Judith Acosta

Mind Body Center opens in Placitas

—Signpost staff
Judith Acosta recently moved from New York City and is opening the Mind Body Center in Placitas. As a licensed psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and crisis counselor with more than twenty years of experience, she will offer treatment of trauma, anxiety, addictions, fertility issues, and counseling for grief and depression in adults and adolescents. She and her therapeutic canine assistants have worked extensively with law-enforcement and military personnel and families as well as individuals in recovery from addiction, and she still uses the canines in her practice.

Acosta left the East Coast because she fell in love with New Mexico when passing through twenty years ago. Earlier this year, when visiting her cousin in Santa Fe, Acosta picked up an abandoned dog in the national forest. “When I returned to New York, I had a dream about living in Placitas,” she said. “So I traveled back for a few days to look for a place to live. I bought the second house I saw and sold my house in New York a week later.”

Acosta carries with her an impressive résumé. She graduated from CUNY and Fordham University. For ten years, she was a writer with major advertising companies, magazines, and newspapers. She created the Somamente Group in 1994 to train health-care professionals and first-response teams in neuro-linguistic strategies to help increase compliance and promote healing.

She has appeared on television and radio and is a regular lecturer for major corporations, on topics ranging from stress reduction and Verbal First Aid to intuition development and performance. Her book, The Worst is Over, deals with the healing effect of words.

Acosta is also trained in critical-incident stress management,and is a member of the Hudson Valley CISM Team, the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, and the clinical panel of Police Organization Providing Peer Assistance, with New York City police offices. She has had her work published in Women's News, Omni, Inner Realm, Listen Magazine, and the International Journal of Emergency Mental Health.

For more information about the new Mind Body Center in Placitas, you may visit www. wordsaremedicine.com or call her at 771-2282.

Free business and employer workshops available

The New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department and the Internal Revenue Service are offering free one-day workshops in Albuquerque for businesses with or without employees. These workshops are designed to address the tax requirements for new and existing businesses.

The New Business Workshops are for all new business owners. Items to be covered include New Mexico gross receipts tax, IRS filing requirements, and a brief summary of other new-business issues. New Business Workshops are offered the first, second, and third Tuesdays of every month.

The New Employer Workshops are for small businesses that have or plan to have employees. Regulatory and tax-filing requirements from six different federal and state agencies will be covered. New Employer Workshops are offered the fourth Tuesday of every month.

All workshops will be held at the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, 5301 Central, NE (Bank of the West building), 10th Floor, Conference Room A, from 8:15 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., with a one-hour lunch break. The workshops are free of charge and no advance registration is required.

Workshops for new businesses are scheduled on October 3, 10 and 17; November 7, 14 and 21; and December 5, 12 and 19.

Workshops for new employers are scheduled on October 24; November 28; and December 26.

For additional information, contact the State of New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, at 505 841-6200.

Designate your United Way donation to help BPS students

—Stephanie Coleman, Bernalillo Public Schools
If you donate to United Way of Central New Mexico at your workplace, did you know that you can designate your contribution to help the BPS project or program of your choice? For example you can designate your contribution to one or more of the following:

• BPSEF Gary L. Dwyer Fund. Your donation will be used to build the Community Multi-Cultural Center, a fine- and performing-arts center at the high school that will be available for community use as well.

• Your student’s (or students’) school library. Just put “BPSEF” and the name of the school library on the form.

• The BPS Education Foundation. You can designate your contribution to BPSEF in general. Your donation will be used to support BPS initiatives such as technology education, early-childhood education, literacy, and extracurricular organizations and athletics.

Bernalillo Public Schools Education Foundation is a nonprofit organization with the purpose of fostering student excellence.

For further information, contact Stephanie Dominguez Coleman, at 404-5687.