Hanna’s Story

  • When I reflect back on my life, I realize that I was surviving instead of actually living. Masking, people-pleasing, becoming whoever I needed to be in order to be accepted and belong. Hypervigilance taught me how to read a room, code-switch quickly, and provide evidence to my nervous system that I belonged in spaces that weren't made for me.

    But here's the price I ultimately paid: I was totally surrounded by people and still felt completely alone.

    You can be seen and still feel disconnected, invisible. Because when you're constantly masking to survive, you're reinforcing that you must hide the parts that don't make sense. So the people closest to you end up loving a version of you, rather than the Wholeness of who you are.

    That disconnection, from myself and others, from my truth, is what became unbearable and created the perfect circumstances for burnout.

    I was exhausted and hurting. My nervous system oscillating between hyperarousal (anxiety, fight/flight response) and hypoarousal (shut down, freeze response, depression). I had all the language and knowledge to label this hurt, but I had no idea where to even begin to find my way back to myself.

  • One of the turning points in my healing journey was when I realized I could make a conscious choice. I could keep trying to curate and fix what I thought was broken, or I could be curious and explore more about who I actually was and what I wanted.

    I chose curiosity.

    "I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." —Robert Frost

  • So how does someone start the journey of learning how to actually live instead of just survive? Well first I found my therapist. Someone I felt comfortable with, someone I had a good feeling would help me find my way back to myself. My way back home.

    It is with my therapist that I learned how to reframe what I was thinking about myself and my life. I started asking different questions. Not "how can we stop being ‘too much’?" but "who am I when no one's watching?" Not "what's wrong with me?" but "what feels true for me right now?"

    Turns out, those questions guide you home, to parts of yourself you forgot existed, to truths you always knew but learned to silence. You come back to a life that actually feels good instead of one that just looks right from the outside.

  • This is the work I do with others. Not because I've arrived at some finish line. On the contrary, because I'm finding my way too.

    As I walk my own way, I encounter my doubts, fears, insecurities like any other human on earth does. I know what it's like to start over, to question everything, to re-learn how to trust others, to re-learn how to trust myself. And to continue choosing yourself even when it's terrifying.

    This is what I know right now: healing isn't about becoming someone new or different. It's about remembering who you've always been.

Let's Connect

The Foundation of Sana Sana con Hanna

Three truths influence the lens through which I see healing. They're the seeds of how I understand this work, why I practice the way I do and the kind of space I hope to create for others walking a similar path.

Growing Up Between Worlds

I was born and raised in McAllen, Texas. A first-generation Mexican-American from the Valley.

Growing up between two cultures created a specific complexity that's hard to articulate. Navigating different spaces, different languages, different customs was tricky.

But I also learned about healing from my culture. The understanding that healing happens in connection, through love and presence, not isolation. That healing requires patience and trust in the process.

This shapes everything about how I work. I don't see people separate from their context, their culture, their relationships. Wholeness is reflected in community, it’s something we remember together.

Asking the Right Questions

One of the side quests explored with my therapist is that of my late-diagnosis of neurodivergence (AuDHD).

I've come to understand this means my brain is designed and operates differently. This way of functioning is what makes me feel good and aligned in my work.

There's high pattern recognition, a strong sense of justice, and an obsession with the "why" behind everything.

I had to learn somatic work from scratch because emotions didn't make sense to me at first.

The way has been messy and confusing. Reconnecting to your body is no joke and I find only by walking it that I am then able to meet others on this path so that we can figure it out together.

Integration Over Separation

Over the years, I've reclaimed spirituality on my own terms. I’ll offer words of ancient wisdom and evidence-based research in session as we make sense of things.

The more I learn, the more I discover how our nervous systems function as this gateway between our internal world and external reality.

How our senses can literally help us make sense of things. Where neuroscience meets lived experience.

I see creativity and artistry as proof that we generate good ideas, solutions, art, music, beauty. We are all on our own journeys, each expressing our own unique complexity. You can't reduce that to a diagnosis. We are so much more than disease.

“Sana sana colita de rana, si no sana hoy, sanara mañana”

Meet Hanna

A Few Things About Me

  • Sagittarius, INFJ, 4w5 (also 4w3)

  • Currently reading "How to Love Better" by Yung Pueblo

  • If a good song is playing, I will dance. Even at HEB.

  • My grandma's enfrijoladas are unmatched

  • LOVE a good iced vanilla latte

  • Ideal day: near water under Texas sun with a good book and a great album playing

  • How I reset: journaling, iced water, going for a walk, deep breathing, singing/playing music, being out in nature, doom scrolling on TikTok, punching a pillow, screaming into the void… whatever works on the day