About
When you’re looking for help, guidance or support, you need to feel understood. You need someone who gets you–what you want and what you need. Someone who can help you experience meaningful change, whether you are looking to transform your life entirely or just make the SHIFTS that will help you reach your potential.
What I do….
I am a licensed psychologist who specializes in rapid transformation, helping people move from crappy to happy, from ordinary to extraordinary, from surviving to thriving.
If you want to experience true fulfillment, break free from the prison of “need-tos” and “to-dos” and start living a life of Ta-Das, you’re in the right place.
My Philosophy (and Results)
Real change doesn’t have to take years or even months.
Working with me causes accelerated healing.
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Licensed Clinical Psychologist
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Author
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Featured Psychologist in the Media
Are You Ready for Transformation?
I believe in rapid transformation to gently and effectively clear emotional blocks and achieve dramatic transformation, immediately decreasing levels of anxiety and increasing clarity to reach full physical and emotional balance.
Trauma is a physical and emotional response to perceived threat. Unfortunately, after you have experienced trauma, it is very common to re-experience the trauma again and again, even when the threat is absent. Something triggers you and you are immediately launched into the same emotional experience as when the trauma occurred. This vicious cycle continues, reactivating the trauma over and over–unless it gets cleared. In sessions, we break this cycle–not by changing what you think, but by changing how you think about what you are thinking.
You can also think of transformation as Resolving Trauma...Triggers...and all sorts of other psychological Troubles.
Are We a Fit?
My no bullSHIFT approach will meet you where you are and take you where you need to be. The way I see it: My job is to get you out of my office and living your best life as your best self.
My clinical background includes working with individuals, couples, families and even groups to dissolve trauma triggers and eliminate recurring traumatic experiences. I am licensed in the states of North Carolina and Florida.
I was a lead therapist for 10 years at Milestones in Recovery, a comprehensive Eating Disorder Treatment Center where I introduced a comprehensive approach to healing that involved mind/body healing. I have cracked the code to the language of disordered eating and the secret to eating disorders through the language of Foodinese.
Early in the pandemic I saw a picture of a healthcare worker hugging an elderly patient in isolation. I immediately felt a calling and recently began working in Assisted Living facilities in the Asheville area.
I also work with aspiring and professional athletes, as well as Olympians, to break mental blocks and achieve peak performance, getting them out of their heads and onto the winner’s platform.
"To heal is to have grace for ourselves. To notice our strengths and have appreciation for what we do as opposed to shaming ourselves or trying to “forgive” what we perceive is wrong or broken within us."
Dr. Dara
It's time to get your SHIFT together...
To have clarity and peace
To feel happy and content and peaceful
To experience complete self-acceptance
To have authentic, connection/meaningful relationships with others
To feel understood
To get the help and guidance you need to breakthrough
To make a powerful and lasting SHIFT
Personally Speaking...
In early 2020, I moved to the majestic mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, with my two young, zestful, and inquisitive children, Elyah and Nevin, and our two fur babies, Italian greyhound, Denzel, and Merlin, our adopted Greyhound who is a retired racing dog.
Being an athlete is a mentality and becomes parts of your character as it becomes you. I grew up as a competitive tennis player and played on scholarship through collage. I continue as a competitive athlete and body builder at the age of 50.
When I am not working, writing, or with my family, you can find me running outdoors, working out, chasing waterfalls, hiking new trails, being a soccer mom, or cooking a new healthy recipe- that my kids won't eat!
Integrity is my favorite word and my favorite quote is: