Blog
Why Divorce Can Feel Like Trauma
Divorce can feel more overwhelming than you expected — even when you know it was the right decision. This post explains why the end of a relationship can impact your nervous system like trauma, leading to anxiety, rumination, or emotional shutdown. Learn how divorce affects your sense of safety and stability, and how therapy can help you process what happened and begin to feel grounded again.
How Therapists Decide What Happens in a Therapy Intensive
Many high-functioning adults are curious about therapy intensives, but unsure what actually happens during extended sessions. How does a therapist decide what to focus on? Will it feel structured—or overwhelming? In this post, I walk you through how trauma-informed therapists thoughtfully assess your goals, nervous system capacity, and history to design an intensive that feels intentional, flexible, and emotionally safe. If you’ve been feeling anxious, stuck, or shut down, understanding the planning behind a therapy intensive can help you approach this option with more clarity and confidence.
Why Recovery Sometimes Takes More Than Physical Care
Injury or surgery doesn’t just affect the body- it can affect your nervous system, identity, sense of safety, and trust in yourself. Yet most recovery plans focus almost exclusively on the physical needs: range of motion, strength, post-op timelines, and milestones in physical therapy.
This blog shares from two different helping professionals who support folks pre and post surgery and in recovery from injuries. Dr. Michaela Soules PT, DPT is a dedicated physical therapist and certified life coach who created Soul Strength for one purpose: empower clients to successfully navigate their recovery after surgery or life-altering injuries. Michelle Spurgeon, LCSWS is an EMDR therapist who can support clients pre-surgery or in recovery to create effective coping plans, heal from medical trauma or strengthen their inner-self for recovery.
Feeling Stuck in Therapy? How Therapy Intensives Can Help You Move Through Emotional Blocks
Feeling stuck in therapy despite insight? Learn how emotional blocks form and how trauma-informed therapy intensives help access, process, and integrate emotions more effectively.
Why Can’t I Think My Way Out of Anxiety or Trauma Triggers?
Many of the clients I work with already have a deep understanding of their patterns. They can trace reactions back to childhood experiences, past relationships, or major losses. They’re not lacking awareness.
What they’re missing is a way to help their body feel something different, not just understand it.Approaches like EMDR help access the parts of the brain where these reactions are actually stored. Rather than endlessly rehashing the story, we work with how the experience lives in your body and nervous system—so it can finally update.
A Deeper Way to Start the New Year: Therapy Intensives Explained
Looking for deeper new year therapy support? Learn how therapy intensives and EMDR intensives support insight, regulation, and lasting change.
Therapist Networking & Connection Hour
Join us on January 16 from 1:00–2:30pm for an afternoon of connection with fellow therapists in private practice. Snacks and sodas will be provided, and the focus is on genuine conversation—not awkward icebreakers or forced networking.
The Real ROI of Therapy Intensives: Time, Healing, and Lasting Change
The real ROI of therapy intensives goes beyond cost. Learn how focused therapy support can save time, reduce burnout, and create deep healing by investing in mental health intentionally.
How to Set Realistic Mental Health Goals for the New Year
The start of a new year often comes with pressure to change everything at once—but mental health doesn’t work that way. If you’re feeling burned out or anxious, traditional New Year’s resolutions may be doing more harm than good. This post explores how to set realistic mental health goals rooted in compassion, emotional well-being, and sustainability, with examples of New Year intentions that prioritize progress over perfection and support long-term healing.
5 Tips for Managing Stress Around Christmas When You’re Healing From Trauma
If holiday stress feels overwhelming or you’re tired of white-knuckling your way through the holidays, you deserve more support. Read for 5 therapist-approved tips for caring for you during the holidays when you’re recovering from trauma. Therapy can help you create safer boundaries, regulate anxiety, and untangle the emotional weight of coping with family during holidays.
How to Navigate Grief During the Holidays
Your grief doesn’t disappear just because the calendar says it’s time to celebrate. Grief during the holidays can feel heavier because the absence of your loved one is felt more deeply. With the right holiday grief support, it’s possible to move through this season with more gentleness, intention, and care.
Taking Care of Yourself During the Holidays After Divorce: Tips for Coparenting, Healing, and Finding Peace
The holidays can feel especially heavy after divorce—filled with mixed emotions, shifting traditions, and coparenting logistics. You don’t have to navigate it alone. With mindful planning, self-compassion, and the right support, it’s possible to create a season that feels more peaceful, grounded, and true to you.
Why a Pre-Holiday Therapy Intensive Is the Best Gift You Can Give Yourself
A pre-holiday therapy intensive offers an emotional reset before the holidays—helping you feel calm, clear, and grounded amid seasonal stress.
The Link Between Perfectionism and Anxiety: How Therapy Can Help
Perfectionism and anxiety often go hand in hand, forming a cycle that’s difficult to break. Perfectionism sets impossible expectations. Therapy can help you keep your edge but gain more fulfillment and relief from anxiety.
The Hidden Benefits of Therapy Intensives You Might Not Know About
Discover the hidden benefits of therapy intensives beyond crisis care. Learn how intensives offer time efficiency, deeper breakthroughs, emotional reset, and flexible trauma treatment. Explore intensive therapy advantages for faster results and more meaningful healing. Schedule a consultation to learn more.
Therapy Intensives Are a Partnership: Here’s How We Work Together
Therapy intensives are a collaborative partnership between client and therapist, creating space for faster, deeper healing. Learn how working together in a therapy intensive supports your trauma recovery and emotional growth.
How to Recognize Burnout and Recover From It
When you’re juggling multiple roles, burnout can be easy to dismiss exhaustion as “normal” or to tell yourself you just need to push through. But burnout isn’t just about being tired—it’s a sign that your mind and body have been running on empty for too long. Recognizing it early and taking steps toward recovery can help you feel more grounded, capable, and at peace again.
5 Ways to Protect Your Emotional Health During the Holidays
Protecting your holiday mental health doesn’t mean withdrawing from the season—it means approaching it with care, intention, and compassion for yourself. Here are five emotional health tips to help you navigate the holidays with more peace and authenticity.
How to Set Boundaries for your Mental Health
Struggling with people-pleasing? Learn why setting healthy boundaries is essential for mental health, how to set and maintain them, and how therapy can help you practice boundary setting tips with support.
Understanding the impact of trauma on mental health
If you have experienced trauma and now struggle with your mental health, it is important to remember: this is not a flaw in your character. Developing PTSD or other trauma-related challenges is your brain and body’s natural response to overwhelming experiences. Trauma and mental health are deeply connected, and understanding that connection is the first step toward healing.