INTEGRATIVE COUNSELING

Is Your Life Lacking Clear Direction, Purpose or Substance?

Are you seeking more calm, clarity, courage, and confidence in your life? Have your relationships or work suffered as a result of the stressors, distractions and noise of modern living? Have you lost sight of what you’re passionate about, or the things that infuse your life with meaning?

Perhaps you’ve become aware of the signs of unrecognized emotional pain, insecurities, intimacy problems, or persistent negative feelings or beliefs about yourself, others or the world preventing you from feeling whole, worthy, and at peace.

We all experience periods of confusion or disconnection from what matters most. We can all fall out of tune with ourselves, our fundamental nature, and truest needs. Thus, we might wake one day to realize we’re having real difficulty remembering who we really are. Anxiety, depression, even despair can sneakily enter through the back door.

When it comes to seeking help, there are countless pathways. By some estimates over 400 therapeutic approaches! Most of us wouldn’t know one from the next. I refer to it as Therapeutic Alphabet Soup (CBT, ACT, DBT, , IFS, EMDR, MBSR…etc). Different approaches naturally have a different impact. And one size never fits all.

What if there was an option that blended some of the best of traditional and cutting edge/nontraditional modern therapy and coaching approaches, customized to meet your unique needs, based on an ever-evolving understanding of who you are? An integrative approach that could provide you a sense of feeling safe, seen, understood, true reconnection and healing opportunity, along with immanently practical guidance towards the next destination of your life’s journey?

If you’ve sought counseling in the past but it wasn’t exactly the best fit, or you received some help but it still felt limited, or if you just know you need something a little different, it may be time to for an integrative, Outside the Box approach.

Modern Society Does Not Value Individual Expression or Veering from Culturally Accepted Norms

At some point most of us will feel a pull to veer from the norm, however slight or extreme. Our intuition will nudge us toward a decision or course that bucks traditional structures of thought, belief, perception, and behavior in which we were brought up and conditioned.

When it comes to defying conventions, certain communities in particular can be less safe in allowing for healthy questioning and free self-expression than others. Something as personal as developing a more holistic or spiritual practice, or exploring or perhaps re-defining a sexual identity or lifestyle choice can feel under the microscope of the community at large.

Fearing backlash or to avoid exclusion, we may turn away from the call, from the larger truth of who we are, rejecting the opportunity to embrace the fullest potential of what our lives could be.

In our heart of hearts, we know there’s a price to pay for this self-sacrifice. Increasing emotional pain or mental health/mind-body symptoms are often the first indication.

Such a scenario can negatively impact both our psychological and physical health and relationships, leading us further tray from our authenticity; our True Self. This is how we can become internally fragmented, start to feel lost, reliant on unhealthy coping mechanisms, often resentful as to who we’re ‘expected’ to be, or what we’re expected to do.

Integrative Counseling is available to help you identify, heal, and integrate these fragmented parts of yourself and begin living a more authentic life. This type of holistic care is precisely designed to provide you respite from the aspects of your life causing discomfort or disillusionment. Together we can begin getting to know the neglected parts of you that yearn for acknowledgement and expression. We breathe new life into them, give them voice, unburden and grant them expression as we work towards integrating them back into the whole of who you are.

Integrative Counseling Offers A Unique And Comprehensive Approach To Fulfillment and a Life of Infinite Possibilities

Despite what our culture tells us, people are not walking syndromes. We are unique, complex systems with strengths and weaknesses, and multiple dimensions that feed into one another and evolve over time. Having studied and practiced the art of therapy for over 20 years, I've cultivated a deep understanding of a variety of approaches—an ever-evolving form of dynamic, humanistic, holistic, progress-focused, somatic, integrative methods that focus on the intersection of mind, body and spirit.

I have no interest in pathologizing (medicalizing) symptoms or assigning psychiatric diagnosis, or any other type of labels for that matter. In fact, when our symptoms are re-framed as the language of the bodymind, we can then view them not as abnormal expressions, psychiatric conditions, or things to make go away, but indicators of how and where we are simply out of balance.

Symptoms are messengers. When properly understood, they become our greatest potential allies.

With my approach, we do not dwell endlessly on previous challenges, disappointments, or even traumas— beyond establishing an understanding as to what important events taught you about yourself, others, and the world. Once established and internalized, we focus in on helping you understand, reframe and mindfully detach from the story of the pain, gain presence of mind, and an action plan for a more fulfilling present and future.

I encourage my integrative counseling clients to take healthy risks in their living and loving, so as to begin re-establishing trust in themselves, and discovering the limitless possibilities that await. Often that risk-taking begins right there in the room with me, by finding the courage to speak the “unspeakable.” Because anything that can be mentioned can be managed, thereby establishing the personal power to verbalize and conquer one's fears.

As we go, you can expect to naturally become more attuned to your intuition and gain a renewed sense of faith in your decision making, abilities, and chances at success at whatever you most desire to do, be or become.

Speaking of success, I’m a believer in (executive coach extraordinaire) Dan Sullivan’s idea that success in anything is a result of applying The Four Cs: Commitment, Courage, Capability, and Confidence—in that order.

Many of us have been taught that confidence comes first; that we can’t even embark until we have full confidence in our ability to achieve our goal. In reality, true confidence is the end point! It comes from the doing, which includes making mistakes, and “failing,” sometimes many times, along the way. Once we’ve earned our way to that confidence —via commitment, courage and capability—and put it into practice, success will be within reach regardless of the obstacles that present.

We give up, or change direction just when we’re on the cusp of the success in whatever form we seek. Hence the wisdom that says if we’re not achieving our goal, change the path (approach), not the goal.

Perhaps you feel drawn to integrative counseling but still have questions…

How does what you do differ from the vast majority of approaches out there? In other words, what makes your approach Outside the Box?

In addition to being a lifelong seeker and learner, I maintain a prestigious educational background with robust training. I’m also self-studied and/or certified in many domains of knowledge, and I’m a recognized provider for with multiple psychological, therapeutic and spiritually-focused organizations (See: Home or About Page).

While there is value in strictly traditional approaches, intuitively blending a wide array of insights from multiple fields of knowledge allows me to better understand and meet my clients where they are in life, and give them what they need most at any point along the way.

In truth, no two people are alike, even though, paradoxically, we are all more alike than different! This is why in my view, an integrative, customized, and flexible approach is most often the road to success.

My integrative counseling is a holistic care model that utilizes my excellent training, 20+ years experience, my heightened intuition, and incorporates healing practices of east and west—the best of multiple fields of discipline both within and outside the mainstream psychological framework.

I'm also an adventurous type. An adoptive parent of two girls from India, I’ve travelled a good amount and have spent years practicing various spiritual disciplines, meditation, yoga, and (non-combat) boxing training.

I’ve also studied and worked with countless people undergoing a wide range of non-ordinary spiritual and psycho-spiritual experiences, and am involved in an ongoing spirt-guided initiation process. I’m also a creative person at heart—a lifelong musician with a former career as a recording and touring artist in my twenties, and I wrote, performed and co-produced a record of my own music released in 2011.

All of this and more has allowed me to be more perceptive of myself, my clients, my environment, and expand my sense of what's truly possible with the right support and guidance. It makes me a far more patient, effective and empathic therapist. As such, my clients tend to trust me to guide them through their journey of growth, healing, risking, making progress, and discovering infinite possibilities for themselves.

What should I expect during our first session?

Our first meeting will be mainly about establishing your best hopes for integrative counseling. I don’t always conduct a traditional intake session. Sometimes, depending on the presenting issue, we might just dive right in to something that stands a good chance of providing some immediate relief. As a modern and holistically-minded therapist, I’m most interested in getting to know you now, as well as establishing a collaborative alliance to begin understanding which parts of you and your life need the most attention. From there, we will embark upon our search for what would save you best.

Will I have to dig up all the difficult or painful parts of my past?

While mapping important events in your history is a part of my understanding what’s shaped you, and clarifying your best hopes for the future, I don’t believe in going too far too fast. I will never press you to divulge anything you’re not ready to reveal or face. It is true that we are all the sum of our parts and our pasts. But as mentioned, I am more interested in who and where and who you are now, and working with a future-present focus to help you achieve a more fulfilling life of infinite possibilities, despite the past.

Above all, I am wholly invested in providing you comprehensive therapeutic experience and wise guidance to help you heal and cultivate the personal, relational, emotional/psychological and spiritual fulfillment you seek.

A New Way Of Seeing Yourself, others, and the world Is Possible

If you are lacking clarity about yourself and your life, and/or if traditional methods of therapy have proven ineffective or incomplete, my Outside the Box Integrative Counseling approach may be just the key to unlocking your full potential.

Reach out now to see if Integrative Counseling is right for you by calling (615) 430-2778 to schedule a time to talk!