MY STORY
I grew up in rural Oregon( Kalapuya territory) on an organic farm. I have traveled and lived in many places and have full circled back to living in rural Oregon (Kalapuya territory) with my husband and son. We live on a small homestead with permaculture gardens, springs, creeks, bees, chickens, cows and acres of forrest in all directions. This home has become our sanctuary and is a prayer we dreamt up many years ago. It is here we again and again remember our interconnectedness to the natural world, to the elements and to all things sacred. It is here I became a mother. It is here that I felt a sense of realness, and truth, and a deep desire to be of support to others as they embark on this journey of mothering/parenting this next generation coming through.
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Life before becoming a mom, wife, and land steward was filled with all forms of studying the healing arts and tending to my own personal healing. While practicing as a licensed massage therapist for 13 years, I never stopped studying and exploring. I began my journey at 19 moving to the Hawaiian Islands where a deep- seeded passion was discovered, and I spent much of my time exploring the art, science, and the mystery of the human body, mind and spirit and completed a massage training at Maui School of Therapeutic Massage.
At age, 26 I returned to the Hawaiian islands and during my time in Kauai I studied at The Pacific School of Bodywork and Awareness. There I completed an extensive training in Structural Integration, and did a deep dive into all kinds of awareness practices, it was here I had my first experience of Hakomi work, which I continued studying years later. I had a thriving bodywork practice in Portland, Oregon and during that time began studying Visionary Craniosacral work with Hugh Milne - where I deepened my trust in my intuition and therapeutic technique and the profound benefits of more subtle touch.
I was opened to the profound healing that arises when one contacts another in just the right way, the right pressure of touch, the right spot, the right intention, a natural unwinding and orientation towards healing follows. I watched again and again how a persons body will naturally orient back to balance and health when given a safe and healing environment, accurate contact, a loving presence, and proper therapeutic technique.
Blending all that I learned into a bodywork practice, where I found myself in an intuitive space, supporting others to slow down, feel, and listen to their bodies, hearts, minds and to learn more about the relationship between them all. I was often in awe by what I witnessed: In this slowing down and in this sacred connection with another person embodying loving presence, a natural inclination is to orient back to health and layers and layers of healing occurs.
It is in this type of connection and slow pace that a space feels safe enough for feelings to exist, memories to arise, for unprocessed emotions to be witnessed, and where a new relationship to our wounded pieces can also exist. It is this simple- slowing down, and embodying a loving presence that invokes a healing that goes beyond our own story but is also rooted in a collective story.
It is here where we can collectively remember what it is to be alive, human, and what is truly important. It is here we can find our healed relationship to the many realms. It is in this space of slowing down, feeling, being witnessed and held in a safe loving space that our nervous systems have an opportunity to function in a healed state. This kind of healing can be profound!
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In 2014, I followed the love of my life to Colorado and embarked on a 2 year Hakomi training, a mindfulness-centered somatic psychotherapy. This was the perfect next step in my own personal exploration, which supported and deepened my understanding of how to support my clients with all that I was witnessing and I began to explore the somatic psychotherapy layers of the healing arts. During this training, I also became pregnant with my son, I completed the training and we returned to Oregon to raise him deep in the elements of the natural world, allowing him to explore, grow and learn from this land we humbly get to call home. It has been incredible, hard, beautiful, and intense. My journey has embodied the full spectrum of human feelings and experience, and for that I am grateful.
For 4 years I have been immersed in my mothering journey, learning this land and our family, and finding our rhythm here. For most of these years of mothering, I have paused in offering bodywork and paused in my Hakomi studies. I felt so much changing, integrating, deepening within the fabric of my soul. I also, saw through a new lens how our society and culture does not support the emotional, and spiritual health of mothers. Becoming a mother pushed me to every edge. The real edginess of sleep deprivation and how it ripples into every aspect of life, and the edge of trying to keep up with a fast paced world while giving my child a slow paced, rhythmic, nature- infused beginning. It is the hardest work I have ever done. Add a pandemic and it got real really quick.
How can we support this next generation?”, I hear the wise words of Rachelle Garcia Seliga , a postpartum doula teacher of mine. She says, “All of our ancestors at one point in time centered the care of mothers, because it was understood that when we center the well-being of the mothers, we are also centering the well being of the children, our future generation.” So, this vision I carry is my part in centering the mothers/caregivers and in doing so tending to the future generations.
What would the world look like if those mothering/parenting our youth were provided a safe space to feel their experiences? What would it look like for mothers and parents to slow down long enough to find access to their inner worlds, to tend to their inner child, and have understanding of their own barriers, protections, and wounds? What would the world look like if mothers/parents had a safe place to resource, to be with all that arises when caring for a child? What would it look like for mothers and parents to be witnessed, seen in their personal experience, to slow down long enough to feel their own body, and have access to what’s truly alive in them at this moment? How would that change mothering/parenting, how would that change the children’s experience? How would this ripple into our world if mothers/parents were supported to slow down and prioritize their health and well being? What kind of mothers would this grow? What kinds of families, communities would this grow?
Perhaps this is a seed we need to water for the cultural shifts we are all desiring. Here and now, with 13 plus years of healing arts study woven together with my experience as a mother, I now carry a growing intuitive knowing that I want to hold a space for this vision to be actualized. I offer you, who are in the thresholds of parenting through these times on the planet, a safe and sacred space to come rest and receive Craniosacral inspired bodywork sessions. I am here to tend to the parents who are tending to the children, weaving a fabric of support and loving presence for those who are raising the next generation!