About Me
My Practice and Clinical Background
It is a great honor to be granted access to another's inner experience. As a therapist, I am focused on facilitating meaningful treatment
to help my clients live more fulfilling, balanced, and emotionally connected lives. I am passionate about guiding my clients to step into their own unique power to reclaim their inherent worthiness, as well as helping them connect to their self-compassion, inner trust, and sense of ease and enjoyment.
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in both California (LMFT 140647) and Colorado (LMFT 2148). I am Certified in EMDR and specialize in attachment and relational issues, self esteem, emotional health, trauma, and complex trauma. Earlier in my career, I worked with children, adults, couples, and families in a community clinic setting. I have also worked in community mental health offering rehabilitative and trauma-informed care to felony offenders reintegrating into the community. When I transitioned to private group therapy practice, I refined my therapy services to working with teens, adults, and couples. Upon being trained in EMDR, I refined my clinical focus once again, having discovered the niche of my soul's gifts. In my solo practice, I work exclusively with adult individuals for holistic mind, body, and spirit healing. When we are aligned with our authentic Self - our life and relationships transform.
My Education and Professional Training
I graduated from Virginia Tech with dual Bachelor's Degrees in Psychology and Human Development - Professional Helping Skills Track. I continued my education at Virginia Tech where I graduated with a Master's Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and completed a thesis entitled, "Siblings and Inheritances: A Phenomenological Study Exploring the Relational Outcomes Following the Inheritance Distribution Process."
My post-degree advanced trainings include, but are not limited to: Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) Externship and Core Skills; Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Basic and Advanced trainings; American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT)-approved sex therapy trainings; Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Trauma Healing, and Compassionate Inquiry.
My Personhood
In my late 20s, I discovered I was disillusioned thinking I was "fine" and an emotionally healthy adult. I grew up in a loving, functional home, didn't experience any major traumas in my life, and was equipped with a skillset (being a therapist) that the average person in society might not have. Isn't that the life experience lottery?? This facade began to crack and crumble, however, at a major life transition that is inherently stressful. I was outwardly displaying I wasn't stressed, upset, or struggling in any way. Inwardly, it felt chaotic and overwhelming; I was white-knuckling trying to hold myself and my life together.
Through my own initial healing journey, I discovered I didn't have full access to my emotional landscape, had numbed my sensitivity and intuition, was disconnected from my needs and desires, and had a very deep fear of "not being okay/good enough." Turns out my easy-going (conflict-avoidant), overly-helpful (unsolicited caretaking), and open-to-anything (non-opinionated or boundaried) nature was due to my nervous system living in chronic fawn response. I was afraid to fully show up in life authentically, vulnerably, and willing to take up space. Come to find out, this is a very common phenomenon people experience and is one of the lesser publicly known autonomic stress responses. When we have this fear, we continually shape ourselves into being what/who other people want us to be, rather than being who we are. Being a chameleon was one of the ways I learned to secure connection to others.
I continue to pursue deeper self-understanding, healing, and psychospiritual integration. We don't need to forever be in therapy, but I see it as our life's work to continue to learn and grow! I really enjoy reading, cooking, yoga, breathwork, making macrame, traveling, and being in the sun. Playing games with my loved ones is one of my favorite activities, and I've successfully influenced my closest friends and family to make silly voices/sounds/songs a part of our interactions when we're feeling playful :)