Client Journeys

Gretchen’s Journey
Trusting my internal voice, recovering from shame, and building self-confidence. 

When I met Brenda, I felt like an imposter in my own life. I was trying to live by values and a code that wasn’t really mine but was imposed on me by my family and society. Down deep, I really thought I was a bad person. If I had continued to believe that, my life would have been miserable.

Brenda challenged my unhealthy beliefs. When I made statements that revealed my negative internal shame, we would talk about where those thoughts were coming from. She also helped me articulate my faith in a way that I found to be healing and important for my recovery from the shame. Our relationship became a platform for me to launch and to rebuild my life.

Because of knowing Brenda, I am more confident. I now believe it is OK to be me. And I am a better mother, partner, friend, and employee because of this. I can still count on her as someone to talk to when I come across a spiritual concept that is disturbing me.

Brenda helped me to trust my internal voice as sacred, which allowed me to let go of the guilt and my should-of, could-of, would-of thoughts. That has helped me be a better mother to my teen daughter by encouraging her to find her own voice. When I do overreact sometimes, I am able to say to her, “I am sorry. That was not about you, and you did not deserve the response I just gave you.”

I have grown in my ability to talk about my spiritual beliefs and my faith journey, and Brenda has helped me trust how God is leading me to find healing for myself and offer it to others. She also encouraged me to celebrate my strength of authenticity, which I use throughout my life.

I like that I now can be an assertive female in the workplace and relate points and counterpoints, risks, and paths without fear and without a defensive attitude. This led to better work relations and successful outcomes, such as when I created an entire VMO process, including a tracking system for utilizing strategic sourcing mechanisms that saved 18% hardware costs directly impacting margin on customer deals for a  business sector.

~ Gretchen from Indiana

Cathleen’s Story
Escaping the world’s mold, staying centered, and enjoying life as a learning experience.

I had always thought I needed to be married, to be a wife, and to have the kind of marriage, I thought my parents had. I tried to fit the mold that the world had for me. It wasn’t until I was middle-aged that I began to realize I didn’t have to follow any pattern for my life except my own. Since then, I have worked to know myself better and be true to my own needs and wishes.

Knowing Brenda has helped me to keep that part of myself alive. She provides a safe, non-judgmental presence when we are together. Our intentions fit — mine to learn and enliven the light within my spirit, and Brenda’s to teach and be a conduit of that light that lives in each of us.

While I was trying on various lives and finding they didn’t fit, I kept journals to stay sane and centered, to stay in touch with my spiritual center. Something in me knew I was play-acting, both avoiding out of fear and preparing from my inner knowing that I would have to leap past the barricades I kept creating to the truth of who I am. Brenda helped me enjoy and revel in all that I found beyond those boundaries. She empowered me to grow and claim my whole self.  

I share with Brenda a knowing that life is a continuous and fascinating learning experience, ever pushing the edges of possibility to the new while valuing all I’ve been and known before. I look forward to being free and safe to live in all the layers of myself, whatever life lessons are presented for good or ill.

Cathleen from Missouri

Karlton from California
I didn’t consider myself very spiritual, but our work brought so much energy and happiness. 

I tried hard to resolve my unwanted, negative thoughts that cast dark shadows in my mind every day. When I talked to Brenda, I wasn’t sure anyone could help me, but I was just desperate. She listened to my unhappy and unhelpful meanings I attributed to life events without judgment. It was nice to have her accept me as I was at that time without resistance. And she didn’t tell me to stop thinking that way as my family did.

What Brenda did was to gently challenge me to find what was sacred about those life events. I had never thought in that perspective before, but it helped, so I came to a more realistic and understanding of them. There’s something about reframing your perspective about life’s experiences that give you more energy — at least that is what it did for me.

For example, Brenda challenged me to be practice gratitude — I was to find little things every day to be thankful for and write them down at the end of each day. We had talked about how being thankful every day would train my brain. Then she said that would help me to handle the tough things that happened to me better. So for a week or more, I was making a list of the things I was thankful for every day, and then it made me think about the time I was fired from my first job years ago. And I realized that I was thankful for that too. At the time, it was pretty awful, but it caused me to go into a different type of work, and now I have a job that I love. If I hadn’t been fired from that first job, I wouldn’t have found this career that means so much to me now.

Now I think more about how there might be something special and holy in what is happening in my life instead of making all kinds of negative assumptions. So not only have my thought processes improved, but circumstances seem to have improved also. I’ve never thought of myself as being particularly spiritual, but I learned from Brenda that there are things in my life that I don’t want to mess with, things that hold special significance for me, those are the things that give my life meaning, those things can be called sacred. I still make lists of things I am thankful for, maybe not every day but at least once a week. Those thankful lists are sacred for me now.

Jill from Missouri
A new sense of freedom. A new excitement has ignited. It’s been transformative.

I was bruised from my childhood experiences in the church, so I was hesitant to share my spirituality. I thought I had to know and be certain about my beliefs because I was taught to think in black and white terms. So when I joined a group that Brenda was leading, I was not sure if I was doing the right thing.

Brenda made me feel safe in our group. I had a lot of anxiety about connecting closely with people from church, and it was a big deal for me to join something and be authentic because I might be judged harshly. I still have to battle that fear, but I keep showing up because I know I am safe even if it’s scary.

Brenda leads with strengths and allows for individual uniqueness. She has a peaceful way of sharing her own experiences, so you feel like she is a partner who will help you. She helped me learn not to be afraid of questioning everything I thought I believed; that I could examine and break down my faith statements and know that I’m still a child of God. She gave me permission to question and that it was brave to do so. I’ve also seen her with other people and know she can be direct and kind, that she can challenge someone without diminishing that person.

I feel more free — free not to know everything, free not to have all the answers, free from the burden of needing certainty. This ignites more excitement in me, to talk about my beliefs, to talk about spirituality, and to talk about my uncertainty. I experience this daily in so many ways but especially when I talk to my kids. I don’t have to have all the answers for them, and I am teaching them; it is OK to question things.

My time with Brenda has been transformative.

If it’s time to change things up, focus on what’s truly important, then take the next step and get in touch with me and we’ll talk about your journey ahead.