And The Root Cause Method was created out of my journey.
All my life, I struggled with food. I didn’t have a reference point for what life was like before or after I started to use food to self-soothe. Emotional eating was just how I coped with things. When I experienced intense emotion, I had no idea what I was feeling or what was driving these feelings. I had no other coping skills aside from numbing myself with food. From childhood, through adolescence and into young adulthood, I lived in an extremely depressed state with a lot of anxiety, fear, self-consciousness, insecurity, and major social isolation. I didn’t have real friends or other supportive relationships. And I spent a lot of my life hiding because I was self-conscious about my body.
As I got older, my ways of relating to food developed into a full-blown eating disorder, and at when I was 23, I checked myself into an eating disorder treatment center. I quickly realized that true freedom from my emotional eating was less about changing my behaviors, and more
Like many who struggle with emotional eating, I suffered from a number of health consequences. I was overweight, inflamed and depressed. I had severely uncomfortable gastro-intestinal issues, hormonal imbalance, and truthfully just felt like shit, all the time.
I decided to pursue a degree in Nutrition, thinking that if I could understand what to eat I would lose weight, feel better and be happy – after all, weren’t we taught that being thin equals happiness? Let me tell you, I now know there’s a lot more to happiness than aesthetics. But at the time, I was motivated by this goal and poured myself into my studies.
I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Dietetics and Nutrition from Florida International University, where I graduated Magna Cum Laude. I became licensed as a clinical dietitian and went on to pursue a Master of Science degree in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine from the University of Western States. After acquiring substantial training in the field of Functional Medicine and Human Nutrition, with a deep understanding of the tools provided by the Institute for Functional Medicine, I decided to step away from grad school because I knew something extremely important was missing from my formal education, and I was accessing this new wisdom from other life experiences.
What had become clear, was that despite how much someone focuses on optimizing their physiology through diet, supplementation, and diagnostic testing, if the underlying trauma is not addressed, healed and released from the body, it will substantially influence our behavior, greatly impacting our physiology and our lives. What drove this understanding was my introduction to the world of psychedelics.
When I started working with these transformative medicines, the layers of my relationship with food began to be revealed, and the wounds were healed. These wounds were deeply rooted in childhood trauma.
Just the fact that there is a compulsive relationship with food tells us that there has been a desire to self-soothe, with roots likely stemming from adverse childhood experiences.
Psychedelics both revealed my story to me and filled me with immense self-compassion, which I believe to be the prerequisite for true healing and self-love. Working with psychedelics therapeutically, I was able to process and heal the wounds that had been completely suppressed from my memory for 30 years. Through my journey, I discovered how to meet my deeper emotional needs in ways that empowered me instead of keeping me feeling powerless, frustrated and unwell.
This is what saved my life.
And it’s why I do what I do. I want every human to have the opportunity to free themselves from the deep wounds that keep them stuck in destructive patterns.
It wasn’t until I began working with psychedelics therapeutically that my story was first revealed to me, having been completely suppressed from my memory for 30 years. And I know that I am on this planet to liberate others from suffering in these ways. The gift of liberation from how I had been living my life in deep suffering to health – physical, emotional, spiritual and social – is why I do what I do. I want every human to have the opportunity of freedom.
What makes me so effective in working with my clients is that I have an intimate understanding of the struggle with food, dissociative patterns, pain and suffering, as well as the wisdom gained from moving out of those spaces and creating a life I love. I combine my extensive training in biochemistry, physiology and nutrition with my deep understanding of trauma-informed care, as well as my experience in the world of psychedelics and energy to meet my clients where they are. I support their physiology while creating safety to excavate the wounds that have been driving their behavior with food, and that have catalyzed the disconnection with themself.
Since launching The Root Cause Method in 2020, I have had the privilege of serving women and men on their journey. Most first came to me with a desire to lose weight or reverse chronic illness, but they were willing to let me guide them towards the deeper emotional and psychological reasons their bodies were in that current state. Once we address the root cause of illness, which is often trauma, then the body can heal itself as it’s designed to do. And this is when people experience weight loss as a byproduct of self love.
I now live a rich life full of joy, purpose and service. Physically, I feel amazing. I have energy and vitality. I’m embodied and can nourish myself in many ways including delicious food, deep relationships and lots of incredible self-care. This level of freedom is what I want for everyone. This work is what I’m on the planet to do.
Contact me
If you need more information, have questions, or would like to mention something, please get in touch.
Made with by Ataraccia & Don Pelotas
Current Offerings
For my sisters who have had a long and frustrating battle with food, weight, health and love for Self, I’ve got something for you!
Turn Your Triggers into Teachers is a 14-page guidebook where I dive DEEP into how to do just that. Emotional eating has served an incredible purpose in our lives and it’s time to shine some light on what that purpose has been, and how to use this pattern to access much deeper levels of Self. I debunk what we think emotional eating is, share about what we’re actually doing when we eat in that way, and take you through the process I use every time I’m triggered that has served as a doorway into my heart instead of the pattern that caused pain and suffering.
I’m so excited for you to walk this path and I’m here for you every step of the way.
Just enter your email in the space below to get this free guidebook now.