Who are you?
Hi, I’m Lauren (it’s in the website name) and I’m a therapist.
Hiiiiii Lauren!
I’m the person behind this website and a potential therapist who wants to help YOU live more fully. Strangely enough, not everyone wants to pour out their souls to some rando they found on the internet. Many people, perhaps you included, want to get a better feel for someone before agreeing to invest your time and money into this thing called therapy. If you’re looking for answers about the logistics of therapy, this is not that page – check the FAQs. If my goofy grin up above has sold you. and you’re like YES! I’m in! Then move on over to the contact page. If you’re not so sure about me, and need more deets, then keep scrolling!
How did you become a therapist?
I came to the field of counseling/therapy a bit later than most. Pre-high school I wanted to be a doctor. Because that’s what smart people did, and I wanted to be a smart person. But by high school, that dream morphed. I wanted to be someone who oozed coolness (ie, the opposite of my awkward insecure self). I wanted to be a badass. Like Sydney Bristow from the show ‘Alias’, international super spy with a killer body and Bradley Cooper as a best friend.
So per the recommendations from the CIA’s recruitment page, I studied Russian, joined the military and finagled my way into a job as an intelligence officer. Hello fancy clearance! I was on my way towards my goal! Everything was going according to plan.
But a funny thing happened on the way to my dream job. As it turns out, I HATE doing intel work. I found it incredibly dull and entirely devoid of purpose/satisfaction. Intel lost its allure, my hopes of becoming Sydney were dashed, and I was left feeling very lost. Now what the hell was I going to do? To add to my ennui, in order to guarantee myself this career path, I had signed myself up for SEVEN YEARS of military service. So not only was I well aware that this was not my dream job, I was stuck in a less-than-ideal job for the entirety of my 20s. Oofta.
The flip side to being trapped in a job you don’t like is 1) there’s some level of financial stability and 2) I had ample time to think and wonder and research and imagine what my dream job could be. 3) The current job left clues as to what the dream job might be. Turns out, that while I really hate reading reporting all day or giving briefings on whatever, I do really enjoy trying to figure people out – bad guys or not. I am endless fascinated by what makes us all tick. How did we get to where we are in life? Why do we do what we do? Especially when there are significant consequences to our choices? What’s going on in that thick skull of ours?
So, rather than continue to pursue a career in which I would learn all about someone in order to manipulate them into meeting my (or my country’s) needs, I pivoted, and skipped off into the world of counseling. It’s way more wholesome over here, and while I don’t feel nearly as badass as my teenage and young adult self would like, the work I do feels meaningful and worthwhile.