Hello there, I'm Dr. Louise! 

By the time I finished my Ph.D. in philosophy, I had nearly three decades of rough and tough cycle breaking under my belt.

As the daughter of two abusive parents, I had more than my fair share of generational cycles to change. I had the opportunity to flex my decision making muscles even more when I ended up navigating an abusive ex-husband, and now an abusive mother-in-law. 

My cycle breaking work hasn't been limited to my personal life. As a Philosopher, I worked hard to break the cycles that prioritized the work of white male philosophers at the expense of women and people of color. This work lead me to study in Asia to discover, for myself, whether philosophy existed outside of the US and Europe. I discovered the rich philosophy found in the Buddhist tradition. I flexed my decision making muscles again when I decided to center Buddhist Philosophy in my academic work despite the overwhelming prejudice against this work in my field. 

As a fat person, I have had to push against the generational cycles of body shame and harmful dieting prevalent both in my family and society at large. Doing this well demanded, and continues to demand that, I make hard decisions about how I relate to my body and how I encourage others to relate to theirs. 

I know that my training in philosophy was one of the major reasons I was able to so effectively make the hard decisions required to bust through these harmful generational cycles.  

Today I use the tools of philosophy to help my fellow cycle breakers make the tough decisions that are needed for real meaningful change.