Unflinching support to explore your story.
All of it.
Welcome
I'm honored that you're here.
A specific event has likely brought you here. It may be a large one–the bad day in Iraq or the day you were told to stop working. Or maybe you can't stop thinking about a seemingly small recent incident, piled on top of all the others.
Either way, it’s hard to talk about what went wrong. You’d like to lock your memories in a box and throw away the key. You’ve been doing that for years, and now the box is getting full. You work long hours so you don’t have time to think, but you keep thinking about it anyway. You can’t remember the last time you had a good night’s sleep. Or a day off.
You’re tired, angry, and burned out. You might be drinking too much.
You are living within a deeply uncaring system. Leaders are supposed to care about their people. The military is supposed to be a band of brothers and sisters—a family—with no one left behind. Federal service was supposed to be a life-time career, dedicated to helping the country. You agreed to serve, with the expectation that you'd be doing something good, and that your leadership would support you. Instead, they used you and spat you out.
You're feeling frustrated, because you see the problems and it feels like you should be able to solve them. You're angry, because it feels like the system isn't living up to its side of the bargain.
Let me name this anger more precisely. It’s betrayal. You had a solid moral compass, and now it's been shattered.
Honor, courage, and commitment are more than words. They are virtues. Standing up for what’s right. Protecting others. Striving for excellence. Refusing to quit. These virtues are good.
The problem is that we're living within systems that don’t uphold those ideals. Institutional cultures within the military, police, and the federal government are still rife with oppression and old-fashioned, "good-old boys" thinking. Hierarchies, racism, and sexism contribute to toxic workplaces in which people aren't held accountable for their behavior. Our capitalist culture exploits people's willingness to work hard, with no regard for people's health or family life. It makes us feel guilty for wanting to take a vacation.
Let me help you take an honest accounting of what's happened in your life, as well as the context in which everything occurred. We can start slowly, at an hour a week. Or we can move more intentionally and intensively. Either way, we'll make a plan, and I'll help you find a way forward. We'll start with whatever is bothering you the most, right now. This could be something recent, or memories from your childhood. Either way, we'll move at a pace that's comfortable for you, focusing on what you find most important. If you don't want to talk about all of it, that's fine. I'm certified in Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), which provides a framework for you to get to the heart of your experiences, without necessarily retelling the entire story out loud.
I offer a space where you can bring your whole self. All your thoughts and feelings, even if they seem contradictory. You may be sad and angry. You can understand, rationally, that it wasn't your fault, while still feeling guilty about what happened. I use Internal Family Systems (IFS), or parts work, as a way to help you bring all these thoughts and feelings to the table. We'll ask your internal critics to be quiet for a while, so you can sit with your other feelings for a while.
With me, you'll:
- Reckon with what happened,
- Reflect on the context in which it happened, and
- Rebuild your sense of trust in yourself, so you can decide what to do next. I believe you can find ways to do constructive, meaningful work again. There are always options.