Welcome to Mindful Life Counseling
Ileana C. Hinojosa, MLA, MAC, LMFT-S
Narrative Therapist and Transformative Consciousness Coach
Where Our Narrative Begins
Who we are is an accumulation of everything we have experienced. Our attitudes and beliefs have been shaped by our families, community, culture, and our place in the scheme of these things. The way we react to others and certain situations, our political opinions, our choice of foods, our clothes, how we wear our hair, and the way we communicate all represent who we are and what has shaped us. I am from a place where generations clash not only without but from within; me.
There is an innocence that is lost when we challenge what is established and choose to explore the road less traveled. It is not a lack of faith in the traditional ways; on the contrary, faith in ourselves and our potential propels us. In the song "Infinita Tristeza," by Manu Chao, I hear a mother tell her son, "Siempre estarè a tu lado (I will always be by your side)." I think of my family and how even in their absence, they are present.
What is therapy and how can it help you?
Goal of Therapy
The goal of therapy is to support the transition and transformation of the individual in the process of becoming the best version of the self that one can be.
Are you ready to change the things in your life that are no longer working for you? There is no quick fix or easy answer to your problems. The solutions are found within you if you are willing to do the work to be the best version of yourself that you can be.
Therapy allows you to have a safe place to process issues that can cause discomfort, become distressing, and disrupt your life. Some issues might be overwhelming and too difficult to confront alone.
Change is inevitable and you can embrace it with grace or not. The choice to rewrite your narrative is about promoting your inner well-being and finding peace despite the environment that surrounds you.
Therapy offers you the support to challenge and re-write the narrative that is no longer working for you. Learn to respond rather than react to what distresses you. Therapy can provide the tools to help you manage the ebb and flow of life.
Therapy can help you to:
• Build confidence to challenge your core beliefs and narratives that no longer serve you.
• Communicate more effectively and authentically with others.
• Develop a sense of self that is based on your values.
• Establish and achieve personal goals based on your value system.
• Explore and challenge aspects of your life
that might need change.
• Increase resiliency and the ability to self-soothe in healthy ways.
• Learn tools & strategies to navigate toxic relationships & environments without losing self-efficacy.
• Learn what healthy boundaries are and how to establish and maintain them.
• Learn to sit in the discomfort that comes with change.
• Live with integrity despite the external social and cultural environment.
• Promote the search for and development of inner well-being.
• See beyond self-imposed limits to create a vision for yourself that is uniquely your own.
• Strengthen the ability to cope with and manage life's problems.
• Value yourself and find self-acceptance.