Monica LeBlanc, MS, LCMHC is a licensed clinical mental health counselor practicing somatic, attachment-focused psychotherapy for adults in Western North Carolina. Her boutique therapy practice creates a safe and healing space for adults to explore relational wounds and patterns in the way of their innate security and wholeness. Monica incorporates DARe, dynamic attachment repatterning experiencing, trauma-informed yoga techniques, and the enneagram into her therapy practice.
Monica is also a certified Enneagram teacher in the Embodiment tradition. She approaches the enneagram through an energetic and somatic lens utilizing embodiment practices to assist in untangling the enneagram pattern. Monica provides enneagram coaching for people who are ready to transcend the pieces of their enneagram type that get in their way.
In her personal time, Monica volunteers for BIPOC Raw, an anti-racism educational organization that wholeheartedly believes in the healing power of empathy. She also enjoys hiking the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina, writing a food blog, and traveling around the world.
Website: Cardinal River Counseling
Have you ever had one of those apologies that left you feeling worse than before? Where the person says the words, “I’m sorry” but follows it up with something that negates it. Those apologies that have a but. The ones that spend a millisecond in responsibility and validation of your experience and immediately make a quick 180-degree turn to let you know that you are actually at fault.
Your alarm is blaring at you for the 50th time. You notice that it’s an hour past when you said you would arise. Your heartbeat begins to creep into panic mode. Your palms are sweaty. “I’m going to be late. I am most definitely fired. How am I going to feed my family without this job” you think to yourself. You run out the door, hair wet, with some version of coffee in your hand. You notice you still have time to make it to work before your first meeting. You exhale deeply and your heart rate decreases just as your favorite song comes on. You make it on time.
“Be a traveler, not a tourist” - Anthony Bourdain
Everywhere you look in my area (the southeastern United States), the 90s are back. The sundresses with little flowers on them, chunky white tennis shoes, and even cartoon nostalgia printed on sweatshirts and backpacks. These bucket hats are lighting up a part of me that I had long forgotten. A part of me that I worked so hard to cover up as bills, responsibility, and taxes got in the way. My guess is that this part of me reflects a part of you that you have also numbed out to or simply judged and shoved away.
I can feel the clear blue water around my calves. I can see the white sand that’s sinking my toes into its body. It’s cradling my stance as I look next to me and I see my grandmother and her mother standing in a line with all of my cousins, my father, my aunts and uncles, and my grandmother’s cousins. We are all in the water and the sun is shining, making priceless diamonds as it reflects on the blue-green ocean. The ocean water is carrying away the fears and the trauma of our lineage.
The car is driving away. The phone call has been terminated. Your moving van is packed. You are boarding the plane. You are holding your grandmother’s hands and telling her how she has impacted you because you know this is the last time you will be able to look into her eyes. You are rubbing your cat’s chin for the last time and savoring every purr. Endings. Are. Brutal.
I will never forget the moment I decided to become a therapist. After a bout with art history and a laughable stint in the political science/pre-law department, I found myself sitting in an "abnormal psychology" class. I am positive they don’t call it that anymore because, what actually is “normal”? Anyway, I could see so much of myself in the pages of the “abnormal psychology” textbook. I could see so much of my past and how it was showing up in the way I moved about in the world.
I have heard it all. “Isn’t that what friends are for?”, “Why would I pay someone to listen to me complain?” “What good is it going to do to dig up the past? I’m fine.” And my personal favorite, “(insert coping skill here): it’s cheaper than therapy!” Yup. I am a therapist. And these are some of the common themes that I hear from friends, family, and the checkout person at my local grocery store when I am asked what I do for a living and I begrudgingly respond.
If you are connected to the outside world, which I think most of us are, then you are probably being inundated with messages about goal setting, new year’s resolutions, and the “new you”. Well, nothing against goal setting or intention creation, but what if instead of the “new you” it became about the “new us?”
Something about the twinkly lights, early dark nights, and the cooler temperatures makes us want to reflect. The holiday season could really be renamed, yearnings of yesterday because of all the feelings that come up during this time.