You are a survivor…

Psychological research is beginning to catch up to an understanding that it’s not just war veterans and domestic violence survivors who have endured trauma. Most, if not all of us, at some point in our lives, have a painful experience that completely shifts the way we live and exist in the world. While some may experience “classic” trauma in the form of flashbacks and nightmares, trauma manifests in a multitude of ways: physical pain, somatic issues, depression, meaninglessness, anxiety, and most of what we consider mental illness has all been linked to traumatic experiences.

Trauma is not always one event or extreme situation. Trauma can be collective, related to the political/social climate, or intergenerational. It can be the result of discrimination, marginalization, poverty, loss, institutionalization, and so much more. When we begin to see all the ways in which the sometimes crazy world around us interacts with our individual beliefs and stories about who we are - we can develop immense compassion, strength, and a deeper awareness of who we are and where we are going..

We are spiritual beings…

Most of us connect to something larger than ourselves to make meaning out of the world around us. We all have different language for speaking about the profundity of experience. You may connect to a unifying energy, feel a deep sense of purpose, tune into the magic around you. You may feel expansive when you practice art, writing, ritual, prayer, sit in community, or find yourself in nature. In my opinion, spirituality (as defined by you) cannot be separated from mental health. Practices that make you feel whole need to be at the heart of mental health and wellbeing. A crucial part of finding those practices is developing intuitive capacity, knowing what feels right to you internally, and tuning into the world around you. Your being knows exactly what it needs to heal, the hard part is breaking down all of the junk that gets in the way.

Spiritual practice is perhaps most important during times of great distress and emotional crisis. Many people consider their biggest breakdowns, no matter how terrifying or traumatic, to be a deep spiritual experience. These moments can be huge opportunities for positive change if we allow them to be, because all that was keeping us stuck begins to crumble away. Most of us never learn how to break open. Have you ever heard the phrase “breakdowns lead to breakthroughs?” Well, I believe the breakdown IS the breakthrough, that to break is to heal. And if we are to further our healing, we have to get good at breaking open.

You are not crazy…

You are not “broken”, you are not “defective”, you are not “beyond repair”. I don’t care who told you that, but they’re wrong. In fact, healing cannot happen when we buy into the lie that there’s something wrong with us. Healing happens when we are willing to enter into a space of acceptance and non-judgement. This often runs counter to many clinical approaches that begin with assessment, diagnosis, and a predetermined framework that places people in the categories of “healthy or ill” and “normal or abnormal”. Having worked in the mental health system for awhile, I know this method doesn’t work for everyone. What does work? Recognizing that breaking is healing, that there’s immeasurable power in your suffering, which has the potential to propel you forward to who you need to be. I work to create spaces where people are actually allowed to break open, to uncover their stories, make meaning of their pain, and determine non-linear paths to wellness. If we start with the assumption that we all know how to heal if we learned to listen deeply, we’d realize that healing comes from within, not from someone else’s arbitrary set of guidelines. From this place we can look to our light and our darkness, our perceived strengths and weaknesses, our pain and our suffering from an attitude of curiosity, not condemnation - and we allow ourselves to grow.

Healing is embodied…

Not only trauma, but all pain, emotions, and feelings live inside the body. Working through emotional pain in the body is highly effective for making major shifts that can’t be done through talk-therapy alone. Feelings cannot be logic-ed away, they must be felt in order to be released, and they are felt through the body. Think about it: we feel grief as a heaviness in our hearts, anxiety as a tension in the chest or pit of the stomach. Yet, working with emotion through the body can be challenging especially for those of us who had to flee our bodies in order to survive abuse, developed highly active minds, or had to dissociate to tolerate pain. One of the most revolutionary shifts we can have is feeling what it’s like to live fully inside of ourselves. To inhabit the body is to stay rooted and connected to the deepest aspects of who we are and to find new ways of being in the world.

Trainings & Certifications

• Certified Peer Specialist - NYCPS

• Certified Realization Process Embodiment Practitioner, (Judith Blackstone, Ph.D)

• Totality therapy training with Shakti Milan

• Intuitive Plant Medicine training with Asia Sueler (One Willow Apothecaries)

• Intuitive Development, Energy Medicine, and Holistic Wellness training with Veena Saraswatti

• Certified Nutritional Consultant - expected Dec 2019 (Natural Healing Institute of Naturopathy)

Specialties

• Reconceptualizing experiences often labeled as "psychosis" such as: hearing voices, seeing visions, sensing, or heightened intuition

• Working with those seeking alternatives to the biomedical model and diagnosis

• Deep spiritual work and exploring the intersection between mental health and spirituality

• Histories of trauma and sexual abuse

• Compassionate peer-to-peer dialogue

• Integrating herbal and holistic modalities into daily life practices

Principles

Inspired by the following articles: Intentional Peer Support as Social Change by Shery Mead and the Principles of Holistic Medicine by the American Holistic Health Association.

If you feel deep inside your gut that you're ready for this, don't hesitate to reach out.