I have covered a lot of ground since, and I am still learning and working at being the best version of myself in parenting and in life...I relax now into this imperfection!

I am an American, born in Romania, and currently living in Germany with my husband and our two wonderful kiddos, a 4 year old girl and a 8 year old boy. Being a military family, a new adventure is always around the corner because we are never in the same place for too long. This brings its challenges and it requires us to constantly expend beyond our comfort zone, and also gifts us with amazing opportunities to explore the world and meet wonderful humans on our path.

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We waited to grow our family and, when we did, our journey into parenthood started with an agonizing loss that broke us open and became our catalyst for rebirth: in 2013 our first child, Sophie, was stillborn at 21 weeks. With heartfelt reverence and gratitude I can say that Sophie's precious, yet short gift of life in the womb, shattered the walls of the world as my husband and I knew it, broke the chains of our conditioning, and propelled us forward with extraordinary force to become the parents we want to be and that our two children deserve, and more compassionate humans.

 

As a first time mom, I intended to stay rooted in my mindfulness practice and I was determined to parent consciously. Yet, my child's resistance would trigger me greatly at times and I would get impatient and angry. I would react by yelling, and then felt ashamed and inadequate as a mother: a vicious cycle of shame that made change really difficult.

 

It all felt really confusing because I was reading books and was listening to talks about how to be a respectful, conscious parent and everything I learned really resonated with me ... but all that logic left me and I seemed to be unable to implement the tools I had learned, at times, when I was tired, depleted, overwhelmed or triggered by shadows from the past.

 

I was not a terrible person! My brain wired this way to keep me safe and, at the same time,  connected to my well-intended caregivers in childhood. I have the power to rewire my brain!

 

A transformational shift happened for me when I discovered  the "Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Workbook" written by my mentor, Dr. Laura Markham. Ever so gently shedding the light of awareness and self-compassion on my emotional triggers, my conditioning, and my reactivity, I noticed tiny shifts in my emotional responses... I was learning to reconnect to my inner peace in the mist of the messy, beautiful, hard life flow, mothering more intentionally, more fully.

 

And since then, I have been giving myself to the practice of remembering, over and over again, and recommitting to my intention of choosing to respond with love. Working on ourselves is the work of a lifetime and the hardest, most gut wrenching work there is, isn't it? With intention and practice, over time, our brain's neroplasticity helps us create new habits slowly...and our practice becomes our new way of being.

 

I have covered a lot of ground since, and I am STILL learning and working at being the best version of myself in parenting and in life...I relax now into this imperfection! Parenting is so hard sometimes because it brings to surface all the dark corners of our existence and the many ways in which we need to learn and grow as humans! And children give us every day opportunities to practice, take responsibility for our unskillfulness, and get better at it ... because children are our greatest teachers!

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With time, this drive to attend to my healing and to reconnect with myself in motherhood and beyond, to deeply bond with my children and understand the needs they communicate through behavior, and to create a peaceful environment where they can thrive, became a special calling: to bring to parents the tools and resources I wish I had when I started on this sacred journey into motherhood so they can reconnect with themselves with curiosity, kindness and compassion,  and tap into their innate wisdom.

 

With this passion in mind, I trained directly with Dr. Laura Markham and became a Certified Peaceful Parenting Coach. I also had the opportunity to learn from Dr. Rick Hanson., Dr. Dan Siegel, Mona Delahooke, Dr. Lawrence Cohen, and other expert voices in the field.  

 

Outside of the coaching space, I'm still wholeheartedly committed to continuously move toward self-acceptance, to my self-care practice and to being the mother my kiddos deserve, while also balancing the joys and sorrows of military life, the constant urge to expand my knowledge, and my calling to help parents enjoy their children more.

 

No matter the role I'm in, I've always been guided by an open heart to hold loving space for others so they can see their goodness, trust their own voice, value themselves in this human experience, and feel less alone.