A feature about the women of Optimal Level; their stories, successes, challenges, and opportunities.

What is your background and how did you get into your business/career?
My whole life I have been interested in personal growth.  I have always been fascinated with how people find meaning in their life and how they creatively express that sense of meaning by trying to make their dreams in life come true.  Certainly, there were many experiences and people who played a part in leading me to my career, but most important to me was meeting my partner and husband in graduate school.  Both my husband and I completed a doctoral program in Clinical Psychology at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology.  After graduation, we were married and then decided to create our own practice.  I can remember sitting with Paul, trying to come up with a name for our business that would capture who we were and the work we wished to do with people.  When we arrived at the name, “Heart Light”, it captured perfectly our desire to help people with awakening their own personal power and to lead their best lives.

What is your business and how is it unique?
Heart Light Psychological Services is a comprehensive psychological service center located in Bannockburn, Illinois.  At Heart Light, we provide individual, couple, and family counseling to children, adolescents, and adults.  Of course, like other therapists, our practice involves helping people to navigate through life’s rough waters.  This may mean assisting people with lifting themselves out of a depression, dealing with stress and anxiety, getting through a divorce or other difficult life transitions, or, in general, helping people to empower themselves when life throws a challenge their way.  What makes Heart Light unique is that, in addition to helping people heal from life’s hurts and manage life’s difficult transitions, we also have a number of personal seminar programs that are designed to help people live their best lives.  While counseling services are more about getting well when you feel hurt or stuck, our personal seminar programs are more about growing well and moving yourself from “good enough” to “excellent.”

Who are some of your clients; what do you especially appreciate about them and how have they reacted to your service or product?
One of the wonderful things about our business is that our clients come from all over, with diverse backgrounds and with a wide range of unique challenges.  What we most appreciate about our clients is the courage they bring to their journey, and the trust they offer us to guide them through it.   It is our privilege to be a witness to their transformation while offering the knowledge to assist them in making the decisions that will benefit their lives.  We are thrilled with the response that we have received from our clients.  One of the most gratifying experiences we’ve had is when we meet up with a client we’ve worked with from the past and they tell us of the many positive changes in their lives due to the work they have done at Heart Light.

What do you like best about what you do?
I love seeing people make changes in their lives.  I love seeing hopelessness turn into hope.  I love seeing people who feel stuck becoming free.  I love seeing people who feel disempowered begin to discover the power that resides within them.  Seeing people discover their potential and creating their best life is inspiring.

What role does passion have in your work?
My work is fundamentally about assisting people in awakening their passion.  It is the heart of all that we do.  In fact, our business name, “Heart Light”, attempts to capture this essence.  To us, passion is awakening the light in your heart and living a life that is heart centered.

When you first started were you able to visualize your expected final outcome?
We like to practice what we preach, and we would certainly tell any of our clients that realizing a dream is always an on-going journey and never a destination.  We have certainly refined our vision over the years, and we expect that we will always learn more from each client and refine that vision further.
 
Can you tell us about that final outcome – what will your business look like then?
As we have said, we do not imagine a static, final outcome, but an ever-expanding vision that grows as we do.  The next step we are envisioning now is growing into a comprehensive wellness and personal growth center serving not only the psychological needs of our clients, but also providing services that help them in all aspects of their lives.  This would include  partnering with many traditional and alternative health and fitness professionals.

What were you top three obstacles/challenges?
Always, the first challenge is to acquire excellent training through education and supervised experience.  Although many in our field are comfortable practicing with a Master’s degree, both my husband and I are very glad that we invested the additional time and effort in order to achieve the highest possible level of  training in our field.  The second challenge, was establishing a client base for our practice.  We met that challenge in many ways, but probably the cornerstone of our approach has been offering presentations in the community that allow us to introduce ourselves and what we can do for the individuals living in communities serviced by our practice.  The third challenge is to practice what we preach by not settling for what is comfortable or “good enough”, but instead, seeking to always reawaken our own passion and to be the best that we can be.

How do you deal with doubt, fear, and self recrimination?
We feel that all negative emotions should be seen as messengers, rather than enemies.  Doubt, fear and self-recrimination are all attempts from your inner self to communicate that some change might be appropriate.  The key is learning to listen and act from your power rather than trying to silence the messenger or becoming discouraged by the message.

If you had the opportunity to get the best advice from a business guru, and could ask only question, what would your question be?
How can we better serve our clients?

As you look back, what is the one thing you wish you knew when you started?
I wish I had known to worry less about how people might perceive me and focus more on how I might help people I work with to feel good about themselves.

Any regrets?
As mentioned before, I see all negative experience as part of a process of further growth. If I could jump in a time machine and go back in time, there are certainly some things I could do better given my present knowledge. However, that does not, to me, mean that I must regret not knowing better at the time. My mistakes and misunderstandings are part of a journey that has led to the richness of my present life.

Do you believe luck has something to do with you getting to where you are now?
I am certainly grateful for advantages and opportunities that I have had that others have not had. However, I feel that most of what people call “luck” is actually the flowering of hard work. This includes both the outer work that people usually attend to as well as the inner work of clarifying your intentions and clearing psychological obstacles that stand in your way.  It is by doing this inner and outer work that we make our own luck.

What is the best piece of advice you have for other women on their way to their Optimal Level?
First, trust in who you are. Then, be clear about what you want and why you want it. Are you following your heart, or are you chasing after money or validity or some other thing? Is this really what you want or is it just a programming that you acquired along the way?  I believe that having a consciousness about why you are doing what you are doing is a key to success. Once you are conscious and centered in your heart, the rest comes naturally.

Any additional comments you would like to make?
Sometimes, talking about being the best you can be can have the opposite of the intended effect – it can make some people focus on how far they feel they are from that goal, which leads them to feel bad about themselves. Start where you are. The realest measure of passion in life, the realest success, is not about some perfect goal, or some great story, but rather about what you are doing today to make things a little better in your life. What can you do today that will move you a little more in the direction of being more heart centered, more passionate, more true to your innermost self. It doesn’t have to be something grand. It might be smiling at someone, or taking a moment to play with your kids, or facing some task that has been hanging over your head, or spending a few minutes dealing with a feeling that you have been avoiding. Any simple authentic act of moving into life is a treasure. Here’s hoping that we all find some treasure today.