The Way

Many clients I see talk about feeling exhausted from holding it all together. That they’ve been hard on themselves for longer than they can remember and feeling like they should be further along, and more like the people around them. That they aren’t sure what needs to change but they know they can’t keep going like this.

That's okay. Being here already says a lot about who you are.

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About me

Hey, I’m Alex. I am a therapist who has had their own fair share of struggle.

I’ve had times where I looked at the people around me and wonder what it is about me that can't seem to measure up. I spent years believing that my struggles with anxiety and body image were a discipline problem and that if I just tried harder and expected more that I would unlock my potential. What I didn't realize was that those expectations made life feel impossible.

When I finally stopped and looked honestly at myself I felt relief. Relief that it wasn't about how hard I had been trying or that my efforts weren't the problem. And at the same time asking myself “Am I settling?”

What I had to accept was that no matter how hard I tried I would never become the impossibly perfect person I had been chasing. That not everyone was going to like me and I couldn’t control that. What I could control was how I act upon it. No matter what I did I would always be a failure by my own impossible standard.

Truly accepting this I felt nothing toward that standard. I still cared, but I finally understood that the value of a person has nothing to do with how perfectly they perform. I had to put a mirror in front of myself, be honest with what I saw, and be okay with that person looking back at me.

I realized that willpower wasn’t what I needed, and that discipline didn’t mean I needed to put myself down. That realization is what brought me to this work. And it's what I bring into every session.

When I picture my clients leaving a session I don't picture any one particular feeling. I picture them feeling present. Like they can just exist without the weight of everything they've been carrying. That's what I want for the people I work with. Not perfection. Just the knowledge that they are enough, exactly as they are, right now.

Working with me