Michelle Godfrey sits on the Leadership Team at LivWeal Institute and is the Curriculum Developer and the Director of Learning & Development at LivWeal Certification, a California based training center for therapists and coaches who are joining the movement to end emotional poverty. Michelle has spent the last thirty years in various roles from the classroom to clinic to the community as an educator, counselor, space holder and community builder. Michelle has her Bachelor of Arts in Family and Child Development from the University of Akron, Masters in Social Work from San Diego State University, and is trained in the following modalities:

• Eye Movement and Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Level 1
• Play Therapy – trained to the Registered Play Therapist level
• Circle of Security Parenting Facilitator (COSP)
• Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPT)
• Inner Child Work
• Dialectical Behavioral Training (DBT)
• Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Training (TF-CBT)
• Psychoanalytic practices

Michelle has also been fully immersed in the work, process and practice of the LivWeal Institute since early 2021. And now at the LivWeal Certification, she is ready to support money therapists on their wealth journey to support others.

She is thrilled to be leading the Curriculum Development of the Certification Program for money therapists where she continues to celebrate what matters most to her: relationships…
Nurturing them.
Sustaining them.
Unfolding with them.

She is always in practice of continuing to live the wealth that is this one precious life

TRAUMA INFORMED SPACE HOLDING

“I want people to know that they are allowed to come as they are, be as they are and heal as they are ready to in this space we’ve created for them.” – Michelle Godfrey

As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Michelle puts the person at the center of the process. She is trauma informed, always following a five step model of space holding which includes: safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration and empowerment to ensure the individual’s emotional and physical well-being. Areas of focus when working with clients include addressing the complex needs of anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship challenges, addiction, self-esteem issues, stress management and so much more.

As a space holder, Michelle is mentally and emotionally present for the LWI-Therapists she trains, offering a judgment-free space to be curious, vulnerable and brave where one can discover who and how they are in relationship with wealth.

Opening to Invitation

“The behavior that they are presenting is just the noise in front of their humanness. It is their humanness that I see.” – Michelle Godfrey

As a therapist, Michelle is committed to creating an environment of invitation for her clients and the students she has the opportunity to nurture and support at the LivWeal Institute. Her approach of ‘opening to’ comes from her years of working with families, children and adults in various venues. Opening an invitation means offering her student the foundational skills of self-monitoring and correcting, observation and attending skills, non-verbal communication, grounding techniques, and silence. Each of these micro-teachings of traditional psychotherapy transfer into foundational ways of being for money therapists.

Opening to Invitation grounds Michelle’s approach to inner wealth gardening as she supports those who are ready to help others in a new and unique way.

Heart Led Curriculums

“In this space where learning can happen as ourselves, we begin to unfold into a deeper state of allowing. Who do we become when we allow, allow, allow? This is how we let our heart lead.” – Michelle Godfrey

Michelle weaves together multiple modalities in her heart led curriculums. She is trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) which is a modified type of cognitive behavioral therapy. DBT’s main goal is to teach people how to live in the moment, develop healthy ways to cope with stress, work with their emotions and improve their relationships with others. The LivWeal Institute curriculums are designed to engage students in a practice of emergent and expanding new behaviors.

Michelle’s infuses a lot of heart into the curriculum development process:

• Listening practices – to ensure a growth environment to hold our reasons for behaving the way we have with wealth.
• Pauses for humor and humility – acknowledging that we are all wonderfully unique, bizarre and beautiful.
• Principles of awareness – always remembering to work in relationship with all of the others in the room (people, nature and spirit).
• Building blocks for a solid, whole person foundation – always validating and learning from the emotions and thoughts at play.
• Capacity building as the strategy – to redefine our understanding of wealth and how clear and expansive we are willing to be.
• Meditations – to further nourish and tend the new ground of wealth we are inhabiting.
• An invitation to be messy, leaving perfection behind.

Michelle’s curriculum development process is the devotional fruit from her thirty years in this helping profession.

INQUIRY THROUGH PLAY

“I have a huge heart for the entire world. I just have a huge caring for everyone who comes into my program. I can see the good in who they are, beyond the noise. I can see past that with just about every single person.” – Michelle Godfrey

Michelle is trained as a Play Therapist. Play is how children learn, and inquiry through the freedom and lightness of playful curiosity is how adults can reconnect with play.

Children use play to solve complex problems. They make noise, exclaim their frustration and joy, and find meaning in the unpredictable and incomprehensible. Michelle knows that play is a gateway to expression, and a valuable tool when needing to deconstruct limiting patterns to embrace possibility.

Imagine if wealth could be accessed through play.

Michelle celebrates being human

“I’m just like you. I am a list of life’s learnings, happenings, and heartaches.
I’ll be here to support and witness your exploration of self, wealth and other from various angles. We will journey together.”

At age 13, she qualified for college prep technical classes and loved mechanical drawing and built a model deck to scale.

At 15, she was a participation enthusiast, joining several clubs after a previous record of being invisible and then claiming the winningest record that year in her first year playing tennis!

At age 17/18, after graduating 7th in her class of 200+, she went to a college that was ten hours away from home with 26,000 people she did not know.

At 22, Michelle graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Family and Child Development from Akron University, and then moved to San Diego from NY to start a new life.

From ages 22 – 25, she became a Nanny to a family with 3 young children, ages 6 weeks, 2 years and 5 years old.
At 25, Michelle taught preschool for Head Start and was chosen to be one of 8 teachers to turn around a failing center.

At ages 27-29, she attended San Diego State University and completed her Masters in Social Work.

At 29 she began her personal growth journey with an intentional community self-named, Tuesday Night Group, which became a life changing experience from which her world began to expand!

At ages 33-35 Michelle spent 2 years under contract with the Yokkaichi Board of Education teaching English as the conversation component to Japanese children and adults’ English education. In Japan she had the cultural and personal experience of a lifetime, where she studied art, played Taiko drumming in festivals and learned how to speak Japanese.

At 35 she moved into an intentional community with members from Tuesday Night Group. There were seven adults living in one home, which became seven adults and three children.

In this community, Michelle helped create and run several businesses, including a worm farm, a healing practice, a preschool and a packaging company.

At 36, Michelle married her husband Ben on the beach in Laguna Niguel.

At 37 she gave birth to her first child, Isabel Marie.

At 38, the recession hit hard in SoCal and she and Ben lost everything financially and the community they were part of dissolved, leaving Michelle heartbroken. She and her partner and children landed in Omaha, NE where they lived with her in-laws.

At 39, Michelle gave birth to her second child, Airam Edith. Michelle and her partner decided she would work as a stay at home mom and raise the children. She did that for 8 years.

At 40, her teacher/mentor suddenly passed away, leaving her to learn how to be her own compass.

At 40, her brother in law passed away tragically in an accident, altering her perspective on many things.

At 42 she bought her first home with Ben in rural NE and began farming in as natural and sustainable ways as they could. Together they raised pigs and chickens for sale and grew large gardens. They did that for 4 years
At 46 her mother in law passed away after a 6 year battle with cancer, leaving the extended NE family without the glue that held them together.

At 47 she revived a 20 year old education and became a licensed therapist and began her work as a Child Therapist at Heartland Family Service where she accumulated her hours for full licensure.

At 51 she opened up her private practice for mental health counseling for children and adults.

At 53, after 2 years of planning, she moved her family to central Pennsylvania to live in deeper alignment with their souls.

And now she’s here, at the LivWeal Institute, ready to support you on your wealth journey to support others.

Michelle is thrilled to be leading the Curriculum Development of the Money Therapist Certification Program at the LivWeal Institute where she can continue to celebrate what matters most to her: relationships.

Nurturing them.
Sustaining them.
Unfolding with them.
Even leaving them sometimes…

Always in practice of continuing to live the wealth that is this one precious life.