Pain Is Not the Opposite of Joy
It is natural to want to avoid pain. However, authentic joy can be realized only when our emotional pain is acknowledged. Minimizing, ignoring, or eliminating it before understanding it can actually make the struggle worse. Your pain is part of how you were created by God and it provides valuable information; clues and evidence about who you are and to what you are called. With that in mind, doesn’t it make sense to respect, understand, and contextualize your emotional pain?
We will take this journey together. My approach to healing is to integrate pain and struggle into a journey of meaning. Emotional suffering – whether from abuse, trauma, relationship struggles, disappointments, addiction, anxiety, or depression – can be an important bridge to growth and change. In the end you will not just feel better; you will also have integrated the complexity and nuance you discovered along the way into your personality.
While we might prefer to cast aside suffering, in doing so uncritically we risk inadvertently discarding who we are and what makes life worth living.
By integrating pain into your life’s journey, you maximize the possibilities of sustainable, authentic joy and healthy, mutual relationships. Rather than just “dealing” with pain, you will learn to capitalize on it.
Many of my clients have noted my affinity for movies, literature, and art, and that I often draw on these sources for metaphor, imagery and narrative inspiration in the therapeutic conversation.
This works for me because I love art and the creative process. Being a therapist is just as creative as was my previous work in the entertainment industry, with the main difference being that my medium now is genuine human experience. I work particularly well with entertainment professionals and all types of artists, musicians, actors, writers, and dancers.
There is often tension between who you know yourself to be as a person or artist and the various “shoulds” you carry – the imperatives from self, family, community, and society to do or be something else. I will help bring these unconscious “shoulds” to light so that you can thoughtfully engage with life and art, allowing you to break out of this oversimplified either/or dichotomy and increasing your range of choices.
My love for literature and art is not just because of the meaning it has for those who engage in artistic pursuits professionally. I believe we are invited by our creator God to let our lives speak as living works of art. Engaging our lives in this way helps us take charge of the seeming chaos of our lives. I will help you craft strategies that free your creative energy for the task of becoming the protagonist of your own life’s journey.
Detail from “Tuscan Stars” quilt created by Tina Curran
Office Location
650 Sierra Madre Villa
Suite 110
Pasadena, CA 91107
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Call Me at:
(626) 351-9616 ext. 104