Another BIO… hmmm, where do I begin?

This bio is not meant to impress you per say, but to help you trust that I am coming to you with professional expertise, education, and years of experience.  I have acquired a bit of wisdom and knowledge along the way, made some grand mistakes, and understand the heart and soul of people who choose to passionately lead and care for others.  I know the mountains of responsibility you take on and the toll it takes on you personally.

In my twenties, I started teaching middle school history and did so for 13 years.  The profession of teaching was a challenging and rewarding endeavor in my early life.  It taught me so much about myself.  It gave me the confidence I needed to speak publically and to communicate effectively while humbling me to the core.  Nothing can get you grounded like middle schoolers picking up on your every weakness and hunting you like prey.  Hahaha!

The teaching environment made me a time management and boundary specialist; while at the same time it forced me to embrace flexibility as I rolled with the punches of each class period. Teaching helped me to reach seemingly unmotivated souls and subtly guide and motivate them toward their God-given potential.  It also set the stage for me becoming a professional counselor.

In a teaching environment where every word is scrutinized, it made me go underground with a lot of tension and feelings.  Couple this with a leader’s personality and being the first born in a family that couldn’t really process stress and emotions in a healthy way and you have a leader’s recipe for burn-out. 

 I relate to the way that leaders (while sometimes selectively being vulnerable) have to hold themselves to a high standard of accountability, compassion, strength, and fortitude.  This, over the course of time, can deteriorate the very soul, with few places to really just be you, a person, with human weakness and need. The leader’s need for rest and care can often go unseen, unheard, and unknown.

The heartbeat of a leader is so often focused outward instead of inward.  This makes you good at what you do, but it also makes you vulnerable to burn-out, losing your passion, or just feeling like no one really gets it, or gets you on a personal level.  What will people think if I fall apart?  Will they see this melt down, this expression of anger or sadness as refreshingly vulnerable or will it cause them to doubt who I am and what I have to offer or my ability to lead?  

 Teaching laid the foundation for my professional career, but since then I have had my own counseling practice for 16 years, led women’s ministry in a couple of different churches, and have been a founder of my own non-profit and currently a board member for two local non-profits.

 I’ve tried my hand at penning a short devotional book, a few bible studies for churches, and educational materials for women healing from human trafficking.  I have led weekend healing retreats for women and often speak on various topics that center around spiritual and emotional growth.

 On the non-profit side of things, I formed with the help of a wonderful team of professionals a therapeutic program for women who have been trafficked  (and coming out of incarceration) that serviced safe houses in the Orlando area.  Through counseling these women in private practice for several years and then leading this program I grew as an “expert of sorts” in the area of trauma and PTSD. My non-profit also morphed into a transition home for these women in second phase recovery for a short time and then it took its toll.

 I burned out. I did too much.  I wore too many hats and took on more responsibility than my poor body could handle.   I, like most leaders am of a strong mind and it became my downfall at times. I had the mental capacity to take on more than I could physically handle. 

 Now it was time to rest and reflect, I took a few years to heal, re-group and look to what is next.  How can I use my experience, knowledge, mistakes, wisdom, and failures to serve counselors, teachers,  ministry and non-profit and for-profit leaders?   How can I help to provide healing, prayer, and respite to those I so understand and relate to?  How can I place them among like-minded people to connect with and grow from?

As a licensed practicing counselor I am working to provide leader retreats and am moving toward shorter-term leader mini-retreat type sessions to help leaders rejuvenate.  (See “Leader Intensive Retreat” in the section tabs)

 Leaders, teachers, and counselors are my people.  I love their energy, enthusiasm, strength, passion, and need for purpose. My hope is that whether you partake in a large group weekend leader retreat or an individualized personal retreat that you leave cared for, re-charged, seen, and filled.

 This is my prayer for you: 

 May God bless you in your calling, devotion, and purpose. 

May He meet you and fill you. 

May He bring great fruit to all He has led you to do.

May you feel His Presence in every detail, every frustration, every joy and every success. 

May you know His affirmation.

May you feel His pleasure as He surveys all that He has asked of you.  

May your burden be light as you continue to lean into Him.  

 In Jesus Name, Amen.

♡ Dawn

For those of you who would like to know my spiritual background:

(I’m an Enneagram Six, we like to know these things).

 I hold all experience and knowledge in tension as it is confirmed generally through scripture.  I believe God still speaks to us in His Word, in our spirits, through our experiences, in creation, and through relationships with our fellow travelers.   

I feel quite comfortable going in between right and left orientated believers.  My driving principle is grace through relationship and truth.  I believe that God is always working redemption in our stories and the deeper we know our story the more we will see His hand in it.  I believe God allows us to co-labor with Him in the redemptive work of humankind.

I believe in the gifts of the Spirit, but will not specifically teach on them, nor do I use them in a distracting, overtly public way.  I adhere strictly to the Apostle’s Creed and love a liturgical church.  My background is Catholic, but in my late twenties I surrendered my life to Christ (as much as I was able at the time) in a Baptist setting. I grow in this surrender daily. I fail in this surrender hourly. I grew in discipleship in the Presbyterian and non-denom communities, graduated from a Reformed seminary and have been part of a charismatic believing Anglican church for many years.  I believe in deep relationship with God the Father made known to me through Jesus Christ empowered by the indwelling of His Holy Spirit.