Who I Am

I am fortunate in that my professional role taps into the wellspring of my deep identity: I believe that each of us has within a potential that is always greater than we are in this moment of time and that the opportunity to expand that potential is with us each and every day of our lives. To quote Yogi Berra, "It ain't over til it's over". This belief has informed my life's path from my earliest recollections and led me to become an early childhood educator, a therapist and well-being coach.

Between the moment of comprehending what we might do and thinking of what we will do, we have choice. Between the moment of experiencing our emotions and acting on them, we have choice. In considering who we are and what we might be, we have choice. Sometimes we need help recognizing just where and what those choices are.

Whether your primary focus is intimacy, caring for family and friends, workplace relationship enhancement, or community connection, we come into a fuller sense of our value, meaning and effectiveness in trusting relationship with others.

The power of relationship is fundamental to the process of self-experience. Indeed, cutting-edge research in neurobiology has now made clear that it is within interaction that our brain, that wonderful organ that gives us the gift of choice, developes integrated structure and functional flexibility. When you think about your life accurately, understand your feelings with acceptance, respond to them effectively and comprehend the experience of others with empathy, your sense of who you are is consistent, coherent and emotionally rich.

The goal of my work is to help you access greater awareness of your thoughts and feelings and support your understanding of how to act on them in a way that brings you closer to who you want to be today. Sometimes healing requires a re-experiencing of the past in order to overcome it's effects, other times what is necessary is to change choices made in the here-and-now in order to improve effectiveness or support well being. Whatever your dilemma, your struggle or your pain, ultimately, your belief in your ability to change leads you towards it. A positve psychology approach builds on who you already are in order to successfully move towards your greater potential.

One of my core values is that of interdependency, which I understand as the interactive system of mutual influence, need and support within which our lives flourish.

Another of my core values is sustainability. When applying this concept to people, I'm referring to the ways we balance our needs and the needs of others through perception, knowledge, feedback and exchange to maintain renewal and growth.

I bring a sense an authentic respect for your unique identity, a genuine interest in your story and needs and an honest, open engagement to my professional relationships.

My strengths are humor, joy in the beauty of this beautiful, fragile planet, an abiding love of learning, a compassionate acceptance of human differences, courage, integrity, and a profound sense of gratitude for my work. These aspects of character inform my own identity.