If you’ve found your way here, chances are pretty good something happened in your life or business - or both - that’s left you feeling ashamed, stuck, burnt out, angry, scared, and more.
Let me be the first to tell you - You CAN figure it out, you’re not as broken as you think you are, and when you get your head and heart squared away, anything is possible.
I truly, absolutely believe you are already your own best expert, and anything is learnable as long as you stay teachable. I know this, because once upon a time, I felt everything you’re feeling right now. I was stuck in a spiral of shame, fear, self-doubt, and feeling like the only value I had was based on what I could do for others.
Once upon a time….
I was a whole ass mess.
But, that wasn’t always the case. I grew up being fairly comfortable with taking risks, faced a fair amount of adversity between having life-threatening scoliosis and needing major spine surgery to correct it when I was 13, along with a decade of service as an EMT. I was confident in myself, in what I knew, and in my ability and willingness to face challenges head-on, until 2014 hit.
In 2014, I was a new mother to a preemie baby, practically drowning in postpartum depression, struggling with figuring out what it meant to love my career but hate my job, and trying to figure out how to deal with, and leave, a marriage I believed was threatening and unsafe.
OOF.
Let’s unpack that a bit, shall we?
<pulls up a chair…>
I developed severe postpartum depression and anxiety in 2013, after delivering my daughter five weeks early. I felt my marriage had not been in great shape for some time leading up to that point, I was sick my entire pregnancy (morning sickness started in my first trimester and just decided to set up shop for the duration), and I felt I didn’t get the support at home I really, really needed. Without realizing it, I had become a very nicely decorated doormat at both home and work, rarely speaking up for myself, and doing whatever I could to avoid conflict at all costs. This led to a pile of work stress developing, and struggling with the ever-growing and evolving demands of working for a public community mental health agency. My supervisor and I were not… besties… and while I loved the team I worked with, I knew I wanted something different.
The stress of feeling like both work and home were imploding at the same time only compounded the postpartum issues I was dealing with. I was quickly falling apart, but I wasn’t willing to admit it because I had myself convinced that it was my job to fix All.The.Things. Problem solving was my jam and where I had always felt most confident, but…. I couldn’t problem solve my way out of a paper bag this time.
A couple years prior to this, I brought up the idea to my family and husband about starting a private practice, and when the response was essentially laughter, I kept my idea to myself out of sheer embarrassment. Finally in 2014 after I had my daughter, I was told I wasn’t going to be considered for a supervisor position I applied for. I had enough of the political bs happening under my program director, and I decided if I was going to chase my dream, it was now or never.
I launched my private practice in July 2014, but could not have predicted what would come next.
Remember that not-great-marriage I mentioned? Well, it went from FEELING not great to FEELING pretty scary in the space of just a few months.
I had attempted to figure out financial, mental, and emotional moments throughout the relationship that felt jarring, causing me to question myself almost constantly. When the relationship shifted to the point of feeling like my physical safety was becoming questionable, I knew I couldn’t question myself anymore - it was time to leave.
I left in the middle of the night with my 1.5 year old daughter in 2014.
I never would have been able to predict or imagine what it was going to be like to attempt to build a business under trial by fire, while also going through a literal trial that would end with the dissolution of my marriage. The entire time, while my personal life was falling apart around me and I was trying desperately to not completely fail my daughter, I found a constant solace in the business I was growing. It was the one place in my life, during a very dark time, where I felt completely competent and fully trusted myself to be able to figure things out.
I did the research on how to start a LLC, made choices that turned out to be mistakes (that I still cringe about today, like paper charts…), and started learning about things like niching, ideal clients, branding, marketing, copywriting, and networking. Working on that process before, during, and after my divorce gave me something concrete I could focus on and pour energy into, where I felt productive and could see the positive net result of my actions.
It didn’t matter to me that people kept saying to me things like:
‘You’ll fail.’
‘You didn’t go to school for business, you don’t know what you’re doing.’
‘You’re putting too much on your plate; you won’t be able to handle it.’
I’m a pretty stubborn person, so if you tell me I can’t do something, I’ll usually be the one to do it twice and take pictures, just to prove you wrong.
I wasn’t deterred. I was determined.
In my business, I found myself again.
Sitting in session with my clients, doing my books for my accountant, scheduling new clients and networking with colleagues - in running my business, I was able to reconnect to my confidence, my willingness to take calculated risks, feeling my way through the process of developing my expertise and authority, and understanding what it physically and emotionally felt like to shift from scarcity into abundance.
I went from being a whole ass mess to being a confident authority of a businesswoman and entrepreneur, who wasn’t afraid to set boundaries and who leaned fully into freedom and authenticity. Over time, as I recovered from the divorce, this started to translate into my personal life. The confidence I was experiencing in my professional life turned into feeling confident about the choices I was making in my personal life, the relationships I chose to nurture and the ones I chose to let go of, and leaning into taking care of myself on my terms, for the first time in a very long time.
I was aligned - finally - and that alignment was fucking delicious. While I was in the middle of falling back in love with living and learning how to prioritize myself and my needs, I had a realization - in order to continue to live well, maintain the autonomy I fought hard for, and stay proud of who I was, constant evolution and self-leadership had to be non-negotiable priorities.
Self-leadership became the bedrock of everything I did with my therapy clients. The success my clients began to experience in their personal lives, coupled with the fulfillment I was building in my own personal life, led me to finally naming the method I had been working on creating since launching my practice -
GRIIT was born.
GRIIT was quickly followed by POWER, and these two ideas-turned-methods are now the foundation of The GRIIT Project.
The irony of it all, though, was realizing how long these methods had actually been hanging around. Each pillar of GRIIT and POWER have been the foundation of how I have lived my entire life - except when I was married. Falling out of alignment with the skills, ideas, perspectives, and values embedded in each layer of both methods led to one of the darkest times of my life.
And, getting back into alignment with them was the most important part of recovering from that darkness, while reconnecting with my sense of self and sense of purpose. I believe the same can be true for you, too.
I’m here to tell you - You absolutely CAN have the life and business you’ve dreamt of.
I created the pillars of GRIIT and POWER to walk you through the process of building a life and business in alignment with your values and true identity. You’ve always been your own best expert, and it’s time for you to finally step into actually living that way.
Your dreams, hopes, and desires are all so incredibly valid.
You absolutely can have the life and business you’ve been dreaming of.
You just have to start, one step at a time.
Let’s do it together, shall we?
I’d love to help you find your new path. Let’s see how we can work together, to get you moving in a direction you’re confident and happy about.