What would you want people to know about therapy?
Hi, I’m Anna Grace and I’m a therapist here at Optimum Joy. One thing that I would want people to know about therapy is it is a relationship. And so I think it can seem really intimidating and kind of serious. Like what are people going to this room and talking about? And so thinking about it in terms of a relationship can really help people know what’s a good fit for them. Because for some relationships you might find it harder to express yourself freely. And then others it feels so natural and it feels like I can trust this person with really heavy things and I can explore new areas with them. And so I would just encourage people to look around and try different therapists to see what’s a good fit for them.
What is your favorite thing about being a therapist?
Many things. But I think there’s just this moment when clients move from this hesitancy to engage their own story. Maybe they see themselves as unreliable narrative, like a narrator of their own story. And so the moment when they kind of step into their power and they start believing themselves is a really powerful thing and something that I can’t necessarily do for them, but I can kind of witness and I think it is such a powerful element of therapy because then they can truly move into the space of acknowledging exactly what happens, accepting it, grieving over it, and then moving on. And not being totally uncontrolled by it.
How did your own journey lead you to this work?
Growing up, I was convinced that I needed to shoulder everything on my own and deal with it on my own. And so once I started to really convey the full weight of how I was feeling and express my emotions as they came to people around me and I had people accept that and actually lead into that, I realized that the weight of it kind of fell off. And I then kind of entered my own personal therapy journey.
And I think once I learned to validate my own story, instead of dismissing it in ways of like, “oh, other people have it worse” or “it wasn’t that bad.” And just kind of sitting with it and being like, “no, that was hard and it shouldn’t have happened. And it wasn’t my fault.” I think that that was truly healing and really powerful for me. And I wanted to do that for other people. And I think I just kind of always had this natural curiosity for people’s stories.
Can you tell us about your focus on trauma and the body?
I really enjoy working with lots of different populations. I really just love working with trauma. People who have endured a lot. I think it’s really inspiring to see their resilience. I also really love working with the body. And so whether that means people are holding in trauma from past experiences, you know, maybe that’s feeling super alert all the time.
I think that, or maybe that’s body dissatisfaction and a contentious relationship with your body just because of messages from society that tells us, your body needs to look this way or that way. I really do have a passion for working with people who are going through that. Ultimately, I believe our bodies are our homes. And so I think learning to move into it and to embrace it, in the pain and the joys that it brings us, can be really liberating for people and ultimately bring so much joy to someone’s life.
What do you enjoy about working with teenagers?
Along with that, I really just love working with teenagers. I think that, you know, that’s a very special and unique phase of life with big emotions and sometimes turmoil and relationships. And so I think widely they can be misunderstood. And I really love working with them. And I’m just captivated by people’s ways of expressing themselves, like both uniquely, but also in a way that’s so familiar and shared by many.
