Curam

🌻 HELLO from the depths of the deepest transformation of my life ~ that of becoming a parent
🌱 i’m gently reemerging & excited to bring forth my new lived experiences as informative support in client work. if you, or someone you know, is in need of a psychotherapist in the state of new mexico you can reach out via the 🔗 in my bio.
🌝 for those interested in working from a q***r, liberation-based methodology please reach out! more information in my linked bio

🌀 MATERNITY LEAVE & ENDINGS 🌀

as I prepare to begin maternity leave next week ( ! bless rest ! ) I have been in the process of closing my private psychotherapy practice. in clinical language this is known as the “termination” phase of treatment. in relational discourse this is a phase of closure. so often in life we do not have the opportunities to experience healthy endings in relationships, due to a variety of reasons. endings are often abrupt & traumatic. as a client-centered, humanistic therapist, it is integral to my practice to create a container for holding my clients in the opportunity to experience healthy closure as much as possible. the following slides share information on ways I co-create endings in the therapeutic relationship. may they support you as a client (or my students, therapists in training!)

*a note: i felt called to share this post as i have experienced a variety of different endings in the past year. some have been due to sudden death, others the unexpected loss/transition of relationship. there is no right or wrong way to find closure, we are not always able to experience processing due to death or unhealthy dynamics. one of my intentions in the therapeutic relationship is to assist my client in experiencing repair through the opportunity to end in a way that supports them 🕊️

[image ID: pregnant belly bump with a plant’s shadow cast across the belly. a tattooed hand rests on the belly]

🌀 SHAPES OF GRIEF 🌀

over the month of September I participated in a daily imagination practice, called forth by dear friend . I was traveling at the end of august when I received the invitation, feeling an intuitive need to ground while in transit. A few days into the practice my world was shaken with an unbearable grief after losing my soul companion, Lila. No stranger to grief, this loss awoke something different in me. I’ve never lost a familiar before & continue to feel as if a part of my being is missing, unexpectedly gone. I often look for her in the corners of my eyesight to be met with her absence, & an emergence of tears.

Grief has many shapes & can create reverberations, sometimes in the shape of ripples & others in the form of tsunami waves. The loss of lila resurfaced an immense amount of grief from various experiences in the past 5 months of my life ~ the loss of my grandmother, an ending of a partnership, the grief of dreams ending, loss of my bodily independence, & lastly that of Lila.

recently wrote in her substack that “grief can be seen as the loss of a world, and that mourning can be something different. Mourning may be an “ongoing imaginative engagement that keeps the absence alive yet renews a sense of hope as one goes forward.¹” So if grief is world loss, mourning may be more like world making.”

These shapes feel like the beginning of a contemplative inquiry for me as i continue to bear witness to collective grief in the forms of genocide, war, & climate catastrophe… while navigating the waves in my personal life. creative practice helps. community helps ♥️