There is value in everyone being where they are at in their process. This sentence came to me like a directive while I sat in a room of philanthropy professionals at varying, overlapping, and contradictory levels of understanding equity, justice, and community care. Rather than applying rigid, puritanical concepts of “right” or “wrong” to the situation or creating hierarchies of disposability in my mind, my role in the situation was to accept, learn to work with, extend compassion towards, and integrate the energies available. I apply this strategy to every facet of my counseling, consulting, and coaching. I assess the impact of our work together by your own internal sense of alignment, rather than any external societal “benchmarks” or goal posts. How in touch do you feel with your path? My work is to help you feel resourced, cared for, tended to, and affirmed exactly where you are, and when appropriate, reflect back where they may be vital opportunities for maturation, integration, and growth. I believe we all hold a vital piece of our collective healing and liberation, and that we are most capable of offering our piece by being exactly who and where we are. I trust you to listen to your own internal guidance system, steward your life force energy in a way that works best for you, and cultivate the contributions that are uniquely yours to give. However, whenever, and wherever our paths converge, I commit to meeting you with curiosity and care. I have immeasurable faith in your infinite potential and unwavering respect for your unique path.

Intimacy is healthy and possible in professional healing relationships. When I first received the vision of starting my own healing practice, I imagined serving folks from a house in the middle of a forest- a warm, soft, landing place, open for consistent resourcing and care. In my vision, the natural cycles of life made it so that I always had enough to give, enough time for pleasure/play, and enough time to rest. While I do not serve clients from the middle of a forest (yet!), I still cultivate this energy in the heart of the city, on couches, in community gathering spots, and on video calls where we share space. A typical day in my practice involves heart-to-heart conversation, compassionate witnessing, and abundant revelations, shared over a fixed candle and herbal tea. Moving into the depths with one another in agreed upon and boundaried ways fills me with a sense of honor and purpose. Over the years, I have found that the most transformative and profound work occurs when emotional and spiritual intimacy is present, when we know one another in a relational way.

I honor sex workers and the archetype of the whore, who teach me that intimacy is a basic human need, and also a service, and also a crucial, sacred, and healing form of care to provide. I distrust and rebuke models of healing that require practitioners to be separate from the communities they serve, practicing in sterile, commodified, siloed, policed and surveilled environments. Boundaries and expectations are crucial for the healthful flow of any relationship, and I practice them often with friends, collaborators, clients, my inner parts, and even my ancestors and guides. However, boundaries and expectations enforced by governing and licensing bodies are stifling to the spirit and detrimental to the human soul. I believe in building bonds that transcend and defy colonial and carceral logic, bonds that affirm our shared humanity, and that also meet your needs. Even as we are in a healing, therapeutic, and supportive relationship, we are also community members, cohabitants, neighbors, relatives, and co-conspirators. I use the term “client” to refer to those I work with because it indicates I am in a position of service to those who trust me to hold the inner workings of their lives with care- in this relationship, I am responsible for showing up regulated and applying the highest level of ethical and spiritual integrity to our interactions. I take this responsibility seriously, while still bringing my humble and honest human self to the table- I truly am on this Earth journey with you.

Freedom is available to us now- let’s practice together. Freedom is a concept that has been co-opted by the settler colonial project to make us feel like our power lives outside of our bodies, resides in someone else’s control, and is perpetually out of reach. In my practice, however, I orient towards freedom as a somatic sensation, a spiritual, emotional, and creative well inside our beings that we can access and channel to the best of our capacity in our living days. In our work together, I support you in noticing this sensation, not through spiritual bypassing but through a deep dropping-into material conditions and the very real feelings that pulse through you. Freedom is in the courageous act of facing our external conditions and allowing ourselves to grieve. Freedom is also in the act of conjuring our ethereal and physical bodies towards our most satiating dreams. Freedom is turning inward, attuning to our inner ecosystem, and listening for what all our moving parts need. Freedom is an opening that allows more and more of ourselves out, in, and through. We practice freedom as we come together to fortify our spiritual truths.