My Story
I help people awaken to their true nature and heal the parts of themselves that are stuck in old ways of knowing, being, and relating.
I started my private practice at a bus stop.
When I was forty, I experienced a dramatic shift in consciousness. My personal identity faded into the background and my mind grew quiet. My heart opened to the whole world and I felt bigger than myself—connected to everyone and everything—yet completely embodied and engaged with ordinary life.
I’d had awakening experiences before—first as a child and then again in my twenties—but those experiences had been difficult to sustain.
This one stuck.
Not long after, I was sitting at a bus stop when the man next to me said that I had “clear eyes.” He asked if he could meet with me. I said, yes. And that’s how my private practice got started.
I’m not a therapist or a guru.
I’m an ordinary person who has gone through the extraordinary experience of discovering who I am.
My purpose as a healer and a guide is to help people gain greater access to their own source of wisdom and compassion. I help people to identify, welcome, and integrate the parts of them that are afraid to change. I sit, listen, and offer presence. People soften, open, and let Love in.
Education
I have a masters in theology and completed my Clinical Pastoral Education as a chaplain at Scott & White Hospital
After getting my masters, I earned a post-graduate certificate in spiritual direction
Ongoing areas of interest and study include Internal Family Systems, Right Use of Power, Zen Buddhism, Traditional Mindfulness, and Nondual Mindfulness
Experience
I’ve had a private practice for twelve years, working with individuals, teaching groups, and leading retreats
I’ve taught college-level courses on creativity and spirituality, served on staff at an interfaith retreat center, and was an meditation/mindfulness instructor at an addiction recovery center
Writing is also a spiritual discipline for me; I’m the author of two critically-acclaimed children’s books published by Scholastic Press
More of the story
When I was four years old, I was captivated by the question, Why am I me? I used to sit and ask myself this over and over again until the world fell away and there was no “I” and no “me,” only a vast and silent awareness of being. And this being was deeply, infinitely well.
After I grew up I tried for years to access this experience again. I went to seminary, earned a masters in theology, trained as a hospital chaplain, and even ran off to live with a bunch of nuns in a Benedictine monastery.
Nothing really worked.
I had my first awakening as a child.
My second awakening was brought about by a traumatic experience.
When I was in my late twenties, I experienced the tragic death of someone very close to me. This experience ripped away any certainty I had about the way life should be. I walked around in a state of panic and despair. But beyond the panic—in the place where my previous sense of self was located—I noticed an opening—a space of stillness.
I decided to learn more about this stillness, which involved learning how to meditate.
My practice was simple (yours can be, too). I sat on my couch for twenty minutes each morning connecting to my breath. Slowly, over time, the panic subsided and the stillness began to emerge more fully.
My third awakening was brought about by spiritual practice.
I spent many years working in the tech world, before I quit my job to write my first book. I got up each morning, meditated, and then sat down to write. My mind was so full of critical voices, that I taught myself how to shift out of it and into the stillness I had discovered through meditation. The stillness was vast and boundless—bursting with possibilities, playfulness, and deep wisdom.
After three years of intense writing and shifting practice, something happened. The shift stuck. I began to access this level of mind all the time—not just when I was writing. I realized that this open, expansive dimension of being was my true nature. Not my thoughts or emotions or beliefs.
The rest of the story is short. People started to come see me to learn how to access and embody true nature for themselves and that’s how my work as a healer and guide began.
