Aomawa Shields
Certified Daring to Rest Facilitator
Certified: 2024
Irvine, California
Aomawa Shields is the Clare Boothe Luce Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. She studies the climates and potential habitability of planets orbiting low-mass stars, using theoretical computer models and observational data. She is also a classically-trained actor. She is Founder and Director of the educational program Rising Stargirls, which encourages girls of all colors and backgrounds to explore the universe using the creative arts.
Aomawa loves using her experience to inspire others to embrace their whole selves and full potential. In service to what she loves, she focuses on sharing her story as broadly as possible through writing and speaking, and sharing the holistic ways of working soft and resting more that were instrumental to finding her place in the universe, and thriving both personally and professionally..
Aomawa also loves good food, reading for pleasure, movies, and spending time and traveling with her husband and their 6-year old daughter. Aomawa's first book, Life on Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe, was published by Viking in 2023.
Daring to Rest is my pathway to trust, ease, and wholeness.
“With Daring to Rest we get to bring our whole selves to the practice of rest. Rest accepts everyone just as they are. We get to dive in as ourselves and discover beautiful jewels of truth in our lives as rested human beings. Truths that resting helps us learn to trust.”