Hi! I’m Katerina.

Thank you for being here.

My work and this website are here to empower you to take charge of your own health and happiness, holistically.

The information and inspiration you’ll find here will change your life.

Combining holistic traditions from around the world with modern science, you’re going to learn how to:

• Reduce stress and transform anxiety

• Heal your relationship with food, your body, and yourself

• Replace self-sabotage with positive action

• Feel confident in your choices

• Heal old wounds and release past trauma

• Love the way you feel in your body

• Infuse more joy into your everyday

• Grow into the person you most want to be

I can’t wait to see where this takes you.

“Mental Health is Rooted in the Body.

Physical Health is Shaped by the Mind.”

Some places that have featured Katerina

Want to feel less stressed and anxious?

At home in your body (and personality)?

How about confident in your choices?

Do you think it would it feel nice to feel more energized and excited about what the day has to offer you?

Good.

Then you’ve come to the right place.

Because just like you, I used to feel SO uncomfortable in my own skin.

I felt stressed and anxious all the time, and I thought it was because the things around me needed to change.

I thought I wasn’t pretty enough.

Definitely not smart enough.

I wasn’t lucky enough to be the richest kid in my class.

And I was convinced that if only I could figure out how to change all those things outside of myself, I’d finally be happy.

It wasn’t until I learned how to decode my feelings that I was finally able to use all of that angst to propel me toward what I wanted.

Toward being the person I wanted to be and living a life I could enjoy.

(If that sounds good to you, click here to learn how to decode anxiety so you can do the same.)

But it took me years of trial and error to learn how to do that.

When I was a teenager and in my early 20’s I thought the answer was in the way I looked.

Growing up surrounded by supermodels and movie stars in downtown Manhattan, I was convinced that pretty=skinny, skinny=in-control, in-control=lovable and lovable=happy.

So I tried to control my body to be skinny.

I’d drink venti macchiatos while I was at school to distract myself from hunger, only to inhale the entire contents of the refrigerator when I got home.

I spent hours on treadmills, hating myself and the machine in equal measure (gyms never were my thing).

But no matter how much I worked out it never felt like enough.

People sometimes asked me with concerned eyes if I had a stomach ache because I was always petting my belly, but really I was just trying to feel if it was flat.

Even when I was the thinnest I’ve ever been, I still didn’t feel good about myself.

no matter how much I changed on the outside, my life still didn’t feel good enough.

I still felt like I was missing something, and I wouldn’t be happy until I found whatever that was.

Fast forward a few years and my anxiety brought up new worries to obsess about.

By then I had gotten my yoga teacher training certificate, practiced regularly, and was learning about holistic nutrition.

All of this helped me feel better in my body, but the heavy knot in my stomach wouldn’t go away.

When I met the man who would later become my husband, that knot tightened and held me hostage.

I’d found someone who listened, who pulled thistle thorns out of my heels when I walked in the garden barefoot, who cooked with me and played guitar and checked pretty much all of the boxes I was looking for.

But all I wanted to do was run away.

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I finally had the love I was looking for, but instead of skipping off into my own happily-ever-after sunset, I was trapped thinking anxious thought patterns like:

“What if I don’t love him enough?”

“What if I find someone better one day and end up breaking his heart?”

“Is he good enough for me?”

“Something must be wrong since I keep feeling this way.”

“Is this my gut telling me to break up with him?”

So I tried talk therapy.

I tried hypnotherapy.

I went to a naturopathic doctor because my stomach hurt so badly and she put my on licorice tablets.

But nothing helped until I learned how to process the emotions that were stuck in my body, through my body, holistically.

And now that’s what I teach others to do for themselves.

Sure, stress and anxiety still pop into my life from time to time.

But there’s a huge difference between the way I responded to them in the past and the way I respond now.

Because now, when I feel stressed and anxious thoughts call up to say hello, I know I don’t need to answer the phone.

And when I do get caught up in the drama (because life happens and I’m still human,) I now know how to deal with it.

I don’t believe the stories my mind makes up anymore.

With more than a decade of focused study in psychology, yoga, holistic nutrition, medicinal herbalism, Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, I’ve tried pretty much every wellness strategy out there.

I’ve figured out what works –and what doesn’t– when it comes to holistic mental health.

I’ve learned how to combine traditional medicine with modern science so I can recognize and transform the root causes of my stress before anxiety takes hold.

And even with all of the discomfort, all of the doubt and all of the shame I went through to get to this point, here’s something I never thought I’d say:

I wouldn’t change a thing.

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Because it was through healing my mental health holistically that I found my purpose in life.

Without stress and anxiety, I never would have learned yoga.

Without stress and anxiety, I wouldn’t know how to use food to heal both my body and my spirit.

Without stress and anxiety, I wouldn’t have experienced the incredible power of Chinese medicine.

Without stress and anxiety, I wouldn’t know how exciting it is to intentionally shift your thought patterns so you can feel better, and enjoy the results.

And without my own stress and anxiety, I never would’ve been able to help others who are still suffering.

Healing mental health holistically means taking all of yourself on the journey of a lifetime.

Are you ready?

Everything about your life right now —your digestion, sleep, menstrual cycle, goals, thought patterns, habits, comfort zones, emotional triggers, even your favorite weather — everything is a sign that can point you in the direction you want to grow.

But here’s the hitch: you have to learn how to read it and trust what you’re feeling.

And it’s not always going to be easy.

You already know this, or you wouldn’t be here.

You feel uncomfortable enough in your body and current lifestyle to realize that something’s gotta give.

I’m not going to lie to you and say that your problems are about to go up in a rainbow cloud of unicorn glitter.

That’s not how this works.

Yes, you will be transformed.

You will become stronger.

You will look back and be SO proud of how much you’ve grown, accomplished, and loved along the way.

Strangers will comment on your energy because you seem so grounded, and they’ll ask you how you do it.

(No joke, it happens to me all the time.)

But you’ve been conditioned your whole life to try to find quick and easy solutions.

And that’s not what you’re going to find here.

What you will find here is guidance to light your path.

You’ll find support to lean on when you need it.

And you’ll find resources that will help you feel confident as you navigate your own healing journey.

Click here to get started with the FREE masterclass, Decoding Anxiety.

When I’m not helping others, you can find me exploring the world with my boys Walden and Téo and husband Adam.

I also love foraging for mushrooms, getting into creative flow states, cooking elaborate meals for family and friends, taking the occasional Saturday spa break for myself, and listening to an endless stream of podcasts and audiobooks that inspire and educate me as I continue on my own healing and growing journey.

If you’ve read this far, thank you.

I hope this is just the beginning of our friendship, and I can’t wait to get to know you.

What I can do for you

As a lifelong learner, I’m not going to tell you I have all the answers.

(And if I can give you only one tip, it’s not to trust anyone who says they do!)

What I do have is more than a decade of focused study exploring how to transform stress and anxiety so your emotions can guide you toward what you want.

And I don’t just mean schooling (though I’ve had plenty of that!)

Over the years I’ve collected dozens of teachers, in the form of wise people as well as lessons that Life itself allowed me to learn.

And through this journey I’ve been entrusted with an extensive toolbox of experience and information to share with you.

With an M.S. in Chinese medicine, a B.A. in psychology, studio art, and A.L.A.N.A. (Asian, Latin, African, Native American) studies, and multiple certificates in yoga and medicinal herbalism, I work as a holistic mental health practitioner, educator, and bodyworker.

I help the women I work with transform their mind, body, and life through online courses, live workshops, and one-on-one coaching.

And I also teach classes and workshops at the National University of Natural Medicine, MamaSpace Yoga, and around the world.

Experience & Training

My story begins in downtown Manhattan, back when it was still more grungy and funky than chic and corporate.

I was raised by an empathetic and off-beat Austrian mother who conducted 100’s of oral history interviews on Holocaust survivors over the span of her career, and a passionate Italian father who was deeply immersed in the art world and all of the beauty and chaos that it has to offer.

Despite having an innate and unrelenting creativity streak in myself, watching the popularity contests that come hand-in-hand with a career in the arts was not what I wanted to invite into my life.

So instead I imagined that I would combine my maternal interest in people’s psyche’s with my paternal artistry and end up pursuing a career in art therapy.

And I eventually did, but it didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.

That month changed everything for me.

By the time I was at the orientation for the art therapy program I felt in my bones that something was off.

I remember crying to my mother that this was not it, this was not what I was supposed to do, but I didn’t know where else to go.

I stuck it out for a long and miserable semester, fighting against my intuition every day.

I finally reached my breaking point on a subway platform in front of an overflowing trashcan.

In that moment I realized that I felt like I was an overflowing trashcan myself, and I knew without a doubt that I needed to get out of there.

I didn’t know where I was going, but the next steps quickly fell into place.

The first leg of my journey lead me down to Michoacan, Mexico. I spent 5 weeks at the Bosque Village building cob houses and living only with solar power and a handful of other travelers.

There was a library of books that had been left by the previous owner, and amidst hundreds of titles I found 2 books that would heavily influence my direction in life.

The first was Christiane Northrup’s Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, which lead me to understand that we all have the power to transform and heal ourselves, we just need to learn how to listen to our bodies and honor what we need.

The second book I found on the shelf was Ask and It Is Given: The Teachings of Abraham by Ester and Jerry Hicks, and if you know anything about Abraham you’ll see why I consider this find to be divine timing. I wasn’t so much enthralled by the messenger (which, quite honestly, sounded pretty weird at first,) but the value in their message was indisputable, and I still turn to it regularly to help guide me through life.

After Mexico I flew up to the Pacific Northwest to do a 10-week work-study internship at the Herb Pharm, in Williams, Oregon, where I had the privilege of learning about medicinal herbs and holistic nutrition from teachers like Deborah Francis, Dagmar Goldschmidt, Mark Disharoon, James Jungwirth, and Tyler Wauters, amongst others.

I still didn’t really know what I was doing or where I was going, but I could feel I was finally on the right path.

After my internship at the Herb Pharm, I spent some time in Portland visiting a good friend who had moved there a year or so earlier.

During my visit I received a free acupuncture treatment and something inside me clicked.

THIS was the direction I was supposed to go in.

It’s interesting looking back, because nothing profound happened during that treatment.

I didn’t have a major healing experience.

I didn’t fall in love with needles, (honestly, I’m still not the biggest fan.)

But it felt right because it was a career that would allow me to combine my love of medicinal herbs, nutrition, movement, psychology, and hands-on medicine.

I landed at the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon, and completed a 5-year Master of Science degree in Chinese medicine.

I completed a mentorship in Japanese-style (a.k.a. gentle) acupuncture, moxibustion, shonishin (non-insertive pediatric acupuncture) and sotai bodywork with Dr. Bob Quinn, DAOM, LAc.

And I participated in a separate mentorship with Dr. Sheila Murphy, D.C., who helped me deepen my hands-on skills with techniques like craniosacral therapy, myofascial release, and visceral manipulation.

Dr. Murphy’s teachings showed me that bodies and people are like pieces of art.

We feel good when balanced, and feel bad when we’re not.

Dr. Murphy taught me how to sculpt bodies with my hands to help them find greater balance, which I was delighted to learn influences how they feel on emotional and spiritual levels as well.

In addition to hands-on skills, I also experienced profound transformation in my body, mind, and spirit through the practice of Qi Gong (which I like to think of as Chinese yoga).

Dr. Tamara Staudt, ND, LAc, Dr. Lauri Regan, ND, PhD, Bill Frazier, LAc, and Dr. Heiner Freuhauf, PhD, LAc, guided me through a series of ancient forms that helped me to cultivate my sensitivity and deepen my perception of Qi (a.k.a. Life force/Energy).

But my most profound experience came in Dr. Staudt’s Medical Qigong class, which taught me how to listen to my body’s innate wisdom to resolve blockages, heal, and transform from the inside out.

I now find this practice is inseparable from my yoga practice, and it’s what I try to teach in my yoga classes.

Those weren’t the only teachers who changed my life.

At NUNM I also studied under Dr. Paul Kalnins, ND, LAc, Brandt Stickley, LAc, Dr. Brenda Hood, PhD, LAc, Ellen Goldsmith, LAc, Daniel Silver, LAc, Michael Givens, LAc, Jim Cleaver, LAc, Ken Glowacki, LAc, Dr. Joon Hee Lee, DAOM, LAc, Dr. Roger Batchelor, DAOM, LAc, Eric Grey, LAc, and a handful of others who all changed my worldview, life-experience, and skills as a practitioner (and person!) in more ways than I can describe here.

I simultaneously continued my study of western herbs through Vital Ways (formerly known as the School of Traditional Western Herbalism,) where I deepened my understanding of natural medicine from teachers like Chris Smaka, Hana Jordon, Matthew Wood, Jim McDonald and Scott Kloos.

And I received regular acupuncture treatments from Beth Yohalem-Ilsley, who not only supported my health throughout my education, but became a mentor and friend who I still turn to for advice.

Those 5 years were some of the most intense and transformative of my life.

It took me some time to adjust to the relative stillness that followed.

After graduating and passing my boards I began my hands-on clinic practice, primarily at Canyon Medical Center.

I also began creating online courses, coaching, and teaching in both the Master’s of Nutrition and Chinese medicine programs at NUNM.

The courses I teach combine my understanding of various healing traditions like ancient Greek medicine, Ayurveda, and Chinese medicine to provide personalized dietary and lifestyle recommendations tailored to a person’s specific strengths and imbalances.

My first son, Walden, was born shortly after I started my clinic practice and I became immersed in the world of full-time motherhood while still trying to build my business.

I had my second son, Theodore (Téo), two and a half years later, and decided to add another teacher to my mix when I completed Carol Gray’s training in craniosacral therapy and infant treatment with baby Téo on tow.

I now combine all of these experiences in a toolbox that I draw from to help women like you feel better in your body, confident making healthy choices, and more joyful, every day.

PHEW!

That was a lot.

Did you just read all of that?

Then it’s a good sign we should probably to get to know each other personally.

So please shoot me an email and tell me about yourself.

I can’t wait to hear your story!