Who am I?

I am a mindfulness coach, playfulness instigator, and award-winning writer. I am half type-A perfectionist and half creative wild messy spirit.  Over the years, I’ve come to embrace this dichotomy of being, for I’ve discovered it is the key to living life imperfectly but with great delight.

I love playing with and encouraging others. I offer an online writing practice, Write Now Mind, where we practice getting out of our own way and discovering the wild messy authentic words trapped inside. We get to know ourselves. I also lead immersion experiences in meditation, writing, and enlivenment.

In 2016, O Books published my first book, More…Journey to mystical union through the sacred and the profane, a memoir of my own spiritual journey, which has won awards in every year since its publication. My essays have been published in internationally recognized newspapers and magazines and selected for inclusion in award-winning anthologies.  I have contributed to and written several blogs: The Feisty Writer, Cooking Up Stories, and Sacred Journey to More, where I talk about subjects dear to my heart: contemplative awareness practice, adopting a playful attitude, and writing my way home.

My latest book is “Naked in the Now: Juicy Practices for Getting Present.” In it, I explore what it means to get vulnerable—to strip off the layers of conditioning and embrace life afresh with a light-hearted playful attitude. I liken this to going on an “inner striptease.” The practices, forged during the decade I spent ten to twenty days per year on silent retreat, are all short–most less than ten minutes! I fully believe that we begin to transform our lives by paying attention to the many tiny moments of delight available to us.  Getting present needn’t feel like boring work, it can be as juicy and engaging as being seduced by a lover! 

In addition to spending my time writing and in awareness practice, I had the pleasure of raising two amazing and precocious girls, even foraying into homeschooling for a spell. I have also been active in the business world.  I had a freelance paralegal business for 17 years during which time I became enamored with mediating, preferring the process of bringing people together to collaborate rather than litigate. Eventually, I became one of a handful of certified “non-attorney” mediators in North Carolina. A year or two later, I got hired by a high technology company as a “purchaser.” The first day I had to google what a P.O. (purchase order) was, but a week later I negotiated an important contract. I made my way quickly up through the ranks until eventually I was VP of Corporate Communications.

 At 53, in menopause, I started rock climbing–this notwithstanding the fact that I felt “too old,” “not fit enough,” and afraid of heights! I had to employ my favorite awareness trick by questioning my own self-imposed limitations and asking myself when I declared I could not possibly take up rock climbing: “Is that so?”

In my favor, I have always been physically adventurous. The summer my husband, Jay, and I met we built a raft out of nothing but driftwood and kelp and explored offshore outcroppings in the frigid Puget Sound. A few years later Jay, my mother, and I hiked 450 miles along the coast from San Francisco to the Oregon border—this was long before hiking long trails, like the PCT, was a thing.  We used to scuba dive avidly and at one point bought an old gorgeous Cheoy Lee sailboat to further explore the Channel islands off the coast of California. When the kids were little (4 and 7) we kept adventuring and one winter moved to a remote fishing village in Mexico and lived “Swiss Family Robinson style” in thatched huts. Physical adventure outside has always been important to me and I love seeing that reflected in my kids who grew up to be avid outdoorspeople.  Go Outwild!

Now, I mix it all up. I Listen. I Play. I Write. I call this my “recipe for enlivenment,” and I love sharing it.

Ten Things You Don’t Know About Me

1. I read Tarot cards in Jackson Square in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
2. I once was pursuing a graduate degree in Archeology (Baja rock art) from UCLA.
3. I’m really good at copying art and making giant wall murals.
4. I have danced with wild dolphins.
5. I have been to ashrams in India with Jay and my friend Durga.
6. Jay and I drove to the Yucatan in a Datsun pick-up with an orange wood canopy.
7. I have built and lived with Jay in a thatched hut on a beach in the Yucatan.
8. I learned to rock climb in my mid fifties!  
9. I can now do a four-minute plank! (I needed better abs for rock climbing.)
10. I have been married since 1984.