Donations for Destiny

Destiny Aspen Mowadeng, a great friend of the Institute for Creative Mindfulness, died on May 25, 2026. A proud Canadian, Destiny was born with congenital spina bifida and never had the capacity to walk. A life-long wheelchair user, she was a passionate advocate for the rights of disabled people, especially in medical/clinical and learning spaces. In August of 2022 Destiny, also a certified trauma coach, offered a course with the Institute for Creative Mindfulness alongside Dr. Jamie Marich called “The Dark Side of Disability.” She recognized that the title sounded harsh and maybe even a bit jarring. She wanted that. Tired of what she saw as endless “inspiration porn” about disabled bodies, she fiercely desired to paint a picture for clinical professionals of what it was really like to live as she did: rarely able to leave the house, dependent on caretakers, and yet still full of wonder and curiosity about the world and the people in it. 

Destiny was a practitioner of Dancing Mindfulness, among other expressive arts, and completed the online certification in 2022 with Ramona Skriiko. In 2023, she offered a session on our annual expressive arts retreat, which was a hybrid offering at the time, on how to adapt Dancing Mindfulness skills for wheelchair users. She avidly contributed to the Redefine Therapy blog on the Institute for Creative Mindfulness. Her final piece with us appeared on April 6, 2026, shortly after she learned about the seriousness of her cancer diagnosis. You can read that piece HERE. Destiny also published a blog called “Powerfully Powerless” and published several books of her own poetry. 

Destiny identified as a member of the LGBTQ+ community and as a person with dissociative experiences. Her interviewed contributions to Dr. Jamie 2023 bestseller Dissociation Made Simple: A Stigma-Free Guide to Embracing Your Dissociative Mind and Navigating Daily Life were beyond powerful. In her contributor interview she famously describes why she hates therapyspeak words like “grounding” and phrases like “The body keeps the score.” She resisted any narrative that people with physical or emotional disabilities needed to be fixed or corrected in order to heal. In that book she gives us many simple ideas for keeping things real in our recovery and loving ourselves as we are. 

Destiny lived on government assistance and has some funding to secure many of the costs involved with her funeral. She wished to be buried, and so that involves needing to raise $1000.00 CAD (about $750.00 US), in addition to some miscellaneous costs that might arise. 

If you are willing to donate in any amount to support these costs, the Institute for Creative Mindfulness will give you indefinite access to Destiny’s homestudy course, “The Dark Side of Disability.” Although we are no longer offering it for CE credits, you might be able to apply for them depending on which state you are licensed to practice in as a post-program approval. Beyond credits, this course is like having a private consultation with a truly unique and gifted mind on many issues connected to disability and making your practices more disability-informed. 

Please feel free to pass this fundraiser along to others in your circles as we work to help provide the funeral that our friend wanted. 

In order to register you for the course we need the following information (don’t worry, this does not automatically add you to the mailing list):