Hey, I’m Teresa

Here’s my “bio.”

I am a therapist in training, pursuing my Psychology PhD at Meridian University, living in Oakland, California. I am of Taiwanese, Chinese, and Mongolian descent and a first generation American. I come from studying and practicing modalities including AEDP, IFS, and Polyvagal theory and maintain a decade long deep practice with Vipassana meditation and yoga. My ceremony and medicine work began in 2018, learning from a Peruvian lineage working with Ayahuasca and a South African Sangoma lineage working with Iboga. I believe that now is the time to heal in relationship and open to those vulnerabilities of deeper connection with self and others through creating real, safe and secure relationships with clients. In 1-1 work, I guide people to attune to the body, attachment, re-align inner dialogue and invite imaginal capabilities and play return to vitality. In ceremonial work, I bring my connection to master Amazonian plants, voice, music, and sound instruments to open into the wisdom of the heart and spirit.

Now here’s the real story…

I’m a trauma survivor. When I was 27 I had an out of body experience when a beloved suddenly died in a motorcycle accident on his way to see me. I didn’t know it then but as I was floating above my body, listening to the girl below me cry, my life was starting on a deep path of healing.

Disassociated, disconnected, and numb, the non-existent space for grief in our society left me depressed, alone, and totally lost. I quit my job, packed my bags, and went to a small little island to hide away and try and figure out what was happening inside me. 6 months of isolation just focusing on each step ahead I dove into yoga, breath work, meditation and plant medicines. The pain inside me was so immense, everything I thought I knew about life was shattered, I had to re-build from scratch.

Two years later, another previous love also died in a motorcycle accident. I spun into a whole new whirlwind of traumatic stress - it brought up all the first grief, created a whole load of new grief, and the bewildering of it all happening again. Dark night of the soul round two.

At this point, I had spent all of my savings and was in such bad mental shape that returning to a six-figure job that was the antithesis to the new human I was becoming was out of the question. I relocated into the mountains to do the deeper work that was being called. Two years later, all of the grief work led me to become a yoga and meditation teacher. I had robust toolbox of self awareness and self practice and I started to feel my feet underneath me. Then the deepest chapter began - to heal the sexual abuse I experienced in childhood.

All of the old mechanisms and behaviors developed when young were finally out of date and called to be healed and released. Disconnection from the body, self, authenticity, and needs tuned into a path of remembering, reconnecting, and restoring.

1,000+ hours of Vipassana meditation, many journeys learning from ancestral medicines like Ayahuasca and Iboga, I confronted my family and my abuser. With each abandoned part I recovered, I discovered sweetness and connection. For each fearful part I recovered, I discovered unwavering courage to stand for what’s right. For each rage-full part I recovered, I discovered strength and clarity in boundaries. With each neglected part I recovered, I discovered compassion and the ability to love unconditionally. With every traumatized part I recovered, I discovered the fail-proof equation to healing: awareness, presence, self-compassion, and love.

I started to share the knowledge and methodologies that helped me from trauma psychology, plant medicines, neuroscience, IFS, AEDP, mindfulness, music, and movement to help other people heal.

Everyday I’m infinitely full of empathy and compassion for the difficulties that stem from trauma and there isn’t a day where I am not absolutely fascinated and hopeful of humans ability to not only survive but to thrive. To turn hardship into something so inexplicable -love, beauty, and awe, is life-long hard-earned magic.

I’ll walk with you until you reach that magic.