Cookies, Learning and Conversation
The learning from this Counselor Conversation was a reminder about how our personal learning contributes to and often is parallel to what we bring to our work with clients. And that in our own humanness we have so much to offer.
For this cookie delivery, I had the pleasure to sit down with Rachel Marazzo, Molly Phillips and Kelsey Spradlin. They are each independent counselors sharing the same office suite. I have known them for awhile because when I returned to Spokane, Kelsey invited me to use her space until I rebuilt my practice. For the life of me, I cannot remember how I met Kelsey. It seems like I have known her forever. She is a good, kind soul. The kind of person that you meet and there is just an ease of conversation and connection. Rachel and I have in common that our husbands are in the military. She has a soft-spoken, warm way. Her Christian background is evident in the way she walks through the world. Molly is gracious and confident. She has a wealth of experience and we hit it off talking about our life stories and the work that we do.
Rachel’s name was drawn to have the cookies delivered. She opened up our meeting for all of us to be together. I chose to bake, Gluten Free New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies (find out more about the recipe below). The conversation was engaging, open and fun. I could have sat with these ladies all morning long. And in the sitting, they shared openly about their personal and professional learning in a way that makes me proud to know them. I want to share with you what they taught me.
Rachel Marrazzo
Personal Learning
“The things I have learned in life are the things I have grown through. We grow the most through hardships and struggle. I have not only grown myself, but I also grew to learn more through others. I have become closer to good. When things are good, I can coast and be. But the most I learned was through hard times.”
Rachel shared that one of the hardest times of her life was when she was 23 weeks pregnant and her water broke. She was in the hospital for 10 weeks and she did not know how it would go with her son. With the birth of her second son, “I had to be in the hospital again and I have had to learn to lean on people and be vulnerable. “ She shared that her husband also grew stronger as a father and husband. She had to rely on him to take care of things at home. “I would not change it for the world because I can look back and see how I have grown. You never know what you can do until you have to do it. You never know how strong you can be until you have to be. I realized how I could.”
Rachel also shared about what she learned about herself in relationships. “Real relationships go both ways. I realized that I was kind of pretending to have real relationships. I did not share back. With real friendships, sharing goes both ways. I take good care of people, but I am not good at letting people take care of me. I am able to open up to people, but being open to them is hard.” She spoke about how she learned this way of being earlier on, “In childhood, I learned I have to be strong or everything will fall apart.”I am pretty transparent, but I am not always vulnerable. Vulnerability is the ability to be wounded.” Rachel spoke about leaning into vulnerability and that she is learning how to rely on others.
Professional Learning
Regarding professional learning, Rachel said, “Professionally, I use a lot of my life experiences to walk through things with my clients. Things I have learned. Especially when I identify a client that is doing things that I understand. Talking it through on a personal level , remembering that we are all human.”
Molly Phillips
Personal Learning
Molly’s greatest life’s learning happened in her early 20’s. “I went to Argentina to work. I had been depressed for most of my life. I had a dysfunctional family. I was 10th of 11 kids. In Argentina, I worked at this orphanage and it shifted my worldview about really how privileged I was. I moved from this depressive mindset to more of a gratitude mindset. For what I did have. The people were really really poor and the kids were very abused. This is when I decided to be a counselor. I knew it was not as bad as it could have been for me. Maybe moving from being a victim to having gratitude for what I had. The depression diminished there.” Upon leaving Argentina and moving back to her home in the U.S., Molly said that she had a hard adjustment to the cultural change. It took her about a year to acclimate back, although “Then it was uphill from there.”
Professional Learning
“Professionally, I just noticed that I am most passionate about counseling and teaching issues that I have to work on myself. I am really good at counseling people that have the same issues. I guess, maybe I get it more. It is more important to me to realize that. I like to see people with anxiety and people that need to work on what I need to too.”
Kelsey Spradlin
Personal Learning
“My biggest life’s learning? The thing coming to me the most: To activate your voice. It does not necessarily mean in a public forum. In high school and early college, I had some depression going on. I did not know what to do with emotions. I don’t know when I made this decision, but I said that I am done not saying how I feel. I get to activate my voice and I get to say and feel how I want. I don’t care what other people think about it. I get to be me. With my clients, I believe, you get to be you. I won’t go back to that person. I got to be happy. I got to activate myself. This has helped me to not go back to that place I was. For me to not revert back, I need to speak about how I am and what I feel. When there is something important to say, I am going to say it. I don’t want to hold onto stuff anymore.” Kelsey shared that sometimes she has said things that other people were thinking as well. She has been the voice of others when speaking her own truth. “The stuff that activates me, I just don’t hold it in anymore.”
Professional Learning
“I encourage my clients to ‘do you’. To figure out who you are. I look at the strengths that my clients have and I think about how much they teach me. It is kind of not sweating the small stuff and helping them find what is really important for them to focus on. Sometimes we focus on the wrong things. They are not really activating what is actually happening for them.”
Kelsey also spoke about being aware of our own judgments and preconceived notions. “I really try to be mindful of my judgments. To be understanding.”
My Takeaway
What I most valued about my time with Rachel, Molly and Kelsey was their genuine way of being in the world. Their willingness to put out their truth in what brought them to be a counselor and how this contributes to their work. There is something that can be said about sitting with them with their transparency and willingness to share with others. This can feel vulnerable in our profession. I have long thought that if we as a profession are going to fight the stigma of mental health, of being human, we must start within our profession and within ourselves. Rachel, Molly and Kesley model this in their sharing about their learning through both difficulties and growth. The bilateral learning that we as counselors bring to the counseling office should not be underscored. Our personal lives often parallel who we choose to work with and add an extra dimension to the theory we bring into our practices. In doing the work within ourselves, we have the capacity to serve our clients even better. To walk alongside them. Thank you Rachel, Molly and Kelsey, for sharing your hearts stories and learning with us.
The Cookies
When planning what I wold bake for our visit, I knew that the cookies needed to be yummy, of course. They also needed to be gluten and peanut free, but definitely have chocolate in them. These were the parameters given to me by Rachel, Molly and Kelsey. I chose to bake the Gluten Free New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies because I wanted to see what a popular knock-off Gluten free cookie might be like. I also had not baked a classic cookie for the Conversation yet.
The cookies were liked by all of us. The ladies said they did not realize they were gluten free. Kelsey shared that her husband and kids “loved them.” The only constructive feedback I have about them is that they did not hold the softness over a few days. They became a bit crunchy, but still were good for coffee or cocoa dipping. For those of you interested in the recipe, it can be found here:
https://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/gluten-free-new-york-times-chocolate-chip-cookies/
More about Rachel, Molly and Kelsey’s Practices
Rachel, Molly and Kelsey are independent counselors, working in the same office suite in Spokane, Washington. Find more information and their practices below.
201 West Francis Avenue,
Spokane, WA 99205
Rachel Marrazzo, MA, LMHC
Rachel serves individuals (all ages) and family’s. She utilizes Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy strategies. To book an appointment, call )509) 499-5137 or email her at rmarrazzcounseling@gmail.com
Molly Phillips, LICSW
Molly serves individuals (all ages) and family’s. Most of her practice is working with families referred through DCYF. Her areas of special interest are infant mental health, early childhood and parent child relationships and including trauma. To book an appointment, call (509) 671-0226
Kelsey Spradlin, MA, LMHC
Kelsey serves individuals (all ages) and family’s. Her areas of specialty include trauma, anxiety, depression as well as postpartum depression. She is certified in Parent Child-Interaction Therapy. Kelsey is an approved Clinical Supervisor with Washington state, providing supervision with those working towards licensure. To book an appointment, call 509-990-1720 Kelsey’s webiste is: www.northspokanecounseling.com
