People find out about me via family members, spouses, friends, colleagues and lastly from their insurance company. Most of them come with traditional therapy experience.  

My approach tends to be something they have never been exposed to in a therapeutic setting.

Some clients come prepared to share the same story they’ve shared with past therapists, perhaps hoping that working with a BIPOC therapist will bring a different perspective, deeper cultural understanding, or a different path.  

My response is usually this, “Ok, so you know the story. What is getting in your way?” And “if we uncover what has been in your way, are you willing to do the work to get over it, under it, and or around it to get the results you seek?” When they answer the questions, I have them pause and listen. I ask them to repeat their answer and listen to their cadence and how it vibrates in their body. And we do this a few times until we get the real answer, not the rehearsed, I’m a good student answer.  

FYI: All our training, education and theories as therapists have been provided through a Eurocentric white lens. These don’t always reflect our lived experiences. It takes a lot of work to undo and decolonize these teachings, to then support the community, with what I’ve been able to abstract and build from. This allows me to understand the perfect student answer. My people have also been trained in the same manner, exactly what we will work on undoing the parts that do not align.   

Talking and gaining awareness of the issue does not result in change. If it did, we wouldn’t have smokers, drug users, over-eaters, under-eaters, perpetrators, victims, racism- and the list goes on.

There are many other factors associated with the issue:  
· Emotions  
· Body sensations  
· Untold family stories  
· Capitalism  
· White Supremacy  
· Belonging  
· Working on Becoming You  
· Family, Culture, Society, Religion  

These factors create a new and more complicated story in addition to your initial story. In addition to this we add SHAME, GUILT, FEAR, EMBARRASSMENT, NOT BELONGING -
all hurdles and walls that get in the way of the change you are seeking.  

The power these hold over your life becomes the part where the therapy work starts. If the client cannot yet get over the story and allow themselves to experience the emotional and somatic discomfort, then this client is not yet ready to dive deeper. But they’ve made it through the door; we slowly work at getting them ready so they can get the change they are seeking.  

If the client is not ready to learn to cope with the discomforts and to practice curiosity - because that part of them has been stripped - they will not have the tools needed to do the work they are wishing to do, yet. This is where client centered therapy starts: with nudges, challenges, experiments, compassion, care, trust then vulnerability.  

Many times, we have people participating in therapy for half their lives with not much to show for it; the therapeutic experience has stayed in the initial and the surface- level story. Life circumstances- such as not being ready, day to day stressors, and everything else that accompanies life- gets added to the story they came to therapy with, becoming additional barriers.  

Remember, as therapist, we can only be the compass for the map you have brought; to deepen the work and get to the destination, it’s important to build trust. This is the responsibility of both the client and, most importantly, the therapist.  

I always tell my clients: I will be here to provide you with the support, the tools, and a space to experience the hardships and the joys; and to witness the relief you will experience once we go through this journey. Let’s look at this journey as your bridge, and you have decided to start crossing this bridge. I ask that you understand, not many people will be on that journey with you. It is important that you do not try to drag people onto your journey, because it will also hinder your process. What we can do is identify your key supports and hope that, as part of your tribe, they can feel the love they have for you and see and feel the love you have for them, to feel welcome to join the journey- on your bridge or their own bridge.

  This process requires self-love, self-compassion, vulnerability and healthy boundaries. Once we get past the insight, we go into the emotional and somatic depths of it.  

The insight you come with is a great foundation to deepen the work, but your expansion and, your growth is the most lasting- and the one to continue building on.  

Several of the experiments we do are:  
Let’s feel this through.  
Allow the sensations and feelings to take us wherever it takes us; it doesn’t need to make sense to you or me in this moment.  
Let’s get to know this better.  
The therapeutic or spiritual modality used depends on the needs of the client and what the client is ready to engage in at the time. We can start with:

  Does this feeling have a look or texture to it? (Gestalt therapy).  
Does this situation need its own chair to talk? (Gestalt therapy)  
Whose energy are you feeling in this situation? Is this yours, or is it older? (Energy, Ancestral work, Constellations, IFS)  
It looks and sounds simple, doesn’t it? Until you experience everything else under the sun. Life doesn’t stop because you’ve decided to work on yourself and start on this wellness journey. This journey comes with a lot of hesitation, fears, unknowns, and hope.  

Your insight is just the start;  
I invite you to explore the following:  
What have I been learning about myself that needs to change?  
Why does it need to change?  
Am I ready or can I prepare to cope and respond to the discomforts that will take place?  
Who can I ask for support on this journey?    

If these themes resonate with you and you’re in NJ, these are some of the topics we’ll explore during the Unveil Yourself retreat 

 Warmly and intentionally

Your passionate therapist