hands-on treatment
to be free and at home in your body and your life
advanced bodywork for
abdominal + pelvic balance,
deep nervous system care,
+ spiritual anchoring
words of praise
DEEP NERVOUS SYSTEM CARE
Your nervous system is the guide for our work together in treatment, because your nervous system is the register of your emotional experience.
Whatever unresolved past wounding we have, whatever is hard now; it resides within our nervous system.
Thus, working directly with our nervous system is the key to our healing and transformation. It is the key to BEING PRESENT with our body and in our life.
In sessions, we make simple work with breath, touch, and movement to help you:
Gently unravel emotional material held in your body
Anchor into your strength and build emotional resilience
Sense your intuition and discernment to define and exercise clear boundaries
Clarify your focus towards the habits and rhythms that help you live the life you want for yourself
ABDOMINAL + PELVIC BALANCE
Tending abdominal and pelvic health is where my work as a practitioner began 20+ years ago and is the center I continue to orbit, because how we feel in our belly and pelvis directly reflects our wellness as a whole.
Our belly is the nexus of our emotional body. Our pelvis is the foundation of our physical form and the domain of our generative force - our capacity to create.
When WE inhabit our center + root of our body, we inhabit ourselves fully.
In my experience, an abdominal or pelvic imbalance is always connected to something that needs tending in the emotional, spiritual, or ancestral realm. And when we care for our body with devotion and attention to all the layers of our experience — physical and beyond — our work becomes an EVOLUTIONARY MEDICINE.
SPIRITUAL ANCHORING
Spiritual counsel is the bone marrow of my work.
My technical training is in healthcare for the physical body, but my practice itself - a dynamic, living current - brings me to navigate the realm of the unseen: to sense into the unfolding of your soul through the greater arch of your life path, to listen into the deepest stirrings of your heart, and to witness the ancestral lineage material that asks to be healed through you.
This is a study in alchemy: a practice of reaching through the ordinary, the everyday, into the extraordinary. I support you in nourishing your relationship with the sacred, in engaging your own authentic practices of prayer and praise, and in creating simple rituals of consecration and reverence.
This life is holy. Your life is holy.
May we live in service to that mystery, that immensity that commands at once the delicate unfurling of every seed and the infinite force of the tides.
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The path to inner wellness is unique for each of us. It can be fostered within a life-affirming and inclusive religious community. It can be found through indigenous ways of honoring that far predate monotheistic ideas of God. And both, or neither. Ultimately, it is a path that only you can engrave within your heart as you walk it.
It is the honor of my life to encourage you to follow that enduring, immutable pull of your heart toward communion.
What informs my work in this realm? I was raised in the cult of evangelical Christianity (midwest U.S. version) that declares us all sinners from birth. In my escape from mainstream religion as a young adult, I came of age surrounded by various flavors of new-age spirituality that had little to no structure or ethical boundaries, and an abundance of spiritual bypassing.
I find both polarities extreme. I do not align with any “spiritual” ideas that declare us inherently dirty/unworthy, or that extend so widely into the ethers that devotion to something greater evaporates and the Self is appointed supreme.
For the last decade, I have studied within the spiritist traditions of Santo Daime and Umbanda. In 2017, I came to live in Brasil and became a uniformed member of the Tenda Espírita Flor da Montanha, where our community observes a rigorous calendar of spiritual “works”.
The Santo Daime and Umbanda traditions center a kind of Christian mysticism that equally reveres the Holy Mother as the living source of love, compassion, and mercy that is also the Earth itself; Christ as master teacher; and Father God as an archetype of protection, guidance, and governance. These traditions also reverence the Orixás as manifestations of the Holy through the forces of nature, make sacramental use of ritually-prepared ayahuasca, and center the study of mediumship - a direct courtship with the Divine and with guiding spirits through our physical bodies.
FAQs
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Each treatment begins with a consultation: we sit together and discuss what’s happening for you, and how our session can best support you.
A full treatment is 2.5 hours, and includes up to 45 minutes of consultation at the beginning of the session. This consultation time helps us create a map for your treatment and answer any questions you have before we begin our hands-on work.
During our hands-on work, we follow your nervous system as a guide for the pace and direction of the treatment. I invite you to engage simple breath practices as I apply manual techniques.
At the end of session, we come back to sit together for another 10-15 minutes to talk about how the treatment was for you and discuss any suggestions I have for you for aftercare.
After your treatment, I’m always available for brief exchanges via email, and am also availalble for online consultation sessions as my schedule allows.
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Consult vs. counseling/therapy:
My approach is somatic: we engage hands-on practices inspired by classical Chinese medicine and various bodywork modalities.
In our sessions, any discussion we have around your emotional and mental health is in relationship to how you feel in your body and how you ARE with your body. We engage your attention, patience, and devotion to care for yourself through tangible exercises using your hands, breath, and voice.
This is not therapy. I recommend concurrent work with a skilled therapist if you experience high anxiety, panic attacks, or have received a diagnosis of depression or personality “disorder”.
Consult vs. bodywork/acupuncture:
Consultations are a way to build a bridge between the care you can receive in hands-on treatment, and the care you give to yourself, every day.
I often recommend acupuncture and/or bodywork treatment to complement the work we do together.
Consult (for pelvic health) vs. seeing an OBGYN:
The three primary tools of modern gynecology are diagnostics: tools like bloodwork, ultrasounds, and PAP smears; pharmaceutical medications, and surgical procedures.
Our toolkit here consists primarily of hands-on therapies, herbal medicine, and the practical application of classical Chinese medicine to directly treat symptoms and help you be present with your body, emotions, and inner narratives.
We approach imbalances of the root as an opportunity to deepen your relationship with yourself and a path through which you can become more fully all of who you were born to be, who your ancestors are calling you to be, and who the world asks you to be.
Consult vs. pelvic floor physical therapy:
My work with the pelvic bowl is centered in embodiment rather than bio-mechanical function.
In other words, this work serves to bring your consciousness, breath, and life force to reside throughout the entirety of your root. This presence gives your body the resources to process and let go of bound emotional material and restore optimal function.
Over the last 10 years of focused work for the pelvic bowl, I find this embodied approach is extremely effective in addressing a wide array of pelvic issues. Function follows inhabitance.
I originally studied internal pelvic work via Holistic Pelvic Care in 2013 with Tami Kent, and my current work with the root of the body is also greatly influenced by my studies in Chinese medicine.
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My work with pelvic health is primarily oriented toward people inhabiting uterine, ovarian, and/or vulvo-vaginal systems.
I welcome all genders and sexual orientations in my practice! I use gender-neutral language in all of my work.
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Over the last 20+ years, I have facilitated over 4,500 one-on-one sessions tending pelvic, nervous system, and spirit-level health in my work as bodyworker, acupuncturist, and teacher. I have walked alongside my clients through treacherous landscapes of grief, rage, and emotional pain into profound connection with their body as the ultimate source of wisdom and direct access point to the earth itself.
I am trained in Shiatsu, uterine-moving massage, breast massage, and holistic pelvic floor manual therapy in addition to my formal training in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. I also draw from my ongoing study of Western herbalism, evidence-based modern medicine, and indigenous healing practices. My teachers and mentors in hands-on medicine include Jim Cleaver, Rosita Arvigo, Tami Kent, Mark Jensen, Sarah Girard, Peter Shea, and Josephine Spilka.
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Before we begin to work together, let's meet and see if we're a good fit!
Book a free chat here.When you’re serious about catalyzing change in your life, a set of 3 weekly sessions in a row yields exponentially powerful results.
I recommend a catalyst series when we begin our work together, and anytime you’re navigating a major issue or decision, life change, or to facilitate momentum in birthing your soul-led work into the world.
Stand-alone sessions are also available anytime, as well as mini-sessions (just for established clients).
For immersive and continued support, I offer 2-month and 3-month containers for ongoing weekly sessions. These containers offer a significant discount off the regular session rate!
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If your period or hormones are causing you distress, if you experience pelvic pain, discomfort, or numbness, if you struggle with recurrent infection, or just have a nagging sense that more is possible in connection with your body, in sex, in healing, in freedom: these are all signals to engage deeper relationship with your root.