How I got here:
I am a true believer in how our past shapes who we are. As I look back, I realize how much it has influenced the path I am on today. I grew up as a city boy from Chicago, Illinois. Blessed with being able to spend my childhood summers immersed in the beautiful countryside of Door County, Wisconsin, I drank dandelion juice and learned how to grow vegetables in the garden with my grandma. During these times, I got a chance to not only connect with nature, I had the opportunity to learn from my elders. This was a very unique experience for a child in the city, raised by a single mom. I had an extension of my family.
These people were my cousins, uncles, aunt and grandma. They taught me to play in nature. I learned about food as medicine and that I can accomplish anything when I set my mind to it. It was these early days that sparked my life-long love for the natural world and thirst for knowledge about holistic healing. Basic truths I learned here would become the foundation for how I would find my own healing and help others in life. Those summers met my needs in so many ways, but I am also thankful for my experience of life in the city, and the complexities that came with that. Though this diversity, I developed a broader perspective on life that helped me adapt and connect with other unique individuals and to be able to see life more easily through another vantage point. Little did I know that this gift would be a treasure that would continue to unfold.
That childhood guidance brought me to focusing more on the benefits of our natural surroundings. I earned a degree from Western Illinois University in Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration where I emphasized in outdoor recreation and experiential education. I then moved to Maine and worked at the Paul Petzoldt Leadership School for Youth. This was where I continued to recognize the power of connecting with others to help them on their path and inspiring them to excel in life, rather than becoming adjudicated youth. Following my path of living and working on the land and with people, I moved to Montana to take a job with the Montana Conservation Corps. That brought me to many beautiful wild places working on a trail crew in some of the most amazing areas in Montana and later to the Bob Marshall Wilderness area near Kalispell, MT.
While stationed in Kalispell, I met the woman of my dreams who became my wife. Not long after the birth of our first son, we homesteaded in rural Illinois in order to be closer to our families and to start a market vegetable farm. Living off the land and going back to my roots of childhood to raise our family was wonderful, but felt incomplete. There was a intense pull back to the mountains and the wild west which called us back to Bozeman. I began to work part time as a garden consultant and eventually established and managed a private community garden on the south side of town. I loved what I was doing, but realized there was still more to life for me.
That was when I discovered energy medicine through the BodyTalk system and saw firsthand how simple, safe, non-invasive and effective this holistic healthcare modality was. I knew right away it was my true calling. Since then, I have continued coursework in many different principles that seamlessly integrate techniques to tap deeper into imbalances and promote healing. The diversity of my knowledge in the healing arts became dynamic and the East-meets-West foundation of the BodyTalk System allowed me to become proficient in utilizing information from the western anatomy and physiology of the body to the chinese 5 elements and traditional chinese medicine perspective. Being trained in orthopedic evaluations, I am able to find the physical restriction on the body, then after the session see right away how much improvement has occurred. Other profound knowledge bases that I work with are releasing stored emotions that can affect the body at a cellular level and the ability to go in depth with balancing allergies, intolerances, hormones, addictions, and environmental sensitivities. Using these techniques I am able to look as dis-ease through a vast array of perspectives that were taught to me by masters in the healing arts. As a practitioner, I am able to look at the whole YOU and help you return to health.
The next step I took was learning Craniosacral Fascial Therapy through the Gillespie Approach. This has become a key tool to assist people in healing. By releasing the fascia or soft tissue of the whole body, the brain is able to breathe again and the body is able to restore balance more easily and facilitate healing without drugs, vitamins, supplements, technology, or surgery. I was also trained in utilizing the screening tool called “Baby Brain Score” and in using CFT with newborn and infant babies to mitigate fetal and birth trauma and create optimal brain function, prevent many diseases, and avert a lifetime of suffering. This has become one of my passions, to help set up a baby to thrive in life is an honor. I have helped babies is so many different ways, from improving sleep habits to easier feeding to more regular elimination. I have noticed when the soft tissue is loose it is easy for all of their needs to be met. I recognize I will probably always be learning. I strive for gaining as much knowledge as I can now to help others heal.
The newest form of energy medicine I have learned is Accunect. This is a system that has deepened even more the ability for everyone to heal, and it is a powerful modality. Based on the principles of acupuncture, osteopathic theory, and quantum physics, Accunect is a radical approach to whole body healthcare. This modality is steeped in universal consciousness with the power to make transformational shifts in a person’s health. The system is a perfect blend of modern knowledge and ancient wisdom for promoting healing on all levels.
This path that I have been led down in life has restored health to so many lives. Throughout the years, I have recognized that gaining health back is an empowering journey for people. I am grateful to have been there for others in their long or short journey to optimal health and well-being. In this process people have found balance in their lives again and together we were able to get to the root cause of their dis-ease and heal from there. I am proud of each and every one of them for their victories. As a practitioner, I find myself recognizing that there are no ordinary moments. I know if our paths may cross, it was meant to be, and I would be honored to support you in your journey back to health.
I do my best to live a balanced life as well as a family man with my wife and our children. We now have 3 amazing young boys to enjoy the majestic surroundings of Montana with. We live our lives to support others and ourselves, in hopes that future generations will thrive even more.
Conditions I love to treat:
- New Moms
- New Babies
- Pediatrics
- Fatigue
- Stress
- Allergies
Things you may not know about me!
- Being a family of 5 with children in each major age group, life is busy and exciting. Sometimes it feels as if we are just holding hands to make it through the busy times.
- I am starting to learn snowboarding this year.
- I love to soak in the hot springs then roll around in the snow afterwards!
- To rekindle my connection of working with groups in the outdoors, which I did during & after college, I am a Den Leader for our local Cub Scout pack in Bozeman.
- Growing food in gardens has been a long term passion of mine, but it’s hard for me to keep house plants alive 🙂
