Built from what I needed. Offered with everything I've learned.

Hi - I'm Whitney.  

Thanks for being curious about my story - we have something in common already!

A Human Experience was born from my own journey and my search for understanding, relief, and for permission to simply be. I needed a place to shed all the roles, identities, accomplishments, expectations, and just be seen as human.  Not as productive or strong or brave or resilient.  Not as a problem that could be solved by one more 'therapeutic modality'.  Just...human.  Just for a minute, then I'd get back to it all.

After years of hoping and trying, I still hadn't found that space...and I didn't have the language to recognize what I needed, let alone ask for it.

Driven by a disheartened desperation, I went on a solo internal deep dive.

I began to ask myself the questions I'd been waiting for someone else to ask.  

And I challenged whatever answers came up - over and over again - until I felt an 'ah-ha' moment.  

If this reads like a glamourous 'Eat, Pray, Love' situation, let me be clear - it was not.

I didn't travel anywhere, all my roles and responsibilities were still there, I was still doing all the things on the outside.

But deep inside, privately and quietly, a life-changing shift had taken place.

What I started uncovering about myself was uncomfortable, painful, embarrassing (to myself?!), annoying, exhausting...all the things.

But dang, it was REAL.

And that felt like relief.

So I kept going, staying obsessively curious about my own experience as a human thus far.

I started writing down and mapping out the connections I was seeing between my personal deep-dive answers and the experiences I'd had in my professional career as a social worker and therapist, and in these moments, the vision for what would become 'A Human Experience' came to life.

Turns out - it's an everyone thing...

I've had countless conversations with many brilliant humans over my 15 years in the mental health/advocacy/education sectors,  and there has always been a glaring and, dare I say, accepted norm:
The leaders.
The helpers.
The listeners.

The 'strong and resilient' ones.

The ones who care deeply.
The ones who hold space for everyone else.

We don't actually know what it feels like to have that space held for us.

We don't know how to accept the same grace, patience, empathy, and understanding that we shower on the people around us. 

Many of us have been taught that our worth is directly tied to our ability to keep going.

That our value is measured by how comfortable we make everyone else feel.

When we think of taking up space for ourselves, the risk feels too great.

So we keep showing up. Keep saying 'yes' to the things with a forced smile and drowning eyes, wondering why no one can see how hard we're already trying...but desperately wishing someone would.

Believe me, I know this feeling well.

It's not that we don't want help.

It's not that we don't want to say 'no'.
It's that for a lot of us, no one ever told us it was an option.

And we were never given a risk-free space to try.

It’s a place where people—regardless of background, role, or identity—can step into something that feels real.
Where you can get curious about your own human experience, explore some concepts and tools, and leave behind what doesn’t work for you.

It's an invitation to try it out - to practicing sharing who you are and what you need, in a way that gives people around you permission to do the same for themselves.

This is not about learning more, doing more, or being more.

I promise, you are already enough and you already have the answers.

This movement is about gently shifting the way we understand ourselves and what's already happening.  

And then using that awareness to move forward with intention, from a foundation that has space for everyone.
Even (especially) the people who are used to holding it all together.

This is a framework that I use, practice, and expand on everyday - forever in evolution (because that's kind of the point of all this, right?).

Either personally or professionally - you really can build anything  on this foundation.

When you're ready to begin your own journey,
I can’t wait to welcome you here.

~ WP