About Me

I came to this work through a continual yearning for connections with people—and ways of living—that felt genuine, authentic, and emotionally deep. From a young age, I felt a palpable absence of these experiences, and it’s from that absence my path began to unfold. I carried pain I couldn't name, and despite my efforts, I found myself returning, over and over, to the search for a wellbeing which eluded me, which glimmered, only to fade. After a long time resisting the lens of childhood trauma, I finally faced the realization: I carried it too. Only then could a path sprout forward, one offering new ways to touch those pains directly.

Guidance from therapists and healing practitioners became essential on this path. My own wounds insisted I seek guides who had truly touched the darkness themselves and walked through it. Therapy, alongside the literature on trauma and healing, finally gave me space to be met, again and again, through trial, error, suffering, but also a reliable stream of true wellbeing. Where wellbeing once felt random, this work has shown me how to truly cultivate it.

As I continued along that path—receiving support, deepening into the work through extensive study and practice, and eventually training in this field—I began to see that the absence of depth and authenticity in the relationships and systems around me wasn’t just a failure of my upbringing, but part of a broader cultural epidemic, one that echoes the private sorrows many of us carry. The field of therapy itself often mistakenly individualizes (and medicalizes) what are, in fact, collective problems that span the globe. Unsurprisingly, it’s hard to recognize the water we’re swimming in as toxic—precisely because we’re submerged in it. But the signs are there. We all feel it. We all feel the Earth crumbling beneath our feet.

In the face of this shared awareness, our bodies ache in pain—pain that points the way. I regularly navigate these currents in the rhythm of my days. The work I offer here arises from a felt truth: so much of what’s most alive around us, to truly touch it, also asks us to face its pain—that doing so is how we find our way into a life that feels worth living. Only through such engagement—the very ground of healing work—have I found the space to breathe and live with authenticity. My hope is that together, we sow the seeds of a future that affirms life. And so we begin by affirming yours.

Training and Background

My work is grounded in intensive, experiential trainings in somatic approaches to healing trauma and supporting nervous system resilience—trainings rooted in theories that have helped me more deeply enter into and articulate those experiences.

I’ve completed the full Somatic Experiencing (SE) training through Somatic Experiencing International, learning deeply over those two and a half years from Joshua Sylvae, PhD, and the many wonderful, thoughtful students and assistants who continue to support my work and personal growth through ongoing connections and consultations. You can view my SE directory profile here.

Alongside SE, I have learned deeply from Focusing, completing three of four parts of the Inner Relationship Focusing training through The International Focusing Institute, with trainer Sandy Jahmi Burg, and extensively engaging with the philosophical texts (such as A Process Model) that tie together the method with the most robust theory I'm yet aware of in the psychotherapy landscape. I will soon be undertaking an extended training program to become a Certified Focusing Trainer.

My work is further informed by my experiences with the Hakomi Method, a mindful, body-centered approach to transformation. I studied with Maru Serrano through the Hakomi Education Network (HEN), and participated in the 2024 HEN International Conference.

I graduated from the East West College of the Healing Arts in Portland, Oregon in '23, completing its 800-hour professional massage therapy program (LMT #28104). My work as an LMT has refined and developed my understanding of the inherent relationship between our inner experience and its reflection into our concrete, physical body.

Each of these modalities supports the same core orientation of somatic work: that the body is our fullest wisdom, and that healing unfolds naturally when we create space for that deeper place to sprout forward into the world.