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About Me
I am an existential psychotherapist, published author and poet, and writing facilitator based in Boulder, Colorado.
Several core values and truths guide my life. Among them are the remembrance that we exist as brief and beautiful on a lonely planet in a boundless universe; that our duty is to show up in kindness and love for each other and this earth; that gratitude and grief are relational dimensions through which we come alive; that we shape the reality of our experience through thoughts and speech; and that all beings are here to experience their full expression and belonging as one possible existence.
The way I arrived to this understanding and orientation to life did not come easy, as I am sure your values, beliefs, and lessons also did not come easy. I grew up in Lebanon with a short term relocation to America during my mid-teens after my parents divorced. Over my childhood, I changed five schools till I enrolled in college. I severely stuttered as a kid, and dealt with school bullying due to stuttering and being queer. At eighteen I evacuated to Utah during the 2006 July war. During my time in Utah I earned my bachelors in economics and philosophy, started a hummus company, and later founded a restaurant (Laziz Kitchen) that served as a queer safe space in the community. During this time I also sued the state of Utah along with my then lover and two other couples for our right to marry (Kitchen v. Herbert). By my early thirties I realized that I had strayed away from center of my integrity and was deeply dissatisfied with my life. With the help of guides, teachers, and mentors, I slowly found my way.
What I really want you to know is that I understand how it feels and what it means to struggle with the fact of being alive. With not feeling like you belong, or that there is room for you to exist. I too have faced harrowing questions around purpose, lovability, and expression. I am grateful for all these experiences. They taught me to how to love this world and everything in it.
In case you need to hear this today, your life is worth loving and living. I would be honored to earn your trust as your friend, companion, and guide in crossing the inner threshold to discover the world waiting within you.
My Approach
I see my role as a companion on your journey.
I work from a person-centered approach with mindful attention to transpersonal and existential themes. I utilize various forms of writing and poetry, art and nature based interventions, and mindfulness approaches rooted in spiritual traditions like Sufism and Buddhism.
During our therapy sessions we'll have the chance to work on building confidence, improving interpersonal relationships, unpacking personal struggles, discovering purpose and meaning, and exploring core childhood experiences and narratives. Like any new relationship, we'll start by building trust and getting to know each other. I won't hold myself as a blank slate. You'll have a chance to learn about me as I learn about you. Healing happens in relationship, and in our sessions we can practice being in relationship together and address any obstacles or challenges that arise. My work is to encourage you and help you develop clarity about who you are and how you show up in your life.
I'll be forthright with you here; I cannot make any promises to fix you, heal you, or free you from yourself. To be human means to experience all these the givens of life. To feel grief, sadness, anger, and fear, and to also feel their relational dimensions of gratitude, joy, acceptance, and love. I also cannot promise that a time will come when you will be free of problems, or that you'll find a definitive fixed self. Though greater satisfaction, contentment, and peace in your life regardless of what is happening is possible. What I can do is help you turn towards your experiences with acceptance and curiosity, and guide you in discovery of the wisdom and brilliance that you already contain.