Are you at your rope's end as a parent, overwhelmed by your family life, experiencing grief from a loss, confused about your identity and how to manage a work-life balance, or feeling the isolation of being a parent, and need answers? Therapy services can be a guiding light at times when all you see is darkness.
If you are a person looking for answers to big questions, therapy can provide a safe place to explore feelings and practical tools to be the parent and person you want to be. Though we specialize in working with parents, all humans face the following challenges at times and therapy can provide relief.
Parenting is the most difficult job you’ll ever do. You don't have to do it alone. You were never meant to.
There has never been a time in my life before becoming a parent when individual therapy was as important. So many difficulties arise that throw our world upside down. Here is my short-list of how individual therapy can serve to support you as a parent, whether you are a new parent or been at it a while.
Relationship strain due to the stresses of parenting
It’s no surprise to anyone that having kids results in increased divorce rates. But the challenges of parenting don’t have to take down your most precious relationship - the one with your spouse. Couples or individual therapy can help you turn these challenges into fodder to bring you two closer and make you stronger than ever, to weather all the storms life will bring.
Upheaval of your identity and priorities
How do you find yourself and your new internal compass? What really matters and how do you create your life in such a way that you get to give those things the time and attention they deserve? And how do you do that when you find yourself just playing catch up all the time? The special time that therapy provides allows you to explore the changes in your life and re-orient to create the kind of life that brings you fulfillment.
Family and friend stresses
Navigating social pressures and everybody and their uncle giving their opinion on how you should raise your kids will make anyone mad. Humans are social beings, but that doesn’t mean that peace and harmony come naturally (e.g. note the countless wars and coups in all of human history!). Therapy can help you navigate difficult relationships and learn how to foster the kinds of relationships that nourish you.
Boundaries
Parenting puts us face to face with the utterly crucial education in how to set healthy boundaries to protect your precious time and energy, while also maintaining closeness and connection with the people that matter to you.
Who here has codependent and avoidant tendencies? (Me, me, me!!). Saying yes when we want to say no, saying no but feeling guilty, avoiding a difficult conversation because someone you care about might get upset, engaging in passive aggressive behavior because telling someone directly what you are feeling and needing is suuuuuper scary and hard, all of this and more is what goes into learning to set healthy boundaries. It’s hard on some very deep levels, but the good news is that therapy really helps! With your therapist, you can work through the fear, the anger, the confusion, organizing your priorities in a safe and supportive relationship with someone who cares and will accept you, while also helping hold you accountable to the person and life you want to be creating!
Childhood triggers that come up as you parent your growing child
The ways we were treated and listened to (or NOT listened to) as children are restimulated as we connect with our own children, both in moments of love and in difficulty. We want to parent differently, but find that our nervous system is completely overwhelmed and we lose it with our kids or spouse far more than we are okay with. But we don’t know what else to do! This is often a sign of a childhood trauma getting touched. Sometimes it’s an event that happened to us, or sometimes it’s just the ongoing experience of a feeling of not mattering or not being safe, physically or emotionally. Even if our minds don’t remember, our bodies do. The same parts of our brain light up when we connect with our child as they did when we were a child and connected with our parent. Working through our childhood hurts and traumas helps us untangle the past from the present so we are less likely to react to our triggers and pass them on to our children as well.
Birthing trauma
Birthing a child is traumatic. Period. And sometimes it’s really bad. Sometimes things go wrong, there is pain, injury, even loss of life. Birthing people almost never get to even tell their birth story in full in order to process it: all the intensity of the experience from start to finish, some moments perhaps incredibly sublime, and others very scary, confusing, disappointing, or downright devastating. Talking through the story of birthing, or losing, your child with a therapist who is deeply listening, who cares, who will help you work through any pieces that have felt overwhelming and unresolved can be a profoundly healing and connecting experience. You can recover your sense of wholeness and heal.
Parent Oppression
Our society doesn’t value the time, energy, and money put into the work of parenting. The message we get is: “You chose to have kids so be grateful you have them and stop complaining about how hard it is! And, oh yah we won’t help you in almost any way with this ‘hobby’ you’ve taken on called parenting or make you feel supported, validated, or appreciated for this incredibly important job you are doing of creating future healthy adults for the world. Just do it, and do it perfectly, and if you mess up, it’s 100% your fault, or maybe your parents’ fault.” Sadly most of us don’t even know we have internalized this sense of being less than because we can’t do it all or feel deserving of more from our society. We don’t realize the set-up. We just feel the effects of it: exhaustion, guilt, shame. Learning about parent oppression can empower us to advocate for what we justly deserve as parents from those in our lives and at work. See Karen Wolfe, LMFT's blog post about this topic here.
We love supporting parents and families in this, the most important (and most challenging!) job. Whether you want more individualized support for your parenting, and a place to explore your own feelings or are not a parent and want a supportive, holistic-minded therapist to offer you a guiding hand, we are honored and thrilled to support and guide you deeper into your highest truths in this journey. If you are a parent and looking specifically for a Hand in Hand Parenting Class go HERE.
In our work together we build an understanding relationship and a safe environment to explore stuck points, augment strengths, and let go of old feelings.
In all we do together, we work to build the skills to empower you to be the parent you want to be and create the family you want to have.
Email for a consult with a therapist on our team today: [email protected]
If you are a person looking for answers to big questions, therapy can provide a safe place to explore feelings and practical tools to be the parent and person you want to be. Though we specialize in working with parents, all humans face the following challenges at times and therapy can provide relief.
Parenting is the most difficult job you’ll ever do. You don't have to do it alone. You were never meant to.
There has never been a time in my life before becoming a parent when individual therapy was as important. So many difficulties arise that throw our world upside down. Here is my short-list of how individual therapy can serve to support you as a parent, whether you are a new parent or been at it a while.
Relationship strain due to the stresses of parenting
It’s no surprise to anyone that having kids results in increased divorce rates. But the challenges of parenting don’t have to take down your most precious relationship - the one with your spouse. Couples or individual therapy can help you turn these challenges into fodder to bring you two closer and make you stronger than ever, to weather all the storms life will bring.
Upheaval of your identity and priorities
How do you find yourself and your new internal compass? What really matters and how do you create your life in such a way that you get to give those things the time and attention they deserve? And how do you do that when you find yourself just playing catch up all the time? The special time that therapy provides allows you to explore the changes in your life and re-orient to create the kind of life that brings you fulfillment.
Family and friend stresses
Navigating social pressures and everybody and their uncle giving their opinion on how you should raise your kids will make anyone mad. Humans are social beings, but that doesn’t mean that peace and harmony come naturally (e.g. note the countless wars and coups in all of human history!). Therapy can help you navigate difficult relationships and learn how to foster the kinds of relationships that nourish you.
Boundaries
Parenting puts us face to face with the utterly crucial education in how to set healthy boundaries to protect your precious time and energy, while also maintaining closeness and connection with the people that matter to you.
Who here has codependent and avoidant tendencies? (Me, me, me!!). Saying yes when we want to say no, saying no but feeling guilty, avoiding a difficult conversation because someone you care about might get upset, engaging in passive aggressive behavior because telling someone directly what you are feeling and needing is suuuuuper scary and hard, all of this and more is what goes into learning to set healthy boundaries. It’s hard on some very deep levels, but the good news is that therapy really helps! With your therapist, you can work through the fear, the anger, the confusion, organizing your priorities in a safe and supportive relationship with someone who cares and will accept you, while also helping hold you accountable to the person and life you want to be creating!
Childhood triggers that come up as you parent your growing child
The ways we were treated and listened to (or NOT listened to) as children are restimulated as we connect with our own children, both in moments of love and in difficulty. We want to parent differently, but find that our nervous system is completely overwhelmed and we lose it with our kids or spouse far more than we are okay with. But we don’t know what else to do! This is often a sign of a childhood trauma getting touched. Sometimes it’s an event that happened to us, or sometimes it’s just the ongoing experience of a feeling of not mattering or not being safe, physically or emotionally. Even if our minds don’t remember, our bodies do. The same parts of our brain light up when we connect with our child as they did when we were a child and connected with our parent. Working through our childhood hurts and traumas helps us untangle the past from the present so we are less likely to react to our triggers and pass them on to our children as well.
Birthing trauma
Birthing a child is traumatic. Period. And sometimes it’s really bad. Sometimes things go wrong, there is pain, injury, even loss of life. Birthing people almost never get to even tell their birth story in full in order to process it: all the intensity of the experience from start to finish, some moments perhaps incredibly sublime, and others very scary, confusing, disappointing, or downright devastating. Talking through the story of birthing, or losing, your child with a therapist who is deeply listening, who cares, who will help you work through any pieces that have felt overwhelming and unresolved can be a profoundly healing and connecting experience. You can recover your sense of wholeness and heal.
Parent Oppression
Our society doesn’t value the time, energy, and money put into the work of parenting. The message we get is: “You chose to have kids so be grateful you have them and stop complaining about how hard it is! And, oh yah we won’t help you in almost any way with this ‘hobby’ you’ve taken on called parenting or make you feel supported, validated, or appreciated for this incredibly important job you are doing of creating future healthy adults for the world. Just do it, and do it perfectly, and if you mess up, it’s 100% your fault, or maybe your parents’ fault.” Sadly most of us don’t even know we have internalized this sense of being less than because we can’t do it all or feel deserving of more from our society. We don’t realize the set-up. We just feel the effects of it: exhaustion, guilt, shame. Learning about parent oppression can empower us to advocate for what we justly deserve as parents from those in our lives and at work. See Karen Wolfe, LMFT's blog post about this topic here.
We love supporting parents and families in this, the most important (and most challenging!) job. Whether you want more individualized support for your parenting, and a place to explore your own feelings or are not a parent and want a supportive, holistic-minded therapist to offer you a guiding hand, we are honored and thrilled to support and guide you deeper into your highest truths in this journey. If you are a parent and looking specifically for a Hand in Hand Parenting Class go HERE.
In our work together we build an understanding relationship and a safe environment to explore stuck points, augment strengths, and let go of old feelings.
In all we do together, we work to build the skills to empower you to be the parent you want to be and create the family you want to have.
Email for a consult with a therapist on our team today: [email protected]