There's no disputing that you are the expert on you, you know yourself better than anyone else, so who are you? Do you have a clear sense of yourself and of how others see you? What drives your behavior, your actions and decisions? Do you know what your strengths are and what triggers your defenses, those times when you react without conscious intention in an attempt to reduce discomfort? Everyone has their own individual combination of character traits, gifts and defenses, a

There are two things necessary to weaken the inner critics impact. We need to learn to disidentify from the critics negative messages, and t

As a therapist I've sat with many individuals who have developed a deep-rooted belief that they're not good enough, not lovable, or not worthy. These beliefs are often the result of not getting some basic needs met at a very tender age when we were dependent on our primary caregivers for our survival. Infants and young children's brains cannot yet comprehend that their parent or caregiver could have both good moods and bad, be both loving and dismissive, rejecting, or in some

Anger gets our attention. It can be big, loud, fiery, aggressive, and if unchecked, downright frightening, it's no surprise then that anger is relegated to a category of unwelcome and unacceptable emotions. Anger's function is simply to let us know that something needs to change, and it is anger that can give us the strength and power to create that change. Anger is a guide in determining healthy boundaries, advocating for our values, our integrity, and the resulting reorgani

To embody is to recognize how and where cognition is experienced in the body. What physical and emotional sensations do our thoughts bring about, where does the body manifest the experience, and vice versa. In somatic psychotherapy we work collaboratively with embodied experience to help bring about a greater self-awareness, understanding, and integration of sensations, thoughts and emotions, which in turn can impact the way we inhabit ourselves and the way we live in the wor

Welcome to my blog! I'm beginning this journey with a topic that leads many to seek relief: persistent challenging or unwelcome emotions. We all experience them at some point, feelings such as irritation, overwhelm, jealousy, dread, anger, rage, shame, and humiliation. These difficult emotions are often signpost pointing to areas of our lives that need attention. Sometimes they are symptoms of deep-rooted wounds or traumas that are crying out for healing, and other times they