I remembered who I was as soon as I started meditating and honoring the power of presence.
I’m a Creative, Experience Producer, Community Builder and Mental Health Advocate as seen in The New York Times. Here’s my media kit bio. Below is my personal story.
growing up in florida & france
From tropical Miami to the French countryside in Provence, my childhood instilled: presence is precious.
I was perfectly in my element swimming in the sea, admiring lizards roaming free. Designing tree houses, skipping along French cobblestone paths, reading Roald Dahl, riding horses. Illustrating animals & storybooks, picking up peacock feathers & treasures, and playing make-believe.
My most memorable moment was the day my little brother and I discovered abandoned ruins while hiking the mountain behind our home in France. We believed we found an ancient castle and the tunnel leading to Superman’s crystal cave. To this day, we’re enormously proud of the discovery :)
On my first day of 3rd grade, my life shifted. I started school at our teeny village schoolhouse, where no one spoke English. My classmates teased me anytime I spoke my native tongue, and so my confidence was crushed. This is my earliest memory of experiencing social anxiety.
FROM PATRIARCHY to the land of exemplary paternity leave
Ever since I departed the beautiful bubble of academia, every glamorous job in my 20s in NYC in the “real world” felt gut-wrenching.
From creative agencies to tech startups, office life for me as a creative and empath often felt like our animal kingdom was abiding in civil war.
When I moved to Stockholm, I melted into the country’s collective mindset. I felt immediately relieved by a completely opposite way of doing business. Job interviews were surprisingly lovely heart-to-heart conversations vs fear-based interrogations. Wellness, family life balance AND work ethic were ALL honored. And I felt deeply valued by colleagues with the same level of respect that I also witnessed in daily interactions among my newfound community of very calm Swedish citizens.
The Heroine’s Journey
At 30 I finally decided to follow my lifelong dream of working abroad and traveling the world. I realized this dream was shared by many, but feared by most, and thought to be risky by my American friends.
Note: I’m still frustrated about this, because this HISTORIC rite of passage is The Hero’s Journey, or Heroine’s journey, and in modern terms: gap year. Our astounding privilege in the U.S. is that our dollar is the strongest currency in the world. In many countries, you can travel like a queen for $40 per day. I hope to empower anyone who wants to travel, and especially anyone during transitional periods (i.e. before/after college, in between careers, etc.) Traveling solo long-term provided me with invaluable life skills. Our country’s unacceptable norm of 2 weeks vacation per year isn’t enough to receive these lessons.
As Elizabeth Gilbert puts it best: the reason why Eat Pray Love was a blockbuster success is because: it was the first times the hero’s journey was told on screen in an impactful way from a female perspective.
It was critical that I do this experience, because everyone I had ever met who had traveled solo long term was nothing short of: inspiring, grounded and liberated. And I wanted to be like that too.
Remembering Life’s TWO Greatest Adventures
After a year working in Sweden, traveling to Mexico, Thailand, Australia and doing my yoga teacher training in Bali, I remembered the only thing I love more than external adventure is: the internal adventure.
Once I began studying ancient Tibetan and Vedic wisdom, nutrition and functional medicine, journaling, community rituals, embodiment, realized anxiety is often blocked creativity, learned the power of unstructured dance, developed an awareness practice, and started therapy and ancestral healing .. aka living in alignment.. I fell in love with my now forever love of self-inquiry.
GROWING PAINS & NO LONGER NUMBING
After nomading I returned to NYC, smacked with startling reverse culture shock. Living far away from my closest loved ones, I began reaching out to find fellow yogis. While connecting with “wellness” leaders, I encountered personal development cults and quickly came to realize the wellness industry, like every industry, has dark shadows, isn’t always well-intentioned, and serves as a stage for many master manipulators--wounded gurus with power complexes.
The industry is big money and chock full of broke yogis, and because of this haunting disconnect I felt a deep need to recruit and cultivate a community of collaboration for kindred spirits who were grounded.
This convergence of all-at-once personal events included: reconnecting with an overmedicated loved one, who came off misdiagnosed drugs and “woke up” after 10 years. And yo-yoing through my own unexpected health problems after coming off birth control of 10 years. This made me question everything, but mostly: why didn’t I have a community support system?
Eh wala! WELLBEINGS was born.
Our intentional gatherings included immersive healing and experiential learning, serving as an urban retreat. We met up in dreamy Soho lofts home to tech startup millionaires, who, too, had just begun their journeys of inquiring within.
Living on purpose
My life changed forever and I finally learned how emptiness goes away, (as soon as my only hobbies weren’t cocktails, mani/pedis, eating out, Netflix-ing and shopping) and when my values shifted to a complete focus of regenerative activities, community circles, taking long breaks away from my phone, honoring nature and the present moment, investing in healthy relationships, making art, choosing to live every day with purpose, and a complete focus on creating meaningful work I’m passionate about.
MUCH LOVE FOR MY TEACHERS
A big part of my journey is the teachers and elders that have moved me. In Bali my YTT instructors trained at The Yoga Institute in Mumbai, the world’s oldest organized yoga school.
They taught with unwavering knowing.
Soon after I delved into meditation and Tibetan Buddhism with Thupten Phuntsok, a former monk two teachers descended in lineage from the Dalai Lama. Phuntsok’s embodiment of unconditional love inspired me to become a meditation teacher, too.
In addition to meditation & yoga certifications, I’ve also completed trainings and self-studies with The Holistic Life Foundation (trauma-informed mindfulness for youth), Rick Rubin, Brené Brown, Michaela Boehm, Elizabeth Gilbert, Niki Morrissette, Anna Gannon, and the beloved Esther Perel.
Catching the Eyes of The Times
& Beyonce’s Photographer
We began receiving invites to host cacao ceremonies, hypnotherapy workshops and meditations for Spotify, PepsiCo, Klarna and Wanderlust, which caught the attention of The New York Times. The investigative reporter featured WELLBEINGS as the leader among our corporate wellness peers. Bae’s photographer was assigned to shoot our photos, 4 of which ran in a full-page feature in the Styles Section.
And yes, I did feel like a popstar for a day :) I’m forever grateful for this, because during my agency years clients paid millions yearly hounding us to get this exact type of press feature, but this unique opportunity is rare and can’t ever be promised.
from nyc to ATX, BY WAY OF MAMA maui
After years of dreaming of a life by the sea and jungle among diverse community, entrepreneurs, and eco-friendly farmers, I finally listened to my own advice and moved to Hawaii. “Listen to those little whispers, anything that is calling softly, or loudly!”
The opportunity to immerse within an indigenous culture is a gift. Aloha culture has forever changed me. And all my Jurassic Park, Hook, Indiana Jones and Moana fantasies finally felt tended to. But alas, I quickly realized living on the most remote islands in the world was not for me. So I packed my bags and moved to the Millennial Mecca of Austin, Texas.
And so… the journey continues. Will you join me?
