the arena: in session

Feb 9

Good job. You took the leap. You reached out, did a consult, and now we are going to sit together. Here is a bit of what you may experience…

In a typical session, you can expect to work with a range of modalities suited to your unique being and what is showing up in your life at the time. We will take our first sessions to hear your story and identify what goals you have and design a treatment path that feels empowering for you.

I will ask loads of questions or you will talk a lot those first sessions. I will be gathering feeling, essence, information, pain points, symptoms, and hopes from our time together.

Your nervous system will be feeling me out… and honestly mine will be doing the same. This is part of the magic. We will create a safe space together.

You may feel the rush of blood to your face or the racing of your heart. You may feel afraid to speak about the pain or begin to work on the trauma. You may be scared to share things you have never said out loud. You may even begin to judge me or yourself as a defense mechanism that is trying to keep you from the vulnerability that you are leaning towards.

You may feel the lump in your throat as you are holding back the tears. I will be sitting in the gold chair hoping that you let them fall. Hoping that you can relax enough into the moment for the tears to water your face and baptize your soul.

I will probably say something like…

“I love your tears and they are welcome here.”

It may take many sessions to develop that safety and that’s okay.

You may feel desperate for relief and I might remind you that it takes time and this work of unlearning, learning, shedding, untangling, healing, and becoming takes time.

I will be here with you committed to this work.

But here is the thing... I cannot do the work for you.

You will have to embrace the uncomfortable and the vulnerable in order for change to happen.

I am a deeply validating and warm therapist but I will also challenge you to get in the arena.

We can’t sit on the sidelines and expect deep change in our lives. We must get in the game. The space that we create in therapy can be the proverbial weight room, rehearsal hall, training field for the game outside in your life.

You are being invited in this space to Dare Greatly with your life.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
— Theodore Roosevelt

It may get messy. It may get worse before it gets better. It may be an easier road for you and the integration process happens naturally. Whatever your journey has for you in this season… I am here for it.

Many of us stay stuck in patterns and ways of being that are all we have ever known and experience shame because nothing seems to change as hard as we try.

I hope to help you uncover the blocks in the way of your healing but I can't do it for you. Like a midwife can not push the baby out of the canal for the mother, we can not create the new life you long for without YOU.

As your emotional/spiritual midwife I will: