I am a licensed acupuncturist in the state of California, with a Masters of Traditional Oriental Medicine. My deepest area of focus has been on the psycho-spiritual aspects of Chinese medicine and acupuncture. This system approaches mental health as completely integrated with somatic experience and the movement of energy in the body. Starting in 2016, I trained at the International College of Medical Qigong, where I completed the Medical Qigong Practitioner program. I am currently in the process of finishing my clinical hours for the Medical Qigong Master’s program. I have also trained for seven years with movement teacher Mariane Karou of Dance Alive, which has profoundly influenced my understanding of mental-emotional experience as inextricably linked to somatic experience. I have also been a student of Buddhism for 15 years, which further informs my approach.

I have personally wrestled with anxiety, depression, dissociation, OCD, and a general sense of “something is wrong.” I’ve often been told to “get out of my head.” Although I understood that I was living in an overly mental, disembodied state, for a long time I had no idea how to get back into my body - despite years of training in yoga, meditation, and other body-mind disciplines. Through working closely with mentors in the field of somatic movement, I learned how to disentangle ruminative thought and return to an embodied state. I studied my own OCD in painstaking detail, like examining intricate clockwork to figure out how it functions. And I came to understand OCD not simply as a syndrome to escape, but as a process made of many parts, which CAN be unraveled with the right tools and guidance. I love sharing what has worked for me, and helping others to wake up from the OCD trance in real time.