THE VERY ABRIDGED VERSION OF
MY STORY
Wife, mom, & coach.
Heart-on-fire creative.
I grew up west of Sydney, Australia, in a town called Penrith with a good old clothesline out the back. I was a sensitive, imaginative kid with big dreams and a strong creative streak. That eventually led me into graphic design, and later into running my own branding and web business.
By then I was married to Chad and becoming a mother. I loved my work and was good at it, but I could feel that something wasn’t quite lining up. I wanted my life and work to feel meaningful. What I couldn’t see yet was how much of my drive was being impacted by striving, pressure, and a need to prove my worth.
After the birth of my son, the death of my six-year-old niece, and our move to California, things began to unravel. I had stepped away from my business hoping for a fresh start, and instead found myself face-to-face with an inner world I had spent years outrunning. I didn’t know it then, but that season would change the direction of my life.
I began learning how to meet myself differently. I explored therapeutic work, parts work, somatic practice, relational skills, received coaching, and started better understanding the old beliefs and protective patterns that had shaped so much of my life.
That work left me in awe, renewed from the inside out, and slowly became Stay & Thrive. It grew through the very real, walking-it-out journey of discovering not only what I wanted to cultivate, but how to sustain it in the everyday.
I am so grateful for this lived experience, and the training that helped me understand it. It gives breath to the work I offer now, which I find an absolute privilege. Not only has it changed the way I inhabit my life, it facilitates that sort of change in the women who want it and find me here.
![Black and white image of a handwritten signature or text that reads 'From my heart, love, [unclear signature]'.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/66ee0263a041236bbc7902bf/00ea8167-cbc5-4531-b063-383a7c8fc8de/Untitled-1-01.png)
An invitation.
To stop running.
What I believe now.
I believe relationships matter enough to be tended, and that a woman does not have to carry the whole relationship to have meaningful influence within it. We affect each other. How we show up matters. And the people we love remain separate people with their own histories, needs, desires, and choices.
I believe many of the patterns women feel ashamed of – control, over-functioning, people-pleasing, resentment, shutting down – make more sense when we understand what they have been trying to protect. Curiosity gives us somewhere more useful to begin than criticism.
I believe softness can be deeply strong. Receptivity, desire, pleasure, limits, honesty, vulnerability, rest, play – these are part of what makes a life feel inhabited. They’re significant in marriage, in motherhood, and in the relationship a woman has with herself.
I believe a woman can radically reinvent her life while preserving the marriage and family she loves. She can rediscover herself and pursue the things that make her feel alive. And through that process, she may discover a whole new relationship with herself, her worth, and the people she loves.
I believe change has to become something we can actually live, not just something we understand. We can know all the right things and still find ourselves in the same patterns. I care about helping women create enough room to experience something different in their bodies, their relationships, and their day-to-day.
And I believe no framework can know a woman’s life better than she can. A framework can orient. Skills can support. Coaching can guide. But she remains the one living it.
Nothing can substitute.
Coming home to yourself.
What I’m Sipping On…
I’m a writer, a creative, and very much a mountain-over-beach person. I love long walks, crisp morning air, star-gazing, dancing, music, deep conversations, chai tea, and catching the small, heartfelt moments that make life feel meaningful. I’m drawn to softness, play, intimacy, beauty, and the kind of presence that helps me stay connected to what I care about.
I still think like a designer in many ways. I notice patterns, small details, space, and how things fit together. It has always drawn me toward the nuance, toward the wisdom found between beauty and ruin. That part of me has never really left; it just found a different expression.
I care deeply about marriage, motherhood, and creating a life that feels like your own while still being deeply connected to the people you love.
Living the work.
Keeps me grounded.
Training & Experience
My relationship coaching work grew through lived experience, years of applying relational and intimacy skills in my own marriage, receiving coaching, continued study, and eventually developing the Stay & Thrive framework from what I was learning and practicing.
I’m also a trauma-trained Somatic Practitioner, with a certificate of completion from the Body-First Healing Institute. My practitioner training included nervous-system science, trauma physiology, somatic attunement, relational somatics, ethical practice, and trauma-informed approaches to working with the body. This training supports the way I attend to embodiment, capacity, pacing, and inner-world work within the larger coaching framework.
My parenting work has also been shaped by additional education in relational and developmentally informed parenting approaches.
Out There in the Wild
A few places where my story and work have found a home beyond this little corner of the internet.
Honoring Those Who Paved the Way
Stay & Thrive has grown from a diverse lineage of thought and support. I'd love to acknowledge the teachers, coaches, authors, and influencers whose work has impacted, inspired, or contributed to the work I now facilitate:
Aliza Waksal, Brené Brown, Shauna Niequist, Brittany Piper, Amy McCready, Brian Reiswig, Laura Doyle, Irene Lyon, John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, Mary Main, Richard C. Schwartz, Peter Levine, Dr. Stephen Porges.