To me, authenticity means getting to show up as yourself without having to perform, mask, or pretend to be or feel ways that you don’t. Many of us have learned to hide our authentic selves due to factors from our environments and relationships that have threatened our sense of safety when we showed up as ourselves. In our work together, I will always be working to show up authentically as a human and a therapist in each of our sessions and will invite you to get to do the same. I also recognize that it can be a process to learn what feels authentic and what we may have picked up along the way that isn’t actually ours.

Curiosity asks us to wonder instead of always having a solution. Curiosity asks us to desire to learn and explore more deeply and to be open to what we discover. As a practitioner, I do not use a “one size fits all approach” and will instead show up with curiosity about you and your experiences and explore what may best suit you in our work together. I will ask that you also try to bring curiosity about your experiences and what you are learning in our work together, even if we don’t have an immediate solution or it is different than you expected.

Your thoughts, beliefs, and ideas are powerful and will be honored in our sessions together. I will also ask that you consider the wisdom that the rest of you holds, your emotions, your sensations, your gestures, your body language. I deeply believe and have learned that healing happens when we consider our whole selves.

I believe in the inherent dignity and worth of all human beings and in standing up when peoples’ rights are threatened, on an individual, interpersonal, familial, or systemic level. I believe that we also are deeply connected to the rest of nature and are asked to consider how our lives are interacting with the environment and other beings. I believe in sexual & reproductive rights, racial equity, LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, voting rights, immigrant, migrant, asylum seeker and refugee rights, and disability rights to name a few. I recognize that I hold many privileges in my own identity and am constantly seeking to learn. I feel it is important to share this as a therapist as my job does not begin and end in the therapy room, it is also about how I am showing up in the world.

We are not separate from the rest of the natural world. We live in a society that often separates us from other parts of nature and I believe that a big part of our work together is discovering ways back towards your connection to your own nature and the natural world around you. We are wired to move, to play, to dance, to explore, to connect to animals and plants, to know the other species that live in our environments and neighborhoods, to experience weather elements, and to remember that we belong to the bigger tapestry of the Earth. When we can return to our relationship with the rest of nature, there is a great deal of healing that can happen for us as individuals and for the collective.