About Me

My Story

I’ve always been drawn to supporting other people. Indeed, when I was a young child—maybe four or five—people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I’d say, “a counselor!” Like many therapists, growing up I was often someone that friends and family would seek out for support and advice, and this role felt natural to me. However, it was through facing my own struggles and coming out the other side that I truly found my calling as a therapist.

In my early 20s, I became overwhelmed by painful struggles in my own life, and the ways I had dealt with things in the past were no longer helping. I began searching for a way to find relief and eventually discovered mindfulness meditation. I quickly found mindfulness incredibly helpful and began practicing intensively, including several silent meditation retreats ranging from one to ten days.

In addition to finding mindfulness helpful, I found it fascinating. I wanted to understand more about the practice and what, exactly, was helping me so much. As I read more, I came across research in neuroscience suggesting that mindfulness and other ways of relating to ourselves, such as self-compassion, can actually change our brains in positive ways—incredible! This led me to seek out more information about neuroscience, psychology, and psychotherapy, and I learned about how mindfulness and self-compassion practices were being integrated into a broader tradition of therapy grounded in scientific research, collectively known as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

I began trying more and more CBT techniques in my own life and found them incredibly helpful as well. I especially gravitated toward a type of CBT called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which combines mindfulness, clarifying what matters most to us (our “values”), and taking action toward the life we want to live. ACT helped me bring together many of the elements of CBT and mindfulness practice that I found most helpful, while also adding a deep sense of meaning and purpose to my life.

Even with how helpful these tools and methods were, however, there was something missing for me. I had seen several therapists over the years and found them somewhat helpful, but I felt like there was something I needed that I wasn’t getting from therapy. Eventually, a trusted friend referred me to a therapist who helped me not only develop practical skills to address the issues I was facing, but also placed great care and attention on our relationship and connection.

Rather than helping me solely with skills and tools, this therapist gave me the experience of being truly known and cared for in relationship. This had a profound impact on me. I am deeply grateful to my therapist for that gift, and I seek to pay forward what they offered me.

Having experienced the benefits of both developing and applying practical psychological and behavioral skills and having a supportive, compassionate therapeutic relationship, I felt motivated to become a therapist myself. I wanted to share with others the practices, tools, knowledge, and ways of relating that had been—and continue to be—so helpful to me. Throughout my own journey, I’ve had many moments of thinking, “I wish someone had told me this sooner!” In my practice, I seek to be the kind of therapist I wish I could have had earlier in my own life, during that painful time.