I am a sensitive and silly human who loves to have deep conversations and laugh at fart jokes. I am a daughter, a sister, a wife, a cat mom, a nurse, an out gay woman, among many other descriptors. I've been in the closet, mired in my own shame, married, divorced, and married again. I've doubted myself and been afraid of my own light. I've lost. I've grieved. I've loved passionately, deeply, selfishly. I've judged. I've hated. I've screwed up massively. I've forgiven. And I've found love again. Firstly, and most importantly, for myself and my humanity, for those parts of myself that feel ashamed, afraid, and doubt my light. Those parts that I tuned out and disconnected from— that I hid away.

As I continue to nourish this relationship with myself, I’ve found a calling in teaching and supporting others to grow their own connection with themselves through mindfulness, compassion, and somatic work — nervous system healing. I believe that cultivating mindfulness, compassion, and learning how to attune to the body—regulating, and healing our nervous systems is key to living and loving ourselves and each other. It’s crucial to the healing of our planet.

So how did I get here?

I spent a long time living with a lot of personal shame, depression, anxiety—helping others through nursing but avoiding my own inner work. Fast forward to where I find myself now: sharing what I know with others to help them begin and sustain their own journey of waking up to the love, compassion, and wisdom within.

As a registered nurse for the past 15 years, caring for the elderly, the sick, and the dying, I've felt the power of believing in something greater and more powerful than our minds can comprehend, that divine light that we all have within us connecting us all.  With kind awareness, learning to tune into what’s arising within, we can strengthen our connection to that divine consciousness. I’ve seen what happens to fear and suffering when we access deep kindness, compassion, and love within, not only for ourselves but for each other, even if only for a brief moment. It’s life-altering. How do we tap into this more regularly? That’s where my journey practicing meditation comes in.

I began dabbling in meditation in 2014 but it wasn't until 2018 that it really became a regular part of my daily life and I can honestly say that mindfulness was the greatest teacher on my journey to be more me. I’ve taken so many courses (some of which I’ve listed below) to support my learning on how to connect with myself on a deeper level, on how to practice mindfulness, practice connecting with my body and heart… to feel more whole.

While I was beginning to strengthen my meditation practice in 2018 I had also attended and graduated from an intense year-long life coach training program. I found myself supporting people through a model with a heavy focus on externally referenced goals and cognitive approaches to transformation. I tried to be a rock-star coach who helped her clients do amazing things (What does that even mean and what would it even look like?…you tell me.) But I felt like I was playing a part and I felt lost. I was still searching outside of me for my own answers and trying to fill a void within myself the same way—by playing a part. I was still heavily in my mind and disconnected from my heart and body. There was little room for compassion. I believe goals are great and necessary for life and cognitive tools are super helpful, yet at that time I could feel a tug in my heart, telling me there was more I needed to explore within myself and more I needed to learn about the mind, body, heart connection in order to really support myself and others to create lasting change. I didn’t really know where to begin.

And then in 2019, I received certification from Anne Bérubé's Embodied Leadership Facilitator training program. This model focused on tuning in to your body, breath, and heart moving away from using only your intellect as your guide, as your reference point. This led me on an even deeper journey within. That program, I can recognize now, was the catalyst for a dark night of the soul that seemed to go on forever, this feeling of powerlessness, groundlessness—until one day life seemed a little lighter and a little more clear. I found ground to walk on again. What had happened during that time was that I had begun to let go of these identities that I had embodied for so long that were no longer serving me, however, I didn’t know what to do with this new ground.

Looking back on that time I know I needed more support to work through what I had opened up within. Up until then I believed and had a tendency to want to have these big cathartic releases “to get over something.” I didn’t understand why I still couldn’t transform my life … it felt like I was always moving 2 steps forward and 5 steps back. But at that time I didn’t realize how much complex trauma I had stored in my nervous system (or even what that was) and that gradual, gentle healing was what was actually needed more than anything in order to really support lasting, meaningful change. I stopped coaching people at that time and focused on my own personal healing using mindfulness and compassion as my greatest teachers.

After that experience in 2019 I undertook many different personal growth and training programs through renowned teachers such as Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Kristen Neff, Christopher Germer, and Danielle Laporte to name a few to help me find ground again. I spent a week in silence through InsightLA’s Mindfulness of Body and Mind silent retreat. And I’ve undertaken many personal silent retreats.

*(Because my mindfulness practice has been such a great healer for me I enrolled in a 2-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program in 2023 led by the renowned Buddhist teachers Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield in order to share the teachings with others.)

As my mindfulness practice deepened over the years and my awareness and insight grew I could no longer avoid my body and what it was longing for— my love and attention. I knew I had learned to hide my truth from myself early on as I had mostly buried my sexual identity below the level of my consciousness until I was 19. I spent much of my life I tuning out my inner voice everywhere— and I had learned to focus a lot of energy on what other people needed, much of the time ignoring some of my own needs, so that I wouldn’t draw attention to what was going on inside me and also because I had no idea what my needs/wants were. These had become very engrained ways of being— wired within my nervous system. It was safer to tune out than it was to tune in.

What evolved from this new awareness of and connection with my inner landscape was a journey with trauma/nervous system healing, specifically Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing ®. I began working with a wonderful therapist in the spring of 2022 who was trained in that modality, which opened me up to a whole other world inside myself. It’s been a very gentle and kind process— no real giant cathartic releases— but enormous shifts inside. The shame that I’ve carried around for so long is lifting and integrating into the story of me. So many aspects of myself feel less like separate parts and more like an integrated whole being. Of course, this doesn’t look like perfect days without any difficulties, after all, this isn’t what life is about. But what it does look like is a woman who understands how to, more often, ride the waves of her experience —kindly, compassionately, and completely tuned into her needs—body, mind, and heart connected.

Besides my current enrollment in the mindfulness teacher training I mentioned above, I am also in my second year of Somatic Experiencing ® Practitioner training. The skills I’m gaining through both trainings have allowed me to work with individuals to support them to gain compassionate awareness of their own inner workings and how to navigate their nervous systems to foster regulation, healing and meaningful change.

I can’t overstate this enough, the most life-changing gifts I’ve ever given myself are my commitments to being mindful, to have compassion for self, and to attune to my body/nervous system.

What do I know? Joy and love and peace are cultivated when you allow your heart to be your compass. And lemme tell ya, my intellect loves to analyze, strategize, and try really hard to figure everything out. So this way of living is not an easy-breezy ride, but it’s way more empowering and free. Isn’t that what we all want? The power to be free.

So here I am— intentionally choosing moment to moment (honestly, sometimes, it’s easier than others to remember) to be present for this life fully. I choose to love this human (that would be me!) even when this life feels, at times, uncertain and scary.

Life is a choice. There are moments, days, weeks, months, YEARS that are harder than others, and yet we always have the power to choose how we treat ourselves. It’s messy and beautiful. Life asks us to feel, truly feel, what longs to come to the surface to be healed and most importantly loved. The more we care for ourselves with this kind of compassion the more we can give it back to our world. The more we come back to the present moment, in our bodies, kindly, the more we open to the wisdom that is flowing within and all around us—connecting us all.

That is what I believe is our highest calling: to learn how to be kind, gentle, and compassionate with our hearts, minds, and bodies, no matter what. Even when it feels impossible. This simple and monumental duty will change the world. One moment, one human at a time.

So there you have it. As is your own, my journey is ever-unfolding.

Personal Learning, Continuing Education, and Training:

*Bachelor of Science in Nursing, St. Francis Xavier University, 2009

*Graduate of ICF accredited year-long Life Coach Training program, 2018

*Embodied Leadership Facilitator Certification with Dr. Anne Bérubé (10 months), 2019

*Power of Awareness with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield (8 weeks), 2020

*Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction with Saki Santorelli and Florence Meleo-Meyer (8 weeks), 2021

*Mindful Self Compassion with Dr. Caroline Hoffmann (10 weeks), 2021

*Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness Training with David Treleaven (In Progress), 2022

*Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield (In Progress— Year one complete) 2023-2025

*Somatic Experiencing® Professional Trauma Training Program (In Progress— Year one complete) 2023-2026