Achieve Your Goals Counseling
(253) 857-4366
(360) 876-4609
I realized I wanted to be a therapist when I went through a very hard time in my late teens/ early twenties ( A few decades ago now!) I was in the dark, confused and hurting. I really had no idea what to do to help myself, my life felt out of control. I went to a few therapists looking for help and did not feel like I got the help I needed.
This experience planted in me the desire to reach out to people in pain and be a real resource for them. I wanted to learn to provide safety, acceptance and a genuine desire to understand their unique experience, and to help them uncover their voice, their strengths, and there hopes.
My overt symptom was of an addictive nature: I had an eating disorder. The other thing I learned from my experience is that symptoms are the expression of the pain, often because we have no words yet to describe it. I didn’t know how to express what was wrong, and this made it especially difficult for me to feel like others understood.
I am aware of this with my clients also, that they may not be able to articulate what exactly is wrong. The symptoms they suffer from are often expressing it in some way. Therapy thus becomes a place to learn a new language, the language of our inner voice, the language of our hearts our unmet needs and our deepest desires.
My view is that our lives are a process of growth and healing, sometimes we get clogged up and the growth & healing is blocked. Therapy is a place to come and get it going again, remove the obstacles, whether it is beliefs, habits, or ways of perceiving that are blocking the natural process of our lives.
