Your Questions, Answered

  • To The Root offers tools, practices, and guided experiences that support grounding, spiritual attentiveness, and wholeness.

    These currently take several forms:

    • Handmade grounding tools
    Spiral touchstone bracelets, stones, and crafted objects designed to anchor attention in the body and the present moment.

    • Individual spiritual direction
    One-on-one sessions centered on spacious listening and discernment, supporting people in noticing the movements of the Spirit within their lived experience.

    • Enneagram equipping for individuals
    Personalized sessions using the Enneagram as a compassionate lens to explore patterns of attention, reactivity, and growth.

    • Enneagram equipping for couples
    Guided sessions that help partners understand one another’s core motivations and reactive patterns—reducing reactivity, increasing compassion, and strengthening connection.

    • Group & team Enneagram work
    Facilitated experiences for small groups, leadership teams, and workplace teams—offering shared language for awareness, empathy, and healthier collaboration.

    • Group contemplative practices
    Guided experiences that bring people into embodied presence through simple, accessible practices (breath, attention, reflection, listening, and grounded stillness).

    • Retreats & Soul Lab experiences
    Occasional retreats and place-based gatherings that invite slowing down, reconnecting to what’s real, and practicing everyday mysticism in community.

    Not everything offered through To The Root is transactional.
    Some offerings are tools. Others are practices, thresholds, or invitations into deeper presence.

  • While both offerings support awareness and growth, they serve different purposes and are practiced in different ways.

    Spiritual direction is a contemplative practice centered on listening.
    In spiritual direction, I understand myself to be the least important person in the room. The primary relationship is between the directee and the Spirit; my role is to hold attentive, prayerful space and offer questions that open new angles of seeing, allowing space for the Sacred to be encountered in ways not previously noticed. Sessions are shaped by silence, curiosity, and trust that wisdom emerges through presence rather than advice.

    Enneagram equipping is more orienting and instructional by design.
    In this work, I take a more active role as a teacher and guide—using the Enneagram as a map to help individuals, couples, and groups recognize patterns of attention and reactivity. The aim is increased self-awareness, reduced reactivity, and greater compassion for oneself and others.

    In short:

    • Spiritual direction emphasizes listening, discernment, and trust in Spirit

    • Enneagram equipping emphasizes learning, insight, and practical orientation

    Both are grounded in respect for the inner life, but they differ in posture, pace, and purpose.

    The difference is not one of value, but of posture.

  • To The Root is for people who desire greater self-awareness, grounding, and wholeness, and who are willing to engage their inner life with honesty, patience, and care.

    This work especially resonates with those who:

    • Want to deepen their lived experience of the Divine, not just their ideas about God

    • Are willing to slow down—to be still and know—rather than rush toward answers

    • Desire a spirituality rooted in presence, embodiment, and everyday life

    • Are curious about their patterns of attention, reactivity, and motivation

    • Want language and tools that support self-observation and conscious choice

    Different offerings within To The Root meet people in different ways:

    • Spiritual direction is especially suited for those who long to deepen their awareness of God’s presence in their lives. It is for people willing to slow down, listen, and trust that the Spirit is already at work. In this space, accompaniment matters more than answers, and discernment unfolds through attentive presence rather than instruction.

    • Enneagram equipping is well suited for those who want clarity and insight. It offers a structured, observational lens for understanding habitual patterns, defense mechanisms, and reactivity—so that awareness can lead to responsibility, and responsibility can lead to growth.

    This work may not be a good fit for those seeking:

    • Therapy, crisis intervention, or clinical treatment

    • Quick fixes or spiritual certainty without self-reflection

    • Someone else to tell them who to be or what to do

    To The Root holds both mystery and structure.
    Stillness without awareness can drift.
    Awareness without stillness can harden.
    This work lives in learning how to hold both.

  • To The Root is rooted in the Christian contemplative tradition, especially practices that cultivate stillness, discernment, and attentiveness to the sacred in everyday life, and draws from the Christian contemplative stream while remaining open to wisdom from Buddhist and Sufi traditions, as well as the reverence for land, relationality, and interconnection found within many Native American traditions—grounded in the trust that the sacred is woven through creation and encountered within lived experience.

    This lineage is shaped by voices that trusted lived encounter over rigid certainty, and presence over control, united not by a single theology, but by a shared posture of reverence toward the mystery, humility before truth, and trust in transformation that unfolds through attentive presence.

    At the same time, To The Root is guided by a simple conviction: no single person, tradition, or framework holds the whole of truth. Each of us perceives a facet of a much larger reality—true and luminous, yet incomplete on its own.

    The Enneagram further clarifies this posture. It reveals how each of us habitually attends to reality in partial ways—and how, without grounded and mindful presence, we can mistake our limited perspective for the whole. Awareness makes self-observation possible. Self-observation makes responsibility possible. Responsibility opens the door to transformation.

    The posture of To The Root is intentionally humble and non-dogmatic. The aim is not certainty or spiritual superiority, but increased awareness—of self, of others, and of the sacred—held with care and restraint.

    To The Root does not claim to offer the whole truth.
    It offers practices that help us become more present to the facet we carry—and more compassionate toward the facets carried by others.

  • The Enneagram is a map of human attention and reactivity.
    It describes nine core patterns through which we habitually interpret the world, seek safety, and make meaning.

    Each Enneagram type reflects a particular strategy for navigating reality—a way of seeing that is adaptive, intelligent, and incomplete. Over time, this strategy can become so familiar that it feels like who we are, rather than one pattern we are living from.

    In the Narrative Enneagram tradition that shapes my work, the goal is not fixing ourselves through force or managing our personalities into better behavior. Rather, the aim is to cultivate open receptivity and awareness, because if we can’t self-observe, we can’t self-correct.

    When we are identified with our type structures—our habits of mind, emotional passions, behavioral reflexes, and even our somatic responses—we become constricted. Certain higher qualities of self are simply unavailable when we are closed off in this way.

    The Enneagram helps by supporting self-observation.
    As we learn to notice our patterns as they arise—in thought, emotion, behavior, and the body—we gain the capacity to interrupt them before they fully come online. Awareness creates space. Space restores choice.

    The aim is not to get rid of our personality or escape our type.
    It is a work of redemption and integration. When held with presence, our type patterns can be softened, healed, and brought back into service of our unfolding with greater freedom, compassion, and wisdom.

    At To The Root, the Enneagram is held as a tool for awakening, not an identity to cling to or perform. It supports responsibility without shame, growth without self-rejection, and change that arises from awareness rather than force.

  • The Enneagram is used as a tool for awareness, not as a label or a script for who someone is supposed to be.

    In sessions, we begin with listening and noticing—paying attention to what is already present in your experience. The Enneagram offers a shared language to help name patterns as they arise, especially patterns of reactivity, defense, and habitual attention.

    Shaped by the Narrative tradition, this work emphasizes self-observation over self-judgment. Together, we explore how type patterns show up in thought, emotion, behavior, and the body. The aim is not analysis for its own sake, but increasing awareness so that patterns can be recognized as they are happening and responded to with greater freedom.

    When working with couples, the Enneagram is used to help each partner understand not only their own patterns of reactivity, but also how different type structures interact under stress. This shared awareness often reduces blame, increases compassion, and creates space for more intentional and less reactive connection.

    When used with groups or teams, the Enneagram provides a shared framework for understanding differences in communication styles, decision-making, and responses to stress. Rather than flattening differences, it helps groups name them honestly—supporting empathy, reducing misinterpretation, and fostering healthier collaboration. The focus remains on awareness and responsibility, not categorization or excuse-making.

    I take an active role in helping orient the work—offering teaching, reflection, and mirroring when helpful—while always respecting lived experience as the primary source of insight. Sessions are paced intentionally, allowing room for curiosity, integration, and the emergence of insight rather than forcing conclusions.

    The goal is practical and humane:
    to notice patterns sooner, soften their grip, and choose how to respond—so that personality becomes something you work with, not something that works you.

  • While there may be areas of overlap, the work offered through To The Root is distinct in purpose, posture, and scope.

    Therapy is primarily focused on healing psychological wounds, addressing mental health concerns, and working with diagnosis, treatment plans, and clinical outcomes. It is essential and deeply valuable work—but it is not what I offer.

    Coaching is typically goal-oriented and future-focused, emphasizing performance, skill-building, accountability, and movement toward specific outcomes. While clarity and growth may emerge in this work, outcomes are not imposed or measured in the same way.

    At To The Root:

    • Spiritual direction is a contemplative practice rooted in listening and discernment. The primary relationship is between the directee and the Spirit; my role is to hold attentive space and support awareness, not to diagnose, advise, or direct outcomes.

    • Enneagram equipping is formative rather than clinical or performance-driven. It supports self-observation and self-correction by helping people recognize patterns of attention and reactivity as they arise, so that choice and responsibility become possible.

    This work does not replace therapy or coaching, and it does not compete with them. Many people engage in this work alongside therapy or coaching, finding that each supports a different dimension of their growth.

    In short:

    • Therapy focuses on healing

    • Coaching focuses on goals

    • This work focuses on awareness, presence, and integration

    To The Root offers a spacious container for people who want to deepen attentiveness to their inner life, relate differently to their patterns, and grow in freedom without being rushed toward outcomes or diagnoses.

  • Touchstones are not meant to fix or replace anything.
    They are meant to support attention.

    A touchstone works by giving the mind and body something real to rest on—especially when attention has been captured by reactivity, false stories, habitual judgment, or emotional overwhelm. When attention tightens around these patterns, the body follows. Touchstones offer a simple counter-practice: a way to return to what is immediate, tangible, and present.

    There is no single right way to work with a touchstone. What follows is an invitation into a posture, one that can be returned to again and again.

    1. Begin with contact

    Hold the touchstone in your hand, wear it, or place it somewhere you can easily see or touch. Notice its weight, temperature, texture, and shape. Let your senses lead before your thoughts do.

    You don’t need to concentrate. Simply notice.

    2. Let attention settle

    Rather than trying to calm the mind, allow your attention to rest on the stone or bead. Feel where your body responds—perhaps a slight softening in the shoulders, a deepening of breath, or a subtle sense of grounding.

    If your attention drifts, gently return.
    Without frustration. Without effort.

    The return is the practice.

    3. Engage curiosity to soften judgment

    Curiosity is one of the most reliable ways to disengage the judging, reactive mind. As you look at or hold the stone, you might gently ask:

    • Have I seen patterns like this anywhere else in nature?

    • Where else have I encountered colors or textures like these?

    • What does this stone remind me of—water, earth, fire, sky, movement, stillness?

    There are no right answers. These questions are not meant to analyze or interpret, but to widen attention. Curiosity loosens reactivity. Judgment tightens it.

    4. Stay with simplicity

    There is a piece of wisdom told of a rabbi instructing a child:

    You want to know how to love God? Try to be present to the most simple and basic thing in reality so you can see its goodness and beauty. Then let that goodness and beauty come into you. Let it speak to you. Start first with a stone.

    The practice is not to extract meaning, but to receive what is already there. Stay long enough for the simplicity itself to work on you.

    5. Change the light, change the seeing

    Touchstones invite repeated encounters. Try meeting your stone in different conditions:

    • In natural sunlight

    • In indoor or low light

    • Near a window at different times of day

    • Under UV light (when appropriate)

    • Through a magnifying glass or jeweler’s loupe

    Often, details emerge that were previously hidden, flecks of color, subtle structures, and unexpected depth. What once seemed simple becomes layered.


    It is a reminder that how we look matters.

    By changing the light, we practice loosening certainty and staying open to discovery. The world, and our own interior lives, often reveal more when we slow down and look again.

    6. Allow space for choice to return

    As attention steadies, you may notice a shift. This is not something to force or chase. It is simply the nervous system responding to safety and presence. In that space, response becomes possible again.

    7. Return as needed

    Touchstones are meant to be returned to—during moments of stress, transition, prayer, reflection, or pause. Over time, the body begins to recognize the gesture itself as an invitation to presence.

    Touchstones do not carry power on their own.
    They support your capacity to notice, to pause, and to choose how you meet what is unfolding.

    A note on origin

    These touchstones emerged from lived necessity. They were first gathered and created as a way to ground attention when the mind and body needed help returning from reactivity, overwhelm, and disconnection. What began as a personal practice became something worth sharing.

    They are offered not as solutions, but as companions—simple, beautiful reminders that presence is possible, even in small moments, even now.