hey y’all… i’m shawna!Then I became the professional in the room.
I became a Licensed Professional Counselor, then a Texas Board-Approved LPC Supervisor, and spent the next two decades inside the systems that are supposed to help helpers.
Community agencies. Corrections/Jail systems. Government agencies. EAP consulting. Clinical supervision. Private practice.
I watched good clinicians learn how to look professional while quietly getting eaten alive by the work. I watched people get praised for being endlessly available, for carrying too much, for treating exhaustion like proof they cared enough.
And eventually I had to admit I wasn’t just watching it. I was doing some of it too. That’s the short version of how I became a Clinical Culture Dropout.
I didn’t leave the work. I stayed licensed. I still believe in therapy. I still believe in supervision. I still believe this work matters.
I just stopped believing we have to keep doing it in ways that strip the human out of the helper.
I’m not building any of this from the finish line.
A little about how I’m wired, because it shapes how I work and how I build:
I’m a 3/5 Emotional Projector in Human Design with a split definition. In very plain English, trial and error has been a pretty consistent character in this story. I learn by living it. Testing it. Getting some of it wrong. Noticing what actually works. Changing my mind when something stops fitting.
So no, none of this has been a straight line. I’m not particularly interested in pretending it was.
I’m building toward a different kind of life too.
These days, we’re a law enforcement family looking toward a slower chapter.
My husband’s retirement is on the horizon. Beyond that, we’re building toward the Texas Gulf Coast, more travel, more room, and a life that doesn’t require recovering from it all the time.
That horizon matters to me because everything I build now gets run through one question:
Do I actually want to live inside the life this creates? That includes the work. The business. The schedule. The way I help people.
All of it.
And if you’re usually the one holding everything together...
You’re probably the person people call when something goes wrong.
You know how to handle a crisis, make a decision, keep moving, and take care of what needs taking care of.
People trust you because you’re capable.
And somewhere in all that capability, it can get really easy to build a life where everybody gets access to you except you.
That’s who I built this for.
People who are very good at carrying things and are starting to wonder whether they want to keep carrying them the same way.
THE RECEIPTS
25+ years of personal and professional experience in mental health, wellness, crisis work + the helping professions
14 years licensed as a Texas LPC
11 years as a Texas Board-Approved LPC Supervisor
Guided 13 badass therapists through full licensure
Signed off on 35,000+ supervised clinical hours
Helped launch 9 private practices
Texas LPC License #65651
If you’re the one everybody calls when something goes sideways, and you’re starting to realize being this damn capable has a cost...
We should probably talk.
I built this because I needed it too.
And nobody had built it yet.
Twenty-five years ago, I decided to become a therapist because I wanted to be the kind of counselor I wish I’d had. At the time, I thought that was the whole story.
Cute.
Turns out there were going to be a LOT more versions of “I wish I’d had this.”
I was born and raised in Los Angeles and moved to the Austin area in 2008. I earned my Bachelor’s in Psychology from Johnson C. Smith University and my Master’s in Forensic Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
Then life got a whole lot less academic.
I married a first responder, which means I learned what it looks like when someone else’s job runs on unpredictability, long shifts, high stakes, and being ready for things to go sideways.
I also learned what happens on the other side of that.
You get really good at keeping the house moving. Adjusting. Handling things. Not making a big deal out of what you need because there’s already enough going on.
After enough years of that, “just relax” starts sounding a little ridiculous. So does pretending a self-care Sunday is going to undo a body that’s been braced for years.
I needed something that started closer to the actual problem.
Not another worksheet. Not another list of things I should be doing better.
Something that paid attention to what the body had been trying to say the whole time.