ABOUT REBECCA

For over 24 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, and 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, dysfunctional family relationships, and cultural patterns. The good news is our hearts and soul are strong and resilient and can weather many storms. Reclaiming our hearts, authenticity, voice, and bodies lead 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. When we live from this part of our being, we find insight and the courage to claim clarity, healing, and transformation.

I am a Gestalt-Psychodynamic- Mindfulness-Heart-centered counselor and life coach/mentor. 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 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.

GESTALT

Gestalt therapy explores 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. I emphasize 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 (last night or 20 years ago) and experiencing what is happening now.

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 past’s influence 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 and express emotions appropriately.

EMDR (eye-movement-desensitization-reprocessing)

(EMDR) therapy is an integrative psychotherapy approach that has been extensively researched and proven effective for treating PTSD (post-traumatic stress). EMDR is also used to treat the psychological effects of more minor 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 removes stubborn emotional and physical blockages while processing and releasing information held 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 training in somatic psychology, bodywork, and Marion Woodman’s BodySoul work. This work is about something 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 each client’s specific needs. Such interventions can consist of: developing ‘mindfulness’ and greater awareness of one’s physical and emotional presence using relaxation and meditative techniques; movement to promote a more profound physical awareness and to expand one’s capacity to feel and express emotions; breathing strategies to increase awareness of and improve the functioning of the breath and expressive verbalizations, and movement practices designed to move stuck energy left over from trauma.

MINDFULNESS/ HEART-CENTERED

Mindfulness-based approaches are designed to deliberately focus one’s attention on 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, mindfulness work reminds us 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 are 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, professional hypnotist, Breathwork facilitator, and ongoing student of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes'(author of Women Who Run With the Wolves). I practice and have experience and training in these areas of study.

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 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 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, re-parent myself, and love me. 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, 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 behaviors 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 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. 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 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 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, 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. 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 around with me. 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, as well as the Wise Woman Rising® Coaching 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.