THIS IS MY STORY.

At the age of 25 I became conflicted between two very different life paths.

The first path would lead me further towards my acting career and a CSI Miami role I had booked; the kind of role that I had worked 6 hard long years to land.

The second path would point me towards a transformational leadership journey where I was to be descended into a portal that would mirror all the shadowy and neglected parts of myself that I had long repressed and run away from.

Everyone around me was flabbergasted that I could even think to choose the second path and potentially give up something I had worked so hard for. My friends thought I was running away or afraid of success. On the outside looking in, nothing made logical sense.

How could they know what I was going through? They weren’t in my body. They weren’t thinking my thoughts. I wasn’t sharing my day to day frustrations with anyone back then. No one really knew what my acting career had really been about except me. And I barely understood it myself.

My acting world had been a beautiful healing bridge that allowed me to face parts of myself that I was so deeply disconnected from. But there was so much more to this story.

I think about my acting years with gratitude because those experiences allowed me access into my emotions; my deep sadness, my wild rage, and the big motherhood of all, my many faces of shame. Through every line of dialogue I spoke and every role I took on, all the emotions I previously didn’t have access to in my day to day life would awaken.

Embodying the colorful stories of others was the perfect access point to help me cross over the vulnerability bridge. But it also became a trap. My acting world soon became yet another mask that continued to block me from sharing vulnerability with people in my actual life.

Just as the pain of this internal knowing and disconnection was becoming more and more clear, my 8-year long relationship crumbled to the ground.

I had finally reached my bottom.

I painfully knew it was time to find my own soul. It was time to listen to the deeply sensitive woman who was buried inside a lifetime of pain and feeling invisible.

Which is why I chose the second path:

I said yes to a 3-month transformational journey where I cried and grieved more than I ever had in my entire life. During those 3 months, I was held and seen by people who shared similar pains and longings. Every time I shared parts of myself that I would typically hide, I was met with encouragement and compassion.

I slowly began to feel alive again.

I began to feel connected to myself and to others in ways I never knew existed. People were not just seeing and embracing the polished parts of me .. they were embracing and feeling connected to the real me! It was mind-bowing. And it felt so damn good.

In 2013, I enrolled in a masters program for psychology and began my own therapy process.

I was diagnosed with PTSD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Those diagnoses made perfect sense and helped to validate a lifetime of shut down and fear. I was slowly able to piece together and understand the root causes for my relationship challenges. It became so clear why I had always felt so much anxiety and an insatiable urge to run away whenever I began to feel close to someone in my intimate relationships. 

I was able to get in touch with the deep resentment I felt for not feeling safe to express my boundaries or even know what my boundaries were.

Since then, and with the ongoing help of my therapist, I prioritized working on and expressing my boundaries. Sharing my boundaries felt like being in hell. It made me sick to my stomach and I felt like such an awful person every time I would share them. But I kept practicing. And I paid extra close attention to how people would respond to them.

I began to express my needs and communicated more directly and clearly when things felt hurtful. I took better responsibility for my own feelings and learned to pull the reigns on my pattern of blaming and criticizing when it would kick in. I learned how to apologize head on and own my shit better. I stopped trying to take responsibility for what wasn’t mine. I started paying attention to who wanted to meet me in these spaces and who didn’t.

And over the next few years, my relationships started to drastically change, for the better, because I was changing. These fucking relationship skills were saving my life.

As my own communication skills and boundaries improved, my circle began to mirror those changes. 

Some friendships grew apart. Some friendships strengthened, yet had to be completely restructured. I started communicating with more assertiveness and clarity. I started to pull away from people who were violating and intrusive and unresponsive to my boundaries.

It has not been an easy road to get to this place by any means. Communicating and sharing in a more self-connected and authentic way continues to be an ongoing daily practice. But knowing what is now possible for my life enlivens me and gives my life meaning and purpose.

It feels so liberating to approach relationships with more confidence and a deeper self-understanding. It feels empowering to own my needs and to walk away from people who simply don’t have the capacity or the desire to compromise and meet me half way.

And I want the same for you.

My Soul Mission is to support others in being deeply and soulfully self-connected and to use their self-understanding to create fulfilling relationships with others.

As a relationship coach, I guide others to get to know themselves more intimately in a safe and collaborative way. I teach people how to communicate with self-responsibility, assertiveness, vulnerability, and boundaries. 

Over the last 10 years, what I know with the utmost confidence is that in order to create relationships that feel fulfilling and reciprocal, one must become intimately familiar with themselves. I use my extensive creative training in acting and my masters training in psychology to support and empower people with practical and role play skills to help them get to know and express their core needs and boundaries.

I help people see what is getting in the way of creating the quality of relationships they want .. and so deserve!

I offer one on one coaching packages and educational teachings/online programs that teach the very things that have worked for me and hundreds of my clients. You can find and enroll in my programs here. 

Through the lens of Attachment Theory and Boundaries Work, I guide people towards creating healthy and loving relationship that are deeply connected yet still allows them to be their own person and have their own needs. You can apply for coaching with me here.

I have collaborated with and been featured in Playboy Magazine, Vogue, Women’s Health, Buzzfeed, Allure, Cosmopolitan, RisingWoman, and Createthelove.

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