Hi there!
I’ve worked as a therapist since 2021 in San Diego, CA, where I live with my husband and our newest little addition, our daughter. I’m also currently pursuing my Doctorate in Marriage and Family Therapy and feel incredibly grateful to be a lifelong learner in a field I love. My work is trauma-informed, relational, and deeply rooted in the mind-body connection. I am trained in EMDR and frequently draw from Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic practices, mindfulness, and my background in yoga to help clients better understand both their inner world and the wisdom of their bodies.
Building relationships with clients is one of my greatest joys. This work brings so much meaning to my life, and I hope to extend that meaning to yours. It’s a privilege for me to meet you wherever you are at in your life and to support you along your path. I hold a deep respect for the therapeutic process and the ways it can transform pain and trauma into greater self-understanding, resilience, and courage. Therapy is both an art and a science, and my work is grounded in curiosity, compassion, embodiment, and genuine human connection.
Outside of the therapy room, you can usually find me attempting to surf (which mostly means playing in the ocean), practicing yoga, escaping to the mountains, exploring a new city or country, painting, getting lost in historical fiction, going to concerts, sitting around a bonfire, or laughing with the people I love.
I’m practicing too
About 10+ years ago, I had been going to workout and yoga classes and started noticing some wrist pain. I asked a friend who had personal training experience what she thought it might be, and she showed me that my hand placement in planks wasn’t quite right. She demonstrated an adjustment, and that evening I went to a yoga class.
As the class began, I felt the pain in my wrist and remembered to adjust my hand placement the way she had shown me. Immediately, the pain stopped! I was so excited that I had gotten it right and thought, Great, I just need to keep doing it this way.
By the time the next plank came around, I had gotten distracted and forgotten to use the correct hand placement. I felt shooting pain up my wrists. I heard this voice in my mind begin to tear me apart, yelling about how stupid, forgetful, and worthless I was for doing it wrong.
This tiny moment was the start of something.
It was the first time I could hear my inner self-hatred and criticism with some space and objectivity. Prior to this experience, I had never really heard it. It was simply part of the fabric of my experience. I was stupid. I was worthless when I made a mistake. I was forgetful.
I felt shocked by how mean this part of me was, especially over something so obviously insignificant and inconsequential. And for the first time, a softer, kinder, quieter voice and energy emerged that responded:
“I’m just practicing.”
I felt my self-criticism shift in that moment, almost as though this part of me had been unaware that what it was doing was mean, cruel, or unnecessary.
I did not know it at the time, but this experience was the beginning of a shift toward deeper self-exploration and developing a relationship with myself based on compassion rather than performance. Something I’m still practicing.
It encouraged me to seek out yoga trainings, which eventually led me to seek out a more fulfilling career—becoming a therapist who integrates yogic philosophy and somatic movement with the psychotherapy framework I find to be a beautiful complement: Internal Family Systems (IFS).
It was a subtle introduction to fostering and reclaiming my humanity within myself. And it happened on a yoga mat.
This moment started me on a path toward deepening my understanding and practice of yoga. It was also, though I did not know it at the time, was my introduction to parts work and Internal Family Systems. The practice of yoga allowed for an increase in self-awareness, a decrease in mental chatter, and an opportunity for an embodied experience. It created a reflective space for me to notice my internal world.
In that moment, I experienced my parts. I had never felt parts of myself so distinctly, so obviously in relationship with one another, or so clearly agenda-driven prior to this experience.
I hold a deep reverence for the practice of yoga, and I know I will be a student my whole life. But perhaps what it gave me most was the space and opportunity for a chance to meet myself differently—with curiosity instead of judgment, compassion instead of criticism, and space to be human instead of the pressure to get it right.
More than ten years later, I still return to that moment and those three simple words: I’m just practicing.
I think, in many ways, that is what healing continues to be for me. Not arriving at some final, perfected version of ourselves, but continuing to notice, learn, soften, and try again.
We’re just practicing.