I didn’t always know I wanted to be a therapist. It wasn’t some childhood dream or big moment of clarity; **it was a quiet pull. **

I grew up in a household marked by emotional distance. After my parents divorced, I stayed in my childhood home with my father, a Vietnam Army veteran who, like many from his generation, dismissed emotions as weakness. **I wasn’t given much space or guidance to explore what I might want for myself as joining the military was presented as the right path; the responsible choice. **

So I became a U.S. Marine and spent four years immersed in a male-dominated culture where emotions were, once again, seen as weakness.

It wasn’t until years later that I started to see how these early dynamics had shaped me and my relationships. In fact, it was the complicated relationship with my mother that first pushed me to try therapy for myself.

When I decided to explore options for going back to school, I stumbled across a counseling program — not something I had planned, but something that felt right in my body.

Graduate school became a season of intense self-discovery. I learned the psychological frameworks and, more importantly, the emotional truths that helped me make sense of my own life, family, patterns, and pain.

My relationship with my mom improved in ways I never expected. Looking back, I know it wasn’t because she changed — it was because I did. I began setting boundaries. I showed up differently. And even when I fell back into old codependent dynamics while caring for her through terminal cancer, I came out of that experience with deeper awareness, clarity, and compassion.

Since then, I have built a life that actively supports her mental health. My own emotional wellbeing is important to me, and my personal experience gives me a grounded, human-centered lens for helping others.

**I believe there’s no one right path — no set agenda we’re supposed to follow. **

Sometimes, the best steps we take are the ones that don’t make sense to anyone else, but feel undeniably true to us.

That’s what I help my clients find: a way forward that’s grounded, self-directed, and shaped by who they are, not who they were told to be.

My gift isn’t just clinical insight. It’s being able to relate. To reflect. To sit with someone in the mess and help them find meaning inside of it.

Because I’ve been there. And I know what it means to come home to yourself.