Meet Adina
Adina Belloli is an American mother of two living in London. She holds multiple degrees in psychology, psychotherapy, and international healthcare, public policy, and economics (BA, MA, and MSc). As a grief specialist and child and adolescent psychotherapist and founder of the UK-registered international charity In-Visible, Adina has dedicated over 18 years to empowering disadvantaged children and women worldwide. Her philanthropic efforts, featured on BBC, CNN, and more, have earned her recognition and awards. Adina is a Reiki Master and Youth Mindfulness teacher with over 15 years of meditation, mindfulness, and yoga practice. She co-hosts the Motherhood Beyond Books podcast, bridging the gap between Western Psychology and Eastern holistic health systems to provide a fresh, insightful approach to parenting. Adina's clinical work has been published, contributing to advancements in child psychotherapy. She has a special interest in motherless mothers as one herself and is working on a project exploring the impact of intergenerational mother loss and the complexities of strained mother-daughter relationships in motherhood. In addition, Adina is a co-founder of The Motherless Mothers, an online community and platform.
“Hey there! I thought I’d say hello and share a little about myself so you can get to know me outside of my ‘official bio’ description. I’m an American (from Texas), married to an Italian. We’ve been married 17 years and live in London, UK. We have two amazing kids ages 16 and 13. They were born in London so we all have different accents. I’m a Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist. I trained under the guidance of legendary Dr. Jeanne Magagna. I’m the Founder of a Children’s Charity called In-Visible. We’ve provided 1.500.000 free healthy meals to malnourished children in the Philippines since 2014. It’s run entirely by unpaid volunteers and one of the things I’m most proud of. I’ve always been fascinated by the intersections of the mind, altruism, spirituality and health. In order to better understand how everything connects holistically, in addition to Psychology, I trained in multiple modalities such as: Mindfulness, Heart Math, Emotional Freedom Technique (Tapping), Meditation, Reiki and Naturopathy.”
“Being seen, heard, and understood isn’t a want, it’s a fundamental need we all share as humans. Our deepest yearning is not just existence, but connection. In every corner of the globe, across cultures, languages, and backgrounds, we all share this deep-seated need for connection. It’s in the moments of feeling truly seen, heard, and understood that we find our sense of belonging in the world.”
5 Random Things About Me
I’m a fierce defender of children’s rights. I’ve worked with disadvantaged children for over 18 years, including organisations such as the World Health Organisation, Kids Company, and Cure2Children. I will always do what is morally, ethically, and professionally right for the child, even if it means losing a job over it (which happened)!
I got into charity/volunteering when I was 14 years old. At a Children's Hospital in Texas, I started volunteering as a "candy stripe girl," essentially hanging out in waiting areas playing with the kids who were waiting to see the doctors. The reason I started was because of a boy I had a crush on. His dad was a doctor there. Unexpectedly, I fell in love with the job and not the boy! It was during that experience I realised the power of altruism.
My mother died when I was six months old. A drunk driver killed her in a car accident. I was diagnosed with ‘failure to thrive’ afterwards. My little body didn’t want to carry on without her. It took a few years, but eventually I got better thanks to some family members who nurtured me back to health. Throughout my life, my mother has found ways to connect with me: through dreams, through other people and through signs.
In 2020, I got Covid in the first initial wave. It was a traumatic experience. I thought I was having a heart attack and dying. At the time, physicians weren’t interested in checking whether COVID was impacting other organs apart from the lungs, so I was not taken seriously even though I was in and out of the hospital twice. I don’t blame them; they were only doing the best they could with the information they had at the time. But it took an entire year to finally get the diagnosis. Besides health anxiety, Covid left it’s mark by giving me pericarditis and an effusion of my heart. I still have this condition, as they don’t yet have treatments that work for us.
My family describes me as Monica from Friends
