Conscious
Lifestyle
Creative
Design
about vita
With a Masters Degree in Transformative Arts, a life-long commitment to creative practice and hands on experience as a Behavioral + Play Therapist, I guide both children and adults to find greater insight, creativity, and connection. I love people and love facilitating them in ways that bring joy and meaning. Sometimes it can feel challenging to put labels on the work that I do because running an educational consultancy + creativity incubator for kids, educators, and families over the last decade (while healing from intense personal trauma) has held so many dynamic experiences.
The work I do is three fold: I design social-emotional learning and arts integrated programs for youth (leading a small, but scrappy team to share our signature creativity+character program in schools and after-school). I collaborate with other aligned organizations to provide personal + professional development experiences, weaving in heART Mapping as often as I can. And I consistently bolster this work with ongoing study and practice in mindfulness, neuroscience, and spirituality. I believe that all humans hold innate creative genius and that cultivating it holds the power to unlock profound learning and change. It has for me and for my clients ranging from 2-72. So, let's go! Because I know that with curiosity, courage, and compassion I know we can co-create the next phase of our individual and collective transformation.
Now, Let's get personal
Real talk now that the resume summary is done... Here's the story behind why I'm obsessed with art and all things personal growth:
I’ve been drawing since I was five. It started as doodling and a general interest. But as I got older, I became more committed. I never thought I was particularly good, but I stuck with it because it helped me turn inward and find safety in the turbulence of divorce, bouncing back and forth to different houses, and finding my place in a blended family. My mom was a huge source of support in making this happen.
In middle school I remember making the hard, conscious choice to leave my friends and go to an arts magnet in another town. I knew what I would experience there would increase my chances of going to the arts magnet high school— my first real dream. And it did. That experience truly shaped my identity as an artist, but the intensity also strained my creativity.
The arts magnet high school program was rigorous in its standards, advanced placement tracks, and time expectations.
By the time I got to college I was creatively exhausted so I decided to study psychology, sociology, and behavior analysis. A total “180” according to friends and family. I found an interest in counseling and play therapy for kids.
Making ART
SAVED my life...
..and now creativity is my lifeline to building a stronger connection with myself, my community + the Earth.
Now, Let's get real
During college I’d stopped making “Art” like I’d been taught to in grade school, but I kept journaling throughout my studies and what quickly became the darkest time of my life. Rape, abortion, car accidents, broken bones, depression, addiction. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was dark.
I fled Texas the moment I graduated college and crash landed in the Bay Area in hopes of pursuing my next dream: graduate school. I got a job as Behavioral Therapist working with neurodivergent kids, mostly on the Autism spectrum, and quickly realized I needed to get my shit together. I put myself in therapy, started making more art, took up yoga and kick boxing, and cried every day for two years. No exaggeration. It was some of the grittiest work I've done, but it was also a massive catalyst.
During this two year soul triage I also applied to graduate programs- actually just one. The only one of its kind in the country and truthfully I was shocked I got in. During grad school (which is a whole novel's worth of stories, insight, and transformation) I took a poetry and healing workshop and realized: I’d been writing poetry through it all. My art had gone dormant, but it was there in my journals, a buoy in the chaos that I'd lived through. That class uncorked my soul. I found my way back to art and discovered writing in the process.
After grad school when I started freelancing as an educational consultant, I found that using my drawing to document my clients’ progress was a powerful tool. There were a couple of adorable years in which I wore all the hats. One gig was 1:1 tutoring with a few kids at their school. I would make up their worksheets and draw and write them out ahead of time. They loved them. I loved doing it.
Over time I've found myself in more spaces where using art to scaffold learning and share ideas created synergy and insight not just for kids and teachers, but for my fellow entrepreneurs as well. heART Mapping was born. I know in business we're never supposed to say that our product or service is for everyone, buuuut.... heART Mapping is about as close as it gets. It's for anyone in transition or in pursuit of something and well, that's just the human condition.
The feedback has been incredible. I’m so excited to share this process with you. 🫶🏼
