My first brush with mental health was at age 11, when I found myself dealing with a debilitating amount of anxiety. I didn’t know where it came from, or how it found me, and certainly had no idea what to do with it. My solution was to push it away, avoid it, and remain in opposition with it anytime it would present itself. The professional guidance I received at the time was to intellectually  “challenge” the thoughts that accompanied the emotions, which I struggled to grasp. Why would something as powerful and transcendent as an emotion respond to a rational argument? 

I did eventually get the anxiety to “go away,” or so I thought. It remained in the shadows, banished to the unconscious, running the show behind the scenes without my knowledge or consent. I learned to function in this world at a basic acceptable level, but the anxiety remained “off-limits” and kept me tethered to the shores of my inner ocean, afraid to explore beyond the rational conscious thought that was framed as “the solution” in my childhood.

My orientation towards healing this relationship with anxiety came in tandem with my calling to provide therapy to my community. Finding an awareness, an acceptance, even a welcoming attitude towards anxiety, was so profound and so immediately inspiring that it felt vital to help others find the same thing within themselves. 

It is such a gift to be able to do this work at this point in history, in which the need for mental health is becoming widely recognized just as the world of effective and holistic therapies is expanding exponentially. I’m honored to be a part of what feels like a true shift in our culture’s understanding of human health - mental, physical, and spiritual.