Last Saturday I was so fortunate to take part in a Pure Barre class at the Jacksonville Jaguars Flex Field. The class was led by the owners of the Jacksonville and Ponte Vedra Beach Pure Barre studios and the field was packed! Pure Barre among other activities such as looking for shark teeth, surfing, are just some of the ways I nourish my own wellness. When I am well, I am able to connect with my clients, be more attentive and creative in my work. In taking time to prioritize my own wellness, I am able to be authentic and nurture my razor-sharp ability to attune to the needs of my clients.

Connection between client and therapist is so important, if not the MOST important factor in any type of helping relationship. And like meeting new friends or dating, you aren't going to click with everyone and that is okay!

I feel that one of the best things about therapy is the abundance of therapists out there, and if you decide a therapist isn't a good match for you, then you don't need to go back! Of course, if you make the decision to find a new therapist, I encourage letting the existing therapist know. He or she may offer a session at no cost to you where he or she can offer a termination session. Termination is a gradual and completely NORMAL process of therapy and technically begins the first session of therapy. Your therapist should support this concept in treatment.

So where to begin? Please keep these things in mind when searching for a therapist you will vibe with:

1. Ask friends and family if they know of or have a therapist he or she is happy with and would be able to provide referrals.
2. Shop online and Google it! No, seriously. Google it. There are online directories such as Psychology Today and Better Help you can use to search for therapists in your area. You can also personalize your search by searching for therapists who specialize in the areas you are seeking help (e.g. Anxiety, OCD, trauma, gender, or faith-based counseling).
3. Once you are on Psychology Today, Better Help, or looking at a Therapists' website, take a look at the photos of the therapist. I know of a saying somewhere that says, "you never get a second chance to make a good first impression". I would personally steer clear of any photos that are similar to the headshots you see in casting photos in a playbill. This also includes photos of the therapist doing other activities in his or her photos. Therapy is about YOU. It is not about the therapist who is supposed to be helping YOU. When you see his or her photo, visualize yourself in a session with him or her. You want to be able to sit across from this person without feeling any type of discomfort. Therapy, especially therapists should not feel intimidating or encourage any feeling of "being better" than you. Just because a therapist may be an expert, he or she is not the expert of YOU. Therapists are human too and your therapist should give you a sense of ease and comfort knowing he or she is your person (with good boundaries of course). If you are having any doubts about a therapist based on what you see in his or her photo, I would listen to your intuition.
4. Shoot your shot and give a therapist or several therapists a call. Therapist shopping is normal and I encourage it! You don't want to settle for just anyone because he or she has the availability to give you an appointment. Just as you want the best doctor for your physical health or your child's health, you deserve to find the best therapist for you and or your child. Try to remember this: one shoe that pinches someone else will fit another perfectly.
5. When you are speaking with a therapist, you may want to ask him or her some of these questions directly or do your own research. Where did he or she go to school? Did they complete a formal masters program or online certificate? If a therapist says he or she specializes in a specific type of treatment (e.g. EMDR, DBT, or CBT) is he or she certified? Or did he or she complete a basic training? Is the person a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) , Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), or coach? What is his or her background? Is he or she passionate about Psychodynamic and Psychoanalytic therapy? Solution-Focused therapy? Trauma-Focused Therapy? Gestalt Therapy? Does the therapist work with adolescents? couples? Does he or she accept insurance? How does payment work? Is the therapist in good standing with the state issuing him or her a license to practice? Have or has there been any complaints made against him or her to the licensing board?
6. MOST IMPORTANTLY: NOTICE!!! Notice how you feel on the phone with the therapist. At your first appointment, notice how you feel when you are in the room with him or her. Do you feel heard when you are speaking? Do you notice the therapist talking about himself or herself more than he or she should be listening to you? Does your therapist support your goals? Does he or she practice good boundaries? Do you notice the therapist using his or her cell phone during session? Notice how you feel in that person's presence. Notice everything.

I recently came across an article on the NBA's official website from March 12, 2019, describing a league-wide mental health initiative taking aim at addressing mental health and wellness issues for players.

This is wonderful news for athletes, the NBA, and families and loved ones of athletes as well! The battles professional athletes have with mental health issues shows that money nor fame can solve everything. More importantly, it shows mental illness does not discriminate. It can affect anyone.

Whether you are struggling with a mental health illness, or you simply want to perform better mentally, the first step to working on your mental-emotional health is to be unapologetically open with yourself and recognize the emotions you are feeling. Above all, don't feel scared to reach out if you need someone to talk to. I am here to support you in all areas of your health.

Mental health matters to everyone and I think this is an amazing step in the right direction for our athletes! You can read the original article by clicking here.

What kind of space are you holding for others? Ask yourself this: am I listening to really hear what someone has to say? Or am I listening to respond?

If you listen to respond you will communicate with defensiveness. If you listen with curiosity you will communicate validation.

When your child, partner, friend, and so forth wants to share something with you, he or she wants to be heard. Listen with curiosity, reflect what you heard, and offer validation even if you don't agree. Often times I am approached by parents who are seeking guidance to better understand and "get through" to his or her child. My response is usually simple and to the effect of: "Your child is telling you what they want and how they feel, the solution is to hear what he or she is saying". Seriously. Communicating with children and adolescents is easy when barriers to understanding are removed and words are genuinely heard. I always say, "healing begins the moment we feel heard". If or when you find yourself in a dialogue with your child, spouse, friend, and so forth, I invite you to really take a moment to listen and hear what is being said.

Think of your mind as real estate property. Each time the wheels in your mind begin turning (e.g. thinking of a response, forming a judgment) the valuable property in your mind is being sold to ownership by judgment, emotion, and/or defensive thought. Using this metaphorical mental space example, giving the real estate to listening just to hear, sets the conditions for the development of mental property that is free from judgment and can gain equity through mutual understanding and connection. Remember, you can decide at any moment to designate the real estate in your mind to become open to limitless possibilities, including the possibility of holding a space for someone else to heal and feel safe.

With all this big said, there is a beautiful quote I am so excited to share with you today and it is right below these final sentences. I hope you have a great start to your week!

"The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention...A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words" - Rachel Naomi Remen

It was such an honor to spend time with one of my most beloved musical artists, Mike Love last Friday here in Jacksonville, Florida. Mike's son, Christian performed lead vocals for "God Only Knows" during this performance and it was truly a beautiful moment in time to be part of the experience. Amazing how a musical performance can really pump the breaks on the world as it exists for just a moment. 

I came across this AWESOME picture by Michelle Rial the other day. Without hesitation I printed it, framed it, and now get to have this in my office to share with my clients.
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I always find a way to incorporate The Beatles into my practice as a therapist and I am delighted to share this with you as well! 

Enjoy your Friday and welcome to the month of March! 

Hope you are having a great week so far! I want to share one of my most beloved quotes with you. This one is by Alan Cohen:

"Personal growth is not a matter of learning new information but of unlearning old limits"

Re-read it, let it marinate, and give yourself permission to notice where or how the quote "hits" you. Maybe the quote does nothing for you. Maybe it does something for you. Whatever your experience, become an observer just for this moment. What do you notice? Share your thoughts below!

I am a huge advocate for using a strengths-based perspective. So when I meet with someone for session, I am going to ask "what's strong in you?" rather than "what's wrong in you?" 

When I would have resident physicians shadow me as a therapist in Tallahassee, I would often get asked questions that focused on finding connection with adolescents and finding ways to get to the roots of presenting mental health issues.

 I will never forget a specific conversation I had with a resident one day. He told me that during his rotation in the emergency room, he said he had seen an adolescent patient who attempted suicide by slitting his/her wrists and didn't know where to begin or how to begin talking to the teenager. I encouraged him to start where the patient is. 

Through his lens, it would have been expected of the resident to look at the physical cuts to the wrists and begin treatment there. But I invited him to acknowledge that patient, that person's pain. Yes, physical pain is obvious, but clearly that person was in a kind of pain that modern medicine, no matter how advanced, could not directly touch. 

That kind of pain can be more significant than any physical pain you or I can experience considering we can find refuge in knowing a blood test, IV infusion, or over the counter prescription can locate the root of the issue and give us relief. 

Healing begins the moment we feel heard. So why are we not making greater efforts to listen? 

Take a moment to scroll through these photos I took at the Jacksonville Zoo last weekend. And as you scroll through the photos, take just one moment to find one thing you notice about the tiger. Yes, just ONE thing...

Maybe your attention goes to the color of his fur, the detail in his stripes, or maybe you notice your own feelings about the tiger surfacing...

Perhaps by the time you get to the third image and you see the tiger practicing some mindfulness of his own, you will notice that this exercise took less than three swipes and a total of five minutes to do.
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Therapy isn't meant to be a life sentence. Learning skills and techniques that you can apply to the real world is what I feel makes therapy a powerful investment.

So excited to announce that after two years of intensive training, I have been approved for certification as a Certified EMDR therapist! 

What is the difference between EMDR trained and Certified? Clients will ask me, "what does it mean if I read that a therapist says he or she is Level 1 or Level 2 trained?".  Generally speaking, EMDR basic trainings require a minimum of six days and a majority of EMDR trainings will break up the six day requirement by hosting two-three day weekend training events held on different assigned weekends of a specific month. When a clinician will state that he or she is "LEVEL 1 EMDR Trained",  he or she has technically only completed the first three days of basic training. Subsequently, when a clinician states he or she is "LEVEL 2 EMDR Trained", he or she has completed the six days of basic training. Some therapists may find the basic training to be sufficient for what he or she is looking to add to his or her own practice. Once I completed basic training I immediately began applying the skills I learned and provided EMDR therapy in my sessions. I began to notice that my clients symptoms began to resolve almost immediately. How cool is that? People feeling better? I was hooked! 

After completing basic training I was presented the opportunity  to invest in furthering my knowledge of EMDR treatment even more and I went for it! I dedicated the next two years of my life utilizing EMDR and somatic processing in my sessions, attending monthly meetings with an EMDRIA approved consultant for case consultation, and learning even more about the history, mechanism of action, and function of EMDR. In my down time I spent hours studying the limbic system, neurobiology of trauma, and human anatomy so that I could truly understand the biology of stress on a cellular level. My training and certification was unique in that the founder of the Somatic Attachment Focused EMDR protocol (S.A.F.E) interweaved a concept of noticing and understanding how the body will tell us what the client needs and how a feeling, movement, or overall posture may be linked to the emotion(s) associated with a disturbing memory.  Being an EMDR provider requires a great depth of understanding and dedication to understanding how the human body reacts to stress, perceived danger, and how to work with a client when he or she may be beyond a window of tolerance to keep him or her safe. As a Certified EMDR therapist, part of my intensive training focused primarily on safety. This type of treatment necessitates a high level of competency and should not be used as a treatment unless the clinician has the qualifications, experience, and training to do so. I understand the necessity of keeping my clients safe and closely monitor each session, ensuring a person does not leave the session until he or she feels grounded enough to do so. 

So what's next? I look forward to continuing to utilize EMDR in my practice and would like to become an EMDRIA approved consultant. As a consultant, I would have the privilege of working with mental health professionals in the field who are interested in deepening his or her understanding of EMDR treatment. Regardless, the journey is far from over! If you have any questions regarding EMDR, Certification in EMDR, or would like to make an appointment, please feel free to give me a call:  904-280-8006