A little about me...

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I grew up in the Philippines where my parents were career missionaries. Between social isolation, fundamentalist beliefs, and some good old-fashioned trauma, my childhood was marked by anxiety, depression, and loneliness. I moved the US alone and worked in evangelical churches for ten years after college. That's when a crisis pushed me start my master’s in counseling.

Since then I’ve been on a never-ending quest to understand myself, others, and the world better. I've learned two important things: the first was that I was born to work in psychology. The second was that I had a lot of work to do unpacking my trauma, my spirituality, and the complicated overlap between them. After a very hard but necessary period of learning, deconstructing, and listening to my body, I made some big life changes, including starting my career as a therapist.

I’ve worked in domestic violence shelters, hospitals, jails, courthouses, and private practices doing crisis intervention and counseling. I met my co-founder and best friend, Josh, working at a crisis hotline. It was there that I was introduced to the unexpected power of intentional empathy. It blew my mind and quickly became the most important tool that I have as a therapist and as a human. It not only transformed the way I work with my clients but how I understand myself. 

Each year as I continue to grow and heal, I uncover new parts of myself that had been hidden, deepening my self-love and expanding my capacity to love and care for others. In 2020, Josh and I started a consulting company focused on the empathetic worldview that we call The Empathy Paradigm. In addition to that, I consider myself an amateur philosopher and I’m a licensed therapist specializing in religious trauma at the Dallas Therapy Collective.

I offer Deconstruction Coaching through Empathy Paradigm.