The Many Ways' approach
Four lineages of practice
woven together in many ways
1. Skilled facilitation
from small workshops
to large initiatives
Cross-sector collaboration helps diverse groups find common ground around a shared aspiration, then align and leverage their actions to achieve results together at scale.
2. Inclusive practices
for mutual liberation and systems of belonging
By courageously building our capacity to navigate difference with compassion and skill, we can shape structures and cultures to welcome belonging.
3. Systemic principles
bringing insight and ease to human systems
Systemic principles are
the foundation of Constellations and Coaching with Many Ways. Once understood and applied, they reveal hidden dynamics and help to release difficult binds.
4. Somatic wisdom
for system sensing and integration
Mental and emotional intelligence can take us far, but can also distort, project, and distract. The body is an attuned instrument and honest consort, ready to give and receive care and wisdom.
Expertise & Leadership Background
My specialty is facilitating groups to upskill and be courageous together
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Collective Impact thought leader: I am a national thought leader and seasoned practitioner of Collective Impact, a mechanism for large scale social change.
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Equity-Informed Mediator: I'm a certified equity-Informed mediator, skills I use to support diverse, multi-sector groups to navigate difference in service of collective work.
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Facilitator using systemic principles: I'm a certified Systemic & Family Constellation facilitator, the principles of which make human dynamics more transparent and easily traversed.
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Seasoned Mentor: I've mentored volunteers, staff, boards of directors, and committees for decades, supporting professional development and holding space for crucial conversations.
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Experienced strategist: I'm a seasoned strategist for organizational change initiatives, inclusionary dynamics, strategic planning, public relations, and policy advancement.
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Public speaker, trainer, and spokesperson: I've done extensive public speaking, from keynote addresses, to design and delivery of trainings, to serving as spokesperson in print and live media.
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I served for 25 years as a nonprofit executive in maternal child health policy
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Community: My first leadership position mobilized grassroots volunteers to implement an Ad Council campaign. On the wings of that success, the organization wrote, lobbied for, and passed state workplace accommodation law, as employer suggestion in 2005, and mandate in 2007.
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State, Territorial, & Regional: I founded a state coalition, and soon thereafter was elected to represent the states and territories from Alaska to Guam to the related national organization. The state coalition championed federal legislation, passed in 2010, amending the Affordable Care Act.
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National & International: I served for eleven years as the Deputy Director of the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee; a multi-sectoral organization, spanning from the grassroots to the treetops. There I:
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Lead through emergence at a time of rapid growth, diversification, and political turbulence
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Supported grant procurement, management, and reporting related to $8.4M in federal infrastructure funds
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Partnered with and mobilized state, tribal, local, territorial, federal, and international leaders
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Facilitated numerous collaborative policy groups through a Collective Impact framework and equity lens
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Staffed the Board of Directors and operational committees, and supervised several staff teams
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When, in 2023, President Biden signed a comprehensive version of the law I'd worked on with coalitions for seventeen years, I released my nonprofit executive role to found Many Ways. ​
Lived Experience & Personal Background
Nature and creativity are my favorite through-lines. I'm grateful that my lived experience includes a foundation in wilderness, travel, and creativity. The first eighteen months of my life, my parents and I lived in a Volkswagen bus, exploring the national park system. I took some of my first steps in Yellowstone. From ages three to fourteen, I had a second home within the creative dance studio of Ms. Betty Jane. I'm also a sewist, having learned the craft from my mother, who traded quilts to Betty Jane for those dance lessons. Thus, two important women in my life showed me that love creates many ways to share value. I'm also a writer, poet, singer, and lover of the live edge.
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I was a young mother and volunteer when I became interested in family systems. As a young mother, my community service started in volunteer roles inspired by wanting all children to have a strong foundation. As my children grew, so did I. Through engagement with Freudian, Gestalt, Jungian, somatic and liberation therapies, I've built a life of meaning. I'm interested in family systems, social-ecological spheres of influence, complexity theory, community organizing, and emergence.
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Holding space for big transitions, special needs, and mending is my journey. My personal life has been greatly shaped by being in a family with significant neurocomplexity, and caring for my mother through her journey with Alzheimer's. Being drawn to hold space for life transitions, I've served as a wedding officiant, birth doula, and memorial officiant for twenty years. I am truly grateful for my challenges and shadows, including the physical and metaphysical mending journeys I've traversed. Which is all a lot of words to say: I think love runs through it all.
Many Ways' Purpose
The world needs conscious leaders, partners, parents, and beloved community. We can be courageous together. We can confront our own oppressive and limiting beliefs, be they from family lineage, trauma, or social construct. This will lead to systemic change.
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We can build this collective capacity by working from Self to System. I support the somatic, emotional, and mental capacity of each client, to become more effective in the world. As Bill O'Brien wrote, “the success of the intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener."
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​No matter the audience, my aim is supporting our unfolding potential. Regardless if I am guiding organizations or leadership groups, presenting trainings or talks, facilitating workshops, or supporting individuals, I bring my presence, experience, and lineages of practice into the conversation.
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We can realize a world where we are both autonomous and in each other’s care. Many Ways is a learning laboratory for individuals and communities of practice to become the conscious beings the world needs, by honoring the Many Ways of knowing, being, and doing.
Unfolding potential at the live edge
Unfolding potential at the live edge
Honoring Many Ways of knowing, being, and doing
I love life.
I love my life.
I love re-wilding.
I love crafting a path.
I love accompaniment.
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I love co-discovering what brings us,
and what we're here to do. I love learning what becomes possible when we know it, and we live it, and we love it, together.
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Trusting that it somehow all belongs.
Holding steady at the live edge.
Blooming in disturbed soil.
Serving as with-ness.
Being right here.
Right now.