About me
My Unique Multi-Cultural Background
Time to say a little more about me.
I am grateful for my first name, Marie-Flore. I thank my father for that. He named me. He was from Togo, a small country in French speaking West Africa. This is where I was raised. With the indigenous. With neighbors from the Netherlands. With the rituals. And everything in between. Dancing in the mud potholes when it rained. Sneaking away to eat fresh hot red peppers by the handful in the field behind the house at the age of two. My mother is from Guadeloupe, a Department of France, in the French West Indies. My parents met in France where I was born.
I am multi-cultural. I have lived equal time in Africa, in Europe where I moved in my late teens, and in the United States where I currently live in Northern Virginia. I am also a native French speaker.
Support for Your Journey
Imagine yourself in the Serengeti in Eastern Africa, the world renowned ideal location for wildlife.
Fully embodied. At night. One with the stars. Those same stars that guided several civilizations over 2,000 years ago, including but not limited to the Mayans, Aztecs, Incas, Mesopotamia, Ancient Kemet (Egypt), Akans in West Africa, Zulus and Xhosas of South Africa, and world famous centers like Timbuktu in Mali.
Imagine yourself fitting within the ecosystem of the Serengeti. Its flora. Its fauna. Alive, vibrating. This is what our lives were designed to be. Not just for pleasure. Not just for pain. But capable of dancing with the ebb and flow of what the universe brought to our door. Capable of embracing everything in our own Serengeti. My goal is to help you re-imagine your life. To rewire you in such a way that something deep within you will have the voice it needs to remember how you were originally designed. Physiologically. Emotionally. And in your spirit.
Informed by my own. personal journey through various forms of trauma, with extensive experience in Life Coaching and a vast history of client success, my individualized and professional approach will help you attain your goals. I only work with people who are motivated to turn their lives around. I work with individuals from all walks of life but also with very accomplished professionals (some of them burned out), including members of the legal, healing, or mental health professions.
Professionalism and Experience
I do this work as a calling. Out of love. And humility. I have personally gone through my own journey with trauma and received skilled help for that. I have invested tons of time and money in my own healing. As my teachers taught me, and as has to be the case for any good trauma coach or healer, I continue to learn and to be supported myself. Any work I do in my sessions is not book knowledge but informed by my own personal direct experience of this work.
I am a somatic trauma coach, a practicing astrologer, and an attorney.
As a professionally trained and experienced trauma practitioner and as a life coach, I am uniquely skilled to help you create the life you imagine and get a renewed sense of self.
I professionally trained for three years as a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP), a body-oriented therapeutic model that helps heal trauma and other stress disorders developed by Dr. Peter Levine. I am also currently a teaching assistant in the professional 3-year training of Somatic Experiencing® International, the leading authority on the SE™ method of trauma. I am further a certified Thought Field Therapy™ (TFT, “tapping”) practitioner, algorithm level. TFT is an energy-based form of psychotherapy working with the meridians and energy centers that is designed to reduce symptoms of psychological distress by manipulating how energy flows in the body. TFT is an evidence-based method for successfully treating PTSD, meaning that it has been tested by an independent body and satisfied a number of criteria. TFT has been used around the world in areas like Rwanda, Kosovo, etc.
I completed the last module to be certified in Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP) on the capacity to increase the embodiment of emotions, a revolutionary method developed by Sr. Somatic Experiencing® faculty, Dr. Raja Selvam. You can find more about this methodology at https://integralsomaticpsychology.org. I have further trained with Sr. Somatic Experiencing® faculty and sexual issues expert, Ariel Giaretto, on Advanced Techniques on Sexual Trauma. I am not only fully certified Reiki level 2, but also practice self-Reiki each day.
My approach is quite unique in the field in that I was also trained by Oren Jay Sofer and use the NVC (Non Violent Communication) revolutionary model of the late Dr. Marshall Rosenberg. I feel that the spirit of what NVC offers is best captured by the following quote from Dr. Rosenberg: “every message, regardless of form or content, is an expression of a need.” At its core for me, anything trauma revolves around the addressing of a need, either then when the trauma happened, or now in the healing of it. Unless that need is identified and safely embraced, something will not truly penetrate.
I am also an astrologer who over the years, trained with some of the most reputable world teachers, including in the U.S., Serbia and Bulgaria. My teachers include Adam Elenbaas, Chris Brennan, and Viktor. Naturally steeped in the mystical and spiritual, I now specialize in ancient astrology with tinges of modern astrology. While I believe that each astrology method has its gifts and suits that astrologer, ancient astrology offers for me a track record of experience dating back to BCE, a grounding in solid spiritual principles, and time-tested precise techniques. While no one can ever guarantee anything in astrology, history shows that ancient astrologers would get killed by the King if they made mistakes. Ancient astrology therefore provides me with a crispier X-ray vision of your unique landscape, and how to re-wild your Serengeti.
Coming from a lineage of seers on both sides of my maternal side, I am an intuitive.
I am also an attorney and still earn my living this way. It sharpens and suits my open, inquisitive mind. The other advantage of my legal training is that in addition to understanding the pain and suffering that hide behind the veneer of social "success," I clearly articulate what I do and why I do it in my coaching sessions. In fact, the very nature of my incisive questions or observations often does by itself create a faster shift in consciousness.
Finally, I was also trained and did serve at some point as a suicide hotline volunteer.
Taking the Steps
Committing to your own Serengeti is just that – a commitment, and it’s a big one that will take a lot a dedication. My commitment is to provide you with accountability, understanding and support.
We live in sacred times. Each of us is a sacred star in the Serengeti (wilderness) of our own physiology. Of our worlds. Inner. And outer. The only missing ingredient is the right coach. Or astrologer.