Purpose Archives - Andrea Tackore

Reality-Based Planning

March 2, 2026 by Andrea

Do you find that your plans usually don’t work?

Do you end up “winging it” after a while – with mixed results?

Has life convinced you that planning is pointless?

Realistic expectations. A key to mental, emotional, physical health and…planning. Is that a surprising claim? Think about it; at the root of every disappointment, heartache and failure you’ve experienced is an expectation that was not fulfilled. Sometimes, that is unavoidable when we are blindsided by the unforeseen, but many times the disappointment, heartache or failure could have been avoided if we started with a more realistic expectation.

First we reflect and dream. If you’ve ever been exposed to a ‘funnel approach‘, you understand the creative benefit of casting a wide net. When we begin with reflection on what has been, we can gain an honest assessment of what worked well, what did not and what our heart’s desires are. From there, we set goals. If we take the time to align our goals with our standards and boundaries, we are setting a target that is true to who we are. Next comes planning and this is where things can fall apart if we do not take the time to examine our expectations. Let’s look at common pitfalls:

Life is dynamic – Many of us plan as if life is linear or static. We set a goal, list out the objectives and begin the process with the expectation that if we simply follow the steps, we will move directly toward our goals. You probably chuckled out loud when you read that, as most of us realize this is not how life works but if we are honest, we often plan as if it does. We expect that the conditions present at the start of our process will remain static as we move forward so that we can concentrate on what we are trying to achieve. We all know this is far from true – change is inevitable but when you are planning out the procedures for reaching a goal, do you take the time to consider: What changes will affect my process? What shifts are already happening around me? What supports or factors am I counting on that may disappear? What blessings may come my way that would make this goal obsolete? When we plan as if life is ever changing, we will not struggle as much when the reality of that unfolds.
Life is not a destination – I love a solid sense of “arrival”! It feels so good to work hard for something and then finally attain it. The problem is that we can wrap our sense of worth, stability and/or well being into a particular goal and that is always a setup for disaster. Many of you reading this have learned the hard way that achieving that goal you set did not give you the sense of value, security or health you thought it would. At least not long-term. Instead of basking in your arrival, there is this creeping sense that there must be more. Growth is lifelong, there is no point where we can sit back and believe we are finished. Well, that sounds horrible…Who wants to live on an endless hamster wheel of striving? That is definitely not the alternative! Instead, let me trot out the trope of “life is a journey”. Yes, we’ve seen it on a thousand cards, posters, mugs and t-shirts because, it’s true! We must root our sense of worth, stability and well being in something higher than goals we achieve. Psychology calls that a secure base. Once that is established, our goals become opportunities for growth, not the thing that defines us. When our goals do not define us, we can approach the journey with balance and less tension. Detours happen on the journey and we have our secure base to slow us down, ground us, and help us find the path we need to be on. As you plan your steps toward a goal, ask yourself what you are expecting achievement to accomplish for you. You’ll catch the unrealistic expectations for value and security that set you up for burnout and disappointment.
Rest is not optional – I’ll sleep when I’m dead: We’re all familiar with hustle culture; the concept that good things come only to those who maintain the grind. Perpetual productivity becomes the ‘holy grail’ with down time or self care dismissed as hindrances to success. Capitalism requires continuous expansion and individualistic cultures offer little investment in a collective safety net, so for many of us some form of hustle feels necessary. Realistic expectations demand that we respect the systems in which we operate so I must acknowledge this reality, especially in the USA. However, while there may be little to no societal support for sleep and the art of doing nothing, our bodies need what they need. This presents a dilemma that must be wrestled with in planning: What is the bare minimum pace I must maintain in order to meet my survival needs? Are there other activities I can forgo in favor of the rest my body needs? (Note that rest is defined as sleep and quiet time for reflection.) What is at stake if I do not get enough rest? What consequences have I noticed in the past? Do my goals allow me to incorporate rest along the way and how do I make sure that rest happens? Adjusting our expectations for rest allows us to avoid the inevitable mental, emotional and/or physical crash that comes when we let society dictate our expectations for constant effort.
Life happens in cycles – Similar to the linear expectation that gets us in trouble, many of us plan with absolutely no attention to the cycles operating in and around us. A quick glance at nature shows that everything operates in patterns of progress, rest, regression and renewal. Yet we plan and operate as if we are exempt! How would our planning change if we took into account the cycles at play from the reproductive cycle we women face to economic cycles, work cycles, individual mood cycles for those around us, to empire cycles, etc. What cycles internally and externally affect your life? Where are you in each of those cycles? How do the various stages of each cycle affect your progress toward a goal? Understanding the ebb and flow of cycles helps us build flexibility into our expectations and our planning. The idea of seasons is another way to look at cycles and you can find a deeper dive on that here.

So, if you’ve reflected on your heart’s desires and set SMART goals, it’s time to identify the knowledge you’ll need to gain, the skills you’ll need to master and the day to day habits and practices you’ll need to cultivate in order to reach those goals. Those are the specific components of planning. Once you have them, come back to this post and review the expectation pitfalls against the objectives you’ve identified.

May I encourage you to complete a time budget: tallying the amount of time regular life tasks as well as self care and goal-directed tasks take. Remember to include the time it takes to prepare for a task or commute to where you need to be. Add in a 10% margin (that’s 17 hours) and see if everything fits into the 168 hours we all have each week. Talk about working with realistic expectations! Adjust your planning accordingly and you will have a much more effective road map for reaching your goal.

Your final step is to sit with your planner/life organization system, whether analog or digital and record your deadlines and reminders each day, week or month. Block the times in your calendar that you will need to do the things that are priority for you. Life comes at us fast so we must protect our time against the things that will very easily consume it.

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Leadership, Mental Health Tagged With: Career, Leadership, Mindfulness, Purpose, Self Care, Self Knowledge

Knowing what you want

February 2, 2026 by Andrea

Are you an enthusiastic goal setter but consistently find yourself losing track?

Did you forgo new year resolutions because they “never work”?

Do you feel obligated to set goals but have no energy to get into it?

Tune in for #realtalk on boosting your effectiveness when it comes to setting goals. We are coming off a month of reflection as we assessed our wins and growth areas from last year. Now, it is time to set goals, considering what we want for ourselves. I can almost hear the audible groan from some of you: Look around Andrea, the world is a dumpster fire right now and you want me to set goals? I get it…and still, hear me out 🙂

Goals don’t always have to be bigger and more. Goals can actually be about doing less and focusing tighter. You still with me? Let’s dig in. One of the biggest mistakes I see when it comes to goals is making them based on external expectations and comparisons to others versus our own deeply held values. That’s why reflection is so important…reflection is an important tool for knowing self – what works for you, what does not and what truly matters to you. Taking a look within gives you the important foundation for deciding what you want for your future. What we’re not going to do here, is run after what the rest of society is chasing. Instead, let’s take a look at your personal values.

Values are intangible concepts that show up in our day to day as standards and boundaries. For many years, I have taught clients that if a boundary depends on someone else’s compliance, that is not a boundary. Then, I came across material from Dr Raquel Martin on standards, boundaries, expectations and rules which beautifully crystalized what I’ve been teaching so I will borrow her constructs here. We cannot set realistic goals if we do not know ourselves well so standards and boundaries matter in this conversation.

As Dr Martin explains it, standards describe what we allow and what we do not allow in our lives. For example: I surround myself with friends who reciprocate honest and graceful communication. Another example is that I do not keep people in my inner circle who play manipulative games in relationships. If those are a person’s standards, it would not make sense for them to set a goal of getting involved in an organization that is known to have a toxic culture. She also describes boundaries as what we are committed to doing or not doing. Examples include: I am committed to reserving one day a week for restful, restorative activities, or I am committed to not engaging a restrictive, toxic relationship with food. Setting goals that will consume every free moment of my weeks or involves restrictive dieting would violate those boundaries. Are you seeing the connection?

For the sake of clarity, expectations and rules are the hopes and desires we have for what other people will do. Many of us make the mistake of considering our expectations to be our boundaries. For instance, I may say that my boundary is that you cannot yell at me when we are in conflict. Remember when I shared my teaching point of, “if a boundary requires someone else’s compliance, that is not a boundary”? That is an expectation. My expectation is that if we are in conflict, you will not resort to yelling. My boundary is that I am committed to exiting the conversation immediately if there is any yelling. Do you see the difference? An expectation communicates what I hope another will do and I have no control over that. A boundary communicates what I will and will not do and I have primary control over that. A rule is a mutually agreed upon principle that has consequences for violation. If both parties did not agree to the rule and if there is no independent consequence when one person violates the rule, then the whole thing is a waste of time. How many times have we set rules in our relationship that went absolutely nowhere? These differences are vitally important in managing our mental health and critically important in our goal setting as well. How many times have you set a goal for yourself that rested (at least in part) on the hopes and desires you had for someone else’s participation or support?

So, where do we go from here? Let’s break it down:

Start with your values. Here is an excellent assessment that can clarify what matters most to you – https://personalvalu.es/ Feel free to use it as a jumping off point. It does not have to be the final answer but instead can be the inspiration for identifying the top 3-5 things that matter most to you in life.
Based on your values, create a set of standard statements. Write down specifically, what you want to allow or prioritize in your life and what you will not allow in your life. Instead of saying, “I prioritize peace and harmony in my life” – ask yourself: What creates peace in my life? What does harmony look like to me? That line of questioning would lead to a more specific standard statement like, “I prioritize a consistent practice of solitude and quiet in my life”, or “I surround myself with people who are committed to repairing relational ruptures when they happen”. Aim for four specific standard statements.
Next, ask yourself what you have to do or not do in order to maintain those standards. Those are your boundaries. Where do you have power in what you will and will not do? Again, be specific. Instead of saying, “My boundary is I protect my peace”, you would say, “I set aside one day a week for a time of sabbath rest and outside of a life or mental health emergency, I do not schedule anything else on that day”. Or, “I will not engage vulnerable conversations or activities with someone who has not repaired a rupture”. Aim for four specific boundary statements.
Once you have your standard and boundary statements, think about what you want for yourself this year. That is the time frame we’re focusing on right now. What are your hopes and desires for community, emotional health, physical health or career? Brainstorm ideas and jot those down.
Now choose one desire or hope and consider a goal you could set to help you actualize that desire. How would you need to change in order for that hope to come to fruition? Maybe I realize I do need to develop a regular practice of solitude and quiet or maybe I need to cultivate a new friendship that will be healthier than what I’ve had in the past. Remember, goals can be about doing less and focusing more. You may want to play around with a couple of your desires in order to finalize which one lends itself best to a goal for the year.
Once you have a goal statement – check it against your boundaries and standards. Does that goal align well with them or would it require you to compromise a standard or boundary? This alignment check will save you a world of frustration.
Now, back to being specific. It’s not enough to say, “my goal this year is to have more quiet time”. I need to get specific: “My goal this year is to have one day a week with nothing scheduled so that I can pursue restful, restorative activities”. Making things measurable helps a lot with specificity. Notice the difference between “more quiet time” versus “one day a week”. Make sure your goal has a specific measure – a trackable number.
Is your goal attainable? Maybe I have a specific goal of building an inner circle of three close friends this year. Could I build a whole new community of friends in a year? Probably not. This goal requires the participation of others so we have to be very cautious. There’s nothing wrong with this goal on paper but because it has that tenuous component of involving others, we may need to focus in even more specifically. Number of friends is trackable but not within our complete control. So I might clarify my goal to be: I will participate in 26 connection-building activities with potential friends this year. The difference is, I have greater control over how many times I “put myself out there” and far less control over whether or not the people I meet have the qualifications for healthy friendship or choose to engage friendship with me.
Circle back to your standards and boundaries to make sure you’re still in alignment.
Now, ask yourself – what obstacles will I face in pursuing this goal? How will I overcome those? This is your reality check. You walk a fine line here between recognizing that change is always challenging AND there are systems and factors in place that you cannot control. Maybe you’re a single mother of 2 without a strong community of support and you literally cannot remember the last time you had a day to yourself. This is the step where you adjust your goal from a weekly day of quiet to a monthly or even quarterly day of quiet. Maybe, as you consider what you would have to overcome to reach your goal, you realize that there is a specific obstacle that should be your focus instead of the original goal. For example, I want to pursue healthier friendships and I set the goal of 26 connection-building activities but as I consider the obstacles, I realize that my job sucks every bit of life and energy out of me and I rarely have the energy to think of creative connection, to show up to events where I could meet people, or plan/choose said connection-building activities. This is the point where I realize my goal needs to be directed at fixing my job situation first. If that is not realistic at this point, perhaps I change my goal to a focus on recovery from work with a commitment for one small step I can take this year toward a long-term job change.
Remember to check in with your standards and boundaries to make sure that your final goal is in alignment.

Notice we haven’t made a plan yet. Just this process of self awareness and goal setting is more than enough and requires time and attention if it is to be effective. For now, place your standard and boundary statements somewhere you will see them regularly and set a reminder in your calendar for a regular interval (weekly, monthly?) where you will honestly examine your daily choices to see if you are living in alignment with your standards and boundaries.

Stay tuned next month, we will look at planning from a realistic perspective so take the time now to examine within and to decide what you truly want for yourself!

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Mental Health Tagged With: Boundaries, Purpose, Self Knowledge

Work-Life Harmony

July 10, 2025 by Andrea

Frustrated that you can’t seem to balance work demands with your personal life?

Wondering how your job affects your mental health?

Before we get into the details of our personal work-life relationships, let’s look at the bigger picture. Every society has a philosophy about human rights and work. The continuum stretches from having to earn every scrap of dignity and provision, all the way to a focus on each person contributing to the greater good with dignity assumed and provision a byproduct of impact on the community. Where does your society fall on this continuum?

At its core – work is always about economics, whether scrapping to pay basic bills, or managing/preserving great wealth. It is impossible to talk about work without awareness of economic systems. Capitalism demands continuous expansion in order to operate so every person must contribute through both productivity and consumerism, making rest a liability. The machine has to be fed 24/7. This is our context if we live in the US, which significantly shapes our career experience.

That larger context can trickle down into our family of origin, creating more specific messaging like, “you are only as worthwhile as your ability to meet everyone’s needs”; “if you don’t behave the way we need you to, we can treat you any way we like”; “you better earn your keep around here, nobody gets a free ride”; “if you are struggling, you must have done something wrong so you don’t deserve help”; “only weak people need help”; or “you better look out only for yourself”, to name a few…

So how does work interact with our personal lives?

Body

When we purchase a new electronic item, the first thing we have to do is ensure that it is charged before we can use it or we must plug it in to a power source. This simple dynamic is a perfect example of how our bodies function: we need fuel (rest and food) before we can function. Yet…we don’t act like that is true. How many of us work first and rest later? How many of us produce first and take in fuel later? We act as if we have to earn rest and food instead of recognizing that we cannot produce without first fueling up. Sound familiar? There’s the context I mentioned – it’s the water we’re swimming in.

Putting the cart before the horse – demanding production before fuel – places enormous stress on the body and where does that lead? Heart problems, digestive issues, weakened immune system and a host of other physical ailments.

Pause: Reflect on your physical health. Have you been experiencing headaches, muscle tension, fatigue, sleep problems, chronic pain or any of the other consequences of stress? If so, could your work be a source of the problem? Your focus is simply on awareness at this stage.

Soul

When I ask clients about their relationship with work, I often get a baffled look. Relationship? What do you mean? I’m referring to the way in which we relate to our work. How do we feel about it? What purpose does it serve in our lives? Is it a life giving part of our world or is it soul draining? These dynamics and more, comprise the relationship we have with our job and life experiences largely dictate this relationship. Have you experienced poverty? That can either drive over commitment to work or can wire the brain into a ‘poverty mindset’ that expects a low-paying existence. Did your primary caregivers show you that relying on others was not a good idea? Work can become the tool we use to ensure our independence, keeping us too busy for the entanglement of relationships. If love in our family of origin was only offered when there was achievement and productivity…well, we carry this mindset into our careers – making ‘success’ our holy grail. On the other hand, exposure to work as contributing to society, carried out with healthy boundaries and functional teams can set expectations for a fulfilling career that does not harm every other area of our life.

Another important dynamic is being the member of a marginalized group in our society. This presents relentless challenges in the workplace from microaggressions to outright discrimination. Being perceived as less than most days, takes a tremendous toll on one’s mental health and having to work twice as hard to disprove negative assumptions erodes not only emotional health but physical health as well. Add in the gaslighting of those who would try to say that these challenges do not exist – and you have a recipe for breakdown. The few who rise above these challenges are held up as the standard rather than the exception, and used as an excuse to ignore the very real obstacles that the rest face.

Most of us spend at least thirty six percent of our waking hours working! There is no way that work does not affect our thoughts, feelings and behaviors across the board. The fact is that our relationship with work, when unhealthy, can lead to anxiety, depression, mood swings, irritability, difficulty concentrating, impaired cognitive functioning, and substance abuse. Yes, our soul health is set up by our childhood years but work is a major proving ground for those foundational dynamics. Our work makes or breaks generational trends.

Pause: Reflect on your soul health. Does work intrude on your relationships? Do you feel guilty when you’re not working? Do you rarely have time for fun outside of work? Are you realizing a lot of your stress and anxiety is work-related? Take note of what you are seeing here.

Spirit

In faith communities, there is often conversation around one’s calling – the thing we were created to do. Ideally, choosing our work within the context of relationship to a Higher Power should lead to a career that honors our natural giftings and offers a sense of purpose and fulfillment. That relational foundation also becomes another source of fuel for the work we do.

There are two major threats to this ideal: 1) the reality of economic systems which care little for purpose or fulfillment and 2) the entangling of calling with worth. There is a special kind of misery for those who have a clear sense of calling but who find themselves in an unrelated job due to economic pressure. That discrepancy gnaws at the soul. Calls to simply “have faith” and take the leap toward what we are meant to do are easily lobbed from the sidelines…from those who will not bear the economic consequence. Even if we are working in our calling, our job can easily become the thing that pays our bills more than a faith offering. Then there is the trap of earning favor with our Higher Power through working “as unto the Lord”. Rather than the gift we were built to give the world, work becomes the way we prove our devotion

A few years ago, I harbored a lot of concerns about our business and its economic viability. We had chosen to operate in ways contrary to the usual business practices in our field, based on directives we believed came from God. We had a calling to build a practice of integrity, freedom and depth which does not align with the financial realities of healthcare in the US. As I engaged ongoing conversation with God about this, I distinctly heard this truth: “Your provision does not come from the work you do. Your provision comes from Me (God). You don’t work to pay your bills. You work to build my kingdom as I direct you.” While I would have always said God was my provider, I promise you, that is not how I approached my work. If I am honest about what I subconsciously believed, paying my bills was entirely up to me and the work I was willing to put in. Clearly, this means I applied the same idea to my husband as we are in this together. God helps those who help themselves…amiright? (insert eye roll here) That word from God was a lightning bolt! It aligned with what I would have claimed to believe but I had never considered such a plain and clear summary and I certainly had not been thinking or acting out of that truth.

Pause: If you ascribe to a particular spirituality, what is its view of work? Have you ever considered what you were created to contribute to the world? Do you have a sense of purpose and fulfillment in your work? Do you believe your job aligns with your calling? What do you truly believe about the source of provision for your needs?

So where do we go from here? I stopped using the word “balance” with this topic because that has come to represent an unrealistic pressure to give everything in life an even amount of attention. That isn’t realistic. The word I use instead is “harmony” which asks the questions: Is my work bringing more positive to my personal life than negative? Is my personal life bringing more positive to my work life than negative? This post has majored on awareness and it is my hope that you now have clarity about aspects of your career that you may never have considered.

Your next step is to use your awareness to make a plan. Where are there gaps between what you see and the goal of work-life harmony? Identify these discrepancies and then generate a list of ideas for addressing each one. Brainstorm with others who are further along in their journey of harmonizing. Remember to think short term and long term. Some gaps cannot be closed in a year but that does not mean you should abandon the mission. Keep a separate list of options – short term strategies that respect your current limitations and long term objectives that break out of current boxes and move you toward the ideal. You can then back up from those long term goals to identify small steps you will take now to start moving in the right direction. We overestimate what we can do in the short term but we underestimate what we can change over time! Then it is time to take action – start taking those baby steps. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and reach out to us if you want to unpack the childhood messages that drive your career.

We have a LinkedIn profile where we want to continue this conversation about work-life harmony. What questions do you have? What would you like to hear more about? Comment below!

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Mental Health, Mind-Body Tagged With: Career, Mind Body Connection, Purpose, Self Knowledge, Vocation

Vision

October 28, 2022 by Andrea

Have you given up on dreaming big in this season of unpredictability and global chaos?

Wondering how you can recapture your joy for life?

Join us on a journey of building Vision!

I don’t know about you, but I feel as if the last few years have been an exercise in wandering – it has been so difficult to set goals, make plans or set expectations when at any moment, things can be upended. All of us dealt with the complete upheaval of life that COVID brought in 2020; many of us witnessed propaganda, viewpoints and behaviors from loved ones during global and cultural crisis that we would never have expected; thanks to ongoing supply shortages and the long-overdue revolution of a workforce tired of being exploited – gone are the days when you can order an item or step into a store and assume that it will be available at whim. Inflation is rapidly changing our financial expectations. Anyone who has traveled recently knows that we do well to hold travel plans loosely. Justin and Andrea took a vacation/scouting trip last summer where not.one.single.planned task or event went as intended. Not one. Coming home early was definitely discussed but it got to a point where it was downright comical how predictable it became that whatever we planned would fall through or be delayed in an endless variety of ways. Experiences like this have made it very difficult for many of us to generate motivation for specific goals or plans. I have said many times out loud that without a vision, the people perish.

What happens when we have no feasible vision for the future; when our days are a series of unfortunate dynamics – both globally and domestically? We become focused on the negative, the unpredictability, the instability, the worries of what’s next?. Problem is, the science of neurology tells us that we move toward what we ruminate on. I find that we so often focus on what is not as we would like or what we don’t want in our lives: I need to stop doing [insert dysfunction here]. The problem is, this thing we don’t want is the mental ‘vision’ before us and though we are running from it, we somehow find ourselves entangled in it. That’s because we must decide what behavior or thought we want to replace it with. What need is that dysfunction trying to meet? How can we meet that need in a healthier way? Time and time again, in my own life and in the lives of clients, success is finally achieved when we stop worrying about the thing we don’t want and focus on it’s desirable replacement instead! So, for example – instead of saying, why bother making plans – it will all fall apart anyway, we ask ourselves, what character quality do I want to cultivate in myself? and focus on the steps required to do so.

It is this understanding of the importance of focusing our brains on what we value that inspired me to launch a vision-boarding quest as we close out the year. The reality is, life is not settling back into ‘predictability’ anytime soon. The overdue bills from corporate greed and environmental abuse are coming due. War is brewing in a world that no longer has the luxury of dissociating from conflict in other hemispheres. Now, more than ever, we must develop the ability to focus our minds on possibility and values if we are to avoid throwing our hands up in defeat. I want to facilitate a fun-filled process of identifying what matters to each of us in this season and create together, a visual representation to which we can refer, throughout the next year.

Vision boards have been used for all sorts of goals: professional accomplishments, material possessions, travel wishes, physical milestones, etc. For the past several years, I have used vision boards to illustrate a value or concept that I believe God is emphasizing in my life at that time. As we take this journey together, you decide how you want to use the process. Is there a physical activity you want to train for? A goal you want to reach for at work? A place you want to visit? A value or characteristic you want to cultivate in your life? I will encourage you to distill the desires of your heart down to what is stable – what endures despite the unpredictability of our world.

Each week in November, I will post prompting questions on Facebook and Instagram, to help you tune in to where your heart is now and what matters most to you moving into the new year. I will offer general prompts as well as additional questions that invite a faith perspective to the process if that is of interest to you. Use these prompts to journal and reflect, building a vision that is authentic to you but durable in the face of uncertainty. These posts will show up in our stories as well as timeline on both platforms. On Instagram, I’ll create a Vision highlight for our stories so that this can be used anytime in the future.

In early December, I may host vision-boarding events, online or in person, (depending on interest), where we will make our boards together.

Filed Under: Mental Health Tagged With: Career, Hope, Identity, Leadership, Life Seasons, Mindfulness, Purpose, Transformation, Workshop

For Those Who Want to Become a Therapist:

February 7, 2022 by Andrea

We are starting a new blog post series focused on those who would like to pursue becoming a therapist. The plan is to breakdown important questions to not only ask your future graduate school, but to ask yourself.

Now, as a precursor to this post, I want to direct your attention to a post our director, Andrea, has written about what it takes education wise to become a therapist, as well as how to maximize your own therapy experience. She states in “Maximizing Therapy”,

By the time a new therapist graduates from their masters program, they have spent more than 600 hours in graduate level classrooms taking courses dedicated to the art of helping people with life problems. They have sweated almost 2000 hours on homework and completed 1000 hours of supervised internship. All at a price tag of over $35,000 (minimum). Upon graduation, they must work under supervision for at least two years, complete an additional 1500 hours of client service and pass a national competency exam. When you show up in a therapist’s office, or log on to their teletherapy platform, you are meeting with a highly trained clinician who is there to help you reach your mental, emotional, and relational health goals.

Whew. The journey to licensure is no joke, but is highly rewarding to those who believe being a therapist is part of their calling. Let’s dive in to a few questions to ask yourself as you decide whether this journey is right for you.

Why do you want to be a therapist?

This will be a common question on graduate school applications. Take some time as you are researching different schools to explore what is driving you.

Every individual enters into the master’s program for a different reason, many times because of their own stories. Responding from a place of healing and wanting the same for others can be powerful.

Alfred Adler was a psychotherapist in the 1900’s. (You’ll learn about him in grad school.) He commented on the nature of therapists who have struggled through different aspects of life and the power that comes from having done your own work. Now it was written in 1928, but there is much truth to what he says.

There must be experience [for the therapists] as well. A real appreciation for human nature, in the face of our inadequate education today, will be gained by only one class of human beings. These are the contrite sinners, either those who have been in the whirlpool of psychic life, entangled in all its mistakes and errors, and saved themselves out of it, or those who have been close to it and felt its current touching them….The best knower of the human soul will be the one who has lived through passions himself. (pg. 13)

Are you open to doing your own work?

One of the best mirrors to your own unhealed areas in life will be your clients. This is why it is so vital that you have explored your own story before sitting with someone else. Your clients are not there to save you, fix you, or help you figure out your stuff. You are there for them. As our supervisor, Larry Shyers, loves reminding us, “It is never ever, ever, ever, ever about you”.

I highly encourage you to continue therapy throughout graduate school. Implement the things you are learning, allow yourself to go on the adventure. Having an openness to growth and knowing that you are selecting a profession that will constantly challenge you is a necessity.

If not, then when something comes up in session that reveals an area of wounding in you, it is so much easier to stick your head in the sand and push it down. When this happens, we can cause harm. The session inadvertently becomes about us and our own avoidance, thus taking the focus off the individuals coming to us for help.

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At the end of the day, you are pursing a profession that has a profound impact on people’s lives. You may be the first person they share their deepest, darkest moments with. You may be the only support they have at this time. Please don’t take that for granted. Realize the impact you have on people’s lives and walk through your own story. Pursue your own healing.

At the same time, you also have to realize that you cannot save your clients or rescue them from their problems (as much as we wish we could). There will be nights this rocks you to the core. There will be days you wish you could pull them out, especially when they are not a number or a “session” to you.

Continuing to walk through your own story helps you remain present and humble, no matter who may walk through your door. It also creates an environment of authenticity in the room that can be felt (even through telehealth).

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Join us next week as we continue to explore important considerations and aspects of learning how to be a therapist.

Filed Under: Mental Health, Service Tagged With: Business, Career, Counseling, Group Therapy, Leadership, Psychotherapy, Purpose, Therapy, Vocation

Therapy 101

January 10, 2022 by Andrea

So you’ve decided you would like to begin therapy.

Typically, that should be the hardest part. Letting someone in, especially someone that you don’t know, to share your story in hopes of a better life is hard enough.

Unfortunately, “overwhelmed” is a pretty accurate description to how most people feel when they try to find a therapist. If you take a second and type in “therapist in (city)”, you will find hundreds, if not thousands of options.

So, how do you narrow down the field? Let’s say that you spoke to a friend and they gave you a referral, or you found someone on Therapy Den or Psychology Today. How do you know if they are a good fit for you? Below are two good criteria to look at and what Phenix does to meet those criteria.

The Therapist’s Bio

Depending on why you would like to attend therapy or what you have gone through in life, certain therapists will be more qualified to assist you. The bio on the website will tell you quite a bit about who they are and how they operate (hopefully). If one stands out to you, write down questions so you can hear more about their training and experience.

At Phenix, each therapist took the time to write a detailed bio about our background, training, areas of focus, and how we view therapy. This way, you have a good idea of what to expect before even meeting one of us.

As a disclaimer, certifications and official trainings are great, but don’t base a therapist’s competence on only that. Which leads me to the second criteria…

Have they done their own work?

You can only learn so much in a training that lasts 3 hours or from textbooks in graduate school. The metaphor I use with clients is this: if I was climbing Mt. Everest, I would ideally want someone who had climbed the mountain before, not just someone who read about how to do so in a textbook. I would like someone who had done their research on how to help various people climb the mountain, learned how to help heal different wounds and levels of frostbite, AND had already made the journey.

By climbing it themselves, they know which pitfalls to look for and which parts will be deceptively slippery.

They also know where to look to see the most beautiful sunrises.

There is a level of competence and humility that only comes from doing your own work in therapy. Everyone needs someone to talk to and process things out with. Ideally, through the therapy process, you learn how to form authentic, intimate relationships so that those are the people you begin to do life with. At Phenix, each therapist has gone down their own journey of healing and has surrounded themselves with people to continue that process. Instead of feeling like any of us has “arrived”, there is an ability to hold the unknown and simply be with whoever walks through the door.

Free Consult

At Phenix, we have a consult time with each prospective client. This is a free 50 minute session where the potential client can ask questions and get to know the therapist before agreeing to embark on this journey together.

When I was searching for my own therapist years ago (before the graduate school adventure), I was wary due to already having had some negative therapeutic experiences. So when I was paired with a potential therapist, I finally asked questions that I had not known to ask before.

While our director, Andrea, implemented the consult idea during covid, it has remained due to being incredibly beneficial for both us and potential clients. My favorite part about it is that it gives prospective clients a time to ask questions and make their own informed decisions, instead of feeling like they were instructed who to see or stuck with someone.

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So no matter where you go for therapy, I encourage you to look at the above two criteria. Take into account professional training for your specific situation, as well as the therapist’s ability to stay present during the time with you due to having done their own work.

Filed Under: Mental Health, Service Tagged With: Business, Counseling, Organizational Culture, Psychotherapy, Purpose, Self Love

The toughest job

January 26, 2017 by Andrea

We parent as well as we were parented. That can be a comforting or frightening statement…depending on our history. I remember when I first gave birth, I was determined to do this thing “right”. This is how I had been trained to approach everything for 20 years. Certainly, this task – the most important one I’d ever tackle – demanded my best. Then, to make things really interesting, my little one was diagnosed with a chronic illness for which there was no cure.

Looking back on my parenting path, I see a developmental journey: Stage one was the thirst for knowledge. I had been essentially an only child. I had never babysat a child, never changed a diaper. To say I was ‘green’ would have been an understatement. But I was diligent and committed. I knew that there was much from my history that I did not want to repeat so I read the books, listened to the radio shows and subscribed to the magazines. Stage two was about behavior. I was raised in a culture that valued presentation and good behavior and while I was determined not to use the same punishments, I was still invested in similar outcomes. Except…this little girl was not at all interested in conforming as I had been. She marched to the beat of her own drum. Stage three was bedlam. My well crafted systems were not working. My home environment changed and my beloved was dancing at the edge of dangerous canyons. I was completely undone. Stage four found me in complete retreat. I was forced to go back to the drawing board to figure out what my true parenting goals were and how I was going to accomplish them. From a faith perspective, I began to realize that while it was easy to focus on my daughter as ‘the problem’, God’s spotlight was squarely on me…what was being unearthed within me by her refusal to fall in step with my beat? Slowly, my focus changed as I entered stage five. From behavior to relationship. From nagging to introspection – an awareness of what each conflict was meant to teach me. Not that I abdicated my responsibility as a parent. I was still the authority but I streamlined those functions and attempted to spend more time on personal growth and pursuing intimate connection with her. I am forever grateful that my final parenting stage (six) was an imperfect attempt at unconditional love. I solidified my understanding of who she was as a person…what she was responsible for (which I was not) and what I was truly responsible for as her mom. Unfortunately, I had just crested this summit when she disappeared.

Maybe you recognize yourself somewhere in these stages. It’s helpful sometimes to know that you’re on a developmental journey, that this will get better. This isn’t a researched and validated developmental theory but hopefully, it is still helpful in reassuring you that this is normal – whatever your “this” is. That there is a progression here. Don’t get me wrong. It didn’t play out in the linear way I’ve presented here. It was more like a circuitous roller-coaster ride that cycled in and out of the stages in no particular order. Once again, if that is how you’re feeling, you’re not alone.

I have a passion for coming along-side parents on their journey. I’m not a “drop your kid off and I’ll fix them” therapist. In my view, it begins and ends with parents – if for no other reason than we have the ultimate responsibility and authority to respond to whatever is happening with the child. We are the leaders in this equation. Our children give us an opportunity to grow as people in a way no other interaction can and I love helping my clients harness the occasion. As parents flourish, children naturally improve. This only happens however when parents feel safe. Safe to vent, cry, blame, speak the truth of what they are actually thinking and feeling without judgment. The last thing we need is someone to make us feel like a failure. What is needed is empathy, encouragement and hope. A place where our ugly is held and our pain is validated. Where root causes are unearthed and processed so that we move in a different direction. That is what I do with my clients so if you’re looking for a coworker on this – the toughest job of all; give us a call. The rewards in stage six are well worth the journey!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Children, Counseling, Parenting, Psychotherapy, Purpose, Relationships

The great adventure!

November 16, 2016 by Andrea

Last week, we discussed expressive therapy. This week, I wanted to discuss a related modality – adventure therapy! This form of therapy is also active and experiential and utilizes a similar focus on process. Clients engage in fun activities like ropes courses, rock climbing, kayaking, etc., in the presence of the therapist. In expressive therapy, I explained that the product was not the center – the process is. Similarly, with adventure therapy – the activity itself is not the center which means that the possibilities are endless. What matters is that therapist and client choose an activity that offers some challenge, either physically or psychologically, to be overcome. It is in facing this challenge and working through it together that transformation happens. Your therapist is able to observe the way in which you approach the activity and offer encouragement along the way. They take note of what emerges verbally and non-verbally. After the activity, therapist and client discuss the process to identify both the conscious and unconscious meanings. The goal is to transfer the lessons learned during the activity into the life challenges faced. It is one thing to discuss solutions and new perspectives. It is another level entirely to actually apply new perspectives to novel challenges – providing an experiential testing ground. There is an undeniable power in such tangible evidence..making it far more likely that you will actually apply what has been learned.

Like expressive therapy – adventure therapy bypasses the typical defenses we have in place for traditional verbal communication. Participating in a novel activity opens us up in ways conversation alone cannot. Though the research on neurological effects is sparse, it is reasonable to deduce that this form of therapy also utilizes unique areas of the brain, leading to results not achieved when sitting in a chair. We have already proven that exposure to nature has profound healing effects on depression, anxiety and ADHD. With most of these sessions happening outside, we have a double benefit. Certainly, it is also interesting to consider how the physical activity of adventure therapy may bring healing to physiologically stored trauma. In the end though, I once again emphasize the relationship between client and therapist as the safe container within which this work must occur if it is to be effective! We’re excited to be looking at ways we can incorporate adventure therapy in the practice here at Phenix. We believe these modalities, combined with the relational foundation of our therapeutic approach offer a powerful combination for healing and transformation.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Adventure Therapy, Foundations, Psychotherapy, Purpose, Transformation