My Approach
I see potential, not insurmountable problems. Like the abandoned pets I have rescued, or the beauty found in aging buildings, I believe each person has the opportunity to be transformed with the right support.
A house built on a solid foundation has a greater chance of withstanding a heavy storm, and it’s easy to maximize unique talents when one’s surroundings are calm and beautiful. Yet, so many of us didn’t start out with a solid foundation, or we may feel like our current environment is destructive to reaching our potential. Without support, we grasp at parts of ourselves only to collapse into ruins over and over again–but it doesn’t have to be this way!
Through the coaching relationship, my goal is to help you rebuild your foundation, put your best blocks in place, and accept that there is also beauty in the broken bits that may never fit back in. Coaching can help you rebuild your foundation, and if required, find the best environment for building a better you. This is a core piece of my coaching, improvement is so much harder if you keep yourself in the same bad relationships, negative thoughts, and places that have wounded you. Risk is required if you want to heal and move forward.
There is a lot of beauty in the broken pieces when seen through a lens of unique potential, we don’t have to be like everyone else to succeed. Like a beautiful tree growing from rubble, you have immense strength deep within. I’d like to nurture your process of growth and transformation.
My Story
As a former foster youth and teen parent, the foundation of my coaching and training is inclusivity and helping others understand the impact of adverse childhood experiences on the self and the brain. I am also the author of the memoir, Alternate Ending—An Inspirational True Story About Beating the Odds, which details my journey in foster care and the life I built outside of the system—a life beyond anyone’s expectations. Knowing how hard it can be to make the journey into success alone, while at the University of Michigan-Flint and Portland Community College, I coordinated services and coached current and former foster youth towards personal and educational success.
My foundation as a coach is based in science. I received a PhD from the University of Washington in Neurobiology and Behavior–a conjoint degree studying the fields of psychology and medicine. After receiving my doctorate, I worked as a scientist at biomedical research institutes including The Scripps Research Institute and the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research [aka Texas Biomedical Research Institute] studying bodyweight regulation, stress, drugs of abuse, and the brain. I loved the intellectual challenges of this career, but a part of me knew I could make a bigger difference by being a role model to others.
After leaving science, I became an educator in the USA and abroad. A traveler at heart, I taught overseas at the University of Aruba and the University of the South Pacific, and at colleges and universities in Washington, Oregon, California, and Michigan. Since retiring from higher education, in addition to offering coaching and training services online, I have satisfied my desire to travel by working as a volunteer interpretive educator and host in beautiful places such as the San Juan Islands off Washington State, Oregon Coast, and desert southwest.
Getting to know people from other cultures is one of my favorite ways to expand myself. From a young age, I was hooked on adventuring and learning from others, and I incorporate those into my life as much possible. Because I have faith in my ability to handle unexpected turns in life, I have several times just walked onto an airplane with no luggage and no plan for what would happen when I hit the ground. While this might sound terrifying to some, it is really a great way to let go of expectations of perfection that can often ruin a travel experience. I am grateful for the time I spent living overseas, while challenging at times, it was an amazing growth experience as I learned about other cultures and myself.
I am also huge animal lover and have rescued a number of amazing pets along the way. The most recent addition to my traveling family is Startdust, a feral kitten who chose my dog Cal to be his best friend. 
My Journey
On the road to success there are a lot of bumps and a few stunning crashes. The person you see today is not the person anyone who knew me before age 20 would have expected. If you have had a chance to look at my training, it might seem like achieving is the only thing I’ve been doing. But, that is not at all how my journey started out, and sometimes I’m just as surprised as anyone that I have meaningful accolades under my belt. Learning did not come easy to me early on, and some types of learning are still a challenge for me. The reason for this is that I have learning disabilities, including dyslexia and dyscalculia. Add those disabilities to a brain that has been impacted by trauma, and you get a young person who felt stupid and hopeless in educational settings. My sense of educational failure was so great that I dropped out of high school after the 10th grade when I became a runaway—a big road bump indeed!
Finding a reason to climb life’s hills wasn’t planned. When I ran away from foster care after 8 years under the court’s supervision, I didn’t have a plan for my future. Growing up in poverty with a mentally ill mother and an abusive father who abandoned me, I had no idea that my future could include anything good. I had only known adults with terrible lives. When I became pregnant at 16, there was a dramatic shift inside me. It was perfectly reasonable for me to accept an awful adulthood, but I could not accept the same for my baby. So, I began to wonder what else was possible. After my daughter was born life did not miraculously change, we went through a period of homelessness, horrendous poverty, and social isolation. Yet, even as we experienced those things, I developed goals and set about achieving them. I got my GED, enrolled in university, and started seeing a therapist religiously. The climb to overcome the past was slow and filled with potholes, but so worth it.
As I advanced in my education, I faced a lot of self-doubt. The challenges I had in my life were unlike those my peers faced, most of whom were from stable backgrounds far different from my own. While I had figured out that I was smart even with my disabilities, overcoming imposter syndrome and class differences was incredibly difficult. To do so, I had to really explore the beliefs and lenses I saw the world through. I also had to maintain the commitment I had to myself and my daughter not to be another casualty of the foster care system, poverty, and dysfunctional parents, which wasn’t always easy. I had to convince myself that I had as much right to be successful as anyone else, this was an internal process that required vigilance and effort.
Through my own personal experiences, and those of the clients I have coached, I know when goal achievement doesn’t go smoothly doubt creeps in. There is real heartbreak when you climb one hill only to find there is another right behind it. Like everyone else, I have been lost along the way. It’s easy to give up when rejected from jobs, promotions, and people, all of which have happened to me and countless others. When mental or physical health takes a turn for the worse, which happens too, it’s easy to get knocked off the road altogether. Even after getting my doctorate and moving into my career, I’ve faced disillusionment and felt like I could not continue the path ahead of me. But, this is exactly why we look for the light inside and the reason we started the journey in the first place. Maybe we need to modify our route or tweak the destination, but we keep going. That is much easier to to when you have someone else on your team.