Since I can remember,
I’ve always been the girl who speaks her — often edgy — truth, stands up for what she believes is right and fights for better systems.
Once upon a time, I was an American girl living abroad in Rome, Italy.
A diplomat’s kid, who attended an international high school in a city that one of my spiritual teachers would, more than a decade later, call a chakra of the world.
“If the world had chakras,” he said, “Rome would be one of them.”
It shaped my formative years, setting up the foundation for a mystic whose curiosity drew me toward era-shifting revolutions and depth with the sensitivity of a poet, a healer’s hands and predisposition toward fierce feminine leadership.
In the years that followed my European escapades, I found my way back to the United States, graduating cum laude from Georgetown University with a degree in psychology.
Then, I dove into the throes of my then-dream career.
Investigative journalism.
I’d pinpoint the wrongdoing, gather all the facts with meticulous precision, share jarring narratives from vulnerable communities and present a case to my audience with each story that would shake impact from the highest rungs of power.
So I thought.
I started as a politics intern at the Tampa Bay Times in 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, hot racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd and a contentious upcoming election in one of the most closely watched swing states.
What a foreshadow of my purpose in this world.
Once the summer ended, they brought me on to be their first ever health equity reporter, where I’d report on medical racism, systemic inequalities and disparities in health care.
A little less than two years in that role, I received my first journalism award.
SPJ Florida’s Outstanding New Journalist.
Over the course of my career, I reported on everything from a yearlong investigative series that exposed Georgia’s alarming maternal deaths rates, which was a Livingston Award finalist, to the aftermath of Hurricane Ian’s devastation, which resulted in a direct FEMA response and an interview appearance on MSNBC’s The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.
Over the years, my writing appeared in the Tampa Bay Times, Capital B, CNN, The Marshall Project, and VOX.
Always mission-driven.
But the continued exposure to others' most intense traumas made the work unsustainable.
It was death by a thousand cuts.
One story at a time.
That eventually led me to quit full-time journalism with my sights set on offering trauma-informed wellness to journalists who, like I once was, were carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders.
I wanted to offer all that I, at one point, needed.
That’s where The Stories Within began.
As a love letter to those fighting the good fight with their hearts broken open.
Margo
My Philosophy.
The body is the doorway.
We begin with the body. It holds the wisdom, the story, and the way forward. Through somatic healing, we can rewire our nervous systems to expand our capacity to be with the world around us without getting stuck in a trauma response. When given space, the body knows how to heal. And from that place, we are able to process stored trauma, find a renewed sense of safety in our bodies and relearn how to deeply experience pleasure, joy and rest.
We honor the depths.
This is a movement that journeys beyond the surface. We face the contractions, the expansions, the grey areas and the in-between. We go deep so we can rise with deeply embodied clarity and conviction in all that we are here to bring forth into the world. This genuine transformation through the nervous system. This is sharing truth through narratives.
Stories transform us.
Your story is sacred. Sharing it is a powerful act of liberation. Vulnerability heals. Community care anchors us. Storytelling is a path to truth, connection, and freedom. I help clients re-author their inner narratives, reclaim the stories within and rewrite the narratives behind their movements.
Tending to the nervous system and the narratives we share should include pleasure.
There is a hope for the future that I know you have, if you are here. The way we sustain that hope is through weaving pleasure into our wellness and into the narratives we share. The female nervous system’s main regulator is oxytocin, the love hormone, which means that we need more joy, touch and social connection to heal our bodies. Deep wellness isn’t a luxury. It is crucial. And when you build narratives to bring people into your movement, they want to feel like there is space to feel good amongst the rage, the anger, the exhaustion. Let’s build hope into your communications. Pleasure is the foundation of sustainable service.
Credentials, Certifications, and Education:
Bachelors of Arts in Psychology, Cum laude — Georgetown University.
E-RYT 200hr Yoga Teacher Training — by Sunstate Yoga.
Trauma-Informed Yoga Training — by Zahabiyah Yamasaki.
Body Temple Dance Facilitation Training — by Adriana Rizzolo.
Somatic Coach for the Female Nervous System — by SOMA School.
9-month MahaYoga Intensive Group Training — by Harshada David Wagner.
3-month Private Training — by Harshada David Wagner.