Joanna Lauren

I think us humans are pretty amazing creatures. I will never cease to be amazed by our ability to create meaning, to write and rewrite a story, and share connection with others. For me, my journey started with me as an RN in a hospital, working on a cardiac floor, leaving work everyday wondering - what are we missing here? Lots of medicine, lots of interventions and education, and yet our patients continue to struggle. Long story short, when I stumbled onto the concept of trauma - everything changed for me, and things finally started to make sense. I see trauma as anything that is too much for our nervous system, and shakes our sense of safety. When we don't feel safe, our brain has to figure out how to find or create safety, and that can sometimes make us do some wonky things!

Maybe that's why you're here now, you know you've been through a lot, and now you're trying to figure out how to move forward and how to feel safe again in this volatile world we call home. I get that, and I would be honored to work with you and help you find the path that's going to help you make peace with the past, and write a new story moving forward, one where you can be your own beacon of safety for your self and for others.

With a BA in Nursing in addition to my MA in counseling, my nursing background greatly influences my approach to counseling. I try to educate my clients on how the brain and how our nervous system works as much as possible, so that my clients can leave each session feeling empowered to work with their nervous system, and not against it. My approach is very trauma-informed, encorporating EMDR therapy when necessary, but even when not, I regularly work to increase the mind-body connection for my clients. My hope is that my clients can then move about the world being more intuned with their own innerworld, and how their body is responding to each situation. I try to make this as collaborative as possible, working with you to create just the right playlist of mindfulness exercises, somatic exercises, and self-reflection to help you get curious about your own story - what has been your life narrative, and what it could be moving forward.

My hope for you after working with me, is to leave each session with a deeper and better understanding of why humans do the things that we do, including you! That all behaviors, even the really harmful ones that we know we need to work on, from a trauma lens, make sense. Together we can create the right goals, with the right timeline, that equip and empower you to see your beautiful self in a whole new light, with a sense of agency, and hope for your future.