Daily Inspiration: Meet Stacey King

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stacey King.

Hi Stacey, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I did not realize I wanted to be a counselor until later in my life. I studied biochemistry and marketing for my undergrad and graduated in 2009 during the recession. Finding a job was difficult and I did not make the decision to start graduate school until 2013. Working full time and joining the corporate world while attending graduate school made progress slow and I finally graduated in December of 2019. It was a less than ideal time to graduate (again) as the lockdowns started a few months later and finding a position was difficult.

I joined a neurofeedback clinic in July of 2020 but did not feel it was the right fit for the pace I appreciated in traditional therapy. I set aside my career to have our first daughter in August of 2021 and was pregnant with our second child 4 months after she was born. It was around this time that I realized I wanted to help others as we collectively navigated the difficult years following the pandemic. Obviously being 22 week pregnant was a great time to start a business! After starting my practice, my caseload quickly filled with couples, teenagers, and individuals. I saw clients up until the week I delivered our son in November of 2022. Following my maternity leave, I continued to see clients and we have since added our third child, a little girl, in March of 2025. It is a joy to grow my family and my practice simultaneously, and an honor to walk alongside my clients as they process through life’s trials and tribulations. Living out the role of wife, mother, and therapist fulfill the highest callings I could have on my life and I am grateful!

All of the trainings I’ve engaged in have focused on results and value. I want my therapy sessions to be incredibly valuable to my clients and aim to add skills that enhance the value of our time together. I have seen my own therapist off and on since I was 19 and appreciate therapy modalities that enhance therapy sessions beyond talk therapy, I trained in internal family systems (IFS) and eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR) and have loved seeing the freedom and results that have come from these therapy styles.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Shoot, obstacles and challenges just mean I’m challenging myself enough to fail! Some obvious struggles in the grand career path(s) I have taken were the recession and pandemic. I don’t know of a worse time to graduate in the past 30 years. It’s also very difficult to figure out what you want to do in life. I tried food service and working in coffeeshops to see if I appreciated management roles (spoiler, I didn’t), I tried corporate, I tried teaching elementary students, and nothing seemed quite right. To be fair, I didn’t expect to have an “ah ha! I love everything about my job!” kind of experience, but I also didn’t want to have to force myself to get up everyday and work somewhere that left me feeling empty. I questioned my choices in grad school almost the entire time and was grateful for the experiences that offered closed doors because I knew the answer was no. No is sometimes a really nice answer to have: should I be a kindergarten teacher? No. Should I work in administration? No. Should I manage people? Really no on that one.

All that said, this convoluted journey has afforded me experiences that help me relate to others. Not perfectly, not entirely, but I get the existential crisis that is waking up everyday to drive an hour to a job I hated to work for people who did not care about me, to do tasks that felt pointless, to make money to buy things I didn’t need to fill the space that I felt working at a dead end job. I am grateful for the bumps and bruises, for the burnout I’ve experienced, for the angry customers I’ve helped, for the really questionable bathrooms I’ve cleaned…it’s all a part of the greater part of my story that has led me to today.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As a mental health therapist I get to walk with people towards freedom and hope. I often say “I want to put myself out of business” to my clients because I do. I want them to feel equipped, relieved, and free, so much so that they stop seeing me and live beautiful lives. It’s funny, even writing this, because I can hear some of my clients’ voices saying “you are so flowery in your speech…” and I am. I am fanciful in my language at times because I have seen and experienced darkness in my own life; I have felt the darkness that other’s have lived, and when there is light and beauty and hope and life it is worth being flowery and fanciful. I want others to know about life and that it is worth living. When I sit with a client and they say something along the lines of “I feel really good, I don’t know if I need to set up another appointment…can I reach out if I need you?” What a joy to see a client who was once closed off and downtrodden lifted and open. Life is incredibly hard and I get to offer a little relief and respite in my little practice.

As I said before, I aim to add skills and therapy styles that increase the value of the therapeutic hour as much as possible. EMDR and IFS are powerful tools in helping process trauma, abuse, grief, depression, and anxiety. I am well acquainted with grief, both personally and professionally, and really appreciate the beauty that comes with grief. There’s a famous poem “On Joy and Sorrow” by Khalil Gibran that says “When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” We grieve because we have loved, and it is such a complicated privilege to love.

I also want my clients to have the opportunity to apply what we talk about or do in session to their everyday lives. I love to offer resources to my clients that can be applied throughout the week whether that is a book, podcast, exercise, whatever it may be.

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
I have loved books on cultivating habits (The Power of Habit, Atomic Habits, etc), especially since I am not the most administrative person and need to work on my discipline.

Any podcast that features Richard Schwartz (the author of IFS) and his books (No Bad Parts, Introduction to Internal Family Systems)

The Huberman Lab podcast has some incredible interviews with people shaping the mental health field today.

“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl is an incredible book.

Jonathan Haidt has multiple books that I have appreciated and incorporated in my personal life and practice: “The Coddling of the American Mind” and “The Anxious Generation”

“Dopamine Nation” by Anne Lembke is another book I often reference in my practice.

“Attached” by Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller is a great resource on romantic attachment styles

“The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk for information regarding trauma

“Mindset” by Carol Dweck is a great tool for helping move a fixed mindset into a growth mindset

A solid playlist and a walk along a trail with my children always helps my mind, body, heart, and soul.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://staceylking.com