Healing Trauma and Finding Beauty: A Therapist’s Journey
“Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell.”
Life can feel overshadowed by darkness, particularly when the bonds of trauma, pain, depression, suffering, anxiety, or loneliness come up against the soul with crippling weight. In my own life and in my work as a therapist, I’ve witnessed the transformative power of the therapeutic journey. Through this blog and my words here, I hope to capture my musings and explore that journey toward wholeness with you.
I was drawn toward the path of psychology by the strangeness, the depth, and the beauty of the human experience. A woman in my mid-twenties, recently married, with no real sense of who I was, I entered therapy skeptical and completely baffled by what my life had become. It was an awakening in the truest sense, the shocking realization that I had become a hollow shell in my desire to live for others, always longing for connection while simultaneously holding others at arm’s length, terrified to be who I was, or even to know who I was, for fear of being unlovable.
It was through the process of therapy that I began to imagine some other reality for myself, for who I was and how I wanted to be in the world. In my life and in my clinical work, I’ve come to know this process as the path of soul, the path of beauty.
What is healing?
I want to begin this blog by saying, unequivocally, that I believe healing from pain, trauma, depression, and other psychic disturbance and dis-ease is possible. I’ve witnessed again and again the resiliency of the human soul, and it never fails to inspire and astonish me. Healing is not only about resolving symptoms- it’s also about finding our way to flourish and thrive. It’s about finding what is getting in the way of our truest self-expression and clearing out the limitations keeping us small.
The human soul seeks beauty. John O’Donohue writes and speaks of the etymological link between beauty and the process of being called. Beauty is not a passive observing of the object, but an active engagement with the beheld. To seek beauty is to feel the call of the psyche toward greater expansiveness, spaciousness, and a more substantial existence. We are called to inhabit our lives more fully. We are drawn to heal, to nurture the wounds within ourselves, to co-create an experience with divinity that allows our inner hidden gifts to be brought forward in service to the world.
This is not to say that beauty is only what is nice and good, for this would cut off the mystery. The depth of the human experience is also informed by pain and suffering. There is beauty in honoring the pain and suffering we have endured, in befriending sadness, loss and loneliness, and walking with them throughout our lives as friends. In this way, we are invited to the act of “living the questions” as described by my favorite poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. In living the questions we may never fully have answers to, we loosen our grip on certainty and learn to embrace ambiguity, the enigma of being human.
My Approach to Healing
To me, healing trauma is not only about resolving our symptoms and reaching a higher potential, it also involves the slow, often painful, befriending of darkness. In a world of quick-fixes and modalities aimed at reducing suffering with as little difficulty, time, and investment as possible, my approach is much slower, more spacious, and I hope, more effective in the long-term.
As a therapist who works with creatives, artists, dancers, dreamers, musicians, poets, and mystics, I specialize in helping you reconnect with yourself and create a more true, more authentic, and more deeply fulfilling life. I incorporate evidence-based practices into my therapy work, while also leaving room for the mystery of the soul to exist within our symptoms, our pain, and suffering. I am not interested in fixing or curing you, or even taking your pain away. While of course I want you to feel stable, grounded, and secure in life, I’m also interested in getting to know all the parts of you- even the darkest. In doing so, I seek to help you befriend darkness and come to know it as an honest guide and wise companion.
I want to know:
How does your darkness breathe and move?
What is it shaped like?
Where is it living within your body?
What does it want you to know, and how is it trying to communicate with you?
Why is it surfacing in the here and now?
We agree to the process of psychotherapy as a way of answering some call within. We are drawn by the mystery of our shadowed interiority perhaps, something indwelling seeking to make itself a home within our flesh, our universe. In beholding the mystery, bringing it to light, offering our gaze, our devotion, our love, we invite the eternal to become housed within part of ourselves. This is the beauty of humanity, that the sacred dwells within and among us, seeking us out even as we embark, stumbling on a dark and veiled path toward destiny. It is beauty that draws us on.
I do not offer quick fixes, but I do believe that slow and spacious depth-oriented therapy has the potential to transform your life, helping you to come home to yourself with greater peace, clarity, and a purity of presence.
An Invitation to Dwell
And so, when you feel overwhelmed, angry, scared, disappointed, lonely, or hurt, I invite you to pause. Rather than turning instantly to what is the fix or solution, what if you were to allow darkness to linger for a moment? What if you were to take five deep breaths while saying to yourself, “I honor my darkness, my friend, in this moment.” How would it be attune with your heart and soul to darkness, and to let it speak to you as a trusted companion?
Healing is a process, and the more spacious that process can be, the more sacred and meaningful it will become. In this blog, I hope to continue to explore tools, stories, conversations, and insights to support your growth. I’m so honored to be here walking this path toward wholeness with you.
I’d love to know, what does healing mean to you? I’d also love to hear your thoughts or what you’d like to see more of in future blog posts.
In the meantime, if you or someone you know is an Oregonian struggling with suffering, pain, depression, or other mental health issues, I want you to know you’re not alone. If you’d like a soulful and supportive therapist during this time, I’d be honored to hear from you. Send me a message today to begin your journey home.
Wishing you well and holding you in the mystery,
Sarah xx
