"Our own life is the thing that most influences and shapes our outlook, our tendencies, our choices and our decisions. It is the force that orients us toward the future, and yet we don’t give it a second thought, much less a careful examination. It’s time to..."
— Dan Allender, To Be Told
aBOUT ME
Expansive places have always drawn me in, places where your eye can rest on a lined horizon or be pulled upward by the surrounding terrain. These places of peace ground me. They allow for two things I’ve found to be essential for deep, lasting joy―engagement & rest.
They allow many like myself to think about how our own stories impact the way we engage ourselves, others, and our world. When I reflect on my career, this thing about “stories impact” is a uniting theme.
While working at a large marketing firm after graduating from Southern Methodist University, I used my BA in Corporate Communications & Public Affairs to represent brands and their brand stories to the public sphere. This job was far from sitting at a cubical and staring at a screen for hours. Instead, I was face to face with lots of different people throughout the day. It was exhilarating work that solidified my passion for story.
Eventually though, I realized what I truly wanted to do was engage the stories of real people―individuals whose “brand narrative” couldn’t be nailed down on a couple of pages with copy do’s and don'ts and carefully crafted color pallets. No. That’s not what being human is all about. Real people―people like you and me―are nuanced & unrefined. Our stories are ever expanding and subject to unending factors. But just like in the marketing world, understanding who we are, where we came from, and where we’re going is a sure pathway to success. So in a very heart-first move, I left my successful career in the corporate world and dove into learning all I could about being a therapist.
This endeavor landed me in Fuller Theological Seminary’s Marriage & Family Therapy program. I first visited the Allender Center soon after completing that program. It took place at a time in my practice when the work was chiefly “head heavy,” and I was searching for something to humanize all I was learning.
Dr. Dan Allender is the founder of this Center. His approach is something called trauma-focused narrative therapy which focuses on allowing a person space to enter into and engage their own story so they can find rest within it. It foundationally impacted me and integrated a compelling story centered approach to the rest of my therapy program.
Since graduating in 2011, I’ve become more convinced that stories are core to who we are, who we want to be, and the change we want to see happen in our lives. I’ve dedicated myself to refining and implementing those things I’ve seen produce the most success.