Asking Hudson Valley resident Alicia Johnson where she lives is a trick question. The author, speaker, global brand strategist, and board member of the Billion Minds Institute, a NYC-based climate change advocacy group, says that geographically, the 119-acre Columbia County property she shares with her husband and business partner, Hal Wolverton, is closest to the village of Philmont. “But we have a Hillsdale mailing address, and our mortgage paperwork says Hudson,” notes Johnson with a laugh. In other words, it’s complicated. Much like Johnson’s life.
She and Wolverton bought their place back in 2008 so they could get away from Manhattan when their busy work schedules allowed. (The couple owns a boutique strategic branding agency, Johnson + Wolverton, which consults extensively with high-profile brands including Jaguar, MoMA, Moët & Chandon, and Chivas Regal.) “We really had no idea what we were doing buying a property this size,” recalls Johnson. “Talk about naive.” And the couple still felt tethered to the city for business reasons.
But soon enough, they felt a definite shift. Instead of being mostly city-based and heading upstate when they could, they wanted to live in the Hudson Valley full time and go to Manhattan only when they had to. As a result, by the time Covid hit, “we had already become really good at remote work,” says Johnson.
Still, like most during the pandemic, Johnson felt “oddly incarcerated,” as she puts it—on top of trying to wrap her brain around the incomprehensible losses people were suffering. Leaning heavily on her successful consulting background, Johnson burrowed into a research rabbit hole to learn about how people survive imprisonment and stay sane. “The expert guidance very clearly supports the need for three external motivators,” says Johnson. “A physical practice, a spiritual practice, and a learning practice.”
For the physical piece, she got a Pilates machine. Taking up meditation addressed the spiritual component. As for learning, she decided to tackle the task of synthesizing extensive research she had done on how to process emotional trauma. “My strategy was to treat it like a client project,” she says. “Take a deep dive into all the data, synthesize it, and then come up with a solid action plan.” Only this time, Johnson herself was the client. Her research had been personal in nature, centered around having been sexually abused as a child.
Trauma tamps down a person’s sense of fun, play, discovery, imagination, and trust.
Of all things, what ultimately nudged her forward on her trauma project was stalled progress on a novel she had started years earlier. The story, called Hudson, takes place entirely on her property. Yet at a certain point, Johnson just felt like she couldn’t keep moving forward with it. “It wasn’t the usual writer’s block so much as what I came to realize was an authenticity block,” recalls Johnson. “I think, deep down, the author in me knew I couldn’t continue to shepherd my fictional protagonist until I did the mental and emotional work of figuring out myself.”
The result of her efforts—an in-depth, advice-filled book in which memoir meets solid science—has an expected release date of February first. Buried Treasure: A Field Guide to the Life-Changing Magic of Revealing Yourself leans heavily on evidence-based neuroscience to explain how a traumatized brain can change for the better. “Trauma tamps down a person’s sense of fun, play, discovery, imagination, and trust,” Johnson explains. “The point of my book is to put forward best-practice ways to boost brain function and bring all these wonderful qualities back online.” When that happens, hope can emerge.
In that vein, she often quotes Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney, who wrote, “Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.” Johnson also credits hope with reigniting her natural curiosity, which was key in finding a path forward. “It’s hard to stay stuck when you’re genuinely curious,” she says. “And when you’re curious, life is a lot more fun.”
POWER MOVE
Join Alicia Johnson and longtime yogi Catherine Zack for a two-hour workshop inspired by Johnson’s book, Buried Treasure. The agenda includes breathwork, dance, and creativity boosters for a lighter, brighter 2025 outlook. Space is very limited, and pre-registration is a must.
WHERE Village Yoga, Kinderhook (6 Hudson Street, 3rd floor)
WHENÂ Saturday, January 25
WHAT TIMEÂ 3-5 pm
COSTÂ $60 before January 15, $75 after
INCLUDES A signed copy of Buried Treasure and a goodie bag of self-care products
EMAILÂ hello@villageyoga.co
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