People have shared their feelings and struggles with me since I was a kid. Back then, I didn’t always know why people were drawn to share with me, but I did my best to listen and I could see that it made them feel better. Adults told me I should be a counselor, but I drew away from what at the time sounded like a big responsibility. I pursued other interests and goals academically and professionally, but I never stopped filling that role for the people in my life.

Fast-forward to my late 20s when I first came to therapy as a client. I started reckoning with my own history of complex trauma and uncovered a lot that my mind and body had maneuvered around or stopped paying attention to. I learned how to face and feel what I couldn’t when I was younger, and with the skillful guidance of my therapist, I started to work through the protections and unconscious strategies that had kept me tangled up internally and in my relationships. I began to feel more clear, more ease—more myself.

When I was in my 30s, I had a string of experiences and epiphanies that pointed me unambiguously toward becoming a therapist, and I realized that I was ready to learn how to accompany others on their journeys. So back to school and training I went, and it’s been a fascinating and transformative ride. I feel humbled and honored (no, really) to be invited into people’s lives, and helping folks tap into their own healing potential has been incredibly rewarding.

Now I balance my psychotherapy practice with my first career in theatre. I’m a classically-trained singer and hold two degrees in voice, and I perform opera, light opera, musical theatre, and plays on stages around the Bay Area. These two passions and disciplines complement each other surprisingly well, and each informs the work I do in the other. Both require deep empathy, understanding through embodiment, and the willingness to be vulnerable. Humans are the most beautiful puzzles ever, and both therapy and theatre make us scrutable through introspection, expression, and experimentation.