My Passions

I teach and coach with the mantra that trauma is first and foremost a disruption of connection. When we must disconnect from ourselves – our bodies, minds and emotions – in order to survive overwhelm, by default we are often left stuck in patterns of disconnection in our relationship to ourselves and others.  Trauma recovery, then, is every survivor’s unique journey of finding our way back to connection with ourselves, which then allows us to connect in meaningful ways to the rest of the world.

For many years, I kept wondering why I wasn’t able to access help, often finding failure in every attempt to go to therapy or engage in common treatments for the physical effects of my traumas. I wanted help, but I simply wasn’t able to stop the instinctive, hard-wired, automatic overwhelm and shut-down that happened every time I tried to engage in any kind of help. It wasn’t until I began to address my trauma at the level of its ongoing impact on my nervous system, with attuned caregivers who were truly trauma competent, that I finally began to heal.

I hold the firm belief that all impacts of trauma should be de-pathologized and seen as normal reactions to overwhelming human experience, and am passionate about teaching self-compassion to survivors and trauma competency to those who serve them. I have come to wholeheartedly believe that every single way trauma shows up in the body and mind as common mental and physical health diagnoses can be understood through the lens of trauma’s overwhelming imprint on our nervous system, this brilliant, miraculous survival mechanism that we’ve been equipped with. I specialize in working with people at the nervous system level to address stuck survival energy, helping you learn how to heal within your own window of capacity. Coming out of overwhelm and/or shut-down at a pace that feels safe to both body and mind allows you to move through recovery in gentle, more effective ways.

I draw on my training in neuroplasticity, the mind/body connection and nervous system regulation strategies to help people heal from a wide variety of mental and physical manifestations of long held survival energy. These include issues such as anxiety, depression, emotional dysregulation or numbness, relational difficulties, attachment challenges and chronic pain or illness. My coaching is also Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed, and I use my training in “parts work” to help you uncover deeper patterns of wise survival that drive nervous system states and emotional and relational patterns.

Spiritually speaking, my own abuse took place in two polar opposite spiritual environments. I finally found peace in Christ in spite of much harm that came to me in the evangelical Christian church and Christian ministry settings. I love working with those who are either sorting through the ways their trauma was met with more trauma from harmful spiritual experiences, or whose primary trauma happened in a spiritual context. I hold an open and non-judgmental space for clients who desire to explore healing from spiritual trauma. No matter what path you pursue spiritually, I will work with diligence to always meet you with the unconditional, patient, kind-hearted gentleness I have found in Christ.