My Philosophy

I believe that everyone has the right to be heard, seen, cared for and loved.  
Not just partly – fully!

I believe this whole heartedly because I have seen and felt what happens when we are not heard or seen and what happens in the body when we are. 

When I was young, I never felt like I was taken seriously or listened to or respected or seen.  I don’t think my mom even had the capacity to do this and my dad may have but when I would go to him with something on my heart and mind to share or ask for permission to do something I would often get laughed at or told to, “Go ask your mother!”  Well, that was useless!  So, I spent most of my life feeling very sad, lonely, depressed, unloved and like nothing I had to say or wanted mattered.  This affected my self-esteem, my ability to speak up and caused a great deal of apathy.  It made me feel like nothing mattered, nothing I ever did was good enough and led me into a long, deep depression for many years.

Life went on and as I got older after many failed relationships and jobs and feeling miserable most of the time, I started looking inwards and doing my work and I saw that I exhibited the same patterns happening over and over again.  I realized that it was because of how I was treated when I was a child that shaped how I treated others as well as myself.  I saw that how not getting what I needed as a child made me needy and would cause me to get triggered easily and over react towards others when things didn’t go my way and then I would lose another friend.  I couldn’t help it, that’s all I knew.  I started really working on myself by reading self-help books, doing mindfulness practices, meditating, doing yoga, getting support from a coach that specialized in childhood trauma, exercising more, being in nature, going to India to study yoga and to month-long silent retreats to learn how to sit with my triggers and trauma and process them through my body while doing somatic practices. 

I started changing internally becoming happier and accepting of myself, as well as listening to myself and my needs.  Things started shifting drastically.  I saw that when I cared for myself like I deserved to be cared for, that things inside my body felt better and more peaceful. 

A big part of that was healing in nature.  I think it is so important to spend ample amounts of time in the forest or at the beach.  A big part of my childhood was spent in the forest with all the trees and frolicking in tall grass fields full of flowers and apple trees and digging in the sand at the beach.  I think this really helped me feel connected to something on a deep level when I was young and then I could tap back into that when I was older while healing. 

I think one of the biggest lessons I learned is that feeling connected is key to being happy. If we don’t feel connected to ourselves which essentially is also connection to all of nature then we will always be looking for happiness outside ourselves and will never be satisfied. Teaching myself how to connect with myself again through nature has been an imperative part of my healing and seeing how far I’ve come from being so fractured to feeling whole again is what inspired me to become a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach. 

My philosophy is to treat other’s like I would want to be treated.  I learned through my certification that everyone has a past and most people have a lot of trauma from their childhood that has shaped them and affected how they treat others.  This gave me the empathy and compassion towards people that had hurt me so I was able to forgive them. Forgiveness is huge as not forgiving is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

My values on how I treat others are based in kindness, acceptance, being non-judgmental, full and present listening and offering compassion and empathy.  It is based around how would I want a friend to treat me or how would I treat a friend.  I work hard everyday to be self-aware around how I am acting and keep up with my self-care as a high priority whether it is fitness, yoga, meditation, walking in the forest, having an adventure or going to the beach.

I believe that everyone has the ability to heal and grow.  So, I have made it my mission to help as many people as I can to get to the place I am now – happy, connected, feeling accepted, seen, heard, cared for and loved.  It all starts with you!  As within, so without!