Hi! I’m Natalie. I’m a meditation teacher and the founder of Anxious Love Coach.

My route to naming myself a “relationship anxiety coach” and taking on hundreds of clients has not been a traditional one, but I feel confident in my scope of practice nonetheless. If you are deciding whether or not to work with me, I’d love to let you know my background and how I’ve arrived at my philosophy over the last 12 years, and what I can and can’t help you with, to support you in your decision.

I have a mix of Western and Eastern philosophies in my practice. I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of California, Irvine in 2014. While this is unrelated to relationship work per se, it did offer me a heavy foundation on the Western lens towards mental health, a high regard for the scientific method, the ability to discern reliable versus unreliable information, and the ability to reference/dissect studies. I was all geared up to go to medical school, after all! I used to believe, if a perspective didn’t hold a study behind it, it was bogus.

That is, until I got sick in my gut and many traditional Western methods couldn’t help me. My first encounter with the mysterious unknown…

I swung the opposite extreme — into the “holistic” and Eastern realms. I turned to spirituality and (temporarily) turned my back on Western medicine. I got two yoga certifications: my first one being a more neuroscience, anatomy based training through MIxx Yoga under Dr. Mitra Hooshmand, and my second, a much more spirituality-based YTT-200 under Ma Nithya Kumudini (Kumi Yogini) at Veda Yoga in Los Angeles. I also attended a silent 10-day Vipassana retreat under S.N. Goenka in 2017.

My yoga teacher trainings taught me how to work with the mind and body, and to meet people in an attuned way.

In addition, I became a certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach in 2018, which I’d intended to help people’s relationships with food and heal from the inside out. Interestingly enough, my coaching training taught me how to have conversations that often had nothing to do with food, but to dig under the surface and uncover deeper aches and longings that were manifesting as coping strategies of food. I draw from these coaching strategies of “digging under the surface” every day in my work... for people’s “relational” issues are often more personal than they realize.

In 2019 (when my relationship anxiety hit its peak intensity) I stumbled into a retreat center in Austria with my meditation teacher Stefi Preiss (under her lineage of Christian Meyer and Eli Jaxon-Bear) , who informally taught me many techniques to work through trauma stored in the body in the many weeks I spent with her and years in contact afterwards. I refer to these techniques daily for myself, and passed these tools onto my clients to help them work through relational pain, whether or not they are in partnership. It was in working with my teacher that I eventually uncovered and processed the deep emotional wounds that were manifesting as me keeping one foot out the door in my long-term partnership, as well as a significant amount of other anxieties. Interestingly enough, my long-standing gut issues disappeared after that, although I can’t pinpoint with certainty of course if that was the cause.

I now hold a both-and perspective: one that is concerned with both the Western and Eastern philosophies for overall health and wellness. They do not exist separate from one another — they both have their essential place.

And as for the relationship piece? Well — I believe that our “external” relationships (which include our partners, families, nature, and the world at large) are often mirroring our "inner” relationship — the one we have with ourselves first. Many of the relationship skills I’ve developed over the last 15 years (with my husband Preston over the last 10) have been through trial and error. Much of my personal study on relationships has come through observing relationships of all forms— in nature, in dance, in art, and in yoga through the body-mind. You will find you can learn a lot about relationships by having a metaphorical lens on life. One of my favorite places to study masculine-feminine polarity is Argentine Tango. I believe harmony exists in many forms, all available for studying… and there are many ways to heal. None of them need to be in competition with one another.

That said — ultimately, when deciding whether to work with someone, the most important thing is that you FEEL SAFE. If licensing and certain credentials make you feel safe, seek someone with those out. If something else makes you feel safe, seek that out. When we are wounded, it is important to listen to the gentle requests our inner child is making for safety. There is no right or wrong - only right or wrong for you. I am human first, coach/spiritual teacher/whatever second.

While the approach I take in my personal relationship might not necessarily be the right approach for you… I can present my perspectives and learned lessons in a way that encourages you to ultimately pass my thoughts through your own lens. My intention is never to impose my lens, but rather to offer many alternating perspectives I’ve gathered over the years, and encourage you to form your own conclusions. If you want me to guarantee I can save your partnership, I’m not your gal; no one with any level of credentialing can do that. Professionals are still human and there are so many variables in a client/patient experience to take into account. But we can try. My best credentials, I believe, are my ridiculously happy 11-year relationship/marriage and satisfied clients. :-)

It’s also worth noting that if you are looking for a clinical approach to treating a disorder of any kind, or even a licensed therapist, I’m not your gal either. Consider me a human, a meditation teacher that specializes in bringing mindfulness into the multi-variable calculus that is partnership, someone that encourages you into compassionate, spiritual self-inquiry while you do life with another flawed human beside you. There are some forms of trauma and areas of expertise beyond my scope of practice and if we run into those spaces, I will be referring you out. To me, knowing my limits is the most important thing, but you have to feel into what’s most important to you when seeking out a practitioner to work with.

All my love and best of luck on your journey.

Natalie