Individuals, Couples & Groups

Coaching

 

Who are you, really? Could your beliefs about yourself be real, but not the whole story? Might it be that there's nothing wrong with you, but like everyone, you’ve learned a way of being influenced by the causes and conditions of your life — the circumstances in which you’ve come to be in this world? And that it is possible to learn to live with a greater sense of groundedness and connection, self-compassion, connection to those around you, personal freedom and sense of joy?

The Invitation is to…

Directly experience our lives as they are, not as we imagine them to be, and hold it all with kindness, curiosity, and compassion.

It all starts with arriving in the present moment: a shift in perspective can open a whole new world to wellbeing. I believe that within us, we each have a part of us, deep down, who is quite wise, who we can access to help guide us through our journey. The part of us we’ve pushed down or pushed away that can bring us more clarity and guide us towards taking in more ‘fresh air’ in our lives.

 

"Trauma is a fact of life but it doesn't have to be a life sentence." -Dr. Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing

I know this to be true from my own personal experience. And I also know trauma doesn't have to be what some people have called "big T" trauma - an accident, assault, or natural disaster. It can also be developmental: that our needs as a child weren't met in the way we would have liked and needed to feel safe, seen and soothed — and secure. Trauma doesn’t have to be “obvious” or “invasive” — it can be neglect, or lack of care or the type of care we needed and wanted, when we needed it.

Ideally our early caregivers gave us guidance, limits and nurture. But even if they tried and if this wasn’t always the case in the ways we needed — we can come back to our true home.

We can help repair these places where there’s still longing, or where there might be shame or rigidity around the pushed down desire for connection and love.

Who I Work With


I work with individuals, couples and groups from all walks of life. They’re professionals, artists, chefs, activists, organizers, teachers, administrators, creatives, therapists, students, trainers, and more. They span the racial, sexual orientation and gender identity spectrums. Folks come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and lead varied lives.

It is my deepest honor and privilege to work with those looking to deepen their practice, expand their capacity for compassionate connection with self and others, engage in the process of transforming their traumas, and begin to shift from surviving to thriving, and to begin reclaiming life’s joys.

Specialties

  • Somatic Education

  • Trauma Resolution

  • Nervous System Regulation

  • Stress Management

  • Relationship/Relational Issues

  • Grief, Letting Go & Ambiguous Loss

  • 
Life Transitions & Beginning Again

  • Self Esteem
, Boundaries, Saying No

  • Identifying Needs & Wants, Saying Yes

  • Spirituality
, Mindfulness & Meditation

  • Re-examining Core Beliefs

  • Cultivating Curiosity & Compassion

  • Disenfranchisement, Systemic Oppression

  • Practicing Gratitude, Cultivating Joy, Positive Neuroplasticity

  • Focusing & The Felt Sense

  • Strengths Recognition & Affirmation

  • “Stuckness” in Jobs, Relationships, Life

  • Organizational Leadership & Team Building

  • Organizational Trauma Rebalancing

My Approach

I aim to deeply listen, support & create a trusted holding space to explore a full range of experience and empower & educate you with information about how the nervous system and neuroscience of the brain works, so you begin to understand you aren't just the "stories" about yourself that you may believe to be true.

Together we will co-create this space with the use of mindfulness meditation, noticing what's happening in the body through Somatic Experiencing, Focusing, Indigenous Focusing, and creative writing exercises. Through these methods, I practice with you as a certified meditation teacher, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Indigenous Focusing Practitioner, Relational Life Couples Coach, and poet/writer (not as a psychotherapist).

Read more about my approach below.

  • Mindfulness

    MINDFULNESS IS AN INVITATION TO BRING A FRIENDLY ATTENTION AND CURIOSITY TO YOUR PRESENT MOMENT EXPERIENCE WITHOUT GRIPPING, PUSHING AWAY, OR ZONING OUT

    Mindfulness teaches us to drop into the awareness that is witnessing your thoughts, feelings, and experiences, and asks whether they are the only story. Establishing what’s known as metacognitive or witnessing awareness, or mentalizing, is key to being with the challenging aspects of our experience in a new way: we become more equipped to relate to our life experiences differently, which can be a portal to transformation.

    We can recognize, honor, and dignify what we feel without getting lost in our thoughts or how or what we’re feeling. We can learn to get curious about what it might be like to be with our feelings, and not just be our feelings: we can learn to keep them company. We can begin to recognize our emotions and name them mindfully from the witnessing place of loving awareness, be they the primary emotions of joy, pain, anger, fear, shame, guilt, love, or variations or new “somethings” that have yet to be named or emerge from within. With mindfulness, we cultivate skills to relate to whatever arises in us — and for us — in our lives, differently… perhaps inviting in a sense of curiosity and friendliness, instead of exclusively relying on what can often be the familiar, critical inner voice and rush to action. We learn to understand that critical voice, asking it, what does it want? Why or how has it learned that this is the “best” way to get our attention?

  • Somatic Experiencing

    SOMATIC EXPERIENCING TRAUMA HEALING IS A WAY TO HELP ACCESS THE WISDOM OF THE BODY BY HELPING THE NERVOUS SYSTEM RETURN TO BALANCE AND CALM.

    When we begin to trust ourselves through these practices, we can begin to know what it’s like to sit with our vulnerable feelings and feel them, allowing them to gently process through, with pendulation and titration, still staying within the window of tolerance and minding the demands and capacities of our nervous system. As we learn to go inside ourselves and cultivate our ability to recognize our felt sensations, we can begin to examine the “stuck” places and see how they may deactivate, after which we can return to more balance, clarity and calm. We can tend to these hurt places like we would tend to a baby, and then allow the natural movement that arises toward the joy, delight and sense of OK-ness that awaits. We can recognize our common humanity: our needs, desires and wants, our physical, sexual, spiritual, intellectual, and emotional range of our life’s experience. We can create enough space to embrace all of it with a mindful, curious inquiry and a friendly, kind awareness and attention.

  • Narrative Expression

    WRITTEN EXPRESSION HELPS US CREATE A COHESIVE NARRATIVE OUT OF OUR LIVES. BY PUTTING OUR TRIUMPHS AND TRAGEDIES ON THE PAGE, WE OPEN DOORWAYS TO HEALING.

    I use poetry in my own practice as a way of making sense out of things, like when I wrote this poem about the COVID pandemic in New York, in April 2020. This PBS story also describes a little about why I do what I do with poetry and somatic education and coaching work, and/or art, music, and creative pursuits.

    I may invite clients to draw something they might not yet have words for and see what comes. Or, to show me what they’re feeling instead of me asking. Then we spend time talking about it, and whatever is coming up for you. It’s not about form or the way the poem or piece of writing or art looks - it’s the meaning behind it or in it for you and you alone; what is arising in you that wants to come forward and allowing yourself to do that with your own paper and ink or laptop. It’s for our eyes only.

    Poetry allows for metaphor and nuance and wordplay in a way that strict language and left-brain sentence structure and the social niceties that go along with it, may not. Poetry is an invitation to connect with your deepest self, the part of you that may feel more than think - it is the quality within of ‘knowing,’ not the known, if you will... it’s establishing a relationship with your own inner wisdom and allowing it a portal to be touched into and allowed to express itself.

  • Mindfulness

    MINDFULNESS IS AN INVITATION TO BRING A FRIENDLY ATTENTION AND CURIOSITY TO YOUR PRESENT MOMENT EXPERIENCE WITHOUT GRIPPING, PUSHING AWAY, OR ZONING OUT

    Mindfulness teaches us to drop into the awareness that is witnessing your thoughts, feelings, and experiences, and asks whether they are the only story. Establishing what’s known as metacognitive or witnessing awareness, or mentalizing, is key to being with the challenging aspects of our experience in a new way: we become more equipped to relate to our life experiences differently, which can be a portal to transformation.

    We can recognize, honor, and dignify what we feel without getting lost in our thoughts or how or what we’re feeling. We can learn to get curious about what it might be like to be with our feelings, and not just be our feelings: we can learn to keep them company. We can begin to recognize our emotions and name them mindfully from the witnessing place of loving awareness, be they the primary emotions of joy, pain, anger, fear, shame, guilt, love, or variations or new “somethings” that have yet to be named or emerge from within. With mindfulness, we cultivate skills to relate to whatever arises in us — and for us — in our lives, differently… perhaps inviting in a sense of curiosity and friendliness, instead of exclusively relying on what can often be the familiar, critical inner voice and rush to action. We learn to understand that critical voice, asking it, what does it want? Why or how has it learned that this is the “best” way to get our attention?

  • Somatic Experiencing

    SOMATIC EXPERIENCING TRAUMA HEALING IS A WAY TO HELP ACCESS THE WISDOM OF THE BODY BY HELPING THE NERVOUS SYSTEM RETURN TO BALANCE AND CALM.

    When we begin to trust ourselves through these practices, we can begin to know what it’s like to sit with our vulnerable feelings and feel them, allowing them to gently process through, with pendulation and titration, still staying within the window of tolerance and minding the demands and capacities of our nervous system. As we learn to go inside ourselves and cultivate our ability to recognize our felt sensations, we can begin to examine the “stuck” places and see how they may deactivate, after which we can return to more balance, clarity and calm. We can tend to these hurt places like we would tend to a baby, and then allow the natural movement that arises toward the joy, delight and sense of OK-ness that awaits. We can recognize our common humanity: our needs, desires and wants, our physical, sexual, spiritual, intellectual, and emotional range of our life’s experience. We can create enough space to embrace all of it with a mindful, curious inquiry and a friendly, kind awareness and attention.

  • Narrative Expression

    WRITTEN EXPRESSION HELPS US CREATE A COHESIVE NARRATIVE OUT OF OUR LIVES. BY PUTTING OUR TRIUMPHS AND TRAGEDIES ON THE PAGE, WE OPEN DOORWAYS TO HEALING.

    I use poetry in my own practice as a way of making sense out of things, like when I wrote this poem about the COVID pandemic in New York, in April 2020. This PBS story also describes a little about why I do what I do with poetry and somatic education and coaching work, and/or art, music, and creative pursuits.

    I may invite clients to draw something they might not yet have words for and see what comes. Or, to show me what they’re feeling instead of me asking. Then we spend time talking about it, and whatever is coming up for you. It’s not about form or the way the poem or piece of writing or art looks - it’s the meaning behind it or in it for you and you alone; what is arising in you that wants to come forward and allowing yourself to do that with your own paper and ink or laptop. It’s for our eyes only.

    Poetry allows for metaphor and nuance and wordplay in a way that strict language and left-brain sentence structure and the social niceties that go along with it, may not. Poetry is an invitation to connect with your deepest self, the part of you that may feel more than think - it is the quality within of ‘knowing,’ not the known, if you will... it’s establishing a relationship with your own inner wisdom and allowing it a portal to be touched into and allowed to express itself.

***

Coaching is not psychotherapy or counseling

As your coach, I work with you where you’re at in the present moment. Unlike medical professionals and psychotherapists/psychoanalysts, I do not diagnose illnesses or prescribe medications. The coaching work we do may be life-enhancing and transformational, but I do not view clients through a lens of pathology or unresolved psychological issues. My lens is one of basic goodness and inner wholeness. In our work together, we may use somatic techniques to address nervous system dysregulation to enable the body to feel less stress and more balance. As a coach, we focus on your life as whole person today, facilitating a process that may open doors to a brighter tomorrow. At times, my clients have private psychotherapists and they find the coaching work we do together can help support them further.

My Approach

I aim to deeply listen, support & create a trusted holding space to explore a full range of experience and empower & educate you with information about how the nervous system and neuroscience of the brain works, so you begin to understand you aren't just the "stories" about yourself that you may believe to be true.

Together we will co-create this space with the use of mindfulness meditation, noticing what's happening in the body through Somatic Experiencing, Focusing, Indigenous Focusing, and creative writing exercises. Through these methods, I practice with you as a certified meditation teacher, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Indigenous Focusing Practitioner, Relational Life Couples Coach, and poet/writer (not as a psychotherapist).

Read more about my approach below.

  • Mindfulness

    MINDFULNESS IS AN INVITATION TO BRING A FRIENDLY ATTENTION AND CURIOSITY TO YOUR PRESENT MOMENT EXPERIENCE WITHOUT GRIPPING, PUSHING AWAY, OR ZONING OUT

    Mindfulness teaches us to drop into the awareness that is witnessing your thoughts, feelings, and experiences, and asks whether they are the only story. Establishing what’s known as metacognitive or witnessing awareness, or mentalizing, is key to being with the challenging aspects of our experience in a new way: we become more equipped to relate to our life experiences differently, which can be a portal to transformation.

    We can recognize, honor, and dignify what we feel without getting lost in our thoughts or how or what we’re feeling. We can learn to get curious about what it might be like to be with our feelings, and not just be our feelings: we can learn to keep them company. We can begin to recognize our emotions and name them mindfully from the witnessing place of loving awareness, be they the primary emotions of joy, pain, anger, fear, shame, guilt, love, or variations or new “somethings” that have yet to be named or emerge from within. With mindfulness, we cultivate skills to relate to whatever arises in us — and for us — in our lives, differently… perhaps inviting in a sense of curiosity and friendliness, instead of exclusively relying on what can often be the familiar, critical inner voice and rush to action. We learn to understand that critical voice, asking it, what does it want? Why or how has it learned that this is the “best” way to get our attention?

  • Somatic Experiencing

    SOMATIC EXPERIENCING TRAUMA HEALING IS A WAY TO HELP ACCESS THE WISDOM OF THE BODY BY HELPING THE NERVOUS SYSTEM RETURN TO BALANCE AND CALM.

    When we begin to trust ourselves through these practices, we can begin to know what it’s like to sit with our vulnerable feelings and feel them, allowing them to gently process through, with pendulation and titration, still staying within the window of tolerance and minding the demands and capacities of our nervous system. As we learn to go inside ourselves and cultivate our ability to recognize our felt sensations, we can begin to examine the “stuck” places and see how they may deactivate, after which we can return to more balance, clarity and calm. We can tend to these hurt places like we would tend to a baby, and then allow the natural movement that arises toward the joy, delight and sense of OK-ness that awaits. We can recognize our common humanity: our needs, desires and wants, our physical, sexual, spiritual, intellectual, and emotional range of our life’s experience. We can create enough space to embrace all of it with a mindful, curious inquiry and a friendly, kind awareness and attention.

  • Narrative Expression

    WRITTEN EXPRESSION HELPS US CREATE A COHESIVE NARRATIVE OUT OF OUR LIVES. BY PUTTING OUR TRIUMPHS AND TRAGEDIES ON THE PAGE, WE OPEN DOORWAYS TO HEALING.

    I use poetry in my own practice as a way of making sense out of things, like when I wrote this poem about the COVID pandemic in New York, in April 2020. This PBS story also describes a little about why I do what I do with poetry and somatic education and coaching work, and/or art, music, and creative pursuits.

    I may invite clients to draw something they might not yet have words for and see what comes. Or, to show me what they’re feeling instead of me asking. Then we spend time talking about it, and whatever is coming up for you. It’s not about form or the way the poem or piece of writing or art looks - it’s the meaning behind it or in it for you and you alone; what is arising in you that wants to come forward and allowing yourself to do that with your own paper and ink or laptop. It’s for our eyes only.

    Poetry allows for metaphor and nuance and wordplay in a way that strict language and left-brain sentence structure and the social niceties that go along with it, may not. Poetry is an invitation to connect with your deepest self, the part of you that may feel more than think - it is the quality within of ‘knowing,’ not the known, if you will... it’s establishing a relationship with your own inner wisdom and allowing it a portal to be touched into and allowed to express itself.

 

services & offerings

Coaching

Life happens in the present…

Many of us live in the past or the future. We ruminate and regret, or we have anxiety and worry about what may happen next in life. By learning how to regulate your own nervous system and by understanding what external "triggers" affect you - you can learn to be with and tolerate life's ups and downs in a new way, with fresh eyes, embodied presence, and an open, empowered and courageous heart. By turning towards that which we normally turn against, together we can open up to a new way of being, shifting from anger, fear and grief to curiosity, calm, and courage.

Services

INDIVIDUALS

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COUPLES

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GROUPS

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“THIS WAS AMAZING. WE CREATED A FUTURE TOGETHER AND I CHERISH IT.”

 

-Palm Maria

 

Services

EXPLORE OFFERINGS

About Me

READ MY STORY

Projects

STUDY CASES HERE

"Trauma is a fact of life but it doesn't have to be a life sentence." -Dr. Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing

I know this to be true from my own personal experience. And I also know trauma doesn't have to be what some people have called "big T" trauma - an accident, assault, or natural disaster. It can also be developmental: that our needs as a child weren't met in the way we would have liked and needed to feel safe, seen and soothed — and secure. Trauma doesn’t have to be “obvious” or “invasive” — it can be neglect, or lack of care or the type of care we needed and wanted, when we needed it.

Ideally our early caregivers gave us guidance, limits and nurture. But even if they tried and if this wasn’t always the case in the ways we needed — we can come back to our true home. We can help repair these places where there’s still longing, or where there might be shame or rigidity around the pushed down desire for connection and love.

Who I Work With


I work with individuals, couples and groups from all walks of life. They’re professionals, artists, chefs, activists, organizers, teachers, administrators, creatives, therapists, students, trainers, and more. They span the racial, sexual orientation and gender identity spectrums. Folks come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and lead varied lives.

It is my deepest honor and privilege to work with those looking to deepen their Somatic Educationpractice, expand their capacity for compassionate connection with self and others, engage in the process of transforming their traumas, and begin to shift from surviving to thriving, and to begin reclaiming life’s joys.

Specialties

  • Somatic Education, Trauma Resolution, Nervous System Regulation

  • Stress Management

  • Relationship/Relational Issues

  • Grief, Letting Go & Ambiguous Loss

  • 
Life Transitions & Beginning Again

  • Self Esteem
, Boundaries, Saying No

  • Identifying Needs & Wants, Saying Yes

  • Spirituality
, Mindfulness & Meditation

  • Re-examining Core Beliefs

  • Cultivating Curiosity & Compassion