My Story

I like to tell people that when my second son was finally born (it took five and a half years and a few scientific miracles for me to get pregnant), I had a creative explosion. Poems began to pour out of me. I began writing songs and playing out with my band. And I found enormous catharsis in writing personal essays about my infertility, pregnancy loss, and parenting.

A thread emerged in this new work: how my body had first betrayed me, then saved me. How my body had given life to two, but always remained my own. Before I had kids, I would sit at my desk, think like crazy, and move commas around (quite happily, I might add).

After I had children, with nursing and soccer practice and meal-planning and less time than ever, I felt when I sat down to write like a force was moving through me. My work became more intimate, visceral. My process became much more intuitive. And with this deeper, embodied sense of connection, something shifted.

Having children opened me up to a whole new way of being creative.

My life changed when my son was little. The poetry book I had been sitting on for a decade finally got published by the sweetest press. I landed my first writer’s residency, finished another poetry manuscript, got my first grant, and started writing a novel.

But the whole story isn’t about success. There were piles of rejections. Conferences I didn’t attend. Writing residencies I couldn’t even apply to because how could I leave the kids for two weeks? Sneaking around to get my writing done, hiding from the nanny to squeeze in just 15 more minutes before pickup. More rejections.

And a new, deep knowing that being a mother and a creative person was going to mean committing to it again and again, in good times and in bad.

In 2023, I realized that while I loved teaching college students, I was less interested in thesis statements and more jazzed by helping young creatives connect with process and their innate wisdom. At the same time, my own somatic journey was hard to ignore: had I really been doing Yoga for 23 years, Pilates for a decade, and meditating every day? (I had.) I decided to become a coach, and I chose a somatic coaching program for my training.

It all clicked into place on the very first day of learning. Somatic coaching, with its deep reliance on the wisdom and pathways of the body, offered me something I had always known I needed but never quite understood. As I dug deeper, learning traditional coaching tools alongside body-centered ones, I felt like I was returning to something I’d known all along but never quite articulated.

My mind was blown by the power of mind-body coaching to get at the deep stuff that holds so many creatives back (I’m looking at you, artist’s block, imposter syndrome, and limiting beliefs).

Now, I work as a creative mind-body coach for moms who create. Together, we can find the embodied inspiration that will carry you through to a lifetime of creative practice.