Hi there. I’m happy you’re here.

I’m writing this for anyone seeking support and wondering how I might be able to help.

I see our nervous systems as having two primary modes: protection and connection.

We’ll get to connection mode in a sec.

We have two “flavors” of protection mode: there’s fight-or-flight and there’s collapse. Both flavors of protection are survival responses. In fight-or-flight, we’re pumping energy into our body so we can act with speed and power; in collapse, we’re draining energy out of our body so we can go numb to that which is overwhelming.

Protection mode is such a gift. It gives us the capacity to navigate the great variety of dangers that come our way. Our protective superpowers have helped us survive as a species, and they’ve undoubtedly helped you overcome many challenges.

However, when protection becomes our default mode, we suffer.

When fight-or-flight becomes chronic, we routinely experience uncomfortable states like anxiety, worry, restlessness, mania, fright, panic, anger, and rage. There’s too much volatile energy in our bodies and minds.

On the other hand, the collapse response can lead us into depression, withdrawal, collapse, hopelessness, numbness. There’s too little energy for us to work with.

When we’re always in protection mode, it disturbs our digestion, our sleep, our immune system, our relationships, our work, our sense of hope and purpose. It disturbs our lives, often deeply.

This is where I come in. I help people build pathways out of protection and into connection.

When we feel connected—to our surroundings, to other beings, to ourselves—we feel safe. We have access to states of ease and contentment. We’re in touch with our intelligence, our creativity, and our compassion. We feel like we’re “in the flow.”

I use a variety of modalities to help people move into connection mode, including acupuncture, touchwork, and herbalism. Most importantly, I provide embodiment practices that help to cultivate a “felt sense” of what it’s like to be you—what it’s like when you’re feeling connected and also what it’s like to be in protection mode. I help you strengthen your pathways out of protection and into connection, so that they become familiar and reliable.

We all need protection sometimes. It’s great that we have fight-or-flight and collapse in our toolbox. But we can forget how to put down those tools. I’m here to help remind you how to put them down and how to pick up your greatest asset—your ability to feel safe, connected, and resilient.

So, that’s the gist of what I do. If you’d like to hear this same information in the language of Yin and Yang, read on below. If you’d like to learn more about me, click here, or about my sessions, click here. Again, thanks for being here, and feel free to reach out anytime.

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The heart of my practice is promoting harmony between Yin and Yang. If that concept makes your eyes blur, don’t worry—I’ll keep it simple!

Yang is activity. Yin is rest. (Here’s a more detailed primer on the topic, if you’re interested.)

Yin and Yang are a fundamental duality—they’re at work in every facet of our experience, including our nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system is Yang—it activates us. We feel it as a surge of energy and heightened alertness. The parasympathetic nervous system (“rest-and-digest”) calms us. We experience it when we’re feeling relaxed, safe, heavy.

We can depict Yin and Yang as a wave. The ascending part of the wave is Yang—energy is rising. The descending part is Yin—energy is falling.

When Yin and Yang are in harmony, there are smooth waves in our nervous systems; there is a consistent alternation of mild sympathetic arousal and mild parasympathetic restoration. When our waves flow smoothly throughout our days and nights, we feel balanced. The peaks and valleys of these waves aren’t extreme; they’re manageable. We neither get too worked up nor too checked out.

These balanced waves are rising and falling within what’s called a “window of tolerance” (also known as the “zone of resiliency”), which you can see in the illustration. Notice how the yellow line keeps from going too high or too low.

When we encounter danger, our wave can spike upward or downward, beyond the threshold of the window of tolerance. When we’re “hyper-aroused,” we’re stimulating our bodies to produce the resources we need in order to navigate the danger. This is “fight-or-flight.” When we’re “hypo-aroused,” we’re in a state of collapse. Once we regain safety, we have the opportunity to ride the wave back within the window of tolerance, back to a smooth rhythm.

However, our waves can get stuck outside the window of tolerance. We can find ourselves zigzagging between hyper-arousal (the wave is too high) and hypo-arousal (the wave is too low). States of hyper-arousal include anxiety, panic, mania, rage, fright, and insomnia. Hypo-arousal tends to manifest as withdrawal, depression, and numbness.

Having a jagged wave is painful. We can’t really feel grounded, connected, or “in the flow,” because we’re perpetually amped up or zoned out. Our Yin and Yang are out of harmony.

It’s a great gift that we humans have the capacity to restore our waves. We can do this, first and foremost, by turning toward our experience. By feeling what it’s like to be outside the zone of resiliency, and learning how to get back in it.

My job is to help you do that.

If you’re struggling with being in your skin—if you feel like you reside outside the window of tolerance, in painful mental and physical states—know that you can restore your wave. You have the capacity to calm your inner storms. I’m here to help.

I also want to note that we can bring balance not only to the waves of our nervous systems, but also to the multitude of ways the body activates and relaxes, opens and closes, expands and contracts, “Yangs” and “Yins.” This includes our digestive, musculoskeletal, immune, endocrine, and reproductive systems.

From the perspective of Traditional East Asian Medicine, each of the twelve organ networks (the Lungs, Kidneys, Liver, etc.) can be “too Yin” (hypo-active) or “too Yang” (hyper-active). By promoting harmony within and among these organ networks, we can resolve a great many health problems.

Now, I’m not claiming to be able to help you heal every imbalance that comes your way. But by recognizing where you are over- or under-functioning and providing appropriate prompts (from embodiment exercises to acupuncture needles to herbal remedies), I can help you to widen the potential for healing to occur.

I’m here to walk alongside you as you more peacefully inhabit your body, more skillfully ride your waves.