Genevieve Strickland is a full time licensed marriage and family therapist. A full time artist. A Mom! She reminds us of the importance of doing what you are passionate about.
Show Notes
Do you have something you are truly passionate about? Do you have something you do for the sheer joy of it? Have you considered turning it into a second career? If your answer is yes to any of the questions above you’re in the right place.
Genevieve Strickland grew up on the South Carolina coast in Myrtle Beach. She says she knew she loved drawing as soon as she could hold a pencil.
At a college fair in high school she discovered Converse College, a women’s college that offered a degree in art therapy. She decided to try the all women’s atmosphere because, in her own words, “What’s the worst that could happen?” She not only flourished there, but gained a whole sisterhood.
After earning her degree she got a second degree to become a licensed marriage and family therapist and moved into private practice.
Always creating when she had the opportunity, but as more people began to ask for her work she was inspired to try being a full time therapist and a full time artist. So she took two business classes on using Instagram. After that, it was on!
As both a full time therapist and full time artist, art is still Genevieve’s passion. It is what centers her. It is how she cares for herself.
As a full time therapist she recognizes that there is sometimes still a stigma around mental self care. Although, she says it is no different than going to a general practitioner or OBGYN for a check up. Brain health is just as important as body health.
In this episode, Genevieve offers inspiring insights and her professional expertise on both art and therapy. Here are a few of my favorites:
- Don’t be afraid to try new things
- It’s important to mess up and fail – so you know you can start over
- Therapy and taking care of your brain is just like physical therapy for your body
Genevieve’s commitment to her own self care and the self care of her clients reminds us of our own at How She Got Here. This past October, we committed to 30 Days of Self Care. If you missed it, it is not too late. The resources are still available on our website, Facebook, and Instagram pages. Join our Facebook community and visit our site to download the free printable for self care reminders that are intended to pull you out of the hustle of life (even for just 15 minutes) and provide you time to focus on caring for yourself.
Just like Genevieve emphasizes, we’ve got to take care of ourselves, sister, so that we can go after those dreams of ours! And once we do that, we can start empowering other women and girls to do exactly the same thing.
Show Links:
Art by Genevieve Strickland (Facebook)
GenStrickland (Instagram)
Magnolia Counseling Associates (Facebook)
passioncolorjoy.com (Instagram Classes)
Transcript
Intro: Welcome to “How She Got Here – Conversations With Everyday Extraordinary Women.” It is my belief that every woman has something inside her only she can do. The more we share the stories of other women, who have already discovered their thing, the more it inspires, encourages, and empowers other women to do the same.
Susan: Hey pod-sisters, my guest today is full-time artist as well as full-time licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Genevieve Strickland. Genevieve and I went to Converse together, and our conversation encompasses everything from choosing an all-women’s college to graduating and figuring out your career as well as turning a hobby into a second career: A great conversation that I cannot wait to share with you. So, without further ado, here’s Genevieve.
Hey Genevieve, thanks so much for joining me today.
Genevieve: Thank you for having me Susan, I’m so glad to be here.
Susan: I’m just really, really excited to talk to you and catch up with you and find out what you’ve been up to but for the audience who’s listening today, I’d love if you would give a little bit about who you are and your background.
Genevieve: Okay, so my name Genevieve Strickland Y’all know that and I am originally from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina—I don’t know if your listeners are familiar with that area but it’s just a pretty popular coastal city but I live in upstate South Carolina now. I’ve lived here for about 20 years and I am a full-time marriage and family therapist and I’m a full-time artist so that is a little bit about me.
Susan: So did you grow up in a family of creators? Like how did you find the passion for both things you do because I know you’re very passionate about both. Tell me a little bit about how you got to these places.
Genevieve: Sure, you know, we do have a couple entrepreneurs in my family. My dad actually opened his 1st business when I was in middle school and we definitely thought we’re going to be homeless when he opened that because he left a regular job to do that. Thankfully it was fairly successful so we were not homeless thankfully and as far as like creative people, we don’t really have any other artists in the family. His dad actually was an architect but I did not know him as a kid: He died before I was born and—I’m trying to think—Nope: Yeah that’s it so we really don’t have anybody else in health care either so I’m sort of a unique person I think in my family as far as that goes and I got started with art really like as soon as I could hold like a pencil—I know a lot of artists tell that kind of story but I really did. I just always really liked creating things and especially drawing that was really my thing. I didn’t actually love painting until a couple of years ago funnily enough. I was going to go to college to be a Disney artist— that was my dream: To go draw like you know back when they drew movies still. I was going to go to school for that.
In high school, my teacher said, “Hey great dream, definitely do that but just in case, like let’s lay a couple other careers that maybe you could do.” which is a fair question right? It’s hard to be a full-time artist. And so I found art therapy actually in like back when we had to look at things that were in books like and probably we did not have Google back then so we had to actually look up things in books and I looked it up and I’m like, “Wow, that sounds really cool. I can help people, I can do art it’s a win for everybody.” and I found Converse—Susan and I went to Converse together: College— and they are the only school in South Carolina that had art therapy as an undergrad and I said, “Well gosh I guess I’m going to go there.” knowing nothing about it— It’s about 4 hours away from my hometown— and I went there like site unseen.
Susan: Oh my gosh I didn’t know that!
Genevieve: Yeah, I was like, “Well what’s the worst that can happen right?” and Converse was a great fit for me and I really loved it and the art program there was great and I got to take a lot of counseling classes and I figured out that I liked it a lot and I was about to graduate—and you’re going to like this story Susan—that I was about to graduate meeting with my advisor and he was like, “Hey by the way you really can’t use art therapy like for real as a job until you have a counseling degree your master’s degree.” and I’m like “What!!?”
Susan: Oh, my gosh.
Genevieve: I totally thought I could get out and just do that. So very quickly had to switch plans and say, you know, “Okay so the only art therapy program back then we’re all like several states away.” and so I was like, “Okay well what am I going to do?” and then I was walking it down the hall like after a class and there was a Flyer for the counseling program there Converse: The Marriage and Family Therapy Program which is an excellent program—love it to death and I said, “Well I’ll just apply to that.” and I got in and that’s what I did.
Susan: Oh, my gosh. Wow, that would have freaked me out if I was getting ready to graduate and they were like. “Oh, by the way, this isn’t real. You can’t really do this yet.”
Genevieve: Yeah, I was a little panicked there for a minute but I just said, “Well what’s the worst that can happen?” you know, “Let me just apply and if I don’t get in then I’ll just, you know, get a job but maybe not as doing that and make another plan.”
Susan: That was really good and quick thinking.
Genevieve: Well, I’m just lucky somebody put that flyer up Susan—honestly.
Susan: That’s awesome though! That’s awesome because I don’t know, I am thinking back to undergrad and I really might have had a breakdown but it’s funny that you say that. You know my— I’ll just go off on a little tangent here for a second—I ended up majoring in business and marketing and so thank goodness the business administration piece was there because we graduated in 2004. So the things I was learning about marketing, I mean you’re right, Google didn’t exist, Facebook was really just launching like we didn’t have Facebook when we graduated. And so the marketing world was literally changing as I was graduating and that degree was not so great. So it’s like thank goodness I had the other aspects of that and I could use the finance pieces of that because the marketing thing was just never really going to happen. I would have had to have immediately gone back to school. It sounds like we both kind of graduated.
Susan: Right and I couldn’t do it at that point like I really had to I didn’t have many student loans but I knew they were coming due and my parents were very much like, “You got to get out and get a job.” like that’s what—you graduate and you get a job. That’s what you have to do—and that’s just really funny, that’s really funny. Okay so let’s step back just a second because this gives me an opportunity.
Genevieve: Sure.
Susan: You came to Converse site unseen. Did you, in fact, know that it was a women’s college?
Genevieve: I did actually know that. I found out about them and when I saw them at my high school college fair and they did say that and I remember telling my friends like, “I got into this college. Like I’m excited about the program and, you know, by the way, it’s an all-women.” and they were all like, “What!!? Why do you want to go to an all-women school? Like that sounds terrible. You’re not going to meet anybody.” you know all the things that people say about single-gender schools.
I really wasn’t worried about it. I mean I mostly had friends that were girls anyway so I wasn’t panicked about that. I was kind of like you know, “It’ll be in a town. I’m sure there’ll be people.” or “I’ll meet somebody in a coffee shop if I want to date somebody—whatever.” so that didn’t really bother me too much but my friends and even my parents were like, “Are you sure you want to go to a women’s school? Like what?”
Susan: Yeah, yeah. Do you feel like— I mean obviously, you didn’t have the coed experience so it’s not like you changed and went from one to another— but do you feel like it changed your perception? What impact if any did a single gender piece of that have on your life?
Genevieve: Well definitely one that gave me the room to, you know, be a little bit more outspoken in class. I don’t know I know you probably can’t tell, I use to be a very shy person in high school, didn’t really talk that much you know it’s sort of the classic quiet kind of, you know, unique kid. I came here and I was like, you know, again “Like what do I have to lose?” like trying to be maybe a little bit more outgoing and Converse was a great place.
Everybody was super welcoming and excited and, you know, a lot of y’all were already like outspoken and exciting people so that was a good atmosphere for me. I really like flourished in that, and two: I really got some good like you know I got some good hair stuff. I hate to say it like that but like I did not come from a family with good har stuff. You got a cool hairstyle or that fun— and I got like a such a small piece but it did make a really big impact on me like, “Okay, I came out of this and I can look professional, I can feel good about you know presenting myself.” and not that Converse at all expects you to look like that in class because I know you probably just like I did went to class in pajamas a lot of the time.
Susan: Yes.
Genevieve: But it was almost like—because I’m an only child— I got a definitely a good like sister experience being at Converse and that was great for me.
Susan: I love that because that’s exactly how I describe it. It really is a giant sisterhood. I mean I can meet somebody. in Dallas, Texas and find out that they went to Converse and it’s happened and I was like, “Oh my gosh!” and it’s at an immediate like, “Yeah, we’re sisters.” it’s the weirdest thing that I don’t know that you get that— I know you don’t get that at a bigger university. I don’t know if it happens at smaller liberal arts colleges or not.
But anyway thank you for sharing your thoughts on that I really appreciate it. You said that you were creating, drawing as soon as you could pick up a pencil. You came out of college, you had the marriage and family therapy thing— that’s what you were going to do, that’s what you started doing—when did you realize that art could be more than a hobby artist, you could be like what I like to call a capital ‘A’ artist?
Genevieve: So trying to think of when exactly that shift happened. I mean definitely after I had my second kid. He’s two and a half now and my youngest son and I had been you know painting and like every 3 months, I would sort of make something. When you’re in school and you’re doing art, you have a lot of deadlines, you have projects to turn in but once you get out without that structure unless you’re just motivated it’s hard to like, make time if you’re doing regular jobs or you’re doing regular responsibilities so. I was probably making something every couple months you know painting something fresh for this friend, painting something for a house that we could sell it— that kind of thing— and I started thinking like, “Gosh you know I’m getting more like requests from people like wanting me to paint something. Maybe I should sort of think on that. Like why can’t I do both? You know, why can’t I, be a full-time therapist and a full-time artist. I don’t see why I can’t.”
So I just I took two business classes and they’re both like Instagram business classes because that’s sort of the thing if you talk to any artist right now that’s a professional, that’s what they’re sort of doing. That’s your own gallery for the whole world and there is a whole system to sort of know how to get like market your stuff to that audience and I said, “Well that seems like a good place to start.” you know, it doesn’t take me anything but time to learn that system right? I don’t have to create a whole website; I don’t have to do anything like that so. Right when I was doing that, a dad of a kid that my oldest son was in class with said, “Hey can I commission like this piece for a local restaurant that’s opening? It’s a big deal; we just want some local artist. You don’t have anything and anywhere else in town. Will you paint something for our restaurant?” I said, “Sure.” but that was really like it. That moment and then like two months later, I had been asked to be in an art show with a bunch of cool artist in town and then it was it with, it was on after that. So I guess that would be about, you know, two-ish years ago I became a professional— capital ‘A’ I would say.
Susan: That’s so cool. It just kind of morphed into this thing. It wasn’t like it was a planned thing. That’s such a neat, that’s so cool how things have fallen into place. Tell me a little bit about your creative process and your method. I love that you do a lot of time-lapse pictures or time-lapse videos of pieces that you’re working on and so anybody who watches your stuff knows that you paint your canvas is red first. Tell me a little bit about your process why red?
Genevieve: So I took one painting class at Converse—you know, when you’re an art therapy major, you do have to take studio art classes. I took one painting class and I did not like it but I did learn a couple of things. Even though I don’t paint in oil, I paint in acrylic, one of the things that you do no matter what you paint is have an under painting so that red is an under painting and basically that just gives you another like layer on your canvas—one because when you buy a canvas, sometimes it can take a couple layers of paint for the paint to look not like you can see through if that’s a good way to describe that. So one is for that and two, also the red I feel like pops my colors a little bit more so it’s a warm base instead of that white base and so I feel like that just makes my— and I’m a big color fan. I’m sure if ya’ll look at my work you’ll see that I really do love color so very much and so those kinds of things matter to me and I could, I guess paint on a white canvas but I just I like the way my color looks on that red that’s why I do it.
Susan: That’s really cool. I know a lot of your stuff. I’ve had you commission a piece but I also know that you just paint it you just create it. Where does your inspiration come from and even in stuff that’s commissioned I mean you still have to have that picture in your head— how does that work?
Genevieve: So I mean definitely a lot of the inspiration I have because I do a lot of like landscape pieces, are from the places around here. Upstate South Carolina is a great location because you’re near the coast, you’re near the mountains, you’re near farms, you’re near all kinds of just cool beautiful places and you can get them you know in an hour or a couple hours versus like a whole day. So, it’s just useful around here and that is truly where a lot of—I go gosh you know driving, I stop and take a picture because I’ll use that for later and you know as far as like my commission stuff, I just think that I’ve been drawing and you know creating stuff so long that I’ve never really had to like too much trouble just picturing—I’m just a visual person so somebody says, “Oh I want you to draw an alligator riding on a horse in the mountains.” I would be able to come up with something. It may not be a good picture always, I definitely do make mistakes. My work doesn’t always turn out well. I post the stuff that turns out well but that’s not always what actually happens. I think if you’re an artist you have to be not afraid of just paint over stuff—just starting over. I mean that’s just part of the process.
Susan: Well that segways into a question I always like to ask and that’s, you know, even the strongest of us have moments where we lack self-confidence. How do you deal with that—is it the starting over?
Genevieve: Yeah I think definitely I mean if you do you any kind of skill and I feel like art is definitely people will say “You’re just born with this talent.” whatever but I really felt like you know it’s just like any skill that you have in the world— you spend a lot of time getting better at it and you have to be able to do that to be a professional. You can’t be stuck in one place doing the same thing the same way— it just doesn’t work that way I don’t think to be professional. So, you know, you just spend a lot of time making mistakes. I think that’s important to experience. Not everybody have to or not everybody is afraid to mess up and fail, and I think that it is important to do that so that you know you can always start over. Like even I had a big commission earlier this year and I had gotten about you know a third of the way through and I was sending her a progress picture and she said, “You know I wanted that actually vertical and not horizontal.” so a third of the way through I don’t know why I didn’t check that— it was a terrible idea but I had for a panic moment for a minute like, “Oh gosh you know I just spent all this time doing this—poor me and then I said, “Gosh you know it’s fine.” I just turn it around and paint it again and it’ll be okay and it really is and maybe that’s just practice failing. I’ve practiced a lot being bad at stuff. I’m not good at math, you said you’re good at financial stuff but a long time being bad at math and so if I just based my whole life on how good I was at that, I would just be sort of stuck. When I have all this other stuff I’m okay.
Susan: I would like to clarify: I said I did math, I did not say I was good at math. No one called me for math questions. I am very good in Excel— no one call me with your math questions I can’t answer them. Now I thought that was great Genevieve.
Genevieve: Oh my gosh, Excel is hard.
Susan: Again, you talk about a skill you can learn Excel. It is a skill, it is not a natural born talent but there is some natural talents you have. I mean it is a skill I think that there are things that you can learn but you really do have I think there are some things that a vision and I think you have a vision and I think it’s a beautiful vision and I really admire that because that’s not something that I have. I mess up stick people so yeah.
Genevieve: Well thank you.
Susan: Tell us a little bit about how because you are a full-time counselor which is so cool, you are a full-time artist which is also cool, you also have two children, tell me how do you recharge your batteries and is that art is for you at this moment— is that recharging your batteries or is there something else that does it for you?
Genevieve: It definitely started out, like I said, I really started painting a lot right after I had my second child like kind of a sickly kid and he just was, you know, a lot of intense he didn’t sleep well that kind of stuff and we’re moving and the thought of change and so I didn’t really feel like I had much time to like go out and do stuff and I’m kind of a homebody anyway so I just started doing it like, “Gosh this is what I loved as a kid. This will be good for me to do my time.” it’s easy to fit in my life right now and so definitely it started out as that and then to kind of morphed into—it’s still that for me I still look forward to my time to do that so I start painting almost every night and I have my stuff just sort of set up in our little it looks like a studio but it’s really just the corner of our dining room, so I can be near my family if they’re awake or be near my husband— if he’s in the living room, I’m right next to him. So it’s my time to do it but it’s still there in my home and now I do more things out. Now I’ll go ride my bike or I’ll go you know out to eat breakfast with friends and I have more space to do that now but art is sort of what I’ always coming back to. I’m not a dancer but I sort of think about I’m not a yoga person but I feel like I think of it as my center I’ve had it so long in my life, that’s just my center.
Susan: That’s really cool. That’s really cool I like the centering aspect of that. That’s really, really neat. That’s really cool and that you’ve turned it into a profession so it can be both. That is such a—I don’t know, it gives me a sense of like peace about things I don’t know and I’m not an artist—that’s really neat. One of the questions I always like to ask is: With this podcast, my whole goal is to inspire, empower, and encourage women to go out and find their thing. You have found two things that I think you must be really, really good at. One of them I know you’re really good at, the other one I’ve never used you as a counselor. I have been in therapy myself— full disclosure—but not living close by, I have not had the opportunity to use you. So tell me there are women out there who are thinking about finding their thing or how they find their thing and I envision them like, you know doing what I did: getting quiet, getting still like sitting down and really figuring out who you are. If you could leave our audience with like an action step of figuring things out for themselves, do you have anything that you would recommend anyone try or do or seek out?
Genevieve: So I mean it would be hard for me not to say, “Hey, find a good therapist.” I mean that’s what we’re here for—is to help you walk through figuring out who you are and also we’re very different people than we were at 18 and at 10 and at 25 depending on how old you are. And so you know a good therapist can definitely help you walk through figuring that out like what you like and what you don’t like and how to set boundaries, you know, in your life or with your relationship. I mean I’ve done my own therapy before and I would be kind of a hypocrite if I didn’t. So I feel like that’s really helpful in one place and don’t feel like it’s unacceptable, I mean many counselors take insurance and payments of all kinds. So it’s not just for like people that can afford it. Therapists are in everybody’s grasp for sure.
But if it’s not that, if that’s not what you want to do, you know, again I kind of come back to like don’t be afraid to try stuff. When we’re kids we just go, “Hey I’m going to learn how to ride a bike.” and you just go out and like fall a bunch until you figure out how to ride a bike. One year for Christmas my parents got me a unicycle and I’m like, “Why?” I’m not a very athletic person so I don’t know why they gave that to me but you know I was pretty bad at it for a long time until I got kind of the hang of it. It was never my thing but I did figure out how to ride it where I didn’t fall immediately.
Not everybody in their childhood gets the space to like try stuff out so if you’re an adult and you don’t know what you like or you don’t have your thing or you’re trying to fit it in your life like try it. Take an online class, go get a unicycle and go, you know, find some new friends, go to be part of a group, you know, now we’ve got the Internet. There’s such a wealth of finding people or finding things—it doesn’t have to be costly things and my thought would be like go try stuff out. Don’t be afraid of it. I mean I’m 36 years old this year and you know, like I learned how to ride a bike again this year and that was exciting but it’s okay to be older and try stuff for you. You don’t have to have it figured out and you know just because you have kids so that would be my action step I think for everybody. Hopefully, I was clear with that.
Susan: Oh, no, you absolutely were and now that you’re talking about this, I would love to just talk a little bit about your business and therapy and what that looks like because I feel like at the first real therapy I ever did it was when you know we did marriage counseling therapy type stuff and that was fine and that was good and I really enjoyed it but then I found myself dealing with some stuff that I just never dealt with and it just kind of all of a sudden popped up and I was like, “Oh what is this?” and I kind of had a little bit of panic attack and the target, it came out of nowhere, it was random and I told Stephen about it and he was like, “Maybe you should go talk to somebody about it.” and I was like, “I can’t do that! Therapy? Who does therapy? Only people who are crazy do therapy.”
So I don’t know if there’s really a taboo around it anymore, I feel like maybe there is so if you’d be comfortable talking about some of that, I would love to hear your thoughts on that and about how— I don’t even know. I don’t know where to start with this. This is something like totally off the top of my head— I have nothing prepared.
Genevieve: Yeah I can definitely talk on that if you’d like.
Susan: I would love to hear your thoughts on it from the therapist perspective.
Genevieve: Yeah I think we’re still battling some stigma of people going to counseling. I think it’s much better than when I started 10 years ago but there is still you know especially— I don’t know about in Texas but definitely here in South Carolina, there’s still a lot of like, “Why aren’t you going to your pastor with that?” or, “Why aren’t you praying more about it?” and so you know not that those things aren’t helpful and not that pastors aren’t— I mean I don’t knock that at all but there is a reason why we have you know science behind why these things work for people and how there are things that you can do that have better-coping skills like when you feel panic and target and that kind of thing so, you know, we take care of our body, we could go to the dentist, most of us go at least once a year but you know that maybe the two that we’re supposed to. We go to the doctor, we’ve got a sinus infection, we take care of our body parts you know when things are wrong. We’ve got an achy knee whatever but we’re less willing for some reason to go when our brain won’t like, be quiet or it’s thinking about stuff all the time or it’s saying I’m fine thanks to ourselves we’re having trouble communicating with our partner or we have things that have happened to us like trauma as a child or a teenager or as a young person so.
I think about it that way like this is just maintenance of your body just like it is if you had to get the physical therapy and it’s a little bit less scary if you think about it. People always bring up like, “Oh you’re going to like lay on the couch and you’re going to cry the whole time.” and wow, people do cry a lot on my couch. Nobody is laying on it though. Nobody has ever done it. Therapy is much different than it used to be and so we’re really here not to judge what you bring into us because people will tell us all kinds of things that we may not agree with but that doesn’t mean that we’re judging them. We’re there to help you figure it out and walk with you.
Susan: So you are specifically marriage and family is that correct?
Genevieve: That is correct. That’s my degree but what that means if I can clarify that is I don’t just Marriage and Family Counseling. Some people do but I can see basically anybody that wants to come in for counseling as long as I can feel confident doing it. And honestly, mostly I do see individuals, I don’t see that many couples and families but what that means for you all is that a Marriage and Family Therapist is a system thinker so we think of people and systems: So what their family system looks like, what their relationship system looks like, what their work system look like and you know, how are those things connected to potentially not helping or helping the person that’s in our office.
Susan: What is something—I mean my audience is women—so what is something if a woman is thinking about seeing a therapist or maybe her kids need to see a therapist or maybe it is their marriage, maybe she is married and maybe she and her husband or wife need to see somebody and they’ve never seen somebody. What should they expect walking into the door?
Genevieve: Well you know now that we’ve got the internet, I definitely recommend not actually googling people but you know The magazine Psychology Today, that’s a great place to start because they have not only good great articles about you know different subjects as far as counseling goes, mental health goes, but they have a therapist like search engine and you can search.
Susan: I did not know that.
Genevieve: Yeah it’s great so that’s a great place to start. A lot of people get referrals from their doctor, their primary care, their gynecologist—really it’s the gynecologist that refers us to most people but those are good people to ask. If you feel comfortable asking the people in your system, you can ask them like, “Hey, have you seen a counselor? Do you know anybody in town that you’re like?” But truly I like that therapist search because then you can see not only their face, which I feel like is important, and they feel like they’re going to be a good match. I’m not going to probably go see a man counselor cause I just don’t think that’s a good fit for me but that doesn’t mean that’s not a good fit for you. You can also search that by like topics. So if you want somebody that does you know, kids under 10, you can narrow the search down that way but when they come in though, you can expect a kind of experience at least initially, of like you got to start your paper work like you do when you see your regular doctor and then you have to run your insurance and all that stuff if you’re using insurance and then you’re going to come into the room and not tell your whole story but just giving a good like overall picture: What’s bringing you in today? What’s happening in your relationship today that’s causing you distress? Because usually, especially with marriage counseling, things have been bad probably for a while and something has happened like you know, something has gotten to bad and now is the time that we come in and I would say as a marriage— truly go in before you think it is late because when you come in when it’s really, really bad, it’s a lot harder to fix than it is when it’s like, “Oh you know we’re not getting along very well right now.” or somebody is not doing their chores or something like that—it’s easier to fix early.
You know what I help with all the time is—us as therapists, we’re like human beings too so you may come in and go, “you know, Gen’s really just not the right fit for me.” and my feelings will never be hurt. So go in like with the feeling of like, “I’m just going to try this person on. If they’re not a good fit for me it’s totally fine. Generally there’s at least one other therapist in town but usually, a lot more that I can choose from. I’m not committed to this person.” you’re not going to hurt anybody’s feelings if you’re like, “Yeah I probably need to see somebody else.” and usually we’ll help you find somebody else in town. We know everybody that’s in town generally that’s a therapist so that’s sort of what it looks like. Figuring out if this relationship and therapy will work and if we can help you.
Susan: That’s really cool. I like that. Just backing up just a second: I think it’s interesting that you get a lot of your referrals from gynecologist because I think about that and I think about the doctors that I have and that makes perfect sense to me because 1: she is somebody I do see regularly. That is the one checkup that I’m like, “Okay that one has to happen.” she has seen every part of my body you know the parts that you know most people other than my husband have not seen, she has delivered my child like there’s like an intimate relationship there that you have with a gynecologist that—I mean I don’t have that same relationship with Stephen. I mean he was in the room when Will was delivered but he didn’t deliver my child. So it is such an intimate relationship, I never thought of it like that. That’s really cool. Well thank you for sharing that.
Genevieve: I was going to say you just need to have that trust with somebody. So even if you don’t go to a counselor but you have a good relationship with your gynecologist like you know you just need somebody you can trust and that gynecologist, you know generally if there’s delivering your child you probably trust them okay.
Susan: Yeah, yeah and I like that you said trying a therapist on and that your feelings really aren’t hurt when somebody says, “This really isn’t working for me.” because at the end of the day your goal is really to help people.
Genevieve: Right totally and we’re not going to help somebody coming in to make us not hurt our feeling like that’s not a genuine relationship.
Susan: Yeah. I really appreciate you talking about that because I think the more we talk about it out in the open and people are like, “Yeah I’ve been to therapy. Of course I’ve been in therapy. Haven’t you been?” because you’re right, it really is a checkup and I feel so much better after I’ve seen my therapist and after I’m like, “Oh okay, I got that off my chest.” and I can say it however and she’s not going to be offended. You have to be careful when you’re talking to a parent or a child or a spouse because you have to kind of— ‘eggshells’ is not the right word—that’s not what I mean. I feel like its helpful to word things in a way that doesn’t hurt people’s feelings or like cause I’m crazy blow up and my therapist, I mean I’m an open book. I can talk to my therapist however, you know, use whatever words and I don’t have to be careful about, “Oh I don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings.”
Genevieve: That’s great, that’s what you want. You’re not there to take care of their feelings, you’re there to take yours and again, we probably have heard this about anything or anybody and even if we haven’t, we’re definitely not going to go like, “What!!?” you know we have a whole, you know, couple classes of doing that, not doing that. Usually we’re pretty hard to surprise and I think that’s true, you know, we do have to kind of be more careful with like our actual relationship than we are with a therapist and that’s okay, that’s totally fine. You don’t necessarily want to say, “Oh my gosh, my spouse again did this thing that’s driving me nuts.” and it doesn’t necessarily need to be said all the time but maybe you do need to complain about it enough and go, “Well maybe that is something I can address or maybe it’s just like my own.” like my husband knows I’m never going to be on time. If he was going to therapy, he could complain all he wants about that because you know that isn’t worth the fight to bring that up.
Sometimes you just have to love your partner you know the way you bought them. He bought me not on time. I’m not saying I’m not working on it but you know.
Susan: That is such a good point that rarely does people change who they are. In fact, you really figure out who they are afterwards.
Genevieve: Definitely and that’s hard because like we’re definitely full of the idea of like “Well if you love each other enough, you would you what I’m asking you to do.” or “You would make this better.” and the reality is like we can love each other to death and still be human beings and sort of be imperfect. The things that we do aren’t always because we don’t care but sometimes they can feel like that. I think, you know, going back to the business there for a second, I think having opened up a therapy practice first, like opening that business first definitely made me less afraid to start being a professional artist because I’m like I’ve already done this. Not that it’s the same in a lot of ways but it is the same in a lot of ways of, you know, it’s like the moving pieces part, the marketing part that kind of stuff is very similar with any kind of business.
Susan: Yeah that’s a good point and that’s a good place to ask you— well first tell you thank you so much for joining us today this has meant a lot to me. I was really excited to talk to you, I really appreciate you taking the extra time to talk a little bit about the counseling side of your life and that business that you do. Tell us and I’ll make sure all this is in the show notes—but tell us where we can find you on social media, the Internet, wherever you’re marketing your businesses?
Genevieve: Sure so I don’t have a Website I’m just purely on Instagram and Facebook right now. So my Instagram is @genstrickland— just my name, not super hard and then my Facebook page is Art by Genevieve Strickland and they’re pretty easily searched and if you got them in the notes, you’ll be able to find—and then my counseling office is Magnolia Counseling Associates. You guys that aren’t in the area probably aren’t going to come see us but we do post often. I’m actually in charge of that marketing too so I do all of our postings of our, you know, visuals or our articles that we share for everybody— they’re just helpful articles about psychology things, mental health things so those are where we’re at or that’s where I’m at and all of those social media platforms and you can find me there and I’m happy to include my email address even to you if you want that?
Susan: Sure that’s great! Yeah absolutely we can put that in the show notes, very good. Awesome! Well thank you so much I really appreciate it and I know you have an appointment to get to so we’ll let you do that. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really, really, really appreciate it.
Genevieve: Thank you for having me again it was really fun I enjoyed it.
Susan: Hey sisters I hope you’ve enjoyed my conversation with Genevieve as much as I did. If you want to learn more about Genevieve and where to find her art as well as her counseling services, that will be linked over on our website: howshegothere.com. Thanks so much for listening today. If you are enjoying this podcast, head on over to iTunes and hit ‘subscribe’ and while you’re there I’d really appreciate it if you would rate and review it in order to make it easier for others to find. I also make sure to read every review and e-mail and Facebook post you leave and I am always, always, always excited to hear your feedback.
We also have a private Facebook group, the How She Got Here community page and would love to have you join us there to continue the conversation on today’s episode as well as any other fun how she got here content. So, with all that said, thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening. I’ll see you soon.
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