You Are Ridiculously In Charge

I don’t remember most of my dreams, but I’ll never forget this one. In the dream I am in the third-row seat of a car traveling down a straight highway. I am content with my situation until I am suddenly aware that the car is on cruise control, and I am supposed to be in the driver’s seat! The rest of the dream is my struggle from the third row, over the second row of seats, and the center console to the driver’s seat. In the several months I had the dream, I am not sure I ever made it to the driver’s seat.

I had this recurring dream during a season of my life when I was living on autopilot. During this season, life felt more like something that was happening to me than a gift I got to live. I think all of us have had seasons, or days when we’ve felt like this. Maybe there are areas of your life right now that feel exactly like this. We weren’t given life to be a passive passenger in the back seat. In nearly all areas of life, including our relationships, our vocation, our health, our attitudes, and our personal growth we often have far more power than we think. The reality is, we are ridiculously in charge of the lives we’ve been given.

5 Ways to be ridiculously in charge of your life:

1. Let go of the need to be in control. If the last three years have taught us anything, it is that there are things outside our control. But even when we are not in control of everything happening in life, we are in charge of how we respond, our attitude and the actions we take in response to difficult people, circumstances and setbacks. Trying to control things outside of our control distracts us from the choices we can make. One of the great ironies of life is that we try to control what we can’t control and play victim to things we are in charge of.Be in charge: Make a list of things outside of your control and another list of things you can control. Be intentional throughout the day of focusing your energy on things you can control.

2. Acknowledge learned helplessness. There are many different reasons why we begin to feel helpless. Sometimes it’s because we are trying to control things outside of our control, so we begin to assume we have no agency in other areas of life. Sometimes this happens when we see what others have that we don’t (if I had their resources…, if I were as lucky..., if I were given the same opportunities..., if the world weren’t against me…, if I had more time…). This view of life may let us off the hook for responsibility, but it will rob our lives of meaning. Being ridiculously in charge means shifting from focusing energy on what is not possible to how you will find a way and taking the next step. Be in charge: In what areas of life have you learned helplessness? What one small step can you take forward?

3. Treat the past as a teacher not a master. The past becomes a master when we assume it is a predictor of the future. You do not have to be imprisoned by mistakes or failures in your past, and you do not have to repeat them. Allow those experiences to teach you, not define you. Today is a new day, a new chapter. What story do you want to tell? Be in charge: If you were to write the next chapter of your story, what would you title it?

4. Approach life as a possibility to be lived rather than a problem to be solved. The easiest way to get stuck in life is to focus on all the problems in life that need to be solved. When we do this, we start living life as a list of “should”; I should lose weight, I should read more, I should be a better spouse/parent, etc. Life soon becomes an obligation. When we shift our focus from the problem to the possibility, “should” becomes “can”; I can lose weight, I can read more, I can be a better spouse/parent. This approach to life is empowering invitation to live the life we want to live. Be in charge: What are your dreams? What do you want to be true?

5. Be intentional about yes and no. Being ridiculously in charge means we recognize the everyday choices we make are helping us move towards our desired outcome or they are not. This is true of both the active choices we make as well as the passive choices. And, because we are limited beings, every time we say “yes” to something we are saying “no” to something else. Be in charge: Once you identify what you want to be true in your life, make a list of things you need to start and a list of things you need to end.

If you would like to connect with us, you can find us at www.journeybravely.com.

Todd Craig has over 20 years experience having helpful coaching conversations with individuals, couples, and groups including 5 years experience of professional life and leadership coaching. He uses effective, strategic tools including the Birkman and Enneagram in his skill based coaching to help people move their stories and goals forward. To meet with Todd, connect here.

An Invitation to Dream

One of the most difficult seasons of my life were the two years I had hopes and dreams I was too scared to share with other people. The truth is, I wasn’t even brave enough to acknowledge them to myself. It was time to move from one chapter of life to the next, but I thought I didn’t know how I wanted to begin writing the next chapter. I kept talking myself out of the things that were stirring within me. However, when I got brave enough to acknowledge and share my dreams, amazing things began to happen. Life, relationships, and even work become adventures to be lived when you name your dreams and ambitions. When you are brave enough to do this, you take the first steps on an exciting journey of growth. Struggling on where to start?

6 Practices to Help Clarify Your Dreams

Focus on the potential, not the problem

The tendency to focus on the problems of life leads to anxious thoughts that anchor you to status quo thinking. When you allow yourself space to imagine the life you want to live, you begin to develop a passion and desire that can move you forward. As I’ve written before, one the most powerful and important questions to wrestle with is, “What do I want…. really?”

Postpone edits

The discipline of dreaming requires postponing edits. Many of us choose to live a limited lifebecause we edit chapters in our life story that haven’t been written yet. Focusing on potential and allowing ourselves to dream makes us vulnerable to disruption or disappointment. So, we prematurely edit our, what could be, magnificent stories in favor of a settled life.

Resist either/or thinking

We have been told ad nauseum, “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” While this is true in some situations, there is a temptation to overapply this. As you imagine what is possible give yourself permission and hold yourself accountable to keeping a both/and mindset. Either/ or thinking comes from a scarcity mindset; there is only one cake. An abundance mindset allows both/and thinking, I can eat my cake and bake more.

Figure out what first…. how later

Don’t limit your future based on your current capabilities. It’s so tempting when you begin to imagine what is possible to quickly begin wondering how to make it happen. When you do this, you shut the door on imagining what is possible and shift to problem solving. You don’t have to know how to get there yet. If you already had the skills and knew how to get the outcome you wanted, you would have already done it. When you keep your attention focused on what you desire to be true, you will naturally begin gathering evidence of the behaviors and attitudes that lead you towards that vision or away from it. Getting clear on what you want will contribute, over time, to the clarity of how to get there. When focused on the problem you say, “I don’t know how.” When focused on the possibility you say, “I don’t know how…yet.”

Leverage What ifs

“What if” thinking can be a blessing or a curse entirely based on how you apply it. When you imagine “what if?” in a negative way you paralyze yourself with fear. What if I can’t? What if it fails? While these may be possibilities, so are the positive “what ifs”. What if I can? What if it all works out? The challenge here is to intentionally focus on the positive.

Be patient, enjoy the journey and make room for serendipity

Dreams shrink when they are rushed. If your vision is big, it will take time. Keep the view in front of you and take the next right step. You don’t have to have it all figured out. And, again, if your dream is big enough, you probably won’t have it all figured out. We tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a short amount of time and grossly underestimate what is possible in the long term. Resist the temptation to shrink your dream to fit who you are today. Instead, allow yourself space and time to grow into your dream. Celebrate the steps you take along the way and enjoy those unexplainable moments of serendipity that happen along the way.

One of our great joys in working with people is to witness those moments of transformation when a lightbulb goes on and clients begin to imagine and believe what is possible. If you’d like to connect with support along your journey, connect with me here.

Todd Craig has over 20 years experience having helpful coaching conversations with individuals, couples, and groups including 5 years experience of professional life and leadership coaching. He uses effective, strategic tools including the Birkman and Enneagram in his skill based coaching to help people move their stories and goals forward. To meet with Todd, connect here.

What is This Time For?

There was a season of life where I reached the end of the day feeling I had been a slave to my to-do list. I was busy running from one task to the next. And, even when the days were as productive as they were busy, I often felt unfulfilled at the end of the day. Though things were getting done, there was no time to appreciate my accomplishments and tasks that were being accomplished were sometimes at the expense of being present with the people that matter most to me. I was overwhelmed, tired, and frustrated.

Time is one of our most precious gifts. Time is finite, we can’t “make time,” (even though we often use the phrase) we can only spend it. Additionally, we don’t get “do overs” with our time. So, we have developed and utilize tools to help us maximize our time including watches, calendars, alarm clocks, time management apps on our phones, to-do lists, and many others. Ironically, we can allow ourselves to be controlled by these tools, which are supposed to help us stay in control, at the expense of the very moments the tools were intended to help us maximize.

So how do we break out of this cycle? Here are three strategies that have been helpful for me and my clients:

1. Consider the different aspects of time. In our culture, we tend to think of time in a narrow and limited way. I often introduce my clients to the words the Greeks used to differentiate two ways they thought of time. The two words are chronos and kairos. The Greek word chronos is the easiest for us to understand because it aligns with the mostcommon way we refer to time. Chronos refers to the quantity of time. When we say, “It arrived at 3:07,” or “I am getting married in 18 days,” or “The cupcakes will be ready in 20 minutes,” weare talking about chronos time. Most of the tools we have for time management are built around maximizing time in a quantitative sense. The Greek word Kairos, however, refers to time in a qualitative sense. We tend to think about time in this way far less. However, when we say, “It showed up at just the right time” or “We knew it was time to get married” or “These cupcakes are taking forever” we are referring to kairos time. Our hectic schedules can challenge our efforts to maximize time in a qualitative sense. Of course, both understandings of time are important. A chronos understanding helps us recognize the limits of our time and the need to act so we can move our stories forward. And a kairos understanding helps us think beyond those limits so we move our stories forward with intentionality and meaning.

2. Slow down to speed up. With a Kairos understanding of time, we can begin to see that sometimes the most efficient thing we can do is slow down and take a breath before rushing to the next thing. When we do this, we let go of anxious mental energy in favor of focused mental energy. This also gives us space to exercise a third strategy.

3. Ask, “What is this time for?” When we are thinking about time with a chronos understanding, we will tend to ask questions like, “What do I have to do?”, “Where am I supposed to be?”, or “How long is this going to take?” In this sense, time is being spent and we can find ourselves looking towards what’s next. But, when we are thinking about time with a karios understanding, we might ask a question like, “What is this time for?” Asking this question can help us relax into the moment and consider taking in all the benefits the present moment has to offer. Asking, “What is this time for?” may save me from rushing to accomplish more tasks on my to-do list (quantitative) in favor of taking time to be fully present with my child who is asking for help with a school project or waiting to be tucked in at night (qualitative).

As you work toward making shifts in how you view time, we are here to support you in your journey.

Todd Craig has over 20 years experience having helpful coaching conversations with individuals, couples, and groups including 5 years experience of professional life and leadership coaching. He uses effective, strategic tools including the Birkman and Enneagram in his skill based coaching to help people move their stories and goals forward. To meet with Todd, connect here.

Kindness vs. Cancelling

You’re in the middle of a conversation and suddenly it becomes apparent the person you’re talking to holds a different opinion on an important topic. Maybe you start to worry if you share your thoughts, you’ll be judged or cancelled. Maybe you feel incensed the other person could possibly hold that opinion or belief and you feel tempted to judge, cancel, or shame them. Maybe you want to learn to hold the tension of differing views and values but you feel confused about how to be true to your values while not judging or shaming someone else.

Cancel culture regularly sacrifices kindness in the name of being right and holding others accountable. Cancel culture says for justice and rightness to prevail, people must be publicly shamed for holding independent beliefs that deviate from some moral majority. And when you’re part of the moral majority, cancelling others can feel justified. The problem is cancel culture is built on the false idea that shame creates true change. In reality, current shame research (read anything by Brene Brown for more on shame) tells us shame actually breeds insecurity, self-loathing and hopelessness. Shame may create a temporary, superficial, face-saving shift but results, long-term, in the opposite of healthy change. Ashamed people are highly likely to make poor choices that have negative, hurtful effects on themselves and others.

So, if you remove shame from your toolbox, what options do you have? Reflect on a time when you needed to learn something new. What was most effective in helping you move forward? Maybe someone said you were unintelligent and you needed to get it together. Maybe someone said you must be ignorant for not already knowing something. Was that helpful to you?  Or, maybe someone lovingly and kindly said you are a valuable person period. Maybe they directly and kindly shared a different perspective and allowed space for you to hold your value while also presenting a new possibility. Was that helpful to you? Kindness consistently moves people toward change more effectively than shame. And, kindness makes you feel better about yourself at the end of the day.

5 Ways to Practice Kindness Over Cancelling:

1.     Slow down and take a breath. Different opinions/values can create emotional overwhelm if you feel strongly about something. You may find yourself going into fight or flight and impulsively speaking words of shame. Try taking a few breaths and reminding yourself that someone else having a different value than you does not mean attack or shame are needed. Instead remember that both values can exist even if you disagree.

2.     Humanize the other person. Often when someone holds a different value, it’s tempting to begin viewing them as “other” and deserving of shame. Try remembering traits you like and appreciate about the person. Remind yourself they are a whole person with strengths and weaknesses and try not to define them by the one issue about which you disagree.

3.     Seek to validate. Validating means try to understand how the other person might believe or feel the way they do based on their history and experiences. You don’t have to agree. Instead, try to embrace and articulate to the other person that you can understand how they might see things the way they do even if it’s very different than how you see it. Validation reduces defensiveness and opens avenues for seeing the other person as valuable despite differences.

4.     Embrace humility. Try remembering that while you may hold your values to be very true and dear, you are not the absolute authority on truth. You can believe your values are right and true while also recognizing others can differ from you and still be worthwhile humans who may help you understand something new.

5.     Communicate directly and kindly. Share your thoughts and beliefs calmly, directly, and with a kind tone. Remember that your values/opinions can exist securely even when others don’t agree. 

Approaching others with kindness instead of cancelling creates opportunities for growth in yourself and others. Kindness brings more conversation, connection, and increased possibilities for change without the unnecessary negativity of shame. As you practice walking in kindness, connect with us for support along your journey at journeybravely.com.

Stephenie is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 19 years experience specializing in emotional/relational health counseling. Stephenie loves hearing others’ stories and helping people find new perspective that produces peace, healing, and connection through individual counseling. Stephenie provides treatment for adults, teenagers, couples, and families with anxiety symptoms, parenting struggles, teen issues, depression, grief, divorce, and other life transitions. Realizing your life is out of balance and ready to schedule your initial counseling session? Connect here for information about counseling Stephenie provides and get your initial therapy session scheduled.

You Are NOT Your Mistakes

Ever find yourself wishing you could crawl into a hole after you’ve made a mistake or failed? Or maybe your spouse or child made a poor choice and you feel ashamed? 

Shame is incredibly powerful and will invite you to keep secrets, hide, and to feel less than. Shame also encourages you to shame others to avoid dealing with your emotional pain. The helpful news is everyone fails and makes mistakes because mistakes are part of being human. Sometimes mistakes are small like missing an appointment. Other times mistakes are big, destructive, and damage opportunities and relationships. Regardless of the size, realizing you or someone you love has made a mistake can be difficult to navigate emotionally.

Mistake shame will often trick you into believing you should define yourself by your worst moments. “Only a bad person would do what I did.” “Only someone who doesn’t care about their family would do what I did.” However, creating a healthy framework for navigating mistakes and failure can transform your most difficult moments into deep opportunities for growth and flourishing. So, how do you get from failure shame to flourishing?

5 Healthy Steps for Navigating Failure and Mistakes

1.     Approach each day with humility. Remember daily you are human and likely to make mistakes. Set reasonable expectations for yourself, strive to make wise decisions and remind yourself that mistakes may happen. 

2.     Honestly identify and take responsibility for mistakes when they happen. Watch for a tendency to avoid owning mistakes and blaming others to make yourself more emotionally comfortable. It’s okay to just say, “I really messed that up. I’m human. Everyone makes mistakes. Now I’m going to take the necessary steps to make it right if possible.”

3.     Tell those involved about the mistake. Hiding failure and mistakes breeds shame and results in lies and broken trust. It’s better to tell people you messed up. Apologize when appropriate. Then determine action steps to correct the issue. “I was supposed to have my part of the project done today. I’m sorry I didn’t follow through on time. I’m going to cancel my other plans today and get my part of the project to you by the end of the day. I will also take responsibility with our boss if we turn in the project late.”

4.     Extend grace to yourself. Watch for shame messages that will invite you to judge yourself harshly. “I can’t believe you did that. You’re so irresponsible.” “No one will ever trust you because you screw up everything.” “Everyone is going to know what you did and it’s all people will remember about you.” Instead, create a gracious mantra you can repeat to yourself each time you fail or make a mistake. “I messed up. Everyone messes up because we are human. I’m a loving, responsible person. I will take responsibility and action to fix my mistake. I will learn from this going forward and become a wiser person.”

5.     Reflect on what happened to increase wisdom. After you have moved through being honest and taking responsibility for your mistake, take time to reflect on the situation. Where did you go wrong? Were there decisions you made that led up to the failure that you could change in the future? What valuable lessons did you learn from the mistake? What did you learn about yourself in the process? Is there a pattern to the mistakes you’re making? Is there deeper personal work that needs to be done so you can learn from what happened? Internalize the answers to these questions and incorporate them into daily life to avoid making the same mistakes moving forward.

Failure and mistakes are inevitable. Even the most careful, responsible people make mistakes often. Remember, mistakes do not define your identity or the identity of others. Extend grace to yourself and those around you with the healthy knowledge that your most recent failure might be the catalyst for the most significant growth of your life. 

When sorting through failure and mistakes, sometimes it helps to have professional support. Journey Bravely currently has adult, teen, and couples coaching sessions available to help you navigate life’s challenges. Connect with us at journeybravely.com.

Stephenie is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 19 years experience specializing in emotional/relational health counseling. Stephenie loves hearing others’ stories and helping people find new perspective that produces peace, healing, and connection through individual counseling. Stephenie provides treatment for adults, teenagers, couples, and families with anxiety symptoms, parenting struggles, teen issues, depression, grief, divorce, and other life transitions. Realizing your life is out of balance and ready to schedule your initial counseling session? Connect here for information about counseling Stephenie provides and get your initial therapy session scheduled.

You Have One Life

By Todd Craig, Personal & Professional Coach

A couple of years ago I was sitting in a large meeting that I was required to attend on an annual basis. I had this moment of clarity where I realized I was listening to the same reports and debates I had heard every year for the past 15 years with no change. I thought to myself, "life is too short to waste another minute in this room.'' So, I got up and left. I ran into a friend on my way out and when I shared my moment of clarity he said this to me, "you have only one life."

I have carried, reflected and acted on that phrase over the last 18 months. My greatest desire is to live the life I am meant to live and to help others do the same. If you find yourself thinking things like, "there's got to be more than this," or "I have more to offer," I hope these ideas will help you take a next step:

1. The past is prologue - Your past may shape your future, but it doesn't have to determine it. I believe every experience, both good and bad, can contribute to your future. But, your past is not in charge of your future.

2. You are ridiculously in charge - You have only one life.....and you get to decide how to live it. You may not be in control of everything that happens in life, but you are in charge of your mindset, attitude, how you respond to situations and people, and how you move forward. You get to decide your direction and the paths you are going to pursue. And, you are making that decision everyday. You are making that decision today! The question is, are you making it intentionally?

3. Decide who you want to be - Your character, integrity and values are more powerful in determining your direction, for better or worse, than anything you will do or how well you will do it. In fact, who you are will have a huge influence on what you do. Andy Stanley put it this way, "It's always a mistake to decide what you want to do before you decide who you want to be."

4. Ask yourself, "What do I want.....really?" - This is a deceptively difficult question to answer. In fact, most of us think we know what we want until we get pressed to define it. But even then, we often answer with things we think we want.  We think we want that position, that money, that house, that car, etc. This is why adding "really" to the question is so important. Are those things more important to you than your family? Time with your kids? Your legacy? Your reputation? What's really most important to you? A great way to determine what you want...really is to consider what you want said about you at your funeral. This is a great reflection of your personal definition of success.

5. Evaluate, "Are my habits, behaviors and life choices in line with who I want to be and what I want?" - Remember, you are ridiculously in charge. You get to decide what habits, behaviors, relationships, jobs, direction, etc. you want to pursue and keep. If you are out of alignment, every day is an opportunity for a new beginning.

6. Push through the resistance - Living your one life with intentionality is a courageous path. There are other voices telling you how you should live your life. The gravity of the status quo (as umcomfortable, disappointing or painful as it may be), can be strong and challenge our desire to move forward. 

7. You don't have to walk this journey alone - You are the hero in your story and every hero has trusted voices challenging and encouraging them forward. One of my greatest desires is to help others live the life they were to live; to be the people they want to be and to pursue the life they want. If you would like help determining who you want to be, what you want and aligning habits, behaviors and life choices don't hesitate to reach out! I'd love to join you on your Brave Journey.

Journeying Bravely

Journey Bravely just moved across the country from Oklahoma to Florida and we are still pinching ourselves most days when we take a quick drive to the ocean! We started dreaming 2 years ago about moving to a warmer, sunnier, ocean-side community. As with many dreams in the beginning stages, we had a desire but were lacking confidence that we could accomplish it. We realized in our coaching and counseling work that we were encouraging people to Journey Bravely and yet, we needed to take some brave steps in our own journey to a new home. We were excited, scared, hopeful, doubtful, and motivated for change. We decided on a specific area of Florida and determined that a 2-3 year timeline would be the best for our family as we hoped to move prior to our oldest child starting High School. And amazingly, just over 2 years later, we have landed and just moved into our permanent home in our dream community.

So how are you supposed to get from dreaming to living out that dream?

1. Explore how comfortable you are with dreaming in general. We found that we were most comfortable taking the next security oriented step in life and struggled to allow ourselves to really dream. If you’re struggling to allow yourself to dream, here are a few questions to consider that might get your dreamer working. What do you really want to be true in your life? When you come to the end of life, what will you regret having not done? What relationships and experiences bring you the most joy? What contribution can you bring to the world that brings excitement? When you think of a day to day reality in your mind that feels meaningful, what does that look like? You might find it helpful to journal through answering the above questions. In addition, seeking additional external input about dreaming through reading and podcasts can help improve the dream flow.

2. Make your vision concrete to make it more real and to invite next steps. We created our first vision board about 1 year ago. Vision boards can be done many different ways but we chose pasting and drawing pictures and words on a large board to represent our priorities for the future. Vision boards can include various areas of life such as where you want to live, vocational dreams, parenting goals, financial hopes, travel aspirations, character development, ways to give to others…and anything else you’re hoping and dreaming. Then, place that board in a visible place and take some time daily to think about what you desire and what action you’re willing to take to make it a reality. Vision boards are flexible and can morph and change over time as you experience personal growth.

3. Break down the dream into manageable parts. Moving was one part of our overall life dream. We chose to focus on that part first as many of the other dreams flow out of where we wanted to live. Once you choose an area of focus, it’s time for goals and action steps. If the goal is planning to move in two years, what are the practical daily steps you must take to get there? For us that looked like some vocational change to make my work more portable, preparing our house to sell, including our kids in the dreaming process, and looking for viable housing in our community of choice. Action steps are often where people get stuck. Sometimes dreaming is easy and action steps can feel overwhelming or boring. However, people who write down their goals on a regular basis are 42% more likely to achieve them. This is where you gather your grit and start to dig in and and do one thing at a time knowing that in the long run, the steps that seem insignificant will actually move you to your dream.

4. Make friends with healthy risk. Most people who realize dreams learn to navigate taking some level of calculated risk. Risk taking is easier for some and harder for others simply because of personality and how you were raised. We both identified as risk averse people prior to our move. The big step that was necessary and scary for us was listing our house when it was a home we really loved. We wanted to wait to list our house until we both had solid job offers, however, my business is self-employment and it became clear in the process of Todd networking for jobs that he needed to be in the community to get the job. So we waffled around for several months, sought wise counsel, faced our fears, and one day almost 2 years into the dreaming process, decided to list the house. Risk is letting go of the comfortable and familiar to open possibilities for what you really want and it was not easy. But, 12 days after listing, the house sold causing momentum over the next few weeks that resulted in our dream being realized 3 months later. It was very uncomfortable moving without knowing Todd’s job, but had we not done so, we would not have been here 2 days after our arrival when his current job was posted specifically for someone living in the area.

5. Once you realize a dream, savor the growth in the process and celebrate the outcome. Dreaming, opening your life to change, and taking the action steps is work. It’s impossible to do such work without experiencing some transformational change in your faith, your relationships, and how you see and understand yourself. Slow down, pay attention, and take note of how you’re changing so you will intentionally carry the new perspective forward into your life. And, when you reach the goal, pause…enjoy…practice gratitude…and celebrate what has transpired. Celebrating reminds you to acknowledge your faith, your work, and all of those that were part of your journey to the realized dream.

The brave journey to realizing a dream is beautiful, hard, risky, transforming, and life-changing. Once you have experienced it, you know you can do it again. What are your dreams? What is holding you back from pursuing them?

Written By: Stephenie Craig, LCSW

Stephenie is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 18 years experience specializing in emotional/relational health counseling. Stephenie loves hearing others’ stories and helping people find new perspective that produces peace, healing, and connection through individual counseling. Stephenie provides treatment for adults, teenagers, couples, and families with anxiety symptoms, parenting struggles, teen issues, depression, grief, divorce, and other life transitions. Realizing your life is out of balance and ready to schedule your initial counseling session? Connect here for information about counseling Stephenie provides and get your initial therapy session scheduled.