I am married, a mother and a grandmother. As a young wife and mother, I dealt with several serious illnesses of one of my children. In addition, I experienced the untimely deaths of two young family members, as well as the suicide of another. I have had various serious health challenges of my own. Of course, I have also dealt with many family issues, as most of us have.
As a result of these experiences, I decided to get a Master's Degree in Social Work. After graduating, I worked in several agencies, including Hospice, which afforded me deep and profound experiences. In 1994, realizing how much I loved counseling, I opened a private practice.
I saw that traditional talk therapy was extremely useful in certain cases. I also began to realize that in certain other cases, it was less helpful. This was true especially where a person felt trapped in an emotion or behavior.
Frustrated that there were certain people I could not help as much as I wished, I began to investigate various non-traditional therapies. This opened up the wonderfully rich areas of the mind-body connection and energy approaches (See Medical Issues , Internal Family Systems Therapy, and Emotional Freedom Technique). Eventually, I was fortunate enough become trained and certified in Repair & Reattachment Grief Therapy, which revolutionized my way of doing grief therapy, bringing about incredibly deep and satisfying healing for clients.
A number of years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Because I was already studying mind-body concepts, I knew how absolutely essential it was for me to bring more complete healing to my own emotional wounds, regardless of which medical treatment I chose.
It was a very scary time for me. However, having such a diagnosis did create an incredible motivator for me to increase the "emotional house cleaning" I had begun in earlier years. In retrospect, I see the cancer as having been a positive event in my life. It gave me a very strong focus to release toxic emotions and heal wounded and out-of-balance aspects of my inner world. I began to see that I had more inner power than I had ever imagined.
I also began examining all the "rules" and beliefs I had unconsciously accepted during the course of my life and changing those that were no longer helpful to me. As part of this inner journey to my "center," my core Self, I began to experience more joy, peace, and ease in my life. Bumps along the road became just bumps, instead of train wrecks. I found that life could be fun.
I have received so much assistance in my own healing journey. It gives me extraordinary pleasure to teach others how to heal the fearful, hurt parts of themselves and discover their true powerful, peaceful, healthy natures. It would give me great pleasure to assist you in your own healing journey.