Meet Dawn
I’m glad you’ve found your way here. It means you are open to greater self-awareness, deeper personal growth, and a stronger sense of empowerment and resilience in living.
As a psychotherapist for 30 years, I’ve partnered with many clients who have felt stuck in their lives and dissatisfied with themselves. Through deep listening, acceptance, empathy honest feedback and expertise, I provided a safe place for them to let down their self-protective guards and discover their true selves. Many of my clients have been women in their 40s, 50s and 60s, who have gone through setbacks in life, be it painful relationship experiences, life changing losses, or disappointments that crushed confidence and spirit. They found themselves feeling empty, worn down, discouraged, and questioning their purpose and value.
In the spirit of partnership, I helped them to face their buried feelings and self-limiting beliefs about themselves and find the deeper lessons and learning in those difficult experiences. They learned to cultivate compassion for and acceptance of the places in themselves that felt broken and unacceptable. Together we gathered up those parts that were hard to accept and with gentle curiosity about the suffering and meaning, they discovered a beauty inside, enhanced and enriched by life experiences, lessons learned, and came to cultivate a gratitude and appreciation for these “opportunities” for growth and evolving.
I know. I’ve been through a few myself. I’ve felt broken and lost. When I was about to turn 40, I witnessed my dearest friend deteriorate and die from AIDS. And just months before I turned 50, I took care of my dying mother. So much for celebrating my midlife milestone birthdays. They were highlighted by pain, loss and even some despair at times.
It was about 8 years ago that I was fortunate in having discovered Emotional Freedom Techniques, also known as Tapping. I was already a well-trained and experienced therapist but when I was introduced to Tapping I found myself reinvigorated and re-inspired to help others heal. Seeing how effective this mind/body technique was and how gentle but deep it was in getting to core issues, I was in awe. Painful experiences in life leave us with emotions we may not process effectively and beliefs about ourselves that limit us and cause us to live small and doubt and dim our inner light and beauty.
Through EFT I retrieved my broken parts and rebounded from my sense of suffering and despair, evolving into someone stronger, wiser, more resilient and more compassionate, a more beautiful human being because of what I had been through. Each of us needs a vision of what we can become and the tools to mend and heal into a renewed, whole and better version of ourselves. Learning to embrace our so-called weaknesses and flaws, the ugly parts of ourselves, isn’t easy. But, it is the only path to wholeness and being able to step fully into our authentic empowered selves and shine our light in the world. Often, we need a guide to help us find the way, dig deep and stay on course. This is what I offer women who choose to embark on the journey, beyond broken, to whole and beautiful.
Several years ago I came across an article about the ancient Japanese artform known as Kintsukuroi or Kintsugi. It is a method of repairing broken pottery. The broken pieces are mended back together using gold or silver mixed with lacquer. The glimmering seams of repair becomes part of the history, meaning and value of the art piece and it is seen as more beautiful and unique because of it. This can be you. Your painful life experiences are the broken pieces, the honest self-reflection, insight and gentle but deep self-work is the gold and silver, that restores, revitalizes and renews you.
If you resonate with this, if you feel broken in places inside of yourself and question your value, have lost confidence or spirit, doubt that you can have a meaningful life and can’t see the beauty of your being , then let’s talk about how you can mend into beautiful.
“Wholeness does not mean perfection; it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.” — Parker J Palmer