My life started in San Francisco with an early move to the suburbs. My parents are both fourth generation San Franciscans and they were looking for more space and land as they started their own family. I grew up with a huge backyard that opened up into a public creek that ran directly into the bay. My love and appreciation for the outdoors started there and never left.

My imagination would run wild, and I was a swash buckling pirate one day, a star fighter the next. I replicated all of the heroes journeys from the movies of my youth in my own backyard. Every character involved swinging on vines, climbing and jumping from tree to tree, with my tree house as the base of every operation. In many respects this tree house was the very first home my soul resided; it was a secret hideout, a get-away spaceship, a hidden cavern of gold and treasure. My quest for finding that safe and comfortable place started back in my youth and it was always created by my imagination.

Like every native San Franciscan born to Irish and Italian parents, I went to Catholic school, and followed both the dogma and eventual cultural doctrine locally ascribed to: pray to god, get good grades, go to college, obtain good job, buy house, get married, start family. I saw and understood this pattern by the age of 12 and developed a long term plan. It was a long term plan lasting 16 years, and I ended up finishing early. I had completed all my tasks by age 26, and I was at a pivotal place of choosing to start a family. However, when I completed my list early, there was no reward, there was no praise.

No one was there to offer congratulations, accolades, or a trophy. The only one there was myself, and as much as I wanted to give myself an A+, it did not feel right.

I threw myself into work, and joined the ranks of middle managers in corporate America. A seedling planted in my youth, I needed to play outside and became involved in the world of construction, building things. I eventually worked for one of the largest construction companies in the United States. Working myself up to a senior level, I realized that to go any higher on the corporate ladder I would need to compromise integral parts of myself. Those parts happened to be the parts I liked best.

I began my own therapy, I started practicing meditation, which led to a Yoga practice, which eventually led to the study of human psyche. I went back to school, became an intern again, and after 15 years in the corporate world I ventured out on my own into the field of psychotherapy.

I have studied Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and various aspects of Christianity. I have a deep fascination with early cultures, specifically Native American which in my world includes the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans; these interests have placed me in the field of study of shamanism which I continuously am learning about. I have also dabbled in Western African traditions, and am a huge fan of Ancient Greek and Roman culture, particularly their mythologies; I find their mythologies to be the first forms of psychotherapy.