Mental Fitness

Welcome to our Balanced Living blog!

We hope to share information, research, reminders and ideas with you as the weeks go by and we go through the seasons. Here at Balanced Living, we currently have twelve mental health therapists. We hope that you will hear all our voices in this blog from time to time.

My name is Catrin Jensen, and I have been a mental health counselor for close to 20 years. I am passionate about making therapy accessible and acceptable.

Please know that all our therapists here at Balanced Living have seen or are seeing a therapist, either in their graduate program or throughout their life. We know what is like to sit on the other side of the couch. It can be humbling and comforting at the same time. We sometimes stay in therapy for an extended period; sometimes we go to therapy on and off throughout our lives. We are taking care of ourselves so that we can take care of you. Do you really want your cardiologist to be smoking?

There are many stigmas surrounding individuals with mental health disorders. Many people admit that they are afraid of what they do not understand. It is sometimes a challenge to recognize mental health issues because it is not visible to others. If we break our leg, we will go to the doctor. However, when we experience intense grief or anxiety we sometimes suffer in silence.

Couples may argue behind closed doors for years before it gets bad enough to seek the assistance of a mental health professional. Communication skills are often modeled by the adults we grew up with, and they were not always the most effective communicators. We would not wait until a physical wound got bigger to seek help, but that is not always the case for emotional wounds.

Therapy is an investment in yourself, your relationships, and your life. We are so busy with life that we sometimes put the most important things on the back burner and we “white knuckle” through life. We talk a lot about self-care and finding a therapeutic space is the same thing as saying, “I am going to invest in myself so that I can reach my potential. I want to be content in my life for myself, and for the people in my life that are important to me”.

I hope that we will get to a time when “I see a therapist…” is the norm and not connected to shame or embarrassment.