Stephanie Shores

Have you ever felt like you hit a rough spot in life that you just couldn’t get past? Maybe you’ve experienced a loss from which you’re not sure if you’ll ever recover. You struggle to know who to trust. The relationship you’ve put your whole heart into is slipping through your fingers. Your child is struggling and you feel powerless to help. You wonder if the thoughts you’re thinking would put you on the outside of your relational group. You long to hear you’re not alone in the struggle. You feel silence. You just can’t seem to scale the invisible wall in front of you alone. Maybe you’ve tried, only to painfully crash and burn. You’re isolated, and at the time of your greatest need for support, you feel entirely on your own. You put on a brave face, but inside you’re just gutting it out alone. Maybe your struggles don’t feel welcome within your spiritual community. Maybe you’re a leader of a spiritual community looking for a place where there could be space for your vulnerability. Maybe you once were a part of a spiritual community, but now you no longer fit. Maybe you've never fit in a spiritual community, but you long to be able to get your relational needs met. You deeply desire to be known, seen, heard, and loved. I love to sojourn with people through the WALL. trauma. grief. existential crisis. chaos. addiction. transition. the dark night of the soul. identity questions. deconstruction. undoing. rebuilding. confusion. spiritual abuse. relationship endings. boundary negotiations. midlife crisis. relational difficulties. questions. life. The wall is a season of confusion, disorientation, and overwhelm where you realize that the strategies you have always used to manage yourself, your emotions, and your relationships with others are no longer working for you. If you were honest, they never really worked in the first place. You feel hopeless: unprotected, lost, and vulnerable. You wonder if that feeling of belonging could ever be restored. The wall is an invitation to transformation, but the darkness threatens to snuff it out. What if someone were to reach out and grab your hand in the darkness and say, “Lets do this together.” What if beyond that wall lay breakthrough, transformation, and satisfying intimacy? What if being known in the midst of the struggle could transform everything? What if someone, or a community around you, could walk alongside of you, holding your vulnerable doubts, fears, questions, and pain without judgment, and with the deepest healing compassion? This is the work I love. You don’t have to do this alone: this work was meant to be done in relationship. The invitation to the journey through the wall often comes through a painful event or series of events. If we can tolerate staying in the pain long enough to experience being seen in our time of greatest need, transformation, life, and the deep relational intimacy we long for await us on the other side. Its an invitation to deep healing: you were created to thrive in relationship. This is the work of a sojourner: one who walks alongside another for a season. Reach out for a free consultation today. I’d be honored to walk alongside you or your relationship, or to invite you into one of our Sojourner Communities built for walking together in the midst of our stories. TRAINING AND EDUCATION Master of Education in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, Lamar University EMDR Certified EFT Trained Postgraduate training in Object Relations Theory LPC Texas #87261 South Carolina Telehealth Registered Professional Counselor https://llr.sc.gov/TeleHealth/Counselor.html Florida Registered Out-of-State Telehealth Provider APPROACH I am passionate about coming alongside clients as they explore areas of life that feel confusing and distressing. My biggest hope for each client is that as they sit in the ashes, they might find a kindling of renewed hope and connection to their truest self. My work with clients is as individualized as the clients themselves. I journey with you as you work through your stories of pain, loss, and disorientation. Together we work to learn to attune to the pain of past losses while strengthening your capacity to manage both your greatest fears and unmet longings. In this process-oriented approach, we explore how past experiences might be shaping and shading your current reality and relationships. It is my belief that while relationships are the sources of some of our deepest traumas, they can also be the source of profound healing and transformation. I also incorporate EMDR when clinically appropriate for your needs.