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I’m gonna do this real talk, first person style...
I was born and raised in Texas, graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Social Work from Texas Christian University, and received my Master of Science in Social Work from University of Texas at Arlington. I knew I wanted to work with students and pursued school social work early on, crisis counseling in high schools and middle schools. I sincerely love helping students through the messiness of adolescence, helping them see the beauty born in them, and carried out in their circumstance. They’re all so unique, each discovering and growing into their giftings. It’s a huge honor to be let in on their growth and help them keep becoming.
I knew by age 22 adolescents would always have a safe place on my couch.
As a lot of people do, after college, I got married to an awesome guy – Brian, and we had kids – Skylar and LeeLee. My husband and I met in high school doing musical theater, and we haven’t stopped laughing, loving, and singing at the top of our lungs or randomly speaking in (sometimes butchered) accents since. Life is unpredictable on good days, and a stunning punch in the gut on hard days, and together we have weathered the storms of marriage crises, life-threatening illness in our daughter, fiscal crisis, and spiritual abuse. This naturally shifted my heart toward healing for more than adolescents, to a variety of ages and circumstances.
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Exposure to the people, systems, and elements of adulting has grown my compassion, and for that I am so grateful. A theme I see among many people I have talked with: hopelessness and frustration can be pervasive and insistent. It can cause a maddening stillness or cause our palms to sweat. It can cause our hearts to beat out of our chest or make us lay down and frown; it can invite us to give up and believe all sorts of lies, or laugh hysterically as we cry. The variability of the human experience is profound, hard, victorious, and incredibly beautiful & inspirational. And as I've taken inventory of my purpose, I know it is to always hold hope in my outstretched hands for people to grab.
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So, what will I do?
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I won't carry your burden for you - because you wouldn't know your strength otherwise. I won't do your heart work for you, because then you'd be blind to your heart's expanses. I won't decide your path, because ownership and autonomy are synonymous with growth. I won't tell you who to be, because then I would rob the world of your uniqueness. So what will I supply?
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The shortest answer: Hope.
The shorter answer: Hope for you. Regardless.
The long answer: I have hope for your joy and your life, hope that isn’t tethered to your success and failures, but to your innate being.
The longest answer:
If you want to know more about this hope, keep reading.
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I am all about helping this hope become part of your narrative, part of your growth. Hope isn’t dead, regardless of circumstance. But we are so good at burying hope in our circumstances, the same way that a pair of shoes we haven’t seen in 6 months somehow was buried under a pile of old clothes we never took out of the closet and completely forgot existed. We forgot about the pile because it was formed one day when life had been lif-ing so hard, that we started just ripping things off of hangers and created chaos in the closet. We still had to use the closet though, cause life didn’t stop, so we shoved the shirts in the corner, not even realizing the shoes were still buried beneath them. The shoes of hope, lost to the pile of shirts.
But it’s time, to go through the clothing pile - to get to the shoes, yes - but it’s also time to pick up the t-shirt that has anxiety on it, and decide how to put it in the keep or give away pile. Pick up the t-shirt that has child abuse written on it, and decide if we want to keep it or give it away. Pick up the t-shirt that has sexual assault written on it, and decide, toss or keep? Pick up the shirt that says infidelity and decide how on earth to get that stain out of it. Pick up the t-shirt that says grief on it – and wonder why it said wrinkle resistant but really wasn’t. Pick up the shirts. Some we have to keep, because they’re cozy and comfortable. Some we get to keep, as a victory statement, some we’ll need to iron repeatedly, cause some wrinkles are stubborn. And some should remain wrinkled, because sometimes, that look is in. And some we can let go of, like the ones that are dry clean only. (WHY? Why do they even exist?)
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But hear this: all can be moved so hope shoes are visible, within reach, within grasp at any moment. Soles for your soul. If we can reach toward hope, we are reaching toward healing. And when we reach toward healing, we view the shirts differently - less like a mess, and more like a statement of understanding, a measure of grace we have for our very personal experiences, and a stack of victories we never knew we were creating. Your story may have a variety of highs and lows, but it is not remarkable because of the marks, it’s remarkable because you are able to experience joy despite the marks. And this, this is what I’ll help you discover. This is what it is to uncover and grab hold of hope.
Currently, I love to help adolescents, young adults, couples, and moms wade through the waters of their reality, whether that reality comes with a difficult past and/or complex present. No matter the measure of mud in the water, I seek to help you see clearly. We are all an equation of the paces our feet have walked and what our eyes and ears have experienced. But we don’t always know what to do with the information our experiences have gathered.
Crisis may feel like the state of your circumstance, however it does not have to be the state of your mind.
Pain may be what you find yourself feeling, but...
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stitches to the soul are available, and I’m here to help.