My Approach to Helping

Clients often say they don't want to take things so personally. Their insecurity is triggered in the work environment, in personal relationships or sometimes with strangers in traffic. This happens because we are trying to control our outside world. If things outside are going smoothly then that must mean we are doing things "right" and are acceptable human beings.

Stop and ask yourself all the ways you try to control your external environment. Perfectionism? People pleasing? Incessant planning? Even with all the energy spent trying to make our outer lives stress free, we still have emotional reactions. When we focus outwardly to find peace and validation we are setting ourselves up for feeling anxiety, depression and powerlessness.

It's really the unpleasant emotions we feel that we want help with, not more ways to please people so we won't be judged.

I help people slow down and tune into those feelings. We might be adults, but most of us don't have skills easily accessible to help calm our own emotional experiences. I help people learn how they developed these emotional triggers and how to work with their feelings instead of avoid, analyze or criticize themselves for having them.

When we have knowledge of how we operate then we don't feel as dependent on external circumstances to validate us. We feel more capable of re-routing thoughts so they don't hijack our emotional well being when we get to know our thinking mind instead of being at it's mercy. When we experience a calmer mind state, we have more choices about how to calmly and compassionately respond instead of react to emotional triggers.

This understanding of our inner world allows us to trust ourselves to handle what life puts on our path. We begin to let go of what other's think of us and even how they treat us. We let go of the reliance on others to take care of our inner world.

More Info About My Practice

Fees for 55 minute sessions are $140 for individuals. I am a provider with Blue Cross Blue Shield - HMO/POS/PPO.

For those clients using insurance other than BCBS, I provide a superbill with all the necessary information if you choose to file on your own. I also use Better, an app that allows clients to input insurance information and my provider information and Better handles the rest of the processing with the insurance company.

What I Love about Being a Psychotherapist

When a client shares "I just don't see how this could ever be different", I get excited because I know personally that we are never truly stuck in hard place in our lives. There is always a way to shift and alter our present position.

Early on in my career I had a strong *belief* that people could change, but I was also searching for personal evidence that this was a Truth. Internal Family Systems and Mindfulness work allowed me the actual, physical and emotional experience of finally feeling "okay" in my own skin. It was an experiential understanding. Not one that came from my mind wanting things to change, but from an internal knowledge that I could unhook from the pain and hurt that I once experienced as Mt Everest.

That first glimpse, and subsequent felt-sense experiences of emotional freedom have given me the faith that I hold when I hear those words from clients.

After I work with someone, and we begin to see their personal patterns, and begin to understand why they do the things they do to get through life, I often hear, "I don't think I have ever thought about it, or seen my life, in this way." And I want to release the environmentally friendly balloons from the ceiling and celebrate. Helping people broaden their perspective and learn to work *with* their thoughts, emotions and behaviors is why I do this work.

When the light bulb goes off for someone, and they are still for a moment and their mind is quiet and they are simply present with themselves, that is why I love this work. Because from there, the options for self-care are limitless. When your mindset expands, and you can access your creativity - there really is no reason you cannot have the life you want.