I grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark.
My family was a split family after my parents divorced when I was about 13.
My dad was a good person and provided well for us, but he was emotionally cut off. He was emotionally unavailable. Partly because he came out of a broken family himself, he was only 21 when he had me, and basically moved from his family’s house to living with my mother.
In fairness to him, he didn’t really have much experience exploring who he was as a person. He just went straight into being a provider. Nevertheless, he grew incrementally more aggressive until they divorced.
He was never physically aggressive. There was a little bit of physical discipline, but he wasn’t a violent person. He was definitely very emotionally disturbed, aggressive, and very short fused.
I didn’t know at the time, but it became clear in later years that he was slightly competitive with me as I grew up.
Whenever I did something extraordinary, like making it to the Olympic team in archery, or becoming a Danish champion in archery, or competition swimming… he didn’t celebrate my achievement.
He was more focused on the things about the events that needed improvement, rather than just being excited that I accomplished something.
So my parents split when I was 13 and I didn’t really think much of it.
By the age of 23, I moved to America. I graduated University with a degree in photography and worked in the fashion industry for a number of years.
About 1996, I started my own business. And that’s when shit hit the fan.
I found a job in New York very quickly. I worked with some of the biggest fashion people in the world. I traveled all over. I flew the Concorde jet bunch of times because I was in the rock and roll business and the fashion industry.
But when I started my business, I went from having a relatively easy time achieving my goals, to everything coming to a screeching halt. I grew progressively more agitated, short-fused, and verbally aggressive with my partner at the time.
I had a couple of sessions with a friend of mine that was a spiritual counselor. It helped to talk to somebody. It helped to get some perspective on it, but I still felt very agitated in my body.
She finally said to me, “You should go and check this thing out called Core Energetics. It’s described as a body-based psychotherapy modality that primarily focuses on releasing held energy in your body.”
I didn’t really think much of it, but I did trust her view very much.
She gave me this guy’s name, Warren Mo. He’s a short little guy with a mechanical arm. So I called up his number. The first thing he did within literally five minutes of me showing up was throw a couple of boxing gloves in my face, held up a boxing shield and said, “Let’s move some energy.”
I was a little taken aback, but he had a certain kind of masculinity about him that I liked.
So I was like, “Okay, I’ll give it a shot.”
It started as hitting the boxing shield. And then all of a sudden it was like an explosion. I became so rageful and so forceful and just frantically beating this thing up.
Subsequently, I ended up spending another four or five years doing Core Energetics session on a weekly, then bi-weekly basis. I worked out these physical places that I had held onto from my childhood.
The interesting thing was that my childhood traumas just sort of melted away.
The first couple of sessions I was dealing with things that were very apparent in my life right then, like getting jobs, relationship stuff, or whatever was going on at that time. But as I worked my way through the layers, I came further and further down.
I finally hit the place where I realized just how angry I was with my dad.
I was at his lack of emotional support. I was angry for all the frustration that I had experienced from him.
I realized a lot of my own insecurities had to do with not being supported by him as I grew up.
As kids, we rely on our parents for most of our emotional support. So when a child is supported in an adventure and they hear praise of some sort… that’s part of what grows their curiosity.
When that emotional support is lacking, we don’t have the emotional bandwidth to understand that it’s not us. We don’t know that there’s anything wrong with it. So, we take those things very personally.
For years, I thought it was me that was lacking something.
It wasn’t until I started working the energy kicking and hitting big foam cubes, doing some boxing that I realized it wasn’t me that was lacking.
But my father.
Core Energetics is very much a mixed therapeutic experience. It’s maybe 40% talk therapy and 60% different kinds of physical activities like breathwork, stress positions, and just moving the energy to get support.
Around 2005, I could feel that my photography had come full circle. It had run as far as it could. I sort of lost my interest in it, and I was looking for something else to do.
I was caught between a rock and a hard place. Photography was something I picked up when I was about nine. I started taking pictures young and I’d never really learned anything else. I was always very focused on becoming a photographer.
I had one education, but I didn’t have anything else I could fall back on or build on.
I began looking around and I realized that therapy was something that I’ve really, really, really liked.
I decided to check out the schooling part of it, joined the program, then graduated. The first four years were basic education. Then I took a fifth year focused on couples therapy.
It is the same core modality, but it’s geared more towards couples.
Core therapy for couples is probably one of the most effective therapeutic forms that I have ever seen. It helps the couples see what the issue is right now and how these issues trail back to past traumas. In 99% of the cases, the trauma happened before the couple came together.
That was how I became a therapist. In the beginning, I wasn’t totally sure I was going to do this full time. I still had my photography business and was still shooting a lot.
But I cleared out a day to see clients. I think I started with a Monday. I just said, “On Mondays, I’m going to see clients.”
I got an office down in New York City on 28th street. I went there and sat in my chair and said to the universe the shop’s open.
And then this amazing thing happened. People just started finding me.
I didn’t do a whole lot of marketing in the beginning… but my business picked up and I added on a couple of more days.
The determining moment for me to become a therapist was really when this friend of mine told me to get in contact with my anger.
She believed the aggression I was expressing verbally had to be released physically.
If I hadn’t listened to her advice, I doubt I would do what I do today. Maybe I would’ve found it later. I don’t know, but it was definitely the turning point in my journey as a therapist.
Looking for support?
If you feel like you need more support, I’d be happy to help. I have some space for a few new clients right now.
To get started, click this link to schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation call. This is not a sales call. It’s a simple check-in to make sure we resonate with each other.
I’ll ask you some questions about what’s happening in your life and answer any questions you have about my work.
If it doesn’t feel like a good fit, I’ll let you know or you can let me know. There’s no pressure to work together.
Click the link below and we can find a time that works for you and schedule your complimentary 30-minute session: