Vulnerability sucks.
No getting around it. It’s hard to be vulnerable.
However, as a person who witnesses the courage of folks who daily choose vulnerability, I also see the incredible rewards of folks who choose to dare to be vulnerable.
It’s good to be smart about vulnerability…to choose a place that is safe. Counselling can be a smart place to try being vulnerable…there are trained therapists who are familiar with making an environment safe and there are rules and guidelines in our profession that you can trust to further increase that feeling of safety.
Vulnerability is uncomfortable…no doubt about it.
But it can, and in therapy–needs–to be tolerable.
When I spent some time with Deanna Carpentier recently, she spoke to me about that “sweet spot” where the vulnerability allows for creativity and change in really cool ways–without sending someone off the deep end by overstepping healthy and tolerable discomfort.
Deanna works to help find that sweet spot with clients…the “just right” challenge that creates conditions for growth…not too hard, but not too easy.
Deanna has an appreciation that worthwhile things are often hard.
Hard is OK.
That’s not always easy to see at the time…which is where a therapist comes in. To make the hard tolerable, to slow things down or lighten things up when they threaten to overwhelm…but also to let the silence hang to allow for profound moments of feeling…which, while not always comfortable, can provide huge insight and great relief.
Deanna has been with us now for more than two years…and if you want to get in to see her, ask about seeing her on Tuesdays at our Smith St. office. She tends to be fairly booked up on other days at the Pembina office. She is:
- gently intense,
- carefully tenacious and
- kindly persistent in working with teens, families, couples and adults on achieving their goals.
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