Awakened Heart Healing

Trauma informed therapy Services for HSPs on Maui

Guiding you home to yourself through the door to self-compassion:

The Heart

Body-Mind-Spirit based therapy for Highly Sensitive People

MY APPROACH

With 20 years of experience across a variety of clinical settings — including residential treatment, inpatient and outpatient hospital care, crisis centers, and private practice — I have discovered that my truest passion lies in working with highly sensitive individuals.

As a fellow HSP, I bring my own lived experience to this work, understanding firsthand both the challenges and the profound gifts that come with being highly sensitive. I am deeply committed to helping you navigate the nuances of your temperament while embracing the superpowers that come with sensitivity — guiding you toward balance, self-compassion, and empowerment.

I believe that within each person lies the ability to create positive change and live their fullest life. My role is to guide and support you in acknowledging and releasing trauma with compassion — helping you learn from past challenges, cultivate a cohesive narrative, and step into your highest expression.

When we stay in our heads, intellectualizing our emotions, we distance ourselves from truly feeling and healing our pain. By immersing ourselves in our bodily experience and tapping into the heart center, we can navigate life's challenges with greater ease and understanding. The wisdom stored in your body is a powerful guide. I am here to help you access it.

In our work together, I support Highly Sensitive People in learning how to:

  • understand their nervous system patterns

  • gently build capacity for emotional intensity

  • move through overwhelm with more regulation and self-trust

  • process past experiences that may have shaped sensitivity into anxiety or shutdown

  • develop deeper self-understanding and internal steadiness

THERAPEUTIC MODALITIES

My approach blends a humanistic perspective with a range of evidence-based healing modalities, creating an emotionally attuned and supportive space for transformational change:

Internal Family Systems (IFS) · Brainspotting · EMDR · Polyvagal Theory · Attachment Theory · Family Systems Theory · Gestalt Therapy · Narrative Therapy · Mindfulness Practices

As a trauma-informed, culturally sensitive practitioner and LGBTQIA+ ally, I am committed to meeting each person exactly where they are, providing compassionate care tailored to your unique journey.

Every circumstance we experience is here to teach us. With any life change comes the potential for transformation and growth.

Common Signs of HSP Overwhelm

Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) often experience overwhelm when their nervous system becomes overstimulated by emotional, sensory, or relational input. This is not a flaw—it reflects a more finely attuned nervous system.

Common experiences of HSP overwhelm may include:

  • Feeling emotionally flooded in situations others seem to handle with ease

  • Needing significant alone time after social interaction, even if it was enjoyable

  • Becoming easily overstimulated by noise, crowds, bright lights, or busy environments

  • Feeling deeply affected by other people’s moods or emotional states

  • Difficulty “shaking off” intense or emotionally charged experiences

  • A tendency to overthink or process interactions long after they occur

  • Feeling exhausted after too much stimulation, conversation, or decision-making

  • Experiencing a strong startle response or feeling easily “on edge”

  • Needing more time to transition between activities or environments

  • Feeling overwhelmed when there are multiple demands or emotional inputs at once

  • Difficulty maintaining boundaries without feeling guilt or emotional confusion

  • A sense of “shutting down” or withdrawal when overstimulated

  • Feeling misunderstood or “too sensitive” in relationships or workplaces

  • Strong internal reactions to conflict, even if not directly involved

  • Physical symptoms of stress such as fatigue, tension, digestive sensitivity, or headaches during overwhelm

Benefits of Somatic Therapy for HSPs

Working somatically can help you:

  • Develop a greater sense of internal safety and grounding in your body

  • Recognize early signs of overwhelm before becoming emotionally flooded

  • Regulate your nervous system more effectively after stress or stimulation

  • Feel less reactive and more resourced in relationships and conflict

  • Release stored tension, emotional overwhelm, or chronic stress patterns held in the body

  • Strengthen your ability to stay present during emotionally intense experiences

  • Increase emotional resilience without becoming less sensitive or intuitive

  • Improve boundaries in a way that feels embodied rather than guilt-driven

  • Reduce patterns of shutdown, dissociation, or emotional withdrawal under stress

  • Feel more connected to your body as a source of guidance rather than overwhelm

  • Experience greater clarity between what is yours emotionally versus what you are absorbing from others

  • Build capacity for connection without becoming overextended

  • Feel more at ease in your sensitivity rather than in constant effort to manage it

Therapy is not about becoming less sensitive—it is about helping your sensitivity become a source of clarity, connection, and grounded presence in your life and relationships.

90-Minute IFS Intensive Sessions

Spacious, unhurried healing for the deeply feeling soul.

Traditional 50 or 60-minute therapy sessions are valuable but sometimes the most tender, complex parts of us need more time and space to be truly heard and healed. That's where 90-minute IFS Intensive Sessions come in.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is a gentle yet profoundly transformative approach that helps you build a compassionate relationship with all of your inner parts — the protectors, the wounded ones, the critics, and the exiles who have been carrying pain for far too long. In a standard session, we often just begin to touch the surface of this sacred inner world. In a 90-minute intensive, we have the time to go all the way in.

What makes extended IFS sessions so powerful?

  • Deeper access — Your nervous system has time to settle, allowing your parts to feel safe enough to truly open up

  • Complete healing cycles — We can move through a full IFS process from beginning to resolution, rather than stopping mid-journey

  • Less reactivation — Longer sessions reduce the jarring experience of having to "come back" before the work feels complete

  • Accelerated healing — More focused time means meaningful breakthroughs happen sooner

This offering is especially beautiful for Highly Sensitive People, who often process at a deeper level and benefit enormously from a slower, more spacious therapeutic container.

90-Minute IFS Intensive Session — $285

Available to current and new clients who feel called to this deeper level of work.

Therapy Services

  • PRICING

    $200 per 60 minute session

    $285 per 90 minute IFS session

    I am currently accepting new clients. Please reach out to schedule an initial phone consultation. Mahalo!

  • INSURANCE

    ‍ ‍I offer super bills for partial reimbursement from insurance.

    I offer online appointments on Zoom or in person at my office location in Makawao, Hawaii. Please contact me to discuss fees and payment options.

In therapy, we work together to understand your sensitivity not as something to fix, but as a nervous system that needs support, regulation, and deeper self-understanding.

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

- Carl Jung

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist · Hawaii MFT-592

Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy · Regis University, Denver, CO

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Communication Disorders · Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD

Please note: Therapy services are provided separately from my intuitive guidance and coaching container offerings. The coaching and energetic work described elsewhere on this site is not psychotherapy and does not constitute mental health treatment. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or address medical necessity. If you are in crisis or require urgent mental health support, please contact your nearest emergency services or call 988

(24 hour crisis line).

READY TO BEGIN?

I offer a free initial phone consultation. I'd love to connect and explore whether we might be a good fit for each other.

Schedule a Consultation