January 3, 2024 • 16 mins
Born from a vision Jennifer DiGiandomenico had at 18 years old, Stella Luna Counseling and Wellness offers an intentional blend of comprehensive services to support you in coming back to whole-ness. Whatever your journey, history or story, we have created a center founded on the desire to meet each client where they are, non-judgmentally, and with a customized approach to meet your unique needs. We understand that being vulnerable isn’t easy, but it is necessary for growth, authentic exploration, and the ability to make lasting change. A trusting connection with your practitioner is essential to doing this life-enhancing work.At Stella Luna, we have licensed mental health professionals who specialize in the treatment of trauma, depression, grief, anxiety and relationship concerns. We offer traditional talk therapy, EMDR, mindfulness training, breath-work, and group therapy. Additionally, our wellness offerings may serve as an adjunct to your mental health treatment plan, and are also open to to the public, always with the intention to enhance your overall balance, wellness, and emotional and physical health.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is iHeartRadio CEOs you should knowwith owner and licensed clinical professional counselor at
Stella Luna Counseling and Wellness Center,Jenny D. John Dominico. Let's start
with how you got into this field. Let's start there. Yeah, so
I went to graduate school, soI have a three year graduate degree in
clinical mental health counseling. So I'ma licensed professional clinical counselor. Yeah that's
(00:21):
really professional, thank y'all. Sohow did we get from Jenny getting her
master's degree to opening Stella Luna.What's kind of that path? Look like?
I really always knew I wanted toown my own practice. I knew
that I didn't want to work foranybody because I just don't like how other
people are doing it. And Iworked a little bit in someone else's private
(00:43):
practice for a while after my internshipat the VA, and then kind of
the stars aligned and I took thebig leap, which was sort of well
timed because it was just before thepandemic. Oh wow. And then the
pandemic hit. So I opened upmy center, Stella Luna Counseling and Illness
in twenty nineteen. And then thepandemic hit. Oh jeez. So I
(01:04):
was kind of in the right placeat the right time, so you just
went all virtual then all the samething but over zoom. Yeah. And
I had a three hundred square footspace, so that was fine for myself
and it went really well. Butthen I was able to add on another
therapist virtually, wow, because itwas perfect timing. So tell me about
what you guys offer at stell ALuna. What kind of counseling I know
(01:27):
you kind of I mean, doyou call it out of the box stuff
that you do? How do youhelp people who? I mean, because
let's be honest, I think ourgeneration, we're not scared to talk about
mental health anymore. We don't,you know, some obviously some people still
do, but I think it's morein the public eye to have this,
you know, to work on yourmental health, no matter what end of
(01:48):
the spectrum you're on. So howdo you guys at stell A Luna.
You know, how are we doingHow are you guys doing it differently than
the traditional ways and that sort ofthing. Our center is designed with holistic
health in mind, so you know, I started off as a therapist and
I was doing just straight up talktherapy, and working with really kind of
the gamut general mental health issues,so like depression, anxiety, and then
(02:12):
trauma. And I knew I wantedto treat trauma because of my own you
know, upbringing and the things thatI went through, and then after I
was able to address those things,I knew I wanted to be able to
help other people do the same.So I started to really specialize in trauma,
and I worked a lot with firstresponders and of course the veterans when
(02:32):
I was at the VA, andI really fell in love with that work.
And then I got further training inEMDR, so now I'm a certified
EMDR therapist and actually consultant in training. So a lot of my work was
really mind body centered and so Ireally kind of became specialized in in a
holistic way, which is really thinkingabout all parts of an individual. And
(02:54):
so I was doing that with therapyand a lot of things kind kind of
hit the fan at once because wehad we had the pandemic. I was
working with a client who ended upactually completing suicide, and it was probably
the hardest thing I've gone through inmy practice. And what I remember during
that time was that I kept Iwas referring her out to all these things
(03:15):
that I believed in, because ofcourse I had the small, little three
hundred square foot space, and Iwas referring her, referring her out to
acupuncture and to getting ketamine infusions andthese different things to address some of these
like higher level, you know,trauma symptoms. And she ended up getting
back to me on Friday after theWednesday that I met with her, when
(03:37):
she had a really bad a reallybad event happened and she was like,
I couldn't get into ketymine for tendays, but I tried to do this
in this the things that were onour list, and then she hung herself
on a Saturday. So yeah,it was devastating, and I was just
really pissed because I just felt like, why am I referring somebody out to
(03:58):
these things that I know are helpful? Why don't Why am I not doing
what I always knew I wanted todo. So I ended up taking a
leap from there and now at StellaLuna, we specialize in mental health treatment.
We have we specialize in trauma.We have a very holistic approach,
but we also so we have tentherapy rooms. But then we also have
another three thousand square feet, soit's six thousand square feet total. The
(04:21):
other three thousand square feet is reallyfocused on holistic wellness, So I have
acupuncture and SNA and a float tankand a huge multipurpose room where I do
monthly sound baths with my brother.We have a whole lot of different work
there that's happening all the time.So how does how does all this holistic
stuff is? What does it dofor? Does it open up the mind?
(04:42):
Does it calm them? But whydo we do these sort of things?
And why haven't we been doing themfor hundreds of years? Because for
me, if you think about goingto therapy, I'm telling you I'm going
to therapy, I picture I'm sittingon a couch and I'm talking to someone,
which is very helpful. Yeah,but it's are we is it just
like one one section of the SwissArmy knife. I love that. So
(05:03):
actually people don't realize this often wehave been doing a lot of these holistic
things for thousands and thousands of years. In fact, sound baths, one
of my favorite ways to practice mindfulness, has been a century old. I
mean it's so old. It's backin the days where they were doing these
things with Tibetan singing bowls, andit was just a beautiful practice that they
(05:28):
were doing in their communities, andit kind of got lost for a while,
and really a lot of people lookat it as Eastern practices, and
so, you know, we're kindof on the East Coast a little bit
farther behind. But when I wasin California, a lot of the places
that I was out there, we'redoing some of this stuff again. But
really things like acupuncture. Acupuncture,you know, is a Chinese energy medicine.
(05:50):
I have an aerobatic practitioner she's youknow, from India and is just
incredible. But again, that's likean ancient wisdom that they've been passing on.
So really I would argue that wejust kind of got dumb instead of
that it's just brand new stuff thatwe're that we're learning about. But I'm
just like, hey, guys,these things work and they're amazing. And
(06:12):
really my philosophy is more that wedon't heal from one pathway. Not every
person is the same, and soI know, for me, I tried
on a lot of different different modalitiesfor my own healing, and I really
was hopeful that I could bring alot of these different things together so that
I could help people as many differentways as possible. You said mind I
(06:34):
believe. Did you say, isit mindfulness? Yes? That phrase it
struck me. I've never heard toit. I've never heard it referred to
in that way. What is that? What does that mean for you?
Yeah? So presence right, Andyou know, as a philosophy, as
a as a therapist, I workwith my clients and I and I really
try to help them get into themoment, and it is sort of a
(06:56):
buzzy thing. But also I don'tknow that people really are practicing it the
way that it's fully intended. Alot of times, a lot of times
people think, oh, I haveto do a body scan a guided meditation,
and people are turned off right away. But it's really not about that.
I talk to my clients about,you know, the things that we
(07:17):
kind of like try to brush underthe rug. So we come with trauma,
whether it's big t trauma like nineto eleven stuff, or smaller tea
where you wouldn't know it, butyou know, bullying, or just somebody
calling you names, or somebody inthe home as you were growing up that
wouldn't let you speak and you didn'tfeel like you had space. That's still
trauma, emotional trauma, and itis physical too. So my philosophy with
(07:41):
my clients is that we can't healwhat we don't allow ourself to feel and
if we don't know what's coming upfor us, because we're going on autopilot.
You know how many times do wedrive from one place to the other
and we don't even know how wegot there. That's autopilot and that's the
opposite of presence or mindfulness. SoI work with people to be in the
moment, to notice what's coming upfor them so that we can really be
(08:03):
intentional about supporting them through processing it, so that you can let your body
do its natural healing process. Sowhat kind of I mean? I want
to call them non conventional therapies,but obviously, like you said, for
thousands of years, they've been doingit, so they're they're conventional. What
kind of you mentioned a few ofthem, But what are some of the
other services you guys want to highlightthat really helps with that mindfulness when they
(08:26):
come into stell A Luna. Absolutely, So one of the things what I
mentioned was emdr so that's eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing therapy. Wow,
So you really can't do reprocessing withEMDR with someone if they haven't done some
things before going into that part ofthe work. So EMDR isn't just about
(08:46):
the reprocessing, it's about working withsomebody and resourcing them. So let's say
I was working with a veteran andthey came in and they had combat trauma,
and so on day one I wouldn'tcome in and have them do you
know, exposure therapy because despite alot of the efforts out there, people
are actually able to be retraumatized whenyou're bringing up their trauma. And so
(09:11):
as a trauma therapist, I workwith people to really support them in being
able to develop the capacity we callit an affective window of tolerance, so
the ability to be with the uncomfortablein a way that doesn't get us to
a point of flooding and having atraumatic reaction in that moment. And so
we support people with a slow bilateralwhich could be eye movements, it could
(09:33):
be tapping, it could be thetappers that we use, And so that
slow tapping is helping to reinforce themind body connection. So We can do
that in a lot of different ways, whether it's supporting them through a body
scan and getting to a place ofcalm and then tapping that in so the
mind and body connect what that feelingof calm feels like, and so we're
(09:54):
helping them to develop more adaptive feelingsand associations. And we do that work
first, and of course that's mindfulnesswork, right, being present with and
noticing, and then once we shiftinto the reprocessing part of that, that's
a fast bilateral and so we're doingwe are actually sitting with a target,
which could be the trauma that theyexperienced, and then they go through various
(10:16):
associations with that until the neural networksstart to become more adaptive, and then
we reinforce that bringing in like morepositive cognition and you know, finished through
with it till it gets to apoint where the body no longer has a
SUD score, which is a subjectiveunits of distress that's like one or zero.
So that's one of the things thatwe would do very directly with trauma
(10:39):
in a way that's a little bitdifferent than just talk therapy. We also
have sound baths, so I willhave people come in and some of those
people are actually clients that I've workedwith. It could be, you know,
coming off of the street just becausethey want to come and do a
sound bath. We do those oncea month and it's a practice of mindfulness,
but it's also you don't have tobe mindful and a sound bath.
(11:01):
People ask me all the time,should I bring my bathing suit? It's
no water? That was my nextquestion. Are we in water here?
Yeah? I pictured the one ofthose the sensory deprivation tanks. That's what
I pictured. Yeah. No,so it's no water, but the sensory
I do have a sensory deprivation tanker. I do so many toys I do.
You should really come and we wouldlove to have you. But yeah,
(11:24):
So the sound bath is really justlaying and being present and or getting
to a place where you get sorelaxed that you fall asleep. One thing
that I want to mention is thatwhen we're doing these different practices, what
I'm actually really trying to evoke alot of times is getting that central nervous
system that's on overdrive when we experiencedtrauma to calm down and so really just
(11:50):
kind of slowing it down through breathwork or noticing like something that sounds calm
and soothing, So that's something thata sound bath is really good at.
We also have reiki or energy work, and then of course the acupuncture is
energy work, and so these areall different kinds of practices that we do
that help to really calm down orsoothe the central nervous system. And it
(12:11):
really helps people to learn how todo that for themselves. Because my hope
and goal is for people to workme out of a job. I'm not
in the business to try to keepgetting people coming back to me so I
can prescribe them, you know,medicines, which I don't do that as
a practice, but I do havea prescriber. But it's really about helping
them learn tools that are going towork, that are going to help them
long term, so that they willtell their friends about me instead and then
(12:33):
maybe they'll come back to me fora tune up. But I don't want
people to feel like they need torely on me and a lot of therapists
if that's how they're showing up,that's not how it should be. Yeah,
yeah, what would you tell someonewho you know who who's had therapy
before they've had traum their life,they're sick of the way they've been doing
it. Maybe they've just went totalk therapy. Maybe maybe you know,
(12:56):
there's even situations where you just don'tvibe with the therapist. You know,
you're in different wavelengths. What whatwould you tell that person about you know,
giving stell a luna and try andcoming out and seeing you, well,
please come out, because we areaddressing this in a much different kind
of way. There is always goingto be a number of people in a
in a field that you don't resonatewith, and so it's about trying it
(13:18):
and trying it out until you findsomeone that that is going to be a
better fit for you. We haveso many different kinds of therapists. We're
very open and inclusive, so wewe have a lot of diversity. So
people that may have worked with somebodyin the past that shows up in a
in a you know, cookie cutterkind of way, that's not us.
We've got kind of a vibe andI we got to have a vibe.
(13:41):
Yeah, we we really try toshow up in a way that people can
feel really comfortable and safe in ourspace, even from the moment when you
first walk in, you'll you'll geta sense of the energy that we are.
And each of my practice practitioners areall very carefully chosen. I'm very
very picky, and these folks areall at least bits and pieces of me
(14:07):
in one way or another, orelse I wouldn't have them with me.
So tell me why you got intothis. I had a really challenging upbringing,
and so I really experienced a wholelot of pain points that we would
look at as the small ti traumas, right, And so by the time
I was ending my high school experience, I really didn't want to be there
(14:28):
anymore. I was suicidal, andI actually got to a place where I
attempted suicide. And so the ironyof it is that I tried to do
it with a drug that was calledecstasy. The irony is in that experience,
I had what we would call nowa near death experience, which are
(14:50):
pretty popular, or what some peoplemight even say an awakening, And in
that moment I actually had some communicationhappening where I felt that I was touching
kind of the realm of like Godor source or energy, whatever you might
want to call it. And inthat experience, I was told It wasn't
(15:13):
words per se, but it wasmore kind of like an understanding of consciousness.
But it was communicating to me,Hey, you have every right to
leave if you want to, andwe're not going to hold you back,
and you can totally choose that ifthat's what you want. But we don't
think that you're going to want tobecause you actually have a lot of work
you're going to do and you're goingto help a lot of people. And
(15:35):
so I didn't understand it. Butin that experience, I had a vision
and I saw a big center andit was a healing center, and there
was art and there were small groupsand there were one on one conversations and
I didn't know what was happening inall of that, but I knew that
it was important, and I knewthat it was something that I cared about
because I've always cared about people.Oh thank you, Oh my gosh,
(15:58):
this is great, this was awesome, things said at the exact same time.
Of course,
This is iHeartRadio CEOs you should knowwith owner and licensed clinical professional counselor at
Stella Luna Counseling and Wellness Center,Jenny D. John Dominico. Let's start
with how you got into this field. Let's start there. Yeah, so
I went to graduate school, soI have a three year graduate degree in
clinical mental health counseling. So I'ma licensed professional clinical counselor. Yeah that's
(00:21):
really professional, thank y'all. Sohow did we get from Jenny getting her
master's degree to opening Stella Luna.What's kind of that path? Look like?
I really always knew I wanted toown my own practice. I knew
that I didn't want to work foranybody because I just don't like how other
people are doing it. And Iworked a little bit in someone else's private
(00:43):
practice for a while after my internshipat the VA, and then kind of
the stars aligned and I took thebig leap, which was sort of well
timed because it was just before thepandemic. Oh wow. And then the
pandemic hit. So I opened upmy center, Stella Luna Counseling and Illness
in twenty nineteen. And then thepandemic hit. Oh jeez. So I
(01:04):
was kind of in the right placeat the right time, so you just
went all virtual then all the samething but over zoom. Yeah. And
I had a three hundred square footspace, so that was fine for myself
and it went really well. Butthen I was able to add on another
therapist virtually, wow, because itwas perfect timing. So tell me about
what you guys offer at stell ALuna. What kind of counseling I know
(01:27):
you kind of I mean, doyou call it out of the box stuff
that you do? How do youhelp people who? I mean, because
let's be honest, I think ourgeneration, we're not scared to talk about
mental health anymore. We don't,you know, some obviously some people still
do, but I think it's morein the public eye to have this,
you know, to work on yourmental health, no matter what end of
(01:48):
the spectrum you're on. So howdo you guys at stell A Luna.
You know, how are we doingHow are you guys doing it differently than
the traditional ways and that sort ofthing. Our center is designed with holistic
health in mind, so you know, I started off as a therapist and
I was doing just straight up talktherapy, and working with really kind of
the gamut general mental health issues,so like depression, anxiety, and then
(02:12):
trauma. And I knew I wantedto treat trauma because of my own you
know, upbringing and the things thatI went through, and then after I
was able to address those things,I knew I wanted to be able to
help other people do the same.So I started to really specialize in trauma,
and I worked a lot with firstresponders and of course the veterans when
(02:32):
I was at the VA, andI really fell in love with that work.
And then I got further training inEMDR, so now I'm a certified
EMDR therapist and actually consultant in training. So a lot of my work was
really mind body centered and so Ireally kind of became specialized in in a
holistic way, which is really thinkingabout all parts of an individual. And
(02:54):
so I was doing that with therapyand a lot of things kind kind of
hit the fan at once because wehad we had the pandemic. I was
working with a client who ended upactually completing suicide, and it was probably
the hardest thing I've gone through inmy practice. And what I remember during
that time was that I kept Iwas referring her out to all these things
(03:15):
that I believed in, because ofcourse I had the small, little three
hundred square foot space, and Iwas referring her, referring her out to
acupuncture and to getting ketamine infusions andthese different things to address some of these
like higher level, you know,trauma symptoms. And she ended up getting
back to me on Friday after theWednesday that I met with her, when
(03:37):
she had a really bad a reallybad event happened and she was like,
I couldn't get into ketymine for tendays, but I tried to do this
in this the things that were onour list, and then she hung herself
on a Saturday. So yeah,it was devastating, and I was just
really pissed because I just felt like, why am I referring somebody out to
(03:58):
these things that I know are helpful? Why don't Why am I not doing
what I always knew I wanted todo. So I ended up taking a
leap from there and now at StellaLuna, we specialize in mental health treatment.
We have we specialize in trauma.We have a very holistic approach,
but we also so we have tentherapy rooms. But then we also have
another three thousand square feet, soit's six thousand square feet total. The
(04:21):
other three thousand square feet is reallyfocused on holistic wellness, So I have
acupuncture and SNA and a float tankand a huge multipurpose room where I do
monthly sound baths with my brother.We have a whole lot of different work
there that's happening all the time.So how does how does all this holistic
stuff is? What does it dofor? Does it open up the mind?
(04:42):
Does it calm them? But whydo we do these sort of things?
And why haven't we been doing themfor hundreds of years? Because for
me, if you think about goingto therapy, I'm telling you I'm going
to therapy, I picture I'm sittingon a couch and I'm talking to someone,
which is very helpful. Yeah,but it's are we is it just
like one one section of the SwissArmy knife. I love that. So
(05:03):
actually people don't realize this often wehave been doing a lot of these holistic
things for thousands and thousands of years. In fact, sound baths, one
of my favorite ways to practice mindfulness, has been a century old. I
mean it's so old. It's backin the days where they were doing these
things with Tibetan singing bowls, andit was just a beautiful practice that they
(05:28):
were doing in their communities, andit kind of got lost for a while,
and really a lot of people lookat it as Eastern practices, and
so, you know, we're kindof on the East Coast a little bit
farther behind. But when I wasin California, a lot of the places
that I was out there, we'redoing some of this stuff again. But
really things like acupuncture. Acupuncture,you know, is a Chinese energy medicine.
(05:50):
I have an aerobatic practitioner she's youknow, from India and is just
incredible. But again, that's likean ancient wisdom that they've been passing on.
So really I would argue that wejust kind of got dumb instead of
that it's just brand new stuff thatwe're that we're learning about. But I'm
just like, hey, guys,these things work and they're amazing. And
(06:12):
really my philosophy is more that wedon't heal from one pathway. Not every
person is the same, and soI know, for me, I tried
on a lot of different different modalitiesfor my own healing, and I really
was hopeful that I could bring alot of these different things together so that
I could help people as many differentways as possible. You said mind I
(06:34):
believe. Did you say, isit mindfulness? Yes? That phrase it
struck me. I've never heard toit. I've never heard it referred to
in that way. What is that? What does that mean for you?
Yeah? So presence right, Andyou know, as a philosophy, as
a as a therapist, I workwith my clients and I and I really
try to help them get into themoment, and it is sort of a
(06:56):
buzzy thing. But also I don'tknow that people really are practicing it the
way that it's fully intended. Alot of times, a lot of times
people think, oh, I haveto do a body scan a guided meditation,
and people are turned off right away. But it's really not about that.
I talk to my clients about,you know, the things that we
(07:17):
kind of like try to brush underthe rug. So we come with trauma,
whether it's big t trauma like nineto eleven stuff, or smaller tea
where you wouldn't know it, butyou know, bullying, or just somebody
calling you names, or somebody inthe home as you were growing up that
wouldn't let you speak and you didn'tfeel like you had space. That's still
trauma, emotional trauma, and itis physical too. So my philosophy with
(07:41):
my clients is that we can't healwhat we don't allow ourself to feel and
if we don't know what's coming upfor us, because we're going on autopilot.
You know how many times do wedrive from one place to the other
and we don't even know how wegot there. That's autopilot and that's the
opposite of presence or mindfulness. SoI work with people to be in the
moment, to notice what's coming upfor them so that we can really be
(08:03):
intentional about supporting them through processing it, so that you can let your body
do its natural healing process. Sowhat kind of I mean? I want
to call them non conventional therapies,but obviously, like you said, for
thousands of years, they've been doingit, so they're they're conventional. What
kind of you mentioned a few ofthem, But what are some of the
other services you guys want to highlightthat really helps with that mindfulness when they
(08:26):
come into stell A Luna. Absolutely, So one of the things what I
mentioned was emdr so that's eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing therapy. Wow,
So you really can't do reprocessing withEMDR with someone if they haven't done some
things before going into that part ofthe work. So EMDR isn't just about
(08:46):
the reprocessing, it's about working withsomebody and resourcing them. So let's say
I was working with a veteran andthey came in and they had combat trauma,
and so on day one I wouldn'tcome in and have them do you
know, exposure therapy because despite alot of the efforts out there, people
are actually able to be retraumatized whenyou're bringing up their trauma. And so
(09:11):
as a trauma therapist, I workwith people to really support them in being
able to develop the capacity we callit an affective window of tolerance, so
the ability to be with the uncomfortablein a way that doesn't get us to
a point of flooding and having atraumatic reaction in that moment. And so
we support people with a slow bilateralwhich could be eye movements, it could
(09:33):
be tapping, it could be thetappers that we use, And so that
slow tapping is helping to reinforce themind body connection. So We can do
that in a lot of different ways, whether it's supporting them through a body
scan and getting to a place ofcalm and then tapping that in so the
mind and body connect what that feelingof calm feels like, and so we're
(09:54):
helping them to develop more adaptive feelingsand associations. And we do that work
first, and of course that's mindfulnesswork, right, being present with and
noticing, and then once we shiftinto the reprocessing part of that, that's
a fast bilateral and so we're doingwe are actually sitting with a target,
which could be the trauma that theyexperienced, and then they go through various
(10:16):
associations with that until the neural networksstart to become more adaptive, and then
we reinforce that bringing in like morepositive cognition and you know, finished through
with it till it gets to apoint where the body no longer has a
SUD score, which is a subjectiveunits of distress that's like one or zero.
So that's one of the things thatwe would do very directly with trauma
(10:39):
in a way that's a little bitdifferent than just talk therapy. We also
have sound baths, so I willhave people come in and some of those
people are actually clients that I've workedwith. It could be, you know,
coming off of the street just becausethey want to come and do a
sound bath. We do those oncea month and it's a practice of mindfulness,
but it's also you don't have tobe mindful and a sound bath.
(11:01):
People ask me all the time,should I bring my bathing suit? It's
no water? That was my nextquestion. Are we in water here?
Yeah? I pictured the one ofthose the sensory deprivation tanks. That's what
I pictured. Yeah. No,so it's no water, but the sensory
I do have a sensory deprivation tanker. I do so many toys I do.
You should really come and we wouldlove to have you. But yeah,
(11:24):
So the sound bath is really justlaying and being present and or getting
to a place where you get sorelaxed that you fall asleep. One thing
that I want to mention is thatwhen we're doing these different practices, what
I'm actually really trying to evoke alot of times is getting that central nervous
system that's on overdrive when we experiencedtrauma to calm down and so really just
(11:50):
kind of slowing it down through breathwork or noticing like something that sounds calm
and soothing, So that's something thata sound bath is really good at.
We also have reiki or energy work, and then of course the acupuncture is
energy work, and so these areall different kinds of practices that we do
that help to really calm down orsoothe the central nervous system. And it
(12:11):
really helps people to learn how todo that for themselves. Because my hope
and goal is for people to workme out of a job. I'm not
in the business to try to keepgetting people coming back to me so I
can prescribe them, you know,medicines, which I don't do that as
a practice, but I do havea prescriber. But it's really about helping
them learn tools that are going towork, that are going to help them
long term, so that they willtell their friends about me instead and then
(12:33):
maybe they'll come back to me fora tune up. But I don't want
people to feel like they need torely on me and a lot of therapists
if that's how they're showing up,that's not how it should be. Yeah,
yeah, what would you tell someonewho you know who who's had therapy
before they've had traum their life,they're sick of the way they've been doing
it. Maybe they've just went totalk therapy. Maybe maybe you know,
(12:56):
there's even situations where you just don'tvibe with the therapist. You know,
you're in different wavelengths. What whatwould you tell that person about you know,
giving stell a luna and try andcoming out and seeing you, well,
please come out, because we areaddressing this in a much different kind
of way. There is always goingto be a number of people in a
in a field that you don't resonatewith, and so it's about trying it
(13:18):
and trying it out until you findsomeone that that is going to be a
better fit for you. We haveso many different kinds of therapists. We're
very open and inclusive, so wewe have a lot of diversity. So
people that may have worked with somebodyin the past that shows up in a
in a you know, cookie cutterkind of way, that's not us.
We've got kind of a vibe andI we got to have a vibe.
(13:41):
Yeah, we we really try toshow up in a way that people can
feel really comfortable and safe in ourspace, even from the moment when you
first walk in, you'll you'll geta sense of the energy that we are.
And each of my practice practitioners areall very carefully chosen. I'm very
very picky, and these folks areall at least bits and pieces of me
(14:07):
in one way or another, orelse I wouldn't have them with me.
So tell me why you got intothis. I had a really challenging upbringing,
and so I really experienced a wholelot of pain points that we would
look at as the small ti traumas, right, And so by the time
I was ending my high school experience, I really didn't want to be there
(14:28):
anymore. I was suicidal, andI actually got to a place where I
attempted suicide. And so the ironyof it is that I tried to do
it with a drug that was calledecstasy. The irony is in that experience,
I had what we would call nowa near death experience, which are
(14:50):
pretty popular, or what some peoplemight even say an awakening, And in
that moment I actually had some communicationhappening where I felt that I was touching
kind of the realm of like Godor source or energy, whatever you might
want to call it. And inthat experience, I was told It wasn't
(15:13):
words per se, but it wasmore kind of like an understanding of consciousness.
But it was communicating to me,Hey, you have every right to
leave if you want to, andwe're not going to hold you back,
and you can totally choose that ifthat's what you want. But we don't
think that you're going to want tobecause you actually have a lot of work
you're going to do and you're goingto help a lot of people. And
(15:35):
so I didn't understand it. Butin that experience, I had a vision
and I saw a big center andit was a healing center, and there
was art and there were small groupsand there were one on one conversations and
I didn't know what was happening inall of that, but I knew that
it was important, and I knewthat it was something that I cared about
because I've always cared about people.Oh thank you, Oh my gosh,
(15:58):
this is great, this was awesome, things said at the exact same time.
Of course,
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