Coaching
Therapy
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my work hangs out here
I came into this work first as a licensed psychotherapist and was steeped in the therapy world for over a decade before I shifted to coaching. Much of my work is influenced by those roots.
I eventually recognized that coaching was an even better fit for today- a shift of just a few degrees less clinical and more relational. My work these days hangs out right at the intersection of where coaching and therapy can happily hang out. Inside of the sessions you will feel flavors of both: a space for emotional processing and holding, while we also look at tangible skills and tools, and create an actionable plan to put it all into practice. I will be your accountability buddy too, touching back in at our next session to see how it all went.
I believe that the greatest investment we can make is on our growth. My philosophy is this: with the right container of trust and holding plus new tools to ground the nervous system paired with up-leveled communication skills, we can move mountains. When our emotional world shifts, the whole picture of our life shifts too.
If I had to describe my style in sessions and in life in two words, it would be depth and playfulness. I have a large capacity for emotional holding - I can hold you in all of it. And intermixed throughout- we’ll likely be laughing at times too - because healing doesn’t have to be heavy all the time, and some well timed levity can be a great counterbalance when we’re traversing to the depths.
Clients feel comfortable with me right away. Even when covering tougher topics or being with harder emotions, I aim for our sessions to feel enjoyable and to be a time that you look forward to.
My offering to clients is a non judgmental space where we will get curious about what’s working in your life right now and what you’re aiming to shift. I'll invite in new perspectives, reframes, and new possibilities. We’ll test things out and see what sticks.
Individual Sessions
I believe that the most important relationship you’ll ever have is the one with yourself. It’s who you are living with morning, evening, and night - the real ‘til death do us part’. When you shift your inner environment and the ways that you speak to yourself, everything shifts.
In sessions, you can expect me to be active. This is one of the reasons why I enjoy the energy of the term ‘coach’. I feel like a soccer coach for emotions and communications. I’ll celebrate wins with you, I’ll point out what I’m seeing that you may not be, I’ll model communication possibilities that we’ll try on for size, I’ll hold you accountable (gently) to moving towards what you’ve said you wanted, or we will examine what is getting in the way.
I’ll ask thoughtful questions from MANY angles to help you zero in on how you’re feeling and what you’re wanting. I believe that your intuition holds the answers, and my job is to help you ground your system and quiet the other noise, so that you can arrive at your truth.
I will be real with you. And my deepest commitment to you is that I will hold you with care, always.
Couples & Relationships
As renowned relationship expert Ether Perel has wisely stated, “The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships.” I support partners and relationships in moving towards health and balance. This can look like work with: romantic partners, friends, siblings, parents and adult children, co-parents, and any two people who want to give focused attention to their relationship.
In sessions we will support both parties in practicing effective communication skills via non-violent communication. This allows you to state and own your needs, feelings, and requests- in a way that allows your partner’s ears to stay open to you.
My couples work is rooted in my training in Emotionally Focused Therapy and Sensorimotor Therapy. We will focus on psychoeducation around the nervous system to ensure we are timing our communications effectively and tending to both partners’ systems.
An early thing we will likely identify is the cycle your relationship gets pulled into. The details change, but the dance often remains the same. Once the pattern is clear we can begin experimenting with new ways of meeting these predictable moments, which shifts the whole dance.
Healthy relationships benefit from regular maintenance - not just repair after something has gone wrong. We will invite in new structures that you can do on your own time together that are an opportunity to nurture the relationship with consistency. When there is a consistent space to talk about the wins and hiccups of the relationship and to name requests, it is much easier to keep communication lines flowing and avoid buildup.