As seen in Formidable Woman US

When did your path to wellness begin? Share your background and how it unfolded.

My path to wellness began long before I ever stepped onto a yoga mat. It began with a little girl who didn’t feel like she belonged.

I was born in New York City to French parents and spent my early childhood in Paris before my family moved back to the United States when I was seven years old. Suddenly I found myself navigating a new language, a new culture, and a new identity. I was a shy and sensitive child, and for a long time I carried the feeling that I didn't quite belong. Looking back, I think many of the choices I've made throughout my life were really a search—not just for adventure or success, but for a deeper sense of home within myself.

As a teenager and young adult, that feeling deepened into severe depression, an eating disorder, addiction, and a profound search for worthiness through achievement, perfectionism, relationships, and external validation. There was a time in my life when I didn’t want to be alive. I attempted to end my life, was hospitalized, and spent years trying to understand why I felt so disconnected—from myself, from others, and from life itself.

Looking back, I don’t think I was searching for wellness.

I was searching for a place where I finally felt safe to be myself.

Even during those years, there were places where I felt moments of peace. Being underwater, spending time with animals, creating art, and immersing myself in nature brought me a quiet sense of relief long before I understood why. Looking back, I can see that those experiences were gently pointing me toward healing before I had the language for it.

Yoga entered my life in college and became another one of those places. After my divorce, it evolved from an occasional refuge into a daily practice alongside meditation. A therapist encouraged me to deepen that practice, and teachers like Tara Brach, Joseph Goldstein, and Jack Kornfield became important guides. Their work, along with years of study in Colombia, Bali, India, and eventually Mexico, helped me begin understanding healing in an entirely different way.

What I didn’t realize then was that I wasn’t just searching for healing. I was slowly discovering the very conditions that would one day become the foundation of the spaces I now create for others.