About Me

I bring over 20 years of experience and training as a therapist—and a whole lot of lived life. With 50 years under my belt, I know that healing comes when we are safe enough to be our true selves without fear of judgment or alienation. With this foundation for authenticity we co-create together, you will find your bravery to practice the hard but healing work of personal change.

I’m doing my own inner work every day and walking my own imperfect path; that helps me understand where you’re coming from. It’s from that place that I hold deep and steady compassion for each soul that comes through my door. Walking the walk also helps me know in my bones that venting is a bandaid. Being truly listened to and understood is important, but it must be accompanied by learning to see ourselves and life though a wide-angle, compassionate lens, healing our body’s experience of psychological pain with the body and structuring our lives for connection, wellness, and purpose each day, so we can feel good and do what makes life worth living.

My story

I do this work because I was born to do it. There is nothing more authentic or fulfilling to me than using my powers to see deeply into tender hopes and lonely suffering and building a nurturing relationship to support growth and healing.

As a sensitive child, I struggled to find ways to soothe my chronically reactive nervous system, habitually dissociating from the fear, loneliness, and anxiety I often felt by clenching and grinding my teeth, among other somatic behaviors I didn’t yet know were self-soothing means of avoidance. My mother’s serious cancer when I was 12 further deepened these mechanisms. With one ill parent who couldn’t take care of herself physically or emotionally and the other without understanding of a child’s emotional needs, I unconsciously learned to bury my feelings under chronic muscle tension and longing to be seen and valued by others who would, in my fantasies, truly know me and make me feel emotionally safe.

I watched others and spent a lot of time reflecting on my own feelings; at age 12, I knew I wanted to be a psychologist or therapist. At first, I took an academic path into psychology, but after my mother died when I was 24, I left my doctoral program in Clinical Psychology and started a Master’s in Art Therapy, finding the depth and creativity I craved in my own healing from the grief and trauma of loss. I would go on to experience other losses that deepened my dedication to supporting others in grief in a culture that allows little space or compassion for it. Today, I specialize in grief, end-of life care, exploring identity and healing trauma through psychedelic assisted therapy, and female initiations like motherhood and menopause. The places of deepest pain and deepest growth in our lives light me up with curiosity and purpose.