A Friend Along the Path

Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.” - Rumi

Contemplative Guidance, Creative Consultation, & Therapeutically Informed Coaching

Whether you are seeking support in navigating any of life's abundant challenges, or have a specific writing project you are working on, I am here to support you. My role is to walk alongside you in encouragement of your becoming. In just the way a seed knows how to become a tree, you already contain within you everything you need to awaken and bloom.

I am trained as a psychotherapist, a writing facilitator, and a mindfulness instructor.

I received my masters in Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling from Naropa University.

Services

Individual Contemplative Guidance

If you are seeking counseling as an adult, you are most likely dealing with issues around depression, anxiety, loneliness, difficult past experiences, stuck energy, daily functioning challenges, or communication breakdowns. While my work is therapeutically informed, unlike therapy, we won't dive into past trauma or focus on symptom alleviation or resolution. Instead, we'll use our time together to address communication patterns, meditate, discuss your mindfulness practice, explore spiritual questions, inquire into the nature of your personal experience, learn skills and tools, and work towards your goals and dreams. We'll focus on how best to voice your needs and build awareness in your relationships. This is especially suited for folks who are on their spiritual path and encountering identity and lifestyle changes, God-wounds, and reorienting towards their purpose and vocation.

Stuttering Acceptance

There is no stuttering cure, but it is possible to learn how to stutter and communicate effectively. I grew up stuttering and spent many years with various speech language pathologists. Alongside fluency shaping techniques, learning how to be in relationship to stuttering helped me to live more confidently. In our sessions we'll focus on reorienting your perspective towards stuttering and working with your stutter as its own kind of fluency. We'll also work on how to integrate stuttering as a mindfulness practice in your life. This work is suited for teens and adults who stutter or experience speech dysfluency

Writing Facilitation & Encouragement

Whether you are working on writing as a form of self-inquiry, need help setting goals to finish a manuscript, or in the process of revising and refining your poems, our work can help you grow in your path as a writer and writing practitioner. During a writing session we'll explore prompts, poetry, refine technique, and practice how to mindfully stay with what is arising. I'll champion you till the finish line.

Reach Out

All sessions are $150/hr. I can meet in person and online. Sliding scale options available.

My Approach

I see my role as a companion on your journey.

I work from a person-centered approach with mindful attention to transpersonal and existential themes rooted in Sufi and Buddhist spiritual traditions. We'll have the chance to work on building confidence, improving interpersonal relationships, unpacking personal struggles, discovering purpose and meaning, and exploring core narratives.

Several core values and truths guide my life. Among them are the remembrance that we exist as brief and beautiful on a lonely planet in a boundless universe; that our duty is to show up in kindness and love for each other and this earth; that gratitude and grief are relational dimensions through which we come alive; that we shape the reality of our experience through thoughts and speech; and that all beings are here to experience their full expression and belonging as one possible existence. It is possible to awaken to this truth.

I'll be forthright with you here; I cannot make any promises to fix you, heal you, or free you from yourself. To be human means to experience all these the givens of life. To feel grief, sadness, anger, and fear, and to also feel their relational dimensions of gratitude, joy, acceptance, and love. I also cannot promise that a time will come when you will be free of problems, or that you'll find a definitive fixed self. Though greater satisfaction, contentment, and peace in your life regardless of what is happening is possible. What I can do is help you turn towards your experiences with acceptance and curiosity, and guide you in discovery of the wisdom and brilliance that you already contain.

What I really want you to know is that I understand how it feels and what it means to struggle with the fact of being alive. With not feeling like you belong, or that there is room for you to exist. I too have faced harrowing questions around purpose, lovability, and expression. I am grateful for all these experiences. They taught me to how to love this world and everything in it. In case you need to hear this today, your life is worth loving and living. I would be honored to earn your trust as your friend, companion, and guide in crossing the inner threshold to discover the world waiting within you.