About Fire Opal
Healing & Wellness
Own Your Dark to Reveal Your Light
For the past 30+ years, I’ve been on a journey to turn my post-traumatic stress to post-traumatic growth. I have done it, and I can help you do it, too, in far less time than it took me.
I know what it is to feel hopelessly stuck. I was flung into profound darkness at a tender age, and I got stuck for decades: in rage, bitterness, and feeling forever ruined and helpless to do anything to get my self-worth and any semblance of a life back. And I have emerged from the darkness with dignity, power, purity of heart, endless possibility, hopefulness, loving purpose, and joy.
​
About Me
I’ve been there. I know what it’s like.
Having experienced deep woundedness from a formative age and a profound trauma at 19, I have dedicated my life’s work, in whatever form it has taken, to helping others heal and transform their own woundedness so that they may live their best lives and bring their best gifts to the world in fullness of joy.
I was raised culturally Christian and practiced Roman Catholicism in my 20s. I have been a devoted practitioner of a lineage within the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism since 2001, and I hold the endorsement of this lineage for my practice of professional chaplaincy. In 2014, while studying at Naropa University, I met with the teachings of Fr. Thomas Keating and the Center for Contemplative Living as well as those of Fr. Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation. These sparked renewed attraction to Christianity and an intentional integration of Buddhist and contemplative Christian approaches in my own spiritual practice. I have recently returned to the full practice of Roman Catholic Christianity, the start and end point of my spiritual path. I have been a Reiki master practitioner since 2013 and a professional chaplain since 2018. In addition to my healing practice, I work as a hospice chaplain in rural North Dakota.
Fire Opal Healing & Wellness is the fruit of my spiritual journey and healing over the past 30+ years, joined to my lifelong drive to be of service to the world.
My call to study and offer Reiki healing arose directly from my spiritual practice. In 2011, as I neared a milestone in my Buddhist practice, I experienced a spontaneous upwelling of what felt like an electrical current coursing through my body. In that moment, I understood the tingling, effervescent sensation to be healing of my trauma and sense of irreparable brokenness. I felt a deep yearning and call to cultivate and use this spirit energy to heal others who have suffered as I have. And, most significantly, I realized that it is through my own woundedness that I am to accomplish this and so turn my deepest, most intransigent grief and anguish to profound healing and benefit for all I can reach.
I resonate powerfully with the fire opal’s healing and protective attributes—especially those of healing memories of past trauma, reigniting passion and drive, and protecting against harmful spiritual or energetic influences. Seeking to harness these beneficial energies to my healing work, I took Fire Opal as the name and energetic mascot for my spiritual healing and coaching practice.
