about heather
Heather is a Holistic Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Consultant, Transformational Leadership Coach, Speaker, and Trainer.
Inspired by her own lived experience and ancestral healing journey to dismantle internalized oppression, she empowers forward-thinking individuals and organizations to embody transformation of deep cultural programming and conditioning and shifts to higher levels of consciousness to rediscover empathy, connection, and intuition for a more just, peaceful, and compassionate world.
Heather’s life experience as a trauma-informed facilitator of healing and consciousness raising circles for women across all lineages and backgrounds (specializing in Women of Color, Multiracial, and Filipinx), embodied empowerment coach, transformational leadership mentor, ancestral healing guide, multiracial woman of color, and extensive training as a diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging practitioner allow her to serve and hold loving, compassionate space for her clients.
Heather has experienced many transformations in her life. After feeling stagnant and unfulfilled working in the entertainment industry for a few years, she leaned into personal growth and moved back to the DC area to work in K-12 independent school education as a service learning coordinator, student advisor, coach, and DEIB practitioner.
In 2013, empowered with a framework and language for creating inclusive school communities where ALL members can thrive at the NAIS Diversity Leadership Institute , Heather experienced her first shift in consciousness as she began to process the first layers of her multiracial identity development trauma.
After several years of working as a DEIB practitioner, speaker, and coach, she experienced another massive energetic clearing of intergenerational, racialized identity, and sexual trauma in 2018.
As part of her own healing process, she began facilitating “Womxn of Color Healing Circles”, the first offering specifically designed to address the well-being of WOC at WMN Space in Culver City, CA.
After witnessing and holding sacred space for transmuting ancestral, racialized, and sexual trauma into creative potential inside healing circles for women across all lineages and cultures (specializing in WOC, multiracial, and Filipinx), as well as her own 1-on-1 private coaching practice, she began to realize the profound need for more healing spaces, and as such, facilitators with the capacity to hold the depth of container for real transformation and healing.
In order to fulfill this need, especially in light of the collective traumas of a global pandemic and racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd, Heather created her signature 9-month group coaching program, “High Priestess of the Heart: The Art of Evolutionary Sacred Space Holding” for female-bodied, coaches, healers, and holistic leaders in 2020.
Heather is a graduate of Brown University, the NAIS Diversity Leadership Institute, and the National Diversity Practitioners Institute. She has presented and led DEIB trainings for multiple organizations including The Potomac School in McLean, VA, The National Association of Independent Schools’ “People of Color Conference”, Digital Currency Guy, The Tantric Institute of Integrated Sexuality in Venice, CA, Green Revolution Skin Studio in Bethesda, MD, The Spirit Weavers Gathering in Cave Junction, Oregon, and WMN Space in Culver City, CA.
In July 2015, she was recognized with the “Origami Award” for Most Creative Content from Holistic Fashionista Magazine for her article, “5 Success Strategies for Building Better Business Relationships in the 21st Century Marketplace”.
Since 2018, she has spent multiple seasons as an active participant in “Liberation Spring”, a grassroots adult freedom school in the service of decolonization, founded by Anjali Nath Upadhyay.
Heather is a Diasporic Blackapinx settler on unceded Tongva/Chumash territory (Venice, CA). Her ancestors are from the Visayan islands (Leyte, Samar, & Iloilo, in what is now known as the Philippines), West Africa (Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Ghana), as well as Northern Europe (British Isles).
With deep humility, gratitude, and devotion, she is walking the path of healing her ancestral lines on both sides of her multiracial family and becoming a responsible steward of her own ancestral wisdom and indigenous spiritual traditions.