To Choose Therapy

What therapy has meant to me

As a client, therapy has made a meaningful impact on my life. Being in the role of the client is what drew me to become a therapist and has solidified my belief that this work is transformational. As you consider whether or not to take this step, I want to share with you the role therapy (both individual and couples) has played in my life.

From the time I was young I had absorbed feelings of anxiety as my whole identity. Feelings of discomfort that I was sure to endure for my lifetime. I didn’t see a different way because you only know what you know, especially when you’re a kid. What I also knew and understood from an unexplainable place was that there was more for me, and I was going to find it. I used to call this ‘delusional optimism,’ but now I reflect that it was more my intuition.

I was introduced to therapy at an early age and was so intrigued and amazed that someone would want to listen to me share and cared about how I felt and what I was thinking. In my early twenties after graduating from college I went back to therapy after life transitions that felt excruciating. Throughout that time, I learned about the ways I rejected myself before others could, my need to be ‘good’ and to please to keep others close, and how childhood patterns lingered and played out in current relationships.

My therapist had shifted to carry different roles as we evolved individually and together. I healed through our relationship and began to shed the layers of discomfort that suffocated me for my lifetime. With a newfound skin, I felt like a child learning about myself and the world for the first time. I could interact more freely with what made me, me, and expand into areas of interests or find out what those areas were.

My time is less consumed by rumination, distress, and fear. I see healing as an action that takes different shapes in our lifetime, the inner ‘work’ is never finished, yet changes overtime. I reflect on how this led me to take brave steps in relationships, piqued my interest into different trailheads of self-discovery, and ultimately helped me to give myself permission to have self-compassion and face what is being reflected in the ways I had set up my world.

I believe through this work we can affect one another and heal collectively. We need each other to hold and witness what is too heavy for one person to carry. I have learned that urgency is how I look away and avoid what is. What it is that I’m feeling, needing, rejecting, fearing. I continue to work towards slowing down, being present with what is, and moving from a space of love without certainty.

I feel called to be a therapist because I feel the desire to hold others in their time of need, and value the connection of sharing vulnerable truths. I want to show others that life can be different from what you believe you will endure for a lifetime. The beliefs we internalize about ourselves and our world can change into something more beautiful and free, which must encompass our pain in all it’s forms. To allow someone to peek into your experiences and witness your pain is courageous and an act of love. I have learned so much from the people I work(ed) with and feel endless love and gratitude for being granted access into their inner worlds.