I am so excited to be going back to school to enhance my capacity to support the community in body, mind, heart, and spirit. As I learn what I do not yet know, I sense the emerging of a holistic healing modality and experience; a weaving together of ancient eastern tradition with modern western psychology. 

I will be attending Pacifica Graduate Institute for Counseling Psychology with a focus on Somatic Therapies. I chose Pacifica because of their multi-dimensional approach to health. I will be exploring not only traditional psychological theory, but also cultural perspectives and traditions, alternative healing modalities, alternate states of consciousness, and the essence of transformation.

I believe that we are in a time of collective healing, when information is as accessible as it is overwhelming. I will be integrating what I learn and offering it openly to the community, so that we can learn and grow together. As a human, a teacher, and a space holder, my heart's desire is to be of service and bring more love and joy into the world in a way that is sustainable and accessible to all. 

Your support will help make this growth possible, and I thank you so very deeply.

Here is a bit more about how I came to this decision (if you've got some time to read :)) :

 For the past six years, I have entertained going back to school
countless times. I have applied to schools across the country, and each time something in me
whispered to wait. I heeded, and if not for COVID-19, I may have not given myself the space, the
practices, and the time that would lend to an understanding that now is the time. This is the
moment when I say “yes” to creating the capacity to be of big service to the world and the
healing we all need.

Back in 2009, I went to NYU in hopes that one day I would travel the world and tell
stories. As a book lover since I learned to read, I was always drawn to characters in stories that I
felt like I knew, even if they came from an author’s mind and lived in worlds vastly different then
my own. There was something about how a character offered another perspective to try on and
feel into, safe and innocuous because it was kept on a page, but with the power to shape the view
of my lived experience in the world. Looking back, I recognized I was drawn to the minds of the
characters in my books, how they chose to move through their experiences, and the raw
humanity that is revealed through the voyeurism of a novel.

I pursued a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. I got to travel to Ghana to
study African Literature and Dance as well as work for a local NGO. There too, the books
introduced me to people and perspectives I may not have had the chance to greet. I remember
sitting with a small child at the NGO I worked for, and all we did was sit and look at each other
as we broke into various bouts of giggles. We did not share a language. Kofi, my small friend,
had not yet learned English, and my Twi - the dialect he spoke - was naught. It was there with
Kofi, and through other such moments as a foreigner in a beautiful and kind country, that I got
to experience a human connection that transcends culture. At 20 years old, I became driven by a
desire to connect on that deep level of oneness that each of us has the capacity to reach.
At the same time, I was working through an Eating Disorder. I saw my first therapist in
Nantucket, MA, the summer after Ghana. I was working as a waitress on the island and trying to
process the depression I felt being back in the United States, along with my own sense of
unworthiness and lack. I stopped eating, took long walks and runs, and took pleasure in my own
disappearing. There was something in me that felt I did not deserve health and well-being.
Though I had experienced in my body the empowerment that comes from human connection,
there was something in me that turned away and shrank.

It was around the same time that I found yoga, or maybe it found me. In a dark studio on
Saint Mark’s Place in Manhattan, I cried the whole class because something in me finally
surrendered the pain I was holding. I felt safe in my body, and I felt the heaviness of how mean I
had been to the only true home I will ever live in. I started to go to group therapy with other
women who were working through Eating Disorders and Body Dysmorphia. Group therapy was
where I came to the understanding that we need not shame ourselves for how we feel or our
experiences. Healing is an act of courage, especially when it means distancing ourselves from
behaviors that have woven into our existence. Being a human is complex, and we can support
each other through the journey.

After graduating Summa Cum Laude, to my father’s chagrin, I went to Kripalu School of
Yoga and Ayurveda where I learned to teach yoga and meditation. In the container of that
training, I met some of my darkest shadows and the core beliefs that had taken me down a road
of self-destruction. I wept, I howled, I moved, I laid down for hours, I danced, I created art, and

I emerged with fierce focus on supporting people in finding home in their bodies and peace
within their hearts.

For the next six years, my yoga and my therapy continued. To me, both offer a place to be
seen and heard, to embody fully and courageously. Now, after years of teachings, trainings in
breathwork, Mindfulness Meditation, Spiritual Psychology, and working with trauma in the
body, I am so excited to be taking this next step in my journey as one who can offer safe and
supportive space for all to come and find connection with what lays waiting.

I understand that we are all different and unique. Even inside our own bloodlines, our personalities and
preferences are myriad. And yet, there is something that connects all of us humans, and from
my experience, when we are able to tap into what that something is, healing can take place.
I choose Pacifica because it has been circulating in my orbit since 2014 when I first had
the thought of Graduate School, and I now have the clarity that this is the place for me. When
researching where I could invest my time, money, and energy, my search took me to all the Ivy
Leagues, International Schools, and every program that came up when I searched Holistic
Psychology.

The Masters in Psychology will provide me with the tools I need to grow as a teacher, as
one who provides counsel and brave space to explore what it means to be alive. I know that by
getting my degree I will be widening my base of who I can be of support to and how sustainable
that support is. I look forward to taking the requisite classes, as well as exploring the psyche
through all of the ways my education will provide. 

Thank you for taking the time to consider supporting me on my journey. I bow to you with deep love and respect.