ABOUT REBECCA

For more than 20 years, I have been developing, refining, and teaching my signature programs Heart Work Scripts™, Path of the Heart Intensive Weekends, and Wise Woman Rising® Coaching Program. One of the essential tools of each program is the Shame Reduction Script for Your Younger Self © 2016.

My goal has been to empower women and men to reconnect with their hearts, their feeling nature, their most real and authentic Self. The longest eighteen inches in the world is the journey between the head and the heart. Many of us lose our heart connection due to trauma, painful childhood/adult experiences and dysfunctional family, relationship, and cultural patterns. The good news is our heart and soul are strong and resilient and can weather many storms. Reclaiming our hearts, our authenticity, our voice, and our bodies lead to emotional agility and a renewal of our commitment to life. Through healing the younger selves who live on inside of us, we naturally become more resilient, more adult, and easily access what I call our Wise Woman and Wise Man Self. When we live from this part of our being, we find not only insight, but the courage to claim clarity, healing, and transformation.

By definition, I am a Gestalt-Psychodynamic- Mindfulness-Heart-centered counselor and life coach/mentor. I have an office in Fort Worth, Texas, and offer distance work through video conferencing. Working with me, expect to reclaim your heart and feeling nature, release old wounds around shame, inadequacy, fear, and guilt. Heal codependent and dysfunctional patterns, develop emotional agility (the ability to be aware and understand your own and other’s feelings), foster internal resiliency, learn to set functional boundaries with self and others, and re-engage with the vibrancy of life. Our work together facilitates deep healing and increased self-awareness leading to the ability to reclaim your authentic or True Self and love your Self deeply.

GESTALT

Gestalt therapy is an exploration into the heart of who one is, right now. The goal is growth and autonomy through an increase in consciousness. Rather than maintaining distance and interpreting, I meet clients where they are and guide them toward active awareness. My emphasis is on the immediate experience; whatever exists in the here and now and how that experience is more reliable than interpretation. I am a directive and engaging counselor who teaches clients the difference between talking about what occurred five minutes ago (or last night or 20 years ago) and experiencing what is happening in the now moment.

PSYCHODYNAMIC

Psychodynamic therapy, also known as insight-oriented therapy, focuses on patterns of belief, thought and behavior as they manifest in a person’s present life. The goals of psychodynamic therapy are a client’s self-awareness and understanding of the influence that the past has on current behavior. With sensitivity and without blaming, I assist clients in exploring their history and how they’ve been affected by it and increasing their emotional agility by reclaiming their ability to name emotions and express them appropriately

EMDR (eye-movement-desensitization-reprocessing)

(EMDR) therapy is an integrative psychotherapy approach that has been extensively researched and proven effective for the treatment of PTSD (post-traumatic stress). EMDR is also used to treat the psychological effects of smaller traumas that manifest in symptoms of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, creativity blocks, and relationship difficulties. I like combining EMDR with other modalities because it promotes the clearing of stubborn emotional and physical blockages while processing and releasing information trapped in the mind and body, freeing people from disturbing images, body sensations, trapped emotions, and restrictive beliefs. I completed Level 1 & 2 Training in 2000.

Body – Oriented (Somatic) Psychotherapy

In 1999 I was trained in Gabrielle Roth’s 5 Rhythms and fell in love with incorporating authentic movement into my work. Over the years I’ve attended trainings in somatic psychology, bodywork and Marion Woodman’s BodySoul work. This work is about something that is deeply rooted and felt within us, in our bodies, in our feelings, and also in our spirits. It includes many different techniques that can be utilized depending on the specific needs of each client. Such interventions can include: developing ‘mindfulness’ and greater awareness of one’s physical and emotional presence using relaxation and meditative techniques; movement, in order to promote a deeper physical awareness and to expand one’s capacity to feel and express emotions; breathing techniques to increase awareness of and improve functioning of the breath and expressive verbalizations; and movement techniques designed to move stuck energy left over from trauma.

MINDFULNESS/ HEART-CENTERED

Mindfulness-based approaches are designed to deliberately focus one’s attention to the present experience in a way that is non-judgmental. The Chinese character for mindfulness is now and heart. Honoring feelings is very important: however, in mindfulness work, we are reminded that we are so much more. Mindfulness helps us live in the here and now, accept the reality of circumstances even though we may not like it, agree with it or understand it, and then know with clarity what it is we need to do next.

My signature Heart Work Scripts™ and the Shame Reduction Script for Your Younger Self© 2016 is designed to help you heal your emotional wounds from the past. Whether it be a wound from your childhood, your adolescence, your young adulthood or one sustained last week these powerful and meaningful practices assist the heart to heal from the inside out.

EDUCATION

I hold a Master’s degree from Tarleton State University, a division of Texas A&M. Additionally, I was privileged to be a therapist and group leader at Shades of Hope Treatment Center in Buffalo Gap, Texas where I facilitated Family Week, the 5 Day Eating Disorder Intensive, and co-facilitated the Breaking Free Intensive. Certified Level 1 & 2 EMDR, certified professional hypnotist, certified Breathwork facilitator, and ongoing student of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes'(author of Women Who Run With the Wolves). These are the areas of study I practice and have experience and training in.

Family Systems Therapy
Shame and Anger Reduction Work
Food Addiction
Emotional Release Work
Addictions and Compulsive Patterns
Codependency

Love/Relationship Addiction
Love Avoidant
Adult Children of Alcoholics
Transpersonal and Jungian Psychology
Meditation/ Mindfulness
EMDR (eye movement desensitization process)

Guided Imagery
Body Movement
Expressive Arts/ Mandala Journaling
Breathwork
Dreamwork

MY STORY

At the age of 35, I found myself at the end of another relationship where I had given myself away, both figuratively and literally, to someone who was
emotionally unavailable. Heartbroken, I was forced to come face to face with myself, and all of my dysfunction relationship choices. I recall a friend saying “have you heard of the book Codependent No More”? I remember the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I thought “I don’t know what a codependent is, but I’m not one of them.” After all, I was a successful entrepreneur and looked like I had it all together. But the truth was my relationships were a mess, I was a war with my body, and continuously seeking validation through relationships and achievement. So fast forward a few months and I’m standing in the aisle of a popular bookstore, and there is Melody Beattie’s book Codependent No More staring back at me. I remember crying a lot while reading it and desperately wanting it not to be true. I was a codependent. So now what was I going to do about it?

These events started a tidal wave of soul-searching for me which included an expedition to rescue and heal the lonely, shame-filled inner child, adolescent and young woman, who had been waiting a lifetime for me to remember her. I did inner child work and toiled through my family of origin. Eventually, I attended several 12-Step groups for Adult Children of Alcoholics and Alanon, in addition to working weekly with a therapist. I discovered that I had to learn how to be there for myself, how to re-parent myself and how to love myself. What I had endlessly been seeking in relationships with men had to be found within my own heart. I read every book I could find on codependency, dysfunctional family dynamics, adult children of alcoholics, inner child healing and attended conferences and workshops with fantastic teachers Pia Melody, Melody Beattie, John Bradshaw, and Claudia Black.

Through my counseling with a Gestalt, psychodynamically-oriented therapist I came to understand the learned, dysfunctional patterns of thought, feeling and behaviors from childhood and family patterning (emotional abandonment, trauma and betrayal bonds, addiction, disordered eating, codependency and love addiction) that I’d carried into my adult relationships. Over and over these patterns had led to a loss of Self. I realized I didn’t really know who I was, that I’d not fully developed emotionally into a fully functioning adult woman. It was easy to be in denial because most of those around me suffered from the same dilemma. Right now you think I was from a pretty dysfunctional family. Well yes and no. I know today that we were pretty average in our dysfunction. A history of alcohol addiction runs in my family tree, and indeed there were patterns of codependency and shaming parenting styles; however, there was functionality and love as well. We must be willing to look at the parts of our family functioning that didn’t serve us well. For it is there that we will find the roots to our own dysfunctional and toxic patterns. It is not about blaming but rather understanding. You can’t heal what you can’t see. During this period I put the puzzle pieces together, began to have a genuine relationship with myself, and grieved the many losses that come from dysfunctional relationships.

In the early 90’s I read Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ seminal book on women’s psychology Women Who Run With the Wolves and found a previously untapped wellspring of courage and strength. The material touched me, inspired me and changed me; ultimately allowing me to reclaim a part of myself that had been missing for a long time. I found my voice, retrieved my innate feminine power, including my intuition and creativity, and started a Master’s program to become a counselor. In 1994, I facilitated my first Women Who Run With the Wolves study group and in 96, I attended my first training with Dr. Estes in Colorado. Now as a student of Dr. Estes’, I continue to offer groups, retreats, as well as in person and online coaching around this vibrant and empowering material.

In 1999, working as a counselor at Shades of Hope Treatment Center for eating disorders, addictions, trauma, and codependency, I entered what I now call the trial by fire initiation into intense work. It was a transformative time of learning how to dive deep into the marrow of codependent pain and addictive patterns. Through Gestalt and Psychodrama work I learned how to process feelings beyond talk therapy. I developed the skill and resiliency to trust myself, to set boundaries with self and others, and continue healing the shame or sense of inadequacy I had long carried around with me. Additionally, my time at SOH grounded me and seasoned me as a counselor and psychotherapist, ready and able to assist other’s on their healing journey.

This body of work and experience culminated in the creation of Wise Woman Retreats in 2000, and the birth of Path Of the Heart Weekend Intensives, Heart Work Scripts™ for men and women, as well as the Wise Woman Rising® Coaching program.

In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Dr. Estes’ says “If we could only remember that the work is to continue to do the work.” The process of working on ourselves never ends for we are always a work in progress.