A quick note: My website is in the process of being updated. So you may notice some weird text that doesn’t make any sense — that’s HTML, left over from my former website. It will be removed soon. For the most part, it’s possible to just read past the gibberish and you’ll see the content. If you have difficulty getting to a page or booking, just contact me at michaela.lonning@gmail.com.
Right now, I’m taking a limited number of clients and doing most of my work online.
I have one opening for longer term work, and 3 openings for people who would like to do just a few sessions.
Wondering if we might be a good fit?
If you fit some of these descriptions below, we might be:
Smart – possibly so smart that you can talk yourself out of your feelings and instincts. Trapped by trying to think your way out of feelings.
Shamed, guilty – feeling like you’re not enough, or you’re too much – or both. Trying to improve yourself again and again, in the midst of this nagging despair that something’s wrong with you.
You’ve talked your way through therapy before. Perhaps you’ve seen therapists, healers, energy workers, shamans…..Tried religions, yoga, self-help, communication seminars. Somehow, all of these things are still not addressing your struggles in relationships or helped you to address that thing inside that seems to get in your way.
Somehow, you’ve had glimmers of insight, hope, and have resolved to change. But somehow, it doesn’t stick.
It’s like parts of you aren’t working together — you make a decision to be more assertive, and find yourself apologizing yet again. Or you resolve to exercise, to do healthy things you know would help you feel better. But you keep falling back into old patterns.
Unfortunately, slogans and happy affirmations just aren’t enough to address the places within us that need the help. Sometimes, the places in us that need the attention aren’t the places that hold all the happy hopeful content we’ve collected. Sometimes, what needs our attention inside is a place that holds profound pain, and that place needs finding.
Sometimes, we get in our own way, and we need help to see how it is that we’re doing that. We need someone to help us notice the walls we may accidentally put up to connection.
You’re left with impossibly high expectations of yourself.
Compassion for other people – you’ve got it.
Compassion for yourself – not so much.
Even though your work is highly respected, your close relationships are difficult, and you struggle to reach out from a genuine place that can connect you to others.
Or you keep reaching out, keep talking, and yet, something hasn’t shifted yet. You know more, but you haven’ felt the true power to change unlock within you. You want to shift your life, your habits, your procrastination — yet you stay stuck. You want to connect, but some nameless fear comes into stop you. You begin to achieve something but you stop yourself, constantly rescuing yourself from the brink of success.
My clients are often looking for something deeper, more interactive than a worksheet or a set of tools. They’re looking for a deeper way to connect.
Perhaps you’ve felt that you’re too much and have tried to stifle yourself, to fit into a box that you believe will lead to feeling accepted.
but perhaps what you really need is to stop disowning your own depth, your own feelings, and the richness you bring.
It’s time for a process that you can really dig into, and be actively engaged with. You’re not looking for someone to fix you — you need help, from an honest compassionate person, to help you see how it is you keep yourself stuck so you can be free long after the work with me ends.
You’re tried “fixes” before — healers, gurus, self-help, various approaches — but you want something active, something that helps you to get yourself freed. You’re tired of bland nice words — you want to be awake and alive within yourself and be here to stay, rather than waiting for the person that will “fix me”.
I’ll help you take an active engaged stance in this work. When we both bring our insights and engagement to the table, it’s not that “things change” — it’s that you learn how to change you, how to become more active and engaged in your own life. You want to learn what’s keeping you stuck, and what keeps you in fear of your own emotions and your own vitality. I’m here for you!
By the way, I’m Michaela. (You probably figured that out from the website title, but an introduction is still in order.)
And if you’ve made it this far on this page, then you and I most likely have some things in common.
You and I are both deeply motivated to make changes in ourselves that can impact others. Everyone gets stuck sometimes, and we all can use help sometimes to see what we’ve been missing, or to find a new way forward.
“I was beyond burnt out on therapy before I met you, and never would have come to see you if we hadn’t met by chance. But I’m so glad I did meet with you, because you changed my idea of therapy, and showed me that I’m not just a ‘set of symptoms,’ and that there are things that can help me. I finally know how to keep my peace instead of going into a rage. I never would have thought this was possible before we met!”
What my counseling clients say…
“I can’t believe how much easier it is for me now. I can get through the day without crying. I can go to work. I can talk to people. I haven’t felt this good in a long, long time!”
“I suddenly had this epiphany — this realization — that most people are safe. Most people mean well. I hadn’t felt that before. I’d always been on guard without even knowing it.
You’re ready to make changes.
You’re ready to collaborate, to put our heads and hearts together to discover what’s happening for you and what keeps your relationships from unfolding in the way you want them to.
You’ve never been unmotivated. You’ve always worked so very hard to find out what’s happening, to put the pieces of the puzzle of you together.
But it matters who you take these puzzle pieces to, doesn’t it?
Not every counselor, not even every good counselor, is the right counselor for you.
Perhaps you need your accidental sabotage of your own goals pointed out — because what good is a kind person who neglects to tell you if you’re using an outdated map or driving yourself into ditches? Sometimes clients tell me that the way I pointed out an observation about how they were interacting helped them to see themselves better, and to change something right there in the moment, with me.
Some clients who come to me have had too many “answers” given to them, and deeply value the way we get curious together in this work. While I’ve taken a lot of trainings and I strive to bring knowledge to our work, I also know that you are one-of-a-kind, and that we get to find out together what helps you.
My clients tell me that I am authentic with them in ways that they haven’t seen in others they’ve worked with. They also tell me that they like how I self-reflect and acknowledge when I’ve missed something.
I actually see those moments as an opportunity. They can help us both to understand you better, and they can be moments where we can work out a difference in a mutually kind and connective way. We don’t always get that everywhere, and it can be helpful to be in a space with someone who is committed to staying connected and to helping you to work through these moments.
So we talk about how we can sort through moments like that. Because learning how to communicate about the difficult stuff in relationships is some of the most important work we can do in counseling.
The best way to find out if we’ll work well together is to schedule a meet and greet — then if that’s a fit, we’ll set aside a good block of time to really get to know you and to see if I can be of help.
Setting up the meet-and-greet is simple. Before emailing me to schedule a consultation, please be sure to read my FAQ that will answer the most commonly asked questions.