Our psychotherapy and coaching integrate evidenced-based methods with ancient wisdom. We bust through limiting beliefs, unhelpful emotional patterns, and unconscious roadblocks to help you (re)discover your deep-seated purpose. This is psychology for what the soul wants.
Respond flexibly to changing conditions
Set limits without feeling guilty
Practice courage and build confidence
Build strategies to take care of your body, mind and soul
Live your life with
conviction
Embrace challenges as an opportunity to learn
Identify principles that ground you & guide your actions
Understand your patterns, motivations and blindspots
Give and receive information to reach understanding
Use empathy & vulnerability to strengthen relationships
We pledge that you will achieve the results you say you want when you go through the Big Self program. The Big Self program has been designed with people like you in mind, people recognizing that there must be a better way.
I am an Educational Psychologist (Ed.D.), Licensed Professional Counselor with a Mental Health Service Provider designation (TN #1835), angel investor, TEDx speaker, and workshop facilitator.
While I'm starting up EMMA, our Emotional and Mental Health Machine Assistant, I still work with individuals as a coach. With groups, I facilitate the use of EMMA for coaches and therapists in their own practices.
In 2010, I left my clinical practice and went to work as an internal service provider for a venture capital firm. I served as the Director of Happiness and resident shrink for four years before starting my own hardware technology company. In 2018, after recovering from deep burnout, I felt a strong call to integrate my experience and passions in psychology, business, and leadership development to eliminate burnout and help others recover from it. This led to the creation of Big Self School.
I am a certified Enneagram practitioner through the Chestnut-Paes Enneagram Academy and am committed to integrating the Enneagram into my coaching and my own personal development. The Enneagram is a personality system that reveals our drives, motivations, mental traps, blindspots, and growth paths for lasting psychological and spiritual growth.
I received my coaching certification with the Newfield Network, which led to an ICF (International Coaching Federation) certification as an ACC. I'm certified with the Leadership Circle Profile 360, the most comprehensive 360 integrating 13 different models. I'm also a certified professional Enneagram practitioner with the Chestnut-Paes Enneagram Academy, as well as a trainer and teacher from Jerome Wagner’s Enneagram Spectrum Certification program, and have also trained with Ginger Lapid-Bogda.
How did I get here? After receiving my Masters of Divinity three years out of college, I went on to get an M.A. in Literature, and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing. That led to a decade of teaching at universities and colleges in writing and literature. After that I worked in a variety of roles: as a solopreneur in publishing, a freelance writer for various trades, and as a reporter, analyst, and broadcast specialist for startups in tech and logistics.
Throughout these experiences, I always wanted to get back to my early call to use my learning and skills in service to others. I'm now a Coach and a workshop facilitator. I coach clients in burnout, often those seeking purpose and clarity on getting unstuck. I also coach aspiring authors and writers dealing with the struggles of executing on their writing visions. I'm just beginning to use EMMA as my "coach assist," and so far the results have been remarkable. And I still write poetry. My latest writing is an investigation and practical application into the Enneagram called, Shock Point: The Enneagram in Burnout and Stress.
