A long and winding road

I grew up swimming and playing tennis, and later found my way into triathlon and running as an adult. Along the way I discovered what skilled bodywork could do for a body that was working hard — how it could be the difference between breaking down and moving freely, between chronic pain and optimal function. That lesson never left me.

I studied athletic training, physical education, and health at the University of Virginia. After graduating I worked as a physical therapy aide, an athletic trainer at a small high school in North San Diego County, and a personal trainer — often all at once. I loved the variety of it, the physicality of it, and the daily joy of helping people move better and hurt less.

From there my path took a longer arc: into the medical device industry, where I provided clinically-oriented technical support for sports medicine and pain management products and discovered that teaching — really getting into the weeds with someone until something clicked — was the thing that lit me up most. Then into a biomechanics graduate program at UT Austin, where I built procedural guides for motion capture systems and learned I could find deep satisfaction in making complex things accessible to others. This continued with work in a spine motion analysis startup after graduation.

But the pull back to bodies — to actual hands-on work — never went away. So I got my massage license at the Lauterstein-Conway School of Massage in Austin. I began working with clients in Austin, while still working for the startup. There has always been a throughline in my life — when something matters to me, I give it everything. It took time to learn that sustainable giving requires knowing your own limits. It's a lesson I return to often, and one that quietly informs how I work with clients who are running on empty.

Shortly after my initial foray into bodywork in Austin, I made the leap to Colorado, following the pull that had been planted in my soul during a work trip there earlier on. My first job here was usability engineering for Medtronic’s neurosurgical division. It was great getting to work with actual end users to design complex products that surgeons could use to better patients’ lives. And yet, it helped solidify that I was most alive when I was actually with people — not in a cubicle. So I began doing bodywork again at an incredible neighborhood day spa.

Some personal experiences in a NICU led me to change course a bit, and I earned a Bachelor of Science in nursing from the University of Northern Colorado. I was fortunate enough to have my new grad nurse residency in the NICU at Children’s Hospital Colorado. From there, I moved to a smaller community hospital setting where I still work part time.

Life has handed me experiences that taught me, from the inside out, what it means to need renewal. What they gave me, and what I bring to every session, is a knowing that goes beyond what any degree or certification can confer. I have been living with metastatic breast cancer for six years. I am navigating that journey with the same philosophy I bring to this practice: the body already possesses most of what it needs to heal. It may need help (and what that help looks like can take many forms). It may need skilled hands, the right conditions, someone who actually listens. But the intelligence is already there — waiting to be reached.

I am a nurse who still shows up to the NICU, still cares for new mothers and their babies, and still believes that the most important thing any of us can do is show up fully for another human being in a moment of need, which is exactly what brought me back to bodywork.