I hold a Master's degree in philosophy, an AMI Montessori Adolescent Diploma, and a Certification in Somatic Sex Education from the Institute for New Paradigm Intimacy, accredited by the SSEAA (Somatic Sex Educators' Association of Australasia).
For 20+ years, I've made my livelihood in education, teaching and leading, and finding myself again and again in discussions that center personal transformation within deep societal context. Philosophy, comparative religions, history, and world literature aren’t just academic subjects but invitations to look at the systems we've inherited and at how those systems live inside us, shaping how we love, how we connect, and how we suffer.
When I talk about relationships, I mean our relationships with ourselves, with others, with our bodies, with society, and with the living world. Romantic relationship is only one thread in a much larger weave. I am fascinated by the dynamics we create within ourselves and with each other, and I can often see, with some clarity, what's happening when people are suffering. The questions that have animated every session I've ever facilitated are the same ones that animate my coaching work:
How do these dynamics express in our lives, our relationships? What would it look like to become free of some of these systems, unearthing them at the root? Where do we actually find love and joy and essential expression as human beings?
My instinct is to help people stay in relationship, not because staying is always the answer, but because "together" can take so many forms, and those forms are worth exploring before we walk away.
My Relationship History
I have personal experience with the anxious-avoidant dynamic from the inside. I know what it feels like to be caught in that loop, and I know what it takes to move from there toward something that feels like security. I have a platonic life partner with whom I've explored a range of relationship structures over the years, and I'm in a romantic relationship that is currently monogamous and creates secure attachment. I live in an intentional community I co-founded, and I'm always reaching toward what I think of as the women's hut from the The Handless Maiden: a circle of belonging and mutual witness.
Rachel brings such a rare sense of being witnessed – truthfully, earnestly, like all of one’s shades and hues are welcomed without a lens or agenda.
-CS, Santa Fe, online non-binary client