I have a background in education, social justice, crisis management, and social work. My professional track record includes service in AmeriCorps, teaching in public schools, advocating for victim/survivors of sexual assault, helping families navigate the department of human services, providing gender affirming care within the health care system, building a gender affirming residential wilderness program, and conducting therapy with queer and trans adolescent and adults.

I developed my sense of freedom and worth in deep community – with my midwestern Irish Catholic roots, with my chosen queer and trans family, and with the lakes, rain, and forests. I prioritize being in relationship with people and being in relationship with the land. Embodying queer as an identity and a verb invites me to notice, question, and create the world I want to be live in – interdependent, centered, reciprocal.

We all have experience living within systems of power and control, that likely have not served us or created conditions for us to thrive. I believe dreaming new systems into existences begins with us as individuals and how we show up in relationship with ourself and with others. Systems of power and control are deeply entrenched in our culture, institutions, interpersonal interactions, and within our own thoughts, beliefs and narratives. Let’s unravel these systems and build nourishing pathways of connection. As adrienne maree brown says, “start small, small is all.” This is a fundamental approach I bring to my individual therapy clients and larger workshops – that what we are doing in the small moments are building patterns of knowing for the big moments. Radical shifts begin small and simple.

Who I am – my identities, positionality, experiences – impact how I move through space and where I am today.  I hold duality in who I am; my identities range from some with immense power and privilege and others that are marginalized. All that has shaped me is at my back, with me in every interaction and in every room, just as all that has shaped you is with you. There is beauty in duality, along with tension and complexity when we hold simultaneous truths about ourselves and our environment. My work as a therapist with individuals and as a facilitator with groups or organizations is to hold space, hold center, hold duality.