My work can be described as The Kintsugi Path of Living and Dying. It is built upon the belief that beauty, creative expression, wisdom, and loving kindness are more the result of learning how to weather the disturbances of our lives than from avoiding them.
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
– Antoine de Saint Exupery
Who Am I?
I am an author and mentor who helps others to find their truth so they can find their bearings and consciously thrive in their own spectacular way.
When I was 10, my mother gave me a great big book for Christmas about the world’s religions. It awakened a powerful curiosity in me about how our beliefs inform our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It was also one of those serendipitous events that set me on my true path without my even realizing it.
Throughout my journey, I have continued to explore wisdom teachings from around the world with a particular fascination for the dynamics of consciousness. As I matured, I recognized that wisdom without appropriate application in our lives is meaningless.
My work is about helping others move beyond talk into the creative artistry of choosing how to live their lives. I teach them how to breathe life into the truth that resonates within them – to live a life that is a beautiful reflection of their most treasured truth and inner wisdom.
Driven by a desire to free others to be who they are without apology, I am deeply gratified every time one of my clients finds her inner sweet spot where her life becomes so much easier and enjoyable – that place of peace and solid inner foundation and knowing.
Most of my clients are productive, dynamic, smart, savvy women who have mastered the art of coping and multi-tasking. They come to me yearning to create deeper meaning in their lives. Many feel as though they have lost their sense of self and what matters most to them. For some, this involves leaving a job or marriage or finding their way after the death of a loved one. For others, it unleashes bold new initiatives.
When we live more deeply rooted in our hearts and our truth, we bring the gifts of our true brilliance into the world.
A reader recently emailed to thank me for an article I had written saying, “your words have provided a kind of scaffolding to help frame my experience.” That is the essence of my work. I do not work on the level of how to achieve this goal or that, but rather I assist my clients and readers to explore and renovate the scaffolding upon which they are living their lives.
I support you in living with profound authenticity through the trials and triumphs of your life.
Helping to reframe life’s challenges into opportunities for growth, transformation, empowerment, liberation, and wisdom is an essential part of my work. I focus on such pivotal transition times as marriage and death which may seem to be utterly opposing points on the spectrum of experience. In fact, they hold in common an absolute dependence upon truth, self-awareness, acceptance, and the call to loving-kindness – all essential tenets of my work.
Marriage teaches us to embrace the fact that our well-being is intimately tied to that of another, while death reminds us that time is precious.
To engage with life’s challenges beyond concepts of right and wrong – learning from them, and evolving to greater levels of wisdom as you elevate your consciousness is an ART.
Just like Humpty Dumpty, we all take a devastating fall here and there in our lives when it seems that our whole world has fallen apart and all the king’s horses and men can’t put us back together again. These are the pivotal moments that test our mettle and teach us that life is an inside job. No therapist or spiritual teacher will ever be able to make it better for you – we can help you to see your situation with greater breadth, depth, and wisdom, but, only you can pick up the pieces and choose your way forward.
The parts of life that break us truly offer us the ability to become stronger, wiser, and nicer people.
Where have I been all my life?
My journey has been neither a straight-forward and predictable trajectory to the American dream version of success nor an easy path to walk – but it is my path and I am loving it.
Every day I delight in learning new things. Along the way, I also garnered a few academic degrees:
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2008 DSS/Doctorate in Spiritual Science – Peace Theological Seminary and College of Philosophy
1998 Ph.D. /Social Psychology – The Union Institute and University
1975 MA/Management – Simmons College
In the early 1980s, my life took a sharp turn after a career in corporate strategic planning at W.R. Grace, Avon, and Tiffany & Co. I found the entry point to a spiritual path of devotion that continues to nurture me every day. In 1985, I was ordained as an interfaith minister. At the same time, I left corporate America and went out on my own consulting with small businesses.
In 1991, I left New York City for the beautiful Hudson Valley of New York. That was the year I began designing and officiating at wedding ceremonies and launched my private mentoring practice when my business clients began asking me to work with them privately. As my practice grew, I expanded to help couples and families as well in improving the quality of their inner lives and relationships.
For about a decade, I also taught on college campuses and in prisons for a local college while the focus of my work clarified. I developed my own programs – workshops and retreats on holding love as a sacred priority, elevating consciousness, and thriving each in our own spectacular way.
In 1997, another thematic entered my life – making peace with human mortality. That was the year my mother and I began sharing a home and I became her primary caregiver until her death in 2006. It was baptism by fire for us both learning what it is like to age and die in America. Somehow I managed to begin blogging for the Huffington Post during this time and published my first book, The Wedding Ceremony Planner, which remains the bestselling book on how to design a wedding ceremony. On her deathbed, my mother made me promise to write about what we had learned together for the benefit of others. I continue to write about this important taboo topic in our society both in my blogs and my upcoming book, Making Peace with Dying and Death.
For the past decade, my work has evolved and refined further to focus almost exclusively on women in both The Thriving Studio™ and my mentoring. Having recognized my role as a curator of actionable wisdom, I have defined The 11 Keys to Mastering the Art of Being You and they now serve as the foundation of all my efforts.
In support of my work to help people achieve greater acceptance and peace around dying and death, I am working as a chaplain at my local hospital with staff, patients, and their loved ones.
Stay tuned. Who knows what will come next!
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