A Liberated Zone for Mind, Body, Emotions and Spirit

There is a profound difference between simply surviving life's difficult seasons and truly anchoring yourself in a state of safety, vitality, and ease.

Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counseling (Open to residents of California, Colorado, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia):

Now accepting new individual clients for September 2026

The Sacred Architecture of Healing

Dear Traveler,

If you are reading this, it is likely because your system has reached a threshold. Perhaps your body has executed a forced winter of chronic symptoms, or perhaps your mind is exhausted from running a relentless, high-performance script of survival. You are here because you are ready to drop your armor and let your soil lay fallow.

During my own intentional grounding time recently, I sat with the spirit of our shared work and asked for a clear reflection of our ultimate therapeutic purpose. Three archetypal guides emerged from the quiet: The Mother, The Child, and The Act of Forgiveness.

The moment they appeared, the entire landscape of our somatic and spiritual journey clicked into absolute clarity. I want to share this medicine with you, because it is the exact compass we will use every time you step into this space.

1. The Mother: The Sovereign Guardian

The first card is The Mother—the sacred feminine archetype, the creator of life, and the unyielding protector of the innocent.

In our modern world, many of us grew up without an external model of perfect, attuned containment. As a result, our internal landscape became policed by a hyper-vigilant Critic who demands endless optimization. In this sanctuary, our first order of business is to awaken your own Attuned Mother. She is the adult self who knows how to hold space for your pain without frantic fixing. She is the one who unclamps your jaw, softens your belly, and says, “I see you. You are fundamentally safe in this room right now, exactly as you are.”

2. The Child: The Keeper of Imagination

The second card is The Child—specifically, the Inner Daughter who lives beneath your conscious defenses. She is your inner artist, the keeper of your original imagination, your play, and your raw emotional truth.

When life demanded that you become strong, efficient, and invulnerable, this soft, expressive child was often exiled into the dark soil of your unconscious to keep her safe. But she doesn't disappear; she speaks to us through your dreams, your yearnings, and your physical symptoms. Our work is not about correcting her; it is about finding her, honoring her boundaries, and ensuring she is no longer left to navigate the historical storms alone.

3. The Act of Forgiveness

The final card is Forgive—the radical act of opening the heart, freeing yourself from old weights, and healing historical wounds.

True forgiveness is not a logical compromise, nor is it a toxic glossing over of past harm. It is a profound, alchemical shift in time. It happens when the Attuned Mother and the Inner Daughter are finally reunited in the living present. When that relational repair is made inside your own skin, the historical scripts of the past lose their tight, physiological grip on your tissue.

By witnessing and validating the past as historical architecture, we naturally open the heart. We free ourselves from the exhausting cycle of self-policing, and we allow the soul to step onto the bridge of "YET"—where pain and absolute safety can finally coexist until the ground softens on its own terms.

Our Shared Invitation

This is the ultimate purpose of the threshold we cross together. We are not here to manipulate your symptoms or optimize you for a faster pace of production.

We are here so that your internal Attuned Mother can walk into the winter landscape of your psyche, wrap her arms around your forgotten Inner Daughter, and gently guide her back into the light. In that holy reunion, the heart uncoils. Forgiveness becomes an organic exhale of the body. The soil becomes rich again.

Thank you for trusting me to sit at this threshold with you. Your winter is held, your imagination is protected, and your healing is already underway.

With deep attunement,

Rae

I do not offer these tools from a place of detached academic theory. I offer them because they are the exact medicine that saved my own life, healed my body, and reconstructed my soul.

For over twenty years, I lived under the crushing, invisible weight of chronic back pain. I tried everything a linear medical system had to offer, only to remain trapped in a relentless cycle of physical suffering.

My Lived Initiation: The Heart of My Medicine

It was only when I discovered the profound intersection of Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) and the raw, unfiltered emotional container of JournalSpeak that the story changed. I learned that my chronic pain wasn’t a structural failure of my spine, but a structural containment of my unshed tears and unvoiced rage. When I gave my nervous system permission to speak its suppressed truth, my body finally felt safe enough to heal.

The Therapeutic Framework

Healing is not about aggressively "fixing" a broken machine; it is about learning to navigate, understand, and safely speak the language of your own system.

My clinical framework is an intentional, evidence-based integration of depth psychology, advanced mind-body neuroscience, and cyclical wisdom. Rather than treating your symptoms—whether they manifest as chronic physical pain, anxiety, or deep burnout—as flaws, we treat them as intelligent survival scripts that are ready to be understood, unburdened, and integrated.

We approach your healing through three distinct, collaborative pillars:

The Architecture of Recovery

Our work together maps the exact anatomy of how chronic pain develops—and how the system safely unclamps. We examine your recovery through six core dimensions:

1. Systemic Enforcement (The Linear Treadmill & Systemic Over-Functioning )

Believing that worth is contingent upon continuous, linear output and perfectionist compliance. This involves treating the living organism like an machine that must suppress biological rhythms, boundaries, and emotional truth to sustain performance.

2. Trapped Emotional Neurochemistry (Neuroplastic Danger Alarm & Suppression)

Chronic baseline high-voltage vigilance, existential panic, and somatic dread born from repressing "unacceptable" emotions (grief, rage, unmet needs). This creates the internal pressure cooker of a system terrified to pause or feel.

3. The Bio-Mechanical Clamp (Somatic Bracing & Neuroplastic Symptom Loops)

Tissue ischemia, clenched jaw, elevated shoulders, restricted diaphragm, and amplified neuroplastic danger signals (pain, burning, numbness, or exhaustion) triggered as the brainstem misinterprets suppressed emotional pressure as structural damage.

4. The Language & Inquiry Bridge (Neurosomatic Inquiry & Narrative Deconstruction)

Catching the internal prosecutor’s life-depleting micro-questions ("Why am I breaking?", "What's wrong with me?") and using Cognitive Inquiry to dismantle threat scripts. We pivot from panic to life-giving dialectical inquiries: "My system is overwhelmed right now—what safe, supportive container can I offer myself while this settles?"

5. Intrinsic Sovereignty (Hartman Axiological Valuation & Biological Rhythms)

Re-anchoring your core identity in unconditional Intrinsic Personhood. Chronic pain, anxiety, depression and burnout thrive when self-worth is reduced to Systemic Compliance —obeying rigid perfectionist rules, external expectations, and social mandates—or Extrinsic Performance, treating your living organism like a functional tool measured solely by task output. By deconstructive inquiry, we break the illusion that your value is earned through continuous productivity.

6. Ecological Unclamping (The Embodied Synthesis)

Stepping off the artificial clock through Cyclical Tracking; deconstructing threat narratives via Neurosomatic Inquiry; unburdening suppressed truth through EAET; de-activating brain danger alarms with PRT; anchoring in pure Hartman Intrinsic Worth; and restoring fluid joint mobility, vasodilation, and interoceptive pleasure through movement.

Your Guided Trellis & Video Learning

To bridge the gap between our sessions, you will receive access to custom companion workbooks paired with exclusive on-demand psychoeducation videos hosted on a dedicated video platform.

These are structured maps for neural retraining, providing the practical blueprints and tracking tools you need to safely practice somatic tracking, apply 3rd Wave inquiry, and down-regulate your nervous system in the days between our calls.

The Late-Night & Pre-Dawn Container: By intentionally holding space during the quiet stillness of the dark and early hours, our work naturally inherits a focused, calm, and spacious energetic landscape, free from the hurried noise of the daytime world.

Here is a clear, authority-driven Your Commitment section. It sets crisp expectations around self-responsibility, active engagement between sessions, and the mindset required for neuroplastic recovery.

Your Commitment

Neuroplastic retraining and somatic unclamping are not passive processes. Because chronic pain and nervous system dysregulation are maintained by deep-seated brain-body fear loops, genuine recovery requires active participation, intentional practice, and dedicated self-responsibility between our sessions.

To ensure this container is safe, effective, and transformative, working together requires your commitment to the following:

  • Active Between-Session Engagement: Real neural rewiring happens in your everyday life. You commit to engaging with your custom companion workbooks, viewing assigned psychoeducational modules, and practicing daily somatic tracking and expressive writing (30 minutes per day), EAET exercises, and 3rd Wave inquiry tools.

  • Radical Self-Honesty & Willingness to Feel: Recovery requires shifting from escaping symptoms to meeting your internal landscape with objective curiosity. You commit to leaning into emotional unburdening—allowing repressed emotions and physical sensations to be felt, acknowledged, and safely expressed without judgment.

  • Stepping Off the Perfectionist Clock (The 1% Shift): True neural healing cannot happen under the pressure of linear deadlines, rigid timelines, or high-stakes performance demands. You don't need to overturn your entire life overnight. Instead, you commit to gentle, incremental shifts—stepping off the artificial treadmill just 1% at a time. By replacing systemic over-functioning with biological cyclical pacing, you give your organism permission to honor its natural rhythms of expansion, rest, wintering, and integration.

  • Sovereign Responsibility: While I provide the clinical framework, safety container, and structural trellis, you are the sovereign leader of your healing. You commit to showing up fully present, tracking your internal weather, and taking ownership of your recovery journey.

  • Consistency & Boundary Protection: Because session times are highly boundaried and specialized, you commit to honoring our scheduled session window with full cognitive presence, sobriety, and a quiet, secure environment free from distraction.

Work With Me

Your Questions, Answered

  • Jurisdictional Note: Because virtual therapy legally occurs where the client is physically sitting at the time of the appointment, you must be physically located within my state(s) of licensure during our virtual sessions.

    Professional Credentials & Licensure

    To maintain total transparency and compliance with telehealth regulations, my active board-certified credentials and licensing boundaries are outlined below:

    • Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor, North Carolina - LIC#9715, Initial License: 09/14/2012, Exp. 06/30/27 (Governed by the NC Board of Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselors)

    • Licensed Professional Counselor, Virginia - LIC#0701004569, Initial License: 04/09/2009, Exp. 6/30/27 (Governed by the Virginia Board of Counseling)

    • Licensed Professional Counselor - Supervisor, Texas - LIC#70524, Initial License: 03/07/2013, Exp. 07/31/28 (Governed by the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council)

    • Licensed Professional Counselor, Colorado - LIC#0018885, Initial License: 11/16/2022, Exp. 08/31/2027 (Governed by the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies)

    • Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, California - LIC#21580, Initial License: 12/08/2025, Exp. 12/31/2027 (Governed by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences)

    Education & Clinical Training

    • D.Min, Pastoral Care & Counseling, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, Expected Graduation: 05/2028

    • M.Ed., Educational Psychology, The University of Virginia, Graduation: 2009

    • M.S., Counseling Psychology, Radford University, Graduation: 2004

    • Specialized Certifications:

      • Holistic Sex Therapist Certificate, Institute for Sexuality Education and Enlightenment

      • Freedom from Chronic Pain, Enduring Practitioner (Trainer: Dr. Howard Schubiner)

      • Certified Menstruality Mentor (Red School Menstruality Leadership Programme)

  • My Ideal Client

    My work is designed for those who are ready to move beyond "performing" their lives and begin reclaiming their internal authority. Whether you are a young adult navigating the pressures of identity formation or an individual managing the physical weight of long-held stress, this space is for anyone ready to bridge the gap between their nervous system and their authentic self.

    This space is a strong match if you find yourself here:

    • Your body has started to speak: You are experiencing chronic pain, fatigue, or somatic anxiety that traditional medicine has failed to fully resolve.

    • The linear path has failed: You are utterly exhausted by the demand to be constantly productive and seek a cyclical, nature-based approach to your wellness.

    • The internal environment feels hostile: You are ready to shift from self-judgment to compassionate self-leadership, cultivating an internal, protective sovereignty.

    Your Mindset and Goals:

    • Ready for the descent: You understand that true healing requires sitting with the raw, unfiltered truth of your story to reclaim and integrate the parts of yourself you have been taught to fear.

    • You value somatic truth: You recognize that feelings are physiological events. You are committed to somatic unburdening—using tools like JournalSpeak and PRT to clear the "biological vaults" where suppressed emotions live.

    • You seek long-term sovereignty: You recognize that rewriting the architecture of the nervous system is not a quick fix. My ideal clients are willing to invest at least one year into this process, honoring the seasons of deep change.

    If you are ready to lean into the "winter landscape"—understanding that grief, anger, and shadow-work are the essential seeds of your freedom—you are welcome here. Let us tend to the sanctuary of your own skin.

  • Individual Psychotherapy (60-Minute Session)

    Deeply integrated, outpatient one-on-one sessions tailored for adults seeking specialized somatic, mind-body, and depth-oriented healing. We move past surface-level symptom checking to address the root architectures of stress, trauma, and chronic symptoms.

    • Session Length: 60 minutes (Clinical minimum: 53 minutes face-to-face time)

    • Format: Virtual / Telehealth

    • Insurance Billing Code: CPT Code 90837 (Individual Psychotherapy)

  • Client Referrals & Clinical Scope

    It is vital for your healing journey that we are a true clinical match. Because of the deeply reflective nature of this depth-somatic work and my unique late-night/pre-dawn schedule, my practice is not an appropriate fit for individuals requiring acute stabilization, high-frequency medical monitoring, or crisis intervention.

    I do not accept clients who are currently experiencing, navigating, or seeking:

    • Active suicidal ideation or self-harm

    • Active psychoses or severe substance dependence

    • Active eating disorders

    • Active domestic violence, intimate partner violence, or imminent safety risks within the home

    • Active court involvement, family court/forensic documentation, disability claims, or workers' compensation evaluations

    • Jurisdictional Note: Due to strict licensing board regulations, you must be physically located within my state(s) of licensure during our virtual sessions.

    If during our initial consultation or assessment process it becomes clear that your needs require a different style of care, a traditional daytime schedule, or crisis stabilization, I reserve the right to decline enrollment. Clients facing these specific challenges are far better served by traditional daytime practices, intensive outpatient programs, or multidisciplinary teams that can provide immediate care coordination during standard business hours. If you require these services, I am fully committed to providing appropriate referral resources to ensure you connect with the right level of support.

  • What to Expect: Our First Session

    Your initial session is a warm, welcoming, collaborative consultation designed to establish an immediate baseline of psychological and physiological safety. Together, we will look at the chronic stress, burnout, or mind-body symptoms that brought you here, exploring how they intersect with your current lifecycle and relational history. Using a blend of depth psychology and nervous system regulation, we will begin identifying long-standing survival scripts without forcing premature behavioral optimization.

    To map out our path forward, we utilize five baseline tools. These are not designed to measure fleeting moods; they are designed to expose the architectural blueprints of internal conflict, revealing how historical invalidation has hardened into cellular, somatic threat.

    Your Baseline Assessment Tools

    • 1. ACES & TAQ (Developmental Trauma Mapping): The Adverse Childhood Experiences scale gives us a high-level overview of early childhood adversity, while the Traumatic Antecedents Questionnaire (Bessel van der Kolk's instrument) goes vastly deeper into your developmental blueprint.

    • 2. PIES (Perceived Invalidation of Emotion Scale): This targets the exact mechanism that causes the brain to view its own internal somatic environment as unsafe. It measures the degree to which your emotional experiences have been judged as incorrect or invalid by the world around you.

    • 3. PTCI (Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory): This maps out the specific cognitive scaffolding created by trauma, helping us identify and dismantle deeply held patterns of self-blame and negative beliefs about the self and the world.

    • 4. PHQ-15 (Somatic Symptom Severity): This tracks the physical expressions of distress—such as chronic pain, GI issues, headaches, and fatigue—so we can address how your nervous system speaks through your body.

    Your Biweekly Kinetic Trackers

    • PHQ-9 & GAD-7: Deployed biweekly, these standard screening tools act as our real-time trackers for depression and anxiety, allowing us to see how your physiology is shifting and settling throughout our work together.

  • Beginning your healing journey is a step of profound courage, and I have intentionally streamlined the intake process to make it as simple and stress-free as possible. My administrative and billing infrastructure is securely managed through Grow Therapy, allowing you to easily view my real-time calendar, check your specific insurance benefits, and book your initial appointment with complete privacy. Whether you are ready to secure a spot immediately or have a few questions first, you can initiate care in just a few steps:

    1.Choose Your Booking Path:Takes 2 minutes.

    If you are ready to book your initial 60-minute session right now, click "Book via Grow Therapy" . If you prefer to connect first or have specific questions about my practice, feel free to send a secure message directly to sacredthresholds@aspidamail.org.

    2.Verify Your Insurance & Details: Managed via Grow Therapy.

    Once you select a time on my Grow Therapy profile, you will be prompted to enter your insurance information. Grow's automated system will instantly verify your mental health benefits and show you your exact copay or deductible responsibility before your session begins—ensuring absolute financial transparency.

    3.Complete Intake & Step Through the Threshold: Before your first session.

    After your time slot is confirmed, you will receive a secure link to complete your electronic intake paperwork and sign standard clinical consents. Once completed, a private, HIPAA-compliant video link will be generated for our scheduled hour, and we will step into our first session together.

  • Why My Approach Stands Out

    Most therapy focuses on managing symptoms or analyzing the past. My work is different: I combine somatic medicine with depth psychology to help you stop "fixing" yourself and start reclaiming your internal authority. Here is how I hold space for your healing:

    • We Work with Your Biology, Not Just Your Thoughts: Chronic pain, anxiety, and depression are stored in your nervous system. Using Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), we teach your brain to stop misinterpreting safe body signals as threats, effectively turning off the alarm system driving chronic symptoms.

    • Radical Emotional Unburdening: Through JournalSpeak, we use targeted, expressive writing to evacuate the raw fury, terror, and grief you’ve had to suppress to survive. This isn’t casual journaling; it is a surgical tool for clearing your nervous system.

    • Reclaiming Internal Archetypes: We heal the divide between your wounded Inner Daughter and your sovereign Attuned Mother. By replacing self-criticism with fierce self-protection, we mend the foundational ruptures fueling your dysregulation.

    • Honoring Your Natural Rhythms: We decouple healing from the industrial clock of constant productivity. By integrating cyclical consciousness, menstrual cycle charting, and John Mbiti’s philosophy of time, we map your unique biological seasons, honoring rest and expansion as vital strengths.

    Holding the Container

    To support this depth of work, we move beyond the rushed constraints of a typical appointment. While our direct virtual clinical session fits standard therapeutic structures, clients are encouraged to set aside a full 90-minute window for our work. This ensures you have the necessary, uninterrupted threshold before and after our face-to-face time for your somatic and emotional integration to fully unfold.

  • To protect the dedicated space I hold for my active clients and to ensure your privacy, I do not maintain a public telephone line. The most secure, efficient way to reach me is via email at sacredthresholds@aspidamail.com. I monitor this inbox closely throughout my regular practice hours and will typically get back to you within 24 to 48 business hours. If you are an intake client who is ready to view my real-time calendar or verify your insurance benefits immediately, you can bypass email entirely and book directly through my secure Grow Therapy Profile.

  • Pricing & Insurance

    I believe in absolute financial transparency so that you can focus entirely on your healing journey without worrying about unexpected costs. My practice operates on a flexible, pay-per-session model with no subscription or hidden fees. All billing, insurance verification, and payment processing are securely and seamlessly handled through my practice partner, Grow Therapy.

    1. Using Your Insurance

    I am in-network with a wide range of major commercial insurance plans through Grow Therapy.

    • Average Cost: While total coverage depends entirely on your specific plan, clients using in-network insurance typically experience a copay or coinsurance responsibility ranging from $0 to $50 per session.

    • Instant Verification: When you visit my booking page, you can enter your insurance details to instantly see your exact out-of-pocket cost or deductible status before you ever schedule a session.

    2. Out-of-Pocket / Out-of-Network (Self-Pay)

    If you do not have insurance, choose not to use it, or carry a plan that is out-of-network, you can seamlessly self-pay for your care.

    • Standard Rate: $150 per 60-minute individual psychotherapy session.

    • Payment Methods: Your card on file is automatically processed 24 to 48 hours following our session. We gladly accept all standard credit/debit cards, as well as Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA).

    • Superbills: Upon request, I can provide you with an official clinical receipt (a Superbill) that you can submit to your insurance company to seek independent, out-of-network reimbursement.

  • Working with me feels like stepping across a sacred, highly supportive threshold where your whole humanity is welcome. Because our 60-minute virtual sessions take place during the quiet stillness of the late-night and pre-dawn hours, the energetic landscape of our work is naturally focused, calm, and free from the hurried noise of the daytime world.

    In our sessions, we do not just sit and intellectually analyze your problems from a distance. Instead, we collaborate to listen to the two deepest truth-tellers you possess: the symbolic architecture of your psyche (through dreamwork and archetypal mapping) and the biological vault of your body (through somatic breathwork and tapping). I bring a unique blend of 20 years of clinical experience, advanced mind-body neuroscience, and deep cyclical wisdom to our space. This means you will never feel like you are being put through a cookie-cutter therapeutic program.

    You can expect me to be deeply intuitive, fiercely protective of your boundaries, and entirely transparent. I treat your symptoms—whether they manifest as chronic physical pain, anxiety, or unexpressed grief—not as flaws to be aggressively "fixed," but as intelligent survival scripts that are ready to be safely understood, vocalized through sacred lament, and ultimately integrated. Our space is warm, unhurried, and profoundly grounding, allowing you to safely untangle the weight of the past so you can step into a baseline of genuine somatic liberation.