%20(5).png)
Is the way you are living your life truly meaningful and fulfilling to you?
If your answer is “no” or “I’m not sure”
you are in the right place.
Currently, I take the role of a practitioner, facilitator, and educator who supports clients in 1:1 or group containers to develop the necessary awareness of psychic, somatic, and imaginal processes that can lead to a deeper understanding and engagement with any symptoms that resulted from unresolved trauma and stress.
I use a Somatic Experiencing (SE) approach combined with an inclusive mythopoetic Depth Psychology perspective.
Though SE is often used in conjunction with psychotherapy, I do not offer licensed psychotherapy.
I am a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and Depth Psychology PhD student and not a licensed psychotherapist.
If we break down psycho-therapy.
"Psyche" meaning soul,
"Therapy" meaning to tend and care for,
I actually consider what I do to be deep tending and caring for the soul.
It is just not under the regulation of a traditional licensing board, although I have extensive education in the realm of the psychophysiological experience.
As a clinically trained physical therapist, I do not believe that our true integrative healing lays exclusively in our physical bodies only.
Our psyche and soma are intricately connected in so many ways that I could not ethically treat people exclusively serving only the physical body.
My work is fortified by PhD level training in Jungian and Archetypal Psychology (Depth Psychology), Somatic Experiencing, and my clinical experience of the body/mind psyche as a physical therapist.
I have worked with groups of various populations including women, men, veterans, and other at-risk populations.
This history has offered resources combining creative depth psychological practices with approaches to trauma renegotiation. Drawing on this background, if desired, I may propose movement, writing, dream tending or other creative/expressive exercise to complement the tools of Somatic Experiencing. I also have experience as a doctor of physical therapy that deeply informs the way I listen to and interact with bodies.
I'm an archetypal embodiment practitioner.
I have my Masters degree in depth and archetypal psychology as well as my doctorate in physical therapy.
I'm an empath at heart with a deep desire to help individuals reach into the realms of the imaginal through their somatic experience to provoke the souls movement.
My transition into this field was following life alternating transition.
This time in my life opened up and mirrored to me all of the ways in which I had betrayed myself, my voice, my dreams, and my choices.
This experience plunged me into a classic "dark night of the soul" experience.
(Or a Saturn return if you are into astrology).
This was certainly a psychological initiation period that lasted about 3 years.
As painful as this was also a potential for a different way of orienting to the world; a rebirth.
In this rock bottom period, I felt deeply called to include more of the mess that is a confrontation with soul into my work.
The soul isn't interested in just feeling good and feeling good fast, the soul is inclusive of the slow, mess of the intricacies of our deep divinity.
I studied and worked for a long time in clinics and structures in western medicine that were rational, one sided, and lacked an inclusive, creative connection to all of the irrational things happening in the soul.
I feel like there is a huge gap in our traditional western approaches to navigating the human experience and I know deep down in my bones it is my vocational desire to help individuals explore this gap.
I have taken everything I have learned and continue to learn and made it my mission to provide you with safe space and guidance as you learn to discover the the root causes of your suffering. This is in order to work creatively and dynamically with the suffering to draw you into a deeper exploration of the mystery and meaning of your life.
I’m here to help those who feel stuck, tired, and depressed in the process of becoming who they feel they are truly meant to be.
Hi friends,
I'm Danielle
I kept asking myself...
“How can I become the person who believes she is worthy of a better existence?”
“How can I turn my beliefs of "I can't" into "I can.”
“Who will I become if I commit to this path?”
So, in my lowest moments, I mustered up all the courage I had, and I:
-
I took a giant leap of faith and quit my clinical job in PT
-
I started my practice and dove DEEP into questioning EVERY SINGLE THING I BELIEVED TO BE TRUE.
-
I learned the strength in asking for help and hired a Jungian analyst and an SE practitioner to help me in this process
-
I applied to go back to school for a PhD in something I WAS ACTUALLY passionate about...depth psychology.
As I did this, I started to notice the life force that was once thrawted in systems that didn't suit me to be returning.
I started to finally feel like I was living MY life, not the life my parents wanted for me, and NOT the life where all decisions are made out of fear of rejection.
I started to feel become more and more aligned with the impact I wanted to make, I gained clarity on what I wanted from my life, my career, and my relationships, and I was learning what it meant to be truly tested on my courage, faith, receptivity, forgiveness, and grace.
From depressed physical therapist to
embodiment practitioner
My vocational journey has been quite the interesting path.
I resonate with Joseph Campbell's quote: “If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.”
The road I have been on has been messy and I dragged myself through the depths of a once fragmented self-image.
These days I reflect back and realize the self sabotage was to cope with the fact I was NOT listening to the deeper calls within.
Of course every journey is unique, but here is what I have learned along the way:
Throughout physical therapy school, I had many internal pangs of truth that PT was not right for me, but I ignored them.
I deemed those body sensations less important than the achievement of a doctoral degree.
A typical..."Anything to cross the finish line" mentality.
Then, as I walked across the graduation stage, I felt no emotional energy and no sense of accomplishment move through my body.
All I could feel was the pain of not choosing myself.
Over those 3 years of working towards my doctorate,
I ignored my passions, I ignored my TRUE potential, and refused to face ALL of the feelings that came with it...
until that point.
I KNEW I HAD TO LOOK AT IT.
Before getting to a place where I actually could courageously step towards my truth,
I had to get clear on a few things:
1. What do YOU actually want Danielle?
I KNEW I wanted to be in the somatic space, and I wanted to do it in a way addressed the was inclusive of the deeper layers of suffering.
2. What do YOU actually FEEL?
I felt sad, trapped, weak, inadequate, and stupid.
Because I still didn't have enough courage to accept those feelings, I found myself...
...Working in a clinics where I was emotionally used and abused wondering if I’d ever be able to quit
...Barely paying my bills and feeling so helpless and hopeless
...Suffering from anxiety and depression and being terrified to admit it
...Struggling in an almost 3 year toxic friendship I was terrified to end
...Losing hope that I would ever fulfill my dreams of making the true impact I knew I could in the world.
I know what it feels like to feel unheard, to feel alone, to feel misunderstood, to feel used, and to feel objectified.
If you're not in a place of full self sovereignty, that's okay.
You're on your journey.
Rather than deeming your struggle an illness, what if we viewed it as a sign from the soul that perhaps we need a new perspective, a new path, or a new orientation towards life?
Think of this similar to the way we know that fever is our body’s way of trying to rid itself of an infection.
Symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, or addiction can be a way for our psyche to alert us of some deeper problem.
Oftentimes, deep healing reveals itself when we don’t flatten our embodied experience into a box.
FRIEND, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DROWN IN YEARS OF SUFFERING TO create a relationship with the divinity that moves within you.
And I would love to show you how!
MY APPROACH TO WHOLENESS, INTEGRATION, AND EMBODIMENT
My work is all about turning towards soul and finding a greater capacity to safely process the tensions that are moving through you.
It is about finding a way to approach the space between the opposites such as order and chaos, or your masculine and feminine energies.
As humans we are quite frequently presented with what is called the liminal space.
This space is defined as a space where you have left something behind, yet, you are not yet fully in something else.
It involves embracing the mystery and the power of transition from “what has been” to “what will be.”
This is what I help you do.
I guide individuals through that space in a way that is soul inclusive, meaning it includes the
physical, mental, emotional, mythical, and imaginal experiences as valid.
When this space is unconscious, there may be:
“I just feel stuck,”
“I know there is more,” or
“Life feels meaningless.”
If left unconscious, this space can hold all of the limiting beliefs:
“I am unworthy”
“I am not strong enough to handle this”
“I am not going fast enough”
These narratives are narratives of survival.
This is where we turn towards the symptoms and see through what it presents on the surface.
This gives us a way to name and reintegrate those disintegrated parts of ourselves that we dislike the most.
This is where we turn with curiosity towards our inner, most authentic Self.
Let me be clear
It's my job to teach you how to cope with the inevitable suffering of life and create meaning from the hard, but beautiful experiences life throws your way.
Happiness is a byproduct of creating a meaningful life.
My true purpose behind all of my work is to help you embody ALL parts of life including those messy intersections of the mythopoetic experience with the human experience.
It’s really uncomfortable to sit between in the messy tensions of life, but I will sit in the discomfort of the middle with you...to expand myself, so that I can invite you into that territory.
I desire to make every interaction that I have with you one that leaves you feeling seen, heard, and met no matter where you are in your journey.
Let’s walk together in building a life of ease and grace instead of restriction and obligation.
MY PROMISE TO YOU
It would be silly for me to question my validity as an integrative healing coach, for the lived experience of mental and emotional pain and suffering, transformation, and individuation is far beyond that which is only learned by a degree.
My path isn't one that is on the straight and narrow.
It's messy and complicated.
But within the messy and complicated that life brings, my commitment to this business and those whom I serve is to continually expand with transparency.
To let my ego strengthen and die over and over again so that I can learn the lessons and receive the invitations from that which is greater than myself so that my work in the world is what you deserve.
Here's to healing, starting with the individual.
All the love,
Dee