My Path To Here

I always knew I wanted to do "meaningful work". I remember that was my mantra for many years before I found nursing. I was raised in Richardson Texas and in high school, I got a job as a pharmacy technician with ideas of becoming a pharmacist. During my undergraduate years, I worked as a physical therapy assistant and thought I wanted to be a PT...but I didn't just want to treat a part of person, and even a part of a person's body, I wanted something more holistic.

After college, I moved to Oregon and waited tables (which I think everyone who eats out should have to wait tables at least for one day), was a vet tech, traveled, worked at hippy food stores, slinging espresso and shots of wheat grass juice. I finally found my way back to the medical field as a nursing assistant and then as a med aide in an assisted living where I became inspired to become a nurse. I started nursing in 2004 and enjoyed being able to care for those who found themselves at a crossroads in their life or struggling with chronic medical conditions that landed them in the hospital. For about 6 years in Oregon, I worked in hospitals on general medical-surgical, orthopedic, bariatric, and post-operative units, bedside nursing, all the while, looking for a more holistic approach to health and wellness. ​

A move back to Texas let me explore Hospice and GI nursing, for another 6 years, helping both in and outpatients before, during, and after endoscopies. With an eye for detail, I started scheduling and auditing for GI.

A move to Colorado gave me the opportunity to learn perioperative nursing where I was a circulating nurse in the OR, did more GI, and also pain procedures for a couple of years. So even though nursing had helped me to find meaning and purpose in my work, it also felt fragmented..."I have the hip in 305" or "we have the knee scope in OR2".

Colorado wasn't quite a good fit for me and my family and I ended up back at Arlington Memorial where I started scheduling and auditing for Interventional Radiology for several years. When I was looking at schedules and spreadsheets all day, smoking and drinking as ways of unhealthy coping habits, I knew I had drifted away from "meaningful work".

During one of my numbing out times on Netflix, I came across documentaries about psilocybin mushrooms, ibogaine, and Ayahuasca and how these "plant medicines" were helping people with serious mental health disorders. There was such a deep knowing that I rather quickly sought out a retreat center and over the course of a weekend, had 3 Ayahuasca ceremonies that utterly changed my life.

My message from that first weekend was that I should engage a yoga teacher training prgram, to which I thought, "I'm not flexible" and "I don't even have a regular practice", and "I don't know any of the weird names of poses." Little did I know that the yoga postures are just a small fraction of what the world of yoga has to offer. One of the big take-a-ways for me was that the outer mirrors the inner... As I continued to change on the inside, it became clear to me that nursing was no longer fulfilling.

After such a transformative experience with Ayahuasca, I decided I wanted to help others find these powerful medicines as catalysts for awakening. I learned that there were counselors who were already helping people with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy using ketamine and that there were robust clinical trials that had been going on for the past 40 years with MDMA (ectasy, or molly) and psilocybin (magic mushrooms)! 

After my initial 200 hr yoga teacher training, I took an additional 50 hours of trauma-informed yoga teacher training that introduced me to yoga nidra (nidra means sleep). It was during my Integrative Restoration (iRest) level 1 yoga nidra teacher training that I learned about the koshas...these layers or sheaths of ourselves that make up our whole experience as a human being. Our dense physical body, our minds and emotions, our personality, our heart-centered awareness, and even the witness consciousness, that spark of awareness that is none of those layers. Another piece of the holistic puzzle!

For 3 years during my graduate studies in counseling, I taught trauma-informed yoga, yoga nidra and gave sound baths in the Behavioral Health Department at Huguley Hospital. I engaged in my own weekly yoga nidra practice with my yoga partner and continued to watch my outer world change as I continued on my journey.

So in just a few years, I have completely changed who I am, the meaningful work I do, the mind-body yogic practices I engage in, how I move through the world, the quality of my relationships, my internal dialog, and even decreased the chronic pain I had been experiencing before my back surgery in 2019 and after. Although ultimately it was my choice to change, I had help from others. I have been in weekly counseling since 2020 and I have a tremendously supportive husband, understanding sons, my yoga partner, my furry kids, and other nurturing friends. I have experienced first-hand the power of a skilled therapist and have aligned myself with trainings that these counselors used to help facilitate my healing.

So that is a bit of how I came to this work and why I incorporate other healing modalities in my work as a counselor. Because I don't just see you as my PTSD client, I see you on your path and want to offer you all of the tools that have helped me.