As a holistic health educator and coach, my goal is to support and facilitate individuals in achieving a satisfying and fulfilling life through balance, connection, and meaning.  My holistic coaching philosophy is to begin from a position of essential respect for each individual as a competent and resourceful human being. I believe that my role is to be a compassionate ally who facilitates your learning process and goal setting.  An effective coach does not tell you what to do or how to live your life.  An effective coach is a supportive witness and facilitator as you make decisions and take actions to enhance your well-being.  In practice, I often emphasize embodied learning and cultivating body awareness as an opening to healing and transformation. 

Although I welcome the opportunity to work with individuals on any issues that matter to them, I specialize in working with individuals with a history of eating and body image issues, such as weight cycling (“yo-yo dieting”), disordered eating, compulsive eating, compulsive exercise, and body dissatisfaction.  I emphasize the Health At Every Size (HAES) approach in my coaching, consulting, and educational endeavors.  My workshops and support groups focus on normalized eating, movement, body image, and self-care and can be tailored to work with any size group from two to two-hundred people.  I also teach embodied meditation and stress management classes.  Finally, I teach a course entitled “The Social Body” as an adjunct faculty member in the Graduate School of Holistic Studies at John F. Kennedy University.

My current professional interests are a natural outgrowth of my own ongoing healing journey with respect to disordered eating and body image issues.  I have struggled with body image issues for most of my life.  I began restrictive dieting at an early age and for three decades, I continually surfed down one “yo” and up the other of the classic “yo-yo” dieting syndrome.  Like most restrictive dieters, every weight cycle left me a little bit bigger, and a little bit more beaten down in spirit.  Moreover, as a former attorney, I have lived the high-speed, high-stress lifestyle of the modern professional and have learned firsthand just how completely out of touch with my body it was possible to spend most of each day. 

My discovery of the HAES approach and my embodied meditation practices have helped me to forge a new lifestyle characterized by joy, fulfillment, and self-compassion regardless of size.  I have learned that my health is maximized when I forget about weight and size and focus my efforts on several key areas:

·         eating well for both health and pleasure;

·         moving my body in ways that I enjoy;

·         connecting with family and friends in meaningful ways; and

·         effectively managing stress.

Another key aspect of my journey has been learning to love my larger body, simply because it’s mine.  At some point in our lives, most of us have experienced what it is to give and receive unconditional love, perhaps as a child, as a parent, as a life partner, or as a best friend.  I believe that we each deserve to give and receive this type of unconditional love for our bodies.

Education: I have a Master’s Degree in Holistic Health Education from John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, California, with a specialization in Somatic Education.  I earned my law degree from Yale Law School and practiced employment law before switching gears to pursue a career in holistic health.  I also have a holistic life coaching certificate from the AsOne Coaching Institute in Alameda, California.