A Little Bit About Me…

I am a mom to one beautiful spunky little girl, 4 loveable cats, and 1 high-spirited dog. All of them keep me on my toes, help me to “practice what I preach”, and give me so much motivation and joy!

In my spare time, I love to garden, build puzzles and Legos, do yoga, go to jui jitsu and explore nature. All of these things help me to live a mindful life (something you’ll often hear me talk about in our sessions) and to find comfort in discomfort.

But life hasn’t always been like this…

Getting off track…

Growing up, I was always in the “different” category. I didn’t quite fit into any particular group and most of the people I encountered thought I was weird. This, in addition to many other life challenges, made my childhood quite difficult (I’ll spare you the details, that’s for my therapist to deal with).

In fact, most people are surprised when they learn I barely made it through high school and didn’t have a stable home as I walked the bridge from teenagehood to “adulthood”.

Luckily, as I was wandering around trying to find some sense of direction, a friend pointed me to a job opportunity at a popular pizza chain restaurant. This was my first step to getting back on track. I quickly got promoted to general manager and was able to stabilize my life. But, as much as I loved slapping out pizza dough and getting free pizza, I was stressed and wasn’t fulfilled, (which if you’ve ever been in that position, you know it’s not a good feeling).

Getting back on track…

Finding myself…

I made the scary decision to quit my stable job and attend community college. It was here that my interest in helping children was revived. I say revived, because in high school, my honors English teacher told me that “everyone wanted to be a child psychologist” and I should find something different - don’t ever listen to people like that! After getting my AA, I was able to transfer to UCLA where I received my BA in Psychology (with all sorts of honors!).

I wanted to pursue my passion of working with kids after graduation and happened to stumble into doing Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) with children on the autism spectrum. I fell in LOVE with this job. All my “differentness” and “weirdness” actually helped me with connecting with my clients and allowed me to do ABA with a creative and fun twist. However, as I worked, I began to notice how much trauma existed within families and wanted to do more to help….so I went back to school.

In 2019, I graduated from California State University, Northridge with a Master’s in Science for Counseling with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy. It was here that I found my true calling. Everything just clicked into place - all of my knowledge, all my life challenges, all my weirdness (which is really just creativity & imagination) has allowed me to show up and be a beacon of hope for those that are experiencing their darkest of times.

Because of my experiences, I am not your typical therapist. That is, I likely won’t ever show up with a straight face asking you “how does that make you feel?” or telling you exactly what to do. Rather, I will invite you to share your unique experience and explore what is best for you. We will probably laugh and cry together - and I’ll share stories with you to help you understand, you are not alone in this thing we call life.