Why I Love Being a Therapist: Get to Know Sky Yeater
When you visit my About the Therapist page on the Center for Couples Counseling website, you’ll get some great info on my approach; on the who, what, and how of counseling sessions with me. Today, I want to tell you about my why. Why do I choose to sit in the chair with the notebook and help people navigate the messiness of their lives?
Firstly, when it comes to archetypes, (we could talk about the Enneagram in session), I’m an adventurer, peacemaker, and helper. Working with clients I get to satisfy my cravings for variety, creative problem solving, and aiding people in making more fulfilling choices. While I definitely see a variety of clients, I also see universal emotions and struggles that inform how I move forward in sessions and in life. I get to channel my desire to be a peacemaker, by holding space for-but not enacting-other people’s change. I help clients discover what they need for themselves as I encourage, challenge, and hold people accountable.
I’ve always been drawn to the expressive arts: singing, painting, dance, poetry, you name it. I particularly love poetry for the way it taps into the human condition in a myriad of expressions; concrete, abstract, lengthy and lyrical or succinct and poignant. I feel extremely satisfied when my clients have feelings they can’t name, two conflicting feelings coexist, or behaviors untethered to motivation, and I’m able to reflect and synthesize in ways that helps them feel seen, heard, and known by another human being. I feel lit up when I get to create a haiku of someone’s struggles that impacts them and plants seeds of growth. I enjoy the collaborative process of uncovering and distilling each emotion as if a color on a painting and I get to not only teach new brushstrokes, but offer new ways of viewing the canvas.
Another thing I value about being a therapist, and something encouraged at Center for Couples Counseling, is my ability to be a flawed human alongside my clients. I can share the impact I feel from client’s stories that help validate and normalize the experience. There’s a specific satisfaction in being able to share a phrase or an emotion that comes up for me and the client says “Yes. Exactly!”
That being said, I don’t have all of the answers. There are times in session where I feel just as stuck as the client. But if we keep showing up and exploring possibilities, we experience symbiotic growth. We learn from each other. During exploration, I have genuine curiosity of people’s perspectives and motivations. I embrace my own uncertainty of what it’s like to be them and learn the cartography as I go. What created these adaptations that are now doing more harm than good or could at least be improved upon? How could they process, release, or reframe events that are weighing them down or blocking the path to the person they want to be? And how can I help them discover tools to forge ahead?
My primary passions in working with clients are getting to nerd out about attachment theory, values, love languages, and communication skill building. I feel pride for the earnestness with which clients try the exercises I offer and see them transform frustration into softness and crossed arms into laughter. I feel jazzed about using those skills and learning new ones to empower clients in their identity and help them discover how their connections with themselves and each other can be improved.
Whether it’s wanting to build better teamwork, self-confidence and trust, shift relationship style to explore non-monogamy, shift gender or sex, shift boundaries with family… Who are they capable of being and how can they show up more fully? Over the years I’ve cultivated a solid sense of self. With the support of therapy, my counseling program, and loved ones, I know and trust myself. I don’t know if I always make the “right” decisions, but I make the best decisions I can. I hope to model that for my clients-to empower them to grow ever more into themselves and with each other.