Writing a New
Story for Myself
Through inner work, outside help, study, humor, and faith, a sense of inner freedom and healing has emerged. Leveraging more than thirty years of experience helping others (including my three beloved children) determine their strengths, challenges, and passions as a high school teacher and mama bear, I decided to graduate a while back and am writing a new story for myself. Inspired by many authors and poets, family and friends, I heartedly agree with rupi kaur, “and now/ for the main event/ curtains up at fifty/let’s begin the show” (timeless).
“When we are born, our stories are already in motion. We add all we can and subtract what no longer fits, so that those who follow flourish.”
My husband of fifteen years and I recently relocated to sunny Florida from the Pacific Northwest partly for his work on rockets but mostly to combat my intense seasonal depression. Menopause, burnout, illness, unresolved wounding, and depression created a desperation for renewal and were a few of my personal invitations to important changes.
As a lifelong learner, I’ve recently completed training as a spiritual director from Denver Seminary and am currently learning about the Enneagram, leaning into creativity of all types, developing workshops / retreats, coaching teachers and people in or desiring transitions, volunteering at the local high school as a mentor and college application coach, and training our Bernese Mountain Dog.
In addition to learning and spending time with my family, I enjoy swimming, writing, quilting, riding my beach cruiser around the neighborhood, getting a Double Bergamot tea with a scone or muffin at the local bakery, making lists, and meeting up with friends for lunch or online.
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Trauma-informed, LBGTQI+ friendly practice with training and/or experience with mental health, single parenting, educators and other helping professions, anxiety, depression, military families, cross culture, divorce recovery, blended families, adulting, developmental spirituality, marriage, relocation –especially with children, college applications and writing process, empty nest, caring for aging parents, spiritual growth, discerning movements of the soul, and more.
College Application Process and What Happens Next for Students and Parents
Mid-Life Ladies
From the mid-thirties to mid-fifties, ladies are torn in many directions: career, parenting, marriage, care taking, social obligations, health challenges, unmet expectations in/for marriage and family, emotional dysregulation, hormonal changes, etc. We often do this all while managing the house and making sure everyone has dinner and clean socks! The time you and I spend together will be for you–just you. Come to find yourself again, come to let go of what hinders you, come to ignite new dreams, come to heal, come to find whatever you seek and hopefully a little extra too.
The Enneagram
The Enneagram gives language to what a person can see and can not see about themselves, others, and relationships. It has been said that the Enneagram is different from a personality test because it does not put you into a box, it releases you from the box you are already in.
Using the Enneagram in my coaching and spiritual direction practices adds another tool to help you unlock areas that are blocking you from moving forward in life, relationships, and healing. Ask about blending your session to include Enneagram coaching.
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B.S. Secondary English Education (University of Central Florida, Orlando, 1991)
National Board Certified Teacher (2005-2030)
Masters in Educational Leadership (American College of Education, 2010)
Spiritual Director (Denver Seminary Soul Care Initiative, 2025)
Graduate-level work at Denver Seminary toward M. A. in Spiritual Formation (2024-2025)
Go & Tell Gals Coaching Certification, complete Dec. 2025
PAX Institute Enneagram Certification, complete Jan. 2026
“Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to the body and soul.”
JOHN MUIR
This is my favorite John Muir quote–I even bought it on a T-shirt while on a road trip through Yosemite in 1996. For me, sitting in the quiet of a babbling brook, under the shade of a tree, feeling the sun warm my face while the breeze flows past, or watching the birds in my backyard search for food reflect the sentiment of this quote as they heal and give strength to my body and my soul.
I confess, though, that often I miss nature’s gift because I am not still enough to receive it. If I had another life to live, I may be a dendrologist because I believe nature, trees in particular, have a lot to teach us about life, endurance, and living together in harmony with ourselves and others. Maybe in a way as a coach I am a dendrologist, but for people. After all, tree rings carry a remarkable resemblance to a thumbprint!
Update on my 50 states checklist:
Only five more to go!
A family favorite for us, the road trip is so much more than a means to arrive at a designated spot. The journey is 80% of the fun:
Snacks: What is your favorite road trip snack? Mine? Goldfish pretzels with a king-sized bag of peanut M&Ms shaken in.
Music: For hours we pass the AUX cord around the car to take turns playing a song for the car. The kids used to groan when my husband and I would belt out 80s classics but now they plug in their own favorites from a wide range of decades. (High five for parenting wins right there!)
Side Quests: To get from Bothell, WA to Titusville, FL we (my husband, Ollie the 97-pound Bernese Mountain Dog, and I) drove 3,716 miles in Purple Rain (my RAV4), hitting 9 states and 7 National Parks/Monuments. It was a little quiet in the car when my husband revealed that we missed driving through Minnesota by about 30 miles! He told me this in Kentucky (he was lucky I did not turn around). Google Maps says this trip should be completed in 3,107 miles, but the side trips make the trip!
Talks: nothing like being trapped in the vehicle to have deep conversations about nothing at all or the elephant that has sucked the air out of your house for months.
Connection: As an Enneagram Two, connection is a huge part of how I am wired. When I road trip with someone else, the biggest takeaway is our time together. When I roadtrip alone, I connect with nature, locals, authors of audio books, and the quietest parts of myself.
