Hi there! I’m the newest addition to the WHCP team and so grateful to be here!
Before joining this amazing group, I spent years counseling patients in hospitals and medical facilities. Those battling serious illness and injuries. The really tough ones like cancer, brain injury, stroke, spinal cord injury, burn victims, and the amazing families and loved ones walking those difficult journeys with them. I’m forever grateful for those years and all the lessons my clients taught me. I learned how incredibly resilient people can be in the face of life altering challenges. I learned how to find joy in the moment and help people set goals in the craziest of circumstances. I learned how to help them dream for their future even when everything had changed. I learned that after grief, things may turn out different than you expected. But different doesn’t always mean worse. Sometimes different is just different. And you find new things to do and new ways to do them. I’ve seen it first hand many times! I’ve seen people go from suffering to thriving if they are willing to do the work grieving requires. It’s truly a beautiful process.
I used to have clients come back years later and share their stories with newer patients….and often they shared how horrific what they went through was. But they also shared how grateful they were that it happened. Grateful! Grateful because it taught them what was really important in life and how to live fully in the present moment. Grateful because they learned how to truly love others and who truly loved them. It always blew me away but always stuck with me.
There’s this term called ambiguous grief….a term that is especially meaningful to me. It’s experiencing grief without death. It’s mourning who someone used to be when they are still physically here. Learning to love the new version of them while grieving the version who is gone. It’s not an easy road, but it’s one I feel personally inspired to help others with. Experiencing grief and loss in life changes everything. As a therapist, I feel honored to walk alongside someone grieving the loss of a loved one…or the loss of a dream. We’ve all been there in some ways, but I believe we aren’t designed to do it alone. I encourage you to reach out to a friend, family member or therapist who can guide you through the difficult seasons in life. And hopefully, actually find joy in them. It’s possible!
