Get unstuck. Find hope. Embrace the future with confidence and resilience.
COUNSELING FOR LIFE CHANGES IN ARKANSAS
Therapeutic support for dealing with changes in life like career, relationships, parenting, aging, religious questioning, and more.
CHANGE OF ANY KIND CAN BE HARD.
Sometimes it happens by choice. Sometimes it’s because of circumstances you can’t control. People grow up, move away, start relationships, end relationships, change careers, learn more about themselves, grow old, get sick, end one chapter of their lives and start others.
Some of these changes are exciting. Some are scary. Some can even be traumatic. They can feel big or small. Sometimes… the change is even because something you hoped for didn’t happen.
Whatever your situation, life isn’t living up to your expectations. You had an idea of what your life would look like, or should look like. Hopes and dreams. A vision for your future. A script to follow.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SCRIPT GETS REWRITTEN?
You can’t sleep. You’re distracted and stressed. You’re not eating well or doing the things you love. You’re not connecting with the important people in your life. Even when you’re around people or doing something you normally enjoy, your thoughts are on your problems.
You’re overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty.
You don’t know what the next step is. You doubt yourself when you do have an idea of what to do. It keeps you stuck in your situation.
You overthink things a lot.
Thoughts spiral. You get caught in a loop trying to figure things out and find certainty. You have a lot of “what if” and “if only” thoughts. It spills over into other areas of your life.
You beat yourself up inside.
A little voice in you calls you things like “stupid” or “a loser” for struggling. It compared you to other people who seem to have it all figured out. The more you argue with it, the stronger it gets.
Grief shows up, maybe unexpectedly.
Changes forced on you like disability, death, or job loss naturally bring grief. But even good changes like your kids going to college or starting a new career mean something is familiar being left behind.
It’s like there’s a wall between you and the rest of your life and you can’t figure out how to tear it down.
HOW CAN THERAPY HELP WITH LIFE TRANSITIONS?
You might think therapy is only for things like anxiety, depression, or PTSD but it can also help with the stress that comes with a big change in life. Life changes can also be the cause of anxiety, depression, or result from events that also led to PTSD. Grief is also a natural part of big changes, especially when they happen by sudden, unexpected, or unfortunate events. So, what are some things that can happen in therapy to help?
IDENTIFY
What are struggling with right now. How has the change affected you? Are you stuck in thought spirals? What emotions are showing up? How does this affect your daily life? Therapy can help you really take stock of these things.
ENVISION
Imagine new possibilities. Once you know what you’re struggling with, therapy can help you figure out what you want life to look like rather than what you don’t want it to look like. This helps you move toward the future rather than focus on the past.
CALM
Soothe your mind and body reactions to the stress. Therapy can help you tame those anxious thoughts and ease your physical reactions like a racing heart, short breath, or shaking hands. This will help with the next step.
CONTROL
Take charge of your life. We’ll put it all together and help you feel confident in moving forward with clear goals that feel realistic and achievable. You’ll be supported in making changes as well as dealing with setbacks and struggles.
FACE THE FUTURE WITH CALM, CLARITY, AND CONFIDENCE
You don’t have to do this alone. Together we can help you:
Identify the values you hold deep within to guide you through the changes.
Stop feeling selfish for doing what’s important to you.
Break the cycle of worry and hopelessness.
Stop overthinking.
Overcome the fear and anxiety that has you stuck.
Take charge with a clear plan to follow.
Reclaim a sense of purpose no matter what life has thrown at you.
COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT COUNSELING FOR LIFE TRANSITIONS
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Life changes are a stressful time that can affect your mental and even physical health whether you’re making a change you want to make or dealing with something beyond your control. It can trigger anxiety, depression, grief, unhelpful coping methods like avoidance and addictions, and all kinds of thoughts swirling around in your head.
It’s natural to feel lost and frozen, not knowing what the next step might be. Therapy can help you identify helpful ways of coping with the stress, managing thoughts and emotions, and keeping yourself grounded and clear-headed when you feel overwhelmed.
As a former teacher and someone who has navigated a lot of big life changes, myself, I can also help you develop a plan for navigating the change that keeps you moving forward with small, achievable steps and re-strategize when setbacks happen.
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Life changes often trigger mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression, or can make it harder to deal with existing diagnoses. What we call "stressful" often affects us mentally, emotionally, and even physically.
Consider therapy for life changes less like “going to a therapist” in the typical sense and more like going to a personal trainer who will help you develop a plan and help get you to where you want to be. A therapist can help you create that plan and bring a sense of teamwork as well as accountability, if that helps motivate you. The therapist is someone you have on your success team who understands the typical ups and downs of change but can also help you brainstorm when things aren’t typical.
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The short answer is - whatever you need them to look like.
Sometimes things from your past are part of the roadblocks between you and the changes you need to make. Messages you heard as a child may undermine your confidence in yourself. Social norms that you carry within may turn up the volume on that little voice that says, “That’s not normal!”
Other times, however, your past may not have a lot of influence over dealing with your present and future. In those cases, spending a lot of time on the past may not really do much to help you.
When you stop to think about it, the only time we can truly live is right here, right now, in this moment. Helping you live here and now to deal with your changes is our focus - whatever that means for our work.
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My goal for you is to eventually feel confident in your ability to handle the ups and downs of life on your own and not feel dependent on my support. The time it takes to accomplish this is different for each person. We may only work together for a few months if you’re just looking to manage a recent and very specific event in your life such as adapting to college or changing careers.
Other times, people I work with are looking for long-term self-development and support in becoming the person they want to be and choose to work with me for a year or more.
Counseling can take as little or as much time as you like to get to where you want to be. While your problems may not be resolved in just a few quick sessions, I don’t base my therapy on the idea that you need to see me for years and years and years to “get better.” We can work together until you feel in a good place to handle life on your own or with periodic check-ins.
Ultimately, you get to decide when our work together is done. When we start, we’ll set some directions for counseling that will help guide our work. When you feel like we’ve arrived at the place you wanted to be then you may choose to end therapy or look at other areas of self-development to set new goals.
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That’s okay! Many people don’t know what their goals are when we first start.
You’ve been so focused on your problems that it’s probably hard to imagine life without them! Our work may simply start there by helping you get an idea of what exactly it is you want to work on before we decide how we’re going to do that.
I’ve worked with many people who were right where you are - knowing something needs to change but not sure what or how to make it happen. I’ve even been there, myself!
Together, we created a vision they could work toward, rather than simply focusing on problems to move away from. That forward vision helps you know you’re working toward something worthwhile, even when things are tough.