The women who are drawn to working with me are often high functioning professionals who aim for perfection and are susceptible to burn out because they tend to reject help and procrastinate self care. I also work really well with emotional women who fear they feel too much and are prone to suppressing their feelings with the hope of securing acceptance but at the risk of becoming depressed.

I specialize in working with females who identify as women but question what that means and challenge the classification of masculine and feminine qualities based on sex. Women who do not identify with either alpha or beta but rather long for a balance of both being and doing, listening and talking, holding and having, giving and receiving, leading and following.

Dominant world culture is gradually changing. The binaries of male and female, men and women, and the qualities we’ve assigned to these identities are being disrupted to make room for more expansive definitions that encourage wholeness and facilitate greater freedom.

During this transitional period much must be done on a personal level to expose the influence of patriarchal narratives that shape us into who we believe we’re meant to be. Stories we are often unconscious of, that impose social norms and behaviors based on the genitals assigned to us, and the gender we identify with. Roles, we’re shaped to play, even if they don’t fit us.

The youth who are drawn to working with me are fascinated by nature and curious about the purpose of their imagination. They are often intuitive and can make sense of what isn’t spoken but relayed clearly through body language and energy. Gentle until they need to become fierce, unsure of where they belong and how to fit in, overwhelmed by the state of chaos and uncertainty in the world, and desperate for a sense of purpose.

I work creatively with youth interested in developing sensory and emotional literacy, who question the purpose of life, and walk in dual worlds of both innocence and wisdom. Young people who will become future leaders because of their capacity to relate deeply and engage in relationships thoughtfully.

Dominant world culture devalues youth. Normalized ageism leads to the silencing and exclusion of young voices. Not only are youth often left out of important decisions that affect their lives, their experiences of pain and trauma can be read by the adults around them as an over-exaggeration resulting in feelings of being unbelieved and a growing mistrust in their capacity to interpret reality.

How has colonial culture shaped your identity?

Colonialism is a complex term referring to a set of cultural rules introduced and enforced by colonizers through violence and the threat of harm.

These cultural rules are dominant globally and have normalized power abuse as the natural evolution of humankind. Control, deceit, domination, and exploitation are tactics of power abuse that each of us maintain through relationships based on our power and privilege.

Power, under colonial regime, is organized hierarchically on the basis of ability, age, race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, class, geography, culture, and religion.

If we wish to become secure adults living in partnership with others and the land we must reclaim our true identity. This means recovering ways of being, knowing, and doing that have been restricted based on your social location.

Our personal challenges, when viewed through the lens of decolonization, become opportunities to extricate colonial ways of being, knowing, and doing, internally, through relationships, and systematically, so we can learn how to operationalize social justice in our own lives.

Masking has been normalized as a way of securing acceptance and belonging in relationships, groups, communities, and society at large. It requires that we fracture our sense of self, only showing the parts we believe the majority will agree with and approve of. But this comes at the significant cost of our wholeness and becomes experienced as a lack of feeling seen and known.

Many people crave deeper intimacy and connection that requires more vulnerability and risk taking, which are conceptually understood but difficult to translate into reality.

Therapy can act as a training ground for disclosing more of ourselves and receiving not just a positive response but care and even celebration of the parts that may have been neglected, suppressed, or rejected. Therapy can become an arena from which you integrate the past, present, and who you wish to become. In doing so, you’ll feel more comfortable taking risks to bring your authentic self into relationships.

Our erotic nature has collapsed under the crushing force o patriarchy. A cultural obsession with domination has forced sexuality into a power play making every act of pleasure forbidden. No longer free to follow our arousal because we are trapped inside colonial semantics, our senses restricted on the basis of sin.

Prioritizing pleasure is an act of rebellion. A pursuit that can bring you closer to yourself, if you are willing to experiment with what turns you on.

You can expand your definition of pleasure beyond sexuality by researching the state of being you long to exist in. The sensory experiences that make you feel alive, connected, enthralled, peaceful, delighted, and excited. This is not an answer someone else can give you, but a solution your body knows.

Your sensory system is a method of magic you hold the keys to. Unlocking a freedom that is your birthright.

The versions of leadership that are most well known locate a leader out in front as an expert either directing or serving a group of followers. But the future of leadership is becoming more fluid. No longer assigned to one, but a role constantly shifting from one another based on who carries the skills and talent to respond to the current need.

You are already leading whether you are aware of it or not. All relationships require negotiating roles of leader and follower based on roles, power, and how you organize your efforts to meet intersecting needs.

Intuitive leadership is multisensory and dynamic. It requires being aware of ourselves, others, and the world around us on a sensory basis and listening for both your personal needs and the needs of the collective at any given moment. It prioritizes reciprocal relating and is both generous and regenerative in nature. Intuitive leadership requires advanced communication skills, sensory and emotional literacy, and power sharing. The results of which translate into collaborative relationships wherein people feel deeply known and valued by one another.

Applicable in parenting, family systems, community, and in organizations, intuitive leadership weaves somatic, sensory, and emotional intelligence with principles of transformational, feminist, and servant leadership frameworks.