The Samaritan Connection - 7

ask! " ) She even came up with the name " Change Through
Compassion " , which I feel captures the mission of the
program.
After becoming licensed, I was grateful to join the
Samaritan Counseling Center team. I felt immediately
welcomed and supported in exploring the various ways I could
get involved in both the client offerings and the internal
workings of Samaritan. To date, I have been able to provide
individual and couples therapy, conduct psychological
assessments, provide classes through the Change Through
Compassion program, leverage my MBA and dissertation
research on family businesses to conduct presentations
and consultation through Samaritan Consulting Group,
provide presentations for partner churches, conduct Ministry
Assessment evaluations and co-lead boundaries trainings
with the incredibly kind and wise David Miron. It has been a
running joke with the fi nance team that my paycheck is one
of the most complicated!
As I have grown as a clinician and as a person, I realize
that the goal of mental wellness is actually human wholeness.
This means trying to come to terms with experiences and
aspects of ourselves that we would rather cleave off and forget.
This often involves, as Parker Palmer would say, standing in
the gap between how things are and how we would like them
to be. I use my training in Object Relations to create a space
for clients to connect into their own wisdom rather than
looking to me to resolve their suffering. I use my training in
Strategic Family Systems to help my clients understand that
we are all involved in a dance with those around us, and we
can only control our steps and our response to the system's
desire to pull us back into familiar patterns, regardless of how
harmful. I use my training in Post-Modern Constructivism
to help clients pay attention to their language and how the
stories we tell ourselves create our reality. I use my training
in Neuroscience to help clients understand how our wellmeaning
brains cause us suffering in pursuit of helping us to
survive (rather than wanting us to be happy). I also use my
training in Mindful Self-Compassion to help clients befriend
their internal " prophets " , as Rumi would say, regardless of
how uncomfortable an emotion may be, to ride the emotion
to the other side (most last only 90 seconds free from us restoking
the fl ames), and to trust that they have the capacity
to make space to listen to their bodies and their feelings by
being gentle with themselves.
For better or worse, my friends and family members will
tell you that I " say what I mean and mean what I say " . Living
a life that is consistent with my values is very important to
me, including trying my best to steer clear from hypocrisy.
Therefore, I try my best to embody what I share with clients.
When I am teaching future clinicians, I remind them that
slogging through something themselves will make them more
believable to clients, as well as less glib in stating how easy
something will be to undertake. I do not always engage in
the practices I would like consistently. At the same time, I
do for myself what I encourage my clients to do, which is to
bring more curiosity and less judgement to these struggles and
remember that we can always " begin again " .
...bring more curiosity and less
judgement to these struggles and
remember that we can always
" begin again " .
Self-compassion can be defined as:
* Being open to and moved by one's own suffering.
* Experiencing feelings of caring and kindness toward
oneself.
* Taking an understanding, nonjudgmental attitude
toward one's inadequacies and failures.
* Recognizing that one's experience is part of the
common human experience.
To learn more about Change through Compassion,
the center's mindful self-compassion classes, you can
visit Lesley Huff's YouTube channel. There she offers
a number of videos, including a brief overview and
guidance in affectionate breathing, one of the core
mindful self-compassion practices.
The Samaritan Connection * 7
The Samaritan Connection

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