• I love to laugh.
• Outside in summer + by my fireplace in winter = happy me.
• I ditched my TV last year and haven’t missed it.
• I believe in telling the truth and showing up 100%.

I am an expert at combining my laser-sharp listening skills with creating a safe place for my clients. It’s here that things start to go BOOM (in a good way).

Art has been a big deal in my own healing journey. I wrote poems and plays as a kid and went on to become a journalist until I came down with a severely depressing bout of Repetitive Strain Injury. It pretty much shelved my writing career and made living independently nearly impossible. Since then, I’ve extensively studied and used art as a healing tool.

Roger Mateo Poquet via Compfight

Yoga also helped. My mom told me to try it, nearly 20 years ago. And damn it, she was right.

At my first class, I felt like a pretzel. Then … at the end … we did Savasana (also known as Corpse Pose). Just lying still for 20 minutes. When I came out of it, I was astonished how good my body felt. For the first time ever, I felt at home in my body (I still get goosebumps when I remember that).

I went from there to living/volunteering every winter at Kripalu Yoga Center.  In 2000, they gave me a scholarship to become a certified yoga teacher (200-hour level). Several times per year, I offer yoga classes for trauma survivors and for mental health professionals. And I practice yoga almost every day.

And the professional highlights . . . 

I am a licensed clinical social worker in both New Jersey and New York. I got my Bachelors and Masters degrees from the State University of New York. I have a post-graduate certificate in Advanced Child Maltreatment Studies from the New Jersey Child Abuse Training Institute. I am certified in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). 

Another healing tool I use is pet therapy. Ria (in the photo) is a dog that I adopted from Horsecreek Farm and Wildlife Sanctuary in Tennessee. Her duties are:

• Greeting
• Playing
• Sleeping

Now a gigantic plug for Horsecreek. They do amazing work for unwanted and/or abused dogs  – read about it here.

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