I came into the healing world on my feet, meaning that Life brought me nose-to-nose with my own brand of challenges, and it took time and searching to get to where I am now – feeling very well and far happier than I ever knew a person could feel! Given that I got from there to here, and with everything I learned along the way – and continue to learn – I feel called to offer what I can to help you and empower you along your path.
During my early childhood I suffered from chronic digestive distress. By my late teens I had spun into an eating disorder, followed later by food sensitivities, spastic colon attacks, chronic neck and back pain, vertigo, depression and anxiety, flirting with more than one autoimmune disorder, into my fifties. Up until my mid-thirties, I sought both comfort and help through the conventional medical avenues, and there I found some of the former, and not much of the latter. One of the final straws was an invasive procedure, which in turn led to a prescription that made me sicker than I had been all along.
That was my turning point.
I began to turn to alternative methods. Just one week after my first appointment with a naturopath, I felt better than I had in months. With his support, I moved forward on my own path of healing. I was fortunate to encounter many angels along the way.
- My therapist taught me that I, as a professional musician, was a member of a worldwide fellowship made up of creative people, sometimes quirky, and often misunderstood by those close to them. Through her I learned that my deep and intense way of experiencing life was due to the fact that I was acutely sensitive, which turns out to be an asset, even with all its challenges. She was the first person to tell me, “You’re an artist.” And that it is a gift.
- My massage therapist became in essence my mentor, slowly and patiently coaxing me toward living in harmony with the vessel called “my body.” She taught me that this body and I were not two separate entities, just one body/mind/spirit, and that my pain was carrying information, reflecting something important for me to pay attention to.
- For over thirty years, my naturopath has guided me along an ever-expanding path, helping me to understand healing as a lifelong journey rather than a destination. Through him I have learned to see that we exist on an energetic level, affected by many forces, and that there is always more than one way to approach any health or emotional issue.
- My twelve step fellows, with whom I have sat in many rooms across many years, welcomed me in from the start, accepting me, along with all of my flaws, from that day forward, to the point where I now feel gratitude for the very suffering that I used to curse.
As I began to feel better, I discovered I had a natural appetite and curiosity for several of the modalities and therapies that had been helpful to me. I trained and received certificates in a few of them and then, encouraged by my teachers, started seeing clients. In this way I came to see what a joy it is to help others experience less fear and move into a sense of greater well-being.
Beyond my training, something else began to emerge. I found that I had a certain kind of intuition to guide the process. Anyone can use a method, once taught, but it is not about the framed pieces of paper on my wall. That same sensitivity that makes me a good musician and that led to my acute experience of pain and depression is my guidance system. Pain, the very thing that I had been perceiving as the obstacle to living my life, turned out to be the doorway to a far better, richer, and more fulfilling life than I had dreamed possible. The paradox was in accepting that I had to learn to listen to what I had believed to be my enemy.
This is how I arrived at the name “Doorway to Healing” for this practice. Over and over again, what Life continues to demonstrate for us is that pain serves as the doorway to the kind of healing that is true, profound and sacred, granting us a more meaningful existence in every way. If you feel I can be of service to you, I invite you to come knock on my door! I will be happy to welcome you in.