Rebecca’s Work and Her Story

For over 30 years, I have been developing, refining, and teaching my signature programs Heart Work Scripts™, Path of the Heart Intensive Weekends, and the Wise Woman® 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, and their most 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, dysfunctional family relationships, and cultural patterns. The good news is our hearts and souls are strong and resilient and can weather many storms. Reclaiming our hearts, authenticity, voice, and bodies leads to emotional agility and a renewal of our commitment to life. Through healing the younger selves who live inside of us, we naturally become more resilient, more adult, and easily access what I call our Wise Woman and Wise Man Self. Living from this part of our being gives us insight and the courage to claim clarity, healing, and transformation.

I am a Gestalt-Psychodynamic- Mindfulness-Heart-centered, trauma-informed counselor and psychotherapist. I reside in Fort Worth, Texas, and offer distance work through video conferencing. Working with me, expect to reclaim your heart and feeling nature, and release old wounds around shame, inadequacy, fear, and guilt. Heal trauma, complicated grief, PTSD-C, codependent and dysfunctional patterns, develop emotional agility (the ability to be aware and understand your own and others’ 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.

At age 35, I found myself at the end of another relationship where I had given myself away, both figuratively and literally, to someone emotionally unavailable. Heartbroken, I was forced to come face to face with myself and all of my dysfunctional 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 at war with my body and continuously seeking validation through relationships and achievement. Now, 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, Codependents Anonymous, and Alanon, in addition to working weekly with a therapist. I discovered I had to learn to be there for myself, re-parent myself, and love myself. What I had endlessly sought in relationships had to be found in my own self. I read every book I could find on codependency, dysfunctional family dynamics, adult children of alcoholics, and inner child healing. I 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 understood the learned dysfunctional patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior from childhood. I’d carried the family patterning (emotional abandonment, trauma and betrayal bonds, addiction, disordered eating, codependency, and love addiction) into my adult relationships. Over and over, these patterns had led to a loss of Self. I realized I didn’t 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 are probably thinking 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. 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 of our 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 from dysfunctional relationships.

In the early 90s, 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, inspired, 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, 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. As a student of Dr. Estes, I continue to offer groups, women’s retreats, and online distance sessions 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, set boundaries with myself and others, and continue healing the shame or sense of inadequacy I had long carried. Additionally, my time at SOH grounded me and seasoned me as a counselor and psychotherapist, ready and able to assist others 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, and the Wise Woman® program.

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

In 2016, I met and fell in love with the man who would become my husband. Sadly, during COVID, I lost both him and my beloved sister to the awful virus. It was a traumatic time for all of us all over the world. Lives were changed, and lives were lost. Many of us took advantage of the time to further explore ourselves, finding new avenues of creativity and exploration. However, many were left with unresolved trauma and grief. During this difficult time, my practices sustained me, as did my desire to seek another level of healing for myself.

Today, I am happily in a committed relationship with a wonderful man I dated in the mid-90s. We are wired to desire connection. Past trauma and even pain from the last several years can rob us of the desire to connect to others. I know for a while I thought my heart would never heal, but, alas, it did. You owe nothing less to yourself than the gift of inner healing so you can live life out there fully.