A Short Story About Me
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When I was a kid I wondered what life was about and "who am I?". I think kids are curious this way, looking for evidence in the world that we are as vast as we were prior to birth. Soul awareness. I still have the same questions and I understand they're not questions that can be answered the usual way and definitely not by someone else. These are questions that guide and show me the way to live.
Therapeutic work found me in my 30s. As I was finishing my master's degree and angling toward working as a bicycle transportation planner with the City of Austin, something stopped working in me. The push to perform began to crack and I started to feel and acknowledge the weight of hurt frustration, confused resentment, an amorphous burden I had been carrying in myself for more years than I could trace. How can I be successful in work when I don't know who I am? Gradually, through the years, I had lost contact with my life affirming questions and curiosity. I had learned to take care of myself by being physically strong, always challenging my endurance and speed. It was never much about competition with others, just something I needed to do for myself. Physicality was my addiction, my method of connecting to myself. Then came my dad's death, and maybe specifically that I sat by his side as he died, which called me back to myself in the most clear and strange way. It lead me in the direction of healing. The hurt that couldn't cry, the effort that could't sleep at night, the unexplored beliefs that left me lonely... my relationship to these sorrows started to open into a larger curiosity and after a few more years I was just not the same person I had been. So, what to do with that? How to live in this image-focused society without a firm self-image? Meditation and bodywork and yoga were my first friends in the wilderness. Dance and travel and talking and creative endeavors of many sorts, too. A desire for authentic relationship with myself and others continues calling me into the only real possibility in this life - the here and now. There's a natural process of surrendering into myself as I trust my gut and release ideas of who I'm supposed to be. According to who? My favorite days are when I can spend time with clients and the atmosphere of love takes charge. I can't tell you how grateful I am for having the chance to work with people in a healing way. It's not that I am doing the healing, but we are engaging in it together. It's bigger than any body symptoms that bring someone in to see me. Everything, at it's basis, is an expression of love. I can honestly say that now. Major certifications and degrees Biodynamic Craniosacral Training - Body Intelligence, Austin 2018 Hakomi Mindfulness/Body-Centered Psychotherapy - Hakomi SW, Austin 2012 Massage Therapy Training - Texas Healing Arts Institute, Austin 2007 Thai Massage Training - ITM, Chiang Mai, Thailand 2006 Yoga Teacher Training - Living Yoga Program, Austin 2004 MPS Environmental & Community Land Planning - SUNY ESF, Syracuse 2003 BS Geography - SWTSU, San Marcos 1999 BS Nutrition - SWTSU, San Marcos 1994 |