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Are you yearning for connection to Spirit?

You're here because you are looking for a place for safe spiritual support and connection. 

You're looking for spiritual growth opportunities that nurture and grow your soul, deep and grounded. 

You know that community is necessary to keep from burning out in your ministry, yet you've had trouble finding like-minded supports. 

You know your spiritual self care matters. Yet sometimes it's hard to reconnect.
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As a therapist who specializes in burnout prevention and resiliency support, I get that burnout and trauma is real.
 
What it takes to feel like you are thriving again isn't necessarily taught in seminary or chaplaincy trainings. 

I believe we need each other, especially folks in the margins, in their own communities, hosting each other in sacred embrace. Yet we also have spaces that are far from trauma informed, and can cause harm as a result.

I believe in the ability for our life force and essence to be claimed when we allow ourselves to be truly seen in the eyes of others.

I believe that soul work can be the place of deep transformation and powerful growth.

Soul Support is Life Support

From a young age, I was an intuitive, HSP helper at heart. Borne out of my own background of being a child of a long line of Irish-Catholic alcoholics, it was my duty to be of service. I began working in groups in high school, hosting contemplative prayer offerings in my living room for teens who also had questions and wonderings along the spiritual journey. I am indebted in my journey to the priests in my childhood who were post-Vatican 2, fantastically intelligent and deeply humble. I felt safe in this community of faith, hosted as a place for exploration that fueled my curiosity and desire for social justice.

I knew at a young age that Presence--in whatever form that may be--was the tool for inner transformation.
 
Later I served churches through the years, both in official and unofficial positions of leadership, and quickly learned about how church environments instead of the sanctuary of exploration that I knew growing up were instead reflections of our family and cultural dynamics, often presenting the trauma and complex challenges that these provide. 

During this time I grew into my career in the very secular world of mental health and psychotherapy, working in agencies, hospitals, community centers. Trauma was front and center. Systemic and burnout was the norm. From the first day out of training, in inner city Philadelphia, I found the challenge and art of bearing witness was indeed a sacred honor. 

It's been a privilege of a lifetime to be a holder of sacred story.


In the church environments I continued to see gaps in how women in ministry and spiritual seekers (especially those on the margins, such as black folx in whyt spaces and LGBTQIA+ folx) are treated. I saw harm being done and had to step away multiple times from the spiritual communities that were far from trauma informed and safe spaces for me and for others.

Patterns persisted when they weren't examined--personally, and collectively.

Without safe spiritual community, my own spiritual journey then took winding turns, especially after significant birth traumas and traumatic grief when my brother in law died in a horrific car accident. I was without a community to hold us and mirror our grief during this time. That disconnection was a potent pain. 

These losses and traumas changed who I was, the fabric of what I thought I was in the world. 

I knew my healing had to be embodied, relational, and connected to my roots. Partly this was due to my personality, and partly the upbringing in those stubborn, progressive Irish-Catholic background. Justice mattered to me, and is the core of who I am in what I do in my work and vocation. My own dark nights ran up against this stubbornness to keep me solidly upon the path, to get therapy and spiritual direction, and to know that recovery is a lifelong privilege.

Spiritual Growth Borne Out of Trauma

Around 2016-17, through support with a skilled shamanic practitioner and spiritual director, I reclaimed my Celtic roots in mystery and the mystics. I've been personally dedicated to creation spirituality, specifically earth-based wisdom keepers of the Christian tradition, specifically to Hildegard of Bingen, and also Meister Ekhart, Mechtild of Magdeberg, and Julian of Norwich. I have been taught by them about panentheism--that all things are in God/Source, and God/Source is in all things.

The Black Madonna called to me during this time, teaching me about deep, abiding compassion, sacred fierceness, and overt dismissal of human-centered duality of pain and healing. Working with her shook my foundations and I've never been the same since. I owe my being in the world in significant part to her.

This ignited a fire in me
to serve other women and non-binary folx who also yearn for inner growth and sustenance.  
 
In 2019, I opened Root Grow Thrive as a sister practice to my psychotherapy practice with the mission to provide soul support and depth work opportunities for folks committed to the journey of self-discovery and healing from trauma and burnout. In 2020, I graduated from the Haden Institute in Spiritual Direction, trained in the Jungian mystical tradition. I moved into this vocation knowing my lifelong call to service provides a container to hold space for others to connect to their Self and Source.

Because of their support and this development of my spirituality, and in concert to my own training in Jungian psychology, it's given me wings to explore metaphysical traditions such as herbalism, evolutionary astrology, and non-ordinary states of consciousness such as dreamwork, journeying, and the ever-growing clinical field of psychedelic-assisted healings.

Inner Compass Work 

Helping the helper is at the core of what I do, and because of this, I know that my own inner compass must be front and center. I work regularly with archetypes both in my spiritual and personal practice such as the wounded healer and saviour/helper. Inner work is necessary if we who support others are committed to ethical practice and personal and professional integrity. I seek my own therapy and spiritual direction to maintain focus on my own wellness--mind, body and spirit.

Within the past few years since the catastrophic pandemic, my own professional interests are focused on the traumas that have brought us to these moments in our lives that can be transformative, but also extremely scary--and without support, can cause serious pathology. Addiction, depression, anxiety, panic is indeed ubiquitous in our society, and building every year, especially for those in heart-centered healing and spiritual care such as therapists, ministers, and caregiving professionals.

My work is dedicated to them.



Professional Work:

Trauma and Spirituality, Presenter, Haden Dream and Spirituality Conference, May 2023

Trauma and Wellness
, Faculty, Spiritual Directors International, Jan-March 2023

Resiliency in Spiritual Companionships, Faculty, Spiritual Directors International, Fall 2021

Burnout and the Resilient Spirit, Retreat Keynote, Stillpoint Retreat Center, Las Vegas, April 2022

Stress Less, Thrive More Burnout Workshop, Presenter, Lower Susquehanna Synod, Spring 2021

Clergy Care Through Nourishing Practices, Keynote, National Annual Meeting, UCC, Dec 2020


Burnout, Trauma and Spiritual Care, contributor, podcasts and blogs, various, 2020-current

Trainings and Experience:

Certified Spiritual Director, Haden Institute 2020

Member, Spiritual Directors International

Group Facilitator and Group Leader

Trained in Parker Palmer's Circle of Trust Touchstones

Centering Prayer Practitioner

Creative Embodiment Practitioner (Mandala painting, Body Prayer, Artist's Way, Poetry for Presence, Praying with Icons and Imagery, Sacred Collage)

Mindfulness Practitioner (Trained in and have taught and practiced Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Mindful Parenting and Mindful Eating since 2007)

Dreamwork Practitioner(trained and decades of practice in Jungian-projective method of dreamwork)

Enneagram Practitioner and member of Enneagram Institute 

Owner and creator of The Sacred Deep, curating creative worship resources for connection to Spirit.

Clinical Psychotherapist, Licensed Professional Counselor in state of PA since 2005, Group Psychotherapist and owner of Rooted Growth Counseling (est 2018).

Trained in the Jungian Christian Mystical tradition, I dedicate my work to offering holy space for all seekers on the journey, whether you are churched or unchurched, faithful or agnostic, certain or lost.

 

My call and deep desire is to provide "soul friend" presence so you can unravel what knots that no longer serve you so you can better open into and revel in nourishing connection to the inner Source, God, Wisdom, Numinous, Holy.

What People are Saying

"Excellent resources. I enjoy Allie's wisdom-sharing - always a wealth of knowledge. She does a good job of creating openness on a space like zoom, which can often feel more content driven." -attendee, Trauma and Spiritual Care Workshop, 2022

"Allie is very knowledgable and a gifted circle leader." -attendee, Trauma and Spiritual Care Workshop, 2022

"I loved every minute of the workshop. It could not have come at a better time. I would have loved it to be longer. lol"
-Ronette, Nourish in Stillness, 2021

"Allie is always so sensitive to the group and have a wonderful way of explaining your topics and making everyone feel safe and included."
-Chris, Nourish in Stillness, 2021

"I would recommend any of Allie's workshops to anyone; I know they would be helpful and satisfying."
-Jane, Spiritual Direction and Resiliency, Spiritual Direction International, 2021

"Allie creates a space filled with gratitude for our sharing that helps to cultivate vulnerability even among strangers." --Sarah, Soul Circle member, Summer Soul Circle, 2020

"Allie is insightful and inviting"--Danielle, Soul Circle member, Summer Soul Circle, 2020

"(I learned) how to really listen to another person and reflect spiritually on what they were saying. I think it taught me how to be a better pastor. I also feel like I grew from the wisdom others shared." --Bonnie, Soul Circle member, 2020

"This group always seems to happen at just the right time in my life." --Michelle, Soul Circle member, 2020

"Allie is wonderfully warm, wise, and insightful. I appreciate the little tidbits that you offer around dream symbolism and how to work dreams. I also appreciate that the group feels casual and that everyone's thoughts and emotions are welcome in the space; it doesn't feel like you as the facilitator are "taking over" at all."--Amy, Dream circle member, Dream Circle for Trying Times, 2020

"Calm, clear, and straightforward. I loved Allie’s facilitation style!"
-Amanda, Spiritual Direction and Resiliency, Spiritual Direction International, 2021

"I love your style of leading and facilitating the group! You handled all the personality styles with grace and kindness and made it a safe place to share."--Chris, Dream circle member, Dream Circle for Trying Times, 2020

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Image by Eilis Garvey
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