I am 38 years old and have only started to realize how trauma has shaped my life. Up until a couple of years ago, I thought I had free will and that the choices I was making in my life were made voluntarily. What I’ve slowly started to realize is that my choices have been highly reactionary and that unresolved trauma has been triggering a chain of reactions my whole life. In 1998, at age 14, I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. I was forced into therapy and given anti-depressants. Looking back I don’t believe that medication was the answer to my diagnosis. As a child, I was emotionally invalidated by both of my parents. I never knew my biological father but would ask questions about him. My dad who raised me would just tell me “Don’t worry about that” and my mom could barely talk about the circumstances of my birth. This led me to feel insecure, anxious, and depressed about who I was as a person. I developed OCD as a way to control my experiences, pathological as it was. Neither one of my parents was taught how to validate someone’s experience and have hard emotional conversations. Around 2000 I turned to drugs. Getting high was the only way I felt relief. It started with just smoking cannabis but I soon got swept up in the opioid epidemic. I used narcotics through high school and into my early college years. I never got so high I couldn’t function but used drugs to down-regulate my anxiety and depression. By 2005 I was having withdrawals and I sought help. I got into a 12-step program and got sober. I thought this was the solution, but I still hadn’t addressed my underlying trauma. I began studying music and psychology at my local university, but the lure of external validation from pursuing a music career quickly overshadowed studying the root causes of my mental illness. In 2007 my parents got divorced and my best friend overdosed and died. I was still sober, but not seeing a therapist. These major events caused even more stress in my life and I retreated deeper into my musical studies. I didn’t date for nearly a decade. I wouldn’t let anyone close to me. I graduated college in 2010 and worked as a therapeutic musician at the Arkansas State Psychiatric Hospital. This experience was difficult because the patients were so ill and so medicated that the hospital appeared to me to be more of a warehouse for the mentally insane than it was a place to get well. I got burnt out after three years and quit. In 2012 I went to live and train at a yoga retreat center. This was the first time in my life I began to look deeply inward. I learned how to meditate with a Buddhist monk and I learned to teach yoga. I thought these things would fix me, but without addressing my underlying trauma I simply ended up on “spiritual bypass' ' thinking I could “Om' ' my way out of trauma. In 2013 I enrolled in a graduate program to earn a Master of Public Service degree. I got very interested in climate change and decided to start an organization that would attempt to tackle this issue. In 2014 I won a business pitch competition and was granted start-up funds to launch an organization. Maybe if I could “change the world” I’d feel better. In 2015 my ex-wife and I started a non-profit dedicated to reversing the effects of climate change through regenerative agriculture. Our business won sustainability awards and was growing. Our hopes to “change the world” were high, but hidden traumas kept us seeking external validation instead of doing internal work. Both of our parents had divorced. Neither of us had healthy relationships modeled for us growing up. I suggested pre-marital counseling so that we could learn skills that we lacked, but she refused. At the time I didn’t see this as a red flag and thought “Okay, we’ll figure it out as we go”. What I didn’t realize is that I was signing up for a 5-year emotional rollercoaster that would eventually crash. During the pandemic, several people close to me died. This re-opened my core wound– the belief that loved ones would leave me. At the time I was unaware that I was bouncing across various sympathetic states of fight, flight, and freeze. As we tried to scale our business the pandemic kept dragging on, and I went deeper into various trauma responses. I became incredibly angry and resentful at the world, and I began to project all of my dysregulation onto my wife. We became so distant that one day she said she was done and just left. No discussion, no willingness to work it out, just done. I begged for us to go to couples counseling, but she wouldn’t consider it. When she left I was broken…open. Heartbroken and lost, I began searching for healing. I joined a men's coaching group where I learned Somatic Experiencing techniques and I dove head first into DBT and EMDR with my therapist. I put myself and my past under a microscope and began reading books like “The Body Keeps the Score”, “No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model”, and “How to Do The Work”. The more I learned about healing trauma the more I shared with friends and family. I kept getting the feedback that “You’re really into this, have you ever thought about becoming a therapist?” The idea was planted but wouldn’t grow until Life forced my hand. In early 2023 I was exposed to a large amount of toxic mold while working on a farm. The exposure triggered an immune response resulting in the diagnosis of a chronic illness called CIRS. Unable to continue working in agricultural settings, I began negotiating for another non-profit to take over the operations of the business as I considered a career change. I began researching graduate programs for counseling. The more I researched programs the more I began to feel as though my true calling is to help the world by becoming a therapist. It has been hard to reconcile the fact that I must make a career change at this stage of life, but I’m choosing to focus on the fact that I am healthy enough to learn new skills in an area that I am passionate about. I wonder if this is Life’s way of circling back around and asking me to reconsider studying to be a therapist. With the current mental health crisis I believe everyone needs a therapist. Someone who is trained to be objective and help navigate the mental and emotional hurdles of life. I didn’t realize my childhood trauma had been unconsciously driving me for most of my life. I think talk therapy is a useful tool but I don’t think that it goes deep enough. What I am learning from my therapist is that evidence-based therapies for trauma recovery are very different from traditional talk therapy. To “rewire” the brain a patient must dive deep into their subconscious. This is done through somatic experiences, bilateral stimulation of the brain, and the development of new behaviors. All of the turbulence of my past has brought me to this crossroads. I could crumble under all the pressures of traumatic experiences, or I could learn to use my passion for my healing and my predisposition for service work to excel in my studies and help others navigate the traumatic experiences of Life. I choose the good fight. I want to become a trauma therapist and integrate what I’m learning about the mind with body-based practices like yoga, meditation, breath work, and somatic experiencing to teach clients about parasympathetic responses and deep healing. I’ve been in weekly therapy for 2 years now, and I’m consistently learning how to radically accept “Life on Life’s terms”. Over the last two years, I’ve been diving deep into my past and my subconscious and I am blown away to learn the ways trauma has been a driving force in my life. I’ve become so interested in trauma recovery that I applied for and have been admitted into a graduate counseling program to pursue a MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Life is offering me an opportunity to dive deep into healing and help others do the same. This scholarship would allow me to enroll in classes without taking on more student loan debt. I want to be able to offer mental, emotional, and spiritual healing to myself and others. Kahlil Gibran says prayer is the “expansion of yourself into the living ether”. Bridging the gap between the mind and the body will allow me to expand into life itself, the ultimate spiritual practice, and help others to do the same. Becoming a trauma therapist is my new service to humanity, and likely what I was meant to do all along.

They say things like death and rebirth come in threes. Since 2021 I have closed my business, gotten divorced, and been diagnosed with a chronic illness. But if death comes in threes, so does rebirth. I’ve been in weekly therapy (for 2 years now), I’ve been admitted into a graduate counseling program, and every day I’m practicing radically accepting Life on Life’s terms. Life is offering me an opportunity to dive deep into healing and help others do the same. In 2015 my ex-wife and I started a non-profit dedicated to reversing the effects of climate change through regenerative agriculture. Our business won sustainability awards and was growing. Our hopes to “change the world” were high, but hidden traumas kept us seeking external validation instead of doing internal work. Ironically, we both trained as yoga teachers, but without therapy, yoga simply functioned as a “spiritual bypass”. During the pandemic, several people close to me died. This opened up a core wound– the belief that loved ones would leave me. At the time I was unaware that I was bouncing across various sympathetic states of fight, flight, and freeze. As we tried to scale our business the pandemic kept dragging on, and I went deeper into various trauma responses. I became incredibly angry and resentful at the world, and I began to project all of my dysregulation onto my partner. We became so distant that one day she said she was done and just left. No discussion, no willingness to work it out, just done. I begged for us to go to couples counseling, but she wouldn’t consider it. When she left I was broken…open. Heartbroken and lost, I began searching for healing. I joined a men's coaching group where I learned Somatic Experiencing techniques and I dove head first into DBT and EMDR with my therapist. I put myself and my past under a microscope and began reading books like “The Body Keeps the Score”, “No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model”, and “How to Do The Work”. The more I learned about healing trauma the more I shared with friends and family. I kept getting the feedback that “You’re really into this, have you ever thought about becoming a therapist?” The idea was planted but wouldn’t grow until Life forced my hand. In early 2023 I was exposed to a large amount of toxic mold while working on a farm. The exposure triggered an immune response resulting in the diagnosis of a chronic illness called CIRS. Unable to continue working in agricultural settings, I began negotiating for another non-profit to take over the operations of the business as I researched graduate programs for counseling. The more I researched programs the more I began to feel as though my true calling is to help the world by becoming a therapist. I’m currently unable to work in the field in which I’ve worked for the past 10 years. This scholarship would allow me to enroll in classes without taking on more student loan debt and continue to teach yoga and guitar lessons to cover my living and medical expenses. I want to integrate what I’m learning about the mind with body-based practices like yoga, meditation, breath work, and somatic experiencing to teach clients about parasympathetic responses and deep healing. Kahlil Gibran says prayer is the “expansion of yourself into the living ether”. Bridging the gap between the mind and the body will allow me to expand into life itself, the ultimate spiritual practice, and help others to do the same.

They say things like death and rebirth come in threes. Since 2021 I have closed my business, gotten divorced, and been diagnosed with a chronic illness. But if death comes in threes, so does rebirth. I’ve been in weekly therapy (for 2 years now), I’ve been admitted into a graduate counseling program, and every day I’m practicing radically accepting Life on Life’s terms. Life is offering me an opportunity to dive deep into healing and help others do the same. In 2015 my ex-wife and I started a non-profit dedicated to reversing the effects of climate change through regenerative agriculture. Our business won sustainability awards and was growing. Our hopes to “change the world” were high, but hidden traumas kept us seeking external validation instead of doing internal work. Ironically, we both trained as yoga teachers, but without therapy, yoga simply functioned as a “spiritual bypass”. During the pandemic, several people close to me died. This opened up a core wound– the belief that loved ones would leave me. At the time I was unaware that I was bouncing across various sympathetic states of fight, flight, and freeze. As we tried to scale our business the pandemic kept dragging on, and I went deeper into various trauma responses. I became incredibly angry and resentful at the world, and I began to project all of my dysregulation onto my partner. We became so distant that one day she said she was done and just left. No discussion, no willingness to work it out, just done. I begged for us to go to couples counseling, but she wouldn’t consider it. When she left I was broken…open. Heartbroken and lost, I began searching for healing. I joined a men's coaching group where I learned Somatic Experiencing techniques and I dove head first into DBT and EMDR with my therapist. I put myself and my past under a microscope and began reading books like “The Body Keeps the Score”, “No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model”, and “How to Do The Work”. The more I learned about healing trauma the more I shared with friends and family. I kept getting the feedback that “You’re really into this, have you ever thought about becoming a therapist?” The idea was planted but wouldn’t grow until Life forced my hand. In early 2023 I was exposed to a large amount of toxic mold while working on a farm. The exposure triggered an immune response resulting in the diagnosis of a chronic illness called CIRS. Unable to continue working in agricultural settings, I began negotiating for another non-profit to take over the operations of the business as I researched graduate programs for counseling. The more I researched programs the more I began to feel as though my true calling is to help the world by becoming a therapist. I’m currently unable to work in the field in which I’ve worked for the past 10 years. This scholarship would allow me to enroll in classes without taking on more student loan debt and continue to teach yoga and guitar lessons to cover my living and medical expenses. I want to integrate what I’m learning about the mind with body-based practices like yoga, meditation, breath work, and somatic experiencing to teach clients about parasympathetic responses and deep healing. Kahlil Gibran says prayer is the “expansion of yourself into the living ether”. Bridging the gap between the mind and the body will allow me to expand into life itself, the ultimate spiritual practice, and help others to do the same.

They say things like death and rebirth come in threes. Since 2021 I have closed my business, gotten divorced, and been diagnosed with a chronic illness. But if death comes in threes, so does rebirth. I’ve been in weekly therapy (for 2 years now), I’ve been admitted into a graduate counseling program, and every day I’m practicing radically accepting Life on Life’s terms. Life is offering me an opportunity to dive deep into healing and help others do the same. In 2015 my ex-wife and I started a non-profit dedicated to reversing the effects of climate change through regenerative agriculture. Our business won sustainability awards and was growing. Our hopes to “change the world” were high, but hidden traumas kept us seeking external validation instead of doing internal work. Ironically, we both trained as yoga teachers, but without therapy, yoga simply functioned as a “spiritual bypass”. During the pandemic, several people close to me died. This opened up a core wound– the belief that loved ones would leave me. At the time I was unaware that I was bouncing across various sympathetic states of fight, flight, and freeze. As we tried to scale our business the pandemic kept dragging on, and I went deeper into various trauma responses. I became incredibly angry and resentful at the world, and I began to project all of my dysregulation onto my partner. We became so distant that one day she said she was done and just left. No discussion, no willingness to work it out, just done. I begged for us to go to couples counseling, but she wouldn’t consider it. When she left I was broken…open. Heartbroken and lost, I began searching for healing. I joined a men's coaching group where I learned Somatic Experiencing techniques and I dove head first into DBT and EMDR with my therapist. I put myself and my past under a microscope and began reading books like “The Body Keeps the Score”, “No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model”, and “How to Do The Work”. The more I learned about healing trauma the more I shared with friends and family. I kept getting the feedback that “You’re really into this, have you ever thought about becoming a therapist?” The idea was planted but wouldn’t grow until Life forced my hand. In early 2023 I was exposed to a large amount of toxic mold while working on a farm. The exposure triggered an immune response resulting in the diagnosis of a chronic illness called CIRS. Unable to continue working in agricultural settings, I began negotiating for another non-profit to take over the operations of the business as I researched graduate programs for counseling. The more I researched programs the more I began to feel as though my true calling is to help the world by becoming a therapist. I’m currently unable to work in the field in which I’ve worked for the past 10 years. This scholarship would allow me to enroll in classes without taking on more student loan debt and continue to teach yoga and guitar lessons to cover my living and medical expenses. I want to integrate what I’m learning about the mind with body-based practices like yoga, meditation, breath work, and somatic experiencing to teach clients about parasympathetic responses and deep healing. Kahlil Gibran says prayer is the “expansion of yourself into the living ether”. Bridging the gap between the mind and the body will allow me to expand into life itself, the ultimate spiritual practice, and help others to do the same.

They say things like death and rebirth come in threes. Since 2021 I have closed my business, gotten divorced, and been diagnosed with a chronic illness. But if death comes in threes, so does rebirth. I’ve been in weekly therapy (for 2 years now), I’ve been admitted into a graduate counseling program, and every day I’m practicing radically accepting Life on Life’s terms. Life is offering me an opportunity to dive deep into healing and help others do the same. In 2015 my ex-wife and I started a non-profit dedicated to reversing the effects of climate change through regenerative agriculture. Our business won sustainability awards and was growing. Our hopes to “change the world” were high, but hidden traumas kept us seeking external validation instead of doing internal work. Ironically, we both trained as yoga teachers, but without therapy, yoga simply functioned as a “spiritual bypass”. During the pandemic, several people close to me died. This opened up a core wound– the belief that loved ones would leave me. At the time I was unaware that I was bouncing across various sympathetic states of fight, flight, and freeze. As we tried to scale our business the pandemic kept dragging on, and I went deeper into various trauma responses. I became incredibly angry and resentful at the world, and I began to project all of my dysregulation onto my partner. We became so distant that one day she said she was done and just left. No discussion, no willingness to work it out, just done. I begged for us to go to couples counseling, but she wouldn’t consider it. When she left I was broken…open. Heartbroken and lost, I began searching for healing. I joined a men's coaching group where I learned Somatic Experiencing techniques and I dove head first into DBT and EMDR with my therapist. I put myself and my past under a microscope and began reading books like “The Body Keeps the Score”, “No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model”, and “How to Do The Work”. The more I learned about healing trauma the more I shared with friends and family. I kept getting the feedback that “You’re really into this, have you ever thought about becoming a therapist?” The idea was planted but wouldn’t grow until Life forced my hand. In early 2023 I was exposed to a large amount of toxic mold while working on a farm. The exposure triggered an immune response resulting in the diagnosis of a chronic illness called CIRS. Unable to continue working in agricultural settings, I began negotiating for another non-profit to take over the operations of the business as I researched graduate programs for counseling. The more I researched programs the more I began to feel as though my true calling is to help the world by becoming a therapist. I’m currently unable to work in the field in which I’ve worked for the past 10 years. This scholarship would allow me to enroll in classes without taking on more student loan debt and continue to teach yoga and guitar lessons to cover my living and medical expenses. I want to integrate what I’m learning about the mind with body-based practices like yoga, meditation, breath work, and somatic experiencing to teach clients about parasympathetic responses and deep healing. Kahlil Gibran says prayer is the “expansion of yourself into the living ether”. Bridging the gap between the mind and the body will allow me to expand into life itself, the ultimate spiritual practice, and help others to do the same.

They say things like death and rebirth come in threes. Since 2021 I have closed my business, gotten divorced, and been diagnosed with a chronic illness. But if death comes in threes, so does rebirth. I’ve been in weekly therapy (for 2 years now), I’ve been admitted into a graduate counseling program, and every day I’m practicing radically accepting Life on Life’s terms. Life is offering me an opportunity to dive deep into healing and help others do the same. In 2015 my ex-wife and I started a non-profit dedicated to reversing the effects of climate change through regenerative agriculture. Our business won sustainability awards and was growing. Our hopes to “change the world” were high, but hidden traumas kept us seeking external validation instead of doing internal work. Ironically, we both trained as yoga teachers, but without therapy, yoga simply functioned as a “spiritual bypass”. During the pandemic, several people close to me died. This opened up a core wound– the belief that loved ones would leave me. At the time I was unaware that I was bouncing across various sympathetic states of fight, flight, and freeze. As we tried to scale our business the pandemic kept dragging on, and I went deeper into various trauma responses. I became incredibly angry and resentful at the world, and I began to project all of my dysregulation onto my partner. We became so distant that one day she said she was done and just left. No discussion, no willingness to work it out, just done. I begged for us to go to couples counseling, but she wouldn’t consider it. When she left I was broken…open. Heartbroken and lost, I began searching for healing. I joined a men's coaching group where I learned Somatic Experiencing techniques and I dove head first into DBT and EMDR with my therapist. I put myself and my past under a microscope and began reading books like “The Body Keeps the Score”, “No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model”, and “How to Do The Work”. The more I learned about healing trauma the more I shared with friends and family. I kept getting the feedback that “You’re really into this, have you ever thought about becoming a therapist?” The idea was planted but wouldn’t grow until Life forced my hand. In early 2023 I was exposed to a large amount of toxic mold while working on a farm. The exposure triggered an immune response resulting in the diagnosis of a chronic illness called CIRS. Unable to continue working in agricultural settings, I began negotiating for another non-profit to take over the operations of the business as I researched graduate programs for counseling. The more I researched programs the more I began to feel as though my true calling is to help the world by becoming a therapist. I’m currently unable to work in the field in which I’ve worked for the past 10 years. This scholarship would allow me to enroll in classes without taking on more student loan debt and continue to teach yoga and guitar lessons to cover my living and medical expenses. I want to integrate what I’m learning about the mind with body-based practices like yoga, meditation, breath work, and somatic experiencing to teach clients about parasympathetic responses and deep healing. Kahlil Gibran says prayer is the “expansion of yourself into the living ether”. Bridging the gap between the mind and the body will allow me to expand into life itself, the ultimate spiritual practice, and help others to do the same.

They say things like death and rebirth come in threes. Since 2021 I have closed my business, gotten divorced, and been diagnosed with a chronic illness. But if death comes in threes, so does rebirth. I’ve been in weekly therapy (for 2 years now), I’ve been admitted into a graduate counseling program, and every day I’m practicing radically accepting Life on Life’s terms. Life is offering me an opportunity to dive deep into healing and help others do the same. In 2015 my ex-wife and I started a non-profit dedicated to reversing the effects of climate change through regenerative agriculture. Our business won sustainability awards and was growing. Our hopes to “change the world” were high, but hidden traumas kept us seeking external validation instead of doing internal work. Ironically, we both trained as yoga teachers, but without therapy, yoga simply functioned as a “spiritual bypass”. During the pandemic, several people close to me died. This opened up a core wound– the belief that loved ones would leave me. At the time I was unaware that I was bouncing across various sympathetic states of fight, flight, and freeze. As we tried to scale our business the pandemic kept dragging on, and I went deeper into various trauma responses. I became incredibly angry and resentful at the world, and I began to project all of my dysregulation onto my partner. We became so distant that one day she said she was done and just left. No discussion, no willingness to work it out, just done. I begged for us to go to couples counseling, but she wouldn’t consider it. When she left I was broken…open. Heartbroken and lost, I began searching for healing. I joined a men's coaching group where I learned Somatic Experiencing techniques and I dove head first into DBT and EMDR with my therapist. I put myself and my past under a microscope and began reading books like “The Body Keeps the Score”, “No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model”, and “How to Do The Work”. The more I learned about healing trauma the more I shared with friends and family. I kept getting the feedback that “You’re really into this, have you ever thought about becoming a therapist?” The idea was planted but wouldn’t grow until Life forced my hand. In early 2023 I was exposed to a large amount of toxic mold while working on a farm. The exposure triggered an immune response resulting in the diagnosis of a chronic illness called CIRS. Unable to continue working in agricultural settings, I began negotiating for another non-profit to take over the operations of the business as I researched graduate programs for counseling. The more I researched programs the more I began to feel as though my true calling is to help the world by becoming a therapist. I’m currently unable to work in the field in which I’ve worked for the past 10 years. This scholarship would allow me to enroll in classes without taking on more student loan debt and continue to teach yoga and guitar lessons to cover my living and medical expenses. Where I used to think "bad things" were happening "to" me, I now believe the same things are happening "for" me. I want to integrate what I’m learning about the mind with body-based practices like yoga, meditation, breath work, and somatic experiencing to teach clients about parasympathetic responses and deep healing. Kahlil Gibran says prayer is the “expansion of yourself into the living ether”. Bridging the gap between the mind and the body will allow me to expand into life itself, the ultimate spiritual practice, and help others to do the same.

They say things like death and rebirth come in threes. Since 2021 I have closed my business, gotten divorced, and been diagnosed with a chronic illness. But if death comes in threes, so does rebirth. I’ve been in weekly therapy (for 2 years now), I’ve been admitted into a graduate counseling program, and every day I’m practicing radically accepting Life on Life’s terms. Life is offering me an opportunity to dive deep into healing and help others do the same. In 2015 my ex-wife and I started a non-profit dedicated to reversing the effects of climate change through regenerative agriculture. Our business won sustainability awards and was growing. Our hopes to “change the world” were high, but hidden traumas kept us seeking external validation instead of doing internal work. Ironically, we both trained as yoga teachers, but without therapy, yoga simply functioned as a “spiritual bypass”. During the pandemic, several people close to me died. This opened up a core wound– the belief that loved ones would leave me. At the time I was unaware that I was bouncing across various sympathetic states of fight, flight, and freeze. As we tried to scale our business the pandemic kept dragging on, and I went deeper into various trauma responses. I became incredibly angry and resentful at the world, and I began to project all of my dysregulation onto my partner. We became so distant that one day she said she was done and just left. No discussion, no willingness to work it out, just done. I begged for us to go to couples counseling, but she wouldn’t consider it. When she left I was broken…open. Heartbroken and lost, I began searching for healing. I joined a men's coaching group where I learned Somatic Experiencing techniques and I dove head first into DBT and EMDR with my therapist. I put myself and my past under a microscope and began reading books like “The Body Keeps the Score”, “No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model”, and “How to Do The Work”. The more I learned about healing trauma the more I shared with friends and family. I kept getting the feedback that “You’re really into this, have you ever thought about becoming a therapist?” The idea was planted but wouldn’t grow until Life forced my hand. In early 2023 I was exposed to a large amount of toxic mold while working on a farm. The exposure triggered an immune response resulting in the diagnosis of a chronic illness called CIRS. Unable to continue working in agricultural settings, I began negotiating for another non-profit to take over the operations of the business as I researched graduate programs for counseling. The more I researched programs the more I began to feel as though my true calling is to help the world by becoming a therapist. I’m currently unable to work in the field in which I’ve worked for the past 10 years. This scholarship would allow me to enroll in classes without taking on more student loan debt and continue to teach yoga and guitar lessons to cover my living and medical expenses. I want to integrate what I’m learning about the mind with body-based practices like yoga, meditation, breath work, and somatic experiencing to teach clients about parasympathetic responses and deep healing. Kahlil Gibran says prayer is the “expansion of yourself into the living ether”. Bridging the gap between the mind and the body will allow me to expand into life itself, the ultimate spiritual practice, and help others to do the same.

They say things like death and rebirth come in threes. Since 2021 I have closed my business, gotten divorced, and been diagnosed with a chronic illness. But if death comes in threes, so does rebirth. I’ve been in weekly therapy (for 2 years now), I’ve been admitted into a graduate counseling program, and every day I’m practicing radically accepting Life on Life’s terms. Life is offering me an opportunity to dive deep into healing and help others do the same. In 2015 my ex-wife and I started a non-profit dedicated to reversing the effects of climate change through regenerative agriculture. Our business won sustainability awards and was growing. Our hopes to “change the world” were high, but hidden traumas kept us seeking external validation instead of doing internal work. Ironically, we both trained as yoga teachers, but without therapy, yoga simply functioned as a “spiritual bypass”. During the pandemic, several people close to me died. This opened up a core wound– the belief that loved ones would leave me. At the time I was unaware that I was bouncing across various sympathetic states of fight, flight, and freeze. As we tried to scale our business the pandemic kept dragging on, and I went deeper into various trauma responses. I became incredibly angry and resentful at the world, and I began to project all of my dysregulation onto my partner. We became so distant that one day she said she was done and just left. No discussion, no willingness to work it out, just done. I begged for us to go to couples counseling, but she wouldn’t consider it. When she left I was broken…open. Heartbroken and lost, I began searching for healing. I joined a men's coaching group where I learned Somatic Experiencing techniques and I dove head first into DBT and EMDR with my therapist. I put myself and my past under a microscope and began reading books like “The Body Keeps the Score”, “No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model”, and “How to Do The Work”. The more I learned about healing trauma the more I shared with friends and family. I kept getting the feedback that “You’re really into this, have you ever thought about becoming a therapist?” The idea was planted but wouldn’t grow until Life forced my hand. In early 2023 I was exposed to a large amount of toxic mold while working on a farm. The exposure triggered an immune response resulting in the diagnosis of a chronic illness called CIRS. Unable to continue working in agricultural settings, I began negotiating for another non-profit to take over the operations of the business as I researched graduate programs for counseling. The more I researched programs the more I began to feel as though my true calling is to help the world by becoming a therapist. I’m currently unable to work in the field in which I’ve worked for the past 10 years. This scholarship would allow me to enroll in classes without taking on more student loan debt and continue to teach yoga and guitar lessons to cover my living and medical expenses. I want to integrate what I’m learning about the mind with body-based practices like yoga, meditation, breath work, and somatic experiencing to teach clients about parasympathetic responses and deep healing. Kahlil Gibran says prayer is the “expansion of yourself into the living ether”. Bridging the gap between the mind and the body will allow me to expand into life itself, the ultimate spiritual practice, and help others to do the same.

If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would become a “Swiftie” during a divorce in my late 30s and be in the “top 13% of Taylor Swift listeners on Spotify” I would have laughed in your face. But strangely enough, my mind has “forevermore” been changed about Taylor. I’ve been a super fan of Bon Iver and the National for years and I recently fall in love with Bleachers/Jack Antonoff. When Folklore was released I rolled my eyes. I listened to “the 1” and couldn’t get through the first 30 seconds. I loved the music but was still clinging to the false belief that I didn’t like Taylor’s voice. I couldn’t believe that my heroes were making a record with a teeny-bopper pop princess. “Covert narcissism disguised as altruism”: When Aaron Dessner posted that his collaboration with Taylor enabled The National to keep their crew on payroll through the pandemic I began to have a change of heart. Taylor single-handedly prevented the entire crew from one of my favorite bands from going unemployed during the pandemic. Aaron continued to post about how amazed he was by Taylor’s songwriting. Then Bryce Dessner posted something similar. Then Justin Vernon. Then Jack Antonoff. I soon had to come to terms–either many of my heroes were full of shit or I was not giving Taylor a fair chance. So, I gave Folklore a full listen, and to my amazement, I was moved to tears by the stories in the lyrics and the instrumental arrangements behind the lyrics. “Second, third, and hundredth chances, balancing on breaking bridges”: I got divorced 2 years ago, and it broke me…open. The song “...exile” was one of the first tracks that spoke to me. I could see myself in the song and the lyrics and piano part became so deeply comforting that I learned to play the song on the piano. The song helped me to see that I had become hardened by my own way of thinking. My ex-wife had previously suggested I go to therapy. I started in the beginning of 2020, but when the pandemic hit, I quit and went further into a trauma response isolating myself from all of my loved ones. I became so overly reactive and angry at the world that my wife eventually just up and left. At the time it was a huge surprise to me that she left, but the more I’ve had time to reflect, the more I realize she was right to leave. I desperately needed help. “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me…”: I’ve been in therapy every week now for 2 years. After sharing my therapy experience with many friends and family I kept getting the feedback that “you’re really into this, have you thought about becoming a therapist?”. The more I thought about it, the more I realized becoming a therapist is what I’m supposed to do. I have applied for and been admitted into a Master of Clinical Mental Health Counseling program, and I am excited to start a new career helping people navigate life’s most difficult changes. Folklore was a mirrorball for me, showing me every version of myself, and providing the perfect soundtrack for me to navigate a sad but beautiful era of change. It was exhausting rooting for the anti-hero, and I know 28-year-old me would roll his eyes at the Swiftie I've become, but I prefer the softened edges and openness to change. Taylor's Eras have helped me move into a new era of my own.