The long version:

I love storytelling for impact. The first ten years of my professional life were spent doing multimedia and video production about sustainability and conservation. I was blessed to cut my teeth as a producer at National Geographic, while working with world-class scientists, photographers and explorers. But behind the scenes, I was struggling with overwhelming stress and anxiety. I had secondary trauma from what I faced living abroad and working on my first film project. Therapy and yoga helped, but it wasn’t enough. I believed it was possible to heal and took it on like a part-time job. Now almost 20 years later, if I had to summarize what is essential for this kind of deep personal healing it is: non-judgmental guidance, exploration, and embodied practice.

What worked (and continues to work) for me is honoring my body and emotions, using my imagination, and supporting my nervous system.

We all love a good transformation story. I'd like to share a bit more about my journey in case it may be of use to your heart right now and give you more context for why I do this work.

I made it through my post-traumatic stress and quarter-life crisis— and many other challenges like being laid off— with the support of coaches and guides. I went from not knowing if I could hold it together enough to eat in a restaurant with my family, to embarking on a Watson Fellowship where I traveled solo and lived with host families in 8 countries over a year.

I went on to produce documentary projects in many other countries and cultures different from my own. I went from being too anxious to consider the social pressures of a wedding, or to consider trying to become a parent, to having an incredible and meaningful wedding that people still talk about many years later, navigating a long fertility journey, then having a remarkably wonderful pregnancy, and empowered natural birth at a birth center. I am now a thriving toddler mama.

I did (and continue to do!) the inner work to come home to myself and the ease and joy that I believe is everyone’s birthright.

Even though I had landed what I thought was my dream job at Nat Geo, I knew deep down I was meant to help people in a powerful, participatory way without the distance of a long camera lens between us. That’s how I got into personal coaching.

I trained for a year with “the world’s finest coaching program.” Conventional life and leadership coaching was wonderful and useful, but I still saw too many clients needed the missing piece I did: somatic and nervous system work. We have to SHOW and not tell our parts that feel stuck or frozen that it's safe to change and soften. This is what somatic or embodiment practice is all about.

I pursued further certifications as a Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE®) Provider and Nervous System Fitness Trainer to integrate all of the modalities. I believe in the power of personal transformation and that you are your best healer, but you have to do more than just read and use your intellect.

My clients and community members regularly say that what I teach is life-changing, and it blows their mind that they can rewire their brain and experience their body in a new way even after years of therapy, and learning personal development from books and podcasts. All the knowledge is useful, but the key to lasting change is embodiment.

Above all, I believe simple tools work—if you actually practice them. Come join me and reclaim your resilience. You get to live a life that feels incredible.