I’ve Been Through Trauma.
We can’t change what happened. But we can change a whole lot else. How it lives inside you, how your present is imapcted by the past, how deeply your system can digest the pain and transform it, what you’ve concluded the trauma means about you, how your full self can finally shine through.
Maybe you’ve lived through abuse. Physical, sexual, emotional.
Maybe your home growing up was chaotic, volitile from substance abuse, mental illness.
Maybe the poverty and oppression you’ve lived with have kept you fighting in ways that keep everyone at arm’s length.
Maybe you’ve lived through war.
Maybe you’ve lost people you love suddenly, traumatically.
Or so many other things. Trauma pools inside us, can make us feel separate, different, the one that has to act like we feel “normal.” But we have parts of us inside that, we fear, no one would really want to know.
I’m Anxious a LOT.
We work with what you’re anxious about and why. We also work with the anxiety state directly, using bottom up grounding, breath, attention to relieve and resettle.
People tell you to relax and you know you’d like to, so why can’t you? Anxiety can make you feel like you’re stuck in a gerbil run, dodging the next possible disaster around every corner.
The vigilance sometimes seems like an enemy and sometimes like your good friend. If you let down your guard, your mind tells you, that’s when it happens. But you’re run down, exhausted, fearful.
I Feel Depressed.
In depression, our nervous systems exist in a chronic collapse. But that collapse can be relieved and the weight can be lifted.
Maybe clinical depression runs in your family.
Maybe your coping and hope have been worn away by losses and setbacks.
Maybe you were told you weren’t worth much.
Maybe a part of you insults your effort every time you try.
Maybe you feel empty inside but can’t place why.
Maybe you spent a lot of energy constructing a life that looks right but feels like it’s someone else’s.
I’m Using Too Much. (alcohol, cannabis etc.)
You don’t have to make a huge, sudden change. Just take one step. Practices, knowledge, support and accountability.
We start using substances because in the short term they take it away. The feelings, the symptoms, the sleeplessness, the empty time. The become the way we manage. The cure for now.
And substances are good at hiding their costs, promising things they don’t really deliver. Then we might be far down the line wondering how we got here. If we can ever get back to ourself.
IDK I Just Feel Stuck.
Therapy can be a great place to find your multi-faceted self, get aquainted, and get going.
Maybe it’s always been hard to know what to say when people ask you how you are.
Maybe you get along but don’t feel like you belong anywhere.
Or maybe you generally feel pretty good but something big is changing in your life.
Or you want something big to change and need some help to get there.