The first part of my journey in tandem with traditional counseling lead me to obtain my 200 hour yoga certification with master Tampa teachers Annette Scott, Marley Vigdorth, and Mallory Dillon.  Yoga helped me to understand that we’re so much more than just the physical body.  While the postures in yoga look great, they’re only a small fraction of what the practice is.  I went from falling asleep and drooling on myself in meditation to finding myself completely fascinated with meditation, but not the kind where you just sit there and try to not have thoughts, because that’s doable, right?  (***enter sarcasm***)  I delved into research about our energetic body and when I first came across this information, I just knew intuitively, there’s something to this, later to find out there’s actually physics behind our chakra system and energy.  I became a Master Reiki practitioner certified with Aiyana Fraley.  I  engrained yoga and physical movement along with energy balancing and meditation into my regular routine.  Who would have thought…In my 30s, I was able to come off of the blood pressure medication and switch to a natural low dose supplement which helped to manage my condition.  I found out that when we have major energetic blockages, then they often times manifest themselves into physical symptoms and illness in the body. 

I thought to myself, well what does that mean then?  My next step in my journey lead me to extensive research on what this thing is we call Trauma.  I read books, attended more yoga training to become trauma certified.  Dr. Peter Levine is one of my favorites in understanding trauma and processing it somatically through the physical body which is where the yogic practices I had picked up then made so much more sense as to why they worked.  Teaching yoga and meditation in studio environments led me to understand that there were unique energetic frequences and sometimes traumas that walked through the door with each beautiful soul that I had the pleasure to come across.  With this realization, I decided that my path was to pursue my Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.  And who loves more than to talk and listen to alternative perspectives than a Gemini 😊 it was a natural fit. 

I’ve also had the pleasure to train with a magical medicine woman based in Canada, Gretchen Hickmott, who was able to help me to lay the foundation to connect with spirituality, my higher Self, oracle and tarot cards, soul readings, akashic record readings, and astrology.   Astrology being a language in itself, has been a modality that I have been studying for a few years now and provides an energetic imprint of each planet when you are born.  I like to call it a bit of a roadmap for the soul and in his later work Carl Jung began to use astrology to help his clients understand themselves better and to delve into what we now call shadow work.  I use a humanistic approach called Western astrology. 

In addition to astrology, I am also in an herbalist program which drew my interest because if we’re all energy and if everything is an energetic exchange well, then that must mean that all living things in mother nature must be able to help contribute to our being because she runs the largest ecosystem ever….nature.  I have had the pleasure to study under Rose Kalajian, veteran herbalist, here in Tampa whose knowledge came directly from the lineage of Rosemary Gladstar’s teachings.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed incorporating herbal aids into my life and into my client’s lives which are from the earth without any of the synthetic, chemically created foreign substances to help the physical body run in an optimal state.  I will be graduating from this year-long program in September 2024. 

AND….after all of this journey, I have come to understand that we are not “broken” and I believe firmly that all that is needed is to balance and nurture all aspects of self: mind, body, soul and spirit!