Who We Are
Soul Care is a spiritual wellness center in the heart of Urbana serving people across east central Illinois.
Our mission is to help people incorporate spiritual wellness in their everyday life by providing mindfully designed experiences and sacred space to inspire meaningful connection with self, others, and the divine.
We are a robust, heart-centered community of spiritual practitioners and seekers who are living with intention into our most authentic selves.
Some people in our community are leaders, teachers, and caregivers who need space to renew. Some people identify strongly with a faith tradition while others have questions they want to understand or seek new perspectives.
We welcome people of all genders, ages, life experiences, faiths, and backgrounds. We are not associated with a specific religion or faith community, and we aspire to be a safe, inclusive space for all. Come as you are and enrich yourself.
Our Guiding Principles
MEET KELLY
Life events often force people to look inside, prompting lifelong journeys to sift and mold and realize your authentic identity. I've been there.
Over the last 15 years, I have learned that spiritual journey is about self-reflection, community, and intention. I want to help others on this journey.
I was happily married with two young children when my first husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Nine months later, he was gone. Going through that experience, my thoughts about God began to change, and I wanted a more personal relationship with the divine.
A women's retreat in St. Louis unexpectedly taught me new ways to connect with the divine and express my longing for a more personal and practical spirituality. Not through church, sacrament, typical prayer or scripture study, but through a whole other world of contemporary mystics and contemplative prayer I hadn't known before. It blew my mind. I started reading about and practicing other ways to interact with divine and find joy in my soul.
About two years ago, I was questioning my purpose and feeling unfulfilled, so I sought out a spiritual director to help. Under the layers within myself, my director saw me—someone who could help others: an educator. She told me she thought I could connect with people to share some of what I had learned and help with growth, and asked me if I'd considered ministry or something similar. I hadn't, but there was a seed planted in my heart.
Later that year, that seed sprouted when I asked God what to do. On a silent retreat, I was sitting on the front porch of my cottage overlooking the forest and watching squirrels run around the glade, digging up nuts and moving them and I thought, "That's what I can do." Get a nut or seed, move it here, plant it there, grow a tree. I could be a facilitator to help people in this diverse glade to grow into something beautiful.
I began to host pop up workshops and reach out to people, having heart-centered conversations to discover their spiritual needs and longing and challenges. From this feedback came Soul Care.
We are in a time of great transition when it comes to spirituality. People are becoming disillusioned with religion or being turned away because they have questions. I want to provide a comfortable space and community where people can bounce ideas off one another and learn new spiritual practices to help connect them with their authentic self and the divine.
When people feel overworked, stressed, out of touch with their inner self, they feel isolated and alone. Here, they can walk together. Here they can unwind and relax and be still.
I’m excited to offer Soul Care to our community and can’t wait to see what connections and relationships emerge.