Focus

I primarily work with individuals, and mostly women. I also work with select couples from time to time. The couples can be in a romantic relationship, siblings, as well as other family members, or friends. I work with men who resonate with my work.

​I’ve been exploring and studying the “mind-body” (belief that the body and the mind are connected, not separate, and constantly influencing one another) based approaches to healing for a long time. Somatic (body based) approaches that include elements of mindfulness, yoga, your senses, body awareness, interoception, breath, and guided meditations are some of what I might utilize beyond talk therapy. Self compassion, kindness, empathy, gratitude, and self & soul care are strong elements in my work. We may use spiritual elements, creativity, exploration of your dreams, prayer, and art in our work too. We’ll probably laugh a lot along the way, as laughter is known to be great medicine!

My approach is relational, integrative, holistic and strengths based.

Relational - Building relationships

Integrative - Integrating different tools, modalities, or referrals to tools, exercises, practices outside our work

Holistic - Looking at all aspects or varying aspects of you, referrals to other self reflective practices

Strengths - We all have superpowers, lets find yours

The areas I work with often and am passionate about - self care, stress, trauma (relational, childhood/development, racial/ identity), grief and loss, love and relationships, and life (transitions, etc).

Life

Life can throw you curve balls. It can get tough, confusing, and stressful. The COVID Pandemic, racial uprisings, and all the losses that have taken place might be leaving you feeling lost or burned out. You might be feeling anxious, depressed, having panic attacks or bouts of anger, or you’re feeling lonely and want to sort that out. Maybe your communication feels challenged, and you’re misunderstood. Maybe the time has come for you to finally speak your truth, explore your thoughts, or lay down your burdens. I’m here to listen, provide insight, maybe offer a different angle you hadn’t noticed, and support you. I’ll reflect back what you’re going through and help you dream! We create the sacred space for it all to happen.

Relationships and Love

Sometimes we have conflicts with others. You might have issues with mom, have an estranged relationship with your father, or ongoing issues with your partner. You might have friendships that are feeling less friendly, where you feel more like a stranger, or you have issues with coworkers or colleagues. Maybe you need to set firmer boundaries, or maybe you need to learn what boundaries are, or perhaps you’d like to learn how to communicate better. You might even want to explore how to reveal important news, a secret, or some information to a loved one, we can definitely do that too. Or perhaps you want a love or romantic relationship in your life and want to take steps to make it happen. Whatever the relationship, let’s figure out what you want and need, what’s important to you, and how we can get you feeling stable and happy in your bonds and connections.

Grief and Loss

Loss is hard, and there is no “right” way to grieve. Grief, the demonstration of the love you had for the person who is no longer alive, can be a long and sometimes lonely road for some. It can be devastating, crippling, overwhelming, and feel impossible to deal with (see Trauma above). I’ve worked with a range of grief, including traumatic grief from parental loss during adolescence, sudden tragedies, suicide survivors, and perinatal and infant loss. I’ve also focused on working with women who’ve lost their fathers to mental illness and substance use. Whatever your loss, we’ll work on alleviating the stress of grief and try to make some room to breath. We’ll take things slow, find the path that feels good for you to honor, remember, and grieve your loss, and your loved one. If your loss and grief isn’t due to a death, we can definitely do that work too.

Trauma and Stress

Trauma and traumatic stress can sometimes be described by a series of symptoms - always looking over your shoulder or anxious about who’s around or what might happen, feeling “amped up”, anxious, maybe close to panic, having “out of control” feelings, or feeling numb or vacant inside. You might find yourself “checking out”, where you don’t recall what happened, or you have aches and pains and don’t know and can’t seem to find the origins of them. These could be some of the signs of traumatic stress. Trauma can be like a deep well of sadness, feeling disconnected from life, from others, from self. It can feel like a spiritual disconnection. There are many ways to describe trauma, to experience it, and it can be so overwhelming, it changes your mind, your body, your spirit, and your life. Traumatic stress can derive from loss, from violence or abuse, an event or series of them, and it can come from many different areas in life. It could have happened during childhood, or even before that. Science says that trauma is stored in our DNA, and sometimes that means you’re healing from wounds that belong to your ancestors (also known as “intergenerational” or “multigenerational” trauma). Wherever it comes from, trauma can cause us to feel a lack of control somewhere in our lives.

Stress is something natural in our world. It can drive us, motivate us, and help us get things done. But like trauma, it can overwhelm us too. Like trauma, stress can be too much on us. Stress might impact the body, mind and spirit. It might make you feel like you can’t breathe, have panic attacks, or maybe start to take up unhealthy habits and rituals. We live in a fast paced world, and that can add more stress to your life, maybe it is.

In our work we might focus on getting you to slow down, creating space to focus on your resiliency, that ability to uncover what you feel, articulate those feelings, and make choices, pivot, make changes, or find new tools for managing and reducing pain and build up the strength to keep moving onward.

self care

Caring for ourselves is an “act of political warfare”, according to writer, feminist, and activist Audre Lorde. Healing begins with learning to care for self. As we become empowered from that caring for and nourishing of ourselves, healing ourselves then connects us to our power. What caring for yourself looks like for you specifically is something we will definitely explore extensively. I’ll focus on how you slow down, rest, nourish, play, sleep and restore, among other things. All these acts are key in building a foundation for healing, wellness, for feeling empowered, centered and grounded. When we have all those things in our life, we can begin to make conscious choices, take action but not react, and move forward in life. We care for ourselves so we can keep dreaming, have the strength to keep reaching for our dreams and goals, and allows us to live a full and present life. No matter is happening in your life, this is an area we will focus on.

Payment, Fees, and Cancellations

Payment

I do not bill any insurance directly at this time, my services are private pay. Services can be paid via credit/debit card, and HSA/FSA cards are accepted as well. Please read the notice below.

Good Faith Estimate Notice

You have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” explaining how much your medical and mental health care will cost.

Under the law, health care providers need to give patients who don’t have insurance or who are not using insurance an estimate of the expected charges for medical services, including psychotherapy services.

You have the right to receive a Good Faith Estimate for the total expected cost of any non-emergency healthcare services, including psychotherapy services.

You can ask your health care provider, and any other provider you choose, for a Good Faith Estimate before you schedule a service.

If you are billed for more than the Good Faith Estimate, you have the right to dispute the bill. You may contact the health care provider or facility listed to let them know the billed charges are higher than the Good Faith Estimate. You can ask them to update the bill to match the Good Faith Estimate, ask to negotiate the bill, or ask if there is financial assistance available.

For questions or more information about your right to a Good Faith Estimate, visit www.cms.gov/nosurprises.

Cancellations

There is a 48 hour cancellation policy. Please provide notice to cancel outside of 48 hours before your appointment. Cancellations without the 48 hour notice may be charged full fee.

We want to acknowledge the keepers and stewards of the land where I was born, practice, serve, and live on are the Chumash, Tongva, Fernandeño Tatviam, and Kizh. Offering gratitude and respect to the first nations and indigenous peoples and their elders who have kept this land, and continue to be its stewards…