At a university that asks its students to lead with their heart, it should come as no surprise that some students’ hearts intersect in relationship with each other. These two Naropa love stories show the inspiring ways our alumnx are embodying their intersectional values at work and in love.
Naropa’s Intersectional Love Stories!
Alumnx power couple using awkwardness to disrupt
By Halley Hadfield
M
any of us consider awk wardness as something we tr y to avoid. For Tosha Jorden (BA Contemplative Psychology, '15, MA,'19) and Christina Shore ('19), alumnx of Naropa’s MA in Clinic al Mental Health Counseling: Somatic Counseling prog r am, aw k ward ne s s has become a crucial component of their everyday lives. Together, they have built a love, and life, that is both unique and empowering to the work they do in normalizing what it means to embrace the uncomfortable.
to take the almond and was just being awkward and flirting in a kind of an unusual way with the almond. So, we always joked about the awk ward almond. And that was Tosha—always embracing the awkward.” That awkward walk was the beginning of their love for one another, and the moment they planted a seed that they would revisit years later. Meanwhile, other seeds of purpose and mission were blooming within both of them.
During their studies within the “We were about September deep Naropa bubble and then Photos courtesy of Jorden and Shore into our first year of a cohort integrating into the wider Boulder together, and we were crushing on bubble, the couple faced each other pretty good,” Shore reminisces. “So, we challenges in navigating their paths, both individually decided to go for a walk. We hadn’t clarified that and as partners. the other person also had a crush, so it was a very awkward walk, and I had some almonds in my purse. Engaging in conversations around diversity and I offered Tosha some almonds, and Tosha proceeded inclusivity while attending a predominantly white
Naropa Magazine | 2021–22 | magazine.naropa.edu
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