How I Do It
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Any emotion is bearable when someone goes there with you.
Because whether you’re hurting, hopeless, or unexpectedly happy, it’s important to feel fully, so that you can grow into your aliveness, resilience, and unwavering authenticity. Those painful and challenging aspects of life? Aren’t sicknesses that need to be cured. They’re doorways to learning.
But I know that actually feeling your feelings can be difficult, and isolation within yourself can be like hell.
Yeah, I said it. It’s sometimes overwhelming to struggle through suffering or bend with big feelings alone. Which is why I provide a secure environment where you’re deeply valued and supremely safe, where we will walk together through your emotions and life experiences. My years of experience with loss and growth have carved out a big, fearless space in my soul that allows me to be present with your feelings and experiences, no matter what they are, and no matter where they come from.
Therapy is about exploring side by side. And just like no feeling is the same, no person is the same, which is why our work together will be unique to your individual body, mind, and soul. With a gentle curiosity, we’ll invite your experiences into the safety of the here and now, listening to your body and its sensations, adventuring through your imagination, and sharing in your stories.
Because exploring emotions and experience with a companion makes all the difference, and ultimately leads to a place of positive change.
That being said, the fit between us is extremely important.
Who I am and what I’m like—and how it meshes with who you are and what you’re like—matters as much as my clinical training.
Our relationship will be the just-right container that lovingly holds the changes and healing that you’re looking for. So you deserve to know some things about me.
What do I bring to the table?
Authenticity
I live authentically and wholeheartedly—in my life and in my work. Compassion, affirmation, intuition, curiosity, and engagement travel with me wherever I go. And I have a sense of humor. Shared laughter, even in the darkest of times, can be deeply healing.
Passion
Being a therapist isn’t just a job to me—it’s my life’s work. I entered into the field as a second career that organically emerged from my own travels through pain. I’m passionate about my work as a therapist and what it means. And I passionately care about your life, who you are, and who you want to become.
Faith
Life experience has led me to fierce faith in the process of transformation, and I’ll help you find that faith, too. I know in the depth of my being that suffering is not for nothing, and I implicitly trust that when you receive sincere care and support in the face of life’s challenges, you can find the courage to deepen, expand, and grow.
Fearlessness
Because of my hard-won faith in transformation, I am unafraid to walk with you through your darkest of times. And I’m not frightened of the unknown. I have a large capacity for holding and exploring intense emotion, and I’ll never ever leave you alone with your feelings, whether you’re racked with inconsolable sorrow or struggling to express your greatest joy.
Patience
Even if you feel “broken,” needing to be “fixed,” I don’t see you that way. I see you as a fellow human who needs some help to heal. I’ll never hurry you into an intense experience before you’re ready. That being said, I do have a keen sense of when you’re ready to be challenged. We’ll work through every new feeling together, at your pace. The bottom line is that some change is fast, and some change takes its own sweet, unhurried time. One sort of change is not better than the other. I deeply respect and follow the pace and guidance that emerges from you.
And ultimately? It’s my relentless belief in the human spirit, fierce faith in the process of transformation through emotional exploration, and deep respect for you and your individual journey that makes it my honor and privilege to do this work.
And just like we’re never finished growing? I’m never finished learning.
This means that you’re always getting my newest, my most trusted, and my best.
Since I’m so passionate about education—both personal and professional, I strive to continually expand as a person and sharpen my skills as your therapist. I read, attend workshops, teach courses, give presentations, write, and participate in my own personal growth on a regular basis. I’m a geek about this stuff. I explore everything from time-honored wisdom traditions to the latest and greatest neuroscience research, distilling and applying the information so I can deliver the best to you.
Specifically, I continually broaden my understanding of all aspects of experiential, emotion-based, and body-based therapies by studying interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, mind/body integration, spiritual issues (with a particular focus on dark night of the soul experiences and mindfulness practices), bereavement counseling, group therapy training, leadership and training practices, existential issues, and writing, art, and poetry.
I keep learning so that we can continually deepen our connection while I help you through your time of transition, so that you can safely experience your life and your feelings during each and every second that you invest in our work.
The journey to your true self will be challenging and astonishingly rewarding.
And I promise I’ll be with you every single step of the way.
When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space. — Pema Chodron