In 2021, friends Anu Gorukanti, MD and Laura Holford, RN, needed an outlet to process challenges they were encountering in their healthcare professions.  

“There’s a lot of really heavy conversations and things that we witness in that medical space,” said Gorukanti, noting that there isn’t always a time or place to work through the emotional weight, isolation, and powerlessness that can come with healthcare work.  

In conversations with one another, grounded in the shared value of contemplative practice that is central to both Gorukanti’s Hindu/Buddhist tradition and Holford’s Christian worldview, the two recognized a need for an intentional community, where women in healthcare could reflect and share.  

Their friendship was that space for them, and it soon evolved into a partnership as co-founders of Introspective Spaces, a social enterprise dedicated to building reflective spaces for healthcare workers. 

“Our interfaith friendship is the core for our work at Introspective Spaces,” Gorukanti said.  

The organization, which has continued to develop through Gorukanti and Holford’s participation in IA’s Emerging Leaders programming, offers inclusive community spaces for those in healthcare professions through art, ritual, retreats, and workshops.  

One offering of Introspective Spaces is the Artist’s Way cohort, a 12-week program that guides healthcare workers to reconnect with their own humanity through reflection, curiosity, and creativity.  

“The goal of hosting this program,” said Holford, “is to [offer] a space with other healthcare workers who understand their experience, who understand their distress, to know each other in a new way.”

Last year, the Artist’s Way program closed with a ceremony that brought participants together to engage in creative practice and mark the journey to their creative selves with a reimagining of a nursing pinning ritual.  

The pair hope that Introspective Spaces can continue to be a community of care, where healthcare professionals can lean on one another and build lasting relationships.  

“The healing is not just the diagnoses, or the medicine,” Gorukanti said. “The healing is our presence.”  

Get involved with Interfaith America’s Emerging Leaders Network to read more stories from interfaith leaders like Anu and Laura, network with young professionals in interfaith spaces, and apply for funding opportunities.