Whole Heart Awareness Coaching & Psychotherapy

To start off, I want to tell you, I love my work with clients. It is a shear pleasure to work with every one. I feel so fortunate to be in this work.

Since mindfulness is such an important potent force in psychotherapy and many fields now, here is a condensed version of my history which includes this background.

"Studying" meditation began for me in the Zen tradition in 1983 in which I practiced meditaton and koans for twenty years, many times in long retreats in remote mountains in Asia. Also, I practiced Tibetan Buddhism overlapping Zen practice mainly from around 1986-2001. In 1997, I met the oldest living monk in the world, Bhante Dharmavara.

In 1999, I started practicing Vipassana meditation. These practices are the basis for the forms of what we know today as "mindfulness" or "mindfulness meditation". I've studied with many great teachers including Zen Master Seung Sahn and studied with many beloved teachers including Sharon Salzberg, Howie Cohn, Eugene Cash, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sojun Mel Weitsman and Jon Kabat-Zinn. I also studied with as innovators such as Charlotte Selver who taught early on in the fledling field of somatics and founded the Sensory Awareness Foundation. I also admire Amma who came to the house where I was living in 1989 and who won the Gandhi-King Award for Nonviolence.

For long retreat practice, I've completed more than 700 days in five 3 month, one 2 month and a one month retreat and many 7- 10 day retreats. Many other weekend or daylong retreats would be impossible to count or include.

In 1997, I started studying empathy practices and since then attended four International Ten day Trainings (ITT) in Nonviolent Communication (NVC) with Marshall Rosenberg. I eventually taught these practices in San Quentin and Cornell Corrections in San Francisco. Bob Flax and I were instrumental in bringing Marshall Rosenberg into San Quentin to meet with then Warden Jeannie Woodford and I also arranged Marshall's first interview on KPFA.

Before I was ever certified for state mediation and studied work place mediation, my very first mediation involved people who I was told would kill each other if I did not come right away. Thankfully, they hugged after a two hour session instead.

In 2009, I took the teacher training in Mindfulness Stress Reduction (MBSR) with Bob Stahl and started John F Kennedy University (JFKU) completing a three year Master of Arts in Counseling, specializing in Transpersonal Psychotherapy in Holistic Studies, with cross over studies in Somatic Psychotherapy.

Before training as a therapist, I seemed to have an uncanny -- verging on the unusual -- ability to find business issues, solve them and know when to move forward or not on other decisions. This kind of intuition, I find useful and see in my current work with clients.

In my client work prior to licensure, I worked at a clinic for people who are in recovery and reentry. Some of the clients from San Quentin used their incarceration to change themselves and their self-knowledge, persistence and strengths to overcome incredible odds inspired me tremendously.

Around the same time, I saw K-8 students at an amazing Catholic school. The staff and principal at the school were fabulous, making it an unforgettable experience. I liked to say it was like working in heaven.

All of these experiences give a depth to my practice and inform my work in collaborative relationships with my clients.

As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), I am delighted to express gratitude to Bob Shelby, my main Supervisor for almost four years around the time of study at JFKU. He presented a settled calm and I enjoyed very much working with him. He provided an environment which was truly conducive to my growth. I also appreciate other supervisors who were instrumental in supporting me grow or helped me along the way.

As for my other interests, I studied art and music as a child and sold my first work at the age of seven. I've written a lot of poetry.