This is me

“The gift we receive on the underworld journey becomes the gift we offer in return to life. The offering of that gift is our contribution to the ongoing evolution of the human species, whose collective awakening is essential for the continued inhabitation of all species of earth.”

-Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft

I’m Annalise.

I’m a Pisces, journal addict and animal lover. I think I may actually have a complex about my hair 🤪, so you’ll find changing colors if you look me up. I’m working on returning to eau naturale, though.

Like you, I’ve been on a tender path of becoming and unfurling for years, teasing out what is my surface-level story, and what is the deeper, truer story underneath. The deeper, truer story is that my life circumstances perfectly set me up to have a heartfelt longing to find the more embodied, feminine side of spirituality which seemed conspicuously absent in most major Western and Eastern spiritual traditions. After taking my own deep dives into embodiment and esotericism, I found myself (after a broken engagement) feeling dizzyingly lost in my life. This lostness took me on an elaborate underworld journey that landed me in the very simple and humble truth that I am here to nurture the seeds of tenderness and wisdom in my own human heart, and to help others do the same. And to the truth that my heart is and will always be my greatest compass and spiritual guide. I am lost without her.

The result was a more holistic and simple spiritual practice: Utter devotion to hearing the voice of my heart and staying deeply rooted in my heart in all the sacred questions of my life. This brings feminine practices of embodiment and descent together with masculine practices of transcendence in a mystical marriage. The heart has always been the radical juncture between heaven and earth, and the tenderest place in the center of the heart has always been everyone’s through line to a Great Love that wants to move through us all.

I realized that so many myths are based on this perilous and sometimes surprisingly complicated journey to the center, past the numberless barriers, Minotaurs and bramble bushes we erect in defense of our most precious treasure. And so many myths are based on the awakening of this center once the journey is complete. The awakening of our sleeping beauty.

The more surface-level story is that I spent many years training as a psychotherapist (working with traumatized children and teenagers, people with substance use disorders, HIV-positive orphans and the dying) and then created a burgeoning EMDR therapy practice for creative women after getting licensed. I had also experienced some literary accomplishments and felt I could call myself a “writer.” I was also collecting all kinds of esoteric certifications and my private practice was starting to look more and more like a one-stop-shop mystical emporium.

But after my (admittedly hellish) underworld journey, I was forced to finally recognize that this one humble heart is not only my compass in this life but also the “heart” 😜 of all authentic spirituality. All the mystical certifications I’d collected beforehand were the effect of my longing for a sense of the sacred and a way to bring it into my work with people. Well, there could be no more sacred ground than the heart and its hidden seeds of tenderness. I believe those seeds want to grow into the flowers of heaven, in the form of a simple kindness, a heart-led business, or even a book or other project. My gift is to help others sew the flowers of heaven. Each time we do, we help to bring about the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

I’m trained in an array of neuroscience-based clinical modalities, and though the offerings here are NOT therapy, my decade of experience as a clinician and counselor certainly informs and enriches them. I bring to bear many years of formal training and hard-earned experience delicately teasing apart the thickets of trauma that guard the wisdom and tenderness of our hearts.

My Highly Piscean Roster of Creds:

Most importantly, I’m a human and I endeavor to be radically present and radically open-hearted in every single offering, recording, group or 1:1 session.

Moreover, I’ve taken it upon myself to learn directly and experientially from Shipibo medicine men and women and from other shamanic lineage-keepers, and also from Andrew Harvey (modern mystic and spiritual teacher), from Alexandra Roxo (luminous voice in the divine feminine conversation), Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes (senior Jungian analyst and author of the canonical Women Who Run with the Wolves), and Meggan Watterson (feminist theologian).

• Oxbridge Masters in Philosophy from Trinity College Dublin (2010) (followed by a jaunt to India where I volunteered in an orphanage for HIV-positive children in Jaipur)

• Masters in Social Work (Mental Health Concentration) from USC (2015)

• Ten years of experience in mental health at the time of this writing (working mostly in residential programs and community-based mental health programs for traumatized children and youth, with only one of those years a blend of chemical dependency inpatient and outpatient experience, interspersed with some visits to clients in an adjunct skilled nursing home for people with HIV/AIDS)

• Approved in February 2019 by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences to practice psychotherapy under my own license. (It means I’ve collected thousands of post-Masters clinical hours, done a bunch of post-Masters trainings, and passed a couple of truly butt-numbing exams, years after finishing grad school.)

• EMDR trained and cleared by EMDRIA and the EMDR Institute to use this heavily evidence-based trauma treatment in my practice. I think of EMDR as the icing on the cake of the last century of Western developments in understanding the unconscious, blended with modern developments in neurobiology. It’s powerful stuff. (It’s like expedited depth work.)

• In 2019, I saw the official publication by Oxford University Press of Women’s Journey to Empowerment in the 21st Century: A Transnational Approach, to which I contributed (or, wrote) a chapter. The original tract of writing was completed in 2015.

• SF Jung Institute – Clinical Applications of Jungian Analysis six-month program graduate

• JFK University – Clinical Applications of Deep Imagination certified

• Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes – Original Voice Creativity and Dream-Tending Intensive Workshop Trainee

• Hypnosis Motivation Institute – Certified Hypnotist

• Portland Psychic School – Psychic Meditation Class Graduate

• Colette Baron-Reid’s Oracle School – Certified Oracle Guide

• Alanna Kaivalya’s Alchemical Astrology School – Certified Astrologer

• In 2021, I introduced my first full-length book, Heal Your Witch Wound to the world with the tremendous support of Paper Raven Books. I was humbled and astounded to watch it become a #1 bestseller in several Amazon categories in its first week.

• In 2022, I became a lineage-initiated mesa carrier, certified Shamanic Energy Medicine practitioner and Holistic Nutrition Coach through Dr. Alberto Villoldo's Four Winds Academy. I also was privileged to participate in a series of ayahuasca ceremonies with Shipibo medicine men and women in the rainforests of Peru in the same year. These experiences have added to my competency and scope when it comes to finding the overlaps between shamanic work and Jungian work, and to integrating lifestyle medicine interventions (such as awareness of the way nutrition impacts mental health) holistically into the way I work with therapy clients.

  I believe we can be the revolution we all long to see by alchemizing everything that stands in between us and sharing our radical open-heartedness with the world. Schedule a free 60-minute consultation call on Zoom if you’re ready to live your biggest life as a powerful voice for love.