Cookies, Learning and Counselor Conversation
Lucinda Wurtz sat down to share with me about learning to”Wend your way” (finding our way through the world without a linear direction) and how this can lead to becoming who we were meant to be. I was very aware about how she understands the sense of “being with” or holding space for her clients and helping them find their way as well. She shared experiences from her own life journey and discoveries about people that have led her back to becoming a counselor.
Lucinda is a counselor in private practice in Spokane, Washington with Wendriven Wellness. When I asked her about the name she chose for her practice, she said, “I think in pictures. I kept having this image of a feather that was being blown by the wind. At the same time, it is in the water being pulled by the current. Wending your way. To wend is to go in a certain direction, but not in a direct route.” She shared that most people want a direct route and that “They want to find the direction they want to go.” She shared her perspective that people get frustrated because they don’t get directly there with a sense that our life plans are supposed to be linear. Of this, she said, “That says everything to me.”
Lucinda shared about how her own life and career took the form of a wending way both in her “becoming” as a person and a counselor. “When I left school, I wanted to do a lot of things. I wanted to be a psychiatrist.” She shared about how she went to work with the Veterans Administration and found out that psychiatrists do not really do counseling in the way that she thought they did. “It kind of derailed me.” In response to this experience, she said, “That sent me in a different direction. I started accepting the direction that I was going in and I ended up back doing what I originally wanted to do, which was therapy.” For example, “When I did art, people loosened up and started talking about their lives.” She found herself saying things like, “I am seeing . . . “ similar to what an art therapist might say. “It is so interesting to me how much our art speaks to where we are or where we want to be. I learned a lot of therapy through teaching art.” And of this she learned, “Meet them where they are at.” She shared a story about a special needs kid that sometimes would go under the table when she was working with him. She learned to join him there under the table. She learned to see things from people’s perspective by looking at the art in the way they do it or see it. For instance, looking at it from their vantage point or from where they sat as they did the art.
Lucinda also found that she enjoyed supporting kids and that they would naturally come to her to talk. “The therapy part was always there.”
Lucinda’s Practice
“I just started my practice and I am a marriage and family therapist. Mostly, I see couples and individuals. I love working with people who have anxiety, but specifically people who have been through traumatic situations and it comes out as anxiety. They may not understand that is what they have gone through. I love doing calming, teaching them how to calm themselves and smooth themselves.” I asked her about how she does this and she shared her favorite technique. “I do a guided imagery and I have this big thick quilt over here.” She offers the quilt and pillows she has to clients. “I will tuck them in. If they need a friend, they have the world softest koala bear.” Once they are settled, she has them describe the most relaxing place they have ever been. “Then we back it up and they have to describe the path to it. Their experience with the whole environment.” She has described this through sensory experience with them. “We build it at the end or beginning of each session. It becomes a favorite thing for everybody. It is usually a closing thing.”
I noticed beautiful rocks that she had nesting in a container in her office. She spoke of this in this way: “Colorful rocks, people are drawn to it. If someone is having a hard time telling me something, I will say ‘can you whisper it to the rock?’ You don’t have to tell me everything.” She shared about how she uses art in a similar way.
Personal Learning
“My separation from my ex-husband was the hardest thing I have ever gone through in my life. He was my best friend. It was sort of a surprise. We were having some troubles because we were getting into the empty nest stage. Then he left. I had a low point where I knew, ‘you need to reinvent yourself.’ I have always been a shy kid, but I like people. Eye contact was hard for me.” With the divorce, “I had lost a whole friend group as well as him.” Lucinda decided, “I had to reach out to people at work to let them know I needed support. I got some of my best friends through that. Going through meetup.com, I got some friends through that.” This was a time for self-discovery and learning to do things for herself for the first time. She had put so much into her husband and kids up until then. Through time she also learned about how to set boundaries. “I was learning more about myself. I’ve always tried learning about everyone else.” While this was a hard time and she misses her ex-husbands presence, they have also remained friends. “I am extremely grateful. I am a learning a lot more what I want and who I want.”
Professional Learning
“I learn from my clients. That is my greatest learning. Having someone get vulnerable in front of you and have to share their experience that allows you to understand how to get out of your own experience. And having that hour to hour, day after day. It is an honor. It just opens up your world. That helps me deal with a different perspective to deal with things in my own life. Hearing somebody’s story and getting the aha and then asking, ‘is it like this?’ And have them go ‘exactly’. It helps me see my life and it helps me with my other clients.”
“I thoroughly loved my EMDR training, my experience at Whitworth. Lucinda had a professor who she values and found to be a person who influenced her. “He has this calming influence on people and just the way he treats them. His name is Horatious Gittens .”
My Take-Away
While I drew Lucinda’s name for this cookie delivery, this was not the first time that I had heard her name. I had attended a fundraiser for Trauma Informed Therapies and this art piece (above) was in the silent auction with Lucinda’s name scribed in the corner.
The minute I saw this piece I was drawn to it. I knew that I wanted it. This depicts a woman in a swim suit, jumping off of a cliff into the water that is symbolized as the universe below. The meaning with it is so simple, yet so vast. The letting go, the trusting or having faith, you name it. And I know it will not be the exact same meaning for everyone. The plan for this piece was for it to be placed in my own practice office for clients and others to benefit from the meaning as well.
When I drew Lucinda’s name later for the conversation, I felt something kindred already in the meaning of this art canvas in my space. And I could not wait to meet with her.
Given all of this, my biggest take-away is in the value I see in how Lucinda has “wended her way” with what life has brought her (both in the good and the challenging), to confirm her very essence in the accepting and following what is next and that brought her back to one of her original passions and gifts of being a counselor. Life is not linear. It involves change. And change is something we can depend on being constant in some way. Not one of us walks through life unscathed by some kind of difficulty as well as the grace of so much good.
There is a gift in trusting the journey that we each are on. And there is meaning that we can find through this. I know that trusting this process in the middle of it all is not that easy. In fact it is downright hard sometimes. I do think as we get wiser and further along in our life learning, we learn to further embrace the unfolding without hanging on so hard to what “should be.” This perspective is affirming to me in that I know that even with painful situations, there is a way through. I also believe that accepting the uncertain or often ambiguous route is just a part of our “wending our way” through. Perseverance will get us there. And I am in awe of the “becoming” that happens during and despite this uncertain path we call life.
Thank you for your presence and this learning, Lucinda.
The Cookies
When I asked Lucinda what kind of cookie ingredients she likes, she said that she did not have any food restrictions, but that, “I do absolutely love spice cookies and gingery-cinnamony things.” When I was searching for a recipe and thinking about what I did know about Lucinda, I thought she might appreciate a cookie that has a bit of art form as well. This is why I chose this recipe for Sand Dollar cookies.
These had the flavoring similar to Crusto’s and the texture of a shortbread cookie. Lucinda said of them, ““I liked them. I was hoping they weren’t going to be crunchy. They are soft and they have cinnamon to them. They are also absolutely adorable. The beach theme, you got me.”
If you make them, be choosy when you buy the sliced almonds to make sure you have whole slices. One of the packages I had was crushed, so I had to go buy another one. Other than that, these were easy and quick to make and quite yummy. Here is the recipe:
About Lucinda Wurtz’s Counseling Practice
Lucinda Wurtz, MA, LMFTA, LMHCA of Wendriven Wellness, LLC
https://www.wendrivenwellness.com/lucinda-wurtz
3101 E. Boone Avenue, Spokane, WA 99202 (Inside Life Directions Counseling)
Lucinda works with individuals, couples and groups with issues such as anxiety, depression, trauma, eating disorders, grief/loss, divorce/separation, identity/self-worth, anger management, co-dependency and life transitions.
Her Mission:
Wendriven Wellness, LLC seeks to provide a holistic, systemic therapeutic experience tailored to fit the unique needs of each person who walks through the door. We provide creative, intuitive application of evidence-based theoretical interventions to best help our clients to achieve greater insight into their own strengths and abilities to express, communicate, and take action to optimize their lives and relationships.
We strive to help you recognize your own mind-body-emotion connection and the influence it has on your life so you may best use it to propel you forward in the direction you choose to grow. We believe that by creating a safe, secure environment in which to explore your authentic self, you will begin to understand that you have an innate ability within you to not just survive, but to fully thrive in your life. We’d like to walk alongside you as you begin your journey.
