First, let me say that I love doing this work.
Secondly, I try to live my life in the way that I practice most things. By (reluctantly) embracing mystery, remaining open to change, finding courage on a daily, if not hourly, basis, honoring my self, my intuition, my body, and trusting the journey, I have come to find that extra ordinary things happen every day.
Even (or better yet, especially) after the most dyer of circumstances.
To start, a few anecdotes to illustrate that no matter how rough the storms, how difficult the terrain - - even when I have had to backtrack - - my direction and intentions remains clear. The following paragraphs are my way of setting the stage to illustrate the kind of person/clinician I am and passion I feel as a result of working with others in the way that I do.
with love and gratitude.
***
There comes a time when you realize that your life is
not how you want it to be.
Maybe you aren’t as centered or grounded as you wish you were.
You feel misunderstood, unseen, unheard.
You are feeling as though you are stuck in a relationship, a career, or frustrating patterns that you cannot seem to break through.
Perhaps you have lost touch with yourself along the way. You don’t feel like you know yourself anymore.
You are struggling with grief, panic, constant anxiety, or immobilizing fear.
You are a therapist, a healer, or just a highly creative person that is feeling burnt and needs a space that’s just for you?
When we lose touch with what matters most, we can burn out. Our priorities and values can become jumbled and misaligned.
When this happens, sometimes, we go off the map.
I spent most of my life in that kind of emotional detachment and confusion- off of the map and without any real idea what it was costing me.
But it wasn’t always like that
Born to two teachers- both survivors of intergenerational trauma, addiction, and chaos- the foundation was laid for my every day life and the patterns I would seek to change.
As a child there was nothing that did not pique my interest. Every thing and every body had a story and I would make it my responsibility to listen and to learn these stories. This passion came to life most frequently while outside of my home and free to explore the world.
Life was my adventure.
The huge trees on my front lawn were meant to be climbed.
Hills, rolled down.
Animals of all kind to be treated with love and upmost respect.
Puddles, lakes, oceans jumped in.
Stars, clouds, and the sky to be stared at in awe.
Fire gazed at.
My most fond memories are while at summer camp. Free to roam and during a time when writing letters was the standard way of staying in touch. I spent 8 weeks tucked away in a tiny sleep away camp in Dutchess County, NY.
Camp was trees, grass, play, music, laugher, tears, friendships, sports, first kisses, and first loves.
For those two months of the year I was able to be exactly the person I was born to be.
My defenses were down, I had little to fear, and I could breathe freely.
I could play. I could explore. I could fall. I could scrape my knees. I could get muddy.
Being in nature 24 hours a day, 7 days a week- while feeling safe- helped me find my sense of self- my inner compass
For those ten years of my life, camp would be my beacon & my source of oxygen until eventually, I would age out.
During the school year and while at home, I was an entirely different child.
There was neglect, chaos, addiction, & a variety of abuses from close family members. And just like that, I adapted because I had to. I was busy facing huge problems that were completely unmanageable to a little girl who wanted desperately to see the best in everyone.
I was working hard to pass as “well rounded” so I could be deemed “successful.” I was a great student while participating in sports, popular while being kind to more vulnerable students, creative yet dutifully practical.
That was always just me. Striving for perfection and looking out for everyone else— no matter the cost.
eventually, it caught up with me.
It was downright exhausting trying to be everything for everyone
This habit of twisting myself into pretzels to avoid disappointing people, denying my own needs to avoid rocking the boat, and acting far more secure than I actually was, utterly depleted me. In those twists, I lost track of any direction and it would take years to find my way again.
This debilitating uncertainty persisted into college, my first few jobs, and most of my relationships.
As I continued to grow into young adulthood- feeling further and further away from my beacon that was camp- and with an eating disorder chipping away at my spirit, I had no substantial breaks, far less moments of peace and no sources of oxygen.
I grew tired from acting. I was young though I felt old.
It was around this point, I dragged myself to therapy. I had been to a few sessions as a child but this would be my first attempt as a young adult. I did not know exactly what I needed but I knew that I had to try to carve a way back to myself because I was too frightened to imagine what would happen if I didn’t.
After a few years of subpar/not great therapy and some struggles with my disordered eating- not to mention entering and then exiting a few toxic relationships and leaving a dead end job- I dropped everything to move to New York City for graduate school.
No matter where I went or what I did, I was continuously reminded and felt even more assured that it was still my life’s passion to listen to people’s stories. I did not know if I would love the work but I knew I loved people. I could not work a 9-5 job, nor could I stare at a computer screen all day. My passion was other’s well being and so far, I proved to be pretty good at that. I was officially starting the path towards becoming a helper and this would solve everything.
The wounded healer.
I was surprised to discover that even after graduate school, I craved more. I learned so much about too much. So many contradictions and so many unanswered questions. There were so many disconnects in the research- specifically trauma and it’s effects on the body of not only the client but also the worker. I desperately wanted to understand how to fill those gaps in my work.
I have always been a seeker and while this can be a positive trait, left unchecked it resembles a restlessness, an inability to feel satisfied.
It never seemed like it was enough.
My desire for knowledge has always been insatiable. True to form and because I did not know what else to do, I kept looking for answers outside of myself.
And then, on a particularly regular day, while still in search of something, I decided to go to my first yoga class. Unbeknownst to me, my life would forever be changed.
I dove right in.
It tapped into all of my passions, my fears, my strengths, and I was hooked. I would continue to practice yoga religiously and almost obsessively for the next few years.
Yoga was so instrumental that I decided to become a teacher
Teacher training felt like the obvious next step: combining yoga, therapy and mindful meditation while immersed in nature felt like the magic elixir: a way to access the body, mind and spirit.
The setting for the teacher training was back in the mountains, surrounded by nature, away from the fast, aggressive pace of Manhattan. It felt like a return to my self: to camp, to community, to the chance of being freed. I was ready to be absorbed, supported, and rescued by yet another solution outside of myself.
I was so glad to have finally found the exact nexus of my people.
You can imagine how it went:
It was a fucking disaster from day one. It almost doesn’t matter what happened.
Huge fears coming true, unregulated emotions that my body could not hold, unconscious hopes surfacing, unobtainable dreams being crushed and nonstop, unpleasant thoughts meeting me everywhere. Teachers proving to be far from healed themselves and students acting like cliquey teenage girls.
The thing is that yoga can and often will unlock what’s stored in the body. After years of therapy, I was floored to discover the I was not equipped to witness what was happening. As I continued striving towards being the perfect yogi, I began to unravel and I was completely unhinged. I began to crash. In the perfect setting, in the perfectly aligned yoga pose, I was still a mess. The ultimate high was (once again) being met with the ultimate low. I was frightened. I was sad. I was furious.
How did these thoughts follow me here?
Why wasn’t this different?
Wasn’t yoga going to be the place where I would finally find some zen-like acceptance and calm?
Why wasn’t therapy helping me?
What I realized as I sat there in my hyper-researched, perfect location is that nothing will ever give me a re-do of a childhood.
Nothing outside of me will give me the safety that I needed to feel as a child.
No therapist. No practice. No words. No man. No anything.
Nothing will ever fill those deep, dark voids except the sweet nurturance that I could provide myself.
it was on THAT random summer day that I quietly decided that I would save myself.
On that day, as my teacher training began to wind down (day 28), I sat in child’s pose while the rest of the class continued into their sweaty vinyasa flow. I realized in that moment that my heart was bleeding- that I was using yoga as yet another means to alter my life, my body, and my circumstances so that I could finally be deemed acceptable & good enough.
And then.... “what if I was good enough already-- my soul, my heart, my body-- is and always deserved to be loved. Just as I was. Just as I am. Nothing to fix because nothing is broken”
Nothing to fix because nothing is broken.
A concept that was so foreign to me that I began to sweat and shiver with both fear and relief. I knew instinctively that I could not let this precious moment just pass me by as if it were some regular thing.
With that, I went against every fiber in my being by not participating in the class like the perfect yogi I aspired to be. Even going against the direction of the teacher in front of a class of 40, I lovingly forced myself to stay in child’s pose for the remainder of the 90 minute class.
I quietly held and wept myself into a sleep like state of consciousness.
I received my yoga teacher certificate but more importantly, I reclaimed myself.
I came home and slowly started to end all toxic relationships, including the one I had with my therapist. I eventually found a much better clinician for me and it was then that the years and work that I had put into myself officially began to take flight.
I felt I had direction. I had moments of hope. I was feeling so much at once but it was working and I wanted to live. I had sensations. I had tingles. I felt temperature. I could sit with so much more than I ever imagined. I learned to breathe. I was genuinely alive.
I began to take responsibility for my body, my feelings, and my instincts.
This was both the hardest and the easiest concept that I had ever admitted to myself.
Looking back, I have always had this intuitive sensation- this pull in my body- that has known what to do.
This internal compass has always known. my compass was not broken from the things that had happened along the way.
It wasn’t broken- just kinda bent.
I used to think bypassing struggle and pain would somehow make me stronger. Now I know that real freedom is born of my capacity to work with any difficulty that might arise in my life.
I no longer feel that I have to hit rock bottom to ask for help nor do I have to achieve any form of perfection before I begin something. The healing can start at any moment and whenever you are ready.
Every single moment is a chance for me to start again.
Every single moment is a chance to reorient myself—to take a breath, to begin something, to end something, to get muddy, to love, to be loved, to be in nature, to stay in bed, to choose something, to choose not to do something, to feel my feet on the earth.
None of this is to suggest that any of the above is the easiest way to live but it’s by far the most forgiving, the most humbling, the most honorable. This is the path that continues to inform my soul and serve me best as both a human being and a practitioner.
I will work with you to help you develop these same skills: to be the most authentic version of yourself that you can be.
I will do my best to help you process your past experiences and unhealed wounds, live more deeply in the present moment, and feel even more hopeful about your future.
It can be challenging to navigate your way forward, and sometimes there is no better place to start than within.
An empathetic and open heart is a salve for the soul, and helps us be gentle with ourselves and others.
Working with me can and will ideally help you embrace the power of self and expand your perspective on finding solutions that work best for you.
perhaps Your innate compass is telling you that it is time to ask for help.
Every single moment is a chance to reorient yourself—to take a breath, to begin something, to end something, to be in nature. to stay in bed. to get muddy, to love, to be loved, to choose something. to choose not to do something. to feel your feet on the earth.
for those folk interested in my more formal EDUCATION & CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION, POST GRADUATE TRAINING AND CONTINUED EDUCATION:
Somatic Experience Therapy Training (Currently in Training)
Off the Mat; Into the World- A racially informed training on social justice and inclusivity
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Training
Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy Training
Vinyasa Hatha YTT-200 hours, August 2018
Psychoanalysis Institute for Expressive Analysis; 2012-2013
Derner Institute, Group Psychotherapy; 2012-2013
Masters in Social Work, Adelphi University; May 2012
B.A. Sociology, University New Paltz, SUNY; May 2004
LICENSURE, CERTIFICATES, MEMBERSHIP AND AWARD:
Licensed Clinical Social Worker (License #092078, New York State)
Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health
Iyengar Yoga
Licensed Master Social Worker (New York State)
National Association of Social Workers (NASW)
National Association of Social Workers New York City Chapter
New York City Medical Reserve Corps
Institute for Expressive Analysis (IEA) (2012-2013; 2017-2018)
NEDA
Eating Disorder Recovery Specialists
The Soldier Project
Tell Your Story Campaign
Village La Paz Foundation; Chaclacayo, Peru
ROAED
peer reviewed PUBLICATIONS:
Quiros, L., Kay, L. & Montijo, A.M.. (2013), Creating emotional safety in the classroom and in the field. Reflections: Narratives of Professional Healing, 18 (2), 39-44.
Contested Representations of a Family Responsibility Law: The Case of Singapore’s Maintenance of Parents Act of 1995, Journal of Policy Practice, 13:2, 118-132, DOI: 10.1080/15588742.2014.881273