Aren't you tired of trying to do the “right” thing all the time?
You find yourself trying to meet all the expectations—from your parents, your relationships, your religion, your career, even yourself.
By now, it's probably hard to tell the difference between what you're supposed to do and what you actually want to do.
And now, one simple question has become hard to answer:
What do I actually want?
MIKE ROTHSCHILD, LPC
In-person therapy in Austin · Online throughout Texas
Specializing in Religious Trauma
Adults · Couples · Families · Teens
I'm not here to give you new rules to follow.
I'm here to help you hear yourself more clearly. That usually means slowing down.
Looking at where your beliefs and expectations came from.
Getting curious about emotions you're quick to dismiss.
Understanding why parts of you developed the way they did, rather than believing they're broken.
Over time, "What am I supposed to do?"
may start sounding more like, “What do I want to try?”
That shift doesn't happen because I have all the solutions.
It happens because we start asking different questions.
Here’s what that looks like in session with me.
Therapy with me is conversational.
Sometimes you'll be telling a story, and I'll interrupt. Not because you’ve said something wrong, but because you may have just said something worth slowing down for.
If you say, "I should..." I'll probably wonder where that "should" came from.
We laugh a lot in therapy. Sometimes because something is genuinely funny. Sometimes because humor is how we've learned to survive difficult things. Either way, I'm interested in both.
Those moments aren't detours. They're usually where therapy gets interesting.
I know what it's like to sit on the other side of the room.
I've gone through significant changes in my own life. My journey isn't yours, but I know the feeling of sitting on the sofa, hoping the therapist across from me will understand.
I don't want a therapist to tell me whether I'm right or wrong (even though I kind of do).
I'm asking them to live in my world with me for 50 minutes and understand that what I'm saying is true for me in that moment.
When I feel understood, I can get curious.
Curiosity gives me room to change.
Change has cost me things that I’ve valued, and plenty of my decisions haven’t worked out perfectly.
The decisions I value most are the ones I know were actually mine.
There's something freeing about knowing, I chose this. And if one day it no longer fits, I can choose something different.
