Hi, I’m Cathy.
Relational Lover.
Communication Junkie.
Connection Cultivator.
I’m continuously in wonderment about the complexities of being human and how there’s as many perspectives as there are people on the planet!
I’m deeply passionate about helping people move beyond their limitations in order to enjoy the deliciousness of the full buffet of connection and love!
I’m a certified RLT (Relational Life Therapy) coach and a long time Circling Method Facilitator as well as an avid student of LIFE. I use all the tools to guide others in long-lasting relational transformation.
It’s time for us to step into the highest versions of ourselves through our relationships and create a better, more connected, loving world.
My Story
Growing up in South Africa in the 1970s and 80s, as a white girl of British descent, I became aware of the contradictions around me at an early age.
I remember feeling uncomfortable with things I couldn't yet fully understand. The domestic worker and gardener who worked in our home called me “madam,” even though they were adults and I was a child. I was growing up within a system of apartheid that afforded me privileges while denying basic rights and dignity to the Black majority. I could feel that something was deeply wrong, even though I didn't yet have the language or understanding to make sense of it all.
At home, I experienced a different kind of disconnect. The appearance of being a good family often seemed more important than what was actually happening beneath the surface. There were narrow ideas about the right way to behave, and difficult feelings or conversations were rarely addressed directly. Instead, I learned how to read the room, tiptoe around tension, and navigate the unspoken. We didn't have much practice asking directly for what we needed or talking openly about what was hurting.
At home, there was often tension, particularly in the dynamics between my mom, dad, and oldest brother. Everyone was doing their best with what they knew, but as a sensitive young girl, I felt the undercurrents intensely. I couldn't understand why we weren't having the kinds of honest, heartfelt conversations that might help us understand one another. I sensed there had to be another way: a way of meeting conflict with more openness, care, and understanding.
I longed for harmony, but not the kind that comes from pretending everything is fine. I wanted the kind of peace that comes when people can be honest with one another, make room for difficult feelings, and find their way back to connection. Even then, I was drawn to the possibility that people who see the world differently might be able to sit across from one another and discover something meaningful in their shared humanity.
n 1987, when I was 15, my family moved to the United States. I went from growing up in apartheid-era South Africa to attending a privileged suburban high school in Rochester, New York. My new classmates had little context for the world I had left behind, and the political and racial realities of South Africa were rarely part of our conversations. I found myself navigating an entirely unfamiliar culture, trying to make friends and figure out where I belonged, while much of what I had experienced and felt remained unspoken.
I adapted. I learned to fit in. And, like many of us, I became practiced at setting aside parts of my experience in order to move forward.
Looking back, I can see how much of my life became a search for freedom: freedom from the patterns I'd grown up with, from the pressure to be a certain way, and from the pain of disconnection. I explored dance, somatics, bodywork, communication, and relationship dynamics. Each offered a different way of understanding myself and the ways we move through the world with one another.
Over time, I began to recognize something that had been with me since childhood: an ability to sense what was happening beneath the surface between people. I noticed the unspoken tension, the subtle shifts in connection, and the ways we protect ourselves when something feels too vulnerable to say aloud.
What had once felt overwhelming gradually became something I could work with. I began to understand that the answer wasn't to make tension disappear or to keep everyone comfortable. It was to learn how to stay present with what was happening, to become curious rather than reactive, and to find ways of speaking and listening that made greater honesty and connection possible.
I also came to understand that this work begins with ourselves. The more willing I became to meet my own feelings, contradictions, and less comfortable parts with compassion, the more capacity I developed to listen deeply, stay present with difference, and show up authentically in my relationships.
This is the work I love to do with others: helping people understand the patterns that keep them disconnected, find the courage to speak what has been left unsaid, and create relationships with more honesty, intimacy, and care.
Your story may be very different from mine. But perhaps you, too, know what it's like to hide parts of yourself because they feel unlovable, unacceptable, or somehow not okay. Perhaps you've learned to keep the peace at the expense of being fully known.
I believe we can learn another way. We can become more accepting of ourselves, more curious about one another, and more able to stay connected even when things get difficult. Not perfectly, and not without discomfort, but with a growing capacity for the kind of relationships in which we can be more fully ourselves.
Whether you’re an individual, a couple or a leader in an organization, we’ll spend time understanding where you are in relation to authenticity and connection and how to move to a more thriving relational experience.
We are constantly invited to be who we are.
— Henry David Thoreau