About Missi

The tools support the work. You are the person.

There isn’t a script I follow for every person who sits beside me. There isn’t one technique I believe everyone needs, and I’m not interested in trying to make you fit a process simply because I know how to use it. I want to understand you—your world, your experiences, what matters to you, what you want, what you believe, where you’ve been, where you’re trying to go, and what seems to keep getting between here and there.

So, when you sit beside me, we talk. Really talk. I’ll listen. I’ll ask questions. I’ll probably get very curious. I’ll pay attention to the language you use, the patterns that emerge, and the things that change as we talk. I’ll challenge you when challenging serves you. I’ll teach when information gives you greater access to your own resourcefulness. And when a tool serves you, I’ll bring one in.

Because the tool should fit the human being, not the other way around.

I’m fascinated by the human how.

There are things we consciously know. We know what we value. We know how we want to behave. We know how we want to love. We know the conversation we want to have, the boundary we want to hold, or the decision we want to make. Sometimes we can picture exactly who we desire to become.

And then there is everything happening underneath conscious awareness.

That’s the part that fascinates me—the human how. How does an experience become associated with emotion? How does a belief become so familiar that we experience it as reality? How can an old response activate before conscious thought catches up? What purpose might a pattern have been serving? And what can happen when new information, resources, and choices become available?

My professional training gives us a pretty large toolbox for exploring those questions. I’ve studied NLP, EFT, Time Techniques, clinical hypnotherapy, Success and Life Coaching, somatic and embodied processes, communication, human behavior, and change. I created Empowered Neural Optimization as part of the larger body of work I continue developing, and I teach and train other practitioners. I also continue to learn, receive coaching and mentorship, and allow my thinking to be challenged.

Yes, I have credentials. They matter because they represent years of education, training, practice, and investment in developing my skills. But what matters even more is what all of that makes available to you when we’re sitting together: more ways to ask the question, more ways to understand what’s happening, more resources to draw from, and more possibilities when the thing you’ve already tried hasn’t gotten you where you want to go.

Because people deserve to be tended, not processed.

I’m a homesteader at heart. Give me a garden, animals wandering around, something cooking in the kitchen, people gathered nearby, and a conversation that unexpectedly goes a little deeper than anyone planned, and I’m pretty happy. I’m also a wife, mom, MiMi, and caretaker of dogs, a cat, and quite a few chickens.

Okay… a lot of chickens.

Living close to the earth has taught me something I carry into almost everything I do: different things require different care. Some need water. Some need sunlight. Some need protection. Some need room, nourishment, pruning, or simply time. You learn to pay attention. You notice what’s happening beneath the surface. You stop assuming that because one thing flourished under certain conditions, everything else should too.

People deserve that kind of attention too.

That’s one of the reasons the word tend means so much to me. I believe much of life is about learning to steward what we’ve been given—our relationships, our bodies, our minds, our gifts, our resources, our words, our influence, our time, our opportunities, and one another. And I believe part of tending another human being well is becoming curious enough to understand before deciding what they need.

Your story gets to be yours.

My faith in Jesus is the foundation beneath my life and quietly woven through the way I live and serve. You’ll probably recognize it most in the way I treat you. Jesus gives me the model I strive to follow for how I love, forgive, serve, speak truth, extend grace, hold boundaries, and see the human being in front of me.

I care about who you are. I care about what matters to you, who you love, what you value, what makes you laugh, what makes your eyes light up, what you believe, what you question, what you dream about, and who you desire to be as you move through this life.

You don’t have to arrive with the right words or have everything figured out, and your story doesn’t have to look like mine. Your story gets to be yours. Bring it. I’ll listen.

Faith is my foundation. Love is how I hope you experience it.

And then there’s the “Ohhhhh.”

It’s one of my favorite moments. We’ve been talking. I’ve been listening. We’ve followed something that seemed worth becoming curious about. And then everything gets quiet for a second. Your face changes. Your eyes change. You take a breath.

And then I hear it: Ohhhhh.

There it is. Something connected. Something that had been sitting just outside your awareness comes into view. Maybe you hear something different. Maybe something feels different. Maybe you suddenly see the situation from another perspective. And where there seemed to be only one response before, now there are choices.

That’s possibility, and I absolutely love watching that happen. Not because I gave you something you didn’t have, but because the resources belong to you. The choices belong to you. The life belongs to you. I simply have the tremendous privilege of walking beside you for part of it.

The Strength of Me. The Power of We.

There is tremendous strength in knowing yourself, understanding your values, recognizing your resources, using your voice, making intentional choices, living congruently with what you believe and who you desire to be, and continuing to grow, love, learn, and become.

That’s the Strength of Me.

And sometimes there is incredible power in having another human being beside you—someone who listens deeply enough to hear what you’re actually saying, asks a different question, notices something you haven’t noticed yet, challenges you without taking your choices away from you, and has tools available when a tool would serve you. Someone who remembers where you said you wanted to go when something trips you along the way.

That’s the Power of We.

And maybe it makes perfect sense that an About Missi page began with you, because if you ever choose to sit beside me, that’s exactly where I’m going to begin too.

With you.

So come back to that doorway for just a moment. Maybe you’ve been standing there for a while. Maybe you’re already reaching for the handle. Maybe you don’t know exactly what comes next. That’s okay.

Feel your feet beneath you again. Think about what you would love to hear yourself saying. Consider what you would love to feel differently. Look ahead and allow yourself to catch even the smallest glimpse of what you would really love your life to look like.

There you are.

Now tell me… What would you love to have happen?

If you’re ready to explore that question, come sit beside me. We’ll start there.

Much Gratitude for stopping by,

Missi