The Story Behind The Harvest Method | Emotional Wellness

Hello Sunshine

My Story, The Harvest Method, and Emotional Wellness in New York

I hope you’ve had a beautiful week. Mine included taxes and financial planning, so I’m grateful that’s complete.

Today, I want to share my story.

As I prepare a free webinar series you’ll all be invited to in the coming months, it feels important to introduce who I am and the lived experience behind the teachings, tools, and frameworks I share. What I offer comes from decades of personal growth, professional training, and real-life application -a method built from skill, science, passion, and a life fully lived.

If I had accepted the hand I was dealt at face value,95% of my life would never have happened.

From Small-Town Pennsylvania to a Bigger Life

I grew up in a small working-class town in Pennsylvania. Passion, ambition, and worldliness weren’t part of the conversation. I was taught to accept what life handed me and get by.

At three years old, my aunt paid for one month of ballet classes so I could do something “girly.” After the very first class, I told my mother, “I’m going to be a ballerina.”

For most children, that’s fantasy. For me, it was vision.

I pursued ballet with discipline and focus, earning scholarships, structuring my own training schedule by age fourteen, and sacrificing typical teenage experiences to commit fully. By eighteen, while my family life remained stagnant and disconnected, I was beginning my professional career.

Discipline, the Body, and the Cost of Perfectionism

Ballet taught me extraordinary discipline and deep respect for the human body, how it moves, adapts, and performs. It also taught me perfectionism, anxiety, and the belief that I was never quite enough.

Both shaped me.

I learned to care deeply for the body, and later, to quiet my inner critic, cultivate self-acceptance, and regulate fear. That journey required learning about emotions, not just physical health.

Loss, Grief, and the Missing Piece in Wellness

When I was21, my mother died. She struggled with depression, disconnection, and poor health. In trying to understand what happened, and what could have helped, I became compelled to learn how to properly nourish and care for the body while living a full life.

While dancing, I became certified to teach Pilates. When my dance career ended, I moved to New York City, earned my master’s degree in clinical nutrition and dietetics at NYU, completed a dietetic internship in NYC, and opened my private practice.

But something was missing.

Wellness is full of plans, protocols, and opinions, medical, functional, and otherwise. What’s often missing is the WHY.

Movement, Motivation, and Emotional Intelligence

Movement has always centered me. I found that truth at age three. There is a form of movement for every body, one that inspires, motivates, and reconnects us to ourselves.

But motivation doesn’t come from information alone. It comes from understanding why we do what we do.

I specialize in treating eating disorders, but I believe it’s disordered not to care for oneself at all. That’s why I apply life coaching, behavioral skills, and emotional intelligence across every area of life, not just food or exercise.

Ontology, Emotional Intelligence, and DBT Skills

After my mother’s death, my family dissolved, and I was left to support myself emotionally and financially. While building my nutrition practice and developing The Harvest Method, I completed an intensive multi-year life coaching program rooted in ontology, the study of being.

The framework is simple but profound:

Be → Do → Have

Who you are being determines what you do, and therefore what you have.

When emotions are triggered, emotional intelligence determines whether your actions lead to chaos or clarity.

I noticed a major gap: no one was teaching emotional intelligence as a skill set.

So I did.

I spent years studying and teaching emotional regulation, including Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills -mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. I also went into the most difficult emotional terrain: shame, anxiety, helplessness, loneliness.

These emotions are not the enemy. They are self-created signals, and when understood, they become powerful teachers.

The Harvest Method: Skills That Build Self-Trust

A strong mind can meet emotion with logic and wisdom. right in the middle. That’s where intuition, confidence, and grounded decision-making live.

I’ve followed the medical principle: see one, do one, teach one. And I believe mastery requires10,000 hours of practice.

I started dancing at three. I’m nearly forty-two.

I’ve done the work.

The Harvest Method honors individuality. You learn yourself, your needs, your patterns, your regulation. As you practice meeting your own needs, you build self-trust, self-respect, and a stable, unwavering form of self-love.

Why I Do This Work

I understand fear, grief, aloneness, judgment, and not measuring up. I’ve experienced major loss and moments I was unprepared to face. I also live a full, joyful, courageous life. and that makes me a safe space for others to do the same.

Hardship is hard. It’s also where wisdom comes from.

One of my favorite affirmations is:

“Patience pays. You need a million things. A million things will reach you if you are stable, established, firm, and patient.”

The Function of Emotions

Today’s video offers insight into the purpose of emotions.

In this video, you’ll learn:

Emotions provide information about your internal world, just as senses guide your external world

Emotions help keep you safe

They steer you toward what is healthy and life-affirming

They deter you from danger

They help you discern pleasure from pain so you can make wise choices

You cannot live a meaningful, satisfying life without experiencing the full range of emotions.

They are not a flaw. They are essential.

Click the link below to access the video.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in New York: Skills That Support Real Change

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a skills-based behavioral therapy focused on helping individuals create meaningful and sustainable change through practice. Rather than relying on insight alone, DBT emphasizes learning, applying, and building confidence in practical skills that support emotional and behavioral regulation.

Through structured training in mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance, individuals learn how to respond more skillfully to stress, emotions, and relationship challenges. As these skills are practiced consistently, behavior change often occurs more easily and with greater stability.

DBT skills help strengthen emotional resilience, encourage healthier and more supportive perspectives, improve communication, and increase present-moment awareness. For individuals in New York City seeking practical tools for emotional balance, personal growth, and improved relationships, DBT offers an evidence-based, empowering approach that translates directly into daily life.