GET TO KNOW ME
I was my first client.
Eleanor in 2023
(After)
Eleanor in 2002
(Before)
In my mid-forties, I was caring for everyone but myself—my mother who was suffering from a chronic disease and had made several suicide attempts; my father, who had cancer; my marriage, which was falling apart; and three children, who needed lots of attention. Over the course of a decade, I had become increasingly reactive, gripped by anxiety, anger, fear, and crippling back pain. My life was out of control.
This was unfamiliar to me because I had always been a high achiever and a brainiac—someone who could manage a lot and keep things under control. In the first thirty-five years of my life, I checked all the boxes for success—two Ivy League degrees, prestigious work, an equally high-achieving husband, three thriving children, a lovely home and two Volvos in the driveway. But despite all that, I was suffering, and I couldn’t think my way out of it.
When I had witnessed both of my parents’ long illnesses and deaths,
When back surgery didn’t work,
When I could hardly walk,
When the doctors said that I would just have to live with the pain,
I finally got scared enough to take responsibility for my own health and wellness and do something different.
I began tending to myself with massage, yoga, and meditation.
I learned to speak Italian.
I filed for divorce.
And, I moved to Italy in 2004.
For four years, I taught business and English to Italian university students in an innovative residential honors program in Milan. And daily, I was experiencing a full immersion in deliciousness—the Italian language, wine, chocolate, pasta, massage, dance, and art. I started making choices that aligned with my own pleasure rather than myriad “shoulds”.
Academia no longer fit the person I was becoming.
I left my job to join a creative writing group, set myself free on the dance floor, earn certifications as a professional wine sommelier and yoga teacher, and create my own blog about natural Italian wine called Uncorked In Italy. Over the next decade, I developed and deepened connection to my five senses and the wisdom of my body.
Back in the United States in 2020, I was finally free of back pain when I enrolled in the professional training course for Compassionate Inquiry with Dr. Gabor Maté. I was surprised to find out that as privileged as my life had been, I had experienced trauma.
Looking back on my time in Italy, I recognize that I had intuitively found paths toward healing. I had reconnected to myself by “coming to my senses”. It turns out, the only way out was in—to feel what I was feeling—the sensations in my body and the waves of emotion that I had worked so hard and for so long to bypass. The more I was willing to feel, the more I could trust myself and experience joy.
From that place, old survival instincts have less power to activate me into unconscious reactions. I have more room for fear, guilt, shame, anger, and grief to move within me. And so, I have more agency and more capacity to make conscious choices in alignment with who I truly am.
The competitive, individualistic culture we live in wants to keep us separate—out of connection with ourselves and others. But the truth is that our individual wellbeing is inherently intertwined with our collective wellbeing. So, instinctively, my joy and pleasure come from sharing with others what I’ve learned and experienced.
And amazingly, this aligned with cutting edge neuroscience related to the autonomic nervous system and Polyvagal Theory. The mystery of it all still astounds me.
I began working with clients in 2021, In 2023-24, I completed Gabor Maté’s intensive mentorship training program for Compassionate Inquiry. Now in my 60s, I continue to work with my own trauma—doing daily practices and regular therapy—while sharing this powerful approach with clients.
And, I’m finishing my memoir. After over a decade of writing under a cloud of doubt—is anything I write good enough?—I discovered Gateless Writing, an approach to writing that freed my voice in the way that dance and Compassionate Inquiry freed my body and mind.
It is becoming clear to me that all of these practices come together in service of a common goal—to soften me into a deep, trusting, reciprocal relationship with my nervous system.
