About Hope

After earning my Master's of Social Work at Baylor University in 2018, I was awarded a large grant and began working as the full-time Executive Director of a nonprofit organization that I co-founded. 

For a decade, I worked hard to amplify and defend the voices of every marginalized individual or group I encountered. I did my best to be a conscious, healthy parent, a loving and devoted wife, a successful grad student / intern / assistant, and an inspiring dance fitness instructor.

My final 2 years of grad school were the hardest. I had an (exclusively breastfed) newborn baby and I was responsible for taking our son to speech therapy Monday-Thursday. My social work internship was 20-25 hours per week, I was a paid graduate assistant, taught a fitness class, and my husband was a recovering addict who had just opened his own food truck.

It's no wonder that my mental health took a nose dive; postpartum anxiety and depression and ADHD were my diagnoses, in large part due to Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or C-PTSD. Proper medication and a fantastic therapist saved my life. 

During those times, some hard truths came to the service. My whole identity was based on my role as wife, mother, and "good Christian," and all these other titles and expectations, and I had completely lost myself in all the people-pleasing. But the even harsher reality was that I had not recently lost myself, but that I began learning to abandon myself - my own needs, truest dreams, desires, and my voice - at a much younger age. 

Fast forward to today and I can whole-heartedly say, 1) the internal work, inner healing and growth never ends, and 2) it's not easy but it's worth it.