Meet the Founders
Meet Emily & Lance, the founders behind the healing
Our team comprises passionate individuals with a shared dedication to holistic healing. Together, we strive to create a welcoming environment where everyone can find peace and balance.
Emily Thompson
Co-Founder, Wellness & Expressive Arts Facilitator, Djembe/Sangafola, Jalimuso
Emily Renee is a dynamic, heart-led wellness practitioner with a soul deeply rooted in breath, movement, rhythm, healing, and creative expression. As a certified yoga and meditation instructor (CYT-500, CPR/AED), expressive arts facilitator, sound healer, African drummer, and cultural movement guide, Emily weaves together ancestral wisdom, emotional intelligence, nature-based wellness, and earth-based practices to help others heal from the inside out.
Her journey began in 2012, but it was through her path of chronic pain and healing in 2016 that her calling deepened from practicing yoga to embodying it. She completed her 200-hour and 300-hour yoga teacher training with Chief Instructor Briana Ward at Chesapeake Hot Yoga. But Emily’s wisdom goes far beyond the mat.
She is a seasoned actress, producer, and director of stage plays, using storytelling as a tool for emotional release and transformation. A lifelong lover of African traditions, she brings the power of rhythm, drumming, and movement into her sessions, creating healing spaces that awaken the body and spirit.
Deeply connected to the land, Emily is currently completing certification in medicinal plants and training to become a Master Gardener. Her garden-based mindfulness practices reconnect people to the natural rhythms of the earth and themselves. Whether planting magic seeds with children or leading workshops on soil and soul, where nature becomes both teacher and therapist, her work nurtures growth in every sense.
A self-proclaimed free spirit, proud wife, and devoted mother, whether she’s guiding breathwork for beginners, drumming in community circles, helping a client reset their nervous system through movement and sound, or growing healing herbs in the garden, Emily infuses every space she holds with radical love, grounded presence, and joy that feels like sunshine
"Osunyemi"
Lance Thompson
Co-Founder, Comedian, Spoken Word Artist, Cultural Healer, Djembefola
Lance Thompson is a soulful storyteller, healing through the art of laughter, rhythm, and realness. A nationally touring comedian and spoken word artist, Lance has performed coast to coast, from the legendary Laugh Factory in Hollywood to intimate, heart-opening stages in the South.
He brings healing, not just humor.
Blending razor-sharp wit with reverence for African tradition, Lance uses comedy, rhythm, and performance to awaken joy and connection in the communities he touches. He’s not just your favorite “Bruddah”; he’s a cultural healer with a mic in one hand and a djembe in the other.
As co-founder of Healings & Nu Beginnings, Lance leads with heart and vision, offering expressive arts facilitation, improv and comedy workshops, and healing-centered performances that allow people to laugh, breathe, and be fully seen.
He’s the visionary behind the monthly Comedy on the Square series in Elberton, Georgia, bringing national comedians to small-town stages, and the creator of Golfing with My Bruddah, a soulful, comedic content series that documents the highs and lows of brotherhood, golf, and inner growth.
Lance has been drumming since he was a baby, banging on the sink in his Southern Maryland home. A lifelong rhythm maker, child of Esu, and proud brother of Groove Phi Groove Social Fellowship, Inc., his work honors the ancestors, the belly laugh, and the healing power of authenticity.
He is a father, husband, cultural griot, and the kind of man who reminds you that joy, too, is sacred.