What is holistic wellness?

Holistic treatment encompasses...

mental

physical

Psychotherapy, counseling, therapy, mental health services. All terms to describe a way in which we engage with our mental health. Having been a therapist for many years I am familiar with how important mental health is but also the limitations of mental health treatment in our current system. Treatment often ignores or outright denies the influence of systems, cultures, or politics on our mental health. For me, these are integral parts of understanding mental health and how we can best support ourselves and our communities. That being said, I work with people to better understand themselves, their internal systems, the external systems in which they live, and the ways in which all of these things intersect. Using modalities such as Internal Family Systems Therapy (Level 1 Trained), Dialectical Behavior Therapy, mindfulness, and others, you will explore and practice ways of being in the world that support not only yourself but the community around you. This is a neurodiversity and systems of oppression-aware (capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy/racism, heterosexism, gender binarism, and ableism) space.

Contrary to popular belief and confirmed by peer-reviewed research, our bodies and our minds are not separate. Our physical health influences our mental health and vice versa. We work together to understand how these two things interplay and how you can best support your physical health in order to better support all aspects of your life. In a session, this will look like examining your sleep, nutrition, water intake, and environmental triggers. We will explore the beauty that is your individual body while acknowledging and holding space for the ways in which our bodies have been neglected, harmed, and also tenderly held. This is an anti-fat phobia, anti-diet space where the human experience is trusted above the traditional allopathic medical model.

spiritual

The spiritual is the place where you connect into your deeper Self. This is acknowledging and working with intuition, connecting with ancestors, working within a religion or spiritual path if that is what feels good for your system, and acknowledging that while our connection to our body is important, it is not the only way in which we connect to the world around us. This can look like incorporating Tarot into a session or “homework”, creating ritual within session and outside of session, or simply building space in your life for these spiritual aspects to be able to flourish. This space is dedicated to accepting all paths and forms of spirituality while acknowledging systems of oppression.

Okay, but why choose holistic wellness?

I have worked in the mental health field in varying capacities since 2012 and the number one thing I can tell you is that something is missing. Therapy is an incredible resource and is absolutely life-changing for many people. But what I kept coming up against is the fact that we cannot therapy or self-care our way out of the stress of not being able to pay rent. Yes, we can learn skills and practice mindfulness and apply these things to our circumstances. But it does not solve that each month you are unable to make ends meet or that your food is making you sick or that your sleep is not getting better. The foundation on which we build our well-being is made up of all of these things: our environment, our cultures, the systems in under which we live, our access to services, the food we put in our bodies, our ability to relax and pause, and so much more. I decided to start offering services outside of traditional therapy because I knew that I was limited in what I could do for people and therefore people were never going to start getting the services they deserved if someone didn’t start providing those services under a different mantel (in the USA, for example, you cannot call yourself a mental health therapist/counselor without staying within the scope of therapy only and what is defined as mental health therapy is limited and changes from state to state).

You Choose mountain meadow Because:

You have done therapy before and it has felt like something is missing or it just hasn’t felt right for you
You have never done therapy and want to explore it along with other aspects of well-being
You are neurodiverse or fall into a historically neglected group that has not had good experiences with therapy
You are looking for something more all-encompassing than just mental health therapy or just focusing on physical health
You are curious!
You hope to deepen your relationship with yourself and the world around you

At Mountain Meadow I want to offer what it is you need. Everyone is unique in their approach to life and therefore will need different things and I strive to meet people where they are at. If we determine that we aren’t the right fit, I will make sure you walk away with the appropriate referrals.