So glad you're here
stepping into a happier zone of achievement and success in your personal and work life
A fatherless daughter raised by a traumatized mother, my own family history informed my journey as a counselor, coach and healer. I stepped into the world of personal development at an early age. Struggling to understand all the ways my external world was a reflection of my internal universe, I gravitated to the disciplines of psychology and biology. Even though I didn't know where I came from, it felt easy and natural to belong in the cultures of science and self improvement. I knew I wanted to focus my life work on something existentially meaningful, something that connected me to the really important, big issues in life, like health and wholeness, love, and belonging. I also wanted to be able to help people in a direct way that provided more choice, more knowledge and more freedom. Combine these aspirations with a multi-generational history of cancer, and it’s not too hard to arrive at genetic counseling.
When I was training at UC Berkeley in the late 90's, non-directive counseling was central to the field. In actual practice, it became obvious that there was no neutral way to present choice. Even though I was involved in industrial strength research on informed free choice in genetic care, I knew I was superimposing my map of the world on my client's map, and it wasn't always a neat fit. The best I could hope for was to be a good choice architect, providing a safe container for women and their families as they sorted through meaning and made deeply personal and intimate decisions about their lives.
I became more curious about how I made my own conscious and subconscious choices, especially those that resulted in emotional entanglements or unwanted life patterns. Could I re-choose? What did I really want? If life were a problem to respond or react to, making choices might be easier. I realized that making intentional choices about what we really want out of life is often very difficult. Having an acute awareness that most every important thing I chose in life was surrounded by the things I decided against, I often struggled with indecision and regret. Reaching for ways to exercise more authority over all of that, I connected with the transformational Neuro-Linguistic Programming learning community in Marin (NLPM). I was delighted to learn that this particular discipline of NLP offers much more than a toolbox of techniques and procedures. The integrated, holistic approach of trainers Carl Buchheit, MIchelle Masters, and Carla Camu fit nicely with my orientation as a counselor and my desire to work in a way that honored the totality of my client's life. I initially used my newfound understanding of the deep structure of human experience to communicate even more effectively with clients in clinic, and that was a big win with the evolving complexity of genetics in medicine. But it became more and more difficult to ignore that not only had I experienced some of the most profound and lasting change in the orientation of my own mind's life, but I had also developed a potent and magical toolkit that could be used to help others build the life they want and enjoy being themselves in the world.