How Tech, Yoga, and a Lifelong Practice of Reflection Shaped My Career Choices
December 3, 2025
Laguna Beach, site of lots of reflection in my younger days
I’ve changed careers more than once. The through-line across every shift has been simple: reflection and discernment. Each transition came from listening closely to what I needed, and being willing to reshape my life around the answer.
Beginnings in Tech (Before It Was Cool)
My career in technology started in the 80s, when it was still an unusual path—especially for a woman. As a kid, I was obsessed with The Jetsons and Tomorrowland at Disneyland. The idea of a tech-infused future felt magical, and I wanted to be part of it.
In college, I took a summer job as a receptionist at a small computer company. Picture an old movie: a massive, humming room on a raised floor, filled with mainframe computers. I was bored waiting for the phone to ring, so the database specialist took me under his wing and showed me how databases worked. That was my first real taste of technology—and I was hooked.
When I returned to school, I took a programming class (BASIC!) just to see if the interest was real. Then I saw a posting for students with a background in both computers and psychology. I was the only person I knew with that combination, and I got the job.
That experience ultimately led to a Master’s in Human Factors—an early version of what we now call UX. I spent my 20s working in large enterprise companies, but over time the work shifted from designing for people to navigating politics. I felt increasingly disconnected, both from the work and from myself.
A 30-Year-Old’s Epiphany
On my 30th birthday, I had one of those moments that is equal parts epiphany and early midlife crisis. I realized I was deeply unsatisfied with both my personal and professional life. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew I needed space to figure it out.
So I made changes—big ones.
One of the most memorable was taking myself to Mexico for a month to study Spanish, something that had lived on my bucket list for years. During my last weekend there, wandering through the anthropology museum in Mexico City, a clear thought dropped in:
“I want to do something that brings culture from one place, group, or person to another.”
I had no idea what that meant at the time. But I knew I needed to follow it.
Dance and … Tech Again
Back in Southern California, I spent hours sitting on the sand in Laguna Beach, journaling and reflecting. I had been studying dance for a decade, and those beachside reflections eventually led me to pursue an MA in Dance Ethnology at UCLA. My plan was to continue on to a PhD in anthropology—but life had other ideas. My yoga practice deepened, and I began teaching in community colleges.
And even as I moved further into teaching movement, I could never fully leave tech.
At UCLA, someone discovered my tech background and asked me to manage the dance department’s computer lab. My first students were dance majors writing papers in WordPerfect on a Mac Classic. Later, I taught basic computer skills (hello Windows 95!) to seniors in Beverly Hills. That opened the door to private tech lessons and UX research contract work.
Around the same time, the commercial internet was taking shape. I became the sole researcher at GeoCities, and even then, I never stopped teaching yoga. After GeoCities, I joined the faculty at Loyola Marymount University where I taught a comprehensive for-credit yoga program for undergrads and co-created a certificate in yoga philosophy for teachers and serious practitioners.
I loved the dual path I was on—but after 13 years, I started to wonder:
What would it be like to have one job again?
One role that brought everything I’d learned into a single place?
Returning to UX With New Eyes
After another long period of reflection, I joined Kelley Blue Book and built their UX Research function from scratch. That led to roles at Edmunds, NerdWallet, and eventually to starting my own consultancy focused on supporting UX careers through coaching and training.
A year into consulting, I received a lung cancer diagnosis. (You can read more about that journey here.) Even though treatment was limited to surgery and my cancer was manageable, the diagnosis shifted my perspective. When I returned to work, I found myself questioning—again—whether I wanted to continue down the same professional road.
Even before my diagnosis, I’d been wondering about a different path. I’d scribbled a vague note on a whiteboard:
Teach movement to seniors.
No plan. No structure. Just a feeling.
Recovery clarified the urgency: life is short. If there was something else I wanted to pursue, the time to begin wasn’t “someday.” It was now.
Coming Full Circle
Today, I’m shifting my energy back toward teaching and spiritual direction—returning to the practices that have supported me for decades. My focus now is on helping people meet the demands of daily life with greater ease, strength, and resilience.
Looking back, my path has always revolved around one continuous thread:
exploring how people live—whether while using technology or through their bodies—and helping them do that with more clarity and capacity.
And that’s the work I’m excited to continue.