Craniosacral Therapy feels like the perfect melding of my background as a Registered Nurse, Doula, and mother of two girls. I believe that I have always been on the path to becoming a Craniosacral Therapist. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been sensitive and highly attuned to the people, emotions and energy around me. As I grew up, I knew that I wanted to do work that helped people in some way. It was a vague but strong feeling that I have always felt deeply. 

My parents greatly influenced my journey. My mother is a physical therapist who always had one foot in alternative modalities and came to practice a form of gentle manual therapy called Integrative Manual Therapy (IMT). She would heal anything I had from colds to pinched lower back muscles with her gentle yet profound touch, which planted the seed for me. My dad came out as transgender and transitioned to become a woman when I was in high school. I had always been very attuned to her being different throughout childhood, and appreciate the lessons we all learned through her transition and modeling of bravery and strength. I am incredibly grateful for the ways that my childhood and family heightened my sensitivity and awareness which has always informed my choices and work. 

As an undergrad I designed my own Women’s Health and Spanish Major that combined courses in Women’s Studies, History of Medicine, Gender Studies and Kinesiology/Anatomy with area studies and Foreign Language. However, it felt like my real education began afterwards when I came to San Francisco in 2000 to do an AmeriCorps/HealthCorps Program at the Women’s Community Clinic, a free clinic for uninsured/underinsured women. While there I developed and ran an outreach program for unhoused women. After this experience I attended nursing school at Columbia University in New York, and spent a year in Mexico City at UNAM, at the national nursing school. As a nurse I continued my work with unhoused individuals living with substance use and mental health issues in New York, and then back in San Francisco where I also volunteered as a Doula with the incredible program at SF General. After a decade of nursing, I came to feel that something was missing for me within the medical setting, and that it had to do with healing touch. I eventually realized that I wanted to be able to do for others what my mom had been doing for me — to be able to heal others deeply with gentle touch.

I have always felt most healthy, free and aligned with my true spirit at the beach and in water. For me, the beach is an important place where my intuition easily surfaces, my loved ones in spirit connect, insights come, feelings release and healing happens. It’s a transformative place for me, and feels very aligned with Craniosacral Therapy in that the most gentle lapping water has the power to turn stone to sand over time — which is so much like the gentle transformative power of Craniosacral Therapy.