Hi there!
I’m Kelly, and I’m passionate about weaving together my deep commitment to changemaking, serving the world, and conscious parenting, with my passion for holistic healing and wellness.

I’ve spent over 25 years doing service-based work in the US and around the world, and throughout this time have sought to learn the keys to help individuals and communities heal on all levels.

After my own experience of unexplained illness and burnout decades ago, I embarked on a path of studying multiple alternative healing modalities.

I’ve dedicated the last 16 years to developing and delivering brain, body and heart healing and coaching services, programs, and retreats to individuals and groups locally and around the world (virtual and in-person).

Below are some more details in Q&A form…

Where’d you grow up?

I spent my first 17 years in a small town in Michigan, conjuring up visions of traveling the world and eventually making my way to NYC to become an actress.

Five states and three countries later, I did move to NYC. There I found my heart home, leaving the acting dream behind to focus on social justice, public health and holistic healing.

What did you formally study? Does it have anything to do with what you do now?

I studied Psychology and Spanish at Macalester College.

After graduating, I moved to post-war El Salvador to apply what I’d learned about collective trauma and community healing through writing my honors thesis. There, I created a community mental health program for youth and children in communities of former combatants and refugees.

I had planned to go for 6 months. I stayed for 5 years. The hard knocks and amazing teachings: my first Master’s degree.

After seeing the power of community mental health approaches, I was moved to study healing on a collective level and got my Master’s in Public Health at Columbia University: my second Master’s degree.

What of holistic healing and coaching did you study?

My holistic healing training primarily includes my yoga teaching certification, holistic health coaching, and Healing the Light Body shamanic healing certification.

In desiring capacity to go deeper with my clients and to truly transform, I became a certified Sacred Depths practitioner with the amazing Joanna Lindenbaum, an approach to coaching and transformation that takes people deep and looks to effect long-term change. And I continue to build skills and gain wisdom around nervous system and somatic healing teachings, from a variety of teachers.

As a lifelong student, I consistently seek to deepen my studies about neuroscience, healing practices, spiritual mastery and personal development, coaching and behavioral change, all of which get woven into the work I do with clients. 

All of my training and experience together inform what I do now.

Why did you go the alternative healing route?

At 30, I looked in the mirror, afraid I was dying (and somewhere inside kind of wishing I was). I saw a woman decades older than I was, with sunken eyes, erupting rashes, gaping wounds on my hands and face. I felt suffocating anxiety and no energy, hardly able to bear the pain and discomfort.

Every western medical professional I went to threw up their hands and sent me away with an “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you. Your tests look fine.”

But I wasn’t fine.

I had to carve out my own healing path to find my way to wellness. One that would require me going deeper and healing from within. I explored everything from yoga to meditation to acupuncture/ herbalism to diet to energy healing.

And I healed.

That quest of finding ways to heal, using medicine of the mind/ body/ spirit/nature, was one of the hardest and greatest of my life, and has led me to my passion for helping others along their paths of healing.

What is your superpower?

Deep listening and seeing.

Love and light. I know how to source it, to connect with it, to channel it for healing. I know it’s not actually mine, but my superpower is tapping into it.

What accomplishments are you most proud of?

Creating a human from scratch… and raising this beautiful being. One who teaches me every day about humanity, compassion, healing, wholeness and love.

Building the mental health program in post-war El Salvador for youth and children is a pretty strong second.

Learning to heal myself and teaching others to do the same.

Scariest moment?

Being hijacked and held at gunpoint in El Salvador while leading a delegation of volunteers from the US to do service work. I translated the hijackers’ demands from Spanish to English and stayed calm and steady throughout the entire incident.

This event also fried my nervous system and helped me know personally the connection between trauma and sickness. This was one of many things that contributed to me finding my holistic healing path.

What are your mantras?

The crack is the place where the light shines through.

Don’t ask me to take away the symptoms. The symptoms are only the messenger.

Leave the world better than you found it.

What are your favorite places you’ve visited?

Travel for me represents deepening into an understanding of – and connection with – humanity, earth, beauty, self and spirit. I’ve been grateful to live in four countries, work in six, and travel to many more. My favorite places on the planet generally make me feel connected to that which matters most.

Cities = energy, art, diversity, culture, theatre.

Ocean, mountains and sky – they remind me of how expansive our spirits are and how we access states of expansion to help us heal.

Spaces where we find community around the world – I find connecting soul-to-soul with humans to be utter magic, and the best teaching and peacemaking there is.

Do you have hidden talents?

I love dancing salsa and merengue, and in my younger years taught Latin dance. Back in the day, when I could stay awake until 3 am, I would happily spin all night on the dance floor.

Oh, and related to almost any conversation, being able to spontaneously break out into Broadway tunes (favorites: Hamilton, Rent, In the Heights, Sound of Music).

What are a few of your favorite things (see the Sound of Music reference?)

Finding beauty in the everyday moments.

Deep conversations with loved ones and new friend, preferably by a fire.

Dance parties, making art and travel with my kiddo.

Making and witnessing art. Broadway theatre.

Farmers Markets. Worldwide.

Really dark chocolate.