Anxiety can feel like your body is reacting faster than your mind can keep up - racing thoughts, tension in the body, trouble breathing, feeling on edge, the list goes on. When we’re overwhelmed like this, it’s not always helpful to try to “think our way out of it.” Before we can use coping skills or challenge anxious thoughts, we first need to help the body settle.

In our work together, we’ll use somatic and nervous-system based strategies to bring your body back into a state where it can feel safe again. This includes approaches that use polyvagal theory, which helps us understand why anxiety is so physical - and how to work with your biology rather than against it.

As you develop these skills, we’ll also be exploring the patterns and triggers behind the anxiety, including how past experiences or relationships may still be shaping the way your body responds today.

When it comes to depression, everything feels heavy. Your energy is spent, your mood is low, and your thoughts become pessimistic. Depression is not only “feeling sad.” It is a real shift in the brain and nervous system that can leave you feeling numb, stuck, flat, or like you’re living life on autopilot. People often say depression makes them feel they have lost touch with who they are.

In session, we focus on rebuilding your sense of self and connection. We’ll use behavioral activation to help you reintroduce routine, structure, and small moments of meaning back into your days. Self-compassion and acceptance-based approaches are a focus here, so you can learn to respond to your “inner critic” and the negative thoughts that come up when we feel depressed.

As we move through this process, we’ll be exploring how depression has impacted your sense of identity. We’ll work on helping you reconnect with the parts of you that feel distant or forgotten. There is a way back to feeling like yourself, and we’ll take that path together at a pace that is safe and comfortable for you.

“Trauma is not what happened to you, it is what happened inside of you because of what happened to you.” - Gabor Maté

Trauma isn’t just the event itself - it is the impact it leaves. For many people, trauma looks like a moment or series of moments after which you didn’t feel like the same person anymore. This can come from experiences that were frightening, overwhelming, or deeply unsafe (such as abuse, sudden loss, accidents, medical situations, growing up in a space where your feelings or safety weren’t protected). Sometimes people don’t realize something was traumatic until they see how it still lives on in their body, relationships, or reactions.

In our work, we’ll learn to understand these responses with gentleness and curiosity. I use parts work (similar to IFS) to help identify and care for the parts of you that are still holding pain, fear, or responsibility from what happened. We integrate self-compassion and cognitive processing techniques as appropriate; but, we don’t only need to use talk therapy to process trauma.

I am trained in EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), a trauma therapy that helps the brain finish processing experiences that were too overwhelming at the time they happened to you. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (such as eye movements or tapping) to help your mind and body reprocess the memories in a way that feels less activating. The memory doesn’t disappear, but the emotional intensity around it softens. In using EMDR, your body will feel safer and your mind will be better able to recognize the danger has passed. EMDR has been recommended as an excellent intervention in treating PTSD, and it does not require you to share many details about the trauma for it to work.

Healing from trauma isn’t about “getting over it.” It is about getting your brain and body on the same page so you can move through your life without feeling stuck in an over-activated (or at times, under-activated) nervous system.

Changes in life can bring a mix of different feelings, and loss is not only about death. Although we often associate grief with loss of a loved one, we also grieve experiences of losing a relationship, job, home, sense of safety, and more.

Grief is not just sadness - it can show up as anxiety, numbness, irritability, and even forgetfulness (one of the universal symptoms of grief).

In our work, we’ll move intentionally and gently in creating space to honor what has changed, and what has been lost, without rushing you to “move on.”

We may explore:

• How grief is showing up in your body & daily routine

• The meaning of what this change represents in your life

• The identity shifts that come when life pulls you in a new direction

• How to build new routines and grounding practices to support you through change

I’m here to validate how you feel and guide you towards finding moments of peace throughout your change, and together we find ways to continue living a life where we learn to co-exist with grief, loss, and accept the challenge of coping with other life changes.

Living with ADHD doesn’t mean you lack effort or discipline. ADHD is a different way of thinking, processing and engaging with the world. Many people with ADHD make intuitive connections others may miss and have creative problem-solving skills. ADHD-ers often have a rich inner world, however we are living in a world built for neurotypical brains. Because of this, the strengths of a person living with ADHD can become overshadowed with frustration, shame, and the feeling of being “always behind.”

In our work, we focus on understanding neurodivergence; we’ll use psychoeducation to explore how dopamine, motivation, focus and the ability to regulate emotions are all connected. You are not flawed in living with symptoms of ADHD - you have unique patterns rooted in your mind & nervous system.

Together, we’ll:

• Understand the ways ADHD shows up in your daily life

• Explore where your strengths already exist

• Work with tools that support your natural thinking style

• Use cognitive and behavioral strategies to build structure, momentum, and confidence in your follow-through

• Create dopamine-friendly systems: things like “artificial rewards,” body doubling, and micro-tasking, to help your brain feel engaged instead of overwhelmed

We’ll approach procrastination, intense emotions, and inconsistent motivation with compassion. The goal is not to make you more like everyone else, and instead validate your unique worldview, value your creativity, and support your nervous system in ways that work for you.

Substance use is often a way of coping with emotions under the surface. Many people use substances because at some point, it helped them feel something, or numb pain, or get through the day. It is a strategy many turn to when our emotions/stressors feel too big to be managed by our present coping skills.

Substances can come to take up more space than intended, affecting relationships, health, goals, or self-identity. It can be overwhelming to know how to make a change, especially if shame has been part of the cycle in developing a substance use problem.

I’ve treated people with substance use disorder/overlapping disorders for about 5 years, and I know the value of treating addiction with compassion and honesty. I focus on using Motivational Interviewing (MI) and harm reduction in treating substance use. MI is a collaborative, person-centered approach where we recognize the parts of you that want to make a change, while resolving parts of you that feel stuck. We look at your own motivations for wanting to make a change. You can think of MI like a coaching strategy, where we’re both on the same team and tackling the goal you truly want to achieve.

I believe there are multiple pathways to recovery and do not work from an abstinence-only model. We work together to find a path forward that meets your needs and goals for your personal recovery.

Additionally, we’ll explore:

• What role the substance has been serving in your life

• What emotions, memories, or stress responses its been helping you manage

• How trauma/nervous system activation and unmet needs may be part of the picture

• How to create new ways to cope that don’t require numbing yourself

I am passionate in my belief that treating substance use is the same as mental health: it is important not to judge you for where you’re at, and to walk alongside you to where you want to be. Treating substance use means reclaiming yourself, your stability and purpose at a pace that respects your individual goals.