At a young age, I loved creating pathways in the wooded areas behind my childhood home. I wanted to connect all my friends together and live amongst a community of people who worked towards a common goal to better the world. My passion was in helping others, but I didn’t explore how this passion could coincide with my strong creative abilities.

Based on my desire to help people, my mentors guided me to pursue a Bachelors in Science degree and get my registered nursing license. Though my nursing career allowed me to creatively help patients heal on a physical level, I wanted to explore how to include the mental and spiritual side.

I embarked on what I like to consider a journey of getting back to me a month after moving halfway across the country from California to Texas. I needed time to heal from life’s stresses. My body began this process naturally when I provided it with the time and space to do so. 

I first tackled my cystic acne, which I’d been trying to heal with conventional methods for almost 10 years. Because of my education in nursing, I understood how the skin worked and decided to go cold turkey on all my soap-based facial products. I picked two pure oil-based ingredients I had in my cupboard along with an essential oil I’d heard many times helped aid in the healing of acne and developed a simple formula for a facial cleanser. I began seeing positive results, which boosted my self-confidence and allowed me to finally be able to look at myself in the mirror without seeing only redness and bumps. This experience led to the collaboration with Diane Lisi and the skincare area of the program.

From there, I knew I needed to go past the external skin and dive deeper. This is when I purchased a journal and arbitrarily picked up my pencil with my non-dominant, left hand. I noticed myself relax, which allowed me to write more freely. Through my writings, I became aware of my built-up emotions, where they stemmed from, and how to release them onto the page instead of emotional outbursts towards others, which could be detrimental to a relationship. These writings led to the collaboration with Loveleen Saxena and the collection of stepping stones, which are the core of this program.

By clearing this fogginess, I was able to remember the avenues I’d been interested in doing, which included building, renovating, property management, designing, facilitating, dancing and creating art.

This is when a property with a small farmhouse came my way and shortly after there was a great need in the community for a safe haven from the flooding due to a major hurricane. This renting experience opened up a dream of mine to nurture and support people on a deeper level through a healing center. It allowed me to include the mental and spiritual levels of healing in addition to the physical, which is what I was seeking when I was working at the hospital.

During this same time, I’d compiled my writings into a workbook with additional exercises and started facilitating workshops to see if what I’d created would provide value to others. I teamed up with Zilpini, a start-up company who was connecting artists with their local community, to deliver these workshops for Mental Health America and The Cannon co-working space. Here is where I saw the value these workshops provided in helping people connect with who they are.

We were forced to sell our property because of the high renovation costs, and afterwards I felt a strong desire to reconnect to my design work, which I’d always loved, but never thought I was good enough to do. Through my designs, I clearly saw the Path Leading Back to Me process come to life in a visual way and knew it needed to be incorporated. This experience led to the design area of the program.

Then I took to applying this process during a homeschooling opportunity and found it greatly helped my initial student assimilate his educational material by applying it to what he was interested in. This later led to gaining additional mentees of various ages and stages of life where I understood through one-on-one support I could help people walk their path.