Healing Starts with Understanding
Trauma, Anxiety & Relationship Insights from a Missouri Therapist
Welcome — I’m glad you’re here.
This blog is where I share tools, insights, and therapeutic guidance to help you understand trauma, anxiety, attachment wounds, relationship patterns, and the healing process.
All content is written by a licensed therapist providing online trauma therapy and couples counseling throughout Missouri — including Springfield, Kansas City, St. Louis, and surrounding areas.
Whether you’re exploring EMDR, wanting to understand your relationship triggers, or looking for support between sessions, you’ll find gentle, research-backed guidance here.
Why You Can’t Accept Compliments (And What That Says About Anxiety and Self-Worth)
Do you struggle to accept compliments without minimizing, deflecting, or justifying them? Difficulty receiving praise is often connected to anxiety and low self-esteem. Here’s what it means — and how to start building healthier self-worth.
When you know better, but still struggle to be kind to yourself.
Struggling with self-criticism, guilt, or anxiety after hard moments? Learn why self-compassion is so difficult and how to respond with kindness instead of shame.
We all have moments when we don’t show up as our best self — and guilt quickly follows. This post explores why self-criticism takes over, how anxiety and overwhelm fuel it, and how self-compassion can help you respond differently on hard days.
How Anxiety Presents itself in Every-day Tasks: “Do-er” versus “Avoider”
Anxiety presents itself in various ways. Two ways that are often related to are the anxious “do-er” OR the anxious “avoider”. Also referred to as the overfunctioner and the underfunctioner. These can be seen in day-to-day tasks and can cause some difficulty in well-being, happiness, and overall functioning to name a few. Have questions? Click the work with me button above!