Born and raised in Japan, I moved to New York City in 1993, chasing a creative dream. I had my son in 2001, and a few years later went through a divorce, raising him as a single mother in a fast-paced city with no family support.

That period marked the true beginning of my healing journey — one that has taken many forms: conventional therapy, holistic practices, plant medicine, and breathwork. I was carrying so much, searching for something to help me feel grounded, connected, and whole.

Eventually, I traveled to Peru and participated in an ayahuasca ceremony. It helped recalibrate my inner compass in ways I couldn’t have imagined. The medicine’s support continued to unfold over the years, gently guiding me to build a meditation practice, study Buddhism, attend retreats at Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastery, and to live more rooted in presence and gratitude.

While cultivating this inner practice, I also built a successful career in animation and motion design. From the outside, it looked like I had it all — a creative job, financial stability, and a beautiful life. But inside, I felt boxed in. A part of me was frozen, muted, waiting to be heard. I wasn’t fully aligned with who I truly am.

As my son left home and began to flourish on his own path, I felt a deep sense of completion — like I had fulfilled my first sacred purpose. With that chapter coming to a close, I found myself longing to reconnect with a deeper calling. I didn’t yet know what that was, and the idea of change felt overwhelming and unclear — but something in me was ready to grow.

I returned to plant medicine to seek deeper guidance. During that ceremony, I was shown what I could no longer ignore: the stuck energy I had been carrying — from childhood illness and surgeries, from growing up in a dysfunctional family where I didn’t feel seen or accepted, from ancestral trauma — was still lodged in my body. I saw how that trauma had affected every layer of my being — physical, emotional, and energetic. Deep down, I knew that releasing this energy was the doorway to becoming who I truly am.

Breathwork returned to me like a whisper from the soul — and with it came a wave of resistance, rooted in my first experience more than a decade earlier. It had been intense and traumatizing. My body froze, my heart raced, and I thought I was dying. With no support or integration afterward, I shut that door firmly and vowed never to open it again. Looking back, I understand now that my nervous system had been overwhelmed — the charge was too much, too fast — and I was thrown into what I now recognize as a trauma vortex.

But the call to breathe kept returning. And this time, I listened — not with urgency, but with care and intention. I found an experienced one-on-one practitioner who could meet me where I was, and slowly, gently, the work began to unfold. That’s when something truly began to shift.