MICHAELA KOZLIK, LCPC — Illinois therapist

The longer I do this work, the less interested I am being the therapist with all the answers. I am much more interested in what happens when someone has finally enough room to sit with their questions and hear their own answers.

 

I’ve worked with so many women who are so incredibly good at functioning. You go to work, take care of people, remember what everyone needs, solve the problems, and hold things together. And somewhere in all of that, you’ve gotten very far away from yourself.

 

You come to therapy thinking there is something you need to figure out or fix.

Why am I so anxious? Why am I exhausted all the time? Why do I keep doing this in relationships?

Why can’t I just let things go? What's wrong with me lately?

 

And of course, we talk about those things. We get curious about where patterns came from. We pay attention to what happens in relationships, in the body, in the past and in your life now.

But I’m not sitting across from you thinking, How do I fix this person?

 

I’m thinking:

What haven’t you had enough space to say?

What have you gotten really good at carrying and holding?

What do you already know but keep talking yourself out of?

And who are you when you don’t have to take care of anyone?

 

That’s become much more interesting to me than giving someone another set of coping skills because you already know how to cope. You’ve been coping for years. Sometimes the work is finally having somewhere you don’t have to.

I want therapy to be one of the few places in your week where you don’t have to perform, pretend, or figure things out.

 

You don’t have to make your feelings reasonable. You don’t have to show up with something important to talk about.

You can change your mind halfway through a sentence. You can laugh about something that hurts.

You can say, “I don’t know.” You can sit quietly. You can tell me you disagree with me.

You can show up tired and have absolutely no idea where to begin.

 

We can start there.

After more than twenty years of doing this work, I think that’s what I care about most. Not helping women become better versions of themselves, but helping them to finally stop leaving themselves behind.

I am here to create enough space for you to discover what changes when you don’t have to do that anymore.