“Eternal optimist, recovering perfectionist, and true believer in human potential.” 

Trained and certified in the Equine Facilitation and Equine Gestalt Coaching Method® developed by Melisa Pearce, my mission is to facilitate healing opportunities that empower individuals to explore the root of personal barriers, let go, and allow the fire that burns deep inside to emerge. It is through this synergy of mind, body and heart that we experience our truest self and the freedom to live healthier lives in authenticity, deep connection, and joy.

I hold a Master’s degree in Counseling for Marriage and Family Therapy, and a Bachelors’ in Child/Adolescent Psychology from Saint Mary’s College of California. As Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I have worked with youth, young adults and families in the mental health field for over 20 years, serving in direct service, clinical, program development and executive management roles.

In addition to Spark Equine, I am also the principal owner and CEO of Gadda-Hendrix Consulting, LLC, a behavioral health and social services consulting company that supports behavioral health, child welfare, probation, and educational organizations, leaders, service providers, and healthcare/helping professionals across California.

In 2022, after more than 2 decades working within these systems of care, I founded Finding Freedom and Fire Foundation in the hopes of overcoming systemic barriers and furthering individual and community health outcomes throughout the world.

When achievement is equated to self-worth, you can never drop the ball. You never feel free to just let go. My brain had spent years carefully crafting strategies to help manage my early experiences, but those strategies were no longer working for me. For the first (obvious to me) time in my life, they were getting in my way of my health, my relationships, my creativity, and my inner spark for life, and I couldn’t “think” my way out of it. From the outside no one would ever know that there was anything wrong, because perfectionism “works” (until it doesn’t). I needed to challenge the belief that had formed over the years that I had to have it all together, all the time. That to feel, to voice my needs, to rely on others, to be vulnerable, is weakness. Failure.

The truth is feeling the need to be busy all the time was a trauma response and a fear-based distraction from what I’d be forced to acknowledge and feel if I slowed down. To trust, to drop my guard and let others in, to be seen fully, to openly struggle with anything, and to risk that any needs I did express might not be met, was terrifying, and so I stayed busy and in control at all times. But my body knew, it’s always known, and it was holding the stress of this knowing for far too long. When I reflect back, it was trying to tell me for a long time, in subtle and not so subtle ways, it just took me a long time to learn how to listen.

And that is how I found the Equine Gestalt Coaching Method®. In my years of clinical work with trauma, I always felt like there was a missing piece to the puzzle on how to truly help others on their journey towards healing. Cognitive understanding isn’t enough. We also need to help our bodies let go of the stressful experiences and memories they have been carrying for us. When these experiences and feelings are given a safe opportunity to be acknowledged and released, rather than quieted, shoved down and stored — we become free.

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