About Nikki
Breaking Patterns. Building Resilience. Believing in You.
I am the late-diagnosed neurodivergent eldest daughter who balanced being an academic overachiever while also being the awkward black sheep who went no contact with their narcissistic mother, and thrived. The person who others assumed always lived a soft life due to my bright personality and whimsy, but gained their sense of humor through resilience.
My journey to this work has been intentional, though not always straightforward.
When you grow up being constantly gaslit about your feelings, thoughts, and experiences; you learn the only constant truth is that you can’t trust yourself. Through this pattern, it is easy for someone to become a “People Pleaser” because it becomes much safer and easier to understand what makes others happy than to risk isolation. While this does create a plethora of problems, one of the more damaging is that you end up surrounded by people while feeling alone. This also makes it easier for you to then feel like something is wrong with you and makes it easier to feel shame. When you are primarily focused on the happiness and opinions of others over your needs, you lose your connection to your authentic self while fighting a constant uphill battle against burn out. The way out of this cycle is by breaking the pattern and creating a new, and healthier synaptic pathway; working with a coach will ensure that you don’t have to figure this out alone.
The foundation of my work is rooted in my Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and the connections created through my clinical experiences working in settings such as mobile crisis, psychiatric hospital inpatient, and private practice. Born and raised in a hamlet on Long Island, New York I moved to Albany, New York partially due to falling in love with the Siena College (now University) campus; and partially due to it being 30 minutes outside the radius I was advised to stay within when applying to college.
After graduating with my bachelor’s degree in psychology from Siena, I remained in the Capital Region to complete The College of Saint Rose’s Master’s Clinical Mental Health Counseling program. The first time I was confronted with imposter syndrome I was working my first post-graduate job as an inpatient psychiatric clinician. At that time I had already interned on the unit for one year and ran several successful group sessions, but that day was going to be my “first official session.” I told my supervisor that I was feeling unsure of myself because I was younger than the majority of clients and didn’t believe they would be open to working with me. She altered my perspective by asking, “if you broke your arm would you rather get help from someone who has broken their arm ten times or by someone who has trained and specialized in fixing broken bones?” While that conversation did not cure my imposter syndrome nor did it fix my thought patterns, it did spark a perspective shift.
Working with me will not fix you because you are not broken. I believe it is intentional that so many women and people of the global majority are conditioned into thought patterns that utilize shame as the tool to keep us small and complacent. My goal is to create an environment where you feel seen and safe while exploring your thought patterns with a strengths-based cognitive behavioral lens.
Together we can rewire the thought patterns so you are able to distinguish between the lies you’ve been conditioned to believe and your own inner voice and grow into the version of yourself. The version of you who knows who they are regardless of what society tries to tell you.