Well... It all started out on a mayonnaise farm five miles outta highway 53... But I tell the following more fanciful story instead.
I'm a native of southeast Idaho. Born in St. Anthony and raised in Idaho Falls. After surviving high school I completed my undergraduate work at Idaho State University. After graduating with my bachelor's in social work, I started working in 1996 and worked to obtain my master's degree in 2000 from Walla Walla University. I've worked in both mental health and hospice fields. Both present unique challenges and blessings. Both have deeply enriched my life and helped me recognize the power of humility and accountability in our lives. I believe that through keeping an open mind with humility we accept our faults, and through the power of accountability we decide to do something about them.
There are two quotes I find inspirational in making change. One comes from Bob Dylan. I ran across it while working with a young man struggling with mental illness: "A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom." The other is more recent. It is a quote from Stephen Colbert while talking about the death of his father and his brothers. "I have learned to love the thing that I most wish had not happened," he explains. "What do you get from loss? You get awareness of other people’s loss, which allows you to connect with that other person,” he said, “which allows you to love more deeply and to understand what it’s like to be a human being if it’s true that all humans suffer.” And that, along with a few things thrown in from school, is what I use to connect with those that come to me for whatever reason.
