About

I am a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Colorado and was a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Florida previously as an LMHC. I am also currently licensed to provide teletherapy in Florida. I will work with you collaboratively to decide the best treatment plan for you! I primarily utilize a combination of Cognitive Behavioral, Motivational Interviewing, and Solution-Focused modalities.

I spent most of my life as a “military brat,” moving around and changing schools often; I believe this was the beginning of building those resiliency skills. I received my bachelor’s degree in 1998 from Florida State University in Communication Disorders.

In 2004, with a 4 – year-old and husband in the Fire Academy, and both of us working full-time, I decided it was time to pursue my dream of going into behavioral health and obtaining my master’s degree to practice. Like many others who go into behavioral health, I was on a personal journey of self-discovery – trying to make sense of “why am I the way I am?”

Shortly after the decision to continue my education, I discovered that I was pregnant. When my daughter was only 4 months old, I reluctantly left her at a babysitter to begin interning at a local Community Mental Health Center in Florida. I ended up being hired as a paid employee a month later. With lots of hard work, perseverance, and sleepless nights, I managed to graduate Summa Cum Laude in less than 2 years and began “climbing the ladder” in my career.

For the past 15 years, I have dedicated myself to working with teenagers, families involved in child welfare, clients involved in criminal justice, addictions, PTSD in women and veterans, first responders, crisis response, withdrawal management, and designing and building programs to meet community needs. In 2011, my family of 4 (along with my parents and 2 sisters) and I moved to Frederick, Colorado. My husband is in the fire service, and my children are now 21 and 15. After 15 years of Community Behavioral Health under my belt, I decided to take my future into my hands. As a result, I started IRIS Wellness Consultants to meet the needs of women in the community, much like myself, who need a professional with the expertise to help them through life’s challenges.

I have always been interested in “Resiliency” and why some people have a natural ability to be resilient, and others must work harder at it. I have trained and have become a Resiliency Coach, and with my no-non-sense, non-judgmental, authentic, and approachable style, I want you to feel like we are “old friends” who can also provide you those skills and tools to be the best version of the person you want to be!

Let’s be honest, we are often in little control of the setbacks we deal with in life. Yes, sometimes it is the bad choices we make, but often times we are just given a certain deck of cards and we don’t know the outcome of the cards we play day to day until there is a negative outcome. That’s when most people start feeling like “failures.” My belief is that this is what sets resilient people apart. Resilient people don’t immediately come to the conclusion that they are failures or that they are flawed, they look to learn from the opportunities and improve. Failure is often viewed, by resilient people, as just another step towards success. Non-resilient people focus too much on the past. Resilient people realize they need to focus on their goals for the future and they do not wallow in the past. It isn’t enough to just accept failures, you must learn and change from those failures. This is why I have chosen the arrow as a symbol for my practice, arrows must be pulled backwards before they can shoot towards their target, to me this symbolizes us as humans every day as we make our way towards our future.

Although I do not believe in too much self-disclosure, as it can take away from the therapeutic process of others, I have personally struggled through some of the same women’s issues in which I specialize. I have always said that “you can’t be a good tour guide unless you’ve been there yourself!”