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 am generally 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 a Certified Massage Therapist. 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 over 40 years. The synthesis of this process allows me to respond to the diverse needs of my clients in a holistic and compassionate manner.
