"First, let"s talk about Tomorrow [the business]. When I decided to name my business "Tomorrow Counseling," I"m not sure my spouse knew how to react. We ran into a few snafus where we didn"t know if we were talking about "Tomorrow the day" or "Tomorrow the business." I had some doubts but just couldn"t quite get the meaning or the connection out of my head. So without further adoa bit more about the meaning behind "Tomorrow Counseling."
I considered a few names, and none of them connected to my heart the same way Tomorrow did. I felt both an occupational connection to it, as well as an emotional significance. I"m no stranger to depressive symptoms and wondering whether or not tomorrow [the day] was going to come--or wondering if tomorrow was going to be just as bad as today, or even considering whether or not I wanted to make it to tomorrow. At times tomorrow [the day] wasn"t something I felt excited about, and I wasn"t able to bring any images to mind about the next day or any further into the future. This is where challenging hopelessness comes in. I named my counseling practice "Tomorrow Counseling" because it is my mission to connect you with your tomorrow as a counselor. Let"s explore how to build your tomorrow, and create a tomorrow worth thriving for and loving.
Hopelessness is both uncomfortable and powerful. It can lead to a loss of motivation or engagement with life, and is also connected with feelings of powerlessness, helplessness, and isolation. Hopelessness is also a symptom of a number of mental health conditions and can be treated. Hopelessness can also partner with shame tootelling us we shouldn"t feel the way we"re feeling, or telling us we should just get up and go, and not be so lazy. Hopelessness can feel like the weight of the world just holding you and your nervous system glued down. So what do we do about it?
The APA defines hopelessness as "n. the feeling that one will not experience positive emotions or an improvement in one"s condition." In our work we will work to create new and authentic beliefs that challenge the messages from your feelings of hopelessness. We"ll explore your thinking patterns, coping patterns; I"ll teach you mindfulness and cognitive skills to both build your coping toolkit and support lasting change; and I will support your connection to your inner wisdom and authentic self. Our brains can changethey are "plastic" and can alter the structure of its neural networks. Our work together supports meaningful change, and we will also use somatic processing and expressive arts to support whole person healing and relief from hopelessness. Okay, so a pinch more about my personal connection with overcoming hopelessness and "tomorrow"
If you"re not familiar with it, there"s a pretty well known song sang by a young woman in a musical where thinking about tomorrow is particularly helpful ("Annie," 1982see link for clip from film). Though the song may feel a bit oversimplified, the general idea is similar and at a time in my life when I was a child battling hopelessness and surviving trauma, my grandmother would sing this song to me and remind that "it"s okay that today isn"t so great. We can do something different tomorrow." At that time, tomorrow [the day] was something different from today, and that"s what I neededvalidation that today might suck and the knowing that I can learn how to lay steps for a different tomorrow. Putting in the work for my tomorrow, even at times not even believing it existed, helped me to create my tomorrow, and the next day, and my day after that, and so on.
So that"s pretty much itTomorrow is about connecting with your tomorrow. It"s about building hope and putting in the work to honor authentic change."
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