My work didn’t begin with my career.

It began with my life.

I grew up in a home shaped by violence, and I learned very early on how to adapt. I learned how to read the energy in the room, and how to keep the peace. I also learned how to become what I thought was needed and would keep me safe.

It took me years to understand how much of real myself I had kept buried in the process of surviving my childhood. Gratefully, life kept giving me plenty of opportunities to keep learning.

As a young adult, I lived and worked internationally for more than twenty-five years. I raised my children, built businesses, and experienced the end of a decades-long marriage. I lost my fiancé. I became seriously ill. And, perhaps most remarkably, I was able to heal my relationship with my father before he died.

None of those experiences made me who I am.

But each asked me, in one way or another, to come back to myself.

And that has shaped almost everything about the work I do today.

Why I Do This Work

I don’t believe people need someone else to tell them who they should become.

I’m much more interested in helping someone hear themselves.

What matters to you?

What do you know that you may not be listening to?

What are you doing because you genuinely choose it, and what are you doing because somewhere along the way you learned you should?

And what might change if you stopped making yourself wrong long enough to get curious?

I’ve sat with executives making difficult decisions, entrepreneurs building something that matters to them, people in conflict trying to hear one another, organizations trying to find their way forward, and individuals simply trying to find their footing again.

The circumstances change.

The human part doesn’t change nearly as much.

Some of the People Who Have Shaped Me

One of my important teachers was Dr. Natalie Rogers, daughter and longtime collaborator of psychologist Carl Rogers. I had the privilege of supporting Natalie in her person-centered trainings throughout Europe for many years.

What stayed with me was something I had already begun discovering in my own life:

People don’t need us to fix them.

Given enough safety, honesty, curiosity and room, we are remarkably capable of discovering what we need to see for ourselves.

Living and working across more than thirty-five cultures deepened that understanding. Different languages, histories, beliefs and ways of seeing the world, and yet I kept encountering the same very human longings.

To belong. To matter. To love and be loved. To contribute. To be seen for who we actually are.

That has probably taught me as much about being human as anything I’ve studied.

I’m Still Learning

My professional life has taken me through psychology, mediation, dialogue, organizational development, strategic planning, leadership, communication, coaching and conflict resolution.

But some of my most important teachers haven’t come with credentials.

Grief has taught me. Nature has taught me. Silence has taught me. Indigenous elders have taught me. My children have certainly taught me.

So have people I disagreed with.

And occasionally, much to my annoyance, the things I was absolutely certain about have taught me too.

I don’t think wisdom is something we finally acquire and get to keep.

I think we keep becoming more available to it.

I’m interested in becoming more fully ourselves, meeting one another without requiring either of us to disappear, and participating in this life as honestly as we can.

I’m still doing that work too.

And If You’re Here Because Something Matters to You…

I’d be glad to hear about it.

Maybe you’re building something. Leading something. Trying to change something. Having a difficult time with someone. Standing at a crossroads. Or perhaps you’re simply wondering whether the life you’re living still feels like your own.

You don’t need to know exactly what you need before we talk.

Tell me what’s happening. We can begin there.

BUTTON: Let’s Talk

With Respect

Indigenous elders, and the wisdom shared with me through Native teachings, have become important teachers in my life. I listen, I learn, and I do my best to live what I have been given with respect.

I have the honor of calling home the ancestral, stewarded and unceded lands of the Multnomah, Tualatin and Clackamas peoples.

Some of My Affiliations

[LOGOS]

I’d be honored to meet you.

Whether you’re navigating change, building something meaningful, leading others, or simply longing to live with greater integrity and ease, I’d love to learn what matters most to you.

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Some of my Affiliates