About Therapy

You have so much to be happy about.

Really. You know that you have it better than so many.

And that’s why it’s so confusing to you – how much it still seems to be something you experience so rarely. It’s such a simple feeling. And you know it when you feel it. But sometimes lately, that feeling is so far away you can’t even imagine it…

Much less to have a moment in which you can say, “This is what it feels like to be happy.”

And you look around here on Planet Earth, and you see so much unhappiness. Who are YOU to be happy amid so much misery and despair?

But sometimes, you’re not sure you can even get to the end of the day in one piece. It can feel like you’re going to fly apart or fall apart. You’re not sure which. You keep all of the ‘plates’ of your life spinning, but lately, you’re not sure why you’re even working so hard.

Especially when there’s the fear – fear that it could all come crashing down with one misstep. Is it all as fragile as it feels? Are you as vulnerable as you feel? How is it that you can feel so hurt – but for the life of you – you can’t see what’s hurting you.

You have pain. Even though you may not call it that, pain comes in many forms. It can be acute, like anxiety, sadness, depression, or something lower-level, but equally challenging – like fear, dissatisfaction, uneasiness, and feeling lost. ALL of these are serious challenges to the one who is living with them…

You will feel better without knowing why.

Because your work won’t be done at the ‘cognitive’ level, it will go deeper. Into your chest where everything feels so closed, where the anxiety lives. Into your belly where the dread lives – at least it used to. Now it just feels like a wall, sometimes. Gut feelings? That ‘knowing what to do’ that you remember, from back when you were young when you had some courage? You haven’t felt that in years.

What if you could have that back? That fearlessness, that feeling that you could do anything. At one point, it even seemed possible that you could fly. Now you dismiss that as the ‘magical thinking’ of a child.

But what if someone told you that fearlessness was real and isn’t gone?

“Tell me more…”

If you are used to improving yourself by looking at what is wrong with you and trying to make it better, to ‘improve’ yourself, this will be a new experience.

For example, if you are drinking or eating more than you want to, the traditional way of ‘working’ on this is to recruit a part to look for solutions. This ‘part’ of you may go to work with different strategies. Things like: don’t go to the bar, drink only beer but not wine, never go to a fast-food restaurant, blah blah blah. You almost hate that part of you… it can be so bossy and so mean. And most of the time, the drinking or eating too much, just continues.

You have tried to be successful because isn’t that what your parents advised? But you have failed at so many things you aspired to… although it’s hard to say why. And the things you have succeeded at – you feel proud at times, but you can’t really say that you are any happier.

In the beginning, you will just notice that you feel differently. It’s not that you don’t still have pain or negative emotions. It’s just that they won’t seem so pervasive, so debilitating. It’s more akin to the ground beginning to shift under your feet.

You can’t put your finger on what has changed. You remember your therapy sessions. Of course, you do. But what you remember can’t explain how differently you feel.

You will discover that you don’t actually need improving. All you needed was more compassion, more understanding. The extreme opposite of what you had been doing – trying to manage and sometimes even bully yourself into doing better.

Whatever your level of ‘pain,’ you’ll notice it shifting. Sometimes the shifts are subtle. Sometimes they can be quite dramatic. Mostly you will begin to have more space around the emotions that have been most troubling.

Whether you are looking to therapy for a light tune-up or something more, the feeling of ‘better’ is hard to under-value, especially when the unpleasant emotions have been long-term and pervasive – so much so that for a while, you simply resigned yourself to living with them.

It’s such a shock to discover that there is hope – and real help – and more, even, than you ever thought possible.

When you come to my office, you come into my home.

That’s true whether we’re meeting in person or on video. My therapy room is a cozy, intimate space in the middle of my sometimes-busy home and life.

In this space, there are a few rules:

Make yourself comfortable…

My space is yours when you are here, so feel free to put your feet up, rearrange things to suit you, etc. Comfort is the key to calming your “animal self” enough to settle in and enjoy productive time together.

Show up as you are…

Any part of you that shows up is welcome in our shared space. Whether you show up together (or not at all), full of intense emotions (or emotionless), tightly wound (or spilling out all over), it’s all okay with me. You are welcome as you are.

Accurately report your experience…

This is your only job (if you could call it that). You have an experience here on Earth. What is it? What does it look like from behind your eyes?

Don’t worry about coming “prepared” with something to talk about.

If you don’t have a direction, I am happy to guide you. And you are free to ask for anything you want specifically from any session.

Sometimes we tiptoe.

Anywhere the ground trembles under your feet, we’ll tread lightly. We’ll go more slowly. Besides, sometimes we miss the journey when we get in a hurry.

Therapy with me is not about “working on yourself.”

There are a million people to tell you how to do that (just check out YouTube).

Here on this planet, we all receive this message, blasted to us from the million hours of advertising messages we’ve received since birth. They have told us repeatedly the same tired song: that we can be a better version of ourselves. And that only THEN, after we have – (fill in the blank) – only THEN can we be happy. That blank gets filled with so many concepts: lost the weight, found our soulmate, finally purchased our dream vehicle, had the fabulous vacation, made more friends, made more money, left our relationship, blah blah blah.

Here’s one way that sometimes works for people to glimpse this reality (but don’t worry if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t matter):  Think back over your life and see if you can remember a time when you felt most like Yourself.

(Don’t just blow past this inquiry, actually look for a time, even if it was just for a moment when you felt like Yourself.)

Chances are that there wasn’t anything special about that day. It wasn’t a day when all your problems were solved, or when some miraculous thing occurred, or even when you achieved a goal. Chances are it was just an ordinary day, one like so many others. But somehow, something inside of you felt more real, more present, more settled.

Sometimes this happens to people in nature or with a baby, puppy, or kitten. It’s just a simple sense of happiness, joy, or more openness. At the root of it, happiness is a simple thing.

The way I see it, you don’t need to become a better version of yourself. Instead, what helps is to ACCESS your Self… the Self you are when you stop trying to become somebody different… and relax into the Goodness you already are.

But that can still feel a bit like work.

In the beginning, it’s just about noticing that you actually are, hurting. For real. It’s a simple acknowledgment: “Yes, I am experiencing pain.” And that can be a bit tough – because most of us spend a LOT of time pushing away the pain, the fear, the insecurity, the feeling of being alone, not worthy, angry at ourselves – all of the feelings that people the world over are feeling. Most of them think they shouldn’t be feeling the way they are already feeling.

The next step is accessing a little more compassion for yourself. Most of us have a tough time with that. And we don’t know how to stop being so hard on ourselves.

But it turns out that once we stop trying to change ourselves, compassion is not that far away.

I look forward to working with you!

Hope and help are just ahead. Using cutting-edge therapy, you can go deeper into your own mind and heart with me as a guide. There you will encounter the shocking truth that you can discover your blocks and find the healing that lies underneath, along with your inner wisdom. You will finally understand what it means to ‘know yourself.’

You are not alone in this, and real help IS available. Give me a call today. We will schedule a 30-minute free phone consultation to talk a bit more about you. If I am confident that the type of therapy I offer can be used to your unique circumstance and if you feel comfortable with me – we can begin exploring.

Give me a call, text, or email: (316) 285-9441 or echo@heartgps.net.

Many blessings to you on your path,

Echo