You're smart, experienced, and capable — you just don't understand why you keep thinking, feeling, and doing the same things that don't work, meaning you keep getting the same outcomes you don't want, repeating the same patterns that keep you stuck, before you even realize it's happening.

This is what awareness is for. Learning to notice when it's happening, then quickly pausing to create space to choose a different response. There is your new outcome. Awareness allows us to practice intentionally who we want to be. No matter what.

I've spent 35 years as a licensed psychotherapist, and later added a life coach certification. I've worked with hundreds of people who have their version of the same question: what's keeping me stuck?

The answer is almost always the same. There's a version of you running the show that you didn't consciously build. It got assembled over time — by your early environments, your family, your life experiences, your culture, your unique coping mechanisms. I think of this as the small, unconscious self. When you're operating from it, you keep getting the same results, no matter how hard you try to change.

That's the first thing we do — see that small self clearly. You have to know where you are to see how to get where you want to go. To start operating from something bigger. A Self that's conscious, present, aware, and at choice. One you grow into over time, from the one you were handed.