I work with women who appear high-functioning on the outside and overwhelmed underneath

Hi, I'm Shari.

I'm a somatic therapist, Registered Social Worker, educator, and clinical supervisor supporting overwhelmed and neurodivergent women who are exhausted from constantly holding it all together.

Many of the women I work with are deeply self-aware. They've read the books, listened to the podcasts, gone to therapy and spent a lot of time trying to understand themselves. They can often explain exactly why they overthink, people-please, perfectionize or push themselves too hard.

And yet, they still feel stuck.

On the outside, they may look like they're doing just fine. They're working, caring for other people, getting things done and showing up. Inside, they're exhausted. Their minds rarely slow down. Rest can feel surprisingly difficult. They may find themselves constantly monitoring, anticipating, adapting and pushing through, without fully realizing how much energy it takes.

Often, there's a persistent sense that life shouldn't feel this hard.

A little about my own experience

I also come to this work with lived experience. I was diagnosed with ADHD later in life, after many years of wondering why things that seemed relatively straightforward for other people could require so much effort from me.

Like many women diagnosed later in life, I had spent years developing ways to compensate. I was good at getting things done, being responsible, anticipating what needed to happen and pushing through when I was overwhelmed. For a long time, I didn't necessarily recognize these things as coping strategies. I thought they were simply part of who I was.

Understanding my own neurodivergence gave me a different lens on experiences I'd spent years trying to make sense of. It also deepened my understanding of how much energy can go into appearing like you're doing fine when, internally, you're working very hard to keep everything together.

I don't bring my personal experience into therapy as a substitute for clinical knowledge, and I don't assume that my experience will be the same as yours. But it does inform the curiosity, compassion and neuroaffirming perspective I bring to my work.

How I see the work

I don't believe that understanding yourself intellectually is the whole story.

You can know why you over-function and still find yourself saying yes when you want to say no. You can understand where your perfectionism comes from and still feel the pressure to get everything right. You can know that you need rest and still feel uncomfortable when you stop.

This is where I bring a somatic perspective into therapy.

We pay attention not only to what you're thinking and feeling, but also to what is happening in your body. The tension you notice when someone is disappointed with you. The urgency that shows up when you try to slow down. The sense that you need to keep moving, even when you're exhausted. The ways you may have learned to override your own signals in order to keep functioning.

Rather than viewing these responses as something wrong with you, we can become curious about them. Often, what looks like a problem on the surface has made sense in the context of your life.

My approach is grounded in the belief that healing doesn't require you to become a different person. It's about developing a different relationship with yourself, one that has more room for your actual needs, limits, emotions and body.

My approach

I integrate somatic therapy with Brainspotting, Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR), nervous system regulation, polyvagal-informed and compassion-focused approaches, along with an IFS-informed lens.

I don't believe you need to arrive knowing which approach you need. Different things can be useful at different points in therapy, and we'll find our way there together based on what's happening for you.

My work is trauma-informed and neurodiversity-affirming. I'm interested in what your patterns are trying to do for you, rather than simply trying to get rid of them.

Together, we might explore burnout, chronic overwhelm, perfectionism, people-pleasing, masking, difficulty resting, emotional overwhelm, trauma, boundaries or the feeling that you're constantly running on empty.

The goal isn't to become perfectly regulated or endlessly productive. It's to have more choice in how you respond to your life, to feel more connected to yourself and to find ways of living that are actually sustainable.

Who I work with

I primarily work with women who are thoughtful, self-aware and often outwardly functioning, but who are struggling with what is happening underneath.

Some are late-diagnosed ADHD, autistic or AuDHD. Others are beginning to wonder whether neurodivergence might help explain some of their experiences.

Many have spent years masking, over-functioning or trying to compensate for things that seemed easier for everyone else. They may struggle with overthinking, decision paralysis, comparison, perfectionism, people-pleasing, sensory overwhelm or cycles of doing too much followed by complete exhaustion.

You may have become very good at holding everything together while having very little idea what it actually feels like to have enough space to be yourself.

You may also be tired of being told to manage your stress better, think more positively or simply set better boundaries.

Therapy can be a place to slow that process down and become curious about what's actually happening.

A more human way forward

I don't believe healing is about becoming perfectly calm, endlessly productive or finally getting yourself "fixed."

It's about building a relationship with yourself that feels safer, more connected and more sustainable.

A relationship where your body isn't something you have to override.

Where rest doesn't have to be earned.

Where you can notice what you need without immediately talking yourself out of it.

Where you don't have to perform your way into worthiness.

After almost 20 years working in social work and education, I've learned that meaningful change rarely comes from simply trying harder. Sometimes we need to understand our patterns differently. Sometimes we need to slow down enough to notice what our bodies have been telling us. And sometimes we need a space where we don't have to hold everything together quite so tightly.

My professional background

I'm a Registered Social Worker with a Master's degree in Social Work and almost 20 years of experience working across social work, counselling, education and clinical leadership.

Alongside private practice, I've worked in the K-12 education system, provided counselling and clinical support, taught at the post-secondary level and supported other clinicians through supervision and leadership roles.

My clinical training includes somatic approaches, Brainspotting and Deep Brain Reorienting, alongside trauma-informed and neurodiversity-affirming practice.

I bring both professional experience and lived experience to this work, but most importantly, I bring curiosity. I'm not interested in fitting you into a particular model of what healing is supposed to look like.

I'm interested in understanding you.

And in helping you develop a relationship with yourself that feels less like something you have to manage, and more like somewhere you can actually be.