My recovery journey began long before I ever called it that. Trauma shaped me early — shaping the way I loved, coped, disconnected, and tried to survive. Over the past 20+ years, I’ve gone through every possible door in search of healing: healthcare systems, spirituality, therapy, community, isolation, creativity, and even destruction. I’ve been both a caregiver and a patient, a professional in mental health and substance use, and a human being struggling to make sense of my own pain.

Professionally, I’ve worked in nursing with a focus on mental health and substance use. I’ve walked alongside people in some of their darkest hours, while simultaneously navigating my own. I’ve pursued certifications in Functional Nutrition Counseling, Embodied Processing, Root Cause Therapy, and I’m expanding into Psychedelic Facilitation and Somatic EMDR. But more than the letters after my name, it’s the lived reality that fuels me — the moments when the theory met my body, my relationships, my choices, and my resilience.

Personally, I’ve experienced nearly every approach the wellness world has to offer:

• Traditional therapies like CBT, DBT, IFS, EMDR, talk therapy, and somatic work among others.

• Experiential therapies like equine therapy, martial arts, yoga, bodybuilding, art therapy, role playing, 

• Creative healing through photography, painting, writing, journaling, and poetry.

• The extremes — the routes of drugs and alcohol, process addictions, emotional entanglements, avoidance, and immersion.

• The opposites — violence and peace, chaos and discipline, survival and creation.

What I’ve learned is that no single path heals all. Recovery is not linear, not clean, and not finished. It’s layered, evolving, and personal.

Why This Site Exists

I created Vital Pathways to hold space for truth — the kind of truth that isn’t usually welcome in clinical systems, glossy self-help books, or quick-fix wellness programs. This site reflects my own ongoing journey of asking the hardest questions:

• Who am I, beneath my coping mechanisms and survival strategies?

• Where did I come from, and how have those experiences shaped my choices?

• Where am I headed, and is it aligned with what I actually want?

• How do I rebuild not just a life, but a sense of self that feels whole and real?

Vital Pathways is not about pretending to have all the answers. It’s about sharing the wisdom that comes from living the questions, walking the roads, and facing the shadows head-on.

What You’ll Find Here

Like me, this site is a work in progress. It’s alive, evolving, and unfinished — because that’s what healing looks like.

Here you’ll find:

• Perspectives: Essays and reflections on trauma, recovery, relationships, and resilience — drawn from both professional practice and lived experience.

• Resources + Tools: Holistic frameworks, evidence-based strategies, and integrative approaches that address mind, body, and spirit.

• Stories: Raw, personal accounts of what it looks like to live recovery in real time — not as a polished “after” picture, but as an unfolding process.

• Explorations: Where science meets spirit, where creativity meets healing, where old wounds meet new growth.

• Honesty: No sugarcoating. No quick fixes. No borrowed shame.

My Philosophy

I believe healing is personal, messy, and deeply transformative. It’s not something handed down from an expert — it’s something built in collaboration. My role is not to tell you who to be, but to walk alongside you as you discover it yourself.

What I Believe

I don’t follow trends or regurgitate talking points. My beliefs come from walking through fire, from two decades of studying healing both personally and professionally, and from refusing to accept half-truths.

Here are the foundations that shape my work at Vital Pathways:

• Addiction is not a disease.
  Addiction is not a moral failing either. It is the brain doing what it’s wired to do: adapt, survive, find relief. That doesn’t mean it’s permanent. The brain is plastic — capable of change, growth, and building new neural pathways. With the right supports, recovery is not just possible, it’s inevitable.

• The systems are broken.
  Healthcare, mental health, and addiction industries profit from keeping people sick, stuck, and dependent. They manage symptoms and slap on labels, but rarely address root causes. That’s why relapse rates remain high — not because people are “weak,” but because the system isn’t designed to heal them.

• Healing is holistic.
  True recovery addresses the whole person — body, mind, spirit, community. Trauma isn’t just stored in the brain; it lives in the body, shapes our relationships, and informs every decision we make. Healing must touch all of these layers, not just one.

• We are our own best healers.
  Everything you need to heal already exists within you. The role of therapy, community, and practices is not to fix you but to help you remember what’s already there.

• Healing is messy and nonlinear.
  There is no “before and after” photo. Healing isn’t about becoming someone new — it’s about integrating who you’ve always been and rewriting your story without the shame that never belonged to you.

What Informs My Work

I don’t just base my perspective on lived experience — though that’s the foundation. I also study, test, and cross-reference what actually works.

Some of the research and approaches that shape my philosophy:

• The Body Keeps the Score (Bessel van der Kolk) – Trauma lives in the body and must be processed somatically, not just cognitively.

• Gabor Maté – Addiction as a response to trauma, not a disease.

• Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges) – The nervous system as the gateway to safety, regulation, and connection.

• Internal Family Systems (Richard Schwartz) – We are made of parts, and healing comes from listening to them, not exiling them.

• Neuroplasticity research – The brain’s ability to rewire itself through practice, mindfulness, and new patterns.

• Holistic nutrition + functional medicine – How food, inflammation, and gut health play into mental health and trauma recovery.

• Embodied and somatic therapies – EMDR, somatic experiencing, yoga, martial arts, and creative practices as ways of integrating trauma.

I believe we are our own best healers. But often, society, systems, and survival strip us of that truth. By engaging in practices that reconnect us — somatic work, creativity, nutrition, movement, honest reflection — we begin to remember what was never lost: our innate ability to heal.

Vital Pathways is my contribution to this remembering. A place where the scientific, the spiritual, and the deeply human come together. A reminder that healing isn’t about erasing the past, but integrating it — so we can step forward whole.

 By exploring oneself, addressing deep-rooted wounds and needs, and cultivating new ways to connect to oneself creatively and through somatic practices, we tap into our innate ability to heal. The truth is that healing comes from within, and by engaging in these practices, we rediscover our inner strength and resilience, leading to a more balanced and fulfilling life.