Growing up I found freedom in moving my body. I loved to ride anything with wheels including unicycles, I played sports and explored acrobatics. One of the greatest gifts of my childhood came at a summer camp in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina where I experienced a sense of belonging that remains a resource to this day.

Some of my latent emotional and relational challenges came forward in my late teens and early twenties as several of my friends died early tragic deaths. I was ill equipped to handle these losses. For a number of years I used drugs to cope with the profound feelings of shame, anger and grief that I had never learned how to acknowledge, let alone be with in any sort of healing way.

Moving to Hawaii in my mid-twenties was a turning point. I left behind the routines and relationships that had been shaping — and limiting — my life, and began my formal education the somatic healing arts at the Pacific Center for Awareness and Bodywork. This was a great move. I ended up spending several years associated with that school and developing relationships with some remarkable therapists and teachers that continue to inform the work that I do today.

The breath-taking aliveness of Hawaii led me to pursue more experiences with the wilderness and the resilience and vitality that can be found there. For three years I facilitated rites-of-passage trips and worked in wilderness therapy with youth and young adults in crisis. The work was profound — and it also revealed something important: many people dealing with complex or long-standing challenges needed more than wilderness experience. They needed support in reconnecting to their bodies, where so much of both the difficulty and the healing actually lives.