MY STORY
I remember as a 15-year-old girl embracing my horse’s neck and crying. I felt so terribly alone and scared, believing there was something wrong with me. The pain and darkness within were palpable but I did not know how to do anything but run from them. I began a journey of escape from my own insides that included sex, drugs and alcohol but also a perfectionistic, avoidant relational style constructed to build a protective wall around my heart. My chosen patterns would last decades and became the primary obstacle to my lifelong quest for nourishment of my soul.
It was an insatiable craving that I could not escape.
I wrestled spiritually and psychologically in a sort of functional holding pattern until my mid 40’s, and the thirst for something transcendent never abated. I did not know how to be real. I was walking as a ghost upon the earth. I covered the darkness with religion and a frenzy of activity - motherhood, wifely duties, homeschooling, Pony Club, my own business, Reese’s peanut butter cups, and Jack Daniels. I discovered that I could never get enough of what I didn’t need. This hunger had always driven me to look for answers outside myself.
The soul waits to be discovered, because without it nothing truly satisfies.
My husband and I sought answers in the conservative Christian homeschooling movement, purity culture, and a dogmatic cult “church” which provided a source of direction that became progressively and insidiously oppressive and demanding. I was determined to be the best “Proverbs 31 woman” God ever met! We trusted our reproduction to God and were blessed with “a full quiver” - eight wonderful kids.
I was vulnerable to this cult mentality because I had lost touch with my internal compass and needed an external authority to tell me how to live. This only exacerbated my dissociation from my true Self. I was blind to the internalized oppression inherent in the patriarchal system. I had allowed my femininity, intuition, and spirituality to be smothered by someone else’s view of how I should live. From the outside, it appeared I had it all together. But I was miserable. Buried under decades of shame, unconscious fears and conditioning, and estrangement from my true Self, I still had a glowing ember of hope for something different; something more. I had an epiphany in 2005 and things began to change.
I accepted that many of my assumptions about life were incorrect.
We left the church, but I am still a recovering Pharisee, and I resonate with fellow “exvangelicals”. (Thanks to Peter Hiett and Richard Rohr, I still love Jesus.) I admitted I was a survivor of sexual abuse and began that healing path. In April, 2013, I admitted that my drinking had become uncontrollable, and despite heroic solo attempts at sobriety, I humbly attended my first AA meeting and asked for help. The 12 steps remain a foundational practice in my life and I pursue sobriety one day at a time. In my awakening, I discovered Naropa University, Buddhism, Somatic Experiencing, Qi Gong, Taoism, Esoteric Christianity, and mysticism.
The most painful discovery after I got sober was that my marriage was a catastrophe. It was one of the reasons that I drank and if I didn’t do something about it I was unlikely to remain sober. My husband was my high school sweetheart, and we had failed to grow together in healthy ways. We worked for years to fix it, but were simply irreconcilably incompatible. Ironically, if I had never gotten sober I would probably still be married. After 45 years of relationship, including 37 years of marriage and 8 children, we divorced in 2020.
In addition to the divorce, which was very traumatic for me, my youngest child graduated high school and my 15 year empty nest process was nearing completion. Finally, the transcendent loneliness of the pandemic threw me into the abyss of existential vertigo. It was the perfect storm.
“When things start to fall apart in your life, you feel as if your whole world is crumbling. But actually it’s your fixed identity that’s crumbling. And that’s cause for celebration.” - Pema Chödrön
With infinite gratifude, I have been wrestling with therapists, coaches, psychedelics, and spiritual directors for 20 years! It has been brutifal. The integration of psychology and spirituality, plus physical activity and nature, are the alchemy that best heals my soul. This is the toolbox that I bring to clients today. While I am trained as a trauma-informed psychotherapist, I am also a contemplative spiritual guide and a Qi Gong energy body healer. It is not that I have achieved or arrived at anything, except for the humble realization that we are all on this journey together and I can only accompany you as far as I have been willing to go myself.
“We are all just walking each other home.” - Ram Dass
While there are some who have achieved spontaneous instantaneous enlightenment, and I do believe it can happen, for most of us it is a slow, gradual, lifelong process.
“You become, it takes a long time.” - The Velveteen Rabbit
I enjoy spending time with friends, family, and my 8 extraordinary children, their partners, and my seven grandchildren (and one on the way!). My favorite activities are hiking, backpacking, downhill skiing, walking my dog, reading, meditating, listening to loud music, swimming, yoga, Qi Gong, and lifting weights.
MY TRAINING
Master of Arts, Clinical Mental Health Counseling (MA)
Contemplative Psychotherapy and Buddhist Psychology
Naropa University, Boulder CO
Meditation Instructor Certification
Naropa University, Boulder CO
Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP)
Somatic Experiencing® Trauma Institute
The Destination Method (TDM) Coach
Telos Healing Center, Dr. Robert Dee McDonald
Medical Qi Gong Healing – 4-year program
The Center Place, Damaris Jarboux
The Living School – 2 yr program
The Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, NM
Transforming Trauma: A Spiritual Approach - audio series
Dr. James Finley
Motivational Interviewing
Noeticus Counseling Center and Training Institute
ASIST – Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training
Living Works
Equine Assisted Psychotherapy
OK Corral Series, Basic Weekend Seminar
Survivors of Abuse Leadership Training
Open Hearts Ministry
School of Spiritual Direction
New Way Ministries, Larry Crabb
I AM NOT A LICENSED PROFESSIONAL COUNSELOR (LPC) .
I AM AN HOLISTIC SPIRITUAL PRACTITIONER .