Established 2014 In Sacramento, California
Lions Heart Counseling:
Evidenced Based / Leading Edge Help for Anxiety, Trauma, Depression, and relationship challenges in a supportive and client focused treatment center.
At Lions Heart, we tailor our counseling methods around the client to ensure treatment is respectful of goals and the healing process. Making any change creates ambivalence. This ambivalence to change can be envisioned in two parts. The part of us longing for change, that pushes us into new realities and challenges. And the part that stubbornly refuses, that sabotages progress when our goal seems so near. The part of us that sabotages progress should not be thought of as something to be disregarded and forced to change. This part is our gateway to the intuitive side of our personality.
Even though many of us have changes we yearn for and struggle to overcome, we often find ourselves sliding backwards just in the midst of starting to make progress. Instead of overpowering and discarding this resistant part of ourselves, we need to find another path, an easier and more nurturing path. This path opens up when we honor our resistance by truly exploring and understanding it. In this exploration we often reveal the underlying reasons why we feel stuck.
Focused on healing helping professionals and reducing intergenerational suffering
At Lions Heart we focus on people in the healing professions because we believe that these professionals have dedicated their lives to helping heal others and yet are often overlooked by the systems of care that they operate within. In addition, helping professionals have. unique challenge to appear as if they are in charge and above the problems the rest of us face. So, this requires a unique approach that affirms their right to be human and their efforts at being competent and in control while engaging in healing. At Lins Heart we consider Medical Assistants, Doctors, Nurses, Social Workers, Therapists(Both Mind and Body), Medical Technicians, Teachers to be Helping Professions.
Our second focus is people with a history of intergenerational abuse, trauma, neglect, poverty, and illiteracy. It is our belief that these vulnerable populations often miss out on the connections and opportunities for transformation that many others have access to. To acknowledge this disparity and inequity we offer a limited number of reduced rate sessions for these clients. It is also worth noting that many healing professionals also come from these environments.
Our Journey of Transformation Begins with a Story
It is startling to discover that over 50% of people getting treated for PTSD drop out of therapy. They are often victims of trauma, police, firefighters, veterans, nurses, abused children and even counselors and ministers. People truly deserving of our help and empathy. Too often, these heroes have struggled to overcome their primal fight or flight response, just to be set back time and again.
People with PTSD are often triggered by things that the rest of us move quickly past. Some common triggers of PTSD may be a car back firing, an argument with a spouse, a siren, or even being put down. When triggered, people with PTSD may lose their cool, yell, and then feel embarrassed. They often struggle with their relationships at home and work. To get relief, many with PTSD turn to drugs and alcohol to ease the tension and distract their minds.
The book written by Peter Levine called Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma connects us to this primal side of our lives. On the front cover is a picture of a tiger in the wild. Inside the book this overview “Waking the Tiger offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity. It asks and answers an intriguing question: why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatized? By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of human trauma is revealed.”
Kevin Richardson, the Lion Whisperer, runs a large grassland habitat that rescues Lions’ in Africa. His noble work helps these powerful animals transform from suffering and despair to hope and joy. The image of a traumatized animal: powerful and struggling often desperate and thrashing evokes compassion even in the most steadfast. At Lions Heart our journey is with the primal energy triggered in people suffering with PTSD.
This transformative journey helps the victim of PTSD, the people connected to them and all the lives they touch. That’s our vision: a center of transformation for the extraordinarily courageous and those they love. A place to overcome the seeds of intergenerational trauma and suffering and spring forth new hope.
Because You’re Worth It!
