Why I Do This
Since I was young, I've had this drive — almost an intuition — for sensing where someone is stuck. Not just the practical stuck, but the emotional or mental block underneath it, quietly running the show. The moment I see it, I want to help my clients get in there and find their way through it.
That instinct is the actual center of this work. There's a moment I live for: someone takes a breath and says, almost surprised, "oh my god, I can do this." Or realizes the thing they thought was a wall isn't actually a wall. Watching someone get unstuck, and watching them change because of it, is about as meaningful as anything gets for me.
I graduated with honors from the University of Texas School of Law in 2012, and practiced family law in Texas and personal injury law in Minnesota for years afterward. I later served as COO of an independent financial planning firm, where I worked directly with estates and death.
Before any of that, I studied religious studies and philosophy at Occidental College, then spent three years living in Nepal and summers at a retreat center in California, studying Buddhist philosophy and doing longer periods of retreat.
That pull to go deeper was there before it had any name — before I called it Buddhist practice, before I called it law. Law school gave it a discipline: rigor of thought, clarity of organization, a way to actually structure a situation instead of just feeling into it. The two never stayed separate. They fused. I can meet someone exactly where a situation actually hurts, and then organize, clarify, and contain it into something workable. Feeling it and structuring it aren't two different skills for me — they're most of what I actually do.
The Name
Vajra is a Sanskrit word for a thunderbolt, or a diamond — indestructible, sharp enough to cut through what's false. In Tibetan Buddhism, it represents skillful means: wisdom that's actually been put into compassionate action, not just held as an idea.
That's what I'm actually naming. Clarity without care can cut people. Care without clarity doesn't move anyone forward. The work only works when both show up together, held steady enough that nothing in the room can shake it.
Where The Gap Really Is
A skilled attorney knows the law, but isn't always equipped to see the financial picture, and isn't always a great communicator of what they know — excellent legal judgment doesn't automatically come with the ability to explain it simply.
A good financial planner knows the numbers, but typically defers the moment anything turns legal.
A therapist can sit with the emotional weight of what's happening, but typically lacks the practical legal or financial tools to help someone actually resolve the situation itself.
A good therapist might already ask exactly that kind of question — the kind that helps you find your own clarity — about your emotions. What's usually missing is someone asking it about the legal and financial reality too, in the same conversation.
That's the gap. Not a technical one — a human one. I sit in the overlap: enough legal and financial fluency to understand what's actually at stake, and enough steadiness to help someone move through the parts they've been avoiding, not around them.
"The only way out is through. If there's something you're dancing around or avoiding, the only way to deal with it is to go through it — and I'll help you through it."
A wayfinder doesn't carry you. I help you find your own way — and the way through is usually closer than it feels. My job isn't to be the person you need. It's to help you find the parts of yourself that already know how to do this.
