Julie Dumois-Sands
Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)
I see you. You’re someone who has been through difficult situations in the past. You look at your life now and you can’t really believe that you are where you are, educated, professionally accomplished, with a network of supportive community and worried that someone will find out who you really are- or at least who you believe who you are.
I see you. You’re in a relationship or have been in relationships that have been committed and fulfilling to a point. It’s hard to believe that someone can care about you the way your partner does or the way you care for others.
I see you working hard on yourself. You’ve spent the money and done the workshops, classes, training, have created a self-care plan, and wrestled with how to make things better and make your inside match the outside.
I see you, carrying silent judgement about yourself, feeling unsafe in the world, and holding shame about who you believe yourself to be, never feeling quite good enough. I see you, the compromises you make and the ways you try to cope and escape those feelings.
I see you with your partner, doing a little bit better than your parents, but not sure it is sustainable. I know you want more, a feeling of connection and safety that will last a lifetime.
I see you, wanting to make peace with your body. Not sure how to inhabit your body as a friend. I see you making good decisions about who you follow on social media, working out, eating as well as you can, and never feeling like it is enough.
I see you, working through ways to be connected to something that is greater than yourself and exploring your spirituality and ways to be connected. You might have explored yoga, time in nature, different paths and are working to find ways to be connected.
I see you working to find ways to soothe and care for your nervous system, trying to be more fully present in your life, yourself, your children, your partner.
I see you because we all struggle with these things. Most of us in this culture are brought up to believe we are not enough. Not smart enough, not good enough, not small enough, not strong enough, talented enough, bold enough, beautiful enough, kind enough and more. We are brought up to not honor our intuition, our wisdom, our innate goodness, our right to belong and to connect with ourselves and with others.
I’m Julie Dumois-Sands and I have worked on these issues personally and throughout my time in a therapy room working as a client and as a therapist with others.
Our work together focuses on befriending the body as place of wisdom, becoming aware of core beliefs and patterns that have informed who we believe ourselves to be and gently inquiring about the source and truth of those beliefs.
As a therapist, I work to be the container and do what Alice Miller suggests is the job of a therapist, to act as an enlightened witness. Someone who listens without judgement, offers compassion when we can’t offer that to ourselves, and who can hold the vision of your whole and healed self until you can step into that fully.
Jokingly, I’ll say that therapy is hard work, not always fun, sometimes is awful, but worth more than any other investment you will make in your life.
I work hard to be a clean mirror to bring my best self to our work together. To do that I work on a practice of self-care that includes my own therapy, yoga, meditation, time outside, the community and shelter of friendship and a husband, embodiment practices, continuing education, taking care of myself physically, service and continuing to explore wisdom and spiritual paths.
I am training in Compassionate Inquiry this year, training in Feminine Embodiment practices, am an LCSW, a 500-hour trained yoga teacher, an Open-Heart Meditation teacher, am a Body Positive Facilitator, work in a high school with teens and their families, have an MA in Women’s Studies and am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.
I see you. I see your highest, healthiest, most whole self.
I take the following insurance
Optum / United Healthcare
Aetna
Cigna
