My Training & Experience
I hold a Masters in Counseling Psychology, and previously worked for eight years as a somatic relational and experiential psychotherapist. I have extensive training in Hakomi Therapy, transformational coaching, and other Mindfulness-Based Somatic healing modalities, such as trauma-attuned Relational Attachment Work, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT or ‘Tapping’) and Compassionate Communication. I also value and integrate the wisdom of Interpersonal Neurobiology and Polyvagal Theory.
I have 25 years of experience working with the intentional use of psychedelics and expanded states of consciousness. I am honored to get to devote my life in service to helping others heal trauma, create lasting change and become the most fully expressed and authentic version of themselves.
I’ve trained in several approaches to psychedelic therapy and integration work, and am certified as a Psilocybin Facilitator.
Some of my human journey
I’d love for you to know a little bit about my story…
I am mother to a wild and magical 3 year old.
I have been with the love of my life for 13+ years.
I worked in the commercial salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, Alaska for 20 years, 5 of which I captained my own boat (and where I met my beloved husband).
I had a 10 year career working as a massage therapist, eventually specializing in Oncology Massage.
I have always been passionate about love and what creates thriving relationships so I studied Compassionate Communication (NVC) and Emotional Freedom Technique (‘Tapping’) and completed a year long coaching and counseling certification. I loved coaching and counseling couples and individuals in the realm of Love and Relationships for several years. Then decided to attend graduate school for Counseling Psychology and subsequently had a beautiful private psychotherapy practice for nearly 8 years. Though that training and professional experience deeply influences how I am with my clients today, and even while utilizing all the non-traditional modalities I could with my clients, I kept feeling confined by the limitations of talk therapy, and decided to leave behind licensed work and devote myself to the relational, somatic and psychedelic approaches to healing and transformation I work with today.
In my own life I have used psychedelics for connection, for fun, for play, for experiencing pleasure and making magic, and expanding my consciousness. I’ve also used it for unearthing and processing my ugliest wounds and trauma, for transmuting my shadows into gifts and putting my fragmented parts back together again, returning to wholeness. My healing is an ongoing emergent process, as I am always learning and being humbled by what life hands me, but time and time again I have found incredible healing and growth from the intentional use of empathogens and entheogens to help access my most difficult-to-access material and help it move and shift into healthier, more aligned and fulfilled ways of being.
I survived many years of soul-crushing bullying in childhood. I am a survivor of rape and sexual violence. I am the child of a parent who suffered and ultimately died from unprocessed trauma that expressed itself as deep shame, drug and alcohol addiction and self destruction. I carry the wounds of religious trauma from both sides of my family. I identify as queer and bi-sexual though I carry the privilege of passing as hetero. I am more recently recognizing and learning about my particular flavors of neurodivergence (ADHD, Giftedness, HSP) and also live with a heartbreaking autoimmune disease. I am currently smack dab in the midst of my own mid-life emergence/transition and ultimately want to grow to be a wise elder, a good ancestor and die well.
