About Romona

Romona Mukherjee is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with over 10 years of experience working with diverse populations of all ages. She earned her Masters of Education with an emphasis in Counseling Psychology from Teachers College Columbia University. In keeping with her mission of evolving, her practice seamlessly weaves the healing disciplines of Eastern wisdom practices with the solid theoretical foundations of western psychology. She is a certified yoga instructor and currently teaches at Reflections Center for Conscious Living in Manhattan. With over 20 years of experience in the practice of yoga and meditation, dance and sacred movement, she organically incorporates movement, posture, breath, mindfulness, guided imagery, and energy work into her therapeutic approach. She is also certified in hypnosis which deepens the exploration of consciousness during the therapeutic process. Romona is reiki certified which adds another layer of subtle yet palpable transformation to the mix. Intent to grow herself, she invariably guides her students and patients to grow as well.

Romona’s early career started at Sanctuary for Families, a large NYC based non-profit agency that provides counseling, case management, and legal aid to survivors of domestic violence. She guided adults, adolescents, and children through processing the trauma and grief of living in such volatile and oppressive circumstances.

She spent time providing clinical consulting for an organization called Kolkata Sanved in West Bengal, India. Kolkata Sanved utilizes dance movement therapy as the primary treatment modality to provide support and empowerment to survivors of trafficking.

She has worked in mental health clinics in Manhattan and the Bronx as therapist to individuals from numerous cultural backgrounds, suffering from varying degrees of severity in mood disorders, adhd, grief and trauma, relationship conflicts, substance abuse, and body image issues.

The dynamic pool of international, clinical, non-profit, and wellness settings shaped her into an ease-ful, open-minded, more importantly, open-hearted guide to anyone in the process of self-discovery.

Growing up, I would go to India every few years and spend long summers there with my extended family. I remember loving it, feeling so nurtured by my grandparents, and aunts and uncles, but also always noting that I was treated with slight difference. I was lovingly referred to as memsahib (westerner). Back home in the states, I never thought of myself as anything but American, it didn’t occur to me that I was any different, until a few comments hit my ears about weird dots on the forehead and pungent curry smells, or even friendly comments about how cool it was to have an elephant god. In both the motherland and the homeland…I felt aware that I was seen as different in some way; where exactly did I fit? These experiences shaped a certain line of questioning in me; questions about identity, belonging, difference, insecurity, trying to find my grounding for self esteem.

My particular story of difference is not that special, I am sure as you read this, you can think of several ways in which you may have grappled with a similar theme of things one way at home, and another way outside the home. Or one way in your intuitive sense of things, but very different in the reality outside of you. It might have been curious, challenging, chaotic, maybe traumatic, or some combination of all four.

Ultimately, whatever the story, it brings up deep questions about identity, sense of self, who are you really and how did these experiences teach you? Most of us resign to the idea of that those experiences didn’t teach us, they were traumatic and left us damaged and wounded. Is that really true? If so, it is a pretty bleak projection of the future.

When life is hard, we tend to harden up. And if we stay rigid for too long, we start to suffocate which shows up as anxiety, depression, adhd, grief, post traumatic stress, chronic illness, and/or physical pain.

It has been my life’s work to look deeply into the heart of these questions, face fearsome truths about the shadow components of myself, and cultivate the vulnerability and courage to sit with some harsh truths about me and my reality. From failed relationships, to grieving, to confronting my own judgemental mind, meeting my own limitations, and questioning everything about my roots, my culture, and my family-I have been in crucible of life’s confrontations. The deep dive into meditation, yoga, dance, mindfulness, and tantra philosophy carried me through upheaval, but more significantly, into deepened and wondrous states of awareness. I have done (and continue to do) all of the work in cultivating fluidity that I ask my clients to do. And it is from this very steady, supple, and committed state, that I offer guidance to anyone who is seeking change.