I’m a certified Ayurvedic Health Counselor, and the creator of She Who Flows. I’ve been practicing yoga and Ayurveda for over ten years, and received my coaching certification through Shakti School, a program that focuses on feminine-form Ayurveda and Tantra. I’m also a working artist, singer-songwriter and filmmaker. My passion is helping others to connect with their creativity and bring health and balance into an artistic life.

My Story

The creative arts have always been at the heart of my life. From the beginning I was creating songs, stories and poems. In elementary school I was the kid sitting alone with my notebook, writing a very ambitious novel (I never finished one, but there were some good starts!) In middle school I taught myself to play guitar and started recording music in my bedroom. I attended a performing arts high school, played the lead in Shakespeare, sang Bach in choirs. In my last year of high school I fell in love with photography and spent hours locked in the darkroom. 

Here’s what I didn’t do much of growing up: I didn’t play sports, didn’t dance, didn’t do “exercise” of any form, didn’t think much about what I ate. “Taking care of my body” meant deciding what color to dye my hair that month.  I valued intellect above all things. I lived in my head, in the pages of my journal, and in the words of my songs. I didn’t realize that I was deeply disconnected from my body, because that’s how I’d always been. 

It wasn’t until a friend dragged me to my first yoga class, when I was 19, that I realized how foreign my own body was to me. Although yoga was awkward, uncomfortable and sweaty, I was immediately hooked. I got my membership and started going every day. The shift was powerful, as I began to inhabit my own body in a way I never had.

Why Ayurveda?

At age 22 I took my first yoga teacher training, and was first introduced to the concept of Ayurveda. Ayurveda, which translates as “the science of life” is widely acknowledged to be the most ancient system of health. It is a way of understanding the world and our relationship to it, with an emphasis on harmonizing our inner and outer worlds. In Ayurveda we look at how the five elements combine both inside and outside of our bodies, and use this knowledge to bring us into our own unique state of health and balance. 

The Ayurvedic principles clicked for me right away, and I was drawn to know more. I remember buying What’s Your Dosha Baby? By Lissa Marie Coffey, a book on applying Ayurveda to romantic compatibility. I felt like it explained so much about me and the person I was dating. Here was a system that could not only help tell me what types of vegetables to eat, but also help me understand my boyfriend’s communication style!

A couple years later I studied abroad in Scotland at The Glasgow School of Art, and something about being so far from home made me turn to the practices of Ayurveda for comfort. I was studying photography, working in the darkroom all day and playing music in bars at night. I loved what I was doing, but wasn’t taking good care of my body and was getting burned out and depressed. I was staying out late, sharing bottles of whiskey on sidewalks with a girlfriend, finishing the nights with a good Scottish helping of fries smothered in gravy and cheese. But in the depths of my soul Ayurveda was starting to whisper to me: “wake up early, oil your body, eat well.” The sun rises late in those rainy winter months in Glasgow, and somehow I would manage to wake before dawn and give my hungover self an oil massage – the Ayurvedic practice of Abhyanga – in my little dorm bathroom. 

When I came home to Colorado, I knew I wanted to see an Ayurvedic doctor. I found the wonderful Dr. Desai, who gave me an Ayurvedic food list, some basic herbal remedies, and my first recipe for kitchari (a classic healing Ayurvedic dish made from mung beans and rice). Printed on a pink sheet of paper from her office, that single page has traveled with me from house to house, from Colorado to California, been stuck on many refrigerators, and become something like a prayer to me. 1 cup rice, 1 cup mung beans, five cardamom pods, 1 teaspoon cumin seeds… These words have guided my hand whenever I need healing; I come back to the simple practice of cooking kitchari.

In 2018 I was living in Los Angeles, working in production at an online yoga subscription service, and meeting some of the top yoga teachers from around the world. I did my second yoga teacher training with a wonderful teacher I met in LA, Eben Oroz, who took me deeply within my own practice. I was eating up all the information, learning to stay in long meditations, letting it change me to my core. But I didn’t want to be a yoga asana teacher, and still didn’t see my own path for sharing these practices. Then a friend told me about Shakti School, an online program in Ayurvedic Health Coaching. After listening to some podcasts with the founder of the school, Katie Silcox, I knew this was for me. I signed up right away, and less than two months into the program, I quit my full-time job in pursuit of a bigger dream.

My Promise to You

Currently, I have a lot of titles. I am a mother, a singer-songwriter, a photographer, a filmmaker, a writer, a yogini, a coach. Throughout my life I have struggled to balance multiple passions, and have come to realize that the only way I can pursue all that I love is by having a strong base of health and self-care. Ayurveda has been that lifeline for me. Whether I’ve been working a 16-hour day on a film set or staying up late to play a show, Ayurveda has helped me find structure in my days amidst an unpredictable and inconsistent schedule. 

The simple practices of Ayurveda have enhanced my creativity and kept me in the flow of receiving ideas, songs, and inspiration. I have learned that if I want to live a creative life, I can’t neglect my body. Art is born through the body, and the better care we take of our own vessel, the more ease we will find in our creative output. On the flip side, I believe that everyone is creative by nature, and addressing any creative blocks can be an important missing link in our health. Ayurveda has shown me a practical way to address these issues, and offered me a loving home within myself to return to whenever I get out of balance. I trust its wisdom to support me through all phases and all times of life, and promise it can do the same for you, too.

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