How does personal transformation come about?

You may have had the experience of feeling as if difficult situations and uncomfortable emotions come out of nowhere. Life can feel as if it just happens to us, as though we are helpless passengers in a runaway vehicle.

Therapy helps by enhancing our awareness, by giving us eyes to see areas of our lives that may have been hidden from us before. We see familiar situations and events in a new light, often discovering insights concerning those close to us, patterns of self-defeating behavior, or coping behaviors that we have leaned on in the past that are outdated and ineffective. Therapy helps you develop new strategies to help you manage the tough times more effectively.

With the therapist’s help, you learn to maintain a curious and kind attitude toward yourself, so you can become more familiar with your personal patterns and strengths as well as the areas that contribute to your distress. Self-awareness gives you access to aspects of yourself you may never have known. Self-awareness gives you the ability to choose your response to people and situations, rather than reacting blindly. It gives you choice, where before there was no choice. Choice is empowering and liberating!

It is virtually impossible to see yourself in all of your complexity, as others do, without the benefit of a neutral, objective professional. Working with a trusted therapist will enable you to explore and discover yourself in a way that makes authentic living possible.

Distress can actually fuel the process!

Instinctively, we want to pull away from painful experiences. It may be surprising to discover that the very circumstance you want so badly to get away from may be exactly the situation you need to propel you toward your personal goals. When you are dealing with tough times, it is easy to lose sight of your strengths and abilities. It is human nature to want your struggles to disappear. It is the very process of digging deep and powering through the obstacles that often serves as the vehicle of transformation.

Challenges can be opportunities in disguise.

Life transitions, despite or maybe because of the upheaval they bring with them, can be invitations to re-evaluate your priorities and your resources. When you view your circumstances as an opportunity to examine the things that truly matter to you, it is possible to feel empowered rather than victimized. Take up the invitation to develop a more intimate relationship with yourself….get curious!

The voyage of self discovery can be painful, exhilarating, frustrating, enlightening – it’s always interesting. As you learn about yourself, what makes you tick, what situations let you thrive, what frustrates you and pushes you well beyond your limits, what things and people truly matter to you and how you truly want to spend your time, a whole new horizon opens up before you. Start living the life that matters to you.

Will therapy make my life happy?

While therapy isn’t the answer to all questions of life, I am convinced that it is foundational for happiness. No one can be happy pretending to be someone other than who he or she is. To be happy, you must live authentically. That is, you must be comfortable being yourself, as you are, “warts and all”. In order to do this, you must know yourself deeply and intimately. By helping you find the place of authentic living, therapy lays the foundation of happiness in your life.