What I Hold Dear

The main values on which I build my practice, and which I invite clients to explore, are kindness, authenticity, and relationship.

I start with Kindness because inner kindness is paramount in a journey of healing and a life of flourishing. We do not grow, nor uncover our own freedom, by being harsh or aggressive inside. Inner work offers us the opportunity to start to deepen in our inner companionship and capacity to accompany ourselves with awareness and kindness, moment by moment. Doing so is a practice. As we become more practiced in being friendly to ourselves inside, we learn to see and greet ourselves with more clarity, compassion, and permission.

Authenticity is also central to any healing mission. As we make deeper contact with our inner experience, we start to identify the emotions we’ve disowned, and the strategies we’ve adopted to cope with our lives. Kindness to ourselves supports us in the brave work of encountering truth. The therapeutic relationship is a wonderful place to explore taking risks and sharing what is really going on for us inside. I find myself working with many highly sensitive and exceptionally kind people; together we learn how to translate these gifts in a way that is authentic. Healing is not just about being friendly and peaceful all the time. Healing also looks like claiming our voice, channeling our big emotions, learning how to say “yes” and “no,” and growing our inner and outer congruence.

As I see it, any wise therapeutic model will explore a balance of individuation and connection in Relationship. Individuation means coming to know and own our individual experience, autonomy, self-responsibility, emotions, and more. Connection means recognizing the ways we are intricately woven with others, be those in our immediate vicinity to those across the world. All of life is relationship. While investigating and caring for our own inner territory, at some point we will also naturally see how working with ourselves translates into a more compassionate, empowered, and connected relationship to life and to others. We honor relationship with ourselves and others by bringing our authenticity and our unique gifts.

Life is a great mystery that will continue to offer us hardship, and with time and practice we can learn to navigate these challenges with enhanced closeness to our own hearts. Many teachers talk about this shift as a transition from tossing in the tumultuous waters of experience to learning how to ride the waves. I view myself as a companion and guide for people bravely leaning into their own depths. As we learn to speak and understand the language of intimacy with the whole spectrum of who we are, we learn to be truly present for our lives and the broader collective.