Today we’d like to introduce you to Michelle Paget.
Michelle, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I felt drawn to working as a helping professional and pursued a double major in psychology and painting in college, thinking I may want to be an art therapist. After graduating college, I moved to New York City and applied to graduate school so I could carry out my hope of becoming a therapist. I had varied experience ranging from working in a center for chemically addicted and mentally ill women to working in New York City public schools. I loved working with children and after graduating, I got a job running school-based mental health clinics in elementary and high schools around the New York metro area. Seven years later, I started to build my own private practice working as a child therapist and left my job in community mental health. I completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training, as well as a children’s yoga and mindfulness certification and incorporated yoga and mindfulness into my work with children and their parents. I continued my work as a child therapist and also focused on supporting parents along the journey of parenthood. I had my first child in 2017 and fairly soon after, we moved our little family to Denver. While I continued to work as a child therapist, I noticed a stronger pull to work with parents. I began focusing more on supporting parents and less on my work with children. In 2019, I had my second child and took an extended leave due to the start of covid. When I finally returned to work, I knew that I needed to make a change. I serendipitously met another therapist who inspired me to deepen my skillset to work with moms. My years of experience working with children and parents and ultimately becoming a parent myself led me to work with mothers along the journey to pregnancy, postpartum and through motherhood.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I would say my hardest struggle was coming back to work after having my 2nd child. Covid hit when I was three and a half months postpartum, so I was isolating at home with my husband, toddler and newborn. This was an emotionally turbulent time for me, battling postpartum depression along with the uncertainty of covid. I had to do my own work to build better tools and rediscover my identity as a mother. I believe that this experience was one of the reasons I was drawn to working more closely with mothers.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Rise and Flow Counseling was born out of my desire to support parents along their journey to and through parenthood. It is the culmination of my years of experience as a therapist but also as a person on my own journey, rediscovering my identity after becoming a mother.
I am certified as a perinatal and maternal mental health therapist, which means I work with moms on the road to pregnancy, through pregnancy, postpartum and beyond. I am also certified in Brainspotting, a modality that helps to process and relieve the symptoms associated with trauma. If you’re dealing with trauma or emotional pain, Brainspotting can help you to process and release the underlying issues that are contributing to your distress. By activating specific points in your brain that are connected to your emotional pain or trauma, individuals can release the trauma and move forward in a positive and healthy way.
I use an integrated and somatic approach that blends my background in yoga with evidenced based treatments like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Narrative Exposure Therapy and Brainspotting. Therapy is never “one size fits all” but is always tailored to the individual. I see my clients as the experts in their own life and myself as a guide—helping to move through the ebbs and flows and live life with more joy.
I am so very grateful to be supporting other mothers and feel proud of my own journey to arrive here. I feel incredibly lucky when I can guide another mother to step into her new identity with confidence but still feel connected to her “pre-mom” self. I feel hopeful when I witness someone move through a trauma so they can get unstuck and live life with more balance.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
I must always remain open to learning, both as a therapist and an individual on my own journey.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.riseandflowcounseling.com
- Instagram: @rise.and.flow.counseling
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michellepagettherapy
