About Me.

The Shift.

I was drawn to this work through my own history of depression, anxiety, and neurodivergence, as well as witnessing others navigate pain, addiction, and struggle.

Being human can be ripe with suffering, we all know this.

For much of my life, I wrestled with division, a smoldering inner fire to create change, to challenge what was unjust, to find connection that felt real. I devoured wisdom from radical thinkers, artists, and activists, absorbing everything from dharma talks to philosophical texts, weaving together my own and doing my best to work towards positive change.

Yet for all my longing for justice, connection, and belonging, I often felt disconnected from myself and others.

I could articulate emotions and name my boundaries, but I didn’t know how to fully feel or express them.

It was through this longing that I found my way back into my body and intentional intimacy.

I began to understand that liberation isn’t just about ideas. It's about embodiment, expression, and connection.

I started to befriend the parts of me that people-pleased, raged, or numbed.

I learned that imagination, playfulness, and the body are doorways: not only to self-acceptance, but to something deeper.

I came to believe that at the root of most suffering is disconnection, from our embodied, feeling sense, and from our unstoried truth: alone and together.

A Way Forward

I’ve often wondered why truthful, heart-to-heart connection feels so rare.

Rumi wrote, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

And when we’re bone-deep honest, we all long for that. A life that is alive and richly textured. A way of being that is deeply felt and deeply known. A love that isn’t performative, but real.

But under capitalist, left-brained, domination-based culture, intimacy is severed. We are conditioned to compete, to overperform, to guard our hearts.

Yet just as easily as we numb, distract, and shut down, we can shift. This work is about the shift: about reclaiming connection.: to our bodies.  To our inner nature.  To the human and more-than-human world.  To stories, myth, art, and experiences of wholeness.

Love, not as an abstract concept, but as courageous action: created and co-created to foster care, inner and outer harmony.

I know what it’s like to be in relationships that harm, on either side... We all do.

And I know, too, that when we turn inward, we heal what we once believed was shameful, wrong, or unhealable.

We harm less because we accept, care for, and dismantle that which seeks to harm.

I am devoted to being a fellow traveler and guide, cultivating a world that values our senses, our emotionality, and our interconnection.

Education

Antioch University Los Angeles

Bachelors Degree in Psychology and Creative Writing.

Antioch is a nontraditional, socially engaged university focusing on critical thinking, social justice, and personal transformation.

California Institute of Integral Studies

Master's in Integral Counseling Psychology.

This program integrated Eastern and Western therapeutic traditions, depth psychology, Gestalt, psychodynamic, and behavioral therapies, as well as mindfulness and integral philosophy. CIIS emphasizes multicultural competence, personal growth, and clinical experience.

Professional Experience

Psychotherapist Trainee at Depth psychology practicum site: Integral Counseling Center at Pierce Street in San Francisco 2019-2020

Instructor at Tat Lab: Attachment Theory and Mindfulness classes: 2020-2022

Psychotherapist AMFT; Individuals and Couples therapy at Marina Counseling Center in San Francisco 2020-2023

Assisted Sexologist Francesca Gentille in Kink Conscious Certification for Clinicians with the International Institute of Clinical Sexology

Teacher Assistant in Couples Counseling Course for Counseling Psychology Students, assisting Mor Gavish at CIIS - 2022

The Couples Center Couples therapy in San Francisco 2021-2024

2-day Trauma Recovery Specialist Certification Training: Strengths-based, Positive Psychology Approaches to Lasting Resilience for PESI with Taune Lyons and Dr. MaryCatherine McDonald, 2025

Single on Purpose App: Classes and processing groups on Somatic Attachment Theory and Embodied Intimacy 2024- present

Embodied Attachment Theory Trainings for Associate Psychotherapists at Marina Counseling Center, 2025

Taune Lyons Private Practice: 2023- present

Training Background & Certifications

Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Training 2021-2025: SEP Certified, trained by Berns Galloway; Abi Blakeslee; Dea Parsanishi; Linda Stelte

Gabor Maté Workshop: When the Body Says No

Peter Levine Workshop Somatic Experiencing and Case Consultation 2019 & 2022

George Haas Meditation x Attachment Level I

Clinical Applications of Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) with Joni Lavick

Assisted Sexologist Francesca Gentille in Kink Conscious Certification for Clinicians with the International Institute of Clinical Sexology

Donald Kalsched Opening the Closed Heart & Working with the Self-Care System

Tina Stromsted Soul’s Body: Healing the Body/Psyche/Soul Split

Couples Center Couples Therapy Training with Gal Szekely and Liron Cohen

AASECT-approved Sex Therapy Supervision with Gail Guttman

Certificate in Somatic Embodiment and Regulation Strategies with Linda Thai

Interpersonal Neurobiology Certification (In progress)

Tammy Nelson Sex Therapy (in progress)

Bodydreaming methodology (in progress)

Somatic Sexuality Healing Practitioner Program with Ariel Giarretto - projected completion 2026

I'm influenced heavily by:

- Depth Psychology & Mythology (Drawing from Jungian, archetypal, and imaginal frameworks for healing)

- Contemplative & Existential Psychotherapy (Exploring meaning-making, self-inquiry, and embodied presence through an integrative lens)

- Attachment & Trauma Healing (Bridging somatic work with relational and developmental trauma models)

- Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) & Relational Neuroscience (Inspired by Dr. Dan Siegel’s work on integration, attunement, and neural plasticity)

Continued personal practices that impact our work:

Meditation (Zen; Vipassana; Active visualization; Ideal Parent Figure Protocol)

200 Hour Hatha Yoga with Laura King of North Dallas Yoga

Nonviolent Communication Groups and Trainings

My own therapy, supervision, consultation, mentorship, and bodywork