My approach and values

Over more than a decade of doing this work, I've come to think of relationship as the precondition for everything else, not one ingredient among several.

We build the relationship first.

Before anything else, I want to understand your context. Where you come from, what you're carrying, what your life looks like day to day. From there we name what you're after and work toward it together.

We work with the body, not only the story.

Trauma is held in the body as much as in the story you tell about it. Working with breath, movement, and attention to sensation can reach what talking alone doesn't. It can also feel more exposed than talking, which is why it goes at your pace, and why the relationship comes first.

We look at the systems you live inside.

Systemic conditions and intergenerational trauma shape mental health. A liberation lens means we name those forces for what they are and stop locating every problem inside you.

"I am often struck by the dangerous narcissism fostered by spiritual rhetoric that pays so much attention to individual self-improvement and so little to the practice of love within the context of community."

bell hooks

I'll offer a perspective. You decide what to do with it.

Plenty of people come to this work because they've been dealing with the same thing over and over again and want an outside view. I can share with you what I notice. Sometimes that's about self-compassion, or rest, or boundaries, or where you might push yourself harder than you have been. You're the one who decides what fits.

"When the other person is hurting, confused, troubled, anxious, alienated, terrified… deep understanding is, I believe, the most precious gift one can give to another."

Carl Rogers