From my earliest memories, I’ve had a curiosity about life. As a child I wondered if “life is just a dream” as I sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” With the birth of my children I felt a greater urgency to find clarity in service to them.
I was inspired by their innocence, their authenticity, their perfection that came from just being themselves. I wanted to preserve it in them and to celebrate it.
I knew that between my early beginnings and now as an adult that something had transformed me - I often felt not good enough, bad, and wrong – learned illusions. I wondered how to un-learn these illusions and how to reconnect with my original authenticity and innocence within my adult self – to be myself again with ease.
On my journey I found that I wasn’t alone. We all commonly hold these learned illusions or limiting beliefs and thoughts about ourselves and the world which obscure our hidden wholeness, as author Rachel Naomi Remens calls it.
I found that the trick is to bring awareness to our learned illusions so when they get triggered – “you’re not good enough” – we hear them and hold them with the compassion and tenderness that they have been longing for. We welcome the part that felt not enough and the part that felt bad and wrong. We help them understand it was a lie that there was something ever wrong with them. Every trigger is an invitation for us to speak from our heart.
Sometimes we trigger these learned illusions in one another, and we blame each other for being reminded of them. We forget that others are already perfect too. Instead of blaming one another for reminding us of our learned illusions, let every trigger by another person be an opporunity to be vulnerable, scary as it is. Welcome those vulnerable parts in. Welcome them home. From here we can speak from an undefended heart and rediscover the love-based connections that are our birthright.
Many years ago when I first learned Nonviolent Communication (NVC),* created by psychologist and international peacemaker Marshall Rosenberg, I had an intuitive sense that I had come home – to a way of being that embodied the unconditional acceptance that I had always longed for.
In my work, I use NVC, a form of compassionate communication and compassionate self-listening, that supports us in attuning to the basic human feelings and needs underlying our judgments and evaluations of ourselves and others. Through NVC it is possible to free ourselves from limiting thoughts and beliefs, reconnect with ourselves, and from here, discover deeper, more meaningful connection in all of our relationships.
My vision is to offer NVC, as a tool for healing and blossoming, and to do my part to bring together a community of like-minded individuals to support one another in this personal and collective journey to re-discover our hidden wholeness, to take delight in being ourselves, just as we are.
Certifications and Background
Graduate of and Assistant Trainer with the NVC Mediation Program
Certified as a Integral Life Coach, New Ventures West
Certified as an Enneagram Teacher by Riso and Hudson
California Credentialed High School Teacher
Past President, Northern California Enneagram Association
San Jose State University, Master’s Degree
UC Berkeley, Bachelor of Arts