Welcome to my Integral Healing and Living website. I appreciate this opportunity to tell you more about my work, as well as my background which informs my work. After working for over 25 years in healthcare in a variety of capacities--all of which were related to healing across the life-span and optimizing health and human potential (as a nurse, nurse educator, education director and healthcare educator, internal HRD/OD consultant, and clinical counselor), I now facilitate integral healing and integral process work for individuals and groups as a nurse/counselor and a process-facilitator. As a holistic nurse/counselor, I support, guide, teach, and facilitate others in their movement toward greater health, well-being, embodiment, and essential wholeness. As an integral process-facilitator, I serve as witness, mentor, and “midwife” for those in the process of giving birth to themselves--to their deepest and truest self and to their fullest, embodied presence and potential.

My foundational education and experience is in nursing. I have both a BSN, as well as an MS in Community Health Nursing, with a concentration in nursing education and an emphasis in systems theory and integrative, community-based models. As a nurse, I have practiced and taught literally across the life-span, with people of all ages, and with those experiencing major life and health transitions--from those giving birth and being born, to those approaching the end of life and preparing to make the transition of death. I have a second MS in Community Mental Health Counseling, with concentrations in both clinical counseling and organizational development, which prepared me for private practice with individuals and groups, as well as for facilitating organizational transformation. I have been clinically trained to integrate both traditional and complementary approaches to maximizing/optimizing the health and human potential of individuals, groups, families, organizations, and communities. More recently, I have completed six years of doctoral studies in East/West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, specializing in psychospiritual development and the integration of spirituality, psychology, and healing. Currently, I am inquiring into my dissertation topic, which will explore the interface of pre-and perinatal psychology and transpersonal psychology in the context of adult psychospiritual development. Specifically, I am interested in prenatal consciousness and trauma imprinting in relation to fully incarnating and embodying nondual presence.

My life and work have been inspired, enriched, and informed by many people who have supported me in my own personal healing and life journey, as well as those who have been my teachers, mentors, colleagues, and clients. Over the years, I have pursued specialized training in numerous holistic and integral approaches to healing, recovery, and psychospiritual development, which continue to inform both my personal practice and my work. A major “paradigm shift” occurred in my life and in my work many years ago as a result of training with Anne Wilson Schaef in Living in Process, which continues to be a way of life for me. Living in Process is a process-oriented approach to healing and soul work, which focuses on individual, group, societal, and global recovery, and which complements and is complemented by 12-Step Recovery work. The Living in Process approach is foundational to my own understanding and life/work, which has evolved out of this process-paradigm. After initially training in Healing Touch through the Holistic Nurses Association in the late 80’s, I was drawn to an even more in-depth four-year training in Integral Healing taught by Graciela Damewood. This is an energy-based therapy integrating an Eastern understanding the chakra system and energybody, with Western psychology and synthesizing multiple approaches to energy healing—which I continue to draw upon in my own work.

In the mid-90’s, directed by strong inner guidance, I had the opportunity to study with Stanislav Grof, MD, in Transpersonal Psychology and to train/certify as a practitioner of Holotropic Breathwork. This profound approach to inner exploration, which uses the breath as a doorway to the healing wisdom/power of non-ordinary states of consciousness, has provided me with an appreciation for the potential of these states for healing, transformation, and evolution, when used wisely and skillfully. For several years, I have practiced and trained in Authentic Movement, which I utilize as a body-oriented psychospiritual practice. I am grateful for the opportunity to work privately with Janet Adler to refine my development in this practice, especially as a witness. I find this form of embodied inquiry to be in support of my primary spiritual practice, which is the Diamond Approach. I am a committed student of this integral approach to spiritual development, based on the teachings of A.H.Almaas, which uses inquiry and meditation as its core practices. I am a long-term student in the Ridhwan school, a spiritual work school that teaches this approach, and also, have worked with a private teacher for many years.

Currently, I continue to deepen my knowledge and skills in the area of trauma healing and resolution, especially related to very early, life-threatening shock and trauma. This work is informed by my own history, as well as my passion for exploring the process of incarnating—of coming into embodied form, into the world and into human experience and relationship—and the profound affect our imprinting during this process has on our lives and on our deepest development. I have trained with Ray Castellino in Prenatal and Birth Therapy, to learn more precise ways to access and resolve very early shock and trauma imprinting. Simultaneously, I trained/certified in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, which is one of the primary tools utilized in the prenatal and birth work. This is a very subtle form of bodywork which accesses and supports the client’s own self-regulation and self-healing process and the movement of the “Breath of Life” or life force--conveyed by the cerebrospinal fluid to all the fluids and tissues of the body. Also, I am a certified practitioner of Somatic Experiencing, Peter Levine’s natualistic approach to healing all forms of trauma, which is an integral component of the work I offer.      I continue to deepen my own personal and professional development through advanced trainings and workshops, and by assisting with trainings in Somatic Experiencing, as well as Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy.

My life and understanding are enriched by many deep collegial, personal, and family relationships, which continue to be a source of great curiosity, love, joy, and respect. I am a mother of two adult daughters, Amy and Trish, and have two precious grandchilren--Abigail 2 1/2 years old and Jacob    1 year--and a third grandchild on the way.  I was in married partnership with my husband for almost 35 years and am now in lifelong friendship.           I have experienced the many challenges, opportunities, and transitions that committed partnership/relationship can bring when we are willing to let go of familiar forms and structures that we have outgrown and to explore relationship as an unfolding process.  Last, but not least, I realize that my life/work is informed by spirit and the Great Mystery, which works through me and ignites within me a deep and abiding commitment to personal and collective transformational healing. Through my own personal healing and my support of others in their movement toward wholeness, I am grateful to be participating in the larger evolutionary process unfolding at this unprecedented time in human history. I look                                                                  forward to exploring with you possibilities for                                                         collaboration in this integral work.