your practitioner’s story

I came to find my way into this field after years of pushing the physical limitations of my body. At the time I was an art teacher, a bike messenger, and a Muay Thai practitioner (competing here and there, teaching, and training as much as I possibly could). Unsurprisingly, I sustained ongoing injuries and was in search of another way of being. My restlessness during recovery time would lead me to experience waves of crippling anxiety. When I finally sought out medical and cognitive therapies, I was denied due to financial barriers. This disenchantment with the medical industrial complex (& society at large), led me to seek alternative roads towards wellness & healing. A few months later I found myself wandering through the Amazon jungle, when I experienced my first profound spiritual breakthrough. This reconnection to the land, its inhabitants, and my spirit was invaluable. 

I returned to my home, Philadelphia, and recognized the need to focus on my inner work, healing, connecting with my guarded body (which has been in an on-going state of hyper-vigilance), and soothing my nervous system. I was on a path of becoming an art therapist and had been accepted into a couple of programs. A few months after my return from Ecuador, I moved to Portland, OR on a whim where I spent the majority of my time in the woods and doing ‘homework’ provided to me by an amazing therapist trained in cognitive and body based based stress reduction from somatic experiencing to hakomi to MBSR. As an early childhood educator, at the time, I found myself sharing and teaching mindfulness skills to teachers and students. Digger deeper into the potentials of art therapy, I felt limited. I decided instead to pivot and continued to the follow this thread – seeking learning and understanding around healing, pain, and how our bodies hold and carry memory. Soon I enrolled in a massage program at an amazing community college in Eugene, OR with little interest in actually working as a massage therapist. It was unknown to me that this program would change the trajectory of my life for the better. 

Years later, I continue to be deeply interested in and fascinated by relationships we cultivate with our pain – be it psychosomatic (mental formations/’’winds’’/lom baht in Thai/internalized and imposed societal programming/standards, trauma, etc), muscular, or even ‘phantom’ pain. I continued my educational journey at Oregon State Univeristy where I studied Applied Anthropology, taught classes as a graduate teaching assistant in Global Health & Anthropology, Nutritional Anthropology, and designed a self-compassion training program from state employed Community Health Workers, faciliated mindfulness-based art activities for women in recovery, and doula groups. In addition, through OSU’s counseling center, I organized (and facilitated) “Rites of Spring” a series of mindfulness based stress reduction activities led for students by students including but not limited to yoga, art, meditation and more. I’m interested to bridge these worlds wherever possible. My vision is to bring all of these aspects back to the fore, to lead mindfulness based art groups, non-attachment (process-driven) art sessions with groups and individuals, in addition to holding space for energy healing, and bodywork for physical mending.