Counseling for life changes in Arkansas
Plot your course forward. Embrace the future with confidence and resilience.
Therapeutic support for navigating changes in life, career, relationships, and more.
Life is an ongoing cycle of changes, and change of any kind is 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 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.
But what happens when the script gets rewritten?
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Change brings anxiety and anxiety leads to overthinking. Day and night your mind is going, churning, and searching for answers. You’re questioning the past and wondering if you made the right decisions. Or you might be playing the “What If?” or “If Only?” game to figure out where things went wrong or could go wrong.
“What if I’ve made the wrong choice?”
“If only I knew then what I know now.”
“What if my family doesn’t support what I want to do?”
“What if this doesn’t work out? I’m throwing everything away!”
“If only I could go back to how it was before this happened.”
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You’re spending so much time thinking that it’s like you’re stuck in a loop. If you could just get it all sorted and figured out you’d have a clear path ahead, right? You spend a lot of time reading and planning, but nothing seems to give you a clear idea of how to take meaningful action.
Even if you have an idea of what to do, it’s all so much. What’s the first step?
And is it the right step?
That question… that fear… keeps you from taking any real step. -
A little voice inside you creeps around and calls you things like “stupid” or “a loser” for struggling. It compares you to other people who look like they have it all figured out. It tells you you’re a burden to others, that you’ll look weak if you admit you want help. This little voice slinks around in the dark and tells you the struggles are your fault or that there is no hope for a future of joy and purpose.
Sometimes, this voice even says things that are much, much worse.
And no matter how hard you try to silence the voice, to drown it out or argue with it, it doesn’t go away. In fact, fighting it just seems to make it even stronger -
Any change brings loss. The changes forced on you like losing a job or the things we lose as we age understandably bring a sense of grief. But even leaving one job to pursue another or seeing your kids go off to college brings mixed feelings, because something new is coming but something old and familiar is being left behind.
All of this stuff going on inside you spills over into other areas of your life.
You can’t sleep. You’re distracted and stressed. You’re not eating well and 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.
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.
If only life changes came with an instruction manual!
Therapy can help you learn how to deal with change no matter what life throws at you.
Yes, change is a natural part of life and more changes will happen in the future. But it doesn’t always have to be the struggle you’re experiencing right now. Therapy can help you find the tools and perspectives that work best for you to feel confident in your ability to handle what you’re going through and anything else that comes your way.
When you know you can handle your life, you can open up more to the things you love to do, the people you want to be around, and focus on the things that matter most to you.
Unhook from the past. Live in the now. Embrace the future.
How therapy for life changes helps.
You might already have a really good idea of what your problems are but have no idea what life could look like without as much worry, stress, and struggle. You’re in the thick of things now, so naturally it’s hard to imagine a future without your problems.
And this is the number one reason I’ve seen people struggle with previous therapists. They might have smiled softly and validated your feelings. They gave you reassurances. They made you feel good. Maybe they gave you homework for things to work on then never really came back to it. There was no sense of where it was all going.
We’ll create your plan together so that you can feel invested and supported every step of the way.
Connect with your core.
We’ll start by exploring the core values that are part of who you are regardless of the changes you’re experiencing. These might be things like compassion, authenticity, relationships, and humor.
Your core values can help motivate you to do things differently, even when the work is hard, because they’re important to you.
Your circumstances may be changing, but you are still who you are at your center.
Envision the possibilities.
So much of therapy often looks backward at the things you want to put behind you. Our work will look forward to a future of possibility based on both the ideals you could hope for and the realities of your situation.
We’ll look at the things you can change as well as the things you can’t change to create a progress plan that is aligned with your core values but also feels realistic and achievable.
Challenge your growth edge.
We’ll put it all together to help you feel confident in your ability to move toward your goals. We’ll break things into small, manageable steps that set you up for success in facing your challenges.
You’ll develop the skills to manage uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, stop overthinking, self-soothe physical reactions, reduce feelings of doubt and overwhelm, and replace unhelpful ways of thinking and living with ones that are life-enhancing.
Change comes to us all. But you can unhook from the burdens of the past, break the cycles of overthinking, and build the self-confidence to get through this. You can build a life of joy and purpose. Let’s find your path together.
Ready to take that first step?
Click the link below to schedule a free, 20-minute consultation call. We’ll talk at that time to answer any questions you have about our work together so you can decide if it feels like a good fit. No pitches. No pressure.
FAQ for Life Changes Therapy
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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. -
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. -
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. -
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.
The power is in your hands -
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.