Have you ever heard the saying…

I was the best parent I knew, and then I had children ??

As a psychotherapist who has been blessed with the privilege of working with many children and their families over the past 2 decades, I embarked on my own parenting journey feeling quite certain I had a clear sense of how to be a “good parent”. The first few years of raising my own children and learning to respond to their big, baffling behaviors as they matured and grew into toddlerhood, then school-age (and beyond), helped me to humbly recognize that all of the studying, reading, and theoretical knowledge I had gained throughout my education did not actually prepare me for the reality of 24/7 parenthood.

What was worse was that all of the parenting advice I received from my friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues didn’t seem to be working with the little people in my household at all! If anything, when I would force myself to try out all of the most popular parenting techniques that others swore worked for their kids, (e.g. isolating my children from me when they were distressed, or rewarding them generously and consistently for “positive behavior” with sticker charts and planned incentives) seemed to make things worse. So not only did the challenging behaviors continue to emerge, but I also felt more and more disconnected from my children. In response to this conundrum, I was exhausting myself in the fruitless hunt for a parent expert or resource that could give me the magic answer to how to make daily life a little easier in my family and home. This was such a lonely time in my parenting journey. I felt adrift as a parent who didn’t want to respond to my kids in ways that did not feel true to who I was, or the parent I wanted to be. I was unmoored without adequate support or a community of other parents who also felt helpless, different, and isolated by parenthood.

Then while the world shut down during the COVID pandemic, I discovered a lifeline in the sea of parenting experts floating around the web in a series of free masterclasses offered by Robyn Gobbel (who would ultimately found and create Being With™). The best way I can describe my reaction to Robyn’s masterclasses which taught me about what behavior really is, and the power of developing our x-ray goggles to enable us to look beyond our children’s baffling behaviors to their precious true Selves underneath, is that I finally felt that I had found a parenting approach I could FULLY and wholeheartedly support. As I continued diving deeper into the relational neurosciences, attachment theory, and anchoring into this truly revolutionary approach to parenting, the changes in my view of myself and the world rippled outward to touch my relationships with my kids, family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and even complete strangers in my community.

Those ripples continued to reach further and further as I completed the 12-month immersive Being With™ program for training the helpers who work with parents of kids with big, baffling behaviors and vulnerable nervous systems. I became a Registered Being With™ practitioner, and Course Facilitator. In 2023, I became a Student Coach in the second cohort of the Being With™ program, so that I could continue embodying and integrating the truths & tenets of the program and course into my own nervous system, and I feel so privileged to be granted the opportunity to witness other helpers’ journeys all over the world as the program grows year to year.

All the years of struggling as a perfectly imperfect parent, and holding space in my therapy office for parents who were ALWAYS doing the best they could for their children, but everyday family life remained a struggle, led me to my personal and professional mission:

To create a safe, compassionate space made especially with the needs and struggles of parents and caregivers in mind…

To all of the struggling parents and caregivers out there who feel alone and exhausted, even as you continue to show up for the children in your lives in the ways that only you can: