I swung between hopeless existential depression when I wasn’t chasing the next thing, and anxious, driven pressure when I was. I numbed and dissociated, I pushed past pain and ignored my body, I chased pleasure and distraction for comfort, I fixated on teachers and relationships as my salvation, I bypassed my emotions and tried to transcend my own struggle. All the while, I kept meeting the same quiet teaching in the traditions I was interrogating: what you’re looking for is already inside of you; there’s nothing out there that can make you whole. It always landed as somehow true but impossibly impractical. Maybe, but how do I actually do that? How do I just… love myself as I am? I didn’t feel whole, or lovable, or worthy. I felt like a hopeless mess. So back I’d go to the self-improvement drawing board. 

Some time ago, someone put it to me in a different way — not as a spiritual ideal to accept and then strive to attain, but as an inquiry into my own direct experience: what if nothing is actually missing in you? What if we turn in and look together right now? So we looked. The deeper we looked, the clearer it became: when I turned toward the very places in me that felt anxious, empty, hopeless, lonely, or unworthy, and simply stayed without try to change or fix them, something deeper was revealed. Me. Meeting myself underneath the pain and longing, I finally met my peace, strength, aliveness, clarity, and joy — I felt whole. Meeting myself this way, I knew: I had been whole the entire time. Recognizing this, the sense of deficiency began to dissolve, and the search began to turn back on itself — I started to come home. 

This is the practice I’d love to share with you, if you’d like to walk with me for a while. The approach I’m trained in is called Aletheia Unfoldment. Simply put: rather than turning what you’re experiencing into a problem to solve or a story to analyze, we slow down and turn toward what you’re actually feeling — not just talking about it, but meeting and exploring it in your direct experience. We start wherever you are, set an anchor into the grounded stability of the present moment, and, as we build capacity for it together, turn toward what we’ve been taught to turn away from — what may feel anxious, exhausted, overwhelmed, lost, hurt, scared, or alone — to offer it refuge and curious care, to meet what’s behind the longing. There’s always room to breathe, to explore, to rejoice, to behold. We move at the pace of safety and trust, never pushing past what isn’t ready. Together, we’ll come to see, understand, love, and value the parts of yourself that have been waiting their whole life for one thing: You. 

So how does ketamine fit in? It’s not the solution, and it’s not what you’re missing — but it can help. It’s a journey, a window, a catalyst, an ally: an experience that can help you see yourself and your life with a different view, to open your mind and heart to embrace yourself anew — sometimes gently and with relief, sometimes with wonder and joy, sometimes in a way that shakes things loose and asks for real support and space to land. While ketamine may help you see and feel who you truly are, the choice to embrace yourself and to live in your truth is yours — though you don’t have to do it alone. You’ll have support and companionship in the clinic and in our work together. Because whatever you meet in the ketamine experience, how you welcome that to unfold in the fabric of your days is how it takes root as you. 

For three years I’ve walked with NeuConnections clients — through breakdowns and breakthroughs, through hard passages and quiet openings. I’ve been dancing with psychedelics as allies for nearly twenty years, including fifteen ketamine infusions at NeuConnections — I’ve sat in the chair you’ll be sitting in, and I’ve walked dozens of our clients through the same. In my own experience and in those I’ve supported, what I see is this: sustainable growth comes alive in the living of our normal days — in the small choices, day after day, to turn toward ourselves rather than away. 
 
I especially love working with people drawn to knowing themselves from the inside — through meditation, yoga, breath, movement, psychedelics, or simply a real curiosity about their own inner truth. You don’t need years of practice (trust me); all this practice asks is an openness to feel what you’re feeling, and to see what happens when we stop trying to fix you. Whether you’ve walked this path for decades or you’re freshly inspired to begin or renew, if something in you is longing to meet the truth of who you are — to live and love that more fully — I’d love to meet you too. 
 
When I’m not with clients, you’ll find me playing in nature around my home in Costa Rica — dancing, singing, cooking, playing with fire, splashing in the river, and simply being. Nature keeps teaching me what it took me ten years to see in myself: the Oak Seed is already whole. Even so, it must crack open and be nourished to sprout and grow. I’ve seen what’s possible when a life cracks open: anything. Everything. Will you nourish the conditions for your life to unfold? 

The Acorn is the Oak — Always Already Whole — Nourish the Conditions — Life Unfolds.