More About Me

LOS ANGELES

I was standing up in front of an acting class with the great acting coach Larry Moss. After my first scene in class was over, Larry asked me how I thought I did. I began talking as if I knew it all. Larry stopped me by saying, “Well you just know everything don’t you?” I had never been silenced like that before, and a part of me just dropped to the floor. An opening in me appeared in that moment and it showed me my ego, my pain body, that I didn’t even know was there running the show. I had never been more humbled in my life. I stared at him with a new surrender and softness. His next question was, “What did he do to you?” He didn’t know anything about my personal life but he was right. I was coming out of a three-year relationship that had become unhealthy, with someone whose dreams I helped build as he eventually tore mine down. I began to cry in front of a crowd of people, another first for me as I didn’t cry in front of anyone. To be seen with all my pain and vulnerability in that moment was a gift Larry Moss gave me that has stayed with me and carried me on a beautiful journey. I am forever grateful for his honesty, compassion, and love to help me get real and vulnerable.

I moved to LA after graduating from UC Berkeley and became a production assistant. My intention was to act and make films that helped and inspired people. I first had to learn that no matter how much good came my way in Hollywood, I kept finding myself being bullied by friends and in relationships that were competitive, jealous, and didn’t actually want me to do better. It took me a while to learn that I could have relationships that were healthy and supportive, where the better I do, the better they do, and where we are happy for each other. Relationships should be about making each other better, otherwise why have them? 

I had to learn this lesson and clean up what I had allowed in my life and to think bigger and better. I have those healthier relationships now and I can walk away from what isn’t serving me, like I didn’t know how to before. It’s powerful knowing we can own our part, as we always have a choice whether or not to allow ourselves to be mistreated, manipulated, or abused and that we can always walk away or speak up no matter who it is. And if we have been abused there is a way to release all that adrenaline (that was built up from not getting away from the abuse/negativity/manipulation) out of the nervous system otherwise we have all sorts of physical and mental health problems. 

I want to share with you how to find the strength in your body and thoughts to do this. A lot of families live in denial, and they don’t stick up for the greater good or face what they need to. Learning how to be firm and kind is powerful, especially with family members, for if you can do it with the people closest to you, you can do it with anyone. I want to give you the tools with this website to help you find your freedom, to create good patterns, and healthy habits. It’s never too late to wake up. Some people don’t wake up in a life time; you can wake up now!

Acting and healing trauma and stress go together. I love how actors can teach us about our potential to be happy. A lot of actors want to be seen and heard and get the love and attention they need, or release the emotions that they want to honor. Most of them haven’t gotten what they need from childhood, so they think by getting it from the world it will make up for what they missed. When it doesn’t, they fall into a deep depression, even becoming suicidal as we hear about in the news. These were my first clients, and the reason I wrote the book Can You Please Talk To My Girlfriend? I knew I couldn’t love acting from this place, as I would never be happy just like I saw in so many other actors. It’s a shame because when they find success, they aren’t able to have the happiness to spread to the world, to do good things, or enjoy all they have done. This is how I was introduced to Hollywood. I wanted to make sure that I could be happy no matter what. It’s interesting because when I got my first big national commercial, I hadn’t dealt with my trauma issues yet and I remember not being as happy as I should have been. What I love about acting is the truthful emotional connection that happens between two people moment to moment. You don’t always know where it’s going to go; just like life, it’s a surprise if we stay present for it. It’s a beautiful place to be where magic happens just by listening and being present with another human being, being human.

WELLNESS INSTRUCTOR

I also worked as the wellness instructor at a chronic pain clinic for 8 years, and seeing many clients one on one over the years taught me that every physical pain also had an emotional connection and response beneath the pain. Stress and trauma patterns effect the mind, emotions, and body equally. Helping myself heal my traumas, I could then help people understand and get rid of their trauma symptoms. This has been a joy and an honor and made all the pain I knew worth it if I could help one other person. Other doctors and therapists would say to me “Isn’t your work draining?” to which I would say, “Not at all. As long as the person wants help, it’s beautiful to help them. You can’t help someone who doesn't want it. That’s draining.” The clients the doctors were seeing wanted to feel better, but these doctors didn’t have enough tools to help them.

Patterns are hard to break and when we have had these pain patterns playing out in our minds and bodies, we need compassionate help, wisdom, and support. In my books and under the ‘resources’ tab on this website, I share the tools with which I have seen myself and many clients over the years clear their stress and traumas.

PEACE

Peace has the most positive effect on our brains and bodies. But most of us cannot slow down enough to find this. Stress and trauma can speed us up or shut us down. Deep spiritual peace comes from devotion and connecting with the Divine in a meditative state. We can also find peace in nature, certain calming people, places, and things we love. We come from peace and we return to peace, so why then does stress play such a big factor in our lives? Traumatic situations can cut us off from where our peace comes from, our spiritual roots and all the bliss that comes from our divine self. However, stress and trauma can be the very thing that bring us back to our greatness and peace. It gets worse so we can wake up and get better. Being highly motivated to find your peace is important because the effects of trauma and stress hurts us, ages us, and can even kills us. This is what almost happened to me with having Complex PTSD. I was so motivated to get better and I knew that if I could do it, I could help others do the same. Let’s get back to peace as quickly as we can. 

I’m happy to share what I found to be true about where our trauma comes, as well as multi-generational family patterns that hold us back from being who we are meant to be. We come into the world with patterns to overcome if we are willing to look truth in the face. Otherwise these karmic patterns wouldn’t be coming into our lives.  Yes, what we put out we get back. This is karma; an action and an equal reaction. Would you like to be clear about what needs changing in your thoughts and behaviors to live a happier, more fulfilled, and spiritually stimulating existence? 

TRAUMA

There is a lot of information out there about nutrition, and changing our thoughts and beliefs to change our reality. What I’ve found is that in order to practice these wonderful tools, the body must release old emotional energy that we grew up with and that has shaped our lives and relationships throughout the years and generations. The body holds everything seen and unseen, heard or unheard. It is the environment that sinks into our pores and makes us who we are and attracts the kind of things we do. Yes, we can change our thoughts and that, in turn, changes our lives. However, I found many clients including myself stuck with this process. We could not control our minds. Some trauma patterns are too big and the body needs to shake it off and complete a fight-or-flight response, literally moving and trembling, before we can even begin to work with our minds. And if we don’t let this happen, we hold on to our old ways of feeling and thinking and they continue to nag at us no matter how hard we try to be positive. All our emotional energy gets stuck in the physical body and nervous system where it needs to be dealt with, and if it isn’t addressed it bubbles up to the brain creating all sorts of disturbing thoughts, and we have the same trauma actions that happened to us. 

Peter Levine says, “What goes in must come out.” This is why it can be so hard for us to change, and why people continue to hurt themselves (i.e. cutting). I have felt this too and that is why I can share what to do to overcome it. People don’t want to feel what they need to because it’s too overwhelming, big, and scary so they avoid it at all costs. This leads to my next point about completion. Completion is your bodies way of saying ‘I never got to say or do what I needed to do when I was abused’, another way of saying fight-or-flight. Most of us don’t fight or flee in events in life like we needed to, so we stay in environments where there is narcissism, anxiety, abuse, and lies, be they overt or covert. Either we are too young, we don’t know any better, it’s too painful to feel, or we are too scared to leave, though it’s usually all of the above. I love the freedom from pain that came with doing the completion work around what I had not properly dealt with and needed to complete fight-or-flight. We are like onions with layers of experiences. Peeling back one layer leads to uncovering and working with another one. Peel your onion back, and find your power with what you want to do or say. 

BOUNDARIES/COMPASSION/FORGIVENESS

The balance between boundaries and compassion/forgiveness eventually becomes clear. When you have boundaries, you have spoken your truth and are implementing the new ways you will or will not show up, like it or leave it. When you do this, you aren’t angry anymore because you have completion, and then comes your compassion and forgiveness. I see a lot of people live from compassion, but their anger is buried right below it, so that isn’t true compassion. True compassion is when we aren’t afraid to stand up for our ideals and what is acceptable to us, and say no and walk away to what is not acceptable. Then compassion and forgiveness can breathe and radiate to all souls no matter what. Anger and fear live on when we don’t say what we need, when we stay around unhealthy manipulative people, when we don’t admit the truth to ourselves or others, and when we keep making excuses for the ugly truth.

It feels amazing to be free of the old patterns, and be who we are meant to be, thinking and feeling the way we want. Studying Somatic Experiencing under Peter Levine and with the psychologists that work with him is what woke me up to my problematic patterns that I didn’t even know were there, and I got the release and relief I needed to be free. Starting with being aware is the first step.