Connection

Connection is a core human need and fundamental to the therapeutic process.

I truly believe we all want to feel heard, supported, and cared for. To know we are important to someone and that we matter is essential. Connecting with a counselor/therapist who can listen, validate your concerns, and accept you right where you are, can be profoundly healing.

When working with patients who suffer from shame and guilt, I have found that acceptance is a very necessary foundation. With acceptance, patients can move into a deeper therapeutic connection with their counselor/therapist. Without acceptance and empathy, patients often feel lost and alone in their struggle. This connection becomes even more crucial when patients face ambivalent thoughts and feelings.

Ambivalence can be confusing. Often times, patients have a laundry list of thoughts about themselves that are in conflict. It’s not at all surprising since we are all constantly bombarded by expectations. Our closest friends want one thing, our family wants something else, our boss another, and we are not sure who to please or how. For patients in this spot, part of them sees themselves as successful and useful and part of them often is highly critical and judging.

Radical Acceptance – Finding an openness in the midst of judgment and allowing things to be just as they are without having to change a thing. This is crucial to making peace with these competing forces and seeing the irony in our struggle to be good enough.  Radical Acceptance is a core part of my practice and in fact my outlook on life. I have often witnessed the deep tranquility a patient expresses after accepting parts of themself they have tried so hard to change or abandon.  The good the bad and the ugly, it is all part of us, it is all useful.

It is ironic that accepting a problem is a completely necessary part to starting the change process. However, when we react with shock each time we see our hidden ugly parts, then label, judge and disown them, we harm ourselves.  Until we can look deeply at all of our parts, we can’t truly take stock of our life circumstances. We can’t understand the wisdom of anxiety or depression or how it is trying to help us change. In fact, we can’t even truly understand our problems, much less come up with a game plan for how to address them.

This is where mindfulness and the dharma inform my practice most deeply. To accept all of you with deep compassionate abiding, is the cornerstone of my approach. If you are ready to embark on the heroic journey of self discovery and understanding in a safe open environment,  please call or book an appointment online. Haven’t you struggled on your own long enough!