Ask me anything
“If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our true needs felt keenly as a knife.”
inspired by the beautiful & curious minds of clients
Tell me more about the clients with whom you work well.
My clients often come in with concerns about anxiety or sadness, especially that which seems to come out of nowhere. They might feel irritable often, on edge or coming out of their skin; as if their emotions are a roller coaster, or just too much. They may struggle to ever feel a sense of belonging, or as though they are never enough. Sometimes they feel exhausted from the effort of simply existing. They might not know how to shut their thoughts off, describing their minds as a window with a thousand tabs open–unable to focus, make a decision, access motivation, or simply relax. Maybe they feel as though everyone is driving automatic cars, while they are stuck driving manual. They might feel as if they are missing something–the one tool, tip, trick that everyone else must have mastered to make it look so easy. Oftentimes, the folks I work with have found ways of coping that make sense and ease the pain in the moment, but have also begun to feel out of their control, unsustainable. They might feel things like shame, overwhelm, dysphoria, weariness, apathy, worry, hopelessness.
However you arrive, I know that you are not a problem to be fixed. Perhaps, instead, the world was not designed to fit your unique mind, and we must simply tailor your life to fit you.
Why did you decide to open your own practice?
Long story somewhat short? I loved the idea of being my own boss–of being in control of everything from the words you read on my website, to the welcome email, to the lighting and color scheme in my office, to the platform I use to house your private information. As someone with differing access needs continuing to learn my fluctuating capacity and edges, I also needed to build a more sustainable life for myself and my family, to practice what I preach per se, and find as much congruence between my values and my work as possible. I believed it was unfair to both myself and my clients to focus on quantity over quality. I wanted to show up to each session fully, rather than attempting to navigate life in a neuronormative way. I wanted to focus on the folks with whom I work best–the deep feelers, the outcasts, the anxious beans, the drama queens, anyone who has ever felt as though they didn’t quite belong. I wanted to ensure as much autonomy, safety, and comfort for my clients as possible; for transparency in every layer of my practice; to treat clients as partners in their journey, and to attempt to dismantle the power differential in which many traditional therapeutic models are rooted. Most of all, I wanted to shape a space where neither my clients nor I needed to be afraid to unmask, to embark on this vulnerable work together as our authentic, honest, imperfectly human selves, with all of our parts invited to the table. I believe it is there that healing can take place.
