Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was surrounded by the healing arts, yet I took a winding road to arrive at Little River Somatic Healing.

I first fell in love with the arts and received a B.A. in creative writing from Brown University. After working in music, film, theater, dance, and food journalism, I discovered a passion for restaurants and hospitality. Through a decade working in fine dining in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, I obsessed about building cultures of compassionate leadership that enabled teams to collaborate effectively at the highest level. I found much of this as a dining room manager at three Michelin starred Eleven Madison Park, once named the World’s Best Restaurant.

But as I moved into coaching hospitality leaders and business owners, it became clear that an industry rife with toxic practices needed a refresh. And as I looked at other “leading” industries, I saw the same extractive machine mentality that left many of us anxious, isolated, and depressed. I went looking for new ideas, until I realized that new ideas were not sufficient for positive change — I had to find practices that could transform people at the body level.

I found what I was looking for (and much more) at Strozzi Institute, where I went on to receive my certification in somatic coaching. It became clear that my calling was not to change the hospitality industry, but to get to the root of how humans heal and transform.

I have since received years of extensive training and mentorship in somatic coaching and somatic bodywork with lead teachers Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Staci Haines, A.J. Pape, Madeline Wade, and Elizabeth Ross. Additionally I trained in polarity therapy with Tree of Life Center and North American indigenous healing with Coyote Institute. I study conflict facilitation with Miki Kashtan and the Weaving Togetherness Lab. And I have worked for years inside cooperatively-governed organizations, notably as an associate at the international consultancy Greaterthan, a founding member of Building Belonging, and consultant to Bar Agricole.

Somatics made profound shifts possible in my life, including stepping fully into committed partnership, moving out of the city to steward land, and becoming a parent. Somatics is a lifelong path of growth for me — a continual peeling back of new layers — letting go of historical patterns that no longer serve me, stepping more authentically into who I am, and taking on new practices aligned with who I want to be.

When I’m not seeing clients, you can find me hiking in the forest with my dog and two kids, mixing pizza dough, making cardamom coffee, tending the garden, cleaning up chicken poop, dancing, playing board games with neighbors, and looking for ways to build local community.