My Philosophy

“Mind-sets are those collection of beliefs and thoughts that make up the mental attitude, inclination, habit or disposition that predetermines a person's interpretations and responses to events, circumstances and situations.”

Our mindsets are how we navigate our world.  Mindsets are different beliefs and understandings that help create our understanding of ourselves, others, a situation, and the world around us.  We create these mindsets from our past experiences, our intuitions, our emotions, our relationships, our cultures, and our day to day interactions.   

When we get in a mindset of anxiety and depression, we often find ourselves unable to meet the goals.   When we feel unsafe or experience scarcity we get in a mindset that we are trapped. When we are disconnected from our partners, friends, and family we can feel isolated.  When we are not meeting our goals we can feel like a failure.  

The idea of Connected Mindset is that you have a chance to find ways to bring balance by combining all of what we know, what we feel, and where we want to go.  Therapy is to create a non-judgemental space where individuals and couples can explore conceptions of how they connect, how they feel, and where their mind can go.  

Connected Mindsets has three core values that I try to bring in all my therapeutic work: Curiosity, Compassion, and Community.  

Curiosity is our ability to want to know more about something.  I have worked in various areas with anxiety, depression, couples, non-monogamous relationships, career changes, LGBTQI issues, dealing with past trauma(s), and managing shame.  I have learned many things while working in this field. However, just because a person is coming in with anxiety issues, doesn’t mean I know how anxiety impacts them. I like learning new things and I always want to create a space where people can learn about themselves.  People need to learn their own “owner’s manuals” on how their nervous system works, what recharges them, what makes them feel safe, how do they connect with others, and what brings happiness. Curiosity is a state of mind that allows us to keep asking questions and learning more about ourselves.  

Compassion is a concept that helps feeds the curiosity.  Compassion is the ability to not create judgement, but to witness someone’s pain, challenges, and foibles.  If we see something we don’t like about ourselves we can often go into a shame spiral or shut down. Compassion is often easier to do for others than it is for ourselves.  Self-compassion is the ability to be kind to oneself, even though we are flawed people. This doesn’t mean we accept our fates, but that we can acknowledge our current space and not want ourselves to suffer.  Therapy requires a non-judgemental, compassionate space. One can be curious, but if we are critical or afraid of what the answers might be, we will shy away from trying to find the answers.  

Community is the last piece.  There is an old adage: Don’t go it alone.  We are creatures wired to connect. We need our community, or people we feel safe with, to take on the tougher challenges in our life.  In therapy I try to explore opportunities to foster community and find ways to build closer connections. This might be in building intimate relationships, managing conflict resolution, managing boundaries, finding a fulfilling career, or learning to rebuild trust.  When we feel disconnected from our communities, we can feel dysregulated and/or isolated. We need to find ways to ask for support and also offer support. We also need to feel like we belong and it is finding and crafting those communities that build more safety and stability for ourselves.