About
* this part is removed from home page about teaser…add to bio:
I’m a queer, neurodivergent, swear word loving, super sensitive human and cat-parent.
While I’ve often been told how “sensitive” I am, I didn’t always understand that I could embrace my sensitivities as a gift. Whether it was smells, sounds, sensations, emotions or whatever. My ability to notice small emotional, physical, or vocal cues started in early childhood and
If you’re a tenderhearted queer person (allies are welcome too) who can see where they want to go and—more importantly—who they want to be…but can’t figure out how to get there, you’re in the right place!”
I’ve helped my clients navigate career shifts, job drama, salary negotiations, big relationship feelings, health, parenting, new business ventures, conflicting cultural nuances, major perspective shifts, and all the life-stuff that comes with it all.
Original “My Vision”: I have a passion for helping tenderhearted folks build the self-trust and confidence they need to move towards their dreams. My goal is to help people learn how to TAKE UP SPACE! Many of us, especially in the queer community, weren’t taught or allowed to do this. Often, the mechanisms which kept us safe when we were younger have held us back as adults. I’ve had to learn how to acknowledge and release these protective constraints over the course of my lifetime and my goal is to help others do it with more ease, gentleness, and support.
New Vision: I work with the LGBTQ+ clients (and allies too) and support them while they take steps to reach their goals. Not many of us have had someone who is enthusiastically in our corner, believing in our dreams, helping us find realistic ways to achieve them, all while lovingly calling us on our bullshit when needed. I am that person for my clients.
I’ve helped people navigate career shifts, job drama, salary negotiations, big relationship feelings, health, parenting, new business ventures, conflicting cultural nuances, major perspective shifts, and all the life-stuff that comes with it all.
My coaching is bold and heart-centered with the goal of helping you work through things like imposter syndrome, lack of confidence, discovering boundaries, and building self-trust. You deserve to take up space/get that raise/take that career leap/reframe that old thought pattern/deepen your relationship with yourself!
Personal Origin
For most of my life, my throat would lock up and tears would silently pour down my face whenever tension or conflict arose. I have almost always struggled with verbal communication from toddlerhood to adulthood. Being hypersensitive to sound, smells, and sensations as well as having an overdeveloped, eldest-child-of-divorced-parents ability to sense and absorb the energy of people around me left me constantly overwhelmed. The added stress of knowing I was different, but not understanding why made me feel locked up inside myself (hello to fellow queers who figured it out way later!). I developed masking behaviors in an attempt to make my life easier and to fit in. I felt locked up inside myself--unable to communicate my needs, express my emotions, or imagine a life for my future self. My brain, in an effort to protect little me, had me shrink myself and try to be invisible.
Then, in the fourth grade, I was cast as the lead in the school play, and as I sang and danced by myself on stage, I understood for the first time what taking up space felt like. The locked up feeling that kept me from communicating my needs and expressing myself was gone! Onstage, I could do something I enjoyed and was good at and take up ALL of the space I wanted too AND be celebrated for it. Though I couldn’t always take that expansive feeling and apply it to my off-stage life, I had found an outlet and so began my practice of taking up space.
I did theatre and dance all throughout high school and college, but it wasn’t until I was 22 when I was finally able to understand why I felt so different. When, at last, I understood my queerness I felt like I wanted to explode! Everything in my life made so much more sense and I was ecstatic to have found the missing puzzle piece! The joy of this new comprehension also brought the sorrow of a young life half-lived.
Who would I be now if I’d been given the chance to grow up as a queer, non-binary child?
I’ve had the privilege of going to therapy in recent years as well as the opportunity to work with a life coach. This work combined with life experience and good ol maturity through the years has led me to the path I’m on now--one where I’m building a life for myself that I know I deserve!
Coaching origin
January, 2020: I was feeling quakey in my decision to give up massage therapy as a profession. I excelled in practice but struggled in business and decided to work a “normal job” for the time being while I figured out what the next move would be. Working with a coach helped me come to terms with this decision and though I felt empowered by listening to my instincts, the doom of the unknown future was slowly chipping away at my confidence.
A while later, as I was falling asleep one night, I had one of those AHA/sit-up-in bed moments. “I should be a life coach”, I grumbled to my mostly asleep wife. “Awesome. You’d be great at it. Let’s talk about it tomorrow…” she grumbled back. I had just had a coaching session where I broke down what was important to me and what I enjoyed doing.
Helping people help themselves.
Helping people in the ways I wish I’d had help.
I sat there buzzing with excitement. A light bulb had gone off and I couldn’t help but be amused at how obvious it all seemed now.
Somehow, I was able to sleep that night and the next morning I began looking into coaching programs with a fresh energy and new goal.