Hi, I’m Vivian

Your Mental Health Advocate

I am a writer, artist, sailor, speaker, advocate, and outgoing energetic woman with a passion for inspiring others to find what makes them want to keep going forward when life seems to have stolen their spirit.

My younger brother and sister took their own lives at age 19 and 20, when I was only 22 and 26, living in Denmark, newly engaged, and starting my own adventure. Their deaths inspired me to never say no to a challenge, and to question authority when I felt that a vulnerable person was not being treated fairly or with loving kindness.

My education took me to nursing, then occupational therapy, then counseling, then as a licensed therapist, and I am now working on my PhD in Health Psychology.

When my mom died in 2014, following a short 5-month battle with Pancreatic Cancer, I decided that I needed to find my center again. This was my third major family loss and my heart hurt so badly. I needed something big to help heal the loss. I became a Yoga Instructor, graduating in the Spring of 2016, and created a Yoga practice that helped me to find the quiet space needed to heal the complicated trauma that had been stuck in my body for years. It was an outlet to feel sadness, anger, survivor guilt, and chronic pain. I learned to sit with the emotional roller coasters.

Growing both as a therapist and suicide survivor helped me to develop a new support system of self-healing with consistent, focused tools to help myself and others.

I thrive being surrounded by optimistic, hopeful, and empathetic healers. My purpose is to inspire others to use their life experiences, and journeys of grieving, to not only heal themselves and others, but educate medical professionals that complimentary medicine works, and is crucial for mind/body healing.