Come Back Home To Yourself
Trauma Therapy for Deeply Caring Asian Americans & Mixed-Roots Asians
Hi, I’m Nanae she/her
I’m a mental health therapist for Asian Americans and Mixed-roots Asians, daughter of Japanese immigrants, and navigator of my own chronic traumatic stress.
I help deeply caring Asians who’ve lost themselves after decades of being there for everyone else while ignoring their own needs.
I use brainspotting, talk, and somatic therapies to reconnect them to a sense of self and “home” within.
That sounds like me.
There’s a lot going on.
Too much.
You oscillate between pushing yourself hard to your limits and feeling deeply exhausted.
You’ve been told over and over what you should be doing better or what you should be doing instead. You’ve believed for a long time that you’ll never be good enough.
Everyone around you needs your help. They want to vent to you about their relationship problems, they need your help with their events, or they ask you to intervene on family matters.
But, when it comes to you, you don’t ask for help because no one knows how to help you, even though you’re overwhelmed and depleted.
If someone asked you, “Who are you?” or “What do you want?” you don’t know how to answer.
You’ve given so much of yourself to others that you now feel lost, empty, and indecisive.
You’re losing control of your life. Outbursts, tears, and doom scrolling for hours are now an uncomfortable norm.
You feel entirely alone with your mind on overdrive and your body barely keeping up.
You know something’s got to give in order for you to be happy.
You want to be who you are,
do what you want,
and say what you want to say
without feeling guilty.
There's a way to be authentically you while honoring your own needs.
How to get help
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Get one-on-one focused energy and attention with my weekly 50-minute therapy session offering.
Fee is $200.
Alternatively, I can get you a superbill to turn into your insurance for potential reimbursement, or you can use your Aetna or UnitedHealth Care insurance benefits. Learn more in FAQs.
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These intensives range between 90 minute to three hour long deep-dive sessions.
Without needing to rush to fit everything into a 50 minute session, experience the wisdom emerge from your brain and body on your own time.
Ideal for people who take more time to process, prefer to dedicate part of the session to talk therapy before exploring Brainspotting or somatic therapy, and/or have chronic or ongoing traumas and stress.
These can be weekly, biweekly, or as-needed.
Fee range: $375 - $800.
Insurance typically will not cover these extended sessions. Superbilling may get you partial to full reimbursement through your insurance.
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For Asian American and Mixed-Roots Asians who want to understand and heal their unconscious biases. This is for those who know that healing our unconscious biases is one of many steps we can take to help create a more just, equitable, and joyous world for our future generations.
I’ve been lovingly crafting a digital workbook and a deep-dive package offering.
One-off sessions (90 minute - 2 hour) available now. Packages will be available in 2025!
Visit the Healing Your Unconscious Biases page to sign up to be notified when these will be available.
You feel like you’ve lost yourself. What happened?
Over time, pieces of you left, sometimes without you even noticing. It’s like the “you” within disintegrated.
“What happened to you?” I ask.
You respond,
“I was raised by emotionally neglectful or abusive parents.
I went through unimaginable loss of the people I loved deeply, who left me behind or died.
And I endured horrible things - in my relationships and by existing in this system and world.”
Do these sound familiar to you?
It’s been some time since the event. And yet, it still takes up a lot of space in your head. You wonder, “Why haven’t I moved on already!?” You spend a lot of time wondering, what’s wrong with me? Am I the crazy one? Am I making it into a bigger deal than it really is?
You’re so damn good at putting away your feelings to get through the day, month, or even years. But, you feel a nagging pit in your stomach reminding you of the trauma you have yet to address.
Your mind zooms at 100 miles per hour and you rush from task to task. Everything is immense and urgent. And then it hits you - the crash, the collapse, the numbness. Now all you can muster is to doom scroll for hours on end coupled with a heavy shame that you’ve wasted your day.
On the outside, you appear to be a hard worker with your shit together. But there is turmoil within. A sense of overwhelm and dread with irritation and aggravation towards the people around you. Everyone wants something from you and you’re tired of it.
“Here’s a theory: Maybe I had not really been broken this whole time. Maybe I had been a human—flawed and still growing but full of light nonetheless.”
How Somatic therapy can help
You ever feel yourself cringing, tensing, freezing, or shrinking (even if it’s just internally and imperceptible to others) when you want to say “no”? That’s your body signaling to you that “no” isn’t safe, that “no” got you into trouble before, and smiling and going along with things is the way your system has learned to adapt.
This shrinking can be understood as a nervous system survival response. Let’s get familiar with your own unique system, how it’s been forced to shift over the years to keep you safe, and address the ways these adaptations no longer work for you.
How Brainspotting can help
Brainspotting for Asians is revolutionary. And it can also be challenging. You’ve been taught to follow the rules, do it right, and to feel really bad when you don’t. There is no protocol or one right way to “do” Brainspotting. Collaboratively, we get to discover what works best for you and your system. In that sense, it teaches you self-trust, builds agency, and it’s a practice of choosing what you want and need.
For Asians who’ve been told what to do all their lives, Brainspotting can serve as a healing modality to help discover who you are, what you want, and feel confident in your decisions.
How therapy for Asians can help
Have you ever been asked by a genuinely perplexed, but well-meaning white therapist, “Why don’t you just go no-contact with your parents?” While this may be a decision you have explored or will come to some time in the future on your own, as an Asian raised by immigrant parents, it may not be the one and only option you want to have presented to you by your therapist.
A practitioner that looks like you and understands what it’s like to be raised by immigrant parents can make a world of difference. Breathe a sigh of recognition and relief with me.
We would be a good fit if...
You’re ready to try and change the course of your life.
You’re looking for something different. Perhaps talk therapy has provided an excellent foundation, and you’re ready to try a new approach (body-based and Brainspotting).
You’re someone that will show up even when therapy feels uncomfortable because healing and moving on is a priority for you.
You’re interested in therapy that promotes trust in yourself as you reconnect to your body wisdom and your innate ability to heal.
You’re a weirdo! You’ve always felt different, was the black sheep of the family, you’re queer, neurodivergent (ADHD, autistic, bipolar, etc.), very sensitive, really emotional, or quietly accepted being trampled all over by others. Any of these resonate? We’re gonna get along just fine!
You’re interested in the possibility of connecting to spiritual energies, including ancestors. You’re curious about tarot and don’t mind if the therapist pulls cards for you for self-reflection. Simply put, you’re ok with the “unknown.”
We wouldn’t be a good fit if…
You’re being forced into therapy and you don’t want to be here. Maybe someone else gave you an ultimatum to go to therapy or they’ll leave you. You’re frustrated this is being required.
You think therapy doesn’t work. You want to play devil’s advocate or pressure the therapist to prove therapy to you.
You want the therapist to hurry up and fix you. You’re tired of living like this and want someone to just tell you want to do.
Simply put, you don’t think anything is wrong! You’re angry at others who keep pressuring you to see things differently.
You don’t have an interest in noticing the sensations in your body. You believe they aren’t connected to the thoughts in your mind.
The thought of connecting to ancestors or spiritual energies doesn’t make sense and it sounds like a hoax to you. You think it’s silly that a therapist would believe or think this way.*
*We definitely won’t get along!
Yup, I’m a good fit! How do I start?
Pick a date and time that works for you for a free 20 minute consultation call or video chat.
