The Journey That Brought Me Here

If you’ve ever wondered whether real healing is possible—or felt like you’ve tried everything and still ended up in the same place—this is the story of how I began to find my way back to myself.

I'd always dealt with depression—quiet, persistent waves that would pull me into long periods of reclusion. It was just something I thought I had to live with. After college, the cycles continued, and even as I built a life with my husband, they never fully went away.

Traditional pharmaceutical treatments weren’t helping. My husband, after witnessing these struggles over the years, gently suggested I try something different—psychedelics. That recommendation changed everything.

Cracking Open: Discovering Something Deeper

My first MDMA-assisted journey, held in a safe and guided setting, cracked something open. For the first time, I felt possibility. Depression wasn't something I was supposed to beat or get rid of. There wasn't a "now it's over and I'm better forever" finish line that I was just short of reaching. Instead, I felt the presence of something deeper within me that saw all that I had been through, and held the power of acceptance in the witnessing.

(Sidenote: anyone who has experienced MDMA knows that feeling—where your life's hardest moments reappear like a slideshow, and yet, through the power of the empathogen’s medicine, you’re able to witness the scenes from a safe distance and with grace, rather than reliving the emotional fears tangled up with the memories.)

That same guide later introduced me to Internal Family Systems (IFS). It was 2021, mid-pandemic, and like many, I was beginning to reevaluate everything. IFS gave me a new lens. I was not the feelings I experienced. I was not the depression. I was not the woman carrying some chemical imbalance in her brain and body that made her permanently dysfunctional.

I began to understand that I wasn’t broken or defective. Instead, the symptoms of depression weren’t something to conquer—they were a message from within. A part of me, carrying something important, asking for my attention. For me, it was protecting me from the feeling of not being enough. A young part of me carried the fear of not being accepted as I am. I could recall moments in childhood when I had to strive to get the attention and love of my parents. That left a lasting and implicit impression that I had to do in order to be worthy of connection. Just being meant I might lose it.

While the work still continues—especially in a culture that praises doing over being—it helped unveil the nature of my internal world. Depression, shutting down, was an effort to keep me from feeling the terror of that little one who didn’t believe her existence alone was enough to deserve love. That shift was seismic.

The second major turning point came when I had a nervous breakdown at a new job. I’d started working at a tech company, and within six months I hit a wall. I couldn’t see clearly, couldn’t function, couldn’t fake being okay. I was terrified—afraid that I was unraveling, that maybe I’d never be truly well without going back on medication. But I also knew something in me didn’t want to go back to suppressing the signals. So I took a short leave from work and made the choice to find an IFS therapist.

This time, something truly began to change.

I had done therapy for years—talk therapy, cognitive approaches, insight after insight. I could name all the patterns and trace them back to childhood, but something was still stuck. IFS wasn’t about the story. It was about letting go of the story. It was about unburdening the parts of me that were holding pain, and learning to meet them with curiosity and compassion. That was the healing I’d been searching for.

Eventually, I knew I wanted to offer this work to others.

Stepping Into the Work

I began formal IFS training in April of 2024. At the time, I was still working full-time in tech. I’d spend weekends immersed in deep transformational learning—and then return to my job on Monday, struggling to integrate what I’d just touched in myself.

One of the most important lessons in becoming a coach is learning to notice your own parts, and to recognize when someone else is speaking from a part of themselves. There’s always a protective agenda. And unless we remember that, we risk staying in a trance—taking things at face value, missing the deeper truth underneath.

But learning to see that way takes time. And for me, the hardest part was trying to grow this path on the side, like a passion project I had to earn my way into. But healing doesn’t work like that. Transformation asks for your presence. And I realized: I couldn't keep trying to squeeze this calling into the margins of my life.

There were also moments along the way that affirmed I was exactly where I needed to be. One early session I’ll never forget was with a fellow coach from my training cohort. She was incredibly experienced—decades in the field. I was nervous. What could I possibly offer her?

But something happened in that session. I followed my intuition, stayed connected, and we went somewhere meaningful. Afterwards, she told me: “This feels natural for you. You have a gift.” That one sentence cracked me open. It was like I had been waiting my whole career to hear that. To be seen—not just as someone who was capable, but someone who was meant to do this.

There were other moments too—clients who came back after a few sessions and shared how much had shifted. How they were beginning to find grace for themselves. How they could finally see their inner world not as a monolith of suffering, but as a constellation of parts—some scared, some tired, some just needing to be seen. It still moves me every time.

Healing Isn’t a Straight Line

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: No single thing holds the key. Not one book, not one modality, not one breakthrough. Healing is layered. It’s slow sometimes. It’s sacred. And it’s never one-size-fits-all.

People often come to coaching or psychedelics because there’s deep pain—something they want to change, something they want to fix. But what I’ve come to understand is that the most powerful shift happens when we stop trying to fix ourselves, and start listening instead.

Carl Rogers' is famously quotes - "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change"

I know that might sound trite—and honestly, it’s probably the last thing you want to hear when the pain, discomfort, or suffering you’re carrying feels insurmountable. Most of the time, you just want it to go away. Then you’ll deal with it, right? I get that. I’ve been there. But I guess that’s the practice. Instead of numbing, pushing, or distracting our way out of pain, it’s about gently returning to the lived experience of it. And for me, doing that with help—with someone walking beside me—was essential. I needed to prove to myself that it was even possible to turn toward it at all.

Ultimately, this path isn’t linear. It’s more like a spiral. And the invitation isn’t to “get over” what hurts, but to turn toward it with presence, curiosity, and compassion. That’s the heart of IFS. That’s the heart of my work.

And if you’re reading this—maybe that’s the invitation for you too.