Individual Therapy

“Just try harder!”

Is that what you keep telling yourself?

Another task on the to-do list. One more expectation that you wonder if you can meet.

You feel eyes looking at you and counting on you for so much – your friends, family, and clients. It wouldn’t take much (one little mistake), and so much could come crashing down around you. In fact, sometimes, it almost feels like things are already in shambles.

Sometimes, maybe, you really are the person others think you are – hardworking, responsible, strong, caring. But so much of the time, what is dominant is that feeling of inadequacy. You feel like escaping from things, but there’s really nowhere to go. One week you accomplish a lot, and the next week you feel so useless, powerless.

You know what you need to do, but…

You can’t figure out why you aren’t doing it.

It’s like being at battle with different parts of yourself: One part is longing for more – to live your best life… another part just wants to chill out and take it easy… and another disapproves of most of the things you do.

You might have tried to push out the lazy part of yourself – cutting off distractions, making schedules, establishing routines. Maybe you read a book or two on self-improvement and tried to make some habit changes.

And from time to time, you’re able to muster up enough motivation to make a change. You get inspired!

You wake up a little earlier, get a workout in, and set aside time for prayer. You get your work done ahead of schedule. You even get some extra house cleaning done, and your family notices the change. You pick up the pace, and you cruise along for a while.

But then tomorrow comes… and you do the same old sh*t you’ve always done.

I’m afraid it’s more than just a question of willpower.

But you probably already know that, don’t you?

It’s totally normal to feel like you have a conflict between different parts of yourself. This conflict doesn’t make you a crazy person.

But it does get in the way of finding genuine and lasting change.

When people get into conflict, they tend to move in more extreme directions – to polarize further. They don’t find a solution, and peace only comes when one destroys another. And the same is true of our inner lives – when we find ourselves in conflict, we tend to pick a side and try to bolster it up until we can stamp the other side out.

But here’s a dose of reality for you: this never works out in the end. All this white-knuckling and mustering of willpower just makes you feel less integrated, more disjointed, more confused about who is the real you.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not trying to smear willpower and motivation. They have their place. But there’s something else we need here. A missing link. A mediator can bring the players in this conflict to the conference table and work out an agreement. And that’s where I step in (spoiler: the mediator isn’t me).

I can help you make sense of all of this.

As a therapist, I want to help you understand what is going on “under the hood.”

I’ve found time and time again that when my clients commit to understanding their complex interior lives, they discover an internal strength, a sense of hope, a renewed confidence that they can take on any challenge that comes their way. Suddenly, they knew how to navigate the challenges that had them stumped.

You see, I believe that each person has, deep inside of themselves, the resources that they need to navigate all of life’s difficulties. My goal as your therapist is to help you learn how to tap into and develop that pool of resources so that it can be there for you whenever you need it. Then you can discover that the mediator you’ve always needed is yourself.

Much of my work as a therapist is informed by an approach to treatment called Internal Family Systems. Just like a family has many members, and the members sometimes get into conflict, each individual has different parts, facets of their personality, or sets of thoughts and feelings. These different parts can get into conflict and cause a lot of turbulence. But when we can identify them and clarify the conflict, we can really work on finding a new peace and harmony in our internal experience.

When you sit down with me for a session, we will focus on the thoughts, feelings, and emotions closest to the surface for you. Our goal is to be open and honest about everything going on inside. Sometimes, we don’t like things inside us, so we ignore those things. But I’m here to help you find the courage to face everything – the good, the bad, and the ugly – so that we can make change where change is needed.

Let’s get you out of this rut!

We spend so much time afraid of what’s really inside of us. Or afraid of what’s in front of us that we feel we can’t face. Or afraid even of what’s behind us that we can’t heal from. I see that fear in the face of many of my clients who sit in front of me. But the other things I see, from almost all of them, is a wonderful discovery they make as they got to know what’s really there:

This is not too much for me. This is something I can do.

It’s time to move in a direction that you’re excited about!

Call me today, and let’s talk about how I can help during your free consultation: (480) 466-0756.