Expert Trauma therapy for sensitive, creative, & aware people grounded equally in your daily life and your innate wholeness
Any of these sound familiar to you?
→ Do you feel flooded by everything at once or is it hard to experience much at all - leaving you feeling overwhelmed or blank and numb?
→ Is it hard to feel like you belong, or do you lose yourself inside other people?
→ Do you feel like a different person depending on what you are doing or who you are with?
→ Do you reach for relief - drugs, sex, spiritual practices, alcohol, plant medicine, T.V., work - but never quite land the lasting change you are after?
→ Are there desires, urges, and fantasies you are afraid to say out loud?
→ Is it hard to tell where the past ends and the present begins?
→ Do big “Aha” insights come easily while daily life falls apart - or is it the reverse: life is handled but insight never seems to come?
→ Do you get stuck in loops where nothing you try is ever quite enough?
You've survived. You've coped. You’ve done healing ceremonies, sat in therapy, built real integrity into your values - maybe even built a good life from the outside. But something still feels off: disconnected, unsure, lonely in a way you can’t quite name. Then life delivers one of its thresholds - A death, a diagnosis, a birth, a profound ‘Aha’, a divorce, a career change -and what you thought you already healed comes back online. That is normal. Trauma lives in layers, and big life shifts have a way of finding the ones you haven’t reached yet or that need another type of tending.
When choice, protection, and care are absent, especially in childhood, life becomes threatening and insurmountable to the point where it changes your sense of self. That’s complex trauma in a nutshell. Even going to the grocery store can be daunting, let alone living inside your own head. Let alone trying to find some relief from what haunts you at 3 a.m. when you can’t sleep again. Trauma-related dissociation helps…until it doesn’t.
But here is the thing that people rarely tell you because they don’t know either - Whatever you have been through, it is not who you are.
Trauma cannot alter who you really are at the core, just your access to the essence of unconditioned life, which can be felt as your innate wholeness and goodness.
You have finally come to a place where all of you can be seen and the impact of the past can be dealt with so it stops haunting you in the present. It is not easy work, but it is the real work. It is the bravest work you will ever do and it is worth it.
The gist
New Approach
Beyond the ego, beyond even the psychological self, there is something that was never touched by anything that happened to you — I call this unconditioned life. It’s the only constant in a life where everything else shifts. My job is to help you find your way to that which has always been here.
The passage there moves through three territories: from what is known — the familiar story of the you that survived — into what is unknown, the terrifying wilderness beyond that story — and through it, into what has always been known but not recognized.
Most people stop at the edge of the unknown. Especially survivors. But the unknown is not the enemy. It is the threshold. And what makes the difference is having a guide.
I call my work Dynamic Trauma Integration and it is based on 6 Principles. The idea at the center of it is simple: trauma can shape you, but it never becomes who you are. My job is to help you find your way to an experience with life that trauma never touched, not by reliving the past more than necessary, but by changing your relationship with the present.
I do this through the Dynamic Processing Method. You build real-time awareness of how you're perceiving what's happening to you, across four levels of presence: ME/WE/BETWEEN/BEYOND. Perception, more than memory, is usually what keeps people stuck. Most therapy stops at insight. This goes further. Because real healing doesn't just change how you think about yourself and others. It changes how you experience being alive.
(Learn more about my approach and method here)
Message of gratitude from your healer & guide - Sunyata Kopriva
In over three decades of this work, I’ve learned that real healing is a leap of faith - for both of us. The people who have trusted me with their lives weren’t broken; many of them have become the fiercest examples of love I have ever encountered. They have offered me potatoes when they had nothing else to eat, and a place in their twin size bed that already slept four people. They are my teachers. To them I say, “I exist because you do.” (Want to know where that conviction comes from? Read about my journey.)
If you are exploring healing, I would be honored to take that leap with you.
Pathways to Presence
Here’s what working with me actually looks like in practice.
I treat dissociation and other trauma symptoms as a strength, not a disorder — it's the mind's most creative answer to what felt unsurvivable, proof of how adaptable you are rather than evidence something is broken in you. And I treat trauma memories and symptoms as a teacher rather than an enemy: not something to simply heal, not something to fix, and not something to befriend, but something to learn from directly. In my experience, survivors of trauma are some of the strongest, most loving, and most real people. They know firsthand how difficult the world can be, and how resiliency is part of our true nature.
I pick up where a lot of therapy leaves off. We won't circle endlessly in the self-improvement or world-improvement loops. We'll do the next layer of work — letting go of who you think you are, so that you discover who you actually are. That means tolerating more fear and unknown than you are used to. And in a world changing at a pace, scale, and impact that has no precedent in recorded history, that capacity isn't just healing. It is a necessity.
I'll be your guide through it.
Right now, that work happens in three ways:
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I offer individual and relationship therapy for people 5 years of age and older, all virtual. Due to licensing, I can only work with people who live in CA, MO, and IL. Dig in deep to the four levels of presence -Me/We/Between/Beyond - building awareness of your body, mind, heart, history, relationship patterns, and connection to all of life. I help create lasting change, not just insight.
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A small group space to practice the Dynamic Processing Method with the four levels of presence: ME/WE/BETWEEN/BEYOND. Learn to use one of the most valuable tools you have - your perception - in a container safe enough to be honest with others. Train it the way you once learned to drive a car: with repetition, in real conditions.
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I collaborate in two different ways: directly with other providers on my client’s care team, and with spiritually-focused communities (retreat centers, dharma centers, animist communities, etc.)
People moving through trauma need holistic care and this includes working with other people on their care teams. By coordinating care, clients feel more seen and held, are able to develop healthier relationships, and recover faster.
For spiritual centers, I offer consultation, training, workshops, and partnerships rooted in the view of Dynamic Trauma Integration and the practice of Dynamic Processing Method. There is an unnecessary split between psychological wellbeing and spiritual wellbeing. This often leaves people with trauma in a difficult position. I help bridge this divide because I know both worlds.
Welcome home. Welcome to your awakening.
You are a human being and real healing requires real connection with another human being that can see you at your core. Here is what that has looked like for people I have worked with:
“Thank you! I notice now that I really want to ride the rollercoaster. I was really sad this morning, suffering. It’s so familiar. I know from working with you that I can be free. I am ready.”