About
hey there
I'm Eleanor
& I GET IT- BECAUSE I LIVED IT MYSELF
That's right, I was a Rebellious People Pleaser.
I always felt like I was on the "outside" of things, whether at school or with friends. My friendships went through super toxic cycles of either being extremely close or being ghosted.
I'll spare you my dating horror stories, but needless to say it was over a decade of unfulfilling situationships in which I always wanted more but didn't know how to get it. I didn't know how to ask for what I wanted so I'd either pull away or push them away.
I was that girl who would date a guy for 4 months only for him to say "well, let's not use the term girlfriend..."
I used work and high achieving as a way to cope with this stress, but I ended up losing myself in my quest for "Career Perfection". I've dealt with both burnout & workplace trauma in the past and know how hard it can be. How it can take over your life.
How did I move past this?
Therapy! (and embodied movement).
Therapy helped me learn what I was feeling and how to communicate it. How to cope with those uncomfortable feelings and heal the root source.
My own experiences led me to becoming a therapist. Watching so many other heart-led professionals struggle with people-pleasing (despite their bad-ass rebellious hearts) led me to create my own practice.
Grounded Health was born out of an immense desire for a better world, one with: juicy, supportive, loving relationships; deep whole-mind-body healing, and women & femmes who reclaim their voice, strength, and lives.
You may be feeling lost and overwhelmed like I was. I know you want to fit in and feel like you belong, without having to hide your true self.
From a fellow Rebel, people pleasing is only holding you back. So when we work together, you get not only a trained therapist: you'll get someone who truly understands what you're going through.
I fell in love with the brain during undergrad at the University of California, Berkeley. Learning about how our brains work in our bodies, in relationships, and in the larger systems we move in fascinated me. One of my college highlights was getting to hold a real brain in my hands in my neuroscience class!
After college, I moved to San Francisco and began working. I tried research but it wasn't for me- I thrive being in the room with someone, walking with them on their healing journey.
Sick of the fog in the Bay Area, I headed to the University of Texas at Austin to complete my Masters degree in Social Work. While there, I fell in love with working with trauma (that might be a weird thing to say but that's the truth!).
Over the years, I've deepened my practice as a trauma therapist. I use a combination of theories to help folks heal:
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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help change negative thoughts
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Psychodynamic theory to understand where those thoughts came from in the first place (hint: they're usually not your own)
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Somatic theories to give us more tools to stay calm, collected, and present
While I was doing all of these things, I also became a movement instructor! I teach embodied movement to help people connect with their bodies, express themselves, and release stress.
I'm particularly interested in the intersection between people-pleasing, intimacy, and healthy relationships. One thing I can guarantee you is that there will be lots more on this soon!
If you're looking for something easy, you should turn away now. Therapy is not easy and requires much work and thought from you and me.
