If Only She Knew Then…

The Girl Who Noticed Everything:

In this photo, I’m two years old, proudly sitting for picture day after cutting my own bangs with the confidence only a two year old can have. My big brown eyes are wide open, ready to take on the world, unaware of life’s twists and turns, loses and disappointments, growth and rebuilding moments and quiet victories that would shape the woman I would become or I am becoming.

As a young girl, I always had a keen awareness for people’s needs and a desire to help. I did not have the language for “impact” or “advocacy” yet, I just noticed things.

In first grade, I remember seeing a classmate who was often teased because she drooled all the time. I remember taking her into the bathroom and handing her some paper towels and gently teaching her to keep some in her pocket so she could use them to manage her saliva so kids would stop singling her out. It was not perfect, but it was what my 6 year old heart understood about dignity, kindness and giving someone a little more control in a world that did not always feel kind to her.

The Calling I Didn’t Expect:

That early instinct to help never left me. Years later, I thought that desire would lead me to Nursing or Psychology but life has a ways of redirecting you towards what you are truly meant for. While applying for a summer job, before starting grad school for Psychology, I was exposed to physical therapy for the first time. I watched this therapist work with kids and immediately felt like I wanted to work with people’s bodies and teaching them how to move more freely and achieve their goals.

What I did not realize then was that physical therapy would also bring me right back to the mind, the brain-body connection, to the emotional layers of healing, to the stories people carry in their tissues.

The Family Who Changed Me:

Not long after, I began working for a family whose daughter had a disability and that experience changed me in ways I am still grateful for today. I had the privilege of helping this beautiful little girl lean to sit, crawl, and eventually walk with an assistive device. I became woven into their family. It was the first time I understood what it meant to be invited into someone’s life in such an intimate, meaningful way. And it is when I started to realize my calling that had been quietly forming in me since childhood.

The Season Anxiety Found Me:

By my late 20’s, anxiety had started to weave itself into my life. Even in the hardest moments, I had this deep desire to understand what was happening inside me, the brain’s role in anxiety and the somatic and visceral responses, the way the body speaks when the mind is overwhelmed.

The more I learned about the brain-body connection, the more control I felt I had again. And years later, as I began working closely with women, I realized how much that season had prepared me. The tools I learned, the compassion I built, the way I made sense of my own body. All of it became something I could share. Not as theory but as a lived experience.

The Shift Towards Women’s Health:

I spent the early part of my career in a Pediatric Clinic and later in an Orthopedic Clinic doing a lot of manual therapy and helping people move with less pain. I kept circling back to this pelvic health course I had taken along the way. The more I thought about the class, the more I realized it was the missing piece in my clinical skills.

Pelvic Health was not just another specialty; it was the link to treating the whole body, the whole person. And the more I learned, the more everything clicked: the anatomy, the physiology and the brain-body connection.

What truly pulled me in was the change I saw in women’s lives. Real change. The kind that shifts confidence and gives women back their lives. The deeper I went into pelvic health, the more dedicated I became. This was what I was meant to do.

Starting Over at 55:

Now, at 55, I find myself starting over in more ways than I ever expected, personally and professionally. And yet, when I look back, I can see how every chapter, the helping, the learning, the anxiety, the challenges, the loses, the women I have walked beside, has prepared me for this season.

I can see how my experiences have become tools I now offer to other women. I can see the challenges I faced, and I am currently facing, have been bridges of connection. And I am keenly aware of how much room there is still for me to learn and grow, as a woman, a clinician and as co-founder of Pelvic Pathways.

My local clinic is evolving. Pelvic Pathways if evolving. And so am I.

I have watched myself fight change, then surrender to it, then resist it again and now, for the first time, I am curious about what it might bring.

Stay Tuned:

Soon I will share how I move through change and life’s hardest moments and how I use walking to give me clarity and strength. I will share a very important ultramarathon walk and a pilgrimage I took that brought clarity, strength, endurance, beauty, friendship and family together in a way I never expected.