Bio

I was born in East LA from parents that immigrated from Guatemala to Southern CA in the 60’s. My childhood was spent in the poor neighborhoods of LA. English is my second language after Spanish. In the early 70’s my parents divorced…first tragedy that ended up being a positive in the long run. My teens and college years were spent in beach towns where I found my love for skateboarding,  Rock n Roll, and the ocean!

At age 12 I suffered a Spinal Cord Injury (SCI), T12 Incomplete. I was practicing for a gymnastics competition when I hit the mat and felt a sharp pain in my back. Coach thought it was muscle spasms but within 20 minutes symptoms became worse and my family was called. I was rushed to the hospital and they determined I had blood vessels bleeding inside my spinal column putting pressure on my spinal cord. Gratefully, I survived and due to my age and resilience I was able to regain and learn how to walk again. The first year of recovery was brutal and by the second year life looked fine from the outside. I technically had all the other side effects of paralysis but I could walk despite having nerve pain, numbness and spasms. I was able to finish high school on time despite missing a year of school and attending a year of tele school (literally school over a phone, remember this was in 1978 no Zoom).

I went on to attend college and received a BA, Film and Television Production from CSU, Long Beach. Career highlights include Production Crew-Comic Relief IV, Director-Emmy Award winning Emergency Flood Newscast Monterey, CBS. And my most cherished and personal television career moment was interviewing Rigoberta Menchú Tum a K’iche’ Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate on the rooftop across from the Women’s Building San Francisco overlooking the freshly finished mural with her image centered prominently. 

Despite the excitement and glamour of working in television there was a desire to understand my life in a deeper way and the city life was wearing out its welcome. My desire to understand my broken body beyond the mechanical aspects ignited my interest in psychology. After leaving television and some traveling to Guatemala and Europe with my wife, I decided to go to graduate school. I earned my MA, Holistic Counseling Psychology from John F. Kennedy University. This graduate course work completely changed my life and for the healthier! I was able to understand my own process of surviving a SCI with a language that empowered me toward understanding my own trauma and the anger and insecurities that are byproducts of trauma.  

And just my luck, in the late 1990’s I started to develop complications to my initial spinal cord injury. After months of seeing specialists it was discovered I had developed a syrinx at the site of my original injury and it was causing further damage to  my spinal cord. This caused me to lose my ability to walk and I have been a full-time wheelchair user ever since. 

I have spent the last twenty years working with individuals, couples, and families in both English and Spanish in community clinics and for the last 15 years for a county health care agency. These years focused my work on providing therapy for people suffering from addictions. Many of these people also suffered from trauma, depression, anxiety and abuse. As I came to understand, addictions are often the result  of other underlying and often ignored issues. I have sat with thousands of people and although all are unique, the path toward healthier choices is similar. My recovery from a spinal cord injury has given me a direct understanding of the suffering life can throw at us and the experience of working hard on living mindfully, which leads to being healthier and in turn, happier. 

I am a proud husband and father, I cherish the work of coaching people through difficult and challenging issues and still love Rock n Roll and the ocean. I traded my skateboard wheels for my wheelchair wheels…Life rolls on!