Hi, I'm Emilie
I live in Northern Nevada with my husband, Dave, and our incredible little girl, Lucy. When I'm not on family adventures in the great outdoors with my beautiful family, I'm helping moms like you heal old wounding so they can become the peaceful, cycle breaking mothers they aspire to be.
My Story
I always knew I wanted to work with, and advocate for children. I began babysitting from a young age and quickly became known as “The Baby Whisperer”. I began my education in Child Development and Early Childhood Education while in High school, and worked as a nanny on the weekends. I began working in a preschool, caring for infants and toddlers, right out of high school and quickly realized that the high ratios weren’t for me. As I furthered my education, I began working as a full time nanny, caring for children ranging in age from newborn to about 7 years old, and went on to help raise 7 wonderful children over the next 14 years, plus helped care for many other young children part time within that time. Eventually, after suffering for years from a debilitating gut disorder and a long list of food sensitivities, I became a Certified Holistic Nutritionist. For the 2 years leading up to motherhood, I ran a Nutrition Coaching practice where I specialized in working with severe gut disorders.
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It was through my work in Nutrition Coaching that I not only realized we have an epidemic of gut disorders in this country, but that these disorders are often, if not usually connected to unresolved trauma and high stress.
I had always been very interested in psychology, coming from such a dysfunctional home and experiencing so much trauma as a child. I took psychology classes in high school and college, and even dreamed of a career as a Child Psychologist at one point. Learning about the gut-brain connection in my Nutrition studies, and then seeing first hand in my clients how the chronic illness they were suffering through was primarily rooted in trauma and stress, reignited my interest in psychology. It wasn’t until I became a mother and had so much of my own trauma resurface, leading to issues with rage, that I decided to go back to school, yet again, and study trauma recovery.
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I am humbled to have the privilege of guiding other moms through their own journeys of healing so that they may recover their truest, most authentic versions of themselves, grow deeper in their relationships with their children, and break cycles of dysfunction for their children.
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Learn about my healing journey here.
Areas of Expertise
Conscious, Peaceful Parenting
I began studying Child Development and Early Childhood Education while still in High School, and continued my education through college. I have worked as a teacher's aide in the special education department, as well as in the preschool setting, working with infants and toddlers. I have 18 years of experience working as a nanny for children ranging in age from 3 months old to 7 years old. With so much of my education being focused on positive discipline, and then witnessing how deeply authoritarian parenting styles were negatively affecting some of the children I cared for, I became interested in the concept of "Peaceful Parenting". I studied Peaceful Parenting through The Peaceful Parenting Institute and quickly realized that the foundation for this peaceful, authoritative approach to childrearing is the caregiver's willingness to look within themselves and commit to inner growth work. Ultimately, it comes down to the caregiver's level of consciousness and intention. I then delved deep into all that Dr. Shefali Tsabary shares on the topic of Conscious Parenting, and realized how deeply this work intertwines with what I've learned about healing from trauma.
Reparenting the Inner Child
My knowledge in reparenting and inner child healing comes largely from my education in trauma recovery. I had dabbled in some inner child work throughout the years on my own healing journey, and learned more about it as I studied up on the concept of Conscious Parenting, but it was my education in Addiction and Abuse Recovery, specifically, that not only led me down a path of deepening my own inner work in this department, but also taught me to guide others in their own journeys within. ​ The process of reparenting one's self, and thus healing the inner child, is key in developing self-love, letting go of shame and guilt, learning to set and uphold healthy boundaries, better manage emotional triggers, heal traumas, and more consistently respond to your children in a peaceful way.
Self-Regulation & Co-Regulation
Co-regulation is a foundation practice in Conscious, Peaceful Parenting, but it's completely reliant on the caregiver's ability to first self-regulate. Most of us weren't taught how to regulate our emotions as children. Many of us weren't even allowed to FEEL our emotions as children, often being told to "stop crying", or sent away by our parents for our totally developmentally normal inability to regulate ourselves, or express our emotions in productive ways. Emotional Intelligence just wasn't well-known in our parents' generation, so even the best of parents made these mistakes that left us unable to regulate ourselves as adults. I was raised in a very violent household, filled with toxic anger. Not only did I enter motherhood with no knowledge in how to regulate my emotions, but my only rolemodel for dealing with emotions was to get violent. But I knew that was a cycle I HAD to break. I just didn't know how. Healing work so often focuses on the mind, which is wonderful, but without connecting to our bodies, trauma often stays stuck within us, and that's exactly what I was experiencing as a new mom, dealing with rage issues. I had been working on learning how to self-regulate for quite some time, with little improvement, when I discovered the magic of somatic work. I was amazed at how immediate the techniques transformed my life. Not only had I been able to release some of my trauma, but I was able to stay more patient with my daughter, and deal with my triggers in healtheir ways. In all my 17 years of healing work I had never experienced something so profoundly effective. My transformation led me down a passionate path of learning all I could about somatic work, and that journey continues. I quickly realized that the work is truly a mind-body experience. While I have been fascinated to learn all of the ways that somatic work can release trauma residue and propel one forward in their healing of trauma, I have been even more fascinated to learn, and experience first-hand, how the techniques can help one better manage their anger when faced with overpowering triggers, and the risk of harming their children with reactive behaviors. My work in using Somatic tecniques for more effective self-regulation not only transformed my life and my relationship with my daughter, but teaching other struggling mothers to do the same quickly became a passion for me. So much so, that I wrote a book about it, which you can purchase at "The Angry Mom's Guide to Self-Regulation" tab of this site.
Trauma & Addiction Recovery
At the root of all addiction, is unresolved trauma. And while not all trauma survivors are addicts, there is usually some degree of codependecy present in their lives. Whether one is an addict or not, a lot can be learned from the 12 step recovery process when it comes to healing from trauma, PTSD, CPTSD, abusive relationships, or really any kind of wounding. Regardless of my client's story, I help guide them through personalized journeys of healing, deprogramming and rewiring through my extensive knowledge in the recovery process and inner child healing.