I was born into darkness. Bathed in my mother’s grief while in the womb, she gave birth to me just 10 months after my 4-year old sister died of a brain tumor. Growing up I felt invisible, like my mother was always looking past me for someone else. I’ve devoted my life to learning how to let my light shine and be seen for the unique and valuable being that I am.

My journey has enabled me to understand the dark night of the soul, both my own and others’ and share what I’ve learned for myself to light the way for YOU.

At 8-years old, I had a near-death experience, which is a job requirement for a shaman.  Knocked unconscious in a swimming pool accident, I began breathing in water. I still vividly remember being in a tunnel going toward the light.  It was bliss and I wanted to go into it but I can still hear a voice saying “It’s not your time.  You must go back. You have work to do there.”However, I’ve always been grateful for having had a glimpse of what it’s like on the other side and I’ve been following my bliss ever since.

In 1988, I left teaching at university level to start a private practice as a hypnotherapist, incorporating Focusing in 1999, into a program that I’d already developed: INNER GOLF, a program to master the mental game of golf that generated significant media interest including numerous articles in newspapers and magazines as well as many television and radio interviews.

Later as I got interested in fitness and nutrition, I developed LighterYOU, a program to help women improve their health and fitness using Focusing to find ways of eating and moving that fit for them. Simultaneously, I taught yoga and Pilates classes at the YMCA and was also a Personal Fitness Trainer there for 10 years.  My signature class that I created blending yoga/Pilates with Focusing was one of the most popular classes that the Y offered during my time there.

Since 2006, I’ve been teaching beginning and advanced Focusing courses for Focusing Resources, one of the top Focusing training organizations in the world. I also mentor trainees in the Focusing Certification Program.

In 2020, I created “3-MINUTE RELIEF: Go from Pain to PRESENCE in just 3 Minutes,”  three free 3-minute audios to help people cope with the Covid crisis, and deal with fear/anxiety, sadness, and frustration.

In 2017, I wrote “3 Practices for Growing Presence: How to Claim Your SuperPowers and Create the Life You Want,” a 50-page E-book with 10 audios, which I updated for the Covid crisis in 2020.

In 2015, I wrote “3 Tools for Transforming Difficult Emotions: An Introduction to Focusing,” a 10-page E-book with a 30-minute audio, applying Focusing to dealing with challenging emotions.

In 2012, I co-authored a research paper for the Mayo Clinic for a project that I helped design. For this project,  I mentored a Professor and his colleague at the Mayo Clinic in learning Focusing and who then assisted me in teaching Focusing to a group of medical students in 2010.

Teaching an Experiential Mind–Body Method to Medical Students
Cara Alexander & Robert D. Sheeler & Norman H. Rasmussen & Lucinda Hayden
Academic Psychiatry 2014

From 1994-2000, I authored many articles on the mental game of golf.

I did my double undergraduate studies in Cultural Anthropology/Psychology and Literature/French at the University of California at Santa Cruz, including study at the Sorbonne in Paris. I hold a Master’s degree in Teaching from California State University at San Francisco, where I taught English, ESL and Writing for seven years.

In addition to studying about shamanism through the cultural anthropology department at UCSC, I’ve trained in a more hands-on way with Michael Harner, the first North American cultural anthropologist to work directly with indigenous shamans in the Amazon. I also studied for 16 years with the great Basque cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien, going through her Four-Fold Way training. Angie was a master of using the Tarot for healing. I’ve developed my own way of combining a Jungian approach to the Tarot with Focusing.

I have studied trauma release work and Somatic Experiencing with Peter Levine.

I live in San Francisco, near the Golden Gate Bridge.  I inherited my mother’s house in Joshua Tree, in the High Desert near Palm Springs, CA, which as a healing project to process her death, I transformed into a charming retreat space.

Before the Covid crisis, I loved dancing Argentine tango as well as other partner dances, sailing on San Francisco Bay and traveling the world, practicing the languages that I enjoy studying. I’ve visited over 60 countries.

While Sheltering-in-Place, I’ve finally pursued my interest in writing by creating trainings, such as 3 Practices for Growing Presence and writing articles. For fun, I’ve been entertaining myself by continuing to study languages through an App on my phone, called DuoLingo, which makes learning languages as fun as a computer game! I started withLatin because I know Spanish and French reasonably well, so Latin was actually fun and relatively easy. Then I branched out into other languages that I know bit: like Dutch, Indonesian, Polish and Japanese. Recently, I decided I wanted to plunge into the unknown, so I’m playing with Gaelic, Hawaiian, and Swahili. Since we can’t travel these days, learning all of these different languages is a way to satisfy my thirst for adventure.