I get what it feels like to be a high-functioning professional who deals with chronic stress and intense emotions.
I spent more than 20 years in corporate America as a go-to communicator, working with executives to be their voice and tell their stories. I listened well and translated their words into effective articles, publications, and other written pieces.
I pushed through everything to meet expectations and deadlines. And I did it well.
On the surface, what most people saw at work was the professionalism and the result. In my personal life, I was the one who was “just always there,” as one friend described it.
The messy and painful internal journey of healing from exposure to long-term emotional and verbal abuse was not readily apparent.
Being a seeker of solutions, I invested significantly in myself — talk therapy, alternative therapies, energy work, spiritual pursuits, and more. I studied, learned, and implemented. I developed a toolbox full of methods that enabled me to manage my internal world while also navigating a busy external one.
That is, until all those tried-and-true tools stopped working. The emotional intensity increased and took me offline at seemingly inopportune moments. Add to that a long, slow slide into burnout and chronic fatigue from years of stress and not connecting with certain aspects of myself, and persistent overwhelm set in. After more than two decades of working on my own growth and healing, and then dealing with physical exhaustion, brain fog, and a host of other symptoms, I started to lose hope that I’d find a way to feel better and live happier in my own skin.
Like a light being turned on in a dark room, hope returned via a friend. She was learning this thing called Internal Family Systems (IFS) and offered to do a session with me. At first I couldn’t make much sense of what she was describing as the process of it, but I trusted her and was willing to try just about anything. I soon learned that I needed to experience IFS to have a better understanding of what it is and what it does.
From our first IFS session together, I felt immediate relief. The parts of me that were trying to get my attention through any means necessary — stress, emotional upheaval, physical challenges, unhappy relationships, life just not working — finally found what they needed.
IFS brought about such profound shifts and healing in my life, gently yet certainly, that I knew I had to learn more and share it. I went on to be trained in the methodology by the IFS Institute, and now I’m a Certified IFS Practitioner and coach. You may not have any idea why that matters in your life, just as I didn’t when my friend introduced it to me.
For you, it means there’s an effective, evidence-based, and compassionate way to reduce stress, get your life back after burnout, and feel better in your own skin. I’ve done it, and I can show you how to do it, too.
If you’re ready to take the next step and start feeling better sooner rather than later, set up a time to talk with me. If you’re not quite ready for that yet, spend some time here learning more. We go at your pace. Always.
