aka. What I would say to you if I wasn’t afraid of hurting your feelings
Based on my 15 years of experience as a trauma therapist
1. You will get as much from this as you are willing to invest
Time
Energy
Vulnerability
Money
Time, money, vulnerability, energy
That is as far as I can take you in this co-created space.
2. There is so much you can’t hide from me…
You will reenact relational patterns in session that show up in your daily life.
Relational patterns we discover in session (more often than not) go all the way back—to your childhood.
3. Everything you didn’t like in your childhood or your past you will reenact (unconsciously repeat) in the present if you don’t heal through them. aka. with your kids, your spouse, your best friends
EMDR and Lifespan Integration (my go to modalities in processing trauma) will bring up unconscious material you are sometimes not ready to share.
That is why you will hear me repeating to my clients often that trauma work is brave work.
Trauma work is BRAVE work.
4. Once you reach the “top of the bell curve” aka. dysregulation, extreme shakiness, the only way through it is through it….to keep processing. This is so often where clients want to give up.
And you will get through it, I promise.
5. Sometimes judgmental statements or critical thoughts are brought up in you when you are in an especially triggering or activating situation that feels familiar.
Christian’s especially feel a great deal of shame admitting that these are their thoughts and saying them out loud, but these do not make you a judgmental or critical person.
You are not just sinful. You are human.
6. Part of my job is to provide a safe space for ALL these thoughts and statements (see number 5.) so that you can process how you felt in these early traumatic experiences.
Clients come to therapy when triggering situations feel impossible to navigate while maintaining their sanity.
We can sound critical or judgmental when we are processing especially triggering or activating moments.
These feelings are bringing up the past, and a therapist creates a safe space for them to be processed. So that that client can move forward.
7. I promise, the work will be hard, but eventually, we will build a scaffolding of your neural networks, your memories, and your experiences so that you don’t fall so far down the hole of dysregulation and you can bounce back into the present moment as the person you are proud of.
I have walked with hundreds of clients in my career and I wouldn’t attempt this work with you if I didn’t believe healing was possible. Our God is a God of redemption. Isaiah 44:22
~grace for the moment, healing at its root.