About
Understanding Identity Through Disruption
My work explores what happens when life changes who you thought you were — and how awareness allows us to consciously rebuild what comes next.
What Happens When Life Changes Who You Thought You Were?
For some people, identity disruption comes through trauma. For others it comes through divorce, addiction recovery, loss, betrayal, illness, career collapse, or a discovery that changes everything they believed about themselves.
While the circumstances differ, the experience is often the same: the story we believed about ourselves no longer fits.
That question has shaped much of my own life and ultimately became the foundation of my work.
From Collapse to Reconstruction
In 2005, my life underwent a profound collapse that forced me to question nearly everything I believed about myself, my relationships, and my future. What began as a deeply personal crisis eventually became visible on a national stage, including multiple appearances on the Dr. Phil Show.
Rather than defining me, those experiences became the beginning of a much deeper journey into psychology, mindfulness, trauma recovery, and personal transformation. I spent years studying human behavior, healing, identity, and the ways people reconstruct meaning after life-altering events.
Then, in 2018, a DNA test revealed that the man I had called Dad my entire life was not my biological father. Once again, identity itself became the question. The discovery challenged my understanding of family, history, belonging, and self in ways I could never have anticipated.
These experiences ultimately led me to graduate studies in Depth Psychology, advanced training in trauma recovery and mindfulness, and years of work supporting individuals navigating trauma, identity disruption, and major life transitions. Today, the lessons forged through those experiences form the foundation of everything I teach.
Trauma Creates Adaptations.
Awareness Creates Choice.
My work is built on the belief that many of the patterns people judge themselves for were once intelligent responses to difficult circumstances. Healing begins when we stop asking, “What is wrong with me?” and begin asking, “What happened, what did I learn, and who do I want to become now?”
Trauma Creates Adaptations, Not Identity
The behaviors that helped us survive are not proof of who we are. They are strategies the mind and body developed to protect us.
Personality Is Not a Prison
Much of what we call personality is built through experience, conditioning, relationships, and repeated choices. What was learned can be examined, reshaped, and integrated.
Awareness Creates Choice
When we become aware of our patterns, we create space between stimulus and response. That space is where healing, freedom, and self-reconstruction begin.
Healing Is Integration
The goal is not perfection. The goal is wholeness — learning to understand, accept, and integrate the parts of ourselves we once rejected or misunderstood.
Experience Informed by Both Study and Life
My approach is grounded in a combination of lived experience, academic study, trauma recovery education, and decades of work helping people navigate adversity, change, and personal transformation.
Education
- M.A. Depth Psychology & Archetypal Studies
- Master of Business Administration (MBA)
- Additional Graduate Studies in Humanistic Psychology
Professional Certifications
- Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor (IAOTRC)
- Certified Mindfulness Instructor
- Certified Life Coach
- John Maxwell Team Certified Coach, Trainer & Speaker
Leadership & Service
- President, NPE Network
- Co-Developer of Trauma Recovery Training Programs
- Author & Speaker
- Former Firefighter & EMT
- U.S. Navy Veteran
While credentials matter, the greatest lessons I teach were learned through navigating adversity, rebuilding after collapse, and discovering that identity is far more flexible than most of us realize.
You Don't Need To Be Broken To Rebuild
The people I work with come from many different backgrounds and life experiences. What they often share is a desire to better understand themselves, heal old patterns, and consciously create what comes next.
Identity Disruption
For those whose understanding of themselves has been challenged by a major discovery, transition, or life event.
Trauma & Recovery
For individuals seeking to understand how trauma adaptations influence their thoughts, emotions, relationships, and behavior.
Major Life Transitions
For those navigating divorce, loss, addiction recovery, career changes, grief, or midlife reinvention.
You don't need a diagnosis, a crisis, or a dramatic story to benefit from this work. You only need the willingness to examine the story you've been living and consciously participate in writing the next chapter.
You Are Not Condemned to Remain Who Survival Required You to Become.
If this message resonates with you, the Start Here page will guide you through the free guide, podcast, academy, book, and speaking resources.
Choose the path that fits where you are right now.
Download the Free Guide ```