Walking in Two Worlds

One of the most profound experiences I’ve had that has shaped my journey as a counselor educator was encountering an experience that a Western practitioner may have labeled as depression. During that time, I was working with a naturopath who referred me to a meditation teacher instead of recommending pharmaceuticals. That single referral shifted the entire way my life would unfold from that point. In contrast to previous counselors, this teacher taught me how to work with my mind, to learn how to sit, enjoy, and bear witness to its many creative ways of hooking my attention, without feeling compelled to follow along. She taught me to lean into a deeper part of my being we would come to call my “best friend.”

In my private life, this led to following several Hindu teachers as well as a regular practice and study that resulted in a full ethical conversion to Hinduism and to joining a Sivite church.
In my professional journey, it led to my pursuit of a certification in Integrative Process Therapy, a modality that blends holotropic breath work with a multitude of other somatic and energy modalities. I dove into scholarship about mindfulness-based therapies and conducted research related to the relationships between levels of mindfulness and counseling trainee anxiety and self-efficacy.
I noticed how having a dedicated meditation practice greatly impacted the presence I was able to bring to my sessions with clients and to the felt human connections and authentic relationships between my students and me in the classroom. One of my closest mentors captured this experience of diving deep spiritually while simultaneously pursuing a career as an academic as “you’re walking in two worlds.”

Saybrook has been the professional home where I can embrace these two worlds.
Here I am fortunate to get to work with colleagues who are inspired educators and creative and amazing human beings who see and honor these worlds as they inform my counseling, teaching, supervision, scholarship, and service.

Here I am fortunate to get to work with counseling students who bring their own blend of different worlds to Saybrook. The students who find their way to us have their own ways of viewing mental health, of challenging dominant paradigms, of working to bridge different philosophies, and of diving in to their own depths to increase their capacity for compassion. We consciously work as a department to create spaces for them to show up fully and co-create a truly unique educational experience.

I am currently inspired by and am exploring the potential for practices and perspectives of Advaita (non-duality) to support healing at individual and societal levels. I am continuing to learn as much as I can about natural, cultural, and indigenous ways of approaching physical and mental well-being and am committed to bringing those perspectives forward in dialogues that would otherwise exclude them.