Lori Holden:
Adoption Expert, Learner, Interviewer, Educator, Author, Coach
Welcome to LavenderLuz.com. Here you’ll discover what I’m (still) learning about openness in adoption, parenting, yoga, living mindfully, thinking critically, and other topics that make me wonder and want to explore.
Lori Holden, M.A.
- Author of The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption, Adoption Unfiltered, and the Root To Rise Yoga Teaching Method
- Host of the podcast Adoption: The Long View
- Adoption Expert , Educator, Coach
- Chief Civilizer at Tessa & Reed, Associates for 20 years (retired; now on contract basis with these two amazing young adults)
- Yogini & Wonderer
- Honored as an Angel in Adoption® by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.
Books by Lori
Are you seeking guidance on becoming the adoptive parent your child needs you to be? Do you want help setting and patrolling boundaries in an open adoption? Do you wish to “do” adoption better but are not quite sure how?
Do you teach yoga and want to do it with more confidence and ease?
I have a book for you.
I write. I speak. I listen. I coach. I teach.
I’m thrilled to announce the release of my two latest books, Adoption Unfiltered (December 2023) and Standing Room Only (available now).
Podcast:
Adoption: The Long View
You’re invited to take a closer look at what happens after you adopt your child and begin parenting them. Your adoption journey isn’t over then — it’s just beginning.
In Adoption: The Long View you’ll hear from a variety of thought-provoking and influential guests as we help you make the most of your adoption journey. Like any trip worth taking, there will be ups and downs and challenges. Here’s what you’re going to wish you’d known right from the start. Ready? Let’s go.
Recent Articles
Stumbling Into My Ghost Kingdom: Field Notes #4
Columnist and late discovery adoptee Brad Ewell begins sharing his journey into the ghost kingdom, a place of many adoptees’ fantasies.
How to Bridge Gaps & Make Adoption More Adoptee-Centered
How can adoptive parents make relationships more adoptee-centric? An NCFA article offers key principles and new ways to think about openness,
Hindsight 20/20: A Time Machine for Better Adoptive Parenting
Wouldn’t it be great to know what to do and what not to do earlier in the parenting journey? Adoptee Greg Gentry enlightens us.
Field Notes #3: How Parents Can Stop the Cycle of Secrets
Once you stop the cycle of secrets, how, exactly, do you share hard things age-appropriately? Brad Ewell had his own news to deliver.
Open Adoption vs Closed Adoption
To the Woman Who Longs to Be a Mom and Who Says “I Want a Closed Adoption”
I hear you when you say “I want a closed adoption.” I was there, too, and I had to unlearn a few things everyone “knows” about adoption.
The Future of Adoption
Reader Question: What is the future of adoption regarding openness? We’ve moved from completely closed adoptions to semi-open (pictures and letters sent through the agency,
Kohl’s Adoption Video Brings Out the Either/Or Brigade
A commercial shows reunion between an adoptee & his birth mom. SO many viewers are incensed! I hold the either/or mindset responsible.
“Real” in Adoption and how it Splits our Babies
When we talk about who is and isn’t real in adoption, we split the baby. Fortunately there is a better alternative to this Either/Or mindset.