*A note about this page: If you read to the end of this page and feel a joyful sense of “YES!” we may be a great match for each other. And, not to worry, the verbosity of this page/website does not translate into the therapy room. I want to give prospective clients enough ‘about me’ to feel resonate or not.

philosophy

My philosophy about therapeutic change is that our job is not to seek and destroy problems or ‘bad’ behaviors, but rather seek, understand, and integrate the barriers we have built (and inherited) between ourselves and love. We cannot have too much self-love but we can certainly suffer from too little. Many of us have been taught that self-love is selfish. I fervently disagree.

Self-love cultivates SELF-FULL-NESS — a healthy balance of self and other regard, care, and compassion. Selfishness and selflessness are two manifestations of insufficient self-love. Selfishness is rooted in a belief of external scarcity, believing there is not enough for everyone and therefore, one must consume as much as possible for survival. Selflessness is rooted in a belief of internal scarcity, believing that the external world determines our enoughness.

My therapy process supports clients in finding the balance and creating fluid stability in self-FULL-ness. Removing barriers to your experiences of love, not just with others, but much more essentially, within yourself — I believe is the north star of psychotherapy.

My approach to therapy is intuitive, curious, sincere, and compassionate. My style is adaptable, process-oriented, and organic. My primary goal is to support you in unfolding to your joy, ease, and embodied-presence. Rather than hunting down ‘the problem’ and making it ‘go away,’ our work will encourage your self-insight, wisdom, and self-trust allowing you to recognize patterns, needs, and no’s that have been suppressed and/or dismissed, resulting in suffering. 

In my work, I often speak of digestion and compost, sometimes interchangeably (yes, we will giggle about poop!). Digestion and the composting process are two phenomenal metaphors for how we can get stuck in our psychological and emotional suffering. If we want to thrive, we need to properly process food, experiences, and emotions, extracting the nutrients (lessons/wisdom) and eliminating what no longer serves us. When we engage in a compost approach to living life, we are striving not to send anything to the landfill, because we understand that there is no such thing as ‘away.’ The benefits of a compost-minded approach to life are vast because nothing is wasted and we become liberated from the baggage of unprocessed pain and suffering.

Out of sight, out of mind (the purpose of the landfill) can absolutely give us temporary relief and serve to settle acute suffering. We need respite from our suffering! The trouble is, many of us are relying on temporary and short-lasting ‘fixes,’ intended to soothe an acute issue, to solve a persistent and, likely, historic pain (chronic). This is, after all, how western society models ‘medicine’ to us. Hope as we do, it doesn’t foster healing. 

I believe the collective ‘we’ is desperately trying to string together enough moments of respite to create some sort of feeling of deep rest, without much success. We’ve become loyal customers to fads and fixes and ‘bad’ habits and addictions, and while there may be momentary relief, this is unsustainable for a multitude of reasons — none of which deserve the punishment of shame. In this respectable process of striving for intermittent rest tucked in between all the tasks on our ‘to do’ list, we’re losing even more energy. This is a vicious and exhausting cycle.

With me, therapy sessions will become a refuge for you. Therapy won’t be a thing you do, instead it will be a restorative container we create together. In your own time, I will support you in unpacking, digesting, and integrating the ‘baggage’ you’ve been carrying for so long (personal, relational, ancestral, and societal). One way you can think of me is as a digestive enzyme for your emotions and psyche, encouraging your inherent wise and expansive self in remembering how to balance and regenerate. Once we process/digest, we can use the compost we create to plant new seeds of our conscious choosing.

I work with couples and non-intimate dyads who are seeking to increase their connection, empathy, and psychological safety by focusing on improving and deepening compassionate communication. Many therapists provide communication coaching to couples, my approach includes, what I call, sacred witnessing, which involves a model of joint therapy where I work with one partner while coaching the listening partner in skills such as active listening, empathy, self-regulation, and deep attunment which cultivates a ‘safe container’ for the speaking partner to disclose and be vulnerable. Typically, these sessions alternate, one couples session, followed by two sacred witnessing sessions, then repeated. We will likely have split sessions early in the relationship to allow me to better understand each partner’s historical context.

I do not work with couples in acute crisis, who are adversarial, or where either person experiences emotional volatility or sabotaging behaviors. Sacred witnessing requires a foundation of unconditional positive regard felt and expressed by each member of the dyad as well, sacred witnessing relies on partners who each step into couples counseling welcoming personal accountability, striving not to blame, and a desire for repair. This approach to couples therapy focuses on restoring connection and contentment, not arguing about who is right/wrong or how the other needs to change.

I offer sacred witnessing workshops too! Please complete this brief form if you would like to be notified about upcoming workshops for couples or would like to learn more about couples therapy.