I bring a particular mix of tools + life experience to my work. That’s what makes it unique. Here you can find deeper understanding of how I ground it all together. Read on!

Spirituality

I see all of us being here on a spiritual path. More or less aware of it, but all on the path.

I’ve been aware of my spiritual path since I was a kid. Spirituality got much more concrete to me when I was 16. I had been unsatisfied with the answers I got to big life questions. I knew there was much deeper meaning to the being here now than the perspectives I was offered by school and the society I lived in. So I searched beyond it.

In 1996 I found Tibetan Buddhism. One day I saw a flyer at my school dance, and soon I found my first teacher. At 16 I took my first introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, and soon I took refuge. Soon I took my first trip to the Himalayas. I never stopped studying Tibetan Buddhism - Mahayana and Vajrayana.

In 2001, when I was living with a small tribe in Amazonia, I got Malaria. This would be my first near death experience. I spent 3 weeks in and out of consciousness. That experience took me to a realm somewhat outside of life. As I recovered, I had to integrate a new understanding of life, of myself, and of death.

In 2006, I had my second near death experience in a car accident. Surviving that propelled me on a deeper questioning of “Who am I?”. I started to study Advaita-Vedanta, the tradition of self inquiry, often called non duality. The old notion I had of myself, my identity, that clearly separated construct of myself as Rita, gave way to a much broader experience of myself as the awareness. At the same time, in my Buddhist studies, I was exploring the nature of emptiness. I spent a season in the Himalayas integrating these experiences.

For me, the deepest way to live spirituality is living my life consciously. To keep calling myself to the present moment, to the nature of impermanence, to kindness and compassion. Responding to life as it is, accepting everything that happens as part of it, and staying committed to radical presence.

In 2017 I had a third near death experience, and that one brought me a more clear calling to be in service to life. The creation of this website you’re reading is a reflection of that gained purpose. What I experienced then was that wisdom had to be shared.

Nature connection is also a part of my spiritual path. I became aware of my need for it when I lived in London, and had a hard time understanding what was affecting my system so much. After long reflection, I realized that I was experiencing Nature Deficit Disorder. Later, in the process of integrating my dear death experiences, I found out that the best way I know to get back to the blissful state of the near death, is to sit and meditate in nature.

Yoga is also part of my grounding routine. On my first trip to India in 2004 I started studying yoga in a balcony overlooking the Ganges river in Varanasi. In 2012 I took a Yoga Teacher training course in an ashram in the south of India. Even when I became an ultralight traveler, I usually carry a yoga mat.

Meditation + breathing exercises are practices that ground my being. I feel grateful for them every day since I was 16. I cannot imagine life without it. The meditative state and the attentive flow of air keep me connected to myself, and allow me to be present and at ease.

When working with clients, all of this personal work transpires and informs the interaction we have. In the moments we are inter-being, my presence is expanded by my daily practice. I also use some of my spiritual knowledge as suggestions and reflections. Being very present has a direct impact on the other person.

Psychotherapy

I believe I’m a natural born psychologist. Since I remember myself I’ve been in awe of the human condition. I love people and the richness of interpersonal relationship.

I studied Psychology at university for 6 years: 5 years in Lisbon, Portugal + 1 year in Toulouse, France. I specialised in systemic psychology. I felt aligned with a quantic approach to life. It always looked clear to me that the systems we are part of inform our behaviour, at the same time that we affect those same systems with our being.

After finishing my first masters, I wanted to learn from the world. I craved a multiplicity of viewpoints about humanity. I wanted to immerse myself in cultural difference. I went on several year long trips, and expanded them to moving to a variety of countries around the globe. It’s been 100 countries now, and the unique experience of living in over 20 of them, brought me the ability of looking at everything with many different perspectives.

I took a second maters in Cultural Studies in London, United Kingdom. I was looking for a strong emphasis in Philosophy to explore how systemics came to be, how thought evolved from a cartesian, mechanistic, Newtonian perspective, to a fluid, nonlinear, ever transforming, systems view of life.

Somewhere along my studies in the big grey city of London, as I was going through a challenging time in life, and navigating my first Saturn return, I felt a huge need for nature & community. The following years of my life were dedicated to making those two a more central part of life. In the process, I prepared myself to help others deepen their own connection to the natural world + form networks that are supportive and life affirming.

I moved to the Findhorn community in the North of Scotland, for a big life changing experience. I learned to live cooperatively, to be embedded in a system that was supportive of my growth, to live with conscious common purpose, to think as “we”, while we lived at a scale that was comfortable and graspable to my human brain & heart. The comfort of living like that, with the gigantic worldview change it brought to my life, shapes a lot of who I am. Life at Findhorn helped me share my uniqueness.

I learned eco-village design, or design of sustainable communities. I’m particularly interested in social design + worldview design: Why do we live together, what are our common goals? How do we take decisions together? Who decides what? Who decides who decides what? How do we communicate? How do we transform conflict? What do we celebrate and how? What is the worldview that creates our common ground? What is the glue that keeps us together? How is our living together contributing to the wider world? How do we support life on Earth?

In Scotland I studied Deep Ecology, The Work that Reconnects, and Active Hope. These practices help me to be aware of my part in the greater scheme of life, so that I can never see myself as a separate individual being. It is also a spiritual practice. Once we expand our ego self into an eco self, we are never alone, and we get a profound awareness of ourselves as nature. We remember that we belong here, and our unique gifts are important and needed. From that standpoint, making choices that are life affirming and support life on Earth become natural and effortless.

I progressed very fluidly to the research and practice of eco psychology and nature based practices. I’ve been incorporating them in my work with collectives and individuals + in my own personal practices.

After a few years of working with communities and collectives, and always finding individual issues that would show up in the process of making our collective contributions, I am now exploring applying all of the collective knowledge to my one on one work with clients. The results I am seeing are beautiful and powerful.

Since 2001 I’ve been doing somatic awareness practices. I started with Body Mind Centering, and then also Somatic Experiencing, Yoga for Trauma, and Authentic Movement.

I always keep a systemic approach while working with individuals. At the moment I do a lot of attachment style work + trauma therapy, where I also use eco psychology, and my spiritual background + my experience of living and traveling in 100 countries and many cultures. The experience is rich and fulfilling, and it is a joy for me to see clients thrive in the world and enliven their connections.

Every human being is an individual, a system + a part of several other systems, and ultimately part of nature. The work we do at any of those levels is always reflected all over the web of connections. When one human being is doing their inner work, we are co-creating a more beautiful world.

Travel

I’ve spent 23 years of my life living nomadically, and I’ve always seen traveling as my spiritual practice, my favourite self development tool, a way to keep present to my inner self, and a playing field for the unfolding of miracles. Traveling is my direct entry point to divine beauty. It has always been my way of living from my Higher self. Traveling shows itself to me rather than being manufactured by me. I trust traveling more than most things.

Since I was 17 I remember friends asking me for help organising their trips + helping them trust themselves as travellers. I’ve always been passionate about this. I spent thousands of hours in my life doing it. As I got so used to supporting friends overcome their blockages to travel, I got to see the power of working on these, and how overcoming these setbacks affects many other areas of life. This was part of the inspiration for my Travel Mentoring sessions.

In 2004, in Kathmandu, I was for the first time invited to work as a travel leader. Back then I wasn’t interested in it. Then, around 2009-2010, friends started being nicely insistent in asking me to take them traveling. Initially I felt a lot of resistance, because I mostly travel alone. It wasn’t an immediate yes for me. In 2016 I walked 1500 km in the Himalayas, with some breaks for meditation retreats. At that time I felt like starting to take groups of people traveling. My call was mostly to take people to connect with nature and to immerse themselves in the cultures I mostly admire around the globe.

In 2017 I joined a Portuguese travel agency, co-designed a trip to Tibet with them, and took 3 wonderful groups there. Seeing the impact of traveling in others is one of my favourite things in life. In 2018 I co-designed a Japan trip for the same agency. Then the pandemic started and the Japan trips that were booked got canceled. Traveling got to a standstill across the globe.

During the 2020/21 lockdowns I had time to meditate and reflect more profoundly on what it is that I am looking to offer people as traveling experiences. I left the Portuguese travel agency, and started designing my own trips. What I want to share are self development + life expanding experiences through traveling. I can’t wait to start taking groups to some of the places I most admire in the world. It’s going to be transformational & beautiful.

Bringing it all together

How does it all come together for me? While I know that for some people this may sound like a complex combo of fields, I trust the things I’m passionate about to be the exact things that I’m here to share with the world. For me, my deeper connection with life comes from spirituality, psychology, nature, community, and traveling. While I could force myself to pick one and work only with that, or to separate things into different businesses, I trust that it’s the unique blend of them that makes what I do special. It’s in the mix of them that I become my brightest self.

If you join one of my trips you will find it infused with spirituality, and there will be a focus in nature connection + a purpose of supporting a psychological development of self awareness.

If you come to see me for astrology, I will take a psychologist stance on it.

If you meet me for spiritually focused psychotherapy sessions, I will be bringing my spiritual self to our time together, and I will stay attentive to sense if and when I can offer you a spiritual understanding of your life. I will also invite you to welcome more of nature into your own life. I may recommend traveling as well, if that suits you. I will always have a presence that brings in my experience of living in many cultures, and the travel knowledge I have.

I hope this offers a clear understanding of how all of these areas are integrated in my being and in my work. When you meet me, all of them will be interplaying.