Punam Medina

My Story

I especially enjoy working with people whose experiences of immigration, transglobal living, or cultural adaptation have shaped the way they move through the world. Together, we can make room for the complexity of belonging, healing, and finding your footing in a way that honors both your lived experience and your values. I believe therapy can be a place where you reconnect with your own wisdom and build greater clarity, self-trust, and emotional ease.

Alongside my clinical training, I bring a creative and holistic lens to the work. I am a contributing author for the Envoy Guide and a meditation teacher on Insight Timer, where I share practices that support grounding, self-awareness, and emotional regulation. I also bring entrepreneurial and nonprofit leadership experience, having helped build a business from the ground up, worked across 18 counties in Western North Carolina, and supported a state pilot program that partnered with human service organizations to provide wrap-around services addressing social determinants of health. These experiences have shaped the way I show up: organized, thoughtful, collaborative, and deeply community-centered.

I also lead Strands for Justice through the Counselors for Social Justice team at Walden University, an initiative that brings together storytelling and community care to support Helpmate and Our Voice. I serve on the board of Building Bridges, a local organization committed to anti-racism and community connection, and my artwork will be on display and offering watercolor workshops at the East Asheville Library in August as part of my residency. These projects reflect the way I understand healing: as something that can be creative, collective, and rooted in justice.

I also volunteer with Fireside Project’s National Support Line, where I support individuals navigating psychedelic experiences with care and grounding. This work deepens my belief in creating space for meaning-making, reflection, and integration. I also love incorporating watercolors into the therapeutic process when helpful, especially as a way to connect with the parts of us that do not yet have words. Sometimes healing begins before language does.

When I’m not working, I’m usually creating, spending time with my family, tending to my garden, or traveling and learning from other cultures. These parts of my life help me stay connected to joy, perspective, and the many ways people can find belonging.

I specialize in:

• Life Transitions

• Grief

• Trauma

• Identity exploration

• Cultural belonging

• Mindfulness

• Creativity

• Self-regulation

• Community care

• Racialized trauma

• Institutional trauma

• Intergenerational and ancestral trauma

• Relationship challenges

• Immigration and transglobal experiences

• Psychedelic integration