:45pm Support Group Hosted by Jeanette Yoffe: Understanding Reunion- How do we do this? For all members of the Adoption Constellation: Adoptees, Birthparents, Adoptive Parents. Social Workers and Therapists INVITED!
8pm Show begins 9pm Q&A
Proceeds will go to Celia Center Foundation and Programming for the Adoption ConstellationDescription: Celia Center Foundation Presents Home is Where the Heart is An Adoption and Biological Reunion Story, a special evening with formerly fostered adoptee experienced in biological reunion Jenni Alpert (aka “Cami” of Cami and Don The Biological Duo) to share her biological reunion story in honor of her birth father Don, songs, and memoir with Q and A with clips from Don’s Take and a one time only complimentary screening of Homeless the Soundtrack the short doc about the early days of their reunion in support of all aspects of The Adoption Constellation.
Hosted and Moderated by Celia Center founder, formerly fostered, adoptee Jeanette Yoffe
This conference took place on Friday, November 14-15, 2020. Celia Center sponsored this conference and 250 people attended virtually.
The National Adoption Conference is a groundbreaking two days of education, training, networking and invaluable resources for all members of the adoption and foster care ‘constellation’. Taking full advantage of an entirely ‘virtual’ conference, we will bring you face to face with some of the Nation’s leading experts and visionaries in the field as well as live music, entertainment, coffee talk, Q&A’s, diverse exhibitors and even an art gallery to explore.
Web access available for all sessions, films, and music for 6 months AFTER the conference through May 13, 2021. PURCHASE ACCESS HERE
This event is for First Birth Mothers and Fathers, Adoptees, Foster Youth Alumni, Foster Parents, Adoptive Parents, Siblings, and Extended Family Members, Social Workers, Psychotherapists, Teachers, and Doctors.
To provide insight, education and resources for people involved in any aspect of the adoption | foster care constellation so that they may find trustworthy and immediate mental, physical or emotional assistance.
To begin an on-going and transparent conversation around how this Nation approaches, administers and discusses issues regarding foster care and adoption.
To challenge the old and largely inaccurate negative stigmas surrounding foster care and adoption and create a new shared language that champions openness, challenges labels and prejudice and creates an atmosphere of love and normalcy around non-traditional families.
We Come From A Place Not So Safe
by Paula Free, Adoptee
The Darkness Inside Me
There is a quiet rage burning through my soul. It’s lived inside me for years. Buried. Deep beneath the layers of abandonment, rejection, worthlessness, self-pity, and self-hate. I’m trying to get to the good part inside me, but all I feel is bad. It stretches through my heart and burns its way into my mind. I feel like I want to tear out my hair or scratch off my skin. This ache is so intense I could vomit. But instead, I sit in it and let it burn through me. Circling inside my belly. I can feel it intensify and grow more unbearable to handle. It has a hold on my soul and doesn’t want to let me go. I can’t move. I can’t speak and I can barely breathe. But I sit here. I am waiting to find a release. It keeps changing from one emotion to the next. All equally as evil and dominating. It’s as if they feel they have a right to live inside me, and now I belong to them. They own my soul and they have no intention of letting me go. I have slipped away under their power where I am lost and wandering, and alone, having settled into a life as a slave to the force of darkness that has replaced Me. She has established her domain. And I have submitted to her power. Not knowing where she came from or how to get rid of her, she is now me and I slowly lose the awareness of the good that I once knew existed inside me. She’s not so obvious to the world. I have been trained to put a smile on my face to mask the darkness covering my soul.
I feel only the abyss of pain deep inside and it consumes me. It is big and it is heavy and it feels like I am dying under the weight of it. I try to fight my way out but become exhausted and buried deeper still. I give in and stop and for a while walking around like this, feeling totally helpless to find the way out. What I have tried hasn’t worked. And then, I will read something, or hear something and I will feel it penetrate the negative weight around me, and for a moment I can remember how it feels to be safe, secure, and loved and I don’t want it to end. The feeling starts to fade and I try to keep it, hold onto it and make it mine. I want to stay here forever. I want to believe it is my right to belong here. And I can, for a while. I get comfortable here. Thinking it is my place; my home. I’ve fooled myself somehow finding a way to convince myself this is mine. Warmth grows in my heart. A smile grows on my lips and I am alive again. It’s love. I forget that I don’t own this place. I am only a visitor. I don’t know how long it will last or when it will be stolen away. For now, I live like it’s mine determined to hold on to this place I can’t seem to find, on my own.
I Need to Find You
To know where I belong. It has to be here somewhere. Who will accept me and keep me strong? If you, give me the strength, I don’t know for how long. I don’t know who I am or where to be so I look around for you to remind me. It’s still always temporary, and I am getting tired of the up and down is steadily getting tossed around. I feel at your mercy. I’m only OK when you like me. Because who will bring me to that place if it isn’t in your face. If I disappoint you I get cut off, and I am beginning to not know how to fit in. I need to know where you are. I think when I find you I will now be complete and get from you the entire suit. The pieces I can’t find inside I will get them from you and begin to rise. Now I know I must find you and I begin to look at everyone I see. Perhaps YOU will notice me. Then I will be found and the story will be that YOU in searching, found, and restored me. Time passes and nothing happens and I am certain I will never know how to become safe and whole. I look harder and become more aware that I will need to pay money to finish this stare. I know it is a big commitment to make the find move. I begin to panic and get stung by fear. What if you’re not available to give me your ear? I do it anyway. What have I got to lose? It must be done before I become a permanent member of the blues. I get the call you are willing to talk to and meet me to see what I have become. You happen to have been waiting for me all these years hoping I would find you to quell your tears. Tears you’ve cried for me since I’ve been gone. Not realizing the pain would always belong.
We Meet
I am never more unsure and certain at the same time. This meeting was meant to be for us to climb out of the emptiness created after we separated. You cried when you saw me. We talked. and you tried to fill in the blanks of how there came this big divide. I listened and waited and thought it would be a magical moment of you and me; together again, bonded and strong reunited to sing our old song. It wasn’t the same. How could this be? I thought you were the answer to me. I didn’t really know you, but I was glad to see, there was some resemblance looking back at me. I wanted so much more but what I got would do. I had made some progress in finding you. I left not sure of what to feel. My completeness not seeming anymore real. I didn’t know how to fit you into my life. I definitely didn’t need another mom in my life. I came to you. I thought it would be the replaceable part that went missing from me. I realized there was nothing you could say to give me back what I felt stolen away. So, I stick to what I know works, keeping others happy to get the praise I’m worth.
Lost in Pleasing
It doesn’t take long before I’m exhausted and you seem to have found the pleasure in manipulating me to get your way. It’s so easy. I’m so needy. You see the power you have over me and begin to withhold the praise you see I need, watching, waiting to see if I bleed. I get weaker than I’ve ever been. Addicted to praise I work to please, every move draining me, I fall to my knees. Begging. Pleading. Desperate for you to see me, praise me, love me. Is this all I am? All that’s left? A life of deprivation I’m forced to accept. The more I need you the worse it gets. You strengthen as I weaken. You grow as I die. You no longer care as you watch me cry. I am lost more than I’ve ever been to. What I once held onto holds onto me. I am trapped in a space; falling, falling away from the first place. The pain has compounded; your rejection upon my lack of affection. Death to my soul; deeper than the deepest hole. I am now completely out of control. How do I fight the desperation I feel. I struggle. I’m trying to become more real than this pain inside getting harder to hide.
The Destruction
It has grown and has a life force of its own. I am fighting you. I am fighting me. I can’t find a place to let me just be. Chaos in my soul. I have no idea where to go. I am afraid. I am alone. I feel my heart will never find its home. I need someone to love me; feed my exhausted soul. I can’t go on like this. I’m not made for this abyss. I collapse. I am sobbing. I cry out in pain “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry why did you have to go? I feel so unloved and unloveable.’ Was I too bad to kiss? Why wasn’t I worth the risk? “Please come back, come back, I need you in my life. You need to come back and make it right.” Oh God! Oh God! What am I going to do? I am alone and nobody can help me through. Nobody can help me through. NOBODY can help me through. I don’t know if I can make it like this anymore. It has to be me that gets up off this floor. I am now lying there, still. Waiting to receive the invincible pill. I roll to my side and curl up like a ball. Holding myself tight, I wait for the call. I am waiting for something inside me to change. Please help me, I need you… I need you…please help me find my way.
The Awakening
I open my eyes and jump up off the floor. I’m not giving up. I’m trying some more. I set out to see what has become of me. I can do this. I can do this. I have to believe. Things will be different just wait and you’ll see, a certain strength has come over me. I am determined to figure this struggle out. I know one thing is perfectly clear; this is about me and my enormous fear. The fear that has controlled me since my birth. Thinking I will never be loved for my true worth. I hear…and I’ve been told… I am worth more than gold – simply because I’m made from a one and only mold! Can it be; who I am, has nothing to do with how YOU feel about me? I’m getting excited and jittery. This thought alone is setting me free and releasing power from deep down within. This might be the first time I feel, I will win this race, and not forever be a victim to the constant chase. I have a sense that I’m on top, giving myself permission; it’s time to stop- hurting myself by not being clear; there is a reason I was sent here. No one can take my life away. It’s mine to choose what to do, what to believe, and what to say. I close my eyes. I go back inside to figure out my soul’s divide. Could it be I’m OK? You didn’t leave with my heart that day? I still have all my pieces intact? I have my heart. I have my worth. They belonged to me from before my birth.
I am Priceless
Complete by Design
Given to the world,
with you in mind.
My destiny is
FOREVER MINE.
Jeanette Yoffe was interviewed for this podcast on February 16, 2018.
Podcaster Haley Radke invites Jeanette Yoffe to share what inspired her to begin a support group for adoptees. Discussion covers how to start your own group and best practices for peer-facilitated groups.
If starting or joining a support group feels too intimidating, don’t worry! Jeanette has a great idea for free support: find a listening partner.
The Adoption Constellation: New Ways of Thinking About and Practicing Adoption by Michael Phillip Grand
Using the term adoption constellation vs adoption triad
Adopt Salon constellation groups can include: adoptees, adoptive parents, first parents, foster youth, foster alumni, foster families, social workers, spouses, siblings
Suggested Support Group Rules:
We support each other here, we don’t fix each other – no unsolicited advice
Everyone gets a turn to share (5 minutes). What’s your name, what are you here for – do you have a question, do you want support for something in particular? You can share briefly about your story.
You can ask questions if you do want advice.
You can be here and not share: OWL (Observe, Watch and Listen)
Keep everything confidential that is shared in the group
We need firm and safe group rules so we don’t experience secondary trauma
Constellation groups help us examine adoption from multiple angles; helps in growing compassion and acknowledging it is a shared experience.
Celia Center support groups have been featured on OWN’s Television Show, “Raising Whitley” and TLC’s “Long Lost Family”
If you can’t find a group, don’t feel comfortable going to a group, don’t want to start your own… Find a listening partner! Book a regular call that is to someone who will just listen. Listen, receive and acknowledge.
Support groups to listen, share and support; you can also have guests come in and present, maybe for 15 minutes on different topics – mindfulness, an education piece about trauma, sharing their story… but leave space for the group to still share and discuss.
If a group has different members of the adoption constellation present, it’s best to have a licensed therapist to facilitate. For peer-led support, just having adult adoptees (for example) is safer.
Celia Center Arts Festival | Adopting Resilience, Fostering the Spirit of Creativity
Celia Center Arts Festival 2016 Summary Video
Check out adopteesconnect.com for new peer-led groups starting in the United States (started by Pamela Karanova of How Does it Feel to be Adopted)
If you have another resource of places to find in-person adoptee support groups, please get in touch so I can list it here.
