There was only one model for how to live life in the small town in Texas where I was raised, and leaving a respectable scientific career to go study an esoteric system of tantric yoga was not part of it.

​

Everyone asks me how I made the leap from PhD scientist, toiling in lab for long hours, to living in a tantric community on a tropical island and starting my own business.

​

The short answer is: I decided to say 'yes' to what scared me. 

​

However, as a scientist, I wasn't about to throw rational thinking out the window for New-Age wishful thinking. 

Yet after 10 years in the lab, I was miserable. I was operating entirely from my head, trying to 'logic' my way through relationships and life. I believed success meant suppressing my emotions and connection with the body. This resulted in chronic fatigue, anxiety, drinking too much, and terrible sex.

After a particularly transformational 4th year at Burning Man, I put down my pipettes forever.

​

It was tantra that finally checkmated my mind and forced me to actually let myself feel good, for once. Over my mother's protests and not knowing how I'd ever get hired again, I stayed on that crazy island to study and practice. Finally, I stopped overthinking everything and had some really great sex.

​

I had become a scientist because I wanted to investigate the structure of reality - what is everything made of? In Tantric practice, I found the same inquiry, with the study of consciousness rather than material reality, at the root. In this new framework, relationships became my laboratory.

​

From chemist to alchemist: I've always been studying bonding and chemistry - whether molecular or interpersonal!

​

My teachers include: Layla Martin's VITA coaching, Jenny Hale of Emotional Mastery, David Bedrick's Shadow and Process Work, Prem Baba's ABC 1, John Wineland and Kendra Cunov, Jasmine Tarkeshi of Laughing Lotus, Agama Yoga, and Christopher Wallis and Paul Muller-Ortega for classical tantrik meditation and non-dual philosophy.

​