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I am a Chiropractor with a focus on applied Polyvagal Theory for building Somatic Awareness and Somatic Movement Education.  I currently help walk clients through a process of befriending the nervous system through a combination of polyvagal theory education and somatic movement that layers as we go month by month.  These act as assistance for clients to befriend the experience they are having inside of their bodies.  They also learn new skills and recognize current skills that assist their unique nervous systems in regulation.  This supports movement towards a rhythmic experience of wholeness as they move with the expansions and contractions of their life material.

 

I hold a B.A. in Dance from the University of Washington with special interest in improvisation, dance therapy, and Laban Movement.  I am also a certified yoga teacher 200 hours from Om Yoga Studio in New York.  My somatic movement work is influenced through hours in the studio with Anna Halprin, Tamalpa courses and retreats, as well as Continuum training both private and group.  My work has emerged through a combination of experiential study, professional experience, and development of curriculums.  It continues to emerge in the relational space between me, the people that I work with, and mentors.

 

Who I am the most specialized to help:

 

 

People moving through periods of overwhelm, loss, chronic pain or illness, disease diagnosis & treatment (including the healing and integration that takes place after going through acute medical treatments), dysregulation, or other somatic symptoms arising from current or accrued life stressors. Parents or partners wishing to gain an understanding of their own nervous systems, so as to better befriend the nervous system of the home, partners, and children. Those persons wishing to develop new texture in their relationship to their embodied experience.

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I do this through a felt sense educational process over 9 primary one hour sessions spread out once a month.  The Befriending of the nervous system process allows an individual to come to understand why they feel the way they do in response to life's "triggers and glimmers."  It is also a polyvagal informed way to organize healing resources including lifestyle modification.  This combination of care helps to increase the body’s resilience and adaptive qualities.  It helps someone to feel "at home in the body".  This in turn increases the individual's capacity to be fluidly present within and for oneself, others, and life itself.  

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What does a great day at the office look like for you?

 

I am finding that as I slow down to yield to my own biorhythm, I am also enjoying slowing down inside of my client care rhythm.  I am feeling a lot of inspiration as well from following an impulse to focus a lot of my professional development on tools that I can teach to clients so that they become more deeply empowered inside of their day to day lives.

 

I love seeing a blossoming of the inner experience in my clients come alive as inherently valuable.  A friendly relationship with self and the body can become restored as we learn why our biological survival responses respond to life the way that they do.  

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It is a deep joy to witness clients discovering the wisdom and communication that comes from connecting to life material through the  medium of movement.  Most clients have never done anything "somatic" or "dance" before and the lights that come on as they discover the felt sense of aha inside of a movement inquiry is a privilege to participate in.

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What are the specific “tools in your toolbox”:

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The framework of my client care is based on the Befriending of the Nervous System as shaped by Deb Dana.  This becomes the foundation for the somatic education I provide for clients.  Clients then learn how their own autonomic nervous system is responding to life and how to befriend and offer it resources unique to them. Somatic movement  becomes a part of how I help a client gain a deeper felt sense and inner or "interoceptive" relationship.  These somatic movements become resources for helping the nervous system to gain a greater sense of fluidity, or, dynamic regulation.

 

My trainings and influences are listed below by category.  

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Chiropractic Training:

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I am no longer accepting new chiropractic clients, however, a decade and a half of working hands on with the spine and focusing on nervous system tone informs my somatic movement work.  

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Zone Healing Chiropractic, 13 years of experience.  I apply adjusting the patterns of the specific zones either tonally, with rocking of the areas of the spine associated in order to have a healing “conversation” with the nervous system, or through the more classic style of higher velocity adjusting where the “sound” is heard.  I prefer to use the least amount of force needed to assist the body towards greater fluidity and to help teach the body how to access it's own integration off of the table.

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Bio Geometric Integration, 12 years of experience with my own approach to this chiropractic philosophy and practice.  This creates an in-depth way in which I can feel and help to release patterns of held tensions and traumas throughout the system, in a way that is the most gentle and respectful of the person and tissues at hand.

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Polyvagal Informed light touch of areas of the head and neck associated with cranial nerves and the vagal nerve that make up the "polyvagal" neurological system.

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Activator and Drop Table

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Webster Certified for Prenatal Care with the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association

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Somatic Movement Training:​

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Ongoing Individual Mentoring with Amber Gray, PHD, MPH, LPCC, BC-DMT, NCC, Summer 2021-Present

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Tamalpa Level 2 Training Class September 2023-October 2024

 

Tamalpa Level 1 Training Graduate April 2022-Spring 2023

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B.A. in Dance from University of Washington with focus on Dance Therapy and Improvisation​​

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Vinyasa Yoga Teacher, trained at Om Yoga in NYC in 2001.  

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Countless hours in studios in San Francisco, Oakland, New York, Boston, and Burlington with Haitian, Cuban, West African, and Modern Dance instructors and choreographers across numerous dance and dance theater specializations.

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Conference Participant:  Engaging Embodiment; Somatic Applications for Health, Education, & Social Justice, Feb-Dec 2021 through ISMETA

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Continuum Student & Personal Daily Practice Fall 2019 to Present (Teachers I have experienced include Beth Riley, Marcella Bottero, Marilyn Montgomery, Amber Grey, and Bonnie Gintis)

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Hannah Somatics Personal Daily Practice learned from senior teacher Phil Shenk also informs my somatic awareness.

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Retreats and ongoing participation with Tamalpa Institute and the work of Anna Halprin (2010-Present) with Anna Halprin, Rosario Summartino and Daria Halprin.

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Polyvagal Theory Training:

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Ongoing Individual Mentoring with Amber Gray, PHD, MPH, LPCC, BC-DMT, NCC, Summer 2021-Present

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Polyvagal Institute Summit Oct. 2022

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The Rhythm of Regulation formal Training Level 1 with Deb Dana and Trainers.  Offered through the Polyvagal Institute.  April -Aug 2021

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Safe and Sound Protocol Certified for In Person and Virtual Delivery (SSP) (Not currently delivering SSP)

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Professional Training with Jeff Rockwell​​, DC, DOMP 2020

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Personal Development courses (Ground in the Swirl) with Amber Gray 2020

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Books:  Polyvagal Theory for Safety and Connection, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy, Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory, Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve, Polyvagal Theory and the Developing Child

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Mind/Body Training:

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Training in Relaxation Response instruction as researched by Dr. Herbert Benson

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Ad Hart Facilitator, for teaching the Hart Math method of establishing coherence

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Self-Compassion technique as taught by Dr. Kristin Neff

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Conferences with The Greater Good Institute on Gratitude and Awe

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Institute of Noetic Sciences Conference with a full day of study with Rupert Sheldrake

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Former Concept Therapy instructor.  Through deep participation with this work I have found ways to help clients both through the use of “mind/body” awareness for one’s benefit, as well as a deep understanding of the potential pit-falls of using “mind/body” techniques and metaphysical approaches that begin to actually dysregulate the nervous system through denial of one’s whole experience.  Deep understanding of the pitfalls of focusing only on "the good" while ignoring the body's need to be listened to when signaling "the bad", aka spiritual bypassing.

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Currently an “Insight Timer” meditation instructor with free guided visualizations available.

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Professional Development Through Experience:

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Documentary Filmmaking of the film “Love Bomb” (2015)

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Development of the “My Love Bomb Program” (2015-2018)

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Leading and developing women’s “You Matter” groups throughout the U.S. (2016-2018)

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Professional Cycling Team Chiropractor for Bontrager Livestrong, 2012 & 2013 seasons

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Volunteer Chiropractor for Pathway Home Program, 2011 -2013

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International Chiropractic Service work in El Salvador, India, and Peru

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Being a Parent, Wife, Daughter, Sister, Friend and Human in the ever unfolding process of life.

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What am I excited to keep learning?

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I am deeply engaged in the laboratory of learning through mentorships with others, courses, and personal development inquiry through direct experience both within my own daily practice, and with the ever emergent work of collaborating in the care of others.​​​

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Streams of inquiry, along with applied Polyvagal Theory and Embodiment include learning/unlearning of systemic racism and other social and environmental issues as they intersect with our lives, our bodies, and our health.  

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My son is perhaps my greatest teacher, along with Mother Nature, with whom we spend an enormous amount of time.

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