The Journey ~ What to expect in working with Paige.
It is a journey to get to know yourself and what's going on inside, how to express it, when to ask for help, and what is "normal" versus what is cause for concern. For all human beings that journey feels more and more complex as the world around us seems to intensify and things like "anxiety, depression, eating disorders, general discontent etc." become ubiquitous in a way that they weren't 10-20 years ago. We cannot make the world change and slow down, but we can choose how to respond to the events and people around us. This journey begins with cultivating presence and gradually learning how to nourish our abilities to respond, rather than to react. This subtle shift in perspective makes all the difference. In much therapy we are invited to examine our past, to mull over the events and circumstances that have caused our suffering and pain. We are invited to place blame, perhaps to forgive. For myself the traditional therapy journey left me always trying to improve on something, to change and fiddle with the "problems" of my life. I fumbled through a million attempts of being "kinder, better, happier, healthier, a better communicator etc." At the end of the day, however, I found this journey to be lacking, there was always some other problem or circumstance waiting up ahead that brought me back to square one, the problem child. "ME." No matter how much I "improved" and worked on myself... satisfaction and contentment eluded me. When I met my teacher and mentor (read about that here) I realized (slowly and over many years!) that I was trying to fix something that couldn't be fixed, my personality, and that that personality, or mask, was not actually the problem. In fact there are no problems only mistaken identities. "It is said that traditional Western psychotherapy is based on a false premise that who we are is our personality. The word personality translates as “mask.” Getting a healthier mask was extremely helpful, but, alone, was not transformative."
~Jennifer Mckeown
What is left when there are no more "problems?" When we've arranged and rearranged the circumstances of our lives so many times, and in so many ways that we begin to truly "get" that the focus on the external will not deliver happiness or contentment to our doorstep? Each new chapter of fixing things brings along with it the next layer of complaints and "issues." If you are sick and tired of living the same patterns over and over again, I will meet you there. There, at the crossroads of surrender, the opportunity for something different to live through you shows itself, the light of awareness. Our sessions together are an invitation, what you do outside of these moments together matters very much. It's "where the rubber meets the road." Taking what we explore together in a session and practicing it and applying it in daily life will give you, with time, the freedom you are seeking. Of course I am here to listen, and there is always plenty to share. I hold presence and communicate from awareness lessons and practices that serve to help us free ourselves from conditioned, reactive, mind and patterning. If you have traveled the weary road of listing your problems, past issues, and future worries over and over, then perhaps you are ready to step off this track, let the traffic pass you by, and experience the freedom of nonattachment, the great relief of letting go, as you stop trying to fix, and control, and surrender instead into beingness.
Paige Doughty is a personal counselor and creative business coach. My approach helps clients free themselves from the confines of their own patterned thoughts to live in the present with authenticity and joy. I draw from Eastern spiritual traditions, 14 plus years of spiritual study and practice and my experience as an educator, performer, doubt-filled teenager, and mother to guide people toward living without suffering.
Are you ready to step off of the “wheel of suffering” and experience the “un-caused joy” of life that lies within?
Text or email to schedule an introductory phone call.
