Inner Safety
Creating a Secure Attachment
Developing a sense of security is often an internal process of cultivating a "safe haven" within yourself and your environment, which allows for emotional stability, trust, and personal growth. It involves moving away from hypervigilance and fear by retraining the brain to feel safe through self-compassion, mindfulness, and, if necessary, healing from past trauma.
Here are key approaches we will work on to develop sense of security:
1. Build Internal Security (Inner Safety)
- Practice Self-Compassion: Challenge your inner critic with kindness and understanding. Treat
yourself as you would a dear friend, especially when you make mistakes
or face challenges. - Grounding Techniques: Use mindfulness, meditation, and breathing exercises (e.g., slow, deep breaths with long exhales) to calm the nervous system.
- Regulate Emotions: Learn to sit with uncomfortable emotions rather than running from them.
- Creating a space within yourself for all feelings builds internal
safety. - Reparenting: Act as an inner parent to your "inner child," using logic and
self-reassurance to tell your brain that you are safe and supported,
even if you didn't feel that way in the past. - Physical Care: Prioritize adequate sleep, healthy food, and daily self-care to strengthen your physical and emotional foundation
Healing the Inner Child
Healing the inner child involves reparenting yourself by providing the nurturing, validation, and safety that may have been missed in childhood. This therapeutic process we will go through together includes acknowledging past wounds, practicing self-compassion, and reconnecting with joy through play. Key methods include journaling, inner child visualization, therapy, and setting boundaries to improve emotional well-being.
- Here are a few steps we will work on amongst others:
- Acknowledge and Validate: Recognize the pain, fear, or sadness your younger self experienced and accept that your feelings are valid.
- Reparent Yourself: Act as a nurturing parent to yourself by fulfilling your own emotional needs, offering self-compassion, and using positive affirmations.
- Journal and Letter Writing: Write letters to your younger self or journal from the perspective of your inner child to process buried emotions.
- Visualization Exercises: Use guided meditations to picture comforting your younger self during difficult moments.
- Reconnect with Play: Engage in creative, fun, and relaxing activities (painting, playing games, dancing) to bring joy and spontaneity back into your life.
Establishing Trust and Faith in Future
When we are creating inner safety often it can feel very scary and unknown. We may have been used to recieving validation extrernally instead of feeling safe internal. Together we will work on supporting you to find a way to feel safe and trust in this process. Cultivating new tools and strengths to create a path forward of healing and wholeness.
- Practice Self-Compassion: Challenge your inner critic with kindness and understanding. Treat
Cancer Support
Losing my Mother at the young age of 23 from cancer was probably the hardest experience I ever had to go through. They do not train you to sit with others pain or struggle in your young ages. You just learn to show up and be as supportive as you can. But nothing could have preprared me for the day of her loss. What I will say it taught me is a deep compassion and strength to be able to support others on there cancer journey. For the past decade I have facilitated Cancer Support Groups at various organizations all over the Bay Area including Cancer Care Point, Bay Area Cancer Connections, and Cancer Support in Walnut Creek. If you are struggling with this illness yourself. Or you are navigating a family member who is terminally ill. Please know you do not have to do it alone. I would be honored to support you in this process. I offer individual counseling for anyone facing a terminal or health challenge, as well as there family members who need support as well.
Indivudal Counseling and Groups offered
Healing Codependency
Feeling codependent, or feeling dependent on others for validation and self-esteem, often stems from deep-seated emotiona and psychological factors. Individuals who grew up in unstable environments may develop a
heightened sensitivity to others’ needs and emotions to maintain harmony
and avoid conflict. This hyper-awareness can lead to a perpetual state
of anxiety and a compulsion to manage and control relationships,
believing that their self-worth is tied to the ability to care for
others.In these early environments, the child experiences a loss of stability and control. Caretaking or mediating are effective strategies for reducing emotional
stress and maintaining stability. While these strategies may have
provided some control in early environments, they become especially
maladaptive later in life as individuals rely on them to manage stress.For example, excessive caretaking out of fear of abandonment won’t keep
people closer and often pushes them away; mediating in an attempt to
keep everyone happy can mask importantissues that need to be addressed.
Understanding the origins of codependent coping skills is crucial for healing. By
recognizing that these behaviors were developed in response to unhealthy
environments, individuals can begin to forgive themselves and shift
towards healthier behavior patterns that promote self-esteem and
self-sufficiency.
Break the pattern of codependency
Contact me for support immediately so you can finally heal the root cause of your suffering.
Grief and Loss
When is the last time you gave sincere attention to what is guiding your heart ? If it's been awhile, it could be time to engage the old practice of spending solitary time in nature. A Medicine Walk is a simple ceremony that enlivens your belonging to the earth, connects to deep wells of wisdom, and solidifies your unique gifts ready to be shared with community.
What makes a Medicine Walk different from a regular walk in the woods is the intention you set. Ask yourself, "what's most alive for me right now"? It could be your relationship with the prevailing issues in the world, or a personal relationship. It could be undigested grief or emotions. It could be time to let go of old patterns or step into new ones. It could be that you want to be more familiar with the more-than-human wild life and place you call home. Whatever it is, this is a ripe chance to simply be with.
In the morning we will gather in ceremony to state our intentions out loud and then cross the threshold out of ordinary time and into into solitary time in nature. Alone in nature, you'll fast from food, phones, jobs, to-do's, identities, and habitual patterns. The only aim is to be with nature and your intention. It is a sacred time to be with the wisdom revealed when inner nature meets outer nature. Upon your return, we will break fast together with a shared potluck meal. Then your story from the land will be witnessed by our circle of women through The Way of Council, and mirrored myself your guide as a way to amplify your story. Tarot cards will be included and brief readings to enhance the experience.BOOK A FREE 15-MINUTE ZOOM CALL WITH LACEY TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MEDICINE WALKS.
Narcissistic Abuse
Healing Narcissistic Abuse
Speaking from my own experience I know what it feels like to be entrenched with a narccisist. I spent most of my early relationship years continuously attracting one like a moth to a flame. I soon learned after being in my own therapy that empaths are one of narcissists pure supplys.
One statement my own therapist told me at the time helped unclock the core reason why I was so lost in these relationships. Here it is: If I can fix someone else, maybe they will have the tools to love me. This simple statement made so much sense of why I stayed in these toxic cycles. Having experienced it myself and finally healed. I feel like I can finally say I have the tools that can help you as well break these cycles and become whole within yourself.
Here is what we will explore working together:
Key Stages of Healing
Understanding and Education: Recognizing the patterns of narcissistic abuse, such as gaslighting and manipulation.
Radical Acceptance: Accepting the reality of the situation and that the narcissist will not change.
Grief and Release: Processing the emotional loss, injustice, and pain associated with the relationship.
Rebuilding and Disengagement: Establishing "no contact" or "low contact," setting boundaries, and focusing on self-care to create a new, independent life.
Feel free to book a free consultation to start this process of healing. I would be honored to support you.
