My Story
I grew up all over the Midwest, where I was raised with true midwestern values like hard work, simplicity, and emotional stoicism. While my adolescence and college years appeared accomplished and healthy, I often felt trapped in my internal experience of self-hatred, not good enough-ness, and patterns of performing my value to meet my needs for belonging and love.
I spent my twenties in Boulder, Colorado where I completed graduate school at Naropa University, committed to the path of meditation and yoga, and engaged in personal therapy. I started to unravel years of self-limiting beliefs and outdated patterns of survival. I learned that the majority of my experiences were rooted in regulation and coping strategies that helped me feel safe in the face of unrecognized trauma symptom management.
Once I learned the roots of these patterns was from trauma and that my nervous system was seeking regulation and connection, I was able to replace unsustainable and self-aggressive coping strategies, like eating disorders, with sustainable and truly nourishing practices of nervous system regulation and connection like yoga, meditation and play.
As I nourished these practices such as holistic eating, meditation, psychedelics, supportive community, conscious relationships, and movement, my life completely transformed from painful disconnection to vibrant connection and thriving.
These formative years launched me into the work I do today: I have been practicing as a therapist for over ten years in various community-based settings, non-profits and private practice. I also teach public yoga and meditation in the Seattle community at several studios around town.
Theoretical Orientation
“The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well.” Hippocrates
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Trauma and Recovery
Meditation
Shadow Work
Psychedelic Assisted Therapy
I am a transpersonal relational somatic licensed mental health therapist and art therapist. I prioritize these main perspectives in our work together: the larger context of meaning, our relationship, the mind-body connection, and creativity.
What does Transpersonal mean?
Overall, Transpersonal Psychology includes the developing of the Self, as well as honoring the urge to go beyond the Self. Trans is latin for “beyond” or “across,” so transpersonal can be loosely defined as beyond the personal such as altered states of consciousness, questions of meaning, mystical experiences, kundalini experiences, shamanic journeying, near-death experiences and spiritual frameworks.
A Transpersonal approach might also mean a desire to find the sacred in the mundane, creating ritual, forming or deepening a meditation practice, and connecting to something that exists beyond the conditioned ego. It is the melding of the wisdom of the world’s spiritual traditions with the learning of modern psychology. It can also mean holding non-judgement for your symptoms, a non-pathological attitude, welcoming the mysterious aspects of your existence, expanding consciousness, and viewing creativity as a sacred source for truth and wisdom. Think of the image of a tree with strong roots in the center of the Self, alongside long sturdy branches that reach to the cosmos.
Transpersonal Experiences include moments in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche or cosmos.
Loss of ego/ego death
Rebirthing experience
Mystical experience
Spiritual quest, hero’s journey
Communicating with those beyond (deceased, ancestors, archetypes, past lives)
Communicating with Spirit, God, Allah, other god figures and deities
Identification with deities and the realms in which they live
Identification with/as an animal, real or mystical creature
Unity experiences
Relational
I deeply value the relationship I have with each client. Built on the foundations of safety and trust, I tend to the process of our relationship with great care.
My relational style is transparent, gentle, warm, curious and engaged. I believe that the therapeutic relationship can serve as a microcosm of the macrocosm, meaning that what shows up between us during the process of relating can be used to inform us of how you might show up with self or others. By bringing awareness to the process of how you relate with me, we can use this information to best support you in building conscious connections with self and others.
Somatic
“There is more wisdom in your body than your deepest philosophy” Nietzsche
Soma means body. To be a Somatic Therapist means that I see the body as an integral part of the process. Our bodies serve as the source of our experience, but can sometimes be a place we are disconnected because of trauma or conditioning.
Somatic therapy aims to re-connect one to their full body experience by reestablishing inner safety, learning the language of emotion and feeling, and regulating traumatic material and the nervous system. I am trained in and practice several evidence-based somatic approaches to processing trauma and building more internal safety.
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Sensorimotor Therapy
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing
Polyvagal Theory
Art Therapy
“Part of art’s curative power lies in its ability to bypass verbal defenses and directly communicate emotions well beyond our day-to-day consciousness.” Mimi Farrelly-Hansen
Where words fail, art speaks. Art as therapy can be linked back to the earliest cave paintings. Humans have been using art for expression and ritual for thousands of years. Making art creates space for us to be with our experience. Through attention and choices, we give artistic form to the images within us, allowing a dialogue to form between artist (that’s you!) and image (your creation). There is no need to have any artistic background or understanding of art to deeply benefit from art therapy. In fact, a huge part of my role is to help you break away from trying to create “good” art, so you can allow yourself to experience genuine and healing expression.
There are many styles of therapy, and every therapist is unique. When working with me, you will notice a distinct merging of both Eastern and Western influences. Drawing from the Eastern perspective, I integrate meditation/mindfulness, yoga, and other holistic approaches to seek true liberation. Drawing from the Western approach, I am trained in many modalities that aim to achieve various outcomes such as skill building, nervous system regulation, trauma processing, and cognitive reframing.
Credentials & Experience
BA Luther College, Dual major in Psychology and Art
MA, Naropa University, Transpersonal Counseling and Art Therapy
Institute of Colorado, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy/Somatic Trauma Processing
EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
200-hour yoga teacher training, 8 Limbs
Certified Psychedelic- Assisted Therapist, Naropa University
MDMA-Assisted Therapy Training Program MAPS
DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy)
Additional related fields of study and research include: Gottman Approach, PACT, Attachment Theory, Motivational Interviewing, Non-Violent Communication, Enneagram, Nervous system & Polyvagal Theory, Internal Family Systems, Meditation, Vajrayana Buddhism
Trauma & Recovery
“We have a natural healing system ready to restore us to balance” Dr. Laurel Parnell
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Meditation
Shadow Work
Psychedelic Assisted Therapy
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“Traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life.” Judith Herman
Trauma is a part of life. Trauma is an extremely distressing event in which a person feels severely threatened emotionally, psychologically, or physically. Car accidents, abuse, neglect, death of a loved one, breakups, infidelity, exposure to violence, religious ideology, natural disasters, sexual assault, ongoing verbal criticisms and many other types of overwhelming experiences are traumatic.
Trauma can feel like intense fear without solution. Trauma can feel like living in the shock of an event even long after it has passed. Trauma can feel like stress, fear, increased or decreased sensitivity, overwhelming feeling, or numbness and lack of feeling.
Trauma that happens during key developmental periods or via a key relational structure (such as with a primary care giver or key relationship such as a partner) can lead to complex or ongoing traumatic responses that show up as either a distorted view of the self, or ineffective relationship approaches. Since our biology is fiercely devoted to keeping us safe and alive, when we are in the face of overwhelm and trauma, we may resort to a strategy to help. These strategies, or responses to trauma, can show up in a few key ways: fight, flight, freeze, fawn (submit/appease).
These strategies themselves can be quite wise in the face of danger, however, problems and disconnection arise when these strategies overstay their welcome into more fixed and rigid ways of moving through the world. The threat and danger may no longer be present, but the strategy remains lodged in the nervous system until it is safely addressed and released, often the support, guidance, and assistance of a well-trained mental health professional is fundamental to healing from trauma.
With trauma, talk therapy is usually not enough.
Trauma is mostly stored in the body, and, therefore, working with a professional who thoroughly understands treatment is paramount to successful recovery. I work with trauma through a body-based modality called Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. When appropriate, I also practice EMDR. The art therapy I employ in my practice is also shown to be highly effective in trauma recovery. I integrate Polyvagal Theory and other modalities depending on the unique circumstances provided.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
“When the attachment figure is also a threat to the child, two systems with conflicting goals are activated simultaneously or sequentially: the attachment system, whose goal is to seek proximity, and the defense systems, whose goal is to protect.” Pat Ogden
Sensory (afferent, coming in) and motor (efferent, going out). Life comes in to our experience through our senses, and life reaches back out to connect. This natural process of connection becomes shaped by attachment, and trauma. This can show up through a procedural or habitual way of movement, posture, and nervous system regulation. By incorporating awareness of the body into clinical practice, we can target these habits of physical action, autonomic dysregulation, and posture. This therapeutic approach is grounded in neuroscience and attachment research. This way of working views the body as central in the therapeutic field of awareness. Body-based interventions such as tracking, naming, and safely exploring somatic activation are crucial in restoring a regulated sense of self and safety within. This is a non-touch approach. I will provide psycho-education of how trauma is stored in the body and the steps we will take to process it.
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a specific tool for reprocessing traumatic memory. Through a set of standardized protocols, this approach has a specific layout for treatment that involves bi-lateral stimulation and an emphasis on creating resources.
Polyvagal Theory
Our biology is fiercely devoted to keeping us out of harm’s way. Our nervous system plays a huge role in the perception of threat and safety. The parasympathetic system is made up of the vagus nerve, which branches into two pathways that are responsible for our neurophysical state.
One responds to cues of safety (ventral vagal) and one responds to cues of threat and danger (dorsal vagal). This subconscious surveillance system can quickly hijack our experience and leave a wake of disconnection and confusion. Together we can learn about how your nervous system is wired, and utilize this therapeutic approach that aims to restore safety in the body by creating greater flexibility in the nervous system’s ability to adapt to experiences.
You won’t often hear me say the word heal. Instead, you will hear me talk about capacity. I believe we don’t ever fully heal. Instead, I believe we broaden our capacity to hold and respond well to our experience.
Our perception, which begins at an early age, defines our reality. This process evolves with our unique life experience. Often the flow of life is disrupted by a traumatic event or other complicated or challenging experience which leads us to develop survival strategies. These strategic protections can become fixed habits that we continue using long after threat or danger has passed, and as a result they block us from the inner and outer connections we want and need, leaving us feeling disconnected and isolated.
Within a trusting relationship between therapist and client, we open a space for deep soul work where all of you and your experience is welcome. We combine clinical knowledge with spiritual exploration in a safe space to ultimately broaden your capacity so you can engage with the flow of life and feel connected and flexible regardless of the circumstances.
“The body will reorganize when it feels safe” Stephen Porges
A lot of the work we do is around learning how to regulate our nervous system, an essential step in expanding our window of tolerance and deepening our capacity for connection. I believe that it's not what happens to you that matters most, it's how you make sense of what happens. To do so and create lasting change, there are four general steps we will take regardless of the modalities we weave together that best fit your needs. These can be thought of as a tree:
Roots | Build awareness of your patterns, conditioning, and beliefs and what may have caused them
Trunk | Offer compassion, gentleness, and accountability to yourself to reduce shame, increase internal safety, and re-parent wounded parts
Branches and Leaves | Learn skills to regulate and create a flexible nervous system, process painful events, make conscious choices, learn skillful communication, set boundaries, widen your capacity to hold your experiences
Beyond | Consciously connect with Self, authentically relate with others, thrive in the larger framework of life With this holistic approach, you will be able to understand how your reality was constructed, to experience it deeply, and then move toward your imagined life, without repeating patterns or becoming stuck in rigid or chaotic ways of experiencing life.
Meditation
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Victor Frankl
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Shadow Work
Psychedelic Assisted Therapy
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I am a dedicated meditation practitioner. I received extensive training in the tradition of Vipassana meditation at Naropa, the Buddhist University where I received my Master’s degree. I am also trained in a style of Zen meditation that is part of the Mondo Zen tradition founded by JunPo Roshi.
My meditation teacher often said, “Zen needs therapy and therapy needs Zen.” Meditation practice gives us the opportunity to slow down our reactive, conditioned minds and see ourselves more clearly. However, this process can come with a tidal wave of emotional work that must be addressed or else we are not actually integrating our practice into our everyday lives. Rather, we are performing an act of spiritual bypassing, whereby we skirt around or bypass our emotional world and discount it as irrelevant.
“It’s not that some part of you is conditioned. You’re wholly conditioned, from start to finish. Freedom begins when we are able to recognize this.” JunPo Roshi
What meditation with psychotherapy can help foster is a deconstruction of the emotional story that you attach to your feelings and sensations. By doing this, we begin to feel things in the moment and become curious about the aliveness of each feeling without the judgment of “good” or “bad." Ultimately, this can bring you a greater sense of authenticity and freedom within your day-to-day experience. With focused attention, open awareness, and kind intentions, we can expand our capacity to see our experience more clearly, leading us to greater satisfaction and clarity of purpose.
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. Lao Tzu
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It is said that meditation is both the easiest and the hardest thing you can do. It’s easy because we are just sitting down, and it’s hard because looking at yourself closely takes courage, an element of fearlessness, compassion, gentleness and a curiosity about opening to yourself more deeply.
This is very intimate work, but one with many rewards. For some, it’s too much, especially when one has experienced a lot of trauma throughout their lives. I feel skilled in finding the right balance between looking in and taking a break, sometimes referred to as touch and go.
We can work through this together and find your unique balance.
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No, I in no way require my clients to have a meditation practice.
However, I recommend a meditation practice to accelerate the process of growth, transformation and insight for those who are interested in this as an aspect of their development. Whether you are a beginner or several years in, I feel confident in working with you to develop or enhance a practice that works for you.
“Many people try to find a spiritual path where they do not have to face themselves but where they can still liberate themselves - liberate themselves from themselves, in fact. In truth, this is impossible. We cannot do that. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to see our gut, our real shit, our most undesirable parts. We have to see that. That is the foundation of warriorship and the basis of conquering fear. We have to face our fear; we have to look at it, study it, work with it, and practice meditation with it.” Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Shadow Work
“What we resist, persists.” Carl Jung
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Carl Jung once said, “There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course.”
Addressing the shadow in psychospiritual work suggests that just as the night hugs the day, our own darkness lives directly alongside our light. A psychological shadow is anything that we personally or collectively repress, deny, hide, don’t like, or are not aware of within ourselves or communities that drive or motivate our behaviors. It’s like the engine in a car that operates the vehicle, but we cannot see it unless we purposefully look under the hood.
Some other examples where we find shadow are childhood wounding, insecurities, unmet needs, and any other place that exists without full conscious awareness and explicit integration into the whole. These are often unacknowledged, split off parts of the self or community that show up eventually in a sideways manner, typically resulting in harm or deception. A tragic, yet common example is the shadow side of power and how it can be used to exploit, control, silence, and manipulate self and others.
Because of it’s elusive nature, the shadow can easily go unnoticed and even though we think we are making full conscious choices, often is the case that we are coming from an unconscious wound, projection, or pattern of protective strategies, all the while leaving our deepest yearnings of being connected and authentic beneath the surface. The shadow gets a bad rap as being “wrong” or “bad” because of the shame it can bring up, alongside the harmful behaviors it can cause.
I view the shadow as just as important and potent as the light, because when we bring consciousness to unconscious places, we literally awaken and expand our capacity to be whole, integrated people coming from a rooted sense of integrity. We can start to make conscious loving choices rather than reacting habitually from wound and further causing harm.
The degree to which we don’t know our shadow, is the degree to which it controls and influences us. As Carl Jung also said, “what we resist, persists.” The further we push this material into the dark, the more it controls us. The more we ignore the engine, the less smooth the vehicle will function. With the help of an experienced guide, we can learn to skillfully relate to our shadow and become less disconnected from these parts. This process must happen beyond the intellectual, and into the emotional, somatic, and spiritual level.
It is a sacred demand, yet surely a journey packed with uncommon healing and awakening. It is risky to work with shadow as it will bring uncomfortable and squirmy emotions, and yet it may be far riskier to not address it and allow it to continue manipulating your experience without you even knowing it. A shadow lacks illumination. Through compassionate and skillful means, we can enlighten these parts of ourselves and find a more free and conscious connection with self, other, and community.
Psychedelic Assisted Therapy
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Reading List & Resources
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Top
Theoretical Orientation
Trauma and Recovery
Meditation
Shadow Work
“Western science is approaching a paradigm shift of unprecedented proportions, one that will change our concepts of reality and of human nature, bridge the gap between ancient wisdom and modern science, and reconcile the differences between Eastern spirituality and Western pragmatism.” Stanislav Grof
After several decades of suppression and neglect, psychedelics are having a reemergence in Western therapeutic communities. Research studies are showing promising outcomes for symptoms related to trauma, depression, and anxiety just to name a few. They’re being used to expand our consciousness and help us connect to ourselves and others on a more intimate level.
I offer individual and couples sacred medicine ceremonies on a case by case basis. These programs last about 2-4 months, and are designed to offer the full therapeutic benefits of legal psychedelic medicines. I integrate my training as a therapist, movement specialist, ceremonialist, breathwork facilitator, shadow worker, and art therapist to curate a profound ritual for your journey through sacred medicine. I thoughtfully and safely guide you every step of the way through a three part process of prep, journey, and integration. To learn more about this offering, please contact me via my “Work With Me”page or leave your email in the section below.
I also offer group and 1:1 breathwork journeys. You do not need to be a client of mine to set up a breathwork experience. These can happen as a package, or as a one time exploration. Breathwork can be a psychedelic experience as well, and can result in a wide range of benefits such as more space for emotions, deeper access to feeling, insight, regulation, somatic processing, and more.
You might hear of the work of psychedelics being referred to as using entheogens, a term used to describe certain plants and chemicals used for therapeutic or spiritual purposes. Just to clarify, this term is sometimes being used in replacement of the word psychedelic, and is partially a re-branding of psychedelics, since the term can bring up so much judgment and concern for some people.
I am a 2022 graduate of the inaugural year-long psychedelic-assisted therapy certificate program offered at Naropa University. In this program I was able to study the therapeutic effects of psychedelics and gain competence in guiding folks safely and respectfully on their medicine journey. I am also a graduate of the reputable MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) training for MDMA-Assisted therapy.
Recommended Watching: How To Change Your Mind | Netflix
