About Therapy
Picture an aspect or part of yourself that you wish were different.
Go ahead… close your eyes… and take a few moments to find that part and be with it for a moment.
Can you see it in your mind… or feel it in your body?
That part needs you. It needs something from you.
That part needs you to know how hard it has been working to take care of you, how tired it is, how worried it has been, and how underappreciated it feels.
At one time or another, each one of us…
… has had these parts of ourselves that we don’t like – parts we wish were different, weren’t there, or even hate.
Like the one that makes you have to be perfect all the time. It nags at you, won’t let you quit until every detail is taken care of, makes you work longer and harder than you have the energy for, or won’t even let you get started because you already know it won’t be good enough.
Or the one who won’t let you say how you really feel. It tells you that your opinions and feelings don’t matter. It tells you to stay quiet so others don’t get upset.
You are more than these parts… so much more.
You are not simply “an anxious person” or “a perfectionist.”
You are not any label you have been given by others or given to yourself. You are not your overwhelming feelings. But sometimes it feels that way.
Underneath your anxiety, your anger, your perfectionism, your quiet falling into the background… is a story. And a reason. And most likely a desire to stop doing these things that make you miserable, if only it felt safe enough to do that without your world falling apart.
When you work with me as your therapist…
… we’ll get to the bottom of what’s troubling you, and we’ll make it… and YOU… feel safe.
Notice your body…
Do you notice what you are feeling in your body? As we work together, I’ll ask this question a lot.
When we think and talk about stressful situations, relationships, and things that happened to us in the past, we can get a lot of information from our body. What is it trying to tell you?
What are you feeling?
What emotions are you trying to hide? Did you learn that it’s not okay to express your fear, your sadness… your loneliness? Do you cover it up with a smile? Or does it build up and finally come out as frustration and anger you later regret?
I want to see your pain and give you a safe space to express all the stuff you haven’t felt safe to let show or let go.
Observe the patterns…
What pattern is being replayed over and over in your life? Where have you seen it before?
In that relationship that is particularly frustrating, what about it feels familiar?
Is it finding yourself in that argument again where you’re never being heard, or getting the cold shoulder again and you do not understand why? When in your life, before this relationship, have you felt that feeling before?
Connect with the facts…
If we are working on a financial issue, I’ll invite you to look at the numbers. Where is your money going? Or what is financially possible in retirement? Without judgment, we can observe the financial picture and use it as a tool on your journey to financial wellness.
Making it all make sense…
People who do this work can find, over time, that there is a rich network of thoughts and feelings inside that makes complete sense and doesn’t have to run their lives.
Self-doubt, criticism, judgment, fear, and that pervasive sense of uneasiness gradually become replaced with a sense of peacefulness inside – space where you can welcome the tears, have more laughter, feel comfortable around people, enjoy being alone, earn respect in relationships, and leverage your intuition.
The result? A lasting calm, knowing that you are okay!
About Me
I believe life’s challenges, even tragedies, can help us grow…
… more fully into the people we were meant to become. I know you’ve had these challenges… so have I.
I’ve lived much of my life with a relentless critical voice inside telling me I had to work harder and that people would only love me if I performed well. I’ve awakened many mornings with a heavy sense of dread, that something was terribly wrong in my life or was surely about to happen. I spent most of my childhood in fear of losing my father because he was so much older than my friends’ fathers. That day came when I was 37.
I floundered for years, unaware of my pain at times, trying to ignore it at others. I read book after book, and some of them helped a little.
Yet, important relationships were crumbling. My dreams were at stake. Not even a year after landing my dream job, it was falling apart. Bearing so much emotional pain each day, I feared I had made an enormous mistake.
Ultimately, I found I needed a guide to help me notice what I was feeling inside, how my words betrayed me, and how my past controlled my life. I needed a safe place to explore it all. The experience of working with a counselor completely changed my life in a way I never expected.
I want to be that guide for YOU on this leg of your journey.
Would you believe that I began my career as a mechanical engineer?
After a decade of working in that profession, I wanted to help people more directly. So, I completed training in personal finance and began working as a financial planner. I loved helping people make sense of their finances, and, at first, I did that by really digging into the “numbers part” of their lives.
Gradually. I learned that what’s going on emotionally around money is so very important. That realization, combined with my own experiences in counseling, led me to become a counselor.
When I’m not doing therapy…
I’m learning, volunteering, reading, doing yoga, getting outside for a walk, or taking time just to be. I love being outside. In nature, I experience playfulness, peace, wonder, awe, and spiritual connection.
I enjoy adventuring outdoors with my husband in places like the mountains of Idaho and Wyoming, Utah’s desert, or the lakes of northern Minnesota.
For clients who are interested, nature can become a healer in our work together. Read more about that here.