Services/How I Work
I view therapy first and foremost as a relationship that arises from a conversation. That conversation can be transformative and healing and can take many forms. I show up with compassion, a sense of humor, good will, and holding the possibility of your ability to identify and create the changes you want in life. Using mindfulness tools, body based awareness practices, examining thought and behavioral patterns, discussing and examining the stories we tell about ourselves and the world, and creating life-affirming goals. We will begin to bring increased awareness to circumstances that have caused you pain or simply a sense of disempowerment. We will then identify the personal strengths you have developed to meet these challenges and further develop them to meet future challenges. Additionally, we may use the therapeutic relationship as a lens with which to view the other conversations you are engaged with in the world, with your partner, your family, your work, your self, etc...
From this place of increased awareness we will develop plans of action to shift these old patterns. It is my belief that these patterns were at one time absolutely essential and life-saving and have become over time, outdated and maladaptive. Circumstances change, but often our patterns of response have not, and we have a great opportunity in learning to meet new circumstances in new ways, to consciously choose and create the life we were born to live.
Once you begin recognizing your place in your body, in the other, in the environment, in a sense of spirit (and on and on), and acknowledge the relational nature of the self (that the self only arises through contact/relationship) then all acts can be seen as potentially self-loving. When you begin to see your patterns, you gain access to the choice to promote your own self-care and happiness and build loving, fulfilling relationships and a life you are excited about living.
Please read below for more information:
Picture Credit:
Whidbey based Artist Danielle Olivyea Christian
One of the devastating realities of our culture is that we have been recreating the lie that we are not allowed to need “help” or “support”, that we are to “do it all on our own”. My fundamental belief is that we absolutely need support and that accepting this is one of the fundamental crucibles of being human.