My personal journey has shaped the training I have pursued over the years. I have had more injuries than anyone I have ever known and through the pursuit of various kinds of bodywork and exercise I am in great shape. The desire to understand myself and my family constellation, as well as to make my work deeper and more effective, led me to Hakomi Body-Centered Psychotherapy and a Masters in Spirituality and Counseling. And the challenge of managing and healing colitis brought me to study manual therapy, diet and spiritual practice; as a result I have become pain-free, happier and healthier with each passing year.
At the age of 19, I needed to understand why I had so much pain (I was picking up on the pain of those around me) and why it changed and roved so much. I found a personal growth seminar called The Sage Experience and learned about energy and my gift as a “kinesthetic empath.” I sought out Sylvia Brown and learned about and developed psychic channeling. At around the same time, I took a training in Rebirthing and learned about breath-work and the wisdom of the body.
In 1979, in a search for happiness I moved to Maui, and realized that happiness for me had to include a greater sense of purpose and service. A year later, I chose to return to Washington DC to work in my chosen field of environmental politics and consequently realized that I am much more of a counselor by nature than an environmental activist. Motivated by my desire to serve as well as to understand the body, I took a 1000 hr course of study at the Potomac Massage Training Institute and became certified. In the process, my gift as an empath and counselor came into focus leading me to train in Hakomi Body-Centered Psychotherapy, CranioSacral Therapy and Structural Integration.
Out of the channeling work that was naturally happening in my work and wanting to reconcile the religious differences in my family, I enrolled in a Masters Program at Mundelein College in Creation-Centered Spirituality and Counseling. By this time, I had been teaching about bodymind therapy, energy work, and relationship skills in the midwest for about 7 years; the program asked me to teach “Spiritual Bodywork” to bring a greater understanding of how the spirit is expressed in our physical experience through the chakras and our energy systems.
After my move to Oregon in 1990 came a decade of more concussions and falls than I can count: enter Lowen Systems, IMT and Reiki (Master.) My children were soon born, so for a number of years my practice took a back seat as I took sporatic trainings and treated people on the side.
Finally, with the advent of colitis, I began a process that changed the scope and nature of my professional and spiritual practice. In 2003, I went to Brazil to experience the healing work of a very powerful trance medium. There I received profound healing as well as a deepening of my life purpose and healing practice. It was soon thereafter that a car crash led me to study Functional Indirect and to embark on a 4 year process of commuting to Connecticut to become Certified in Integrative Manual Therapy. As the years have passed since then, I have been experiencing a wonderful integration of all the different styles of work I have studied, bringing a wonderful level of synthesis and satisfaction to my work and experience.
In summary, my late teens I began my journey into personal development. My own evolutionary process- physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual- has motivated me to take one training after another for 40 years. The synthesis of this process allows me to respond to the diverse needs of my clients in a holistic and compassionate manner.
