For almost ten years, I owned a lingerie and sexual wellness boutique in Austin called Teddies for Bettys.
The real education of my life happened in dressing rooms.
I spent nearly a decade standing with women while they looked at themselves in the mirror. We talked about bras and bodies and relationships and sex, but underneath almost every conversation was something much deeper.
I don't feel at home in my body anymore. I don't know what I want. I don't feel like myself.
I understood those women because I was one of them.
I had been married and divorced twice. My children's father died when they were still young, and I spent years raising them as a single mother. From the outside, my life looked full and successful. I had built a sexy business and a thriving community around me.
But underneath it all, I was someone who had mastered escaping.
When something didn't feel right, I went looking for something outside of myself to change the way I felt. I would run into the arms of another man. Chase new careers, a new favorite wine, a plane ticket, a different version of my life. If I could change or control something outside of me, maybe I could finally feel better inside of me.
Eventually, the escape routes stopped working. At the time I had no idea why. Today I know: I was simply disconnected. Disconnected from my body. Disconnected from desire. Disconnected from myself.
Then midlife arrived.
The kids were growing up. My hormones were changing. The wine stopped doing what it once did. And one morning I found myself asking a question I hadn't allowed myself to ask in years:
What do I actually want?
That question changed everything.
I began to see that the women who couldn't stay present during intimacy and the women who couldn't stop reaching for wine at night were often living the same experience. They had become experts at caring for everyone else and strangers to themselves. They weren't broken. They weren't failing. They had simply lost their connection to their own aliveness.
That realization became the foundation of this work.
Today I help women come back to themselves. My work sits at the intersection of desire, the body, and our relationship with alcohol. I'm certified through The Life Coach School and completing my VITA training in erotic embodiment. I wrote for Tribeza Magazine for three years and have contributed to other publications. Before any formal training, I spent a decade in dressing rooms listening to women say the quiet parts out loud.
That's where I learned everything that matters.
I believe pleasure isn't a luxury. It's our birthright. I believe most women haven't lost their desire — they've lost access to it. And I believe that what we often call a drinking problem is, much of the time, a longing to feel fully alive again.
This work isn't simply about sobriety, though sobriety can be one doorway into it. It's about the sexual, spiritual, and sober awakening of a woman returning home to herself.
When I'm not in this work, I'm running, cooking, two-stepping, traveling, or spending time with my young adult children.